WWE Will Hold A United Kingdom Championship Tournament In January

Reports had come out recently that WWE was getting extremely aggressive with international signings. They have been locking up top independent women wrestlers for a rumored women’s tournament next year, and they’ve been signing UK talents to “unprecedented” non-compete deals, just to keep them from going to the competitor, ITV. But most people were pretty blindsided by Thursday’s announcement in London, which happened to come while a lot of people in the United States were fast asleep.

Triple H, Finn Bálor, and William Regal were at London’s O2 Arena today to announce that WWE will crown its first-ever United Kingdom Champion over the course of a live two-night, 16-man tournament on the WWE Network. If that weren’t enough, the entire thing will be co-hosted by independent and UK wrestling legend Nigel McGuinness.

The press release, from WWE.com:

LONDON — At an historic press conference at the O2 Arena in London, Triple H revealed that WWE’s first-ever United Kingdom Champion will be crowned this January.

The WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament is a 16-competitor, two-day throwdown at Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, airing live and exclusively on the award-winning WWE Network, featuring some of the best talent the U.K. has to offer. The last man standing at the end of the tournament will be crowned champion and awarded a title, which was also revealed at the conference.

Joining Triple H in London were former WWE Universal Champion Finn Bálor, General Manager of NXT William Regal and British wrestling icon Nigel McGuinness, who will be calling the tournament action on WWE Network alongside the voice of Monday Night Raw, Michael Cole. The WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament competitors also took the stage.

Tickets for this historic two-day event at the Empress Ballroom will be available starting today at 12 p.m. GMT at livenation.co.uk.

What’s more, the first UK Champion might just get the best-looking belt in the whole damn company.

During the press conference, Triple H name-dropped independent promotions Progress, ICW, Rev Pro, and OTT. It’s unclear at this point whether they’ll be working hand-in-hand with those companies. It’s also unclear whether the UK title will be added to Raw, Smackdown, or NXT, whether it will receive its own programming, or if the UK champ will simply defend the title in UK-based promotions, like some of the regional WWF titles were only defended in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.

All 16 competitors (and two alternates) were announced for the tournament and were in the house for the press conference.

The full list of the talent in the tournament, including alternates:

– Trent Seven
– Pete Dunne
– Tyler Bate
– Wolfgang
– Tyson T-Bone
– Tucker
– Jordan Devlin
– Roy Johnson
– Joseph Conners
– HC Dyer
– Jack Starz
– Sam Gradwell
– James Drake
– Dan Moloney
– Chris Tyler
– Saxon Huxley
– Ringo Ryan
– Tiger Ali

Welp, it looks like you’ve got a lot of YouTube research to do, so get crackin’. It’s interesting to note that none of the people involved are recent or in-house WWE signees. This group is 100 percent names that are new to WWE starting with this tournament, taking the Cruiserweight Classic conceit one step further.

Get excited, everyone. Shit is about to get international.