Project: Wrestling Guerilla – All Star Weekend 13 Night 2

SHOW TRAILER

The first night of this double-shot weekend felt like a bit of a mixed bag from top to bottom, but one I was ultimately positive on, so let’s see if this second night can tie things together into a more cohesive package.

Adam Brooks vs Jonah Rock

After a good showing on the first night by Jonah, he gets another kick at the can with Brooks, a guy I thought was okay. They settle into a fairly typical match setup (the Big vs Little dynamic that worked so well on Night 1) and do fine with it. Brooks continues playing the mouthy heel, which is a role that works fairly well for him, but he’s not exactly a standout in any department. I generally like Jonah in all forms, but I do wish he took more advantage of the size difference between him and Brooks. Unlike his match with Keith Lee, Jonah tries to work closer to the style of Brooks and goes oddly even with his smaller opponent, which is inherently less interesting to me than if they played up the difference a bit more. They get their moves in and it’s a’ight, not something I’d put in the opener spot. **3/4

Mark Haskins & Flash Morgan Webster vs The Young Bucks

This was immediately interesting from a historical perspective. Over the course of this project, I’ve gotten to see the Bucks at various points in their wrestling careers, as well as embodying various gimmicks within their heel presentation. This match sees them firmly in the Elite era, with “Cease & Desist” and “One Sweet” chants (referring to WWE serving them an order based on their use of the Too Sweet) and FTR (Fuck The Revival) written on their trunks. Being The Elite has begun and its memes are taking off with the people pre-disposed to like them, leading to this feeling somehow the most dated of all the Bucks’ appearance. I’ve noted in the past what makes a Young Bucks tag match work best, but with their gimmicks turned up to 11 here, it hardly matters if they’re heels or not, the crowd near-unanimously loves them. In the words of a friend of theirs, they have become the New York Yankees.

The bright side is that Haskins & Webster don’t have to be dynamic babyface personalities to combat them, because practically no one can. Everything that the Bucks do pops the crowd, even if it’s blatant heel work, so the best that H&W can provide is a bit of flavor with their light-heavyweight move set. The latter half of the match is built around the Sharpshooter, which the Bucks had recently added to their arsenal, and the action is good enough leading up to the double tap-out victory for them. I’m obviously not on the Bucks bandwagon to the degree that Reseda is, but there’s still fun to be had at the Young Bucks Roadshow. ***

Joey Janela vs Marty Scurll

Other blog writers have been able to write about sex pests like Marty Scurll by giving them as little credit as possible while acknowledging their existence within the scope of a match or company. I’ve already spent words acknowledging the existence of a shitbag like Joey Ryan, as offensive as that existence may be to me, so it feels weird to draw the line here, and potentially dishonest of me. In retrospect, I should have established ground rules for myself in these situations earlier. I suppose it’s better to get started somewhere than spend more of my time writing about a bad person for basically no reason.

This match is not good. Marty Scurll has bad instincts, and Joey Janela is not much better as a wrestler. Nuff said. **1/4

Zack Sabre Jr. vs WALTER

After his initial title match against Roderick Strong a couple of years ago, Zack Sabre Jr went on to win BOLA in 2015 before beating Strong for the PWG World Championship in 2016. He lost it to Chuck Taylor only months before this, and is full-on heel here against Bigger WALTER.

As was the case against Ricochet, WALTER immediately destroys Zack, with Zack taking almighty bumps off WALTER’s chops. ZSJ is a favorite of mine (ditto WALTER), and one of my absolute favorite things in wrestling is when Zack decides to square up against someone bigger/tougher/a better striker than him and gets instantly laid out. WALTER beats the piss out of Zack for a while and it rules, before Zack’s focus on the right arm begins to pay off. I mean, even though Zack is targeting WALTER’s good arm, he still gets the absolute cock knocked out of him at nearly every turn, and again, he’s so good at getting destroyed.

WALTER being WALTER means that he’s good at paying attention to Zack’s arm work in a way that doesn’t feel put on. Zack putting him in a cross arm-breaker or kicking at the right arm doesn’t stop WALTER from doing his normal stuff, but you can see the discomfort on his face when he uses it. He isn’t forgetting about the pain, he’s just blocking it out, and there’s a difference in what that looks like from a performance standpoint. There’s a great exchange of moves and counters in the finishing stretch, ending with WALTER countering a cradle by Zack into the Gojira Clutch for the tap-out. One of my favorite matches I’ve seen in the series, terrific stuff from two greats. ****

