The one and only option worth exploring is Candice LeRae. She can win her feud with Tegan Nox to earn a title shot and say that this will be the culmination of The Gargano Way. I know that bypasses Shotzi Blackheart, but I don’t think babyface vs. babyface is the way to go for this.
As far as the winner goes, it depends on WWE’s plans for Mercedes Martinez. If she’s going to stick around in NXT, then she’s the next champion I’d prefer over Candice. However, if Martinez is going to be part of RETRIBUTION as currently rumored, there’s no better person to win the title from Shirai than Candice, who’s waited long enough.
Since I’m starting to buy into the rumors of Martinez being called up, I say let’s go with Candice winning the title. Later in the year during the draft, Shirai can be called up to the SmackDown roster.
NXT Championship
Last, but certainly not least, is the NXT Championship. We now have an actual champion in Finn Balor, instead of the vacated title scene. That’s one of the reasons I’ve waited to post this article, as it was originally on my lineup to write this last week.
Balor’s likely the best option for champion at the moment, but he’s not someone I think can just be paired up with anyone and it would make me go nuts.
The one match we haven’t gotten in a proper fashion, though, that I would be interested to see, is Balor against Tommaso Ciampa. Now that Ciampa is a heel, he’s much more interesting to see as the driving force in a feud and I think he’ll make up for some of the downsides that come with Balor as champion. (Note: Balor’s great in a lot of ways, but I can’t think of a single story that I’ve been able to sink my teeth into when he’s the guy cutting the promos the feud hinges on.)
Balor vs. Ciampa is a money match with two of the biggest names on the roster and it hasn’t been beaten into the ground with repeats yet. We did see them interact in the Iron Man match, but I don’t think that’s killed the intrigue of a singles match.
After a hard-fought match, Balor would retain. He needs to keep that title until Karrion Kross is ready to return, destroy him and win it back.
The end result of this experiment would be this card:
NXT UK Tag Team Championship: Gallus (c) vs. Moustache Mountain
NXT UK Women’s Championship: Kay Lee Ray (c) vs. Piper Niven
NXT UK Championship: WALTER (c) vs. Ilja Dragunov
Women’s Tag Team Championship: Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler (c) vs. Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez
NXT Cruiserweight Championship Fatal 4-Way Ladder Match: Santos Escobar (c) vs. Jordan Devlin (c) vs. Noam Dar or A-Kid vs. Isaiah “Swerve” Scott
NXT Tag Team Championship: Breezango (c) vs. The Undisputed ERA (Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish)
NXT North American Championship: Damian Priest (c) vs. Roderick Strong
NXT Women’s Championship: Io Shirai (c) vs. Candice LeRae
NXT Championship: Finn Balor (c) vs. Tommaso Ciampa
Those are my thoughts on the issue, but how would you imagine WWE would do this if it were to happen? Tell us your fantasy booking scenario in the comments section below!
Trending Stories
You can keep up with all your wrestling news right here on eWrestlingNews.com. Or, you can follow us over on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
