Hamilton: The State of Independent Wrestling After WrestleMania 37 April 21, 2021 | Posted by Ian Hamilton
Now we’re all calmed down from WrestleMania weekend, it’s a good time to look at the lay of the land when it comes to how the independents performed – and what lies ahead.
“The indies are dead,” they say. “WWE and AEW have taken the cream,” they say. And for that second one, you’re right. But for the first, we perhaps need to reexamine our relationship with independent professional wrestling.
If you’ve started watching wrestling in this millennium, your vision of the “independents” is probably split into two tiers: one of them being the colloquial “super indy”, and the other being shows that draw from a local area with no immediate intentions of growth outside of that area.
Hamilton’s Best of British Strong Style in PROGRESS Report (01.23.21)
A reminder: these are old reviews, and while I’ve not updated any names from what they were announced as on the night, I’ve done my best to remove mentions of people here who are on that suspected persona non-grata list…
Pete Dunne, Trent Seven & Tyler Bate vs. WALTER, Timothy Thatcher & Axel Dieter Jr – from PROGRESS Chapter 47: Complicated Simplicity (April 23, 2017)
The stipulation going in was that whomever got pinned or submitted from British Strong Style would lose their PROGRESS title… so if Peter got pinned, he lost his PROGRESS title. If Trent or Tyler lost, they’d both lose their PROGRESS tag titles, with whomever getting the pin getting the belts (and the right to pick a partner).
Hamilton’s Best of Atlas Championship in PROGRESS Report (01.02.21)
A reminder: these are old reviews, and while I’ve not updated any names from what they were announced as on the night, I’ve done my best to remove mentions of people here who are on that suspected persona non-grata list…
Rampage Brown vs. Bad Bones – from PROGRESS Chapter 38: When Men Throw Men At Men (October 30, 2016)
Rampage’s open challenge for the Atlas title was answered by wXw’s Bad Bones – and the match started with Bones taking the champion into the ropes, forcing a break.
Bones connects with a dropkick to Rampage, before chopping away and finally delivering a back body drop to the champion. Rampage rolls to the outside, and gets met with a low-pe from Bones, who quickly brought him back inside, with a missile dropkick coming on top of that. The pair trade corner chops and clotheslines, before a big boot from Rampage stunned the German, who finally got some separation after la