WWE NXT UK Review - June 23, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Ashton Smith and Oliver Carter Relinquished the NXT UK Tag Team Championship

I thought Smith and Carter may have been cutting out for a promo before defending their NXT UK Tag Team Championship against Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen in the main event (which was advertised a week ago), so I surprised when Smith revealed he suffered an injury when they won the titles and had to give them up as a result. That's a real bummer because you could tell how much the title win meant to Smith based on all the backstage interviews he's done for WWE in the last few weeks, so hopefully they can become champions again when he returns to action. Sid Scala then emerged to announce that new champs would be determined in a Fatal 4-Way tag team match later in the night.

Isla Dawn def. Myla Grace

I apologize for sounding like a broken record, but Dawn does absolutely nothing for me and her current gimmick sucks. On the bright side, this didn't focus on her gimmick at all and instead served as a standard squash win to get her back on track. The thing is, Dawn's been around in NXT UK for so long and has gotten so many title shots that it's impossible to care about her and I don't think she'd be any better off in NXT, either.

Sarray def. Nina Samuels

Of all the NXT 2.0 talent that have popped up in NXT UK in recent months, Sarray is actually a great fit for the brand. She's been greatly underutilized in NXT over the last year and putting her in NXT UK might be the best thing for her at this point, especially if we get a match between her and Meiko Satomura at some point. This was a solid showcase for Sarray as Samuels always plays her role of stepping stone well.

Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen def. Die Familie (Teoman and Rohan Raja), "Bomber" Dave Mastiff & Jack Starz, and Mark Andrews & Wild Boar in a Fatal 4-Way Elimination Tag Team Match to Win the NXT Tag Team Championship

We've had enough tag team tournaments in NXT UK, so I don't mind that they wasted no time in crowning new champions on the same show an announcement was made about the titles being vacated. The division isn't too deep, so this was the best they could do. And no, I don't think putting the belts on Briggs and Jensen of all people was the correct choice. In fact, they felt like the weakest team to take the titles. The match was decent but didn't feel special despite being a championship main event.

Overall Show

The NXT UK Tag Team Championship changing hands was certainly newsworthy (at least by this show's standards), but I'm not a fan of the result whatsoever. Does this mean they're going to pull double duty on both brands for the foreseeable future? Are they even going to be acknowledged as the champions on NXT 2.0? The rest of this show was fine with Sarray's arrival being a highlight. The Moustache Mountain saga continues to be the only thing I look forward to about these shows nowadays since Ilja Dragunov has barely been around lately.

SEE MORE: NXT UK Reviews