Jimmy Havoc and Will Ospreay’s war comes to an incredible end, and the Wembley main event is set! It’s PROGRESS Chapter 75, These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends! (Credit for the featured image goes to James Musselwhite/@Y2JimBob on Twitter)
PROGRESS Chapter 75: These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends
August 27, 2018
The Electric Ballroom in London, England
Watch: Demand Progress
Thunderbastard Tag League Match: Grizzled Young Veterans (6) def. Mills & Mayhew (2)
This was a really good opener. Both Mills and Mayhew are going for more ambitious stuff, and they’re doing it well too. They’re growing into a really good opening match act. The Vets were here with a vengeance after losing the tag titles on the US Tour (you can read about that here), but they were getting sloppy as a result, allowing M&M to get more offense in. But Gibson was able to put Mayhew down with a powerbomb on the apron, and the Vets were able to get back on track with a win. ***1/2
Jim Smallman tells us that both Toni Storm and Nina Samuels are out of today’s big women’s tag match due to injuries. Since they weren’t sure how long Toni Storm would be out at that point, Smallman took Jinny out of the match and made it a five-woman scramble match. Whoever won would be Jinny’s opponent at Wembley Arena!
#1 Contender for the Women’s Title: Millie McKenzie def. Charlie Morgan, Candyfloss, Chakara, Laura Di Matteo
Millie McKenzie is over on another level, at least in the Ballroom. The building lit up whenever she got involved, so Progress may have something here with her. The rest of this match…woof. The majority of this match was a House of Couture beatdown on the good guys. It was rough, and it didn’t help that the crowd was very quiet for it too. There was a tower of doom spot that looked like it broke Di Matteo’s neck, but she was ok. Millie then went on a tear and the crowd lit up. She got the pin on Morgan to punch her ticket to Wembley. The right woman won. *1/2
Mark Andrews and Eddie Dennis booked their match for Wembley, and it will be a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match! Another good segment between these two.
Thunderbastard Tag League: CCKampf (8) def. Aussie Open (2)
Chris Brookes chose Timothy Thatcher to finish out the Thunderbastard Tag League after injuries to Kid Lykos and Jonathan Gresham.
This was a damn good tag match. Thatcher and Brookes made for a fun makeshift team, as their opposing styles made for some funny spots. Brookes went for his wet willie spot, but Thatcher had none of it. Aussie Open are doing damn good work too, as they are really hitting their stride everywhere in Europe at this point. Thatcher had a great exchange with Mark Davis toward the end of this one, and I’d love to see a singles match between them. Maybe that could build to a rematch between Davis and WALTER at some point. Brookes got the win with his leglock on Fletcher. This one gets a recommendation from me, real good stuff here. ***3/4
World Champion WALTER and Atlas Champion Doug Williams def. WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne and Trent Seven
An all star tag team match, as well as a preview of the Atlas Title match at Wembley.
This was a fun tag match here, but I feel like they had more. Unfortunately, Doug Williams got hurt toward the middle of the match. He hit the Chaos Theory on Dunne and immediately tagged out, holding his neck. Doug later confirmed that he suffered a stinger during the match. The rest of the match was a bit truncated, as I’m sure Williams would have played a role in the finish. WALTER got the win with a choke on Seven. I won’t rate this match, but it was good before the injury. N/R
After the match, wXw promoter Christian Michael Jakobi comes out. Dunne immediately drags him to the ring, but Ilja Dragunov comes out and they start brawling! Dragunov lays out Dunne with the Torpedo Moscow to boos from the Progress crowd. Jakobi cuts a promo, but I can’t tell you what he said because the crowd drowned him out with “shut the fuck up” chants. This was a damn good set-up for this big time match.
Three And In: Tyler Bate def. Mark Haskins (w/ Vicky Haskins)
Both men had won their last two matches on the US tour, so whoever had won this match would have earned their third consecutive win and a spot in the Wembley title match against WALTER.
Tyler Bate came out serious for this one, no Big Strong Boi shenanigans here. What followed was a damn good technical encounter. Haskins worked on Tyler’s leg, setting him up for the Sharpshooter that won him the Progress World Title. Bate kept coming back with high impact moves, but Haskins kept control of the leg. He got the Sharpshooter on, but after a struggle, Bate was able to escape it. After a back-and-forth, Bate caught the arms and hit the Tyler Driver 97 to win.
This wasn’t your typical great Progress match. Instead of fast-paced, back and forth, finisher-heavy match, they slowed it down and built up to each guy trying to hit their finisher and put the other guy away. The crowd was great here, rooting for their favorite guy to win. In the end, Bate is going to the Wembley main event, which may have made up for him pulling out of Super Strong Style. I’d have been happy with either man, but I think WALTER/Bate has a chance to be incredible. ****
No-Disqualification, Best of 3 Falls: Will Ospreay def. Jimmy Havoc
If Havoc won, he’d join Tyler Bate and WALTER in the Wembley main event for his Progress World Title. If Ospreay won, he’d rob Havoc of the chance to main event the biggest show in Progress history. The referee for this match was Paul Robinson, partners to both men and the only man who can control them. The final fight of the greatest feud in Progress history, in the venue that has housed it all.
If you haven’t seen much of this rivalry, this was a violent spectacle. If you have seen this rivalry from the beginning, this was an experience that I’ve never had watching a wrestling match. The atmosphere of this match was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in Progress. These two made this feel like the most important match you’ll ever see, and it ranks as one of the best matches in Progress history.
I could write down what happened, and do a decent job of describing what happened. But there’s no way that my words could recreate the feeling I had watching this match. You have to watch it to understand. In the first fall, Ospreay tried to get Robinson to interfere on his behalf. Robinson refused, which led to Havoc hitting an Acid Rainmaker to win that fall. Ospreay won the second fall with, of all things, a backslide pin. The third fall came after Havoc hit a series of Rainmakers to a defiant Ospreay, but Robinson hit Havoc with a curbstomp into thumbtacks. That allowed Ospreay to score the third fall and the win with the Stormbreaker.
After the match, Robinson told Havoc that he was the one who put Jimmy out of Progress for a year, not Ospreay. They were so focused on each other that both of them missed the real monster in Robinson. He challenged Jimmy to a deathmatch at Wembley and left. That left Havoc and Ospreay in the ring. Ospreay had the axe and Jimmy lied his head on a chair. But Ospreay put the axe down, pulled Havoc up, and shook his hand to signify the end of this feud.
This was violent. It was emotionally draining. And it was absolutely unreal. Go out of your way to watch this match. *****