NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day was the 33rd NXT TakeOver and ninth Vengeance professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's NXT brand division. The event took place on February 14, 2021, from the Capitol Wrestling Center, hosted at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. The event revived WWE's old Vengeance PPV name, thus being the first Vengeance held since 2011. The event's name was also a play on Valentine's Day, as the event was held on the same day as the holiday. It was the first Vengeance to livestream on the WWE Network, as well as the final NXT TakeOver event and only Vengeance to air on the American version of the WWE Network before its merger under Peacock in March. It would also be the final Vengeance to air on PPV, as the following year's event was held as a television special, and while the 2023 event returned to livestreaming, NXT's major events as of the 2022 calendar year no longer air on PPV, just livestreaming.
Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Finn Bálor defeated Pete Dunne to retain the NXT Championship. In other prominent matches, MSK (Nash Carter and Wes Lee) defeated Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake and Zack Gibson) to win the Men's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, while in the opening bout, Dakota Kai and Raquel González defeated Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart to win the inaugural Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. Vengeance Day also marked the WWE return of LA Knight, who previously performed as Slate Randall from 2013 to 2014 and was known as Eli Drake in Impact Wrestling.
Production
Background
TakeOver was a series of professional wrestling shows that began in May 2014, as WWE's NXT brand held their second WWE Network-exclusive event, billed as TakeOver. In subsequent months, the "TakeOver" moniker became the brand used by WWE for all of their NXT live specials. While originally exclusive to the WWE Network, NXT TakeOver events also became available on traditional pay-per-view (PPV) beginning with TakeOver 31 in October 2020.
Announced on January 6, 2021, Vengeance Day was scheduled as the 33rd NXT TakeOver event. It revived WWE's old Vengeance pay-per-view, which had been produced annually from 2001 to 2007 with a one-off show in 2011. In 2021, WWE resurrected Vengeance as an NXT TakeOver event, making it the ninth Vengeance, the first since 2011, the first brand-exclusive Vengeance since 2006, and the first Vengeance to livestream on the WWE Network in addition to traditional PPV. The name of the event was also a play on Valentine's Day, as the event was held on February 14, 2021, the same day as the holiday. The official theme song for the event was "Obey" by Bring Me the Horizon featuring Yungblud.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that began affecting the industry in mid-March 2020, WWE had to present the majority of its programming from a behind closed doors set. NXT's programming was initially held at NXT's home base of Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. In October 2020, NXT's events were moved to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, featuring the "Capitol Wrestling Center" setup, an homage to the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, the predecessor to WWE. Like the WWE ThunderDome utilized for Raw and SmackDown's programming, LED boards were placed around the Performance Center so that fans could attend virtually, while additionally, friends and family members of the wrestlers were in attendance, along with a limited number of actual live fans, divided from each other by plexiglass walls.
Storylines
The card included matches that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the NXT brand, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television program, NXT.
