The Best and Worst of NXT UK 11/7/18: Episodes Five and Six

Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT UK: NXT grandpa Johnny Saint got increasingly flustered about all the goings-on as Danny Burch worked toward a title shot, Noam Dar tried to take off his shoes to show he hates Zack Gibson, and we met Great Value Sheamus.

This week we got two new episodes back-to-back again, so if you’d like to watch them, you can do so here and here. If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT, click right here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.

And now, the fourth edition of Best and Worst of NXT UK, covering episodes five and six, for November 7, 2018.

Best: Weir Science

Up first in this week’s episode one is another fun squash for Dave Mastiff. The little guy on the ground there is “Damien Weir,” who I know best (thanks to CHIKARA’s King of Trios) as Pete Dunne’s kayfabe brother, back when Pete looked like an adorable British baby and not like the Drag King version of Rhea Ripley. You may also know him as a member of the Anti-Fun Police, because pro wrestling just can’t get enough of terrible cop characters.

Weir eats shit in glorious fashion here, and I think Mastiff would be my favorite guy on the show if I wasn’t so weirded out by his smooth legs. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against wrestlers shaving their legs, I just think big scary guys with chest hair and big beards who have smooth baby legs are a talking point. Maybe he’s just got really fine blonde leg hairs? This is the hard-hitting analysis you look for when you come to UPROXX dot com slash pro wrestling, folks.

Worst: Not The Gritty I’m Looking For

This guy who looks like Seth Green dressed up as Hangman Adam Page for Halloween is James Drake, aka “Mr. Mayhem,” whose finisher is also called Mr. Mayhem. More wrestlers need to do that. I want Bobby Lashley to start pinning people with the Bobby Lashley. But yeah, Drake’s thing is that he loves saying “grit your teeth,” which means he’s going to try very hard and is also the natural enemy of Dr. Britt Baker. Does Pete Dunne wear that mouth guard because he’s wrestled James Drake too many times?

Drake’s opponent is Ligero, the British El Generico with a child’s floatie on his face from episode two. They’re building up Ligero as a scrappy come-from-behind babyface, which is probably a good idea, but I’m not sold on him yet. He’s like the AKI Man of NXT UK. I don’t know, if he’s going to be a Sam’s Choice El Generico, he needs a corresponding Kevin Steen. The Wild Boar guy was more Bull Dempsey than Kevin Steen, down to the name.

Worst: That Video Wall

“Stratford-Upon-Maven” Ashton Smith is supposed to have a match, but gets jumped on the stage by the Wolfgang Gang of Wolfgang and the Coffey Brothers. The joke disconnect between wolves and coffee is killing me. The heels cut a promo about how NXT UK’s going to be their kingdom, and we build toward a six-man tag in the next episode.

That’s all well and good, but I have to give NXT UK a huge, hilarious Worst for the position of their hard cam. You know how on WWE TV, everyone has to face the hard cam for promos, taunts, and pinfalls? Usually that’s fine, because they’re surrounded by fans on four sides. Even at Full Sail, the side you don’t see on TV has fans on it. It’s the friends and family section, where VIPs sit. At NXT UK, though:

Everyone who cuts a promo, taunts, plays to the camera, or even gets introduced to the crowd for championship matches is doing so while looking directly at the stage and video screen, where there are no fans. Anyone who goes to these shows is stuck looking at the wrestlers’ backs.

It’s especially rough when you’ve got promos like these, where three guys have to stand with their backs to the entire audience while addressing the audience. It’s the live show equivalent of those backstage promos where wrestlers aren’t supposed to look at the camera or the interviewer, so they just kinda glance up and to the right the entire time. Total absence of connection and humanity. I hope the next venue they go to at least throws some chairs on the stage.

