REVIEW: PROGRESS Wrestling - Atlas Weekender

PROGRESS Wrestling: Atlas Weekender (Chapter 132: By The Beard of Zeus & Chapter 133: Stop Motion Skeleton Battle
The Dome, London
Sunday, April 17 and Monday, April 18, 2022
Reviewer: Iwan Mackenzie (@iwanmack)

So it’s been a funny old week for BritWres; WWE announcing their first major stadium show in the UK since SummerSlam 1992 to be held in Cardiff, 1PW announcing a comeback to the Doncaster Dome (I won’t go into why that’s a bad idea here, listen to the British Wrestling Experience’s latest episode) and most important to this article, PROGRESS located their Atlas Tournament weekend to be held over Easter weekend from the Electric Ballroom in Camden to The Dome in Tufnell Park.

On the bad side, this seems to be evidence that the initial buzz about PROGRESS being back has worn off and people aren’t coming out in their droves. The high volume of shows in quick succession means people will be forced to pick and choose. And the big thing that I’m seeing is that ticket prices are high for what’s being presented, even with combo ticket deals on offer for this weekend.

On the Good side, it’s better to be in a small venue with a packed crowd than a big venue with a small Crowd. It worked well for them when they ran the Garage in March and The Dome is a really good venue for it, even though it’s not good from an accessibility side of things.

So, the proof was really going to be in the shows themselves, even with the venue change. With an underwhelming line up to some, not to mention that on the day of the first show Jonathan Gresham had to pull out due to an injury suffered during AEW’s Battle of the Belts II, It’s fair to say that enthusiasm was at an all-time low.

So, could PROGRESS make the best of a bad situation, let's find out…

Chapter 132: By the Beard of Zeus!

I got in the Venue just after 3pm, around 200 or so people in from my count, with all chairs pretty much being filled and the bar area being the standing area of choice.

They showed the JONAH vs Schaff Quarter-Final from DEFY (which was filmed two months ago) on the screen beforehand to show JONAH’s path to the Semi-Final. Having watched the match myself indoors, it's a pretty good Big Lads match but nothing really new that you haven’t seen before and probably done better, plus the ending feels too much like a DEFY angle instead of a Standalone match.

Show pretty much started on time as we had our regular host Simon Miller with his broken hand which he injured a few weeks back at UKPW in Canterbury in a match against Ashmore.

He made a deal with the audience not to laugh at him getting into the ring, which led to my mate Ashleigh saying ‘no deal’ whilst many Noel Edmunds references played out after this including us lot singing “there’s only one Noel Edmunds”. A highlight video of who was in the Tournament followed as he got into the action.

Warren Banks vs Axel Tischer - Atlas Tournament Quarter-Final Match

Axel came out wearing a red beret, leading to my mate Meg calling him Frank Spencer and myself comparing him to WCW’s Guardian Angel…

This was a very good opener! Banks looked really energised here and was loved by the crowd. Tischer fulfilled the aggressor role and helped make Banks look strong here, he didn’t like us a lot making fun of him with our Axe chants.

Now I will admit that I have never been the biggest Axel fan but he won me over in this match - and that would continue into the next day. We had Warren win with the Sitdown Cradle Pin or as I’ve called it “The Bulldog” as it’s the same as Bulldog/Hart from SummerSlam 1992.

We then had Spike Trivet out for a promo; a lot of anti-tory chants against him here. He brought out Cara Noir’s mask that he had stolen at 10 Year Anniversary Show and claimed it as his trophy. He shows the attack again on the screen and makes comparisons between himself and Noir before saying how much better he is.

The lights go down but it was a trick by Spike to mess with the audience, he took the mick out fellow Grapple Theory reviewer Mark Roffey before he left, getting himself ready for Danny Black the following day.

Laura Di Matteo vs Rhio

A women’s match being on second, I thought we had moved past this with PROGRESS…

Laura’s looking to build momentum on her way to her women’s title shot against Gisele Shaw and had to get through the most recent Revelations of Divine Love Tournament winner.

