WWE NXT UK Review - July 21, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Isla Dawn def. Fallon Henley

Henley is the latest NXT 2.0 Superstar to journey over to NXT UK because of her boys Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen becoming NXT UK Tag Team Champions recently. She's competent in the ring and has more experience than some of the other women on that roster, so I would have much preferred to see her win here compared to Dawn. I've complained in the past about the NXT UK stars losing to the NXT 2.0 stars, but I would have been fine with it here because Dawn does nothing for me. This was a passable albeit boring bout.

Dave Mastiff def. Josh Morrell

Mastiff wasn't referred to as "Bomber" during his entrance, but it still says it on his entrance video, for whatever that's worth. He's been teaming with Jack Starz for a while now and they make for a good team, but it was refreshing to see Mastiff go back at it alone for a change here. This should have been booked as a standard squash, but Morrell scored a fair amount of offense coming off his win over Primate a few weeks ago. I don't think they're actually going to do anything with Morrell, though, as it was likely designed to tell the story that Primate is down on his luck.

Emilia McKenzie def. Nina Samuels

It was announced on this show that Meiko Satomura will soon be defending the NXT UK Women's Championship against Sarray, which has to bother McKenzie in storyline because she's been trying to prove herself to Satomura for over a year now. We'll see if this story involves her turning on her mentor, but I don't think it needs to. This was a decent match, but anything with Samuels immediately causes me to lose interest at this point. She's as bland as Dawn is and has been here forever.

Trent Seven def. Sam Gradwell

These two previously faced off a year ago on the show, but the roles being reversed made this even better. Gradwell has really grown on me since then and Seven is doing well as a heel. They told a simple story here and it made for a very good main event. It was well wrestled and Gradwell was made to look credible in defeat. Tyler Bate finally returned afterward and caused Seven to run off, so that collision might be coming in the near future.

Overall Show

Seven vs. Gradwell was far and away the most interesting thing on this show, and although I liked it, it's not as if it was a must-see main event by any means. The rest of the show merely existed, which can be said about a majority of the shows NXT UK has produced this year. The roster is stale and most storylines aren't very compelling. As dull as the brand has been lately, this was one of the weaker installments because there's not much I'd recommend you check out from it other than possibly Seven vs. Gradwell.

SEE MORE: NXT UK Reviews