BRM Reviews the 8/5/2021 NXT UK

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING VIDEO PACKAGE- great hype for the main event

XIA BROOKSIDE vs. BLAIR DAVENPORT- 4.5/10
Davenport wins clean.

AFTER LAST WEEK’S SHOW, PRETTY DEADLY CONFRONT MOUSTACHE MOUNTAIN BACKSTAGE- good
They want to embarrass the fans’ favorites. Bate challenges them to a title match on a particular date, but Pretty Deadly say they’ll do it on their own time.

SID SCALE ANNOUNCES AN EIGHT-MAN #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FOR THE HERITAGE CUP- The field is Mark Andrews, Kenny Williams, Oliver Carter, Nathan Frazier, Noam Dar, Teoman, Sam Gradwell, and Wolfgang. Sounds good.

ISLA DAWN DOES WITCH THINGS IN A FOREST- whatever
Sorry, no naked dancing at midnight. Instead she dug up a box with a special seal on it and pulled out a watch. She listened to it, and we heard the tick-tocks. Also, there was footage of her attacking people. Then she put the watch away and reburied the box. More magical busllsh*t. Also, how are we seeing this? She taped this and put the video package together, I guess? To what end?

“FLASH” MORGAN WEBSTER SLAPS WOLFGANG IN THE FACE FOR NO GOOD REASON, THEN RUNS AWAY- bad
He said that the reason for this was that he admired Gallus worming their way into a title shot by slapping whoever in the face and getting them angry.
1) That’s not a likable thing to do, so Subculture doing it here doesn’t make them likable. Running away afterwards makes them even less likable.
2) Gallus aren’t the tag champs, so there is no high threshold Subculture needs to reach to earn a match against them, so why do this when you could just ask them for a match (or ask Sid Scala) and you’d probably get a yes?

DAVE MASTIFF & JACK STARZ vs. JOSH MORRELL & DANNY JONES- 5.5/10
Starz and Mastiff worked well together and got the win.

EARLIER TODAY, NINA SAMUELS IS UPSET THAT AMELE IS HOGGING BOTH THE MAKE-UP CHAIR AND A CMAERA CREW- excellent!
You can say that this is the sort of thing women’s wrestling should be moving away from, but I think it’s fine if you use the right people, and these two are definitely the right people. They’re both egotistical heels, and they are the only two people on the roster I can see having a fight over this. (MAYBE Jinny, too, but she wouldn’t engage in any of the high-pitched screaming that was going on here. She would calmly tell the other person to go away, or else, and would be sure she threw the first punch instead of the mutual shoving match we got here).

NOAM DAR VS. MARK ANDREWS VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

AOIFE VALKYRIE PROMO ON JINNY- good

STEVIE TURNER BOTHERS MEIKO SATOMURA WHILE SHE’S GIVING SOME YOUNG-UNS SOME POINTERS- Well… I guess this worked in that it made Turner unlikable, but it did absolutely nothing to make me think that Meiko won’t just obliterate her.

30-MINUTE IRONMAN MATCH: A-Kid vs. Jordan Devlin- 8/10
They worked on body parts. I’m not going to tell you it wasn’t awesome, but it was definitely one of those matches that I thought could have been a lot better if the selling was better, especially from A-Kid. A-Kid also joins the Sanada dumb-dumb club for giving up a perfectly good submission hold to try something else. It didn’t come back to bite him in the end because he got the win, but it’s still stupid.
I also didn’t like the finish. The “saved by the bell” bit works in a submission hold, but when you do it with a pinfall it feels a little too much like you’re trying to protect the loser… and when you try to protect the loser, you are taking something away from the winner’s win as well. I guess it works if they’re going to build to a longer Ironman match, but I don’t think that’s what will happen.
Again, this match was awesome and well worth your time to watch, but it also could have been a lot better, and that’s the sort of stuff that it’s easier to write about without just telling you all of the stuff they did, which I usually try to avoid doing.


This was a very good episode of NXT UK.