By Silverback, PWG Staff Writer
Los Angeles, CA – When Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (http://www.prowrestlingguerrilla.com) Commissioner of Wrestling Dino Winwood pauses to reflect on the past five years, what sticks out the most in his mind is how a man such as himself, possibly an immigrant of indeterminate origin, has risen to the top of a Fortune 500 Million Company. Prior to his tenure with Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Winwood worked at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream stand, dishing out delectable treats to the hungry public. Rising from a lowly “scoop jockey” to a managerial position in mere months, Dino Winwood was soon hired by then-Commissioner SoCal Val to serve as Pro Wrestling Guerrilla General Counsel, despite having no legal experience. Luckily for Dino, and SoCal Val for that matter, the company faced very little litigation in that time period, which allowed Dino to keep a perfect score marked in his legal win/loss ledger. SoCal Val, never one to sweat the details, took Winwood’s record of 0 losses to be an exceptional feat and quickly promoted Dino to the position of Executive Vice President in mid-2005. While Winwood’s career had seen a meteoric rise since 2003, it would pale in comparison to what would follow the 2005 Battle of Los Angeles.While presiding over the 2005 Battle of Los Angeles, SoCal Val was on the receiving end of a superkick from Joey Ryan, which put her out of action for the rest of the evening and would ultimately lead to her resignation as Commissioner (according to Wikipedia, this was due to her fear of feet, but you would never know based on her successful fetish video tickle fighting career that would follow). Val’s resignation would be Winwood windfall, as he was promoted to Commissioner of Wrestling on October 1, 2005, a position he holds to this day. Since he has held that position, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has seen its largest period of growth, a fact Winwood attributes almost exclusively to himself. With two tours of Europe, two Battle of Los Angeleses, two DDT4s, five All Star Weekends, and numerous single-night events, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has reached its highest level so far, all under the watchful eye of Dino Winwood.
What does Commissioner Winwood’s rise to power have to do with Life During Wartime, which, on Sunday, July 6, 2008, in Reseda, CA, will celebrate five years of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla? Well, while Dino Winwood’s rise to the top has been based on a series of lucky breaks (some in part to large payouts from shady apartment wrestling videographers), Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s rise has not been quite that easy. The past five years have been an uphill battle for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, one that, we’re glad to report, the company has been able to survive. By the skin of its figurative teeth, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has dug out a niche and fortified its position as an alternative to what is widely available to fans of professional wrestling. From that niche, the company has seen tremendous growth in each year of its existence, and despite the fact that the company may seem different from where it began almost five years ago, the core group involved in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla would like to think that, inwardly, the very same goals and unconventional sensibilities that Pro Wrestling Guerrilla was founded on remain to this day. While the uphill battle may never end for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, lasting this long can surely be taken as a good sign.
But wait, what does Commissioner of Wrestling Dino Winwood’s Rainbow Sherbet Street to the top and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Rocky Road of survival have to do with Life During Wartime, which, on Sunday, July 6, 2008, in Reseda, CA, will celebrate five years of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla? Well, both Dino Winwood and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s success would not be possible without you, the fans. While some of you have been there since the beginning, and others have just recently discovered Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, nothing that this company has accomplished would have happened if it weren’t for you. Part of our unconventional sensibilities tell us that our fans are smart enough to know when they’re being pandered to, so we try not to do it. That is why, on this occasion, we hope you believe that everyone involved in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla would like to say thanks for supporting us for the past five years, and hopefully we’ll be around at least another 6 months, to pay off all this office equipment we got from Rent-A-Center.
We hope that your life during wartime, that is to say, life during Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s existence, has been as successful as ours, but if it hasn’t, hey, maybe a wrestling show will turn things around for you.
