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The NXT UK Recap (1/2/20)

NXT UK

The first NXT UK episode of 2020 saw the final sees planted in the TakeOver: Blackpool II card for January 12th, with the evening being capped off by a brutal No Disqualifications Match.

Teacher Vs Student

As part of the negotiations made a few weeks ago between current United Kingdom Champion WALTER and his TakeOver challenger Joe Coffey, Imperium‘s Alexander Wolfe went toe to toe with Ilja Dragunov in a teacher vs student showcase bout with no disqualifications. The match began immediately as Dragunov ambushed Wolfe during his entrance, with steel chairs, a kendo stick, and a table all being brought into play throughout the contest. Several brutal-looking spots filled the match, including a steel chair-assisted Coast to Coast and a release German suplex onto a pile of chairs. Alexander Wolfe used one of the chairs to target Ilja’s fingers and throat, but it simply wasn’t enough as the Russian sensation hoisted up the former NXT Tag Team Champion for a running Death Valley driver through a table propped up in the corner. A Torpedo Moscow secured the win for the man who likes by the motto of Unbesiegbar.

Before Ilja Dragunov could properly celebrate his victory, he was ambushed by Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel, who laid him out with the European Bomb. WALTER appeared at the top of the ramp to oversee his comrades’ beatdown, only to be laid out courtesy of the All The Best For The Bells discus lariat courtesy of Joe Coffey. ‘The Iron God’ making a huge statement before he goes on to challenge ‘The Ring General’ on January 12th.

Tensions Flare

Ahead of their NXT UK Women’s Championship Triple Threat Match at TakeOver: Blackpool II next weekend, Toni Storm and Piper Niven came face to face in the ring, with Storm apologising for her recent actions. Following this, Toni asked Piper to remove herself from the match, claiming that her personal issues with the defending champ Kay Lee Ray were far from over. After ‘The Vixen of Violence’ refused to do so due to her waiting so long for an opportunity of this magnitude, a brawl broke out between the two challengers, with KLR sauntering down the aisle with a grin across her face. Clearly, ‘The Queen of Insanity’ was proud of causing a rift between the seemingly former friends. At least it means she won’t have to worry about any alliances come January 12th.

No Strikes Needed

Kassius Ohno has made a career out of throwing elbows and various other strikes to come out on top during his matches. Now though, Ohno has put his moniker of ‘The Knockout Artist’ to rest in favour of proclaiming himself ‘The Wrestling Genius’. During his match with Ligero, Kassius used plenty of technical wrestling holds to weaken ‘The Mexican Sensation’, although he didn’t exactly shy away from going for strikes to throw Ligero off his game. Using catch-as-catch wrestling proved to be a great plan for facing a man like Ligero, seeing as Leeds native tends to fly high whenever the opportunity arises. He never got the chance here though, eventually submitting to a Kassius Klutch as the self-proclaimed best British wrestler alive picked up another victory in NXT UK.

Worlds Collide Showcase

On January 25th, the night before the Royal Rumble, both NXT and NXT UK will send their best into battle as part of Worlds Collide. Before then though, we’ve been seeing a few showcase matches on both shows, with Dave Mastiff vs Kona Reeves from this week’s NXT UK being the latest addition to the list. ‘The Finest’ claimed that the only reason he lost to Trent Seven a few weeks ago was down to jet lag, before unleashing an assault against NXT UK‘s resident behemoth. Unfortunately for him, ‘The Bomber’ was having none of it, shoving Reeves away before flattening him with his Into The Void cannonball senton in the corner to pick up the victory for both himself and the whole NXT UK brand heading into Worlds Collide.

https://twitter.com/NXTUK/status/1212828896305045504

New Year’s Upset

Ashton Smith and Oliver Carter have been teaming together for a decent amount of time now, but they were yet to pick up a single victory heading into 2020. As they prepared to go into battle against The Outliers tandem of Riddick Moss and Dorian Mak, it looked as if that fact would be continuing going forward as Moss and Mak used their power to throw Smith and Carter all over the ring. Just as they were on the cusp of victory though, Riddick Moss started celebrating slightly too early. His premature victory pose gave Oliver Carter the chance to utilise a rollup on Dorian Mak as he and Ashton Smith picked up their first victory in an NXT UK ring to kickstart the year on a high.

What Else?

In addition, two new matches were officially confirmed for the TakeOver card as Eddie Dennis will face Trent Seven while Jordan Devlin will take on Tyler Bate, Joseph Conners interrupted A-Kid backstage as he further stated that he was worthy enough of being on the card for that show, and Dave Mastiff challenged Kassius Ohno to battle him, seeing as Ohno firmly believes there isn’t a single British wrestler that can match him in the ring.

Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. Be sure to catch all of the NXT UK action via the WWE Network.

Adam Morrison

Adam Morrison

A fan of professional wrestling since he was seven years old, Adam has since gone on to write 1,000+ articles about the topic for both Last Word on Pro Wrestling, and a host of other outlets. All dog pictures can be directed towards @AdamMorrison40 on Twitter. Bonus points if it's a pug.

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