- Indi Hartwell vs. Roxanne Perez vs. Gigi Dolin vs. Lyra Valkyria vs. Tiffany Stratton vs. Zoey Stark — NXT Women's Championship Ladder Match
- Wes Lee vs. Axiom vs. Dragon Lee vs. Ilja Dragunov vs. JD McDonagh — NXT North American Championship Fatal Five-Way Match
- Johnny Gargano vs. Grayson Waller — Unsanctioned Match
- Carmelo Hayes vs. Bron Breakker — NXT Championship
WRESTLEFILE EVENT FILE
NXT Stand & Deliver 2023: Melo Gets the Crown, but the Five-Way Steals the Show
The factual record, historical context, match-by-match analysis, and WrestleFile verdict.
WWE/NXTApril 1, 2023Crypto.com Arena
THE WRESTLEGRADEB+8.0 / 10FINAL EVENT SCOREMASTER FILE RANK#437OF 1030
- PROMOTION
- WWE NXT
- DATE
- April 1, 2023
- VENUE
- Crypto.com Arena
- LOCATION
- Los Angeles, California
- ATTENDANCE
- 7,584
- EVENT TYPE
- PLE
NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 is a good developmental supercard with two matches that briefly make it feel like the old TakeOver machine has wandered back into the building. The North American Championship five-way is the night's athletic masterpiece, and Johnny Gargano versus Grayson Waller gives the show the personal violence its title matches mostly lack. Everything else ranges from useful to underwhelming, but almost every result moves NXT into its next phase.
Read the Full FileContinue the event-level analysis
Carmelo Hayes winning the NXT Championship is the historical center even though the main event is not the best match. Bron Breakker had carried the championship for nearly a year, Hayes had become the obvious successor, and Los Angeles gets the formal handoff from one era of NXT 2.0 to another. The interference and referee bump keep the match from feeling as definitive as the moment deserves, but the result is correct and important.
Indi Hartwell's ladder-match victory is the opposite kind of payoff. She is not the obvious athletic favorite, and Dexter Lumis literally helps her climb the ladder, yet the crowd embraces the sentimental choice because Hartwell had spent years surviving every version of modern NXT. The match is chaotic and occasionally dangerous, but the finish provides one of the day's most emotionally satisfying title changes.
The weak spots are easy to identify. Gallus retaining in the three-way tag match never finds enough time or heat, and Alba Fyre versus Isla Dawn against Fallon Henley and Kiana James is a title change attached to a storyline more interested in relationship drama than tag-team excellence. Even the main event underdelivers relative to its billing.
WrestleFile lands at B+ / 8.4. The card is too uneven for A-range, but the five-way and Gargano-Waller are excellent, the ladder match is fun, and Carmelo Hayes' coronation gives the event lasting value. WATCH the show, especially if the goal is understanding the point when Hayes, Tiffany Stratton, Ilja Dragunov, Dragon Lee and the next wave of NXT become impossible to ignore.
Event ContextBackground, stakes & historical setting
NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 took place on April 1, 2023, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, before a reported attendance of 7,584. It was the third annual Stand & Deliver and ran during WrestleMania 39 weekend with a special daytime start before WrestleMania Night 1. Pretty Deadly served as hosts.
Seven matches were presented, including an eight-person mixed tag on the Kickoff show. The main card opened with a six-woman ladder match for the NXT Women's Championship, continued through two multi-team title matches, the North American Championship fatal five-way and Johnny Gargano's Unsanctioned return against Grayson Waller, and closed with Bron Breakker defending the NXT Championship against Carmelo Hayes.
Breakker had held the NXT Championship for 362 days by the time he entered Los Angeles. Hayes had already established himself as a former North American Champion and the natural challenger, with Trick Williams at his side. The match was framed as a generational handoff rather than a blood feud, which made the championship change itself the primary dramatic question.
