If WWE Were Being Honest About The UK Championship
Network shows were promised and went undelivered. Planned supercards degenerated into a sterile set of tapings in Norwich that only served to promote a Bate/Dunne rematch for NXT TakeOver: Chicago in May. The match itself was a glimmer of light in the darkest of tunnels. For many WWE's match of the year, the two young Brits delivered their well-honed spectacle in such sublime fashion that the Windy City natives exploded with a never-before-heard 'UK' chant. There was clearly a thirst still there for the style, but WWE were both unwilling and unable to effectively quench it. Furthermore, the contest masked something of an exclusivity pact over the title the pair had inadvertently established since its inception. The magic of Bate (and later Dunne) appearing on indie shows with a 'WWE' belt had long worn off when the value of it fell below the price of its replica on WWEshop.com.
It was emblematic of what was rapidly becoming the company's highest profile failure in some time. The WWE contracts offered to Bate, Dunne, Trent Seven and others were suddenly used as a stick to beat them with. During a Fight Club: PRO six-man tag with The Elite, The Young Bucks stopped the action mid-match to joke that they made money from t-shirt sales that night than the three Brits did from a year at Vince McMahon and Triple H's teat. Well, one assumes it was a joke. The sad reality may be the darkest punchline.
WWE's last UK tour afforded Pete Dunne a massive babyface pop on Raw, but it existed literally and figuratively on an island rather than building 'The Bruiserweight's part in the 'WWE Universe'. His contemporaries fared much worse, castigated (and in Tyler Bate's case, beaten) by then-Cruiserweight Champion Enzo Amore on 205 Live 24 hours later. The purple-roped p*ss break was at that point the preserve of the company's lost and forgotten artifices - it was as if supplanting the once-revered Brits there was part of a bigger acceptance of defeat.
If WWE were being honest about the UK Championship, they'd take the knock on the chin, having avoided barbs of negativity about the combative and callous capitalism that underpinned their failed assault. But honesty's rarely been their best (or first) policy. Expect the empty vessel to chug on miserably whilst the performers damaged by the bombshell's original shrapnel attempt to heal their own wounds.