PWG The High Cost of Doing Business 11/11/2007

Written by: Jim

The High Cost of Doing Business
November 11, 2007

Dino Winwood and Excalibur opens up the show. Sadly, a couple of PWG employees are in jail tonight. Thanks to a drunken fight over which is the better way to cook a turkey (boiled or deep fried) PWG ring announcer, Jon Ian, and one half of the PWG Tag Champions, Davey Richards, are forced to miss the show. As a result, Super Dragon and Davey Richards vs Scott Lost and Joey Ryan will not happen.

Ronin vs Karl Anderson
Anderson is looking like Mike Knox (Circa 2006) or a pre-Luke Gallows Festus with his balding head with a little hair on it while wearing black tights. It’s not a good look at all. Surprisingly, Ronin isn’t that bad in this match. He manages to have a few moments without botching anything. In fact, the match was going fairly well up until the end when Ronin struggled to get Anderson up in the fireman’s carry for the DVD. Anderson picks up the win following a spinebuster and a Boston Crab. With the match being a big man vs big man encounter, it was an unusual choice for an opening match. However, it was better than I expected. 2 Stars.

Claudio Castagnoli vs TJ Perkins
Claudio works the big man gimmick, but Perkins manages to embarrass Claudio with some Lucha based moves. Despite being a massive underdog going in, I started to believe that Perkins may just be able to get the win. Perkins locks in the Figure Four Deathlock, but Claudio’s lucky to be near the ropes to force the break. Claudio finishes Perkins off by launching Perkins up and nailing him with a European Uppercut. For an undercard match, this was perfect. Short, but a quality match that didn’t try stealing the show. 3 1/4 Stars.

The Dynasty w/Jade Chung vs The Young Bucks
The Bucks are still very new to PWG. They had debuted at Roger Dorn Night, losing to Arrogance in Arrogance’s final match together. This is the closest thing they could get to having a rematch. The crowd humors themselves with constant “HOO!” chants since Ryan is looking very Jim Duggan-like with his long hair and full beard. Not to mention it describes Jade Chung well. The Bucks love over complicating the simplest of things. The simple spot of having your opponent by the arm and tagging in and out while doing some sort of move off of the top rope to the arm is too simple for the Bucks. Instead, they moonsault and hit 450 splashes on to the arm. Click here to enlarge The match picks up at the end when everyone is hitting their moves and there’s several near falls. Even though the Bucks are able to break up a pin attempt after the old X-Foundation finisher (Inverted FU into the facebuster), they fall to a top rope Demolition Decapitator. Maybe a little longer than it needed to be, but it had it’s moments despite the Bucks greenness. Most of the quality came from Scott Lost and his moveset though.3 Stars.

In a post-show promo, the Dynasty pokes fun at Super Dragon and Davey Richards for not having the balls to defend their titles against them. Gotta love playing to the feud.

El Generico vs Roderick Strong
It occurs to me that this is their only singles meeting in PWG. I’m kind of surprised since both work PWG a lot in the past several years. For the first half of the match, Strong is just working over Generico’s midsection. While he’s not as creative as he was against Rocky Romero during ASW 5, Strong has some unique ways to inflict some pain. Even though he’s not a great seller, Generico has some really good babyface fire for his comeback. Despite all of the effort to get the win by pulling out the big moves, Generico just can’t get the job done. Thanks to Strong working almost exclusively on the back during the entire match, Strong gets the pin after a Gibson Driver. Pretty entertaining match from two of the better workers in PWG at the moment. With a little better selling, this could have been more noteworthy, but considering this is PWG and not ROH, it’s more than good enough. 3 1/2 Stars.

In a post-show promo, Strong boasts about beating former PWG champion, Generico. He’s ready to take the PWG Title from Bryan Danielson during All Star Weekend 6.

Scorpio Sky vs Rocky Romero
At one time, both of these guys were two of my favorite PWG workers. However, Sky was never the same after he turned heel in 2006 and Romero started to fizzle out around 2008. They have a competitive match with a lot of move sequences, but they’re lacking in the story department. There’s a lot of times when the guy getting the move is back on his feet before the one on offense. It’s definitely not a bad match, but there isn’t anything special about it either. Scorpio Sky gets the submission victory after hitting an Ace Crusher and turning it over into a Dragon Clutch. 2 1/2 Stars.

