WWE NXT UK Review - July 15, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

NXT United Kingdom Champion WALTER and Ilja Dragunov Exchanged Words During a Press Conference

I've absolutely loved the storytelling with Dragunov since his loss to WALTER back in October. He's slipped more and more into madness but has remain unbeaten this whole time because he couldn't cope with defeat. He acted very emotional here and couldn't even make eye contact with WALTER when WALTER was yelling at him and telling him he just wasn't on his level. Having actual press for this press conference was a perfect touch as well. I enjoyed the hell out of this as it got me even more hyped for WALTER vs. Dragunov II than I was previously. Unfortunately, it was announced later in the evening that it won't happen as advertised next week due to a "severe hand injury" suffered by WALTER. I don't know if that's legitimate or not, but honestly, it might be for the better so they can wait until fans return to do it. Why the hell wouldn't you do it in front of a hot crowd if given the chance?

Teoman and Rohan Raja def. Ashton Smith and Oliver Carter

Teoman and Raja have officially joined forces and are likely the latest addition to the NXT UK tag team division. That's probably the best role for them unless Teoman is going to challenge Tyler Bate for the NXT UK Heritage Cup Championship and lost. Teoman and Raja had quality chemistry as partners while Smith and Carter worked well together as always. This was a fun little match with the right result.

NXT UK Women's Champion Meiko Satomura def. Amale

Amale has been on NXT UK for a while, but it wasn't until recently that she started to be positioned as more of a threat. Granted, considering Satomura just won the NXT UK Women's Championship not too long ago, I knew there was virtually no chance it was changing hands here, but to her credit, Amale gave it a hell of an effort and was actually on offense for a majority of the match. She definitely gained something in defeat here and I'd like to see more from her coming out of this. Kudos to her on rising to the occasion when it mattered most.

NXT UK Heritage Cup Champion Tyler Bate def. Mark Coffey

This was another instance where I was pretty sure the champion wasn't losing the title (maybe to Wolfgang, but to Mark Coffey? No way), but I still enjoyed the action for what it was. As I've said before, these Heritage Cup matches are definitely getting to be a bit formulaic if they haven't already, but they're well-paced for the most part, hold my interest and the sense of urgency is usually there. Similar to Amale, Coffey looked credible in defeat. Trent Seven has been appearing with Bate a lot lately, which makes me think he'll be challenging him for the Heritage Cup one of these days.

Overall Show

The press conference was far and away the best thing on this show and is well worth checking out. I don't want to say it was for nothing just because it isn't happening next week, but it is disappointing we don't know when it's going to be rescheduled for depending on the severity of WALTER's injury (and also depending on if he's really hurt or not). Like I said, it could be a blessing in disguise if they wind up saving it for their first show back in front of fans, whenever that may be. The rest of this show was solid with two title matches that were entertaining and a good tag team match to boot. Top-notch stuff this week from NXT UK.

SEE MORE: NXT UK Reviews