E-mail any comments, questions, or random thoughts about this column to Trophar@Lycos.com and I will post some of your letters in the mailbag section of the next column. Don’t be shy. I appreciate any and all intelligent critiques whether positive or negative. I'd especially like to hear your opinions if you are a PWG fan.
Read the archives of Beauty in Wrestling from 2003 - 2005 at LeonThomas.Net One of these days, I'll actually update it. Really.
Random Question: What live wrestling shows have you seen this year?
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla is an independent wrestling promotion based in southern California. It largely operates out of Los Angeles or ten miles down the road in City of Industry. In my search for greater knowledge of the local scene, I learned the most obvious difference between Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and other SoCal indy promotions like Empire Wrestling Federation and Pro Wrestling War is the strong talent roster of PWG. With a few exceptions, EWF and War host lesser-known wrestlers. The often generic and commonly-masked high-flyers of SoCal. PWG has some of them but also gathers some of indy wrestling's top stars, including American Dragon, James Gibson, Samoa Joe, the Havana Pitbulls, CM Punk and Colt Cabana. Not to mention TNA stars like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Chris Sabin and Petey Williams. The roster is comparable to the more talked-about and praised JAPW. Before it started bringing in Rhino and Charlie Haas, that is. The end result is an entertaining product that SoCal indy fans seem to adore.
So, why does it seem like nobody outside of SoCal gives a damn about it?
I'm a PWG fan, and I live on the opposite coast. It feels like I'm in quite the minority. I decided to find out why. I read several indy fan forums. One had largely negative comments about a top PWG star, one had a mix of both but with the scales still tipped against PWG, another two had a plethora of indy threads but absolutely nothing about the promotion in question. Only one indy forum had anything good to say about PWG, but that was the SoCal Uncensored forum, and let's face it, that doesn't count. I knew the promotion had its problems, but it was becoming more and more clear that most wrestling fans just couldn't take PWG seriously.
It's time for some constructive criticism. A look what at the "why?" of it all. Some of the reasons are perfectly valid, and I think PWG fans (and in turn the bookers) must address them. Let's begin...
COMEDY: Guitarmageddon. Jason Takes PWG. Uncanny X-Mas. 44 Ways to Kill You With a Pimento. These are the names of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's shows. To say that PWG uses comedy in their shows would be an understatement. It depends on comedy. It relies on it. The whole show, from the title to the matches to the promos are given an overdose of gags and buffonery. I enjoy a good laugh as much as anyone, but if it is the primary concern of a wrestling promotion, who can take it seriously? There's just so much. Too much, in fact. Not only in excess but also at inappropriate moments.
An example of good comedy: El Generico, after dropping the Human Tornado to the mat, carefully views his opponent. He wants to line up his moonsault just right, so he starts slowly rolling Tornado into the perfect position for it as if he were handling rare antiques. The crowd laughs and a good time is had by all. Generico is a comedy wrestler, and for the most part, so is Tornado. It makes perfect sense and it works well enough.
Bad example: Later in that show, the aforementioned Jason Takes PWG by the way, Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles were in the midst an epic battle for both the PWG Championship and X-Division Championship. It lasted an entire hour and could have been a spectacular athletic contest. Instead, for reasons I can only assume the bookers crafted, they played a rousing game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and did a lot of other goofball nonsense too. This is not where comedy should be in a show. Not in the main event and not in a match with AJ Styles.
RANDOM MASKS: That's what I lovingly call the masked wrestlers of PWG. The Random Masks. With the exception of Super Dragon, the main difference being is he is hugely over in SoCal, all the Random Masks seem alike. They all do similar high-flying manuevers. Though, to be fair, Ronin also uses strong style tactics and Puma has some technical skill. Nearly all of them have no personality. Worst of all, there's just so many of them! El Generico, Disco Machine, Excalibur, Puma, Quicksilver, Scorpio Sky, Super Dragon, Ronin, Phoenix Star and Zokre.
Now, I admit I have a soft spot for Scorpio Sky for some reason, but for the most part, if there's no personality, there's no connection. Maybe masked wrestlers are booked consistenty because Disco Machine, Super Dragon and Excalibur are part of the booking team or maybe it's just a SoCal thing that I can't understand.