This was a pretty good match, there some very good aggression and taunt on particular submission moves, but the big issue really was it lacked any real direction for me.

You want Laura to look strong but she would have been better having a quick dominant victory and not going 50/50 with Rhio, who they also want to keep strong in the long run. They could come back to this at a later time. We had Laura win this with the Tombstone Piledriver.

The Royal Aces (Charlie Morgan & Jetta) vs Taonga & Mercedez Blaze

This was a rematch from the ‘Who Run The World’ show back in March, with Taonga and Blaze getting the win there.

I do have to say off the bat that Mercedez Blaze is a star, from the moment she comes out, she has instant appeal, brilliant patter with the audience and in-ring can hold her own. I also want to say with Taonga; she has brilliant timing and can really improvise with what the audience throws at her.

That being said, I wasn’t a massive fan of this match, despite liking everybody involved. It was decent enough but felt really messy in the middle part of this match, but the heel work did help carry it and Jetta and Charlie are very likeable babyfaces.

The finish came with a bit of a Malfunction at the Junction for Taonga & Blaze as Royal Aces took advantage hitting a Backstabber and Swanton Bomb back to back for the win and evening the score. Maybe a rubber match is on the cards.

Rickey Shane Page vs Will Kroos vs Joe Hendry - Atlas Tournament Quarter-Final Match w/ Special Enforcer Los Federales Santos Jr.

This was originally slated to be RSP vs Hendry, but Hendry added Will Kroos (he should have been in already) to the mix as he said he wanted to be fresh for the next round. It was also made a Three Way Dance which meant eliminations would occur and the returning Santos (who got a very big pop) would be the Special Enforcer for this Match.

Joe Hendry refused to show his custom entrance video as the crowd was silent enough and played the music through his headphones to himself on this entrance as the Crowd sung his old ICW theme tune.

Hendry showcased some pretty big power moves in the early stages and made sure that the crowd hated him as I started a “he’s a wanker, a mighty wanker and his name is Joe Hendry'' song that seem to catch on.

Hendry was eliminated first thought, after Will hit the Booze Kroos to take out the Prestigious One. Hendry complained and said he hated RSP, Kroos, the audience and pointed at me and said “you the most!”, before Santos gave him a stunner to send him packing - Hendry sold it a lot better than saggy Bananaman Vince McMahon at WrestleMania.

Now I’ll say here that I was worried about Santos' involvement initially as I was worried he was going to overshadow the action with comedy but thankfully, after the Hendry spot, he was a non-factor in the match.

Kroos and RSP wrestled for a little bit with a few more ambitious moves not going so well, but they recovered and Kroos shocked the crowd by hitting a Poison ‘Rana and Dive on the outside. But, it was RSP with the win here after a Springboard Frog Splash as he advanced to face JONAH the next day.

A very good match and so happy to see Will Kroos get a chance in a promotion like this. I've been a pretty big fan for years now and am happy for a genuine good guy on the scene.

During this interval we had an angle as Joe Hendry barged past a few of us and attacking Kroos at merch before Axel got involved to run Joe off, with Joe saying that they’re business wasn’t over. I do like things like this every once in a while, it can add some excitement to proceedings.

Chris Ridgeway vs Kid Lykos

Lykos was the replacement for Gresham here, against a Ridgeway who was representing North West Strong, The Foundation and STINGER, he’s got more brands than Iceland.

This was a good match with some nice ankle work by Ridgeway that Lykos sold well but my Interest levels were down during this one.

I’m not sure why but have to say how I feel. I do find it hard to get invested in Lykos as a singles wrestler and his matches are generally not for me.

Ridgeway looked really up for it though and got really fired up which was different to see. The finish came when Kid Lykos II ran to attack Chris, only for Ridgeway to Suplex him onto the injured ankle of Lykos before locking in the Ankle Lock for the win, even stealing the boot and kickpad of Lykos afterwards.