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Life During Wartime takes place on Sunday, July 6, 2008, at American Legion Post #308 in Reseda, CA, at 5:00 PM, and will feature:
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World Championship Title Steel Cage Guerrilla Warfare Match
Human Tornado (Champion) vs. Chris Hero (Challenger – with Candice LeRae)
— The history between Human Tornado and Chris Hero has been extremely well documented, but going in to Life During Wartime on July 6, some very important questions remain: Human Tornado allegedly suffered a knee injury that will require surgery and keep him out of action for a year. Yet at It’s It (What Is It?) Tornado appeared sans-crutches, claiming he was prepared to fight and defend his title, even though his leg was in an immobilizer knee brace. What is the status of Tornado’s knee? Is this all a ruse, or is he just too stubborn to part with the title after all he went through to recapture it? If his knee truly is injured, how mobile will Tornado be? Will the Steel Cage be an advantage or detriment to the Champion? After All Star Weekend 6, Chris Hero was wrestling with a knee injury, an injury Tornado chose to exploit. Will Chris Hero sink to Tornado’s level and attack the champion’s (allegedly) injured knee? What role will Tornado’s allies Claudio Castagnoli and Jay Briscoe play in this match, if any? For that matter, what about Candice LeRae and Necro Butcher, Chris Hero’s friends? Will Pro Wrestling Guerrilla ever air a pre-game show where former wrestlers inarticulately speculate about these very questions for thirty minutes, sometimes an hour?
One of those questions could be answered at the 2010 ABC Family network upfronts, but all other questions will be answered on July 6 at Life During Wartime in the main event World Championship Steel Cage Guerrilla Warfare Match!
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World Tag Team Championship Match
Jack Evans & Roderick Strong (Champions) vs. Age of the Fall (Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs – Challengers)
— At DDT4, Jack Evans and Roderick Strong became the undisputed Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World Tag Team Champions, prevailing over all would-be champions, and etching their names on the lengthy scroll listing all those to hold the Tag Team Titles. This posed an interesting problem for Commissioner Dino Winwood, since each team technically challenged for the title at DDT4 and could no longer be considered the number one contenders, he would have to look elsewhere for challengers. Enter Tyler Black and Jimmy Jacobs, Age of the Fall, who, after their impressive performance at All Star Weekend 6, were quickly added to the shortlist of potential challengers. After winning the first DDT4, Roderick Strong lost the World Tag Team Titles in July of that same year, something he is not prepared to do again this year. Jack Evans is also unwilling to part with the titles, since they are the first championship he has held in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in over three years of competition. While Black and Jacobs’ record in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla is mixed, their success outside of California has moved them to the top of the challengers list. Now that the tag team division in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has had some time to lick their wounds, they are prepared to make another run at the World Titles, but whether they face Jack Evans and Roderick Strong or Tyler Black and Jimmy Jacobs remains to be seen.
Special Attraction Singles Match
“Photogenic” Chris Bosh vs Scorpio Sky
— When “Photogenic” Chris Bosh quietly walked away from professional wrestling, many people (both fans and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla staff) were shocked, to say the least. All types of questions arose, by the most common question was “Is he done for good?” The answer remains unclear, but one thing is certain: At Life During Wartime, Bosh is back! Staying true to form, Chris Bosh has kept the circumstances of his return to professional wrestling as mysterious as those of his departure, but by all accounts he is ready to face his sometime ally, sometime rival Scorpio Sky on July 6! When Bosh announced his return to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla at It’s It (What Is It?), Scorpio Sky immediately headed to the ring in order to be the first man Bosh would face upon his return. Citing Bosh’s tremendous success in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and Scorpio Sky’s own struggles in singles competition, Sky felt that this would be a perfect opportunity to prove to the world that he has surpassed the 2005 Battle of Los Angeles winner Bosh. While Bosh accepted the challenge, and was appreciative of his former training partner’s desire to get a big singles win under his belt, he also made it readily apparent that he did not intend to be anyone’s stepping stone by attacking Scorpio Sky! With their rivalry renewed, Sky is in what he claims to be the best condition of his life. Chris Bosh’s year-long absence may affect his conditioning, and his refusal to say whether this is a “retirement match” is very puzzling, but the only quote he was willing to share was extremely telling “I’ve approached my entire career one match at a time. Sky thinks I’ve been sitting around eating burritos all day, but he’s in for a surprise: I don’t like Chinese food.” We have chosen to interpret that as “Chris Bosh will be 100% ready for this match.” Please contact us if you feel he meant something else.
