Finn Balor to defend NXT Championship against Karrion Kross at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver

By Matthew Serocki
Modified Sep 20, 2021 20:40 IST
The showdown is on!
Finn Balor to defend NXT Championship against Karrion Kross

It didn't take long for the main event of NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver to take shape. Before the opening segment of the most recent episode of NXT, WWE announced that Finn Balor's next title defense would be against former Champion Karrion Kross.

Kross captured the title by defeating Keith Lee last summer at TakeOver 30. However, he was injured in the title match. On the NXT episode immediately after TakeOver 30, Karrion Kross was forced to relinquish the belt.

Following that situation, four former NXT Champions - Balor, Adam Cole, Tommaso Ciampa, and Johnny Gargano - battled it out for the vacant belt. In the end, Cole and Balor moved on to a one-on-one match where the Prince became a two-time NXT Champion.

Since then, Balor has defeated the likes of Pete Dunne, Cole, and Kyle O'Reilly. After last week's main event, Kross confronted the NXT Champion and made his intentions clear. The title match has now been made official for the upcoming TakeOver event.

The biggest match-up for the NXT Championship

Balor opened this week's show to confront his potential challenger and Kross and Scarlett came right out to the ring.

The surprising bit in the build-up to this huge match has been the actions of Kross. While he began his NXT career as a heel, he was a face during his feud with Santos Escobar.

Even after Balor retained his title against Adam Cole last week, Kross merely appeared behind The Prince rather than attacking him.

During this week's showdown in the ring, Kross and Balor had strong words for each other but did not come to blows.

It could have possibly been because Scarlett foresaw that both Balor and Kross would be "draped in gold" heading into TakeOver. She soon goaded NXT Tag Team Champions Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan into defending the titles later in the night.

Does this mean that we could have new NXT Tag Team Champions by the end of the night? If Scarlett's predictions are true, it is a very strong possibility.