Alexxis Falcon vs Skye Smitson

We had a brief video package beforehand showcasing the Smitson heel turn from the Anniversary Show, that led to this match being made. Will say that Smitson looked a lot more comfortable here as an all out bad guy, as opposed to her semi-quasi-face self of the past few shows.

On the same note, Alexxis is an excellent babyface. Straight off the bat they had a fight with a lot of very good aggression here, and even the smoother moments had a bit of Needle to them, that’s what you expect from two excellent wrestlers in Alexxis and Skye.

I did feel the crowd went quiet here which was a shame as these two were working really hard. They brawled to the outside where they were both counted out leading to a draw.

Skye choked Alexxis with her own shirt afterwards before Alexxis gave her a back slam to the merch table to end the fight. There’s more to come between these two, I’m just hoping that it goes into a different direction than the Alexxis/Lana feud with ended up going into a No DQ Match, otherwise Alexxis will be the BritWres Hangman Page.

Luke Jacobs vs Big Damo - Atlas Tournament Quarter-Final Match

This was the last of the tournament matches, with the winner facing Warren Banks the next day. We had Luke Jacobs without his knee pads here, Laura Di Matteo must have stolen them earlier on.

This was my favourite match of the day, a wonderful self-contained story of Damo as a salty veteran not being very pleased with having to facer a much younger guy and somebody he didn’t consider a true heavyweight.

Even though Luke does have a rugby-like build, against Damo he looked small so it worked for the story and made this an underdog story for Luke. He looked great in not taking Damo’s badmouthing and actively encouraging him to chop him.

A lot of credit to Damo here for making Luke look great and every time Luke was able to hit a slam or spinebuster it felt like a victory for the audience. It shows that small things can mean the most. We had Luke win this via Running Lariat in some would say a shock win, Damo shook his hand after and said “you better win this fucking tournament”.

The 0121 (Man Like Dereiss & Dan Moloney) vs Sunshine Machine (TK Cooper & Chuck Mambo)

The big thing to come from this match is the good five-seven minutes of duel chanting for both teams with many fans taking sides. I was personally on Sunshine Machine, even though I’ve got a lot of time for The 0121 as I’m big on Dereiss and Dan.

This was a fantastic moment to have and made both teams feel huge, plus went back to the argument of PROGRESS running a smaller venue as the Atmosphere was through the roof.

This started off much like their segment in the gauntlet match at the Garage, they went brawling on the outside all around the venue including Dereiss diving onto Mambo off the entrance way.

They went back into the ring where the action was fast and furious. 0121 looked to end it early but TK dove in on top of them with a Swanton, after this Dan Moloney ran off to the back for ages as we saw referee’s, ring crew and even one of the owners trying to see what was going on. What we found out after that TK clipped Moloney when he landed which led to Moloney heading off.

From there it was a two-on-one, with the Machine working over Dereiss. Credit to all three here for improvising on the fly and still keeping this match exciting - with Dereiss even fighting off both members of the Machine.

We had Moloney run back to the ring much like Gazza returning to the pitch during the later stages of a big tournament game. We had an ambitious spot not long after where Mambo dove off TK’s shoulders to give Dereiss a Canadian Destroyer off Moloney’s shoulders, it didn’t look the best but I appreciated the effort here.

Finish came here when TK hit a Spanish Fly on Dereiss and covered him, only for Moloney to Drilla Killa Mambo on top of TK for the 0121 pin and win to end this crazy main event.

A great match and despite having some issues in the middle nothing was effected and major credit to the performers in this match for that.

I do grow worried though that this match will just be remembered for the chanting and not the actual match, much in the same way that the Ilja Dragunov vs Bobby Gunns match in wXw was a few years ago was (I was live at that match, I only chanted for five Minutes before I got bored but in all fairness, I’d only had eight hours sleep over two days so I was a bit groggy).

That was it for the first part, a pretty entertaining show with some matches being better than others, the last two matches would be worth looking a., The atmosphere was a lot better than previous big Chapter shows (minus the Garage).

