Last time in the last Best and Worst of NXT UK: Tegan Nox returned to the ring, Sid Scala and Kassius Ohno set up a British Rounds Match, and the Grizzled Young Veterans failed to recapture the Tag Titles in their rematch against Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster. 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 September 18, 2019.
Best: Dreams Of Large Women
Debbie Keitel is a very pretty Irish woman who dresses like an underwater superhero, and from the moment she enters, you know she’s there to get squashed by Rhea Ripley. Well, she’s there for Rhea to practice her swaggery BDE vibe on, and then to get squashed. I get the impression Rhea’s pretty different in real life from the “Mosh Pit Kid” she plays on TV, but I also know that she knows what people think when they see how she looks, so when she says “Come on beautiful, let’s go!” as she pulls Keitel out of the corner, she definitely understands how that reads, and it works for her.
Speaking of swagger, the other thing that definitely works for Rhea is that pin where she’s rolling her opponent up with her legs while also flexing a muscle and sticking her tongue out. This is exactly the level of ego that I want to see Rhea working at all the time. This is both what makes you love Rhea, and what makes you want to see her get her ass kicked by somebody bigger than her. Which leads us into the post-match segment.
Ripley cuts a promo about getting her championship back, and you think sure, Rhea versus Kay Lee Ray will be awesome, but as formidable as she is for her size does Kay Lee really stand a chance against Rhea? Then music hits, but it’s not KLR’s music.
Jinny comes out talking really good trash about how Rhea’s just a relic from the ’90s (despite being born when they were more than half over), and you think okay, this is good too, but Jinny’s even skinnier than KLR, and Rhea’s beat her before. But Jinny, you remember, has a friend.
Jazzy Gabert gets up on the apron and just cold chokes Rhea, but Rhea breaks out and kicks her in the neck. And yeah, Rhea Ripley versus the Alpha Female is going to be amazing. Every burly female heel in wrestling spends so much time picking on tiny girls that we almost never get to see two big strapping muscle queens go after each other in a hard-hitting hoss fight. I’m here for it. Obviously.
Best: A Good Day For Weirdos
It’s no surprise that Travis Banks beat Tyson T-Bone. Travis is one of those midcarders that we’re meant to believe matters, and Tyson’s one of those bottom-of-the-carders who’s there to do whatever job needs doing (or at least that’s been the case thus far). The surprise is that Banks’ win in the match is a fluke, a barely-achieved roll-up. Because most of this match? Is Tyson T-Bone, barenuckle fighter that he is, just wailing on Travis Banks.
I have a soft spot for T-Bone, as I’ve probably mentioned before. He just has so much personality, and that rare mix of being an outlandish character while making you believe that he really is that guy. So I was excited to see him getting so much offense in here, and then a little disappointed when Banks won anyway. But they made T-Bone look really strong in this match, and I hope that’s leading somewhere.
I’m a lot less into Joseph Conners, the guy who manages to make looking like a creepy vampire into not much of a character, and I wasn’t that excited about him fighting Kenny Williams. But after the T-Bone/Banks match, I was once again intrigued to see the expected jobber getting a bunch of offense in. And whereas Tyson just punches guys really heard, Conners’ offense is pretty weird and interesting, like when he drops Kenny on his face, and then rolls over him and does a necksnap as he goes.
Even better, this match fully commits to the surprise, and Joseph Conners gets the win. This is one of the first times since I started watching NXT UK that I started to feel like the jobbers might not be jobbers forever, and that makes things a lot more exciting. Now if Shax shows up and just beats the hell out of Xia Brookside next week, that will really be shocking.
Backstage Adventures
Wolfgang and Mark Coffey want a Tag Title match, since they didn’t get pinned in the Triple Threat at Cardiff, which is reasonable, but they make this point by getting all up in Radzi’s face and being very menacing. Don’t be like that to Radzi! Radzi’s great! Definitely keep calling each other “Wolfy” and “Marcus,” though. That’s adorable.
Meanwhile, Noam Dar is following Trent Seven around with a megaphone shouting insults at him, and that rules. This segment takes place in the parking garage, but you get the impression that he’s been doing it all day. He’s stuff like “Trent Seven is a dafty,” and Trent’s just like “Please go away,” but then he says, “RIP BSS” (that’s Rest In Peace British Strong Style, of course), and Trent is ready to murder him. Fortunately there’s some guys around to stop it, so it’ll be a match instead.
Kay Lee Ray shows up this week just to say that Tegan Nox is “just a home town girl with two broken knees” and she’ll face her for the title anytime. It turns out that time is in two weeks, and now we have something to look forward to. Pushing Tegan into a title match immediately upon her debut is a strong choice, but they clearly want to make her a top babyface on this brand, and a competitive loss (at least I’m assuming that’s how it will go) for the title will do a lot for her in that regard.
Best: Brit Rounds Like A Record Baby
Okay, so Sid Scala challenged Kassius Ohno to a British Rounds Match, because Ohno says he’s better at British-style wrestling than anyone else, and Sid Scala is very very British. What’s a British Rounds Match, you ask? It’s apparently a real thing that wrestlers used to do over there, and they helpfully put the rules up on the screen like in WarGames, so here you go:
Six rounds seems like a lot, but when they’re only three minutes, with a 30-second pause in between each one, that means the match can’t go longer than 20.5 minutes (math!). Plus the bell every three minutes really breaks up the match and allows for some unique storytelling. After two rounds of back and forth, Ohno gets the first fall in the 3rd round with a rolling elbow to the jaw. Then they have to separate, as they do after every round, and go to their corners, where some Young Boys are waiting with bottled water, a towel, and a bucket. One of the great moments is when the rest ends after that fall and Ohno immediately moves menacingly towards Scala, who’s still in his corner. It might be the scariest thing I’ve ever seen Kassius Ohno do, and that’s a plus.
As the match wears on, the smaller and younger Scala begins to get something like an upper hand as Ohno gets tired. He finally gets some real offense in, but it only takes one good hit from Kassius (but not with a closed fist, because in British Rounds wrestling they actually pay attention to the fact that that’s illegal) to send Sid flying. Still, as Round 6 ends, Scala finally manages to get Ohno’s shoulders on that mat, but just as the ref is about to count the three that would make the match a draw, the final round ends and Kassius Ohno wins.
That’s drama! I don’t necessarily need to see these same two guys have another British Rounds Match, but now that I understand what it is, I’m definitely up for more of them in general. Bomber Dave Mastiff would be great at one of these! I really love that they’re celebrating what makes British wrestling different, and I hope that they keep it up.
That’s all for this installment. Join me next week when Trent Seven faces Noam Dar in a “For the love of god, shut up” match.