Rey Horus vs Matt Sydal vs Trent

Similar to the lucha triple threat on the previous night, this is three junior heavyweights doing their thing in a fine little showcase match. The difference is that Trent has apparently bulked up by 14 grams (according to Excalibur) and is a “heavyweight,” leading to him overpowering the lighter two guys. There’s some cool stuff throughout this (shout-out to Horus’ pop-up DDT and to Sydal hitting a Vertebreaker), but it feels like the crowd is beginning to flag. It doesn’t help that the match feels longer than it is, so I also began to feel a bit tired as this kept going. Sydal breaks up Trent’s Crunchy with a shooting star press, but gets hit with one himself to get Trent the win (at least Sydal got to hit the Cyclorama, which I popped for). This is Sydal’s last appearance in PWG to date, a shame it couldn’t have been a bit more special. ***

Chuck Taylor (c) vs Ricochet [PWG World Championship Match]

If you’ve read the previous entries in this series, it’s no surprise to you that one of my guys in this whole series has been Chuck Taylor. He’s been funny without being cloying and is a talented worker who always brings it in whatever role he is given. He’s the classic underachiever, in that his talent is always apparent, but he just seems destined to be underrated forever. Well, wasn’t I pleased to see that this project includes a match with him as the goddamn world champion. There was no plan in either buying these shows or in covering them in this matter, so it feels extra special that I’ve seen Chuck do his stuff on the undercard, including a match against his trainee Ricochet years before, up to him being the top dog. Chuck is the MVP of this project, and I was very happy for him going into this.

Leaving this match and the show, the emotion I felt was disgust. I had a hard time reckoning with what I had seen, and how it had really turned me against PWG and Reseda in a way that surprised me. The idea of this match is that Ricochet is a heel now (as seen on Night 1) and is going to step over his mentor to get the belt, whereas Chuck is the smart-aleck who made good and lived up to his potential. A great dynamic, but for some reason, Reseda is not here for it. Ricochet is initially largely booed against Chuck, but there is a sizable portion of the crowd who are booing Chuck, too. I asked my buddy Mike (a long-time PWG fan) why some people would be turning on Chuck like this in his first title defense, and he couldn’t figure it out either. It’s a discontent that didn’t sit right with me and kind of poisoned the well for the match ahead which, unfortunately, wasn’t exactly up to snuff.

Credit where it’s due, this isn’t an out-and-out bad match; in fact, there’s stuff to like about. Chuck’s knee is targeted early by Ricochet and Chuck pays a decent amount of attention to it, including a great little spot where he hits a pointed standing elbow drop but clutches the knee afterward, as he had to fall forward onto it to achieve it. Ricochet’s offense is his usual stuff mixed in with a few more submissions to play up the knee, which is adequate. The guy is not exactly a naturally charismatic personality, so it’s pretty typical in the way of getting a crowd to boo you. Eventually, Ricochet counters Chuck’s Awful Waffle finisher by shielding himself with referee Rick Knox, then hits a dick kick and a belt shot and…pins Chuck to win? It’s a Dusty finish that is waved off by Knox (having recovered from being laid out after a new referee came in to replace him), and that a lot of people in the crowd visibly don’t buy. There’s 20 minutes left on the DVD, guys, I’m not biting either.

From there, Chuck begins to get more desperate to keep the title, and more people in the crowd begin to turn on him. Fair enough, I guess, as Chuck takes down the top rope (“Jump off the top rope now, motherfucker!”) and even chokes Ricochet with it like Roddy did with Kyle O’Reilly and ZSJ before him. Ricochet is also continuing to wrestle like a heel, and at this point, I’m so confused. The crowd doesn’t seem to be completely in either guy’s corner, and now I’m not even sure who I’m supposed to root for (I mean, Chuck, obviously, but I mean in a textual sense). Both guys get big flurries of offense as the match continues on and on. There’s a part where Chuck considers hitting Ricochet with the hammer he used to take down the top rope but also kind of fights with himself about it briefly, which is the opening Ricochet needs to dick kick Chuck again and hit him with two finishers for a near-fall. Even just typing out that sentence felt belabored and unsatisfying. After that, the crowd mostly turns over to cheering Ricochet, and I got real cranky. It certainly doesn’t help when Ricochet gets the abrupt win with a lifting Flatiner. That is the actual finish of the match.

There’s this one guy in the front row who, even as Ricochet is declared the winner, is cursing and screaming at Chuck until he’s red in the face*. What in the hell happened? The best I can figure is that Chuck decided to roll with the mixed reaction he was getting and changed up the dynamic a little bit to go with that, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth. Under more normal circumstances, I’d say this was a well-wrestled and at times exciting match from both guys, but it still sits with me in a wrong way. It also isn’t like Ricochet is this undeniable personality that outshone Chuck, because he’s the same athletic-yet-dull character he’s usually been, better to be seen and not heard. Speaking of, Ricochet cuts a post-match promo where he kind of tries to heel on the crowd, but also proclaims he’s in PWG to stay (he has one more show before leaving for WWE lol). A weird end to a deeply strange and bitter affair, one that I don’t ever care to see again. ***

(*Fun fact: You can see this same guy celebrating Chuck’s title win months earlier in the crowd. Fickle!)

