Once again, we are back with a review of PWG All Star Weekend 12 Night 2, featuring the highly anticipated PWG World Championship match featuring champion Roderick Strong defending the PWG World Championship against Zack Sabre Jr. Also, The Young Bucks defend the PWG World Tag Team Championship against reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly).
Chuck Taylor vs. Marty Scurll
Steve: Excalibur is on commentary and ring announcing duties. He is truly the glue that holds this whole thing together. I thought this was a really good match to start the show. Marty Scurll is one of the best wrestlers in the indies today, and I’d go as far to say he is the best technical wrestler in PWG not named Zack Sabre Jr. Chuck Taylor is consistently good in PWG as well. There was a lot of really good mat wrestling in the match, and Scurll is so smooth in his transitions. There was a lot of good back and forth action with Scurll doing a great job of playing the villain that he is. Towards the end there was a really nice sequence where Taylor went for a suplex and Scurll reversed into a chickenwing. Taylor gets the win to keep his streak alive when he hits a superkick then the Awful Waffle.
Andrew: I hope Chuck becomes PWG World Champion. He’s pretty underrated and I think he could be a good champion for PWG. This was a good match. The corner German suplex spot thing that Chuck Taylor does is really cool. Hopefully this push for Chuck Taylor continues.
Mark Andrews vs. Evil Uno
Andrew: This started out with Uno using his size and power advantage on Andrews, and Andrews using his speed advantage to get the better of Uno at times. Andrews and Uno botched a Quesedora spot early on, but they recovered nicely. The pacing at the start of the match was pretty slow, and I couldn’t get into the match. There was a sick spot where Uno hit a spinebuster on Andrews on the ring apron when they were on the outside. Uno controlled the match for a bit, and bit him on the dick at one point. Even though it got a reaction, that was fucking stupid. Uno continued attacking Andrews’ balls. Andrews ended up making a comeback full of flippy combos and stuff, including a nice standing Sky Twister. Uno makes a comeback, and eventually they did a bunch of counters. Uno was good at basing for Andrews’ offense. Uno hit a sick Powerbomb counter into a Piledriver combo after Andrews tried going for a springboard rana from the ring apron. Uno went back to attacking Andrews’ balls, and then Mark Andrews hit a double stomp on Uno’s balls, followed by a Shooting Star Press for the win. The first half the match sucked, and the ball comedy was annoying. Aside from that, the few moments that had cool action were fun. Still, I thought this match was “meh” by PWG-standards, and “alright” by SoCal Indy-standards.
Steve: Uno was actually in control most of this match, using a lot of dirty tricks like low blows to keep momentum in his favor. I thought the match was pretty good, but definitely not one of my favorite matches on the show.
Drew Galloway vs. Trevor Lee
Steve: I really liked this match. Lee started off by saying how much better he and Galloway were because they are TNA stars.Galloway really dominated early on, brawling all over the place. At one point he tossed Lee into the wall.As they got back to the ring Lee was able to hit a drop kick for an advantage and actually got Galloway stuck between the ring and the ring skirt. Lee got a huge dead lift German suplex on Galloway too. Man, if these guys were able to wrestle like this on TNA people would be talking about TNA for something other than Brother Nero. Who am I kidding? Brother Nero would still be the greatest wrestling angle of our generation. There was a lot of great stiff back and forth action in the match. Galloway dominated the end of the match with Lee barely surving till he was able to get a surprise small package for the win.
Andrew: The Broken Matt vs. Brother Nero angle is the greatest thing to ever happen to wrestling wrestling.
I honestly love Trevor Lee’s shit talk antics. He comes off as a genuine douche, making it easy for the crowd to hate him. I loved the comments made by Excalibur and Chuck Taylor when the crowd was chanting “Fuck TNA” during the match. I enjoy seeing Galloway throwing dudes around in PWG, and I agree with Steve about letting them do this stuff in TNA. The match itself was good and worth checking out. Trevor Lee is awesome.
Death By Elbow (Chris Hero vs. JT Dunn) vs. Ricochet & Matt Sydal
Andrew: I really hate the “ALL THESE GUYS” chant. It might be the most annoying wrestling chant of all time next to “PLEASE DON’T STOP” and “YOU STILL GOT IT.” There were several moments where I just hated this crowd. It’s like, holy shit guys, enough with the “FUCK THAT GUY” chants because nobody really gives a fuck and you’re taking away from the match, you cunts. Stupid fucking drunken hipsters.
With that little tangent out of the way, we have JT Dunn making his PWG debut in this match. I had no idea who he was, and this was my first time seeing him. He’s definitely got a Lil’ Hero vibe to him. Hero and Ricochet had a really nice opening exchange in between a bunch of stupid shenanigans. Death By Elbow worked over Ricochet to start the match, and the pacing was SLOW. Ricochet makes a comeback and he and Dunn did a strike exchange full of leg slaps and hand clap sound effects and got a hot tag on Sydal. The action picks up, and everyone did running ranas on each other. The fans went nuts when Chris Hero did one, mostly because he’s a fat guy who moves like an anorexic methhead. The match goes on and there’s more leg slaps/hand clap strikes, then Ricochet and Sydal worked over Dunn. Hero ended up getting a hot tag and had an ok sequence with Ricochet. Hero was setting up to go for a dive on Matt Sydal as he was being held by Dunn, but Hero stopped when Sydal got away, followed by Ricochet hitting a dive over Hero onto Dunn on the outside. They do some sequences before going to the finishing stretch that featured a few minutes of moves and spots before Sydal and Ricochet got the win. This match was “ok” by PWG-standards, and “pretty good” by SoCal-Indy standards. It could’ve been so much better had the pacing been better. The crowd was annoying in this too.