COMMENTARY: This probably doesn't hurt PWG much, but it certainly does not help. The commentary is atrocious, and I think even the most die-hard PWG fan will admit this. A good commentator can paint a beautiful picture with the language. A bad one can make you hit the mute button. Excalibur and Disco Machine generally run the post-production phantom announce both. Even for their own matches, which is a bizarre continuity head-scratcher. It's so bad that it's on the alternate audio of some of the DVD's rather than the primary. PWG could use someone to help sell the stories. That leads me to the next problem...
STORYLINES: Professional wrestling is a drama. It is more than suplexes and moonsaults. There is a story that drives the feuds. There are reasons that wrestlers are battling each other. PWG doesn't seem to have this worked out too well. I hope this is fixed more than anything else. Here are some of the issues.
First of all, the interviews and monologues by the wrestlers are not placed into the show. Hard to believe, eh? Let's use a good show as an example. All-Star Weekend. There is an option to play the show, an option for the match listing and an option to see the promos. Simply put, the story is not combined with the show, which makes it seem unnecessary and not really part of the regular program. Would it be so hard to splice it into the happenings of the show to give it the feel of a developing story? I swear, the story elements feel like the broccoli side dish next to the steak.
Second, the very rare storyline isn't handled too well. Perfect example is the Super Dragon vs. Super Dragon angle. A mysterious second Super Dragon appeared in PWG, leaving the true Dragon perplexed. The question on everyone's mind is "Who is Super Dragon 2?" Not bad. I like mystery in my wrestling. The riddle was solved four months ago and certainly isn't a spoiler at this point, but in case you haven't gotten that far, you can turn back now.
Dum dee dum...
There we go. It was Kevin Steen, but that wasn't the problem. The screw-up was that during this climax, Excalibur joined forces with Steen and turned on Super Dragon by rushing him from behind. Not a bad idea for a heel turn, but I knew that was going to happen and wasn't able to be surprised because before the segment, it read EXCALIBUR VS. SUPER DRAGON. In fact, it's on the box too. And the match listing. The worst blunder was that after rushing Dragon, Excalibur got on the microphone and immediately cut a bad promo saying to the crowd (paraphrasing) "Well, here's why I did it." If you saw it, you'd know how awkward and forced it seemed. How about waiting more to ten seconds after your heel turn before making your huge speech or even waiting until the next show for added suspense?
This was the only real story I had seen in PWG so far, and it wasn't even done well. Now, to be fair to the staff, they're not seasoned writers. They're wrestlers. Super Dragon, Disco Machine, Excalibur, Joey Ryan, Topgun Talwar and Scott Lost all own/book PWG. They're probably too busy risking life and limb in the ring every night to do storylines too. May I suggest outside help? It couldn't hurt.
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If you take the time to watch enough PWG matches, you'll find something good. The problem isn't the matches, and if it is, the problem is that people are watching the wrong ones. The problem with taking PWG seriously is everything else that makes a wrestling promotion. The stories. The presentation. The booking. The personalities. Frankly, there are serious problems, and I hope I've shed some light on this and let PWG fans know why they are treated like red-headed step-children. They are some valid reasons, and as fans of the product, we have to recognize them.
I'm not leaving you on that note, though. There is so much goodness in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. There's too much comedy but it's not all comedy. There's no deep storytelling but there are good matches like American Dragon vs. James Gibson and AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe. The way I look at PWG is this: it's a product that has a lot of room and potential to grow. The talent roster is better than nine out of ten indies out there. The wrestlers just need to be used better. The popularity of the promotion, at least locally in SoCal, looks good from where I sit. A report says about four hundred fans showed up for the first night of the Battle of Los Angeles tournament. With more attention could come more desire to improve.
In the end, I say to PWG fans that the problems can be solved. To non-fans, I say give it a chance. I'd start with All-Star Weekend Night One. At the very least, it's probably going to be a lot better than you think. At best, you'll become a fan. Like me.
