PWG FEAR 12/10/2011

Written by: Jim

FEAR
December 10, 2011

The Fighting Taylor Boys vs Kenny King and TJ Perkins
This was originally slated to be Perkins vs King, but since Los Luchas no showed (Surprise surprise), The Fighting Taylor Boys attacked both men to set this up. This ended up being a good thing since it played towards the King/Taylors feud that started at All Star Weekend 8 when King went 1-1 against them. The first half is your standard tag match with the heels getting heat. Meanwhile, the second half was an all out spotfest with tags not even being issued at all. The funny thing is that I felt the first half was better, but the crowd trashed it. Eventually, they managed to pull the crowd into the match and even received a “This is awesome” chant. Shockingly, The Taylors win with their spring loaded Canadian Destroyer on King. Ryan Taylor continues to make up for his ****ty performance against Willie Mack and Kenny King proved that he’s a lot better as a tag worker compared to his singles history in PWG. 2 3/4 Stars.

The Amazing Red vs Roderick Strong
Red’s debut in PWG. If Red was trying to prove he deserved a full time gig, he failed. While I dug some of his kicks, Red looked pretty average out there. Some of his moves were botched or done weakly. Strong’s role as the ruthless ass kicker was good though. He just beat the hell out of Red and it reminded me a little of his treatment of Rocky Romero back at All Star Weekend 5. Strong ends up winning with a painful looking power bomb. Welcome to Reseda Red, I doubt you’ll be back. 3 Stars.

B-Boy, Candice LaRae, Famous B and Chris Kadillak vs The Dynasty, Peter Avalon and Ray Rosas
The Dynasty’s team are all wearing Joey Ryan (Circa 2006) style gear. This is B-Boy’s first PWG match since One Hundred (2009). Ironically, he was teaming with Candice LaRae and Scorpio Sky in that losing effort. This was a mixed bag. On one hand, I LOVED the comedy. Even though PWG have been doing this sort of sexual comedy with LaRae, I still find it hysterical. Add in a horn dog like Avalon and it’s even better. As always, LaRae impressed me with some of the bumps she took. The chick’s fearless, that’s for sure. At the same time, the match was over twenty minutes and it was just too much. They packed two match lengths into one and I wasn’t feeling that aspect. For the new guys, Rosas fits in perfectly with the Dynasty. Perhaps it’s because he looks like a convicted pedophile, but I’m really hoping if Rosas sticks around, he becomes an official member of the Dynasty with Avalon. Kadillak continues to impress with his moves, although I’m still not convinced he’s anything but a spot monkey. Thanks to all of the physical rape comedy with Candice, Kadillak getting time to showoff and the return of B-Boy, Famous B faded away in the background for most of the match. Pity too since I was hoping to get to see more of what he could do. Edit the match down to twelve minutes and you have one of the most fun matches of the year. Anyways, Dynasty picks up the win on Candice after the superkick/TKO combo. 2 3/4 Stars.

Willie Mack vs Chris Hero
Hero’s anger and frustration over losing to Mack due to a backslide at BOLA was so intense that he just had to get one more match before he went to Stamford. The story of the match is simply Hero still thinking that Mack is the flavor of the week and Willie proving to Hero that he’s a legit star for PWG now. I didn’t properly review their BOLA match, but I found it a little disappointing. Willie looked out of his league that night and gave his worst performance for PWG. This time around, Mack is not only on fire, but I’d say he was even better than Hero. I dug the failed backslide attempt to draw comparisons to their previous match. In the end, Mack takes everything Hero can dish out, and finishes Hero off with the Chocolate Thunder Driver for the win. Hands down, Willie’s biggest win in PWG. This wasn’t some fluke roll-up or surprise win. Willie was just the better man and he was too much for Hero. Much better than their BOLA match. I’ve been waiting for it and Willie’s starting to improve. Keep your eye on Willie in 2012. It should be a huge year for him. 3 1/2 Stars.

RockNES Monsters vs Future Shock
Another match that wore out their welcome by lasting too long. Clocking in at seventeen minutes, the late match mayhem with all four men began too soon. The first half was damn awesome though. RockNES was their usual wacky selves by embarrassing Future Shock in a few different homosexual antics that would normally be saved for the Young Bucks. Future Shock gained my interest by heeling it up a bit. O’Reilly found a way to make his stupid rolling butterfly suplexes interesting by hitting nine in a row and getting the fans into it. In a Claudio-free PWG world, I guess we need one guy to do a move that requires counting. RockNES wins with the Sex Factor/Frog Splash combo on Cole. Good match, but it would have been better had they shaved a few minutes off. 3 1/4 Stars.

The American Wolves vs Super Smash Bros.
Yet another match that could have used a few minutes removed from the total length. On the plus side, they did more things right in this than the previous tag match. Despite the very end of the match being tag free, they kept the tag rules for the vast majority of the match. While it’s not perfect, I like that it didn’t break down as bad as a Young Bucks match. Similarly to Future Shock, The Wolves played the pseudo heels against the fun loving SSB. This match was all about Player Uno though. Some may be sick of the dual forearm spots that Davey has in all of his matches (Complete with that really bad fake tired moment before exploding again), but it served a real purpose in this match. SSB came into this match as equals. Due to what a beating Uno took and he gave back, he’s shown as a potential star for the company. The Wolves may have got the win with Edwards’ half Boston Crab with boots to the head, but this match did more for SSB. SSB is such a perfect addition to PWG. 3 1/2 Stars.

