Pete Dunne recently spoke with Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT via Inside The Ropes. The former NXT UK Champion previewed his match at NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day, where he’ll challenge Finn Balor for the NXT Championship.
Dunne described how he and Balor have followed similar paths, but they haven’t directly worked together before this recent run on NXT.
“I’ve think it’s crazy that we’ve never crossed paths at all,” said Balor. “Our first interactions in the ring have been, maybe we were in the same locker room once or twice, but in terms of out there in front of an audience, our first real interactions have been NXT. And for people whose paths have been so similar, from a similar part of the world, you’d have thought that by now, it would have happened, so it adds another layer to this, of what’s already obviously special in the fact that we’re main eventing a TakeOver.”
Dunne emphasized that the similarities between his career and Balor’s rise to stardom end at a certain point. “The Bruiserweight” has blazed his own trail, and he described a win at NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day as a potential changing of the guard.
“It was never a case of I want to be like him, and I want to follow exactly what he’s doing,” said Dunne. “But the layout at the time, it seemed like that would be the way that it would all go down, would have had to go make a name somewhere like Japan or whatever. And then things worked out so differently, and part of that is right place, right time. But a big part of that is being ready for an opportunity, and when the opportunity finally did come for myself, Tyler, Trent, Mark Andrews, so on, we were ready for it.
“Finn seems like a generation before me. He’s already been up there on the main roster, he’s already made that big a name for himself so in a sense, it’d be a passing of the torch. And then the other side of it is, it’s a chance to make history and be the first person to hold both the U.K. title and the US NXT Title. And for me, personally, obviously it’s the next step…is moving on into that position in NXT and being at the forefront and being the number one guy.”
No matter what happens on Sunday night, Dunne has quickly climbed the ranks in NXT, and he should remain a prominent player on the black-and-gold in the months ahead.
The full video is available here:
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