2nd Anniversary Show Reviews

[onlxn]

HATE AWAY, HATERS!

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I attended Night One of "The 2nd Annual PWG Bicentennial Birthday Extravaganza" and had remembered it as being an excellent show. It didn't hold up well on DVD, and in fact I'd peg it as one of their weakest '05 shows. Still some fun stuff, though.

I'm now pissed that I arrived too late to see the opener, because on tape, Davey Richards vs. Shannon Ballard was the best match of the show. Shannon is one half of the Ballard Brothers, a hockey-fan tag team that was big in So-Cal a couple years back. Solid team, but they're not exactly the kind of guys you hunger to see in singles matches. But Davey is so fucking good that this was compelling all the way through. Davey dominates, Shannon gets a lucky break and destroys Davey's arm, Davey guts it out and wins. Just a simple match template, executed tightly and smartly -- it's something we don't see nearly enough of in PWG. Brilliant selling of the arm by Davey, in addition to his usual excellence, and Shannon looked really good here. Davey By The Numbers, but that's no insult. A nice three-and-a-half star-type affair.

Things get stinky quick with Los Luchas vs. Gunning For Hookers. Phoenix Star and Hook Bomberry start with a nice little sequence, and I think they have a fun mini-luchador vs. mini-shooter singles match in them. But then Zokre and Topgun face off and do an endless, tentative lucha mirror sequence, and then we devolve into a bunch of sloppy and outright blown double-teams. They never got on the same page here. Most PWG undercard stuff is at least presentable, but this was an actively bad match.

Joey Ryan vs. Mr. Excitement was sort of like a Raw clusterfuck main event -- Excitement suplexes Joey all over the place, Arrogance starts interfering, and Joey gets a meaningless pin. This *wasn't* actively bad, but it was a real styles clash, as Joey couldn't match Excitement's Japanese-style offense and Excitement wasn't good at putting over Joey's heel work. Did its job, however, in increasing the Guerrilla faithful's hatred of Joey.

Speaking of styles clashes... you'd have a hard time booking a weirder US indy match than Ricky Reyes vs. Petey Williams. Reyes does stiff, basic, no-nonsense stuff, and he's really good. Petey does goofy, sloppy, over-the-top stuff, and he... well, I don't want to say "sucks", as he seems like a nice guy, but he ain't very good. Anyway, they go at it here. Live, I thought Reyes really carried Petey to a nice match. On tape, though, it didn't look very good, because Petey dragged down almost every minute of it. He hit his catapault rana to the floor really nicely; other than that, though, he contributed nothing, either on offense or defense. Bad sharpshooter, apathetic selling... oy. I don't think Reyes could've done any more than he did to make the match work, and it did play well live, but Petey was really rough here. Only okay.

Now onto one of the two emotional centerpieces of the show: Super Dragon, El Generico & The Human Tornado vs. Kevin Steen, Disco Machine & Excalibur, in a hateful six-man elimination match. I absolutely loved this live, and thought it was must-see stuff. Still fun on tape, but a lot of the match's charm was in the little moments on the apron, most of which aren't captured here. The action itself is good but not great, as Excalibur and Disco don't do too much and Tornado was still a little raw at this point; also, Dragon gets knocked goofy partway through, which kills any chance at real flow But sheerly as angle advancement, this was great, as it's clearly Dragon and foot soldiers versus Steen and foot soliders, with the new SBS earning a dramatic win. Not quite as good as the previous chapters of SD/Steen match-wise, but worth seeing if you like the feud. Also features Generico having perhaps my favorite reaction ever to a nearly blown spot.

Chris Daniels vs. Chris Sabin, an X-Division Title match, was bo-fuckin'-ring. I didn't hate Daniels' low-impact heel shtick in PWG, but that clearly wasn't gonna work against Sabin, who can only contribute with his athleticism. A lot of arbitrary changes of momentum here, and no real emotion whatsoever; the ending came out of nowhere. Just no structure or anything, and it almost felt like an exhibition.

The famous match from this show is Arrogance vs. Aerial Express, tag titles vs. masks. Was the emotional conclusion to a long-standing feud, and you'll hear a lot of people call it one of the best PWG matches ever. It's really good, and I marked out for it hard, but I don't think it's quite at that top level, because they took forever to really get going.

