The show kicks off with the sound of TARO cracking open a coke to mix with his Jack Daniels. If that's not a sign that this will be a wild one, I'm not sure what is. Here we have a match that looks to be quite good. It may look like a waste of Matt Sydal on paper when you consider all the other people he could have faced, but as I've said before, Ronin is capable of having a solid match and I think the speed/size dynamic with Sydal will make for just that. The crowd is hot to start and they do some shenanigans with Ronin sitting in the front row to take a breather and Sydal following it up by taking a chair from a fan and sitting in the ring to watch him. They don't messs around long before getting right into the action and it never slows down. It's fast paced and pretty well done aside from being a bit awkward at times. A sloppy small package is made up for by Ronin TURNING SYDAL INSIDE OUT AND ONTO HIS HEAD WITH A LARIAT! FUCK! Sydal makes it up and gets death valley drivered. Ronin wins. Well then. Fast paced, action packed opener that only went a few minutes.
Match rating - **1/2
2) Davey Richards vs. Rocky Romero - WXW 16 Carat Gold Qualifying Match
Random fact from Disco & TARO on commentary is that the winner of this will be entered into WXW's 16 Carat Gold Tourney. I had no clue although it makes sense considering PWG worked with WXW well around this time particulary for their vacation shows down there. That stip makes this feel a bit like a high stakes match. Rocky has been having an extremely solid 2006 and he looks to close out here with a victory over the reigning BOLA champion. The kicks were often and vicious from the opening bell. They traded shots inside & outside the ring which led to Davey missing and hitting the ring post. They worked that leg a bit after this, but didn't target it much after which kinda bummed me out because the sequences they went into were hot and filled with nearfalls. I was hoping they'd incorporate the sick leg spot in the finish, but they didn't so it's whatever. The final few minutes were great and what you'd expect from these guys. Fun match. Davey is going to Europe.
Match rating - ***
3) Frankie Kazarian, Chris Sabin, & Alex Shelley vs. Chris Bosh, Scott Lost, & Scorpio Sky (w/ Jade Chung)
My oh my, what a cast of characters we have here. I love The Dynasty. Bosh, Lost, & Chung are just too awesome together. Scorpio does most of the talking here though and it's decent. He introduces them all and talks up his 8 month undefeated streak. Bosh finally gets the mic and hype because he's gold. He challenges the babyfaces to make this match a LUCHA RULES contest. Kazarian gets the mic and makes a sexual joke about Jade which I think served as his acceptance of their challenge. Or so I thought, this match just carried on as normal. Kaz, Sabin, & Shelley flurry early with doubleteams and stuff before The Dynasty starts taking control. Bosh hits the LIONCOCK at one point in there which was great. This eventually breaks down into chaos. It's weird how these action packed sequences don't have as much affect or live up to the ones of 2011-present PWG despite it being in Reseda at this point. The best part about this wild sequence was KAZARIAN HITTING A FUCKING COAST TO COAST DROPKICK. Where the hell did that come from? This leads to him & Sky, the two biggest rivals in this match, going at it and Jade hands Sky her purse and the rest is history. Dynasty wins.
Match rating - ***
4) Chris Hero vs. Claudio Castagnoli
This was billed as Claudio's farewell match in Reseda before going to WWE, but it was kind of awkward watching this because Disco Machine & TARO who were doing post-commentary already knew Claudio would be back since his WWE contract fell through. Aside from that, this was a really fun match. I've admittingly never seen a match between these two that is the same, it seems like they always switch it up. Their CHIKARA match in 07 was straight up technical wrestling, their WXW match in 2006 (which I love) is a slugfest, and this... this is lucha as FUCK. Not even kidding, it's pretty awesome to watch. They do a bunch of stuff I've never seen them do throughout the match then they go to some fighting spirit stuff at the end with back drop suplexes and such. I enjoyed this a lot. Hero gets the pretty shocking win with a standing moonsault.
