The WWE women’s division has featured numerous heel duos over the years, from The Glamour Girls to LayCool, The Bella Twins, and The Kabuki Warriors. The deep history between Cora Jade and Roxanne Perez has been a source of drama and intrigue, which recently resumed in NXT. Sources are now revealing the story behind the recent reunion of the longtime associates.
The Prodigy and The Sorceress of Sin became friends on the indies before WWE, while working RISE 13 in March 2019, where Perez and three partners defeated Jade and her three teammates. WWE signed Jade in January 2021, then Perez fourteen months later. Perez linked up with Jade shortly after debuting, and they feuded with Toxic Attraction until capturing the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship in July 2022. Cora turned heel the following week and the titles were eventually relinquished. Jade defeated Perez at Heatwave 2022, but two months later Perez won a Weapons Wild match at Halloween Havoc.
The Savior and the current NXT Women’s Champion went back-and-forth in recent years, but Jade returned from a near-nine-month injury hiatus on October 1 during the NXT CW premiere to help her friend retain her title against Giulia. Fightful Select now reports that the reunion of Perez and Jade has been in the works for a long time.
Backstage sources noted that last week’s angle to put Perez and Jade back together was not a last minute decision to build up the move to CW. Officials reportedly have had a plan in place to reconnect the diabolical duo since before the 23-year-old Chicagoan suffered a torn ACL on January 12.
The plan since the beginning was for Perez and Jade to move forward as a heel duo. Perez went heel in March, while Jade was recovering. The former ROH Women’s World Champion turned on Lyra Valkyria, against whom Jade suffered the injury in January.
Perez and Jade have not teamed since July 8, 2022, which was three days after their title win. The non-televised live event that night saw the two retain over Toxic Attraction in a rematch.
Stephanie Vaquer made her official WWE NXT debut on Tuesday’s live episode. She immediately joined another international star who recently debuted in a major way: Giulia.
This week’s NXT saw Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade deliver in-ring promos, where they warned that this friendship meant bad news for the locker room. Giulia interrupted, and was joined by Vaquer. The NXT newcomers rushed the ring and cleared it of the former Women’s Tag Team Champions.
WWE officials were said to be “very happy’ with Vaquer’s debut, according to Fightful Select. She will make her NXT in-ring debut next week against Wren Sinclair.
Tuesday’s angle was produced by Matt Bloom and Shawn Michaels, which shows the importance WWE has given to the four stars. The Glorious Warrior and La Primera ended the segment by both holding onto Perez’s title belt as the heels angrily looked on from the ramp.