Well, this is a bummer.
WWE United Kingdom and Progress World champion Pete Dunne was set to be featured on Progress’ shows in New York today (Aug. 12) and Boston tomorrow. However, the Bruiserweight suffered a cut which required 11 stitches while working a Battle Pro event in Brooklyn on Friday night. The injury, which is above his left eye and happened during what was described as “an errant belt spot” in his match with Darius Carter, is serious enough that he is not medically cleared to work this weekend.
PWInsider reported WWE was considering pulling Dunne from the Progress shows earlier this morning, and the co-owner of that promotion confirmed it a short time ago in this Twitter video:
IMPORTANT: Co-owner @jimsmallman with an update on today and tomorrow. We are still going to CRUSH this. pic.twitter.com/SkJdW0gaMW
— PROGRESS Wrestling (@ThisIs_Progress) August 12, 2017
Dunne was scheduled to defend against Raw and 205 Live Superstar Jack Gallagher on the New York show in one of two bouts WWE was co-promoting fairly heavily. Jim Smallman didn’t say for sure that Gallagher will still be competing, but there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t be - or that Dakota Kai’s planned tag match would change. He does confirm Dunne will still be appearing even though he can’t wrestle.
This is definitely a disappointment for the promotion, wrestlers and fans, but sounds like an injury Pete can recover from fairly quickly - and Progress has enough talent and a track record of great storytelling, so they should be able to work around this, too.