PWG delivered yet another solid show on Saturday night, with an amazing six-man tag and one of the best angles I have ever seen in independent wrestling. An awesome effort that, in my mind, solidifies PWG as Promtion of the Year.
PWG’s “Pimpin’ in High Places” on 12/13/03 in Los Angeles, CA
Attendance: 137
Doors opened after 8 and the show finally got started around 8:30. Not that big of a deal as people were still filtering in.
When the show finally started, Paul T. sauntered to the ring with a six-pack and started fueling Angry Fan for the rest of the night. Paul gets on the mic and is about to run-down the card when he notices Billy in the crowd and proceeds to rip the shit out of him before Angry Fan takes over. This right here is a great example of how the night would progress, with rabid fans just all out exploding.
Puma over Phoenix Star & Zokre
A fantastic opener that just went too short. I am remiss in saying this, but this was only my second time having seen Phoenix Star or Zokre, and I now regret that fact. Those guys are fucking amazing, and so is Puma, who has improved a bunch from some of the tapes I’ve seen him in. Very hot action to start the night, and the spot that I just cannot get out of my head was when Zokre dove through the ropes, caught himself, pulled back in and delivered a rana to Phoenix Star, all in one fluid motion. In the midst of the chaos, Puma planted Phoenix Star with a Tombstone to pick up the victory. A wonderful opener that I wish would have gone about double the time.
Havana Pitbulls over Aerial Express
This was my first time seeing the AXP together, and like with Star & Zokre, I’m kicking myself over this fact. I have heard many great things about the Pitbulls, and they did not disappoint in any way, shape, or form. I could re-hash the same things that the immortal Scrub has said in his review, but all of it holds true. I am truly amazed by Quicksilver’s ability to take a pounding, as he suffered the vicious strikes of the Cubans for about 70% of the match. Match started to turn once AXP took to, you guessed it, the air. I like how they built nicely to the hot tag to Scorp, who came in and cleaned house. The finish came with a very vicious backbreaker to ‘Silver who was held in place as the other Pitbull dropped a knee across his throat – fucking vicious. This was my match of the night as it was very fluid, more so than the main event, and built nicely to a strong finish. Pitbulls received a well-deserved “Welcome Back” chant and one of the Pitbulls expressed his love for SoCal fans. I can’t wait for next month and the tag tourney to see these guys in action again.
Excalibur over Chris Bosh via DQ to win a Hair vs. Hair match
People have been hating on Bosh as of late, but after this match, I don’t know why you would. Excalibur was definitely on his game tonight, hitting some very nice submissions on Bosh. It was amazing how even though Excalibur cheated in the beginning of the match, the crowd still loved him and was all over Bosh. Makes sense why Bosh turned heel at the end of the match, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I really loved how they went through the motions of their feud in the course of the match, by having Excalibur completely dominate Bosh and have it appear as if he KO’d him again. Excalibur capped off his offense with his new Galactica Phantom that he used at the last show to absolutely murder Bosh. Bosh kicked out and then responded with quite possibly the most insane and brutal piledriver I have ever seen. I’ve been informed that it’s called a Steiner Screw Driver, but basically, Bosh set Excalibur up for a brainbuster and spiked him with a driver from that position, just flat out distrurbing. Excalibur managed to roll out of the ring, where Bosh followed, only to get frustrated by the ref. Bosh planted the ref and proceeded to destroy Excalibur with a bucket. Once Hernandez regained conciousness, he DQ’s Bosh to give Excalibur the win.
Post match, Bosh continued to beat down Excalibur, which brought out the AXP to apparently make the save. They helped Excalibur up, only to plant him with a dropkick/piledriver combination (Excalibur’s neck has got to be hurting at this point). All three guys in the ring then got on the mic and just ripped the shit out of PWG and the PWG six. I had heard that Sky had some legit heat with Dragon, and so they blended the work-shiot nature of this promo perfectly. Disco & Dragon had finally had enough and they exploded out of the dressing room to assault the AXP and Bosh. Dragon came out swining with a brick, which was a great touch that put over the intensity of the run-in. All in all, a very well done angle that had the crowd absolutely buzzing and stunned. A fantastic angle, well done PWG.
