PWG All Star Weekend 9 Night 1
Paul London vs Kevin Steen ***1/2
Johnny Gargano and Chuck Taylor vs The Young Bucks ***1/2
Jay lethal vs Eddie Edwards DUD
AR Fox and Samuray del Sol vs The Inner City Machine Guns ***3/4
Roderick Strong vs Trent? *
Future Shock vs The Unbreakable F'n Machine **1/2
Sami Callihan vs Drake Younger ***
-London and Steen is the definition of an opener. What I admired the most about this match was the fact that these guys spent a lot of this match working the crowd into a frenzy by doing...absolutely nothing. The crowd was on fire for Paul London simply going to back and wetting his hair, slapping Steen in the face with a glove. It's freaking crazy. What I enjoyed the most about this match was that it didn't go into overkill with the kicks to the head and head dropping. Fantastic opener.
-Gargano/Taylor vs Young Bucks was pretty good as well. Wasn't as over-choreographed as most Young Bucks matches tend to be. I enjoyed it. Lots of cool sequences.
-As for Lethal/Edwards? Fuck that match. Seriously, fuck it. I made a vow in 2013 to get back into indy wrestling but this match reminded me why I stopped watching it the first place. The match goes at 1000mph, lacks any sort of structure, pacing or selling. It's just Lethal and Edwards taking turns kicking each other in the head with no consequences whatsoever. I mean, there was some fun crowd work in Edwards asking a fan to irish whip him into Lethal. Later on Lethal would ask two fans to irish whip him as well, only they irish whipped him into the edge of the ring. However, no consequences. And in typical indy fashion, the finish is as anti climatic as it gets. The ideal finish would have been when Lethal hit his springboard ace crusher onto Edwards. However, it ends about three minutes later when both guys are clueless as to what to do next and the match just ends flat. It could have been worse. It could have ended 10 minutes after it was supposed to.
-Luckily, the tag match followed. Holy shit. This match was freaking chaos. The standing ovation of the ngith came when Ricochet and Del Sol were just countering each others moves so quickly. It was a thign of beauty to look at. The crowd went nuts. This show is worth seeing just for the moment alone. Overall, it was a good a match. I got kind of tired with it coming down to end as the endless dives that AR Fox loves to perform (and quite frankly everyone else) got over bearing but I give this match the credit it deserves. Tbh, though, I forgot AR Fox was even in this match at times. He presence just wasn't felt. Ricochet and Del Sol were definitely the standouts.
-The only way I can describe Strong/Trent is a conflict of interests and styles. Look, I'm no Roddy fan. Quite frankly, if Roderick strong were in a fighting game I would not pick his character. Why? Well I suck at fighting games and trying to remember his combos would be a nightmare for me. Strong, like many, needs to understand this pro wrestling. Not Super Street Fighter 4. The elbow into the jumping knee strike into the brainbuster into the backbreaker into the gutbuster just really isn't necessary. And it makes you look weak as fuck when your opponent kicks out ALL THE TIME. Trent (Trent?) tried to worker a more slower paced match and tried to add some selling and what not but Roddy was having none of it. Funny thing is, where as Roddy was kicking out of Trent's more or less weaker offense, Trent was kicking out of Roddy's best. Talk about burying your own fucking self for a stupid "This is awesome" chant. Terrible match. Only reason I didn't give it a DUD...it was good up until Strong started hitting his combos.
-As for the tag match that followed....meh. O' Reilly is another Strong and another guy who thinks pro wrestling is an arcade fighting game. The Davey Richards influence is strong in this one. O' Reilly does every but sell the two fucking giants offense and even when he makes an attempt at selling, it still fucking sucks. Some needs to tell this 180 pound vanilla midget he is no badass. Well at least when he's in the ring with guys like Elgin and Cage. I wouldn't describe this match as over kill or anything like that, I'd just call it O' Reilly doing what he does best. Suck. As for the others. Cole was okay. Had some cool stuff. There was this one moment in particular where Elgin and Cage were literally trading turns giving Cole a delayed suplex. Just some great stuff. Overall, it was on okay match and did a great job of making me not care about it to the point where I wanted to see the main event.
-The main event was solid. Nothing spectacular or anything but it was really entertaining. I know some may have issues with Younger's long-term selling but to me, it just wasn't the story of the match. I liked the story this match told. It's not the pain that gave Younger the adrenaline rush, it was the blatant disrespect and mocking and jeering by Sami. When Sami staples the money to Younger (which by the way is a very fucking stupid thing. Always hated that damn staple gun) Younger does hurt. But when Sami starts ripping the bills off and taunting him, oh, that's when shit starts and Younger retaliates. I also found the adrenaline rush from the salt to the wounds quite believable. Overall, this was a decent outing and one that I enjoyed. I'm not sure about the final outcome, but meh, will see how Night 2 plays out.
Overall, despite my criticisms, I did enjoy this show. The opener, like I mentioned, really stood out to me though. The flippity flip tag match (no not the Bucks, althought they were too) is something beyond the description of words. I challenge anyone to write a play by play for it. Main event was closed off a really fun night. Can't wait to check out night 2.