Our live thoughts from today’s PROGRESS show, Chapter 33 – Malice In Wonderland… there be spoilers beyond here!
The in-depth review will of the show be posted after the event has been posted to demand-progress.com – as usual, there were 700 inside the sold-out Electric Ballroom in Camden, in spite of the London Underground doing their best to make that journey difficult.
In a nice surprise for the crowd, William Regal was brought out to a roof raising reception. Whether this makes the video release remains to be seen, but as an unexpected treat… I don’t think a single person disliked it. Including Jim Smallman who got his usual bullying treatment from one of the British scene’s all-time greats.
From start to finish there wasn’t a single bad match on the show. However, that was a curse, as well as a blessing, as the crowd ended up coming down during matches, which (in my mind) hurt some of them live.
The opening tag match – Pete & Damian Dunne vs. Trent Seven & Tyler Bate – was fun to watch and enjoyable to be in the crowd for. However, I’m never a fan of those matches that go for twenty minutes and end in either a non-finish or something screwy. So having Trent Seven turn on Tyler Bate and align with Pete Dunne – although an intriguing pairing – left a very sour taste in the mouth. Bate put on a wonderful performance, a showing beyond his years. Barring something unexpected, he’ll be a star…
Zack Gibson vs Jack Gallagher was as fantastic as you would have expected. A brilliant technical encounter with a heavy helping of heat for a certain Z Gibson. So much so, in fact, that the Camden crowd created new ways to mock Gibson as the seemingly WWE bound Gallagher took the popular win. My pick for match of the night there.
The Roy Johnson Wasteman challenge ended up being Jack Sexsmith who launched into some very family unfriendly jibes at the New Zealand trio of TK Cooper, Dahlia Black and Travis Banks. Seeing Jim Smallman lose his mind was a sight to behold. This turned into a tag match with a screwy finish as Dahlia low blowed Sexsmith before a TK Cooper punch got the win.
After three hot matches, the crowd struggled to get up for the El Ligero vs Mark Andrews match. This is one I’ll need to see again on tape, as the tiring crowd played their part. Another good match, with a surprise ending – a roll up from nowhere got Andrews the W here.
The second half opened with the Mark Haskins vs Will Ospreay number one contenders match. Will was paying tribute to the G1 here, with his left shoulder heavily taped up, and a load of circular bruises on his back. Cupping – the official recovery process of New Japan Pro Wrestling!
After Ospreay got his welcome back party – and the obligatory sea of streamers from throughout the Electric Ballroom – a match broke out. Again, this is one that I’ll want to watch again before judging it properly, but this felt like one of the better matches of the day. I know some in PROGRESS don’t like stars (ahem, Jonny McIntrovert…) but I’d say a solid **** (subject to change!). Haskins win made sense given how he’s staying around, and although his call to cash in his title shot at the Brixton show made sense, it sure came off as heelish saying that he’d win it “in a bigger room than this”
War Machine vs the London Riots had to overcome the suspension of disbelief issue that comes whenever a fly in challenges for a title, but in the end this was really good, hard hitting big lads wrestling. Having never seen War Machine before, I was impressed with Messrs Rowe and Hanson, and would jump at the chance of seeing these guys again. The Riots retained, as expected.
Finally, the main event. As a match, this was good and had the finish I’d have expected – with Marty Scurll regaining the title – but the booking around this was wrong. Scurll jumped William Eaver at the bell and dominated for periods of the match. Well, not the periods when he went flying past Twitter’s own Senor Lariato… or my wife for that matter! The end came when Eaver connected with a Crucifix powerbomb and the Clothesline from Heaven, sending Scurll to the outside.
Almost immediately, a voice came over the speakers – and I originally thought it was Mikey Whiplash, playing off the angle they were working before Eaver won the title. Instead, of all people, it was Sebastian. Formerly of the GZRS fame. Sebastian had been in the same Natural Progression Series tournament that Eaver won, and they’re going to play off that with some secret. The distraction from Sebastian left Eaver to fall into a chicken wing for the submission loss… and leave the show feeling as flat as the last chapter (where he won the belt) was high.
Two things – Eaver as a one and done champion (not counting the defence in Cork…) could mortally hurt him. In the same sense, Eaver was a step below the quality of some of the previous champions that PROGRESS have had. Not that he is bad in the ring, but he is not in the same class as previous champions like Ligero, Ospreay or Scurll… Yet. Eaver as a long term champion would have been a struggle for him and the title, but losing the title so quickly, and in the way he did… I don’t know. I want to see where the story goes, but I can’t help feeling like the crowd were forcibly brought crashing down to earth by the end of it all. Secondly, Sebastian was little more than comedy relief in his first run with the company, so there is also the big risk of him being the man who cost the Pastor his title will simply drag Eaver down, rather than bring Sebastian up to any level. These are just my “hot takes” after the show, but time will tell how this all unfolds!
Most of the questions we had coming into the show, certainly around the title pictures, remain the same: Marty Scurll’s got a long-term challenger in Mark Haskins, but the tag team division still remains cloudy, with no clear challengers for the London Riots. All in all, and I will stress this for anyone who wants to pick and choose what they read – the show from top to bottom was good.
The individual notes were great, but the order they were played in just seemed a tiny bit out of key by the end of the night. With that being said, this was easily the most fun I’ve had at a wrestling show ever.