Applewatch Locked

I have an Apple watch series 3. It has been working great thus far. Yesterday, I wen to update it the latest iOS. The update process went as expected. After the update I went to turn the watch on and brought me the "enter passcode" screen. I entered my passcode and it promptly informed me that it was the wrong passcode. I though that was weird as I had only 1 pascode and it has never been reset. Despite multiple attempts it eventually locked me out for 1 minute. After a minute I kept retrying with what I though was an alternative passcode bit it ultimately locked me out for 15 minutes. By now I assumed the passcode was not going to work and I knew I would have to reset it. So I went online to see what was the best way to do this. Here is what I have tried thus far:

1. Holding down the power button. All this does is bring me back to a black screen with the apple logo and then back to the "enter passcode" screen. I tried doing this with the phone on and off the charger. No joy.

2. Unpairing the watch. Tried unpairing it, It removed the watch from my iphone as a paired device. The iphone now asks me to pair a new phone but the 2 pairing methods involves holding the watch screen to the iphone (assuming to find the device) but since the only screen on the phone is the "enter passcode" screen, nothing happens. The other pairing method is manually but it involves you being able to interact with the iwatch (tapping the "i" icon on the watch) but there is no "i" icon on the watch, only the "enter passcode" screen. No joy.

3. Removing the watch from the cloud. Did that. STILL no joy.

As of now, I am out of ideas. I have a watch that is locked, with a passcode that I do not know. I cant pair it.

Am I missing something???

Any help is appreciated.

FYI: This occured AFTER I updated the watch iOS. Prior to this the phone would lock when I took it off to shower and my passcode would always work.