Astonishing X-Mas - December 18, 2005
Scott Lost vs. Alex Shelley
Good opener in which Shelley dominated about 2/3 because he's just better than Lost in every facet. For much of the match, it seemed like every time Lost was about to get some momentum, Shelley had a counter to outclass him and quickly regain the advantage. In the end though, Lost was able to get the fluke victory on Shelley, which he badly needed after losing the feud to Scorpio Sky just a couple weeks earlier.
Rating: ***1/4
2 Skinny Black Guys vs. Roderick Strong & Jack Evans
Match starts off with the sports-entertainment, as Evans does his break-dancing to show up Tornado and has Generico going bonkers marking out for it. Once that awesome segment is done with, GeNext does a decent job of working on Tornado, and Evans is fantastic in using his small size and flexibility to escape Tornado's work, including the groin sweep in the corner and and a front facelock.
The match gets fucking awesome when Generico gets in and becomes the Ricky Morton of the match, as he should be of course. Strong was devastating to him, just laying in those backbreakers, gut-busters, and chops. As the match progressed, it kept getting hotter most of the way, although here is when the flaws came in.
When Tornado came in for the hot tag, the crowd didn't pop, which means had Generico showed a bit more struggle, this match could've been a MOTYC much like the Black Guys against the Young Bucks years later. The last several minutes were absolutely dazzling, something I recommend for fans of the American Wolves, just nonstop action. However, the ref did once forget that Tornado was legal when he counted a pin on Evans, but the commentary did point out that they too were forgetting who was legal due to the action.
That was a minor hiccup for tag legalities though, as Strong fucked up Tornado with his trademark offense and put the dazed Evans on him for a pinfall attempt, showing his professionalism during this very good spotfest. Evans botched the Ode to the Bulldogs though, making up for it with a standing twisting senton to finish the match. I'd love to have seen these teams rematch or in front of an ROH crowd at the time. Very good overall and the tiniest of hairs away from being great.
Rating: ***3/4
Davey Richards vs. Samoa Joe
This was like a combination of Kenta Kobashi's matches against KENTA and Go Shiozaki during his big title reign in NOAH. Richards, although a PWG Tag Champ at the time, was only a year and a half into the business so this was to be the match in which he both stepped up but also paid his dues. However, Richards got enough in on Joe that he didn't just pay his dues, but this match elevated his stock, certainly putting him on ROH's radar.
Joe was great at no-selling and daring the green Richards to knock him down. After trading blows coming off the ropes, Richards was able to use his compact frame, strength, and momentum to do just that to the then current X-Division Champ. Later in the match, as Richards was down selling Joe's devastating offense, he got paintbrushed with Low Ki/KENTA kicks to the face, getting more salt rubbed in the wound as he paid his dues.
Both men traded Crippler Crossfaces and other great submission work, but once Joe got Richards crotched on the top-rope, it was the Musclebuster and that's that.
Rating: ***1/2
Chris Sabin, TJ Perkins, Rocky Romero, & Frankie Kazarian vs. B-Boy, Alex Koslov, Petey Williams & Christopher Daniels
Good, fun multi-man tag with some sports-entertainment mixed in, but nothing special, par for the course for indy tag with this many participants involved. I saw significantly more entertaining bullshit from Black Guys vs. GeNext, thank you. I believe most will enjoy this more than I did though.
Rating: ***
Hardcore Match
Super Dragon vs. Kevin Steen
The big feud-ender here, and although this was a great closer displayed by its masterful storytelling, I can't imagine that these men look back on this without some regrets.
They beat the fuck out of each other in this one. They spent the first third of the match completely brawling out of the ring, going all over ringside and using chairs aplenty. A noteworthy spent was Steen simply throwing SD onto a bunch of seated chairs.
Once this got to the ring, the brutality only increased to show how much these men despised each other. Bringing back memories of Randy Orton vs. Mick Foley for me, they involved thumbtacks AND a barb wire board later on. There were numerous SD curb stomps in this one delivered by both men, some onto chairs of course, but Steen delivered his while poetically putting a SD mask on from one of the merch tables, paying off that part of their year long angle.
Steen played the Orton and took the bumps onto the thumbtacks. giving SD a taste of vengeance mid-way through the match. But it kept going because these men had a story to tell. Steen would deliver a Package Piledriver on FOUR chairs to SD, but that wasn't the finish. Steen also dug down deep due to both fortitude and hatred, kicking out of a shit that would be the end of any standard match.
Steen also took a Burning Hammer off the apron through a table on the floor, knocking Steen out so SD could handcuff him. Numerous times, also thanks to the handcuffs in the closing few minutes, SD had a chance to end this but prolonged it to sell the hatred and finality of this chapter. The end finally came when Steen, while handcuffed, was given a Super Burning Hammer, taking an ugly bump head first with that body landing on the thumb tacks, and then rolling over onto the barb wire board. There was no kicking out of that.
This is a defining match in PWG's history, independent wrestling, and from a match quality standpoint, one that both men can still be proud of almost a decade later. A fitting final chapter to the best feud in PWG history when that promotion still booked actual angles, and like KENTA vs. Low Ki did on the other side of the continent the night before for ROH, a great way to end 2005.
Rating: ****