Despite a wrist injury, plans remain unchanged for Giulia’s NXT debut.
On May 20th, Giulia teamed with Utami Hayashishita in a losing effort against Sareee and Bozilla at Dream Star Fighting Marigold’s inaugural event, Marigold Fields Forever, where she unfortunately suffered a fractured wrist. As a result, Marigold announced that she’d be out of action indefinitely, calling into question the upcoming plans for her WWE debut at NXT Heatwave.
Despite this, Corey Brennan of Fightful Select is now reporting that WWE sources are still hopeful that Giulia will be cleared in time for NXT Heatwave, although initial plans for an NXT Women’s Championship match against Roxanne Perez could potentially still change due to her obligations with Marigold and her injury.
“Following the news breaking, Brennan reached out to NXT and WWE sources, with those we spoke with noting that WWE remain hopeful that Giulia will be healed in time for NXT Heatwave. Brennan has further learned that after previously reporting the belief within NXT was that Giulia would be in a title match at the event, with WWE still currently targeting an NXT Women’s Title match with Roxanne Perez for the event on July 7th. However, it was stressed to Brennan that these plans are not set in stone and could change due to Giulia’s Marigold obligations and her current injury.”
-Fightful Select
Regarding Rossy Ogawa’s new promotion, Brennan also confirmed previous reports that Giulia will remain available to Marigold following her move to NXT. During the promotion’s first event, Marigold announced that Giulia would take on Sareee at Marigold Summer Destiny on July 13 at Sumo Hall on pay-per-view, with Giulia noting she still plans on competing despite her injury, with Brennan adding that this should not impact her plans with WWE before then.
Brennan also notes that Giulia is expected to lead the next class of talent reporting to WWE’s Performance Center, with this class also set to include names from the recent Australia tryouts. As for her presentation, the report adds that WWE have stressed that they signed Giulia due to “who she is,” and thus, they won’t look to fix something that isn’t broken.
Giulia was shown onscreen at NXT Stand & Deliver in April before attending WrestleMania 40 alongside Rossy Ogawa. Per the report, Giulia was outgoing and polite to NXT talent and held a lengthy conversation with Shawn Michaels.
Finally, it was noted that the language barrier is no longer considered as big of an issue under Triple H compared to the previous regime, with one source highlighting IYO SKY, Kairi Sane, and Asuka amongst others speaking their native languages on WWE television. Nevertheless, it was also added that WWE remains impressed by Giulia’s commitment to developing her English skills.
Giulia was originally planned to take on VENY at this year’s Hana Kimura memorial show on May 23rd, however, due to the aforementioned injury, she was forced to pull out, with her Marigold colleague Utami Hayashishita taking her place.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Giulia’s injury status and future plans in both WWE and Marigold as soon as we hear more, and we wish her all the best in her recovery.
