NXT UK recap for August 7, 2019: Accelerating gently towards Cardiff

Your recap of the August 7, 2019 edition of NXT UK, featuring a main event of Joe Coffey taking on Dave Mastiff.

With August finally here, NXT UK can officially turn on its blinker, make sure the way is clear and turn onto the proverbial road to TakeOver: Cardiff (August 31 at Motorpoint Arena Cardiff). Like any dutiful driver would, the brand has begun to accelerate gently towards its biggest show yet.

Which top boy will be the top-est when Joe Coffey collides — literally, several times — with Dave Mastiff? Can Xia Brookside finally get one over on her tormentor and her tormentor’s very helpful assistant? What will Grizzled Young Veterans be yelling about this time? Let’s find out and jump into the August 7, 2019 edition of NXT UK: Accelerating gently towards Cardiff.

Big Boy Season

When two large wrestler boys step into the ring together, you sometimes get a knock-down drag-out slugfest. Sometimes, the boys outdo each other with increasingly jaw-dropping feats of strength. And sometimes, the boys are just too damn big. Such is the case that leads to the double count-out finish in the would-be climactic battle between Joe Coffey and Dave Mastiff.

The bell rings, and these two are off to the races. By ”the races,” we of course mean forcefully plowing into each other with the intensity of 30 to 50 feral hogs. Honestly, if Mastiff stomping and getting the camera to shake twice during his entrance wasn’t an indication that this match would start at 11, then the opening sequence of “let’s just run into each other at top speed and see what happens” certainly was.

Following the opening, the first big moment that tests who has the bigger will and muscle power comes when Mastiff attempts to German Suplex Coffey. Mastiff is trying to get the move off, but Coffey is resisting hard, grasping the middle turnbuckle for some leverage. Dave is one strong dog however, and nails the move as Coffey is sent crashing to the mat along with the turnbuckle pad he once held so dear.

Shortly after though, Coffey is able to recover and plow Mastiff’s butt/lower back/liver area right into that exposed turnbuckle. The momentum sharply swings back in Coffey’s favor as he relentlessly targets a clearly injured Mastiff with punishing strikes and moves. Staggered and vulnerable for perhaps the first time in NXT UK, Mastiff still hangs in there, but not without hurting himself on moves he would normally thrive off of.

Things even out when Mastiff clobbers Coffey out of the ring so hard that his ear starts bleeding. From there it’s much more of an “oh, these guys may kill each other” affair. Coffey’s head gets pummeled into the ring post, and once back in the ring Mastiff starts laying elbows into his bloody ear. Joe tries to go to the top rope but loses balance, giving Dave a chance to pull him down and hit a senton for a two-count.

That’s another thing: They get more brutal towards each other, but increasingly end up doing even more harm to themselves. You would think that if your back is in great pain, you wouldn’t do a high-impact move where you land on your back, but then again, neither of us is Mastiff.

Eventually, both men end up on the apron, a precarious position to be in as there ever was. True to that notion, after Mastiff fails to pull Coffey up for a German Suplex, he gets speared into the ring post and both men collapse to the floor. Already depleted, both men angrily rise to their feet and punch each other right in their respective problem areas, causing them both to collapse again.

Honor-bound to enforce the rules, the referee lists off numbers one through 10, and calls for a double count-out.

A fun car crash of a match. It will be great to hopefully see them do it again at Cardiff, preferably in a more high-stakes contest. Like a Buried Alive Match! Last Man Standing is so played out these days anyway. If NXT UK wants to make a real mark with this show, they should give us something truly wild.