After the match, Davey gets on the mic and praises Super Smash Bros. I really wish Richards would stop doing this. In the last two shows, he praised Kyle O’Reilly, Willie Mack, Adam Cole and Super Smash Bros. Someone needs to tell Davey that if you praise everyone, you’re not really praising a single soul. I want super pissed off Davey back.

El Generico vs Dick Togo – Non-Title
El Generico is sorta the go to guy for whenever PWG needs a wrestler to face a puro star. He already has matches against Liger, CIMA,Dragon Kid, Susumu Yokosuka, SHINGO and Tozawa under his belt. Despite the slow start, this ended up being a pretty exciting match. It definitely benefits from the specialness factor. Considering this is Togo’s first and last match in PWG and one of his last matches in his career, it has that epic feel that the same exact match from two regular wrestlers wouldn’t have had. Togo spends a good deal of the match showing off all of his major moves. I’m really glad Chris Her was able to make Fear. Joining Excalibur on commentary, it was easy to tell how much Excalibur and Hero loved Togo and were knowledgeable in his work. It’s just another little thing to make the match feel like a special attraction. After Generico kicked out of the Pedigree and back Senton, he finally pinned Togo with the top rope brainbuster. Whether you’re a huge Dick fan or you’ve seen very little of him, I imagine you can appreciate it all the same. 4 Stars.

The Young Bucks (c) vs Kevin Steen and Super Dragon – PWG Tag Titles – Guerrilla Warfare Match
After a long sabbatical, this is Dragon’s first PWG match since DDT4 2008 Night 2. As it’s customary in Guerrilla Warfare Matches, turn off the commentary and just enjoy watching and listening to the violence. The non-tag feature of this sort of gimmick plays to the Bucks’ strength. Here you have a match that is encouraged to keep doing double team moves without worrying about tags. The Bucks being murdered early on was good fun, but their beat down on Steen and Dragon was just as good. Even in the losing effort, The Bucks were able to show fans that they’re not just pretty boys. They can kick the asses of even the most violent men in PWG history. While it took me awhile to notice, the match doesn’t feature any blood. There were two expectations for this match. 1) Bucks to lose the belts and 2) Steen/Dragon to bloody the Bucks worst than they ever have been before. Even though the Bucks rarely lose in PWG, we’ve seen it before. Hell, Steen defeated them with CIMA at EIGHT. As a result, the most important thing was the blood. Without the blood, I sorta feel cheated. As much of a beating as Bucks took, was it what we were promised? I wouldn’t say so.

Look back at the Guerrilla Warfare Match between Steen and Dragon. Thanks to the long build-up, the hype for the match was out of this world. The main goal was to see Dragon kill Steen for all of the **** Steen did to him in 2005. By the end of the match, Steen was bleeding, handcuffed behind his back, thrown on barbed wire and thumbtacks. Dragon basically killed Steen. Better yet, Steen took the next show off. The Bucks wouldn’t even miss a single show. Perhaps one of the reasons why the violence was so restrained was because of the packed house, but I still feel like you need to deliver that expected amount of violence. Anyways, Dragon and Steen wins after Dragon Psycho Driver’s Nick to the outside through a table and Steen hits a package piledriver (With Dragon stomping Matt on the way down) on Matt for the pin. 4 Stars.

After the match, Steen and Dragon destroys the PWG tag titles, finally ripping the belts apart. With any hope, this means PWG has either made or will be making new tag titles. Steen announces that Dragon wishes to dedicate the match to his girlfriend, who beat cancer this year.

Overall
PWG produces it’s best non-BOLA end of the year show since Astonishing X-Mas in 2005. I can’t say there’s any bad matches while the final two matches are both pretty damn good. If there is a problem with the show, it’s that the undercard features a lot of matches that received too much time. One of the best things about PWG is that they’re normally not afraid at putting on a short show (2 hours) as opposed to stretching their shows to the usual 3 hour length. With the show clocking in at 2 hours and 50 minutes, they could have easily stretched it back so it’s closer to 2 hours and 30 minutes. Not surprisingly, the two top choices for PWG MVP of 2011 (Steen and Generico) had the best matches of the night. Deciding the best match is just a matter of preference. Do you like violent brawls or more traditional and honorable matches? Their matches really sum of their individual years as well. Steen’s was the center of all of the attention while Generico quietly put on the MOTN many times. When it comes to the new tag teams, I once again feel as if Super Smash Bros. had a better showing than Future Shock. I’d be interested to see if I still feel that way once their Kurt RussellReunion III match is released. It’s not a perfect show, but PWG ends 2011 in a much bigger way than they did in the last few years.

Worth Checking Out
Chris Hero vs Willie Mack
American Wolves vs Super Smash Bros.
El Generico vs Dick Togo
Kevin Steen and Super Dragon vs Young Bucks

Avoid
Getting your hopes up with Amazing Red