Dunno how good these rumblings are but seeing a lot of talk about a new platform of NxT based in the UK. Essentially another sub brand for WWE but based in the UK.
I'll get some links up on my break but that's pretty major news if so.
Thought?
Dunno how good these rumblings are but seeing a lot of talk about a new platform of NxT based in the UK. Essentially another sub brand for WWE but based in the UK.
I'll get some links up on my break but that's pretty major news if so.
Thought?
Sounds like the first night of events went relatively well and set up fun matches for the second night. It's probably going to be a very tough sell to get US Network subscribers to watch on a regular basis when it runs, but if it shows the same type of flow as the regular NXT in terms of stories and matches, it'll have a shot.
At this stage, it seems that the only way ICW, Progress etc will end up on the Network is as bonus matches on wrestler's retrospectives. Progress seems to have enough business acumen etc to survive, but there's a lot of UK promotions signing up for their own death warrant but getting so buddy-buddy with Trips and NXT.
I think the branding of it as NXT UK also gives Triple H and the others running the main NXT brand an avenue to help cultivate talent. We loved when Kidd or Cesaro went to NXT to freshen things up. That might not be as viable or likely anymore with the main roster talent, but it could be with the NXT talent. They've clearly got a ton of talent on the NXT roster and they have the least time to work with in terms of weekly programming, compared to the main roster. If someone isn't in a feud or creatively isn't set for a while, coordinate with the UK schedule and that talent can spruce things up for themselves and the UK brand.
Watching the Marquee matches and holy frick this crowd is annoying.
Well they were held at a music festival...
Are all the first round matches on the Network? I was struggling to find them the other day. Found the Tyson T-Bone match on the app and that was it.
The search function still sucks.
I'm hoping they put them up on Monday or Tuesday.Originally Posted by Murphy
I know the Albert Hall shows are going up on Monday and Tuesday as proper shows, these don't include the 1st round.
I trust everyone is aware that The Rosk and Mik are famous now?
I think they are on youtube.
They've always been famous, in my heart.
Poor Alf. He was right there next to me.
It'll be interesting to see if they go after British wrestlers specifically for the brand. Obviously not this year probably as a UK brand sells in the smallish buildings, but do they go after Sabre Jr, Scurll, Ospreay, Aldis, Barrett and Davey Boy Jr? Do they move McIntyre, Neville, Gallagher and Stone over? You'd imagine the eventual plan would be Takeover level events in arenas, can they pull that off with the current crop?
Ahahaha no way? That is outrageous. You reckon Glen pulled a favour with the cameraman to make that happen?
Here’s the card for tomorrow’s show, airing Tuesday at 3PM ET on WWE Network:
Pete Dunne (c) vs(UK TITLE)
(#1 CONTENDERSHIP)
Shayna Baszler (c) vs(NxT WOMEN’S TITLE)
Adam Cole (c) vs. Wolfgang (NA TITLE)
Moustache Mountain vs Undisputed Era (c) (NxT TAG TITLES)
Aleister & Ricochet vs. EC3 & Velveteen Dream
That was some fan on their mobile. Dunno if they recorded it I guess we shall see tomorrow.
Just started, Gibson/Jack was incredible.
Devlin really impressed me this time around, good stuff.
Ladies did some good stuff too for the time they had
The cutting out of crowd noise at points is making the atmosphere seem really weird. But I'm guessing it was for swearing and not manipulation of any sort.
Banks was bloody great when I saw him at PROGRESSxMCW and he was great again on this. Also really liked Flash Morgan Webster, keen to see more of him on 205.
UE vs BSS was as awesome as you'd expect. I reckon they'll hold the massive blow-off of that for War Games but I don't know who else they'd put in? Maybe War Raiders and someone?
To kill a bit of time between work stuff, I had a go at coming up with a hypothetical 6-man tag tournament using NXT/UK/205 dudes.
