BRM Reviews the 5/26/2022 NXT UK

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 5/26/2022 NXT UK

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 26th, '22, 19:15

MARK COFFEY vs. Saxon Huxley- 5/10
Mark Coffey cut a meh in-set promo telling us that he will be a singles wrestler until his brother comes back from the time off he is taking. He had Joe’s initials written on his wrist tape.
They ran into each other a bit. Coffey got the win over the goof.

IVY INLE VIDEO PACKAGE- meh
She’s getting a title shot against Meiko Satomura in two weeks. I don’t think anyone thinks there is a snowball’s chance in hell that she will win.

VON WAGNER VS. SAM GRADWELL VIDEO PACKAGE- good
They wrestle next week.

LASH LEGEND vs. MILLIE MCKENZIE- 4.5/10
Lash was… fine. She picked up the clean win, which greatly angered both myself and the crowd.
As Kevin Sullivan famously said about booking “some must die so that others may live,” and when you have a group of people who are only in the territory for a short amount of time who want to build up so that they can have meaningful matches with bigger names at the end of their runs, you’re going to have to beat some people who you might not otherwise want to beat. And I think fans understand that.
But when you have that kind of outsider situation, and the babyface who is loving is a beloved undercard worker who everyone knows is better than their push, having that person lose to someone who is less talented and also a lesser star but is clearly the pet project of someone in the outside group’s management just stings a little more. It certainly could have been worse (Millie is essentially in the role of Meiko’s stepping stone right now, and it’s clear that her limited push is due to the promotion not being ready to pull the trigger on her because of other things they have planned rather than them just not having faith in her), but that doesn’t mean that that little extra sting isn’t there.

EARLIER THIS WEEK MARK ANDREWS AND A CAMERAPERSON FIND KENNY WILLIAMS SO THAT THEY CAN HAVE AN ARGUMENT- bad
Despite being right next to Andrews, we could hear every word of Kenny Williams’ conversation with two people through a closed door and a good distance away. Williams is now doing the “string and pictures on a corkboard” thing, except without the corkboard. He has taken over a wall in a conference room. He’s trying to find out who Tiger Turan is. This is bad. Williams is a great heel, but they’re making him into a clown.
Andrews came over to him… well… I’m not actually sure why. Based on what they said, the reason that makes the most sense is that Andrews dragged a cameraperson with him so that he could instigate a minor confrontation with Williams and then have it played during the show to hype up their match in two weeks.
They remined us that Andrews is coming back from a shoulder injury.
I did kind of laugh at the end when an official told Williams that he had to take his little set-up down off the wall because “this can’t be here.”

DAMON KEMP vs. SHA SAMUELS (w/Noam Dar)- 4.25/10
Kemp looked good, although he didn’t do too much that wasn’t amateur stuff. He outwrestled Samuels until he got cut off. Samuels worked the arm a bit. Kemp made a comeback, but Dar interfered to help Samuels win.

TAG TITLE MATCH VIDEO PACKAGE- great
Everyone did their thing and laid out their case.

WOLFGANG OFFERS TO TEACH DAMON KEMP “HOW TO DO THINGS THE GLASGOW WAY- interesting
I like this little twist here. Kemp is the youngster who has come to the UK, excited to learn a new style, but now find himself in a situation where he will have to learn a different style than that in order to get by. Also, this gives Wolfgang something to do while Joe Coffey is out and Mark is chasing singles success, so that’s a good use of a guy who otherwise would almost certainly be getting lost in the shuffle for a while.

HERITAGE CUP RULES MATCH WITH DIE FAMILIE BARRED FROM RINGSIDE: Charlie Dempsey vs. A-Kid- 8/10
They did a great job telling the story of how evenly matched they were with a nice clean match… and then, with all of the momentum on A-Kid’s side as the final round was winding down, Dempsey pulled out his “in case of emergency break glass” contingency plan and got a tainted win, proving that he is truly no longer the respectable competitor A-Kid once knew.


This was a decent episode of NXT UK, although mostly on the strength of the main event. The NXT 2.0 wrestlers coming over feels like it has ground many things in the promotion to a halt in order to make room for matches that I have little faith will have long-term storyline effects on anyone. Of everything happening with them, only the Damon Kemp vs. Sha Samuels feud has felt like a consistent positive, and it’s possible that Kemp is actually here for a longer stay (he is being framed less like a visitor than the others).
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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