Last week on the Best and Worst of NXT UK: The first episode filmed at WrestleMania Axxess featured guest appearances by Kona Reeves and Kacy Catanzaro.
Click here to watch the show on WWE Network. 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 April 24, 2019.
Worst: Killing Time In The States
I get why WWE wants to tape some NXT UK episodes at WrestleMania Axxess. I miss the character of the very British buildings where they usually shoot, and I miss the UK crowds, but fine, you’re here in New York and you’ve got the whole roster there, why not? At least this week they managed a UK-centric main even, and I certainly don’t object to seeing Xia Li. Even the sequence of Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel walking around Axxess making fun of silly Americans and their silly notions about wrestling kind of works. On the other hand, including the promo where Toni Storm comes out to the ring just to say that she’s proud to represent NXT UK at WrestleMania Axxess in New York City is a weird choice, even if it does lead to a bit of a staredown with Kay Lee Ray.
Mostly, though, I just wish these episodes seemed more like they mattered. There’s a real sense of “things will start happening again once we get back home” in these last two episodes. They only match in two episodes that really impacts the brand is this week’s main event, and it’s not even an actual #1 Contenders Match, it’s just a match between two teams who seem like likely future contenders. Meanwhile the space around the ring in these episodes has the most TV studio look since World Championship Wrestling on TBS. How soon do we get to go home to the buildings with the fancy ornate walls, or at the very least, walls?
Best: Oh No He Did
I keep trying to tell all the Chris Hero fans who are sad he doesn’t get more to do in US NXT that they need to be watching this show, but I’m not sure anyone’s listening. It’s a real shame, because this is where he’s doing the best WWE work of his career. At the end of the day, Kassius Ohno is still pretty much here to put younger guys over, but it works better on this show, because he doesn’t just lose almost every match. For example, he got the win over Ligero here, but in so doing he put the British Luchador over as an underdog babyface worth paying attention to, possibly more than any of Ligero’s previous NXT UK opponents have done before.
Ligero got all sorts of offense in, and his nearfalls were exciting because there’s no guarantee that Ohno will lose. It felt like the masked man was accomplishing something, dealing with this big brutish American as best he can, even though Ohno ultimately proved too big and brutish for the smaller man to handle. I’ve been a little iffy on Ligero (mostly because I dislike the design of his mask, if we’re honest), but this match won me over a bit, and ironically I have to give Kassius Ohno a big chunk of the credit for that.
Best: Aggressive Elevation
Let’s be real for a minute: I really, really like Xia Li, and I have absolutely no faith that WWE will ever figure out what to do with her. She was in the Women’s Royal Rumble this year, and she’s doing spots on various brands like this one, but she’s not a contender in the NXT women’s division so far, and there’s not currently a lot of room for her there. Meanwhile the main roster can’t even figure out what to do with Japanese wrestlers, and that’s a country famous for producing great wrestlers. I want to be optimistic about Xia Li’s future, because in theory I think her ceiling should be high, but I’m not sure what WWE has to offer a talented, charismatic, and totally jacked Chinese woman in the long run.
In the short run she put on a strong showing against Kay Lee Ray here, but it was always Ray’s match. This came immediately after Toni Storm listed the great female talent in NXT UK and left her out, so KLR came out with even more of a chip on her shoulder than usual, and she was determined to take it out on Xia. I’m always here for the “tall heel offers hands for a lockup but holds them too high” spot, and Xia’s answer of aggressively leaping to grab Kay’s hand and then twisting it really hard was an excellent answer to it. Putting Ray up against a muscular opponent like Xia is a great way of emphasizing the wiry Scot’s skill for twisting her body around her opponent’s like a python, but that’s not to say she didn’t get some strikes in as well. Xia Li made a strong enough showing that KLR’s victory felt like an accomplishment, and that helps set up the title opportunity that’s probably coming her way before too long.
Best: Nice Boy Brawl
There’s nothing like a big face-versus-face match to bring out new aspects of people’s personalities, and there was definitely some of that in this matchup between Moustache Mountain and the team of Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster. All of these guys are buddies, but both teams really wanted that victory on the way to face the Grizzled Young Veterans for the NXT Tag Team Championship down the road. In fact, the storytelling of this match would have been even better if it was a #1 Contenders Match, but the champs are mixed up with Kenny Williams and Amir Jordan right now, so that wouldn’t really have worked. Still, it was easy to understand that this match had stakes, especially for the guys who’ve yet to win a belt in either NXT, and would love to prove that Trent Seven and Tyler Bate aren’t the inevitable future champs in this division.
Flash Morgan Webster was particularly aggressive here, breaking out knee strikes and moonsaults that really had the mustache boys thinking twice about their dapper friend. Mark Andrews got some serious offense in as well, but nothing he and Flash did could change the fact that Trent and Tyler are the Batman and Robin of NXT UK (except in this Elseworld Robin is more jacked than Batman), and Moustache Mountain can’t help but win against their friends. Still, you can’t watch this match without thinking that one day it will happen again, probably with belts on the line, and by then it’s bound to be a lot less friendly.
That’s all for this week. Join me next time when Jordan Devlin takes on Walter.
