Pro Wrestling Guerrilla "Black Cole Sun" Review

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla
“Black Cole Sun”
December 12, 2014
Reseda, California

Photos: Devin Chen Photography

In my eyes, three months is an incredible turn around for this show review.

This will be Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly’s last show in PWG for the foreseeable future. Its not “Goodbye” its…”See Ya Later”, I s’pose. I love these two dudes. They are two guys I aggressively seek out all of their stuff. O’Reilly in particular has become one of my favorite performers in the world. Not seeing them in this medium is going to suck, but that is why I got this 40oz of malt liquor…to drown my sorrows.

Onto the show.

ACH, AR Fox, & Rich Swann vs. Bobby Fish, Johnny Gargano, & Chuck Taylor: Other otherwise known as The African American Wolves versus Best Friends and a Moderate Acquaintance. A few pre-match notes: ACH, in disguise, no one knows, wearing the cheapest looking Santa hat possible and it seems the galaxy print has reached the wrestling community. Time to move on from that trend, my urban style friends.

Anyway, whatever you imagined this match being — it was. Floppy flippy doos and lulz intertwined with some semi-coherent reverse-fests and the occasional “we’re going to take this serious now” right before Chucky T calls for murder before another flippy do. All-in-all, if you don’t like this kind of stuff, why in the hell are you watching PWG? This is what a half-in-the-bag Reseda crowd wants to kick their shows off with. Bobby Fish eats a load of offense before Lo Mein Pain for dessert. ***1/2

Adam Cole BAYBAY vs. AC–Cedric Alexander: We bid Adam Cole BAYBAY a fond farewell from Pro Wrestling Guerrilla on this night with the TOP 5 Adam Cole Things in PWG.

5. Adam Cole having no idea what in the fuck is going on during this promo.

4. Future Shock versus The Young Bucks and The Super Smash Brothers at Threemendous III.
3. The many times Adam Cole simulated oral sex with Candice LeRae.
2. Adam Cole winning the Battle of Los Angeles in 2012.
1. Adam Cole wins the PWG Title from Kevin Steen at the very first Mystery Vortex.

Oh yeah…and the match was pretty awesome. Alexander really put in work and despite having a pretty fucked shoulder at this point, Cole didn’t slack at all. A very straight forward match with Cole winning with the Florida Keys. Three and one quarter blow jobs out of a potential five blow jobs for Adam Cole BAYBAY.

After, speech speech speech…Cole, no shtick, gives a heartfelt “see ya later” to Reseda.

Chris Hero vs. Trevor Lee: Chris Hero squashes Trevor Lee for 10 minutes before a sign of life and a botchy botchy before Lee wins. I’m a bit over Hero on the indies post-future endeavors and while I love Lee, I’m a bit over the flash wins after getting his ass kicked gimmick they’ve got going. I guess with Generico helping out the unfortunate in Mexico and Drake Younger being the best damn referee on planet Earth, someone needs to milk sympathy from Reseda when their BAC goes over .08. The match was pretty good, I’m just a bit over what was going on. Lee is very good. He doesn’t need the tropes to get over. **3/4

PWG Tag Team Championship – World’s Cutest Tag Team (c) vs. The Addiction: “When lollipop touch man’s balls, it shant enter an oral orafice.” -Confucius (or Yogi Berra…either or…).

Also, not diggin the purple hair with the Sprite Zero tights, Candice.

Lots of lollygagging and shenanigans. I tapped out early, but Joey Ryan actually got the pin here, because, equality and stuff. I’m over The World’s Cutest Tag Team and they ain’t gettin’ me back. *3/4

On a positive note, Joey took out Johnny Mundo’s pitcher of beer on a tope suicida during a hot tag.

Biff Busick vs. Brian Cage vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Uhaa Nation

Nothing made any sense, and I really didn’t care. I popped watching Cage and Uhaa try and one up each other. ***

Chris Sabin & Matt Sydal vs. The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson): Everybody came to work with their wrasslin’ boots tonight in what was one of the more straight forward Young Bucks PWG matches of recent vintage. A match without much of the goofy Reseda lulzy spots and gimmicks to pop the crowd really succeeded in on several levels. After a night filled with some mindlessness, bringing the crowd back into the event with some undemanding good ol tag wrestling was just what everyone wanted and needed.

