A look ahead at the August 21, 2019 edition of NXT UK, featuring a face-to-face confrontation between Tyler Bate and WWE United Kingdom Champion WALTER.
It’s a rite of passage for every great title feud: the face-to-face meeting. Two wrestlers, standing in a ring, tensions palpable, faces positioned towards each other.
We’ve seen it in NXT UK as recently as the build to TakeOver: New York. Pete Dunne and WALTER stood in the ring together, face-to-face, and had an atypical — by WWE standards — contract signing. That is, no physical theatrics such as someone getting powerbombed through a table and having a piece of paper signed on their lifeless body.
Since then however, things have drastically changed. WALTER is no longer the civil giant of a few months ago, his transition into a brutal tracksuit mafia general long since completed. Together with Imperium, the United Kingdom Champion has been systematically destroying British Strong Style — Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, and Trent Seven — and re-shaping NXT UK in his own image.
At last, one of those receipts has come due. After being powerbombed onto only the hardest parts of the ring and left for dead in a Download Fest medical tent, Tyler Bate re-emerged a few weeks ago in sandals to answer WALTER’s call for a legitimate challenger.
Bate pulled the oldest trick in the book — having your music play, and while everyone’s attention turns to the entrance ramp, you attack from behind — ambushing and brawling with the champ until the two had to be pulled apart. On the spot, Tyler Bate versus WALTER for the WWE United Kingdom Championship was made official for TakeOver: Cardiff.
.@WalterAUT's training school is no joke.
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) August 14, 2019
The #UKChampion will meet his #NXTUKTakeOver: Cardiff opponent @Tyler_Bate FACE-to-FACE next week! pic.twitter.com/WdD6hUKqoG
Fully embarrassed, WALTER sought to show how tough he truly is. Last week, we were treated to an exclusive video of one of his training classes. Mostly, it featured the Ring General beating up on his small weak students, chopping and humiliating a bunch of boys. At one point, he even forces a student to call themselves “Tyler Bate” while he puts his boot on their neck, as if he’s proving a point or something.
None of those boys however, is as big nor as strong as Tyler Bate.
How to watch
Date: Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Time: 3:00 pm ET, re-air at 9:00 pm ET
Live stream: WWE Network
How close will these two faces get during their face-to-face? You’ll have to turn your face to face the face-to-face when it goes down on NXT UK tonight!