The main event of this week’s NXT UK is a challenge we saw thrown down last week by our NXT UK Women’s Champion: Meiko Satomura. Opting to bench her protégé, Emilia McKenzie, Meiko partners with Sarray to take on the team Xia Brookside and Eliza Alexander, a pair who have taken Sarray’s presence as a personal insult.
The story going in to the bout is Satomura being tired of Brookside & Alexander’s mean girl schtick, especially when it comes to visitors to the brand such as Sarray. The duo of Brookside and Alexander are welcomed with ‘You Suck’ chants while Meiko enters the arena to cheers.
As Brookside and Sarray start the match, commentary sells the possible advantage that Brookside and Alexander may have due to their experience working together and throughout the match, we see this in play. Sarray plays the face in peril well during the match. After taking a beating from both her opponents, Sarray gets the tag to Satomura.
We see the Final Boss gain the upperhand over Alexander before tagging Sarray back in quite quickly and hitting a double bulldog but the tide turns immediately when Brookside blocks an irish whip attempt from the apron and Sarray is in trouble once again.
Sarray relies on quick reversals and surprise pins to try and get to Satomura but she is blocked several times by Alexander before finally reaching her partner. Satomura bursts back in with a furious spiking DDT and a handspring knee to the back of Alexander’s head before taking out Brookside. Rather than go for the win, our champion climbs to the top rope to hit a frog splash but the pin is broken up with milliseconds to spare by Brookside.
In the confusion, Brookside drags Alexander to her corner and initiates a tag, charging in at the Final Boss who changes her mind with a high kick to the side of the head. Fired up once more, Sarray comes in and the two send Brookside into the corner. Sarray charges but meets only turnbuckle when Alexander pulls her partner out of the fire at the last possible second.
The end seems to be in sight when Brookside and Alexander decimate Sarray with a combination of Alexander’s Broken Wings and Alexander’s running strike but Satomura breaks up the pin, frustrated with the pair’s continued interference from the apron.
With Brookside now the legal competitor, she trips Sarray onto the bottom rope and takes a cheap shot at Satomura. In the distraction, Alexander goes for a knee strike on Sarray who dodges and nimbly manages to trip Alexander from the apron to the floor before returning the favour and tripping Brookside on the bottom rope. Taking advantage of the prone Brookside, Sarray hits her devastating bottom rope dropkick that nearly sends Brookside right out of the ring.
Satomura takes the tag and crushes any remaining hope for a Brookside comeback with Scorpio Rising and secures the win for her team.
Also on NXT UK this week, we see Blair Davenport approached outside by an interviewer asking about how it feels to be back after her return last week. Davenport is uninterested in answering the same boring questions she’s heard before but before she can elaborate, Amale comes out of the BT Sports Studio and warns Davenport that her comment about ‘crushing hope’ had best not have been about the French Hope herself. Davenport assures Amale that her message was for the entire Women’s locker room and warns her not to step to her like that again.
Stevie Turner, who had been watching the exchange gleefully in the background, steps forward to mock Amale who offers to kick her ass as a way of a message to Davenport.
Authors Take –
I am a big supporter of the tandem that is Xia Brookside and Eliza Alexander, mostly because I wasn’t a fan of the Xia heel work until Eliza came along and now the two are working very well together. I was surprised by how little offence that Sarray got in during this match but it was all in aid of putting over the duo and then for Meiko to make the save I suppose. The tag team shenanigans put on by Xia and Eliza were fun to watch too, between literally pulling each other out of harms way or pushing the ropes closer for a break, they took full advantage of the rule book.
A special mention has to be that low dropkick from Sarray to Xia in the closing moments of the match, I think that might have been my favourite sell of that move.
Nice to see Blair featured in at least a backstage segment that sets up her next opponent nicely. I didn’t even click that her crushing hope comment could have been a dig at Amale so I like this organic set up and Stevie is just hilarious. This isn’t the first time she’s been lurking in the background just enjoying the drama of the NXT UK division and honestly, I’m loving it. Would just like to see her more.
How do you feel about an Amale vs Davenport clash? Did the right team win this week? Let me know in the comments!
