Tag: Tyler Bate

NXT UK Results: First NXT UK Women’s Champion crowned

Posted on by Markus Gronemann

Episode twelve (taped August 26 at the NEC Arena in Birmingham, England)

Quick recap

Rhea Ripley was crowned the inaugural NXT UK Women’s champion, beating Toni Storm in a hard-fought battle. Story of the match was Toni injuring her back early on, so she couldn’t hit Storm Zero and fell victim to Rhea’s Riptide in the end. In other matches, Tyler Bate (replacing Sid Scala) beat Joe Coffey by DQ when Mark Coffey and Wolfgang interfered, leading to a brawl between Gallus (the new name for Wolfgang & the Coffey Brothers) and British Strong Style. Ligero beat Dan Maloney in a fun match and Zack Gibson & James Drake beat Amir Jordan & Kenny Williams.

Full rundown

The show opened with a recap of the NXT UK Women’s Championship tournament, leading down to the two final participants. Nigel and Vic talked some more about the tournament in the studio, as we saw Rhea Ripley and Ton Storm warm up for their match backstage.

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Tyler Bate (replacing Sid Scala) beat Joe Coffey by DQ in 9:47 due to outside interference

Coffey was supposed to face Sid Scala, who came out in a suit and with a microphone and said he had not been medically cleared to compete. He said Johnny Saint had given him permission to introduce his replacement, who was Tyler Bate.

Bate got right down to business, attacking Coffey with strikes and a punching battle ensued. A dropkick by Bate sent Coffey to the outside and Tyler followed up with a tope and after some back and forth on the outside, hit a flying European uppercut off the ring steps. At that point, Mark Coffey and Wolfgang came back out which distracted Bate and he got smashed into the ringside barriers.

He couldn’t lift up Coffey for the airplane spin and Coffey took over, hitting a butterfly swing into a butterfly suplex, before applying a double arm stretcher submission. Bate eventually reversed out of it, but got backed into the corner and ate a high belly-to-belly overhead suplex for his troubles.

A striking battle was won by Bate, as he hit a huracanrana and a standing shooting star press for a two-count, Mark Coffey got on the apron, which distracted Tyler Bate and Joe went for a pop-up power slam. Trent Seven came to the ring at that point to even the odds somewhat. Coffey missed a reverse body press off the top and Bate hit his neck-and-shoulders springboard lariat and managed to pick up Coffey for an airplane spin, even doing a squat in the middle of it, before spinning him some more in the other direction.

Coffey briefly got a few more shots in, but was wiped out with a rolling kappa kick. Bate set up the Tyler Driver ’97 but Wolfgang and Mark Coffey interfered for the DQ.

Trent Seven got in the ring to help out his mate, but the heels took over, until Pete Dunne’s music hit and he stormed out to a big pop and evened the odds. The heels were sent to ringside, briefly tried to come back into the ring but were finally driven off by British Strong Style.

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A graphic announced Dan Maloney facing Ligero next

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Ligero beat Dan Maloney after a springboard swinging DDT in 5:13

Maloney slapped Ligero right away and received a leg kick in return. He then picked up Ligero for a suplex and put him down on the apron, but Ligero flipped back into the ring and hit a dropkick for a quick cover. He went for a huracanrana but Maloney caught him and held him in position, but before he could capitalize, Ligero escaped and hit a flying huracanrana off the middle rope for a near fall.

A spine buster briefly stopped Ligero and a submission slowed the match down. Maloney briefly took over but missed a leg drop off the second turnbuckle. Ligero came back with a Rey Mysterio style seated senton off the top, followed by an enzuigiri. Ligero hit an assisted Sliced Bread, bouncing off the top rope and Maloney rolled ot the outside.

Ligero kept pushing, hitting a somersault senton on the bigger man and finally back in the ring, hit a springboard swinging DDT for the win.

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A graphic announced the upcoming tag team match, pitting Zack Gibson and James Drake against Amir Jordan and Kenny Williams. This was followed by a WWE Shop commercial

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Zack Gibson & James Drake beat Amir Jordan & Kenny Williams in 8:26 when Gibson pinned Williams after hitting Ticket to Ride

“Shoes off, if you hate Gibson” chants could be heard immediately, as the fans held their shoes into the air. Gibson and Williams started out and Gibson locked in a cravat and a side headlock right away and tagged his partner in crime. Williams rolled up Drake and hit a springboard back elbow before tagging out himself. Jordan hit a high hip toss and a drop kick and did his dance.

After being hit by a cross body and a drop kick, Drake was blind tagged by Gibson on a whip-in and the Grizzled Young Veterans hit a double chop to Amir’s throat.

Gibson locked in his seated cobra clutch variant and Drake tagged back in, while Amir was still in the hold. Amir played face in peril for a while, as the heels tagged in and out in quick succession. Gibson slammed Drake on top of Jordan for a two count. After some taunting and more beat downs, Drake finally missed a running dropkick into the corner and Amir managed the hot tag to Williams, as Drake tagged in Gibson.

Williams ran wild for a bit, hitting a dropkick on Gibson and taking out Drake on the apron. He hit a lucha-style roll-through into a face buster on Gibson for a near fall.

Gibson managed to tag back out and the heels went for a double back suplex on Williams, but Jordan pulled him down and hit a dropkick on Gibson as Williams hit a superkick on Drake, which sent both men to the outside. Williams hit a running dropkick through the ropes, but held on to the top rope and skinned the cat back inside, before hitting a double topés with Jordan.

Williams went to the to rope, but Gibson rammed Amir into the steps on the outside, distracting Williams and giving Drake a chance to push him off. With Amir being take out, the heels hit Ticket to Ride, a throw from a tombstone position by Drake into a codebreaker by Williams for the win.

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A split screen saw Rhea Ripley and Toni Storm walk to ringside for the main event.

Johnny Saint’s music hit and he came out carrying the NXT UK Women’s championship, followed by a WrestleMania ticket commercial.

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NXT UK Women’s Championship: Rhea Ripley pinned Toni Storm in 9:28 after hitting Riptide to become the inaugural champion

This really was the battle of music styles, as the 80’s rocker, Toni Storm faced the Mosh Pit Kid, Rhea Ripley.

Ripley shoved Storm right away and hit her double arm sign of the horns pose. Toni retaliated with a firearm, slap, spin kick and running boot, sending Rhea crashing into to corner, where she promptly got hit with a hip attack by Toni and rolled to ringside. Toni followed up with a plancha between the middle and lowest rope.

Rhea recovered quickly and whipped Storm into the barriers back first, then briefly rolled back into the ring and stomped hard into Toni’s back on her way back out. This started telling the story of the match, which was Toni not being able to hit some of her signature moves due to her lower back being injured.

Toni came back with some knee strikes and forearm smashed and went for Strong Zero on the apron, but couldn’t lift Ripley up and got back body dropped on the apron. Toni barely made it back into the ring at 8 and Ripley was onto her right away with some ground and pound. Toni came back into the match, but quickly got stopped again with a knee breaker off a headlock attempt.

Ripley locked in her modified clover leaf, putting further pressure on Toni’s knees and lower back. Storm eventually made the ropes for a break, but Ripley kicked her left wrist hard, which still was clutching to the ropes.

Storm came back with some right hand slaps and went for the German suplex, but couldn’t lift Ripley due to her back problems. Ripley went for a back suplex, but Toni escaped and finally hit a snap German and picked Ripley up for a second one. Ripley eventually countered an attempt for a third one, but Toni hit a head butt and finally hit the third German suplex into a bridge for a near fall. She followed up with a running kick, a hip attack into the corner and flying double knees into the corner for another two count.

Ripley briefly took over but missed a corner charge and crashed into the post. Toni tried a bridging pin, but her momentum actually helped Ripley kicking out. Toni went for the Storm Zero, but got back body dropped over the top to the outside. where Ripley threw into the barriers a few more times and managed to get another two count back in the ring. She went for Riptide but Toni managed to escape the move and went for Storm Zero, but again, couldn’t get Ripley up due to her injured back.

Ripley tried for Riptide again, finally hit the move and pinned Toni Storm for the win and the championship.

Johnny Saint and Triple H entered the ring to congratulate Ripley and hand her the title. Rhea hugged both men and they celebrated in the ring together as the whole NXT UK roster came out on the stage to applaud the new champion as the show went off the air.

In a WWE.com exclusive video, Radzi Chinyanganya interviewed Rhea Ripley in the ring. She said that this was so unreal and that she really wished she could catch her breath, but she couldn’t. She said Toni, you are a legend and I love you so much. She thanked everyone for coming out and said that it meant the world to her. The fans chanted “you deserve it” and she smiled and said, she was not going to lie, she might.

She thanked all the women who fought so hard for this and said that they were finally making history. This prompted chants of “British Wrestling”. She said she sould continue to rip everyone apart and then went to the top of the stage to pose with Johnny Saint, Triple H and the whole NXT UK roster.

NXT UK results: Wolfgang vs. Ashton Smith

Posted on by Markus Gronemann

Episode seven (taped August 25 at the NEC Arena in Birmingham, England)

Quick recap

Triple H and Johnny Saint announced the NXT UK Women’s championship tournament, which begins next week. Wolfgang beat Ashton Smith in the main event, further establishing himself and the Coffey Brothers as a force to be reckoned with. Tyler Bate beat James Drake in the match of the show, while Jordan Devlin looked good in beating Sid Scala and we had Saxon Huxley & Joseph Connors beat Amir Jordan & Kenny Williams. A fun show, especially the Bate match, but really not a must-see episode.

Full rundown

Triple H and all the women of NXT UK – Dakota Kai, Nina Samuels, Toni Storm, Isla Dawn, Rhea Ripley, Xia Brookside, Jinny and Millie McKenzie – were out on the stage to open the show. The way this was shot, Ripley, who really only is 5’7″ looked huge compared to the other women, both in height and massiveness. Triple H called out Johnny Saint, who unveiled the new NXT UK Women’s championship. The tournament for this new title will begin on the next episode.

There was a look back to when Wolfgang and the Coffey Bros. attacked Ashton Smith a few weeks back. A graphic announced that Smith and Wolfgang would face off in tonight’s main event. Also announced was Tyler Bate vs. James Drake. After a promo announcing WrestleMania 35 tickets going on sale, we went to our first match.

