WWE held tonight’s NXT at the iconic 2300 arena, and after a hardcore match got the episode started, NXT General Manager Ava Raine revealed her anticipated and mysterious announcement. That announcement turned out to be all the details regarding NXT Deadline, which will be NXT’s last event of the year. Raine revealed that Deadline will be a Premium Live Event and will take place in Minneapolis Minnesota on December 7th. Then Raine revealed that the Iron Survivor Challenge will be making its return as well for both the men and the women.
Later on, NXT gave a preview of next week’s episode, and in addition to some other building rivalries and Championship matches, there will be the first qualifying matches for the men’s and women’s Iron Survivor Challenges. There was no mention of who would be in those qualifying matches, but there are certainly a few names that will instantly come to mind.
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The Champions obviously wouldn’t be in the mix, which currently includes Trick Williams, Roxanne Perez, Fallon Henley, and Tony D’Angelo. A few names that come to mind for the match include Jacy Jayne, Ethan Page, Cora Jade, Brooks Jensen, Ridge Holland, Jaida Parker, Lola Vice, Oba Femi, Nikkita Lyons, Stephanie Vaquer, Giulia, Zaria, Je’Von Evans, and Wes Lee, just to name a few. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out though, as some of those superstars might be involved with other storylines and therefore not available for one of those spots.
It’s kind of surreal to look at last year’s Deadline card, as it either features now main event superstars or NXT main eventers. Featured on that card were superstars like Tiffany Stratton, Bron Breakker, Dominik Mysterio, Dragon Lee, Carmelo Hayes, and Ilja Dragunov, and aside from Mysterio who was already part of th main roster, all of those stars have since moved up to Raw or SmackDown. It’s also quite ironic that the event started off with a match between Axiom and Nathan Frazer and now they are bickering as the current NXT Tag Team Champions.
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The Iron Survivor Challenge will also be making its return, which made its debut in 2023. As the War Games format was adopted by Survivor Series, NXT needed a unique match format to step in and take its place. Enter the Iron Survivor Challenge, which takes place over 25 minutes and features five superstars. The match starts out with two superstars and then has another one enter every five minutes, and whoever scores the most points by the end of the time limit with pinfalls wins.
Last year the winners were Trick Williams and Blair Davenport, and it was a big spotlight for both of them. Williams would go on to defeat Carmelo Hayes for the NXT Championship, while Davenport would later be drafted to SmackDown. Now two more superstars will have a major stage and the possibility of a Title opportunity, and we’ll have to wait and see who ends up making the final five.
Are you excited for NXT Deadline? You can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!