This Is Progress: Sam Holds Up His End of the Bargain

[Uncle Sam]

I spent the last two days - Christ, two days - attending Progress Wrestling's Super Strong Style Sixteen Tournament. There were a lot of indie tropes that I'm not a big fan of (e.g. people actually hitting each other really hard) but, overall, it was a good show that held my interest for the eight or so hours that it went on over the two days.

Before I went in on the second day, a man tried to sell me his CD. I told him that I didn't want to buy his CD. He asked me if I didn't like music. I told him no. He accused me of being soft (he didn't feel the need to spell it out for me), called me a wannabe wrestler (which is the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me) and said I liked to watch men wrestle (I can't imagine where he got that information from).

Some notes:

• Dave Mastiff, Noam Dar and Rampage Brown, i.e. three of the blokes from British Boot Camp, were on the show. They were noticeably better than most others.
• Roderick Strong was head and shoulders better than any other wrestler there. That he only wrestled three matches was a god damn travesty. Absolutely exceptional. I talked to him briefly when he was selling t-shirts in his underpants. Should have bought a t-shirt really.
• A women's no-DQ match stole the show.
• False finishes really get on your nerves when you need a piss.
• The company's champion is Jimmy Havoc, who's a heel, so "Jimmy, you're a cunt! Jimmy, Jimmy, you're a cunt!" is a common chant. One of the women, the heel, was called Jinny. There was a chant about her being a cunt, which made me feel supremely uncomfortable.
• Somebody tried to start a transphobic chant. Instead, everyone chanted "Don't be a dick!"
• Beer.
• Zack Sabre Jr. and Marty Scurll had a homoerotic match. Like, more homoerotic than a regular wrestling match. It was the semi-final of the tournament.
• A large Dutch wrestler told me to get out of the way while he was beating the shit out of some bloke who used to be a rosebud. The bloke next to me got to hold a chair which said rosebud got thrown into. Jealous.
• Jimmy Havoc threatened to behead Will Ospreay, the winner of the tournament and thus new number one contender, with an axe, which was a bit rich for me. He had an axe.
• Football chants are infinitely better than wrestling chants. For starters, they're not all four syllables and then followed by clapping.

Hooray.

Edit: Oh, and Kris Travis, a British indie wrestler who recently beat cancer, was there. It was good to see him.

 

[Lee]

What I know about that company:
Will Ospreay once stayed in my house as the backyard fed he was in at the time was visiting Newcastle.

Madcap wrestles for them as Bodyguy Roy Johnson.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Will Ospreay has the same finisher as (Adrian) Neville, probably at Lee's behest.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Is it Progress that give the champion a ceremonial staff rather than a belt, and each tag team champion is awarded half a shield, that fits together to make a full one?

 

[Uncle Sam]

Jimmy Havoc, who cut a tremendous promo in which he pointed at different members of the audience and said they were *****, had a belt on him. But yes, it seems the tag titles are represented by a shield split down the middle - which, honestly, I thought was kind of cool.

Edit: Here is what appears to be the only image of the shield available on the internet:

Roderick Strong, I should say, didn't stand out because of his wicked cool backbreakers but because of a) his comic timing and b) his ability to convince me he was going to murder Will Ospreay about an hour after having me in stitches.

 

[Uncle Sam]

I nearly broke my foot at the Progress show last night. Unrelated, Adam Cole and Roderick Strong turned up, unadvertised, and wrestled for the tag team championships:

Their match was shit but it was pretty mental when they showed up.

Pastor William Eaver - bloke who looks and acts like Jesus - had a really fun match and debuted what I think is a really great parody shirt:

http://www.progresswrestling.com/product/pastorshirt/

I challenged my mate, who isn't (wasn't) a wrestling fan, to find a t-shirt in the place that wasn't a parody shirt. He failed.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

From Wikipedia:

Progress Championship
Unlike conventional wrestling championships which are generally represented by a belt, the PROGRESS championship was initially represented by a large staff with an eagle head piece. The eagle represented the promotion's logo, but was affectionately referred to as the "Nazi staff" by fans. Promoter Jim Smallman was never afraid to defend the accidental likeness of the championship during shows, by occasionally declaring "It's not Nazi, it's regal" whenever a "Nazi staff" chant was started by the fans in attendance. At Chapter Sixteen the staff was replaced by a more traditional title belt.

Ah, so they've changed from the staff to a belt for the main title... I knew I'd read it somewhere.

 

[Lee]

I love that Blessed in the world t-shirt.

 

[Uncle Sam]

His theme music is Personal Jesus, his finisher is The Clothesline from Heaven and he faith heals people on the way to the ring. He's genuinely fantastic.

 

[Remix]

I love that Blessed in the world t-shirt.

Time to use it in a Promo as a Mr Morality product?

 

[Lee]

I would wear it to church.