Quarter finals
Brian Kendrick/Jack Gallagher/Noam Dar vs British Strong Style
The Mighty/Buddy Murphy vs Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado/Kalisto
Undisputed Era vs Danny Burch/Oney Lorcan/Fabian Aichner
Heavy Machinery/Kassius Ohno vs War Raiders/Wolfgang
Semis
Undisputed Era vs The Mighty/Murphy
British Strong Style vs War Raiders/Wolfgang
Final
Undisputed Era vs War Raiders/Wolfgang (<-- winners)
was able to watch yesterday's show before today's went on. lots of fun. the tag title match that just ended was incredible.
Big fan of Travis Banks, just a scrappy dude
Yes, agreed, that feud still has legs so let's keep it going
Enjoyed night 1, particularly Zack/Gallagher and the 6-man. Bloody love those Brits.
There was something interesting about the production of these shows. It's like they shot it at a faster frame rate. Made for a different feel to the action.
I'd say it was a rather successful starting point for the brand.
Generally speaking, while I found the tourny matches solid enough, I felt like a lot of the guys were kind of bland and had similar styles so it was overall fairly forgettable. Flash Morgan Webster stood out because he had some actual character/look/unique moves while the others all seemed fairly generic/interchangeable. I felt similarly about the previous UK tourny outside of the British Strong Style boys who are all pretty terrific. All the various tag matches were very good, the one with the top NXT dudes was quite fun, and the Women's Title match was very good. The UK Championship main event was top notch.
They're shooting at a high shutter speed so that slowmo replays are buttery smooth.
Toni Storm did a tremendous job of selling in her championship match. Her promo before was pretty bland, but I thought she more than made up for it in the ring. More impressive than anything she did in the MYC.
The tag match with just the NXT guys actually felt a little flat for me, considering who was in the match.
I'd say that worked. I thought it was a nice touch.They're shooting at a high shutter speed so that slowmo replays are buttery smooth.
Coffeys
Now lets get Havoc/Haskins (W/Vicky) involved
Haven't watched the tourney yet, but who's that guy in the promos I seen with the UK mask on.
ElLigero
I wasn't thrilled with Toni Storm during the MYC. Maybe it was the tiny hat? Like, she was solid enough but she won me over quite a bit more here. Helps that she didn't have the tiny hat.
Got to say the 6 man and NXT title match were fucking great.
I liked night one a lot, I have still to watch most of night 2 but I am extremely confident that these uk shows are going to be brilliant, hoping to get to the liverpool taping.
Got tickets for liverpool
Oh yeah, that hat really irritated me too. But she grew on me a lot throughout that tourney and I quite love her now.
I've now seen the first hour of night 2. Loved the tag title match. The women went a little long in match 2 and it didn't hold my interest much. 4 way was ok.
But yes, I'm super convinced this NXT UK thing is going to be excellent. Tempted to try and get Cambridge tickets.
I think a few of us are off to Birmingham (possibly for both nights) if anyone is interested.
I'd be quite fast on the tickets seems a couple of the nights are low already.
Watched night one and making my way to night two. Zack Gibson is a fantastic heel. Looking forward to watching his match with Dunne, seems like they both like to work on the fingers.
This was me. I really didn't like her at first and thought the tiny hat was annoying. But like Murphy, by the end of the tourney, I fell in love and was disappointed she wasn't immediately signed. Was great to see her back here, and she looked excellent against Baszler. I actually miss her old entrance music and, ironically, miss the tiny hat.
I don't like her new music, as well.
For reference:
They should've signed Piper Niven. Not just my Scottish bias but an incredible worker. Is it because she's too big?
They already have Nia in the mix who doesn't possess the accustomed frame for women, so I can't imagine that's the case at its core. I believe an issue for Storm was contractual obligations, so it very could well be a case where Niven has the same instance. Maybe she doesn't want to go to WWE right now. Who really knows.
Possibly something more to it. Just seems strange they push Piper quite hard and she obviously impressed but they did not sign to her.
I'll defer this question to my more knowledgable Scottish compatriot @MikeHunt
I thought it was strange, too, since she's one of the ladies they showed in the crowd for the Final. She was hands-down my favorite of the tournament, and funnily enough, her match with Toni Storm was one of my highlights. I hope she gets the nod eventually(assuming she wants it), and I wouldn't be surprised if interest is renewed with the UK brand.
