WWE launches new U.K. series - NXT UK

[AnotherCrapUsername]

7 hours ago, D@mm said:

Could they not just have Spud as general manager for NXT UK as well as 205.

Drake Maverick is the 205 Live GM. Not Spud

[UK Kat Von D]

Robbie Brookside would have been a better pick I reckon. He was class in that NXT documentary series they did a few years back and it would be nice for him to have a proper on screen role.

Pete had me proper invested in the main event and luckily I had managed to avoid spoilers so I was buying all the false finishes 

[BomberPat]

I get what they're going for with Johnny Saint, in trying to lend a sense of continuity from classic British wrestling to the present day, but he's not the kind of guy to do an in-ring promo, and never was. There's a place for him as a GM, but it needs to be more Jack Tunney and less present day GM showing up to cut promos.

Still, even by the mad standards of wrestling in 2018, Johnny Saint standing alongside Triple H cutting a promo is a sight I never thought I'd see.

 

I'm about halfway through the second show, and there have been some great matches - Travis Banks has been the MVP, and the British Strong Style/Undisputed Era match was a belter, but the whole show feels more than a bit rough around the edges. Aside from Johnny Saint's fluffed lines, there are times when you can hear off-mic mumbling between the commentators (when Nigel McGuinness makes a Ronaldo/World Cup reference after Killer Kelly hits her apron kick, you can hear what I assume is Mauro mumbling something about "sports references", for example), and there are times when the camera is partially obscured for a few seconds by a fan or a sign. All minor niggles, but don't necessarily bode well for WWE treating the UK brand as worthy of big WWE style production moving forward - which has its positives too, of course, as it was good to see a WWE show without a thousand jump cuts every match.

Some of the promos were abysmal, though. While it never got quite to the level of last year's "everyone grew up fighting in pubs, and being from Birmingham counts as a backstory", the promos just did nothing to make me care about the characters or make them stand out. It seemed like every bugger was just saying, "I grew up watching WWE. I've wrestled for ten years, and now I want to prove that I've go what it takes". Yeah, great, you and everyone else, get to the back of the queue. Dave Mastiff's promo actually made me want to see Dave Mastiff less, he seemed that disinterested in it.

[Loki]

Rollerball Rocco would be a good pick as GM - he did great in that TNA Bootcamp thing they filmed over here.

[BomberPat]

52 minutes ago, Loki said:

Rollerball Rocco would be a good pick as GM - he did great in that TNA Bootcamp thing they filmed over here.

Lives in Spain now, doesn't he? Suppose it wouldn't be too much of a problem given how infrequently they're taping, though. I'm not convinced he'd do any better than Saint at remembering things like "Fatal Four Way", given that when RevPro brought him in for Liger vs. Devitt, he cut the sort of "I thought they said British wrestling was dead? Let's show the yanks how it's done!" promo that hasn't been relevant for 20 years, and kept calling Liger "Justin Liger".

They just need to have Johnny Saint make the most bare bones of announcements, do pre-taped bits, and turn up at the end to shake hands and award championships, and I'm sure he'd be fine. Let him act more like a dignitary and less like a McMahon surrogate, and he'll do just fine.

[PunkStep]

I love Johnny Saint. I don't think there's a wrestler I'd rather watch for hours on end more than him, but I don't think he should be in that role. I get why they've brought him in, but even in a Jack Tunney role I don't think he's right. You wouldn't even have Jack Tunney in a Jack Tunney role these days- you'd have a William Regal instead, who is a terrific on-screen performer. Even if the role is as bare bones as it could possibly be, I wouldn't pick him. And I think he's bloody marvellous and a really sound, humble guy to boot.

There's only one man it should be.

 

SHOOOOOOOOWWWWWW

Edited June 27, 2018 by PunkStep

[2Xtreme_lives]

Is anyone aware of any of the priority or presale codes for these shows 

[kidzero]

Is Alex Shane involved in the new world of sport revival or is there some else behind it. 

[UK Kat Von D]

9 hours ago, BomberPat said:

 

I'm about halfway through the second show, and there have been some great matches - Travis Banks has been the MVP, and the British Strong Style/Undisputed Era match was a belter, but the whole show feels more than a bit rough around the edges. Aside from Johnny Saint's fluffed lines, there are times when you can hear off-mic mumbling between the commentators (when Nigel McGuinness makes a Ronaldo/World Cup reference after Killer Kelly hits her apron kick, you can hear what I assume is Mauro mumbling something about "sports references", for example), and there are times when the camera is partially obscured for a few seconds by a fan or a sign. All minor niggles, but don't necessarily bode well for WWE treating the UK brand as worthy of big WWE style production moving forward - which has its positives too, of course, as it was good to see a WWE show without a thousand jump cuts every match.

Some of the promos were abysmal, though. While it never got quite to the level of last year's "everyone grew up fighting in pubs, and being from Birmingham counts as a backstory", the promos just did nothing to make me care about the characters or make them stand out. It seemed like every bugger was just saying, "I grew up watching WWE. I've wrestled for ten years, and now I want to prove that I've go what it takes". Yeah, great, you and everyone else, get to the back of the queue. Dave Mastiff's promo actually made me want to see Dave Mastiff less, he seemed that disinterested in it.

I like that it was a bit rough round the edges. One shot a fan out their hands up in view and it just gave it a different vibe from other WWE shows. If they are going to have so many different “promotions” then it’ll be good to see them experiment with grittier presentation. It’ll play well against the different style of crowd chanting as well. One of the main gripes with WWE is that all the shows look the same.

