The PWG Thread

[damasta414]

Been to a lot of wrestling shows in my life but PWG BOLA Night 2 tonight was second to none. Pentagon and Drago vs Fenix and Aerostar and the Guerrilla Warfare main event tore down the house .

[DXvsNWO1994]

Here's how the brackets & 2nd round matches breakdown for tonight:

- Brian Cage vs. Biff Busick
- Will Ospreay vs. Pentagon Jr.

- Trevor Lee vs. Matt Sydal
- Marty Scurll vs. Chris Hero

- Jack Evans vs. Tommy End
- "Speedball" Mike Bailey vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

[187_Joeism]

Sabre vs Trevor Lee vs Pentagon Jr./Biff Busick is my pick for the finals

[supersonic]

Meltzer on Night 1:

- Super show, main event, Sydal vs. Fenix, Andrews vs. Ospreay and Busick vs. Everett were the best matches but everything was good. Lots of Pentagon Jr. T-shirts in the crowd.

- Melissa Santos of Lucha Underground was the ring announcer.

- Among those at the show were Lisa Varon, Konnan, Tom Lawlor, Marina Shafir (Four Horsewomen) and Rob Naylor.

Meltzer on Night 2:

This was among the best live shows I've seen. From a wrestling standpoint, this was better than even this year's WrestleMania, actaully by a pretty significant margin. Hero vs. Thatcher, the AAA tag match, Galloway vs. Bailey, Sabre vs. Ricochet and the main event were all tremendous, and also all completely different.

[DXvsNWO1994]

Looks like that match lineup I posted earlier was incorrect . I saw it floating around on Twitter and thought it was the actual lineup.

[supersonic]

Observer:

Due to the late breaking Snuka story and all the other news of the past week, we’ll have our coverage of the Battle of Los Angeles tournament in next week’s issue.

Zack Sabre Jr. won a three-way final over Speedball Mike Bailey and Chris Hero, with Bailey being eliminated first and then Sabre Jr. beating Hero by submission. This led to a post-match standoff between Sabre Jr. and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla champion Roderick Strong, to build a title match at a date yet to be announced.

The three shows all sold out within minutes to the American Legion Post in Reseda, CA, the 400-seat home of the promotion. I attended the first two shows. The second show was one of the best live pro wrestling shows I’ve ever attended when it came to match quality, with no matches being anything less than good and blow away bouts with Hero vs. Timothy Thatcher, Aero Star & Fenix vs. Pentagon Jr. & Drago, Bailey vs. Drew Galloway, Ricochet vs. Sabre Jr., and a street fight style main event with the Young Bucks & Super Dragon vs. Biff Busick & Andrew Everett & Trevor Lee. Others told me it was the best show in the 12-year history of the promotion.

The first night was excellent. The third night, which went five-and-a-half hours, I was told was not as good as the second night, but better than the first night.

While there was nothing that I’d rate as a match of the year qualifier, all three nights were loaded with **** matches with a wide variety of styles. Even more than a major New Japan show, you had a little bit of everything. You had top-tier level Lucha Libre from Fenix, catch almost shoot style with the world’s greatest facial expressions from Thatcher, hard hitting old school Johnny Valentine style from Hero, the best of modern technical style from Sabre Jr.; the best in kick-oriented offense from Bailey; Ray Stevens style little extra selling and crisp offense from Roderick Strong; Modernized Midnight Express style tag team wrestling from The Young Bucks; Super modern high flying from Matt Sydal; the single most gifted athletic performer in the business in Ricochet; and perhaps the best wrestler with three years or less experience in the business today in Will Ospreay of the U.K.

Like many thought at WrestleMania weekend, it was Hero vs. Thatcher who had the best match. The two gel perfectly with Hero’s offense ad Thatcher’s facial expressions selling.

[Mike0284]

[DXvsNWO1994]

[Northwoods_Nightmare]

What if Willie Mack makes a big return to lead the PWG roster against Mount Rushmore 2.0? I would enjoy that. I thought he had championship potential but after his push they never went anywhere with him. After his absence and comeback would be the perfect time to rectify that.

