Episode ten (taped August 25 and 26 at the NEC Arena in Birmingham, England)
Quick recap —
The second round of the NXT UK Women’s Championship tournament concluded and the finals are set, as Toni Storm beat Jinny and Rhea Ripley disposed of Dakota Kai in the semifinals. Storm and Jinny was pretty good but not on the level of other matches these two have had in the past.
Dave Mastiff managed to overcome fellow big man Tyson T-Bone. Also, the team of Saxon Huxley & Joseph Conners imploded after they lost to Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews.
Full rundown —
We took a look at the Women’s title tournament bracket before going to our first match in the second round of said tournament.
UK Women’s title tournament semifinal match: Rhea Ripley defeated Dakota Kai in 9:50 after Riptide
Ripley wanted a test of strength — to which Kai obliged. Of course, the bigger woman was stronger and put Kai down for a one count. Kai tried to escape via monkey flip, but Ripley just carried her over to the corner. Kai came back with a kick and a shoving match ensued, which was ended by a dropkick by Kai, followed by another running kick and a double foot stomp.
Ripley rolled to ringside and was met by a hard soccer kick from Kai, followed by a second one just for good measure. Back in the ring, an attempted body block by Kai ended badly as Ripley picked her up and let the canvas catch her on her way down. Ripley connected with a few more strikes in the corner and hit a dropkick, then applied her inverted cloverleaf and picked up Kai’s lower body for added effect.
Kai eventually made the ropes and came back with a few of her kicks, a running dropkick into the corner, and two running face wash kicks for a two count. The action spilled to the outside once more, but this time Ripley caught Kai’s soccer kick, hoisted her up on her shoulders, and dropped her face-first on the apron.
Back inside, Kai came back with a flurry of strikes and tried going for the Kairopractor, but Ripley wouldn’t budge. Ripley tried going for the Riptide, but Kai countered it into a roll up. Kai then went for a roundhouse kick, but Ripley ducked and had Kai in perfect position to hit Riptide for the win.
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Vic Joseph and Nigel McGuinness threw to a quick interview with Sid Scala, who had just emerged from Johnny Saint’s office, all happy. He said he had been given an opportunity to face Joe Coffey in two weeks, and while he was not yet medically cleared, he would make the most of it. I predict carnage to be brought upon this sweet summer child by the Scotsman and his buddies.
A graphic informed us that a match between Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews vs. Saxon Huxley & Joseph Conners was next.
After a TLC commercial, Radzi Chinyanganya interviewed Jordan Devlin, asking him if he was calling Pete Dunne out. Well, I guess having a day job as a moderator of a kid’s show means you don’t have to be very perceptive in real life. Devlin talked about brutalizing Ligero on the last episode and cementing his place as the number one contender.
Devlin said that Dunne held the title for more than 450 days and defended it against guys like Mark Andrews and Tyler Bate who were pathetic, not vicious and ruthless like him and he was willing to do whatever it took to win the title. Devlin proclaimed that after his hand was raised, he’d be renaming the brand NXT Ireland featuring the UK.
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Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews defeated Saxon Huxley & Joseph Conners in 6:08 when Andrews pinned Huxley after a Shooting Star Press
Huxley and Webster started out and Webster went for a sunset flip right away, and followed up with a hurricanrana and a dropkick. Both tagged out, but Andrews and Webster hit a double standing moonsault on Conners. After another tag, Huxley hit a Thesz press and Andrews played face in peril for a while, getting beaten down by both men.
Andrews eventually managed to tag Webster, who hit a Rude Boy Block followed by a somersault on Conners on the outside. A crossbody attempt on Huxley got caught, though — and he got slammed to the mat. Webster managed to blind tag Andrews, who took down Huxley and Andrews hit a Shooting Star Press for the win.
After the match, Conners attacked Huxley and hit him with Don’t Look Down. So I guess this team won’t be in the NXT UK Tag Team title tournament.
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Joseph and McGuinness hyped the upcoming match between Dave Mastiff and Tyson T-Bone. After a Marine 6 trailer, there was another graphic promoting Sid Scala vs. Joe Coffey in two weeks.
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Dave Mastiff defeated Tyson T-Bone in 4:41 after a cannonball into the corner
This was Mastiff’s toughest challenge yet. It was set up after Tyson hung around for Mastiff’s match two episodes ago and them getting into it backstage later on. T-Bone hit a fist to Mastiff’s nose right away, but Mastiff came back with a shoulder block that put T-Bone down.
T-Bone retaliated with punches and kicks and even got a one count after a hard elbow to the back. He applied a chinlock, but Mastiff powered out and briefly put T-Bone in a bear hug that did some damage. T-Bone came back with more strikes and a sunset flip but received Mastiff’s 320 lbs. on his chest for not watching any big guy/little guy matches back in the 80s.
Mastiff launched himself at T-Bone with a running crossbody, channeled his inner Vader for a number of body shots, and hit a headbutt, followed by some hard elbows to T-Bone’s jaw. Mastiff hit a release German suplex and put T-Bone away with the cannonball in the corner.
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A graphic advertised Toni Storm meeting Jinny next, followed by a commercial for WrestleMania tickets going on sale.
A tweet by NXT UK general manager Johnny Saint confirmed Pete Dunne defending his title against Jordan Devlin next week.
We took a look back at how Toni Storm and Jinny qualified for round two.
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UK Women’s title tournament semifinal match: Toni Storm defeated Jinny in 10:31 after Storm Zero
This was at least the 10th singles match these two have had with each other, after they took the series all the way from PROGRESS to wXw, RevPro, WrestleMania Axxess, and the 2018 Mae Young Classic, among others.
They locked up right away and battled for position. Storm got backed into the corner and they kept going at it, ending up on the mat where Storm applied a headlock that Jinny turned into a cover. They traded wristlocks with Storm eventually escaping. Storm hit a running kick and applied a variation of an STF, but Jinny made the ropes.
Storm charged at Jinny in the corner, but she got her leg up and hit a flatliner into the corner. It looked like Storm’s knee gave out during a whip into the corner and Jinny took over, until a double headbutt evened the scales once more. Storm came back with a snap German suplex and a hip attack in the corner and followed with a fisherman’s suplex for a near fall.
Storm went up top, but a head kick courtesy of the Fashionista’s long legs stopped her in her tracks. Jinny went up for a superplex, but Storm headbutted her once more and sent her crashing down. She still couldn’t capitalize, as Jinny this time hit a dropkick on Storm’s legs and yanked her down with an X-Factor style facebuster for a near fall.
Storm went for Storm Zero, but Jinny managed to escape and hit her rolling axe kick that won her the first round — but it wasn’t enough here as Storm managed to put her foot on the bottom rope during the pin. Storm jumped over Jinny on a corner charge, hit another snap German, and finally hit Storm Zero for the win.
Johnny Saint came out on the ramp as Storm was inspecting the NXT UK Women’s Championship. Ripley also came out, got into Storm’s face, and shoved her, but Saint got in between them before anything more could happen. Ripley went backstage again after throwing up her crossed-arm devil’s horn gesture.
And that’s it folks, as the finals of the NXT UK Women’s Championship tournament will be Rhea Ripley vs. Toni Storm in a battle of a mosh pit kid from Australia taking on a die-hard Motley Crue fan from New Zealand to determine the best women’s wrestler in the UK.
