The latest edition of Freedom’s Road sees a hint at what life could be like if the London Riots branched out on their own…
We open up this week with Danny Duggan checking his phone outside the venue, with David Francisco interrupting. Francisco’s upset at how Duggan “stole” the win last week, and he feels persecuted… but Damon Moser arrives to get in his face as the Portuguese champion walks off.
After the titles, Timothy Thatcher is waiting for James Davis – who walks by him without saying a word. We don’t usually do screencaps, but there’s something to be said for the visual of Thatcher as a bouncer.
There’s music bleeding over in the background, and lucky us, we’ve got David Francisco making his way to the ring as we’re straight into action!
David Francisco vs. Ashmore vs. Spike Trivet vs. Dillon D’Angelo vs. Alex Cupid vs. Danny Duggan
David’s so proud of his title belt, whilst the “Hipstar” Ashmore is equally proud of his Costa coffee cup. Spike? He’s just proud of how privileged he is… perhaps this wasn’t the week for him to be acting like a proud Conservative, given this went out the day after their election collapse.
Oh hey, there’s the confusing “f*** off back to Oxbridge” chant that I misheard the first time around!
We’ve got a tag team in this multi-way match, in the form of NSD – Dillon D’Angelo and Alex Cupid… the latter of which had been carving out quite a side gig as a commentator for Rev Pro in recent months. The scramble started with bodies flying all over the place, with a lot to keep up with, featuring Spike taking a twisting brainbuster before Ashmore returned to try and take on Never Say Die. It didn’t work.
The good guys stood tall before hitting a trio of dives into the front row, as everyone started to fight under the ring… with video footage of it! Well, that’s something new! When everyone returned, Ashmore made a beeline for Duggan, whilst D’Angelo just waffled Trivet with a forearm smash.
Ashmore goes for a running shooting star press as Trivet held Cupid in the ropes, but despite Cupid avoiding it, he couldn’t do anything as the Tory threw in a clothesline. There’s an awful lot of similarities between Trivet and wXw’s Bobby Gunns, I noticed. Spike seemed to be fighting a wardrobe malfunction which was showing off the remnants of a tattoo that none of us wanted to even know about, let alone see, as all the bad guys broke up their covers.
Dillon made a 1-on-3 comeback, featuring a rebound headbutt before things got a little spotty again, ending with a powerbomb onto the knee from Ashmore onto Duggan. A Cupid’s Arrow gets rid of Ashmore, before a flapjack from Francisco almost earned him the win. NSD dive some more, only for D’Angelo to take a superkick from Francisco… Francisco thought he’d won, but he took way too long to capitalise, and for some reason Damon Moser comes in and suckerpunches the Portugese.
Fair enough, that’s a ready-made feud solidified for when Moser returns to the ring, I guess! Dillion nearly stole the win from there, only for Ashmore to pull him out of the ring and hit Francisco with a spiral tap for the win. A perfectly fine, chaotic but spotty scramble match – and it’s good to see Ashmore getting some exposure at any level in PROGRESS.
We cross-fade to our next match, with no inbetween segments then…
James Davis vs. Timothy Thatcher
Let’s ignore the politically inspired chants against Timmy, eh?
Davis starts off with a promo about Thatcher being part of RINGKAMPF, and how he was labelled a “drunken showman” by WALTER not too long ago. This being Thatcher, he takes down Davis as he looks to grapple! Davis tries some of his own, but Thatcher’s not impressed and he starts to hook away on his foe.
These two are remarkably evenly matched, given their disparity in standings – Thatcher, coming into this having recently been deposed as EVOLVE champion, whilst Davis’ PROGRESS record as of late in tags has been littered with losses. Heck, if you only count chapter and ENDVR shows, Davis’ only singles win in PROGRESS was a hardcore match against Jimmy Havoc, all the way back at Chapter Eight!
Davis tries to break a Thatcher bridge, but to no avail as the pair went traded monkey flips en route to the impressive double neck bridge and a bunch of slaps! A clothesline from Davis takes down Thatcher, who responds with a Saito suplex, then an armbar as he went back to some stiff forearms and a rear chinlock in a bid to silence the noisy minority.
Those shots continued on the outside, where Davis slammed Thatcher on the floor, following up with a squashing back senton, but Timmy recovers to brawl through the crowd as he then suplexed JD on the floor. That can’t have been any good! Back inside, we’re back to the forearms, before Davis takes Thatcher to the outside for a trio of topes as he looks to send the former EVOLVE champion into the second row!
An Exploder suplex, then a St George’s Cross from Davis gets a near-fall, before a moonsault comes up short as Thatcher immediately responds with a butterfly suplex for a near-fall. Thatcher came closer with a rear naked choke, but Davis clung on and shocked Thatcher with a scissored Cobra clutch for the submission! That was a surprise result to end a match that was not exactly what we’d expected of Thatcher from his EVOLVE work! So… should the Riots go their separate ways anytime soon, James Davis shouldn’t have any cause to worry!
That brings another episode of Freedom’s Road to a close – as usual, another decent episode, but rather light in terms of storyline progression save for the show-opening piece with Damon Moser and David Francisco. With another set of tapings on June 27, we’re pretty much limited in what’ll be left for the next episode in two weeks. Nothing was teased, but going by what was taped, all that’s left from the non-dark matches are Matt Riddle defending the Atlas title against Rob Lynch, whilst Spike Trivet’s back against Connor Mills.