WWE NXT UK Review - October 8, 2020

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Xia Brookside and Dani Luna def. Nina Samuels and Amale

Samuels has been teasing a new character in recent weeks, so instead of finishing this match with Amale, she walked out on her. An Amale vs. Samuels feud sounds like the cure for insomnia, so I hope it leads to a one-off match that Samuels wins and that's it. This was decent and I'm glad Brookside and Luna got a chance to showcase their skills. They have breakout babyface potential and specifically Brookside, who needed this win after suffering a loss last week to Jinny.

Saxon Huxley def. Jack Starz

The seeds were planted for this match two weeks ago when Saxon confronted Starz backstage following his loss to WALTER. The booking of Huxley has been bizarre so far. He's never done anything for me anyway, but I find it strange that he would take WALTER to the limit and then proceed to have a competitive match with Jack Starz, who has been NXT UK's designated jobber since the launch of the brand. In other words, this was fine but lasted way longer than it needed to.

A-Kid def. Flash Morgan Webster in a Heritage Cup First-Round Match

The style of these Heritage Cup matches is going to take some getting used to, but I found this to be better than Noam Dar vs. Alexander Wolfe last week, likely because it had a better dynamic with it being babyface vs. babyface and the action being more entertaining. Both of these guys are quite good and I was happy they had their time to shine here. The rounds are just hard to get into, but I understand them wanting to stay true to tradition and try something different. For that, I applaud their effort.

NXT UK Women's Champion Kay Lee Ray's "State of the Union" Address Turned Into an All-Out Brawl

If Ray holds onto the title for a few more months, she will surpass Asuka as the longest-reigning women's champion of the modern era in WWE. My guess is that she drops it before then, probably to Piper Niven, who appears to not be done with Ray based on what we saw in this segment. Ray cut a quality promo, but the brawl that followed was all over the place. I suppose that was the point, but it just wasn't very well executed and ended the evening on an underwhelming note.

Overall Show

The best thing on this entire episode wasn't anything that happened in the ring but rather the excellent video package that aired hyping up WALTER vs. Ilja Dragunov for the NXT UK Championship in three weeks. That was tremendous stuff. Unfortunately, NXT UK is still in rebuilding mode at the moment, so these shows aren't the most exciting. The tag team and women's divisions are a work in progress, while the Heritage Cup is going to take time to find its stride I feel. All in all, this was a solid albeit unspectacular edition of NXT UK.