From the WWE Rumor Mill: WWE reportedly offer 'big five' UK Superstars better contracts 

What's the story?

In what seems to be preparation for the WWE UK show finally getting off of the ground, the WWE has renewed the contracts of several of its existing UK talent, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter

In case you didn't know...

The WWE has had a handful of regular UK guys appearing on its shows, with former WWE UK Champion Tyler Bate and current WWE UK Champion Pete Dunne appearing fairly consistently and Trent Seven, Mark Andrews and Wolfgang also making sporadic appearances.

All of these guys have been signed on WWE UK deals meaning that they have been allowed to make independant wrestling appearances around, and in some cases instead of, their WWE dates.

The heart of the matter

Dave Meltzer indicated in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE considers these UK Superstars to be very important to their WWE UK show plans, even calling them the "big five" which seems to be a direct quote from a source to Meltzer.

However, they have renewed all the key contracts of the U.K. guys. The "big five," which they consider as Trent Seven, Tyler Bate, Pete Dunne, Wolfgang and Mark Andrews were believed to have gotten better deals, in at least one case from $20,000 a year to $50,000.

He states that all of their contracts have been renewed with all of them getting better deals, which suggests to me that they might be upping their WWE commitments soon, possibly for the WWE UK Show.

Or, they've just earned their better deals, guys like Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate have been great on NXT regularly putting on superb match after superb match, they're also both incredibly young and I'd wager future world champions for the company.

What's next?

Tyler Bate is injured, Mark Andrews is currently on 205 Live and Wolfgang and Trent Seven seem to be making the odd appearance for NXT. Pete Dunne is currently defending his UK title regularly and is now also gunning for the NXT Tag-Team Titles alongside Roderick Strong.

Author's take

This is superb news. I had a niggling concern that the WWE were going to give up on the UK show and that the peripheral UK guys would be let go and the UK belt would fade into obscurity with the addition of the NXT North American Title. But, that clearly isn't the case now.

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