Project: Wrestling Guerilla – Is Your Body Ready?

SHOW TRAILER

Unlike the previous entries in this series, I actually have watched this show once before. This is the first PWG DVD that I ever bought, and I did so thanks largely to the trailer. I link to the trailers for these shows normally as a way for you and I to start on somewhat equal footing; if you don’t watch the show, you can at least grab clips of some of the salient moments and have them in mind as you read. This time, I feel it’s important that you watch this trailer first, so you can understand the kind of card that finally convinced me to give PWG a real try.

I actually don’t have a strong memory of watching this show, however. I think, even this early on, I found it very difficult to sit down and watch a full PWG show from start to finish. This would much later turn out to be a familiar symptom of then-undiagnosed ADHD, as I alluded to in the introductory post to this series. Today, I’m hepped up on goofballs and my body is indeed ready!

The RockNES Monsters vs Unbreakable F’N Machines (Brian Cage & Michael Elgin)

Ah, crap. I’ve made my feelings clear about most of these guys so far in previous reviews, so adding a figure like Michael Elgin to the mix is unlikely to take away from any bad lingering feelings. Now, I must be honest, I was a HUGE Elgin fan in 2013. After seeing him squash dudes on Ring of Honor’s new weekly TV show (which I had to DVR as it aired late on a Saturday in my eastern Canadian town) and getting way into his presentation, I was a full-fledged Elgin homer and utterly convinced he could be The Guy in ROH, and maybe even beyond that. It took many a year before I was able to shake that notion but, ten years ago, the sickness was upon me. We all have our missed calls.

Thankfully, in the nearly 2 years since the date of the last show I covered, the RockNES Monsters have turned heel, so I no longer have to try and imagine them as an act people like and are excited to see. What’s more, since the last PWG tag match featuring RockNES and Brian Cage in this article series, they’re more appropriately placed at the very beginning of a card, where their antics are better suited. However, the fact that this match is 12 minutes belies the entire problem behind it: Cage and Elgin, two of the biggest dudes on the entire roster, should eat these dorks alive, but for some reason, they don’t; in fact, them not rolling Johnnys Yuma and Goodtime into little balls and chewing them up like gum kinda makes the Machines seem worse. The funniest example of this is Brian Cage playing face-in-peril, an inherently silly idea involving the baffling visual of Cage getting pushed around by men who look to be at least 100 pounds lighter than him. By the time that the finishing sequence kicks in (which isn’t bad, for what it’s worth), I was left asking, “What was stopping you from doing that ten minutes ago?”

I put most of the blame on Cage, whose problem (to this very day) is that he seems to want to be every kind of wrestler at the same time. While I understand this desire to a point (I also play wrestling video games), it makes me wonder about the parallel universes in which either Cage didn’t balloon himself up and just stuck to Getting His Shit In (a la his mentor, Kanyon, but not as good), or where he committed to the bulk-up and wrestled like a dude his size. Again, this is exactly where these guys should be on the card, and the ensuing match isn’t offensive, but it’s still not for me. **1/2

Kyle O’Reilly vs Davey Richards

We press fast forward from Steen Wolf on both Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole tonight, and find them both on different footing. Here, Kyle is coming in as an ROH Tag Team Champion, having established the (still-running) team of reDRagon with Bobby Fish, and has begun to break out in PWG thanks to leaning into his comedic sensibilities. Of course, the DR in reDRagon is back again and, thankfully, seems to have adapted himself better to the PWG atmosphere, albeit in something of an overcorrection.

Y’see, as much as PWG is a lighter atmosphere and leaves plenty of room for “shenanigans,” it feels out-of-place to have these two guys (more so Davey) peppering comedy spots into the more straight-laced kind of match they end up having. After seeing Davey bulldoze his way through his kind of match previously, it feels like a “Happy now?” kind of concession. As such, the comedy spots (usually involving hip gyrations and an extended got-your-leg bit) comes off a bit broad and forced. I chuckled more at the Reseda crowd imitating the “shhh” exhalations that both men do than anything either of them did to get a chuckle.

The match itself is fine; it builds to a good final stretch, but it also feels like both of them are in first gear for everything beforehand. Not a lot feels quite as snappy or immediate as I know either of them can be, save for a moment where Davey catches Kyle with a buzzsaw kick after the latter misses a sweep, and it makes an unearthly sound I was wholly unprepared for. Davey is very much looking to put over his student in a big way here, and taps immediately to a cross arm-breaker before putting him over on the mic afterward. I expected a bit more, but I’m beginning to think that my expectations for PWG Davey are too high. ***

DojoBros vs F.I.S.T. (Chuck Taylor & Johnny Gargano)

(I know that’s not their name here shut up)

White-hot indie wrestling superstar Johnny Gargano* makes his first appearance along with three other PWG regulars, and they have a kick-ass match.

I want to contrast this match with the one preceding it, because it really struck me how much better this match is, both in general and at incorporating comedic elements without feeling like it’s trying too hard. The master of this, of course, is Chuckie T, who is on top form here. Really, this match is something of a time capsule for Chuck, as I feel it can be all too easy to forget just how great he was, especially in the wake of his significantly reduced role in All Elite Wrestling. The fact is, Chuck was a sneaky good athlete among many others in the indie wrestling landscape, but could also effortlessly add personality and charm to anything he did (a la Kevin Steen). Whether it’s blocking chops from Eddie Edwards by putting a sweater on and laughing in his face about it, or following up a tope by picking up a commentary mic and declaring that he is “eatin’ pussy and kickin’ ass,” the guy is just the greatest. Chuck Taylor in the 2010’s is one of the most underrated American wrestlers of his time.

Chuck and Johnny, already an accomplished team in CHIKARA, slot into a babyface role against the DojoBros by virtue of them both wrestling like faces, and Chuck being too damn likable. However, much like Chuckie T, Roddy and Eddie also seem plenty at home spicing up their usual presentation with some fun additions (ie. Eddie getting fans to Irish whip him into a dropkick, Roddy chopping Chuck in the cock). They both seem to have a much easier time than someone like Davey Richards at letting their hair down and going for a few laughs, without it feeling conciliatory or showy.

The match is great fun with these four and genuinely captivating by the end with a couple of solid near-falls. Put this right up there with KOW vs The Bucks as the best tag match I’ve seen on the series so far. ***3/4

(*Referring to him as “white hot indie wrestling superstar Johnny Gargano” is an in-joke that my buddy John and I bring up now and again, as the amount of times he was referred to as something resembling this around this time became parodical)

Kevin Steen vs Drake Younger

This is a first-time meeting between these guys, and my first look at Younger in general. He is, of course, one of the many unpleasant modern-day individuals one will run across during a PWG watch, so I tried to put that out of my mind as much as possible in assessing him here. Being that he was a long-time wrestler for places like CZW and IWA-MS and with a penchant for deathmatches, Drake is a huge blind spot for me, but I remember he was always spoken of fondly by fans at the time. What struck me immediately is how in-shape he is; maybe it’s bias on my part, but to look at Younger here, he doesn’t fit the stereotypical look of a deathmatch wrestler (although that wasn’t his sole calling card). He’s shredded here, physically speaking, and he’s damn spritely on his feet, which make up for what I saw as a lack of personality.

