1. Travis Banks vs. Noam Dar
Ah jeez, why did they start with this? Noam Dar did some cool knee traps and seemed more confident / superstar-ISH than usual, but it was a match where commentary sold the absolute piss out of Travis Banks’ long recovery from injury and journey to a TakeOver and I can’t say the TV build-up or this match in particular effectively reflected any of that. A very NXT UK TV match, with fine execution on everything but zero energy. Not sure why you wouldn’t put the Triple Threat Tag here. **
2. Cesaro vs. Ilja Dragunov
Always good to see casual wrestling legend Cesaro treated like a superstar. WHAT A POP!!! And in between some quality big hits and give-and-take, they packed in a lot of cool moments: Cesaro just DUMPING Ilja on the floor, a 40-ROTATION GIANT SWING, Cesaro desperately trying to break out of the deadlift German, Cesaro hitting one of the greatest Go 2 Sleep’s of all time, and Dragunov’s wild Death Valley Driver into the corner. Good efficient second match stuff that didn’t overstay its’ welcome for a second. ***1/2
ADRIAN STREET AND MISS LINDA. IN THE CROWD. VERY COOL. The doc the WWE Network put up is well worth a watch (and it’s only 20 minutes!), as is Street vs. Bobby Fulton from the Hidden Gems section.
3. Triple Threat Match – NXT UK Tag Team Title: The Grizzled Young Veterans [c] vs. Mark Andrews & Flash Morgan Webster vs. Gallus (Wolfgang & Mark Coffey)
Nice to hear Mark Andrews get a big pop and see the crowd actually passionately waving their hands along with him once again. This match was a tough sell because, I mean – by golly, if you think the tag divisions on RAW, SmackDown, and NXT are weak – the one on NXT UK is treated exactly the same but with even less over acts. On TV, Andrews & Webster are happy-to-be-there dweebs while Gallus comes off as some kind of brilliant satire of a stable WWE doesn’t want to put anymore effort into. The Grizzled Young Veterans are a solid base for a tag division, but right now they’ve only got Moustache Mountain to play with.
The match was a listless buncha stuff with the occasional neat spot by Andrews and Webster, followed by an incredible finish with a bunch of great near falls, an Andrews SSP to the floor that was spack-tacular, and the hometown boys actually pulling off the win. It was a rough journey but a heck of an ending, and Andrews & Webster celebrating in the crowd was awesome. As far as something that gave the Grizzled Young Vets a new team to play with, it did the trick. Actually, now I’m wondering why Gallus was even here in the first place. Wait. Is that the joke? ***1/4
4. Last Man Standing: Bomber Dave Mastiff vs. Joe Coffey
What a crazy match, and by crazy I mean sometimes really cool and sometimes annoyingly ridiculous. The ring rope snapped a couple minutes in and I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not. I’d say it was, but Coffey tried to do a jump off the second rope almost immediately after and déjà vu hit as for the second UK TakeOver in a row he took a scary fall off the ropes. The dude took a ridiculous amount of bumps here, and I’m not sure if I felt more excited as a wrestling fan or worried for him as a human being. There was a back body drop on the floor, a German suplex on his head. It all looked like it hurt. They did good clubbing of each other here and there and they also used a cricket bat and snooker stick because UNITED KINGDOM. Good stunt at the end too. ***1/4
5. NXT UK Women’s Title: Toni Storm [c] vs. Kay Lee Ray
Literally just a “good” match. It hit all the beats of the most fine, formula, competent semi-main event NXT UK Women’s Title match. It delivered, though maybe more in a good TV main event kind of way. Kay Lee Ray was laying in all her strikes and the Gory Bomb into the ropes to setup the finish was awesome, but ultimately……eh. ***
6. WWE U.K. Title: WALTER [c] vs. Tyler Bate
I loved this nearly 45-minute wrestling match, and I know I did because I’ve got a lot to say about it. That’s how this works, right?
They set the tone right away: rowdy crowd atmosphere, Bate cautiously approaches and starts throwing low kicks, WALTER grabs a big tight headlock, Bate lifts out of the headlock and BODYSLAMS WALTER!
When you boil it down this is simple David vs. Goliath stuff but there was a lot going on here. It did a lot of what some of Bate’s best matches in WWE have done, and that’s deliver on the new school high impact fast-paced This is Awesome type of wrestling while also staying true to what makes old school wrestling great: stuff is teased and delivered on, everything from the holds to the urgency to win is sold dramatically, and at the end of the day everything is about absolute wonderful fake manliness with a little throwback BritWres thrown in there for fun.
The match was smart, the match was fun, the match was epic.
It was smart: Bate is a genius at selling, both his pain on defense and desperation on offense. I loved the spot where he got to the ropes off a waistlock, WALTER slams both his arms down to break it, but Bate escaped and threw a wild left hand to the side of WALTER’s head. Later on he tries to do the spot where he holds a bridge while a guy jumps onto him, but it’s fucking WALTER so of course he collapses. His collapse on a fireman’s carry early made the eventual Airplane Spin incredible too.
WALTER brings the pain as per usual but I also like when he’s on defense and he has to start swatting away at his opposition because he’s having trouble keeping up. He was also a great asshole – there were a lot of good countout teases here, all followed by WALTER jumping right on Bate when he got back in – IS THERE NO HONOR TO THIS MAN?
Lots of good subtle hold-fighting stuff too – Bate hooking his leg on the ropes to avoid a powerbomb on the apron, WALTER driving his knee into Bate’s head as he applied the Liontamer. This was a BATTLE, pitting craftiness opposite dickishness, determination opposite power.
It was fun: This 45 minutes was absolutely peppered with a bunch of insane, jaw-dropping spots. WALTER straight-up CAUGHT a Bate tope. He annihilated Bate with powerbombs on the floor. Like half an hour in Bate just gorgeously reversed a powerbomb into a sunset flip in a move that felt so physical and realistic but was also so pretty, like the toughest flower there ever was. WALTER collapsing on poor Bate’s back after taking the Bop and Bang punches was a laugh too. Plus Bate did a DEADLIFT GERMAN SUPLEX. On WALTER!!!
And eventually, it was epic: Bate going for the Tyler Driver and WALTER reversing it with a back body drop, only for Bate to bridge out and manage the Tyler Driver anyways was some transcendent shit, with an all-time great call from Nigel McGuinness in that he was legitimately marking out. Bate hits the corkscrew splash for a big near fall, then throws jabs until WALTER just ASSAULTS him and goes for a choke, only for Bate to DEADLIFT OUT OF IT, only for WALTER to bring him back down. WALTER gives Bate a Dragon suplex on the apron, hits the big splash that ended Dunne, and BATE KICKS OUT. WALTER hits his powerbomb finish, and BATE KICKS OUT. AT ONE!!! And finally WALTER hits a straight-up lariat of death, and that – this new move that he hasn’t done in NXT UK before – wins it.
A main event. *****
The British Strong Style Curtain Call at the end was adorable too.
A little too much “pretty good” wrestling here, but a five-star main event will bring a show up. 7/10
