ratedRpornstar wrote:(1) Young Bucks (Generation Me in TNA) beat Brandon Gatson & Willie Mack in a First Round tournament match. The Bucks hit a combination superkick on Mack for the win.
Solid opener. Bucks heel bullshit does a good job of getting the crowd going, and the fans do like Willie quite a bit. Gatson has looked 100% better on the last two shows than in the "I'd Rather Be Anywhere Else In The World" match with Joey to end the year.
Gatson & Willie might not be a bad regular tag team.
(2) American Wolves (Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) beat RockNES Monsters (Johnny Goodtime & Johnny Yuma) in a First Round tournament match. The Wolves won with a powerbomb/lungblower combination into Edwards's Achilles lock submission finisher.
My buddy just hated Edwards' performance in this one. I didn't hate it, but "did nothing for me" would fit the bill. Davey was Davey, and either you like him or you don't... and the overwhelming majority does. For a goofball team, the RockNES have their shit down decently enough. Watchable match, and the crowd did enjoy it.
(3) ROH tag champions Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero & PWG champion Claudio Castagnoli) beat the Cutler Brothers (Brandon & Dustin Cutler) in a First Round tournament match. KOW won with a pair of big kicks to the head.
Another watchable match. Tend to think the Kings can fall out of bed and have this match, and the Cutlers looked much better here than on the ROH card at WR.
(4) Kevin Steen & Akira Tozawa beat The Briscoes (Jay & Mark) in a First Round tournament match. Steenzowa won with a doomsday heel kick.
SteenZawa were a ridiculously entertaining team right out of the box. Probably shouldn't be surprising since Tozawa is on a roll in Legion Hall, and Steen is Steen. On paper one would think it's odd to have the Briscoes go one-and-done since they're the most straight fowarded faces in the tourney, but the crowd actually loved this result. They weren't pulling against the Briscoes, but SteenZawa was over like hell instantly. I'm not a Briscoes fan at all, but this was a fun match.
(5) Young Bucks (Generation Me in TNA) beat American Wolves (Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards) in a semi-final tournament match. Bucks won with a roll-up. After the match, Richards talked up Edwards and asked him to come back to PWG.
I'm wondering if down the stretch my buddy and me were the only people rooting for the Bucks to win. Another very watchable match.
(6) Kevin Steen & Akira Tozawa beat ROH tag champions Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero & PWG champion Claudio Castagnoli) in a semi-final tournament match. Hero missed with a moonsault and Tozawa pinned him with la magistral roll.
Pretty much the one match I wanted when the card and teams were announced. Very entertaining.
the first-ever Joey Ryan Invitational started with Ryan Taylor vs. Brian Cage.
(7a) Ryan Taylor beat Brian Cage in a Joey Ryan Invitational match. Taylor won with a flipping cravate.
This actually was a very good match. They wrestled it "straight", and I thought did a hell of a job with it. Low on bullshit, if rolling out any. The two aren't as over with PWG fans as a lot of the other folks on the card, and clearly not as over doing *this*, but I for one loved it. I think if it had been say Hero and someone else over working this, the crowd would have clicked more onto it. Not pimping it as a Hero-Tozawa / Generico-Ricochett / Steen-Tozawa level match from the second half of last year, but I dug seeing these two go in this way. Not "great", but a big thumbs up from me to the two of them for what they did here.
(7b) "Pretty" Peter Avalon beat Ryan Taylor in a Joey Ryan Invitational match. Avalon won with a roll-up and hook of the tights.
Pretty much a flip-the-switch of Ryan over into how he more normally works in PWG, though the semi-face version of it. Perfectly okay as a part of a multipart match like this, but the contrast from the prior match was dramatic.
(7c) Candace LaRae beat Peter Avalon in a Joey Ryan Invitational. Candace was next in the gauntlet match and Joey superkicked Avalon to give Candace the win, setting up Candace vs. Joey in the finals.
Candace and Pete had a match a few shows ago, making one expect a shorter version of it... but as soon as Joey showed up, you knew where this was headed.
(7d) Joey Ryan beat Candace LaRae via submission to win the Joey Ryan Invitational. This was the latest installment of their years-long feud on PWG. Joey won with a superkick, then End Scene for the submission victory. Typical inter-gender match.
There's history here, and you sort of wish that Joey took some time to go over it on the mic. Perfectly fine for what it was, and the two did a very god job of making it "work".
(8) Young Bucks (GenMe) beat Kevin Steen & Akira Tozawa to win the DDT4 tournament. GenMe won with the More Bang For Your Buck on both Steen and Tozawa. The fans didn't seem to be happy with the Bucks winning. (Lots of history with the Bucks holding the Tag Titles for nearly two years from mid-2008 to mid-2010 before Generico & London won the titles.)
Good match. A lot of doubt in the crowd who was going to win. Sign of how good the pairing of Steen with Tozawa was that despite Steen heeling his ass off recently in PWG, the team was 100% face here. Bucks helped out since they have their heel bullshit down pat.
The crowd wanted SteenZawa, and the reaction was edging towards that Wrong BOLA Joey Reaction until the Bucks got on the mic. They did solid face stuff to hook the fans into paying attention (i.e. putting over PWG, etc), then nailed the heel stuff by crapping on London & Generico and putting over Dixie.
From a booking standpoint, I really like it a good deal. I'm hoping that PWG stays away from putting Steen and Generico in the ring together given the focus of the feud last year. It feels too much like someone else's feud, in this case ROH's. Steen's so damn good (and frankly Generico is as well) that going back to that well so quickly is a real waste.
Upcoming title matches: PWG champion Claudio Castagnoli vs. Joey Ryan, PWG tag champions El Generico & Paul London vs. Young Bucks (GenMe).
If the Bucks are going to be around, title change might be ripe for a fresh set of title matches. Generico & London have pretty much run the table.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Claudio-Joey plays out. Claudio has looked good in all of his singles matches since coming back. Even the match with Joey was solid before the finish took the crowd into the tank. Joey has had a number of flat matches since that finish: the final with Hero, the horrid Gaston match, and the weak Helms match. Hard to blame all of that on the opponents when:
* Hero has been Hero when not in there with Joey
* Gaston was back to his normal, solid enough self in tags the last two shows
* Helms was actually the guy getting the heat in their singles match... even if he wasn't all that good
Still really would have liked to see Claudio-Generico in Legion Hall. Perhaps if he retains and