More Detailed Report From PWG’ Battle of Los Angeles Night Three

The show was scheduled to started three hours earlier than the previous two nights. This led to people who didn’t pay attention to that deal no-showing (it’s still totally packed though). It looks like a good deal of the standing room only ticket-holders found seats. We didn’t even get inside until 45 minutes after the scheduled start time. Famous restauranteur Lisa Marie Varon is in attendance, if anyone knows who that is. Rey Mysterio is watching from behind the commentary desk, which is pretty neat. Doesn’t look like he would get involved tonight, but we’ll see.

Excalibur welcomes to the show as usual donning a sling to sell last night’s beat down…but then tells us all that he separated his shoulder and has a potential fracture of his cervical spine, and based on how emotional he is about it, it’s clearly not a work.

He takes care of the normal housekeeping and tells us our ring announcer is running late, so he’ll be doing that for the first half of the show.

Our first match of the night is a quarter-final match, and it’s Jack Evans vs. Brian Cage. Evans comes out to boos and tries to quiet the audience so he can sing his own entrance song. Cage gets a huge pop. Before the match, Evans asks for a mic so he can heel out a bit. He tells Excalibur it was unprofessional to announce him from outside the ring, and calls PWG unprofessional in general. Then calls out some fans he talked to yesterday who had a gambling ring on who was going to win the tournament, and no one had Jack Evans. He calls himself the favorite, and not the underdog against Cage. There’s more, but I’ll just leave it at this: fun promo. The bell rings and Cage throws his ass around before military press throwing him to the floor onto a bunch of chairs. Ouch. Cage does a certain series of moves that receive a “Suplex City” chant. I’ll let you guess what. Cage dominates some more, and Evans gets a bridging stack pin out of nowhere for the win around 4:50 into the match. After the match, Cage gives him a Steiner Screwdriver. Quick, fun, solid match. With potentially 13 matches on the card tonight, I’m glad this was kept brief (and I hope a few more are as well).

Next up is Chris Hero vs. Biff Busick. Man oh man. I didn’t even know I wanted this match this badly until the music hit. Chris Hero blindsides Busick to start the match and he immediately gets some heat. Very fast-paced start and Busick turns the tide before it cools down a bit. Hero dominated the match with Biff showing fighting spirit and not backing down from the onslaught. They fought for several minutes over control of a move up top, and eventually Hero hit a piledriver from the middle rope on Biff to secure the victory in just under 9 minutes.

Third match of the night is “Party” Marty Scurll vs. Trevor Lee. Catch as catch can wrestling starts the bout. Lee is the all that favorite with the crowd. They have a pretty good match, with Scurll working the lower arm for most of it. This pays off at the end when he prevents Lee from hitting something off the top by yanking Lee’s fingers apart, and the submitting him to the crossface chickenwing around 15:30.

Fourth on the card is a battle of men who took their father’s names, Pentagón, Jr. vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. Crowd is molten for Zack. “This is awesome” chant simply for this match being booked. Crowd is almost just as hot for Pentagón. Pentagón flips Zack the bird, and he counters with a peace sign. Zack outwrestles Pentagón and then calls him a “puto.” Pentagón wins the next sequence and puts Zack in a twisty hold that I doubt has a name (“Pretzel Factory” would be accurate through), and the crowd loves this. Pentagón continues to keep up with Zack’s technical prowess by showing his own. Pentagón did an awesome spot where he threw Rick Knox on his hands and knees and used him to hit a dropkick off his back on Sabre in the corner. Pentagón hits a huge overhand chop on Zack that gets the crowd to chant “Bruno Mars” again. It’s a weird way to ask for one more, but I’ll take it. He ends up going for one in each corner, and they are loud as hell. Pentagón hits a tope con hilo to Zack outside, and the throws him in, sets up a Packaged Piledriver, but Zack escapes by going for the flying Kimura. Pentagón counters that by hooking him for a suplex or something, and Zack rolls through that for a Kimura on the mat and Pentagón taps pretty quickly. Amazing match, and maybe my favorite of the weekend so far.

Our fifth match is Tommy End vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey in a match pitting a guy who is a no-gimmick-needed ass kicker against a guy who is a very gimmicky ass kicker. Should be a unique dynamic, as there are lots of stories they can tell. Match starts aggressively, they’re fighting in the crowd where I can’t see from my seat. They tell exactly the story I wanted to see, with Bailey being overmatched as a striker, but showing the heart to fight through it all. The end up exchanging kicks on the apron and Bailey suplexes end and then hits the Shooting Star Knees on the apron! Later, End gets back to back nearfalls on Bailey and really sucks the crowd into the match. Bailey finishes a phenomenal match with a head kick to End in just under 10 minutes.

Tony Acero (sitting next to me) pointed out that Lisa Marie Varon (the restaurant owner) called Rey Mysterio to say hello. They were thirty feet away, but who am I to judge? I’ve called my roommate to bring my pizza because I didn’t want to stand up. He did. What a pushover…

Next up is the two remaining high fliers in the tournament, and our last quarter-final match, Will Ospreay vs. Matt Sydal. The match’s opening minutes consist of cruiserweight style chain wrestling, and both men trade momentum throughout. Will Ospreay landed on his feet, backflipping out of a top rope reverse hurricanrana, but he hit a regular one off the mat to set up the Shooting Star Press. Ospreay dodged, and then hit an inverted 450 Splash to defeat Sydal at 15:30. After the match, Sydal is a good sport and tells Ospreay to win the whole thing.

Intermission

After intermission, Roderick Strong trolls the crowd with Fénix’s music. He’s then joined by the rest of Mt. Rushmore 2.0 (The Young Bucks & Super Dragon). They challenge anyone in the back to run out and Fénix answers only to get laid out. Angélico need a similar fate. The Inner City Machine Guns are out next and succeed in laying out 2.0. Fénix and Angélico recover, and we get an 8-man tag underway: Mt. Rushmore 2.0 (Roderick Strong, Super Dragon, & The Young Bucks) vs. Fénix, Angélico, & The Inner City Machine Guns (Ricochet & Rich Swann). Match was very chaotic until Swann went nuts on 2.0 and was met with a double superkick/high knee from them. If you didn’t know, Mt. Rushmore 2.0 are dicks. Holy shit moments galore, including a catapult into double superkicks on Ricochet, who fell back across Roddy’s knees, and then Dragon got a double stomp off the ropes. The formula for this match was 2.0 obliterating someone and their partner would make the save. Madness. The faces rallied and did that exact formula on Roddy, and Angélico dove over the turnbuckles to take out Matt Jackson on the floor, as well as my chair. Whatever, I can stand. I’m a man. In the ring, Roddy finished Swann with the End of Heartache at around 19 minutes.

Jack Evans is out wrapped in SO much gauze to sell Cage’s beatdown, and his opponent is out to a very nice ovation. Our first semi-final match is Jack Evans vs. Chris Hero. Despite being wrapped in SO much gauze, Evans isn’t selling. Evans starts the match with another promo about how The Rock responded to the “Shirts Off and Tweet The Rock” segment in the Best Friends interview series on Highspots (they’re actually really fun) only in the episode he was on. He then tears down Hero verbally. He goes on and on and on and it’s wonderful. They don’t even make contact until 5 minutes in because the bell rang before the promo (despite fans’ insistence that it never happened, but trust me, I started my stopwatch with it). Evans insisted that Hero couldn’t even keep him down for a 3 count let alone a 2 count. He spends the whole match kicking out at 1. This match is very entertaining and the most I’ve ever liked Jack Evans. The whole match, Hero couldn’t even get a 2 count. Once he did, the 3 wasn’t far behind, as he hit a ripcord Rolling Elbow to eliminate Evans at 15:13 (but 5 minutes were promo). This was definitely a personal favorite and a great time.

The second semi-final match is Will Ospreay vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey. Sportsmanship starts the match. Both men were hitting big moves pretty quickly, and we got into a sequence where they kept hitting dueling outside dives. Mike Bailey got the knees up when Ospreay went for the inverted 450 Splash, then hit his Shooting Star Knees. After that, there was a wonderful moment where Bailey raised his arms to signify his finishing head kick, and he nodded to Ospreay who nodded back before being put away. It was his time. He had lived a full life. Just over 11 minutes long. Beautiful finishing stretch here.

The final semi-final match-up is “Eurotrash Implodes!” “Party” Marty Scurll vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. I feel like the result is a foregone conclusion. I’ll be interested to see how they can try to make that not feel like it’s the case. The crowd is way behind Sabre, but Scurll has still gotten himself very over this weekend. This was a technical wrestling clinic mixed with comedy. Seriously loved this match so much. I totally bought a couple nearfalls too. I don’t want to give away much, so just check it out. It went long but was never dull. This may very well be my match of the year so far. Sabre beats Scurll with arm work and a Cross Armbreaker at 29:08. Crowd was with them every step of the way. I think I’d say this was *****, if not very close.

