One half of Sunshine Machine and co-PROGRESS Wrestling Tag Team champion, TK Cooper, recently spoke with PWMania.com for an in-depth conversation about all things pro-wrestling. Here are the highlights:
On Sunshine Machine:
“It’s great. It’s been a long time coming. It wasn’t what it was supposed to be, as the whole formation of Sunshine Machine was really through filming our vlog ETM (Escaping The Midcard). It was a couple of mates on the road, we never intended to become a tag team, it just fell into us when a company asked us to come together as part of a tag team gauntlet match in 2019.
“From there it clicked and we kept it going on different cards until we thought ‘Maybe we should really push this’. We carried on through the lockdown tapings and with crowds back now, it’s gone from strength to strength. It’s real fun and I got to say, I think I prefer it to singles wrestling.”
On Sunday's PROGRESS Wrestling show and facing Kings of the North:
“Well, this is our first time against the Kings of The North, we’ve never wrestled them in any capacity. We do know that they’re a bug, strong, brutal team that has clearly smashed it wherever they’ve gone and we’re going to get battered at times during the match. They’ve been champions in Ireland, at ICW, TNT, so they are the real deal and now they’re up against us. It isn’t going to be easy, but we are confident of moving on and them becoming defense number 6, which is a singles record held by Smokin’ Aces.
“We’re trying to hit a record of 9 defenses which is the overall record from a tag team in PROGRESS. Grizzled Young Veterans made that many defenses over 2 reigns and we want to beat that. But saying that, 9 isn’t the number we are going to stop on either. We plan to hold these a long time and so, Kings of The North, they will just be another team we will get through. We will be the best ever tag team in PROGRESS history.”
On the new PROGRESS Wrestling era:
“I thought for the longest time during the Peckham (lockdown tapings) era that if there was a survivor series type match between old and new PROGRESS, that the old group would win. But since we have been back in the ballroom, back on the road, I see how talented and ambitious a roster we have, both men and women, and think that this new era would come out victorious.
“Everything about this era highlights how much we want to showcase British wrestling as the best in the world. We know there were fans that probably gave up on the product during Speaking Out and the pandemic, and we’ve got to win their trust back, but you can’t understand how much everyone from the owners to the roster and everyone involved in putting the shows together wants this to work and give fans the best shows around."
Cooper also revealed his favorite singles and tag team matches from his career, what is making the PROGRESS tag team scene so special and more. You can check out the complete interview at this link.