Butch Wanted To ‘Embrace What He Was Given’ In WWE Despite Backlash

Pete Dunne was one of the best stars in NXT UK, where he held the NXT UK Championship for 685 days. He made his way to NXT, where he took part in several memorable feuds and matches. Butch also wanted to embrace his gimmick, despite fans being against it.

The Bruiserweight made his way to Friday Night Smackdown back in March. To the shock of fans, his name was changed to Butch.  Unsurprisingly, fans dragged WWE for the decision.

While speaking on Out of Character with Ryan Satin, Butch talked about the change in his character. Butch made it clear that he wanted to embrace the gimmick he was given despite the backlash.

“There’s going to be times when you step into a different role and I’ve been so serious for so long in NXT and then when I was just getting to a point where I feel like I can be at the forefront of NXT instead of being that number two or number three guy, then it all changed and that wasn’t the direction anymore.

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For me, it was just a case of embracing what was given whether that is something serious, a chance to make people laugh, excited or sad. I’m going to have to embrace that, anything that comes along, and hopefully at the end of my career people will look back and go ‘okay, there were loads of great matches, I like this one, that one’ or ‘he made me laugh’.

What I will say, especially about the earlier Butch stuff, it’s the first time in my career that people have stopped me in the street and said ‘your my kid’s favourite wrestler’.

“It’s always been, before, ‘you’re my favourite wrestler’, it’s also been people around a similar age to me, that demographic, whereas now it’s now a lot more like ‘my kid loves you’ and that was nice to see, okay I’m connecting with a different portion of the audience.”

At Extreme Rules, Butch, Sheamus & Ridge Holland defeated GUNTHER, Giovanni Vinci & Ludwig Kaiser in a Donnybrook match. Since then, Butch has remained one of the highlights of Friday Night Smackdown. We’ll have to see what’s next in store for him.

Do you enjoy Butch’s character? Sound off in the comments!