Our next match is the obligatory loser’s tag….with a few names added for intrigue. Timothy Thatcher, Mark Andrews, Andrew Everett, Drago, & Tomasso Ciampa vs. Drew Gulak, Drew Galloway, Aerostar, Trent?, & Chuck Taylor! Crowd goes nuts for Ciampa, and nuts-er for Chuck Taylor, who has announced his retirement tour. Chuck Taylor decides that their team name is the “Five Man Band.” Galloway looks embarrassed as the crowd chants “5MB.” Ciampa and Chuck Taylor start and tease another slow motion sequence like last, but Ciampa trills and kicks Chuck in the gut, breaking that effect just a few seconds in. For this, I wept. Hilarious match throughout. There was a sequence where everyone took turns low blowing each other that ended with Chuck and Trent? being the only ones left, so they kicked each other in the balls at the same time, and while hunched over, hugged it out. We finally got a slow motion sequence that was awesome. That ended with Everett and Andrews on opposing corners, and, in real time, admitting there was no way they could do something from there in slow motion, so they went for Shooting Star presses. Match ended with Chuck Taylor hitting the Awful Waffle on Andrews and Trent? hitting a Yoshi Tonic on Everett to win for their team at 22:50. Amazingly fun match. I think tonight has surpassed last night, and I’m surprisingly not too tired for the main event.

The BOLA trophy is brought to the ring, and our final is set: Chris Hero vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. This match is an elimination style three way dance, so we will have a definitive winner at the end. Three-way sportsmanship starts the match. Chris Hero exits the ring to sit on someone in the front row because there were dueling chants for only Speedball and Sabre. Some girl yells that Hero can sit on her lap, so he plows through crowd to oblige. Then more lap-sitting ensues with Bailey on Sabre in the ring. Once they’re all in the ring, they do some really cool and clever three-man chain wrestling. As we progress, there’s a fun story that Sabre is mentoring Bailey, and they use Hero as a test subject. Then after a chest kick sequence, Bailey lets Sabre demonstrate on him, and admits that his is perfect. There’s a great spot where Sabre has Hero in the flying Kimura and Bailey hits the Shooting Star knees off the top to break it up. There’s a lot of back and forth until Hero takes control for several minutes. Hero eliminates Mike Bailey after three piledrivers back to back to back at 27:30 into the match. There were some fairly nail-biting sequences between Hero and Sabre, with Hero hitting elbows and Zack working arm submissions. It paid off because Hero hits another elbow and grabs his arm in pain, unable to capitalize. Sabre later omoplatas Hero’s good arm, kicks his head a few times, and cranks back on the bad arm with a sick armbar (same move that Pentagón, Jr. got over doing in Lucha Underground. Hero taps out at 36 minutes.

After the match, Sabre celebrates with his trophy and Roddy comes out and promises to kick the shit out of him when they face one another. Sabre cuts a celebratory promo to close, and all the Europeans come out to join him (Mark Andrews, Will Ospreay, Tommy End, Marty Scurll, and Drew Galloway).

Amazing show. Definitely topped last night’s amazing show. It was five and a half hours long though (DVD will probably be north of four).

Quick results:
Quarter-final match: Jack Evans defeated Brian Cage
Quarter-final match: Chris Hero defeated Biff Busick
Quarter-final match: “Party” Marty Scurll defeated Trevor Lee
Quarter-final match: Zack Sabre, Jr. defeated Pentagón, Jr.
Quarter-final match: “Speedball” Mike Bailey defeated Tommy End
Quarter-final match: Will Ospreay defeated Matt Sydal
Mt. Rushmore 2.0 (Roderick Strong, Super Dragon, & The Young Bucks) defeated Fénix, Angélico, & The Inner City Machine Guns (Ricochet & Rich Swann)
Semi-final match: Chris Hero defeated Jack Evans
Semi-final match: “Speedball” Mike Bailey defeated Will Ospreay
Semi-final match: Zack Sabre, Jr. defeated Marty Scurll
Drew Gulak, Drew Galloway, Aerostar, Trent?, & Chuck Taylor defeated Timothy Thatcher, Mark Andrews, Andrew Everett, Drago, & Tomasso Ciampa
Battle of Los Angeles Finals: defeated Chris Hero and “Speedball” Mike Bailey