Last time in the last Best and Worst of NXT UK: Tyler Bate returned to challenge WALTER to a title match at TakeOver Cardiff, and Jordan Devlin faced Alexander Wolfe in the main event. 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 7, 2019.
Worst: That Necklace Tattoo, I Can’t Get Over It
Try as I might, I just can’t really get into Ashton Smith, so as far as I’m concerned the main thing this match has going for it is Noam Dar being a huge asshole, which admittedly he’s very good at. He puts his fingers in his ears at the sound of Ashton’s entrance theme. He briefly fakes an eye injury. He generally acts like he’s above all of this, which let’s be honest, he kind of is. Smith seems like a hard worker, and I mean that sincerely, but seeming like a hard worker is the worst compliment you can give a wrestler. The good ones usually make it look easy.
After Noam puts Ashton away in five minutes or so, Radzi brings a mic to the ring to talk to Noam about what a great run he’s having in NXT UK. Noam brags about how good his contract is, and even claims that it guarantees him a place at TakeOver. We’ll see soon enough if that holds true.
Best: The Road To Cardiff
Backstage, Tyler Bate emerges from the well-labled Trainer Doctor room, and points out that Imperium will have him outnumbered at Cardiff, and that Trent Seven, who’s with the doctor now, isn’t even medically cleared to be there. Nevertheless, he says he’s ready for WALTER, and in a fair fight he’ll become the first ever Two-Time UK Champion. I’ll be honest, I sometimes forget that Tyler was the inaugural champ before Pete won it off him and kept it for roughly a decade. With spirited promos like this, though, I’m ready for him to regain it.
We also get a montage of lots of different roster members backstage, training hard and talking about how excited they are about TakeOver, how important TakeOvers are, and how sure they are of their places at this one. I’m pretty sure a lot of these people will not be on the TakeOver: Cardiff card, but it’s fine. I like how hard they’re selling the event.
Toni Storm and Kay Lee Ray get another video package of their own, about how long they’ve known each other and how close they used to be. It includes a bunch of old indie footage of them before they really figured out who they were, which is fun. As I’ve said before, I really enjoy the use of real-life history in this build. That said, I’m going to need to see them face to face in the present at least one more time in the next few weeks.
Best: Young Veterans Of Varying Grizzledness
The Grizzled Young Veterans come out to cut a promo in their suits, which I’m never going to object to. I’m usually not confused by any of the dialects on this show, but I could have sworn that Zack says that “a little bed” has told him that Gallus want a Tag Title match. By the time I figured out he probably meant a bird, Mark Coffey and Wolfgang had interrupted to confirm that the bird is, indeed, the word. Then Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews show up, which is an exciting twist. They want the Tag Titles too, even though their official Tag Team name still seems to be “Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster.”
Mark and Flash point out that Cardiff is their hometown, but in the grand tradition of heels being right, Zack points out that all of the rest of them had to earn matches like normal when NXT UK visited their hometowns. A few minutes later, Andrews and Webster meet with Johnny Saint backstage, and concede that they need to earn their shot with some wins. That quest starts next week.
Best: We’re On The Edge Of Greatness
I’m concerned that rationally this should be a worst, but I just like all four of these women a lot. I say that because it’s literally the six-woman tag match we had two weeks ago, minus the Women’s Championship feud. The look on Xia Brookside’s face when Piper Niven’s music hits says a lot about how thrilled she is to have a powerhouse on her side against Jinny and Jazzy Gabert.
Early in the match, Xia’s giving it her all and holding her own against Jinny. She even manages to hit Jazzy with a couple of chops when she’s in that corner. And once Piper tags in, Jinny doesn’t stand a chance. Jazzy comes in and the two big women really go at it, whetting our appetites for a big singles match that still looks to be a ways down the road. She even throws an agreeable Xia at Jazzy at one point, getting the smaller wrestler as close as she’s ever been to pinning the Alpha Female.
Unfortunately for Xia, Rhea Ripley shows up at ringside, leaving Piper with no choice but to brawl with her up the ramp and out of the arena. They’re probably still fighting as I write this, and the shows been over for two hours. Brookside is left in the ring with Jinny, and she does a really good job for quite a while of keeping her away from Jazzy’s corner, and gets some solid nearfalls. Still, it’s just a matter of time until Jazzy finds her way into the match, and that spells doom for the underdog.
It’s Fine: The Domain Of Thick Bearded Men
There was a lot I really liked about this main event. I love Bomber Dave Mastiff, with his Tolkien-dwarf charisma and perfectly round body. And I really loved the bit where Joe Coffey was holding tight to the ring post so Dave couldn’t do moves to him, and then Dave German suplexed him so hard that Joe pulled the cover off of the middle turnbuckle in one swift motion. It didn’t even look like Joe had done that on purpose, but being the heel, of course his goal immediately became driving Dave’s body parts into that exposed turnbuckle, starting with his butt (or “lower back” as commentary called it). All of that was great.
I just get annoyed with main event matches that don’t end. Joe had an ear injury, and Dave was just generally brutalized, so eventually the match devolved into an outside-the-ring brawl between two guys who no longer seemed particularly great at moving around, and that in turn led to a double count-out and a weirdly low-energy pull-apart brawl. There was some good bellowing, at least. I enjoy a good bellow.
That’s all for this installment. Join me next week, when Flash Morgan Webster proves himself against Mark Coffey, and Kassius Ohno faces Ilya Dragunov.
