What’s the story?
With less than 2 days left for their first ever U.K. Championship tournament to commence, the WWE unveiled the championship belt last night. Michael Cole and his co-commentator for the tournament, Nigel McGuiness, did the honours on CBBC’s TV show Blue Peter last night. Here is a tweet posted by the WWE which includes a video of Cole and McGuiness showing off the glittering title belt.
In case you didn’t know…
In a press conference held at the O2 Arena in London on 15 December 2016, Triple H, WWE’s Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative, announced a 16-man tournament to crown the very first WWE United Kingdom Championship. The two-day tournament is scheduled to take place this weekend at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, Lancashire, England and it involves wrestlers from England, Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The heart of the matter
The U.K. Championship tournament will begin on Saturday, 14 January with the first round of matches which will involve all 16 competitors. Following is a list of the 8 matches which will be kicking off the historic tournament:
Tyler Bate vs Tucker
Jordan Devlin vs Danny Burch
Trent Seven vs H.C. Dyer
Wolfgang vs Tyson T-Bone
Mark Andrews vs Dan Moloney
James Drake vs Joseph Conners
Pete Dunne vs Roy Johnson
Saxon Huxley vs Sam Gradwell
These matches will be followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final, the winner of which will be crowned the first United Kingdom Champion in WWE history and will become the proud owner of the majestic new championship belt.
What's next?
Although there is no official update from the WWE on how things will be taken forward once the tournament is over and there is a new U.K. Champion, we can be pretty sure that there are some major plans in place which will be revealed soon enough.
Sportskeeda’s take
By organising the U.K. Championship tournament, the WWE have given themselves an opportunity to find a foothold in the region’s pro-wrestling scene. However, they have to be careful not to let it go to waste as they have done in certain territories prior to this.
Tweet speak
Here is a tweet from Michael Cole in regard to the U.K. title belt being unveiled:
Leather Rebels, the U.K.-based manufacturers of the belt, also tweeted the following:
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