Kevin’s PROGRESS Chapter 74: Mid-Week Matters Review

PROGRESS Chapter 74: Mid Week Matters
July 25th, 2018 | Electric Ballroom in Camden, Greater London | Attendance: 700

Now that the G1 Climax is over and I don’t have to focus my attention there, I can catch up on the rest of the wrestling world. That starts with PROGRESS and Chapter 74. Before heading on a journey to the United States for a tour and ahead of the big Wembley show, we have this event and a huge title match. WALTER gets another crack at Travis Banks!

This show got moved around to accommodate some NXT UK tapings. Also, the company was back to not using licensed music.

Thunderbastard Tag Team Series: The 198 [6] vs. Aussie Open [2]
The 198 is a confusion situation. It’s Flash Morgan Webster and Wild Boar. They entered this after Flash turned on Mark Haskins and got to keep Flash and Haskins’ 3-0 record. The 198 attacked before the bell, setting them up as the heels to the underdog Aussie Open. I dig that role for Aussie Open. The heat segment worked but the match truly picked up when Mark Davis got the hot tag. He’s so great there. The closing stretch saw some great near falls as Aussie Open came oh so close to winning on more than one occasion. The fans love them and it adds a lot to their matches. This did totally throw away the rules of tag matches in the final minutes. Davis battled Flash outside as Boar put down Fletcher with the Trapper Keeper in 10:20. A fun opener. Boar looked good, while Flash played his role well, and Aussie Open continue to impress. [***¼]

Post-match, Vicky Haskins strolled to ringside. Her distraction nearly worked as Mark Haskins rushed out with a chair. Flash and Boar escaped before getting hit. Positive response for the Haskins family.

PROGRESS Women’s Championship: Jinny [c] w/ The House of Couture vs. Millie McKenzie w/ Candyfloss
Millie is still very young, but is wildly talented. The fans dubbed the House of Couture the “Tesco Spice Girls.” Millie came in fired up, dying to get her hands on Jinny after an injury cost her the previous title shot she earned. The veteran Jinny weathered the storm and got in control. There were several moments that saw some scary spots. Jinny nearly landed on her head and there was a dangerous backbreaker sequence. The House of Couture got involved, but Millie dumped each of them on their heads. The fans were way into her “Terminator” style gimmick. She survived an Acid Rainmaker, but struggled with a torso injury. It led to her tapping to an inverted figure four at 6:38. This was fine enough but lacked any real drama and was kept shorter than expected. [**½]

Chris Ridgeway vs. Eddie Dennis vs. Mark Haskins w/ Vicky Haskins vs. WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne
Our first look at the “three and in” situation to earn the Wembley main event spot with Zack Sabre Jr. out due to NJPW contract stuff. It seems like the heel Haskins stuff is done with Havoc off in his own angle. Everyone played their roles well in this one. Ridgeway seemed like he was still out to prove himself, Dunne was the star, Dennis was the jerk, and Haskins was, well, he was kind of just there. So most guys had a role. The action was fine, with not much slow down and a brisk pace throughout. The exchanges between Ridgeway and Dunne were a highlight. It’s not something we’ve seen before and they seemed to work well together. Near the end, everyone beat up Dennis, getting a “Fuck him up everyone, fuck him up” chant. Haskins got near winning until the 198 showed up and attacked him. Again, they made Vicky watch as this went down. That left Dunne and Ridgeway to give us a fun closing stretch. Dunne hit the Tombstone after surviving an Ankle Lock to win in 12:50. It wasn’t a special multi-man match or anything, but it was good. Lots of action, some good angle advancement, and a tease of a possible Dunne/Ridgeway singles match. [***¼]

PROGRESS Tag Team Championship Thunderbastard Tag Team Series: Grizzled Young Vets [c] [2] vs. The Anti-Fun Police [2]
The music issues came into play big time here. The Anti-Fun Police just had a siren as their theme. Yikes. Maybe the reason this show is actually under three hours is the lack of a lengthy Zack Gibson promo. It still got lots of heat, though. The Anti-Fun Police made great foils for the champs. It was a serious tag team against one that just wants to have fun. Comedy babyfaces usually work well with no nonsense heels. The crowd was hot for this and seemed to believe in a title change. A rollup or two and some miscommunication by the champs gave us true near falls that were believable. Alas, it was not to be. Ticket to Mayhem ended this at 9:42 for the champs to retain. A fun Tag Title match featuring two teams who meshed quite well together. [***]

