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Yesterday, WWE announced a tag bout featuring their United Kingdom roster’s four biggest stars for a NXT house show in San Antonio on Nov. 17. They also revealed UK champ Pete Dunne will defend his title against Johnny Gargano at TakeOver: WarGames the next night (it won’t air on the live broadcast, but should be shown as part of one of the subsequent regularly weekly episodes on WWE Network).
This during a week when the main roster was in England, and gave Dunne his Raw debut on Monday in Manchester before affording several other talents from the division a chance on 205 Live the following night at the same venue.
These are all well and good... well, Tyler Bate losing clean to Enzo Amore wasn’t exactly good, but he was positioned to get a big pop during his interaction with the Cruiserweight champ which set up their match, so...
Anyway, the point is, we’re coming up on year since the UK Championship was launched with a tournament on the Network. The talents, who’ve continued to work company-approved independent dates, are still popular in their home country. Dunne (certainly) and Bate (probably) are on the verge of breaking out with the greater WWE Universe. Yet nobody knows when or where we’re going to see them from one month to the next.
NXT is their on-again, off-again home. But while the Bruiserweight’s win over Bate in Chicago opened a lot of eyes and created a buzz, it’s barely been followed up on. I’m not sure I’d call the shows from England this week a success for anyone other than Dunne, but they could be built upon with a mixed Cruiserweight/UK Championship Survivor Series elimination bout next Sunday. Aside from fantasy booking on wrestling Twitter, there’s been no sign that’s going to happen, though.
Hopefully, the rumored King of the Ring show becomes a reality. We’ve only heard one report of it being in a pre-pitch stage, however, so that seems like a later rather than sooner proposition.
In the meantime, we’ll keep waiting for their bi-monthly NXT appearances and tours of Europe, I guess. It’ll have to do. But it seems like a far cry from what all involved thought they were stating this past January in Blackpool.