WWE NXT: Results, Grades and Analysis for August 22, 2018

Pete Dunne Vs Zack Gibson

Result: Pete Dunne won with the Bitter End

Grade: B

Pete Dunne and Zack Gibson met for the second time in the last month on this week’s NXT, with Dunne once again putting his title on the line against the Liverpool native.

The two men met inside The Royal Albert Hall in July, following Gibson’s victory in the UK Championship Tournament and put on an excellent show.

While they didn’t quite replicate their previous match in terms of quality, this was still an excellent encounter, and it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity that they didn’t try and squeeze this one onto the Takeover: Brooklyn IV card.

This match did also feel a spot of advertising for the launch of NXT:UK, which does mean that we might finally get to see the belt defended more often.

The two men have a history together in the ring, and it showed here. Their exchanges were crisp and well executed, and their characters bounced off each other really nicely. Gibson is a great heel, and the spot towards the end, where he took Dunne’s mouthguard after Dunne had been forced to be down on the ring ropes was a really cool spot.

The match was given around 12 minutes and it probably could have been given a little longer, given how the rest of this show was dominated by highlights packages from Brooklyn. Dunne picked up the victory in the end with the bitter end, and my only gripe really is that it never really felt as though Dunne’s title was in too much jeopardy throughout the match.

It would have also been nice for them to save Gibson’s title shot for a later date. Gibson will no doubt go on to be one of the top heels on the NXT: UK brand, but Dunne now has two clean victories over him, so he will have to head to the back of the queue for his next title shot.

Pete Dunne will be back in action of next week’s NXT, when he takes on The Undisputed Era in a tag-team match with Ricochet, in what promises to be one hell of a match.

On the whole, this was a standard post-Takeover edition of NXT- one or two matches, with plenty of highlights chucked between them. Normal service will resume next week.