WrestleMania 36 is scheduled to include the first NXT title match on WWE’s biggest show of the year: Royal Rumble winner Charlotte Flair vs. NXT Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley. The announcement of this match has caused some speculation by fans about whether there will be any other NXT representation on the card, but according to Dave Meltzer on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, that won’t be the case.
NXT has been positioned as more equal to Raw and Smackdown than in the past since it began airing on USA, but WrestleMania is still being mainly reserved for Raw and Smackdown, even if WWE is shying away from calling those shows “the main roster.” Since NXT TakeOver: Tampa Bay will take place the night before WM 36 on April 4, there will obviously still be plenty of NXT wrestling that weekend, just not as part of the several-hour block on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the WrestleMania card is reportedly planned to have fourteen matches, but not all of those that were previously planned. John Cena was meant to face Elias, but according to WON, that match has been scrapped for something else that will most likely be set up when Cena appears on Smackdown this week. Given how few things in WWE are set in stone, maybe he’ll end up taking on Adam Cole for the NXT Championship.