Someone who doesn’t have a lack of charisma is Kevin Steen, who is On One in this match. Steen starts out early in antagonizing the crowd, mocking the ones chanting “We can’t see” when he and Younger brawl on the floor. He gets into it with a couple of particular fans, and the first five minutes are just him riffing and being an ornery SOB. Sometimes, Steen’s heel work can feel a bit ho-hum for me, but it was much appreciated here to make up for Younger’s less dynamic approach.

However, once the bombs start flying, I began to see what Younger brought to PWG: Being willing to take huge amounts of punishment. There are many head drop suplexes that are certainly par for the course in this environment, but less so is a trio of powerbombs Steen delivers to Younger across various parts of the floor and ring. This is soon topped by Younger delivering a sit-out Death Valley Driver to Steen off the apron onto a cadre of chairs. As commentators Excalibur and Chuck Taylor cackled with glee at the violence, I was beside myself in disbelief that these guys were doing these kinds of bumps here. The first half set me up for what I thought would be an average match, but these guys knew how and when to turn up the heat. ***1/2

The Young Bucks vs AR Fox & Samuray del Sol

Of course, this was the match that sold me on this show. This actually isn’t THE Samuray del Sol PWG match that captivated the internet in 2013, that being the tag with Fox against Ricochet & Rich Swann at that year’s All-Star Weekend, but I think my rationale for buying this one is that is was a one-off show, and I didn’t want to feel “pressured” to buy a 2-night event.

Samuray del Sol had something of a moment in 2013, as a clip of him and Ricochet went viral (in wrestling circles) early that year, and it seemed like he could be in position to be the next super-hot indie star thanks to his flashy offense and cool look. He also drew quick comparisons to Rey Mysterio at the time and it seemed like we could be seeing the takeoff of the second coming of him in SDS. 10 years later and with the benefit of hindsight, I was not as impressed as I figured I should be here. SDS would go on soon after this to NXT as Kalisto, where he would enjoy a decent little career, but never quite to the level of “Mysterio 2.0.” Really, for as visually exciting as SDS is here, he doesn’t have the physical charisma that a masked wrestler really needs to get to that vaunted Mysterio level. He isn’t as expressive with his body as he should be, so when he isn’t moving or diving or hitting, he’s just kinda there.

The real star of this match, however, is AR Fox. As it should be, since Fox would be the one sticking around afterward, so no sense in putting too much shine on SDS. Beyond that, Fox outshines SDS simply in being a more engaging performer, based on how well he plays face-in-peril during the Bucks’ heat segment and how much better he is at selling. Commentary also puts him over in a big way (save for when Excalibur calls him on a “lackadaisical” rolling elbow that he likens to a Michael Jackson dance routine). Now, neither he nor SDS are very engaging as personalities overall, which leads to the problem inherent in a Young Bucks heel match where you need to be an engaging babyface foil in order for the match to really work. There are so many fun spots and sequences, but it really is more of a stunt show than anything else. ***1/2

Adam Cole (c) vs Sami Callihan [60-Minute Iron Man Match for the PWG World Championship]

One of two matches that I wrote “Hoo boy” as my first note.

An Iron Man match, no matter who is involved or where, can be a tough sell to even the most seasoned wrestling viewer, and doubly so for the full 60-minute variant. Truth be told, I put off this article for a while knowing that this was the main event, both due to the guaranteed length and the fact that I’m no great fan of either of these guys. I’m less familiar with Callihan (another CZW alumnus), but I’ve seen enough of him and Cole by now that I know I’m not interested. As well, the show to this point was in need of one more match to teeter my opinion on it one way or the other, so a lot (relatively speaking) was riding on this one.

The smartest thing these guys decided to do was to eschew the type of match people think of when they hear “Iron Man match”. As neither Cole nor Callihan are necessarily known as A+ grapplers, they decided to instead tell a more sports-entertainment type of story in the ring and, for what it’s worth, I think it kinda worked. They managed to pull off a 60-minute match that was not as boring nor indulgent as it could have been, and smartly used broad story beats to keep the audience engaged in what was going to happen next. This is really a lot closer to the John Cena/Randy Orton Iron Man match from 2009 than any of the like you’d expect to see on a workrate-focused indie, and it’s all the better for it.

After a hot start for Callihan, heel champion Cole (now truly in his era by debuting his trademark smarmy bad guy character throughout the American independents) gets 3 falls up on the challenger in quick succession, and uses this to milk the ensuing minutes for all they’re worth. There’s a thread in the first half where Cole works over Callihan’s legs and they get a fair amount out of it, with an admirable bit of selling occurring when Callihan goes for a springboard after several Figure Four Leglocks, and his knee gives out. Cole then tries to take advantage of Callihan’s bad legs by cheesing a count-out win, but Callihan rallies back to tap out Cole twice in a row, and then gain two more falls in a roll-up battle, putting Cole on the back foot. The first half of this is very wisely laid out and is fairly engaging.

Then we get to the second half, and we enter into a less-focused period, where both men gain near-falls off big moves and mainly sell their exhaustion. At some point, they basically throw selling limbs out of the way, and it’s just trading big moves with equally big pauses in between. It’s this second half where I was especially grateful for Kevin Steen on commentary, who gets some genuine laughs from some of his observations and helps to distract from the more languid pacing. Eventually, we move into the indie-riffic no-sell portion of the match near the back quarter, which is harder to believe than usual since both guys have been wrestling for 45-50 minutes, and should be more susceptible to big moves/finishers. This feels like an easy story to tell compared to the beats in the first half, and as such is easily the least-engaging section of this. In a neat callback to earlier, Cole rolls up Callihan to gain the lead, and then tries to run away in the remaining minutes. Callihan captures Cole in a horse-collar leg lock, but Cole outlasts the countdown to win the match.

I wouldn’t say that I like this match especially, but I do respect it. I appreciate that these two guys in particular decided not to put on a wrestling clinic, and instead layered up the match with gaga wrestling bullshit that allowed them to keep people’s attention in the long-term. As I said, I think it mostly works, except when they run out of ideas before the end sequence. I am pleasantly surprised that I didn’t really dislike this at all. ***1/2

Sami gets a farewell send-off from the locker room after the match, as he is bound for an ill-fated NXT run. It’s a bit darkly humorous knowing what he’s going off to, but it is sweet in its own way to see Steen and co. see him off.

Speaking of Kevin Steen, here’s three quotes from him on commentary that I had to include:

• “Heavy breathing goes along with dick sucking in my house”
• “[Cole] looks like Lucky Cannon”
• [Cole shushes crowd] “You’re an asshole!”

