What’s the story?
British professional wrestler Pete Dunne recently spoke to WWE.com about the upcoming WWE U.K. Championship tournament, which will see him compete alongside 15 others. He also shared his experience of training in the Japanese dojos as a teenager.
In case you didn’t know…
Dunne hails from Birmingham, England and began training to become a wrestler at an early age of 12. The 23-year old has already wrestled for multiple wrestling promotions in his country as well as elsewhere, the most prominent ones being Progress Wrestling, Revolution Pro Wrestling and Japanese promotion Michinoku Pro Wrestling.
He is the current Progress World Champion and has also been a one-time RPW British Cruiserweight Champion. While being a part of Progress, Dunne was involved in a qualification match for the WWE Cruiserweight Classic tournament against Jack Gallagher last year but ended up losing.
The heart of the matter
Sharing his thoughts about the U.K. Championship tournament, ‘The Bruiserweight’ opined that it is an opportunity for talented wrestlers from the region to prove their mettle. According to him, it provides an ideal platform for performers who have been in the wrestling business for more than a decade but couldn’t get much exposure.
Here’s what Dunne had to say:
“It’s great. There are a lot of talented people in the United Kingdom that deserve a chance to show what they can do. We haven’t had a platform here since it went off TV in the late ’80s, so it’s a fantastic chance for people who have been wrestling for 10-plus years to finally get on a platform like this and show what they can do.”
Pete Dunne also opened up about his experience of training in Japan while he was a teenager and claimed that it made him get over the notion that English is spoken everywhere in the world. He asserted that the three months he spent there were invaluable for him not only as a wrestler but also as a person.
“Oh, it’s crazy. I spent three months there. You kind of assume, especially being ignorant of the world and coming from a working-class estate where people didn’t really travel that much, that people everywhere just speak English. Or at least a little bit so you can get by.
And we were eight hours north of Tokyo in the middle of the mountains in a remote dojo. We were a 15-minute walk from a main road. That says everything. It was a completely unique experience that was invaluable to me as a person, and not just a wrestler. That experience made me realize, ‘It’s OK to be different’.”
What next?
All eyes will be on the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, England on 14 and 15 January as Pete Dunne and 15 of his fellow U.K. wrestlers give their all to lay claim over the first ever WWE United Kingdom Championship.
Sportskeeda’s Take
The U.K. Championship tournament is certainly a mouth-watering prospect for the WWE Universe to look forward to. However, the success of WWE’s newest division will purely depend upon how they are planning to take it ahead.
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