I hope so too.
Pretty sure she has a contract with World of Sport.
Their gain. WWE should've signed her, but perhaps the T & C's were better for her.
Bit more freedom to work elsewhere, she is doing pretty well in Japan. There was a documentary on the BBC about her recently which is really great.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...ht-like-a-girl
WOS has a decent wee roster apart from Lionheart who is a prick.
A fanny you might say?
I am disappointed to find that will only play in the UK...
EDIT: No worries, found it on youtube. Good stuff.
Last edited by mth; July 2nd, 2018 at 12:36 AM.
If she and David were together, and you had two pastries, there would be a pie per Niven.
Tickets booked for Sunday. Anyone else going?
Also one of our group hasn't seen any of the UK stuff before. What can I recommend to watch (ive already said the UK tourneys and the Dunne v bate moty)?
That would be about it I reckon. I imagine it's all going to start from scratch (or at least the tournament).
Yeah I couldn't really think of much else (except getting demand progress for a bit and getting familiar with some of the wrestlers).
Looking at the wrestlers WOS has signed up this could be a great battle if they and NXT pull decent crowds and reactions.
I'm pushing hard for this to be a success.
The only thing that worries me about WOS is how it's presented etc as the pilot suggested to me a lot of tweaking and modernising required.
Frist night in Plymouth over with and it was a fun show.
but...
Three and a half hour show with no brakes.
Only one tag match on the show, the rest were all single matches, no stipulation or title matches.
Crowed started to die with the lack of star power, not helped by video promos hyping title matches for the next night and 70% of matches lasting 5 minutes.
The sound system in the Pavilions is crap, could not make out promos or ring announcements and I was ringside!
Before the final match HHH and HBK came out to pop the crowed, after another video promo hyping a another match for tomorrow. I think that finally lost the crowed as the boos started to rain down, so out came the GAME! Who announced an announcement for tomorrow... but got the crowed back into good sprits anyway.
NXT UK will start on the WWE Network this Wednesday, 8pm UK time.
The announcement apparently is...
Didn’t anybody watch episode one?
Andrews and Coffey was decent, Toni Storm is great and the main event was excellent.
Yip, thought it was a great wee show.
Dar/Dunne was excellent and a neat finish. Never offer a pinky to Dunne.
The Bitter End-kneebar counter sequence was ace.
Good show. Will definitely add this to my regular watch. It'll be like NXT without a fuckhead crowd.
I can see Dunne having a Sammartino-esque run with this belt.
Enjoyed the first episode. Will be cool to see the characters given legs and storylines get under way. I like that we'll have all three titles on there, and it'll be interesting to see who holds them first (I know the womens, but it's not aired yet, obv). I'm also wondering, will NXT UK work in the same way as NXT does, with main players eventually moving up the main roster, or will most remain in the UK and build the brand into its own thing?
Intriguing and enjoyable time. Definitely part of my weekly wrestling now.
Until they finally convince ZSJ or Ospreay to join a few years down the line.
Dunne carries himself as a star, so he deserves the run for sure.
Give it a couple of weeks.
I wouldn't be surprised if Gibson beats him in Liverpool.
I don’t know a lot about Gibson, but he is the next closest to Dunne as of now. He is a great heel.
I just need to get familiar with some talent. Kind of has a ROH vibe where everyone that isn't a name looks and moves like the people who are names. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I thought one of the Mustache Mountain guys were out there and it wasn't them lol. Everyone looks like they just got done working at the mill and hopped over to the run down former Lucha Underground temple set to do the same matches, same moves as Pete Dunne and Trent Seven.
Fairly interesting tidbit: according to Meltzer, the first episode of NXT UK was the most-watched program on the Network last week. It's at a "bad" timeslot for American viewers but considered to be airing at peak time for UK viewers. Granted, this isn't first-view numbers and is cumulative, but that's still impressive. It'll be interesting to see where it winds up in the pecking order as the weeks move on.
