Progress Wrestling, Super Strong Style 16 Night One, Alexandra Palace – Review

In front of nearly fifteen hundred fans from all over the world, 16 men competed for the right to face the Progress World Champion on Sunday 15th September.

The tournament began with Tipton’s Chris Brookes once again facing a superstar from America’s World Wrestling Entertainment. Last year he closed the show against his friend and mentor, Kassius Ohno, and this year he opened the show against Ilja Dragunov.

Alas the result was the same, with Brookes once again going out in the first round. It was a good match, with the two men working together well, especially as they picked up the pace in the closing stretch. Brookes came close to the victory with both his Praying Mantis powerbomb and Octopus submission hold, but would fall to his opponent’s trademark Torpedo Moscow flying elbow.

However, his Australasian neighbours would fare better. The Fight Club: PRO headtrainer and former winner of the 2017 Super Strong Style 16 comfortably defeated the debuting American, DJZ. He will face another American in Sunday’s quarter-final, David Starr.

Interestingly, Starr has been becoming increasingly vocal about his unhappiness with WWE, a promotion that Banks has worked for since 2018.

Meanwhile, Wolverhampton resident Kyle Fletcher won his first-ever match in Super Strong Style 16, defeating Mexico’s Daga with a variant of the cradle powerbomb that he and Mark Davis often finish their tag team matches with. There was some eye-catching high flying moves throughout the match, with Daga badly bruising his face after crashing onto the floor after diving over the top rope.

At the post-show press conference, Daga praised Fletcher, noted that to be performing this well at such a young age suggests he will become one of the world’s best. Fletcher moves onto to face Ireland’s Jordan Devlin, someone who is no stranger to fans in the West Midlands due to his many appearances for Fight Club: PRO. Both Fletcher vs Devlin, and Starr vs Banks, promise to be great quarter-finals between performers who styles should mesh well, the former both being great high-flyers, and the latter being physical technicians.

After Progress finished their opening round there was a unique epilogue with America’s Kaiju Big Battle making its British debut as an after-show attraction. This was more performance art than professional wrestling, with the pro-wrestlers dressed in costumes designed to pay homage to Japanese monster movies and television such as Godzilla and Power Rangers.

This saw an amusing comedic cameo for Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis, who came out as police officers to apprehend a particularly mischievous member of the Kaiju Big Battle roster. It was an enjoyable insight into how Aussie Open’s talents extend before hard-hitting action inside the ring.

Progress Wrestling’s Super Strong Style 16 continues this weekend and will shortly be available to watch on Video on Demand through Demand Progress. For more information visit demandprogress.pivotshare.com