Hamilton’s NXT UK Review 02.11.21

Quick Results
Meiko Satomura pinned Isla Dawn in 5:25 (**)
Piper Niven pinned Amale in 2:19 (*)
Mark Andrews & Flash Morgan Webster pinned Primate & Eddie Dennis in 16:02 (**½)

— If you’re on Twitter, give me a follow over on @IanWrestling – and check out the GoFundMe that’s still open for Larry’s family.

After some vehicular ambrosia, and a promo package for the Hunt vs. Webster/Andrews street fight, complete with footage of an attack on Wild Boar… which means that Boar’ll be replaced by Eddie Dennis tonight.

We’re back at the BT Sport Studios in London, with Andy Shepherd and Nigel McGuinness again voicing things. Andy’s even been allowed in the studio to hype things up!

Isla Dawn vs. Meiko Satomura
They hyped up Meiko Satomura as “one of the best in the world.” No arguments here. Isla’s coming in on the back of some spotty form, but has a win in the not-too-distant past. Meiko got the Goldberg entrance (with Xia Brookside and Piper Niven looking on from gorilla) and was announced as “the best in the world.” Which is it?!

Dawn tries to trade kicks with Satomura, but Meiko kicked back before a long lock-up ended with her taking Isla to the ropes. A side headlock’s shoved off, but Meiko regains it ahead of a takedown, rolling Isla from a front chancery before swinging for a kick. Back to the side headlock, we see Kay Lee Ray watching on from afar.

Meiko takes a snapmare, but fires back with kicks, including a spinning heel kick, before a struggle for a suplex led to Meiko kneeing Dawn in the gut. Isla hits the suplex anyway for a two-count, then a kick in the ropes before a running Meteora led to a near-fall. Isla heads up top, but Meiko caught her and brought her down with a superplex, before a kick gets another near-fall.

A Saito suplex gets a near-fall for Isla, before Meiko’s kicks and uppercuts put her back in, before a DDT by the ropes planted the Scotswoman. A cartwheel knee drop to the back of the head’s next, before the Scorpio Rising step-up axe kick finally put away Isla. This… wasn’t what I was expecting, nor what I would have done. Going 50-50 on your debut? When you’re the final boss? Sure this performance could elevate Isla a little, but I’ve no faith that that’ll be used going forward. **

Satomura and Kay Lee Ray stare at each other afterwards… surely they’re going to build to that, right?

“Earlier this week,” Rampage Brown and Joe Coffey are in a conference room. A not-at-all superimposed appearance from Johnny Saint tells us he’ll book them two for next week.

Vignette time for Dani Luna, who’s shown working out as she talks about her sudden rise to WWE. I guess she’s in line for a push… we then get a second vignette, this one for Aoife Valkyrie. There’s a lot of women they’re pushing for the one match a week they usually give that division, eh?

“During the break,” Meiko Satomura tells us she’s ready for Kay Lee Ray.

Supernova Sessions
“Feelings aren’t facts,” is a Noam-ism as he gets his assistant to fire his therapist. We cut to the chase as Dar introduces his “lifelong best man” Sha Samuels, and have a chat on the sofa.

Sha quickly gets up to have a moan about the roster being there on the back of his hard work. He brings up the Ed Harvey stuff, as Dar tries to lighten the mood with a story: but a story about Blackpool is quickly ix-nayed. Instead, Dar grants Sha a wish… but that brings in the Assistant to the General Manager, who’s mad that others are trying to make matches.

Sha knocks the hired help as Dar suggests that Sha “is heritage,” and therefore should get a Heritage Cup match with A-Kid. For a change, it doesn’t instantly lead to a match for later in the night, as they “take it into consideration,” before Sha’s attempt at a story was cut off. Sha’s charisma absolutely leaps off the page in segments like this.

Nina Samuels gets a promo, replying to Xia Brookside’s ask for a rematch. Except there’ll be a stipulation: if Xia loses she’ll become Nina’s personal assistant for a month and become her bag carrier. Sounds like dynamite!

ANOTHER video. This time it’s Trent Seven in the gym lifting weights. He’s still trying to shed weight as he’s looking to go for the Cruiserweight title.Trent says he knows he needs to push himself and the rewards will follow. I’m sad there’s no sweatsuit…

Amale vs. Piper Niven
This was Amale’s first outing here in almost four months…

Niven’s nowhere near the title picture it seems, and gets slapped by Amale to start. Piper slaps back, then hits some Polish hammers and a hiptoss, before a diving splash gets a two-count. We’re 40 seconds in as Joseph Conners wanders out to be a nuisance, with the distraction allowing Amale back in, sweeping the leg ahead of a running kick in the corner.

