NXT UK Recap for July 17, 2019: Grudgement Day

Your recap of everything worth recapping from the July 17 edition of NXT UK, featuring Kassius Ohno taking on Mark Andrews in the main event

Will Download Fest ever end? Isn’t everyone all muddy, putrid and dehydrated by now after five weeks of standing around watching NXT UK?

At any rate, NXT UK continues on with a grudge match, a second grudge match and a grudge match announcement for TakeOver: Cardiff. And let’s not forget a match featuring two wrestlers who probably hold a lot of grudges. All that was missing from this episode was some timely references to that DeNiro/Stallone movie you’re only going to remember exists once we say the name: Grudge Match. Shall we?

More genius than genius

Wouldn’t you know it, another Kassius Ohno match with a wrestler much smaller than him. Clearly the true wrestling genius of Ohno is exclusively picking on people who aren’t his own size.

Ohno didn’t grind for years on the independents to be overshadowed in NXT UK by the Mark Andrewses of the world, those who haven’t put in the same work, who don’t even know the proper cravate technique. At least, that’s what Ohno thinks. It’s probably why he throws out a whole lot of cravate-based offense in this match.

The truth of it is, being “all about hi-fives and stage dives” and having a signature move called “Stundog Millionaire” is corny as hell on paper. But that doesn’t make Andrews any less of a talent, or any less tough, or any less “smart.”

Like a scholar wizened with the ways of wrestling, Ohno finds a body part to exploit and then targets it for the majority of the match. After throwing his opponent into an exposed turnbuckle (the outside part that connects the part inside the ring to the ring post) Ohno goes to work on Andrews’ throat and neck. Choking him using the ropes, delivering a big leg drop, lots of the aforementioned cravates and generally making fun of the fact Andrews is having trouble breathing. Just textbook limb work.

Andrews, however, refuses to give up. Even through the throat damage, through every big-time move he takes and through Ohno literally sitting on him in the corner, he’s still an inch away from swinging things around.

Finally, Ohno’s self-delusion that he’s MENSA’s gift to wrestling catches up with him. After reversing a Shooting Star Press by catching Andrews’ head — as one does — tossing him with a cravate suplex and hitting a spinning big boot to Andrews’ face, he finally has the perfect opportunity to end things. The point has been proven.

Ohno wants to hammer home his superior mind even more though, so he picks the seemingly lifeless Andrews up like he’s going to Tombstone him. He starts to lift him up for the pile driver part, but Andrews and his unheralded mind are able to roll through it and consequently roll up Ohno to get the three-count.

As always, extreme self-confidence was the enemy of the professional wrestler. But …  a self-proclaimed wrestling genius, greatest British and European wrestler in the world would be studious enough to already know that, right?