{"id":134249,"date":"2025-04-22T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=134249"},"modified":"2025-04-22T04:32:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T08:32:41","slug":"why-zaria-should-be-sol-rucas-first-opponent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/04\/22\/why-zaria-should-be-sol-rucas-first-opponent\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Zaria Should Be Sol Ruca&#8217;s First Opponent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 edition of NXT Stand &amp; Deliver on Saturday was memorable in many ways. One of the highlights saw Sol Ruca crowned the NXT Women&#8217;s North American Champion, and her first challenger should be tag team partner, Zaria.<\/p>\n<p>At Stand &amp; Deliver, Oba Femi and Stephanie Vaquer both retained their championships. Channing &#8216;Stacks&#8217; Lorenzo turned on Tony D\u2019Angelo, allowing for DarkState to pick up a statement victory. All those wrestlers were impressive, but there was one wrestler who walked away as double champion.<\/p>\n<p>When Stephanie Vaquer relinquished her NXT Women\u2019s North American Championship, it was announced that a six-woman ladder match for the title would be held at Stand &amp; Deliver. In the end, Sol Ruca climbed the ladder and became the new NXT North American Champion, in addition to being the WWE Speed Champion.<\/p>\n<p>One of those women was her tag team partner and friend, Zaria. Given what happened in the match and her overall NXT career so far, she should be first in line to get a chance at Sol Ruca\u2019s title.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Women\u2019s North American Title Ladder Match: Stand &amp; Deliver 2025 highlights\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zgesJZFxC5o?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Zaria Is Not Afraid of Stepping Up to Her Friend<\/h2>\n<p>Since late last year, Zaria and Sol Ruca have formed a pretty formidable tag team. They have worked well together, showing great teamwork and athletic ability, beating teams like Jakara Jackson &amp; Lash Legend and Chelsea Green &amp; Piper Niven. However, the two qualified for the ladder match at Stand &amp; Deliver, which meant one or both had to lose.<\/p>\n<p>Things were going well until they both got to the top of the ladder at the same time. They embraced each other, but then their friendly nature ended. They started hitting each other, both wanting the title for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>As they struggled to reach the title, Ruca ended up kicking Zaria off the ladder. Knowing the result of the match, Zaria will remember that sequence of events. If she was willing to stop Ruca in the ladder match, she wouldn\u2019t hesitate to get a title shot for herself.<\/p>\n<h2>Zaria Deserves the Title Opportunity<\/h2>\n<p>Before coming to WWE, Zaria made a name for herself on the Australian independent circuit. That\u2019s why her debut was so hyped up and why she got lots of vignettes in preparation for her arrival. When she debuted at Halloween Havoc last year, she was immediately put over as a game-changer for the NXT women\u2019s division.<\/p>\n<p>Since that night, her ability in the ring has backed up all the talk surrounding her. However, Saturday was the first time that she competed in a title match. She also had to fight off five other women to get the title.<\/p>\n<p>Competing in a one-on-one title match would raise her stock to the next level. Having Zaria step up to Sol Ruca would not only provide a great storyline after Saturday, but it would show everyone how great of a singles competitor she is in the ring.<\/p>\n<h2>The Match Makes Sense for Both Zaria and Sol Ruca<\/h2>\n<p>When Sol Ruca earned the NXT Women\u2019s North American Championship, she smiled and celebrated with everyone in the arena. However, when you win a championship, the celebration doesn\u2019t last long. Immediately, you are wondering who\u2019s going to try and take it away from you.<\/p>\n<p>For Ruca, she\u2019ll want a challenger that deserves to face her one-on-one. Given what happened on Saturday, it\u2019s very likely that Zaria will be the first woman who wants the title. Watching her tag team partner climb the ladder made her feel a mix of emotions.<\/p>\n<p>She was happy for her, but at the same time, she was angry because she wanted the title. Her first title match being against someone she trusted for months would make a great story. Zaria being Sol Ruca\u2019s first opponent could legitimize her as a fan favorite and a top star in the NXT women\u2019s division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Header photo \u2013 WWE \u2013<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on , and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You can check out WWE programming on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/title\/81788927\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Netflix<\/a>\u00a0(Raw),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usanetwork.com\/wwe-friday-night-smackdown\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">USA Network<\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cwtv.com\/shows\/wwe-nxt\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The CW<\/a>\u00a0(NXT),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tubitv.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tubi<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aetv.com\/wwe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A&amp;E<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments) and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>\u00a0(WWE Main Event as well as archives and premium live event streaming). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/wwe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a>, and catch fast-paced action on X (<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/i\/events\/1773457579022155776?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Speed<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 edition of NXT Stand &amp; Deliver on Saturday was memorable in many ways. One of the highlights saw Sol Ruca crowned the NXT Women&#8217;s North American Champion, and her first challenger should be tag team partner, Zaria. At Stand &amp; Deliver, Oba Femi and Stephanie Vaquer both retained their championships. Channing &#8216;Stacks&#8217; Lorenzo [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5338,"featured_media":134318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2192,4,5,3],"tags":[116,8881,8820,47,9036],"class_list":["post-134249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-nxt","tag-nxt-womens-north-american-championship","tag-sol-ruca","tag-wwe","tag-zaria"],"modified_by":"Chinyere Okafor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5338"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134249"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134317,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134249\/revisions\/134317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}