Last edited by BGMaverick; October 26th, 2018 at 3:20 PM.
I was very intrigued, still am. I can't base my final opinion on 1 or 2 shows. A year from now it might be the shit because it took NXT in general about 2-3 years to actually be worth a damn. I'm obviously including the original NXT.
I think NXT UK will still have an asset in their back pocket. Unless something radically changes in terms of needing to keep the talent on the main NXT roster due to an extra hour being added, they'll always have the availability of those performers who aren't in the cycle of TV tapings to hop on a plane and do something for that brand.
It'll be interesting to see how they develop it over the next few months. I don't remember the exact number of tapings they've already got in the can but it's a healthy number.
I just think we need some diversity. Imagine if you turned on NXT and everyone looked like Adam Cole and Tomaso.
Caught up on both episodes of NXT UK last night.
- I've seen the Coffey Brothers in What Culture Pro Wrestling, but never really paid that much attention to them. Joe Coffey had a great squash against a solid little jobber jabroni. Not bad.
- Dakota Kai is like a British Bayley. Her opponent, Kelly Klein, is like an also-ran Shayna Bayzler. There's too many "I'm a badass UFC/MMA fighter chick" girls between the main roster, NXT, and NXT UK.
- Dan Mastiff is going to be a fucking beast.
- El Ligero is going to be an amazing character to watch, as long as he doesn't go too far into the comedy bullshit he used to do in WCPW.
- The jobber that Ligero beat (some dude named "The Boar") had some badass black sclera contacts. Dude gave me a "WCW Saturday Night jobber" vibe. Like the kind of guy who'd be out to job to Perry Saturn in 5 minutes.
- Tyler Bate/Wolfgang was good stuff. Pete Dunne/Noam Darr was great. Noam Darr hasn't exactly impressed me in anything he's done (that Alicia Fox feud/angle was a particular lowlight) but he was great against Dunne.
Overall, so far, I'd say the show is pretty solid. I love the arena they record in. Its a really cool looking building. It doesn't look like your traditional arena. I'm digging it so far. Can't wait to see more.
Two new eps tonight.
I planned to watch both eps last night but it's a bit of a slog, to be honest. It's only the beginning of this, of course, and I have confidence that this will develop into something very decent. Got to start somewhere, of course.
I love Zack Gibson, but I struggle a bit to get into his matches. Those I've seen, anyway. I tend to get bored by the pace of them.
Just on the first episode. I like this Dave mastiff guy
Caught the two new episodes. Thoughts:
- Zack Gibson is a big 'ol "meh" from me. The episode description described some kind of long-running feud between he and Noam Dar, but I'm assuming that's picking up from something that happened in another company or something? This is the first time I can remember seeing Gibson in a Big 'E ring. So, giving them 20-something minutes kind of fell flat for me. Eh. Was it Zack Gibson that had some kind of "Righteous Killer" gimmick on the British indies? Or was that someone else? I definitely remember one of these British guys coming in for the first UK Tournament with a lot of hype, that nickname, and everybody saying the WWE wouldn't know how to/wouldn't want to use it. But I'm not sure who it was.
- Danny Burch, despite being a bald boring looking schmoe, had a fun match with his jobber. Weren't he and Oney Lorcan doing some kind of tag-team deal in regular NXT? I'd love to see those two go head-up with the Coffey Brothers.
- For that matter, I'd love to see The Coffey Brothers/Mustache Mountain. Trent Seven's match with Huxley whatever wasn't anything special. Hux has a great look, but didn't do much for me.
- Jordan Devlin was trained by Finn Balor and almost pulls off a "mini-Balor" look. Dude already looks good for his age and experience level. Tucker (who needs a last name, by the way.) looked good, too. Hell, Jordan Devil and WALTER had a great match for Progress that even Jim Cornette, of all fucking people, gave a shout out to. Devlin's gotta be good to pop that old grump.
- Flash Morgan Webster (maybe Flash Morgan Webster could lend one of his three names to Tucker, so Tucker can have a last name?) looks like he should be introducing "Wonderwall", arguing with his brother, and then storming offstage before "Champagne Supernova" at an Oasis concert.
