4 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE NXT UK (20 May)
Bate fells A-Kid in third epic, Rampage and Wolfgang butt heads, Dragunov goes to therapy.
When it comes to this column every week, NXT UK is a tricky one to dissect. Everything is there for a solid professional wrestling show from an in-ring perspective, but it's typically always held back by its story arcs.
Case in point, this week saw all three matches deliver where they needed to. Rampage Brown vs. Wolfgang was always going to be a beefy fight that, while great in itself, was only there to set us en route to Rampage vs. Joe Coffey. Amale vs. Xia Brookside had no real flavour to it other than a backstage assault on Xia two weeks ago, but still needed to get the former over to some level. Finally, A-Kid vs. Tyler Bate was never going to be anything short of legendary, but even they over-delivered.
As for the promos, however? Not quite as grand.
Sha Samuels berated Nathan Frazer for being young, Teoman questioned Ashton Smith with regards to where his tag partner Oliver Carter was, and Ilja Dragunov on Supernova Sessions was every bit as bad as you'd expect it to be. A massive setback that even Lenny the therapy dog couldn't save.
Still, how about that main event? Let's get to it...