Chapter 133: Stop Motion Skeleton Bottle

Upon my entry to the main room, it was noticeably less busy than the day before with around 170-180 in attendance, something that did not improve once the show started. Fortunately, because of how quiet it was, I ended up with a chair.

Simon Miller hosts once again with a reminder about his hand and taking us to a very slickly produced MV of the previous day's action, this was a really good touch I have to say which led us too…

JONAH vs Rickey Shane Page - Atlas Tournament Semi-Final Match

This was JONAH’s first appearance of the weekend after being in Chicago on Saturday for NJPW Windy City Riot and flying all day to get to London for his Semi-Final clash.

This started off here with a bit of chain wrestling with the fans all in anticipation to the first big power struggle between these two meat slappers.

Eventually it led to both men running into each other and taking turns in slams, this was a really good opener of a match and did play to people’s expectations of what the Atlas division is. RSP did hit the Springboard Frog Splash but only got a two-count with JONAH eventually getting the win here with the BullFrog Splash.

The ring crew actually had to fix the room, as you can imagine two big boys will do some damage. It’s just a shame that they didn’t have Sam Slam to help like he did at King of Europe 2007. Simon Miller killed some time here whilst it was being fixed before we got the all clear to get our next Semi-Final.

Luke Jacobs vs Warren Banks - Atlas Tournament Semi-Final Match

We had Luke out first before Warren skipped his normal entrance and headed straight to the ring to stare down Luke, which he did pretty much until the bell rung.

There was a lot of intensity here between the two and the audience definitely picked up on it. My mate Ashleigh reminded me that Luke defeated Warren during the Empty Arena era to win the Natural Progression Series Trophy. Warren defeated Luke at Chapter 117 during the same era, so I suppose you could call this a rubber match.

These two went at such a pace right from the get go, as they used big power moves and massive strikes with Luke favouring chops and Warren going for knee strikes.

Luke teased a Canadian Destroyer on the outside before bellowing out “I’m only fucking kidding”. Warren backdropped him onto the floor and cleared people out of their seats, but Luke gave him a Death Valley Driver through the chairs.

Back in the ring and Warren tried to take out the chopping arm of Luke but Luke fought through the pain. The nearfalls here were breathtaking and a massive “This is PROGRESS” chant rang out and it felt so genuine, which that chant hasn’t done for a long while now.

Eventually, we had Luke win this with the Burning Lariat (Kenta Kobashi’s Finisher) to get the win and head to the finals.

This was the Match of the weekend and one of the absolute best I have seen this year; wonderful chemistry by both guys, everything was smooth with enough grit to make it feel like a proper hard fought struggle. Plus, checking Gadge’s times, this match was only 10:56! Absolutely amazing work between the pair.

Lykos Gym attacked Warren Banks afterwards whilst Luke was ready to walk away, They invited Luke to come and have a shot at Warren but instead Luke chopped Lykos across the chest and powerbombed Lykos II on top of him before getting Warren up for a hug to send the Wolves packing.

Raven Creed vs Nightshade (w/Lana Austin)

Lana made an unannounced main event, even stealing somebody’s replica European Championship Belt and getting a fan to help her into the ring. She said that she was injured and originally was slated to be in this match and that she wasn’t scared of Raven Creed and Nightshade was going to beat her.

This was my first time seeing Raven in over three years now, since seeing her in Dublin for OTT at one of the Defiant shows. It was good to see her again as it’s a different name to what’s on the scene at the moment and she has a really good physical charisma to her - plus she has got herself in fantastic shape over the lockdown period, hard work does pay off.

This was a pretty decent match, probably suffering from the burnout of the previous match but there was enough here to keep the crowd on board.

Lana was fantastic as the manager on the outside, including throwing my mate Paul’s hat at Ashleigh for booing her. I do have to say that there was a forearm exchange at one point and pretty much all of Nightshade’s shots looked pretty terrible, like there was nothing behind them at all, that’s one of my real bugbears in wrestling and this is an honest review.