The backstories were pretty thin, but they’ll have time to pay those out later on

[Onyx2]

On 6/26/2018 at 3:14 PM, The Dart said:

They did.  The £70 tickets were reduced to £33 about a week before the show.  The £50 tickets were reduced to £23.

Wish I'd heard that too. No way I'm paying £70, but £20-odd I could be swayed.

I thought it was a cracking couple of nights. Good showings for most. Though as everyone else said, Jonny Saint needs to be given a nice sit down with a tartan blanket. Let someone get a bunch of heat by retiring him via an off-screen beatdown.

• Moostachios looked like they had the time of their lives.
• Travis Banks looked amazing and I want more.
• Kyle O'reilly perfected his air-belt-guitar to it's douchiest yet.
• Flash Morgan Webster cut a dash.
• Dunne was of course extraordinary as ever.
• Shayna Bayzler continues to be the best thing in women's wrestling right now. Such a fucking detestable piece of scum and she knows it and loves it. Brilliant.

Speaking lazily and selfishly, if they do a show South East or London with tickets under £30 a go, I'm definitely there.

[HarmonicGenerator]

22 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Some of the promos were abysmal, though. While it never got quite to the level of last year's "everyone grew up fighting in pubs, and being from Birmingham counts as a backstory", the promos just did nothing to make me care about the characters or make them stand out.

I dunno about that, I thought at one point McGuinness was trying to Four Yorkshiremen last year's "everyone grew up fighting in pubs" stuff with his stories about Travis Banks living for two years in an abandoned train carriage with nothing but diseased rats for company. Part of me heard that and all it did was make me actively dislike Banks because if they have to tell me that to make me care about him there can't be much else to care about. The other part of me didn't think I'd heard it right and began to expect "this guy used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and his dad would beat him around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if he were LUCKY!"

Banks won me over by the final though, even if he does look distractingly like Doug Williams at times.

Other thoughts:

 - I think it was Supremo who said this batch of UK guys were a level below last year's. I definitely agree, there were several who didn't seem WWE TV ready to me at all. Compare them to British Strong Style in that six man tag and it's night and day. A huge gulf between the likes of Bate, Seven and obviously Dunne, and the new lot, which I guess goes to show what working with WWE can do for you. (Even if it's only been briefly, like Jordan Devlin, in whom I saw a lot of development since last time round).

 - On that note, someone could have had a word with half the guys and let them know not to do the same moves everyone else was doing. Felt like every match had German Suplexes and dropkicks into the corner.

 - I was a bit concerned in the early going that there were far too many finisher kickouts for guys who were so new to me I didn't really know what their finishers were yet, so couldn't give a shit about them being kicked out of. Also makes said finishers look weak. Luckily they made the Shankley Gate look an absolute killer throughout which helped win me over to Zack Gibson.

 - I liked Flash Morgan Webster the more I saw him but most of his signature moves required a hell of a lot of cooperation from the opponent. They're basically lifting him up, flipping him round (or flipping themselves over) and doing all the work for him. Took me right out of all his matches.

 - Great to see Toni Storm back in the fold, her match with Baszler was good. Not keen on Killer Kelly (why Kelly? Get that girl a more Portuguese name!) or the other two whose names I've forgotten. The third one in the Triple Threat had a bit of Finn Balor syndrome about her, where during her entrance they're talking her up as idolising Goldust because of how different he was and how that gave him an advantage in his matches, and she's doing all sorts of oooh-entrance things like Demon Balor... then the bell rings and she's just like everyone else.

 - Are Noam Dar and Jack Gallagher going to do NXT UK and 205 Live, or will they be one or the other?

 - Poor Johnny Saint. I quite liked 'Four Way Fatal', it somehow sounded more... I dunno, British, but he did mess that up a bit. If they replaced him, I'd go with Marty Jones. He wrestled for Vince Sr at one point, I'm sure, so there's a connection there.

 

Despite all that, I enjoyed both shows! The six man tag, the NXT Tag Title match and the Four Way Fatal were probably my highlights.

Edited June 28, 2018 by HarmonicGenerator

[BomberPat]

7 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I dunno about that, I thought at one point McGuinness was trying to Four Yorkshiremen last year's "everyone grew up fighting in pubs" stuff with his stories about Travis Banks living for two years in an abandoned train carriage with nothing but diseased rats for company.

Ha! I forgot about that one.

Aided along by Travis Banks' promo saying, "I grew up in a very small town in New Zealand" being immediately followed up with the ring announcer saying, "from Auckland, New Zealand". Get your stories straight, at least!

[Your Fight Site]

I loved that, after McGuinness told the growing up in an abandoned train carriage story, Ronallo followed with, “…and Banks is looking to keep the hype train going!”

[Onyx2]

29 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Ha! I forgot about that one.

Aided along by Travis Banks' promo saying, "I grew up in a very small town in New Zealand" being immediately followed up with the ring announcer saying, "from Auckland, New Zealand". Get your stories straight, at least!

It is a bit of an odd call, like saying a wrestler is from 'London' but in the promo he says "being a lad from Bethnal Green..."

I guess it's the WWE obsession with having to say <sub place>, <country> for foreigners to fit the whole <city>, <state> thing.

[BomberPat]

The Bethnal Green/London thing isn't as bad - it's at least part of London. But don't say that Travis Banks is from a tiny town and then announce him as being from the largest city in the country, it doesn't add up. It would have made no difference if they'd announced him as being from "Bulls, New Zealand", or if they'd just not brought up several times that he was from a tiny town despite that.

I'm sure there was someone else that Nigel mentioned "growing up in Manchester" moments after they'd been announced as from Birmingham, or something like that.