epitasis posted:

Mr Muggy posted:

Was there something I missed where Biff/Dragon became this big loving thing outside of their staredown? It was awesome, but I felt like there should be more story to this.

Mr Muggy posted:

Was there something I missed where Biff/Dragon became this big loving thing outside of their staredown? It was awesome, but I felt like there should be more story to this.

oatgan posted:

biff has been asking for the match on twitter that's it and lets be real a big stupid gimmick brawl is probably all Dragon is good for

Fart Radio posted:

my wife and i are considering flying to la saturday morning, going to nights 2 and 3, then taking a redeye back home (we'd land about 6:15am local time)

please tell me this is a good idea

Fart Radio posted:

my wife and i are considering flying to la saturday morning, going to nights 2 and 3, then taking a redeye back home (we'd land about 6:15am local time)

please tell me this is a good idea

The_Rob posted:

As fun as PWG is remember that you will be voluntarily flying to LA to go to Reseda.

sportsgenius86 posted:

I won't.





I'll tell you it's a GREAT idea

epitasis posted:

I am in a ticket buying bloc with at least one pwg veteran and he is guessing the limit is 4 tickets at a time

KungFu Grip posted:

All the tournament matches are being announced now, so someone better get them all ready. Interesting stuff going on though with partners on previous or next nights facing each other in tournament matches

Daunte Vicknabb posted:

Jack and Angelico teaming sounds amazing. Then they fight the next day which sounds even more amazing.

Also Busick was on Observer radio like a little under 3 months ago talking about how he wanted to wrestle Super Dragon.

Thauros posted:

I understand the reasons why, but as someone who's gonna have to wait for the DVDs it's a shame that the AAA/LU guys are mostly facing each other. I wanted to see Pentagon jr wreck indie guys i've never seen him face before.

quote:

On July 26, 2003, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla opened its doors in what at first became something close to a Southern California outpost of a style of wrestling popularized by Ring of Honor.

On 7/24, the company presented its 12 year anniversary show at its home in Reseda, CA. When the show started, Excalibur, a masked face of the company (who did a speech complaining about the made up board of directors weren’t fining or suspending The Young Bucks and Super Dragon for their attacks on the last show), then how many people in the sold out crowd of probably just over 400 people were at the first show. If anyone raised their hand, I didn’t see it.

In that dozen years, PWG in Reseda has become the place for new talent to make their name. People like Kevin Steen, The Young Bucks, Ricochet and El Generico preceded their ROH or other international fame by working for the group. People like Andrew Everett, Trevor Lee, Team Tremendous and Speedball Mike Bailey may be the next in that line.

On Friday’s show, among those in attendance were William Regal and Canyon Ceman, scouting for WWE, current WWE champion Seth Rollins and AAA co-booker Konnan. Steen himself would have been there, but for once, the show ended at 11:30 p.m., which is actually early for the group that often runs shows until nearly 1 a.m. So he wasn’t going to make it there it in time after main eventing a house show in Bakersfield that night. Reports were that the WWE officials were most impressed with Angelico, a AAA star who teamed with Jack Evans in the main event against the local stars of the group, The Young Bucks. Angelico has a multi-year contract with Lucha Underground, but that is only germane if Lucha Underground continues. We’re not certain what type of deal he is under with AAA.

What they are scouting for has changed. Before it was size and physiques, for the main roster, where on Friday’s show, perhaps nobody but Brian Cage, Ricochet and perhaps Bill Carr would have gotten a second look. But now, with the dual purposes of making NXT into a touring workrate style promotion, which needs to add depth when its few guys capable of blowing people away on top get called up. Just days later, Lee started on TNA television as part of the GFW invading group. Carr, who looks and performs like Big Bubba Rogers would have if he was young with less wear and tear and broke in during this era, suffered a broken foot in his match.

It’s a tiny place, with the beer being sold at cheap prices and in pitcher size, and drinking is plentiful. Still, the crowd is in no way violent or dangerous. Some would say they are too easy, as there seems to be no preference in style that gets over, only that the shows are long and everything gets over. This week’s show was a rarity, it was just under three hours with seven matches that all had decent time, with one match right after the other. The crowd that comes figures they are in there until 1 a.m., but nobody was complaining about the early night. Every show features crazy high spots, fast past action, hard hitting action, copious amounts of comedy and silliness. Before the show and during intermission, the top stars are parked in the corners selling their merchandise and talking to fans.

Most of the people there are regulars, who rush to their computers right before tickets go on sale (in this case on 7/30 at 8 p.m. Pacific time, and they’ll all be gone within minutes), knowing that a slight stall in their computers will mean no tickets. This show sold out in three minutes. While most fans are from Southern California, there are regulars who fly in from the East Coast and a few people make long drives of 350 or more miles. It’s general admission except for the front row, with all seats $45, the front row is $65, although it looks like starting next month the prices are being raised to $50 and $70 each night. General admission, as well as front row, are first come first served. So people start lining up before noon to get the best seats. Those who get into line a little late end up having to stand for four hours.

As noted before, they’ve long since outgrown the building, but there is no sign of moving. For those who aren’t there, the shows were available on DVD release, a declining industry, and there has been no talk of iPPV.

Interest, if anything, is growing. For the next show, the three-day Battle of Los Angeles, with shows on 8/28, 8/29 and 8/30, the shows are likely to sell out instantly later this week.

What has been announced is that it will be a 24 man tournament. There will be six first round matches on 8/28, plus several tag matches involving talent either not in the tournament, or in the tournament on the second night. The 8/29 show is similar. The 12 winners from 8/28 and 8/29 will advance to the finals on 8/30.

Wrestlers will appear from a number of major promotions including U.K. indies (Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll), Evolve (champion Timothy Thatcher and Rich Swann), TNA (Drew Galloway and Mark Andrews), New Japan (Trent Barreta), Lucha Underground (Brian Cage, Ricochet, Pentagon Jr., Angelico, Fenix, Jack Evans, Drago and Aero Star), Pro Wrestling NOAH (Zack Sabre Jr.), wXw (Tommy End), ROH (Matt Sydal) as well as PWG regulars like Bailey, Chris Hero, Biff Busick, Trevor Lee, Drew Gulak and Andrew Everett.

The first night main event will be champion Roderick Strong, who is likely to face the tournament winner in his next title defense, teaming with The Young Bucks against Scurll & Sabre Jr. & End.

The first part of the show was unadvertised matches. Once a year, the promotion does a show where nothing is advertised, no names, no anything.

They opened with Team Tremendous (Dan Barry & Bill Carr) beating Joey Ryan & Candice LaRae. Carr is a huge guy who does all kinds of flying moves. He even flew when LaRae got behind him and delivered a German suplex. The finish was the old Doomsday Device, but with a twist, as Barry instead of coming off the top with a clothesline, came off with a reverse blockbuster.

Next saw the contest bodybuilder Cage beating Johnny Gargano (who, being from Cleveland, is now also known as Johnny Wrestling), with a discus clothesline. Gargano at one point did a flip dive off the apron and Cage caught him and delivered a suplex on the floor.

Everett beat Swann with a shooting star press in a largely entertaining match. Everett is almost the exact mold of a good indie worker that WWE wouldn’t have touched because of size and body a few years ago, but would probably stand out in NXT. His body control is such that he should wind up as a star at a certain level. Swann is a charismatic guy who I still can’t figure out why he isn’t a bigger star.

Lee beat Tommaso Ciampa in a hard hitting great match. Lee had his mouth busted open and blood was pouring from it.

Bailey beat Hero in 20:59 of an excellent match. This was better than all but a few matches so far in G-1, and better than anything on the ROH iPPV or WWE’s Battleground. It was a very simple match in the sense it was a fight. It was the slowest worked match on the show, with Hero pretty much controlling it, but every move made sense and built. Just the stomps that Hero was doing meant so much more than crazy flying moves others would do because every offensive move he did looked so solid and real. Bailey is very talented, but he’s small. But he’s got a kicking sequence that he did twice in this match that would get over in front of any type of crowd. Bailey won clean in the middle even though Hero is almost an iconic figure. Hero’s obvious drawback is the body, because he’s got the size, being a legit 6-foot-4 or so, and his work is unquestioned, particularly in doing a very much Japanese style match.

A very different Japanese style match was next, with Ricochet pinning Akira Tozawa with a spinning falcon arrow. This had its comedic overtones, and was very much a Dragon Gate style match brought to PWG. There was a lot of the acrobatics, plus the things like the super slow chops. Unlike the prior match, which felt like a fight, this felt like two buddies who were out there trying to entertain the audience. It worked. Nobody in the business has got the body control of Ricochet. When you have Kota Ibushi saying that he can’t match you, that’s saying something. He shows so much more charisma here without the mask than he does in Lucha Underground. Tozawa worked hard and is excellent. The match was entertaining, but the entertainment aspect kept it from reaching the heights of the Ricochet vs. Matt Sydal match in the same building in February.

Ricochet and Tozawa celebrated together and then Ricochet left the stage to allow Tozawa to get the big “Please come back” chants. At that point Super Dragon came out and attacked Tozawa. He was joined by The Young Bucks, both wearing Super Dragon masks. The three, along with Strong (who wasn’t there since he was doing the ROH iPPV show, but every seat had a flyer noting it was Strong’s birthday) are the new Mount Rushmore top heel group. Bailey, Lee, Everett, Gargano, Ryan and LaRae all came down and were laid to waste in a bevy of superkicks and tombstone piledrivers. Evans & Angelico also came out, and were beaten down, which transitioned into the main event.

The main event saw The Young Bucks beat Evans & Angelico, which was like every top-end Bucks match in ROH, in the sense it’s non-stop superkicks and tornado DDTs, with great timing and getting great reaction. The Bucks largely work as heels, but were getting dueling chants. Evans is almost like Ricochet in his body control. He’s got a Lucha style from all his years in Mexico. His flying is some of the best, and he worked perfectly with the Bucks. Angelico live is such a great worker. There were none of the insane balcony dives in Lucha Underground, because there is no balcony, but everything he does looks good, and his running leap out of the ring over the post is incredible live. The finish saw the Bucks go for the Meltzer driver on Evans, but Angelico broke it up. It was actually brilliant because the sense was they were doing the move with me there, so when Angelico “screwed it up,” Matt looked at him and essentially said the guy was screwed, but in much stronger language, and did a running dropkick through the ropes on him. The finish was More Bang For Your Buck on Evans for the win.