Pete Dunne Says The “Bruiserweight” Nickname Was Supposed To Be A Joke

Pete Dunne has a detailed conversation with Edge and Christian ahead of TakeOver: Blackpool.

The current WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne has been reigning as champion for over 600 days. This upcoming Saturday Dunne is putting his title on the line at the very first NXT U.K. TakeOver show in Blackpool, England against current ICW Zero G Champion Joe Coffey. The feud between the two men has been building up over the past number of weeks on the WWE Network show NXT U.K. and recently Pete Dunne joined Edge and Christian on the E&C Pod Of Awesomeness and talked about a plethora of topics ranging from how he got started in the business to where he is now. During their conversation Dunne revealed that the “Bruiserweight” nickname was supposed to be a joke because he and his former tag team partner John Skylar called themselves “The Bruiserweights” and the name just ended up taking off.

“Well honestly that one was a bit of a joke to start with so, I was in the process of — I stripped everything back and said, ‘Right, I’m just gonna wear plain black gear and I’m just gonna go out and wrestle British style and then figure it out as I go’, and I ended up on a tour of China — was there for five weeks which was a surreal experience in itself, and some nights we were wrestling in front of two people, some nights it was twenty people, some nights two-hundred people — that was as big as it got but, we were wrestling every single day, and there was a guy there named John Skylar and we found ourselves in a tag team and we needed a name, and we goofed around [about it] — it was around the time [that] 205 and the Cruiserweights [came] in, and it was a joke — we called ourselves The Bruiserweights and put it on social media and I never expected anything more to come of it.” Dunne revealed. “Like I said it was in front of maybe ten people that night, and then anyway when I came back to the U.K., a promoter called Andy Quildan who runs Rev Pro, he messaged [me] and said, ‘I’m really interested in this Bruiserweight thing you’ve been doing’. So obviously I wanted to book it. It was a great platform, so I just went along with it and [went], ‘Oh I guess people like you’ and the rest is sort of history.” He said.

To see the updated lineup for NXT U.K. TakeOver: Blackpool, head over to Fightful’s “events” page.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.