Shelf Status

On paper, I did not have high hopes for this one, but surprisingly, I think I’ll be hanging on to this. Despite the lackluster opening matches, the show finds it groove by match 3 and is a lot of fun in the middle. The main event, while not something I’d regularly return to, is pretty well done for what it’s trying to do. This is the most efficient use of a card so far in PWG, and is good and lean, especially if you don’t stick around for the Iron Man Match. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one, that is indeed Shelf Worthy.

(This is not a sponsored article. PWG physical media is available on their website, although this show is currently sold out. You can also stream it digitally on High Spots Network.)

Next time, we’re staying in 2013 for our first double-shot event…

Project: Wrestling Guerilla – Steen Wolf

SHOW TRAILER

The second DVD in this series to be broken free of its plastic moorings. I bought this one pretty much only for the main event, so let’s hope the rest of the card isn’t a total wash. Awoooooooo!

Peter Avalon, Freddy Bravo, & Ray Rosas vs Famous B, Chris Kadillak, & Candice LeRae

This is a night with several talent making their PWG debuts, and the most collective debuts are in this match with Rosas, Bravo, Kadillak, and B. The debuting guys are mostly independent workers of the SoCal area, with Famous B being the most well-known (appropriately) by virtue of appearing more than twice in PWG, and eventually working in Lucha Underground. A perpetual point of interest in watching older indie shows is seeing the talent that gets featured and determining which ones went far, and which went various shades of nowhere; of course, this match is a lot of the latter. It’s a decent-enough opening match with some big dives (good ones from Rosas and B especially), and some good stooging from Avalon, a master of his craft. I’ve groused in the past about Excalibur’s penchant for gigglepussery when on commentary with a friend, but when that friend is Kevin Steen and it’s in this match, I’m fine with it. Totally okay for what it is. **3/4

Rocky Romero vs TJ Perkins

We go from “PWG opener” to “Best of the Super Juniors mid-card match” with this one. Rocky and TJP were on various levels of in with New Japan here (Rocky one-half of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions) and, only a couple of months removed from that year’s BOSJ, that’s pretty much the match they go for here. I’m a fan of that kind of junior-heavyweight hybrid wrestling in general, so I’m down for that, and this one is pretty entertaining if not particularly substantive; it’d be right at home halfway up the card on Night 7 of the tournament or something. There’s a weird instance near the end with a supposed “near-fall” on Rocky that the crowd gets confused by and mucks up the pacing a bit. Otherwise, inessential but enjoyable. ***

The Fightin’ Taylor Boys vs The RockNES Monsters

I’ve been fairly down on PWG’s tag team scene around this time (save for the Young Bucks, obviously), and this match feels like the worst version of it. RockNES Monsters basically do nothing for me; they’re decent enough athletes and all that, but their personality seems to be entirely in their name and appearance (“a novelty tag team with no discernible novelty,” as I described them to my buddy Mike). They don’t really do anything all that interesting unless they’re in there with a better team, which the Taylor Boys are not. Brian Cage-Taylor has begun to adopt “Get Your Shit In” as a credo, which I always thought was intended to be a positive thing (for whatever reason), but internet research tells me it started as a jeer? Either way, I never liked it, and I like it less knowing that it’s likely that Cage leaned into an insult rather than learn from it. Ryan Taylor is at least just kind of a flatline and not bothersome in his own right but, together, these two teams do the most soulless, spot-fest wrestling you’re likely to find at this time. It pops the crowd mightily, but I’m sick to death of it, myself. By contrast, this match is actually one minute shorter than Romero/Perkins, but feels twice as long thanks to all the hackneyed set-ups and pointless kick-outs. It also annoys me that this kind of match is happening third on the card and with two mid-card acts; there’s no reason why these people should be having this match. Sincerely can’t wait to stop seeing either of these teams. **1/4

Willie Mack vs Davey Richards

Uh, what the hell was this?

I was excited to see Mack and Richards fight each other, as I’m a fan of both, but something happened here that dragged it down into the mud. The idea of the story is simple: Davey (current ROH Champion, other half of the IWG Junior Heavyweight Tag Champs) dominates the rookie Mack, but then Mack gets a big comeback that leaves a big impression on the crowd and on the veteran; instead, what happens is that Davey eats up Mack for three-quarters of the match, leaving the latter almost no time to be as entertaining or impressive as he can be. Sure, he gets a couple of FIGHTING SPIRIT no-sells near the end, but it still doesn’t feel fair in a match that Mack ultimately has to lose.

Contrast this match with Mack’s first-round BOLA win against Chris Hero, in which Hero managed to play the bully veteran heel role while still giving Mack the shine; granted, the outcomes of both matches were different, but I still think it was possible to make Mack look better in defeat than he did here. As it is, this match is frustratingly boring and certainly doesn’t speak well to the instincts of Davey, who forces Mack into a match structure that doesn’t serve him. He puts over Mack after the match on the mic (which Mack doesn’t look all that happy about), but it’s table scraps compared to what this should have been. **3/4, see me after class.

The Dynasty vs Los Luchas

I know that I must continue putting up with people like Joey Ryan on these cards, but it’s not getting any easier, especially in matches like this. Say what you will about the first tag match (and I did, you likely read it), but at least it was visually interesting with all the big dumb spots; by contrast, this match sucks the wind out of the room and I had to fight to pay attention to it. I only know about Los Luchas (Phoenix Star and Zokre) nominally from listening to episodes of the Journey Through Guerrilla Island podcast, and the only impression I got from this match was big “Lucha Dragons but the version with Ricardo Rodriguez” vibes. Aside from a decent dive train near the end, I was happy when this was over. **

Ricochet vs Chuck Taylor

One of wrestling’s traveling teacher/student matches comes to PWG. Both Ricochet and Chuck Taylor were fairly well-known to the American indies at this point; however, Ricochet was well into his run in Dragon Gate, and also still at a primordial stage in his development. Taylor, Ricochet’s trainer, is a fine choice to take the lead in this one, but man, I wish this match happened sooner in the show. This is another reason why I disliked the first tag match so much because, now that they’ve done a million spots and near-falls, how is a more grounded and patient match like this one supposed to follow it? Although switching their positions on the card might have helped, it’d still blow to have RockNES and the Taylors above these two, so I guess it’s a no-win.

This match is fine. I kind of expected more but, given where Ricochet is, it was likely never going to happen like that. His look had certainly improved at that point, but he is still a bit clumsy and awkward here, and lacking in any physical charisma he will pick up in the ensuing decade. There’s a particularly rough spot where Chuck has to basically run into Ricochet doing the Sasuke Special to the outside so that he doesn’t completely eat shit. As for Chuck, he’s got the swagger you expected of this time in his career, but in retrospect, his role on the indies strikes me as an odd one. He became popular from doing comedy bits and never lost that funny aspect, but it also may have worked against him in being taken as seriously as his talent dictated that he should be. He’s clearly doing A-OK today, but I sometimes wonder if he could have been more. Anyway, thank god for him molding Ricochet’s natural talents into something fairly watchable here. ***

The Young Bucks (c) vs Future Shock (Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly) [PWG World Tag Team Championship Match]

In undoubtedly the bigger debut match of two on this night, Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly enter PWG with a tag title opportunity. Both Cole and O’Reilly had begun in Ring Of Honor at this point after finding some success on the North American indies (especially Cole through Combat Zone Wrestling), but this was the time period when both were being pitched to larger audiences as potential breakout stars out of the new wave of indie talent.

