PROGRESS Wrestling owner Jim Smallman recently spoke with Wrestle:List; you can read a few excerpts below:
Jim Smallman comments on PROGRESS’ growth, being part of a documentary and how fans view them:
I think that we’re more than just a wrestling company. We genuinely want to create a community of like-minded wrestling fans and always put on the very best shows that we can. Some indie promotions book their shows on the day of the show; everything PROGRESS does utterly consumes the lives of me, Jon and Glen. I think how much we care about our product shines through when the fans see it. Whenever I see us spoken about on the same level as companies that I love like PWG it’s really cool.
Smallman comments on the promotion’s relationship with WWE:
We’ve had a good relationship for quite some time; the first time it was noticed by people was when we had a couple of CWC qualifying matches at one of our shows. It always amuses me when I read rumours or opinions about our relationship, because I actually know what it is! It’s cordial and helpful; they appreciated what we did with those CWC matches and how we develop talent, and we appreciate when they mention us or loan us talent like Finn Balor and Aleister Black because one of their shows clashes with ours. It’s all super positive, and little things like Pete Dunne walking out at the WWE UK shows holding our title belt just helps establish our company in the minds of people who may not have heard of us already.
Smallman comments on the lifespan of the current British wrestling explosion:
I do think that there is a glass ceiling for British wrestling, but we’re not quite there yet. We’ve been doing good things and getting bigger for five years now; ICW are great and have been going even longer, Rev Pro fill York Hall regularly and there are some great promotions like Attack, Fight Club Pro, Chaos, Southside, Futureshock who have got a ton of potential. Of course, having such a hot scene right now means that guys will get signed and that we’ll see the occasional dodgy company popping up for a quick buck. It’s certainly very exciting. I don’t expect to be running PROGRESS in twenty years time, but I think we can easily do another five years and still have a ton of fun doing so.