[DXvsNWO1994]

What if Willie Mack makes a big return to lead the PWG roster against Mount Rushmore 2.0? I would enjoy that. I thought he had championship potential but after his push they never went anywhere with him. After his absence and comeback would be the perfect time to rectify that.

I thought him losing his push was due to a disappointing match with Brian Cage, and Super Dragon wasn't happy about it. Plus, I don't think Willie Mack has even been booked in PWG this year, so that should say something.

[supersonic]

Observer:

If I was to give advice about promoting an independent wrestling show, I’d say, besides having talent that looks and can perform at a convincing level, you’d want to run a smooth show, start on time, don’t go too long and keep people out late, build the show to where you aren’t seeing guys kick out of everything in the opening match and burning the audience out early, make it easy and convenient to get tickets, and have a nice venue where it’s a comfortable experience to attend.

But like a lot of its wrestlers, the Southern-California based Pro Wrestling Guerrilla promotion violates almost every one of those things, but largely due to the quality of the talent, it just doesn’t matter.

PWG shows start an hour late, usually go until past midnight, getting tickets is next to impossible unless you know someone or you’re a keyboard master, and with 400 or so people in a small building, people are jammed in to where just trying to walk around the ring to the other side during intermission is a slow process. Known for $12 pitchers of beer, drinking is heavy, security is almost invisible and the building is jammed. Yet fan disturbances are rare, and I’ve never seen anything remotely close to one even threatening to happen live. Chants are unique, but if they are disrespectful, such as chanting “USA” in a match where the foreign talent is hard working, the chanter will get shouted down instantly.

At last week’s Battle of Los Angeles, the promotion’s biggest event of the year, it was three nights of being drenched for hours in sweat in a building that apparently had no air conditioning. But with hindsight, it’s just part of the atmosphere. There was too much great wrestling going on to give much thought to how uncomfortable and jammed you were for much of the night.

The small fan base knows the game. On the night tickets for the next show go on sale, the most ardent fans from all over the world have multiple devices ready and start logging in all at the same time, hoping one gets through. When they do, they purchase a ton of tickets, figuring getting rid of them is easy. You’ve got about three or four minutes to get tickets, or you’re SOL. Far more people probably fit into that category than those who get in. Another notable thing is that there are no free tickets as far as I know. My impression is that if you’re Ronda Rousey or Sofia Vegara, or Dorian Roldan, or Konnan, you paid for your tickets. On the third night, Max Landis, a regular fan who has done some pro wrestling videos, during intermission, ordered pizzas for everyone in the building.

At Battle of Los Angeles, I met people from all over the world, a ton who had been to Brooklyn the week before, some who had even been to the G-1 finals before that.

For the wrestlers, the common theme was this was the best crowd to perform in front of, but physically the hardest. It’s not so much that the crowd is demanding, because they really aren’t, but that the new talent works so hard to make a name that you have to put on a great match or you’ll get lost in the shuffle. But the wrestlers come from all over the world largely to get “discovered” so to speak, and that’s even a bigger deal today when the WWE mentality is to sign hot indie talent as opposed to the former idea that guys who worked indies learned a style they don’t want and they’d rather teach guys with athletic backgrounds from scratch.

The business is live gate oriented and even more DVD oriented. Based on what everyone says, relying on a DVD-based business in 2015 is a few years out-of-date, but the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply here because the product is so specialized, and really, so special.

So the axiom is, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. It’s really hard to know what the potential would be for PWG even as just the word-of-mouth promotion it is with no advertising past the web site and releasing matches on Twitter. Could they fill 2,000 seats? The answer is that we’ll probably never know.

8/30 report

I wasn’t at this show so these weren’t my ratings. They are from John Carey but he was pretty much in line with me on the first two nights. Unlike the first two nights, where the shows went until a little after 12:30 a.m. and I didn’t hear any complaints, with this show on a Sunday, a work night, and with a 5 p.m. start, people weren’t expecting it end at 11:30 p.m. Because of the length of the show, this will be the first-ever double disc DVD for night three. I was told this was better than night one, but not as good as night two. But unlike the first two nights, where nothing dragged and the show peaked at the end, here some of the matches went too long.

