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PWG European Vacation II Night 2: England Live Report

October 28, 2007 | Posted by 411Mania Staff

Saturday 27th October
PWG European Vacation II Night 2: England
Bell time: 7pm
Crowd estimate: 250

Joey Ryan defeated Spud with a Superkick in a fun little opener. Lots of comedy at the beginning, with Ryan jawing with some ringside fans, and back-and-forth mocking between the two competitors. The on-going ‘story’ of the match was Spud trying to lift Joey with a bodyslam, but failing each time, until he finally managed to do it late in the match, only for Joey Ryan to come back with a combo of a running knee and the superkick to end things. Good choice for an opener, really got the crowd into the action. **1/2

Zebra Kid defeated Austin Aries with a top rope elbow drop TO THE FACE. Zebra Kid’s a pretty well known UK wrestler, but still this had to be considered a big upset. Really solid match, including a great brawl around the ringside area. Fast-paced, both guys were quite snug with each other, and the crowd were split almost down the middle, creating a terrific atmosphere. Finish came when Aries attempted a top rope brainbuster, only for Zebra to push him off and connect with a sick-looking top rope elbow drop straight to the face. Both men shook hands after the match, and received a standing ovation. ***1/2

The Kartel (Sha Samuels & Terry Frazier) defeated The Hated Heroes (Aviv Maayan & LT Summers) with a flash roll up. Maayan was out first, and revealed that due to Jack Evans missing his flight, the card had been slightly reshuffled, with Human Tornado (who would have been Maayan’s partner here) facing PAC later on in the evening. As such, he revealed his new partner, “the most death-defying high flyer in the world”…LT Summers. Obviously, that was a joke, as Summers is a big guy with a stocky build. Summers came out and played up to the ‘high-flying’ joke, doing a forward roll in the ring, and “leaping” off the bottom rope. As for the match itself, it was plagued by Terry Frazier’s injury in the opening minutes, as he landed awkwardly off of a missed top rope knee drop and clearly screwed his leg up badly. Samuels carried out the rest of the match, but bonus points to Frazier for gutting it out on the apron, as his knee was visbly swollen and probably needed some medical attention. Unfortunately, what we got match-wise was less than stellar and didn’t really engage the crowd. Summers was hilarious, jawing with fans and his opponents, but apart from that, not great. *

PWG World Championship match: Bryan Danielson defeated Martin Stone with the Cattle Mutilation. Solid match, albeit a bit unspectacular. In fairness, it seemed like Danielson tweaked his neck early on, as he was visibly in pain and was later spotted holding an ice pack to said area, but it didn’t seem to be anything serious. Crowd were slow to get into things, although both men had a nice exchange of mat wrestling holds. Danielson kicked up the pace when Stone went to the outside, launching himself over the top rope in his trademark dive into the crowd. Back in the ring, Stone got some good offense in, and then we went to a HOT finish, with Danielson busting out an awesome LEG LARIAT (seemingly new to his repetoire), before trapping Stone’s arms and delivering some VICIOUS stomps to the face, prior to locking in the Cattle Mutilation for the submission victory. ***

INTERMISSION

IPW:UK title match: Andy Boy Simmonz defeated James Tighe to retain. Simmonz was of course last seen being mutilated by Umaga two weeks ago on Raw. I wasn’t all that familiar with either guy, but I was suitably impressed, and the match seemed to do its job, which of course was to get the crowd back into the action. Match was wrestled evenly, with both guys getting an equal amount of offense in. Nice slugfest at one point, exchanging about 15 forearms to the face in quick succession. Finish came when Simmonz hit some kind of bridging pin. Not bad at all. **1/2

Human Tornado defeated PAC in an excellent battle of the high flyers. Both men were just ‘on’ in this match, and everything seemed very crisp. Started out with trademark Tornado comedy, as Tornado kept trying to start a dance off, but PAC was having none of it. Once the action got serious, things really heated up. Of course, we were treated to THE INDY STANDOFF! But it was actually very slick and worked well. Both guys hit their usual flips and dives to the outside, including PAC’s impressive corkscrew shooting star press from the top rope to the floor. The pace never let up, and the moves kept getting bigger and bigger. Eventually, PAC knocked Tornado’s feet off the top rope, but H-Tizzle has BALLS OF STEEL so it was ineffective! Tornado capitalised, hitting a Tornado DDT from the top rope, finishing him off with a Dat Ni*** Dead for the 3 count. Great stuff, quite short, but exhilarating from start to finish. ***3/4

PWG World Tag Team Championship match: Super Dragon & Davey Richards defeated El Generico & Kevin Steen (c) to become the NEW WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS in a phenomenal match. The action was just off the charts here, although I guess that could almost be expected with these four guys. Awesome atmosphere, simply because the heel/face dynamic was so strong. Steen was mega-over, with massive “MR WRESTLING” chants prior to the match. Before the bell, we were treated to some brilliant Super Dragon antics. A little girl in the front row was celebrating her tenth birthday, and had a sign saying “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY” on it. Super Dragon came over, took the sign from her and ripped it to shreds, with Davey kicking the pieces around the ring. Dragon went over to the merchandise stand and grabbed a t-shirt, and for a moment it looked like he was going to give it to the girl as a peace offering, but as she reached out to take it, he snatched it away. OOOH, HEEL!!!

As for the in-ring action, it was hard to keep up! Things broke down pretty quickly, and all four guys brawled all over the sports hall. Steen threw Richards on the benched seating where I was, and proceeded to beat him up right in front of me. Super Dragon and El Generico traded blows by the merchandise table, including some nasty bumps on top of the table. In another classic Super Dragon moment, some fan had been ripping on him the whole time he’d been out there, so he grabbed El Generico, sat him on top of the fan, and then proceeded to hit a spinning wheel kick, which naturally took out the Generic Luchadore, but also knocked the fan over in his chair! Tremendous!

Long heat sequence on Generico, before he finally got the hot tag to Steen, and the place exploded. The extended finishing sequence was a thing of beauty, with so many high spots. Generico hit his through-the-ropes-tornado-DDT on Super Dragon, which was executed perfectly. Dragon & Richards looked to have it won at one point, after a combination of a massive sunset bomb on Steen, followed by the Psycho Driver AND a standing SSP from Richards, but Generico made a split-second save at the last moment. Dragon snapped, shoved Generico to the outside and then damn near snapped him in half with a Psycho Driver on the wooden floor, whilst Davey Richards simultaneously hit the Shooting Star Press on Steen to pick up the win, thus making Richards and Dragon two-time PWG World Tag Team Champions. Rating-wise, this is easily ****1/2 and has got to be considered a MOTYC, and not just in PWG. Insane action coupled with the strong heel/face dynamic, which thus contributed to an extremely hot crowd, makes this a match PWG fans will want to go out of their way to see.

After the match, once the new champions had left the ringside area, Steen got on the mic and put over the crowd, talking about the success of the European tour. However, he also had something very important to say. Whilst Generico may be busy with Danielson tomorrow in Germany challenging for the World Title, Steen wanted a rematch for the tag titles! He said he would find a suitable replacement as a tag partner, and if he did not win the titles back tomorrow night, “well, I’m not sure when you guys will see Kevin Steen in PWG again!” Looks like the pressure is certainly on!
Show ended at 10pm on the dot, giving us a full 3 hour show. Whilst overall it wasn’t a blowaway card, the main event makes this a must buy. Plus, the Tornado-PAC and Aries-Zebra Kid matches are both very worth your time, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all translates to DVD. PWG, come back to England soon!

Here are some photos from the event:

Martin Stone applies the pressure on Danielson