NXT UK 141

March 25, 2021 – Newham, London

Now that they’ve announced two matches for Prelude, it feels to me like we’re just filling time until then. Maybe they’ll add a third match? Let’s hope so. 

Speaking of Prelude, the show starts with Noam Dar talking about his match against Tyler Bate on that show on the Supernova Sessions. Trent Seven is his guest. Seven acknowledges the pandemic in talking about the difficulties he and the country have been through recently. I wish they’d do more of that. Seven tries to ignore Dar’s barbs while doing that. Then, Dar starts ignoring Seven to complain about never getting a title shot in his five year WWE career. I mean that’s just not true at all. He had a great match for the UK title on this very show. He also had a shot at the UK tag titles. He and Seven start arguing about who has wasted more time in WWE when Sha Samuels comes out. Not to be outnumbered, Seven suggests that he and Samuels corner Tyler Bate and Dar at Prelude. 

They hype WALTER vs. Rampage Brown. They do not mention that WALTER will also defend his title the day before against Tommaso Ciampa. On the one hand, the promise of getting two defenses in two days of a title that is normally defended once a quarter is pretty neat. On the other, I hate that they don’t acknowledge the UK brand in the US and vice versa. 

Joseph Conners def. Jack Starz
Sid Scala banned Jinny and Piper Niven from ringside. Because Johnny Saint told him to, of course. This was pretty good considering that Conners tends to suck the life out of most matches. He had a little more zip in his step than usual. Starz is always good for a bit of energy. Conners hit a straight jacket neckbreaker for the win at 6:51. **¾ 

The tag champs announce that they’ll be defending their titles for the first time against Kenny Williams & Amir Jordan. We also learn that Sam Stoker dislikes Lewis Howley’s mom. That was funny, and I hope “sideplate checks” become a thing. Then, Niven tries to cheer up Starz. Kind of seems like they’re hinting at a romance between them. Later, Williams & Jordan are shown training for their title match. Nothing interesting comes up, not even their recent differences in philosophy. 

Primate & T-Bone def. Josh Morrell & Danny Jones
It turns out Wild Boar is out of the group entirely, as is T-Bone’s first name. Once again, Morrell shows off where he can even as he’s getting slaughtered. But this was primarily a squash for the neo-Hunt, or whatever they’re going to be called. Probably nothing, as WWE is weirdly averse to naming teams and stables. Eddie Dennis’s boys hit a running powerslam/diving headbutt combo for the win at 5:30. **½ 

Isla Dawn def. Aleah James
James is just a lot better than Dawn, so this was a bit of a drag. This was boring, feeling at least twice as long as it was. Dawn hit a half nelson suplex for the win at 4:18. I get that Dawn has been on this show from the beginning, but James is actually fun in the ring and Dawn is not. After the match, they show Dawn demonically possessed with spooky lighting and music. Kay Lee Ray walks up and says that if Dawn had been aggressive this whole time she probably could have had KLR’s title by now. Ugh, no thank you. *

With her final moments as Xia Brookside’s assistant, Nina Samuels is forced to clean the men’s bathroom. I get that it’s humiliating, but seeing as it’s not Brookside’s job to clean that bathroom in the first place why would this fall under her purview to order? What was the point of this angle? 

Ilja Dragunov def. Sam Gradwell {No Disqualification Match}
Dragunov went far out of his way to make Gradwell look dangerous here, bumping like crazy and getting welts and cuts all over his back. Every time Gradwell got in trouble he’d beg for forgiveness and then hit a cheap shot. It was kind of like Flair used to do, only without a crowd to boo him and egg Dragunov on those moments hurt the match’s momentum. There was a clever moment near the end where Gradwell stopped himself from chopping Dragunov so as to not remind him of WALTER and trigger him. But then a chop connects by accident and Dragunov goes to town on him. Dragunov hits a pumphandle suplex onto a pile of chairs and then elbows Gradwell unconscious at 14:48. A crowd might have made this a real banger, but even without it I’ll give them a ton of credit for the wild bumps. ***½