PWG Battle of Los Angeles 2014: The Most Stacked U.S. Tournament in Recent Memory.

[DDT]

We are fast approaching PWG's annual tournament, where the winner gets any match they want in PWG (usually a title match, but sometimes their preferred gimmick match against hated rival).

This year though, they've gone all out.

This year the tournament will take place over 3 days with 24 participants, and have announced 16 so far. This tournament is ridiculously stacked, from up-and-coming talent, established regulars, and even bringing in bigger names. The last time I can remember a tournament being this stacked it was called the Ted Petty Invitational.

1. Matt Sydal
2. Drew Gulak
3. Trevor Lee
4. Chris Sabin
5. Johnny Gargano
6. Brian Meyers (Curt Hawkins)
7. Michael Elgin
8. Biff Busick
9. Kyle O'Reilly (PWG Champion)
10. Brian Cage
11. ACH
12. Zack Sabre, Jr.
13. Rich Swann
14. Trent Barreta
15. Cedric Alexander
16. AJ Styles

My often overly-inflated love of PWG aside, this tournament looks to be re-God-damn-diculous, and we still have eight more participants to go! I'm actually excited to see who else they will bring in, even if it just ends up being "the usual suspects" (Ricochet, Chris Hero, etc.)

[JRSlim21]

#TakeAllofMyMoney

[takerson]

Wowsers.

[Gibby]

I was in Reseda on the day of last year's edition for a 10k race but didn't know about PWG so I didn't go to this. *strikes head repeatedly with palm*

[Hero!]

Saw the line-up on Twitter and thought someone was fucking with me. That looks AMAZING.


except for Elgin. Fuck Elgin.

[Fanny Batter]

That 2004 Ted Petty will take some beating for indy tournaments - Danielson, Punk, Joe, Styles, McGuinness, Strong, Sabin and Aries all went on to have recognised World title reigns, Castignoli and Sydal went on to have good careers in WWE (with Cesaro obviously having a big future), and Hero and Shelley went on to have pretty good success in ROH/TNA respectively with the former getting picked up by WWE for a cup of coffee. That was half the field. Rave, Williams, Whitmer, Super Dragon and Quackenbush went on to have pretty solid careers too, if not breaking through to be big players in big organisations. Those ECWA Super 8's were good as well back then. I love big indy tournaments to be fair, it should be the platform to give wrestling a new potential star rather than keeping it in house like has more recently been the case.

Looking at it, the BOLA in 2007 was a testicle away from being massive in retrospect. Bryan had to drop out. PAC, Tyler Black and El Generico are going places I reckon.

[LarryLuv]

Going to be great. They will have the event over three days this year.

Surely, they'll have some stinkers, especially in the early round(s)...but I suspect, as per the usual, once you get to the big matches...the talent will deliver...even the stinkers should be fun and the crowd will be hot. I fully expect Night 2 (where a bulk of the matches mid-round matches will happen) to be an American Show of the Year Contender. Night 2 last year was a definite American Show of the Year contender...star making show with a ton of big matches. I expect the same. O'Reilly shot up (the guy has been the best in PWG for well over a year now...he doesn't have a bad match), ACH was made on the West Coast, Gargano finally won over the Reseda crowd...can't wait to see who steps up this year. Whoever wins it is going to have a real showcase.

[DDT]

The final participants of the tournament have been announced. No real surprises this time around, but quality guys that promise to get some good match-ups out of...oh and Ricochet is also there. Kenny Omega too, I guess.

1. Matt Sydal
2. Drew Gulak
3. Trevor Lee
4. Chris Sabin
5. Johnny Gargano
6. Brian Meyers (Curt Hawkins)
7. Michael Elgin
8. Biff Busick
9. Kyle O'Reilly (PWG Champion)
10. Brian Cage
11. ACH
12. Zack Sabre, Jr.
13. Rich Swann
14. Trent Barreta
15. Cedric Alexander
16. AJ Styles
17. AR Fox
18. Chris Hero (If gravity lets him...)
19. Chuck Taylor
20. Roderick Strong
21. Tommaso Ciampa
22. Adam Cole (BAY-BAY!)
23. Ricochet
24. Kenny Omega.