- All the above being said, Flash Morgan Webster's match with Mark Coffey was solid stuff. Except for that awkward botch/mistimed flying kick. FMW is waiting on the second rope, is obviously waiting for Coffey to feed in, but Coffey doesn't, so FMW hops down and just throws a flying kick instead. It looked a little awkward.
- Is Mark Andrews the same "Mandrews" kid who teamed with Trevor Lee in TNA? Because he's damn good. He had a great match with Wolfgang that should've gone a few minutes longer.
- Its kind of crazy that, after only three episodes, we've already seen guys diving off of and getting bumped on the ramp. I hate to sound like a Jim Cornette-type, but that should've been saved for something that really mattered. Gibson powebombing Noam Dar onto the damn thing looked good, but they wrestled another 10 or so minutes afterwards.
- Isla Dawn is a great wrestler, but she needs a tan. Also, every time I see her first name it reminds me of the island from the first "Jurassic Park".
- I want more El Ligero and Dave Mastiff.
Zack Gibson won the second UK tournament and had a great match with Pete Dunne for the belt on Night Two. He appears to be being pushed as the next "star" after BSS and probably the top heel on the brand.
He'll be the one that dethrones Pete Dunne, I have no doubt.
Probably in Liverpool too.
I feel like Zach Gibson is the main actor from Gremlins
- - - Updated - - -
I feel like Zach Gibson is the main actor from Gremlins
Nope that's Zach galligan
I'll have to check out some more of his stuff then. Because his match with Noam Dar bored the Hell out of me.
It did me too, to be honest.
Gibson is upper midcard, he'll go into that tag tournament. Eddie Dennis is the one being built up imo.
Johnny Saint's acting after that backstage attack.
Dunne and Burch was brilliant.
I am really enjoying the show, they are building the characters well and the match quality has been good.
Eddie Dennis is an odd one to look at. 6ft 5, but I'd imagine he'd lose an arm wrestling contest with Michael Cole.
Get used to it cos he's the next champ
I bet he is you dirty old bollocks.
Storm and Kai was very good. Love both of them.
Didn't care much for the 6-man main event on the last episode, but I was falling asleep.
Overall, 6 episodes in and things are going pretty well, I think. Some very good action and they're introducing characters well and at a decent pace. I hope there aren't too many double episodes, but apart from that, all good. Crowd has become a little irritating, but they were always going to.
Enjoying it.
10 episodes in and the first TakeOver announced for Blackpool in January. Is anyone watching this? I think I've been mostly impressed by Jordan Devlin, so far. His title match with Pete Dunne next week should be grand. I really enjoyed Devlin and Ligero from the main event of episode 9.
Overall, I think it's starting to find its feet now and I'm quite enjoying it. Women's title tournament doesn't hold a candle to the MYC, but its still been decent. I hope Storm takes the title. Plenty of time for Ripley down the line. She's improving all the time.
I check in on it every once in a while but I'm not watching it religiously every week. I see they've doubled-up on shows to catch up with the ones they've already taped.
I did read that these appear to be viewed more weekly than 205 Live...another indictment on that brand.
I just don't have the time for 205 Live as well. I'll check out a match here and there if I hear good things about it, but that's it.
205 Live and NXT UK are both shows that lend themselves really well to binge watching.
Lightweight storytelling, hour long episodes and both shows feature guys who haven’t already been rammed into the ground by being on WWE TV every week. It feels fresher to see Jordan Devlin vs. El Ligero in a (no offense) essentially meaningless match than it does to see Jinder Mahal vs. Zach Ryder on Main Event. And then, with the UK show especially, there’s the novelty of waiting to see what hot British indie guy or girl shows up out of the blue.
205 Live and NXT UK are like when WCW had 5 hours of prime time TV and then like 4 syndicated shows every weekend. Because they had the talent to fill TV time. Only here we get Jordan Devlin vs Pete Dunne instead of Meng vs. Joe Gomez.
It’s good wrestling filler.
Joe Gomez plays for Liverpool, right?
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