8 Ups & 1 Down From WWE's UK Championship Tournament Finals (Night 2)

Ups...

8. An Aggressive Start

Sam Gradwell and Pete Dunne set the show off to a perfect start in the opening match. These two were always going to go all-out to beat the snot out of one another after Dunne attacked Gradwell during the previous night's closing ceremony, and that's exactly what happened.

Gradwell was aggressive as soon as the bell rang. His lower back was taped up after the assault, and he was clearly having some difficulty moving around, but that didn't curb his venomous assault. He and Dunne brawled inside the ring and out, with a thoroughly hacked-off Gradwell obliterating Dunne with a mid-match suicide dive.

The injury soon took a toll, however. The Bruiserweight went to work on Gradwell's back, and after chipping away at the bigger man throughout, Dunne had him in agony. In the end, Dunne had inflicted so much damage to Gradwell that he was able to put him away with a simple bodyslam to the turnbuckles, and that was that.

Gradwell vs. Dunne set the tone for everything that followed. It was a clear escalation in tempo, intensity, and risk from the previous night, and exactly what the show needed after a middling first round of in-ring action. Zero complaints.