Gargano-Waller carried the most personal story. Waller had attacked Gargano during Gargano's 2021 NXT farewell, then escalated the issue by invading the Gargano family's space after Johnny returned to WWE. The Unsanctioned stipulation allowed the match to behave like a grudge fight without pretending the dispute needed a conventional wrestling structure.
VIEWING GUIDE
Watch, Skim or Skip?
- Chase U & Tyler Bate vs. Schism — Winner Controls Chase University
- Gallus vs. The Creed Brothers vs. The D'Angelo Family — NXT Tag Team Championship
- Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn vs. Fallon Henley & Kiana James — NXT Women's Tag Team Championship
MATCH-BY-MATCH ANALYSIS
The Card, On the Record
01Chase U & Tyler Bate def. Schism — Winner Controls Chase UniversityC-
The Kickoff match is more storyline than showcase. Chase University brings crowd-friendly comedy and clear stakes, while Schism supplies enough menace that control of the fictional school can function as a wrestling stipulation without requiring anyone to explain it for ten minutes. Ava's in-ring debut adds curiosity even though the match is structured to protect her.
The work is busy rather than memorable. Tyler Bate provides the cleanest wrestling, Andre Chase handles the emotional center, and Duke Hudson's loyalty remains the recurring question. The final Fratliner gives Chase U the obvious happy ending before the main card begins.
The Observer rated the match 2.5 stars, and Cagematch's current listings place it well below the main-card standouts. WrestleFile lands at C- / 5.7 because the story is coherent and the crowd gets the desired result. It succeeds as a Kickoff payoff without becoming essential viewing.
VERDICT
A serviceable storyline payoff that preserves Chase University and wisely saves the card's athletic fireworks for later.
02Indi Hartwell def. Roxanne Perez, Gigi Dolin, Lyra Valkyria, Tiffany Stratton & Zoey Stark — NXT Women's Championship Ladder MatchB-
The ladder match is simultaneously exciting and untidy. Six wrestlers create enough traffic for constant movement, but the field occasionally looks like it is waiting for the next planned collision rather than fighting organically for the championship. The athletic ceiling is high enough that the structure survives those pauses.
Tiffany Stratton produces the most obvious highlight with the moonsault to the floor, while Roxanne Perez returning from her health scare gives the match emotional context beyond the vacant-title setup originally planned. Gigi Dolin's conflict with Jacy Jayne also carries into the match when Jayne interferes and knocks her from the ladder. Every major character gets at least one recognizable beat.
Indi Hartwell winning with Dexter Lumis' help is sentimental rather than sporting, and that is exactly why the crowd loves it. Hartwell's NXT history makes the championship feel like a career reward, even if Lumis literally assisting the climb undercuts the competitive purity. The Observer gave the match 3.5 stars and Cagematch currently rates it 7.06 from 302 votes.
WrestleFile lands at B- / 7.4. The match has rough edges and more risk than precision, but the title change lands emotionally and several future stars flash what is coming.
VERDICT
A dangerous, uneven ladder match rescued by star-making flashes and an Indi Hartwell payoff the crowd genuinely wants.
03Gallus def. The Creed Brothers & The D'Angelo Family — NXT Tag Team ChampionshipD+
This match has too much talent and too little time. The Creed Brothers can create spectacular power sequences, Tony D'Angelo and Stacks have clear character chemistry, and Gallus are physical enough to anchor the match. Eight minutes never allows any of those identities to dominate for long.
The structure becomes a collection of short bursts. Julius Creed supplies the athletic power, Stacks finds openings, and Gallus wait for the moment when outside help can matter. Joe Coffey's return ultimately becomes the decisive beat, pulling Stacks away and allowing Gallus to finish the defense.
Cagematch currently rates the match 5.10 from 239 votes, while the Observer gave it 1.75 stars. WrestleFile lands at D+ / 5.3 because nothing is technically disastrous, but the match never grows beyond functional. A WrestleMania-weekend tag-title match should leave a larger footprint.
