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Five Thoughts on Progress Wrestling, Chapter Fourteen: “Thunderbastard”

By | August 25th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

With Regression’s reign of terror in full swing now, Progress puts on its inaugural Thunderbastard match. On top of that, the undefeated London Riots are gunning for the Tag-Team titles and a legend makes his presence known to the Progress faithful.

We’re at the Ballroom. The Card:

Thunderbastard Match: Paul Robinson vs. Joey Lakeside vs. Will Ospreay vs. Darrell Allen vs. Danny Garnell vs. Stixx vs. Marty Scurll vs. Mike Hitchman
Mad Man Manson’s Open Challenge
Mark Haskins vs. Martin Kirby
London Riots vs. FSU for the Progress Tag-Team Championships
Pastor William Eaver vs. Ali Armstrong vs. Chuck Mambo (Natural Progression Match)
Jimmy Havoc vs. Noam Dar for the Progress Championship
Rampage Brown vs. Samoa Joe

1. Thunderbastard

So, what is Thunderbastard? Well, to put it simply: it’s an eight-man Battle Royale. Two wrestlers start, another one enters every couple of minutes. You’re eliminated via pin, submission or disqualification. The winner receives a shot at the Progress Championship. There’s been a couple of Thunderbastard matches now and they’ve always provide some fun (even if the current build up to their Tag-Team Thunderbastard for Wembley Arena makes me want to put a drill through my brain), and this first one will provide the bedrock for next few shows.

Paul Robinson (who already starts off getting a “Fuck You, Paul!” chant) and Joey Lakeside start off with Robinson dominating the amateaur until wrestler #3 comes out: Will Ospreay dashes out, chair in hand, but Robinson avoids it and lowblows Ospreay, disqualifying himself and increasing the animosity to the two. These two are more speed and acrobatics, with Ospreay diving to the outside with the arrival of #4: Darrell Allen. Allen and Ospreay run and counter around each other and it appears that something goes wrong in a double dropkick spot, because Allen is rolled out of the ring and is withdrawn from the match with a probable concussion.

The fifth wrestler comes out: Danny Garnell. And the big man immediately beings the suplexes, managing to get the pin and eliminate Lakeside. Garnell immediately gets on Ospreay, the match rotating to a more big man vs. little man scenario as Garnell works on Ospreay’s injured shoulder. Entry #6 marks Stixx’s return and he and Garnell have a brief big men clash before Ospreay superkicks Garnell into a sideways slam from Stixx, eliminating Garnell.

Entry seven arrives and it is Marty Scurll, which brings me something I failed to mention last time, but I can further elaborate on here. Scurll is still very much in his “Party Marty” gimmick as he teams with Ospreay against Stixx here, but he is making a subtle transition. Last Chapter he started wearing trunks with “Villain” written on them and this Chapter had him come out with top knot and fur coat. Over the Chapters, this will become more prominent, but I appreciate the subtle storytelling.

The final entrant is “Wild Boar” Mike Hitchman who tries and fails to perform a package piledriver on Stixx, who is twice his size. One more try gets Stixx though, with Hitchman eliminating him. The Boar has little time to celebrate when Scurll grabs him in the Crossface Chickenwing submission and forces him to tap. It’s now down, funny enough, to Scurll and Ospreay. The two that would become rivals in Progress, Ring of Honor and New Japan have a quick scuffle, but leave enough in the tank to make you want more, with Ospreay taking advantage of being in the Chickenwing to pin Scurll’s shoulders and win.

For their first time, and considering what happened with Allen, this was a nice opener. It kept a good pace to heat up the crowd for the night and set Ospreay up with a chance at the Progress Championship and as a worthy contender having survived through most of the match. The Thunderbastard would continue to go on to not only have better matches, but be able to give some light to more up-and-comers.

2. Defeat of the Undefeated

Since they have been in Progress, the London Riots as a team have been undefeated (fittingly, they came out wearing a parody of Brock Lesnar’s “Eat. Sleep. Conquer. Repeat.” shirt to boos). Now, they’re going after the Tag-Team championships. FSU have been heroes to Progress and are going to have their work cut out for them, especially since both Mark Andrews and Eddie Dennis are jumped by Jimmy Havoc and Paul Robinson, the Riots’ Regression stablemates, during their entrance! The Riots go for the District Line on Andrews to end the match early, but Andrews manages to kick out!

Continued below

Tag-Team Wrestling is So Good.

This is a battle between two teams that know their teammates and their styles so well. Andrews plays a fiery babyface incredibly and Dennis comes in with such ferocity when he gets the tag. The Riots play their role as monstrous heels so well, so that when Andrews gets back in, the audience goes wild. It’s almost prophetic I mentioned Lesnar before, because Andrews goes for a Shooting-Star Press and gives himself a nice gash above his eye. In the end, it came down to the Riots trying their pop-up spear that have worked so well, only for Andrews to counter into a hurricanrana and pin Rob Lynch, breaking the Riots undefeated streak to massive cheers.

