Trivia / Progress Wrestling

• Creator Couple: Dahlia Black and TK Cooper were a couple both on and off screen, until 2018.
• Executive Meddling: WWE handed down an edict in late 2018 that their wrestlers couldn't be booked against anyone signed to another big company like Ring of Honor or NJPW. As Mark Haskins complained about, this locked off half the roster from becoming champion, as that belt is held by WWE contracted WALTER.
  • Alongside wXw, Progress was given the order from above in late 2019 to stop using David Starr after his calls to form a union started gaining traction. This resulted in his title match with Walter having a changed finish and him eventually being written out amicably with Chapter 99 and 100.
• Fake Nationality: El Ligero, Mexican luchador... who's quite obviously a white guy from Leeds.
• Fan Community Nicknames: Progress Ultras. A nickname given to the Progress fans by co-owner Jim Smallman, derived from intensely dedicated and vocal football fans known as Ultras.
• Playing Against Type: In general, Progress tends to book wrestlers very differently from other promotions in the UK, leading to plenty of Ass Pull moments where a likeable heroic character gets their first opportunity to experiment playing a heel.
  • Progress was one of the few companies in England that used El Ligero as a heel.
  • The London Riots returned to Progress as faces after losing a loser leaves town match, and proceeded to remain faces for the rest of their run.
  • Trent Seven and Tyler Bate got their first chance to be heels as part of British Strong Style, before the stable got too popular and they turned face again by default anyway.
  • Will Ospreay turned into a psychotic heel in Progress in 2016 and stayed that way until he left 3 years later. This was the only place he worked as a heel until the formation of United Empire in Japan in 2020.
  • Jimmy Havoc's original heel turn was surprising because he'd been a likeable face for so long. After this became his default character he then had a few runs in Progress as a face again while still being a heel elsewhere.
• Real-Life Relative: Jim and Lee Hunter, billed as the Hunter Brothers, are real-life brothers. Subverted by Damian and Pete Dunne who are billed as brothers but aren’t.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Ospreay's 2017 heel run was cut short by an exclusivity clause in his Ring of Honor contract, meaning his match with Jimmy Havoc in March had to become "Loser Leaves Progress". He came back at the end of the year after the contract ran out. Marty Scurll's unexplained disappearance around the same time was for the same reason.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor:
  • James Davis was immediately cut from the company after two girls alleged they'd previously been in relationships with him when they were under the age of consent. The company also scrubbed his recent promos from their YouTube channel.
  • Scott Wainwright was intended to work with the rest of Swords of Essex, but Pollyanna kicked up a storm with management and quit on the spot after seeing him backstage, reminding them that she'd asked not to have him at any show she was because he'd sexually assaulted her in the past.
  • David Starr, Travis Banks, El Ligero and Mark Parry were all banned from the company due to various levels of abuse allegations in June 2020. Scotty Davis and Jordan Devlin were also stripped of the Tag Team Championships and suspended pending investigation of allegations against both of them. The company went as far as to completely cut Starr's matches from videos on the On Demand service, not bothering to reupload the Strong Style tournament that he won as it wouldn't have made any sense.
  • After the above, The management of the company went under a restructure due to evidence of initial poor handling of the allegations. Matt and Glen stepped away altogether, and Jon gave up his management of the company while retaining an ownership stake. A new management team was brought in including Vicky Haskins and Michael Oku, though Oku himself stepped down voluntarily after Darrell Allen leaked sexist old group chat messages out of spite from being outed as an abuser.
  • Josh Bodom was quietly blacklisted from the company by management for his terrible attitude, though this didn't become public knowledge until he'd been shamed into retirement for physically attacking a referee at a Rev Pro show.
  • Paul Robinson left the company in 2021 due to allegations that had been brought to light at the same time as the above, but generally gone under the radar until it was found out that he'd worked the return tapings as a backstage agent. Although he claimed innocence on personally doing anything wrong, he admitted to seeing the same girl being abused by the IPW locker room and not reporting it to anyone at the time which he considered a mistake. This, along with a lack of indication that he'd ever distanced himself from the Swords of Essex after their above controversies made it unfeasible to keep him around. This was reversed in 2023 after Will Ospreay negotiated his return to the company in exchange for Paul being allowed to come back.
• What Could Have Been: Jim Smallman revealed that Jimmy Havoc's heel entrance was going to be "Let Em Come" by Scroobius Pip which would go on to be used by Paul Robinson as his entrance music.
  • During a promo for an upcoming title match, Gene Munny gave "spoilers for an alternate universe" confirming that he was going to be a part of Super Strong Style 16 2020. That show never happened due to the pandemic, and the 2021 edition was never even planned.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Prince Devitt wrestled at two Progress shows; Chapter Thirteen and the Progress World Cup. Now, he's better known as Finn Balor in the WWE. In fact, his last independent wrestling match was for Progress before he began his WWE career.
  • Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Ciampa and Tommy End also wrestled for Progress before going to the WWE.

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