Hamilton’s Euro Update August 2021 – Rev Pro, PROGRESS, wXw, More

Well, the European scene is finally starting to spin up once again… so for the sake of those who want a quick catch-up rather than watching what (in some cases) can be over a dozen shows since the pandemic, here’s what you’ve missed.

Rev Pro (up to and including August 1 – spoilers ahead!)

The promotion returned about a year ago with their “Epic Encounters” series of shows, which initially were streamed on Fite.tv before being made free-to-view on Rev Pro’s YouTube page.

The early shows had a few threads running through them: a best of five series between Contenders Kenneth Halfpenny and Brendan White (which White eventually won 3-2); Ricky Knight Jr. losing the Southside Speed King title unification match to Rev Pro British Cruiserweight champion Michael Oku; while Will Ospreay defended the Rev Pro British Heavyweight title over Kyle Fletcher and Ricky Knight Jr. before heading back over to Japan in late 2020.

In Ospreay’s stead, the promotion held a double-elimination tournament for the vacated Southside Heavyweight title – with the planned unification of that belt with Ospreay’s title due for some point in the future. As lockdowns eased, then tightened, Rev Pro ended up holding the tournament across five shows over as many months (if you include Dan Moloney’s “defence” of his spot in the finals), before the championship was finally decided in July, at Rev Pro’s first show back with fans.

Ricky Knight Jr. would end up getting retribution for his first round elimination at the hands of Dan Moloney, by winning the bracket B finals and eventually knocking-out Moloney in the overall title tournament finals to win the Iron Fist match. RKJ’s title win was quickly overshadowed by the return of Shota Umino – who issued a challenge for Knight’s title at the 9 Year Anniversary show. Except it’ll not be for the Southside title – as RKJ retired that in favour of crowning himself the British Heavyweight champion (using Rev Pro’s old belt). I guess you can’t spell undisputed without “disputed”…

Speaking of titles that were vacated during lockdown… the Rev Pro British tag team championships are once again looking for new homes after Rampage Brown was signed to NXT UK and the Great-O-Khan returned to Japan. To determine new champions, an eight-team, two-block Great British Tag League kicked off at the July Cockpit, with the block winners facing off at August’s 9 Year Anniversary show. At time of writing, block A looks to be going to the wire, with Dean Allmark and Robbie X vs. Michael Oku & Connor Mills set to be the deciding match… while block B looks to be going between the Legion’s team of Screwface Ahmed & Lucien Phillips vs. TK Cooper & Chuck Mambo.

A further fly in the ointment there is that Michael Oku’s also been slated to defend his Cruiserweight title at that 9 Year Anniversary show, against Robbie X and Chris Ridgeway. So a little like WrestleMania X, just without a proxy for Yokozuna…

Elsewhere, Rev Pro’s women’s championship has been a bit of a hot potato, with Gisele Shaw dropping the title to Jamie Hayter on the taped Epic Encounters show that aired in February… only to win it back at the first Cockpit show in July when Hayter’s planned defence against Skye Smitson was scrapped due to both women taking a NXT UK tryout (which also led to Rev Pro unceremoniously stripping Hayter of the title).

Having come up short at the Cockpit, Zoe Lucas would go on to win the Queen of the Ring tournament at the end of July – albeit with the help of Mariah May and Zoe’s new “court” in the form of Shaun Jackson and Kenneth Halfpenny. Yep, the two contenders have grown up and are in suits now, running interference for Zoe, whose run for the Rev Pro women’s title will need to go through Hyan, who beat Gisele Shaw in the semi-finals of the Queen of the Ring tournament – and thus put her in contention for a title shot as well.

Rev Pro’s next “big show” is at Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse on August 21, featuring the returning Aussie Open vs. the Young Guns, plus Shota Umino challenging for Ricky Knight Jr.’s not-Southside championship. Also, we’ve got Dan Moloney vs. Adam Maxted, Michael Oku defending the Cruiserweight title vs. Chris Ridgeway and Robbie X, and the finals of the Great British Tag League to crown new tag team champions.

PROGRESS

Having not set any date to return in front of fans, PROGRESS’ only output at the moment has come in the form of taped shows that have been dropping every fortnight on the WWE Network. Swapping the Electric Ballroom for the Theatre Peckham, the promotion’s stayed in London and have also had to indulge in tournament action.