Another LOL Worst: The 6-Foot-5 Giant

Welcome to the CHIKARA-sized NXT UK roster, where 6-foot-5 Eddie Dennis is booked as the super tall monster who “towers over” the competition. He gets to beat up Sid Scala in his debut this week, and for real looks like a guy they found in the indies in 1997. His shorts even almost look like trash bag pants, which would’ve brought the look together. But yeah, if you want to know how funny it is for a 6-foot-5 guy to be the show’s giant, he’s roughly the same height as Fandango. He’s an inch shorter than Goldust. It reminds me of those days in TNA when they were like, ABYSS IS OVER TWELVE FEET TALL.

It probably helps that Scala is baby-sized:

Ugh The Best: Dunne Vs. Burch

Everything I’ve typed so far is meaningless, though, because the point of this episode is the main event: Pete Dunne defending the United Kingdom Championship he’s held for over 500 days because that’s how taping schedules work sometimes (see also: Pentagon Dark’s half a Lucha Underground season championship reign of 622 days) against one of NXT Domestic’s two best scrappy bald tag team guys who hold numbers over their heads, Danny Burch.

This is just as good as you want it to be. This is what I want from the brand, and it delivers. I just want Pete Dunne bending people’s fingers and stomping on their faces. It’s such a good pairing for a number of reasons, from the age and experience difference — Burch is 11 years older — to their similar but contrasting styles, pairing Dunne’s need to inflict punishment with Burch’s ability to absorb it. There’s a moment in the match where Dunne thinks he’s got the upper hand and stops to pose, and before his pose animation is done, Burch is just up staring him in the eye. Then he pops him with a headbutt. They managed to do the “oh no, they didn’t sell long enough” video game problem in the middle of an actual wrestling match and make it work.

I don’t get many opportunities to write about Marty Scurll (aside from that one All In match, I guess), but Dunne/Burch managed to fix ANOTHER problem I have with some of these matches: the “finger popping” spots. Scurll will just pop people’s fingers for an entire match, doing a big chickenwing gesture with his arms to slap them against his sides, and if we’re to believe fingers are being broken or dislocated every time he did it, everyone in wrestling would be on the disabled list. I saw him break like four different hands in a PWG match once. I get why people pop for it, it’s just a bridge too far for me, which yes, is hilarious because I love ninja skeletons and teleporting occultists and all kinds of dumb shit in wrestling.

Anyway, Dunne spends a lot of the match bending Burch’s digits around, but it always seems like he’s trying to inflict momentary pain rather than “injure” him. It’s a test of strength and endurance, in a way. It’s like an arm bar, or a headlock. Burch is tough enough to fight through all of it, even if it nerfs his punching ability a little bit, as pointed out by NIgel McGuinness. When Dunne can’t put Burch away with his biggest moves or even the Bitter End, he sort of goes into “panic” mode, smothers Burch with his thighs and pops those fingers to the side. Burch INSTANTLY taps out, because for fucking real, if someone breaks your fingers during a wrestling match you’re going to stop wrestling. Unless you’re Kawada and it’s mid-90s All Japan or something.

I loved this, because it showed that Burch is absolutely on Dunne’s level as an in-ring performer, but is maybe too good of a dude right now to go to the lengths Dunne goes to to be champion. Dunne didn’t “cheat,” he just pulled a “that’s my purse, I don’t know you” kind of move to retain. Super great.

WWE Network
how many new episodes this week?

Best: Dakota Goes South

Episode six (episode two of this week … we’re just burning right through these) starts with Toni Storm vs. Dakota Kai and one of my favorite things in all of wrestling: a joshi German suplex.

A big fuckin’ German is great, with guys jumping backwards and flying through the air and landing on their heads or their necks or whatever, and a good bridging German can be one of the most beautiful things you’ll see in a ring. But my favorite variation of the German is the one that happens in a lot of Japanese women’s matches, where the person taking the German doesn’t really weigh a lot, so they just go immediately up and over and crumple. It’s so hard to explain with words, but if you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about.

Here:

I’ve just always thought it looks better that way. It looks like what it might actually look like if he shoot German suplexed somebody.