STAR RATINGS~!

Night 1
Brian Cage vs. Aero Star **1/2
Biff Busick vs. Andrew Everett ****
Mark Andrew vs. Will Ospreay ****1/4
Jack Evans & Angelico vs. Inner City Machine Guns ***1/4
Trent Baretta vs. Trevor Lee ***1/2
Drago vs. Pentagon, Jr. ***1/2
Fenix vs. Matt Sydal ****1/2
Roderick Strong & Young Bucks vs. Tommy End, Marty Scurll, & Zack Sabre, Jr. ****1/2

Night 2
Rich Swann vs. Marty Scurll ***1/2
Jack Evans vs. Angelico ***
Chris Hero vs. Timothy Thatcher ****1/2
Fenix & Aero Star vs. Drago & Pentagon, Jr. ****1/4
Drew Gulak vs. Tommy End ***1/4
Mike Bailey vs. Drew Galloway ****1/4
Ricochet vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. ****1/4
Young Bucks & Super Dragon vs. Biff Busick, Trevor Lee, & Andrew Everett ****1/2

Night 3 courtesy John Carey
Spoiler Free
Quarterfinals ***1/4, ***, ****1/4, ***3/4, ****, ****
Mt. Rushmore 2.0 Eight man tag ****
Semifinals ***3/4, ****, **3/4
Comedy Ten man tag ***1/2
Final ***3/4

Spoiler: show

Jack Evans vs. Brian Cage ***1/4
Trevor Lee vs. Marty Scurll ***
Chris Hero vs. Biff Busick ****1/4
Pentagon, Jr. vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. ***3/4
Mike Bailey vs. Tommy End ****
Will Ospreay vs. Matt Sydal ****
Mt. Rushmore 2.0 vs. Fenix, Angelico, & Inner City Machine Guns ****
Chris Hero vs. Jack Evans ***3/4
Mike Bailey vs. Will Ospreay ****
Marty Scurll vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. **3/4
Chuck Taylor, Trent Baretta, Drew Gulak, Drew Galloway, & Aero Star vs. Drago, Mark Andrews, Andrew Everett, Timothy Thatcher, & Tommaso Ciampa ***1/2
Chris Hero vs. Mike Bailey vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. ***3/4

[DXvsNWO1994]

[lariat_tubman]

I'm gonna call it - the PWG crowd has become too self aware for its own good.

[AndyDiaz]

PWG fucking rules! It's my mission to make out to a show sometime next year, no matter the expense.

[DBSommer]

Finally getting around to watching this year's DDT. Have no idea how so many teams that have good matches outside of PWG, had so many bad matches in it. And I thought last years was lackluster. It's like every match was a MOTYC compared to this one.

Out of Nowhere was good, though. But I'd advise skipping the DDT.

[DXvsNWO1994]

I still wonder if the original plan was to have Love Gun (Sabin & Sydal) win DDT4 before Sabin got hurt.

[monster mafia]

pentagon jr vs sabre....holly shit, cant wait to see it!

[AndyDiaz]

I still wonder if the original plan was to have Love Gun (Sabin & Sydal) win DDT4 before Sabin got hurt.

Pretty sure it was. They racked up a few wins, including beating the Young Bucks, if that's not a push to win DDT4 I don't know what is.

[Tim]

DDT4 was a disaster for the 3rd year in a row. Having Love Gun out and Josh Alexander not being able to take any bumps really hurt the show, wish Beaver Boys and Monster Mafia could have had a real match.

[Sardonic Artery]

DDT4 used to be a great event...

Caught BOLA 2015.

Those 3-5-man tags were mostly awful, but hey, might as well use talent like the Bucks. Overall, a good series, but I wasn't sold on the final. Sabre, Ospreay, Scurll, and Pentagon were stand outs this time around. I like Bailey, but grew tired of him over the 3 nights. Don't care for Tommy End, but considering I often don't like Hero, that makes sense. Jack Evans is still so fun to watch. Galloway looked huge.