Last night saw the triumphant return of former Divas and NXT Women’s Champion Paige to the WWE after being away for well over a year due to injury, and she didn’t come alone. In fact, she returned with two NXT call ups, Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose, as her new posse. With NXT gaining a lot of new women’s performers due to signings late last year into 2017, such as Abbey Laith (Princess Kimber Lee), Dakota Kai (Evie), Sarah Logan (Crazy Mary Dobson) and Nixon Newell, plus several women from the Mae Young Classic, such as Kairi Sane, Shayna Baszler and potentially Mercedes Martinez, the NXT women’s division is about to be the deepest it’s ever been.
Casey Michael, the owner of Squared Circle Sirens, stated that more NXT call ups were eminent as well, leading many to speculate who those women were going to be. There’s definitely plenty of talent on the bubble, although one would assume that newly crowned NXT Women’s Champion Ember Moon is off the table for the foreseeable future. While many of the NXT women were in Houston this past weekend for NXT Takeover: War Games, most have returned to Orlando, although the next NXT events aren’t until the November 29th tapings for the next batch of NXT television.
https://twitter.com/badboicasey/status/932980927873110017
One Twitter user rovert posted a Tweet online of two fans posing with two NXT women who stuck around following the weekend, taken last night at the Raw in Houston. The two women in question were NXT Superstars Ruby Riot and Liv Morgan. While Ruby Riot was used in a dark match against Sonya Deville (which will be aired this coming week on NXT) prior to NXT Takeover: War Games, Liv Morgan was not used on the card.
Liv Morgan and Ruby Riot were in town for Raw last night pic.twitter.com/ZfwuHy51dx
— Cody's Crybaby (@SoDuTw) November 21, 2017
Liv Morgan has been rumoured to be called up earlier this year, but for various reasons, WWE decided to hold off on her debut on the Red or Blue brand. Morgan was signed by the WWE in late 2014 and has spent the last three years working NXT Live Events, with sporadic appearances on NXT television. She last appeared on NXT TV in late September, where she defeated Mae Young Classic competitor, Vanessa Bourne.
Ruby Riot signed with WWE last fall and debuted in NXT this January, but to many indie wrestling fans, she’s more well known as Heidi Lovelace. A 7-year veteran of the ring, as Lovelace she was a regular in such promotions as CHIKARA, SHIMMER, AIW and AAW to name a few, including a nearly year long reign as the AIW Women’s Champion, a SHIMMER Tag Team title reign (with Dakota Kai), as well as holding several male titles, including the A1 Alpha Male Championship (from Ethan Page‘s A1 promotion in Canada), the CHIKARA Young Lions Cup, and the AAW Heritage Championship.
The current speculation is that the two are in Houston to potentially debut tonight on Smackdown Live, which is also being held at the Toyota Center in Houston, although either (or both) could simply be joining the Raw or Smackdown Live crew on the road for a debut sometime in the next week or so.
