Last time in the last Best and Worst of NXT UK: Tyler Bate went full Frank Castle on WALTER and Imperium, and Kay Lee Ray beat up a goth girl in a tiny hat. 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 August 28, 2019.
Best: Dolph Lundgren from Rocky IV versus Brad Pitt from Snatch
Ilja Dragunov is a fascinating performer, but I’ve had a hard time really getting into him because NXT UK is trying to build him up in the background of a show with so many other more directly impactful stories going on, and frankly I’m an easily distracted person. That problem certainly continues with Ilja having the opening match on the Go Home Show for a TakeOver he won’t be at, against a guy who’s spent the last few months in a third-tier tag team.
But on the other hand, I love weirdos in wrestling. Ilja Dragunov seems about as weird as they come. On one level he’s doing a throwback Russian thing, but at the same time he’s an absolute cartoon character. He’s a monstrous villain so over the top that he becomes a cuddly babyface. He looks like he’s here to murder your boxing mentor, and fans in the audience are holding up loving fan art they drew of his smile.
And Tyson T-Bone is a pretty unusual guy. I’m hesitant to make fun of Tyson, not because he seems like he might beat me up (although if we were at the same party that might be a factor), but because he belongs to an ethnic group (English Travelers) that I can’t claim to really understand at all, and I don’t know how much of his character relates to that. What I do know is that he always seems like he just came over from the pub to give wrestling a quick try, and I’m into that working class brawler thing he’s got going on.
So I enjoyed watching Ilja and Tyson go at it, and I liked how Tyson got some heavy offense and accompanying nearfalls in the early going, both so he can look reasonably strong and so Ilja is motivated to go ever-deeper into red-eyed-monster mode, until he eventually wins with a senton off the top and a Torpedo Moscow. I feel like a push is coming for Dragunov, and I’m officially intrigued to see what shape it takes. Given the Euro-villain aspect to his character, I’d love to see him get recruited into Imperium and then turn on them from within, since he doesn’t seem nearly as into conformity and order as they are.
Worst: Women On Film
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a loud advocate of women’s wrestling. In fact, back in January I had the choice of picking up recaps of either this show or 205 Live, and the main reason I chose NXT UK is that they have a women’s division (and one with a lot of great talent for its size). So I’m just not really here for episodes that don’t feature women’s matches. It’s 2019, wrestling shows without women’s matches just don’t need to happen anymore, ever (outside of Japan, anyway).
All we get this episode is a video package setting up the Women’s Championship match at Cardiff, featuring a bunch of the same stuff we’ve already seen these past few weeks, and a tweet from Johnny Saint setting up the Rhea Ripley/Piper Niven rematch for next week’s show. Come on guys, you’ve got room for three men’s matches that have nothing to do with TakeOver, and you can’t make space for Jazzy Gabert to beat up Isla Dawn or something?
Worst: What What What Are You Doing?
I don’t know Oliver Carter, but he’s very handsome and seems promising. He’s also, not to put too fine a point on it, a black man on a brand that barely has any people of color at all (and Cardiff will be the second UK TakeOver with no POC on the main card). So why would you promote his debut last week, and then have him lose his first match to Joseph Conners? Seriously, Joseph Conners! The vampire looking guy who jobs on those occasions when he’s on the show at all, and occasionally makes you think “Oh it’s Saxton Huxley, no wait that’s just Joseph Conners.” Oliver Carter lost to that guy in his first match on the show, after an excited “debuting next week” bit on the previous episode. What are you doing, NXT UK? Here’s hoping they have plans for Carter that lead him to a better place soon, but this was a weird and discouraging choice.
Best: The Present Beware, The Future Beware, He’s Coming
In happier news, Cesaro has let the world know that he’s coming to NXT UK. Maybe he’ll end up in a match at TakeOver: Cardiff, like Finn Bálor did at Blackpool, or maybe he’ll just start a beef with somebody and then have a match with them on TV. Seeing him against WALTER would be amazing, or any member of British Strong Style. Ilja Dragunov, Bomber Dave Mastiff, Jordan Devlin… let Cesaro fight them all. Nothing would make me happier than the Swiss Superman sticking around for a while.
Best: And Then Some Wrestling
This is a very good (and pretty long) wrestling match, and I’d have more to say about it if this wasn’t the Go Home Show for Cardiff and it felt like this was going somewhere rather than just being the match that might have at some point been discussed for the TakeOver card and didn’t make the cut. Kenny Williams is good but a little low on personality, and Jordan Devlin is great and has great personality but not a whole lot to do lately. Devlin seems to lack worth opponents as a heel, and I kind of think he’d be more interesting as a babyface who’s also a dirtbag, like an Irish Pete Dunne. I don’t want to jinx anything, as we all worry about whether NXT Domestic will seem like NXT at all a month from now, but sometimes this show just feels too small and too short for the amount of talent they have. Someone is always getting the short end of the stick, and at the moment that’s Devlin.
Inevitable: Drinking Eight Pints And Getting In Fights
After a Go Home Show that didn’t have much to do with TakeOver aside from video packages, all three tag teams who will be fighting for the Belts on Saturday came out and had a quick little brawl as the show went off the air, because that’s how these things work. There’s not much to it, but it least now we know they really want to win, in case we didn’t before.
That’s all for this installment. Join me next week for a Best and Worst of this Saturday’s TakeOver: Cardiff, and then for next week’s episode featuring the Cardiff kickoff matches: Rhea Ripley versus Piper Niven and Jack Gallagher versus Kassius Ohno.