Steve: I too thought the pacing was a little slow to start, but overall I really loved this match. Dunn had a great PWG debut. Chris Hero never has a bad match. I can’t remember a single one. Ricochet and Sydal were great as always. If we were doing star ratings, I’d rate this match 4 stars, second best match on the show.
Adam Cole vs. Trent?
Steve: Adam Cole superkicks Trent? before the bell rings. Trent? is a great wrestler, but his name makes Word always want to capitalize the next word after you type it. I don’t blame him though. I blame Word. Cole actually maintains control for a bit but stops to taunt allowing Trent? to hit a tope suicida. At one point Cole his a crazy piledriver on Trent? on the ring apron. As Trent? wasn’t facing a much bigger opponent like the last few shows, he dot to show a lot more offense, but still managed to get pretty well killed like normal too. Cole hits a crazy Avalanche Panama Sunrise but Trent? Counters it into a crucifix for the win. Really good match, but both guys had better matches on night one.
Andrew: Trent? has no regard for his own well being, and I love him for that. Dude always takes crazy ass bumps in PWG. I thought this match was a better showing for Adam Cole than his Night 1 performance against Zack Sabre Jr., as hard as that might be to believe. The finish was really cool. Check this match out if you guys have the chance.
PWG World Tag Team Championship Match: The Young Bucks (Nick & Matt Jackson) (c) vs. reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish)
Andrew: I’ve seen some matches these guys had with each other in ROH and really enjoyed those matches. This match started boring, rand hen they did some goofy dick related antics. The Bucks ended up working over reDRagon for awhile, and then they did more dick based comedy. The match gained some steam when reDRagon did some offense after the Bucks were in control. The crowd was dead in this when there wasn’t stupid shit going on. Probably because this match was SLOW at various points. It seriously feels like every PWG match goes by the same boring formula now. Antics, slowness to start, shenanigans, some spots here and there, more slowness, and then a bunch of spots in the last few minutes in a match that should’ve been five minutes shorter. That’s how this match felt. Slow, boring shit, antics, and then spots. The only difference here is they did some stupid spot with Axe Body Spray at one point that the crowd didn’t give a shit about. After that they did a bunch of stupid looking, overly-choreographed spots. There was a cool spot where Nick Jackson hit a 450 Splash on Kyle O’Reilly when he had Matt Jackson in a standing guillotine choke.
Honestly, if you have the chance to see any of their ROH matches, watch those instead of this. By PWG-standards, I thought this was very mediocre. By SoCal Indy-standards, it was good for what it was, but this just didn’t work here. Bucks got the win after hitting a bunch of leg slap super kicks, followed by More Bang For Your Buck on Bobby Fish. This crowd seriously sucked for this one too.
Steve: I really liked this match personally. The tag match on night one was a lot better, but this was pretty good. I also agree though that this wasn’t as good as the matches they’ve had in Ring of Honor.
PWG World Championship Match; Roderick Strong (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Steve: This is the match PWG has been building to for almost a year. Their match against each other at “Don’t Sweat the Technique” was absolutely fantastic. The match starts with Roddy requesting Justin Borden as the ref instead of Rick Knox leading to Knox superkicking Justin. I thought the stalling at the start seemed a little excessive, but once the match got going it was great. This was a great back and forth match. You could tell from the crowd nearly everyone in the building wanted Zack Sabre Jr. to win. I will say that I thought their previous match was a little better, but this was easily my match of the night. The finish was fantastic with Zack hitting a series of uppercuts, but then he takes a Jumping Knee which leads to him taking Roddy’s finisher, the End of Heartache. Zack kicks out! Roddy gets Zack to the top rope but Zack drops and gives him a European Uppercut. It looks like Zack is going to go for a superplex, but hits an avalanche flipping cross armbreaker. Roddy reaches for the ropes but just can’t quite get there. Zack turns the armbar into a stretch muffler and gets Roddy to tap. We have a new PWG champion. The crowd goes insane. This was a great match and definitely worth going out of your way to see.
Andrew: I saw the match from “Don’t Sweat the Technique” awhile ago, and it was amazing. I thought this match was good, but it also felt too long. The middle part of the match felt pretty boring at times, but the reaction to the ending of the match was fantastic. I thought it could’ve been better had it been about 15 minutes of intense, hard hitting action. Still while this match was good, the finish was a special moment.
Final Thoughts
Andrew: I wasn’t really into this show. I don’t know why, but PWG in 2016 just isn’t my thing. Most of the matches feel the same or just drag on too much, and the crowds are pretty irritating at times. Sabre’s title win is pretty much the main reason to watch this show. I feel like everything else that is seen here could be seen on plenty of other shows.
Steve: I thought night one was the best top to bottom wrestling show of 2016 so far and nothing is even close. Night two was really good as well, but despite what will be one of the greatest moments of 2016 for PWG in Zack Sabre Jr. winning the title, the overall show is overshadowed by night one. Still a very good show and worth watching. Like most PWG shows there wasn’t a bad match on the show.
PWG’s All Star Weekend 12 Night 2 is available at the official PWG website and on Highspots.com on DVD and Blu-Ray.
