Ben Smith speaks to London’s PROGRESS Wrestling founder Jon Briley to discuss the future of one of the biggest promotions in the country…
PROGRESS is London’s premier wrestling promotion – and one of the biggest in the country. Since their debut in March 2012, they have sold out every single main event show.
The company started off in The Garage, Islington, but they have since moved to the Electric Ballroom in Camden, which houses roughly 700 passionate wrestling fans every two months.
In an exclusive interview with Rising East, one of the founders of PROGRESS, Jon Briley, says running shows more frequently is the next step forward, rather than moving to an even bigger venue.
“For now, we love the Electric Ballroom, it’s such a great venue for us. We’ve got no plans to move in the near future. We want to be running more often. From the middle of this year, we’ll run every six weeks rather than every two months,” said Briley.
PROGRESS is noticeably different to most other independent promotions – but not necessarily by design.
“I don’t know that we set out to be different as such, we’ve moulded the company, and the feel of it to what we as promoters are into,” Briley continued. “It’s a reflection of what we like, and how we’d like it to look and feel.
“When we set out, we didn’t look and go: ‘oh, there isn’t any grungy kind of wrestling in this country’, because there was. We didn’t go into it to that extent.”
Colt Cabana – one of the most recognisable independent wrestlers in the world – was on PROGRESS’ first ever show but, primarily, the events sell out because of an assembly of British talent – which Briley believes, as a collective, can rival anything on the planet.
“That was one of the standing principles when we started – to put the spotlight on British talent rather than bringing in a handful of imports for every show.
“It’s what we thought was the best way of proceeding. The talent in this country is as good as – if not better than – equivalent talent in other countries. So we don’t need to bring people in.
“It’s not a case of ‘we don’t book imports’. If there’s an opening for someone and it makes sense to book them – then we do that. In the nearly three years that we’ve been running now, I think we’ve had four fly-ins.”
Selling tickets has never been a problem for Briley and co. Their March show – which involves a six-man elimination match for the PROGRESS Championship featuring Jimmy Havoc, Will Ospreay, Paul Robinson, and former TNA British Boot Camp contestants Marty Scurll, Dave Mastiff and Noam Dar – sold out in just over half an hour, which is extraordinary for any wrestling show.
Because every show sells out without fail, Briley says more work must go into other avenues of promotion: “We do work to build up the excitement and build up the matches and storylines and that kind of thing, but obviously we don’t need to do any marketing because there’s nothing to market.
“Sometimes we put free matches up on YouTube and we sell DVDs and merchandise, so any kind of marketing or promotional activity goes towards those rather than the tickets.”
Whilst PROGRESS may be one of the top promotions in the United Kingdom, Briley insists that the intention of the company is not to monopolise the British wrestling scene – but instead to help move it on as a whole.
“I think you can take British wrestling to the next level without having to emerge as a leading number one, as a philosophical point.
“I don’t think you have to be selling out 5,000, 10,000 seats in order to take it to the next level, it depends how you define the next level.
“The promo work that we do, putting videos up, people argue are the best promos to be seen in British wrestling for a long time.
“You could say that we are raising the bar in that sense.
“In British wrestling, all the leading promotions – and I do very much count us right towards the top of that tree – offer something different. It depends what you as a customer, or as a fan, want out of your wrestling.
“If you don’t like lots of swearing, or an adult feel, then you’re not going to come and watch us and you’re not going to go and watch a company like ICW. So you might therefore go to watch a family-friendly company like All-Star or Future Pro Wrestling in Croydon, or something like that.
“If what you want from your wrestling is more international talent, then you might go to Preston City Wrestling or Revolution Pro. We all offer something different, so it’s very difficult for anyone to emerge as a leader of that group.
“We all want different things, you could say at the moment a company like ICW that are touring the country because they’ve decided that that’s what they want to do; whereas we’ve decided we are a London-based company, so we’re running in London.
“People obviously want to come and buy a ticket, we sold 700 in 36 minutes the other day. Our answer to that isn’t to move to a bigger venue, it’s to run more often.”
Briley also says he keeps up to date with the other top companies in the country, and communicates with promoters – whom he says are not his rivals.
“I talk to almost everyone. People have this funny idea that we don’t all get on. There are only a few people in British wrestling that I don’t get on with.
“I would not be doing my job properly if I was not aware of what other companies are doing. I’d be lying if I said I was up to date with every single company in the country. But certainly those that I would consider in the leading pack, the top 10 or 12, I’m aware of what they’re doing. And I’m aware of the ones that are currently a bit smaller but are making headway now.”
Just as WWE has NXT as a developmental territory, PROGRESS encompasses a training school called The ProJo, and run events called ENDVR to give up-and-coming workers the chance to perform in front of a live crowd, and Briley is encouraged by those shows.
“I’m delighted with how they’re coming along. To sell 350 tickets – like we did in January – for a trainee show, is astonishing. I’m not aware of many companies in Britain or Europe that can sell that many tickets for a show that was 80% trainees, and some of them were having their first match. You wouldn’t know by what was happening in the ring, at all.”
With the training school in place, a solid base of devoted fans champing at the bit to attend every show, and promoters with a clear understanding of how to run a successful company – it’s safe to say that PROGRESS is here to stay, and will spearhead wrestling in London, and Britain, for years to come.