Wrestler of the Month: Tyler Bate, If you are a WWE-Centric wrestling fan most of what you know of Tyler Bate is that he’s a goofy but talented midcarder. However, in Progress, he is a main eventer and one of the best talents in the Professional Wrestling World and this month he solidified that claim. At Progress’ Wembley show Tyler Bate faced the Progress World Champion Walter in one of the highest quality matches I’ve seen this year. Tyler Bate played an absolutely amazing underdog babyface and looked like he was going to beat the dominant champion Walter and even though he lost he provided one of the best performances in a match that I have seen this year.
Women’s Wrestler of the Month: Toni Storm, Storm had an amazingly packed month in October. She started the month in a Progress Women’s Title Match which she turned in a good performance, then put on some amazing matches in the Mae Young Classic, and then went onto beat Io Shirai to win the Mae Young Classic at Evolution. Even though this month was HUGE for women’s wrestling, Toni Storm delivered by far the most memorable and diverse performance.
Match of the Month: Tyler Bate vs. Walter, I can’t stop talking about this match and probably won’t for the rest of the year. I absolutely loved this match and if you’ve never seen Progress I highly recommend it. The dominant heel/underdog babyface dynamic was better than it has ever been here. This match felt like a modernized version of Andre vs. Hogan but actually an amazing in-ring encounter as well. Both men turned in probably their best ever performance and the match felt HUGE. It main evented Progress’ biggest ever show and had one of the biggest fight feels of all time. This year has had some classic matches and I think this comfortably fits in the top 3.
Feud of the Month: Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte, I guess WWE was forced to have a feud with some fire going into Evolution because they didn’t book anything else other than this match. Even though October was a very weak wrestling month outside of Progress Wembley which happened in September but aired in October, WWE Evolution was a history-making event with some great matches. Lynch vs. Flair had a lot of fire around their feud and Heel Becky Lynch is a great character. The underdog heel vs. the spoiled brat babyface is a weird dynamic but it somehow worked here to fuel a great Last Woman Standing Match.
Tag Team of the Month: Aussie Open, in an absolute car crash of a Thunderbastard tag match that happened at Progress Wembley Aussie Open absolutely shined. The team of Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis consistently mix high flying and big boi athletics to a tee. They came out the victors in an amazing tag match and delivered the best tag performance of the month.
Most Improved: Tyler Bate, I’m going to go back to talking about Walter vs Tyler Bate. As I alluded to earlier, in NXT Tyler Bate if often the goofball babyface who can deliver in great matches but not much more than just a guy who had an awesome match against Pete Dunne that one time. In Progress, he was booked like a god. He was shown as an actual threat to a dominant champion and his character and in-ring skills added dimensions to it we haven’t seen before the match against Walter. He came out of that match a different beast and one of the best professional wrestler.
Over 4-Star Matches:
- Walter vs. Tyler Bate Progress World Title Chapter 76 *****
- Doug Williams vs. Trent Seven Atlas Title Progress Chapter 76 ****¼
- Thunderbastard Tag Team Match (Points go to G.Y.V and Aussie Open) Progress Chapter 76
- Mark Haskins vs. Matt Riddle Progress Chapter 76 ****¼
- Paul Robinson vs. Jimmy Havoc Death Match Progress Chapter 76 ****
- Mark Andrews vs. Eddie Dennis TLC Match Progress Chapter 76 ****½
- Pete Dunne vs. Ilja Dragunov Progress Chapter 76 ****¾
- Kushida vs. Marty Scurll for the IWGP Jr Title NJPW KOPW ****
- Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White for the G1 Briefcase NJPW KOPW ****½
- Kenny Omega vs. Cody vs. Kota Ibushi for the IWGP Hvy Title NJPW KOPW ****½
- Buddy Murphy vs. Cedric Alexander for the Cruiserweight Title WWE SSD ****½
- AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe for the WWE Title WWE SSD ****½
- Ricochet vs. Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole North American Title NX TV ****½
- Tony Nese vs. Gran Metalik vs. Cedric Alexander vs. TJP vs. Lio Rush ****¼
- Meiko Satomura vs. Mercedes Martinez Mae Young Classic ****
