Last time in the last Best and Worst of NXT UK: Tegan Nox challenged Kay Lee Ray for the Women’s Championship, Jazzy and Jinny attacked Piper Niven, and Alexander Wolfe established himself as the Nasty Boy of Imperium. If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT UK, click right here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter if you want.
And now, the Best and Worst of NXT UK from October 10, 2019.
Best: Uglying The Pretty
A weird thing about The Hunt is that while one of them is a Wild Boar, who is definitely hunted (that’s how King Robert died, remember?), the other is Simian, an ape, not known for hunting, being hunted, or indeed living in the UK. It’s not a bad name for two animal guys, though, I get it. It’s fine. Simian and Wild Boar are both fun weirdos, but all too often they’re used basically as enhancement talent. They’re never protagonists, perhaps because it’s hard to find an audience to be sympathize with a pig and monkey, they’re usually just thrown at more important teams.
So I was surprised to see them going up an even less important team this week, the always glamorous Pretty Deadly. These two teams make natural enemies of course, because if wrestling has taught us anything it’s that ugly people hate beautiful people and vice versa. I hope Pretty Deadly eventually get to move up the ladder as well, because their particular brand of femme-without-seeming homophobic prissy egotism is a lot of fun to watch.
This time though, they get taken out by the Hunt with their dual flying headbutt, which be the worst idea for a tag team move that I’ve ever seen. I don’t really understand headbutts to begin with, because by definition you’re not hitting your opponent’s head any harder than you’re hitting yours, but for two guys to jump from adjacent corners to hit your head (and probably each other’s) with their own head just looks like concussion town to me. But I guess that’s the Hunt. They’re brutal and unconcerned with their own brain health or whatever.
After the match Imperium comes out and talks about how gross the Hunt is. I don’t think they actually poop in the ring, but Marcel Barthel seems very convinced that they do, and he’s mad about it. He just stands their and insults the two guys who are meant to be wild animals (or ani-malts, as Barthel says it) until they inevitably attack, and then hatchet man Alexander Wolfe shows up to introduce The Numbers Game and down the Hunt goes.
Seems weird to me that Imperium is more concerned with beating up ani-malts than in competing for the Tag Team Championship, but I guess they’ve got to keep themselves busy while Gallus is targeting the Tag Titles and WALTER’s having a wild time on Wednesday nights on USA.
Worst: The Mushy Middle
Jordan Devlin fights Jack Starz, because I guess he’s got to fight somebody, but Starz is such a joke of a jobber at this point that it feels beneath Devlin, and as soon as you see the matchup you know how it’s going to go. That’s made worse, not better, by how much offense Starz gets in here, which reads more like an insult to Jordan than an elevation of Jack.
After his inevitable win, Jordan Devlin takes a mic and proclaims himself the best wrestler in NXT UK. I could have sworn there was a press conference a few weeks ago about how that’s Noam Dar, but whatever. Bomber Dave Mastiff comes out and scares Jordan off by telling him they could fight right now. I always think that’s a weird thing for a babyface to a heel who just had a competitive match, even if it was against Jack Starz, but I’m sure they’ll fight soon enough.
After Jordan leaves, Bomber Dave has a match with Kenny Williams for some reason. I suppose this is a face-versus-face matchup, in theory, but Williams just seems sort of vague and absent here. It’s not a great showing from him, which means it’s not great for Dave either. It’s just filling space in the middle of the card.
Best: The Only Way Is Essex
Xia Brookside is filming an Insta Story or whatever in a while hallway, when Nina Samuels interrupts just to be mean. So there’s a match! Both of these women (but especially Nina) could use a little elevation at the moment, so let’s hope it’s a good one.
Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews come out and play to the crowd, something they’re pretty good at, but oh no Gallus is here! So that’s another match! And it’ll be for the belts!
Noam Dar and Trent Seven still hate each other, and in fact Dar is carrying around Trent’s towel, which he seems to have drawn dirty cartoons all over. As he’s being interviewed backstage, Seven shows up and seems like he’s going to start something, but he backs down at Sid Scala’s insistence, only for Noam to sucker punch him! Look at the way Scala’s eyes bug out of his head when that happens! It’s great. So this is another match, between two guys who just had a good match, so I’m up for that. Maybe it’ll be a Towel-On-A-Pole Match.
Best: Sense And Shenanigans
Since Jazzy Gabert has been Jinny’s muscle since the moment she arrived on the NXT UK roster, we haven’t seen much of her as a solo competitor. This main event, where she faces Piper Niven, feels like a first taste of that. Niven and Gabert are both big strong intimidating women, so they make great natural rivals. And of course Jinny is at ringside, wearing something something halfway between a dress and a jumpsuit, and she gives Jazzy worthwhile guidance like pointing out that you don’t always have to be locked in combat with your opponent — sometimes you can slide of the ring and stand around for slightly less than a ten count while they get frustrated.
Of course the problem with Jazzy facing Piper right now, with no belt involved, is that you don’t want either of them taking a clean loss to the other. The easy, boring way to solve that problem would be for Jinny to help Jazzy cheat, but that would certainly do Jazzy more favors. What’s a lot more interesting is for Piper’s former blood rival Rhea Ripley to show up and attack Jazzy behind the ref’s back, enabling Piper to get the pin without seeming like she’s cheating on purpose.
Is Rhea Ripley turning face? Does she just really hate Gabby? Does she just think Piper is cute (admittedly, Piper is cute)? We don’t know what’s going on here or exactly where it leads, and that’s an ideal situation in pro wrestling.
That’s all for this installment. Join me next week when Gallus challenges Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster for the NXT UK Tag Team Championship.