Amale drags Piper out for a two-count, but Niven’s back with a headbutt to knock amale into the corner. From there, she lands a cannonball, before a Piper Driver gets the win. SPLAT. *

Niven stares down Conners in the aisle. Looks like we’re going back to Piper vs. Jinny.

“Earlier this week” there’s a media conference as Pretty Deadly dressed up like… vaguely pilgrims to sign their contract for a NXT UK tag title match in two weeks.

We’ve a promo video for Ben Carter – he’s in action next week… as we also get Sha vs. A-Kid for the Heritage Cup confirmed… in addition to Joe Coffey vs. Rampage Brown.

Street Fight: Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews vs. Eddie Dennis & Primate
Dennis subbed for Wild Boar after the attack at the top of the show… but we’re taken backstage as apparently Eddie and Primate have attacked the former tag team champions during their entrance. There’s the almost New Jack-like atmosphere of this beatdown going on as Mark Andrews’ music was playing.

They make it to the ringside area, where Webster wants to start… he sidesteps a charge from Primate, who sails outside before hitting an Eton Rifle (Destino) on Dennis for a two-count. Webster heads up top, but fends off the Hunt pair with relative ease.

A leaping knee drops Primate, so Eddie takes off his belt and whips Webster with it. Primate slams Webster on the floor as Eddie continued his capital punishment, just like teachers used to back in the day. Not him, of course…

Primate chucks Webster into the no-crowd, heading towards Noam Dar’s chat show set (with the chair proving to be extraordinarily handy for a photographer). Out of nowhere, Mark Andrews appears on top of a (masked) scissor lift and moonsaults onto the pile from a good 15-20 feet.

With the numbers even, the brawl continues around the studio, with Primate clubbing away on Andrews while Webster almost got lawndarted into the ring post. Webster shoves Eddie into the post instead, then dove off the apron with a cannonball while Primate chucked Andrews back into the ringside area.

Time for plunder as Eddie pulls a chair from under the ring, while Primate gets one too… Andrews and Webster get some too as we get chair jousting that’s perhaps a little too slickly choreographed, before Eddie jabs a chair in Andrews’ knee. We keep going as Eddie cracks a Kendo stick on Webster’s back, before an enziguiri from Andrews offered brief hope, only for Eddie to kick the knee out.

Andrews hits back with a Stundog Millionaire, but he’s caught on the top rope as Primate targeted the bad knee with a Kendo stick shot. They keep the focus on the knee, driving Andrews’ knee into a chair before a calf slicer yielded no results. Time to go back to the chair then, as Eddie looks to Pillman-ize Andrews, but the mini soliloquy gives Webster time to make the save, getting golf claps as he began to run wild with clotheslines. A springboard dropkick takes Dennis off the apron, while Andrews’ knee held up for long enough for him to hit a knee-assisted sunset bomb on Primate to the floor.

Eddie’s back, but he can’t crawl to either of the Kendo sticks in time… which means Webster and Andrews get them and dish out payback. Andrews breaks one of the sticks over Eddie’s back, then goes for a table – much like the one he’d apparently been put through before the match – as I have flashbacks to their Wembley Arena match. Please break.

Eddie’s placed onto the table… but Primate’s back up. Andrews knocks him off the apron, but misses a plancha and gets a German suplex on the floor, while Eddie rolls off the table. Webster manages to hit a Shadows Over Malice senton bomb to the doubled-over Dennis for a near-fall, before Primate chucked Webster into the corner with an Exploder.

Primate props the table in the corner as Eddie teed up Webster for a Severn Bridge through it… but Andrews pulls Webster to safety before Andrews springboarded into a Primate spear. Eddie gets back to his feet and grabs Webster for a Splash Mountain, but Webster countered with a ‘rana before Primate’s spear misses, with Andrews sidestepping as Primate crashes through the table. From there, Webster’s 630 splash and a shooting star press from Andrews gets the win. They tried, but these kind of street fights live and die by the atmosphere – and having golf claps playing against the violence on show kinda hurt… as did the just-too-polished weapon sequences. A definitive win, and you’d perhaps ponder, one that will put the Welsh lads towards the title scene in the near future? **½

6.6

The final score: review Average

The 411

NXT UK continues to turn the corner, but this was a mixed bag of a show. They’re really loading up the women’s division with characters, but really pulling the trigger on that is going to need them to regularly give them more than one segment a week - as a virtual queue of names being featured in some sense is being built up. As for the main event, if you’re a fan of the WWE style of street fights, you’ll love it, but it just didn’t do it for me.