It starts, as all matches between these teams seem to, with a decent-sized section of mat wrestling. It's nicely performed, and these guys always put in some fun little twists, thanks to their pseudo-lucha roots... still, it's all stuff that disengages you from the importance of the match. Lost and Bosh are a little cocky, sure, but it almost plays as babyface vs. babyface at first. And none of the pinfall attempts in the 15 minutes draw any sort of reaction, because the crowd knows they're going to see a lot of spots before there's any chance of a finish. Again, it's all good action, as all four guys work well together, and both sides have some great double-teams. But you don't get a sense of intensity or hatred or desperation, all of which seem like they should be there, given past events.

It finally starts getting dramatic after the AXP's stereo dives, as Bosh just BLASTS Quick with a chairshot, forcing him out of the match and leaving Scorp to defend their masks alone. The last ten minutes of this match are just stellar, with Scorp as the fearless babyface, Lost & Bosh as the incredulous, contemptuous heels and a well-booked showdown between Joey and Dino Windwood. Scorp goes absolutely nuts on offense and wins the belts, only to have Arrogance unmask and bloody him in anger over the loss. Arrogance doesn't perform the post-match beatdown all that well, as Bosh is torn between intensity and comedy, and Scott seems almost nerdy in his anger... but Scorp's brilliant as the guy who's lost his identity, and he makes the post-match angle work great. Scorp disappeared for a couple months after this, and never got the monster face push he probably should've gotten upon his return, but goddamn, he looks like a star here.

The main is AJ Styles vs. Frankie Kazarian for the PWG Title. Frankie was a mystery opponent, as he'd gone off to the WWE by this point (he'd come back not long after), and this is a rare TNA talent vs. WWE talent indy match. Also notable in that it's a rematch of the very first PWG main event. A typical fairly good AJ match: stiff and intense, with a nice dramatic pace to it and some exciting moments, but no real substance to put it over the top. Still, very engaging minute-to-minute, with some great counters into Clash attempts by AJ and some cool variations on John Woo dropkicks by Frankie. Probably should've gone before the tag title match, but AJ has enough presence so that it still felt like a credible main.

AXP/Arrogance and the SD/Steen escalation make this an important show for avid PWG fans, but if you're anything less than avid, I couldn't really recommend this show. The Davey match is great, but Davey matches usually are; there are better SD/Steen episodes, and other than the awesome last ten minutes, Arrogance/AXP is nothing special for those teams. Looking forward to Night Two, though...

[onlxn]

I've never seen it hyped much, but I thought Night Two of "The 2nd Annual PWG Bicentennial Birthday Extravaganza" was a helluva show, and vastly better than Night One. No really top-tier matches, but nothing bad either, and a lot of solid, enjoyable stuff. In addition, it was sort of an interesting demonstration of the importance of match structure, as the more obviously planned matches really clicked and the more improved matches didn't.

Show opened w/ Quicksilver and Dino announcing that they couldn't find Scorpio, and commish SoCal Val somewhat inexplicably stripping the AXP of the tag belts after only a day. Weird booking, but it worked out okay, and it was certainly fortuitous on this night: for the second straight night, an opener with relatively low star power completely stole the show. Quicksilver vs. Ronin was just a great, simple match, and a great demonstration of why Quicksilver is so good. Ronin's a guy with some great, stiff offense and little else; his matches generally drag, even if they're short. But here, Quick leads him through a solid "spunky babyface vs. heel powerhouse" template and manages to make it work. Everything's fluid and well-paced, each guy sells even on offense (particularly Quick), and there are some great spots that are creative yet sensible. At one point, Quick goes for his climbing top-rope enzuigiri, but Ronin, who has trained with him for years, anticipates the spot, ducks under it and backdrops Quick headfirst on the top turnbuckle. A brilliant carry job by Quick; easily the best match of Ronin's career. Not a MOTYC, but worth seeing, and I'd like to see Quick get more chances in singles matches.

On paper, you'd expect Davey Richards vs. TJ Perkins to blow the opener out of the water, but it just didn't happen. A few really sloppy moments on the turnbuckles, some excessive move-trading, and TJ, who'd been unmasked by Davey the month before, just couldn't maintain the hate needed to cover for the structure problems. All that said, though, 'twas a fun match. These two seem like they should match up really well together, so I'm really looking forward to them getting another shot at it at BOLA.

