REVIEW: PROGRESS Wrestling - Everything Patterned

PROGRESS Wrestling: Everything Patterned
The Dome, London
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Reviewer: Iwan MacKenzie (@IwanMack)

So, my day started off after I left work around 17:00 - after a challenging day to say the least. I got on the DLR to Canning Town, Jubilee Line Tube to Waterloo and then a Northern Line Tube to Tufnell Park, sounds longer than what it is.

My first port of call was heading to the Tufnell Park Fish & Kebab Shop for my dinner. I had doner meat with chips & salad, plus some garlic mayo for around £7.20. Top notch grub in here and I would recommend it if you’re in the area and leave that Lost Boys Pizza stuff.

Got into the venue around 18:30, it was a lot busier in the venue than the previous nights “Who Run the World” show, with around 150-175 in attendance from my count.

I met my mates Dave, Liam, Gav, Adam and Joseph here, as well as many members of the Wresthings Podcast who are a great bunch of blokes.

Despite it being busier I still ended up in the front row, despite having paid for a standing ticket. Much like the previous night as well, they took up one side of the ring of chairs and concentrated on the rest of the crowd.

This was the sequel to October 2019’s Everything Patterned from Leicester, ran by Wrestling Resurgence on that occasion. At the time that felt like a big show for what it did for showcasing diversity in BritWres.

Now, 30 Months on, this show means even more with the events and fallout of Summer 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement and the fact that this was quite a significant event in a Post COVID BritWres landscape.

Something I’d like to make a note of was the playlist for the night; it was full of classic rap and RnB, which I really enjoyed. Plenty of Dr Dre, Snoop Dog and Run DMC here, fantastic playlist and people popped for the songs.

We opened the show with it’s co-creator Roy Johnson talking about how the show was for everyone and giving shoutouts to fans, wrestlers and those who will be watching online at a future date before announcing our MC for the night as none other than Bobbi Champagne Jr. who I hadn’t seen since the London Lucha League days. He did a great job on the night.

Man Like Dereiss vs Leon Slater vs Keinen Krishna vs Levi Muir

A very good opening match with plenty of fast action and personalities to get the crowd warm for the night.

I think, generally, having Dereiss open up is always a good idea because he is so good, so much charisma, gets the crowd invested in his matches and just has IT. Even responding to somebody telling him to watch out, and thanking them for keeping his back safe.

The star of this match I do have to say was Leon Slater, he blew me away with he’s amazing ability. He looked so natural and nothing looked contrived at all. There was a moment in the match where he did a flip off the apron onto Keinen, then Pole Vaulted over the Ropes onto Dereiss, before taking them both out with a dive over the Ring Post - reminiscent of the late Ryan Smile. Slater was fantastic and can’t wait to see him again.

I’ve always liked Keinen and I do think he brought a different style to this match, I just think it gelled well with what else was going on. Levi, has a great look and the power moves look impressive, his in-ring work could still do some working on. He could do with regular matches to get the basics to a great standard, but that’s my opinion.

We had Man Like Dereiss win this after the 4 Fiddy Splash

TK Cooper vs Hari Singh

We had a special drum performance before Hari’s entrance, it was really good and different and did help to show the diversity of cultures on the show - and made Hari look like a big deal.

TK, meanwhile, had to do the Sunshine Machine entrance without Mambo who was in the crowd on this night. This was a strong match, took a while to find its feet but once it did, it worked really well here.

You can’t go wrong with TK in my book, he’s always putting on good matches and there’s definitely something there with Hari Singh, a lot of real potential that I think he’ll make good on for sure a few years down the line.

We had TK win this after a Scissors Kick.

Rhio vs Taonga

This was a really good match, one of my favourites of the night I’d say for sure. I thought both women worked really well together here, with Taonga’s targeting of Rhio‘s arm being really well executed with Rhio selling the pain well here.

Have to say as well, Taonga’s character work itself is excellent. She was the first major heel on the show and did soak up all the boos and tried to get the crowd to chant “Let’s go Taonga” but was met with “Taonga Sucks” instead.

We did have Rhio get the win here with a cheeky Roll-Up on Taonga.

Warren Banks vs Jody Fleisch

We had Warren get a big ovation upon entrance here and he was wearing a Nigerian piece of clothing as well, which was awesome to see him represent his culture and again was a cool showcase here for different cultures.

This started off respectfully with some chain wrestling and escapes before the technical portion of the evening ended and these two started hitting big bombs on each other including a Tornado DDT on the floor from Jody.

I will say that I did enjoy this match but there were quite a few slip ups that did nearly impact the whole contest, but both guys did recover well and I don’t feel it affected the crowd reaction either.

We did have Warren win this with the Big Spear on route on his Championship shot on the anniversary Show.

Interval time and I had a chat with a quite a few wrestlers and got myself a drink in on the bar, as they had more than the usual four soft drinks of doom (Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Lemonade). They had IRN BRU and Fanta Fruit Twist, two god tier soft drinks for me.

