The shows limped out of the blocks this week with a tedious extended squash for Trent Seven over UK Championship Tournament also-ran Saxon Huxley.
Beyond highlighting how rudderless the Moustache Mountain man is on a (relatively) grand stage is without his meal ticket Tyler Bate, the battle was the first of many cases of the chasm in NXT UK between the haves and have-nots.
Jobber matches are a necessity in building a brand, but the company have shown a frustrating lack of creativity in building up the losers before they get gubbed by the (very obvious) winners. Huxley was, at least, aesthetically different from some of the bald baddies pretending to be gritty thugs, but he was still only positioned as a big lad that likes a scrap.
Longterm, this simply won't do. Seven (and others on the show) aren't the super-workers good enough to make stars in short bursts, but WWE's current management of the shows doesn't appear keen to share the load.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
