10/29 Progress Wrestling in Camden, London: Travis Banks vs. Keith Lee for Progress Title, Toni Storm vs. Charli Evans, plus Seven, Bate, Havoc

PROGRESS WRESTLING: CHAPTER 56 “LA DANSE MACABRE”
OCTOBER 29, 2017
CAMDEN, LONDON AT THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM
REPORT BY DAVE GREEN (@dagreeno), PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

PROGRESS put on their first chapter show in seven weeks in front of another sell out crowd. This was essentially the start of a new volume, with it being the first shows since the big Alexandra Palace shows that saw British Strong Style finally lose their position on top of the company. The show saw a number of new angles start.

In a preshow, The O.J.M.O. and Big T Justice defeated The Northern Irish Connection (Charlie Carter & Oisín Delaney).

If I could use two wrestlers to compare the O..J.M.O., it would be that he has the look of Cheeseburger with the charisma of The Rock. He is a future star, without doubt. His huge partner Big T (legit 7 foot tall) did the majority of the damage for their team, while O.J.M.O. oversold everything he took which the crowd enjoyed immensely. Carter and Delaney did their job too and were pretty faultless. Really fun stuff saw Big T hit a Dominator, before O.J.M.O. tagged himself in to take the pinfall and steal the glory.

Pete Dunne opened main show proceedings by coming out to speak to the crowd, flanked by Tyler Bate and Trent Seven. He addressed the fact that he had done some bad things over the last year during his title reign. He also said that winning the PROGRESS title was one of the proudest moments of his career. He didn’t know exactly where his future wrestling in the U.K. lay, and said thank you to us for the last year, which earned him a standing ovation. Suddenly the Grizzled Young Vets of Zack Gibson and James Drake appeared at ringside. Gibson spat at Trent, which drew both he and Tyler to the backstage area giving chase to the pair. Dunne looked on but was attacked by a debuting Joseph Conners. Trent and Tyler returned to chase off Conners and helped their comrade to the back.

(1) Omari & Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher) beat Connor Mills & Never Say Die (Alex Cupid & Dillon D’Angelo). The future of PROGRESS looks bright if this showcase of newcomers is anything to go by. This six man tag kicked the main action off in fine style, with the crowd being particularly vocal for the debuting Omari, a man with a lot of buzz behind him. He hit his finishing move the O-Zone on Mills, which Davis followed with his leg pull piledriver for the three count and a standing ovation was given by the crowd in response to this wild opener.

(2) Strangler Davis beat Timothy Thatcher. This was a rematch from Freedom’s Road, when Davis managed to get a submission win over Thatcher. Since then of course, Davis has changed his ways and the crowd was fully behind Thatcher. This was a slower paced match, with plenty of submission attempts. Davis riled Thatcher up after a big slap, which Thatcher responded to by slapping the absolute crap out of Davis and taking him down with a bridging underhook suplex. Thatcher attempted multiple times to lock in the rear naked choke, but Davis manoeuvred them both into the corner where he mule kicked Thatcher low, out of the referee’s view, and locked in the Stranglehold. Referee Paz called for the bell when it seemed Thatcher couldn’t defend himself, giving Davis the unpopular win. Davis presumably will move onto his previously earned Atlas title shot.

Next up was scheduled to be a tag team title match. Zack Gibson & James Drake were due to challenge CCK, who informed the crowd that Kid Lykos was still convalescing from a broken forearm. However PROGRESS management had a replacement set up. Jimmy Havoc entered to a huge pop to team up with Chris Brookes. Jim Smallman announced the match and stated that “because we’re not late-90’s WCW, this will be a non-title match”. Gibson wasn’t happy and tried to start his usual prematch promo but was immediately attacked by Havoc..

(3) Grizzled Young Vets (Zack Gibson & James Drake) defeated Chris Brookes & Jimmy Havoc. The action was back and forth throughout. Late into the match, Lykos provided Havoc another Lykos mask, which he donned before performing the wolf’s half of the sick f—ing tag move on Drake. The cover was stopped after Gibson pulled the referee out of the ring. GYV combined for a big tag sequence, but the cover was stopped in response by Lykos pulling the ref out! Lykos avoided GYV’s attempt to get him, but was eventually caught by Gibson who applied an armlock on his broken arm. Havoc attempted to save him, but accidentally blasted Lykos with the CCK baking tray. While Brookes ran to tend to Lykos, Havoc was caught by the Ticket to Mayhem to give the win to Gibson & Drake, who motioned that they should be the champs. While CCK convalesced at ringside, Havoc left without checking on Lykos.

