Main photo by Turning Face’s Jim Maitland

Here’s five things you need to know about British wrestling this week:

1) ATTACK! blew the roof off the secret bingo hall and raised a LOT of money for charity

Although he only appeared for ATTACK! Pro Wrestling on one occasion — Press Start 3 in 2015 — Kris Travis was a contemporary and friend to the main players there, including the company’s founders Mark Andrews and Pete Dunne.

Last weekend, as a mark of respect for their fallen comrade, the promotion ran the inaugural Kris Travis Tag Team Invitational, with eight teams vying for the trophy over two days at the Cathays Centre in Cardiff.

The field was made up of ATTACK! regulars and friends of Travis from the north west, and fittingly the final was between Project Lucha (El Ligero and one of the men most identified with Travis, Martin Kirby) and The Models (Joey Hayes & Danny Hope), with fellow northerner CJ Banks getting involved as referee once regular, evil official Shay Purser had tried to steal the trophy for himself.

Project Lucha triumphed, but the real winner was Cavendish Cancer Care — who supported Travis in his final weeks — who received £5500 ($7,000) from the weekend.

The finalists (and friends) — photo by Turning Face’s Jim Maitland

In addition to the tag action, both of ATTACK!’s singles champions were in action, with Chief Deputy Dunne making the first defense of his ATTACK! Championship against an unannounced Nixon Newell, and ATTACK! 24/7 Champion Warren (the fan from the crowd who won the title in January at the riotous WrestleHouse) lost and regained his title twice — once to a baby, and once to a raffle-winning fan — with both changes being overturned by Purser because the winners could not appear on Vimeo.

ECDrew Parker continued his split personality odyssey through the ECW roster by adopting the guises of both Terry Funk and Rhyno over the weekend, and had another run-in with colorless, fun-hating Elijah Dahl, who angered the returning Flash Morgan Webster enough to tempt him into a match on night two.

There were also wins for Brendan White and Kid Lykos, the latter over Mark Andrews. The shows are already available on ATTACK!’s Vimeo service and the promotion return on April 1st at the Walkabout in Cardiff.

2) PROGRESS taped TV…but for what?

PROGRESS Wrestling rocked up at the Tufnell Park Dome this week for two days of Freedom’s Road TV tapings.

The project, with four episodes so far released on the Demand PROGRESS service, is a curious mix of scripted reality and wrestling matches, aimed at fleshing out those characters who may not have graduated to becoming regulars on their main roster. This week’s tapings, however, also featured custom-created music for almost all the wrestlers, leading to questions of whether the shows may end up somewhere else, where perhaps PROGRESS’ usual use of proper music might be problematic or uneconomical.

While the majority of the talent featured on the shows this week were either ProJo graduates, their trainers (past and present), and a smattering of tryouts from other promotions, they did use two big names — Timothy Thatcher and PROGRESS Atlas Division Champion Matt Riddle.

They each took on one half of the London Riots, with Thatcher losing to James Davis on Monday night and Riddle successfully defending his belt against Rob Lynch in a barnburner on Tuesday.

James Davis shows cero miedo to Timothy Thatcher 

Riddle also won a non-title match against TK Cooper on Monday, while Thatcher defeated Darrell Allen on Tuesday. Allen had reunited the Bhangra Knights with RJ Singh on night one, to beat his former Dazzler Team comrade Earl Black Jr. (who recruited an unfortunate trainee as a partner), with Black Jr. getting a measure of revenge on Tuesday by submitting Singh in a singles match.

There were also wins across the two nights for Spike Trivet, Ashmore, Shen Woo, Danny Duggan, and Roy Johnson.

The women of PROGRESS also got mat action ahead of the semifinals of the Natural Progression Series to decide the first Women’s Champion, with Jinny remaining a strong favorite after two wins across the two nights. In the first she teamed with Chakara & Dahlia Black to beat Laura di Matteo, Livvii Grace & Candyfloss, and then downed Bea Priestley on night two, with Laura di Matteo picking up a win against Candyfloss to boost her odds.

The action will be drip-fed out in upcoming episodes of Freedom’s Road, and PROGRESS return on March 19th in Manchester.

3) CCK won tag team gold on their RevPro debut

After run-ins at Revolution Pro Wrestling’s High Stakes in January and Live At The Cockpit 13 last month, CCK — the RevPro variety comprising Chris Brookes & Travis Banks — beat Joel Redman & Charlie Sterling to capture the Undisputed British Tag Team titles in their first match for the promotion at Live At The Cockpit 14 in Marylebone last Sunday.

The match had to be restarted by referee Chris Roberts after CCK had won with some duplicitous tactics, but the result was the same in the do-over.

The Interim Cruiserweight Champion, Josh Bodom, defended his title against RJ Singh, and then called out the actual champion, Will Ospreay. Bodom declared he was going to RevPro’s show in Orlando as the genuine champion, which brought out David Starr — who had earlier beat the debuting Bubblegum in a great match — and a match for the title was made for WrestleMania weekend.