I liked this. Storm tore down the house at Evolution and (spoilers be damned) is clearly being positioned as the focal point of the NXT UK women’s division, but I wish I knew more about her as a character. I could say that about Kai, as well. We know who they are and where they’re from and their basic personality, but it’s hard to describe their characters in a quick burst. What’s Toni Storm’s character? That she’s Australian and cool? And she doesn’t know how to properly apply eye black? Hopefully we’ll get to know these characters more as the shows progress, pun intended, and get to know some folks beyond “they do some submission and their strikes are hard.”

Best: If I Love Gibson, Shoes On

If there’s one person on the show I can’t give the “I don’t know your character” criticism to, it’s Zack Gibson. I love the shit out of Zack Gibson. Everything about him, from his facial expressions to his posture to his never-ending physical and emotional quest to make everyone in the building hate him, is pitch-perfect. Even if the crowds weren’t ready made to hate him, they’d be hating him enough to incessantly chant through all of his matches two matches in.

He’s up against “The Bhangra Bad Boy” Amir Jordan, whose style is that he does some high-flying and also his strikes are hard. He also dances a lot!

After the match, NXT UK goes for the biggest lay up of a feud they could: the most unlikable person on the show (Zack Gibson) getting into it with NXT and British wrestling’s most inoffensively lovable facial hair dad, Trent Seven. Trent Seven is like the Uncle Joey of NXT UK. Like, you know he can do a Bullwinkle impression. Gibson as this Tully Blanchard-ass guy who is really good at what he does but not as good as the guys who are REALLY good at it and can’t figure out why everyone hates him and nobody understands he’s actually the best and Seven as a guy who just shows up and shrugs his shoulders and everyone loves him is a perfect pairing.

Best: Hologram Jeggings

Also in episode two we get Jordan “Trained By Finn Bálor, You Guys All Like Finn Bálor Right, Hey Shut Up And Stop Mentioning Finn Bálor” Devlin taking on Great Britain’s fakest KUSHIDA, Kenny Williams. That’s a joke — all of these are jokes, tranquilo m8 — but you’ve got to laugh at the brother’s hologram jeggings, Vanilla Ice hair, and jacket with the big arrow pointing at his butthole.

This was quick, but a better look at what Devlin can do. That Sambo suplex directly into a standing moonsault was gorgeous. Kenny Williams is immediately my favorite NXT UK enhancement talent. He’s got those 1996 Jeff Hardy vibes. I wanna watch people beat him up all day.

Best: When Teams Defeat Randomly Assembled Guys

If you read a lot of my stuff on the site, you know one of my big “wrestling used to be THIS way and now it’s NOT and I’m FUSSY” talking points is when established teams lose matches to random groups of singles stars. I hate it so, so much. Two random dudes shouldn’t be able to team up and beat a great tag team at tag team wrestling, much like a great tag team wrestler shouldn’t be able to defeat a great singles wrestler one-on-one. Trios are especially this way.

This isn’t as big an example of that because Wolfman Jack and the Venti Brothers just became a team two weeks ago, but if you’re going to establish a group of guys as a cohesive threat going forward, you CAN’T have them lose to a bunch of guys who got together out of necessity to try to stop them. Thankfully, Wolfgang and the Wolf Gang get a big win over Mark Andrews (Mandrews), Flash Morgan Webster (Flebster), and Ashton Smith (Ash… mith? Shit). The faces put up a valiant effort and get in some great hope spots, but three big guys working together greater than three small guys teaming on a whim.

I still think the show suffers a little from being like NES Ice Hockey with the only two body types seeming to be “little skinny guy” and “bigger rounder guy,” but we’re still at the beginning. Really excited to see where this goes, whether it’s “the Wolf Gang adds Dave Mastiff to the team so all the thicc bois team up,” or “Mark Andrews starts riding Dave Mastiff to the ring like Battle Cat.”