Match rating - ***1/2
Before Hero & Claudio can even make it to their feet, The Dynasty runs down. They beat them up and throw them out of the ring. Joey & Scorpio say some things. Hero & Claudio charge back into the ring with chairs and The Dynasty retreats. Hero calls Dino Winwood to the ring and Claudio says tonight may not be his last night in PWG. To quote what he said to the Dynasty, "You made the mistake of pissing me off!" Claudio vows to come back in two weeks for the final show of the year and finish his run by kicking The Dynasty's ass. This segment was loaded with insults and funny stuff barring the sometimes shaky camera work.
5) Bino Gambino vs. Disco Machine
Bino is back in PWG... yaaaay. He's pissed at the fans for disrespecting him last time and tells a fat guy in the crowd to open his mouth so he can piss in it. Yeah, that happened. And so did this match. It was basically a sprint which isn't surprising considering this wasn't previously advertised to be on the card. Bino wins his comeback match.
Match rating - **1/4
6) Joey Ryan (c) vs. Kevin Steen vs. Human Tornado - PWG World Title Match
Kevin Steen is back from Japan and says he kept up with PWG the entire time because it's his home promotion and he likes to know what's going on. Well, he noticed Joey screwing his way around title matches and he's back to stop him. Naturally, the two babyfaces (Steen & Tornado) go after Joey early before going after each other which ends up not happening thanks to Candice LeRae convincing them to continue double-teaming Joey. Steen takes Joey Ryan around the crowd letting fans chop him then he drags him into the bathroom. The trio end up on the stage where Steen DDT's him. As usual with Joey's reign, some shenanigans happen. Steen hits a sick moonsault off the top rope for a nearfall. The ref gets taken out. Joey brings in a chair and the finish is weird because the ref doesn't even acknowledge the chair at first, then he counts after Joey hits Tornado with it, THEN he DQ's him. Screwy stuff, but it's what you can expect from Joey's reign so it was what it is. At least it was entertaining.
Match rating - **1/2
7) Super Dragon & B-Boy (c) vs. Cape Fear (El Generico & Quicksilver) - PWG World Tag Team Title Match
This is really the perfect way to cap off 2006 for PWG. Although they had another show planned to close out the year that didn't happen, this still was a fitting way to end the year. Generico has been the MVP of the year without a doubt by delivering quality contests against the likes of PAC & CIMA and his team with Quicksilver has become the most popular team in the Guerrilla for the same reason. Their matches with Arrogance early in the year were ACE. So, it makes perfect sense to end the year by rewarding them both and that's what happened here. It's the wonderful super baby-faces against badass veterans. Dragon isn't a heel by any means at this point, but he's began playing that role and it works greatly. Generico & Quicksilver got a few flurries early although the majority of the first half was dominated by SD & B-Boy who would isolate Quicksilver. That leads to the Generico hot tag and things start getting going on another level at this point. Generico hits the swinging DDT on Dragon on the outside by springing off the wall, Dragon damn near kills Quicksilver with a piledriver, and Generico & Dragon have a number of insane exchanges. They did one where Generico lands on his feet off a psycho driver, goes for a dropkick, Dragon slides out, both men get up, Dragon swings, Generico goes for the tiger suplex, Dragon counters out and DISCUS LARIAT! GENERICO IS PLANTED ON HIS HEAD! These two would also finish the match with an awesome ending where Dragon ate all of Generico's signatures twice whilst doing some fighting spirit stuff before taking the top rope brainbuster which gives Cape Fear the victory. The crowd pops hard for their title win and rightfully so. They built it up well during the match by having both teams kick out of each other's signatures which really put things up in the air as far as who would win. Good moment to close out the year with. NEW TAG CHAMPS!
Match rating - ***3/4
PWG Fan? Check out my PWG Fansite where you can find an archive of all my reviews, news, special columns & more!
Follow @TheTeamPWG for all your Guerrilla fandom and follow @ThePWTruth for updates on this blog
Follow my personal Twitter @EthanPWT
Show before this: All Star Weekend IV - Night Two
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment