6 memorable WWE moments from overseas broadcasts

#3 The WWE inaugurates the UK Championship over two days

Not one of these men was your prototypical WWE superstar, and none had any experience on a WWE broadcast.

For all the accusations leveled against the company for being stuck in its ways and resistant to change, WWE has made some pretty radical changes to its presentation and roster in recent years, embracing both stars and styles fans of independent wrestling thought they would never see in a ring owned by Vince McMahon.

Featuring men well known on the global independent scene for their work with companies like Progress, Insane Championship Wrestling, Chikara, and others (many of which were shown prominently and mentioned by name, another head-scratcher for longtime watchers of WWE broadcasts), WWE created its new UK Championship title and division in January of 2017 in a two-day tournament aired live from Blackpool, England.

Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate work an intense match in the tournament's championship, which they'd somehow manage to outdo four months later.

In over five hours of WWE Network time, WWE aired a tournament where nobody whose sports entertainment fandom consisted of solely of WWE properties could name a single competitor (at the time, this writer was guilty as charged); further, the tournament featured a wrestling style very popular in the UK and on the independent scene but seen very little on WWE television, relying on Japanese strong style-inspired strikes and extremely technical holds and maneuvers. It was a broadcast relying heavily on in-ring storytelling over character-driven moments, once an anomaly in WWE's brand of sports entertainment.

Nineteen year-old Tyler Bate won the bracket and became the first WWE United Kingdom Champion, in the process making every viewer above America's legal drinking age feel unaccomplished; the man he beat, Pete Dunne, would later challenge for the belt again in NXT's Match of the Year for 2017.

A far greater success than any other

19 year-old

, especially in the wrestling industry.

The tournament brought a new wave of technicians to WWE's developmental and cruiserweight brands, like Bate, Dunne, Trent Seven, and Mark Andrews, as well as the WWE color commentary debut of Nigel McGuinness, who has become a staple of the NXT broadcast team.

Further, day two of the broadcast showed another landmark WWE debut, that of current NXT World Champion Aleister Black, who lost to Neville in one of Black's final appearances under the name Tommy End.

Before the scary entrance, before the sinister name, Tommy End made one WWE appearance and then literally became a new man.

That a WWE Network broadcast would feature so much great wrestling wasn't a surprise in a post-NXT world; what was surprising was that it would be staffed almost entirely by men who were not under exclusive WWE contracts. Before the tournament and after, all the men involved (including its winner) would be fixtures on the British and American independent scenes; beyond being highly entertaining, the tournament was a perfect picture of the modern WWE which acknowledges other companies and allows its stars to take other bookings (including inviting independent companies to promote matches at WrestleMania Axxess).

The tournament gets a sequel this summer and, between it and the impending British Strong Style invasion of NXT (to combat The Undisputed Era), WWE's late 20-teens British Invasion looks to create even more classic wrestling moments.