WWE Crowns First Ever UK Champion

The finals of WWE’s inaugural United Kingdom Championship Tournament took place today, crowning the company’s first ever UK Champion.

The final round saw 19-year-old Tyler Bate take on former mentor Pete Dunne for the title. It was a hard fought battle–especially following Dunne’s pre-match attack against Bate–but the younger man managed to pull off the victory. Not only did he claim the championship, he’s now among the youngest WWE champions in history.

Bate spent much of his early career in Chikara, where–among other things–he did battle against AJ Styles and the Young Bucks as part of the King of Trios tournament. Dunne has had a much more prolific career, would stays in major independent promotions including Revolution and Progress.

Dunne was certainly an early favorite to win the tournament, but Bate easily won over the Blackpool, England crowd over the course of two fantastic evenings of wrestling. The first night was a solid showcase of the tournament’s competitors, but there’s now doubt the finals blew it out of the water.

We don’t yet know what’s next for the new champion. Early reports on the tournament indicated it would kick off a new weekly series for WWE, but the details on that are not yet clear.

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We’ll have a full report on the second round later this evening, but until then let us know what you thought down in the comments, or over on Facebook!