As version 1 of Future Shock, both play plucky, athletic babyfaces, which is not exactly a natural fit for either, but it does have some novelty. O’Reilly is already impressive from an in-ring standpoint, but Cole is sorely missing his modern-day persona, which will help to elevate his game at least somewhat above “pretty good.” As mentioned in my first review, the Young Bucks of this era succeed when they have strong babyface teams to bump for, which Future Shock are not quite yet; the in-ring work is fairly good, but neither Cole nor O’Reilly have much personality to hang onto as the babyface team (Davey Richards on commentary doesn’t exactly spice things up, either). The whole affair goes over well enough for both rookies to get “Please Come Back” chants, and it’s good to see them both at a more nascent time of their development to give context for how far they have yet to go. A fine start, but the ceiling is still high. ***1/2

Kevin Steen (c) vs El Generico [Ladder Match for the PWG World Championship]

In the words of Chuck Taylor commentating this match, “Whoever booked this match is a dick.”

El Generico and Kevin Steen collide again in 2011, and yes, it’s every bit as good as I was led to believe. It totally helps to have seen what little PWG of 2011 I’ve already reviewed before this, but again, all you need to know is that Generico is good to a fault, Steen is a goddamn asshole, and they hate each other. .

Yes, in-ring, this is a terrific match, as these destined rivals are practically incapable of anything resembling bad, and they know how important this is. This being a ladder match, I was already nervous heading into it because of how flimsy and ramshackle these affairs can be on the indies, and my fears were certainly founded. All the stops are pulled out, and the big spots involving ladders are truly shocking. It’s one thing for Sami Zayn to deliver a Michinoku Driver to Kevin Owens on an overturned ladder in a Wrestlemania match, it’s another thing entirely for that spot to be done here in a sweaty California banquet hall to 1/50th the size of the crowd and onto a ladder that isn’t meant to have men hefted onto it. Generico and Steen go one step below killing one another, with just heinous spots putting each other into and through ladders, including a yelp-worthy spot at the end where the back of Steen’s head takes the brunt of damage. It all must be seen to be believed.

What I do want to extol in particular here is the work of Kevin Steen. Now, this is not at the expense of Generico, who is forever the valiant babyface who fights with everything he has in an inherently believable manner, but it was in this match especially that I felt the true villainy of the Kevin Steen character. All throughout this match, Steen has a dead-behind-the-eyes look on him that only gives way to the most childish glee whenever Generico eats shit, and it’s the schoolyard-bully mentality down pat. We’ve all been on the wrong side of someone like this (or at least seen it go down), and in those moments, the kid doing the tormenting seems inhuman. Steen knows exactly how to harness this aspect of his personality, even in little actions like gingerly tipping over the ladder onto Generico’s body; it won’t really hurt him, but it lets him know that his existence offends him. Steen has always had the problem of being a bit too funny, likable, or just plain good to be truly hateable, but this match helped me finally “get it” with him.

One or two little things keep me from going all the way here, though. As it’s a ladder match done for an indie crowd, the focus is more on getting to the spots at times than letting stuff breathe, so Steen especially often has to move himself toward the next set-piece, despite having just taken hellacious punishment. It’s not worth getting hung up on, but it is there. Speaking as someone who is not a long-time PWG fan, the interference of the Young Bucks against Steen felt counter-productive toward the story that the match built so well to. Having the other big heel act beat the shit out of your top heel act in the middle of the big match feels clumsy, especially since it becomes a naked setup toward a huge post-match moment with the return of Super Dragon and the allying together with Steen. My opinion on Super Dragon has shifted in recent years more toward positive, but I’m not exactly as ardent a fan as the Reseda fans are of him, so the stuff after the match felt like it took away slightly from what I really wanted to see, Generico’s big title win over his hated enemy.

That said, this is still phenomenal. Creative, frightening, and fulfilling, it’s a near-perfect thing. ****1/2

Shelf Status

Were it not for the semi-main event between the Bucks and Future Shock, this would be a one-match show. What a match, for sure, but the lead-up to it was not exactly my favorite. The Reseda faithful see the show out with chants of “Show of the Year,” which I’m sure can’t be true; hell, I’ve already reviewed better top-to-bottom shows in this series! A couple of bright spots on the undercard are mired by the worst staples of indie wrestling (both at the time and now), along with a couple of matches that had no right to be as mid as they were. The main event is an absolute whopper, but overall, this one is Not Worthy.

(This is not a sponsored article. PWG physical media is available on their website. You can also stream it digitally on High Spots Network.)

Next time, we jump forward in time two years to 2013, and quite a bit has changed…

Project: Wrestling Guerilla – Battle of Los Angles 2011

SHOW TRAILER

This is the first DVD of the bunch that I am unwrapping from its plastic for the first time. This one appealed to me in the midst of a PWG sale frenzy because it was 1) only one night, and 2) featured one match that I was dying of curiosity over. I’ve watched selected matches from BOLA before, but I’ve never had the pleasure of watching an entire tournament in one go. This being a one-night version of the annual event, I’m very interested to see how PWG books 7 matches in progression. Now, let’s see if it was worth all this wait.

Chris Hero vs Willie Mack

This first one has the veteran (Hero) facing off against the tournament/promotion newcomer (Mack), and the match comes a bit closer to the one I was hoping Hero would have had with Steen back in January.

Willie Mack is a wrestler who seems tailor-made for the PWG house style, especially the one that came into vogue in the 2010s: A big dude with athletic ability who can believably hang in practically any style. As such, he seems equally comfortable serving as the plucky babyface trying to escape from Hero’s clutches, as he is in trading strikes or bombs with him. Hero is, of course, really good at playing the oppressive veteran, but I was also surprised at just how much he gave to Mack in the match. Mack gets to get his stuff in and impress everybody, and even get some crucial kick-outs (even a kick-out at 1); there’s a great little moment where Mack kicks out of a not-quite-finisher of Hero’s, and Hero’s eyes glaze over as he quickly and pointedly mutters, “…shit!” He really thought that would get ‘im.

To my surprise, Mack pulled out the win against Hero, which served to counteract my worry that Hero was giving Mack too much in what was surely a loss for the (relative) rookie. The match itself did not give everything away between the two (and certainly held back on Hero’s full arsenal), but was a promising start to the night. ***1/4

Kevin Steen vs Dave “Fit” Finlay

This is the match that sold the DVD for me; I mean, when else are you going to see this?