Starting with a Natural PROGRESSion Series, PROGRESS returned with an eight-man tournament to a) introduce some new faces and b) pick out a new contender for Cara Noir’s title. Winning the tournament (held across two shows) would be Luke Jacobs – one half of the Young Guns, who’d largely been known as a tag team wrestler. Jacobs shone in the tournament, but would fall short against Cara Noir, before reuniting with tag partner Ethan Allen to take part in the tournament to crown new PROGRESS tag team champions.

The Young Guns would make it all the way to the finals, but lost to the Lykos Gym – as the Lykii dominated PROGRESS’ tag division on its return, including winning an odd “Dog House rules” match against Gene Munny and Big Guns Joe that featured the inclusion of a dog crate…

Elsewhere, the PROGRESS Women’s championship found a new home – but they took a long way to get there. Kanji won the first ever female Thunderbastard match in February, which was slated to be for a shot at Jinny’s title… except some six weeks later, a video message from Jinny revealed that she’d be vacating the title, and thus a best-of-three series with Gisele Shaw – who’d won a number one contender’s match before the pandemic struck. Kanji would win that series, and has since stood tall atop the division, with Shaw and a returning Laura di Matteo being the most prominent challengers.

In other “stuff”… Charles Crowley went from being a commentator to suddenly cheerleading Elijah… to leaving the commentary desk to manage Elijah. The first match, a title shot against Cara Noir, didn’t exactly go to plan, but with the focus being shared between Crowley and Elijah, you do wonder what the longer-term plans are.

wXw

Like Rev Pro, wXw returned pretty early in the pandemic, with the Shotgun 2020 series seeing them return in late May – less than three months after 16 Carat Gold (a show that was perhaps the last major show in Europe as the pandemic was hitting).

The main beats from May 2020 to date then… Alexander Wolfe vacated the Shotgun title that he won at Carat… which was then put up in a tournament and won by Metehan… who then lost it to Norman Harras on New Year’s Eve. Harras’ 2021 saw him defend the title against randomly-drawn opponents – a concept that took its toll mentally, as Harras would end up losing the belt to Prince Ahura at Drive of Champions back in May.

The tag titles have had a similarly tumultuous period – the champions going into the pandemic (Absolute Andy and Jay Skillet) weren’t able to wrestle together, largely due to Skillet not being able to enter the country. Andy and a mystery partner would end up losing the titles to the Pretty Bastard (Prince Ahura & Maggot), but only the finish of that aired on Shotgun… in unrelated news, wXw parted ways with both Skillet and Julian Pace following allegations made during Speaking Out, and a lot of people put two and two together over who the mystery partner was.

2020 would end with a different set of tag team champions though – with Fast Time Moodo and Stephanie Maze having beaten the Bastards… unfortunately they’d not get to defend the titles, as Maze would pick up an injury between the taping of the title win and the early 2021 tapings. Cue a title vacation, and a tournament to deceive new champions – eventually won by the wXw Wrestling Academy coach-and-student combination of Robert Dreissker and Anil Marik. The dream run of the sophomore Marik would come to a crashing end at Shortcut to the Top though, when the Arrows of Hungary won them at their eighth attempt.

Perhaps the big story coming out of wXw though, was the rise of Marius al-Ani. Since going out in the first round of 16 Carat Gold last year to eventual winner Cara Noir, Marius hasn’t lost a singles match – and is now standing at 27-0 following a run that saw him not only win the inaugural Catch Grand Prix tournament that aired throughout the autumn and winter of 2020, but also unseat Bobby Gunns as the wXw Unified World Wrestling Champion.

Having survived a rematch against Gunns (in a two-out-of-three falls match) and two defences against Tristan Archer, al-Ani’s next defences comes this weekend at wXw’s 20th Anniversary show – their first show in front of a proper, ticketed crowd in almost 17 months – against Jurn Simmons. Interestingly, Jurn was part of one of Marius’ rare defeats in the recent past, when the pair teamed up in an unsuccessful bid to win the tag team titles back in Kutenholz almost a year ago.

