We’re back with another PWG review, this time we review PWG’s “Prince” featuring the debut of Jeff Cobb as he goes against Chris Hero, Michael Elgin putting on an MVP performance, and GIFs!
Adam Cole vs. Dalton Castle
Steve: This match started with some taunting, a short bit of wrestling, Cole getting out of the ring to stall, then Castle feinting a dive and doing his “walk”. Then they repeated it again with Cole going outside after a bit of wrestling, Castle feinting a dive and doing his “walk”. He then finally hit a tope suicida. I think the comedy would work better live than on video. After that the match was OK. Castle slipped off the top rope at one point and their recovery wasn’t very good. Cole controlled a good portion of the match but Castle did have a few impressive sequences on offense. Lots of near falls at the end and Cole hit a shinning wizard followed by a neckbreaker for the pin. In the grand scheme of things the match was above average, but it was easily my least favorite match on the show.
Andrew: I think Castle is a solid wrestler, but this match wasn’t that fun. I wasn’t that into the comedy because it just wasn’t funny. Even if I saw it live, I don’t think it would’ve made a difference. Funny is funny no matter what. But as far as the match goes, I’d also say this was my least favorite on the show.
Michael Elgin vs. Kamaitachi
Andrew: Elgin was originally supposed to face Zack Sabre Jr., but because of an injury Sabre suffered, Elgin ended up facing the debuting Kamaitachi from CMLL and NJPW. This match started out pretty fun. Kamaitachi attempted a sunset flip to the outside on Michael Elgin while he was on the apron. Elgin blocked it, tried to do a sit out splash on Kamaitachi, but instead landed ass first on the apron, and Kamaitachi followed that up with a kick to the back. The fans, for some retarded ass fucking reason, started chanting about Justin Borden. Fuck these fans. All of them. There’s two international stars in the ring and these people chant for a fucking referee.
Back to the match. they did a bunch of cool shit, and Kamaitachi impressed. He had lots of cool high risk offense and really won over the crowd. He also busted out some crazy senton attempt onto Elgin when he was outside of the run, which made for a crazy visual. Elgin was also really fun in this. Watching him toss and slam Kamaitachi was so much fun. Elgin got the win after countering a Meteora attempt from the top rope by Kamaitachi into an Alabama Slam/Powerbomb combo. Good stuff here with both guys having very solid performances.
Steve: I really liked this match a lot. If I had one gripe with the match it’s that Kamaitachi’s approach to a good portion of the match was to work Elgin’s legs to try to get an advantage over the bigger guy but it was never really sold well by Elgin. Maybe they story was Elgin’s super legs. Just a small nit pick though. This was a really good match.
Mark Andrews vs. Marty Scurll
Steve: I thought this was a pretty good match overall but it really felt like it could have been a good five to ten minutes shorter. I think it lasted something like 25 minutes. The match was back and forth to start but once Scurll gained control he controlled most of the rest of the match. Anytime Andrews would start to make a comeback, Scurll would regain control, usually through dirty tricks. Andrews hit three consecutive tope con giros then missed a shooting star press. Scurll got Andrews to submit via the chicken wing. Lots of good stuff in the match, but like I said they could have tightened it up and cut a good amount of time out and it would have been much better. This actually was named May’s Southern California match of the month, so maybe live it was a lot better. I thought a couple matches on the show were better.
Andrew: I agree with my esteemed colleague that the match could’ve been shorter, but I actually enjoyed this more than Scurll’s usual PWG outings. Mark Andrews is pretty awesome in PWG and I really enjoy watching him perform. Good stuff here. There was also a funny moment where the ringside cameraman slipped and fell on his ass while running at ringside.
Andrew Everett vs. Trevor Lee
Andrew: This started out with Trevor Lee referencing him and Everett being TNA guys to draw heat. Everett, for some reason, played it up and acted heelish before Lee cheap shotted him. The match started out with some fast paced action with flips and dives, then it slowed down. Some of the spots looked way too overly choreographed at some points. Everett badly botched a dive attempt where he tried to run up to the top rope and hit a 360 corkscrew plancha. The crowd was pretty dead in the middle of this, even when Everett was doing flippy shit. They did come alive when Everett hit a lighting fixture above the ring with a shooting star press. The crowd really wasn’t into this, and neither was I. There was a cool sequence when Trevor Lee landed on his feet after a top rope hurricanrana attempt by Andrew Everett, only to end up being spiked on his head by a standing rana from Everett. Everett hit a 630 on Trevor Lee shortly after for a nearfall. Lee got the win after countering a springboard move by Everett with a Small Package Driver. The closing moments of the match were really fun, but overall this was very underwhelming.
Steve: These guys have probably faced each other a hundred times and the way they were doing their reversals with how fast and smooth they were you could tell they had a ton of familiarity. I thought this was a pretty good match and the ending sequence was especially good.
Andrew: According to our good friends at Cagematch.net’s database, they’ve had eight singles matches against each other, and two more after this. They’ve also worked with each other, as partners or opponents, about 35 times if Cagematch.net is accurate.
