Progress Chapter One: In The Beginning, 25th March 2012
Hello there people, am back with another review from the British wrestling Indy scene, this time from the new up start promotion Progress Strong-Style Professional Wrestling (Progress Wrestling for short) based out of central London, Islington.
So one day i was looking through the UKFF forums and the UK wrestling events section and came across Progress Wrestling’s thread promoting their first ever show entitled Progress Chapter One: In The Beginning. The company had previous to the thread apparently been causing a bit of a buzz on twitter and after reading the opening post of their thread i was instantly hooked, by this line “PROGRESS doesn’t do shows for kids or with a PG rating. If we had a cinema-style rating, it would probably be 15. “. Up and down the UK alot of shows are catered for young children and rightly so as they probably make up most of the audience at UK indy shows, i myself don’t mind this, as long as the shows don’t suffer as a consequence. The Progress management made the ballsy move that children under 14 were not allowed to attend and those under 16 had to be accompanied by an adult. As i say ballsy move putting an age limit on a show, as straightway you are limiting your potential audience (this how ever didn’t matter the show was a sell out !).
Although Progress were not catering for children they however weren’t going to be putting on deathmatch type matches, on their shows, they wanted to promote Strong-Style type wrestling and also allow the crowd to get pissed and chant what they wanted and just generally have a good time, have a few beers and watch some pretty good wrestling, without having to watch their behavior around children.
Before i get started with the review i would like to thank the guys at Progress Wrestling for hooking me up with this DVD, i really appreciate it guys, thank you !
This event, Chapter One contained a tournament to crown Progress Wrestlings first ever champion, 4 quarter final matches were scheduled with the main event being a 4 way elimination match up, to crown the first ever Progress Wrestling champion between the winners of each quarter final match up, onto the show then ……..
Match 1 – El Ligero vs Noam Dar – Progress Title Tournament Quarter Final Match [***]
Britain’s standout wrestler El Ligero locks horns with the upcoming indy darling of the British scene, Scotland’s own Noam Dar, in a really good fast paced match up, that set the tone for the evening proceedings. El Ligero and Noam Dar for me complement each other excellently and this match up was a perfect opener for Progress to showcase what they were all about. El Ligero with his fast paced style and Noam Dar’s technical finesse, thrown in with some strong stiff kicks and strikes in the match was the perfect opener, El Ligero picked up the win when he hit Noam Dar with his finishing swinging DDT of the second rope. Noam Dar played the heel to perfection in this match and his interaction with the fans, who were firmly behind El Ligero was class and gave a taster of what the crowd were going to be like throughout the event. A bizarre “Battered Mars Bars chant” from the crowd aimed at Noam Dar broke out why i don’t know, but what the hell the crowd were having fun and that’s all that matters.
Match 2 – Nathan Cruz vs Colosssus Kennedy – Progress Title Tournament Quarter Final Match [**1/4]
The crowd get on the back of Nathan Cruz with “Shit Zack Ryder” chants and “woo, woo, woo”, and Colossus Kennedy was greeted to “Funkasaurus” chants and a few “gastric-band” chants albeit not that many as the crowd were having more fun chanting “Shit Zack Ryder” to Cruz. Interesting match up this as in NGW, Colosssus Kennedy plays the role of bodygaurd to the ‘Showstealer’ Nathan Cruz. Colosssus Kennedy is a big, big man but also one of the better big men out their at the moment in my opinion. The match was a decent affair for what it was, Kennedy got most of the offense in and Cruz bumped around for his bigger foe, in a typical monster vs smaller opponent match up. Cruz tried to slow the bigger man down by working on his legs and cutting him down to size during the middle part of the match up, until Kennedy got the upper hand back in the match. The finish came when Cruz from previous work on Kennedy’s legs hit a drop kick to his legs to get him to the ground and hit him with a running kick to the head.
Match 3 – Colt Cabana vs “Loco” Mike Mason w/ Becky James – Progress Title Tournament Quarter Final Match [*1/2] But entertaining as hell !!
