2017 has been a crazy year for professional wrestling. We’ve seen The Hardy Boyz return to WWE, women competing in Money in the Bank Ladder Matches (and now Royal Rumble Matches), Jinder Mahal winning the WWE Championship. It’s been a roller coaster of a year with some unimaginable moments taking place right here in Scotland. Here’s just a handful!
5. Huge Opportunities For Scottish Stars
Many promotions around the world have given plenty of opportunities to the fantastic Scottish talent. Just a few examples;
BT Gunn and Sammii Jayne became the new Heavyweight and Women’s Champion respectively in Revolution Championship Wrestling, a Spain-based promotion
Isla Dawn, under the name of Stacey Coates, faced Asuka on an episode of WWE Raw
Grado competed at TNA’s biggest event of the year Bound for Glory
Wolfgang has featured on episodes of WWE NXT and competed at WrestleMania Axxess
Several stars took part in WWE tryouts, including Kenny Williams, Sammii Jayne, Andy Wild and Polo Promotions
4. ROH Hold A Show In Scotland For The First Time Ever
American promotion Ring of Honor brought their War of the Worlds tour to the UK this past August. In association with NJPW, CMLL and RevPro, they held shows in London, Liverpool and Edinburgh, marking their first ever journey to Scotland. Taking place at The Corn Exchange, the event featured British indy stars Josh Bodom and Mark Haskins in action and saw Bullet Club members Hangman Page and The Young Bucks becoming the new World Six Man Tag Team Champions after defeating Dalton Castle and The Boys.
3. The Invention Of A WWE United Kingdom Championship
Although technically not a solely Scottish moment, it’s big enough to include here. In December 2016, WWE held a press conference at London’s O2 Arena to announce they would be holding a two-night 16-man tournament in January to crown a United Kingdom Champion. The tournament consisted of familiar faces, such as all three members of British Strong Style, then ICW World Heavyweight Champion Wolfgang and Mark Andrews, as well as some talents I didn’t know too much about, such as Saxon Huxley, James Drake and Sam Gradwell. The finals came down to Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne, two thirds of British Strong Style. After a back and forth encounter, Bate dropped Dunne with a Tyler Driver ’97 to become the first champion at just 19 years old.
2. Contracted WWE Stars Appear On Non-WWE Shows
Due to this new United Kingdom Championship and all these new relationships, stars under contract to WWE were allowed to appear for other promotions. While the 16 entrants in the inaugural tournament were still able to take independent bookings (except for in Defiant Wrestling, more on that further down), we saw names returning to promotions that put them on the map when 205 Live’s Noam Dar returned to ICW for one night.We saw Joseph Conners return to Defiant Wrestling for the Pro Wrestling World Cup Finals when we never thought he’d be there again. But the biggest one of all came when Triple H stepped through the curtain in Cardiff. The reaction to this was deafening. This is set to continue in the coming weeks as NXT’s Oney Lorcan returns to Beyond Wrestling on New Year’s Eve and Titus Worldwide member Apollo Crews will head back to PCW in England for their 2018 Road to Glory Tournament.
1. WWE Gold Is Defended On A Non-WWE Show
After the invention of WWE’s United Kingdom Championship, it allowed them to forge business relationships with fantastic promotions like ICW, PROGRESS and OTT. Stars such as British Strong Style, Wolfgang, Joseph Conners, Mark Andrews and Jordan Devlin were just some of the fantastic talent. But a shocking announcement came in June as ICW revealed that the gold would be defended on night 1 of their historic Shug’s Hoose Party 4 weekender (although Wikipedia says it was also defended at a PROGRESS show in Orlando). This marked the first time a WWE title would be defended outside of WWE since the Light Heavyweight Championship in 1997. Pete Dunne put his title on the line in a huge Fatal Four Way Match against BT Gunn, Trent Seven and Wolfgang. Check it out below!
Who knows what could happen in 2018!
SCOTTISH WRESTLING NETWORK | SWN 