Written By: Jim
Card Subject To Change
January 22, 2005
Disco Machine announces that due to injuries, he’s going to take it easy for awhile. Since commissioner Paul T is not here tonight, Disco was named Junior Executive Commissioner for the night. Best part? It counts as a credit for college! Disco Machine is willing to make all of the tough decisions, even if it involves his friends.
Excalibur, Top Gun Talwar and Supa Badd vs Ballard Brothers and Ronin
This is the second time Excalibur and Talwar are teaming up. The best I can gather is that Supa Badd didn’t realize that his buddies, Los Rojos Locos, were the Ballard Brothers all along. So once they revealed their true identity, Badd no longer sees them as friends. Ronin was on the opposite team from Excalibur and Talwar at the last show, so there’s a little something there too. I’m looking far too into the backstory though. I doubt PWG intended on it meaning a lot. The lack of talent was really showcased with a sloppy and messy six man. They managed to keep things exciting by always having action, but exciting doesn’t always mean good. It wasn’t horrible, that’s about all I can say. Ballards get the win over Excalibur in what I’d consider an upset. 1 1/2 Stars.
After the match, Excalibur turns on Top Gun Talwar and threatens to nail him with a chair. When Disco Machine climbs in the ring to stop him, Excalibur punches his Team SBS partner out. Disco Machine suspends Excalibur for the next show. ANGLE~!
Tony Stradlin vs Colt Cabana
For an undercard match, it has a pretty good story. Cabana’s all fun and games until Stradlin injures Cabana’s knee with a sort of Indian Deathlock, only Stradlin uses his arms to lock in the hold. Colt becomes super serious and channels his inner American Dragon. Cabana does all of the stiff mat wrestling that Dragon is known for and even includes the grunts. Colt goes for the Colt .45, but Stradlin counters it into his SOS-like pin to pick up his second straight win. Honestly, the more I see of Stradlin, the more I wonder how he didn’t make it in the WWE. The guy had some serious promise. Even though it’s not quite as good as the Daniels match, this is my favorite Stradlin match to date. 3 1/4 Stars.
B-Boy vs Human Tornado
B-Boy kills Tornado. Honestly, that’s all this match is. Just one brutal shot after another by B-Boy. The storyline is similar to something along the lines of Bryan Danielson vs Jack Evans. The underdog just gets his ass kicked, but earns respect. It went on a little longer than it had to, but it’s still an enjoyable match. Tornado’s selling during the entire bout is fantastic. Even when he has hope spots, he’s holding a body part in pain. This match shows that while Tornado’s perfect for comedy matches, he has potential to be used in much more important roles. 3 Stars.
Aerial Xpress vs Havana Pitbulls
Built up from the previous month. Winners here get a tag title shot at the next show. Brawl to start the match, it’s a few minutes until the bell finally rings. Almost all of the match is Reyes playing the face-in-peril. AXP are the “Heels” for the match. Personally, I would have had the Pitbulls as the heels. Dino Winwood gets in some good comedy from the outside, but it’s all serious inside the ring. Romero gets the tag and goes on a kicking spree on both members of AXP. Scorpio Sky surprises Romero with a roll up in the corner and grabs the ropes for extra leverage to get the pin. For the second straight Havana Pitbulls match, the finish sucks. The cheating was right in front of the ref, it was out of nowhere and the match had barely even got going before it was finished. The actual action was awesome, but I want to see a good 20-25 minute match between these two teams. Not counting the pre-match brawl, this wasn’t even ten minutes. How is it that the opening match gets four minutes longer than this? Throw me a bone, PWG. Tag scene is heating up in PWG though, so that’s good. 3 Stars.
