Production
Background
No Mercy was first held by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE as a United Kingdom-exclusive pay-per-view (PPV) event in May 1999. [1] A second No Mercy was then held later that same year in October, but in the United States, which established No Mercy as the annual October PPV for the promotion until 2008. [2] No Mercy was discontinued in 2009, but it was reinstated in October 2016 following the reintroduction of the brand extension, which brought back brand-exclusive PPVs. [3] Following WrestleMania 34 in April 2018, however, No Mercy was again discontinued as WWE ended brand-exclusive PPVs, resulting in the reduction of yearly PPVs produced. [4] In 2023, WWE again revived No Mercy to be held in September as a livestreaming event for their developmental brand, NXT. [5]
On August 24, 2025, at Heatwave, it was announced that the third No Mercy for the NXT brand, and 16th overall, would be held on Saturday, September 27, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the FTL War Memorial. [6] In addition to Peacock in the United States, the event will also be available to livestream on Netflix in most international markets and the WWE Network in any remaining countries that have not yet transferred to Netflix due to pre-existing contracts. This marks the first No Mercy to livestream on Netflix following the WWE Network's merger under the service in January in those areas. Beginning with Halloween Havoc in 2024, all major NXT events are branded solely with the WWE logo instead of the NXT logo, making this the first No Mercy event to just use the promotion's logo since the 2017 event. [7]
Storylines
The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on the NXT brand, while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television program, NXT . [8] [9]
At Heatwave, Lola Vice won a triple threat match to earn a future NXT Women's Championship match against champion Jacy Jayne. Later that night, it was announced that the title match would take place at No Mercy. [10]
At Heatwave, NXT General Manager Ava announced that both the WWE Speed Championship and WWE Women's Speed Championship would now be exclusive to NXT. Ava also announced that a tournament would begin on the September 2 episode of NXT, with the winner of the tournament challenging champion Sol Ruca for the Women's Speed Championship at No Mercy. [11] Two days later on NXT, Ava revealed that the participants of the tournament would be SmackDown's Candice LeRae, Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide's (AAA) Faby Apache, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's (TNA) Xia Brookside, and NXT's Lainey Reid. [12]
At The Great American Bash, Oba Femi successfully defended the NXT Championship against Josh Briggs's tag team partner Yoshiki Inamura. During the match, Briggs tried to interfere, much to Inamura's dismay, who wanted to win the match without any help. [13] On the July 22 episode of NXT, Femi retained the championship in a triple threat match against both Briggs and Inamura. After the match, Briggs attacked Inamura, turning heel in the process. [14] On the August 19 episode of NXT, Briggs defeated Inamura in a Philadelphia Street Fight, while that same night, Ricky Saints defeated Jasper Troy, who Saints was in a rivalry. [15] At Heatwave, both Briggs and Saints stated that they would be coming after the NXT Championship, and later that night, after Femi successfully defended the title, he was confronted by Saints. [10] Two days later on NXT, Saints called out Femi, but was interrupted by Briggs, who stated that Saints didn't deserve a title shot. After some exchange of words, NXT General Manager Ava scheduled a match between Saints and Briggs for later that night, where the winner would challenge for the NXT Championship at No Mercy. The match was won by Saints. [12]