February 25, 2021 – Newham, London
Xia Brookside def. Nina Samuels
Samuels has to be Brookside’s assistant for a month as a result of the loss. There was nothing to this. Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing. Samuels tried to win by count out and failed. She tried to cheat and then failed. Brookside succeeded in rolling her up for the win at 5:45. At least this is something for Brookside to do, I guess. *
We get a delightfully shot training montage for Trent Seven, featuring his two cute puppers. We get Sam Gradwell goading Ilja Dragunov into their inevitable match. We get a video about a Turkish guy in Germany who had it tough as a kid. His name might be Fortsetzung Folgt, since that appears on screen and doesn’t appear to translate into anything while the rest of the message translates in Turkish to “to be continued.” Lucky Kid is a German wrestler originally from Turkey, so this must be him. We get Piper Niven and Jinny in a pull apart brawl after Niven smacks Joseph Conners. Niven recruits Jack Starz for a mixed tag match because he happens to be nearby. We get Tyler Bate vs. Dave Mastiff in two weeks and Bate on Supernova Sessions next week. We get Kenny Williams announcing that he’s healed, so he and Amir Jordan are rejoining the tag team division. So all those bits of the two of them in the background of other people’s promos was for nothing. Lame.
Tyler Bate def. Bailey Matthews
If Matthews had fifteen more pounds of fat on him he could pass for Billy Robinson’s son. He’ll have to settle for actually being William Regal’s son. They’re doing this thing I really like on NXT UK where the enhancement talent gets to actually show off their skills before doing the job. Sha Samuels got to do it in a brawl with Joe Coffey, Josh Morrell got to do it in an acrobatic match with Ben Carter, and Matthews got to do it a bit here in a very British style against Bate. But in the end, Bate dropped him with the Tyler Driver ‘97 for the win at 5:44. **½
Aoife Valkyrie def. Lana Austin
Austin reminds me of Noemie from Call My Agent. She doesn’t remind me of the other enhancement talent I mentioned, as she gets to show off very little here. Valkyrie on the other hand looks much more confident than in past NXT UK matches. Or rather, I should say she looks more comfortable, as the story of the match is that Valkyrie’s confidence is shaky for some reason and it leaves her vulnerable to a few roll ups. She gets her head back in the game and hits the Peripeteia for the win at 4:07. N/A
Sam Stoker & Lewis Howley def. Wolfgang & Mark Coffey {NXT UK Tag Team Championship Match}
Coffey seems to have done the opposite of Pete Dunne, Tyson T-Bone, and Seven during the pandemic. It happened to the best of us, bud. Well, not me. I lost thirty pounds during the pandemic. But I imagine it happened to a lot of people. This was a solid affair. It didn’t sell me on Pretty Deadly being capable of leading a compelling division nearly as much as their contenders match did. But it was solid and it’s always neat to see the heels cheating to win. Stoker hit Coffey with a swinging DDT on one of the belts and then Howley came in and they hit Coffey with Spilled Milk (heh) for the win and the titles at 15:05. Hopefully the Women’s Championship match next week goes the same way. ***