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PROGRESS Wrestling out of Great Britain had what were said to have been several very good to excellent shows over the weekend in New York City and Boston, but not without turmoil, injuries and a hellacious evening in one of NYC's hottest independent wrestling venues.
The promotion's bad luck began on Friday when WWE UK champion Pete Dunne suffered a big gash above his eye following a hard shot with a title belt against Darius Carter at an independent event run by Battlepro in Brooklyn, NY. The gash was bad enough that Dunne was pulled from the remaining events as an active competitor, although he did still appear. That mean the planned bout against 205 Live star Jack Gallagher, on loan from WWE as part of the company's relationship with PROGRESS, was off the books. There was a fear among some wrestlers that the injury was going to lead to WWE pulling the UK performers from working outside events that weren't under a WWE banner, but that hasn't happened as of today.
The promotion ran the ELMCOR Center in Queens, NY on Friday. Reviews are the wrestling was great but the actual venue was a trainwreck to sit in. Having been there, I can attest that ELMCOR is an awesome venue for sightlines but is by far the worst venue to run in the summer months. The building's gymnasium was built 50 years ago and hardly has the ventilation of a modern day facility. In most months, it's a great venue but in the summer, it keeps the heat in and is extremely hot and to be honest, horribly unbearable. I've been in a ton of buildings, big and small, safe and unsafe, cold and hot, for music and pro wrestling over the course of my life and the one Extreme Rising event I attended at ELMCOR remains one of the hottest nights I've ever spent at a wrestling show. The heat leads to everyone sweating and the condensation builds up on the walls, the floor, everywhere. It's a rough environment.
Going in to PROGRESS: NYC, I knew in my head it was going to be hot for the audience but when you add a crowd, said to be in the area of 1,500 people (which is an awesome crowd for anyone, but for a British group running NYC for the first time, it is staggeringly amazing), the ELMCOR Center had to have been disgustingly hot. In fact, that was probably an understatement as the building was said to have been 20-30 degrees hotter inside than it actually was outside the venue.
That said, there's been a lot of talk that the promotion and its partner, WWN (Sal Hamaoui and Gabe Sapolsky) should have known better than to book the building. On one hand, I can see that point because the venue is horrible in summer but on the other hand, there really is no way anyone can predict the weather. It's an act of God, as the airlines always claim when they are delayed. If anyone thought PROGRESS said, "Let's book 8/11 so we can boil the fans alive!", come on. That conversation didn't happen.
There's also been talk that the promotion put as many as double the legally allowed amount in the gym. That is not just correct. I am not going to say that there is a wrestling promoter alive (well, except for WWE and ROH, who are owned by publicly traded companies) that wouldn't try to pack as many people in their venues as possible, but according to my research (which included speaking to reps at the facility today), the current capacity for the venue is 1,000 and that is just based on the permanent bleacher seating and does not include the open gymnasium floor. An event like pro wrestling or boxing, with the promoter bringing in their own additional seating on the floor would see the capacity fitting more, especially if the venue or the promotions requested a special clearance from the city. While pro wrestling promoters will always play a game of chance to make additional cash, there's no way a non-profit organization that serves the local community is going to play that game by exceeding the legal capacity taking place. So, let's keep things in the realm of "Reality FM" in that regard, especially when there was, we are told, a Fire Marshall at the venue.
All that said, the promotion isn't blameless. The heat was said to have been unbearably hot, with reports we've received being that some fans walked out and left the show. If they did, they should demand refunds. There were also reports that there was a lack of water on sale. The venue usually controls the concessions there but whoever was responsible for that, if that is the case, should have been better prepared. While there are bodegas and restaurants within a short walk of the facility, who wants to physically leave a show to go and get a drink? No one.
All involved should have known better, especially since I know from personal experience that even empty, the ELMCOR venue is disgustingly hot, and WWN has run that building before. They had to have suspected what they were getting into. To not think three steps ahead on that one is, in my mind, inexcusable and stupid. PROGRESS and WWN should have, if possible, seen the situation coming and handed out a free bottle of water to everyone walking in and taken a numerous intermissions to let people step outside, but again, I say all this with the benefit of hindsight as I sit in my air conditioned office days later. To the credit of PROGRESS, co-promoter Jim Smallman was able to keep the crowd calm and content and in a place where for the most part, they were enjoying themselves, despite the conditions.
The conditions led to two reported instances of fans who fainted at the show. There was a woman who fainted near the concession stands who was immediately treated and was OK after. One of the stories making the rounds among wrestlers later was that the woman was ill with a medical condition and prone to fainting. I have no way to confirm that, but if she reads this and reaches out, we will be happy to talk to her. Later on, a fan saw TK Cooper's dislocated ankle (see below) and fainted dead away, although I am sure the heat played a major factor in that. We are told that other than those two instances, no fan asked for medical attention and the company, as are the rules in New York State, had a doctor, EMTS and an ambulance standing by before, during and after the events.
That said, there are still stories of fans going outside to get air, fans leaving, one unconfirmed account of a wrestler getting sick after his match and without even being there, I know it was probably an awful night. To the credit of the audience, however, they were still into the entire show despite the conditions. Video from all across the evening shows a (not to be funny) hot and electric crowd that as absolutely going nuts for everything they were being given, rivaling PWG shows in their atmosphere and energy. One couple even got a massive roar getting engaged.
While come readers have said the PROGRESS show was a horrible situation heat-wise by, others told me if was no worse than the ECW Arena or the NYWC Sportatorium during those venue's hottest nights. All of those suck, but at the end of the day, most people who go to independent wrestling have an idea of what they are buying a ticket for and 1,500 fans buying tickets for British wrestling in NYC, chances are 99.9% of them have been to an independent wrestling show before - and none of them were held in modern, 2017 standard entertainment facilities. It's called indy wrestling for a reason and you are making a choice when you walk into that show that you are entering that environment.
The first time I went to CBGB in High School, I knew the place was sketchy and dangerous but I still made the choice to go and be packed inside a hot venue and watch Living Colour play. I made that choice. On Saturday, lots of fans did too and made the most of it, because PROGRESS meant that much to them personally. That says a lot about the company and if and when they go back to NYC, perhaps they'll find a bigger venue. The problem is - where do they go that they can afford? That's been the problem in the NYC area since the original Elks Lodge on Queens Boulevard closed a decade ago. Not many companies can afford the Hammerstein Ballroom.
As I noted earlier, the bad luck continued for PROGRESS when TK Cooper nailed a twisting moonsault from the top rope to the floor but landed wrong on his right ankle, immediately dislocating it and twisting it into what was described to PWInsider as "90 degrees in the wrong direction." The injury was gruesome live, to the point that a ringside fan fainted upon seeing it. Cooper spent hours at the ER before getting the ankle fixed but is obviously out of action for the time being. He apologized to fans via Twitter and still traveled on to the Boston event immediately upon being released.
To make the evening worse for the PROGRESS crew, the charter bus the promotion rented to transport the roster and staff from NYC to Boston never arrived after the NYC event, leaving the company to have to hustle to transport everyone. Eventually, they did make it to Beantown and thankfully, by all reports, Boston was a little less eventful, although full of, based on Paul Crockett's report, another entertaining night of pro wrestling.
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