NXT UK Highlights For This Week, UK Veteran Signs Contract, & More

This week’s WWE NXT UK episode was headlined by NXT UK Champion WALTER retaining his title over Heritage Cup Champion A-Kid in a main event that has received strong praise on social media. The bout went almost 14 minutes.

You can see highlights from today’s show in the video above. NXT UK also featured Joe Coffey defeating the debuting Ed Harvey, who is formerly known as UK veteran Sha Samuels, Tyler Bate returning to action with a win over Sam Gradwell, another segment to tease Rampage Brown vs. Dave Mastiff, a face off between Jinny and NXT UK Women’s Champion Kay Lee Ray, plus appearances by Ashton Smith, Oliver Carter, Eddie Dennis and The Hunt, and others. The show also featured a new vignette with Ilja Dragunov talking about how he needs to start at the beginning again following his recent loss to WALTER. Dragunov then challenged the man he made his NXT UK debut against, Jack Starz. Starz accepted the challenge and the match will take place at a later date.

The title match between Jinny and KLR has been confirmed for next Thursday. A Fatal 4 Way Elimination Match to crown new #1 contenders to NXT UK Tag Team Champions Gallus was announced for the January 28 episode. That match will feature Pretty Deadly vs. Oliver Carter and Ashton Smith vs. The Hunt vs. Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster. Wolfgang and Mark Coffey of Gallus will defend against the winners at a later date.

Speaking of Harvey, he announced on Twitter that he has officially signed with the company. The 35 year old UK veteran made his pro wrestling debut back in 2004 and has worked for companies such as RevPro, wXw, IPW:UK, and Preston City Wrestling, among many others. He also participated in the TNA British Boot Camp series. The loss to Coffey was hard-fought with Harvey getting a lot of offense in. Coffey ended up getting the win with the Glasgow Sendoff and All the Best for the Bells.

Harvey took to Twitter after the show and commented on signing with the company. “Oi Oi!!! I have officially signed with the @WWE It’s been a really long journey to get here. Full of ups,downs and loads of hard work. But the proper hard graft starts now!! EAST x NXT:UK,” he wrote.

Stay tuned for more on NXT UK. Below is the new vignette from Dennis and Pretty Deadly, along with the tweet from Harvey and highlights: