Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Brian Streleckis gives you the lowdown on some surprising results this past weekend in Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, as well as some interesting news from the house that Ian Rotten built. All information is from the promotions’ respective sites and message boards and has a T/E ratio of 4:1.

ROH:
Claudio Castagnoli, the most money-making man in Ring of Honor, cashed in big time when he won the Race To The Top tournament this past weekend in Deer Park, NY and Edison, NJ. This win should put a pretty big spotlight on Claudio (currently feuding with Larry Sweeney’s Sweet & Sour Inc.) taking him to the next level and giving him some momentum going into his World Title shot against Takeshi Morishima in Boston August 10th. Claudio overcame Hallowicked, Mike Quackenbush (a fantastic matchup I’ve seen in Chikara and elsewhere), and Jack Evans before overcoming El Generico in the Finals. I’m surprised at how well Generico did here; he’s primarily been in tag matches recently, yet scored singles victories over Delirious, Chris Hero, and Davey Richards in this tournament. Perhaps some big things in Generico’s future later on? In other news from the weekend, Jay & Mark Briscoe (currently feuding with Generico & Kevin Steen) successfully defended their World Tag Team Titles against Bryan Danielson & Nigel McGuinness, so their tag team mega-push rolls on.

PWG:
As fun as the Briscoes are to watch in ROH and elsewhere, they’ve been really lousy about making their flights out to California. Sunday was Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s fourth anniversary show - entitled “Giant-Size Annual #4 - with the top two matches set to be El Generico defending the PWG World Title against Bryan Danielson, and PWG World Tag Team Champions Roderick Strong & PAC defending against the Briscoes in a 2/3 Falls Match. As has been proven the case more often than not last year, the Briscoes didn’t make the trip. Ultimately, it was their ROH rivals (and PWG regulars) Generico & Kevin Steen who got the title shot (albeit in a regular match from the sounds of it), and they came out victorious, giving Generico his third Tag Title reign and Steen his first.

But the plot thickens. Before the Tag Title match, Danielson came out and complained that the no-shows and reshuffled card had screwed him out of a World Title shot, so he issued an open challenge to anyone in the back. Said challenge was answered by Steen’s original opponent - lordy, lordy - the Necro Butcher! In what sounded like the ultimate clash of styles, Danielson came out of the match bloodied but victorious after giving Necro a barrage of elbows to the head. Undeterred by all of this, Danielson came back out following Generico & Steen’s Tag Title win and challenged Generico for his originally scheduled World Title shot. Generico agreed, the match commenced… and Danielson won with the Cattle Mutilation! Generico loses one title after gaining another, whereas Danielson becomes PWG World Champion and the first to have held the biggest indy championships (in my mind) on both the east coast and the west coast. Now the Los Angeles crowds look to get a heavy dose of the “Best Wrestler in the World.” Other happenings on the show had Scorpio Sky defeating Joey Ryan in an Unsanctioned Street Fight to get reinstated back into PWG, and Austin Aries defeating Rocky Romero to win Romero’s spot in the 2007 Battle of Los Angeles! Don’t worry, you can expect a BOLA preview towards the end of August.

IWA Mid-South:
Chuck Taylor - maybe an acquired taste to many, much like Danielson - is on a bit of a roll right now. He won Chikara’s Young Lions Cup last month (and is set to defend it for the first time this weekend), and he has recently become the man to hold the IWA-MS World Heavyweight Title the longest. Taylor accomplished this by making it past a slew of challengers. July 21st in Joliet, IL, he successfully defended his title against Women’s Champion Mickie Knuckles (who earned the title shot in a Battle Royal earlier in the show), and in a stranger turn of events than Hornswaggle the leprechaun winning the WWE Cruiserweight Title, Taylor won Mickie’s Women’s Title! According to Ian Rotten, he has thirty days to prove he’s a woman, or he’ll have to relinquish the title. The next day in Sellersburg, IN (a return to the original Louisville-area home region for IWA-MS), Taylor defeated “Spyder” Nate Webb in a title defense full of all kinds of goofiness, including wrestling through a parked school bus. Finally, on the 28th in Midlothian, IL, Taylor survived the onslaught of Low Ki and Light Heavyweight Champion Brandon Thomaselli in a Winner Takes All three-way (both titles are on the line) when Low Ki got himself disqualified. Odd thing was that the DQ stipulation was added to this match by Jim Fannin (one of the guys in charge of IWA-MS, along with Rotten) in hopes that Taylor would get DQed and lose his title. Taylor’s next scheduled defense is August 19th in San Antonio, TX against Chris Hero.

TNA
are a bunch of g-d damn idiots for wanting to bring in Test and Pacman Jones. Why bother with all of the bright young talent when you can bring in a goofy-looking musclehead with no charisma that WWE has fired twice and a disgraced football player who happens to have the same lawyer as the doctor at the center of this huge story that has made wrestling the media’s punching bag? (Check the sidebar for the FightOpinion.com stories)

That’s all for now. I’m planning to attend two shows in Philadelphia over the next week (Chikara on the 5th and ROH on the 11th), and reports for the site will follow suit.