WWE UK Tournament competitor Pete Dunne recently spoke with WWE.com and below are some interview highlights:
On starting his wrestling career young:
“The old style of British wrestling is a lot different than the American style, and that’s what I was trained in. It’s a lot more technical; it’s something that even someone that young has the capacity to start learning. It was just a great head start for me. By the time I was 15, I’d already had a few years behind me learning that stuff, so I was ready to go on the road and learn the American style separately.”
On training in Japan:
“Oh, it’s crazy. I spent three months there. You kind of assume, especially being ignorant of the world and coming from a working-class estate where people didn’t really travel that much, that people everywhere just speak English. Or at least a little bit so you can get by. And we were eight hours north of Tokyo in the middle of the mountains in a remote dojo. We were a 15-minute walk from a main road. That says everything. It was a completely unique experience that was invaluable to me as a person, and not just a wrestler. That experience made me realize, ‘It’s OK to be different.'”
On becoming “The Bruiserweight”:
“It was a gradual transition. Even this time last year, I hadn’t discovered the ‘Bruiserweight’ thing yet. Over the last year, I really found my way with it and really learned to piece the puzzle together. It was like one step at a time, adding a different thing to make me look unique or a different move that no one else does. The progression — as you can imagine — from a 12-year-old to a 23-year-old is drastic. But even from this time last year and the year before that and the year before that, every year was a drastic change.”