Email This Article - Contact Us - VIP Sign-Up - Back to Home Page

|

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla "Secret of Guerrilla Island" show report
June 28, 2009
Reseda, Calif.
Report by Mike Roe, PWTorch.com specialist

The regular ring announcer wasn't present at the show, so Excalibur opened things up. He talked about recent celebrity deaths, including Billy Mays, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson (though somehow leaving out Ed McMahon). He then talked about Japanese referee Ted Tanabe, and finished with Misawa's death. He introduced a 10-bell salute for Misawa, which the fans were very respectful for.

Every wrestler on the show came out to Michael Jackson songs.

(1) Johnny Goodtime pinned Charles Mercury in a surprisingly good opener, with Goodtime being particularly good. Goodtime was originally scheduled to face Human Tornado, but the card was shuffled around due to Danielson being pulled. Goodtime came out wearing an Iron Man mask colored to match his tights and a Nintendo Power Pad that he did some stuff on before the match.

Goodtime got dropped pretty hard to the outside at one point and a hush fell over the crowd, but he ended up being all right. Goodtime won with a modified DDT.

(2) Chuck Taylor beat Human Tornado via pinfall. Chuck showed off his short hair for the first time in PWG after losing a hair match in Chikara. Human Tornado came out wearing a Michael Jackson tribute t-shirt (man, those merchandise sellers work fast) and sunglasses, dancing out to the ring, though not really doing any MJ moves. Chuck tried on the sunglasses as well.

Taylor pulled on Tornado's hair, but accused Tornado of grabbing his hair, with the ref admonishing Tornado for this. I think Chuck got a smaller reaction than he would have otherwise due to the different music and his new, unfamiliar look. Chuck won with the Omega Driver in a decent match.

(3) The Cutler Brothers (Brandon & Dustin Cutler) beat Malachi "CK" Jackson & Jerome "LTP" Robinson, with Malachi taking the pin. The Cutlers were announced as being from your local GNC, and they seemed to be playing up their workout gimmick even more than usual in this match.

This was LTP's PWG debut. He was great, doing a lot of athletic moves. The Cutlers mocked him by calling him Gary Coleman as, well, he's the shortest wrestler I've seen on a PWG show, but this turned around a bit and fans started chanting "Gary" in favor of LTP. Some fans chanted "Youngest Buck" for Malachi since he's the Young Bucks's little brother. Malachi was pinned as LTP was down and the Cutlers hit a double piledriver on him.

(4) Kenny Omega versus Roderick Strong ended in a draw due to a double pin. Great match. Omega strutted through his Michael Jackson entrance, and after Omega and Taylor got such huge fan support at DDT4, Omega was still hugely over. They did a Looney Tunes-esque spot early on with Omega getting chopped and then keeping his head down, afraid to look up and get chopped again. He finally looked up and Roderick wasn't there, but Omega knew he was behind him and got a cartoony fear expression on his face before turning around into the chop.

Both men's shoulders were down for the pin, so the referee ruled it a draw. The fans chanted for five more minutes (which doesn't seem to make sense, since this wasn't a time limit draw, but whatever), but Omega wasn't having it and went to the back. He came back out and agreed to one more minute, and turned to masked commissioner Excalibur and said that "El Generico" would count the time for this match. Excalibur got offended, and Omega responded that yes, he knows his name, but while he was Excalibur, Omega was King Arthur, so Excalibur should shut up. In the 60 more seconds that Excalibur counted with a very odd cadence, counting slow in part and fast in another, Roderick had Omega down as time was running out, but time expired before the ref counted three. It was once again ruled a draw. Excalibur said they should just restart the match, but Omega wasn't having it.

Omega cut a promo that was really the only prolonged mic work of the show. He talked about how they would eventually face each other again, and perhaps Strong would have a friend next time. (This is likely a reference to Strong's partner from DDT4, Bryan Danielson, who Omega and Chuck Taylor, a.k.a. Men of Low Moral Fiber, were originally scheduled to face until Danielson was pulled due to a staph infection.) Omega called Excalibur an MFer, then ended by saying they were going to do it like two men do it in the gay reference of the night. Excalibur said he was declaring Strong the winner because Omega hurt his feelings, but I'm not sure if this was official or not.

