Roxanne Perez defeats Giulia to retain NXT women’s title after return of Cora Jade | News, scores, highlights, stats and rumors

Roxanne Perez spoiled the first title match of Giulia’s WWE career during Tuesday’s NXT premiere on The CW, defeating the Japanese star to retain the NXT Women’s Championship.

Cora Jade played a crucial role in the outcome. Midway through the match, she pulled Giulia out of the ring and delivered a DDT on the outside while the referee was distracted. Jade rolled Giulia back into the squared circle, allowing Perez to hit Pop Rocks on the challenger and get the win.

Several months ago, multiple reports suggested that WWE had signed Giulia, but instead of immediately moving to the United States, she left Stardom and helped Stardom founder Rossy Ogawa get his new Marigold women’s wrestling promotion off the ground.

That led to a lot of speculation about when Giulia would finally arrive in WWE, but the wait came to an end last month at the No Mercy premium live event following Perez’s successful title defense against Jaida Parker.

Giulia’s music hit and she made her first WWE entrance, ending with the confrontation between her and Perez, which was a harbinger of things to come.

On the following episode of NXT, Perez cut a promo in the main event segment but was interrupted, but it was Chelsea Green who went to the ring instead of Giulia.

However, the former multi-time Stardom Champion and NJPW Strong Women’s Champion did make her presence felt a few minutes later by confronting Green and dropping her with a knee.

After eliminating Green, Giulia locked eyes with Perez again before saying, “I, you, CW,” suggesting she wanted to challenge Roxanne for the NXT Women’s Title on the premiere episode of NXT on The CW.

A week later, Giulia had the first match of WWE career, a win over Green, and her title match against Perez also became official.

Giulia undoubtedly provided Perez with the toughest challenge of her reign, but Perez somewhat surprisingly escaped with her title reign intact, forcing Giulia back to the drawing board.

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