VERDICT
Three capable teams compressed into eight minutes, with Joe Coffey's return mattering more than the championship wrestling.
04Wes Lee def. Axiom, Dragon Lee, Ilja Dragunov & JD McDonagh — NXT North American Championship Fatal Five-Way MatchA
The fatal five-way is the match that justifies the event's name. Wes Lee chooses four opponents capable of forcing a different kind of chaos, and the match immediately treats that choice as competitive ambition rather than stupidity. Axiom and Dragon Lee bring impossible speed, Ilja Dragunov brings impact, JD McDonagh brings precision and Wes acts as the connective tissue.
The smartest decision is refusing to reduce the match to one wrestler resting while two others trade moves. Sequences overlap, counters create new pairings, and the camera is constantly catching a second threat entering from a different angle. Dragon Lee's WWE in-ring debut feels important because he is allowed to operate at the same speed as the established NXT standouts.
The final stretch is excellent controlled chaos. Axiom catches Dragon Lee with the Golden Ratio, Dragunov lands Torpedo Moscow, and Wes Lee times the Cardiac Kick into the collision so the champion feels like the wrestler who best understands the battlefield. The finish rewards awareness rather than luck.
Cagematch currently rates the match 8.65 from 421 votes and the Observer gave it 4.5 stars. WrestleFile lands at A / 9.1 because the match is spectacular without becoming shapeless. It is the clearest evidence on the show that NXT can still produce the frantic, elite multi-man wrestling associated with its best eras.
VERDICT
Five distinct wrestlers, one coherent storm, and the best match on the card by a comfortable margin.
05Johnny Gargano def. Grayson Waller — Unsanctioned MatchA-
Gargano-Waller works because the violence is attached to a reason. Waller attacked Gargano during his 2021 farewell, escalated the feud into Gargano's family life, and spends this match trying to prove that the newer version of NXT no longer needs the man who once personified it. The Unsanctioned stipulation gives both wrestlers permission to make the story ugly.
The weapons are excessive but purposeful. Waller's Coast-to-Coast with the trash can, Gargano's table powerbomb and the kendo-stick exchanges all feel like extensions of resentment rather than random prop demonstrations. Candice LeRae joining the retaliation is a satisfying callback because the feud had already crossed into family territory.
The finish is properly vindictive. Gargano traps Waller with a chair, crushes him with another chair and then forces the submission with the Gargano Escape. Waller loses without losing stature because eighteen minutes opposite Gargano establishes him as someone worth Gargano's full attention.
Cagematch currently rates the match 8.32 from 368 votes and the Observer gave it 4.25 stars. WrestleFile lands at A- / 8.8. It is the night's best story-driven match and a successful bridge between two generations of NXT.
VERDICT
A violent, personal grudge match that lets Gargano close old business while Waller proves he belongs in the next era.
06Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn def. Fallon Henley & Kiana James — NXT Women's Tag Team ChampionshipD+
The Women's Tag Team Championship match is trapped inside a soap-opera story that matters more than the wrestling. Fallon Henley and Kiana James are champions whose partnership is already cracking, while Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen are involved in the surrounding relationship drama. Fyre and Dawn enter as the more cohesive team and wrestle like the obvious eventual winners.
The match is competent but rarely urgent. James asking Jensen for the handbag creates the decisive hesitation, Jensen refuses, and the champions lose soon afterward to the Backstabber-Swanton combination. The title change advances the personal story more cleanly than the match itself builds drama.
Cagematch currently rates it 4.69 from 212 votes and the Observer gave it 1.5 stars. WrestleFile lands at D+ / 5.1 because the mechanics are fine and the result makes sense. The bout still feels small for the final premium live event appearance of a championship that will soon be retired.
VERDICT
A functional title change overshadowed by relationship drama and the short remaining life of the championship itself.