The Ballard Bros. over Jardi Frantz & M-Dogg
This was an interesting match-up because of the interaction between the Frantz the stoner and M-Dogg the straight-edge. From the very start, the Ballards tried to instigate turmoil in the ranks of M-Dogg & Jardi, which eventually came to fruitition at the end of the match. M-Dogg & Jardi both looked better in this showing than in their match from “Inch”. The Ballards looked as good as always, and are true pros, as evidenced by one of them getting spiked in a blown spot by MDogg, but still had the presence of mind to break up the pin. The play between Jardi & MDogg came to a head at the end, after several instances in which Jardi had been “too stoned” to be of any use. Finish came when MDogg got frustrated and gave Jardi a forearm only to get rolled up from behind to lose the match. Post-match, Jardi & MDogg brawled a bit, and it will be interesting to see how they mesh at the Tag Tourney. A pretty good match and a nice way to send things into intermission.
Intermission is noteworthy for two reasons. Reason number one is that TARO was signing 8X10’s of himself unmasked. Reason number two is that TARO decided to try out his new “hip-hop” and played the Randy Savage CD. Quite possibly the most entertaining intermission I’ve ever had, Savage really should have listenened to the CD before he released it.
Samoa Joe over BJ Whitmer
This was the weakest match on the card, but not because of work. The wrestling of the match was good as always, but BJ really brought nothing to the table in my eyes. Maybe it was just because the crowd had just come out of intermission, but no one seemed to give a shit about BJ. Whitmer didn’t help things as he wrestled like the crowd didn’t exist at all. People only really started to get interested in the match once Joe started whooping the crap out of BJ. After some stiff strikes, Joe locked BJ in an arm-bar to make him tap. A good match work-wise, but lacking in heat.
At this point, Paul T came out and revealed the line-up for the Tag Tournament next month. I could give the run-down of the list, or you could go to prowrestlingguerrilla.com to check or look at the boards on SCU. At any rate, the teams sound really good and this could very easily be PWG”s biggest show to date.
Adam Pearce, Colt Cabana, & Super Dragon over Frankie Kazarian, Joey Ryan, & CM Punk
This match was the best six-man tag I have ever had the priviledge of seeing. Each man was came out separately and only once everyone had made their way to the ring, were formal ring introductions made. The tension was built nicely just during the time it took for all of this to pass. Once things got underway, the heels kept tagging in and out, trying to frustrate the faces. Eventually, things got settled and all of the men started with basic mat-work. Gradually, the must-see combinations took place (Pearce/Frankie & Dragon/Joey)and things gradually picked up. It made sense for the heels to dominate Joey since he is still not yet viewed as a true main-eventer, but after his showings in PWG, there is absolutely no reason for this to be true. Once Joey tagged out, all hell broke loose and the insanity commenced. Spot after spot was hit, and there was just too much to mention. The two most note-worthy spots in my opinion were a Punk’s Shining Wizard off of Pearce’s back I believe. As well, later on, Cabana had Punk up to receive a flying lariat from Dragon, but once Dragon hit, the momentum carried Punk through and he spiked Cabana with a gross reverse rana. The finish finally came when Adam Pearce planted Frankie Kazaraian on the championship belt with a stiff pile-driver to pick up the win by cheating. A great blow-off to the main-event, and a perfect way to send the Frankie/Pearce feud into overdrive. Post-match, they sold Frankie being injured by Pearce’s Cabana by having him taken out on a make-shift stretcher. Overall, this match was really good, but at times it got too clustered for its own good and there were some points when things got a little sloppy. Still a wonderful match regardless.
All in all, PWG has totally got their shit together. They delivered a solid night of action despite only having six matches and they have two great angles with the Bosh & AXP stuff as well as the Frankie/Pearce story. The tag tournament in January looks to be outstanding and as far as I can tell, PWG is set to continue impressing us with some of the best wrestling going on right now.
