NXT UK 56

August 14, 2019 – Plymouth, Devon

Flash Morgan Webster def. Mark Coffey
Webster more or less earned himself and Mark Andrews a spot in the Takeover tag title match with his win here. The finish was kind of ridiculous, with Andrews and Wolfgang getting involved so that bigger boi Coffey could be protected while losing to a roll up. The match was decent, but nothing to get excited about and I think Webster could have stood to look stronger. I guess if they look weak at Takeover Andrews can always fall back on his rock band. **¼ 

Toni Storm is stoked about her title defense in Cardiff. Then she gets all solemn when thinking about Kay Lee Ray. I have no idea what she was going for with that weird performance. Later, Jordan Devlin’s backstage interview is interrupted by another pull-apart brawl between Rhea Ripley and Piper Niven. Poor Devlin. 

Travis Banks def. Kenny Williams
Noam Dar sat in on commentary for this match, which I believe is the first time a wrestler has done that on an episode of NXTUKTV, and also proves that commentary on this show is done live (the shows in England sometimes seemed to have commentary taped after the fact). They kept this match short and simple; Banks mostly dominated aside from a fun little comeback from Williams. Banks won with the Kiwi Krusher, leading to the implication that it’ll be Dar vs. Banks in Cardiff. I wonder if Devlin might find his way into this storyline too. **¾ 

Nina Samuels def. Isla Dawn
These two had a couple of stinkers back in the early days of this show. Dawn won both of those so I guess this was booked to even the scales a bit, though thankfully this match was much more watchable than their first two outings. It wasn’t great, but it was competitive and the crowd cared much more about it than they did about Dawn’s early squashes. **

Sid Scala & Johnny Saint have made my dreams come true by booking Joe Coffey vs. Dave Mastiff at Takeover in a Last Man Standing Match. I’m very much there for this. Then we get a look at WALTER’s training camp in Germany. That Ring Kampf shirt is kind of risque by WWE standards. The video is filmed like a horror movie and it’s mostly him beating up his students while making them roleplay as Tyler Bate. He wants Bate to meet him face-to-face next week. Also, WALTER’s backup will face the Hunt in a tag team match. 

Kassius Ohno def. Ilja Dragunov
The crowd was really feeling this, which helped balance my general disinterest in most things Ohno. The match had a ton of drama, and both guys looked like killers. Though I’m not sure what benefit there is in beating Dragunov so early, especially by an enhancement guy like Ohno and extra especially the first time he was really tested, but at least the way they got there made sense with Ohno taking apart Dragunov’s arm and Dragunov not being able to change up his game plan enough to win. Still, I think the way that the finish (Ohno dropped Dragunov arm-first on the turnbuckle and then hit the elbow to the back of the head) deflated the crowd has me thinking, at least as of now, that this was the wrong call. ***½ 

This show is on such a roll, with great main events in every single episode lately.