Shelf Status

My immediate reaction to the main event had me saying that it unshelved both All Star Weekend nights on its own, because I was quite upset about how sour it came across. In retrospect, deciding to take them as separate events is a much better idea, as I genuinely liked a lot of Night 1 and I wouldn’t mind watching most of it again. In contrast, I really disliked Night 2, despite it having one of my favorite matches of the whole series in WALTER/ZSJ. Similar to Steen Wolf, this is a one-match show, but unlike Steen Wolf, I don’t believe I had as much bile for the performers or matches on that show as I do for this one. This is absolutely Not Worthy, and I banish it forthwith from my sight.

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

Our journey ends on the next article, with a mysterious stop in 2018…

Project: Wrestling Guerilla – All Star Weekend 13 Night 1

SHOW TRAILER

During one of the few sales I took advantage of with PWG, I knew that I wanted both nights of an All-Star Weekend for sure. I guess I picked this one because the cards looked good, and I bet it was recent enough at the time that I was excited about a lot of the talent in play here. I’ll be covering both nights, so let’s start as we mean to go on.

Brian Cage vs Flash Morgan Webster

This is the point where I would give a textual sigh and bemoan having to watch yet another Brian Cage match, but, and I’m completely serious, this is the best Cage match I’ve seen in this series and one of the better matches on the show.

The keys to how this works are similar to how Cage has had decent matches here in the past: A short opening match with an uncomplicated no selling, no limb work). This checks all of these boxes and adds the fact that Flash Morgan Webster is someone who can be thrown around like a tackling dummy at will, which is both cool and a wrestling story trope as old as time: Big vs little. Cage is bigger and stronger than the pasty Brit, but throughout the match, Webster gains the advantage through hit-and-run offense that only lasts so long. This leaves room for both guys to impress with how they can throw or be thrown, with some cool power spots from Cage and Webster believably using momentum and strikes to get ahead.

The finishing stretch totally sucked me in thanks to the bumping going on, and even caught me by surprise when Webster rolled up Cage out of his finisher for the surprise win and a big pop. I’ve seen wrestlers that I regard more highly than Webster have worse matches with Cage in the past (as you, dear reader, know well by now), so I left this one completely taken by surprise in the best way. ***1/2

Adam Brooks vs Mark Haskins

I couldn’t resist the joke. The match is not that bad, it was just a cool-down from the hotter opener, and with two guys I’ve never really encountered before. I’d seen maybe one Mark Haskins match before this, and literally had no idea who Adam Brooks is, so this was going in as fresh as possible (especially considering this is Brooks’ debut).

This is fine. Haskins wrestles in a snappy way that reminds me of Trevor Lee in places, while Brooks settles into the mouthy heel role. It almost doesn’t feel like a PWG match, more like a traveling indie match between two guys who have wrestled each other a bunch and have their one match that usually gets the crowd going. There’s a couple of neat moves here and there, including a cool transition by Haskins into a floatover bridging Fujiwara armbar, but the rest of the match is just okay, and the finish kind of came out of nowhere with Haskins tapping out Brooks all of a sudden. Arright, move on. **3/4

Joey Janela vs Trevor Lee

I’ve been mildy critical of Excalibur as a commentator in the past, but one thing he is quite good at is getting across the ongoing stories and character motivations of the various players in PWG. Whereas Janela is a relatively new guy, Lee has now been around for years (and is even a former tag team champion) and Excalibur catches the viewer up on what his trajectory has been in that time, especially helpful as Lee assumes the bully role he used to be on the other side of.

Lee is great here, as he has been in basically every other appearance so far. He takes over the role of domineering young veteran, putting in a lot of methodical heel work (crowd taunts, a rest hold or two) that gets across how shitty he can be. Janela is fine enough here; at this point, he’s one of the big indie guys du jour thanks to a presence on social media and a daredevil attitude, and that’s most of what he’s up to (aside from a weird moment where he puts Lee in a Figure Four). We get the second shock win of the night, as Janela reverses a roll-up into his own and pins Lee, similarly to how Lee stole one against Chris Hero before. Not bad. ***

Keith Lee vs Jonah Rock

Two more semi-new faces to PWG collide here, with one clearly on the track to stardom. No offense to Jonah (who I like), but Keith Lee has already debuted and made it to the BOLA finals in 2017, and he will go even farther than that before long. I mean, it’s Keith fucking Lee in 2017, he’s already so good and he’ll only get better.