PROGRESS Atlas Championship: Doug Williams [c] vs. TK Cooper
BIG LADS wrestling? TK is pretty much at the basement of the Atlas weight limit. He’s basically Mr. 206 like Jack Gallagher in NewLegacyInc.’s WWE 2K Universe Mode. Only kind of different. Anyway, this match was what you’d consider a clash of styles. And one that didn’t work that way you’d hope. Again, the angle of Doug retiring when he loses the title is fine in theory, but it makes matches like this less interesting. We know he won’t retire with a loss to a guy like TK. It also doesn’t help that this version of TK is the worst one. He’s slowing the pace of his matches and that doesn’t work for him. He’s at his best when he can use his speed and athleticism. This ended with Chaos Theory by Williams at 12:38. It wasn’t awful, it just never clicked and felt like it dragged.[**]

Post-match, Trent Seven made his way to the ring. Trent cut a promo telling a story about how he wanted to train with Doug Williams when he was just getting into wrestling. His car broke down and his career took a different path. Eventually, Trent got to his point, respectfully challenging Williams to an Atlas Title match at the Wembley Show. Doug accepted. Trent added that this wasn’t your cliché “torch passing” promo, noting that Doug’s fire has been going out for a while and he might be the guy to put it out for good. I like this because Trent’s a guy who feels like he could reasonably end Doug’s career, so the match is intriguing.

Number One Contender’s Match: Laura Di Matteo vs. Toni Storm
The biggest threats to Jinny. They were in the finals with Jinny to crown the first Women’s Champion. Toni beat Laura in a banger (***¾) of a title match last year. I dig Laura’s replacement theme, but Toni’s felt generic. If you’re a fan of their first match, it pays off here. The story was that Laura has improved in her time away from PROGRESS. However, Toni has also gotten better and remains a step ahead of Laura. There were several points where you got the sense Laura was doing something she that made her comfortable, only for Toni to have an answer. When Laura kicked out of Strong Zero, it felt like another case of her being better. She survived more and brought a lot for Toni to overcome. A second one kept her down after 10:13. Not quite as good as their title match last year. Still, this was a very good match and one that played well off their first encounter. [***½]

The House of Couture, wearing what commentary called the worst gear for a run-in, did a run-in. They jumped Toni until Millie McKenzie and Candyfloss made the save. If they can get all these ladies on the same card, I’d be down for the House of Couture against Storm/Laura/Candyfloss/Millie in a big tag.

PROGRESS World Championship: Travis Banks [c] w/ TK Cooper vs. WALTER
They met during Super Strong Style 16 and Banks got himself counted out to retain (***¾), so there are no countouts in this one. Banks has been champion for 318 days, putting him behind only Jimmy Havoc for longest reign. Without being able to run, Banks had the idea to go after WALTER’s arm and take away his ability to throw brutal chops and strikes. WALTER shrugged those off. TK Cooper got involved, but was no match for WALTER. Banks kept having a new plan, taking to cheating and going after the big man’s legs. Though it slowed WALTER, he was still able to fire off chops and such. Banks continued to showcase his versatility, busting out the old Eddie Guerrero spot where he fakes using a chair and tries getting WALTER disqualified for it. The fans bit on this as a potential finish, expecting Banks to escape with the gold again. A cool spot, but one that came after a pitiful ref bump. Tyler Bate came down to get some revenge on Banks and his distraction helped set up the finish. WALTER hit a powerbomb but Banks kicked out at one. Terminator Travis is still somewhere in there. WALTER added a Fire Thunder Driver to win the title at 13:59. Very good main event. The ref bump and some of the shenanigans held it back, as did the structure hampering how much WALTER could do. Still, they told a compelling story and gave us the title change at the right time. [***¾]

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

No standout great match that a lot of PROGRESS shows in 2017 had, but another one of their consistently good shows. This one had some disappointments in the Atlas and Women’s Title matches. However, the rest of the card is good and consistently so. The final two matches deliver, there’s a fun four way thrown in, and you get two solid tag matches.