The ever entertaining Colt Cabana took on ‘Loco’ Mike Mason in what was more of a comedy match then an actual wrestling match up. The gimmick of Mike Mason is that he is a dog who is controlled by Becky James, this involves him just generally acting like a dog ha! getting on all fours and running round the ring, bizarre ! The comedy starts straight away as Colt distracts Mason with a tennis ball which like all dogs he wants. Teasing Mason he put the tennis ball down the refs pants which Mason goes to try and retrieve, and then throws the ball into the crowd for Mason to chase, who in return throw it back and forth as Mason chases it around the arena, it was hilarious. The actual wrestling was ok and contained more comedy, but nothing to write home about. Mason who has a great look, looked very green in this match up and inexperienced, but with a few more years under his belt he could develop into a good worker. Mason picked up the win when he hit Cabana with his dog chain, after Becky James distracted the ref.
Match 4 – Marty Scurll vs Zack Sabre Jr – Progress Title Tournament Quarter Final Match [****3/4]
The dream match on the UK indy scene that had everyone talking about, as tag team partners The Leaders of the New School locked horns and boy it lived up to the hype and then some !! whilst the previous El Ligero vs Noam Dar gave the fans a little taster what to expect from Progress Wrestling, this match went out and showed the fans exactly what the new company was all about and what to expect from future shows. This match had everything some great technical wrestling, stiff action and superb story telling, The match up started with some great mat wrestling that was really a joy to behold with both guys coming to a stand of a few times, to the applaud of the crowd, both guys had each other well scouted. Some of the transactions were fantastic so smooth and fluid. Zack Sabre Jr is really one of the premier talents in the UK, who is booked all other world and you can see why, he is awesome, the way he works the body parts of his opponents is fantastic using unique ways to weaken the limbs and getting into the position to do so. For the start of the match both guys were interacting with the crowd in a joking like manner, has at the end of the day it was two friends and tag team partners wrestling one another, but then the competitiveness between the two crept in and both guys proceeded to beat the living hell out of each other with stiff kicks, chops and forearms (Zack on twitter posted a picture of his legs the day after all swollen from this match ouch !). At one stage they were both forearm smashing each other and taking it in turns to kick the shit out of one another. Sabre’s finisher is the arm bar and he worked the arm of Scurll great in this match and, he demonstrated in this match he could hit the armbar out of anywhere, which had the crowd on the edge of the seats everytime he went for the submission. One great sequence was Sabre hitting a sit out powerbomb which Scurll kicked out of, and then locking in an immediate armbar. The action did spill to the outside with Scurll wiping Sabre who was on the outside, out with a dive through the ropes to the sound of “Holy Shit” chants from the crowd. This was a fantastic back and forth match fought at a relentless fast pace for 20 minutes plus, with some amazing sequences and some great high impact moves. The finishing stretch was great with some close pin attempts which had the crowd in a frenzy and the two again stiffing each other to death. Scurll picked up the win after rolling Sabre up for the 3 count in a phenomenal match up, which earned both guys a standing ovation and both hugging one another at the end. The price of this DVD is worth it for this match alone, it will be hard to find a better match than this to happen on British soil this year thats for sure. Both guys put in a tremendous effort and busted their asses in this match kudos to both guys, hopefully when Zack is back from his tour with NOAH, Progress Wresting will get a rematch booked as soon as possible, as people will jump at the chance to see a rematch between these two after seeing this match up !!!
Match 5 – Zack Gibson vs Darrell Allen vs Xander Cooper for the BWC Scarlo Scholarship Championship [***1/2]
This match up was the debut for Progress’s new BWC Progress Division, basically the division is where the youngsters of the British Indy scene are given a chance to shine. The BWC Scarlo Scholarship Championship is the the British Wrestling Councils title and is not affiliated with just one promotion (i may be wrong on this matter, if anyone could clarify this please get in touch). Onto the match then, before the match up i felt sorry for these 3 guys having to put a match on after the fantastic match up that occurred beforehand. But all 3 men delivered the goods in a really good match up to launch the BWC Progress Division. I have seen both Zack Gibson and Darrell Allen perform before in NGW (although then Allen was playing heel in the Bhangra Knights tag team with RJ Singh), so this was my first time seeing Xander Cooper. Darrell Allen playing the face really impressed using some great high flying maneuvers, whilst Zack Gibson bought some hard hitting and crisp wrestling to the table. Xander Cooper played a cowardly posh type heel, which i thought was a great character. The action was non stop with some well worked moves thrown in that involved all 3 participants that was thoroughly entertaining , the crowd again were fantastic, giving stick to Gibson chanting “2-1 Wigan” (Gibson is from Liverpool and they got beat by Wigan 2-1 in a football match). Cooper mixed up the win when he pinned Gibson after Allen hit him with a 450 Splash but injured himself in the process allowing Cooper to sneak in to pick up the win, infuriating the Progress crowd and retaining his title.
