It was on May 20, 2017 that Pete Dunne won the WWE United Kingdom championship from Tyler Bate at NXT Takeover: Chicago. That match was voted as one of the best matches in WWE and took the #3 spot in the Top 25 Matches of 2017 on WWE.COM.
Fast-forward 365 days and Dunne, also known as the Bruiserweight, still holds on to the title, having defended it a total of 10 times over the past several months with most of the title defenses at indie shows. The 24-year-old from Birmingham has been pretty busy since winning the title and made several appearances on NXT. Dunne teamed up with Roderick Strong for the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and faced The Authors of Pain and The Undisputed Era at NXT Takeover: New Orleans for the NXT Tag Team titles. Unfortunately for him, Strong made the heel turn as Dunne was pinning O’Reilly seemingly about to win the match.
His next WWE UK title defense will come on June 19 where he will face the winner of the WWE UK Championship tournament which will be taped over a period of two days at the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London. The day before his defense, he will team up with Trent Seven and Tyler Bate to take on The Undisputed Era in a six-man tag team match.
The 2018 WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament will air live on the WWE Network.
