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

In which the ring explodes and that’s just the first minute

Having had a one-on-one match where they beat each other up so badly that neither could stand up, Dave Mastiff and Joe Coffey got put in a match where the object is to beat each other up until you can’t stand.

By standards of what is normally a special type of match, Last Man Standing has been done to death as of late across WWE programming. But, Mastiff and Coffey’s iteration of trying to not be lying down while the referee counts to 10 felt like a fresh, distinctly UK — spoken from an American’s view — spin. Things start off hot when Coffey enters with a chain wrapped around his fist, and hardly cools off from there.

Unless for some reason you count the ring exploding as “cooling off” because yeah, the ring explodes. It explodes maybe a minute in, too; it’s not like when Braun Strowman is superplexing the Big Show and you kind of get the sense something wild is going to happen. Mastiff just whips Coffey super hard into the corner and the top turnbuckle flies off. So immediately you know this one is just going to put wrestling aside and just be a brawl, least of all because Coffey tries to spring off a less-broken corner and completely eats it. There’s no more room in that ring for grapples and maneuvers!

Anyway, the two of them are soon outside the ring where Coffey finds a pool cue on the ground, which seems silly at first but honestly is less ridiculous than the amount of kendo sticks left lying around WWE events. Coffey hits Mastiff with the butt end and then goes under the ring where he finds a Gallus-branded canvas bag full of trinkets such as cookie sheets and cricket bats.

Shortly after, Coffey breaks the cue over Mastiff’s back and then seemingly tries to commit a homicide via stabbing. Thankfully, neither blood nor guts were spilled as Mastiff staves off his own murder before hitting his his would-be assassin with a cricket bat.

Joe continues to just get walloped, having his own chain return to whip him in the back. He tries to have a tug-of-war with Mastiff over the chain, but after a brief struggle, Mastiff smiles and pulls one of the oldest gags in the book, letting go and sending Coffey staggering by a nearby table. That’s not the place you want to be staggering however, a fact Coffey learns when Mastiff puts him through the table with Into the Void. Barely up at a count of nine, Coffey flops over the barricade.

Out on the floor, these two take their love of running into each other at top speed to the next level by jousting with chairs. They both get up at nine from that, and head towards the announce table. With the two men atop the table and Nigel cowering in fear behind the NXT UK backdrop — great night for Nigel — Mastiff hits a Finlay Roll on Coffey that doesn’t break the thing.

Both visibly in pain, they then climb above the announce table where you can basically guess what will happen next. Teetering on the edge, Coffey yells at Mastiff that it’s his kingdom, only for Mastiff to headbutt him and send them both crashing through a strategically placed table to the floor. Carnage. They’re both still clambering to their feet though, propping themselves up on road cases.

At last, Coffey realizes he probably can’t out-muscle the strongman Mastiff, but he can outsmart him. As the referee’s count reaches nine, Coffey kicks Mastiff’s road case out from under him. It wheels away as Mastiff collapses to the floor and Coffey is left as the titular last man standing (though really leaning more than anything).