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1/30 PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night Two Road Report
Oh there is so much I love and hate about Los Angeles. I love the weather, the In-N-Out on Sepulveda, and the wrestling. I hate the traffic, the hotels near the airport, and the fact that twice in two days, the Rams have attempted to ruin our plans. Sure, yesterday in St. Louis we had a hard time finding places to eat because the Rams killed the town. Today they decided to play an NFC Championship Game that caused us to not be able to check into our hotel early and receive warnings about potential riots and surge pricing.
The In-N-Out on Sepulveda made it all right though. A 3 by 3 mustard fried with peppers, animal style fries, and a Neapolitan Shake, it built my strength. Mean Mark had the same thing but complained like he does most of his American food choices. A quick Uber to the Globe Theater and its time for BOLA BABY!
Now I have heard so much about the new venue but the American Legion Hall in Reseda was something I always felt would be unmatched. Even still, when I think about some of the best venues I’ve seen wrestling in, that little hall in Reseda still ranks among the best even with their cramped spaces, lack of adequate cooling, and the ridiculous lines for alcohol. But the Globe is the venue that the PWG faithful says really is the heir apparent to the now extinct Ameican Legion Hall.
First thing I notice is the queuing. Reseda had the parking lot that felt like a huge tailgate even if Legion Larry was out there patroling and making sure all drinks were on the up and up. With the Globe in Downtown LA, the lines are split two different ways on the city block and confused employees and patrons of the local jewerly establishments eye you as you block the door to their shops. At The Globe you are no longer insulated by the parking lot and deal with “the elements” of Downtown LA, namely the people walking up and down the streets or going into the shops, the people begging the line for money, and the crazy drivers racing up and down the street.
But the lack of community from the separate lines and hustle and bustle of everything going on is a small price to pay once you get inside the Globe. An easier bar line, easier to access bathrooms, and FOOD made this such an enjoyable experience. One thing to note if you are choosing your seats and this is definitely a rib on us is if you don’t want to deal with the lights blinding you a bit, don’t sit on the same side as the hard cam. This could have been avoided but we didn’t pay attention.
There is definitely a lot more room at the Globe but the seats still feel pretty packed in. The air flow felt a lot better though and it was still relatively easier to move around at any time during the show. From an aesthetics view, it also looks just as good as it does when you see it on DVD. I utter everyone elses sentiments, the Globe is just a great venue.
The show starts off with Excalibur doing his usual schtick. It is always a fun start to the show. He mentions some people recording and posting online clips and calls them out. I mean, I get it, PWG works on a different wavelength than the rest of the independent wrestling ecosystem and they want to make their money off DVD sales and build hype from their highlight videos that sell DVDs’. I just hope this mentality and not wanting to switch to a newer model doesn’t kill it off long term which I know is funny since it has been around to so long but a lot of the exclusivities that made it don’t seem to be there anymore with all of the top companies outside of WWE working together in some capacity and Ring of Honor a non-issue. Anyways, that was off course from what we are here for so lets get into the show!
Black Taurus beat Aramis
This was absolutely THE match to start off with. These two work so well together and they are so fast paced that it is impossible to not get into what they are doing. Suicide dives are the one thing that American wrestling has tried to appropriate but will never work because they end up playing patty cake with their opponent. Aramis absolutely kamakazied himself when he shot out of the ring at Taurus where I had to leap up to see what the damage was. Every nearfall and big move had the crowd on their feet, pulling out their hair, and going crazy. There was a weird situation at the end where the ref appeared to count three, Aramis got his shoulder up at the last second, the ref went to ring the bell and then suddenly turned and decided it was a two as the crowd looked on in complete confusion. The ref confirmed it was two after an awkwardly long time and the match continued as the ref mouthed “f my life”. Sorry ref. It didn’t take away from what we had already saw though and the eventual finish still had the crowd going crazy. One of the best matches on a card full of great matches.
Daniel Garcia beat Alex Shelley
So I need to get this out there first and foremost: Alex Shelley is hands down one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. When I was a naive 20 year old, I tried to buy some of his ring-used gear to wrestle in because I wanted to be just like him. Nearly 20 years after seeing my first Alex Shelley match, I still think he is one of the coolest people ever. He absolutely wanted everyone to hate him during this match but I couldn’t bring myself to boo him even though the rest of the crowd had no problem doing it. He strutted around the ring like Fargo, stalled every chance he got, and even stopped Garcia from retaliating on a cheap shot by bowing and kissing his boot with one leg stuck up in the air which I have seen on countless VHS tapes and brought me back to being a teenager watching his matches in my room and dreaming of what it would be like to see him wrestle live. They had fun technical exchanges but Shelley continued to just do little things to piss off the crowd which resulted in everyone screaming and cheering when Garcia got the win.
