NXT UK recap, September 18: The one with the British Rounds match

Rip it up and squash again

Two weeks after defeating Piper Niven and one week after her NXT Women’s Championship match with Shayna Baszler, Rhea Ripley is looking very confident. Casual even. She faces off with Debbie Keitel, who is a Finn Bálor trainee, which shows what with how long her entrance ends up taking. Long walk to the ring for someone who lasts maybe two minutes in it.

Ripley seems very impatient with the whole thing. Keitel tries to perform moves on her, but gets basically shrugged off. A power lifter by trade, she attempts to lift Ripley up, but is the one that ends up getting lifted instead. She gets tossed aside like common garbage. Out of options, Keitel resorts to smacking Ripley in the face, somehow an even worse idea. Two connect, but a third is blocked before Ripley kicks her and then hits The Riptide to finish things off.

After the match, Rhea’s got something to say as the crowd is chanting her name. Quite the hairpin face turn without actually changing anything about herself. She announces her intents to get her NXT UK Women’s Championship back to unanimous acclaim. While she’s running down all the ways that no one in the locker room can stand to her, of course someone emerges from the locker room to stand to her. Or rather, stand there while a close associate stands to her, because out comes Jinny and Jazzy Gabert.

Jinny remarks how Rhea looks like she’s from the past, specifically the 90s with her greasy hair and general chains aesthetic. Meanwhile, Jinny claims herself the future, the next NXT UK women’s champion. In the present though, Rhea has much more to worry about.

Because we already know Jinny aspires to great heights without having to actually do anything, this sends Jazzy Gabert to the ring. Jazzy gets on the apron and puts her hand on Ripley’s throat, but Ripley smacks it away and kicks her off the apron.

Gabert considers heading back in for more, for a real showdown, but Jinny convinces her otherwise as they head to the back. Things are clearly far from over (and the eventual Rhea-Jazzy match is very enticing!)