Steen is now the PWG World Champion and entering BOLA to win it all, something I wish more standing champions in wrestling would do. Throwing a champion into a tournament allows them to kick it with the commoners, and gives them the opportunity to match up with unexpected opponents. On the other end is Finlay, who was released from WWE earlier in the year (a falling-on-the-sword for an ill-thought-out Chris Jericho overseas promo) and was in the midst of a worldwide indie tour.

Delightfully, both men fight like absolute rat bastards. Steen has always been a scrapper in any point of his career, but I’m pleased that Finlay got to throw hands with this particular era of Steen, as he is the ultimate shit-bag heel with no desire to fight clean. What I found interesting is how differently both men approach their similar style. Finlay has no honor, but Steen has no shame. Right away, Finlay batters Steen, throwing closed fists and smashing him against every part of the ring, only content to beat the fuck out of him. Steen, however, is A-okay with taking shortcuts that even Finlay might not bother with, like biting and outright cheating. It would have been easy for both men to just slug continuously at each other, but it’s clear both have a great mind for what they do and are smart enough to present themselves differently.

I’ll add that, so far, I vastly prefer Excalibur on solo commentary in PWG. Having him be the sole voice of the show douses the temptation for him to giggle around with a color commentator, and keeps him focused on the match at hand, which is where he excels. In one of my favorite touches of the match, Excalibur acknowledges Steen’s title win the previous win, giving both the location and the context of it, and why it matters to the tournament.

Even at 15 minutes, one can’t help but feel a bit disappointed at this being all there is, especially because this is Finlay’s only PWG appearance and his only match with Steen. It’s hard to say whether both men purposely held back, or if this match is all that one could realistically expect. Although Steen certainly has more to uncork, I’m not sure there’s a lot more of Finlay left on the table. It didn’t quite meet my expectations, but there’s still stuff to appreciate, and I’m just glad it happened at all. ***1/4

El Generico vs Claudio Castagnoli

The main event of the first Project: Wrestling Guerilla article makes a return, and wouldn’t you know, it’s still a winner.

At this point, both men have lost the respective belts they held in January and are on relatively equal footing, although Claudio has a bit more of a motivation to win back the belt he lost a month prior. As such, this match foregoes the inherent romance of a big title match and, instead, gets a lot meaner, as Claudio’s aggression finds a target in Generico.

As always, Generico’s bodily pliability combined with Claudio’s sheer strength is a natural combination, allowing for unique takes on more standard moves. Throughout his control segment, Claudio adds little touches to wear-down holds that make them at least more visually interesting, like grape-vining the legs during a backbreaker stretch or pulling Generico in a bow-and-arrow across his shin. The two even utilize the typical “go for multiple pins” spot in a way that feels how it should, with Generico more narrowly escaping on each cover, selling his exhaustion. Even their mistakes end up adding to the match: At one point, Claudio falls over in the middle of a top-rope swinging hurricanrana by Generico; rather than lie back and let the botch lie, Claudio springs up and hits Generico with multiple gut-wrench powerbombs, as if to punish him for even attempting to hit that move. Another one later in the match has both men mistime a powerbomb lift, only for Claudio to just actually deadlift Generico into position anyway. These instances are metaphorically breathtaking, whereas the sheer height that Generico gets on Swiss Death is literally gasp-worthy.

What’s more is that the two go through their typical spots together, but with different outcomes. Both the UFO and the Ricola Bomb were busted out in January, but in both matches, the outcome of these moves were vastly different. It’s this kind of attention to detail that gives the illusion that a wrestling match is a kinetic challenge, in which a wrestler is a person who can learn and grow over time and adapt to changes occurring naturally, as opposed to a static fictional character hitting their marks. We also get a bit of theming as, much like his tag partner Chris Hero, Claudio loses to a high-stack pin, and Generico gets one over on one of his greatest rivals. ****

Eddie Edwards vs Roderick Strong

Woe to any match that has to follow Claudio/Generico, but Strong and Edwards do what they can, I guess. Both men are ROH regulars at this point, with Edwards himself having beaten Strong for the world belt earlier in the year. This match is also at something of a nascent period for both men: Edwards is still the fairly white-meat technical wrestler (and one-half of the American Wolves), while Roderick has yet to find his heel run in PWG and, while a tremendous wrestler, is still not quite at the peak he will be.

So far, every opening round match has managed to present itself differently from the other, keeping a much-needed variety in a format that very much needs it in order to be effective. Here, we get the least spicy of the opening round, with Strong and Edwards having an ROH-style hard-hitting technical match. There’s nothing wrong with it, both are quite good, but at this point in the night, it didn’t do much for me. I feel this probably should have gone second, so as not to have been overshadowed by the clear front-runner of the first round. Not much to say here, but I look forward to watching these two grow and improve down the line. ***

The Dynasty vs The RockNES Monsters [Tag Team Title #1 Contendership Match]

I don’t think there was any place in the card where this match wouldn’t get overshadowed.

This is my first good, solo look at the RockNES Monsters, and…eh, they’re fine. They seem like a decent-enough indie tag team with a vaguely fun gimmick. They certainly are more endearing than the team of Joey Ryan and Scorpio Sky (no offense to Sky, whom I like fine in AEW). Moreover, the Dynasty itself is a holdover from early PWG, which is an era of the company I have very little affinity for. Chalk it up to simply not following the promotion at the time, and finding little to love whenever I visit it.

The match is whatever, hardly as interesting as anything related to the tournament. I admittedly tuned out at parts, but I did step back in long enough to catch the crowd chanting, “Who is legal?” letting me know that I had missed little. **1/2

The Young Bucks attack after the match and are heckled with “Booker T” chants. The two had left TNA a month earlier amidst controversy that they were disrespectful to legends like Booker and Rob Van Dam. Get ready for more of that. Hero and Claudio intercept and challenge them for later on in the evening, with Claudio doing a decent Spinaroonie.

El Generico vs Willie Mack

Now into the second round, our first pure face vs face match gives us our first foray into outright comedy. Although I appreciate the mix-up for the sake of variety, the comedy itself isn’t really what I want to see from these two, given how athletic they both are. In fact, the whole match has an air of vague disappointment, as it seemingly ends just as it was getting going (I said “Oh, that’s it?” out loud at the finish). Some good stuff in here but not especially memorable, felt like more of a token slide into the finals for Generico. ***

Kevin Steen vs Eddie Edwards

This is where I began to flag with the show, especially since this one begins with its own foray into comedy. Returning to older PWG means that one must be ready to put up with the stylings of what was funny in wrestling at the time, and sometimes it still holds up, but it’s when we’re doing goofy eye-poke spots with the ref in an Eddie Edwards match that I feel we’re getting a bit too cutesy.

Now, I will be a hypocrite in the same breath (but not the same paragraph) by saying that I did get a chuckle out of Steen winding up for an eye poke, and doing the double bicep pose. I may not love Steen in-ring at this time, but the man has always been very charming. Further, allowing Edwards to trade with Steen in eye poke and biting spots does at least help to make him a bit spicier. Much like in the Hero/Steen match in January, the trading-bombs segment in the final minutes gave this one a stronger finish, so I ultimately come out positively on it. ***1/4

The Young Bucks (c) vs Kings of Wrestling [PWG World Tag Team Championship Match]

At the January show, I lamented that a match in which the Young Bucks are heels really suffers when you don’t care about the babyface team(s) opposite them. I’m happy to say that this is very much the opposite here: The Young Bucks stooge for one of the best teams in the world, and it rocks.