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Jordan Devlin beat Sid Scala in 3:13 with the Island’s Call

Devlin locked up right away and backed Scala into a corner, screaming “you don’t belong here” at him. Scala briefly fired back, but was hit with Devlin’s uranage/standing moonsault combination. Devlin kept working Scala over and launched himself over the ropes from the apron with a beautiful somersault cutter. He went for the Island’s Call, but Scala turned it into a sunset flip. Devlin kicked out but Scala hit a jumping neck breaker and went for a body press off the top. He jumped into a dropkick by Devlin, which looked to have missed by a mile. This set up a successful Island’s Call for the victory for the Irishman.

Radzi Chinyanganya interviewed Devlin in the ring post-match, telling him that this was a dominant performance and if we had seen the real Jordan Devlin yet. Devlin fired back to not make him laugh and that the last thing concerning him was having those people here know who he was. Whenever he’s backstage, he’s asking himself who all the people back there think they are, especially the guy running around as a luchador, even though he is from Leeds, so who does Ligero think he is? I have a feeling these two will square up in the coming weeks.

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After a look at Moustache Mountain’s promo from a few weeks back, Nigel and Vic talked about the upcoming NXT UK tag team titles and how we’d be seeing some teams form. In fact, two of those teams would have a match next, when Amir Jordan & Kenny Williams face Saxon Huxley & Joseph Connors.

After a WWE Network promo, we got a video introducing us to Tyson T-Bone, who said he’d been traveling up and down the country, beating people and that he was the biggest, baddest and meanest WWE UK (he didn’t say NXT UK) wrestler. He’ll debut next week.

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Saxon Huxley & Joseph Conners beat Amir Jordan & Kenny Williams in 4:46 when Connors hit Don’t Look Down on Williams for the pin

We saw everyone but Conners on NXT UK before, because he got injured in a match with Kenny Williams during the first day of the July tapings and the match was stopped, never making air. He started out in 2006 and was trained by Robbie Brookside, among others. He’s a mainstay at Southside Entertainment Wrestling and competes for other promotions such as Defiant, PROGRESS, ICW, IPW:UK and Preston City Wrestling. He’s a 3-time former SWE Heavyweight champion and three-time SWE tag-team champion and also was Defiant champion, back when it was WCPW.

Williams came out wearing old-school red and blue 3D glasses and we were told that Jordan chose wrestling over an arranged marriage by his mother. Oh well, good for him I guess. Huxley and Amir started out and Amir escaped some take down by flipping out, kipping up and doing his funny foreign man dance, because stereotypes. He tagged in Williams who quickly got distracted for the heel advantage. Conners tagged in and we were told that he lost part of his left ear in a bar fight years ago, where he was “left for dead”.

Amir was face in peril for a while, until he managed to hit an enzuigiri and made the hot tag. Williams hit a cool spot where he hit a shotgun dropkick onto Conners on the outside, then skinned the cat back into the ring and hit a suicide dive on Huxley on the other side of the ring. He missed a DDT from the top rope and was hit by a brutal sunset bomb by Conners into the corner, followed by Don’t Look Down for the victory for the heel team.

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After another graphic for Bate vs. Drake and a promo for the NXT UK tapings in ten days we were shown the brackets for the NXT UK Women’s championship tournament and got nice graphics for everybody, including when they made their WWE/NXT debuts.

This was followed by an interview with Trent Seven by what looked like a number of journalists. He was asked his opinion on Zack Gibson and said that while it was impressive how Gibson won the UK tournament at Royal Albert Hall, he couldn’t get the job done against Pete Dunne and had been calling out the other members or British Strong Style ever since. When asked if he was challenging Gibson, he said that he was a pro wrestler and a sports entertainer and told Gibson to have a go. Those two will face off on the next episode.

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Tyler Bate beat James Drake in 8:30 with the Tyler Driver ’97

Drake has a picture of his face on his trunks, so he received the “he’s got his own face on his arse” chant from the UK crowd here. They traded arm twisters early, which Bate flipped out of, followed by a dropkick and a suplex escape over the top rope onto the apron and hit a big chop. Drake punched Bate off the turnbuckle to the outside. Bate escaped a lengthy chin-lock sequence by backing Drake into the corner and hit a beautiful standing huracanrana, followed by a spinning elbow off the second turnbuckle. 

Drake charged into Bate in the corner, but got caught and received an overhead suplex for his troubles, followed by a running Shooting Star Press. Drake flipped over the ropes onto the apron but when Bate teased a suicide dive, Drake jumped to ringside, and Bate launched himself back into the ring with the top rope between his neck and shoulders spot, before hitting an actual dive.

Back in the ring, Bate hit a backdrop driver for a near fall. The first attempt at the Tyler Driver ’97 got turned into a back body drop and Drake hit a running dropkick into the corner for a near fall. A second attempt at a dropkick failed though, as Tyler moved, hit his springboard lariat off the ropes and finished his night with a Tyler Driver ’97 for the victory.

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After a WWE Shop commercial, we had another look at all the women in the tournament, which will start next week.

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Wolfgang (w/ Joe & Mark Coffey) defeated Ashton Smith

Wolfgang won in 5:29 after a modified fisherman’s suplex. The crowd was behind Smith all the way, chanting to his entrance and generally being very cheerful. Smith hit things off with a cravat, but ate some punches from “The Last King of Scotland” for his troubles. He came back with a nice dropkick, head scissors and a springboard tomahawk chop, but then jumped right into a gut buster as he went for a body press off the top. Wolfgang dominated the back and forth exchange that developed from there and stopped Smith in his tracks with a bear hug.

Smith eventually fought out, hit a clothesline, then leapfrogged Wolfgang as he charged out of the corner, landed on the second turnbuckle and hit a reverse enzuigiri for some momentum. This didn’t last long, as Wolfgang launched Smith into the air, then launched himself at a stunned, seated Smith with a running senton and finally hit a modified fisherman’s suplex into a slam for the victory.

Wolfgang and the Coffeys posed in the ring as the show went off the air.

WWE NXT UK results: Tyler Bate vs. Wolfgang

Posted on by F4W Staff

By Markus Gronemann for F4WOnline.com

Show Overview:

Ligero, “Wild Boar” Mike Hitchman, Dakota Kai, Killer Kelly, Ashton Smith, Tucker, Tyler Bate, and Wolfgang all made their regular NXT in-ring UK debuts. Ligero got to show his athleticism and experience in a quick match while the women only scratched at the surface of showing what they are capable off. Smith looked fine and Bate and Wolfgang had a very good main event match, built around their respective sizes.

We also had a strong promo by Zack Gibson, leading to a match with Noam Dar next week. The UK women’s title keeps getting teased but nothing specific is being announced. In all, we had just under 24 minutes of wrestling on this 60 minute show, which might get better once the tapings get into a regular groove and the undercard matches are being given more than five minutes.

Note that the show was taped on July 28-29 at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in Cambridge/Cambridgeshire, UK. The first match was taped on the second day of tapings while all other matches were from the first day.

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Show Recap:

Nigel McGuiness and Vic Joseph introduce the show and hype us up for our main event: the “Big Strong Boi” Tyler Bate taking on the howling Scotsman, Wolfgang. 

Ligero pinned “Wild Boar” Mike Hitchman in 4:52 with a springboard tornado DDT

Ligero was beloved by the fans and was wearing a horned mask with a Union Jack design. The veteran from Leeds has been around since 2003 and is only 33 now, having wrestled for pretty much every European under the sun: PROGRESS, RevPro, ICW, IPW:UK, Southside, Defiant, All-Star Wrestling… you name it, he’s been there. We were told that in 2016, he had 288 matches and wrestled for “200 different promotions” in 17 countries (well, maybe take that one with a grain of salt). But, he probably legit is one of the most experienced journeyman wrestlers in Europe in the past 20 years.

Hitchman, from South Wales, is no newbie either, having been around since 2009, he’s been a regular for ICW, ATTACK! Pro, Dragon Pro Wrestling, and Pro Wrestling Chaos, among others. He also is the current ATTACK! Champion, beating out Morgan Webster, who he also is teaming with as The 198 and currently holds the Dragon Pro tag team titles with. His entrance gear also sports teeth and other body parts from boars, so he looks bad-ass. We are told he lost his own teeth breaking up a bar fight between four other dudes.

 “The Boar” attacked right away, but Liegero escaped and hit a beautiful huracanrana, standing moonsault, and missile dropkick from the middle rope. Hitchman came back with an exploder and kind of a GTS without using a knee but just the mat to break Ligero’s fall. An inverted Tumbleweed by “The Boar” got him a near fall as did a pop-up power bomb. In the end, Ligero jumped over a corner charge, hit a stiff kick to Hitchman’s knee and a nice looking springboard tornado DDT for the win in just under five minutes. Both looked good here and I can see Ligero being a hit with fans seeing him for the first time and especially being marketable to kids as the never-say-die underdog in a kind of El Generico kind of role.

Before the next match, we got short video packages on Daktoa Kai and Killer Kelly. Dakota’s package focused on her past appearances in NXT and the Mae Young Classic, her quick style, and hard strikes. Kelly also got a short introduction, also based around her striking ability.

There also was a promo for the next round of NXT UK tapings at the Olympia in Liverpool on November 24-25. Moustache Mountain, Toni Storm, Zack Gibson, Mark Andrews and Pete Dunne were announced, so I guess we’ll find out more about how tight WWE and wXw really are, as Storm is scheduled to wrestle Melanie Gray for the wXw Women’s title at Broken Rules XVIII in Dresden on November 17 and as reported in the August 13 edition of the Observer, talent isn’t allowed on any shows up to seven days prior to WWE tapings.

Dakota Kai defeated Killer Kelly in 4:11 with a sunset flip/inverted backstabber

The fans adored Kai, who sat on the barrier and slapped hands with fans during her entrance. She can be considered almost a veteran as she started out 10 years ago with Impact Pro Wrestling in her native New Zealand and Pro Wrestling Australia before making her way to the U.S. with SHIMMER and SHINE before wrestling with Stardom and Sendai girls in Japan and PROGRESS in the UK. She also was part of the Mae Young Classic and has been a regular on NXT since June of last year.

