Pete Dunne has now been with WWE for five years now. The NXT star spent a little time on the live event circuit before being sent back down to NXT.
In a recent interview with WWE After the Bell with Corey Graves, Pete Dunne talked about all the differences he has noticed from when he first started on the brand to today in NXT 2.0.
“I had a weird situation when I came in because I wasn’t strictly an NXT guy,” Dunne said. “I was doing the UK Tournament still. I was still doing independent shows at the time. I would also get to be on RAW and SmackDown live events and be a part of the Royal Rumble. I was just scattered all around the scene, so for me, it didn’t always feel like that. Sinking more into NXT, it almost became a mindset of, ‘We want to make this on the same level as RAW and SmackDown.’ Every TakeOver we had before the main roster show, we wanted to make them follow this.
“It became less about wanting to go up there and show I can hang with these guys [on the main roster], instead make the whole brand and elevate it to the point where it’s on the same level. I can see it heading now in a way where it’s heading back to that older mentality of wanting to get up to RAW or SmackDown and show what we can do alongside them. It’s just another shift, but it’s the same chip on your shoulder, same mentality of proving that it’s not just the next guys, we can do this right now.”
Dunne would then go on to say what his end goals are for the rest of his time on the brand and how he would like to face a lot of the new members of NXT 2.0.
“The big one that’s evaded me for a long time is the NXT title, I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel like I deserve a run with that and I can do great things with that. It’s obviously something that I’ve been right there so many times, so that’s something I would love to accomplish in my career.
“Outside of that, there are all these guys now for me to work with and different scenarios to be in so I’m just excited to see what the future holds really.”
Now with stars like Kyle O’Reilly and Johhny Gargano gone, it will be interesting to see how Dunne will be used on the brand moving forward.
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