Pete Dunne recently defended the WWE UK Championship outside of WWE and he’ll be doing it again this summer.
It was quite the historic moment this past weekend when WWE UK Champion Pete Dunne defended his championship outside the confines of WWE. He successfully defended the title in a Fatal 4-Way during an ICW (Insane Championship Wrestling) show and now he’s getting set to make another defense of the title outside the largest wrestling company in the world.
Monday it was announced that Dunne will be defending his WWE UK Championship against fellow WWE superstar Jack Gallagher, and they’ll be doing so for their old stomping grounds of PROGRESS Wrestling. However, they won’t be making the trek over to England to battle one another, as this match will take place when PROGRESS comes to New York City on Aug. 12.
Following the announcement of the match, PROGRESS posted this video of Gallagher highlighting the two men’s history against one another in PROGRESS, including the “Gentleman” getting the best of Dunne during qualifying for last year’s WWE Cruiserweight Classic.
It was odd having Dunne defend a WWE title for a top indie promotion like ICW over the weekend and it was equally as odd seeing WWE promote it so heavily. So, you get the same feeling with this announcement on Monday that this match will be taking place for a company not named WWE, but at the same time, professional wrestling in 2017 doesn’t really make all that much sense to begin with, so this is all par for the course, really.
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With the UK talent not having a clear-cut home on RAW, SmackDown Live or NXT, though, it makes sense to have Dunne make defenses on these independent shows. The reported WWE UK weekly show is apparently up in the air at the moment, so really, it’s the only option on the table with the way they have the division constructed — or, not constructed, might be the better way to look at it.