Kelly, on the other hand, has come really far, really fast. A graphic designer by trade, she started out in her native Portugal in 2016 and mostly wrestled men as there weren’t many female trainees around. While she trained some martial arts and MMA, she basically was a rookie and when she first came to Germany to train at the wXw Academy in early 2017 for a week and was so enamored by the experience that she and her then-boyfriend RAFA moved to Germany full-time in October of 2017. She was part of the tournament to crown the wXw women’s champion during the fall and a number of injuries and other circumstances led to her actually becoming the first-ever champion one day before Christmas Eve.

By early 2018, she had debuted for PROGRESS, Pro Wrestling EVE, and RevPro. While she lost the wXw title to Toni Storm in January, WWE came calling and she took part in the UK Championship Tournament back in June, was in this year’s Mae Young Classic, and is now a roster of NXT UK.

Nigel told us that Dakota follows other New Zealand wrestlers such as the Bushwackers, Tony Garea, and Pat O’Connor. The announcers also mentioned how she had suffered an injury at the hands of NXT’s Shayna Baszler. They started with an intense lock up sequence before Dakota did a cool sequence in the corner, jumping out of a charging Kelly’s way, landing on the ropes and horizontally spinning down into a roll up before she went for a quick takedown and a double foot stomp.

Kelly showed some of her striking ability with a number of kicks, big boots, and some nice ground and pound from the mount. She applied a surfboard into a dragon sleeper and Dakota ate the mat after she tried to counter out of it. Daktoa then countered a German suplex attempt into a roll up, but Kelly hit her with a stiff release German on the second try. For the finishing sequence, Dakota hit two stiff facewasher kicks into the corner, and then hit a cool looking sunset flip into an inverted backstabber for the pin. This was a good match but way too short as both of these women are able to do more when given the chance.

Radzi Chinyanganya conducted a post-match interview with Dakota who said that nothing compared to wrestling before the UK fans and that she wants the NXT UK women’s title.

Vic and Nigel take us back to the Royal Albert Hall in June where Zack Gibson beat Travis Banks for a shot at Pete Dunne’s WWE UK title. We also got another WWE Shop commercial.

We got another Eddie Dennis video package where he again talked about coming up with Pete Dunne and Mark Andrews, but him being older than them, and while he had to make money and had a career as the principal of an elite boy’s school, Dunne and Andrews lived at home and got to live their dreams of becoming wrestlers, going to the U.S. and Japan. Then in January of 2017, he watched them perform for WWE the first time without him and how they lived their collective dream without him and how they thought that made him feel.

Zack Gibson in-ring segment

Gibson came out to massive boos. He said that soon he would be the world’s no. 1 and more importantly, NXT UK’s no. 1. He beat Flash Morgan Webster, Jack Gallagher, and Travis Banks to win a title shot and with no rest and no time to prepare, faced Dunne and took him to his limit. He said that a fresh Zack Gibson can beat a fresh Pete Dunne on any night, but it wasn’t just him versus Pete, it was him versus Pete and the fans, who put him off every chance they got.

The officals didn’t give him the rematch he deserved, but gave a title shot to Noam Dar, who let the title slip “through his poor dislocated fingers”. He told Dunne that the next time they face, things will be very different, that he is the future, and will lead the brand into the future as he has the face to build a brand around. He said that Dar was an embarrassment in the Cruiserweight Classic, on 205 Live and in NXT UK and when you search for Dar on the Internet, you find him doing one of his rotten poses. At that point, Dar came out to a big pop.

Just as he was about to enter the ring, NXT UK general manager Johnny Saint came out and told them to “not even think about it” and ordered both men into his office. Saint is great and the difference between he and Stephanie McMahon emasculating talent is that even at age 78, you can believe that Saint will go into the ring and stretch the living hell out of everyone not complying with his orders.

We got a video package on Ashton Smith from Birmingham, who talked about his style being pure aggression and fire, that he was a roughneck brawler, and had more fight than anybody else in him and would do whatever he had to. This was followed by a video on Story Time.

Radzi Chinyanganya was backstage with Travis Banks, who talked about how his martial arts training got him to NXT and how at Royal Albert Hall, he was attacked by the Coffey Brothers and was looking for revenge now.

Ashton Smith beat Tucker in 4:14 with the Ash Cloud

Smith started out in 2007 and wrestled for ICW, Preston City Wrestling, and FutureShock Wrestling among others. He held the FutureShock title for almost one year, beating Zack Gibson to win it. We were told that Drake Maverick took Ashton under his wing. Tucker, from Belfast, was a fighter literally from birth, being born eight weeks premature and only given 26 hours to live by doctors. He came up in 2006 and mostly wrestled in Northern Ireland and Ireland for Pro Wrestling Ulster and is also a regular for OTT.

Ashton looked crisp early on with snapmare, an effortless arm drag, and a high sunset flip. After a super kick by Tucker, they traded pinfall attempts. Ashton hit a beautiful dropkick and a high belly to back suplex. For the finishing sequence, Ashton hit a high knee into the corner, followed that up with another kick, and hit his Ash Cloud ripcord DDT for the win. Ashton looked good here and got to show his natural athletic abilities.

We got a video package for Danny Burch who had quite the journey in the UK and the U.S. He said that he didn’t come from much, nothing came easy to him, and that he fought, scratched and clawed for any opportunity. They showed his lariats and he mentioned he had a mean streak, spent 15 years in the business, and had experience, training and knowledge. He said that people in London would know he was one of their own. He debuts next week.

There was another package hyping the Evolution PPV. Stephanie McMahon mentioning 50 women on the card was still left in. They then showed Saint announcing via Twitter that Gibson and Dar would wrestle next week.

Tyler Bate beat Wolfgang 10:23 with the Tyler Driver ’97

Bate, at only 21 years old, is already a seven-year veteran. Trained by Dave Mastiff and Trent Seven, he started out in 2012 and honed his skills throughout the UK. By 2014, he also traveled to Germany for wXw and in 2016, he and then-girlfriend Toni Storm had an extended stay at the wXw Academy, living and training under WALTER in Germany for a few months. His career really took off from there and he soon wrestled on a regular basis in PROGRESS, RevPro, ICW, Attack!, Southside, and many more.

He appeared at the first UK Championship tournament in January 2017 and promptly was crowned the inaugural WWE UK champion, beating Pete Dunne in the finals. He became a semi-regular mainstay on NXT and had some of the best matches in WWE in 2017 and 2018, both in singles and tag team competition. He also is a former wXw Shotgun champion and a two-time PROGRESS tag team champion with Trent Seven.

Wolfgang is a 16 year veteran, starting out with British Championship Wrestling and ICW in Scotland where he also spent most of his career and was known as “The Regulator”. A phone call by Jake Roberts got him into wrestling and he trained with Drew McIntyre early in his career. He is both a former ICW world champion and ICW Zero-G champion.

Wolfgang started out with power moves and mocked Tyler with a howl. Bate applied a headlock but Wolfgang just picked him up and put him down on the apron and mockingly howled again. Bate went for a test of strength and initially looked like he was losing, but came back and eventually managed to use the mat to escape. He hit a beautiful kip up, dropkick, kip up sequence and mocked Wolfgang, twirling his moustache. After some back and forth, Wolfgang dropped Tyler onto the ropes from a vertical suplex position, injuring his ribs, which he promptly worked over some more with kicks. Tyler sold the ribs well and was caught in a bear-hug but managed to escape.

A striking combination cut Wolfgang down to size and a flying European uppercut from the middle rope added some more damage. Bate tried for an exploder, but Wolfgang blocked it and was looking to throw Bate to ringside, but the smaller man catapulted himself off the ropes, leaping into them by his beck and shoulders and using the momentum for a lariat. He repeated this twice more and got the big man to his knees and managed to pick him up for the airplane spin and followed that with a beautiful running shooting star press for a near-fall. Wolfgang reversed a Tyler Driver ’97 attempt, but Tyler flipped out of that and landed on his feet.

Wolfgang hit a huge release German that spun Tyler by 270 degrees and Wolfgang followed that up with a spear that also looked like a running uranage for a near-fall of his own. After a failed superplex attempt, Wolfgang missed a big back senton off the top, allowing Bate to hit a rolling capo kick and the Tyler Driver ’97 for the clean pin. He posed as the show went off the air.

Conclusion:

This was a fun show but not quite as good as the debut which had a stronger opener with the Coffey/Andrews match. While both main events were excellent, the title match had more drama, and more charisma by Dar. The women keep underwhelming, which isn’t their fault but the little time their matches are given. I’d still recommend you watch if you have the time as the video packages are generally good and insightful and the Gibson promo was pretty good, both from the heat he got and his staccato-like, huffing and puffing delivery.

PROGRESS Hello Wembley results: WALTER vs. Tyler Bate

Posted on by F4W Editors

PROGRESS Wrestling presented its biggest-ever show as the promotion came to the SSE Wembley Arena on Sunday, September 30.

Chuck Mambo won a pre-show battle royal

Mambo won by last eliminating Spike Trivett. Both of the finalists are two of the hottest prospects in British pro wrestling, especially as their characters are more colorful than the average indie wrestler. Mambo is a surfer whose entrance sees fans throw beach balls into the ring. Meanwhile, Trivett plays a blueblood advocate for Britain’s Conservative Party, down to talking about wrestling a “Strong and Stable Style” in a riff on an old political slogan.

Big T. Justice, Chris Ridgeway, Damon Moser, Danny Duggan, Danny Jones, Darrell Allen, David Francisco, Drew Parker, Mad Man Manson, Rickey Shane Page, RJ Singh, Roy Johnson, Sid Scala, Stixx, The OJMO, TK Cooper, and William Eaver were the other participants. 

Unlike the main card, the battle royal is available to watch now.

Mark Haskins defeated Matt Riddle

Haskins won a very good opener between babyfaces whose styles meshed well. They are apparently good friends outside the ring, and there were plenty of spots where they would anticipate and evade each other’s strikes.

It’s worth noting that Riddle has new entrance music and already looks a fair bit bigger but is still wrestling without boots on.

PROGRESS Women’s Champion Jinny defeated Toni Storm and Millie McKenzie in a triple threat match to retain her title

This was originally going to be Jinny vs. Storm before Storm’s recent injury led to them crowning a new number one contender as a contingency plan. So late was the switch to the triple threat that the advertisement in the latest Fighting Spirit Magazine still had the match listed without McKenzie’s participation.

Despite being a late addition, McKenzie was clearly the crowd favorite. The match was the weakest on the show, which to be frank, is unfortunately typical of PROGRESS’ women’s division. They had a fairly standard triple threat where they took turns to leave the ring and the other two wrestled. Only when McKenzie started hitting suplexes would all three be in the ring for a prolonged period of time. It was a bit cliched, but probably necessary to avoid the heel champion being outnumbered by her babyface challengers.

Throughout the match, Jinny’s House of Couture henchwomen would try to interfere, drawing Candyfloss and Laura Di Matteo out to even the score. However, Di Matteo attacked Storm — helping her former mentor Jinny win the match.

The strengthened House of Couture were then sent fleeing by the debuting Jordynne Grace.

Trent Seven defeated Doug Williams to win the PROGRESS Atlas Championship

For the uninitiated, the Atlas Championship is reserved for wrestlers who weigh more than 205 lbs. Since he won the vacant title in May, Williams has promised to retire from pro wrestling as soon as he lost it. That final match would come here, with Seven winning a fun match with a crossbody.

This match had a little bit of everything, with the challenger playing the subtle heel throughout. Despite Williams having telegraphed his impending retirement with numerous final appearances across the UK, the fans bought into several of his near falls, especially the second time he hit Chaos Theory.

Williams and Seven embraced after the result, and then the roster came out onto the stage to applaud Williams.

Jimmy Havoc defeated Paul Robinson in a no DQ match

This was originally scheduled to be Havoc vs. Will Ospreay, but the latter’s New Japan commitments meant he was unavailable, something that he made his unhappiness about clear on social media.

Robinson is Ospreay’s former tag team partner and had been working as a road agent for PROGRESS. After interactions with both Ospreay and Havoc, he was appointed the special guest referee of their two-out-of-three falls match in August. He attacked Havoc at the end, costing him the third fall and setting up this match.

In a sign of what was to come, Havoc deliberately came out wearing white trousers and with his face and torso covered in white body paint. This was a bloody battle that had the intensity that high-profile death matches in non-specialist promotions sometimes lack. They did relatively little walk and brawl, instead preferring to attack each other with weapons in or near the ring.

The most noteworthy of the spots involved fluorescent light tubes, which were used liberally as the match neared its end. Both wrestlers were sent back-first into them, with Robinson’s back being left a bloody mess. The end came when Havoc curbed stomped Robinson’s face through two light tubes, before hitting the Rainmaker.

A wild match, that astonishingly, may have been only Havoc’s second most violent match of the weekend.

Intermission

After the intermission, Jim Smallman revealed that the official attendance was 4,750. That’s a number which manages to be both an astonishing achievement and something of a disappointment. When the show was announced, it was billed as the biggest UK indie show in the past 30 years, which clearly set the target of beating the 6,193 that ICW’s Fear and Loathing 9 achieved. The failure to do so has necessitated an awkward late shift to talking about it being the biggest English indie show in the past 30 years.

Still, considering that with the half-exception of Riddle they brought in no imports who aren’t a regular part of the British scene (even Bandido and Flamita have wrestled extensively for other promotions this month), whereas ICW used former WWE legends to draw casual fans, it’s a very impressive number.

While there was no announcement of a return to SSE Wembley (indeed in his opening remarks Smallman said that this may be the biggest show they ever do), they did announce that Super Strong Style 16 would return to Alexandra Palace for the second year in a row. Former PROGRESS Champion Travis Banks then came out to confirm that he would be a competitor in that tournament.

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the segment was that it confirmed that the promotion would not use Banks’ recent injury as a way to return him back to the babyface ranks after his botched title reign, with him turning the crowd with an arrogant promo.

Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis) defeated Bandido & Flamita, Chris Brookes & Timothy Thatcher, Connor Mills & Maverick Mayhew, David Starr & Jack Sexsmith, Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake & Zack Gibson), The 198 (Flash Morgan Webster & Wild Boar), and The Anti-Fun Police (Chief Deputy Dunne & Los Federales Santos Jr.) in a Thunderbastard match to win the PROGRESS Tag Team titles

A Thunderbastard match has basically the same rules as Lucha Underground’s Aztec Warfare matches — it’s a Royal Rumble with pinfalls, submissions, and disqualifications replacing over the top rope eliminations. Bandido & Flamita were the champions heading into the match.

This had a wealth of talent, sometimes too much for the crowd to properly concentrate on the action inside the ring, especially after Gibson got the fans riled up with his usual promo. Perhaps the highlight of the match was when all competitors took turns to dive over the top rope, culminating in the superheavyweight Los Federales Santos Jr. launching himself through the ropes.

The finish came when Aussie Open defeated former champions Grizzled Young Veterans when they hit the Fidget Spinner on Drake to win their first titles since moving to Britain last year.

One note of caution is that it seemed Davis injured his arm, with him being sidelined for a prolonged period of time and asking the referees to bring him ice to apply to his arm immediately after the match finished.

Pete Dunne defeated Ilja Dragunov

Before the match began, we got a very good video package and a promo from wXw’s Dragunov. That decision would prove controversial later. Dunne had not performed at the weekend for Fight Club: PRO, even being pulled from an announced match against CIMA, which naturally led to rumors that he was carrying an injury. With the one exception of limping while going to the top rope, he seemed to be moving fine.

This was a very good match that built in intensity as it went on. The point it hit high gear was when Dunne held Dragunov’s arm and started repeatedly kicking him in the head, attempting to force the referee to stop the match. Dragunov responded by trying to do the same with Jon Jones-style elbows to the face. They then traded headbutts, with the welts on each of their foreheads telling you where they were connecting. It was a match that epitomized strong style.

For the finish, Dunne trapped Dragunov’s arm and then began manipulating his hand to force the submission. They warily shook hands afterwards.

Eddie Dennis defeated Mark Andrews in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match for a future shot at the PROGRESS World Championship

We were treated to another video package before the match. This would prove problematic as the show crashed through the 8:30 p.m. finish time that PROGRESS had advertised, meaning that some fans who were relying on public transport to get home had to leave before the main event. It was, however, a very good video package.

This was a clash between former tag team partners that was a year in the making. If Williams vs. Seven echoed Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels, this feud was clearly inspired by Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, with Andrews refusing to fight his former tag team partner for several months — until the provocations became too much.

They had a fun match that never quite captured the right tone for what was meant to be a bitter grudge match. The key issue was that not only did the standard TLC spots detract from the sense of realism, but the tables supplied by PROGRESS repeatedly refused to break. There were several spots where that happened, with one table managing to withstand someone being thrown into it three times. That unfortunately made the match seem a bit silly, with fans at one point chanting “Table is our champion.”

Still, the action was great with notable spots including Andrews doing a swanton from a ladder on the outside that was a clear tribute to Jeff Hardy at WrestleMania 2000. Likewise, Dennis put Andrews through a table from a ladder with a super Death Valley Driver. Dennis would ultimately secure the contract to earn himself a future title shot.

PROGRESS World Champion WALTER defeated Tyler Bate to retain his title

This was originally scheduled to be WALTER vs. Zack Sabre Jr., but Sabre’s very important New Japan commitments in Long Beach stopped him from headlining the biggest English independent show in 30 years.

That said, there was always a suspicion that Bate had been the original plan, with an injury having forced him to withdraw from the Super Strong Style tournament that crowned the number one contender. Bate earned the title shot by being the only person to win three consecutive singles matches during August.

Two violin players played extracts of WALTER’s music before the match, inspired by NXT having done similar entrances for Shinsuke Nakamura. The Ringkampf theme doesn’t quite suit the presentation.

This was a fantastic match that by the end had turned a partisan crowd into one loudly cheering for Bate. As one would expect, the large size difference between the two men was a key story of the match, although it would instead provide the opportunity for Bate to show his freakish strength. Perhaps the most impressive moves were him successfully deadlift suplexing WALTER, completing two airplane spins, and hitting the Tyler Driver ’97.

The finish saw WALTER increasingly focus on wearing down Bate with repeated submission attempts, including multiple applications of his sleeper. Bate finally separated himself from WALTER, only for the champion to counter with a piledriver for the three count. A somewhat surprising finish to what was an instant classic that will hopefully be a springboard to Bate being pushed more strongly as a singles wrestler in PROGRESS.

PROGRESS Wrestling’s Hello Wembley will shortly be available to watch on video on demand through Demand PROGRESS.

British Strong Style vs. Undisputed Era set for WWE UK tournament

Posted on by Joseph Currier

A six-man tag match is set for the first of WWE’s two United Kingdom Championship tournament shows at Royal Albert Hall in June.

WWE revealed today that British Strong Style (Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) will be teaming together to face the Undisputed Era (Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong) on night one. Strong turned against Dunne at NXT TakeOver: New Orleans, joining Undisputed Era and allowing the group to retain their Tag Team titles.

After TakeOver, Bate & Seven lost a tag title match to Strong & O’Reilly at WrestleMania Axxess and were being attacked by Undisputed Era until Dunne made the save.

The first night in London will also feature a tournament to decide who will be challenging for Dunne’s WWE United Kingdom Championship on the second show. In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that it is believed to be an eight-man tournament with WWE’s UK-contracted wrestlers. The NXT Women’s, North American, and Tag Team titles will be defended on night two as well.

The UK Championship tournament shows will be taking place on June 18th and 19th, which fall on a Monday and Tuesday and come just days after NXT TakeOver: Chicago.

WWE NXT results: Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Bate

Posted on by Arya Witner

The Big News: Roderick Strong will challenge Pete Dunne for the WWE United Kingdom Championship, as he pinned Tyler Bate in a tremendous main event.

The Medium News: This was the typical post-TakeOver NXT where we had 37 video packages in between fairly short matches.

The Little Beaver-sized News: TM61 returned and looked good in winning.

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Welcome to the quarterly post-TakeOver edition of NXT. Normally these shows are mostly useless filler, but let’s see what this episode has for us, shall we?

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The show began with the first of seven video packages recapping TakeOver, this one looking at the entire show.

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Nikki Cross defeated Lacey Evans

Evans is a sophisticated Southern belle who was not thrilled with having to lay her hands on a psycho like Cross. Unfortunately for her, Cross had no problem laying her hands on Evans. Cross exploded at the bell, beating her in and out of the ring. After Cross trapped Evans in the apron and beat her down, Evans got the heat by yanking Cross off the middle rope inside the ring.

