How does NXT UK build towards Travis Banks’ title shot?

After last week’s surprising Fatal Four Way, what does the landscape of NXT UK look like?

British Strong Style vs Imperium: Well, that wasn’t in the history books! To no great surprise, the Big Strong Boys vs Imperium was FABULOUS! Even though I haven’t been overly impressed with WALTER or his new friends, that match is definitely worth a rewatch. The big surprise was the appearance of Alexander Wolfe of SAniTy on the Imperium side, but I’m not going to pass judgement until I see how things work out.

NXT UK Women’s Division: I think I said last week that I really didn’t think Isla Dawn and Xia Brookside had a prayer against Jinny and Jazzy Gabert and I was right. They got TROUNCED by Jinny and her hired hand. The sad thing is, I don’t even care enough about Jinny to get mad that she basically sat on her ass and let Gabert do the hard work. I just rolled my eyes, and that’s not a good thing. Kudos to Brookside and Dawn for their end, because that was really good, but the rest of it was eh.

YES! We’re going to be getting Storm vs Ray! Thank you wrestling gods! I hated Storm calling the NXT Women’s Championship ‘Shiny Shiny’, it just struck me as annoying, but I’m THRILLED at the prospect of seeing her lock up with KLR, so let’s go!

Promos: There were a LOT of promos and vignettes this week, so I’m assuming they were at the end of that round of tapings, so let’s break these down.

I really liked Ligero’s story about being born with eye troubles and how that formed him as a person and just why he wears the mask, which I honestly wanted to know. That said, I’m not sure what the point of the promo was since Ligero has been featured fairly prominently on NXT UK since the start.

Kenny Williams’ interview was interesting. I liked that he wasn’t surprised by Dar’s behavior and isn’t really worried about it because that’s just how Dar is. We also learned that Williams has the fun task of dealing with Kassius Ohno next week, so that should be interesting.

I loved Travis Banks’ promo. It’s always nice to hear someone’s pride in their country and beginnings and seeing how proud Banks was to be the first Kiwi to wrestle in the Royal Albert in half a century really made me like him. I still don’t think he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell, but I’m really rooting for him anyway.

The Hunt vs Gallus NEXT. WEEK. Batten down the hatches!

Dragunov vs Joseph Conners: There’s an old saying ‘Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it’ and Joseph Conners learned that the hard way with Ilja Dragunov. The Righteous Killer wanted to face Dragunov and he got him, and it was ugly. I will give Conners MAD props for being able to hang with the Moskovskiy Bezumets (Moscow Madman) and putting on a heck of a match, but Dragunov comes by his reputation honestly, that Torpedo, or whatever it’s called looks nasty. I hope these two have another run-in someday.

Overall Comments: So, how was NXT UK? It was pretty good, even though it seemed a little heavy on promos, but again, that might be because they were likely at the end of that round of tapings. However, the matches were really good and we got some build for next week.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed British Strong Style vs Imperium. That was a really good match and we’ve got build for next week.

I’m so excited that we’re going to get Storm vs Ray down the road, those two are going to TEAR. IT. UP! I’m less enthusiastic about the Women’s Tag match, but we’ll see how it goes next week.

That’s it for Tiffany’s NXT UK Takes, stay tuned for NXT!