WWE NXT UK preview September 11, 2019: Watch online

Previewing the Sept. 11 episode of NXT UK, featuring a TakeOver: Cardiff rematch for the NXT UK Tag Team Championships.

Before we tackle tonight’s episode, let’s do a brief rundown of last week’s post-TakeOver but taped pre-TakeOver episode.

In a grudge match with way more story and emotion behind it than “Noam Dar thinks Travis Banks might be a dafty,” Rhea Ripley defeated Piper Niven. Dar versus Banks wasn’t bad by any definition, but we have long suspected that that match should have been in this spot, with Ripley and Niven on the Cardiff card. This match proved that point.

Ripley targeted Niven’s back, was able to weaken her usually dominant rival — someone who kind of handedly dispatched her in their previous meeting — and hit The Riptide for the win. Knotted up at one win apiece, will we be treated to a rubber match? Given that this match got relegated to the pre/post-TakeOver slot and their first match to the muds of Download Fest, surely it would get the prime billing it deserves.

Also, Jack Gallagher was supposed to challenge Kassius Ohno — they previously met in a match where Ohno sneakily moved Gallagher’s foot out from under the bottom rope — but Gallagher wasn’t medically cleared to compete. Ohno intimidated Assistant to the General Manager Sid Scala, saying he better find a new opponent, or else. Thankfully someone did step up to the challenge: Assistant to the General Manager Sid Scala!

What a world, where we actually root for an authority figure to give a Superstar their comeuppance. The United Kingdom be crazy. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts Scala is not a full-time wrestler on the NXT UK roster, and Ohno picked up a win.

Okay, now on to the Sept. 11 edition of NXT UK.

https://twitter.com/ZackGibson01/status/1171738912815046658

At TakeOver: Cardiff, Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster accomplished what only a few weeks earlier seemed a distant dream. They earned their way onto the show, and in front of a rapturous hometown crowd, captures the NXT UK Tag Team Championships. Not only did they capture them, but they captured them in a triple threat, defeating two teams at once. And to boot, they actually pinned the defending champs, ensuring their reign would begin with an orderly transition of power. Right?

Eh, wrong. Being that the champions they defeated were the Grizzled Young Veterans, of course, things wouldn’t proceed without someone screaming into the Welsh night about fair play, or whatever. The automatic rematch clause may be theoretically dead, but again, NXT UK seems to be operating under its own set of rules, customs and social mores. Plus, we can probably expect honorable guys like Andrews and Webster to be fighting champions.

So, now it’s on James Drake and Zack Gibson. Grizzled Young Veterans perhaps shocked people in triumphing over the unimpeachable Moustache Mountain at TakeOver: Blackpool, but they did and became inaugural NXT UK tag champs. They’re a great tag team, among the best — we haven’t been shy about declaring Gibson a top heel in WWE — on the NXT UK roster … when they’re actually wrestling.

That was the problem with Drake and Gibson’s reign. While they looked great as champs, coming out to scream at us in tailored suits, they didn’t really DO much as champs. Looking back through the archives, in 231 days as champs, they defended their titles four times. And that’s including the TakeOver: Cardiff match and a match against Moustache Mountain that became a No Contest after Imperium interfered.

They ran down potential challengers as unworthy, and if anyone actually proved themselves, it was a fluke. Surely, Gibson and Drake view Andrews and Webster’s win at Cardiff as just that, a fluke. Maybe if Drake didn’t have to dive onto Gallus to stop them from hypothetically breaking up a pin, he would have been there to stop Mark Andrews from breaking up and flipping the pin. But, with barely any defenses and now no championships to obnoxiously tote around, who’s to say Drake and Gibson aren’t the flukes?

How to watch

Date: Wednesday, Sept.11

Time: 3:00 pm ET, re-air at 9:00 pm ET

Live stream: WWE Network

Will the magic of Cardiff prevent Grizzled Young Veterans from regaining the NXT UK Tag Team titles? Tune in to NXT UK tonight to find out!