BRM Reviews the 3/26/2020 NXT UK (awesome)

[Big Red Machine]

ASHTON SMITH & OLIVER CARTER vs. IMPERIUM (Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner)- 6.75/10
This was a very good match for the time it got. Carter and Smith make for a great babyface team. Carter in particular was great as the babyface in peril, and the set up for the hot tag was quite good. The heels get a clean win, but with one fantastic little nearfall slipped in that really made the outcome feel like it was a little bit in doubt, and made Carter & Smith feel like they had actually gained something in this loss.

GALLUS PLAYS CARDS WITH A FOURTH GUY- TERRIBLE
This was the usual Gallus talking, which is just background noise to me that this point. It’s always the same crap in the same tones. It’s wallpaper. What made this even worse than usual, however, was the fact that some moron thought it was a good idea to HAVE THE CAMERA ROTATING AROUND THE TABLE FOR THE ENTIRE F*CKING PROMO! I felt like I had to puke half way through. I hereby sentence whoever came up with this idea to six months in that spinning chair that they use to train astronauts from Rocketman (the 1997 movie. I don’t think there were any astronauts in the Elton John biopic).

MORE BEARDED BRITISH MEN BACKSTAGE- This was Moustache Mountain. They agree to let the best man win in next week’s #1 contendership battle royale.

ALEXANDER WOLFE PROMO- Well… he’s bearded, but at least he’s not British. He says that he will win this match for the interests of Imperium to make sure that “the mat stays sacred.” Now I kind of want to see Wolfe win and he and WALTER have a nice clean wrestling match for the championship.

ASHTON SMITH & OLIVER CARTER INTERVIEW- Well… they’re bearded and one of them is British (I know Carter was born in Ghana but I don’t know where he actually lives), but they’re not white like all of the others, so I guess that’s another dimension of diversity. It wasn’t until they were interrupted by Pretty Deadly that we were exposed to the real minority on NXT UK which are men without beards (followed closely by people who don’t yell all the time). Carter lost his minority status by yelling at Pretty Deadly. Yeah, they were kind of douchy with their clapping and interrupting, but Carter was way too loud. I know this sounds like a silly thing to be nitpicking, but when so much of this show is angry bearded dudes yelling at each other, it’s nice to see something different every once in a while.

NINA SAMUELS vs. AOIFE VALKYRIE- 3.75/10
This was an excellent little four-minute babyface vs. heel match. The only thing I’d change is for Valkyrie to get rid of that stupid f*cking pose she does. Whichever idiot came up with that deserves to be flogged.


PIPER NIVEN INTERVIEW- good
I feel bad for not knowing the name of the new interviewer, but the only time I’ve heard his name mentioned was by Piper Niven right here, and her accent is thick enough that I’m not sure if what I heard is actually the correct name. Anyway, he asks her why she saved Dani Luna from Kay Lee Ray next week. Um… because it was the moral thing to do?
Anyway, Piper won’t let Kay Lee Ray destroy anyone else the way she did to her friend Toni Storm. She has gotten a match booked for next week where she will team up with Dani Luna against the team of Kay Lee Ray and Jinny.

“FLASH” MORGAN WEBSTER PROMO- great!
We were first shown a recap of the mysterious attack on Mark Andrews last week. Webster said that Andrews is still undergoing tests, but they’re hoping it’s not as bad as it currently looks. He vows to find out who did this to his buddy and make them pay for it. He says that Mark told him to put that out of his head for now and focus on next week’s #1 contendership battle royale first, so that’s what he’s going to do. Not only was this a great “aggrieved babyface” promo, but it was also the first time that I saw Webster and didn’t immediately want to punch him in the face, so that’s a big improvement there.

A-KID vs. NOAM DAR- 7/10
This was excellent for the time it got as well. I absolutely love this kind of style. Dar won after a low blow that the referee thought wasn’t one because of the angle. I want to see more of these two against each other. Dar was a dick to A-Kid after the match, then cut a great little heel promo claiming that he’ll win next week’s #1 contendership battle royale.

DAVE MASTIFF PROMO- fine
More build for the #1 contendership battle royale.

KASSIUS OHNO PROMO- fine
Even more build for the #1 contendership battle royale.

ILJA DRAGUNOV PROMO- meh
Even more build for the #1 contendership battle royale. This was one of those promos where Ilja still seems to be figuring out how to be Ilja in English.

NXT CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Jordan Devlin(c) vs. Travis Banks- 8.25/10
This was an awesome, exciting, and intense match. I’d be lying if I said that Devlin hitting a headbutt while falling down because he was stunned from a roundhouse kick to the back of the head wasn’t a bridge too far for me, but other than that this a great action-packed match that never went too fast to the point where it felt spotty. It would have been nice if they had followed up on the story of the injured elbow that they seemed to be telling early on, but they didn’t do enough with it (really they hardly did anything with it) where it would bother me that they just forgot about it. I guess Banks just had a different game plan in mind.
Devlin wound up using the ropes for illegal leverage to get the win, keeping this feud going. Considering both the state of 205 Live recently and the fact that it’s very possible they knew flights would be shut down when they taped this match, my guess is that this was done assuming they’d be able to tape at some point in the future before they would be able to get Devlin back to the US.

This was an awesome episode of NXT UK. The matches were all great for the time they got, they did a good job of building up next week’s #1 contendership battle royale, and gave us an awesome main event. What more could you ask for?