Percy Watson was so used to never speaking that he called Mauro Ranallo “Nigel,” but he was corrected as Evans missed a moonsault. Cross used the ground and pound and won with a swinging fisherman’s suplex. Do fishermen typically suplex one another?

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We had the Undisputed Era-Authors of Pain video package next.

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We then had the Ember Moon-Shayna Baszler video package. Moon was again called “The Shenom,” which hopefully doesn’t stick.

Later on, Baszler was interviewed by Kayla Braxton about the match. She said Moon didn’t win, she survived…barely. Baszler told her to go ask Moon who really won.

That led to photos of Moon taking part in the women’s Royal Rumble.

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Then we got the Aleister Black-Adam Cole (Bay Bay) video package. We’re only 15 minutes in, they should pace themselves.

All of Undisputed Era were complaining backstage when Cole barked that SAnitY is going to pay.

Next week, it’s Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly finally defending against Eric Young & Alexander Wolfe.

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Velveteen Dream vs. Kassius Ohno was the subject of the next video package.

Dream was interviewed by Kayla Braxton, who asked him about his prediction of winning in 30 seconds. Dream said he didn’t win in 30 seconds because Ohno knocked his mouthpiece out.

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TM61 defeated Gabriel & Uriel Ealy

Every time I see the Ealy Brothers, I am reminded that in one of their few television appearances they got their butts kicked by Samoa Joe. That actually reminds me of Dan Matha, who they built up for four or five weeks with vignettes. Then before his first match, he was a victim of Samoa Joe — which was the last time we saw him.

Shane Thorne and Nick Miller looked good here, including Thorne hitting a Fosbury Flop to both Ealys. TM61 showed more personality in this match than they ever did before Thorne’s injury. The Ealys got the heat by illegally using Twin Magic. That didn’t last long as Thorne and Miller took back over, hit a lot of hot moves, and picked up the win with Thunder Valley, which is a double press slam.

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Backstage, TM61 told Christy St. Cloud that they are the mighty and the mighty don’t kneel. Mauro Ranallo had to literally stop running down the NXT year-end awards just to go backstage for this seven-second interview.

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Enough with the wrestling! We need more video packages!

It was main event video package time. Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Johnny Gargano for the NXT Championship looked just as nice the second time as it was the first time.

We had “exclusive footage” of Tommaso Ciampa limping away dragging his crutch. This exclusive footage was promoted the entire show. Thankfully, we saw it.

Then we had stills of El Idolo entering the Royal Rumble. Cathy Kelley marked out while interviewing Zelina Vega about it. Vega took credit since Almas wouldn’t be champion or in the Rumble if not for her. Also, where was Johnny Wrestling, she asked? Probably in his room watching TV.

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They talked about EC3’s official signing with NXT. They removed the space in between EC and 3, which they had all weekend.

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Adam Cole’s five minutes in the Rumble was highlighted. Next week, he will go one-on-one with Killian Dain.

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Roderick Strong defeated Tyler Bate in a WWE United Kingdom Championship number one contender’s match

The winner of this is the next challenger for Pete Dunne’s UK title. Bate used an airplane spin, which caused Ranallo to mention the famous incident where Gorilla Monsoon gave Muhammad Ali an airplane spin. Strong used approximately 5,000 backbreakers in the first three minutes of the match. The fans loved both men, filling the air with dueling chants.

Strong, at one point, bent Bate backwards over his own back in a stretch, which could not have felt good. Bate sold his back while doing a kip up, but still did a standing Shooting Star Press.

We had an amazing sequence of around 60 seconds where we had one reversal after another of each man’s moves, which culminated with Bate hitting his springboard kick to the head. Strong finally won with a release suplex into a backbreaker.

This was about as good of a nine-minute match as you’re ever going to see. Even Tommy Wiseau in the front row had to admit this was really good, (It wasn’t really Wiseau, it was that fan who’s at every show in the shirt and tie who kind of looks like him).

So, that does it for NXT. The main event alone made it much better than the typical post-TakeOver show. Next week, we’re back in Center Stage and until then, thank you for reading and remember to say your vitamins and take your prayers!

Pre-NXT TakeOver TV taping results: Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Bate

Posted on by F4W Staff

Before TakeOver: Philadelphia went on the air last night, three matches were taped at the Wells Fargo Center for Wednesday’s episode of NXT television.

The tapings were headlined by Roderick Strong facing Tyler Bate in a WWE United Kingdom Championship number one contender’s match.

– Nikki Cross defeated Lacey Evans

Cross got a good reaction and won with her swinging fisherman neckbreaker. This was a short match, but it was good.

– TM61 defeated The Ealy Brothers

This was TM61’s televised in-ring return after Shane Thorne’s knee surgery from last year, though they’ve been back on house shows for a few months. They got a huge reaction, put in a great performance, and won with the Thunder Valley.

– Roderick Strong defeated Tyler Bate in a WWE United Kingdom Championship number one contender’s match

They had a very good match, with Strong winning with a vertical suplex into a double knees backbreaker. There were dueling chants for both, along with chants of “NXT” and “this is awesome.”

Strong will get the next shot at Pete Dunne’s title.

UK title number one contender’s match set for pre-TakeOver tapings

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Prior to TakeOver: Philadelphia going on the air tomorrow night, there will be a WWE United Kingdom Championship number one contender’s match on the pre-show television tapings.

Roderick Strong will be facing Tyler Bate, with the winner getting a future shot at Pete Dunne’s title. Strong vs. Bate will air on Wednesday’s episode of NXT television.

Bate was the last person in WWE to challenge Dunne for the title, losing to him in a match that aired on December 20th.

Nikki Cross vs. Lacey Evans and the in-ring return of TM61 have also been advertised for Wednesday’s episode and will be taped prior to TakeOver.

There will be an hour-long pre-show before TakeOver begins. Renee Young and Corey Graves will host the NXT year-end awards, and Charly Caruso, Sam Roberts, and Samoa Joe will appear on the pre-show panel.

The main card for TakeOver: Philadelphia has Johnny Gargano challenging Andrade “Cien” Almas for the NXT Championship, Adam Cole vs. Aleister Black in an extreme rules match, NXT Women’s Champion Ember Moon defending against Shayna Baszler, Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly putting their Tag Team titles on the line against The Authors of Pain, and Kassius Ohno vs. Velveteen Dream.

RevPro High Stakes results: Bate & Seven vs. Suzuki & ZSJ

Posted on by F4W Staff

Image and report submitted by reader Matt Dagnall

– British Cruiserweight Champion Kurtis Chapman defeated Rob Lias to retain his title

Eddie Dennis came out and distracted Lias. This was somewhat sloppy and the crowd found it hard to get into it.

– CCK (Travis Banks & Chris Brookes) defeated Zack Gibson & Josh Bodom

Before the match, Dennis stayed at the ramp and had a pull-apart brawl with Gibson and Bodom before CCK came out. Gibson cut a promo about how the fans only care about New Japan talent and should really care about him and Bodom.

The match was fast paced and had some hard-hitting elements. Banks was the most over guy in it. After some cheating from Gibson, Kid Lykos evened the odds by hitting Bodom with a tray. CCK got the win and Bodom and Gibson argued afterwards, with the latter walking out furious.

– Adam Brooks defeated Ryan Smile

This was a terrific match that went for over 20 minutes. It started quickly with a brawl all over the arena. Both men were equally over and got dueling chants from the crowd throughout.

Things got really good in the latter stages with a series of very convincing near falls for Smile. Brooks came back with a flurry of offense and several big moves to put Smile away. This match had everything and the crowd was super into it. Smile was left in the ring to soak up the applause as he waved goodbye.

– SANADA & EVIL defeated Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher)

There was a huge reaction for SANADA and EVIL, but Aussie Open were almost as popular. There were again dueling chants throughout. It looked early on like SANADA may have gotten hurt but he continued the match.

Fletcher eventually found himself caught in a submission and was forced to tap. SANADA and EVIL got a standing ovation afterwards and both teams were more over following the match.

– British Women’s Champion Jinny defeated Bea Priestley and Millie McKenzie to retain her title

Priestley had an elaborate entrance, very similar to Finn Balor’s demon one. McKenzie was extremely over and was the highlight of the match. She went wild with some German suplexes, even suplexing both women at the same time.

There was a crazy dive from Priestley from the ring post onto McKenzie, who was draped across the barrier. McKenzie also botched a dive badly to the outside but was okay. She then hit a move from the top rope on Priestley, which looked incredibly dangerous, but Jinny stole the pin to retain. 

– Will Ospreay defeated Mark Andrews

Ospreay came out to a superstar reaction and the crowd was incredibly hot for him. The match started at a quick pace, with both doing dives right away. This was everything you would expect from Ospreay and Andrews, with moonsaults, shooting star presses, and plenty of Frankensteiners. It was a real spectacle to watch with reversal after reversal.

Ospreay eventually won with the OsCutter. This felt like a premature ending and the match could have gone on longer. Andrews endorsed Ospreay afterwards, but Adam Brooks came out and laid out both. He cut the Australian flag off Ospreay’s ring gear.

– Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Moustache Mountain (Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) to win the British Tag Team Championship

This was the match of the night by a large margin. Everyone involved performed excellently, especially Suzuki. The match was a total war. Everyone got huge reactions, but it was clear that Suzuki was the main attraction. Bate and Seven wore towels around their heads to mock him.

Suzuki traded chops with Seven early on, with Suzuki laughing at Seven’s efforts before striking him down with just one chop. Bate tagged in and got in some signature offense before he was worn down by Suzuki’s power. Sabre Jr. tried multiple submissions on Bate, then Suzuki did too before Seven made the hot tag. He lit up Sabre Jr. with some fierce strikes in the ring while Suzuki and Bate brawled on the outside.

Suzuki laughed at Bate’s strikes before firing back himself much harder. After some nice sequences from both teams in the ring, Bate hit the Tyler Driver — only for Suzuki to kick out. Things really got good from here, with some more crazy sequences before Suzuki and Sabre got the win to a huge reaction.

The new champions beat down Moustache Mountain, who were sent packing. CCK came out to face off with Suzuki and Sabre but were too scared to get in the ring and left the champs to soak up the applause.

