Pete Dunne Set For WWE NXT UK Appearance, WALTER And Ilja Dragunov Face Off, More From Relaunch
The WWE NXT UK brand officially relaunched with today's new episode on the WWE Network.
The new episode, the first since April, was recently taped on the new NXT UK set at BT Sport TV studios in London, England. The show opened up with a relaunch video package, which you can see above. The video features WWE Hall of Famers Shawn Michaels and Triple H, who are instrumental behind-the-scenes with the brand. The NXT UK bosses mention the relationship that NXT UK now has with BT Sport. The video also features various NXT UK Superstars introducing themselves.
This week's show opened with Andy Shepherd and a returning Nigel McGuinness on commentary. Sid Scala, Assistant to the NXT UK General Manager, was the authority figure shown, but GM Johnny Saint was nowhere to be seen. The opening segment saw Ilja Dragunov interrupt Scala until Noam Dar interrupted, to set up the main event. The main event ended with Dragunov fighting off a distraction from Alexander Wolfe of Imperium, to go on and hit Torpedo Moscow on Dar for the pin to win. Dragunov celebrated after the match until NXT UK Champion WALTER came out and they had an intense staredown to hype their upcoming title match.
The first match of the night saw NXT UK Tag Team Champions Mark Coffey and Wolfgang of Gallus win a non-title match over Amir Jordan and Kenny Williams. A post-match segment saw several tag teams confront Gallus – Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews, The Hunt, Pretty Deadly, Ashton Smith and Oliver Carter, and Imperium. The women's division was also featured this week as Piper Niven and NXT UK Women's Champion Kay Lee Ray had an in-ring showdown to build to next week's title match. Aoife Valkyrie then defeated Isla Dawn in singles action.
The Heritage Cup Tournament did not begin this week but it was announced that Pete Dunne will make a special appearance next Thursday to host the Heritage Cup Tournament Drawing. Dunne will be picking the match-ups for the 8-man tournament. There's still no word on the final competitor but the other 7 confirmed names are Noam Dar, Alexander Wolfe, Flash Morgan Webster, A Kid, Dave Mastiff, Trent Seven, and Joseph Conners. The tournament will be held under British Rounds Rules, and the Heritage Cup winner will move on as the first-ever NXT UK Heritage Cup Champion, with title defenses that are also held under British Rounds Rules.
A video package did air this week with a special look at the Heritage Cup competitors. You can see that video below, along with overall highlights for this week's relaunch episode.
Stay tuned for more on the NXT UK relaunch.