(4) WALTER defeated Wolfgang to retain the PROGRESS Atlas Championship. The debuting Wolfgang took an absolute beating during this one. WALTER dished out hellacious chops, slams and lariats, but Wolfgang held his own. He impressively hit the Howling from the top onto WALTER’s back as he was getting up. WALTER managed to get out of the ring before Wolfie could cover, but he was caught by Wolfgang hitting a huge topé con hilo! Back in the ring, WALTER rallied to hit a big powerbomb for the pinfall. Wolfie got a great show of respect after a hard hitting encounter and silenced a lot of naysayers tonight.

(5) Moustache Mountain (Trent Seven & Tyler Bate) defeated Sexy Starr (David Starr & Jack Sexsmith). With Trent & Tyler going by their other tag name and entering to Tyler’s WWE theme, they very much became faces once again this evening, and the crowd ate up the opportunity of essentially being allowed to cheer them again. When Sexsmith & Starr’s tag team name was announced, Starr comically tried to break Jim Smallman’s arm! This was an entirely comical match with some very funny moments. Sexsmith kept trying for armbreakers, each team made a kiss tag and Trent hilariously missed a big crossbody block. When things got a bit more serious, Trent hit a Burning Hammer style slam on Starr followed by the Tyler Driver to give Moustache Mountain the win.

Post-match, Sexsmith started to speak but was interrupted by Mark Haskins’ music. Vicky Haskins emerged on the stage yielding a club covered with huge spikes. Mark ran in through the crowd and levelled Sexsmith and Starr with a chair. When Vicky got in the ring with the spike club, Jimmy Havoc’s music hit with Havoc staring down his rival. However Havoc dropped his chair, picked up the spike club and hit Sexsmith with it! After both Sexsmith and Starr were hit across the back with the weapon, both Haskins and Havoc beat the pair down, seemingly uniting once again after their feud through the year. All three have since made the following statement on social media: “A closed system inevitably descends into disorder”, which would suggest a team name of Entropy, but that is mere speculation at this point.

(6) Toni Storm defeated Charli Evans to retain the PROGRESS Women’s Championship. Evans won the recent Revelations of Divine Love tournament to become no1 contender and made her Chapter debut here. She put in a commendable effort, getting the better of Storm when the champ missed a hip attack on the outside. Evans hit a beautiful top rope cross body block, but wasn’t able to capitalise on the momentum and Storm took her down with multiple German suplexes and hit the Strong Zero piledriver to retain the title.

(7) Travis Banks beat Keith Lee to retain the PROGRESS World Championship. This was a rematch from Chapter 53 when Lee beat Banks in the run up to Banks’ title match at Chapter 55. Banks stated he wanted to right some wrongs and so this title match was made. This was a great main event, with some great call backs to the previous match. Banks stopped short of his suicide dive when he saw Lee was ready to catch him like before. A swift kick saw Lee staggered and Banks hit three dives in a row (with Lee landing partially on me at one point! A scary experience but I’ve lived to tell the tale!) Lee destroyed Banks’ chest with his double chops. Banks managed to rally with chops of his own, but Lee came back with a massive receipt. Lee hit two Spirit Bombs at different points of the match but Banks kicked out each time. Banks countered the Ground Zero each time it was attempted and hit the Slice of Heaven twice, with Lee refusing to go down. A number of kicks to the head softened him up for the Kiwi Krusher with gave Banks the win. Respect was shown after the match as both men received a standing ovation for their efforts.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Overall, a good show, with the opening six man tag and the main event being particularly watchable. The Haskins/Havoc turns set up a potentially big angle for the next year, while the debut of Conners is certainly newsworthy, even if he’s not someone I personally enjoy watching. British Strong Style abruptly becoming fan favourites again was a good thing as the crowd has wanted to cheer them for a while now, while Toni Storm’s reign as the top dog of the women’s division doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon. WALTER looked dominant tonight and hopefully he will have a lengthy reign as the Atlas champ.

The show is up on Demand Progress by next weekend and the next chapter is in Manchester on Nov. 12.

NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS REPORT: 9/10 PROGRESS WRESTLING – CHAPTER 55 “Chase the Sun” in London, England: Banks vs. Dunne for PROGRESS Title, Zack Sabre Jr. vs, Scurll

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