By Haydn Gleed, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@haydngleed)
NXT UK TV
Taped January 12, 2020 in Blackpool, England at Empress Ballroom
Streamed January 16, 2020 on WWE Network
A video package set to some dramatic music was shown with brief clips from NXT UK Takeover: Blackpool II followed by the still disgusting NXT UK opening music and video…
Tom Philips welcomed up to the matches that were taped before NXT UK Takeover. Tom went narrated still shots from NXT UK Takeover and Nigel McGuinness checked in and announced Dave Mastiff against Kassius Ohno tonight…
1. Joseph Conners defeated A-Kid. This would have been the first match seen on the night of Takeover, so not only did you have the crowd excited for the actual show but they started with a match involving A-Kid, and the crowd was hot.
Gleed’s Ramblings: Conners continues his march to god knows what with his “I’m Takeover worthy” gimmick that doesn’t seem to be catching the imagination of the crowd. A-Kid still impresses when in the ring, but he seems to be pegged as a high flyer who excites the crowd but it usually on the wrong side of the result. Shame. The match went about ten minutes and, to end on a positive, was well wrestled.
Trent Seven was shown backstage after his match Eddie Dennis. He was being tended too when Dennis showed up yelling, “I beat you” with Seven trying to get to him with the referees holding him back… Imperium were advertised as speaking out next week regarding the attack by The Undisputed Era…
Mark Coffey and Wolfgang were interviewed backstage and were asked their thoughts on the insane match. Mark claimed that Joe would win the title and Gallus would show this is their kingdom. She asked whether it was sweeter due to the unpredictable nature of a ladder match. Wolfgang said that it was sweeter than milky buttons…
A video recap was shown of the going on’s between Jinny and Jazzy Gabert with Jazzy having her “Virgil moment” when she refused to bow to the commands of Jinny. Nigel announced Jazzy Gabert against Killer Kelly next week…
A video package was shown of the NXT Women’s Championship match with Phillips narrating… Toni Storm was asked for her reaction. She was told she was moments away from being champion but Kay Lee Ray took advantage. Toni said how are you supposed to feel when you are robbed of everything that means everything to you and you live for. She said she knows rules and rules are meant to be broken but not when it comes to her. When this happens it’s not good news for anybody. She was asked on her thoughts on facing Rhea Ripley at World’s Collide. She said this only makes things worse for Rhea as she was just robbed, so now she will rob Rhea…
A video package was then shown on the Walter vs. Joe Coffey main event. This included the involvement of Alexander Wolfe and Ilja Draganov and then the attack by Undisputed Era on Imperium. World’s Collide was then promoted…
Sid Scala and NXT UK general manager Johnny Saint were backstage with breaking news. Scala said the NXT Cruiserweight Championship would be defended in a four-way match with the two NXT UK competitors determined via two matches: Jordan Devlin vs. Ligero, and Travis Banks vs. The Brian Kendrick. Johnny Saint pointed a lot at the camera and said that the matches would be on NXT UK next week.
Gleed’s Ramblings: They have promoted the whole show for next week and it looks damn good.
2. Dave Mastiff defeated Kassius Ohno. A slow match from these two, which is fine. It was built based on Mastiff taking offence to Ohno claiming he’s the best British wrestler on the planet. The show ended with Dave Mastiff celebrating in the ring…
Gleed’s Ramblings: I’m not sure where Ohno goes from here as he seems to be on the losing end of most TV feuds he’s in at the moment. Mastiff will more than likely go on to have a TV feud with someone else, which at this point is the right position to put him in.
Once I knew this was going to be a recap show with two matches I was ready for an easy night of coverage, but the two matches had been set up on the shows leading up to Takeover, so it felt that there was a reason for them happening. Although they weren’t great matches, they were good enough. The star of the show though was the fallout from most of the matches being shown. It’s simple but effective but it’s better than what they did following Takeover Cardiff were it was six shows of totally random matches. The next set of tapings are being done over the weekend in York and I’m actually really excited to see next week’s show. There was also an effective job of building up NXT UK’s involvement in World’s Collide a week Saturday, so all in all it’s not a show that I would say go out of your way to see, but it’s also not a waste of 30 minutes.
sorry for the second comment but was there a show for NXT UK on January 9, 2020?