Raquel Gonzalez defeated WWE NXT champion Io Shirai and won the title in the NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver main event on April 7.
Gonzalez dethroned the longest-reigning queen in WWE NXT history
Raquel pressed Shirai against the ropes early on in the contest and knocked her down with a big kick. Io answered with a high-kick followed by a springboard hurricanrana. The champion landed a huge slingshot double knee, tossed her rival out of the ring and knocked her back with a heel kick.
Gonzalez smashed Io shoulder-first into the ring post and slammed her. Shirai tried to fight back; however, Raquel landed several heavy punches, took her down and applied a stretch lock. Io broke free and counterattacked with a combination of a tiger feint kick and a moonsault block. Then the champion mounted a large skull and jumped on Raquel.
Shirai pulled Raquel back to the battlefield and delivered an Over the Moonsault. But the challenger scored 2 slams in a row. When Io got back to her feet, Gonzalez took her down with a brutal clothesline followed by a powerbomb. Shirai failed to recover and lost by pinfall. Raquel captured the crown to become a new queen.
Io set a record for the longest reign in WWE NXT, which lasted 304 days. She cleaned out the women’s division by defeating all top title contenders, for instance, Rhea Ripley and Dakota Kai. Gonzalez won the first singles championship in her wrestling career. In 2021, Raquel with her ally Dakota Kai triumphed in the inaugural Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and got the NXT Tag Team belts.