Matt Riddle launches at Timothy Thatcher — photo by Marking Out

There was drama featuring The Revolutionists — who lost to Moustache Mountain and had a very public split after teasing dissension on January’s Cockpit show — and Jinny, who declared herself the entirety of the women’s division, only to be confronted by Pro Wrestling EVE Champion Rhia O’Reilly, who challenged the Primark princess to a match on April’s Marylebone outing.

The show — which is already out on RevPro’s On Demand service (RevPro vying with ATTACK! for quickest turnaround in the business) — also featured wins for Rob Lias over fellow young lion Kurtis Chapman, Zack Gibson against Eddie Dennis, Dave Mastiff over Jeff Cobb, and a wrestling masterclass between Matt Riddle and Timothy Thatcher.

RevPro’s next show is that Orlando date on March 31st, with a return to London nine days later.

4) Will Ospreay turned it on AGAIN at WCPW’s Exit Wounds

The last time I wrote about What Culture Pro Wrestling in this column, Will Ospreay managed to appear in two matches on the same show, either of which could have earned Match of the Night honors.

On Monday, at the promotion’s de facto home arena at the Northumbria Students’ Union in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Ospreay restricted himself to just the one bout, but still managed to blow away the fans in attendance — and those watching live at home on YouTube — in a losing display against WCPW Heavyweight Champion Drew Galloway. Ospreay’s real-life and storyline girlfriend, Bea Priestley, defended her Women’s title against Kay Lee Ray, and needed assistance from Viper — who delivered a head-butt behind the referee’s back — to retain the belt.

With Ospreay in the main event, and Paul Robinson still injured, the WCPW Tag Team titles were not defended but there was tag team action, which saw James Kennedy’s team of Bad Bones & Drake beat Prospect, derailing their road to Orlando, as well as The Prestige (the top heel stable, represented here by Joe Coffey & Travis Banks) defeat El Ligero & Gabriel Kidd.

Will Ospreay turns nasty with Drew Galloway — photo by The Ringside Perspective’s Oli Sandler

Ahead of an appearance in a couple of weeks by his Bullet Club stablemates, Cody Rhodes defended his WCPW Internet title against Liam Slater, and Rampage Brown beat The Primate in a chain match to make the score 4-2 and win their best-of-seven series (earning him a shot at the WCPW Heavyweight belt in Orlando next month).

The show also featured two “showcase” matches, with Ring of Honor sending the bizarre pairing of Delirious and Silas Young, and Revolution Pro being well-illustrated by a superb match between Marty Scurll (who will be in the upcoming Pro Wrestling World Cup) and David Starr.

WCPW return with those Bullet Club shows on March 20th and 21st, the latter of which is also the English qualifier for the Pro Wrestling World Cup.

5) Ryan Smile overcame a HUGE obstacle at OTT (and other stuff)

Fresh from selling 2,000 tickets for Easter’s Scrappermania, Over The Top Wrestling presented Road to Scrappermania at the Tivoli Theatre in Dublin last Saturday. The show was headlined by OTT No Limits Champion Ryan Smile defending his title for the first time, against Jeff Cobb, and also featured OTT Women’s Champion Katey Harvey in action against Nina Samuels.

The standout match for many, though, was the six-man clash between The Kings of the North (Damien Corvin, Bonesaw & Dunkan Disorderly) and British Strong Style’s Pete Dunne, Trent Seven & WWE UK Champion Tyler Bate. OTT return at Easter, with Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks in tow.

The next night, the local stars decamped to Belfast for the debut of Uprising Wrestling at the Europa Hotel, which was headlined by an all-WWE UK bout, with Tucker beating Jordan Devlin. There were also wins for The Kings of the North and Katey Harvey on a show which utilized the up and coming talent base in the area.

Tucker and Jordan Devlin ahead of Uprising’s debut main event — photo by Joel Neill

Over the Irish Sea in Cumbria, Target Wrestling pitched up at The Venue in Carlisle last Saturday, with a main event match for the Target Heavyweight title between Shady Nattrass and Jody Fleisch. After he’d successfully defended his title, Nattrass continued to attack Fleisch, and this brought out Target High Octane Champion Paul London — who’d earlier defended his title in a four-way against Bubblegum, Spyda, and Jonny Storm.

London challenged Nattrass to a title vs. title match on April 22nd, which will be a two-out-of-three falls match. Candice LeRae beat Joseph Conners on the undercard of the show, which also featured T-Bone, Mark Coffey, DCT, Mikey Whiplash, and Jackie Polo.

Lastly, just a bit further up the map, Discovery Wrestling returned to the Jam House in Edinburgh with a huge Y Division title match between Lewis Girvan and Joe Coffey. There were also wins for Aspen Faith, Joe Hendry, and Fite Club, and Candice LeRae beat Viper to advance in the Women’s Championship tournament.

Discovery are back on April 12th and they, too, have Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks on the card.