NXT TakeOver: Portland

After winning a No. 1 Contender’s Battle Royal, Bianca Belair has earned the right to challenge NXT Champion Rhea Ripley at TakeOver: Portland. The Nightmare was successful in defending her title against Toni Storm at Worlds Collide, setting the stage for this huge showdown. In Belair, Ripley faces a supremely confident Superstar who sees capturing the title as an inevitability. But Ripley has been dominant since ending the 416-day reign of Shayna Baszler. It will be a true test of will when these two Superstars clash.
Anything goes in the next chapter of the bitter rivalry between Tegan Nox and Dakota Kai, as the two will clash in a Street Fight at NXT TakeOver: Portland. The bad blood between the former best friends can be traced back to NXT TakeOver: WarGames. Kai betrayed her best friend during the first-ever Women’s WarGames Match, brutally attacking Nox, targeting her injured knee and putting her out of action for nearly two months. When Nox returned in January during a Battle Royal to determine the No. 1 Contender to the NXT Women’s Championship, Kai was not far behind, ruthlessly yanking Nox off the top rope and eliminating her from the match. Kai added insult to injury by hurling the brace she tore off Nox’s knee at TakeOver at her former friend. The two friends turned bitter rivals finally met in the squared circle on the Jan. 29 edition of NXT. In what turned out to be more of a brawl than a wrestling match, Kai tried to use everything at her disposal to once again maim Nox. However, thanks to a timely distraction from Candice LeRae, Nox was able to give Kai a taste of her own medicine, clobbering Dakota with the knee brace to pick up the victory.
==Event recap==
===Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai===
A brawl three months in the making brought all the emotion, intensity and barbarism you’d expect. But it was someone no one expected — Raquel González — playing a decisive role in Dakota Kai’s brutal victory over Tegan Nox in the first-ever Street Fight in the history of NXT’s Women’s Division.
Nox, who looked to avenge her betrayal at the hands of her former best friend, was once again caught off-guard by the nefarious Kai. The Captain of Team Kick refused to let Nox even finish her entrance, ambushing her from behind in an act that was, quite frankly, completely consistent with everything we’ve seen in recent months after Kai’s change of heart.
The bitter enemies wasted little time taking advantage of the stipulation, almost immediately destroying a section of the ringside barricade and introducing foreign objects, including a trash can, innumerable chairs and even a cricket bat that shattered across the ring post on an errant swing by Kai.
With both women understanding the pain that comes with a devastating knee injury, it was Nox who escalated the violence to new heights. First repeatedly bashing Kai’s surgically repaired right knee with a steel chair, then stomping on it as it sandwiched that same knee moments later, Nox left Kai with little to do but cry out in helpless anguish.
===NXT Women's Championship: Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley===
Rhea Ripley may have conquered her latest challenge, but her next obstacle might be the biggest of her career.
Moments after retaining her NXT Women’s Championship with a hard-earned win against Bianca Belair, Ripley was blindsided by an attack from Charlotte Flair — and The Queen finally had an answer for The Nightmare’s challenge, declaring that she would see her at WrestleMania.
Prior to that sequence, Ripley went through a battle that was as hard-hitting as it was fast paced. With two women who are strangers to encountering adversaries capable of matching their strength, it was Belair trying to use her edge in athleticism in order to taste gold for the first time in her career.
While the EST wasn’t able to succeed in that endeavor, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Belair gave Portland a flashbulb-worthy moment with a scintillating senton over the top rope to the outside.
Setting Ripley up for a possible superplex in the match’s closing moments, Belair initially blocked The Nightmare’s attempt at a sunset flip powerbomb counter. But it was Ripley ultimately outmaneuvering The EST, countering with a pump handle into The Riptide to make the victory academic.
Ripley’s moment of triumph was cut short with the arrival of The Queen, who blasted her from behind before grabbing a microphone to officially accept Ripley’s WrestleMania challenge.
But she wasn’t done. Charlotte delivered a Natural Selection and then locked eyes on the NXT Women’s Title — the first championship she ever claimed in WWE — and held it high above her head, perhaps giving us a sneak peek of what we’ll see on The Grandest Stage of Them All.
==Match results==
* Street fight match: Dakota Kai def. Tegan Nox
* Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship: Rhea Ripley (c) def. Bianca Belair
==Notes==
* Cathy Kelley's final show before her departure from WWE.
* The official debut of Raquel González fka Reina Gonzalez in the Mae Young Classic.
Category:WWE pay-per-view events
Category:TakeOver
Category:Bianca Belair
Category:Cathy Kelley
Category:Dakota Kai
Category:Raquel González
Category:Rhea Ripley
Category:Tegan Nox
Category:Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai rivalry
Category:NXT Women's Championship matches
Category:Women's matches in WWE