Welp, I'm debating whether or not I want to go.

[DDT]

Currently Announced Matches!!!


Night One

Tournament Matches:

AJ Styles vs. Brian Meyers

Trevor Lee vs. Cedric Alexander

Michael Elgin vs. Tommaso Ciampa

Biff Busick vs. Roderick Strong

AR Fox vs. Brian Cage

Drew Gulak vs. Kyle O'Reilly



Non-Tournament Match:

Bad Influence (Chris Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) vs. Inner City Machine Guns (Rick Swann & Ricochet) vs. World's Cutest Tag Team (Candice LeRae & Joey Ryan)


Night Two


Tournament Matches

ACH vs. Kenny Omega

Zack Sabre, Jr. vs. Adam Cole

Trent Baretta vs. Rich Swann

Chuck Taylor vs. Johnny Gargano

Matt Sydal vs. Chris Hero

Ricochet vs. Chris Sabin




Non-Tournament Matches

Bad Influence vs. Young Bucks

Drew Gulak & Biff Busick vs. The Unbreakable F'ing Machines (Brian Cage & Michael Elgin)


So yeah....Night's one and two are pretty much stacked.

[The Rick]

That's a really damn good first round. And you can kinda fantasy book the second round.

[Psycho666Soldier]

So, it hasn't been said yet, but Trent is injured and will be missing the tournament. :'( AR Fox and Brian Cage are also apparently injured, but there's a little bit more room for them to be healed in time. From what I hear, though, it's not much room.

[DDT]

Brian Cage will be able to make it, but AR Fox and Trent are out. Replacing them is Candice LeRae (Yay!) and Bobby Fish (Meh).

[Psycho666Soldier]

Stoked for Candice LeRae! Has there ever been a woman participating in the BOLA before?

[Mills]

Im debating whether or not to go, LA isnt that far away from Washington, maybe a 15 hour drive.

[DDT]

Whelp, Brian Cage won't be able to make it either, and replacing him will be....TJ Perkins! Excellent, love TJ.


Also, we get Gulak and Busick vs. O'Reily and Fish, so that should at least be good.

[DDT]

Updated card for the Battle of Los Angeles!




Night One

Tournament Matches:

AJ Styles vs. Brian Meyers

Trevor Lee vs. Cedric Alexander

Michael Elgin vs. Tommaso Ciampa

Biff Busick vs. Roderick Strong

Bobby Fish vs. TJ Perkins

Drew Gulak vs. Kyle O'Reilly



Non-Tournament Match:

Bad Influence (Chris Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) vs. Inner City Machine Guns (Rick Swann & Ricochet) vs. World's Cutest Tag Team (Candice LeRae & Joey Ryan)


Night Two


Tournament Matches

ACH vs. Kenny Omega

Zack Sabre, Jr. vs. Adam Cole

Candice LeRae vs. Rich Swann

Chuck Taylor vs. Johnny Gargano

Matt Sydal vs. Chris Hero

Ricochet vs. Chris Sabin




Non-Tournament Matches

Bad Influence vs. Young Bucks

Drew Gulak & Biff Busick vs. ReDragon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reily)

[Tainted Eclipse]

Sydal/Hero sounds awesome on paper but it seems like Hero's slowed down a good bit since he got fat.

[DDT]

His match against O'Reilly wasn't half-bad; the only thing really wrong about it was the usual "goes way too long for an indy match" issue.

[Defrost]

I have my dvds. Haven't watched yet.

[Beer-Belly]

Why the fuck doesn't PWG have a video-on-demand download option yet?

[Defrost]

I think it has to do with the same reason they don't do iPPVs. Because they bring in ROH and WNNLive promotions and the ability to use them is super restrictive. I would say TNA too, but I'm like 99% sure there is no TNA anymore.

[Beer-Belly]

PROGRESS lets you buy and download their events. PWG can't do that? They should be embracing that type of distribution.

[Mills]

I watched the YouTube clip of ACH and Kenny Omega, just freaking awesome

[Beer-Belly]

"Stone Cold" ACH vs. Kenny "The Rock" Omega...

I need to see the all of that match... I need it more than you can ever imagine.