We had Raven win here after hitting the Death Valley Driver on Nightshade for the win and Lana ran off in fright.

Spike Trivet vs Danny Black

The story here was Danny had stepped up to Spike as he had a lot of respect for Cara and wanted to get revenge on Spike. Danny started off before the Bell Rung, taking out Spike with a big dive and a Rana off the stairs before Trivet played dirty and injured Danny with a chair to the ankle before throwing him into the ring for the bell to officially ring.

This was a good story match and something different from what we had happen so far on this show. Spike did the lights out trick again, but this time Cara Noir appeared through the crowd in street clothes and face paint which was an amazing visual.

Instead of getting involved he set up a chair on the stage and watched on as a spectator. Spike started slipping up and making mistakes as he was focusing more on Noir as Noir stood up and took his coat off only to put it on the show and sit back down.

Spike had the match won but let go of the pin shouting at Noir “why aren’t you getting fucking Involved?''. We started chanting “he’s in your head, in your head, Cara Cara ' set to the classic Cranberries tune “Zombie ''.

During the Spike distraction, Danny made his way back on the offensive as he hit his diving Stunner, he then hit the Madame Guillotine which didn’t look great but you could excuse it as his ankle has been worked on, before hitting the BlackBuster for the win. Cara shook his hand after, even though Danny was going for a Fistbump.

Post-match, Spike smashed the bag, supposedly with Cara’s mask in (just looked like a bit of glass and bubble wrap), which led to Noir getting angry and storming the ring to fight Spike before attempting the Package Piledriver on the glass. The red-shirted Postcode Lottery-looking ring crew got involved to separate it as Spike made fun of Cara and said he was in his head; a match has been announced for the next show in May.

Interval now, with no Joe Hendry attacks here but a big line to meet JONAH and Lana throwing a bit of water on me to keep up being the Queen of Mean.

Axel Tischer & Big Damo vs Joe Hendry & Adam Maxted

Axel had issued a tag match challenge on Twitter to Hendry, we had a pre-match video where Axel asked Will Kroos to be his partner but Kroos had to decline and said he’ll sort the Hendry business himself.

Axel did have a backup plan as he was teaming with former Sanity team mate Big Damo for this match, which did get a massive pop and many Sanity chants. Hendry asked the crowd for exactly 48 seconds of applause and then we’d get to hear his music, Hendry criticised members of the audience for adding additional noise and only using one hand instead of two for the claps, so he once again played the music to his own headphones and we sung the ICW song. His tag partner here was Adam Maxted and he got the “you’re just a shit Lex Luger” chant from us lot.

Now, this match on paper probably doesn't look that interesting, but in execution this was a load of fun. Both former Sanity members looked like they were having the absolute time of their lives, with massive smiles on their faces and Axel doing the Ringkampf pose which did lead to us lot singing the aforementioned song.

Hendry and Maxted acted like such a great couple of dickheads here and decided to give each other hugs instead of tags to get in.

Lot of really good power moves here from all four, some really cool spots all round as well. We did have the former Sanity win this here with a PowerSlam/Neckbreaker combo. Many “please come back” chants afterwards; this was the surprise hit of the weekend, a great slice of fun with some really good wrestling.

Joe Lando vs Vaughn Vertigo

This match was announced at the show the day before, with this being Vertigo’s PROGRESS debut and Lando has a lovely new haircut that makes him look like Francesco Akira. This was in a similar position to the Creed/Nightshade match earlier as the crowd was exhausted after such a fun tag match but these lads did well in the six or so minutes they had.

They wrestled a very different style from what had been seen over the weekend with a lot of high flying and high spots in the runtime. The two worked really well together and I’d like to see this match again maybe a year down the line.

I’ve got to say that I’m impressed with Lando more and more every time I see him, there’s real potential with him on our scene and it was great seeing Vertigo once again as I was worried I’d miss him on this tour. We had Lando win this after hitting the Shooting Star Elbow Drop.

