This week on NXT UK, we get the monthly huge episode after a couple of weeks of wheel-spinning. There's even a WALTER appearance!
Your history means shit
After almost a couple of months of not having a British Rounds match, the show reminds us that the NXT UK Heritage Cup Championship is still very much a thing with an A-Kid defense against Britwres veteran Sha Samuels.
While I have missed the Heritage Cup and the British Rounds matches that always come with it, it's an even better thing that the matches are saved as occasional spectacles. When they were doing the tournament, the weekly nature of it all kind of exposed all the different tricks they could do with the format; fortunately, there were only eight men in the tournament and it ended before it could overstay its welcome.
Anyway, some might notice that a title called the "UK Heritage Cup" is on someone who isn't even a British wrestler. While that may be blasphemous for some people, I think it's totally fine that a Spaniard is representing the British wrestling heritage over an actual mainstay of the local scene. A-Kid is great, an outstanding wrestler in a pool of remarkable talent. Other people's time will come.
If anything, I wish this match closed the show, but I get that they wanted to put Rampage Brown over as a big deal in the main event. I thought they could've achieved the same thing had they put him in the opening match—after all, we've got world championship matches opening pay-per-views even though they should be near the end, if not the end. That's just me, though, talking about a company that's already defied conventions.
NXT UK 2/18/21 Grade: A-
Bits and pieces
- As I said, they've pulled out a lot of tricks with the British Rounds format, but I don't think I've ever seen the first-round fall yet.
- If he can stay healthy and out of trouble, Ben Carter will be a huge superstar someday in the vein of Finn Balor (specifically the part where he gets to the main roster and becomes the first WWE Universal Champion). It's only the beginning for this guy.
- WALTER's back! Even though it's just a video package.
- They managed to fit in a lot of stuff in this week's episode. Well worth the extra 10 minutes.
*****
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.
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