Match 6 – El Ligero vs Nathan Cruz vs ‘Loco’ Mike Mason vs Marty Scurll – Progress Title Tournament final elimination match to crown the first ever Progress Wrestling Champion [****]
So here we are the finals to crown the first ever Progress Wrestling Champion, instead of the winner receiving a championship belt they are awarded with …… a staff, yes a staff !, the crowd instantly chant “Nazi Staff” over and over again, i love this crowd their class. The action got underway and instantly there was chaos, started by a crazy dive from the top rope to the outside by El Ligero, from here on the action spilled out into the crowd and it was utter carnage. All four guys ended up brawling all over arena, in and amongst the crowd. Ligero and Scurll had a contest to see who could hit Cruz with the hardest chop, in the end two fans held Cruz’s arms so Ligero and Scurll could give him a double chop for good measure. The chaos continued with chairs coming into play, Scurll and Ligero had a duelling chairs battle at one point. El Ligero for his troubles took a bump into a load of seated chairs, the match was a wild brawl, that was always enteraining. At one time Marty Scurll set a chair up in the ring to sit down and down a pint of beer to the delight of the fans. The action moved back into the ring, and everything in ring was really good. It was tag in rules, and the match turned into a tag match of sorts with the face’s (Ligero and Scurll) going up against the heels in Mason and Cruz. El Ligero was first to be eliminated by Cruz after, Becky James saved Mason from a 3 count after Ligero had hit him with a frog splash. Ligero got his revenge distracting Mason and allowing Scurll to roll him up for the the pin. So it came down to the final two, Nathan Cruz and Marty Scurll, and everything these two did was on the money, the action was great between the two with some real tense near falls, Scurll at one point had the title won, however the ref was unable to administarte the 3 count after being inadvertatly taken out, which allowed the fans to chat “The referees a wanker”. Cruz picked up the win after hitting a kick to the side of Scurlls head to become the first ever Progress Wrestling Champion in a cracking main event to conclude a fantastic show.
**An extra on the DVD shows Cruz celebrating with the staff, at which the fans chat “He’s a Nazi”.
Overall show thoughts – Buy this DVD now !!!!, fantastic show from top to bottom the one match that falls below ** was still entertaining so there was never one moment when you wanted to skip a match or got bored. For a debut show this is great (I wonder if any promotion has put on a better debut show ?, any suggestions message me !) and firmly puts Progress Wrestling on the Map on the UK indy scene as a top, top promotion. Progress are a promotion (like many others throughout the UK) doing things the right way, they are giving young talent the chance to shine, they have provided an environment for adults who can have a good drink and enjoy themselves without always having to watch their language etc around children, and most importantly they listen to there fans, i guarantee if you send them a message on twitter they will get back to you within 6 hours if not sooner. Now the fans, they equally make this show providing a fantastic atmosphere through out the night and add a little more to the matches, through their enthusiasm and reactions to the match ups, plus they made some great chants throughout the night. For £12.50 (delivery included) this DVD is well worth your money, hell the Scurll vs Sabre match is worth the price of this DVD alone, throw in a great main event and a really strong undercard and you have a phenomenal show, which i doubt (i wouldn’t mind to be proved wrong) will be topped by any other show to take place in the UK this year. How Progress are going to top this show with Chapter 2 i do not know, but i know they will give it there best shot, and i cannot wait to see chapter 2. Again I would like to thanks the guys at Progress for providing me with this DVD i really appreciate it, thank you. Head over to Progress Wrestling’s website to buy this DVD now !!!
The DVD also includes numerous extras including interviews with the wrestlers and the owners of Progress Wrestling along with a a Marty Scurll post show speech
#ThisIsProgress
To find Progress Wrestling on the internet :
Website: http://progresswrestling.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ProgressWrestling
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ThisIs_Progress
Also subscribe to their YouTube channel as well host a weekly show updating the fans on Progress wrestling, called the Progress Report: http://www.youtube.com/user/progresswrestling
To contact me:
E-mail: jamiepwponderings@gmail.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/JamieIndyPW