NXT UK Worth Watching: Dar! Ohno! Seven! A-Kid!

Noam Dar vs. Trent Seven NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/24/19) (Ep. #65)

ER: This was a great high concept TV main event worked much more like a TakeOver main event, with the bad and the genuinely good that can come with those. It's a great Noam Dar show and a game tagalong from Seven, working a serious match around a feud that started with a joke press conference. Dar takes everything just the right amount of not-serious to make Seven taking it very seriously work, and Dar's natural unlikable face only benefits us as we see him getting smug looks wiped away. My favorite part of Dar's smug routine is that he also beats the shit out of people, and is great at both getting his smug look wiped away and also kicking someone unexpectedly hard or grabbing their nose and twisting. Dar blindsides Seven to start, and I am a sucker for matches that begin with a guy getting knocked for a loop yet insisting on continuing. I loved how it immediately got turned around on Dar with him running hard into a Seven clothesline, and how a bunch of Dar's bullshit didn't work. Dar is capable of running circles around Seven, but Seven is able to beat him to the punch and trick the troll occasionally and it keeps giving satisfying momentum shifts. 

Dar makes offense look great, so when it's coming off a trick it's even more satisfying, like him ducking a punch right into getting DDT'd on the apron. Dar is really good at keeping logic to sequences, so even though I thought this carried on too long and built to TOO many big moments, I thought the kept the motivations and consequences logical. I wish they would have went somewhere more with Dar's work on Seven's leg, because everything around the leg was really cool but had no real satisfying payoff. Dar shows a lot of nasty steps through an STF, like stomping on Seven's hamstring and wrenching on his heel while twisting the leg into the hold. There are later crazy spots like a Dar top rope double stomp to that same leg, but it all kind of just builds to Seven doing his thing anyway. The big bumps looked big and painful, the nearfall strikes looked like nearfall strikes (Dar's kick to the back of Seven's head being the tops), the level of drama felt appropriate, and it was a very fun ride to watch the good guy win. 

Kassius Ohno vs. A-Kid NXT UK 10/5 (Aired 10/31/19) (Ep. #66)

ER: This was A-Kid's NXT UK "debut" (he wrestled in a tag against Gallus earlier in the year but they are obviously not going to mention that) and it's kind of surprising to see him debuting against a force like Ohno. You'd think they'd want to let him showcase some of his flying and other abilities against a more like-style opponent, but I love this choice. Ohno has been every NXT UK's wrestler's best NXT UK opponent because he always forces them to work more honestly. If your dropkick doesn't move him, Ohno is not going to move. The honesty only makes their sequences work better because it just forces dance sequences into looking legitimate. Ohno starts with wrist control and is able to muscle Kid around, drops into cool side headlocks, gets a nice headscissors, etc. A-Kid had a bunch of cool movement to break that headscissors, showing the trick to getting ahead of Ohno is to outpace him and not make a single mistake. He locks in a nice Indian deathlock out of the escape, hits a nice armdrag (I love how Ohno takes armdrags with strong attention paid to the physics of the armdrag) but shows he can stop this momentum at any time. 

My favorite part of the match was Ohno picking Kid up in a sort of bearhug and swaying him around before kind of swinging him to the mat while keeping ahold of the arm and then immediately flattening Kid with a senton. Their chemistry was real good and as A-Kid tightened up armdrags and a rana, Ohno would do cool things like his Gotch lift out of a Kid armbar attempt. I did not love the finish and thought the match needed a couple more minutes for it to really work and get to a next level. They go to the floor, Ohno is knocking Kid around with elbows, goes to throw him back in the ring and Kid gives him a 619 under the bottom rope, and Ohno gets counted out. The execution of the finish didn't look good, the 619 was sloppy and barely connected with Ohno, and again they needed a couple more minutes to make the count out finish effective. The match up to that point was going great and looked to be building to something cool, and it's always disappointing when the worst looking piece of offense in a match is the piece of offense that ends the match. 

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