WWE NXT results: UK and Tag Team titles on the line

Posted on by Arya Witner

The Big News: Pete Dunne retained his WWE United Kingdom Championship by pinning Tyler Bate in the main event

The Medium News: Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly won the NXT Tag Team Championship by defeating SAnitY.

The Little Beaver-sized News: Lars Sullivan advanced to the fatal four-way number one contender’s next week over Roderick Strong.

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Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly defeated Eric Young & Killian Dain to win the NXT Tag Team Championship

What better way to kick off the show than with a battle for the Tag Team titles? Eric Young & Alexander Wolfe ended the 14-month undefeated streak of The Authors of Pain back at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn to take the titles. Due to the Freebird Rule, Killian Dain is filling in for an injured Wolfe for this title match.

The challengers had their hands full at the start of the match, with Dain running over both men. They continued to be Dain’s playthings until Young tagged in. The former reDRagon worked over EY’s shoulder during the heat. Young, at one point, got close to making a tag, but O’Reilly punched Dain, which led to Dain trying to get in the ring. That distracted the referee and kept EY from making it.

Dain finally got the hot tag, to the approval of the crowd, and he ran over his much smaller foes. Dain tagged back out, which really has been a bad idea the whole match and it turned out to be a bad idea here. Young went to the top rope, but Adam Cole appeared from out of nowhere to trip him up. Cole celebrated until Nikki Cross appeared and took him out to the biggest pop of the match.

Cross got dragged out by referees, chaos broke out with all five men at ringside, and in the confusion Fish and O’Reilly hit Young with the high-low for the pin. We have new champions! The former ROH Tag Team Champions and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions have hit the trifecta. The 13th and new NXT Tag Team Champions are The Undisputed Era.

The kings are dead, long live the new kings.

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Heavy Machinery were outside and saw Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli’s Maserati and tried to move it out of the way. Moss and Sabbatelli mocked them for not being able to afford a car like this. This led to a South Park-esque argument where they called each other buddy and pal. It appeared to set up a future match.

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Sonya Deville stated that she will defeat Ember Moon next week. She said Moon never beat her and they have unfinished business, which confused the guy interviewing her.

It was then announced that their match next week would be for the NXT Women’s Championship.

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Lars Sullivan defeated Roderick Strong to advance to the fatal four-way number one contender’s match

The winner of this will join Johnny Gargano, Killian Dain, and Aleister Black in a fatal four-way match to determine a new number one contender for Andrade “Cien” Almas at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia.

Strong came out fast at the bell, but Sullivan quickly knocked him down and smashed him, throwing Strong all over the ring. Strong had to fight out of a bear hug at one point. He managed to catch Sullivan in the ropes and hit running clotheslines to both sides of Sullivan, then Sullivan freed himself. Sullivan went up top, but he got caught and hit with a superplex. Strong went for the cover, but Sullivan kicked out hard at one.

Strong kept going but never came close as he got pinned with The Freak Accident.

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The Street Profits had another edition of Street Talk. Like last time, they bribed fans with free Solo cups to say how great they were.

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WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne defeated Tyler Bate to retain his title

This is the third time they are wrestling for the title this year, with the series split at one. Their second match in Chicago was an instant classic and is my personal pick for Match of the Year. They teased giving us a short match as this didn’t start until 8:46 p.m., but the show went almost 15 minutes after the top of the hour.

This was not as good as Chicago, but it was better than their first bout. It was a brutal back-and-forth match between two guys who know each other so well. For the third time, we saw a legitimate athletic competition between two stars. Not future stars, but stars.

A beautiful, fluid wrestling sequence started the match. Dunne, who was in control, decided to unleash his inner villain by fishhooking Bate even though he really didn’t need to. Bate used a punch to the face, which Dunne was angered by, so the champ punched him in the face inside and outside the ring. Dunne tried to stomp on Bate’s fingers on the steps, but Bate turned it around and stomped on Dunne’s fingers. Dunne shook it off and took back over with a suplex off the steps onto the pretty black mats on the floor.

Dunne continued to work on the hand and fingers of Bate, at one point bending his arm down onto the mat and stomping on the elbow, which drove his hand into the mat. Bate started his comeback, including hitting the rolling kick. He went for the Tyler Driver ’97, but Dunne turned it into a triangle, however Bate was able to powerbomb Dunne from that position. Unfortunately he was still in the Triangle, so he somehow lifted Dunne up, carried him to the ropes, and necked him.

Bate broke out the airplane spin, going in each direction and the third spin was the fastest of all of them. He used an exploder suplex from the top rope, then a battle of kicks broke out until before Dunne used The Bitter End for a near fall. Twenty minutes into the match they had more energy than the opening bell. From their knees they began punching each other right in the face, and they both stood up still swinging with their punches getting weaker as they kept going.

Bate used a rolling koppo kick on the ring apron, which is the hardest part of the ring, but he got dropped with an Ex-Plex in the ring for a two count. A minute later, we got a Tyler Driver, but Dunne kicked out of that! Finally Bate went for a German suplex from the top rope, but Dunne over rotated, landed on his feet, and hit The Bitter End for the bitter end. Dunne retained in another amazing bout!

It took 25 minutes, but Pete Dunne is going to end the year as United Kingdom Champion! That does it for this week. Merry Christmas and I’ll talk to you again in seven days!

NXT St. Petersburg, FL, live results: Moustache Mountain vs. TM61

Posted on by JJ Williams

Approximately 200 people attended last night’s show.

– Lio Rush defeated Raul Mendoza

– Liv Morgan defeated Jessie Elaban

– Big Boa defeated Tian Bing

Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake attacked Boa after the match until fellow Chinese recruit Mars Wang made the save.

– Buddy Murphy defeated Brennan Williams

– Moustache Mountain (Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) defeated TM61 (Shane Thorne & Nick Miller)

– Kona Reeves (w/ Ming) defeated Christopher Dijak

– Nikki Cross defeated Vanessa Borne

– WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne & The Authors of Pain defeated Wolfgang & Heavy Machinery

WWE NXT results: Moustache Mountain vs. Pete Dunne & Mark Andrews

Posted on by Arya Witner

The Big News: Tyler Bate moved one step closer to another shot at the UK title by pinning champion Pete Dunne in the tag team main event.

The Medium News: Kairi Sane continued her streak of not being pinned or submitted as she beat Peyton Royce.

The Little Beaver-sized News: The Street Profits moved to 2-0 against Sabbatelli & Moss. (Maybe if they wrestle 1000 times, the former NFL players can get a win?)

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Remember last week when I said that this week we’d be back in the swing of things with a normal episode of NXT? I was lying. Instead, we have highlights of the NXT San Antonio house show from the night before NXT TakeOver: War Games.

Nigel McGuinness isn’t here this week, which means we got more Percy Watson. At no point did I say that was a good thing. Christy St. Cloud is handling the ring announcing and was really enthusiastic which is the nicest thing I can say about her effort.

The Street Profits defeated Tino Sabbatelli & Riddick Moss

These two teams first wrestled two weeks ago, won by the Profits. They celebrated by partying on top of a car which angered Sabbatelli & Moss. That, of course, led to “renewed hostilities” and this rematch.

There looked to be about 300 people in the crowd, but they were into the Profits and made enough noise for a couple thousand. The heels got the heat on Montez Ford when Sabbatelli knocked him off the ring apron and sent him crashing into the guardrails. The crowd exploded for Angelo Dawkins’ hot tag which led to him running wild with his twisting splashes in the corner to both of his foes.

Sabbatelli had Dawkins pinned with a forearm to the face, but the referee stopped counting when he saw Moss holding down Dawkins’ feet for leverage. Ford came back and pinned Sabbatelli with a frog splash after a Lo Down.

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Tickets for NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia go on sale this Saturday!

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After defeating Johnny Gargano last week, UK Champion Pete Dunne was approached by Moustache Mountain (Tyler Bate/Trent Seven) who congratulated him on his victory. Bate brought up Dunne allowing Wolfgang to be beaten down by The Undisputed Era and challenged him to find a partner for a tag team match. We fast forward back to today and Seven enunciated the same thoughts. Bate said they are a real tag team, unlike Dunne and Mark Andrews.

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The aforementioned Andrews cut a promo about why he agreed to be Dunne’s partner. He said that there is an agreement in place that if their team wins, Andrews will become #1 contender to the UK Championship.

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Kairi Sane defeated Peyton Royce

After the opening salvo, Royce ran the ropes and Sane did a drop down….and then did it again….and then did it again. Just as I was getting curious as to how long Royce would keep running and jumping over Sane, she suddenly stopped and got frustrated. Said frustration didn’t last long as Royce knocked down Sane to get the heat.

Sane made her comeback and seemed content with caving in Royce’s chest with forearms. Sane went up top for a big WhatAManeuver, but Royce sidestepped it and hit a running knee for a near fall. Sane made another comeback and even knocked an interfering Billie Kay off the apron before pinning Royce with the Insane Elbow.

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Last week, Ruby Riott defeated Sonya Deville in a Winner Gets An Extra Letter Added To Her Last Name Match, but they are coming back! Next week, the war between Raw and SmackDown explodes again as Sonya and Ruby square off in a no holds barred match.

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A video aired about Drew McIntyre’s injury and an acknowledgment that he will be out for an undisclosed amount of time. However, we get the championship celebration next week for the new NXT Champion, Andrade “Cien” Almas.

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Moustache Mountain defeated WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne & Mark Andrews

Back in January, all four men took part in the UK Championship tournament, which was won by Bate. Dunne won the title in the best WWE match all year at TakeOver: Chicago (again, go watch that match) and has since defended it multiple times.

The match started with Bate and Dunne. Bate appeared to get the best of him as it led to a standoff. Dunne reached out to tag Andrews, but before he did, he punched Bate right in the mouth. Andrews tagged in and we got superb scientific wrestling between the three noble babyfaces.

Dunne continued to show why he is a budding star. He does so many little things and creative misdirection spots that along with his skill, his sheer presence and personality make him a standout not just in the UK division, but in all of NXT. This match told a great story and made sense from beginning to end. Andrews wouldn’t normally bother himself by teaming with such a rogue, but the lure of championship glory was enough to set aside his personal feelings for one night.

The dissention and destruction of the team slowly built from the opening bell with Dunne not happy with Andrews’ clean cut ways and Andrews not happy with Dunne’s lack of sportsmanship.

Toward the end, Andrews hit a hurricarana on Bate and Dunne caught his foe and dropped him with a sit-out power bomb in one fluid motion. Bate came back and almost had the champ pinned with a double team power bomb, but Andrews broke that up. There were a slew of near falls and kickouts, but the finish was nice and simple. Bate, the former champion, pinned Dunne, the current champion, with the Tyler Driver 97.

Andrews was frustrated after the match, but decided to fight another day and began walking away. However, Dunne laid him out with a blow to the back of the head and then hit a Bitter End.

This week was a throwaway show that did have an excellent main event that sets the stage for more excellent matches in the future. Next week, we’re back in Full Sail (I’m serious this time), so until then, remember to say your vitamins and take your prayers.

WWE NXT results: Moustache Mountain vs. Fish & O’Reilly

Posted on by Arya Witner

The Big News: Drew McIntyre and SAnitY finally got the upper hand on Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, and Kyle O’Reilly, standing tall at the end of the night.

The Medium News: A few minutes before, however, Fish & O’Reilly got their first win, defeating the Moustache Mountain duo of Tyler Bate & Trent Seven

The Little Beaver Sized News: Drew McIntyre will defend his NXT Championship against Roderick Strong on the episode that airs in two weeks.

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Johnny Gargano defeated Tino Sabbatelli

Last week, Gargano beat Sabbatelli’s partner Riddick Moss. Can he make it two in a row as we kick off another week of NXT? In a WWE.com promo last week, Sabbatelli and Moss said Gargano won’t get lucky again if they wrestle.

Sabbatelli started the match by pushing Gargano back into the corner and pie-facing him. Gargano let his foe do it a couple times before rebounding off the ropes with a chop so loud that it’s still being heard in parts of the country.

Sabbatelli got his heat from there. Gargano made a brief comeback but got cut off when he went for a slingshot dive over the top rope. Sabbatelli caught him and dropped him with a powerslam.

The story of the match was that Sabbatelli may have had it won, but he decided to badmouth Gargano. Johnny Wrestling tagged him with a superkick and tapped him out with the Gargano Escape. Moss was at ringside, but he never got involved.

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Mr. Regal was backstage telling a story when Roderick Strong walked in and asked for an opportunity at Drew McIntyre’s NXT Championship. Regal agreed and made the title match for October 4th.

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Sonya Deville cut a promo and said she never wrestled Asuka because Asuka knew that Deville would have broken her undefeated streak. Deville laid claim to the championship.

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Bianca Belair defeated Lacey Evans

Both Belair and Evans are straight out of the Mae Young Classic. This seemed like it could have been a good hard-hitting match, but Evans was content to be a punching bag for the most part.

Belair was laying in palm strikes and forearms until near the end when Evans got tired of it and fired back with a few good shots of her own. However, Belair whipped Evans with her hair (which was more violent than it sounds) and pinned her with a backwards falling powerbomb.

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Six months after debuting, Aleister Black finally had something to say. Black came to the ring wearing a suit for his first promo segment. I don’t know what I expected him to wear, but it takes something from him to just see him wearing a nice suit. He must have heard me because he came to the ring, removed his suit jacket, and rolled up his sleeves.

He started a journey 15 years ago that led him here to NXT. In those 15 years, he traveled the world and experienced a lot. He put all those experiences on his skin in the form of his scars. He did this to not forget, noting the heart tattoo on his throat and the devil tattoo on his back. He said he now knows what he needs to do.

Before he could state whatever that is, Velveteen Dream lived up to his threat from a few weeks ago. Dream said Black has been blinded by the light that is our Velveteen Dream. He got in the ring and asked Black where his scars are.

Dream said he sees a man who is hurt and in pain. However, Black’s biggest problem is fear. Black looks afraid to Dream. He’s afraid to show emotion and afraid of the light. Dream knows Black has a heart, but it’s in the wrong place.

Black, who stared a hole through his head, gave the former Patrick Clark a Black Mass to the hand. Black sat down in the ring, challenging Dream to do something. Dream knelt down and leaned in close to Black before slithering away.

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Dakota Kai said she wants to be NXT Women’s Champion.

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Lars Sullivan defeated No Way Jose

This match is the conclusion to the angle between Jose and Sullivan. A month ago in Brooklyn, Sullivan destroyed Jose as he tried to fiesta before his match. Then Sullivan manhandled three men in a handicap match two weeks ago, which was followed by Jose, the babyface, attacking Sullivan. Unfortunately for Jose, he got his butt kicked one more time. So since Jose can’t just stay away, we have arrived here!

Jose’s strategy for this match was to attack at the bell. That didn’t work. It’s possible he changed his strategy mid-match to tire Sullivan out by allowing the big man to beat him and throw him all over the ring. That didn’t work either. Jose then figured if he punched Sullivan in the face that would get him the advantage. It also didn’t work.

Sullivan finished Jose off with a diving headbutt and a slam.

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Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly defeated Moustache Mountain

Last week, Bate and Seven ran in to check on Wolfgang after Wolfie was laid out by a three-on-one beatdown by Adam Cole, Fish, and Kyle O’Reilly.

Seven had the early advantage on Fish, but when he went for some sort of move, O’Reilly distracted him just long enough for Fish to cut him off. Seven battled back and chopped away at Fish, but Fish thought he would outsmart Seven by ducking, but Seven was on top of his game and dropped Fish with a DDT.

Cole got up on the apron to have a discussion with the referee, while Fish speared Seven right into the metal barricade on the other side of the arena. Bate eventually got the hot tag and ran wild on the three-time ROH Tag Team Champions. Seven got back in the game for a four-way brawl and he finally took Fish out with a suicide dive.

Bate went for the Tyler Driver ’97, but O’Reilly locked on a guillotine. Bate fought and fought and eventually got out of it. He hoisted O’Reilly up for a suplex, but Fish kicked his leg outta his leg. Fish and O’Reilly hit Chasing the Dragon, but Bate got his big toe on the bottom rope to break the pin up.

It was hard to keep track of who was legal, but Cole interfered to drop Bate, and finally Fish and O’Reilly pinned Seven after Total Elimination.

McIntyre decided that now was the best time to hit the ring, and I guess he had a point, as his presence caused Cole, Fish, and O’Reilly to scurry away. Well, they attempted to scurry away. SAnitY appeared behind them and got their revenge for the attacks at TakeOver and a few weeks later on NXT.

McIntyre joined in on the four-on-three beatdown and eventually the heel trio sulked away a lot less cocky than they were a few minutes earlier.

So. that does it for this week. What happens next week? Only one way to find out, so until then, remember to say your vitamins and take your prayers!

WWE NXT results: UK tag match highlights pre-TakeOver action

Posted on by Arya Witner

The Big News: Wolfgang pinned Tyler Bate to win the tag team main event with his partner, Pete Dunne.

The Medium News: Lars Sullivan finally decided to ditch the tag team division and destroyed No Way Jose.

The Little Beaver-sized News: Ignore everything but the main event and re-watch TakeOver: Brooklyn.

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For the fifth straight night, WWE has invaded the Barclays Center! Don’t try to tell me this was taped Saturday night, because I call shenanigans.

Before I begin, I am going to save myself the time of saying this five times. They did five video packages recapping the matches at TakeOver. Any interviews recapped featuring the participants aired after those video packages.

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No Way Jose vs. Lars Sullivan never began

Jose’s new job is the old Enzo Amore and Big Cass spot where he opens every show. He brought fans over the dasher boards to fiesta with him before the match until he was attacked by Sullivan. Sullivan destroyed Jose while the fans stood and watched in horror.

Sullivan, who went 0-for-the-millennium in tag team action, is much more dominant by himself. The match never got started as Sullivan walked off after leaving Jose laying.

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We got a Johnny Gargano promo from earlier today. Gargano said he has no excuses for losing to Andrade Almas and he owns that. Brooklyn didn’t go as planned, but he knows people still believe in him and this is far from the end for Johnny Wrestling.

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Asuka did a post-match press conference with “international media.” She bragged about winning and said she will continue to do so.

They did share the news of Asuka’s collarbone injury and Asuka declaring that she will be back.

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Pete Dunne and Wolfgang cut a promo backstage about their match tonight. They were asked what this match would do for the UK division.

Dunne said him wrestling makes the brand stronger. Wolfgang said that after they win their tag team match, Dunne should give him a title shot. Dunne told him not to get too far ahead of himself.

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Peyton Royce (w/ Billie Kay) defeated Sarah Logan

The fans were really into the Iconic Duo’s entrance. Logan’s enthusiasm was infectious, but she was here tonight with a job to do.

Logan dropped down too close to the ropes, causing Royce to trip on her while coming off of them. Not sure if that was a botch, but they made it look good. Royce then used kind of a reverse tarantula in the ropes.

Logan ducked under a spin kick and hit a delayed German suplex. Kay tried to get involved, but it backfired and Logan almost got the pin with an O’Connor Roll. However, Royce picked up the win with a fisherwoman’s suplex.

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On next week’s episode, Drew McIntyre will reply to the beatdown he got at TakeOver from Adam Cole and reDRagon.

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Bobby Roode ordered a lackey to get his bags and put them in his car after losing the NXT Championship on Saturday. He refused to do an interview, then Roderick Strong blew him a kiss, telling him “see you soon.”

We then recapped his debut on SmackDown last night and there was a promo with Roode saying he doesn’t leave behind unfinished business. He said he is going to beat Strong, then beat Drew McIntyre and take back his NXT title, and then he will make SmackDown “glorious.”

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Aleister Black ignored the random schmoes shoving microphones in his face and demanding comment following his match on Saturday.

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WWE UK Champion Pete Dunne & Wolfgang defeated Tyler Bate & Trent Seven

It was time for the main event. Bate won the UK title in the tournament from this past January. Then Dunne beat him for the belt in the WWE Match of the Year (so far) at TakeOver: Chicago. If for some reason you have never watched that match, you owe it to yourself to go to the Wayback Machine and watch it.

Bate and Seven also go by the team name Moustache Mountain.

Everyone got a polite reaction, but Dunne got the reaction of a superstar. Dunne and Bate started at the bell and did just enough together that it made you beg for their third encounter to happen soon.