Jurn has largely been away from wXw since then, with last week’s Shortcut to the Top being his return…

Elsewhere in the world of wXw, we’ve seen a lot of new faces coming through, and lots of folks breaking out in this strange new world. The aforementioned Fast Time Moodo has stood out from the pack since he’s been waiting for Stephanie Maze to return from injury… Dennis “Cash” Dullnig has also turned some heads, albeit as a result of cosplaying as Hektor Invictus during his mysterious absence…

wXw’s next big show will actually be their first one back with fans – their delayed 20th Anniversary show this Saturday (August 7) in Oberhausen’s Congress Centrum. Main eventing is that Marius al-Ani vs. Jurn Simmons match for the unified world wrestling championship… plus, a best-of-three falls match as the Arrows of Hungary defend their newly-won tag team titles against former champions Robert Dreissker and Anil Marik and the title defences are rounded off with Prince Ahura defending the Shotgun title against a mystery opponent. The show will reach wXwNOW on August 20.

ELSEWHERE…

Restrictions in the Republic of Ireland mean that OTT are currently limited to running shows in neighbouring Northern Ireland. Their return show in July saw them fill some vacated titles, as the Kings of the North lifted the promotion’s tag team titles – after they’d finally stripped them from Pete Dunne, Trent Seven and Tyler Bate after a reign that went nearly two and a half years long… but also had no defences since July 2019. Higher up the card, Mark Haskins defeated Adam Maxted to win not only Maxted’s Gender Neutral title, but also the vacant OTT World championship.

Scotland’s ICW isn’t a promotion I’ve ever kept too close an eye on (sorry!), but they’re firmly in the camp with wXw and PROGRESS in terms of producing content for the Network. Releasing a weekly show on the Network, ICW returned to the airwaves in November 2020 with empty arena shows that also had to do without any WWE-contracted talent. Which made things tricky given that Noam Dar won the promotion’s main title one month before the pandemic. In their stead, ICW held a round robin tournament – the Lionheart League. Named after the late former world champion, the two-block tournament quickly doubled in size to four blocks, with Sha Samuels eventually winning the tournament before he left for NXT UK. As for the “top championship”, ICW ended up turning to their Zero G title for these shows – with a number one contender’s tournament ending up being for the title itself after Liam Thomson picked up an injury during the Lionheart League. At time of writing, Kez Evans – who had won the Square Go match before everything shut down – holds the title, having cashed in the briefcase to beat Craig Anthony minutes after the tournament final.

A newcomer to the English scene, Wrestle Carnival is a promotion that I haven’t accidentally called Wrestle Circus on several times… having just run their first show at the start of August (with lockdowns and the pandemic having scrapped planned debut shows in London and Milton Keynes). The spiritual successor to Wrestle Gate Pro, Wrestle Carnival has a tie-in with Ring of Honor, and looks to be having some of their upcoming matches – including a planned submission match between Carlos Romo and Chris Ridgeway – air on ROH’s Weeb by Week series. Not quite a forbidden door, perhaps akin to a forbidden cat flap…

Pro-Wrestling: EVE are set to return from their pandemic-enforced slumber at the end of August for WrestleQueendom 4. There’ll be a lot of eyes on that show, given how much talent has been plundered from the scene, along with the hassles brought in by WWE signings and of course, travel restrictions. During the pandemic, EVE made a point of running frequent clip shows on YouTube as a “pre-game” to WWE and AEW shows (a smart move in terms of keeping the brand name out there, you could argue, especially since those shows were frequently seen by more eyes than other promotion’s new content…)

However, right now there’s precious little announced for the show, just three weeks out. A gauntlet match for Kasey’s EVE International Championship was announced, albeit with no names slated as challengers… also announced are the returns of Alex Windsor (her first match since December 2017) following serious knee injuries, and the debut of “The Gambler.” No, not the guy from WCW Saturday Night. You’d also expect that EVE would need to do something about their tag titles, given that the champions on lockdown were Charli Evans and Millie McKenzie, who are now on the other side of the world and signed respectively.

Over in Germany, Berlin’s GWF returned in July with a pair of shows: Welcome Back and Summer Smash 6. The promotion had a brief return last September/October with a pair of double headers before things locked down again… the promotion looks to be warming things up for a GWF title defence as Senza Volto prepares to challenge John Klinger… elsewhere, Klinger’s Blutsbrüder stablemates Erkan Sulcani and Orlando Silver dropped the GWF tag titles to the Stübing brothers – Tim and Tom – in the first match after the restart.

That just about gets us up to speed – if there’s any call for these, I’ll try and drop in somewhat regularly with these updates as shows continue to spin up across Europe!