Excalibur & Bryce Remsburg are your hosts on commentary. Last night's head commentator Disco Machine is in the opening match of the evening against Austin Aries!
1) Austin Aries vs. Disco Machine - First Round Match
Disco does some dancing early on only to get serious with some fast & furios offense as he hits a Super Dragon esque dive through the ropes at the corner of the ring onto Aries. That was about the peak of this one though, to be honest. Considering that was in the opening minutes, that tells you where this went from there. Well, actually, it didn't go anywhere from there which was the main thing that held this one down for me. It just stayed in second gear after the opening moments, it felt like. Aries picks up the win.
Match rating - **1/4
2) Davey Richards vs. Ronin - First Round Match
Ronin is replacing TJ Perkins who was unable to make it. The fans don't welcome him and rudely chant "We want TJ" at the top of their lungs. Oh, Reseda. Richards & Ronin start off with a bit of mat work which Davey dominates. Ronin starts coming back and gets cut off which leads to a pretty high impact, competitive final few moments. Davey hits a sick move that plants Ronin's head into the mat for the win. I don't even know how to describe it. This was fun while it lasted and basically solidifed what I've thought of Ronin for a while. He's no one I'd go out of my way to watch wrestle however if he's in a lower card match, it's almost always entertaining despite him never having any very memorable bouts. This was the perfect example of that.
Match rating - **1/2
3) Claudio Castagnoli vs. Jack Evans - First Round Match
These two lit up the legion hall! I've said it in previous reviews, but here we go again - It's Claudio and a high flyer, what's not to love? They do well with the power against speed/big man against little man story. A ton of crisp, mark out worthy exchanges. I can't even explain some of the things they did, particularly when Evans dove out of the ring and proceeded to dance around the apron dodging Claudio's offense attempts. Claudio got the advantage after haulting many flurries like this from Evans. That leads to Evans eventual comeback attempt and they hit a bunch of crazy stuff. Evans with a 630 senton (I think) off the top rope to the outside, Evans reverses the powerbomb off the top turnbuckle into a hurricanrana, Claudio nails the pop up uppercut with precision, Evans balances himself on Claudio's shoulders and backflips off, and that's just the things I remember namely. Good match here with a lot of flashy stuff.
Match rating - ***1/4
4) Chris Hero vs. Genki Horiguchi - First Round Match
"HAITCH A GEEEE" "H E R O" - Reseda wins once again. Those dueling chants began this match between Hero and Dragon Gate stalwart Genki Horiguchi. This was a pretty cleanly contested match with a lot of mat work as you'd expect from Hero. In fact, it was better than I had heard it was despite me being kinda disappointed that Hero lost which means neither King of Wrestling will be in the quarterfinals. Well, that just means we'll get them in a multi-man most likely so hey, I can't complain. Decent little first time ever match here.
Match rating - **3/4
5) Joey Ryan (c) vs. Excalibur vs. Petey Williams vs. Human Tornado (w/ Candice LeRae) - PWG World Championship Match
I liked how they used last night's 8 man tag main event to set this up. Excalibur pinned Joey thus earning himself a title shot. Petey turned on Joey which puts them at odds. As for Tornado, he's just over as fuck so he definitely deserves to be in here. He wasn't even in the ring yet as Joey cut a promo pre-match yet the fans were chanting "TORNADO!" Yeah, man! They get what they want as Tornado finally comes out along with Candice LeRae who has some stunning gear on, I must say. This one starts off HOT with Tornado hitting a MASSIVE full speed dive to the outside, he aimed for Petey Williams only to eat complete shit and land in chairs on the floor. Refs start checking on him and he ends up getting carried out - booooooooo! It was at this point that I realized this was an elimination match as Disco Machine, who is filling in for Excalibur in this match, noted it. I was bummed about that because EXCALIBUR COMMENTATING HIS OWN MATCHES IS THE BEST THING EVER, OK? Anyway, this gets going and aye, it's okay. Joey & Petey somehow put their issues aside and double team Excalibur. He fights back and gets some momentum going. Petey ends up going at it with Joey. Excalibur rolls Petey up amidst a Canadian Destroyer attempt on Joey to eliminate him. Petey piledrives Excalibur TWICE before leaving. The last one looked NASTY. Joey uses this as an opportunity to pin Excalibur and eliminate him. Has Joey won? Candice LeRae walks back out in different gear and OUT COMES EL SNOWFLAKE! Human Tornado has dawned a new character and he busts out his schtick on Joey before the PWG Champion runs to the back and gets...counted...out. Man, the moment Tornado wins the PWG Title is going to be huge. I'm glad I've got the next eight shows which follow this because I have a feeling it's going to happen soon. So, this match was pretty dull aside from Tornado, that's the best way to put it.