3. Sweet Jesus!

This triple-threat Natural Progression series match is an interesting one to watch in 2018. It is a decent match between three students of the ProJo, Progress’ wrestling school at the time. In one corner we have the surfer bro Chuck Mambo, in the other the wrestler Ali Armstrong and in the other other corner we had, as the crowd so put it: “He is Jesus!” Yes, the Pastor has the long hair, beard and everything of the Big J guy. And yeah, he is a bit heelish, like when he attacked his future tag partner Mambo from behind (inciting a “Let’s Go Jesus!” “Jesus Sucks!” dual chant).

Hindsight with this match is a sad and good thing. Mambo in 2018 is starting to truly find his feat, having a real Match of the Year contender with Zack Sabre Jr. at Super Strong Style 16. An unfortunate leg injury has had the Pastor out for nearly a year now, but the biggest sadness is the winner here, Ali Armstrong, who would not be on that many more shows before he had to retire early from injury. It goes to show that we really need to treat wrestlers special, because we never know what will happen with them.

4. By Hook or By Crook

In Progress’ World Cup Tournament, Noam Dar defeated Rampage Brown to get this shot at Havoc (Rampage himself will get his own reward later). Dar plays to the crowd, promising to paint the Progress staff up like a lightsaber when he wins it. The crowd come up with a multitude of chants for Dar (fitting his name into the tune of “Seven Nation Army” or the Imperial March). It was cute at first, and it certainly created a heated environment, but one could get easily irritated.

Momentum switches back and forth through the first half of the match, with Dar starting in control with a lot of mat wrestling before Havoc wrenches control back with his vicious strikes. It should be noted that as the match’s pace increased, the more annoying chants begin to dissipate. The two eventually make their way out of the ring and Jimmy even tries to leave through the exit, but stopped by Dar, who flips Havoc over a balcony area before the young Dar performs a flip over the railing onto Jimmy and a bunch of the ring crew.If you’re wondering “Why isn’t the ref counting?” I kinda had the same response.

The two make their way back to the ring and Dar unleashes on Havoc, put still the champion won’t go down. Dar manages to get a running powerbomb in, but hits the referee. Dar manages to get Havoc into his submission, the Champagne Super Kneebar… and Havoc Taps! As the crowd shouts “You Tapped Out!” the ref didn’t see it and Dar is motioning to Jim Smallman to get in and ref.

That’s all that Havoc needs as he hits the Acid Rainmaker on Dar. Smallman counts… and Dar kicks out at two! Smallman has a shit-eating grin on his face ad Havoc leers at him. The ref is now back up as Dar tries to recover, but Jimmy continuously strikes, trying to keep himself in this. Havoc gets another Rainmaker in and Dar kicks out at one! Another Rainmaker! Another kickout! Havoc locks in his Suicide Silence submission, but Dar’s not going out that quickly, breaking out of it. Dar eventually locks in a sleeper, but Havoc struggles, eventually leaping over Dar and pin Dar to the ground and the ref counts the three…while Jimmy is tapping from the sleeper. The boos and chants of “You Tapped Out!” rain down as the ref’s didn’t see the tapping.

Continued below

As Havoc tries to gloat, Dar rushes in to knock Jimmy down. It isn’t long before Regression is out there to beat him down… but then FSU run in to even the odds and save Dar. An enraged Smallman sets a match for Chapter 15: an Eight-Man Tag Match, Regression vs. FSU, Dar & Will Ospreay. This match also continued an underlying plot line, Jim Smallman acting as a referee. More and more, this is going to be a plot point as we continue on.

5. JOE! JOE! JOE! JOE!

Fact: Samoa Joe is the one of the most awesome guys in WWE right now. Certainly on the main roster. While he is getting up there in age, he knows when to save himself, but he makes up for it so much with sheer intensity and presence. When he speaks, you listen and his current feud with AJ Styles is fantastic. Not unlike with Prince Devitt last chapter, seeing Samoa Joe here is funny, but man, what a match to give the Progress faithful, his first United Kingdom indie appearance in eight years at the time of the event.

The crowd is hot for this match like Havoc/Dar, but less obnoxious chants in this match which is “Big Lads Wrestling” in its purest form. Joe and Rampage are big dudes, but surprisingly quick and agile on their feet. As strike and throws and drops shake the ring, this hard-hitting style would become the basis for the Atlas Division that would see such champions such as Rampage himself, but also Matt Riddle and WALTER.

It may have been a slight surprise when Joe one, not putting over the home talent, but Rampage still looked very good in defeat, managing to kick out of Joe’s Muscle Buster. While Havoc/Dar moved the bigger picture, this was a giant attraction that did send a message that Progress was beginning to attract big talent and it was here to stay.


//TAGS | 2018 Summer TV Binge | Progress Wrestling

Ken Godberson III

When he's not at his day job, Ken Godberson III is a guy that will not apologize for being born Post-Crisis. More of his word stuffs can be found on Twitter or Tumblr. Warning: He'll talk your ear off about why Impulse is the greatest superhero ever.

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