Written by: Jim
One Hundred
April 12, 2009
The Young Bucks vs The Cutlers – PWG Tag Titles
If you’ve seen one Bucks title defense, you’ve practically seen them all. Brandon Cutler looks pretty good in this and both teams shows that they have some natural chemistry. It’s slightly better than their DDT4 2009 match, but it lacks the best moments of their DDT4 2010 match. However, it’s relatively botch free. The Bucks excel in this placement though. Their spottiness is perfect for opening matches just to get the fans into the show. 3 Stars.
Scott Lost vs Roderick Strong
I love how Lost jump starts the match whenever the opponent isn’t paying attention. Really fun match with non-stop action. As always, Lost delivers some beautiful looking moves including a 619 around the post under the bottom rope to nail Strong. Roddy’s selling of the Sharpshooter near the end is some of the best painful screaming I’ve seen in PWG. Some may not like the finish since it comes out of nowhere, but it ends the match on a huge high note. In wrestling, it’s all about hurting your opponent enough so that they stay down for a three count, an out of nowhere yakuza kick is believable enough to knock Lost out for that long. At times you need finishes that doesn’t have buildup. Behind the Omega BOLA match, this was my favorite Lost singles match from ’09. 3 1/2 Stars.
Bryan Danielson vs Kenny Omega
These two knows how to bring the lolz, but what they don’t know is how long to do it for. While I really enjoyed some of the gags, particularly the extra elbow pads, the match just went on for too long. Eventually, the laughs start to wane and I’m just left wondering when this match is finally going to end. What’s really disappointing is knowing (To my knowledge) that this is their only singles match. It almost feels like a waste to have Danielson work the comedy match without giving the viewer the serious counterpart. Where was the serious match, ROH? 2 1/2 Stars.
Paul London vs Joey Ryan
I love Joey, but London made this match unwatchable. On one of his first moves (A baseball slide into a head scissors) London completely missed hooking his legs around Ryan’s head and Joey forced to sell two feet pulling him over by a shoulder. With London still trying to work off the rust, this match was given too much time. 18 minutes was eight too long. I may go back to try and watch this again, but for now it’s just a match that bored me enough into a short nap.
Scorpio Sky, B-Boy and Candice LaRae vs Austin Aries, Human Tornado and Chuck Taylor
If there’s one thing that PWG excels at more than any other company, it’s inter gender six and eight person matches. They’re fun and rarely disappoint. As always, Candice LaRae impresses me so much. Whether it’s running the ropes and in one motion locking in an octopus hold or taking all of the abuse that she did. While sloppy a time or two, Scorpio Sky also looked pretty good out there. For the heels, Chuckie T and Aries brought the comedy. If this match wasn’t already a lot of fun, there’s some good storyline implications with the short lived Aries vs Hero/Candice feud. 3 Stars.
Davey Richards vs Tyler Black
Davey was on such an unbelievable streak of good matches around this time that this is impossible to be bad. They added in a little amount of comedy to have it stand out, but when it came to put on the action, both men delivered a hard hitting match. One thing I can’t stand (This goes for not just Black) is when they purposely over shoot the down opponent when on the top rope and roll through. It looks so contrived instead of countering the opponent moving out of the way in mid air. I dug Richards keep going back to the Texas Cloverleaf, but the surprise ending with the reverse small package ended the match on a slight disappointment. Still, it’s a quality match and is the second best match of the night. 3 1/2 Stars.
Sonjay Dutt vs El Generico
After someone dragging Roderick Strong down to the worst match of Ninety-Nine, the only way I was going to watch this Sonjay match was with the commentary on. It’s as if PWG realized that the fans would need an extra reason to watch the horrible Dutt that they decided to bring on the old school comedy duo of Davey Richards and Bryan Danielson to call the match. While Danielson is just alright, Davey absolutely steals the show talking about wrestling for Joe Blanchard and what Dick the god damn Bruiser would and wouldn’t do. Generico tried his best to carry Dutt and managed to have a fun ending, but the only reason to watch this match is for the commentary. Since my rating would be drastically altered due to the commentary, I’ll choose not to rate this.
Chris Hero (c) vs Colt Cabana – PWG World Title
Hero has such a horrible look at this point. His tights looks like he borrowed them from several jobbers in the early 90’s. Once again, Joey Ryan is on commentary for a Chris Hero title defense. While Cabana brings the comedy early on, he smartly gets serious mid way in and it helps the match a lot. It’s a shame he didn’t do the same thing for his ROH title shot against Jerry Lynn at Homecoming II that took place just over a week later. With Hero’s forearm/elbow injury that he suffered during his Aries title defense at Ninety-Nine, Cabana had an easy target. For whatever reason, Hero decided not to sell the elbow near the end so that he could deliver his usual 500 elbows in a bout. I love the elbows, but don’t ignore injuries. As surprised as I am to say this, Cabana deserves the majority of the credit. When Cabana was expected to step up, he did. That being said, this is still Hero’s weakest PWG title defense from 2009. 3 Stars.
After the match, Joey Ryan gets on the mic and talks about Hero just being a good champion while he was great. Scott Lost runs out from the back and attacks Hero. This leads to a two-on-one beat down until Paul London and Bryan Danielson run in for the save. Hero gets on the mic and berates the Dynasty before the show officially ends. What makes this segment so beneficial is that it begins the Joey Ryan/Chris Hero feud, puts the Hybrid Dolphins together and sets up the first DDT4 2009 match with the Hybrid Dolphins vs The Dynasty. This had more storyline implications than PWG has had in all of 2010.
The DVD closes with perhaps the single most talked about indy promo of 2009. A year later, it’s still greatness.
Overall
One Hundred is a lot like a roller coaster. It begins high with the first two matches, drops for the original Hybrid Dolphin singles matches, but rises for the six person and Davey/Black, drops (Non-commentary) for Dutt again, but ends on a high note with a decent title defense and some great storyline building moments. I’d give it the slight edge over Ninety-Nine since I’m not a MCMG fan. It may not be among the best PWG shows of the year, but there’s some real quality here, just be prepared to sit through some crap.
Worth Checking Out
Scott Lost vs Roderick Strong
Davey Richards vs Tyler Black
Sonjay Dutt vs El Generico (Commentary only)
Avoid
Joey Ryan vs Paul London
Sonjay Dutt vs El Generico (Match only)