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Last week on SmackDown and RAW, the NXT roster invaded the two brands to gain an upper hand before the Survivor Series pay-per-view. This will be the first time that NXT will be part of one of the big four pay-per-views of the company with its full roster at its disposal.
This week, SmackDown saw a short invasion by the NXT UK roster before the action took place on the RAW brand. NXT UK Champion WALTER answered Seth Rollins’ open challenge, while Rollins then teamed up with Kevin Owens and The Street Profits to take on Imperium.
Later in the night, former NXT UK Tag Team Champions Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan battled the RAW Tag Team Champions The Viking Raiders. However, NXT UK faced defeat in all three matches during the night and failed to set the same impression NXT did last week.
In this article, we will look at the 5 reasons why RAW dominated NXT UK on this week’s episode of the Red brand.
#5 To show RAW’s supremacy
First things first, RAW is known to be WWE’s flagship brand for a very good reason. The brand has been home to the biggest Superstars the industry has ever seen, and currently, it is home to Superstars such as Randy Orton, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, and AJ Styles.
Keeping that in mind, NXT UK seems like a smaller brand with new and upcoming Superstars. While we’ve seen NXT’s roster tear SmackDown and RAW apart in the past week, NXT UK is still much fresher.
WWE headed down to the United Kingdom for this week’s shows, and therefore it made sense for the company to utilize the available NXT UK Superstars to continue the invasion storylines and battle against the main roster stars.
As last week was more or less dominated by NXT stars, especially during SmackDown, the company would have been looking to make things seem evener or in the favor of their flagship brand.
The Superstars of RAW battled in three separate matches against the Superstars of NXT UK this week and managed to overcome the current NXT United Kingdom Champion and the former NXT UK Tag Team Champions.
This enables RAW to get one step ahead of both SmackDown and NXT in the build-up towards Survivor Series.
#4 To protect NXT
Last week, NXT Superstars got a clean sweep on SmackDown as they took down The Miz, Sami Zayn, Fire and Desire, and Daniel Bryan in what seemed like a complete dominance over the Blue brand.
The NXT Superstars later returned on RAW, and Adam Cole battled Seth Rollins in an epic match before The Undisputed Era was forced to cause a disqualification to protect their leader. This led to an outright brawl on RAW where NXT seemed to be at par with RAW.
The O.C. then invaded NXT and took out The Undisputed Era to show their dominance before fighting in a great match during the main event which also ended in a no-contest.
WWE must now be looking to put RAW over big time since they were the outright winners during last year’s Survivor Series which included the SmackDown brand.
This week, they allowed RAW to take back control of the company by emerging as the dominant brand once again and taking out the NXT UK roster’s best men while protecting the main men of NXT.
The angle allowed the company to kill two birds with one stone, as they managed to protect their main NXT Superstars while making RAW come out on top by showing their dominance.
#3 To allow Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate to avenge the losses
Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate are arguably the best Superstars NXT UK has produced till now. Both men have trained together, and are former NXT UK Champions who’ve set a mark all around the world.
As both men have been feuding with Superstars of the main NXT roster, they were not seen during the invasion of NXT UK on the main roster. Instead, the company opted for Imperium and the former NXT Tag Team Champions to lead the charge.
They were unsuccessful at falling the main roster Superstars but could have set the pace for what the main roster will face at Survivor Series.
We could see both Dunne and Bate appear on SmackDown or RAW in the coming days and make a mark by winning their matches. This could lead to their inclusion in Team NXT for the event, and they are the right people to represent NXT UK in the pay-per-view.
As the company has already tested out six other men on the main roster who are much less of a fit for the event as compared to Dunne and Bate who have a bigger following, we could see the two men set their target to make a name for NXT UK specifically.
#2 NXT UK Superstars probably won’t be a part of Survivor Series
We’ve seen NXT UK Superstars already be a part of two main roster shows in the past few days. They first played a small role on SmackDown, before WALTER and his faction Imperium, and the team of Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan managed to get full matches on RAW.
The six Superstars managed to make a big impact on the main roster but failed to bag a victory over the RAW Superstars who reigned supreme at the end of the night.
However, what’s worth noticing is the fact that the NXT UK roster was mainly used because the company was taping it’s two main roster shows in the United Kingdom. It was easier for the company to use the talent that was already in the country rather than taking the US NXT roster all the way to the UK just to feature in a couple of segments and matches.
This means that the company simply used the Superstars associated with the angle for the sake of saving on costs, while NXT UK Superstars might actually not feature at Survivor Series at all.
Keeping that in mind, it makes sense that the company handed the NXT UK Superstars a loss in each match while representing NXT, while the main stars of NXT remain undefeated.
#1 To create differences within NXT for the future
One of the biggest angles WWE could be working on is a battle between the two branches of NXT heading into Survivor Series or after the pay-per-view.
We know that both the brands have excellent talent, and NXT has usually been seen as the bigger and superior brand in front of the newer NXT UK division. By having NXT dominate the main roster, while NXT UK falling short of replicating the same success, the company could hint at something bigger during an episode of NXT.
Someone like Adam Cole or Tommaso Ciampa could poke fun at NXT UK for failing to achieve the same results as NXT, and this could result in a war within NXT in the days to come. WWE could book a similar event for the NXT brand down the road, where NXT can take on NXT UK in a battle of supremacy within the brand.
This could give us some great matches, as ones between Adam Cole and WALTER, and the Tag Team Champions of both the brands.
As the company is now constantly looking to grow the Black & Gold brand, bringing it to the forefront with some great storylines and dream matches could help them get more fans week after week.