Singles Match
Jay Briscoe vs. El Generico
— While things didn’t go so well for Jay Briscoe over the DDT4 weekend, things were even worse for former Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World Tag Team Champion El Generico, whose team lost those titles in the final match of the weekend. Now both men return to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla without their tag team partners, like captainless ships set adrift in a roiling sea. Well, if ships could violently assault each other on the land, sea, or air, and were men, and not large sailing vessels. And ships probably wouldn’t attack each other in an attempt to climb up some sort of ranking system in order to win a Championship, the symbol for which would be a belt that would barely stretch across 1/100th of its hull. And for that matter, it’s unlikely that a ship from Delaware and another from Tijuana would ever meet on open water with the way modern shipping lanes are organized. In fact, it was a pretty poor analogy for what is likely to be an exceptional match.
Tag Team Match
KAZMA & MIYAWAKI vs. The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson)
— After finding a great deal of success in Japan, Matt and Nick Jackson return to America as conquering heroes. While their Japanese win/loss record hovers somewhere around .500, The Young Bucks were able to connect with the Japanese fans, most notably the highly coveted (from a marketing perspective) Japanese schoolgirl segment, who would squeal with delight each time Matt would remove his bandana or Nick would flip his hair back. However, it would appear that The Young Bucks were unable to win over the hearts and minds of the entire island nation, as KAZMA and MIYAWAKI would attest to. Both men are graduates of TAKA Michinoku‘s Kaientai Dojo and fixtures on the Japanese independent wrestling scene, and are looking to make their mark in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. Upset that The Young Bucks were able to set the hearts of Japanese women everywhere aflutter, KAZMA and MIYAWAKI intend on bringing their rough and tumble style off professional wrestling to America in order to teach the brothers Jackson a very tough lesson: Keep your hands off our women. Will the strength and power of the K-DOJO graduates be enough to overwhelm the hometown heroes, or will The Young Bucks prove that they’re much more than a pair of pretty faces?
Single Match
“New Guy” Brandon Bonham vs. Arik Cannon
— For a guy from Pismo Beach, Brandon Bonham sure gets around. Bonham started his professional wrestling career in the Midwest, surfing the waters of Lake Michigan during the day, and traveling the Chicago-area circuit at night, honing both crafts, but ultimately, a tough decision would have to be made. Would Bonham stay in the Midwest and continue to follow his dreams of professional wrestling, or would he return home to Pismo Beach and paddle out? Obviously, Brandon Bonham has made what he feels to be the right choice, living in a shack on the beach, surfing every day, and wrestling when he needs to pay some bills. One person that feels Bonham made the wrong choice is former friend and mentor Arik Cannon. Often traveling with Bonham during their salad days, Arik Cannon would eventually find great success in the Midwest’s independent wrestling scene, and urged Bonham to follow in his footsteps. However, Bonham’s heart was in another place, and he followed it all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Now Arik Cannon has returned to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in order to beat a simple message into the head of Brandon Bonham: Pismo Beach has got nothing on the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Plus Claudio Castagnoli, The Dynasty (Scott Lost & Joey Ryan), Necro Butcher, Los Luchas (Phoenix Star & Zokre), TJ Perkins, Mikey Nicholls, and the return of KIKUTARO! With Commissioner of Wrestling Dino Winwood and Commissioner of Food & Beverage Excalibur on hand to oversee all the action!
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Life During Wartime takes place Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 5:00PM at American Legion Post #308 in Reseda, CA. American Legion Post #308 is located at 7338 Canby Ave., Reseda, CA 91335. General Admission tickets are $20 and will be available at the door. For more information, please visit http://www.prowrestlingguerrilla.com. Card subject to change.
