When WWE first introduced the United Kingdom Championship with a two-day tournament back in January of 2017, the idea was to create a whole U.K. division, which would be sustained via a regular show that would tape and air in the United Kingdom. Makes sense, right?
Since then, the idea has run into all sorts of roadblocks, including the brief notion that ITV would relaunch World of Sport and give WWE a real run for its money across the pond. Five Star Wrestling was also launching a bunch of way, way, way too ambitious plans, and what do you know: that promotion just recently closed up shop. We won’t even get into the partnerships WWE was striking up with big indie promotions in the U.K. and the rumored plans to bring that outside programming to WWE Network.
WWE appeared to shore up plans last summer, but the last we ended up hearing about the division from the top brass was a Triple H interview in November, where he basically said, “Well, we’ve got those guys around if something happens!” But for the most part, the U.K. title (and wrestlers) have been mostly used as guests in NXT and on 205 Live.
With no direct (televised) competitors on the horizon in the United Kingdom, it looks like plans might finally be ramping up again for some sort of U.K.-specific programming. The latest Wrestling Observer reports that WWE has booked a venue in Margate, Kent in December with the plan of shooting some television episodes overseas.
In addition, all of the U.K. wrestlers currently signed to WWE have just had their contracts renewed. The company reportedly considers Tyler Bate, Pete Dunne, Wolfgang, Trent Seven, and Mark Andrews to be their “big five” for the division, and have significantly increased the salaries for most, if not all of those wrestlers.
The tentative idea at this time is to run a U.K.-based promotion, with regular television, and to eventually open a training center overseas. It will likely not be as extensive or impressive as the Performance Center, but if things go according to plan, this could be a major first step towards true globalization of the WWE product.