PWG is just the best. A stream-on-demand or a download-on-demand type of deal would be great, but I just don't have the space for countless DVDs.

[DDT]

Night 1 was fairly meh, Night 2 was significantly better, and Night 3 is (so-far) the best of the bunch. However, it was the non-tournament matches that ended up stealing the shows.


Why the fuck doesn't PWG have a video-on-demand download option yet?

Two reasons:

1.) What Defrost said; doing so would be more-or-less direct competition with ROH, and they would lose half their regular roster, including their current champion.

2.) Super Dragon and Excalibur are lazy, lazy fucks. It took them YEARS to do live commentary.

[Beer-Belly]

I don't care about the live iPPV bullshit. I just want to be able to watch the shows via download once they become available on DVD. This isn't rocket science.

Also, fuck a Ring of Honor.

[DDT]

See point number 2.

[Beer-Belly]

Then they're fucking stupid.

[DDT]

No argument from me.

The final was very good. Part of it was that everyone was too tired to do what, in my estimation, held back a LOT of the matches in the tournament: everyone trying their hardest to be the Match of the Tournament. It led to none of them being the match of the tournament. I understand that everyone was super-excited for this considering the line-up, but come one guys; moderation!


I'll talk more about it when others have had a chance to see it, but this was a pretty moderate BOLA, all things considered.


Also, somehow, someway, Roderick Strong reached deep inside himself, found that tiny speck that, if you tilt your head and squint, can be mistaken for charisma.

[takerson]

I watched all 3 nights (plus "Eleven") within 5 days of getting the DVD's. Couldn't stop. Eleven was so good, and I loved all 3 nights of BOLA too. The final match of BOLA disappointed a little bit as I found the ending to be anticlimactic.

The nearly 5 straight minutes of slow mo wrestling including slow mo commentary and crowd chants was one of the best things I've ever witnessed.

[DDT]

That's because Ricochet's Benny-Driller or whatever he calls that stupid kick to the head isn't over at all.

[takerson]

Agreed. And the way it's just slowly and deliberately just picked up, and done, to finish the match. Just completely left me like "That's it? After 3 nights of great matches and (mostly) great finishes.... that's it?"

[Mills]

the Bena-Dryller? Yeah, its pretty retarded, especially for a known high flyer like him.

[Defrost]

He started using that move because he hurts all the time and never want to do the Double Rotation Moonsault ever again

[Mills]

it makes sense, its just an awful move

[Defrost]

Bobby Fish vs TJ Perkins was quite good

[DDT]

Probably my favorite tournament match, and the best Bobby Fish match I've seen outside his Bryan Danielson match.

[Defrost]

Other than the opener I wasn't much in love with anything on Night 1. I liked some stuff here and there, but nothing as a whole.

[Bert]

It's available online.

http://watchwrestling.ch/watch-pwg-bola-2014/

I'll watch it sometime even though I've never heard of 70% of these people I love the flippy do (as kangus calls them) wrestlers.

[Tainted Eclipse]

I watched bits and pieces. Outside of Hero/Sydal nothing interested me. PWG just isn't for me. I bet it's awesome to see live, but to watch, nah. I think I could appreciate it more if there were another hot US indie going on that was more, eh, "normal." PWG is just to nudge nudge wink ironic for me. Again I'm sure it's fun live but if this is the hottest US indie product going with the most buzz from hardcore fans, it feels like there's something wrong.

[DDT]

Other than the opener I wasn't much in love with anything on Night 1. I liked some stuff here and there, but nothing as a whole.

Yup.

[Defrost]

Night 2. I really liked Adam Cole vs Zack Sabre Jr. The Stone Cold stuff in the ACH vs Omega match was super fun. The rest of the show was kinda meh. I am not over the moon at all about this tournament going into the last show.

[DDT]

Again, welcome to where I was on Night Two. Night Three is A LOT better, but I don't think it is, 'save the tournament' better.

[Defrost]

Finished it up. Really in this whole tournament if you just watched Zack Sabre Jr and the first match of the whole thing with Fish and TJP you'd be fine

[DDT]

Glad I'm not alone in thinking this was a massively disappointing tournament. I'm super sad, especially given how stoked I was for it.