NXT: Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae should make the TakeOver Toronto card

It’s been a while since NXT featured more than one women’s match on their TakeOver shows. Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae could revive that trend.

On the July 24 episode of NXT, Candice LeRae and Io Shirai added another chapter to their burgeoning blood feud. During Shirai’s dominant outing against plucky upstart Kacy Catanzaro, LeRae rushed to the ring and attacked the former STARDOM standout as payback for Shirai smashing LeRae with a chair and suplexing her onto said chair following Shirai’s steel cage match loss to Shayna Baszler last month.

Despite this program receiving limited television time, it is already one of the more compelling storylines in WWE’s developmental promotion, which is a testament to Shirai and LeRae’s respective wrestling acumen and the strength of the story.

Shirai has transitioned seamlessly from popular, respected international star to cold, vicious villain, making her a hateable foil for the affable LeRae, who’s finally participating in a feud that should highlight what made her such a popular act on the independent scene. The mix has created a rivalry that could carry the NXT women’s division for at least the next several months.

Given the palpable interest that LeRae and Shirai have already ginned up in their sparse interactions over the last five weeks, the NXT creative team should consider booking them in a match at NXT TakeOver: Toronto.

With only four matches scheduled for the pre-SummerSlam supercard and few substantial non-title feuds reaching a level of antipathy that would necessitate a spot on the big show (though that spot could go to the NXT Breakout Tournament Finals match, unless they already taped it for TV), a LeRae vs. Shirai match could steal what appears to be a stacked show.

Even if the writers add Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain – which seems like the plan – or some other match to TakeOver: Toronto, there’s no rule that restricts them to only five bouts. These shows air exclusively on the WWE Network; if they wanted the show to run for 10 hours, they could do it. Even if they have Riddle/Dain or a long Gargano/Cole epic penciled in for the show, they can find some space for LeRae and Shirai to craft their tale.

We all know how awesome Shirai is when the bell rings – arguably one of the best in the world – but LeRae belongs in that conversation too, even though her talents on the mat have been obfuscated by the writers stripping away almost all of her identity outside of being “Johnny Gargano’s wife” throughout her entire NXT run. If these ladies receive some latitude to flesh out an enthralling match, they could garner some match of the night praise once the show ends.

But aside from match quality, adding a second women’s match to an event that also features another potential headline-grabber in Baszler vs. Mia Yim – even though the animous in that feud has simmered below expectations – would give the NXT women’s division the renaissance it has needed since the NXT Four Horsewomen moved to the main roster in 2015 and 2016 (or Asuka’s call-up, if you want to be generous).

Granted, NXT’s booking of the distaff ranks hasn’t remotely sunk to the depths of what fans see every Monday and Tuesday — we aren’t getting sub-one minute matches or feuds built around skank-shaming or stealing another woman’s husband on the Wednesday show, for instance — but since that aforementioned line of demarcation, the writers have slowly moved away from one of the key elements that differentiated this brand from RAW and SmackDown.

In lieu of multi-layered feuds, the writers have fed fans a plethora of random matches that have little bearing on the championship picture. While it’s good to see the likes of Catanzaro, Xia Li, Taynara Conti, and Bianca Belair – who seems to be stuck in booking purgatory following her brief feud with Yim – get opportunities to sharpen their skills in brief showcases, these matches spotlight the writers’ inability to refill the cupboards with new stars after Vince McMahon raids them.

Even the feuds surrounding the NXT Women’s Championship have lacked the sizzle that Bayley vs. Sasha Banks or Asuka vs. Ember Moon provided.

Aside from Baszler’s series with Kairi Sane last, most of “The Queen of Spade’s” programs have followed the “challenger of the month” pattern with some equally formulaic match layouts: Baszler’s opponent comes close to winning, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir get involved, Baszler applies the Kirifuda Clutch and her opponent passes out. It’s almost as if the writers are booking this division Mad Libs-style.

Putting LeRae vs. Shirai on the TakeOver show – not the match they tape for TV before the show starts, but the actual show – would be a step toward reversing this concerning trend. Doing so won’t fix everything overnight, but promoting an additional women’s feud outside of the title picture for the show provides a pipeline for future B-plots and creates an easier avenue to determining future top contenders.

Despite the numerous call-ups over the last few years, the NXT women’s roster is flush with interesting young talent. If a match the caliber of LeRae vs. Shirai can make the TakeOver card as a supplementary women’s match, it only means good things for the rest of that promising division going forward.