Match rating - **1/2
6) Chris Bosh & Scott Lost (c) vs. The Briscoes vs. B-Boy & Homicide - PWG World Tag Team Title Match
Last night's post show brawl led to alot of hype for this one and that carried over into the match as the fight raged on soon after the bell rang. The Briscoes and The Strong Style Thugs are in the crowd brawling. Homicide NAILS Jay Briscoe with a chair and it busts him open. Is this No DQ? It felt like it for a minute here. After The Briscoes and Arrogance beat the shit out of each other for a bit, they realized Bosh & Lost were chilling on the apron so they pull them out into the crowd for the fight as well. I also have to mention a dive that Mark Briscoe hit at one point in here, it was UNBELIEVABLE. Tonight has been the night of amazing dives and he solidified that by going so fast that he nearly hit the back wall. They finally settle back down in the ring. Well, I say settle down. They get back in the ring and springboard cutter out of nowhere from Briscoe to Homicide! Things actually settle down a bit after this and they build towards a huge moment that bridged off the aforementioned cutter. Homicide & Briscoe are legal. Briscoe sits Homicide up top and HOMICIDE NAILS HIM WITH AN ACE CRUSHER OFF THE TOP! This builds towards the hot tag to B-Boy and things break completely down. I'm not going to try to call all the stuff. This match was included on the 3rd volume of PWG Sells Out and that's all that needs to be said to tell you how great this was. Just an awesome three-way tag match that lived up to and will possibly exceed expectations if you're not familiar with these teams. Craziness! First time on these first set of shows in Reseda where it felt like the PWG we know today and it was so cool.
Match rating - ****
7) Frankie Kazarian vs. Scorpio Sky - First Round Match
Jade Chung is all over the place tonight. Looking back, The Dynasty was so good. Anyway, she ends up getting thrown out from ringside by Bryce Remsburg prior to the match starting which infuriates Scorpio. Apparently the history between Kazarian and The Dynasty was heated at this time. Hopefully one day I'll get the chance to go back and watch the build to this. According to the boys on commentary (Excalibur & Bryce), Scorpio attacked and cut off the pony tail of Kazarian not long ago which leads us here to what I guess you could call the blow off match even though it wasn't the end of the feud. Kazarian was pissed and you could tell it. They exemplified the hatred well and brawled all over the place. Bryce gave them alot of leeway thankfully. They end up over near the stage and Kazarian sets up Scorpio for a powerbomb. Jade Chung is BACK at ringside. It doesn't matter though because KAZARIAN POWERBOMBS SCORPIO OFF THE STAIRS THROUGH A PILE OF CHAIRS ON THE FLOOR! OH MY! Kazarian basically has to drag him to the ring and covers him. 1..2..JADE CHUNG BREAKS IT UP WITH SCISSORS TO THE BACK OF KAZARIAN! Wow, she legit cut his back as you can see a little trickle of blood while he corners Jade and takes the scissors. Frankie is gonna cut HER hair!! Before he can, Joey Ryan, Chris Bosh, & Scott Lost hit the ring. Kazarian takes them all out and The Dynasty retreats. I'd say this was more of an angle than a match and I really enjoyed it. You don't get this kind of stuff from PWG anymore.
Match rating - **3/4
8) Super Dragon vs. Necro Butcher - No DQ - First Round Match
Utter insanity is the best way to describe this. Dragon & Necro completely battered the hell out of each other. This felt like a real fight as they legitmately punched each other on several occassions and were stiff the entire match. I originally gave this a kind of low rating in my review of this on the Super Dragon DVD due to some of the spots not going perfectly like the table bumps however I've come to realize that it played exactly into what this match was supposed to come off as. An ugly, brutal fight between two pissed off bastards. It's not pretty, it's not a cleanly executed "hardcore" match, it's a fight, it's war and it's EPIC. Both men took some seriously risky bumps here and laid it all on the line. Some highlights include Necro hitting Dragon with a sitout powerbomb on the stage, Dragon curb stomping Necro's face into a chair, a psycho driver variation into a table set up in the corner that didn't break, multiple vicious unbridled chair shots to the head & back, and the move that ended it all - a psycho driver onto a fucking chair. This was absolutely nuts. A must see brawl between two of the best at what they did at the time.
Match rating - ****1/4
Overall thoughts: This was a huge step up from Night 1. From match quality to storyline progression & angles, everything was wildly entertaining. You had fun matches like Claudio/Evans, a crazy tag team title match, an insane FIGHT between Super Dragon & Necro Butcher, and as a whole, a ton of memorable moments. This is a show that's definitely worth the purchase, I'd say, because despite there being several matches in the two star range, two of them were just short and to the point openers aka nothing bad. The other (PWG World Title Match) was admittingly dull, but Human Tornado saved it in various forms. And the other was a great angle involving The Dynasty and Frankie Kazarian. Hero/Horiguchi also came short of reaching three stars despite being a solid little match. Beyond those, you had two MOTY candidates for PWG and a super fun Claudio/Evans match. That's a pretty good looking card, in my opinion.
No comments:
Post a Comment