Coming in hot after their departure from TNA and eager to use every bit of that experience to their advantage, the Bucks lean hard into their infamy and humiliate themselves for the benefit of Hero and Claudio. Although the Bucks are prone to histrionics in their selling, it still feels so right to see the Kings tower over them and just throw them around like sacks of garbage. Admittedly, this makes the Bucks’ heat section in the middle of the match a little hard for me to believe; I kept waiting for Claudio to stand up and knock their little heads together. All’s well, as this leads to a great hot tag from Hero and a satisfying run to the finish, including an ungodly long UFO from Claudio. The finish itself is great, too, or at least…[sigh] In so many ways, the match communicates that the Bucks can’t beat the KOW straight-up, so they cheat and use shitty little tactics throughout, capped off with Matt rolling up Claudio with his feet on the ropes for the win while Hero is distracted elsewhere with Nick. A rematch is only natural at this point, especially when the Kings get their heat back after the pin, but I was rather dismayed to find out that this match, this match right here, is the last match to date for the Kings of Wrestling.

After this, Claudio and Hero would make their way to WWE to differing levels of success, with Hero finding his way back to the indies some years later. The only other KOW matches out there are two untelevised tag matches in NXT, so it has been 12 years since one of the best tag teams in the world did what they do best. This was a sudden and sad way to come to terms with this fact, and certainly, there was so much left on the table for the Kings to do across the world of wrestling, but at least this final match of theirs shows why they continue to be so fondly remembered. There’s a not-zero chance that we may see the KOW unite one more time in the future, and I really hope they do. ***3/4

Kevin Steen vs El Generico [Battle of Los Angeles Final]

We end the night with one final match flavor: A heated fight with personal stakes.

This match is, of course, as meaningful as one’s own personal history in following the careers of both men. If you’re just dropping in, you may not immediately grok why these two guys hate each other. If you’re only familiar with their work in WWE, you almost take this as a given; both guys have always had a nebulous “history,” but you may have only seen the cleanest version of it. If you’re a fan from this time, like I was, no words are necessary. These dudes hate and love each other, the rest is hockey fights.

It’s in this specific situation that I am more relaxed on my stance on crowd brawling. Back in the Hero/Steen match, I wondered who actually enjoys these; here, as an expression of a long-running personal hatred, I’m more than willing to let it slide. It also helps that the crowd brawl these two get into are in the more intimate Reseda setting as opposed to an echo-y arena, so it all feels a bit more hot-blooded.

This match really showed me what it is that I actually look for when I think about “storytelling in wrestling.” The topic these days is often a point of derision for some fans as much as it is a lofty goal for others; the phrase can be just as often a cudgel against strained melodrama as it can be intoned seemingly earnestly. You see, I’m not at all a sports fan, but I am a fan of stories about and involving sports. What makes stories in any sport so special is that there is an element of chance to it. The stars have to align in just such a way as to allow two teams with a certain history to face off in a climactic game, or for two athletes to stand across from one another at a certain point in their lives that makes it special. I don’t have the patience nor interest to follow a sport, but it helps me to understand why other people do. Sports stories are often a naturally-occurring phenomenon, so it makes sense that the best stories in fake sports have this kind of magic in them.

This magic is exemplified in the sweet happenstance that is a young boy in the crowd, sitting on his dad’s shoulders, and wearing an El Generico mask. This little guy ends up becoming a core part of the match’s story, especially when Steen catches Generico in a Sharpshooter (an accompanying story is how Steen won both of his previous matches with the Sharpshooter, a more intentional story flourish that works a treat in a tournament setting), with Generico’s face perfectly meeting the eyeline of the youngster. The boy is mentioned on commentary but not fixated on, it’s understood that you know he’s there, and the chant of “For The Children” remind you that El Generico is, in fact, for the kids. It feels like it was meant to happen, even though it was likely just dumb luck.

The match eventually becomes the climax you expect from the “destined to do this forever” pair, with finisher spam and kick-outs a-plenty. As with the crowd brawl, this match has well earned its share of indulgences, and it only serves to make the final result that much better. Shout-out in particular to Steen reversing the Generico Brainbuster into the Package Piledriver, a godlike move. Excalibur is doing his best to bring up the energy for the home viewer as he shouts and exclaims, although his color commentator Joey Ryan can’t match his energy level and detracts from his efforts. Generico nails the Brainbuster on the apron and wins the whole enchilada, but of course, the story doesn’t really end there. Generico, ever the sweetest man in the world, brings the kid in to celebrate with him while Steen, ever the petulant and surly little boy, breaks the BOLA trophy in retaliation. Generico wins the day, but no resolution is gained, this fight is forever. ****

Shelf Status

On initial viewing, I felt a little let down by this show. My expectations were a bit higher than perhaps they should have been, so it took the wind out of my sails a bit when a couple of exciting matches on paper didn’t quite do it for me. That said, there’s still a lot to like, if not love, about this show. Two immaculate pairings for Generico are the highlights of the night, and it does feel special in its own way to have a copy of the final Kings of Wrestling match (itself also great fun). As the first BOLA I have watched in full, it feels like a good start, but one that I am very excited to see if it can be topped. As far as shelf status goes, this one is Stable.

(This is not a sponsored article. PWG physical media is available on their website. You can also stream it digitally on High Spots Network.)

Next time, we’ll hit one more 2011 date with, I’ve heard, one of the best matches in company history…

Project: Wrestling Guerilla – Kurt Russellreunion 2: The Reunioning (1/29/2011)

SHOW TRAILER

Chronologically speaking, the first PWG event I own physical media of is from January 2011, part of the WrestleReunion weekend. For now, this is the oldest show at my disposal, and this is my first time watching it. I always kept away from this one in particular for a very silly reason, which I will get into about halfway down.

Candice LeRae, Cedric Alexander, Brandon Gatson & Willie Mack vs Caleb Konley, Manscout Jake Manning, “Pretty” Peter Avalon & ODB

The event starts with what is typical of PWG around this time and modern wrestling sensibilities at large, a multi-person tag spree meant to get everyone’s blood pumping. This accomplishes that goal decently well; it’s the kind of popcorn match that you can pay any amount of attention to and be entertained well enough all the same. The babyface team do some very pretty dives near the end, including a crushing splash by Willie Mack. One thing I’m quite excited for in this retrospective series is seeing the primordial versions of wrestlers that are still active today, such as how odd it is to see Cedric Alexander and Willie Mack in clean-shaven iterations, to say nothing of the absolute Young Neil mop-top on Peter Avalon. **1/2

Mr. Aguila vs Rey Bucanero

Full disclosure: I have not yet been able to “get into” lucha libre, so my knowledge of these competitors is rather limited. I did find it interesting (as noted on commentary) that both are fresh off a Lucha de Apuesta match in which Aguila lost his hair. This point is well-made on commentary by Excalibur, but I must admit, the commentary at points in this show between him and Colt Cabana was a little too sophomoric for me. There’s a great line in an episode of The Venture Bros where Professor Impossible describes what Rusty Venture was like in college, ending his summation by calling him “a bit of a gigglepuss,” which is about where I’m at with Excalibur. The match is fine. **1/2

Shane Helms vs Joey Ryan

My initial note on this says it all: Yuck!

