WWE NXT UK Review - August 21, 2019

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Imperium def. The Hunt

I don't think The Hunt have fully connected with the crowd yet, but they are a blast to watch in the ring, that's for sure. I love their intensity and they managed to win over the audience by the end. These two teams worked very well together and put on a fun tag team showcase. Despite a hell of an effort from The Hunt, Imperium's Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel secured the victory and maintained momentum.

Kay Lee Ray def. Shax

The match was exactly what it should have been with Ray largely dominating and putting Shax away in a matter of minutes. The focus was largely on the post-match angle with Ray talking trash and Storm coming out to confront her. Ray's promo was fantastic as I thought she did a terrific job of recalling their history and taking personal shots at Storm. Storm snapping and slapping Ray, as Nigel McGuinniess said, showed that Ray successfully got inside her head. This was a strong segment that effectively built up their feud heading into TakeOver: Cardiff.

Mark Andrews def. NXT UK Tag Team Champions James Drake

Flash Morgan Webster beat Mark Coffey on last week's episode, so Andrews' win over Drake here was designed to further establish that they belong in the NXT UK Tag Team Championship match at TakeOver. This was a pretty good bout with the heels generating nuclear heat as always and Andrews playing the underdog role nicely. They received a plenty of time and the final few minutes were great once the pace picked up.

Moustache Mountain Attacked WWE United Kingdom Champion WALTER

This segment was originally as a face-off between WALTER and Tyler Bate, but it never even got to that point with Trent Seven showing up instead, calling out WALTER and Bate ambushing WALTER from behind. They took out the rest of Imperium as well and ensured that no one could help out WALTER while Bate exacted a measure of revenge on him. Bate laying out WALTER with the Tyler Driver '97 was incredibly impressive and would have the perfect lead-in to TakeOver, except that the event isn't until next week. Nevertheless, this was awesome and the crowd ate it up.

Overall Show

There was plenty of hype for TakeOver: Cardiff, which made sense considering it's only 10 days away. Bate vs. WALTER, Storm vs. Ray and the tag team title picture received a ton of focus while Noam Dar vs. Travis Banks was also made official for the event. Jordan Devlin vs. Kenny Williams was announced for next week's episode, too. Everything was enjoyable and logical, making this an above-average episode in my book.