Chris Hero vs Bryan Danielson
Danielson has the beard and shaved head, but the beard is a few weeks away from the homeless pedophile look he had going for most of 2005. I miss hobo AmDrag. This is pretty much two matches combined into one. The first half is all comedy with Danielson being made the fool. It’s funny, but when you have the Best in the World, you want to see some quality wrestling, not just laughs. The second half may be the best I’ve seen from Hero pre-ROH. So much of the time is spent working on Danielson’s left leg with Danielson selling it like a champ. I’m just loving every moment of the match since the comedy was stopped. Even just climbing up to the top rope is a tough task for Danielson due to the leg. Since Hero can’t figure out a way to beat Danielson with his own moves, he uses AmDrag’s airplane spin. Danielson no sells it and does one of his one (Selling while doing so might I add). Dragon gets the pin following a small package counter to Hero’s small package counter to Danielson’s small package. If you remove the early comedy, this might give Super Dragon/Kevin Steen a run for it’s money as being the PWG match of the year. With the comedy, it’s just a MOTYC at most. Hands down, there isn’t a better series of three matches in PWG than Hero vs Danielson. Every match of theirs is just great. 4 Stars.
Arrogance (c) w/Random Slut vs Los Luchas – PWG Tag Team Titles
Los Luchas are the mystery team to challenge Arrogance. They’re not replacing anyone, I guess PWG just didn’t feel like announcing Los Luchas. Mystery team > Los Luchas? Arrogance are upset that someone stole their tag titles. Disco Machine doesn’t have any idea what happened though. Fairly short match (Yet still longer than Pitbulls/AXP) with Arrogance dominating Los Luchas until the end. Highlight was Bosh shoving a strobe light in the face of Zokre. Phoenix Star was pretty impressive though. Plenty of big spots without botching. Zokre still sucks. Bosh wins with an awesome looking Steiner Screwdriver. Arrogance’s record is now at 4 for successful title defenses. They’re the only team in the first year of the titles that held the belts for at least 3 successful title defenses. Arrogance looked good, so it didn’t matter if I hate Los Luchas. 3 1/4 Stars.
After the match, Frankie Kazarian makes his return to PWG. He’s pleased with how well Arrogance has been doing, however; he has issues with their random slut. Kazarian forces Arrogance to choose. It’s either him and the First Family or her. After some debating, Arrogance turns on Kazarian and the First Family is officially dead. I’m glad that they gave some real closure on the group. That being said, Arrogance’s decision made a lot of sense. Why bother sticking with a faction that every other member just disappeared? Luckily for Arrogance, a better faction will be coming along eventually.
Super Dragon (c) vs Homicide – PWG World Title
With Taboo Tuesday bringing back the concept of fans choosing matches, PWG decided to do one as well. You could vote for who you wanted Super Dragon to defend the title against online. The options were Homicide, Bryan Danielson, B-Boy, Colt Cabana and Chris Hero. Remember all of those great ROH title matches Homicide had? Yeah, this isn’t nearly as good. Homicide looked like he didn’t care at all about the quality of the match. The booking didn’t help either. There’s a few times when Homicide tries to win by countout. In a normal match, fine, but in a title match where winning by CO means you’re not the champion? It’s stupid. Dragon wins with the Psycho Driver. As much as I wanted to see Super Dragon as PWG Champion due to Kazarian’s second reign failing, this reign hasn’t been very good. I don’t know what it is about the PWG Title, but it’s cursed at this point. Dragon was better off without the belt. 2 Stars.
Overall
Card Subject to Change is easily the most underrated show in PWG history. If you head over to the PWG board, a large percentage of their posters would consider this to be the worst show ever. The main event and opening match sucks, but everything in between is good. Hero vs Danielson tore the place down while the tag team scene continued to keep me interested. You have a couple of angles thrown in with Excalibur being suspended and teasing the future issues between Disco Machine and Excalibur. Human Tornado had his breakout match and you could tell he was going to be something special in PWG. Finally, you had the official end of the First Family. As a result, Arrogance can now feud with Frankie Kazarian in addition to the Aerial Xpress. One thing that did really disappoint me was the lack of Kevin Steen and red Super Dragon. It makes this show a non-essential in terms of the biggest storyline of 2005. It’s far from a great show, but it’s a lot better than the hype will let you believe.
Worth Checking Out
Human Tornado vs B-Boy (For Tornado’s coming out party)
Bryan Danielson vs Chris Hero
Avoid
Ballards and Ronin vs Top Gun, Excalibur and Supa Badd
Homicide vs Super Dragon (Looks great on paper)