WWE NXT UK Review - October 29, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Aoife Valkyrie def. Dani Luna

Valkyrie has been built up quite nicely since arriving in NXT UK's women's division, which feels like it's lacking at the moment with Rhea Ripley and Toni Storm moving on to NXT. She's been kept undefeated and that streak stayed intact here. Luna is talented in her own right and she had a good showing here, but this was all about Valkyrie. Hopefully she'll enter a real program soon so can get some direction.

Eddie Dennis and ​The Hunt Attacked Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster

Andrews and Webster have both been attacked at different points this year, so Eddie Dennis was attempting to turn them against each other by hinting that one of them could have done it. However, you had to know The Hunt were responsible given they were present for both backstage attacks and we finally got that reveal here. Pretty Deadly looked on confused as Dennis aligned with The Hunt, so they don't appear to be a part of this new faction. Dennis is the perfect person to lead a stable and having The Hunt as his henchmen is perfectly logical.

NXT Cruiserweight Champion Jordan Devlin def. Levi Muir (Non-Title)

Yes, Devlin is still technically the NXT Cruiserweight Champion, as Santos Escobar was only supposed to be the interim champ originally before they quietly removed "interim" from the title. A unification match would make sense at some point, but that might be a little tough with the current travel restrictions. This served as a solid reintroduction for him and his post-match promo was short, sweet and straight to the point. I'm excited to have him back on the brand as he was doing great work pre-pandemic.

NXT UK Champion WALTER def. Ilja Dragunov

It's been a while since we last got a truly epic NXT UK Championship match from WALTER and this was what I've been waiting for. Dragunov is so skilled that I knew he'd put up a hell of a fight, but he pushed WALTER beyond his limits more than almost anyone else ever has in NXT UK. Seriously, these guys beat the holy hell out of each other here and the storytelling and the selling were phenomenal. This went a while and yet I was never bored. This was everything I was hoping it would be and more. WALTER's reign of dominance continues and I have no idea who will ultimately be the one to take the title from him. The only thing missing was a rowdy crowd which made WALTER vs. Tyler Bate such a gem last year, but that's merely nitpicking because that's outside their control right now.

Overall Show

This edition of NXT UK was built entirely around the WWE United Kingdom Championship main event as it should have been and I loved how it was made to feel as special as possible. The undercard for this episode was decent, but WALTER vs. Dragunov was really what made this show worth watching. I've had my criticisms of the NXT UK product since its return last month, but that was as must-see as it gets. Devlin being back was an added bonus, making this a strong show on the whole.