PROGRESS Wrestling Under New Ownership, To Resume Live Events In January 2022

British promotion PROGRESS Wrestling announced today they are under new ownership and plan to resume live events in January 2022. 

The promotion has been purchased by Lee McAteer and Martyn Best, directors at EFL League Two side Tranmere Rovers FC. Wrestling fans may know McAteer as the founder and former CEO of Wrestling Travel. 

Former owner Jon Briley will remain with the company to oversee a handover period before departing in early 2022. 

Alongside new owners, PROGRESS have announced the new senior management team will be composed of Paul Benson, Khalil Butt and Ross Alcock. 

McAteer said about the purchase: "We are really excited to have acquired PROGRESS Wrestling and wish to place on record our thanks to the previous ownership for having developed such a distinctive wrestling promotion. A feat that must never go unacknowledged. Besty (Martyn) and I are very excited with the opportunity that we now have as the world hopefully returns to normality to re-establish PROGRESS at the position it deserves, as the leading name in British professional wrestling and beyond. Our intention is to reaffirm the word professional into professional wrestling for what is literally a new chapter for not only PROGRESS, but the entire British Wrestling scene."

Best added: "I am hugely looking forward to continuing the story of PROGRESS Wrestling with Lee. We have been directors of Tranmere Rovers for a number of years and our collective experience within UK sport and business generally will bring an added dimension to the promotion that will enable it to scale new heights in the coming years. 

"We would also like to place on record our thanks to the PROGRESS team who have helped keep the show on the road over the past 18 months and to our talent who have continued to provide great wrestling despite difficult circumstances. And... of course to the patience and loyalty of all of our fans."

Along with the announcement of new owners, PROGRESS revealed they will resume live events with Chapter 127 on January 23, 2022, at The Electric Ballroom in Camden, London. That show will be headlined by a Two-Out-Of-Three Falls Match between PROGRESS World Champion Cara Noir and Chris Ridgeway. 

ROH World Champion Jonathan Gresham will then be in action at the PROGRESS show in Manchester on February 6. 

Those shows and future PROGRESS events will be hosted by Simon Miller.

PROGRESS previously underwent leadership changes after several wrestlers affiliated with the promotion were named during the Speaking Out Movement, with Glen Robinson and Matt Richards leaving the company. The promotion then shut down for several months and returned in February 2021 with taped shows on the WWE Network.