One of the most surprising events that took place for me this past week or so is the WWE UK Tournament- not that the event itself was a surprise, it has been advertised for a while before, but the quality of matches that occurred.
Going into the tournament, I decided to watch it because I love the concept of different divisions for the WWE in order for the focus to be easily put on the wrestlers. I must admit that, besides knowing of the independent companies that the participants were from, I did not know of most people in the tournament besides Mandrews and Nigel McGuinness (who was one of the commenters).
However, it was because that I was not aware of most of the wrestlers that partook, that it was surprising to me the great quality of the matches that the wrestlers had.
Trent Seven was an early surprise, but it was not until I saw that likes of Wolfgang- “Last King of Scotland”- and Joseph Conners that I knew my roommate and I found something good.
As I thought it was always entertaining, the last match of day one came on.
Tyler Bate is just 19 years old. 19. But the performance that he put on with Tucker. The quality of it left both my roommate and I surprised at how great and entertaining and fun the match was. Bate’s gimmick of an old-timey fighter was a fun one but he backed it up with skill in the ring.
After Day One, the hype was real for Day Two. And sure enough, Day Two was fun. The quality was there and some of the matches were cool as well. Coming out of Day One, my two favorites were Tyler Bate and Wolfgang. And they wrestled each other in a very cool and fun match. Wolfgang is a big guy, however, he does a mean senton that he calls “the Howling” and a nice moonsault. For a big man to adopt elements from high-flyers, it was fun seeing him take on Tyler Bate. In this matchup, Tyler Bate won and wrestled Pete Dunne in the Finals for the WWE UK Championship.
The finals of the tournament told a good story, with the villainous Pete Dunne bending the rules and hurting others other side of the ring, taking on the heroic and charismatic Tyler Bate (who according to the commenters, trained under Dunne).
And spoilers…
Tyler standing victorious as the inaugural champion of the WWE UK Championship was an amazing to close out a great pair of surprising nights.
