{"id":9472,"date":"2018-06-21T18:30:38","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T18:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=9472"},"modified":"2018-06-21T15:41:24","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T15:41:24","slug":"wwetakeover-the-united-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/21\/wwetakeover-the-united-kingdom\/","title":{"rendered":"WWETakeOver the United Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ciaran James@<\/strong>TheCiaranJames<\/a><\/p>\n

After 18 months of deliberation WWE finally confirmed a UK brand, titled ‘NXTUK’ the\u00a0announcement was made during the first night of the second United Kingdom Championship Tournament. This immediately captured the hearts and minds of wrestling fans worldwide, especially in the United Kingdom and Ireland, a dedicated, episodic WWE TV show was finally\u00a0coming to the UK. There is much to celebrate with the news, finally the top stars of the UK independent scene will be broadcast worldwide, finally the men and women who have worked in church halls, leisure centres and warehouses had made it to the big time. The opportunities are vast, never before has talent like Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, Trent Seven, Zack Gibson and Flash Morgan Webster been given this type of chance. Ten years\u00a0ago,\u00a0when the independent scene in the United Kingdom was on\u00a0its\u00a0knees, the talent mentioned above wouldn\u2019t even be considered, now the smaller, more agile and technical wrestlers are\u00a0the men\u00a0needed to keep the business going. Full details of contracts, appearances and the\u00a0availability\u00a0of wrestlers is not yet known, therefore\u00a0speculation\u00a0is rife, will the news be a positive or a negative to the Indy scene as whole?<\/p>\n

There is an\u00a0argument\u00a0to be made that the idea for the inaugural United Kingdom Tournament was established after World of Sport made\u00a0its\u00a0return to British TV screens in December 2016. Be it out of spite or\u00a0fear, WWE hastily announced and organised the tournament to crown the first ever WWE UK Champion, as Triple H stood centre stage some of the best independent talent flanked him. This was truly an historic moment for WWE and the wrestlers that were chosen to participate, as mentioned above these were men that a decade ago would have been considered\u00a0too\u00a0small to work for WWE. By raising the profile of wrestlers such as Pete Dunne, Tyler Bate, Joseph Connors and Wolfgang, WWE had changed the landscape of\u00a0professional\u00a0wrestling in the\u00a0United Kingdom, they were no longer independent wrestlers, they were WWE superstars. For the\u00a0remainder of 2017 WWE did little with the handful of UK talent they had signed, Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne engaged in the\u00a0Match of the Year at NXT Chicago, but still that didn’t prompt Stamford to make any plans where the UK was concerned. NXT would feature more matches with\u00a0Dunne, Bate, Seven and Wolfgang, but as time moved on it seemed WWE only signed these guys to trump WOS.<\/p>\n

The wrestlers featured on WWE TV returned to independent promotions bigger stars, the demand for the talent to appear at Progress,\u00a0RevPro, ICW, Attack Pro and others was huge. The UK scene was now the centre of excellence for Indy wrestling, there was more interest than ever and the audiences for live shows grew. Two promotions in particular seemed to expand after the interest from WWE in the UK scene, Progress Wrestling and ICW (Insane\u00a0Championship Wrestling) seemed to flourish. As popular as Progress shows were, the amount of talent per show was overwhelming, top independent talent from all over the world was showing up, Matt Riddle, WALTER, Keith Lee, Zack Sabre Jr and others all graced the Electric Ballroom. In the last year, WWE have loaned Finn Balor & Chris Hero to\u00a0Progress, a financial relationship of some sort is\u00a0obviously\u00a0in place, and the pick of Progress & ICW talent is there for WWE to choose from. It would make sense for WWE to make reach out and make relationships, however does the fact that independent promotions\u00a0align\u00a0themselves with WWE makes their existence hypocritical? I mean if it\u00a0wasn’t for the\u00a0fact that WWE became a wrestling\u00a0conglomerate, would these companies even exist?<\/p>\n