Excalibur plugged the merch table and tickets being on sale for the next show, was told by someone from the Legion hall not to swear, and responded by repeating what the guy had said with some swearing.

[Intermission]

(5) Scott Lost pinned El Generico. This was the first time in the show I felt the change of music hurt, as Generico not coming out to his standard music kind of messes up his act. Generico was wearing a knee brace, so Lost worked over the knee. Lost won with his finisher, the Big Fat Kill (a reverse roundhouse kick to the head). Good match.

(6) Davey Richards beat Nick Jackson (Pro Wrestling Guerrilla World Tag Team Champion) via submission. Excalibur noted that Jackson was skipping his uncle's funeral to be here for this match (Is the other Young Buck at the funeral?). Richards walked out at one point, and came back with a shovel for some inexplicable reason, causing Jackson to bail to the outside, but Richards surrendered the shovel. (Did he just see that sitting around backstage or something?)

Generico was down and Richards hit the shooting star press, but in what looked like a messed up finish, the ref said the shoulder was up even though it didn't look like Jackson lifted his shoulder, and the fans started to crap on this, but Richards went back to the cloverleaf he was using earlier and Jackson tapped out. Another fairly good match, other than the awkward finish. Richards complained to the ref about not counting the pinfall and asked for validation from the fans, and even lifted up a kid from the crowd, which seemed weird for such a heel character.

(7) Joey Ryan pinned Necro Butcher in a no disqualification match. Necro came out to "Thriller," and strutted out to the ring, even pulling out some "Thriller" dance moves. Joey came out with a trash can, and Necro came out with a steel chair. There were dueling chants for Ryan and Necro as the match started. Joey convinced Necro to start not using any weapons, but Ryan quietly pulled a steel chain out of his pocket and wrapped his fist, working over Necro with that to start the match.

A kid in the front row slid Necro's steel chair into the ring during this which seemed like it could have been really dangerous if one of the wrestlers had tripped over it, but they managed to kick the chair out of the way. Still, I think this killed the crowd a bit as Necro had to not pick up the steel chair that was right there, screwing up the logic of the match.

They brawled on the outside, with Necro hitting Joey with the trash can several times and driving some scissors into his forehead. Joey bled, which I guess explains why he left his shirt on, as you could see the drops of blood on his shirt. (He should have brought back the bleached blonde hair for this.) Lots more brawling on the outside, including the scoop slam on a chair.

Necro got angry at the referee and threw him into some chairs in the crowd, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Back in the ring, Necro got a visual pinfall off a sunset flip on Ryan, but the ref got back in the ring too late to count the pinfall. Ryan ended up hitting a superkick for the victory. Good as far as this kind of match goes, but the referee bit didn't make a lot of sense. It also went a bit shorter than I expected, with the finish not feeling like it was really built to.

After the match, Necro complained about his pinfall and looked at the ref, hitting an unprotected shot to the top of Knox's head with a steel chair. With all we've been hearing in recent years about unprotected chairshots to the top of the head, this seemed really stupid. Not sure if this is an official heel turn or not, since it's not that far out of the norm for Necro's character.

Excalibur asked Necro if it was cool if he got in the ring, and Necro said something about how he was right there in the ring, so Excalibur decided to be cautious and stay on the outside as he made the sales pitch for next month's sixth anniversary show. Overall, a fun show, but not necessarily worth going out of your way to see. The show was hurt by Danielson being pulled, as it left most of the show feeling a bit flat due to not having as much history.

Mike can be reached at mikeroe [at] gmail.com or on the Torch VIP forum.

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

For more BREAKING NEWS on WWE, TNA!
VISIT OUR AFFILIATE - PROWRESTLING.NET

For UFC & MMA NEWS & BLOGS:
VISIT OUR SISTER SITE - MMATORCH.COM

Upgrade to PWTORCH VIP: DETAILS & SIGN-UP INFO

(c) 1999-2009 TDH Communications Inc. - All rights reserved.