WWE: RAW Women’s Title Match Announced for Night of Champions, New Match for NXT Battleground, Carlito

May 18, 2023

Bianca Belair vs. Asuka Match Announced for Night of Champions 2023, Updated Card

WWE announced a new match for the card of their Night of Champions 2023 event, which takes place on May 27th in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

This is a RAW Women’s Championship match of Asuka vs. Bianca Belair.

This match was setup following Asuka interrupting Belair’s Championship celebration segment on last week’s SmackDown show, which resulted in Asuka giving Belair a mist attack to her face.

#WWERaw Women's Champion @BiancaBelairWWE will defend against @WWEAsuka at #WWENOC! pic.twitter.com/wjK9gF5Lo8
— WWE (@WWE) May 18, 2023

Updated card for WWE Night of Champions 2023:

WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament Finals match – Seth Rollins vs. AJ Styles
Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship – The Bloodline (Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa) vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn (c)
WWE Intercontinental Championship – Mustafa Ali vs. Gunther (c)
RAW Women’s Championship – Asuka vs. Bianca Belair (c)
Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar
Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus

Last Man Standing Match Announced for NXT Battleground, Updated Card

WWE recently announced a new match for the card of their NXT Battleground event, which takes place on May 28th in Lowell, Massachusetts.

This is a Last Man Standing match of Ilja Dragunov vs. Dijak.

This match was setup during this past Tuesday’s NXT show involving a Dijak torturing and beating up Dragunov in a dimly lit room backstage throughout the show trying to break him, which resulted in the final scene of Dragunov stating that “I’m still standing.”

LET’S GO!!! #NXTBattleground https://t.co/8vY2lvf9sx
— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) May 17, 2023

Updated card for NXT Battleground:

NXT Championship – Bron Breakker vs. Carmelo Hayes (c)
NXT Women’s Championship Tournament Finals match – Winner of Cora Jade/Lyra Valkyria vs. Winner of Roxanne Perez/Tiffany Stratton
NXT Hertiage Cup match – Dragon Lee vs. Noam Dar (c)
NXT North American Championship Triple Threat match – Joe Gacy vs. Tyler Bate vs. Wes Lee (c)
Last Man Standing match – Ilja Dragunov vs. Dijak

Carlito Comments on Reaction from Crowd for His Surprise Appearance at Backlash 2023

A recent episode of the Busted Open Radio show featured Carlito as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Carlito’s thoughts on the ovation he received from his hometown crowd at WWE’s Backlash 2023 event earlier this month in Puerto Rico.

“I’m kind of a big deal in Puerto Rico I guess.
It was great man, it was good and it was something that they wanted for a long time, you know what I mean? And it was cool that the secret didn’t get out. I was surprised. I kept on thinking at some point, somebody’s gonna leak some of it. No, nothing ever came out of it so they really did not expect it at all that night.
I braided my hair and I put a beanie on and then I wore a hoodie. Then I got in the night before like really late and I just went straight to my room and then the next day, I just kind of put the hoodie on – but it didn’t really work because people started recognizing me anyway but I don’t know, the word didn’t get out. Because I remember for the (Royal) Rumble, I don’t know, like days out, people were already stooging off that I was gonna come out. So I was afraid it was gonna be the same thing this time but, damn, I didn’t really see it anywhere.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com