Yearly Review: PWG 2003

The first year of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla Heavyweight Championship Scene:
Starting with the second show, PWG started a PWG Heavyweight Championship Tournament involving sixteen wrestlers. The finals of the tournament took place on August 30th, 2003 where Frankie Kazarian became the first champion after pinning fan favorite Joey Ryan.

Kazarian defended the championship on October 4th against two of the top independent wrestlers AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Kazarian was able to retain the championship after hitting the Wave of the Future on Daniels. Daniels would cut a promo saying he would chase Kazarian until he became the champion. AJ Styles noted that Frankie had never pinned him.

Eleven days later Frankie would defend the championship against Bryan Danielson on October 15. After twenty two minutes of action Kazarian was able to retain the championship by hitting the Flex Capacitor in probably the best match for PWG thus far. Adam Pearce came out and attacked Kazarian. Also, Colt Cabana came out and turned heel attacking Kazarian as well.

Adam Pearce managed to pin Kazarian on the last show of 2003 with a piledriver essentially making him the number one contender as PWG enters 2004.

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla Tag Team Championship Scene:
The PWG Tag Team Championships had not been introduced at this point in time. They would be introduced in early 2004.

Other Happenings:
– Excalibur, Super Dragon and Disco Machine for an alliance known as Team Chismo. It is presented on the first show that these three men will be a huge part of PWG moving forward.

– Hardkore Inc. is another faction consisting of Hardkore Kidd, Al Katrazz and Adam Pearce.

– The X-Foundation is a third stable consisting of Joey Ryan, Scott Lose, and Billy Kim.

– It looked like Adam Pearce was being promoted as the top heel for PWG. Pearce and Joey Ryan develop a short feud in PWG with Pearce losing to Ryan in the PWG Heavyweight Title Tournament but beating Ryan on 10/4/2003.

– The X-Foundation started a feud with Team Chismo on October 4th when Team Chismo attacked Joey Ryan after his match with Adam Pearce on the show. They would have a tag match with Lost and Kim beating Excalibur and Disco Machine after Chris Bosh fast counted Excalibur. That would lead to a hair vs. hair match on the December show. Bosh lost by DQ after hitting the referee. Scorpio Sky and Quicksilver would turn on Excalibur as they had some kind of alliance as well. That would lead to a brawl with Super Dragon and Disco Machine coming out to make the save.

– PWG had their first Guerrilla Rules match on October 15th between Super Dragon and Joey Ryan. It set the standard for hardcore brawls in PWG as it was a violent match between tow PWG originals. Dragon won the match with a Psycho Driver on the guard railing.

– Matt Cross, a straight edge wrestler and Jardi Frantz, a stoner, tried to form a tag team but that didn’t last long as they lost their first tag match together and would proceed to brawl.

– Samoa Joe started to work for PWG winning matches against CM Punk and BJ Whitmer on the last two shows of 2003.

– The first main event in PWG history was between Frankie Kazarian and AJ Styles.