West Midlands wrestlers get ready to rumble at WWE event

Wolverhampton's Trent Seven, Netherton's Tyler Bate and Birmingham duo Pete Dunne and Dan Moloney – all linked to Wolverhampton promotion Fight Club Pro – will get to showcase their skills in front of up to two million people for worldwide phenomenon World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) this weekend.

The quartet are in a 16-man tournament at the Empress Ballroom, Blackpool, with the winner crowned the first-ever WWE UK champion, live on the WWE Network, putting them on the same stage as some of the greatest names in the industry's history, including The Rock and Hulk Hogan.

Trent Seven, real name Ben Webb, is one of those hoping to make his mark in the multi-million dollar world of professional wrestling.

He doesn't exactly have your standard story. He's in his mid-30s. People in their mid-30s don't get try-outs with the WWE.

"It's all a little bit surreal," he says. "It's difficult not to sound a little bit repetitive about how excited I am.

"There's not a lot of 30-somethings trying out for the WWE, but I've only really been wrestling six or seven years.

"My body is a lot better than someone the same age who has been hitting the canvas for 15 to 20 years."

Engaging, funny and even charming, the mustachioed Seven is incredibly passionate about what he does. It has been a long road after all for a man who tries to shake everyone's hands before he hits the ring each night.

The journey to becoming international professional wrestler Trent Seven began when he was born in The Woodman Inn – an old miners' pub based on Wallows Road in Brierley Hill.

He moved to Wolverhampton before he started school at St Michael's Primary in Little Merry Hill, progressing to St Edmund's College in Compton and then Wulfrun College.

His first training seminar did not arrive until the year 2000 at K-Star in Birmingham, but even then it was not until he and friend Martin Zaki – now the co-owner of Fight Club Pro – bought a wrestling ring six or seven years later that things began to get more serious.

Still holding down a 'normal' job as well as wrestling, Seven dipped his toes in outside promotions in 2014 – getting to wrestle with Bate and Moloney against current WWE world champion AJ Styles at Chikara Pro's King of Trios event.

But only when he was made redundant last year did he finally take the plunge into committing to wrestling full-time.

He was scouted by British wrestling legend William Regal – himself a Midlander, being a former pupil at Codsall High School – in October and went for a try-out in Glasgow the following month.

He 'hung out' backstage at WWE's Raw and Smackdown television shows – with a combined six million audience a week in America – and trained for a couple of days with Regal and other WWE trainers. But a phone call, summoning him to London for a press conference, changed everything.

On December 15, he found himself stood on a stage at the O2 Arena in London with Regal, wrestling legend Triple H and Finn Balor, one of the top stars of WWE's 'new era'. There it was revealed – completely out of left-field to wrestling fans around the world – that WWE would be launching a UK Championship.

It's still sinking in for Seven – influenced in Britain by World of Sport Legend Rollerball Rocco and America by the likes of Kurt Angle and Ric Flair.

Dunne, Bate and Moloney will be stood right there with him on January 17.

"If you had said four people in a 15 to 20-mile radius would be signing up for the WWE, I think people would have laughed at you, but now you have got the strength of the fighters coming out of the Midlands," he added.

Dunne may be at the other end of the age scale – he's just 23 – but has already been wrestling for 11 years. The current Fight Club Pro champion is coming off the best year of his wrestling career and has been tipped as the man to lift the championship at the end of next weekend.

"It's really cool – I'm really excited," he says. A resident of Chelmsley Wood, Dunne is clearly set on his goals – winning the UK Championship is the next one, becoming the WWE World or Universal champion is the ultimate ambition.

"It's unprecedented something like this is happening in Britain," he said. "We want to put on the best show and do GB wrestling proud. I've had that sense of representing Britain every time I go out."