WWE NXT UK Review - December 9, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Blair Davenport def. Emilia McKenzie

Davenport has been on such a roll in recent months that you had to know she wasn't losing here, but McKenzie did give her quite the fight. I maintain that McKenzie is talented and has upside but is boring from a character standpoint, she's simply been positioned as Meiko Satomura's hype woman up to this point. This a fairly basic bout, but at least it was well wrestled and had the right result as Davenport gets one step closer to contending for the NXT UK Women's Championship.

NXT United Kingdom Champion Ilja Dragunov and Jordan Devlin Brawled

Aside from a few feuds here and there with A-Kid and Joe Coffey, Devlin has largely felt directionless this year. He's definitely fallen far from where he was at the beginning of the year when he was NXT Cruiserweight Champion. He teased going back after the title, but he was never brought back to NXT. That said, I'm all for him being next in line for a title shot and this was a solid segment to set that up. I don't expect Devlin to win, but it should be a great match, if nothing else.

Sam Gradwell def. Sha Samuels

Gradwell recently fell short of beating Noam Dar for the NXT UK Heritage Cup Championship and confronted Samuels last week backstage about getting another shot. There was no babyface in this match, but it was still a quality contest and I enjoyed the heel antics from both men. As I've said before, Gradwell has really grown on me over the last year and I'm happy he was able to pick up a rare win here.

Moustache Mountain def. Pretty Deadly to Win the NXT UK Tag Team Championship

Pretty Deadly were a pair of enhancement talents prior to the pandemic and yet they've become a terrific team over the last year. They've had a ton of awesome matches as champions and if anyone was going to beat them for the belts, it was Moustache Mountain (who shockingly never held the tag gold in NXT UK previously). This was on par with their first encounter a few months ago and was given the time it deserved. This was a hell of a payoff to the three-year journey Moustache Mountain have been on and Pretty Deadly proved themselves with their performance and their reign on the whole.

Overall Show

This was one of the most well-rounded editions of NXT UK in a while. They started off the night with a nice women's match and finished with an excellent main event and a long-awaited title change. We also found out our next NXT United Kingdom Championship program and had an enjoyable affair between Gradwell and Samuels. On top of all that, there was a wonderful vignette that aired for Amale that made her out to be the biggest babyface in the women's division, so I hope she gets more opportunities coming out of that. This was a strong show and worth checking out.

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