NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff: Fallout, takeaways, what’s next

Storm of confused feelings

This one felt weird. For all the hype and emotional stakes built up coming into TakeOver: Cardiff, Kay Lee Ray versus Toni Storm was kind of just there. In under 10 minutes, Ray pins Storm to win the NXT UK Women’s Championship. Oh yeah, did we mention this match was for the NXT UK Women’s Championship?

Was the story here supposed to be that Storm got way too emotional and lost focus? Sure, there were moments like where she looked to be crying furious tears as she ducked Ray’s slaps to deliver some slaps of her own. But her downfall really isn’t her emotions getting the best of her, and Ray capitalizing.

There isn’t a moment of downfall at all, really. Ray knees Storm in the face as Storm tries to roll back in the ring, almost kills herself doing a flip from the top turnbuckle to the outside, and then hits two Gory Bombs — one off the ropes, one in the center of the ring — to put Storm away. If anything, it’s that Ray has Storm perfectly scouted, though if that were true, would she have gotten hit with a Storm Zero so early into the match?

It just felt like there were 8-10 minutes of this match that got cut out for some reason. They never really built much momentum. Both got hit by and kicked out of each other’s finishers for some reason, teased and then didn’t deliver a top rope Storm Zero — though the top rope German Suplex in its stead was nice — and Storm dove to the outside and seemed to be getting somewhere, and then the aforementioned ending sequence happened.

Again, weird. Even some of the expressions in the crowd read, “Oh, that’s it?” An unceremonious end to what was most unfortunately the only low-point of the night.

Either way, Ray succeeded in her goal of taking away the one thing that matters most to Storm, and dubsteps out of Cardiff the new NXT UK Women’s Champion.