What I really like about this match is that both guys end up doing what is expected of them in this environment, but it’s meted out at a pace that makes it feel a bit more earned and with half the literal maneuvers as other (lesser) PWG matches. We get the typical “big guys barging into each other” routine for a bit before we move into showing off some of the bombs, and to his credit, Jonah looks good in the parts he’s given (shout-out to the DDT reversal out of a waist lock, that was new to me). Eventually, we get the real good stuff: Lee (taunting and selling in his verbose manner) catches a running senton by Jonah into the Spirit Bomb, before both do an enormous superplex. The latter is teased and built to well, so it gets a huge reaction. Lee takes the match with another catch into the Big Bang Catastrophe, and both come out looking better. Great stuff. ***1/2

Flamita vs Sammy Guevara vs Rey Horus

Yet more debuting-in-2017 PWG talent, reminding me of how PWG was the first I’d ever heard of Flamita and Sammy (I knew Rey Horus from Lucha Underground). This is a more typical PWG moves match in a three-way, but a bit more obviously lucha-flavored, and it’s a fairly entertaining one. Obviously, Sammy plays the heel to the more inherently likable other luchadors (by virtue of not being Sammy), and all three trade advantages throughout the match along with their own cool dives. There’s not much to say about this one, other than it’s a good one of these. A good lucha thing. ***1/4

Ricochet vs WALTER

Ricochet is basically king shit at this point in PWG, but then he runs into another remarkable 2017 debut, Bigger WALTER. Of course, Bigger WALTER easily overpowers Ricochet (a sight we’d see years later in front of a lot more eyeballs), so Ricochet is operating on the back foot. However, the big difference here is that Ricochet is a heel now, so he uses shady tactics to get his advantage, and we get the rare Big vs Small match where the big guy is a babyface.

Thankfully, it’s WALTER, so he can pull it off by being himself. Ricochet bumps like himself for WALTER when he’s on offense, and WALTER knows how to effectively sell when Ricochet goes after his leg. This theme comes back throughout the match and is the only way for Ricochet to get any meaningful, lasting offense against WALTER. They’re a good match for each other and are able to use each other’s strengths to do some neat stuff together (like when WALTER blocks the Benadryller by just swatting Ricochet’s leg). WALTER nearly gets Ric in the choke a couple of times, but the final time is thwarted by a lowblow and a roll backward into a flash pin (that’s 3 tonight). I liked this quite a bit; granted, I was expecting even more from it, but I think my imagination got away from me. I’d prefer Ricochet to not be doing the heel stuff, but it is what it is. ***1/2

Lucha Brothers (Penta el 0M & Rey Fenix) (c) vs The Chosen Bros (Matthew Riddle & Jeff Cobb) [PWG World Tag Team Championship Match]

These four are recent debuts, but not 2017, so that’s that theme broken. The LBs have been tag champs since March, and the Bros are on an undefeated streak since late 2016. I figured this had to be some level of good to very good based on sheer talent, but…it’s not!

This was a weird, weird match. Like, I know PWG often plays fast and loose with rules and generally books matches on the Rule of Cool; however, there’s a point early on where all four guys are in the ring at the same time, and nobody tags in ever again. They just do away with the idea of tagging completely, and nothing is ever made of it. This drove me crazy, because it’s the most blatant ignoring of the rules that I’ve seen yet, in a way that didn’t even makes sense with the normal ways that PWG looks the other way. As well, for a main title match between two hot teams, the crowd are weirdly low-energy. A lot of the spots you’d expect to get big reactions are a bit more mildly received, which isn’t helped by the fact that the action itself often feels like disorganized riffing.

There are some cool spots, though. I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of the Lucha Brothers, nor of Riddle (for various reasons), but they know their way around a spotfest for sure. Add to that the appeal of Cobb’s freakish strength (my Suplex Husband is easily the favorite of the bunch) and you get cool moments like the visual of a combined leglock/surfboard/Gory special by the Brothers and a sweet back drop dive by Fenix onto both Bros outside. The match continues happening until it just stops, with the Bros winning the belts kind of out of nowhere. It’s a cap on what feels like a sludgy, awkward encounter with no real direction. Despite really only loving one of these guys, my expectations were still fairly high, and absolutely not met. ***

Shelf Status

Despite some dips here and there, this was a very enjoyable show. There’s no shortage of standout singles matches between some really talented guys, as well as a couple of good-not-great fights that help to keep the momentum up (until the main event kills the vibe). It’s mostly a really fun time and it sets the stage well for the next night to follow up on. This one is easily Shelf Worthy.

(I was originally going to do what I did with my first multi-night PWG event, and rank the two shows cumulatively as to whether I would keep them or not. Upon actually watching the second night, I decided not to do that. You’ll find out why soon.)

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

We continue the All-Star Weekend next time…