NXT UK Recap for July 3, 2019: Clean-Shaven Mountain

Your recap of everything worth recapping from the July 3, 2019 edition of NXT UK, featuring Moustache Mountain challenging Grizzled Young Veterans for the NXT UK Tag Team Championships.

Once again from the muds of Download Festival, it’s NXT UK. Headlined by a much-anticipated rematch between Moustache Mountain and Grizzled Young Veterans for the NXT UK Tag Team Championships, this episode seemed to center around a recurring theme of dominance.

But who is dominating who? Were Moustache Mountain finally able to climb back to the top of NXT UK Tag Team Mountain? Did one match finally settle the debate of who is the most dominant woman in NXT UK? Is this the week Jack Starz finally gets a win? Let’s find out the answers to those questions and more from the July 3, 2019 edition of NXT UK: Clean-Shaven Mountain.

I’ve heard of “Champion’s Advantage” but this is ridiculous!

After much hemming, hawing and yelling about how everything and everyone sucks but them, Grizzled Young Veterans at last put the NXT UK Tag Team Championships on the line against Moustache Mountain. It’s a match Moustache Mountain — Trent Seven and Tyler Bate — have been waiting on since they lost the last one at TakeOver: Blackpool.

Could a match on a regular episode of NXT UK TV live up to the bar set by one of indisputable best matches in the brand’s brief history? They certainly went all out for around 15 minutes, before things got just a tad derailed by some unexpected appearances. Though, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves yet.

The match is a blast while it lasts, as if there were any doubts that two incredibly talented teams who have already delivered a smash hit together could pull it off again. It’s a matchup between NXT UK’s most beloved wrestlers and one of its most hated (Zack Gibson is genuinely despised. James Drake seems to mostly catch a bad rap for associating with Gibson and having a picture of his own face on his arse).

Moustache Mountain, as two endlessly entertaining wrestlers that seem to strike gold whenever they are out there, do Mustache Mountain things. And for all their constant complaining and arrogance, Gibson and Drake really are a fantastic tag team, perfect foils for the often madcap ways of Bate and Seven.

A lot of the action is focused on GYV proverbially cutting the proverbial ring in half, beating down Seven before he makes a hot tag to Bate and all hell breaks loose. Actually, the action is so focused on that dynamic that it happens twice, there’s two separate instances where Seven looks helpless, only to hulk up, overcome and make the tag to a hellacious Bate.

Upon Bate’s first hot tag, he catches Gibson out of mid-air, deadlift suplexes him, hits a standing shooting star press, does a hurricanrana to Gibson and Drake simultaneously and then dives over the top rope onto both of them. He’s insane.

After an assisted powerbomb fails to score a pinfall for them, Moustache Mountain try to hit their lariat-dragon suplex combination, except Gibson has it perfectly scouted. He elbows Seven and ducks Bate’s lariat, grabbing him at the same time for Drake to hit a step-up enziguiri, followed by a superkick-neckbreaker combo. The momentum has been halted.

But soon after, Seven is baiting Drake into a Seven Star Lariat, and Bate is coming in off a hot tag to run wild for a bit. This momentum swing stalls out however, until Gibson attempts to suplerplex Bate. While he’s distracted trying to pull that off, Seven tags himself in and plants Drake with a big body slam. Bate punches Gibson off the top rope, giving Seven a chance to hoist him up and —following a diving headbutt by Bate onto Drake — Burning Hammer Gibson onto Drake. Somehow, that only gets a two-count, so Bate and Seven decide to run it back one more time.

They set Gibson up for the knee drop-Burning Hammer combo, ready to finally win those damn titles. Only, Imperium decided this was the perfect moment to rush the ring and beat them down. Folks, this is a good old fashioned thrashing. Bate catches the worst of it, being on the receiving end of two WALTER powerbombs to the apron. That lunatic, doesn’t he know the apron is the hardest part of the ring? Meanwhile, Trent Seven is handcuffed and forced to watch as Bate is powerbombed once more, this time right into the ring post. Imperium stand tall in their matching tracksuits, doing their “this is what a dignified professional wrestler looks like” pose, while staring around menacingly.

Oh yeah, and Grizzled Young Veterans manage to avoid all of this, sneaking off unscathed with their titles, probably back to their hotel to listen to a bit of Ben Howard. The champion’s advantage is real.