After a great night one, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla came back with another fantastic show for night two of All Star Weekend 13. While I don’t think night two was as good match for match as night one, it featured a great main event and a match that I feel is among the top three to ever take place in the promotion.
Jonah Rock over Adam Brooks [10’43]
This was really good. They played up the big man versus little man angle with Brooks using his speed to counter Rock’s power (though not to the extent of Cage and Webster on night one). I’m not sure how much they’ve worked together in Australia, but they had good chemistry in this. Rock won with a powerbomb from the ropes followed by a brainbuster.
Rating: *** 1/2
The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) over Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Haskins by submission [17’44]
This was excellent but I felt they went a little over board on the comedy. The first part of the match saw Haskins and Webster doing the “too sweet” and “suck it” to taunt the Bucks, then trying to force the Bucks to do a “too sweet.” At one point Webster even came in the ring with a helmet on to avoid the superkicks. They did the spot where the crowd calls out for more and more boots and Marty Scurll came out when they got to four boots. They then called for six and Rick Knox was pulled into the action. All four guys looked great in this. The Bucks won with a Meltzer Driver on Haskins followed by double sharpshooters.
Rating: ****
Marty Scurll over Joey Janela by submission [14’12]
This started out with Scurll calling Joey Janela a backyarder and claiming he was beneath him. Janela took control and yelled out a list of wrestlers who started as backyarders. Later when Scrull had a submission on Janela he said that “they don’t teach counters in the backyard.” Once this got going it pretty good. They had set up four chairs with their backs together like an A and Janela took a bump on that followed by Scurll putting on the chickenwing to get the win.
Rating: *** 1/2
WALTER over Zack Sabre Jr by submission [20’04]
WALTER was absolutely destroying Sabre with chops throughout this match. Every time he hit a chop the sound was so loud and half the crowd is just cringing. Ricochet’s selling the night before really helped build up the devastation of these chops as well. Sabre was using a ton of stiff offense of his own. WALTER was under the bottom rope and Sabre was just stomping his face off. Sabre would try to get submissions on WALTER but WALTER was able to just keep over powering out of them. It was paced great and was just brutal throughout. In a reverse of WALTER’s night one match where Ricochet turned a choke into a bridging pin, WALTER turned Sabre’s bridging pin into a choke and got him to tap. This was the best match I’ve seen live this year, and if the year ended today would be my pick for the Southern California match of the year. I’d place it in my three favorite PWG matches ever with Steen and Generico from Steen Wolf and Worlds Cutest Tag Team versus the Young Bucks, though on a technical level it was better than both.
Rating: *****
Trent? over Matt Sydal and Rey Horus [16’59]
With Travis Banks off the shows Trent? was added to this to make it a three-way. It was going to be hard to top the three-way from the night before that this was inevitably going to be compared to. This was good, but there were a few sloppy moments that brought it down some. Trent? hit the Dudebuster on Sydal to get the win.
Rating: *** 1/2
Ricochet over Chuck Taylor to win the PWG World Championship [31’00]
There was a lot of talk going around about Ricochet going to WWE and even talk about this being his last PWG show which had a lot of people (myself included) thinking Chuck Was going to retain here. Ricochet worked more of heel style the night before and even hit low blows on WALTER. About 17 minutes into the match referee Rick Knox took a ref bump, Ricochet hit a low blow and a belt shot on Taylor and Justin Borden came out and counted the pin and Ricochet was declared the winner and new champion. Rick Knox got up and reversed it and restarted the match. I think especially after this everyone was convinced Taylor would now take the win. Usually when these type of things happen in a match the face pretty quickly gets the pin after. Not here. They went another 14 minutes. Playing off the match where he won the the title when Sabre Jr. removed the bottom rope to stop Taylor from rope breaking his submissions, Taylor removed the tope rope to try and stop Ricochet’s aerial attacks.
It didn’t work. Instead Ricochet was hitting moves off the second rope, including a 450 and a Shooting Star Press for near falls. At one point they teased a hammer being used (they couldn’t find the belt with all the ropes in the ring) and Ricochet hit another low blow. Eventually Ricochet hit the King’s Landing and got the pin. After the match Ricochet said getting the belt proves “daddy isn’t going anywhere.”
This was great. I know a few people felt that it was over booked, but PWG really never does matches like this so it came across fresh and they really managed to surprise people with the outcome. It also did a great job of playing off previous matches making it feel more like the climax of a story rather than a self contained match.
Rating: **** 1/2
All Star Weekend 13 ended up being two really great shows and a great end to a fantastic year by PWG. With the string of great shows PWG has had this year, 2017 will have to go down as one of, if not the best years in the promotion’s history. I really appreciated how the two shows felt like two parts to one show with matches playing off each other instead of it feeling like two separate shows. Both nights of All Star Weekend 13 are worth checking out on video.
The DVD and Blu Ray is available for preorder now from PWG and Highspots.