For me personally it was great to see talent like Eddie Dennis and Wild Boar get their opportunity with WWE, I have seen these men wrestle every month for the last 3 years. To see them reach the ultimate goal of WWE is an amazing achievement, and I wish them the very best of luck as they take on new challenges. The cynical\u00a0critic inside of me does have my doubts about this whole expansion, you have to argue that it isn\u2019t too different to WWE’s expansion of the 1980’s, which saw Vince McMahon sign the best and leave the rest, slowly the American independent system died. I also agree that this opens up more\u00a0opportunities\u00a0for younger talent trying to break through, if top UK talent are pulled from independent events due to\u00a0commitments\u00a0then wrestlers like Danny Jones and Chris Ridgeway have the chance to take the throne once held by Dunne, Bate and Banks, the landscape has most\u00a0definitely\u00a0changed. As mentioned above little to no details have been announced, only the location of tapings etc, we don\u2019t yet know if NXTUK will work the same as in the United States, will UK guys be promoted to the main roster yearly? If WWE were to work it that way then it’s that what worries me, unless Triple H is to gain control of WWE I see no bright future for NXT or UK talent.<\/p>\n

NXT under the leadership of Paul Levesque is a better promotion\/brand than RAW &\u00a0SDLive, there is no\u00a0argument. The wrestlers, commentators, GM and\u00a0interviews are done with old school precision, nothing feels scripted and everyone works their own unique style. On NXT Adam Cole, Kyle\u00a0O’Reily,\u00a0Aleister\u00a0Black, Ciampa and Gargano look like true wrestling superstars, yet a promotion to the main\u00a0roster\u00a0of WWE worries me, for they are not the ‘type’ of superstar Vince looks for. Even in 2018, where the smaller, more technical wrestler is king, Roman Reigns,\u00a0Jinder\u00a0Mahal, Braun Strowman and Brock\u00a0Lesnar\u00a0are the faces of the main roster, they are the guys that WWE want front and centre, not Pete Dunne and not Adam Cole. Many will argue that the US\u00a0Indy\u00a0scene is thriving, and to an extent is it, but how long after WWE signed all ROH’s talent did it take for them to replenish the ranks. Within a\u00a0five-year\u00a0period,\u00a0WWE took\u00a0Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, three men who played a huge part in the building and\u00a0maintaining\u00a0of Ring of\u00a0Honor. At\u00a0NXTTakeOver\u00a0Chicago, WWE revealed Keith Lee as their newest signee, another man who was making waves on the independent scene. With the recent news of the WWE\/FOX deal, the company finds themselves in a very comfortable position, the cheque book is blank and the ink is wet, they can sign anyone.<\/p>\n

Well there is a few exceptions, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, who under their own volition have built a career away from the biggest wrestling company in the world, and in doing so have\u00a0become\u00a0the\u00a0biggest wrestlers in the world. Kenny and the Bucks know their worth, they also knew a long time ago their prospects in the WWE, in NJPW they are free of scripted promos and a WWE ring style. They look across and see how Nakamura, Bryan, Seth, KO, Sami, Gallows\/Anderson and other have been treated over the last decade, they decided a long time ago they\u00a0wanted\u00a0no part in Vince McMahons version of WWE. As happy as I am for the British & Irish talent that have signed and will sign, I am still in two minds over WWE’s UK expansion.\u00a0I for one\u00a0still see this as a business plan to vanquish\u00a0competition\u00a0and\u00a0keep their grip firmly on the throat of a possible usurper to the throne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ciaran James@TheCiaranJames After 18 months of deliberation WWE finally confirmed a UK brand, titled ‘NXTUK’ the\u00a0announcement was made during the first night of the second United Kingdom Championship Tournament. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,186,421,185],"tags":[187,422,47],"class_list":["post-9472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-nxt","category-nxtuk","category-wwe","tag-nxt","tag-nxtuk","tag-wwe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2sM","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wwe-news-triple-h-nxt-uk-pete-dunne-tyler-bate-trent-seven-moustache-mountain-tag-team-710949.jpg?fit=620%2C413&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9472"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9476,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions\/9476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}