Dunne and Wolfgang got the heat on Seven when Wolfgang exploded from the corner with a spear as Seven was playing to the crowd by twirling his mustache. Dunne bent Seven’s arm completely behind his back and then bent his fingers in the direction they’re not supposed to go. That always makes me hurt.

Bate got the hot tag, and while fans liked him when he entered the arena, they quickly loved him again with his work. Bate had the match won with the Tyler Driver ’97 on Dunne, but he didn’t notice Wolfgang blind tagged himself in. Wolfgang hit a huge swanton bomb on Bate for the pin and the win.

That does it for this week, and that officially does it from Brooklyn. We head back to Full Sail next week and begin the road to the next TakeOver. Until then, remember to say your vitamins and take your prayers!

NXT TakeOver Chicago live results: Four titles on the line

Posted on by Arya Witner

NXT comes to Chicago for its latest big show as the Allstate Arena hosts TakeOver: Chicago tonight.

There are four title matches scheduled, with Bobby Roode vs. Hideo Itami for the NXT Championship set for the main event. Itami won the title shot by defeating Roderick Strong on television and this will be perhaps the biggest moment of his WWE career thus far.

Elsewhere on the show, Asuka defends her NXT Women’s Championship in a triple threat match against Nikki Cross and Ruby Riot. And the NXT tag titles will be up for grabs as DIY challenge The Authors of Pain in a ladder match.

With Jim Ross joining Nigel McGuinness on commentary for one match, the WWE United Kingdom Championship will be defended as Tyler Bate once again faces Pete Dunne. Strong will also continue his feud with SAnitY and its leader Eric Young.

Our live coverage begins at 8 p.m. ET.

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Eric Young (w/SAnitY) vs Roderick Strong

Strong picked up a somewhat surprising win after a third jumping knee and a releasing suplex into a backbreaker.

Strong ran in through the crowd during his entrance, posting Killian Dane and giving Alexander Wolfe a backbreaker on the dasher boards. Strong shined on Young and had the advantage until Dane ran him over on the outside of the ring, which Tom Phillips claimed the referee didn’t see, even though the referee was watching until a second before the point of impact. Phillips also claimed that Strong was attacked before NXT TakeOver: Orlando and hadn’t been seen in weeks after (that was No Way Jose).

Strong took over with a dropkick when Young jumped off the ropes, but Young gave him the Wheelbarrow Neckbreaker outside the ring for a near-countout. Strong made his comeback, kicking Dane off the apron and throwing Young into Wolfe. Young climbed to the top rope, but took a Nestea Plunge to Wolfe and Dane when Strong hit a jumping knee, which led to the finish.

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Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne for the WWE United Kingdon Championship

Jim Ross got his own entrance and a standing ovation as he joined the broadcast table for this bout.

A fantastic, show-stealing match. If you have never seen either of these two wrestle, you owe it to yourself to check this match out. In one match they made the UK Title mean more than the Cruiserweight Title does.

The finish saw Bate go for a pescado, but Dunne stepped aside and threw him into the black mats, before winning the title with the Bitter End in the ring.

Early on the fans chanted for both, but Dunne’s fans lasted longer, with chants for Bate dying off. By the time the match ended they were chanting “UK” and “Fight Forever”. That’s not to say they were against the champion, as they cheered for him just as well. Dunne was working the joints of Tyler’s fingers and tried to stomp on them, but Bate moved out of the way. However Bate was dropped on the ring apron, which is the hardest part of the ring, with an X-Plex.

Dunne went for an X-Plex in the ring, but Bate landed on his feet and hit a standing Shooting Star Press to Dunne, which led to a very close near fall. Bate went for a second one, but got caught in a Triangle Choke. From the Triangle Dunne threw punches and elbows at Bate, but instead of tapping, Bate lifted him and dropped him with the one-armed power bomb. Bate used an exceptionally long and fast Airplane Spin and collapsed on top of Dunne for a 2 count.

Bate came off the middle rope, but got caught with a forearm and laid out as Dunne hit a X-Plex into a Sit Out Power Bomb for what everyone thought was the finish, but it wasn’t. The crowd exploded as they got to their feet swinging away at each other. We had a series of moves where one would be hit, fall off the ropes and come back with another move and the other one would fall off the ropes and come back with their own. Dunne went for the Bitter End, but Bate turned it into a DDT. Bate then hit an Asai Moonsault to the floor and a Corkscrew 450 Splash in the ring, but Dunne kicked out of that. Bate went for a dive, which led to the end.

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Asuka vs Ruby Riot vs Nikki Cross for the Women’s Title

Asuka retained the title by pinning both Ruby and Nikki with a running low dropkick to the face.

The story of this match is Asuka’s confidence has almost completely turned into cockiness. Her moves, while just as crisp as before, were done almost with a sense of boredom. Early on the fans were into Asuka and Ruby, not so much for Nikki (outside of her entrance), but really got into Cross when she caught Asuka in the ring apron and waylayed the champ with forearms. They tried a different 3-way spot where Nikki had laid out Ruby, but Asuka nailed a Missile Dropkick on Cross, but landed in a splash on Ruby.

Asuka was outside the ring and Cross dove off the apron, but got caught with a nice looking knee to the face. Ruby later on went for a top rope legdrop, but Asuka moved out of the way and locked on the Asuka lock. She would have had to tap, but Cross broke it up. Nikki then laid out Ruby on the ring apron, which is the hardest part of the ring.

They did the normal triple threat spot where each lady would be laid out outside of the ring and the other two would square off. No one believed Nikki or Ruby would win, but they still enjoyed what was a good match.

Ember Moon was shown watching in the stands during the match.

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A commercial aired for Rocket League, where a girl playing soccer goalie appears to dive head-first into a moving vehicle.

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The Velveteen Dream Patrick Clark re-re-re-redebuts this Wednesday.

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Bobby Roode vs Hideo Itami for the NXT Championship

Interesting match order. Also interesting to note that they showed the original angle where Itami was injured and you were led to believe that Kevin Owens did it. Also that angle happened two years ago today.

Bobby Roode continues his quest to break all time records for the longest walk to the ring in wrestling history, as tonight’s entrance clocked in at a tremendous 4 minutes, 25 seconds.

The finish saw Itami go for his second GTS, but Roode blocked it on the way down and hit two Glorious DDT’s to retain the title in an excellent title match that exceeded expectations.

Itami teased the Go To Sleep in the first 30 seconds of the match, but Roode was able to get out of it. Itami dropped Roode early and then dropped several knees. Hideo lowered his knee pad, which led to Roode covering up, so Itami just booted him in the mouth. Roode took over with the Buff Blockbuster. Roode concentrated on Itami’s shoulder, including using elbows to the shoulder, which the announcers didn’t notice.

Hideo would get spurts of offense, but Roode would quickly cut him off. This continued until Roode mocked him and Hideo began his comeback with a hard slap to the face. Turn about was fair play, as Roode slammed his own shoulder into the ring post, so he had a bruised wing. Itami used a Fujiwara Armbar and a Falcon Arrow, but Roode escaped both times.

Both men tried several times to go for their respective finishers, but one way or another neither would hit. Roode tried to send Itami into the steps, but they reversed it. Hideo then went for a running dropkick, but Roode moved and Hideo went crashing into the steps, possibly injuring his ankle. Back in the ring, Itami got the best of the YAY! BOO! punch spot, but injured himself on a running corner dropkick. Roode saw this and hit a Glorious DDT, but Itami kicked out. Itami finally hit the Go To Sleep, but Roode fell out of the ring, which seems to happen in every Bobby Roode title match. Itami slapped Roode like Roode owed him money before the finish.

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Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Kassius Ohno and Pat Patterson were all shown at ringside.

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Authors of Pain vs #DIY for the NXT Tag Team Championship in a Ladder Match

Authors of Pain retained the titles in a violent ladder match. There have undoubtedly been better ladder matches, but I have rarely screamed like I did when Johnny Gargano took a double team ladder shot right to the face. The match itself was excellent, but it will be remembered for the show closing angle.

Early in the match Ciampa & Gargano brought a giant ladder from up the aisle, which led to Gargano doing a Suicide dive through the ladder and onto the AOP. They went for a Hardy Boyz Poetry in Motion, but Gargano was caught and thrown on top of the kneeling Ciampa. Akam and Rezar teased being too big to climb the ladders, which is ridiculous since Big Show has been in several ladder matches without problems.

We got several creative climbing spots where AOP would pick up a ladder and Ciampa would run up it, or when the Authors went for a Super Collider, Gargano & Ciampa were almost high enough in the air to get the belts. Authors of Pain set up two long ladders from the ring apron to the dasher boards, but DIY used knees to lay the champs across them. There was a ladder in between the two ladder bridges, so DIY climbed it for a double dive off the tops of the ladder. Ciampa hit his on the money, but Gargano and Akam bounced off the ladder, without it breaking clean.

DIY had the titles won, but Paul Ellering ran in to stop Gargano from climbing. Gargano superkicked Ellering, which caused the AOP to freak out briefly. It didn’t last long, as Ellering was propped up against the dasher boards encouraging his team on. Akam and Rezar went for a ladder shot on Ciampa, but Gargano shoved him out of the way and took a brutally hard ladder shot to the face. That looked worse than anything Sheamus did to Jeff Hardy.

Rezar climbed, but Ciampa was able to rip him off with a German Suplex, which caused Rezar to fall into a ladder, exploding it on impact. Akam went to do the Terry Funk airplane spin with the ladder, but he got superkicked to his knees and DIY hit their double team knee strikes to him. They teased that as the finish, but AOP grabbed them, hit a double team power bomb and a Super Collider before finally climbing the ladder and claiming their championship belts.

The Chicago crowd gave DIY a standing ovation after the match, chanting “DIY”.

They teased ending the show with DIY embracing on the ramp, but instead, Ciampa attacked Gargano and turned heel. Ciampa threw Gargano face-first into the set before giving him a running knee. The fans, who were chanting “Psycho Killer” minutes earlier, booed as Ciampa laid Gargano out with a lifting knee strike to his now-former best friend.

Ciampa took Gargano to the top of the announce table, but dropped him with a White Noise off the stage and through some production tables set up off stage. The fans were simultaneously booing his dastardly deeds and cheering for how cool they were.