This is easily the worst match of the night not involving men with hip replacements. For the sake of added detail while hoping not to belabor anything, I’ll say this once and then keep going: Any match involving Joey Ryan in this series will be automatically detracted at least half a star, depending on the extent of his involvement. Here, he engages in an interminably long promo segment with Helms that I managed to successfully tune out. What was much harder to tune out was the crushingly boring limb work he engaged in throughout the match, in the worst control segments of the night. This is all compounded by hated babyface Shane Helms, mocked by the crowd for getting fired from WWE a year earlier and for having heat with Shawn Michaels, having to engage in dead-on-arrival fire-up spots in what appears to be X-Pac’s alternate attire in WWF No Mercy for the N64. Aside from a fairly good cross body block by Helms and the lack of actual botches, this thing stinks out loud. Avoid at all costs. 1/2*

Low Ki vs Davey Richards

Hell yeah, dude. Low Ki returns from the fed and absolutely kills it. These are good in-ring vintages of both (although Ki has had much better previous to this), especially because Davey is circling the top of Ring of Honor and in between NJPW tours, his stock high and still rising.

I remember being enamored with Richards at this time in his career, because I have a real soft-spot for wrestlers in the Benoit mold of “intense striker/grappler.” What really came as a pleasant surprise is Davey’s comfort in playing an effective heel in-ring, leveraging his physical charisma in just the right ways. A backhanded compliment I can give to the preceding match is that it made me really appreciate when heel control segments were done right on the show; unlike Joey Ryan bumbling around the most standard wear-down spots you’ve ever seen, Davey peppers his control segments by acknowledging the crowd in small, fun ways, even stooping to outright mockery at times, like when he strikes a Karate Kid crane pose to make fun of Low Ki’s martial arts. Davey also mixes up the usage of rest holds and strikes throughout his portion of the match, so it’s harder to grow tired of it.

Eventually, we get to the fireworks factory and it just works so well. Both men are crisp and sharp in their offense and they’ve laid the groundwork enough for it to feel really meaningful. Spots like Ki reversing the Alarm Clock kick mid-air into a double stomp onto Davey’s knee are hoot-worthy, and any match with a good Perry Saturn leg sweep automatically earns itself an extra quarter star. After middling and toiling around with the previous matches, we finally take off the kid gloves and let two of the best in the world talk their shit. ****1/4

(Credit to Excalibur and Cabana, who know when to drop the yuks and take a match seriously; however, I did get a good chuckle out of Ex describing Low Ki in a sleeper position on Davey’s back as “the Andre The Giant/Dread Pirate Roberts.”)

Jake “The Snake” Roberts vs Sinn Bodhi

[sigh]

This is billed as Jake’s retirement match, which of course it isn’t. In early 2011, Jake is still a year and change away from darkening the door of Diamond Dallas Page, and it’s just no fun to see him like this. Sporting a long t-shirt and roomy sweatpants, Jake still looks tired and uncomfortable throughout this whole thing. Considering that this was likely seriously intended as his final match, and Jake is in there with frequent collaborator Bodhi, I stop short of calling this “exploitative” of him, although it is ill-considered at the very least.

What’s also strange with modern eyes is that the fans go absolutely wild for Jake and every spot he can muster. Obviously, no one in that arena knew the turns that his life would take over the coming decade, mostly for the positive, but to see such open celebration of a time in his life we now know to be still quite bad is Very Weird. Bodhi bumps around for Jake as best he can, but this is only the start of a real dip in this show’s middle. 3/4* (fuck Joey Ryan)

Legends Wrestleroyal

When I bought this, I wanted to save it so that my girlfriend and I could play the Royal Rumble Drinking Game to this part, since the entrances are staggered in minute-long increments. We haven’t gotten around to it in the decade we’ve been together yet, but I now know the only way I will ever return to this is with a mood-altering substance.

Since this is almost exactly what you think it is, I’ll just directly copy my bulleted notes for roughly 27 minutes of the 35(!!!) minute endeavor:

• I miss Mean Gene
• Really nice to see a healthy and mobile Paul Orndorff
• Seeing old Barbarian in his dad undershirt was funny
• Barry Orton has on some clean-ass Chucks
• At one point and for several minutes, Shane Douglas is far and away the best worker in the match
• Roddy Piper looks like old Dean Ambrose here
• Get me outta here
• Of course Terry Funk bladed

Then, in the final 5-10 minutes of this, and in one of the sharpest improvements I’ve seen in any match, Roddy Piper and Terry Funk beat the shit out of each other and it totally rocks. It’s not the 1980s, but it’s close enough, brother. Funk cuts a seemingly earnest promo praying to God, thanking Him for WrestleReunion and for the crowd that night, and to “please let me win this battle royal,” at which point he blindsides Piper with a microphone shot. Funk and Piper brawl outside with Terry berating Piper audibly as only he can. The segment ends quickly after they return to the ring, but for that final act in the desert of old men in comfy clothes, two all-time greats greeted us at the oasis. DUD for the battle royal, **1/2 for Piper vs Funk

Chris Hero vs Kevin Steen

We return to the first half of the WrestleReunion name with a good ol’ time between two of the 2010 American independent scene’s stalwarts. At this point, Chris Hero is on an all-timer run around the globe (and looking damn sexy doing it) as one half of the Kings of Wrestling with Claudio Castagnoli, while Steen has begun a year-long break from ROH after being “fired” in his ultimate feud-ending Fight Without Honor with El Generico.

There’s a couple of things here that keep it from being as great as I think it could be. For one, there’s a couple of minutes spent on crowd brawling, which leads me to ask, does any wrestling truly enjoy watching this? I know there are good crowd brawls out there, and it’s very fun to be in a crowd when one is happening, but most times (and especially when used as more of a time-filler) it sucks the attention right out of me.

My other critique here is more structural to the match Hero and Steen have, which is that I think I would be far more interested in this if the two switched alignments. Steen, coming off a hot heel run in ROH, obviously plays the bad guy against Hero’s athletic babyface, but the work comes off a bit typical. I must admit that I’ve always liked Kevin Steen fine in-ring, but never quite loved him; especially as a heel, his offense is a little too brawl-heavy for me to find compelling. He’s got a mouth on him for sure, which really helps to keep him from being boring, but a lot of the ways he gets heat in-ring are moves that would be labelled DIRTY in a Create-A-Wrestler move set menu. I’d have been more interested in seeing a gruff babyface Steen try to wriggle out of the kind of holds and predicaments that a heel Chris Hero can twist him into.

