This week on NXT UK, we get a pay-per-view caliber four-way tag team elimination match, which is big enough to not have any space for the women on the card. But hey, at least Meiko Satomura is officially coming to the brand!
The tag division is looking Pretty Deadly
As seems to be the case for the NXT brands, the tag team divisions are bursting so much at the seams that they had to officially ship off three-fourths of Imperium to the US (despite their spectre looming over the division during the restart) and stick four teams in one huge match.
It results in a more-than-solid four-way elimination match that takes up a good 20 minutes, with Pretty Deadly advancing to take on Gallus at a future event (and rehashing hints that they might be aligning with Eddie Dennis). My only gripe for this match is that for all the build they'd been getting over the past few months, the Hunt is the first team to go—but I suppose some have to win and some have to lose. It's not really a huge defeat when you've got six other men going after you.
I'm not too keen on Pretty Deadly as challengers as they seem quite bland, but then again, this new focus on them might be what they need to get some character development. I don't think they'll be the ones to dethrone Gallus, however, and I would've preferred someone with a better chance of winning as I think we could use new tag champs. It's not all bad, just think they could do a little more with the division.
NXT UK 1/28/21 Final Grade: B+
Bits and pieces
- Are we really getting a Trent Seven weight-loss angle? Also, why can't they just fly Jordan Devlin to the US already? They've already done it for Alexander Wolfe!
- I thought they had something promising with Sha Samuels choosing to cast off his slave name, but making him a heel kind of undermines the sort of stories they could tell. Now the whole idea of him refusing the WWE name is just something light, even though the commentators did get into it a bit. I wanted to see them explore the potential kayfabe ramifications of a wrestler doing that when a lot of people end up accepting new names. Sayang—a rare miss for NXT UK.
- I like Sam Gradwell's gimmick of "guy reacting to everything." It's straight out of @makeupaguy and it gets him matchups in a logical way (who wouldn't want to fight a guy who talks shit about you?).
- Glad they're really going all in on this Ilja Dragunov character development. There is a chance that it ends up being silly but I think it's got a lot of potential.
*****
Romeo Moran (@roiswar) is the Editor-in-Chief of Smark Henry and one of the three hosts of the Wrestling-Wrestling Podcast. He gets by in this hard knock life through working in advertising. Smark Henry was his and Stan Sy's original vision of a watering hole for local wrestling fans. He roots for the undersized guys who hit hard, and he likes taking your wrestling questions over on his Curiouscat account.
: A Pretty Deadly Four-Way){kind=link}