- Toni Storm vs. Meiko Satomura Mae Young Classic ****
- AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan WWE Title SD Live ****¼
- Zack Gibson vs. Noam Dar NXT UK ****
- Toni Storm vs. Io Shirai Mae Young Classic Final WWE Evolution ****
- Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane for the NXT Womens Title WWE Evolution ****
- Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Last Woman Standing SD Womens Title WWE Evolution ****½
- Hideo Itami vs. Mustafa Ali NO DQ 205 Live ****¼
Champions:
WWE:
Universal Title: Vacant
Raw Women’s Title: Ronda Rousey 75+ Days
Intercontinental Title: Seth Rollins 75+ Days
Raw Tag Titles: Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose 11+ Days
Cruiserweight Title: Buddy Murphy 27+ Days
WWE Title: AJ Styles 360+ Days
SD Women’s: Becky Lynch 47+ Days
US Title: Shinsuke Nakamura 110+ Days
SD Tag Titles: The Bar 17+ Days
NXT Title: Tomasso Ciampa 107+ Days
NXT North American Title: Ricochet 76+ Days
NXT Womens Title: Shayna Baszler 5+ Days
NXT Tag Titles: The Undisputed Era 134+ Days
UK Title: Pete Dunne 531+ days
NXT UK Women’s: Rhea Ripley 68+ Days
NJPW:
IWGP Heavyweight Title: Kenny Omega 144+ Days
IWGP IC Title: Chris Jericho 144+ Days
IWGP Us Title: Cody 31+ Days
NEVER Openweight Title: Tai-Chi 44+ Days
IWGP Tag: Guerillas of Destiny 31+ Days
IWGP Jr Title: Kushida 23+ Days
IWGP Jr Tag Titles: El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru 239+ Days
Never Openweight 6-man Titles: Firing Squad 80+ Days
ROH:
ROH World Title: Jay Lethal 123+ Days
ROH TV Title: Jeff Cobb 32+ Days
ROH Tag Titles: So Cal Uncensored 17+ Days
ROH Six-Man Titles: Cody and the Bucks 102+ Days
WOH Title: Sumie Sakai 207+ Days
Progress:
Progress World Title: Walter 93+ Days
Tag Titles: Aussie Open 26+ Days
Atlas Title: Trent Seven 26+ Days
Womens: Jinny 159+ Days
PWG:
World Title: Jeff Cobb 9+ Days
Tag Titles: The Rascalz 189+ Days
Again Still Leader of the Leaderboard: Kenny Omega:
- Kenny Omega 246 Points
- Kazuchika Okada 221 Points
- The Young Bucks 170 Points
- Kota Ibushi 160 Points
- Walter 147 Points
- Will Ospreay 140 Points
- Zack Sabre Jr 132 Points
- Hiromu Takahashi 127 Points
- Hiroshi Tanahashi 117 Points
- Johnny Gargano 116 Points
- AJ Styles 110 Points
- Tomasso Ciampa -Undisputed ERA 107 Points
- Tyler Bate 102 Points
- Marty Scurrl 98 Points
- Tomohiro Ishii 95 Points
- Seth Rollins 93 Points
- Cody 86 Points
- Adam Cole 71 Points
- Trent Seven -Cedric Alexander 70 Points
- Pete Dunne 69 Points
- Sanada -Hangman Page -Hirooki Goto 66 Points
- Jay Lethal 64 Points
- Jay White 60 Points
- Alexa Bliss -Travis Banks -Zack Gibson 58 Points
- Kushida 56 Points
- Tetsuya Naito -Dalton Castle 55 Points
- Ricochet -Jeff Cobb 51 Points
- Andrade Almas 50 Points
- Matt Riddle -Brock Lesnar 49 Points
- Shinsuke Nakamura -Juice Robinson 47 Points
- Becky Lynch -Chris Jericho -Flip Gordon -Minoru Suzuki -Evil -The Briscoes 45 Points
- El Desperado 41 Points
- The Miz 40 Points
- Toni Storm 39 Points
- Charlotte 37 Points
- Aleister Black -Michael Elgin -So Cal Uncensored 35 Points
- Firing Squad 34 Points
- Rascalz -Dolph Ziggler 33 Points
- Dragon Lee -Roman Reigns 32 Points
- Braun Strowman -Finn Balor -Chuck Taylor -Buddy Murphy 30 Points
- Ronda Rousey 29 Points
- Aussie Open -Bandito 28 Points
- Doug Williams -Shayna Baszler -Kairi Sane -Mustafa Ali -Yoshinobu Kanemaru -Jonathan Gresham -Doug Williams 25 Points
- James Drake -The Bar -Matt Taven -Sumie Sakai:23 Points
- Chris Sabin -Keith Lee -Jinny 22 Points
- Joey Janela -Roppongi 3k -Killian Dain -Kalisto -Ember Moon -Jeff Hardy -Velveteen Dream -The Bar -David Starr 20 Points
- Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan -Bludgeon Brothers -Shayna Baszler -Punishment Martinez: 17 Points
- New Day: 16 Points
- Drew Gulak -Trent Baretta -Asuka -Usos -John Cena -Silas Young -Bobby Roode -EC3 -Kevin Owens -Timothy Thatcher -Jimmy Havoc -Samoa Joe: 15 Points
- Nia Jax -The Kingdom: 13 Points
- Toni Storm -Drew Mcintyre: 12 Points
- Pentagon Jr -Rey Fenix -Sanity -Kenny King -Dave Finlay -Lars Sullivan -Bray Wyatt -ACH -Jack Gallagher -Sasha Banks -Yoshi-Hashi -Rusev -Jonah Rock -Rey Horus -Aussie Open -Kassius Ohno -Dean Ambrose -Hideo Itami: 10 Points
- Nick Aldis -Rey Mysterio-Chase Owens -Beer City Bruiser -Shane Taylor -Togi Makabe -Sami Zayn -Baron Corbin -TJP -Akira Tozawa -Kurt Angle -HHH -Rysuke Taguchi -Naomi -Elias -Daniel Bryan -Rhea Ripley -Adam Brooks -Brody King -Mark Haskins -Chris Brookes -Jordan Devlin: 5 Points