By Haydn Gleed, ProWrestling.net Staffer (@haydngleed)
NXT UK TV
Taped September 1, 2019 in Cardiff, Wales at Motorpoint Arena
Streamed October 3, 2019 on WWE Network
Did you realize that technically there is a Thursday night war? AEW is available on the ITV hub from 7pm in the UK and NXT UK is available from 8pm on the WWE network. Okay, it’s not quite the Wednesday night war but I don’t want the UK to feel like we are missing out… The bad music and video played and we are in Cardiff for the final time. Vic Joseph and Nigel McGuinness were the announcers for the evening…
1. Piper Niven defeated Isla Dawn.
Gleed’s Ramblings: A good battle between the two ladies of Glasgow. They have fought each other quite a number of times in ICW so that wasn’t a surprise. It was definitely an eye opening performance for Dawn in NXT UK. She has been somewhat lukewarm and a nice win to get her momentum back after the loss to Rhea Ripley for Piper. By this point it, was over three hours into the TV tapings after three hours of NXT UK Takeover the night before, so if you think the atmosphere is quiet, that’s pretty much the reason.
The main event was advertised as Kay Lee Ray against Tegan Nox…
Video was shown of Radzi interviewing Ilja Draganov “earlier today.” He said he wasn’t cleared to fight tonight unfortunately. Alexander Wolfe mocked Draganov and was talking so quietly it was impossible to hear him. It sounded like he said that he will find someone else to face tonight and said you need to think of your future.
Gleed’s Ramblings: I took from this that Imperium are trying to recruit the Russian. One small nitpick, the match against Cesaro was on August 31. Are we meant to believe that Ilja has been in the trainers room for four weeks?
Radzi interviewed Piper Niven backstage. Radzi asked where her head is at. Piper Niven started talking about how she’s thinking about the other ladies in the dressing room and the NXT UK Women’s championship. She was interrupted by Jinny, who said she’s said it before that she is the next NXT UK Women’s Champion. Jazzy Gabert attacked Piper from behind. This is intriguing, as it seems to tie Piper Niven and Rhea Ripley, who was confronted by Jinny and Jazzy a week ago, to be unlikely partners in facing the duo…
2. Alexander Wolfe defeated Saxon Huxley.
Gleed’s Ramblings: A nothing match that was pointless apart from giving some more heat for Alexander Wolfe and by default the Imperium faction. One of the many matches from these tapings that were just thrown out there and didn’t really have any reason or emotional attachment.
Ashton Smith said that these setbacks are starting to get to him but it makes him stronger. Zack Gibson and James Drake walked into the room and mocked Ashton Smith and asked why the hell are they are interviewing him with his win/loss record. Smith said that’s rich coming from them two who have lost their last couple of title matches. Gibson started talking about being locker room leaders but Smith cut them off and said you always say you are locker room leaders, but you have no followers. He said he’s going to the locker room now where he’ll sit and have fun with his friends whereas nobody likes the pair of them.
Gleed’s Ramblings: Ashton’s delivery was a bit wooden but I’m interested in where this going.
Mike Bird came out for a match against Jack Starz, but when Jack’s music played we could see him being dragged to the ring by Mark Coffey and Wolfgang…
Mark Coffey said as you can see young jack is seeing stars, so he won’t be competing tonight. Mark mocked Mike Bird for being the godfather of the Welsh wrestling scene. He said he is the man responsible for training Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews, the NXT Tag Team champions. They climbed into the ring and Mark said please Mike shake my hand. The crowd chanted no. As he went to shake it, Mark said on second thoughts, nah. He said do me a favour, pass this message onto your two boys. With that they attacked Mike Bird which prompted Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster to run to the ring, but they were closely followed by Joe Coffey. Gallus took down all three of the Welshman with Vic Joseph questioning if this was all a trap.
Johnny Saint “tweeted” that next week show will feature Jazzy Gabert against Piper Niven…
3. NXT UK Women’s Champion Kay Lee Ray defeated Tegan Nox in a non-title match.
Gleed’s Ramblings: At the time, I was very surprised that they burnt through this match so quickly, but it’s clear that they have bigger and better plans for Tegan and essentially had this as a warmup in front of her hometown crowd. Tegan tweeted soon after this match that she was heading back to the United States so these last few weeks have been all we will see her in NXT UK for now. They did give her an out that Kay Lee focusing on her knee, so she didn’t get defined down and the announcers talked about ring rust and psychological effects of the injury. On the flip side, it made Ray a true heel in the arena and to the viewers at home with the viciousness she went after the knees.
Overall, this was a very missable episode of NXT UK. The main event was a lot of fun with Nox showing a portion of what she can do and Ray showing how much of a good heel she can be. I also enjoyed Mike Bird getting some spotlight, but that’s more because of my nationality. The Ashton Smith and Grizzled Young Veterans confrontation was also interesting, but again it nothing to write home about. Both times NXT UK have had a Takeover and a load of momentum coming out of the special, they’ve had weeks of ho-hum episodes following up. Lets hope that the TV tapings that are happening this weekend will get NXT UK back to pre-Takeover levels.
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