10 Awesome Things Happening In WWE Right Now

10. The UK Stars Are Slowly Emerging

The molten lava-heated Tyler Bate Vs. Pete Dunne United Kingdom Title match at NXT TakeOver: Chicago was the best thing on the show. It was also very possibly the best match WWE has presented all year.

It was crammed full of content, but none of it felt contrived nor formulaic. You could buy that Tyler Bate was the stronger man, and that Dunne had to prise him apart just to get an advantage. You could buy that Bate had to resort to aerials assaults not to pop the crowd but to win a wrestling match. The whole match was as realistic as it was spectacular. In the modern age, that is a rare feat.

Some wrestling fans dreaded WWE's attempt to monopolise and make the UK scene their own. The transition from the Cruiserweight Classic to 205 Live suggested that WWE's supposed expansion of style is an insidious (and cynical) attempt to attract outside/lapsed fans before (re)conditioning them to the slower, safer WWE norm. A weekly UK show isn't immune from that. There's also the fact that there is so much current WWE content to sift through. With further apologies to Ariya Daivari, 205 Live indicates that the super-serving model is failing. The show is less popular than archived WCW pay-per-views. What chance does a localised show in a bloated landscape stand?

Dunne and Bate smashed those concerns by wrestling a phenomenal match with no constraints placed on it whatsoever. The future is very bright - if Chicago is the benchmark.