WWE: 10 Most Frustrating Things About Being A WWE Fan In The UK

3. Being British Is A Gimmick

Over the years there's been a handful of wrestlers from the UK that have made it onto WWE television, and had reasonable amounts of success - British Bulldog, William Regal, Wade Barrett, Drew McIntyre are just some of the names that come to mind. Despite their success, the frustrating thing about the way British wrestlers are portrayed is the fact that being British is a gimmick in itself. It seems as though being British is the only or most prominent distinctive characteristic for someone from the UK. Now us Brits are a patriotic lot and are as proud of our culture as anybody else, but in a repressed, spirit of The Blitz kind of way; which means its not the only way we like to be defined. British wrestlers in WWE tend to have their Britishness amplified, and it's regarded as remarkable that they say 'bloody', have their weight announced in stones and call football football and not soccer. It'd be refreshing for a British star to make an impact based on their own personality, and their British heritage to not be their main defining quality. WWE takes the same approach when they shoot Raw & Smackdown in the UK, dressing the set with black taxis, red buses and telephone boxes. While we appreciate that British culture has its novelties to worldwide audiences, the references made sometimes border frustratingly on stereotype.