Pete Dunne

Peter Thomas England (born 9 November 1993) is an English professional wrestler.

He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Pete Dunne and is one-half of the New Catch Republic with Tyler Bate.

Peter Thomas England was born in Birmingham on 9 November 1993 and was raised in Chelmsley Wood.

Dunne began training in 2006, at the age of 12, and had his debut match in 2007.

He has since worked extensively across the global independent circuit in promotions such as Destiny World Wrestling (DWW), Fight Club: Pro (FCP), Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW), Michinoku Pro Wrestling (MPW), Over the Top Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), Progress Wrestling (where he is a former Progress World Champion), Revolution Pro Wrestling (RPW), Singapore Pro Wrestling (SPW), and Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw).

England began training in 2006, at the age of 12, originally under the tutelage of Steve "Psycho" Edwards at Phoenix Wrestling in Coventry.

He has said that his early training under Edwards was limited and provided him with only "the basics".

Dunne's first appearance as a wrestler was at the 2007 Holbrooks Festival in Coventry, where he first met and wrestled Mark Andrews.

He later trained for a short time under Max Angelus and began working on other small local shows, largely in community centres around his native Birmingham.

He competed under a mask as Tiger Kid until January 2010, when he lost a hair vs mask match to Helix at Riot Act Wrestling in Kent.

He then retired the character and mask, adopted the Pete Dunne name, and began regularly performing in a tag team alongside his kayfabe brother Damian Dunne.

He spent most of his early career working for as many small independent promotions as possible such as EDW Wrestling in Shrewsbury, and Kamikaze Pro Wrestling in Birmingham, as well as regularly practicing with Mark Andrews and other friends, training in a re-purposed boxing ring in a community centre in Cardiff during the school holidays.

Dunne began competing internationally and more regularly in 2011, competing for LDN Wrestling in England; Dublin Championship Wrestling in Ireland; Celtic Wrestling, Welsh Wrestling, Royal Imperial Wrestling in Wales, and PBW in Scotland.

In a move to increase the number opportunities available to their group of friends, Dunne and ring announcer Jim Lee co-founded Attack! Pro Wrestling in 2011, arranging a weekend of shows in Birmingham.

On the first weekend of shows in August 2011, Dunne wrestled in a four-man tournament dubbed the Elder Stein Invitational, in which he advanced to the final before losing to Mark Andrews.

The promotion would later expand to run shows primarily in Cardiff and Bristol, with Dunne an ever-present performer, primarily as a face, and often taking on his best friend Mark.

Dunne spent three months touring with Japanese promotion Michinoku Pro Wrestling in 2013, teaming with Jason Larusso to defeat Bad Boy (Daichi Sasaki and Manjimaru) in his debut match, but losing to the Brahman Brothers the next night.

Dunne lost his next two matches on the tour, before defeating Ayumu Gunji in his first singles match in Japan.

Dunne's final match on the tour took place on 5 May, when he and Larusso were defeated by Yapper Man #1 and Yapper Man #2.

Sometime in 2014, Dunne would be one of the focuses of BBC 3 television show "People Like Us", a show revolving around following people from the Birmingham Borough of Chelmsley Wood and its surrounding areas as they make strides to achieve their personal goals, such as weight loss, acting careers or in Dunne's case, becoming a pro wrestler.

Dunne made his debut for Revolution Pro Wrestling on 10 May 2014, teaming with F.S.U (Mark Andrews and Eddie Dennis) to take on The Revolutionists (Sha Samuels, Josh Bodom and Terry Frazier) in a losing effort.

Dunne debuted in Progress at Chapter 13 on 18 May 2014, defeating Robbie X. Four months later, he returned to Progress, losing to Morgan Webster.

Dunne would later become one of the promotion's primary heels after unexpectedly turning on Mark at "Mandrews Goes To America" in January 2015, a show themed as a farewell event to Andrews upon his signing with TNA Wrestling.

From mid-2015 to 2016, Dunne held the ATTACK!

24/7 Championship for an unprecedented 307 consecutive days, over which time he feuded with Eddie Dennis and Wild Boar simultaneously for the title.

He would eventually lose the belt to referee Shay Purser, which acted as the beginning of a lengthy feud with ATTACK's co-founder and ring announcer Lee.

Dunne's spell as a performer in ATTACK!

Pro Wrestling concluded on 20 November 2016, when he lost a five-vs-five elimination match against a team captained by Lee, with the stipulation that the losing team captain had to leave ATTACK.

Dunne's next match was in January 2016 at Live At The Cockpit 5, first defeating El Ligero, and then Morgan Webster to win the RPW British Cruiserweight Championship.

Dunne held the Championship until July, successfully defending it against Webster, Sonjay Dutt, A. C. H., Mike Bailey and Matt Cross before dropping the championship to Will Ospreay at Summer Sizzler.

Dunne also competed at Global Wars UK, losing to Yuji Nagata on night one and Tomohiro Ishii on night two.

Dunne was absent from Progress for 19 months after this, returning at Chapter 28 in April 2016, teaming with Damian Dunne to defeat Trent Seven and Tyler Bate.

At Chapter 29, Dunne was involved in a qualifying match for WWE's Cruiserweight Classic tournament, losing to Jack Gallagher.

At Chapter 30, Dunne competed in the first round of the Super Strong Style 16 Tournament, but was eliminated in the first round by Mark Haskins.

At Chapter 33, Dunne turned on longtime tag team partner and kayfabe brother Damian Dunne, aligning himself with Trent Seven as British Strong Style.

Dunne and Seven defeated The London Riots (James Davis and Rob Lynch) at Chapter 36 to win the Progress Tag Team Championship.

At Chapter 39, by virtue of retaining their championships in a rematch against the London Riots earlier in the night, Dunne and Seven were entered in a 7-man elimination match for the vacant Progress World Championship.

Dunne pinned Jimmy Havoc to become the new Progress World Champion after Tyler Bate came down to the ring and attacked Havoc, aligning himself with Seven and Dunne.

On 21 January 2017, Dunne lost to NJPW's Yoshi-Hashi.

He is a one-time WWE United Kingdom Champion and one-time NXT Tag Team Champion alongside Matt Riddle, with whom he also won the 2020 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.