NXT UK Worth Watching: Dar! Dawn! Niven! Seven!

Noam Dar vs. Trent Seven NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 9/25/19) (Ep. #61)

ER: Dar is a really annoying guy, but he also works stiff, and a really annoying guy who kicks really hard while annoying you is a great heel character. Dar also never shies away from a beating, so we had this great situation where Seven was returning after a few months and Dar kept taunting him, so Seven just started hitting Dar harder and harder. That's a great way to work a match. Dar gets too cocky with his taunting and every single time it lead to him eating a harder lariat and it was great. Dar works quick around Seven, bites him, yanks at his beard, annoying shit. Seven lands with a thud on a nice crossbody and hits a nice senton, but Dar is always really slippery and great at twisting things back to his advantage, and before long he's throwing hard kicks and uppercuts, crotches Seven on the top rope and kicks him in the collarbones. Dar keeps not only mocking Seven, but Tyler Bate as well, and winds up eating a nasty DDT going for a Tyler driver. Seven hits a nice tope and I really enjoyed the work around Seven's lariats. Dar makes Seven's 7 Star lariat look better than ever, running into it like a garage door got slammed onto his head. Dar kicks Seven's arm on another attempt and hits a nice lariat of his own, then rubs Sevens towel on his balls before getting hit with an even harder lariat. Dar pisses off Seven so much that Seven pounds away on him after that second lariat and goes on long enough to get DQ'd. Nobody really loves count out or DQ finishes, but NXT UK has been good at working strong DQ finishes on TV matches. I really liked the Joe Coffey/Dave Mastiff fight that ended with both guys counted out, and this was a cool match long story of Dar being the expert troll and chipping away at Seven until Seven snapped. A DQ felt inevitable in some ways and this was a satisfying conclusion here. 

Isla Dawn vs. Piper Niven NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 10/3/19) (Ep. #62)

ER: This was really cool, a slower more deliberate match with gritty matwork that we haven't seen in NXT UK women's matches. Niven always wants to work these modern go go go matches where the sequences seem too rehearsed, and Niven can't actually get up off the mat in time to keep the timing right. This was different. The mat and limb work is slow but satisfying, Niven working over Niven's arm and little micro swings in control. None of it ever builds to a stupid forearm exchange or mapped out reversals wrestling, just some smothering matwork with a few bursts of offense in between. Niven's slams had more purpose because Dawn wasn't getting up and running into her own next move, they were just planting her into the mat. Simple bodyslams, and then hitting something signature like her low crossbody. I like how Niven sold all of Dawn's strikes, and Dawn threw some sharp elbows before Niven would try to smother her again. Niven worked a cool straitjacket choke, but it's always interesting because it's never just Dawn sitting in the move in agony. Dawn pulls limbs out, fights against it, and it always looks difficult for Niven to hold onto. Dawn comes back with an awesome Saito suplex that Niven sells by staggering to her feet, then getting put down with a running Dawn knee. Dawn's suplex looked awesome and the ways she came back against the larger Niven were strong and believable, but I loved how Niven decided to stop fucking around and just grabbed Dawn by the hair and headbutted her. This was a little gem that was not worked how I was expecting it to be.

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