Gene Munny vs Kid Lykos II

This was originally slated to be Gene vs Gresham with a spot for Super Strong Style 16 being on the line for Gene if he won, but because of Gresham’s injury the match has been moved to the May show.

Gene cut a passionate promo beforehand that was part funny and part serious, great showing from Gene here and made himself even more popular than he was before.

Lykos II tore off the end of Gene’s new coat off beforehand because he’s a little dickhead. Gene went after him and dominated him with power for the opening stages of the match, including hoisting up Lykos II for a delayed Suplex whilst walking him on the outside and catching Lykos. This was a really fun spot.

Back in the ring after and these two really surprised me, this was just a fun simple match and the two worked very well together. The finish came with Lykos II distracting the ref, Lykos went into his man bag to fetch the baking tray but it wasn’t there as Warren Banks appeared on stage with it before twatting Lykos over the head, leading to Gene Munny hitting the Damn Dirty DDT on Lykos II for the win. Gene hugged Warren afterwards.

Luke Jacobs vs JONAH - Atlas Tournament Final

The streamers were out here and let's just admit that the British are terrible at throwing streamers, lets just leave it to American and Japanese fans in the future.

Luke had also changed his trunks over, which is something little I love to see in tournaments. I was firmly in the Luke Jacobs camp here, but there was a big JONAH cheering section as well. JONAH also shrugged off the “Luke Jacobs, he comes from Manchester, he’ll fucking murder you” chant.

This was a massive challenge for Luke and he really had to fight his way for a dominant position against the much bigger Australian. They brawled on the outside, with Jonah throwing chops and running into Luke who was sat on a chair.

Luke avoided a Corner Splash into the ring post before hitting a Running Crossbody into the crowd on JONAH before they both made their way back in.

Luke would get JONAH up for power moves and his legs would give out so he went after the legs to wear him down, whilst JONAH used a lot of big power moves to exhaust Luke.

JONAH nearly tapped to the Ankle Lock at one point which was a convincing false finish, as was Luke’s Burning Lariat which got a two-count. Jonah hit an absolutely enormous Superplex which was one of the big high spots of the match, he went up for his splash but Luke cut him off and was able to hit a Samoan Drop off the ropes on Jonah.

This was followed up by three Running Lariats before a big run up Lariat knocked down JONAH for Luke to get the pin and become the new Atlas Champion, after a fantastic tournament final of a match.

Whilst I personally preferred the Banks match, this was a great bout and a fitting way to end the weekend, big credit to JONAH here for making sure Luke looked great in victory.

There was a massive pop for this and a big emotional moment, I have invested a lot into Luke Jacobs and I’m just so happy that he’s been recognised for his talents.

In a world where PROGRESS results normally gain negative feedback, the Luke win seems have to been praised by many including myself, he’s one of the best on our scene and has been ever since shows returned.

There’s an opportunity there for PROGRESS to make him a featured act on the regular on their shows, just having banger matches against the over 205 guys.

Luke cut a short and sweet promo afterwards saying that this is what he dreamed of and that the title is North West Strong before doing the WALTER pose and heading off to end the weekend.

As a show, this Monday show was superior to the day before. Every match was at least good to great and the atmosphere felt better, despite the smaller crowd. And there was a great emotional pay off with the big Luke win, amongst a few other storyline progressions and some great matches.

Overall as a weekend, despite the issues going into it, I do feel that the actual shows were very good overall with some genuine great matches across the two days.

Not every bout hit but that's the belly of the beast and you accept it and move on. Generally with PROGRESS, the performances of the talent aren’t the issue, I would say it’s the lack of engagement with the wide fan base that PROGRESS captivated in it’s boom period and high ticket prices that are putting off fans at the moment, something that I will be going into at a later date.

Thank you all for reading, it's been a big one but hopefully you’ve enjoyed it and remember that this is an opinion piece by me and if you disagree that's cool.

Follow me on Instagram @IwanMack

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