History of WWE
The two top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, eventually left the company in 2003 and 2004 respectively, while newcomers such as Brock Lesnar, who would become the youngest WWE Champion and Randy Orton, who became the youngest World Heavyweight Champion, saw huge success. Triple H would also be featured prominently during this time, winning several of his fourteen world championships, as would The Undertaker whose WrestleMania win streak started gaining fame. Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions. From mid 2002 to 2003, WWE brought several prominent WCW stars to the company, including Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. The Great American Bash, originally a WCW pay-per-view event, made its debut in WWE.
Tyler Bate
On 15 December 2016, it was revealed that Bate would be one of 16 men competing in a two night tournament to crown the first ever WWE United Kingdom Champion on 14 and 15 January 2017. Bate defeated Tucker in the first round to advance to the quarter-finals, before defeating Jordan Devlin to advance to the semi-finals. Bate then defeated Wolfgang in the semi-finals and Pete Dunne in the final to win the tournament and become the inaugural champion. Bate was presented with the title belt by Triple H, William Regal, Finn Bálor and Fit Finlay. At 19 years old, he became the second teenager in WWE history to win a title, and the second (at the time, presently third) youngest champion of all time, after René Duprée. Bate signed a contract with WWE, which allowed him to continue taking independent bookings with some restrictions. On the 1 February episode of "NXT", Tyler Bate made his NXT debut defeating Oney Lorcan. On the February 15 edition of NXT, Tyler Bate successfully defended his title against fellow UK Tournament and tag team partner Trent Seven in the main event, with the two of them showing sportsmanship in the end. On April 4, Bate and others who participated in the United Kingdom Championship Tournament appeared on 205 Live. On the April 26 episode of "NXT", Bate successfully defended his championship against Jack Gallagher, a member of the Raw roster. At , Bate would lose his championship to Pete Dunne. On the December 20 episode of "NXT", Bate received his rematch for the WWE United Kingdom Championship, but again lost to Dunne. During day one of the second annual United Kingdom Championship Tournament on June 18, Bate, Dunne and Seven (known in Europe as British Strong Style) defeated The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly and Roderick Strong) in a six-man tag team match. The next day, Bate and Seven defeated O'Reilly and Strong to capture the NXT Tag Team Championship, but lost the titles back to O'Reilly and Strong two days later in a critically acclaimed match which drew five stars from Dave Meltzer.