This past Friday, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla held what may be their final event at American Legion #308 in Reseda, and what was Keith Lee’s last event with the promotion. The event, titled Bask in His Glory in honor of Keith Lee, was also set to feature the first time WALTER would defend the PWG World title and see if he could become only the second wrestler to have a successful title defense in the last year.
The show started with Excalibur in the ring, and he has been anointed Prince of Reseda since we last saw him. He mentioned that they had no updates on the buildings status, so they still didn’t know if this would be the last show in Reseda, but they would be running at the Globe in Los Angeles for their next shows in July in September.
Tyler Bateman over Andy Brown [13’17]
Andy Brown was a late replacement for Trevor Lee, who was out with a foot injury. Brown has really been on fire lately with a string of really good matches. He got a nice reaction coming out. They had a good match that was built around a lot of strikes by both wrestlers. I thought Tyler Bateman had some good elbows and forearms in this. The match suffered from some pacing problems but it was still a good match. Bateman won with a spinning tombstone.
Rating: ***
Rey Horus over Jake Atlas [14’03]
Jake Atlas came out in full heel mode. They really went all out in just putting on an exhibition of what they could do and the opening half was nuts. Both Atlas and Horus did stuff I had never seen either do before. Atlas did a springboard Twisted Bliss to the outside that was absolutely crazy. Horus won with a tornado DDT.
Rating: *** 3/4
Bandido over Robbie Eagles [13’37]
This was crazy. Both Bandido and Eagles have been great additions to PWG this year. Both are so fun to watch. This was super fast paced with non-stop action. There was a lot of dives and innovative offense. The finish saw Bandido put Eagles in a modified torture rack on the second rope and hit him with a modified sort of Falcon Arrow. This was excellent.
Rating: **** 1/2
Adam Brooks over Keith Lee [20’43]
This was a really good big guy versus smaller guy match. Lee did his pounce and Brooks may be the record for farthest thrown on it. Lee went for the Ground Zero but Brooks grabbed the ref knocking him down, then hit Lee with a low blow followed by a senton bomb for the win.
Rating: *** 3/4
After the match Keith Lee cuts a promo thanking the PWG fans and talked about what it meant to him to have possibly the last show in this buildiung named in his honor. He mentioned how he’s had a bad month because for some reason he keeps losing all his matches everywhere.
Jonah Rock over Timothy Thatcher [13’08]
Jonah Rock is probably the biggest heel in PWG right now behind Sammy Guevara. He got a ton of heat coming out here. This was really intense. Thatcher had a bunch of stiff looking strikes and used a lot submission offense as you’d expect. Rock hit a chair shot on Thatcher in the crowd at one point that sounded like a shotgun going off despite the plastic chairs. Rock won with a frog splash. I thought this was really good.
Rating: *** 1/2
Matthew Riddle over David Starr [18’22]
Legion Larry started dancing when David Starr’s music hit. I know these two have wrestled before, but I haven’t seen any of their previous matches. I thought they had good chemistry and told a nice story with this match. Riddle won with a Gotch tombstone off the second rope. This was great.
Rating: *** 3/4
WALTER over Sammy Guevara to retain the PWG World Championship [17’17]
This took a little time to build up but ended up being great. The story of the match was pretty much WALTER wanting to kill Guevara with chops while Guevara wanted to take out WALTER’s knees. Guevara’s chest looked nasty and appeared to be turning black, while WALTER’s knee was all bruised up by the end too. Guevara went for a shooting star at one point that WALTER caught him and made him pay. The match ended when WALTER held Guevara’s wrist, gave him a couple more hard chops and then destroyed him with a lariat. This was excellent.
Rating: ****
This was another really good show from PWG, which seems to be in a transition period. I mentioned this before the show, but the wrestlers appearing on Bask in His Glory averaged six matches in PWG between them. That is compared to Friday night’s NXT house show where the wrestlers there averaged fourteen matches in PWG between them.
As for the American Legion, it seems early to write too much of a good bye to it, as we may be sitting in it again come October, but if this was the last show there it seemed fitting to end it with what is really the new generation of PWG, making the ending sort of a beginning at the same time. None of this was planned, as the show was booked before they knew it was the last show, but it worked out nicely.
PWG could have left there at any point, as they’ve long outgrown the building, but they never did because all that they’ve wanted is to have the best possible wrestling show and weren’t interested in just making as much money as possible. I think a lot of people realized that, and the building has been a constant reminder of that.
Ultimately the thing that made the American Legion a special place is the people who show up there. The fans, the PWG staff, and the wrestlers.
The company has raised their prices from $20 a ticket less than ten years ago to $100 for front row and $80 for standing room only. So I think it’s far more reasonable to assume PWG not leaving Reseda was a move based out of laziness rather than “just making as much money as possible”. That statement makes them sound sort of benevolent, and their business style is far from that. But idk talk to me in 5 years when people are paying $150 for standing room tickets, and tell me more about how “not greedy” the company is.
Costs have gone up by a ton over that same 10 year period. They weren’t flying in nearly an entire roster, a good percentage from overseas, a decade ago.
The fly in thing is an arguable point, as I believe this show had 11 fly ins. Since I’m not sure exactely when they stopped selling tickets at $20, I decided to compare it to an event I’m certain was $20 a head from almost exactely ten years ago. “It’s It” was NOT a big show by PWG standards of the time, and had 6 fly ins. Taking place in June of 2008. Comparing it to other events around that time 6 seems like an average of fly ins for the promotion at that time. Also keep in mind PWG shows never sold out at this time.
Also $20 in 2008 adjusted for inflation is $23.33 in 2018. A far cry from $80-$100.
Just leaving that info here, I’m happy PWG has reached the ultra hot level of success no other promtion has ever reached in California, and ai think they provide a lot to this industry. BUT they are more lazy than anything when it concerns the venue they decide to use. And I think they do milk their fans a LOT on ticket cost, and yet are so over, no one thinks to call them in it.
To act like PWG is trying to milk fans with ticket prices by comparing what they charged 10 years ago is just absurd. When PWG ticket prices were $20 in 2008, the company was losing money. Super Dragon was taking money from out of his own pocket to keep running shows. This was with less fly ins and less costly talent. If they tried to charge less these days while maintaining cards full of internationally known talent, there would be no way they would still be in business.
As someone who communicates with promoters a lot and has talked costs with shows that have way less fly-in performers than PWG, I can safely tell you that PWG charging $80-$100 is extremely reasonable for the product they have now. I’m not going to get into an argument about their possible business practices and such, but to “call out” PWG over this is just ignorance on your part.
So you know all the ins and outs of those fly ins back then? You know for a fact PWG covered their tickets and not the wrestlers? You know that PWG was turning a profit (Andrew below says otherwise, so again, check those “facts”)? You know no other shows were running or they had other business in town that might have covered their flight? You know how much all the booking fees are for current wrestlers and how much plane tickets cost and how those expenses are covered? Cool, can I hire you as my accountant because you must have a lot of experience.
lol why so angry? Why so quick to defend something you clearly know nothing about yourself? Think before you speak.
I guess I see things very differently from the rest of Socal, as is typically my nature. So I will no longer ask the question nobody else wants an answer to.
What we can agree on is the PWG staff have worked hard for fifteen years, and taken risk for the company to become as successful as they have. On top of that the staff is incredibly friendly, intelligent, and dedicated to producing the best pro wrestling in North America. They should be proud of what they’ve accomplished, and I think collectively we as a wrestling community should feel proud of them. One can critique, but certainly none of us truly understand what it took to get to this level. Kudos to them, and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.