Monday, August 31, 2015

PWG Battle of LA Night 3 Report

Excalibur began the show in a sling still selling the beating be received last night from Mount Rushmore 2.0. Excalibur said he left the emergency room at 7:30am last night. He said he has a grade 2 AC shoulder separation and a potential fracture of his cervical spine. He began to get emotional and the fans applauded him.
He thanked everyone for coming. He then ran through his standard speech about not filming, shark week, and recycling.
1. Jack Evans defeated Brian Cage in a Battle of Los Angeles 2nd Round match. Jack Evans began the match with a promo about how he'd win BOLA and a lack of professionalism in PWG. It was long. Cage eventually had enough and attacked Evans. Evans was basically killed by Cage for the entirety of the match until he rolled Cage up. Fun match. Cage attacked Evans after the match.
2. Chris Hero defeated Biff Busik in a Battle of Los Angeles 2nd Round match. This match started fast and never really quit. Busik and Hero traded stiff shots and some great grappling. Hero pinned Busik after a second rope Piledriver.
3. "Party" Marty Scrull defeated Trevor Lee in a Battle of Los Angeles 2nd Round match. Lee losing was a major shock to the crowd. Scrull won the back and forth pretty good match with a Tornado DDT into his Crossface Chickenwing. This was a major surprise.
4. Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Pentagon Jr. in a Battle of Los Angeles 2nd Round match. The crowd went insane as both men entered. The atmosphere for this match was amazing. They had the technical match one would expect with good highspots. LA loves both of these guys. Sabre won after reversing a Package Piledriver attempt into a Kimura-ish submission and forcing Pentagon to tap. Amazing.
5. "Speedball" Mike Bailey defeated Tommy End in a Battle of Los Angeles 2nd Round match. Once again, the story was Speedball not dying against a bigger opponent and once again it worked. The fans rallied behind Bailey for the entire match, as action spilled outside and various very skilled kicks were thrown. Bailey won with his Shooting Star Double Knee followed by a big Roundhouse Kick to End. Great match.
6. Will Ospreay defeated "Rebourne" Matt Sydal in a Battle of Los Angeles 2nd Round match. This was another very good story from a match with Bourne. Both guys felt each other out, then got to the flips and moves and things. Ospreay won with his inverted 450 splash thing. Really good match to conclude the second round of BOLA.
Intermission.
Roderick Strong, Super Dragon, and The Young Bucks came out before any matches could begin. Roddy said no one in the back will come out and face them. Fenix answered the challenge alone, but then Angélico, helped as well. Ricochet and Rich Swann joined the fray as a 4 on 4 match broke out.
7. The Young Bucks, Roderick Strong, and Super Dragon defeated Angélico, Fenix, Ricochet, and Rich Swann. This was another crazy multi-man match and it did well to break up the slight singles match monotony with action. Super Dragon appeared to get injured mid-match and limp to the back.
8. Chris Hero defeated Jack Evans in a Battle of Los Angeles semi-final match. Jack Evans began this match with a promo again. It involved wanting royalties from Highspots (imagine if WWE wrestlers asked for Network royalties). Chris Hero took a nap during the promo. Evans promised Hero couldn't even hold him down for a 2 count. The match was all about Hero dominating Evans and Evans dramatically kicking out at 1. Hero eventually got a 2 count. He then got a 3 count after a Piledriver and a Rainmaker-esque Elbow.
9. "Speedball" Mike Bailey defeated Will Ospreay in a Battle of Los Angeles semi-final match. Ospreay worked a more aggressive match than he had previously in the tournament. This was pretty fun. They eventually broke into the high flying goodness and it was great. A small critique would be the lack of leg work from Bailey when Ospreay was limping and selling the leg all match. Bailey won with his Roundhouse Kick to the face of Ospreay.
10. Zack Sabre Jr. defeated "Party" Marty Scrull in a Battle of Los Angeles semi-final match. This was a fun comedy match that, especially on a show going on 5 hours after its scheduled start time, went a little too long. The fun World of Sport-esque spots were cool, but it needed 10 minutes, not 30. Sabre got the win with an Armbar. This might have worked earlier in the night or the weekend, but it didn't here.
11. Drew Gulak, Trent?, Drew Galloway, Aero Star, and Chuck Taylor defeated Timothy Thatcher, Andrew Everett, Drago, Mark Andrews, and Tomasso Ciampa. Taylor declared his team the "Five Man Band" which was fun. The entrances for this match were built around surprise wrestling appearances from Ciampa and Taylor. The fans are them up. The match featured a ton of comedy, but in the right way. It was paced well. The crowd was quite into it. We got some great dives, including one from Drew Galloway. There was an extended segment of low blows. There was a truly amazing slow motion segment of the match with the whole audience in slow motion for about five minutes. Great fun.
12. Zack Sabre Jr. defeated "Speedball" Mike Bailey and Chris Hero in the 2015 Battle of Los Angeles final match. This is an elimination match. They began with some grappling, because wrestling. They eventually moved into the non-exclusively grappling portion. Hero became the first guy to kick out of Speedball's big Roundhouse Kick in the tournament.
"Speedball" Bailey was eliminated via three consecutive Piledrivers from Chris Hero.
Chris Hero was eliminated when Zack Sabre Jr. locked in a crazy Armbar (like he does). This wasn't the most dramatic match, but it got the job done.
After the match, Sabre was presented with his trophy. Roderick Strong came out, looking to attack Sabre, but didn't. They had a brief confrontation where Strong promised to beat up Sabre when he returns.
Sabre promised to take extra care of the trophy, so he could show it to the queen. Sabre said it was mental to come to LA and wrestle in a place like this. He promised to come back, win the PWG title, and move to California.

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