NXT UK 81

January 30, 2020 – York, North Yorkshire

Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch def. Wild Boar & Primate
Burch & Lorcan hit the elevated DDT on Boar for the win at 7:28. This was predictably fun for a good bit of its run, only slightly tarnished by an awkward moment before Boar missed a frog splash to the floor on Burch. I wish the crowd had been more into this, but the Hunt hasn’t been pushed at all so I get why they weren’t. **½ 

Toni Storm says Kay Lee Ray is still in her head, and it has to end. Later, A-Kid congratulates Tyler Bate on his Takeover match against Devlin. He wants a match like that against Bate, and Bate is keen to give it to him. Also, Aoife Valkyrie is coming and she’s some kind of mountain warrior. That’s a pretty far cry from two weeks ago when I saw her doing comedy videos on Twitter. 

Eddie Dennis comes out to brag about being Trent Seven. Seven calls him boring and a cheater for exposing the turnbuckle in their Blackpool match. He wants a street fight rematch without turnbuckle pads. That’s a cool stipulation. Seven slugs Dennis to the floor. 

Isla Dawn def. Nina Samuels
Dawn won in 5:03 with a half nelson suplex. Surprisingly, Dawn hit got a few chants from the crowd. I don’t think I’ve heard that happen before. The match was solid enough, which I also didn’t expect from this pairing. Typically they’re both competent and able to be carried, but I didn’t think they’d put together something fun without a more established top gal in their with them. **

Ilja Dragunov is happy even in defeat that he busted Finn Balor’s nose at Worlds Collide, but he knows that Joe Coffey is waiting for him in the UK. Lorcan & Burch, now that they’ve beaten the Hunt, want a test against Gallus. 

Ridge Holland def. Tyson T-Bone
After a stiff few minutes of action, Holland won in 3:13 with the Northern Grit. You never expect anything from a T-Bone match, but if he stiff his opponents the way he stiffed Holland here, they could get entertaining bouts out of the guy. Holland still moves around like Brock Lesnar and I don’t hate it. **

Fabian Aichner, Marcel Barthel & Alexander Wolfe def. Flash Morgan Webster, Dave Mastiff & Mark Andrews
The commentators remind us that this is Mastiff’s second six-man tag against Imperium, previously failing to beat them when teamed with the Hunt. I dig the continuity. The babyface team was terrific here, with the former tag champs in total sync with their speed and flips, while Mastiff came into clean up with his strength. This match, which was taped before Worlds Collide, might have shown us why Wolfe was injured on that show in a karmic sense, as he dropped Webster on the top of his head with a German suplex. Tom Phillips almost crapped himself. With the commentators’ help, Imperium used this match to hammer home their individual strengths (Wolfe the hatchet man, Aichner the athlete, and Barthel the propaganda machine). WALTER tried to attack Mastiff but got leveled by the big man. Sadly, that was enough of a distraction for Aichner to catch Andrews with a brainbuster for the win at 11:25. This turned into a wild ride that had the crowd going absolutely insane. Love all these guys. ***¾