WWE NXT gears up for Halloween Havoc. Athena defends her ROH Women’s Championship against Gisele Shaw. Blair Onyx chats with WrestleZone and more! Let’s break it down in this week’s edition of Women’s Wrestling Wrap-Up!
NXT Halloween Havoc Preview
At WWE NXT Halloween Havoc 2022, Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade battled in a Weapons Wild match in which the former emerged victorious. Fast forward two years, the friends-turned-rivals are once again friends, with a common pair of enemies they’ll be facing at this year’s Halloween Havoc premium live event.
This development comes after Jade returned to NXT by helping Perez retain her NXT Women’s Championship against Giulia. With Jade and Perez suddenly back on the same page, Giulia called forth an old friend of her own to even the odds against them. That, of course, is fellow former NJPW STRONG Women’s Champion Stephanie Vaquer, who signed with WWE over the summer.
As the tensions between the two pairs continued to rise in the weeks following, Vaquer and Giulia challenged Jade and Perez to a tag match at the 2024 Halloween Havoc event. NXT General Manager Ava ultimately approved the challenge, setting the stage for a first-time tag match.
Elsewhere at Halloween Havoc, Kelani Jordan will defend her NXT Women’s North American Championship against one member of Fatal Influence (Fallon Henley, Jacy Jayne, and Jazmyn Nyx). The stipulation for this title match lies in the hands of Fatal Influence, as the wheel of stipulations landed on “Spinner’s Choice.” As of now, Fatal Influence has yet to reveal their stipulation of choice.
The freshly debuted Zaria (formerly known as Delta) may also appear at Halloween Havoc, as her preceding vignettes featured the numbers 10 and 27, which many recognized as the date of the premium live event — October 27.
READ MORE: DELTA Now Going By ‘ZARIA’, Debuts On 10/22 WWE NXT
Four-Way NJPW STRONG Women’s Title Number One Contenders Match Set
Three weeks ago, New Japan Pro-Wrestling confirmed AEW’s Anna Jay as the first of four women slated to compete in an upcoming NJPW STRONG Women’s Championship number one contender’s match. Fast forward to this week, the remaining three competitors have been revealed.
On October 20, STARDOM held an eight-woman battle royal in which the final two would move on to the aforementioned contender’s match. The lineup for this battle royal included Hazuki, Koguma, HANAKO, Konami, Lady C, Ruaka, Saori Anou, and Starlight Kid. In the end, Hazuki and Koguma stood tall. As such, they will join Anna Jay at the 2024 Fighting Spirit Unleashed event, which emanates from Lowell, Massachusetts on Friday, November 8.
Rounding out the four-way is “The Afro Punk” Trish Adora, who remains a regular fixture on ROH programming. Adora and Jay also recently faced off on AEW Ramage, with the latter emerging victorious.
Before Jay unleashes her fighting spirit in NJPW, she will challenge AEW Women’s Champion Mairah May for her respective title on the November 2 edition of AEW Collision.
READ MORE: AEW Women’s World Title Match Set For 11/2 AEW Collision
Athena Retains ROH Women’s Championship
For the first time since January 2023, Athena defended the Ring of Honor World Championship outside of the ROH/AEW umbrella. Last time, it came against Miyu Yamashita at Prestige. This time, it put her face-to-face with “The Quintessential Diva” Gisele Shaw at Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling’s Forged In Excellence event.
Shaw and Athena battled for nearly 24 minutes, with Shaw seemingly closing in on a victory at multiple points in the title match. In the end, though, it wasn’t enough to kick out of Athena’s O-Face.
READ MORE: Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling Forged In Excellence Night Two Results (10/20): Konosuke Takeshita, More
Following her win over Shaw, Athena now looks ahead to a special ceremony on this week’s episode of ROH on HonorClub. Last month, “The Forever Champ” solidified herself as the longest-reigning champion in Ring of Honor history. As such, she will now toast to that milestone in an official celebration, while she is also approaching 700 days as champion.
RELATED: Athena Reflects On Making History As ROH Women’s Champion
INTERVIEWS
“The Arachnoid” Blair Onyx speaks with WrestleZone’s Ella Jay about ranking on the PWI Women’s 250, learning from Kylie Rae at the Freelance Wrestling Academy, her Exorcist-inspired Halloween project, favorite scary movies, how she’s grown mentally and physically throughout her career, wanting to pay off her parents’ house, and more.
Rev Pro Undisputed British Women’s Champion Mina Shirakawa spoke with WrestleZone’s Troy Gonzales about her ranking on this year’s PWI Women’s 250, her U.K. wrestling excursions, her impressions of Kanji, and her former tag partner Mariah May‘s new demeanor as AEW Women’s hampion.
Former WWE star Xia Zhao joined Denise Salcedo to discuss her humble beginnings growing up in China, discovering wrestling because of The Rock, her WWE Tryout and subsequently landing the job, her release from WWE, now joining TNA Wrestling, and more.
Marigold World Champion Saree chatted with Fightful’s Scott Edwards about her thoughts on becoming the first Marigold World Champion and what it means to her, how she prepped for the her Bozilla match, teaming with Mayu Iwatani at Sareee-ISM Chapter V, talking to Giulia before she left for WWE, and more.
“The Virtuosa” Deonna Purrazzo sat down with Chris Van Vliet to discuss her surprise AEW debut in her home state of New Jersey, how the debut was kept secret, her TNA career which included a 30-minute Iron Woman match against Jordynne Grace and a rivalry with Mickie James, why she decided to leave TNA, why WWE didn’t work out, and more.
AEW star Harley Cameron appeared on Casual Conversations with The Classic to discuss music, her singing career, breaking into wrestling, QTV, working with Saraya, friendship with Mariah May and more!
