This week on NXT UK, the show treads a little water until it gets to Meiko Satomura's debut next week. Really, it was ho-hum.
Jordan Devlin has run out of contenders
The main event was supposed to see NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin take somebody on in an open challenge for his title, but Assistant to the Regional Manager Dwight Schrute Sid Scala apparently could not convince anyone to take the shot backstage. (That's a shitty story to tell in kayfabe. You're telling me none of these cruiserweights were willing to take another free opportunity at a championship?) That leads to Dave Mastiff coming out—obviously not to challenge for the title, but to just kick Devlin's ass for his friend Trent Seven (who really seems to be pushing through with this weight loss angle).
While they made an effort to make it make sense, it's clear what this means for Devlin as a Cruiserweight Champion. They've run out of contenders on NXT UK—if you're not challenging for this title, you're likely challenging for the three other titles men can hold on the brand.
At this point, wouldn't you be better off flying Devlin to the US already to unify the championship against Santos Escobar? Like I've been saying, it's been done before: Pete Dunne flew, Alexander Wolfe flew, WALTER is likely flying next. You can't keep ignoring this problem forever. Fix it. And if you're going to move Devlin to facing heavyweights, have him be the Heritage Cup Champion instead.
This week's NXT UK is its usual solid self, wrestling-wise, but without good stories to sink my teeth into I can't really rate it highly.
NXT UK 2/4/21 Grade: B-
Bits and pieces
- Good to see that they're acknowledging Sha Samuels's tenure in the British wrestling scene, which is the logical progression from his attempted debut under a WWE slave name. I guess we're not going to get the deep-dive into the whole idea of a WWE identity and how wrestlers should be able to cast it off, so I suppose the act itself should do for now.
- No one is still bothering to explain the backstory of the Jinny/Joseph Conners relationship. Jinny is acting like she didn't lose a whole championship match a couple of weeks ago. Like all brands, NXT UK's storytelling is not all equal.
- The constant building of the Ilja Dragunov story is nice to have, but I just wasn't too into it today even though Dragunov/T-Bone was the kind of match I like. Sam Gradwell is a pretty effective heel, though.
- I'm down to watch Joe Coffey vs. Rampage Brown.
*****
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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