The ‘87 (Roy Johnson & Alexander Roth) vs The East City Sovereigns (RJ Singh & Jordan Saaed) vs A Tribe Called Catch (Sugar Dunkerton & Darius Lockhart)

Roy Johnson paid tribute to the late, great Scott Hall upon his entrance here, whilst Sugar Dunkerton was rocking a lovely smoking jacket as well.

This was my best match of the whole show! I’m a huge fan of everyone involved here and going in this was the match that had sold me getting a ticket. I’m glad to say that it impressed me by blending together both comedy and high spots; Including when Roy had this massive Boston Crab on everyone who was in a Human Centipede position.

Got to say, it’s great to see Sugar Dunkerton (who’s first line in the match was “there’s a lot of brown in town”) and Darius Lockhart back in the UK. They have both made big impressions on their previous tours and you could tell the love in the room here for both of them.

I’d also like to shoutout Alexander Roth and Jordan Saaed who were making their proper PROGRESS debuts on this show and they did great. As someone who’s seen them on the smaller shows over the years and gets on with both of them personally as well, was maid up to see how well they did.

In the end we had The ‘87 win this match following a Big Ending and Double Footstomp combo onto RJ for the Victory.

Gisele Shaw vs Holidead

We had Holidead in a really cool bodysuit variant of her gear in this match, she was really over well with the audience and her charisma carried on through the match. She spent the first portion of this match easily overpowering Gisele but was caught out off guard when she missed her Leg Drop on the apron and from there Gisele took to her arm, ramming it into the Post and then the Steel Steps and also told me to shut up.

Lots of good arm control from Gisele here and it was a struggle for Holi to work through. She fought back but unfortunately the pain got too much for her and she ended up tapping to Gisele’s Armbar. Really good match and these two share great chemistry with one another, in my opinion.

Trish Adora vs Mercedez Blaze - Pan-Afrikan World Diaspora Wrestling World Championship Match

One night after defending her title for the first time overseas, Trish was back to defend it again against Blaze who had beef after Blaze pulled the trunks for the win at that past Sunday’s show.

This did feel like an Important match to have on the show, it even came with a “black wrestling draws” chant breaking out before the bell had rung.

This was up there with the three-way tag bout as my favourite match of the night. These two have massively improved since the last time I saw them wrestle back in September 2019 and botg feel like twice the wrestler now.

Some lovely reversals here in the early sections of the match and Blaze working the heat segments really well as well. We did have Trish win this though after a Backslide pin and a Bridge combo to gain victory and retain her Championship.

Jonathan Gresham vs Malik - PROGRESS World Championship

Going into this match both guys were quite significant baddies, so I thought we were going to end up with a Rick Martel vs Shawn Micheals SummerSlam ‘92 situation. I hope Kosta K does a decent Sensational Sherri Impression…

But the way they got around this here was with Kosta cutting a promo beforehand calling Gresham a little wanker” and saying Malik rejuvenated his love for wrestling and helped him out, so there was some sympathy and respect for Malik. Plus, the crowd wanted to see Gresham get his arse handed to him after his actions on Cara Noir that past Sunday.

There was a spot to start this match where Malik spat at Gresham then Gresham grounded Malik spat on the floor and then Malik ended up rolling into it.

This went down as well as a fart in church with the crowd in attendance - after what we’ve been through the last few years with COVID I think this was a bad idea, I wasn’t a fan.

This certainly was a very different main event with Gresham stalling and trying to run away from Malik for a majority of the match and Malik taking the fight to Gresham a lot with big strikes.

Then Gresham got angry and knocked a cup of water out a Bloke’s hand and splashed it all onto me, Malik later picked up the cup and said “how did he do that with his fucking hand bruv?”

This did come back to bite Gresham on the arse later on as he, to quote Davey Boy Smith, “FELL ON HIS FOOKIN ARSE!” twice here as he forgot about the mess he’d made with the water.

I will say that I’m not a massive fan of Gresham’s heel work as it always feels a bit put on instead of feeling natural but I will give credit to him here for absolutely going for the heel who shows his arse and makes his opponent look strong.

Malik looked great, I’ve been a big fan of him for years and I’m glad that he got this opportunity.

The ref ended up distracting fixing something which led to Gresham taking Malik on a Trip to Dick Kick City and then a Cheeky Roll-Up for the Win to retain his newly won gold.

Malik told the crowd to fuck off after the Mmtch to maintain his heel status.

The show ended with a majority of the roster coming together to celebrate the show and a big dance number to such hits as Ginuwine “Pony”, Cameo “Candy” and Sugarhill Gang “Apache” (the song from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air dance and before you ask, yes, I joined In).

Post show, met a few more wrestlers including Darius and Suge, which felt like a family reunion after all these years of COVID and also thanked Roy for the show.

Overall, this show was excellent from start to finish. Everything was enjoyable with it all feeling different from each individual match.

I sit here as a heterosexual white male writing this review and at no point did it ever feel like this show was a big political statement. As Roy said, it was to be enjoyed by everyone in attendance and at home and it more than succeeded. This is in contention for best show of the year thus far, can more shows be like please?

Thank you for reading, make sure to check the Grapple Theory website for more PROGRESS reviews from their Anniversary week.

I’m @IwanMack on Instagram if you’d like to follow me there.

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