NXT UK is a brand that was in desperate need of excitement.\nThe weekly show is fine, but there is nothing too compelling. British Strong\nStyle (Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate and Trent Seven) are always fun, and the rise of\nJordan Devlin as a legitimate threat has been cool. Other than that, there is\nnot too much to draw casual fans in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the full card for Takeover: Blackpool at the Empress Ballroom\nwas announced, it looked good, but again, not too exciting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In execution, this was a brilliant show, full of exciting\nmoments, new talent, and, most importantly, great matches. Let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moustache Mountain\n(Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) vs The Grizzled Young Veterans (Zack Gibson\n& James Drake) \u2013 NXT UK Tag Team Championships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bate and Seven made their entrance, and the crowd was\nimmediately electric. The crowd was super hot for this, mainly due to their\nlove of Moustache Mountain, and their disdain for GYV, especially Gibson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only reason I say this match was not too exciting on\npaper is because these teams have faced off so many times in the past. In\nreality, their history added to their chemistry. Both teams were the best\nversions of themselves on this night, and it led to a brilliant match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moustache Mountain started off hot, fending off both Gibson\nand Drake and hitting a bunch of cool double-team moves. Eventually, Gibson and\nDrake cut off Seven, and beat the hell out of him for the longest time. Seven\nis so great at being a sympathetic babyface, and Bate always comes out like a\nhouse of fire when he tags in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest spot of the match for Bate was when he got both\nof his opponents on his shoulders and managed to spin around a few times before\nDrake fell off. The crowd chanted \u201cbig strong boy\u201d whenever Bate did anything\nexciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gibson and Drake make their comeback and hit a ton of big\nmoves in order to isolate Seven in the ring. They hit a diving doomsday device\non Bate to take him out of the action, then hit Seven with Ticket to Mayhem (a\ndouble-team face-buster) and won the titles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The crowd was appalled, letting\nGibson know how much they hated him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, a video plays of Jordan Devlin attacking Travis Banks as\nBanks entered the Empress Ballroom earlier in the day. Banks injured his knee\nin this exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both men make their entrances, and Banks immediately attacks\nDevlin before the match starts. However, Devlin overwhelms Banks and takes him\nout. Doctors help him to the back, and suddenly Devlin does not have an\nopponent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n NXT UK spokesman Sid Scala said that they figured something\nlike this would happen, so they came up with a backup plan. This led to\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finn Balor vs Jordan\nDevlin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lights go out, Balor\u2019s music plays, and the crowd erupts.\nBalor trained Devlin back when they were both much younger in Ireland. Devlin\ncalls himself the Irish ace, and now he must face the biggest name in wrestling\nto come from Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, to bring the mood down, this match was good, but really\nnothing special. Both men are excellent wrestlers, but their styles seemed to\nclash a bit. Devlin is a great technical wrestler, and Balor is more of a\nfast-paced, flashy action guy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Part of what took me out of this match was the fact that\nDevlin should not lose right now, but there was no way he would beat Balor.\nDevlin is one of the hottest stars on NXT UK and he should be protected, not\nlosing to a guy who will likely never appear on the brand again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If they do a story where Devlin\neventually overcomes his mentor and trainer, that\u2019s fine. For now, it seemed\nwrong for Devlin to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eddie Dennis vs Dave\nMastiff \u2013 No DQ match<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The crowd was drained after the first two matches, so Mastiff\nand Dennis unfortunately landed in the proverbial death spot. They needed to do\nsomething special to keep the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They managed to keep the crowd, and then some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the no-disqualification stipulation, they had the\nfreedom to do whatever crazy things they could think of, and it led to a completely\ndifferent match than anything else on the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mastiff managed athletic spots that a 320-pound man has no\nright attempting. Meanwhile, Dennis on several occasions managed to throw\naround that 320-pound man like he was any other wrestler. The crowd erupted for\nevery one of these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mastiff won after a cannonball senton\nthrough a table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kay Lee Ray and Jazzy Gabert appeared on camera, indicating\nthey have joined NXT UK. Two very welcome additions to the roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rhea Ripley \u00a9 vs Toni\nStorm \u2013 NXT UK Women\u2019s Championship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The story of this match is that Ripley is athletically\nsuperior, but Storm will never say die. For much of the match, Ripley\noverpowered her, but every once in a while, Storm would pull something out to\nmake a short comeback. Whenever they would exchange strikes, Ripley would look\nstronger, but Storm would keep fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crowd was split at first, but got more and more in favor\nof Storm as the match went on. Often they would chant \u201cToni, Toni Storm\u201d to the\ntune of \u201cDaddy Cool\u201d by Boney M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ripley was clearly over, but when she hit her finisher the\nRiptide (a pump-handle slam), the crowd did not buy it as a finish at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The finish came kind of abruptly\nwhen Storm reversed a second Riptide, and turned around and hit her finisher,\nStorm Zero (a Tiger Bomb), for the pin. The crowd went nuts because of how over\nStorm is, but it felt like they could have built to the finish better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pete Dunne \u00a9 vs Joe\nCoffey \u2013 WWE UK Championship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This was another tale of one wrestler being ridiculously\nmore over than the other, but this time the roles were reversed. Coffey is not a\nvery strong challenger, and the build to this match has been lukewarm at best.\nHowever, Dunne is very popular, so the crowd was hot for this almost by\ndefault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal of this was to make Coffey feel like a credible\nthreat. The crowd did not seem to buy the near-falls for Coffey, so in that\naspect, this match did not work. However, this match comprised of every aspect\nof an epic match. That is to say, it was long, every move felt like it meant\nsomething, and by the end everyone was satisfied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Towards the finish, they tried a top rope move and messed it\nup twice. The first time, Coffey crashed and burned on the floor. The second\ntime, Dunne went down with him. It was nasty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other than that, this was a stellar match worthy of any\nearly-year match-of-the-year lists. Dunne retained the title with a\nfinger-breaker submission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the match, Dunne celebrated in the ring with his belt,\nthe crowd was satisfied, and the show was ready to go off the air. Then, Dunne\u2019s\nmusic was cut off by Antonin Dvorak\u2019s \u201cNew World Symphony.\u201d The Empress\nBallroom went into shock and awe as WALTER made his entrance. He entered the\nring and stood face-to-face with Dunne, and even booted Coffey out of the ring\nfor good measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The show went off the air with what felt like a turning of\nthe page for NXT UK. There is new talent, new champions, and new feuds ready to\nset the wrestling world on fire in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What did you think of the show? Let us know in the comments\nbelow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NXT UK is a brand that was in desperate need of excitement. The weekly show is fine, but there is nothing too compelling. British Strong Style (Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":10947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,421],"tags":[472,648],"class_list":["post-10946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-nxtuk","tag-british-strong-style","tag-nxt-uk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2Qy","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/blackpooltakeover.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10950,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10946\/revisions\/10950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}