[2017-05-07-WWE-UK Championship Special] Pete Dunne vs Trent Seven

[ShittyLittleBoots]

Awesome performance by Pete Dunne. Loved his targeting of Seven's taped up shoulder all the way through the whole thing - his work over that shoulder was nasty. Loved it. Trent got a bit too no-selly with it at times, but for the most part I thought he did a really good job selling the arm & playing the face in peril, in general. Really good match. ***3/4

[Timbo Slice]

The first 10 minutes were really fun and then they started going all spotty down the stretch and they lost me. The arm never came into play again once they started throwing bombs. Yeah, the arm was weak for the lariat, but it would have been better had he not hit it at all, to be honest.

[stro]

Pete Dunne is pretty legit, but man, Trent Seven is so lol. Comes out like he can't even move his arm and his first offense is...big strikes with his bad arm. This dude with a suave beardy dude gimmick who is in reality a flabby, pasty Englishman with a ratty beard who uses the Rainmaker as his finish, emerald flowsion for a near fall, and was really doing spinning back chop > burning hammer set up is hilarious.

 

The UK show is going to tank as hard as 205 Live if the quality of this show is indicative of the weekly series. Everyone they've used on the shows have been scrubs outside of Dunne and Bate. Just move them to NXT and call it a day.

[WingedEagle]

  On 5/20/2017 at 9:10 AM, Timbo Slice said:

The first 10 minutes were really fun and then they started going all spotty down the stretch and they lost me. The arm never came into play again once they started throwing bombs. Yeah, the arm was weak for the lariat, but it would have been better had he not hit it at all, to be honest.

 

These are exactly my thoughts on this match. Loved the opening with a focus on the arm, then they basically dropped that approach to get their spots in. ***1/4 that felt like it was heading much higher.

[Matt D]

  On 5/20/2017 at 9:10 AM, Timbo Slice said:

The first 10 minutes were really fun and then they started going all spotty down the stretch and they lost me. The arm never came into play again once they started throwing bombs. Yeah, the arm was weak for the lariat, but it would have been better had he not hit it at all, to be honest.

 

This is exactly where I am too. Everything before the kimura (and JR getting pissy about calling it that). The arm came up a few times in the stretch. You can rationalize it's how he fipped out of the top rope Dragon Suplex, etc. There was one lariat blocked because of it, but then he just turns around and does it again. Given how vulnerable Seven was, they went too long in the stretch. That even goes without saying that they made poor JR say "Dragon Suplexes on the apron are debilitating," but I suppose that kind of worked as a late match equalizer to set up a finishing stretch. The stretch was just too extended. Frankly, if they wanted to keep Seven strong, playing into the injury more as why he lost was the way to go. Then they would have had a more viable challenger for Dunne in as there'd be the question of whether a healthy Seven could beat him. As it was, the injury sort of faded away towards the end and Dunne just ate all of Seven's stuff anyway, it made Seven seem ineffectual.

 

Still, Dunne does so many things well for a 23 year old. I just wish that he realized that he's in an age of bad habits.