Dark Pegasus Video Review: Pro-Wrestling Guerrilla — Taste the Radness

PWG: Taste The Radness by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Reference du jour: Spod’s debut album “Taste the Radness.” February 22, 2004 From Santa Ana, Calif. Your hosts are Excalibur and Disco Machine. Opening Match: Puma vs. Charles Mercury. This is New Japan vs. Revolution Pro and is a stark reminder that Puma don’t fuck around. He drills Mercury with a dropkick off the bell and nearly gets the pin with a German suplex. Mercury avoids another dropkick and turns Puma over into the Texas Cloverleaf early. The announcers start making fun of the low attendance for kicks and giggles. Their MST3K-style commentary is usually more distracting than helpful, so it’s nice that you can turn it off. Puma dismantles Mercury efficiently until Mercury hits a suplex to take over. Mercury is quite adept in the ring, but he’s still a young’n here. He works in the ROLLING NORTHERN LIGHTS~! Puma is in the ropes, though. Puma reverses a suplex and scoops Mercury up for the Tombstone Piledriver at 7:19. Sharp execution. Glorified squash. Always fun to watch Puma, though. ** Hardkore Kidd (w/El Jefe) vs. Babi Slymm. Hardkore is Aaron Aguilera, who you probably remember as the guy that stabbed John Cena in the nightclub on behalf of Carlito Cool. You might also remember him as one-half of the phony Conquistadores along with Christopher Daniels. Slymm is, most infamously, the guy from “101 Reasons Not to Be a Pro-Wrestler.” In 2007, he joined Dragon Gate’s Muscle Outlaws faction. Think D-Lo Brown with more flying skills. Kidd hits a pump-splash headbutt to Slymm’s groin but hurts himself on Babi’s package. Slymm gets an awkward Tornado Slam (“The Birdman Bomb”), but Jefe pulls the ref out. No disqualification for that, which is silly. Adam Pearce runs in and piledrives Slymm (viciously!), and Kidd covers for the win at 8:49. Aguilera just doesn’t connect with me (or apparently many others) in any way. It’s not that he doesn’t have talent, but there’s some sort of charisma quotient lacking. *1/2 The Havana Pitbulls vs. The Thomaselli Bros. This is New Japan vs. Pro-Wrestling IRON. I miss the Pitbulls as a team. Romero works in the Lady in the Lake early. Santino Marella should learn/work that in to his act. It would be perfect for him. The Thomasellis work similar to the Pitbulls but more grounded, so this is a fairly even match. The Thomasellis doubleteam Reyes for a bit and put Rocky in a double crab. Reyes makes the save and hits a Fisherman’s DDT on Sal for two. The Thomasellis hit the legdrop Decapitation for two, but Romero comes back in with a flying cross-armbreaker on Vito for the win at 13:52. The Pitbulls looked crisp as usual, and the Thomasellis offered a competent challenge. **1/2 Samoa Joe vs. Shannon Ballard. Ballard looks jacked compared to when I last saw him. He jumps Joe on the outside, which just pisses Joe off. Joe blocks an STO and ENDS Ballard with his own. Ballard sends him into the corner but eats another STO as he charges in. Ballard blocks a charge and snaps Joe’s arm down on the mat. Shannon at least has a decent strategy – picking a body part and going after it with vigor. In this case, it’s Joe’s arm. Joe gets sick of that in a hurry, though, and pummels Ballard like a big, grumpy Vader. His roundhouse kick sends Ballard into the ref, though, allowing Ballard to go out and get a chair. Joe no-sells the chairshot and takes the chair away from Shannon just in time for the ref to see it and disqualify Joe for illegal use of a foreign object at 8:44. Hey, if you’re Shannon Ballard, you got to take your victories as they come. This was shaping up as a typical Joe squash – a match he became famous for from 2003-2006. **1/4 Scorpio Sky, Chris Bosh & Quicksilver vs. Super Dragon, Excalibur & Disco Machine. Scorpio spends the pre-match promo ranting about Excalibur getting kicked out of Revolution Pro-Wrestling so he had to found PWG. The feud here is Scorpio is leading his heel team to attack Excalibur for, among other things, being a racist. He’s too much of a pussy to take him on directly though, so he waits until Excalibur is down and all three jump in and put the boots to him. Disco Machine plays face-in-peril for a while. Nothing to report. Excalibur gets the hot tag but gets dropped on his head by Chris Bosh. Now Excalibur is in the wrong corner. Still nothing to report. This is going on too long for what they have to offer. Dragon gets the most epic of hot tags and… winds up in the heel corner. The Aerial Express (Sky & Quicksilver) UNLEASH THE FURY in the corner. The babyfaces come back with multiple clotheslines on Quicksilver. Sky hits the Reverse Frankensteiner to spike Excalibur on his dome. Bosh goes for the Steiner Screwdriver, but Excalibur counters to the Tiger Driver ’98. Dragon winds up alone with Scorpio Sky and hits the Psycho Driver (Burning Hammer). The Pro-Wrestling Guerrilla gorilla pulls the ref out of the ring to break up the count, though. Super Dragon jumps to the floor and unmasks the gorilla as opening match jobber Charles Mercury. Bosh uses the distraction to waffle Dragon with a chairshot. It only gets two, and Excalibur tags in. Excalibur goes after Chris Bosh but gets caught with a Steiner Screwdriver out of nowhere at 25:54. Way too long, and the finish came out of nowhere. The work was okay, even pretty good, but it felt like they were filling time rather than working a match. **3/4 After the match, Top Gun Talwar joins Bosh, Sky, Quicksilver & Mercury in a beatdown on the babyfaces. Why Talwar? Because they didn’t