07Carmelo Hayes def. Bron Breakker — NXT ChampionshipB-
The main event has the correct destination and a route that is more complicated than necessary. Bron Breakker wrestles like the established champion, using power and explosiveness to force Hayes into counters rather than prolonged control. Hayes brings enough speed and confidence that the generational handoff feels plausible from the opening minutes.
The match becomes less satisfying once interference takes over. Trick Williams is ejected, the referee gets wiped out, Breakker forces Hayes to tap with no official present, and Trick returns to strike Breakker with the championship. Those beats protect Bron but also deny Hayes the cleanest possible coronation.
Hayes ultimately counters the Military Press Powerslam into the Codebreaker and lands Nothing But Net to win the title. The closing sequence is decisive enough that the crowd accepts the moment even after the interference. The championship visual matters more than the exact mechanism.
Cagematch currently rates the match 6.50 from 282 votes and the Observer gave it 3.25 stars. WrestleFile lands at B- / 7.3. It is a good main event carrying an excellent historical result, not the classic passing-of-the-torch match the billing suggested it might become.
VERDICT
The right champion crowned through a finish that protects Bron Breakker more than Carmelo Hayes needed.
BOOKING VERDICTB+
The strongest booking is the simplest booking: Carmelo Hayes becomes NXT Champion. NXT had spent months moving him from standout North American Champion to the wrestler most capable of succeeding Bron Breakker, and Stand & Deliver is the correct stage for the transfer. The problem is the execution, because Trick Williams' interference and the referee bump soften a moment that could have established Hayes through a cleaner victory.
Indi Hartwell's ladder-match win is messier but emotionally effective. Roxanne Perez returning after the health scare makes the field more complicated, Tiffany Stratton looks like the future, and Dexter Lumis helping Hartwell climb is hardly a pure sporting finish. Still, the result feels like a reward for Hartwell's NXT longevity and produces one of the best crowd reactions on the show.
Wes Lee retaining is excellent multi-man booking. Every challenger receives a distinct lane, Dragon Lee is introduced as an immediate major athlete, Ilja Dragunov and JD McDonagh continue their violence, and Axiom adds speed without becoming anonymous. The finish lets Wes Lee survive a collision of elite challengers rather than merely escape them.
The tag-title booking is less successful. Gallus benefits from Joe Coffey's return, but the triple threat is so short that the Creed Brothers and D'Angelo Family never build sustained pressure. The Women's Tag Team Championship change is historically important because those belts soon disappear, yet the match itself feels like a television storyline reaching a checkpoint rather than a major-event payoff.
Gargano defeating Waller is the correct closure. Waller can absorb the loss because the match proves he belongs opposite an established NXT standard-bearer, while Gargano gets revenge without requiring a longer return run.
CROWD & PRESENTATIONB+
The Los Angeles crowd behaves like a WrestleMania-weekend audience: informed, responsive and most animated when the match offers something visually distinct. The fatal five-way produces the strongest sustained reactions because every sequence escalates the athletic ceiling. Gargano-Waller gets comparable investment through hatred rather than spectacle.
The ladder match benefits from the crowd's affection for Indi Hartwell. Tiffany Stratton's moonsault to the floor and the repeated ladder crashes create the expected danger, but the final visual of Dexter Lumis helping Hartwell climb makes the arena respond to a character history more than a stunt. That is a better reason to remember the match.
Presentation is strongest when NXT feels like its own brand rather than a smaller WWE card. Wes Lee choosing his challengers gives the five-way a competitive identity, the Gargano-Waller video material makes the grudge feel personal, and Hayes' entrance reads like the arrival of a new centerpiece. Dragon Lee's debut also receives enough spotlight to signal that he matters immediately.
The main event atmosphere is good without reaching the fever pitch expected from a TakeOver-style title coronation. The interference disrupts the crowd's rhythm, and the match ends just as the drama seems ready for another gear. Hayes still receives the proper championship response, but the journey to it is less electric than the best material earlier in the card.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCEB
Carmelo Hayes winning the NXT Championship is the event's most durable result. It ends Bron Breakker's 362-day reign and formalizes Hayes as the face of the brand. The following television episode turns Breakker heel, making Stand & Deliver the clean dividing line between their roles.