Jeff Cobb vs. Chris Hero
Steve: The opening sequence here was probably the best single sequence of any match in PWG this year. No matter what Hero and Cobb did after that opening, everyone who saw this match was going to think this was a great match just based on the start. Jeff Cobb tossed Hero around like it was nothing and established himself to the crowd as an absolute monster within just a matter of minutes. This was the perfect way to establish Cobb. After that Hero actually controlled the rest of the match. There was a sequence where Hero hit a piledriver on Cobb and Cobb just got up and no sold it and pointed to his super strong neck that had the crowd going crazy. Hero eventually got the win having had to have hit five rolling elbows on Cobb to secure the pin. This was my match of the night. Great stuff. Worth going out of your way to see this match. I think Hero’s streak of not having a bad match is at something like 12 years now.
Andrew: This match was fucking awesome. The way Cobb tossed Hero around like he wasn’t shit was so crazy. I honestly feel like this is a legitimate Match Of The Year contender here in SoCal. PWG using Cobb is awesome, and I hope he gets a great showing at the 2016 Battle of Los Angeles.
Drew Galloway vs. Michael Elgin
Andrew: This was supposed to be Drew Galloway vs. Brian Cage. Before the match, Galloway cut a promo on Cage and says stuff. He made an open challenge to anyone in the back, but we already know Michael Elgin is accepting the challenge since the prematch graphic spoiled it. So yeah, Elgin came out, and Galloway asked him if he’s “Big Mike, or Big Pussy?” They do some brawling outside of the ring for awhile during the early portion of the match with Elgin getting the upper hand. When they got back in the ring, Galloway took control on offense and started working over Elgin’s leg. The crowd was pretty dead for this, and understandably so as there wasn’t a lot of action going on early in the match. Despite the crowd being dead for this, Elgin’s performance in this was pretty good in this match, as he displayed some cool offense and threw Galloway around like it was nothing. Sadly, the fans thought antics involving Justin Borden was more worthy of a reaction than Elgin’s cool offense. Fuck this crowd. Elgin hit an Avalanche Death Valley Driver on Galloway which was pretty cool. Galloway got the win after hitting a Double Arm DDT on Elgin. This match was ok and would’ve been better in front of a crowd that wasn’t so shitty.
I feel like Michael Elgin should’ve been ranked higher in the May 2016 rankings based on his performance on this show. Yeah.
Steve: I enjoyed this match. The crowd was probably dead because if I remember there was a heat wave going on when this show happened, and nothing was going to top the match that came before. Elgin was the MVP of the night with two good matches.
Roderick Strong vs. Sami Callihan
Steve: I liked most of this match a lot and the biggest reason I liked it is because they did a match that was different than all of the rest of the matches on the show. PWG has the best wrestling in the world, but at times a lot of it starts to look the same. The match was pretty brutal at times and the two of them seemed to match up well against each other. I wasn’t a fan of all of the interference at the end, especially as it seems like it was to setup a match that will likely never happen. Strong won with the End of Heartache.
Andrew: While I agree with Steve that PWG’s match start to look the same now and this stood out, but Sami Callihan is just, ugh. He still looks like a fat scene girl (unrelated note, shout out to the guys over at MVZone). Adam Cole got involved, and Dalton Castle came out to stop him. After the match, Sami kissed Dalton on the mouth twice, and it got a bigger pop than anything in the match. Ugh again.
Final Thoughts
Steve: I thought this was a pretty good show. PWG was limited due to a lot of regulars being hurt like Zack Sabre Jr. or being in Japan for the Best of the Super Juniors but the show they put together was good. Kamaitachi was impressive in his debut and Cobb had a debut that will probably be talked about for a long time. I thought Cobb and Hero had the match of the night followed by Elgin and Kamaitachi. I’d recommend buying this DVD for sure.
Andrew: Despite all the setbacks, this was a pretty good showing from PWG. Cobb had a great debut in his match with Chris Hero. Both guys really tore the house down. Kamaitachi also had a really good debut here, and I could see him becoming like Akira Tozawa was when he had his American excursion between 2010-2011.Hopefully PWG can book him more often while he’s in the continent. Elgin was the definite MVP of this show for sure. Overall, the show was as good as Bowie was. I’ve felt like PWG in 2016 has been underwhelming, sorta like how UFC 200 was, but this was a solid show.
PWG’s Prince is available at the official PWG website and on Highspots.com.
The crowd was shit during Galloway/Elgin. I remember being there and it being the most detached PWG crowd I’ve seen. It was also starting to spread (At least around the podcasters that have the special red key to meet him, instead of us muggles) that Alberto Del Rio and Paige were behind the curtain. So then people like Hot Tub were going back and forth into the entrance and really detracting from the show. PWG last year was phenominal, but the crowd has nosedived in terms of obnoxiousness
glad you’re annoyed by this not like you can do anything about it but cry