Lio Rush beat Buddy Matthews
But if you thought Shelley made himself the biggest bad guy on the show, Buddy Matthews snatching the mic and cutting an impromptu promo was a “hold my beer” moment which many fans took literally when they started throwing drinks at him. He said it was only a matter of time before he moved back to the big time and left places like this. First drink missed him and landed in the ring, spraying ice and a lemon wedge on the canvas. Matthews did every bad guy spot and had the crowd pissed. Lio Rush for all of the drama revolving around his career is still one of the fastest guys in the wrestling business and fun to watch. He was too quick for Matthews’ hands and kept retaliating with slaps. The match really was fun and had a great pace but had an impromptu ending when Lio hurt his shoulder taking a curb stomp from Matthews.
Now usually I don’t try to get “insider” on these type of things but thought I’d add in my interpretation of what happened next. The second the ref and Buddy realized that Lio was legitimately hurt, they began to call an audible to finish the match. Buddy decided he needed to get disqualified because Lio didn’t look like he could finish the match and even at one point looked like he was attempting to pop his shoulder. Matthews grabbed a chair from a fan and then fought with the ref to get himself disqualified so that he didn’t have to take a loss. It was great quick thinking to get themselves out of the situation. But people around me started asking why Buddy didn’t just make the pin and they go to the back and figure out what to do next and this is my thought on that. Buddy was paid to wrestle one match Sunday night, he didn’t want to get put into a situation where he ruined booking plans or make someone angry backstage or feel like he put the people backstage in a position to have to pay him for an additional match by taking that initiative. He would come back out but at least he didn’t force anyone’s hand and fou a smart way to get the intended result. Or I was worked in which case, awesome!
As an addendum to this after having saw Lio’s tweet after I got off the plane, I figure I should address my perception of what happened with the people throwing drinks and the other speculation. The first drink that was thrown in the ring was while Buddy was cutting a very “heel” promo on the crowd so it didn’t appear to be directed at Lio. The second drink, a beer can, also appeared to be aimed at Buddy who was taunting the crowd and came a bit before Lio’s injury. Maybe Lio was thrown off by the objects and instead of protecting himself from the move was worried about getting hit with an object (which would be a legitimate concern and I would definitely understand if this was the case) but the drinks didn’t appear to physically hit Lio and the match continued. As far as the hate speech or racist remarks, nobody around me had heard anything and I feel like if it was directed to him while he was in the ring, someone around the person/people would have called it out so I’m wondering if it was someone in close contact with him while he was outside of the ring. But the way Lio called it out really seemed to demonize the crowd as a whole along with PWG which I don’t think is fair. Excalibur after the match made the ring announcer bring him the mic and said if another drink was thrown then he would find the person and throw them out and they would never be allowed back. He was legitimately upset about it and didn’t condone it. There are bad apples in every audience though, I don’t want the remarks of a few crappy people to perpetuate this weird stigma that the PWG crowd is full of monsters though when many of them are some of the nicest people I have ever met. So if someone or some portion of the crowd said horrible things to Lio, I’m sorry that it wasn’t called out and those people dealt with accordingly. Overall it was a bad situation and I just hope that Lio is able to take time, recover, and come back healed.
Mike Bailey beat Wheeler Yuta
I’m not sure who had the better showing this weekend, Wheeler Yuta or Mike Bailey. Yuta as he noted when he got in the ring and turned to us: “I wasn’t even supposed to work this weekend.” while Bailey seemed dead set on reminding the PWG crowd just why he was about to be the breakout star of independent wrestling half a decade ago. This match was so much fun. Yuta is a technical wizard and watching him string together holds was a sight. But Bailey had no problem trading holds and throwing strikes when needed. I don’t want to sound like a shill but it is hard when talking about these matches. Yuta impressed me a few weeks back in the match with Penta and this one just solidified in my mind how good he is. Bailey is still on another level and his strikes look even crisper and brutal than I remember them. Bailey with the win but the crowd was all over Yuta showing appreciation and asking him to come back which he should because wow, this guy is amazing.
They had a quick intermission which came at the best time because those matches back to back made me need a break. The one thing me and Mean Mark miss about Reseda is how close the hotel was so we could run over during intermission, go to the bathroom, take a shower if needed, grab some food or drink, and make it back to the venue before the intermission ended. In this case we just waited in line for the bathroom (Which is great by the wqy, bathroom attendant included!) and grab a quick drink.
Daniel Garcia beat Black Taurus
You know those intriguing matches that you don’t know how they’ll work but you want to see when brought up? This is one of those matches. Taurus with a lot of the lucha guys looks like a monster but then you put him in there with Garcia who has a skinnier build but is taller than a lot of the lucha guys and has a different style and you don’t know what is going to happen. What ends up happening is Garcia targeting Tarus’ arm and working on it like a madman. These two guys traded holds, hit some high impact moves, and included some psychology around Taurus not being able to use his left arm to its fullest extent. Garcia would lock on a crossface and Taurus was just staring at us glassy eyed when the referee pulled Garcia off and stopped the match. Great storytelling from an intriguing match!
