NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II (2020): Tyler Bate and Jordan Devlin Steal a Strong Final TakeOver

The booking is strongest when it trusts straightforward competition. Eddie Dennis gets a useful clean win over Trent Seven, Kay Lee Ray retains by exploiting the chaos of a triple threat and Tyler Bate beats Jordan Devlin decisively after the best match of the night. None of those results require the audience to decode a complicated authority story or excuse an obvious non-finish.

Gallus retaining in the ladder match is similarly functional. The champions survive three credible teams, and the stipulation allows the division's depth to become the attraction rather than forcing one pairing to carry twenty-five minutes alone. The match is more spectacle than narrative masterpiece, but the result fits the champion-centered structure.

The main event is the one place where the booking becomes busier than necessary. The Wolfe and Dragunov involvement adds story but interrupts the clean physicality of WALTER and Coffey. WALTER still wins by submission, and the Undisputed Era attack afterward is a much better use of outside involvement because it launches the Worlds Collide confrontation after the championship has already been settled.

The Empress Ballroom remains one of NXT UK's most valuable presentation assets. It is smaller than a WWE arena, but the building's character and the Blackpool crowd give the event an identity that a generic television venue could not reproduce. The audience understands the roster deeply enough that even the opening match receives useful investment before the card begins climbing.

Bate and Devlin benefit most from that environment. The crowd reacts to their counters and near-falls as developments in a personal competition rather than waiting only for signature moves, which helps the twenty-two-minute match feel alive throughout. The ladder match then changes the energy completely, replacing focused singles drama with constant motion and large-scale spectacle.

The main event has the appropriate championship weight, even if its interference slows the cleaner portions of the fight. The post-match Undisputed Era attack creates the loudest storyline punctuation of the evening and prevents the show from simply fading after WALTER's retention. As a complete presentation, Blackpool II feels recognizably NXT UK from opening bell to final angle.

Blackpool II became the final NXT UK TakeOver event, although nobody watching in January 2020 could have known that would be the case. A planned TakeOver in Dublin was later canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the TakeOver format never returned before NXT UK itself was wound down in 2022. That gives Blackpool II retrospective importance as the last full expression of the brand's premium-event model.

The card also preserves several performers near the center of the brand's strongest period. WALTER is still establishing the long championship reign that will define NXT UK, Tyler Bate remains one of the brand's foundational stars, and Kay Lee Ray is in the middle of her own extended title run. Seen years later, the lineup functions as a compact snapshot of the roster before pandemic disruption changed its trajectory.

The closing Undisputed Era attack matters more immediately because it connects Blackpool II directly to Worlds Collide two weeks later. That angle turns the final scene into a bridge between the two NXT systems while still allowing WALTER's championship defense to stand on its own. The history is meaningful, but the event's grade remains driven primarily by what happened in the ring.