Coming off her loss to Knockouts Champion Masha Slamovich at TNA Rebellion, Tessa Blanchard now looks ahead to a singles match against a talent from "WWE NXT."
At TNA Under Siege on May 23, Blanchard will take on WWE's Arianna Grace, who has acted as a liaison between TNA and "NXT" in the midst of their multi-year partnership. On the latest episode of "TNA iMPACT," Blanchard and Victoria Crawford (formerly known as WWE's Alicia Fox) battled Slamovich and Nikkita Lyons in tag team competition, with the latter emerging victorious via disqualification after Slamovich struck Crawford with a steel chair.
When TNA Director of Authority Santino Marella ordered the tag match to restart, Robert Stone, the assistant to "NXT" General Manager Ava, instead asserted that the ruling stood. Afterward, Blanchard approached Grace, also Marella's daughter, backstage with a smug smile and a promise that both Marella and Grace would both be gone following the "review" of Marella's recent authority decisions. In response, Grace noted that she had grown tired of Blanchard, only then to meet a slap to the face from the former Knockouts Champion.
Later in the program, Grace demanded a match against Blanchard at Under Siege, which Stone agreed to forward to the high-ups in TNA's parent company, Anthem. From there, the match between Grace and Blanchard was made official, with Grace now set to make her in-ring debut under the TNA banner. While Grace will have her father in her corner, Stone will accompany Blanchard.
Under Siege will emanate from the CAA Centre in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Crawford, whom Stone recently announced as TNA's Deputy Director of Authority, will challenge Slamovich for the Knockouts Championship there.