Mike Bailey beat Buddy Matthews
Rush’s music hit but Rush didn’t come out. Instead after a few seconds of silence, Buddy Matthews walked out. He took the mic noting that Lio was on his way to the ER and that Buddy would be stepping in. “The dream to win BOLA is still alive!” he would proclaim and make the announcer say. He then targeted Bailey’s knee before the match and looked to be eliminating Bailey similar to how he eliminated Rush but then the bell rang and Bailey got a flash pin. This was amazing storytelling. I’m not sure if Buddy came up with it but if so, the guy coming up with all of this pretty much on the fly was genius.
JONAH, Blake Christian, Rey Horus, and Kevin Blackwood beat Bandido, JD Drake, Lee Moriarty, and Jack Cartwheel
So a few years ago I remember seeing a match like this at BOLA where every guy was working to get their stuff in and ended with Jushin Liger creating a “thumb up the bum” train with everyone in the ring. Well this version of getting their stuff in was all of these guys hitting absolutely ridiculous moves. At one point early I thought Blake Christian killed himself by catching his feet on a suicide dive and looking like he spiked the floor head first. Luckily he was fine but wow was it scary. Bandido and Horus had one of their typical exchanges that blows the crowd’s mind. JONAH and Drake had a hoss fight where they traded chops and let me say that live, JD Drake has one of the loudest chops I have ever heard. Like, I don’t know if it is just because he had a great canvas in JONAH’s chest but I’ve heard some of the best chops (Roderick Strong, Keith Lee, Shibata, and countless others) and it felt louder than any of theirs. The big spot that has already made the rounds and I imagine has Super Dragon and Excalibur cursing is Cartwheel attempting a dive from the balcony and Christian leaping from the top rope to the outside meeting him in the middle with a cutter. Like batshit crazy spot that came off amazing. You had your typical comedy though. Horus was armdragging everyone and went to armdrag the referee only for the ref to reverse it and hit a hiptoss which made Horus hot. But before he could hit the ref and cause a disqualification, the entire ring stopped and it turned out Christian had a remote that paused the match. He then switched out the ref for Cartwheel (or Moriarty? I think it was Carthweel) who took a chop. He then used the remote to pause everyone again to move out of the way of a Carthweel shooting star when the ref finally ripped away the remote. The highspots and shenanigans made this a fun watch, I recommend it.
Daniel Garcia beat Mike Bailey
I don’t think a lot of people expected this result after Bailey beat Bandido on night one and felt so hot coming into the finals. He came in with a bad wheel though and Garcia absolutely went after it. Garcia just has that killer instinct where he will target a weakness in a match and has the wrestling acument to know how to do it with such variety. But Bailey wasn’t going to go down without a fight and even with a bad wheel threw some nasty kicks to Garcia with one kick looking like it knocked Garcia out. The crowd was torn during this match with loud “Speedball”/“Red Death” dueling chants. There were a few moments where everyone thought it was over and the two built the match perfectly that when the finish came, nobody expected it and then exploded with the result. Daniel Garcia, 2022 Battle of Los Angeles winner. Definitely has a nice ring to it.
Going into the show, me and Mean Mark didn’t know what to expect. There was initially some disappointment in the line up and more disappointment when Gresham and Richards couldn’t appear. I liked a lot of the guys involved and was intrigued but didn’t feel that this was the strongest BOLA card in terms of name power but in retrospect, they didn’t need it to put on a solid show. I can’t speak for night one but every guy on night two was hungry to make this a memorable BOLA and at least to me, they did. Yuta wasn’t even supposed to be on the show and was one of the most memorable parts of the show for me. Bailey took Mean Mark from “eh, I remember when we saw him in Tokyo, he is alright” to “he throws some of the most brutal kicks I’ve ever seen, I want to see him on more shows.” A lot of the big names who would have been there in the past have either been signed somewhere, can’t get in with quarantine rules, or may be more difficult to get in general. Could this show have used a Pentagon, Zack Sabre Jr, Will Ospreay, or Malakai Black to attract the indie wrestling fan who only watches occasional big indies or AEW, sure but did it need it in retrospect? From a live fan going to the show perspective, no. From a DVD selling perspective? We will see. I think more than enough people now know guys like Cartwheel, Blackwood, Garcia, Bailey, Yuta, Christian, Drake, and the others but it will be interesting if they can sell the DVDs. I really hope so because from a wrestling standpoint, this was the best top to bottom show I’ve seen this month live which includes AEW Dark, ICW NHB, GCW at the Hammerstein, and the Royal Rumble and seeing all of these guys in bigger matches on a stage like PWG is what wrestling needs now that the supershow style shows we have been used to are becoming harder to do.
That is it from me though. I’m flying back home and look forward to resting up for the next month or so unless I end up with a free ticket to Raw when it comes to town otherwise Rumble has soured me for a bit. If I don’t end up at Raw, I look forward to my next loop which is going to be WrestleMania week in Dallas where I want to cover as many shows as I can time and ability to get a ticket permitting!
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