PROGRESS Wrestling: Freedom's Road: Episode 1 Review

[cero2k]

PROGRESS Wrestling: Freedom's Road: Episode 1
January 26, 2017

Part One
"Good Intentions"

Freedom's Road is the new biweekly show from PROGRESS on the PROGRESS Demand network. Freedom's Road follows the young men and women of the PROGRESS roster as they try to make their way into the main show.

The Dazzler Segment - With start the show with Darrell Allen of The Dazzler team getting a haircut backstage, his tag team partner Earl Black Jr walks in and asks what he is doing, that they need to prepare, they have lost all their matches and he's worried that they'll never make it to PROGRESS shows. Darrell tells him to chill out, it's all cool. This show looks really nicely produced.

Chakara/Pollyanna Segment - Great! Then we get Pollyanna walking in on Chakara in the locker room. Pollyanna of all people asks Chakara to let her win since the winner of tonight's match qualifies to the final first round match of the Natural Progression Series. Pollyanna says this is her last change and stuff. Chakara pretty much blows her off telling her that this is her biggest opportunity since she started wrestling and that tonight, she is the one winning. There was beautiful cinematography to this and both girl's acting was great.

Finally we now see Never Say Die talking backstage, hyping each other out and making fun of Dazzler's losing streak.

Never Say Die (Alex Cupid & Dillon D'Angelo) vs. The Dazzler Team (Darrell Allen & Earl Black Jr) - 6/10
Decent match, decent intro to both teams. Story of the match is that Darrell Allen kept trying to show off and flippy shit while Earl Black just wants to stay focused on the basics, eventually Darrell's show offs cost the team the match and the streak continues. They're already showing dissension between Allen and Black, it would be interesting to intro a show with a tag team breaking up.

Post-Match - Great! Backstage we get Earl Black confronting Allen on the loss, he blames him and his antics on the loss.

Chakara/Bea Priestly Segment - Chakara comes to Bea with her issues about Pollyanna asking her to take the dive, Brie gives her some words of support and Chakara is now convinced there's no way she'll lose this opportunity.

Natural Selection Series IV qualifying match
Pollyanna vs Chakara - 6.5/10
Good hard fought match. Pollyanna was fighting with desperation, lots of babyface fire, Chakara likewise just wouldn't quit either. In what I consider an upset, Chakara qualifies to the final match of the tournament and Pollyanna looks devastated in the ring.

Pollyanna Promo - Backstage Pollyanna cuts a promo saying that she feels terrible, and after all this losing, maybe it's best if she goes away for a while. After that the screen fades to black and we get text saying that Pollyanna retired not long after that promo, thank you for all you did. Bummer.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
This was a really easy viewing, it's only 30 minutes and it was a good intro to talent that just can't make it to the main cards without hurting the main product. The cinematography was beautiful, think of Lucha Underground, but real and no magic, just straight up wrestler problems backstage. Now, talking about the stories, it's pretty ballsy to intro a show with someone's apparent retirement, it kinda bums you out, especially if you liked Pollyanna.