Today In Pro Wrestling History: May 28th

Well this is definitely a different situation than usual. Most of the times when there’s a day with events that take some digging, they’re all from the Clinton administration or before, but this time…everything is pretty recent. BritWres fans rejoice, because this article has Progress and RevPro!

• NOAH Great Voyage (2016)

Well anyone that knows NOAH knows this was during a dark period. NOAH fans hated the Suzuki-Gun invasion because it was insulting and made NOAH feel like an inferior product to New Japan at a bad time since NOAH still didn’t recover from the Yakuza scandal of 2012. This event started to right the ship. Naomichi Marufuji & Toru Yano defeated the Killer Elite Squad for the GHC Tag Titles. But in the main event, that went over 30 minutes, Go Shiozaki took the GHC Heavyweight title off of the betrayer Takashi Sugiura. While Suzuki-Gun antics continued for a few more months, the perception of NOAH was finally getting back on the right path.

• PROGRESS Chapter 49: Super Strong Style 16 Tournament Edition: Progress Women’s Title: Toni Storm vs Laura Di Matteo vs Jinny (2017)

After a few months of tournament matches everything came down to these final three. Jinny, her former assistant Laura and Toni Storm, who was looking to continue her momentum after SWA Championship victories and a Cinderella Tournament win. Laura was trying to prove herself the entirety of the match, while Jinny was picking her spots and applying clever heel psychology to keep the dynamics in check while painting a great picture in the ring. During a chaotic pinfall sequence, Toni managed to isolate Jinny and hit her with Strong Zero to become the inaugural Progress Women’s champion.

• STARDOM Flashing Champions (2022)

We got every title defended during this show as well as Kairi teaming with Tam Nakano. Oedo Tai (Starlight Kid, Momo Watanabe and Saki Kashima) won the Artist of Stardom belts off of MaiHimePoi. In a feat of resilience and foreshadowing her Ace ascent, Saya Kamitani defended her Wonder of Stardom title from Mirai in a 25 minute match. Syuri main evented the show as the World of Stardom champion, in a No Count Out, Knockout and Submission match against Risa Sera. The match was pretty brutal, Syuri broke a kendo stick on her opponent, which resulted in the rest of her stable throwing in the towel to save Risa from further beating.

• RevPro Cruel Intentions: Undisputed British Cruiserweight Championship: Michael Oku (c) vs Tony Deppen (2022)

Tony Deppen was making his UK promotional debut, and this match had some hype with Oku’s pride on the line. There were great nearfalls, Deppen had a moment where he took a DDT in RVD style with the headstand, so that gave a solid pop. Fast paced and classic TNA X Division style where the heel is more of a counter attack style using stunning kicks and opportunistic flashy spots. However, in the end, Oku saw the opportunity to lock in his signature Half Crab and submitted Deppen after 20+ minutes.

• NXT Battleground (2023)

Be it Noam Dar’s retention of the Heritage Cup thanks to Lash Legend and Jakara Jackson or Ilya Dragunov defeating Dijak in a Last Man Standing match, even the undercard of this show was pretty solid and memorable. The major highlights would be the finals of the Women’s Tournament to crown a new champion after Indi Hartwell vacated the title. Tiffany Stratton defeated Lyra Valkyria, proving she was more up for the spotlight than Lyra (a recurring theme on the main roster as well). The main event was a rematch, after a double turn. So Bron Breakker playing the aggressive heel and Carmelo Hayes as the babyface with the extra push being in his hometown. Even though Bron cut Melo in half with a mid-air Spear, Melo managed to hold on long enough to hit his Nothing But Net Leg Drop to retain.

A little bit of BritWres history, NOAH navigating out of troubled water and NXT shaking off the weird smell of whatever NXT 2.0 was. I’m still surprised everything was no older than 10 years. It’s nice to see some days prove that wrestling is still as strong in the current iteration as it was during nostalgic years.

Did I miss anything? How far did I stretch the events today? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments. And if you don’t do anything else today, remember, Always Use Your Head!