Chris Hero and ? w/Candice LaRae vs Human Tornado and ?
Both men were able to pick a partner of their choice. Hero ends up picking the one man he hates above all others bar Tornado – Eddie Kingston. Tornado believes his partner is even better as he introduces partner – Eddie Kingston. Kingston turns on Hero and we get a handicap match with Tornado and Kingston just beating the hell out of Hero. Looking back at this match, I can sense PWG trying to put Hero over as the future face of the company. Despite being two-on-one, Hero hangs in there. Once Candice LaRae starts helping out, there’s times when Hero looks to have the match won. Near the end, Hero’s energy is about spent when Claudio Castagnoli runs out and reaches for a tag. Believing that his Kings of Wrestling partner is there to save him, Hero tags him in. Claudio promptly turns heel and attacks Hero. Click here to enlarge The bell starts ringing causing the match to end in a no contest (PWG credits it as a DQ win for Hero, but meh), but the three-on-one assault on Hero continues. Candice tries to cover her man, but Tornado just gives her the DND. This felt like such an old school classic angle, only with the twist of the brave hero (Heh…Hero is the hero) not being saved. I loved it all though. Kingston is just perfect in his Jake Roberts-like role of being a sick human being when it comes to his sexual advances towards Candice. If this was an inner city movie, Kingston would be the guy raping the girl before having his dick shot off at the end. With the Kevin Steen/Super Dragon fresh on my mind, this chapter of the Tornado/Hero saga reminds me greatly of that. You have the whole subplot of Hero’s friends turning on him, resulting in Hero fighting alone. However, what’s so great about the Hero/Tornado feud is that there’s several major chapters you can begin with. Granted, it’s best to begin with Tornado’s heel turn at Holy Diver Down, but you don’t need to see anything before this chapter to understand exactly what’s going on and be interested enough to see what happens next. This is the sort of angle that sells a multitude of DVD’s and it’s deeply missed in PWG these days. 3 3/4 Stars.

In a post-show promo, Hero’s more upset about Claudio turning on him than anything else. He promises that he’ll get revenge on Tornado, that Candice will get revenge on Tornado.

Bryan Danielson (c) vs Jack Evans – PWG World Title
In one of the simplest and effective builds for a match, Jack Evans calls Danielson’s style boring and that his high flying style is the future. Danielson wants to beat respect into Jack. I like it so much since it’s so realistic. I can see people online having this sort of debate. You have a little comedy with Danielson dancing, Evans choke slamming Danielson and Danielson being unable to do the same to Evans. Once they have some fun, Danielson just stretches the hell out of Evans. Jack gets in some of his high spots near the end to try and make the viewers believe he has a chance to win, but he’s not fooling anybody. That’s the only real problem when you watch something like Evans vs a star like Danielson. You know Evans isn’t winning, so there’s not much drama to the bout. Still, it’s a lot of fun whenever Danielson stretches Evans. Danielson wins after kicking Evans unconscious with his stomps to the head while holding Evans arms and then trapping him in a triangle choke. 3 1/4 stars.

Dino Winwood concludes the show in an empty board of directors office. He talks about all of the problems PWG had been facing with office members going to jail, wrestlers being stolen and the disastrous European trip. The entire purpose is for Winwood to utter “I guess that’s just the High Cost of Doing Business” *Grins* I miss Winwood.

Overall
As far as B-shows go, this was pretty perfect. I wouldn’t call any of the matches bad, while there are several good bouts. The Tornado/Hero saga enters a new chapter by introducing new faces making High Cost worth buying if you want to see the entire feud. Danielson delivers another solid PWG Title defense. Meanwhile, PWG builds up some issues for the start of 2008. SDDR vs Arrogance, Hero and Candice vs Tornado, Claudio and Kingston and Strong wanting another shot at Danielson. Even Ronin manages not to embarrass himself. Pretty good way to conclude 2007.

Worth Checking Out
Claudio Castagnoli vs TJ Perkins
El Generico vs Roderick Strong
Chris Hero vs Eddie Kingston and Human Tornado
Bryan Danielson vs Jack Evans

Avoid
N/A