The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen. At NXT Takeover: In Your House, Io Shirai ended the 63-day championship reign of Charlotte Flair to become the winner #AndNEW NXT Women’s Champion.
Shirai had previously challenged for the title on the May 6th edition of NXT; a match that was ended abruptly when Charlotte used a Kendo Stick on the challenger and forcing a disqualification finish. Following a post-match beatdown delivered to Shirai via Charlotte, Rhea Ripley made her first appearance since WrestleMania. She came down to make the save. Shirai didn’t take kindly to Ripley inserting herself, and the seeds were sown for the Triple Threat Match.
Put on as The Main Event of In Your House, the match rightly deserved its spot at the top of the card, with all three women putting on an absolute clinic.
In the end, Shirai lived up to her newly appointed moniker as the “Genius of the Sky” when she Moonsaulted off the top rope onto Ripley. Ripley was being held in the Figure Eight by Flair at the time. Because Flair’s and Ripley’s legs were entangled in the hold, Rhea couldn’t get her shoulders up and Flair couldn’t get to Shirai to break the pin!
Shirai is now the 12th Champion in the NXT Women’s Title’s lineage. The end of Flair’s reign gives her the record for the shortest Championship run.
With Io Shirai’s win, it now makes three Japanese women holding Championship gold in their respective divisions; Shirai in NXT, Asuka on Raw, and Hikaru Shida in AEW.
#AndNEW Io Shirai Dethrones Flair Becomes NXT Women’s Champion
With Shirai acting as a face champion, it opens up the door for many possible match-ups down the line. One would suspect that Candice LeRae’s new heel persona puts her front and center for a Number One Contendership to the title. However, a case could also be made for Dakota Kai. Despite losing in the 6 women tag match earlier in the evening, she has been doing excellent work with Raquel Gonzalez.
Whoever will be next in line down the road, it all remains speculation as of this writing. The undeniable fact of the matter though, is that Io Shirai is your new NXT Women’s Champion. The team here at Pro Wrestling Post could not be happier for the talented Genius of the Sky!
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