have anything for him to do at the last show. Mercury says they’re here to destroy PWG. New New New World Order. Scott Lost and Joey Ryan make the save, despite their differences with Super Dragon. A five-on-five tag match is set up. Bryan Danielson vs. Bobby Quance. Ah, now here’s some wrestling. Quance is an excellent mat wrestler, but he lacks Dragon’s viciousness. Mat wrestling to start, and it’s pretty good. Dragon plays subtle heel here, but they’re going for the “Hey, we’re just two wrestlers here” vibe. Danielson no-sells a shoulderblock, so Quance kicks at his thigh to soften him up and completes the shoulderblock. Quance tries several chokeholds and a chinlock, bogging down the match a little. Dragon gets pissed that Quance tried a chop, and that triggers a bitchslap-fest. To the floor, Danielson drops an elbow, but Quance reverses a suplex on the lodge floor. Back in, Quance flips out of a Canadian backbreaker and hits a modified Angleslam for two. Danielson picks him up and does the Airplane Spin. Gotta bring that one back. DIVING HEADBUTT! ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Quance fights back like a good little babyface and flips out of a German Suplex. A Swinging DDT puts Danielson down, but Quance can’t cover immediately. Quance goes for the Shooting Star Press but sees Danielson moving, so he lands on his feet. Danielson catches him with the Everest German Suplex and finishes with an abdominal stretch at 20:19. Just a solid exhibition of wrestling. Not a lot of emotion involved, outside of Danielson’s anger over Quance’s chops. ***1/4 PWG Tag Team Titles: Homicide & B-Boy vs. The X Foundation (w/SoCal Val). This is Homicide and B-Boy’s first tag title defense after winning the titles at Tango & Cash Invitational. Joey Ryan is not yet the king of sleaze. In fact, SoCal Val is not yet a redhead. For those who have never seen B-Boy, just imagine if Homicide had a Mini-Me. The match runs much more smoothly when Homicide or Joey Ryan is in there. When it’s B-Boy and Lost, it looks like a rehearsed exhibition. The challengers isolate B-Boy for a while, but Homicide hits a rope-assisted neckbreaker to take over. The champs put the boots to Ryan. Long heat sequence without much heat generated. This is another match that could get cut down about 10 minutes and be just fine. Ryan hits Homicide with a superkick and makes the hot tag to Lost. Lost hits a pescado to wipe out the champs. Homicide breaks up the Demolition Decapitation, and the champs hit the clothesline/German combo. Homicide locks in an STF on Lost (which looks more like a choke). B-Boy holds Ryan back, but Lost makes the ropes to save himself. The challengers catch B-Boy and hit the Extinction Agenda (Demolition Decapitation). ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Homicide Dragon Screws Lost out of the ring! The champs hit a Steiner Bulldog, but Lost returns to break it up. Lost blocks the Cop Killa. B-Boy charges Ryan, but Ryan catches him with a small package for the win and the titles at 22:32. This was just a big clusterfuck at the end, and the twenty minute that preceded it didn’t amount to much more than killing time until said clusterfuck. It was packed with action, though, I’ll give it that. *** PWG World Title, Chicago Street Fight: Frankie Kazarian vs. Adam Pearce. You know Kazarian (the first PWG Champion) from TNA and most likely know Pearce from Ring of Honor. He’s from the Chicago area. Hence, Chicago Street Fight in California. Pearce suckerpunches Kazarian early, but Kazarian fights back and wipes him out with the pescado. They brawl into the crowd where a “fan” hits Kazarian with his crutch and hobbles off. The fan is later identified as Jason Allgood. Pearce tosses Kazarian into a podium. Back to the ring, Kazarian tries to choke Pearce out, but Pearce pulls a chain out of his pocket and whips Kazarian in the eye with it to break the hold. Back outside, Kazarian grabs a football helmet and smashes Pearce with it. Back to the ring again, Pearce takes the helmet away and hits a diving headbutt with it. Okay, Kazarian should be dead after that if I know my Roger Goodell. That only gets two, though, so Pearce hits a spear for two. Allgood returns but gets beat on by Kazarian. Pearce sets up a table at ringside and tries to piledrive Kazarian through it. Kazarian reverses to a Wave of the Future through the table. Kazarian tosses Pearce back in and goes for the pin, but Hardkore Kidd runs in and breaks it up. Babi Slymm evens things up by spearing Kidd into an empty section. Meanwhile, Pearce dumps thumbtacks into the ring, but Kazarian flips out of a suplex. Pearce works in the Flair flip, but Kazarian clotheslines him. Kazarian sets up for the Flux Capacitor, but Kidd tosses a chair at him from outside to break it up. Pearce shoves Kazarian back into the tacks and finishes with a frogsplash at 14:25. Man, now *that* is overbooked. It certainly was a fun match, though, and I’m glad it didn’t devolve into violence porn madness like many indie matches do. The more I see of Pearce, the more I admire how consistent he is. He won’t give you a ***** match by himself, but he’s good for a solid-to-good match every time out. ***

The 411: Started to pick up at the midway point, which is good because the first half was dull. There was nothing truly worth going out of your way for unless you're a PWG Title completist. Bryan Danielson had the best match (big surprise), and even that was below average for him. Nothing thrilling enough for me to advise you to spend your money on it. Mild thumbs down.
Final Score:  5.5   [ Not So Good ]