The event is also an important showcase for talent who will define WWE's next several years. Tiffany Stratton looks like a future star in the ladder match, Dragon Lee makes his WWE in-ring debut in the night's best match, Ilja Dragunov continues building toward his later NXT Championship run, and Grayson Waller proves he can hang in a featured grudge match. The card is developmental in the most useful sense: many of the people being developed actually become major players.
Indi Hartwell's NXT Women's Championship victory gives her a long-awaited singles title before the 2023 Draft moves her to the main roster. Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn's Women's Tag Team Championship win is historically notable for the opposite reason: Stand & Deliver becomes WWE's final livestreamed event to feature those titles before they are unified into the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship and retired in June.
Johnny Gargano's match is also a bridge between NXT eras. He returns as an established main-roster wrestler to settle a story that began during his original NXT farewell, then effectively endorses Waller by giving him a violent, high-profile match. That makes the Unsanctioned bout both nostalgia and succession planning.
WHAT AGED WELL
- The North American Championship five-way aged extremely well because nearly every participant's later career validates the talent density. Wes Lee is an excellent champion, Dragon Lee immediately looks at home, Ilja Dragunov brings controlled violence, Axiom supplies impossible speed and JD McDonagh connects the exchanges. The match remains a clean example of multi-man wrestling where chaos does not erase individual identity.
- Gargano-Waller also improves with distance. Waller's later main-roster success makes the match look less like a veteran carrying a developmental heel and more like a useful graduation test. Gargano's willingness to take punishment and Candice LeRae's involvement keep the family component attached to the original story.
- Carmelo Hayes winning the championship remains unquestionably correct. Even with a finish that could be cleaner, the visual of Hayes holding the title is the outcome the brand needed. Trick Williams' presence also gains significance because his own rise eventually becomes inseparable from Hayes' title era.
- Tiffany Stratton's ladder-match performance is another strong retrospective marker. She does not win, but the athletic flashes and crowd attention already separate her from most of the field. The match works as an early record of a wrestler about to accelerate quickly.
WHAT AGED POORLY
- The Women's Championship ladder match carries uncomfortable risk. Several falls and ladder collisions look uncontrolled, and Tiffany Stratton's moonsault to the floor is spectacular enough that the landing becomes part of the concern. The match is entertaining, but the danger-to-payoff ratio is not always comfortable.
- The NXT Tag Team Championship triple threat ages as filler. The Creed Brothers are capable of extraordinary athletic tag wrestling, Tony D'Angelo and Stacks have clear crowd support, and Gallus are credible champions, yet eight minutes cannot turn those ingredients into a major-event match. Joe Coffey's interference becomes the most memorable booking beat.
- The NXT Women's Tag Team Championship match also suffers from the belt's impending retirement. Fyre and Dawn win the titles, move to SmackDown through the Draft, and unify them away less than three months later. That makes the change feel transitional even though the wrestlers did not know the belts would soon vanish from the event calendar.
- The main event's interference is the largest missed opportunity. Hayes had enough credibility to beat Breakker without a title-belt shot and referee bump, and the moment would feel stronger today if the result had been cleaner. The coronation survives; the mechanism looks less necessary with every rewatch.
RESEARCH VERDICTWhere the Evidence Lands
The current event-level consensus is firmly positive without reaching classic TakeOver territory. Cagematch currently rates NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 at 7.38/10 from 194 valid votes. Its current match guide places the North American Championship fatal five-way at 8.65 from 421 votes, Gargano-Waller at 8.32 from 368, the Women's Championship ladder match at 7.06 from 302, Hayes-Breakker at 6.50 from 282, the NXT Tag Team Championship triple threat at 5.10 from 239 and the Women's Tag Team Championship match at 4.69 from 212.
