NXT UK Power Rankings 2/10/22: The Thunder and Rain In Spain

As I type this it has been 174 days since I started writing about NXT UK. I’ve covered 23 episodes in that span. And in all that time one of my favorite wrestlers on this entire roster has been Nathan Frazer. He’s had great match after great match but had not had a single win. The man was 0-6 in his last 6 outings and hadn’t won since nearly a month before I started watching this show regularly. But all that changed tonight! I won’t say I was as excited as when the Giants upset the Patriots to win Super Bowl 42…or when they upset them again 4 years later, but this felt big for me. So with the former Ben Carter clearly taking the #1 spot this week let’s find out who claimed 2-5. 

Honorable Mention: Amale, Jack Starz & Dave Mastiff. Amale temporarily shut up Nina Samuels when she beat her with a hope breaker early in the night. Starz & Mastiff get here because to my shock they’re not outright splitting but rather there was a segment where Starz looked at Dave’s vest and told Dave he knows they could have won last week if he tagged him in and that he just wants Dave’s respect and to be a cohesive unit. Dave says he’ll have to earn that but he’ll think about it. I like that they’re not going the traditional WWE route of a team just splitting after 1 rift. 

5. Charlie Dempsey. He may not have helped Teoman win the main event but he had a very telling segment in the back. As A-Kid gave his post-match interview backstage Die Famile walked through the shot. Kid looked at Dempsey, gave him a nod and Dempsey returned the favor. The thought of that match or even those 2 forming an alliance both make me very, very excited. And it was a nice literal and figurative nod to nerds like me because when Dempsey first arrived he was constantly annoyed that his backstage interviews kept being interrupted so it was cool to see that come full circle. 

4. Jordan Devlin. If  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” then The Irish Ace and I are Peter Scolari & Tom Hanks in 1980. He was originally scheduled to be on the season premiere of Supernova Sessions but we saw Dar & Samuels locked in a room earlier in the night and the Heritage Cup swiped in the process. It was revealed that Gallus were the culprits, which shouldn’t come as a shock because they have no morals and like to outnumber people. So Devlin joined the newly coined “Gallus Boys On Talk” which, admittedly, is the first thing Gallus has ever done as a unit that made me laugh. He brought up the host, Mark Coffey ruining 2 of his jackets and him missing his Ray-Bans. As he said that Wolfgang pulled out glasses and wore them. The session(s) eventually ended when Dar and Sha returned (Devlin had a funny line about excited he was to see them and how “(He) even wore the shirt” when they came because because he was wearing Dar’s shirt) and Dar and Joe Coffey exchanged words but what gets Devlin his spot is what he did later in the night when Wolfgang left a jubilant Gallus to get drinks and Devlin took a chair to his back and got his glasses back! My freshman year of H.S. I had my Michael Strahan jersey taken from my locker during gym by another student and I had to call him out to get it back, and he returned it, but in hindsight, a steel chair would have been a much cooler, quicker route. 

3. Kenny Williams. “The Scum of the Earth” had one of the better, more clever promos I’ve heard on this brand in my time watching. He was standing in front of a projection of a thunderstorm. He said that kids are afraid of storms when they’re little because of the noise but eventually it just stops and they realize it was nothing but noise. He said that’s what Sam Gradwell is. Just a guy who makes a lot of noise and wants attention but who when it comes down to it runs out of steam. He said “The Thunderstorm” really is a fitting name for Sam Gradwell. This did a great job selling their meeting next week. 

2. A-Kid. In the back we got a recap of him trying to teach Saxon Huxley etiquette last week and him trying to teach him the well known “The rain in Span falls mainly on the plains” line. To which Huxley responded with every possible variation but that (“The rain! In Spain! Saxon’s on the train!” “The rain on the train! Saxon’s going to Spain!”) until Kid left the room and he got it perfectly and said “He’s a very nice man!” before reverting back to his butchering of the phrase when A-Kid popped back in to ask what he just said? As for the match that followed this was another good A-Kid match and far and away the best match I’ve seen from Huxley. Commentary sold the idea that Huxley was working slower and more methodically, perhaps because of the teachings of A-Kid. Huxley worked him over with more backbreakers than a Roderick Strong match but A-Kid ultimately pulled out the win when Huxley got a bit too frantic allowing Kid to hit a huge springboard backflip DDT for the win. They shook hands after. Between the segment, the match and his brief interaction with Dempsey tonight was a reminder that A-Kid is a star. 

1. Nathan Frazer. The Rams have a chance at a Super Bowl this week despite an 0-3 stretch at one point this season. The Bengals went 0-2 two different times this season as well. But neither one overcame 0-6 like Frazer was in his 6 month stretch prior to this match. With Die Famile at ringside it sure looked like 0-7 was on deck. But Frazer overcame the odds to win with a Phoenix Splash a la his mentor Seth Rollins after also pulling out Seth’s flipping kick off holding the ropes and a sling blade earlier in the contest. The story here was Teoman working over the back of Frazer’s neck. He hung Frazer on the top rope and delivered a brutal neckbreaker over the corner turnbuckle with both men standing on perpendocular sides of the apron. Teoman also delivered a dropkick to the back of the head, stomps to his neck against the bottom rope and a bevy of other attacks to the region over the course of the match. Frazer hit a big crossbody off the top to all 3 Die Famile members at one point to help turn the tide of the match but it looked like it still wouldn’t be enough when Dempsey tried to get him off the top while Rohan Raja had the ref distracted only to be kicked to the floor for his troubles allowing Frazer to elbow an incoming Teoman and land the Phoenix Splash for the win! This feels like we’re headed towards a Frazer push and whether that means a meetinf with Dempsey, a clash for the Heritage Cup, a run at the UK title or all of the above I AM HERE FOR IT!