Matt Sydal really came to put on a show and really stood out. The match started a bit slow with the usual “get your taunts in” moments for the Bucks. However, it really got going in the closing act where the Bucks just couldn’t put these guys away with all of their shit before the thrown-together tag team makes good and scores the win after a hangman’s neckbreaker / Shooting Sydal Press combo dealy for the upset. Sabin and Sydal gelled quickly and look like they are getting their indie sea legs back. The Bucks always deliver and as a result everything worked. ****1/4

Kyle O’Reilly (c) vs. Ricochet: Hindsight takes this match up another level. As a standalone, its a slow build between two contrasting, but equal competitors wrestling a match worthy of the two being considered indie’s TOP GUYS. O’Reilly really brings his A+ striking, transitions and SUBMISSIONZOUTTANOWHERE to Reseda for this match. Ricochet counters with his humbled aerial attack and counter-striking. Together, they put together a very strong performance, perhaps the best singles match either guy has had in PWG. It was that good.

If there was one critique, the match was paced a tick slow, but again, hindsight puts it into perspective. SPOILER ALERT: O’Reilly needed to work nearly an hour. There was also an obvious need to sell the surprise, so the main event needed to be long-form, it needed reach a certain standard of quality, and it needed to keep the already well-informed Reseda crowd on their toes. This match did all of that. I was fully invested and I knew the result three months ago. ****1/2

Post-match, O’Reilly sells the wear of the match like a real pro. Ricochet and Riles show some love. Speech, speech, speech…because, O’Reilly is on the way out, too, you see…

…BUT OUTTANOWHERE Roderick Strong (who “missed his flight”) runs in and begins to stomp a mud hole into O’Reilly. Strong threatens to put Kyle in the hospital if he doesn’t grant him a title match. O’Reilly mounts a comeback before accepting Strong’s challenge, but instead makes it a GUERRILLA WARFARE MATCH.

Kyle O’Reilly (c) vs. Roderick Strong: The match starts right away and the boys just beat the shit out of each other for 25 minutes. A really grimy affair. The crowd was into it from the jump and stood throughout the entire match, giving it a tense vibe. It’s not often you get two guys in PWG in a match where they both display the desire to really beat the shit out of each other. They did here. No fucks were given. The strikes were stiff. The bumps were rough. They threw each other into anything stationary. The match kicks into high gear when Strong takes the top rope off and chokes O’Reilly out. Strong eventually loses his shitty little boot and uses it to beat KOR down. A last flurry by O’Reilly was haulted by three knee strikes to the face, two End of Heartaches (one through chairs), and a Strong Hold making Roderick Strong the new PWG Champ. There was nothing crisp or cute about this match. Really grungy by current PWG standards and thats what made it something very fun to watch. ****1/4

Five stars for Kyle O’Reilly though. What a fuckin performance on this night. The man has two matches that couldn’t be any more different, back-to-back, and both are way over four stars in quality. The main event segment in total was great pro wrestling story telling and just really constructed at a high level.

Roddy wins the title after a ten-year run in PWG and proceeds to tell everyone to go fuck themselves as the show goes off the air.

Final Thoughts:

I was about to hand wave this show before the semi-main event. It seemed to just be a bit of a mess and nothing was really keeping my attention despite some ok stuff. However, the final hour and a half of this show really delivered beyond my high expectations. The final segment with the two O’Reilly matches was really a master class in event and show construction.

The Buzz: O’REILLY
Match of the Night: Kyle O’Reilly (c) v. Ricochet
Also See: Kyle O’Reilly (c) v. Roderick Strong; The Young Bucks v. Matt Sydal and Chris Sabin

Up Next: From Out Of No Where on February 27th (that is like 8 days away). Roddy takes on Trevor Lee for the PWG Title. We also see the debut of a ton of new talent. Monster Mafia (Josh Alexander and Ethan Page), The Beaver Boys (Alex Reynolds and John Silver), and “Speedball” Mike Bailey all make their PWG debuts.