Quickie: PWG All Star Weekend V - Night 1 - 2007
Here's a couple teaser videos that PWG still has on their YouTube page:
Not sure on video quantity but hey...it's better than some homemade music video from 2008, right?
Now if you're interested, here's the reviews!
Nosawa vs. Disco Machine - Good simple opening match.
Roderick Strong vs. Rocky Romero - This was really good stuff. It was hard hitting and while longer than you'd normally see a second match go, they never went crazy (unlike later PWG). This finish was a little sudden but again it's the second match of the night. So, they did their job and gave us a very good match without burning anyone out.
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Claudio Castagnoli vs. Human Tornado (w/Candice LeRae) - This is a good match but it could have been better as it was a little loose at times. The Tornado/Candice stuff was always in bad taste...and reminds me of a poor man's Jade Chung/Nana...which was also distasteful.
Matt Classic vs. Kikutaro - Colt...I mean Matt Classic & Kikutaro have a heck of a funny match! They are great together!
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Jack Evans vs. Kevin Steen - Really good stuff...lots of what you want from both guys - Flips from Jack and sick bombs/drivers from Steen. It's not as good as Strong vs Rocky but it's got the crazy moves whereas Roddy vs Romero was a more complete match.
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Frankie Kazarian, Ronin, TJ Perkins & Top Gun Talwar vs. Karl Anderson & The Dynasty (Chris Bosh, Joey Ryan & Scott Lost) Speaking of Jade Chung, she's accompanying the Dynasty. And her presence is the best part of this...TJ Perkins vs Scott Lost is pretty good but this got old quick.
Alex Shelley vs. Kaz Hayashi - I'm sure that if they had a couple more matches together they could produce a classic or two. Not sure that ever happens... Anyhow what we have here is pretty damn good. It's high level '07 junior wrestling... it's really notable how they don't run through their moves & spots like would become common practice. Everything has weight to it. It definitely could have been a Battle of LA match for instance. Excellent false finishes, excellent pacing...honestly this was right on the border of being a great match. I think it does sorta have that middle "work a limb" that doesn't really matter but Shelley doesn't blow it off even at the very end. I think if they called back to it a little bit then this would have propelled it to greatness. In all fairness, this is third from the top so, I think it's not that big of a deal. I dug this a bunch
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Low Ki vs. Davey Richards - Lemme say that stoogey (?) heel Davey Richards is always fun. I'm not sure how much we see him later in his career but early Davey hamming it up is underrated. Anyway, this is a great match with lots of excellent mat wrestling and of course striking. They kept this simple and it was all the better for it. This was exactly what you want from these two.
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El Generico vs. PAC - Classic PWG title match. Heck I don't need to qualify it with "PWG title match." It's a straight up classic match. It is very much a go for broke, empty the gas tank with the pedal to the metal match. PAC is excellent as always and he hits everything perfectly despite doing some of the most insane stuff. No knock on Jack Evans but he's been replaced with a better model. Honestly I think Ricochet is/was redundant if on the same show as PAC. Anyhow, PAC is one step ahead of Generico. He's pulling counters and reversals out of thin air... which is usually something that the Generic One does. He's got to stop the Brit with brute force.
This was a really good show. The weak bits were those featuring the owners/ SoCal regulars...but not all of them so I'm hoping their matches are better Night #2. This is definitely worth picking up on DVD. Night 2 review is coming up!
Thanks for reading!
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