With 12 days left until Stand & Deliver, the sharks are circling NXT Champion Joe Hendry. Last week, best frenemies Ricky Saints and Ethan Page took turns passively aggressively throwing each other under the bus, both with their sights set on the NXT Championship. The confrontation between the three abruptly took a turn when Tony D’Angelo popped up and left everyone on their backs. Tony, fresh off of getting a satisfying amount of revenge on DarkState, has Joe Hendry in his crosshairs and seems to be positioned for a shot at NXT’s top prize on their biggest show of the year. Before we get there, Tony D will square off with Ricky Saints for the first time ever. The Absolute has his buddy Page to thank, as Ethan requested NXT GM Robert Stone sign the match on his friend’s behalf. Stone naturally obliged, and now the battle is set for this week.

After months of tension, ZaRuca imploded last month after Zaria finally snapped on Sol Ruca, costing her the NXT Women’s Title in the process. Ruca would return the favor the following week when Zaria got her own shot at the championship, and the two former besties made it a trifecta when they couldn’t put their disdain for each other aside and lost to Jacy Jayne in a Triple Threat match in Houston. With both women seemingly heading to the back of the line in the NXT women’s division, they will meet face-to-face in the ring tonight. The biggest beneficiary of ZaRuca’s demise has been Jacy Jayne, but the reigning champ is dealing with some drama of her own in Fatal Influence after Fallon lost the Women’s Speed Championship last week. With Fallon smarting after her loss, Jacy seemed grateful in a backstage conversation and even showed a little humility.

NXT’s newest faction of nepo-babies, Birth Right, got one step closer to tag team gold last week, when they defeated Hank and Tank in the first round of the #1 Contenders Tournament. Uriah Connors and Stacks represented the group and took advantage of a blind tag to advance. This week, the makeshift team of Elio LeFleur and Eli Knight will pair up to take on Shawn Spears and Niko Vance of The Culling. Knight was scheduled to team up with Sean Legacy in the tournament, but buff Orange Cassidy had to withdraw because of injury, and the French luchador and Men’s Speed Champion stepped up to take his place. Two teams who are not in the tournament are OTM and DarkState. After weeks of backstage brawls, things ramped up significantly last week when the two teams proved that the NXT parking lot is still dangerous, even when it’s in Houston. A DarkState attack ended with Dion Lennox pouncing Lucien Price off of a loading dock.