However, the match they choose to have is still a good one. Despite feeling miscast to me, Hero’s offense is appropriately fiery and sharp (if there was ever a time for him to play babyface across his many eras, this is it). We eventually get around to throwing out the big bombs from both guys and it steps the match up a notch, with Hero nailing the Cyclone Kill for the win. I feel like they have a better one in them, but I imagine it’s near-impossible for these guys to truly suck facing each other. ***1/2

The Cutler Brothers vs The RockNES Monsters vs The Fightin’ Taylor Boys vs The Young Bucks [DDT4 Qualifying Match]

I was ready for this one to be, much like the opener, a whizz-bang multi-man match that is all sound and fury. They certainly tried to make it that, but there’s one big problem: Every other team that isn’t the Young Bucks.

Now, chalk this up to my ignorance of deep PWG lore or of most of these teams at this time, but it’s hard for the Bucks (playing heels as they split their time between the indies and TNA, as Generation Me) to be as effective as we all know they can be when you could not give a shit about the guys they are facing. I don’t have any particular reason at this juncture to care about any of the other participants in the match, having seen either very little of them or enough to know I’m not interested (lol @ “small” Brian Cage). It also doesn’t help that the in-ring action is not quite enough to distract from Excalibur and Cabana returning to chuckle-fuckery, including a regrettable tangent involving a rape joke. Tellingly, my favorite part of the match was when Kevin Steen attacked the RockNES Monsters after their win, with Johnny Yuma taking a frightening Steenalizer into the corner. **3/4

Claudio Castagnoli (c) vs El Generico [PWG World Championship Match]

At least my most anticipated match of the night was the one to close us out.

Much like the match with their counterparts earlier, both Claudio and Generico are still in the middle of their respective rises in the global wrestling scene. Both are PWG champions here, with Generico holding one half of the tag titles with Paul London. From America to Japan and beyond, the world is beginning to understand just how generationally good both of them are, and it’s something you can really see a fuller picture of when they work together.

Now, of the two, Claudio still has a bit more refinement before he becomes the total package he is today, but what is fairly routine heel control work from him is naturally elevated by Generico’s tendencies to bump and sell his ass off as an immensely likable babyface. An advantage Claudio has, even as a work-in-progress, is his freakish strength, which he shows off in novel ways like an astounding apron tilt-a-whirl backbreaker against a flying Generico, and somehow even more impressively, in a chokeslam to a grounded Generico rising from a single knee position. The latter is one of those displays of strength that, if you’re not paying attention, can seem more pedestrian than it actually is.

Much like with the night’s other great matches, the hits are saved for the end, and they are all-timers between the two (ie. the way Generico flies up for Swiss Death, the snap and the rotation in the Yoshi Tonic). Generico does well enough selling his ailing knee throughout the second half of the match, including hitting a truly impressive brainbuster to Claudio off of one leg. The only true let-down, as I saw it, was that the crowd did not feel as “up” for this as I think they should have been for this closing stretch, especially once we get around to finisher kick-outs and kick-outs at 1, which generally succeed only when the crowd is utterly dying for them.

Once Claudio traps Generico in a Stretch Muffler, and after a fantastically heartbreaking tease of a rope break, Generico taps out and another chapter in their saga is ended. ****

(Excalibur: “The word ‘quit’ is not in El Generico’s vocabulary, because he in fact does not speak English”)

Shelf Status

This is a DVD with some of the clearest quality distinctions I have ever seen in a wrestling show: When the show hits, it undeniably kick ass; when it drops, it drops to the depths of the earth; when it’s mid, it is as unremarkable-yet-inoffensive as lower-case letters. Ultimately, I really only loved two of the matches on here, and of those two, I feel that the main event has been even better elsewhere than it is here, so it likely won’t be my go-to Claudio/Generico match across any of their iterations. Low Ki vs Davey Richards is a real barn-burner, in my eyes, but I think it’s time to give my buddy Mike a ring, because this one is Not Worthy.

(This is not a sponsored article. PWG physical media is available on their website. This DVD is currently sold out, but it seems you can find it on Amazon. You can also stream it digitally on High Spots Network.)

Next time, we’ll turn the clock forward a few months for one of the company’s signature events…

Project Wrestling Guerilla

I can’t not have a thing to do.

It’s kind of a problem, but at this point in my life, it’s better to treat it as a feature instead of a bug. The fact is, if I don’t have something to busy myself with in the background of life, I don’t know how to exist. It could be as simple as playing a new video game, listening to a podcast episode, reading a new book (rare), or finding a new “creative outlet” (rarer still). If you’ve read my 2022 Match of the Year post, my project last year was to give a star rating to every match I saw. It kept me busy, or distracted, or both. It just kept me going.

I was trying to scare up yet another new little task when my mind returned to something as prevalent in my life as these little endeavors: The ones that don’t take. From new exercise routines to trying to read more (the GoodReads app shamefully gathering dust), sometimes you try something and it just doesn’t work out. Alas, sometimes these aborted adventures come with a price tag, and as I crane my head over to look at the 13 unwatched Pro Wrestling Guerilla DVDs in my collection, I sure do wish I had those dollars back.

But what was once a more straightforward project over a decade ago (watch professional wrestling for fun) will hopefully now become one with a bit more purpose. Y’see, around when I got my first credit card in my early 20’s, I immediately began to take advantage of the much-vaunted PWG DVD sales. 5 shows for $40? You got a deal! My eyes were bigger than my wrestling stomach on at least two occasions, as I plunked down money for what seemed like great shows, and then proceeded to never watch them most of them. Sure, I did get around to a couple of the shows (the ones not still in their original cellophane), but it was in watching those ones that I realized that it’s really hard for me to get into actually watching PWG, at least not on my own. I became aware of the company around the early 2010’s, in large part due to the excellent show trailers they would post on YouTube. In theory, I loved the collection of some of independent wrestling’s brightest stars under one roof to put on kick-ass matches; on its face, it’s hard not to at least be curious about that conceit.

In practice, however, it was just not quite that simple. As much as the hype around the company was very real for quite some time, it was hard for me to buy into the prospect of watching straight-up professional wrestling for 2.5-3+ hours by myself. Combine this with the fact that I was still wildly in the throes of undiagnosed ADHD, as well as how increasingly difficult it becomes for an adult to physically see their own friends over time, and I could never make myself sit down for a whole show.

Well, I aim to change that.

This is the start of a new series in which I will watch all 13 PWG DVDs on my wrestling shelf. For the sake of both giving myself a goal and to motivate me to finally watch these goddamn things, I will be making little write-ups about these shows, too. I’ll give my thoughts on the matches plus my star rating, and ultimately decide if I want to keep it or dump it (likely onto my friend Mike, who is a huge PWG fan and collector). That’s all there is to it.

Welcome to Project: Wrestling Guerilla.