Can't say that I was stoked for Chris Sabin & Petey Williams vs. Scott Lost & Joey Ryan, but it ended up being a very solid low-end tag match. I think local fans tend to overrate Scott and Joey a bit as singles workers, but they're both real good in tags. Before he formed Arrogance with Bosh, Scott tagged with Joey for years as the X-Foundation, and in this one-time reunion, they show how solid an understanding of tag work they have. They stooge big for the TNA faces early, including a fun atomic-drop series on Scott, then take over with some simple cheating and cut off the ring. They don't even use many double-teams, but the erstwhile X-Foundation knows how to pace a tag match, and the crowd gets solidly behind Sabin & Petey, even though both men turned in weak, heatless performances the night before. Some nearfalls are traded, including a cute stereo Sharpshooter by Scott and Petey, and Team TNA takes it home with the Destroyer. The faces contributed very little, but still a genuinely good match, and like the opener, thoughtfully structured.

First half of the show ended with Ricky Reyes vs. CM Punk; Punk was a mystery opponent, soon to head off to the greener pastures of Titan. (This was a busy weekend for him, as he'd had his first two ROH title defenses against Lethal and Roddy the previous two nights.) I'm a huge mark for both guys, but this was a bit disappointing. They started with a bunch of basic matwork that ended in stalemates and didn't really lead to anything; well-done stuff, but unsatisfying. After awhile, the match kicked in pretty decently, and there was a fun exchange of stiff forearms that left both guys stunned and sagging against each other; ended up being a decent match. But I think these two could do a lot more with some planning.

(As a side note, I was glad that PWG gave Punk a swan song like this. Like Homicide, he got a rep for not working hard in PWG. I think it was unfair, and it was predicated only on two matches: one with a listless, jet-lagged Corino, and the other with a completely uninterested Donovan Morgan. Was nice that PWG saw through that and brought him back one more time, and the fans were certainly glad to see him.)

The real main of the show, in terms of fan interest, was clearly Kevin Steen vs. Super Dragon. This was an interesting hybrid of a hateful brawl and an indy spotfest, and it held together better than it sounds like it would. Both these guys have just great, varied, crisp sets of offenses, and as such, this match featured some crazy big spots (a Steen double-stomp from the top turnbuckle onto Dragon on the ringpost, a Dragon somersault kick of the gym wall) and some crazy little ones (a couple sickening headbutts, and DRAGON KNIFE EDGE CHOPPING STEEN'S FACE). A tad spotty here and there, but that comes with the territory; what bothered me more was that Steen played to the crowd too much when he was in control in the middle, which slowed the momentum and detracted from the sense of him as the desperate upstart. It came together great in the end, though. Not a perfect match, but a very good one, and another strong chapter in Steen's rise to the top of the fed.

The tag elimination, featuring Disco Machine & Excalibur vs. Los Luchas vs. Topgun Talwar & Hook Bomberry & Human Tornado & El Generico, was a slightly better than average spotfest, only saved from mediocrity by the newly formed Two Skinny Black Guys. Weirdly put together, as there were very few tags, and it almost seemed like tornado rules were in effect. The usual stuff from the three veteran teams, some fun spots that are a tad slow and a tad contrived, and some genial comedy. But Generico worked for eight here, really refusing to let the match fall apart, and his and Tornado's charisma kept the crowd into it. Nothing special, but fun enough, and a good change-of-pace at this point in the card.

The main, AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs. James Gibson for the PWG Title, was actually one of the weakest matches on the show. Three-ways generally sorta suck, but usually workers will at least come up with some contrived ways to keep one guy out of the ring, so they can run little one-on-one sections that hold the thing together. There was none of that here; one guy would get hit with something, maybe even something small, and just sell endlessly *in the ring*. Very distracting and deflating, and this took a while to get going. A fun final five minutes, though, featuring some smooth nearfalls and even a Spicy Drop... was watchable enough. But felt a bit thrown together.

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This was a fun show, perhaps more fun than I made it sound; every match was at least fairly engaging, and three (the opener, the X-Foundation tag and SD/Steen) were actively very good. The show was a pretty interesting demonstration of the value of planning and match structure. Quick and Ronin had clearly thought through their match in detail, and the result was a killer opener. Davey & TJ's match felt more improvised, and in this case, at least, suffered for it. The X-Foundation tag had a solid, satisfying structure and thus engaged the crowd much more than Punk and Reyes. Steen and Dragon featured big sections of layered offense for each guy, which made them both look more impressive than any guy in the all-over-the-place main. There were some great workers on this show, but the best stuff didn't necessarily come from the great workers so much as the great ideas. A very interesting show in that sense.