Reported Wrestling Observer ratings follow the same shape. The fatal five-way received 4.5 stars, Gargano-Waller 4.25, the Women's ladder match 3.5, Hayes-Breakker 3.25, the Kickoff mixed tag 2.5, the NXT Tag Team Championship triple threat 1.75 and the Women's Tag Team Championship match 1.5. The two standout matches are therefore not merely WrestleFile preferences; they are the broad critical peaks of the card.
Event reviews support a B-to-A border. TJR Wrestling rated the show 8/10, while Pro Wrestling Dot Net's post-show poll recorded B as the plurality grade at 43 percent and A immediately behind at 41 percent. That narrow split accurately describes a show with excellent high points and obvious undercard drag.
WrestleFile lands at B+ / 8.4. The score rewards the quality of the five-way and Unsanctioned match, the importance of Carmelo Hayes' title win and the number of wrestlers whose performances gain historical value with time. It stops below A- because two title matches are weak, the ladder match is uneven and the main event does not fully deliver on its generational-match billing.
RESEARCH SOURCESSources & Methodology22 sources
These sources support the event record, historical context, critical reception, and streaming information used throughout this Event File.
- WWE — NXT Stand & Deliver 2023Official event page, match summaries and results.
- WWE — Full Stand & Deliver Results 2023Official results and championship-change record.
- Bleacher Report — NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 Results and GradesMatch-by-match grades and event reaction.
- 411Mania — Pantoja's NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 ReviewIndependent complete-event review and match ratings.
- 411Mania — Hall's NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 ReviewIndependent full-card retrospective.
- TJR Wrestling — NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 ReviewComplete-event retrospective and 8/10 overall score.
- Pro Wrestling Dot Net — Stand & Deliver Live ReviewDetailed live match analysis and results.
- Pro Wrestling Dot Net — Stand & Deliver Poll ResultsReader poll showing B at 43 percent and A at 41 percent.
- TheSportster — NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 Matches RankedComparative ranking of the event's matches.
- Cagematch — WWE NXT Stand & Deliver 2023Current event rating, match-guide ratings, venue and attendance cross-check.
- WhatCulture — 7 Ups and 3 Downs From NXT Stand & Deliver 2023Independent event review and criticism.
- Cageside Seats — Stand & Deliver 2023 ResultsEvent recap and Carmelo Hayes championship-change coverage.
- Cageside Seats — Stand & Deliver Recap and ReactionsIndependent post-show analysis.
- Cageside Seats — Indi Hartwell Wins NXT Women's ChampionshipFocused report on the ladder-match title change.
- Cageside Seats — Gallus Retain NXT Tag Team TitlesFocused report on the NXT Tag Team Championship match.
- Fightful — NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 ResultsIndependent results and event coverage.
- IWNerd — Dave Meltzer Star Ratings: NXT Stand & Deliver 2023Published Wrestling Observer match-rating reference.
- Wikipedia — NXT Stand & Deliver (2023)Date, venue, attendance, storylines, results and aftermath cross-check.
- Netflix — WWE NXTCurrent official NXT streaming-series landing page.
- Netflix — WWE In Your HouseConfirms title 81930494 is WWE In Your House rather than NXT Stand & Deliver 2023.
- WWE — Wes Lee Fatal Five-Way PreviewOfficial background on Wes Lee selecting the North American Championship challengers.
- WWE NXT — Full Event: NXT Stand & Deliver 2023Official full-event replay of NXT Stand & Deliver 2023.
WHERE TO WATCHStream This Event
Stream This Event
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Watch on YouTube — WWE NXTWWE NXT's official YouTube channel currently offers the complete NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 event. YouTube availability can vary by country or account.YouTube — WWE NXT - Official full-event replay
WWE NXT currently offers the complete NXT Stand & Deliver 2023 event as an official full-event replay on YouTube. Availability can vary by country or account.
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