WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament Day 1: Results, recap and reaction
What a great evening of British wrestling! UK wrestling is going through quite the resurgence at the moment. We’ve recently seen the return of ‘World of Sport’ on British television channel ITV, which featured the commentary of Jim Ross and we’re now seeing WWE take advantage of the massive fan base across the pond by giving the collection of countries their very own title to wrestle over.
16 competitors fought it out tonight to show what they could do on the biggest stage. A big advantage of this is that it introduces a new style of wrestling to a broader audience and it acts as another developmental area for the WWE.
We started off with a great promo highlighting the special relationship the WWE has had with the UK over the years including The British Bulldog at SummerSlam ’92 and Finn Balor winning the inaugural WWE Universal Championship. It was a nostalgic way to start what is certainly going to be a new era in British wrestling.
There has only ever been the odd wrestler to represent the United Kingdom in the past, but this provides an opportunity to include many more of the talented UK roster.
Triple H kicked us off, saying we’re going to start an empire. I love that. As an Englishman myself I feel great pride in the competitors that were here tonight and what the UK set out to accomplish. Triple H really does understand wrestling and has transformed the business more than we can appreciate. If it continues this way, the WWE will be a worldwide force the likes of which we never could have imagined.
The UK Championship was shown on a wooden stand that looked like a tree stump. It added a great bit of character to the presentation. Red ropes were used for the ring and it looked really good against the simple backdrop and the highly lit Empress Ballroom in Blackpool. Having been there myself for the WWE NXT tour at the back end of 2015 I know what a special place it is for wrestling, it truly is amazing.
Michael Cole and Nigel McGuinness kick things off in front of the raucous WWE UK crowd akin to when WWE Raw first started in 1993. And we were ready to get things started in the first round!
#1 Trent Seven vs H.C. Dyer
The first match pitted Trent Seven vs. H.C. Dyer. Trent carries the British strong style to the ring and has a fantastic moustache and beard combo. He’s like a more manly Jack Gallagher. He’s also the Progress Wrestling tag team champion currently so has that going for him! H.C. Dyer is an extremely hard striker.
It was nice to see we had a British ring announcer too.
Chants of Moustache Mountain rang through the Empress ballroom as the two men went at each other hard to begin with. Really hard slaps and striking from Trent started things off but H.C Dyer gained the advantage with a spinebuster.
Tye Dillinger is really over by the way, as the predominantly NXT crowd, used the ever-familiar chants of ’10!’ on the count out.
There was an extremely close two count after the hard punch from H.C Dyer. I liked what I was seeing from both men but it wasn’t particularly special. It struck me as a great opening match but it didn’t have that excitement that would come from other matches in the evening.
A Ripcord Blue Thunderbomb from Dyer resulted in a two count. Trent Severn surviving. An amazing frog splash was missed by Dyer and thus began his downfall. Seven Stars was executed by the man from Moustache Mountain and the match was over. Trent Severn, considered a big favorite for the tournament knocked off H.C Dyer in a good opening match to the tournament.
Result: Winner by pinfall - Trent Severn