NXT UK Worth Watching: Noam Dar! Grizzled Young Vets! Josh Morrell! The Hunt!

Noam Dar vs. Josh Morrell NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/19/20) (Ep. #80)

ER: Noam Dar wrestles like a guy who's not actually signed by NXT UK, but shows up every couple of months just to show that he's better than every single regular in NXT UK. I'm 80 episodes into NXT UK, and the Noam Dar start-stop push through the entire thing has been one of the weirder and more entertaining things of my viewing. Dar shows up for an episode every 6 weeks or so, is always kept strong, always looks great, and then disappears for a couple months and never gets close to any title. My favorite part of the first 80 episodes of this show has been Kassius Ohno, which I don't think is a very contentious opinion. But at this point I think Dar is just as consistent a performer as Ohno. The problem is that for its entire duration, NXT UK has been the easiest place in the WWE brand to hide in plain sight. Noam Dar's last several years have been a tree falling in the woods, a different woods than the one with  Wolfgang's tree. 

This match is a Dar showcase against a very fun wrestler who has an even more ridiculously fragmented appearance rate than himself. Josh Morrell is this hyper athletic guy who shows up once or twice a year to get massacred, and always has new ways of falling on his face or backflipping his way into a bad situation.  He's great as a showcase opponent, and is good at getting himself some shine. I have no idea why he isn't an actual regular as he's always entertaining. Dar bullies Morrell around and Morrell hits back, literally. I loved Dar's slap after going for a knucklelock, and how Morrell went right at him and knew what kind of match it was going to be. Dar hit some of his most painful kicks, and Morrell is a guy who always leans into kicks while making them look painful. Dar had a couple of cool legsweeps too, kicking Morrell out at the shins, and Morrell is good at whipping his face into the mat and holding his loose feeling jaw after. Dar took out Morrell's legs as a way to get to his arm, an attack he kept up until finally getting the win. The balance felt really nice for an extended squash, another argument for Dar as the best Time Management guy on the brand. 

Grizzled Young Vets vs. The Hunt NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/27/20) (#81)

ER: A nice simple match to showcase the Vets, but that doesn't mean the Hunt doesn't get to shine as well. GYV get to work some nice double teams, strong cut offs, and both set up The Hunt's comebacks really nicely. GYV have nice complementary skillsets, and this match saw them both lean into their differences: Drake is the stronger seller, better at taking offense, quick, and tenacious; Gibson is vocal in a way many wrestlers aren't, good at stooging, and good at setting up and executing double teams. I liked the early moments of each Vet saving each other from the apron, leading to them cutting off Boar from Primate. Drake throws a real stiff back elbow, they work a cool tandem kneelift, great tandem backbreaker on the floor, and they just keep hammering down on Boar with splashes, clotheslines, and elbows, refusing to let him tag out. Primate's eventual hot tag is very fun, nails Gibson with a spear and tosses Drake with a backdrop, but it also leads to my least favorite kind of GYV double teams, the "Gibson holds a guy while Drake does a couple thigh slap kicks", but the ending stretch did have some surprises. Primate usually doesn't stand out more than Boar, but I loved him attempting to take out Gibson with a big axe handle off the top to the floor, and how he uses the same axe handle to Drake but does not see the blind tag. This all felt like a Grizzled Young Vets/The Hunt touring house show match, but on a brand that doesn't actually do house shows, these tags stand out. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK