PWG EIGHT

Kevin Steen vs PAC

This was a pretty love-it-or-hate-it kind of match and I was more in the latter half of that unfortnately. For me this is Kevin Steen at his worst, constantly doing lame comedy and playing to the crowd too much instead of focusing on the match. It's all so mastabatory and self-indulgent, which I wouldn't mind if he was a heel in PWG, which he isn't. It was even worse here as there moments where he would throw out stupid one-liners while trying to be serious. The big spots were all pretty big, and PAC in particular does some breath-taking shit like a twisting asai moonsault, but that wasn't enough to keep me into the match, and for an opener this was typically PWG-ish in going too long and having too many nearfalls. I did get a good kick out of Hero referencing Kelly Kelly on commentary, though.

Brian Cage-Taylor vs Brandon Gatson

This was an interesting match to watch. Not necassarily good, but interesting. Two (relatively) young guys going out and putting on their own match without being lead by a more experienced guy like Hero. Some of their ideas were good, some were not - a lot of stuff was just thrown at the wall. Gatson has some pretty slick highspots, and ate a pretty nasty clothesline bump on the apron. He also threw some nice kick combos and hit a pretty spectacular Sasuke Special and landed on his feet. Some parts were pretty sloppy, though, and some parts just felt like an indy moves exhibition.

El Generico/Ricochet vs Alex Shelley/Roderick Strong

For some reason I thought this was supposed to be Shelley and Aries? I figured since I'd downloaded it I'd give it a watch anyway.... so yeah, this pretty much sucked. First half of the match was horribly dull and boring, second half was just a shitty indy MOVEZ spotfest. They tried to make Generico vs Shelley a hot match-up with cheapshots, but I wasn't buying the intensity from either guy. Highlight of the match was a pretty insane out-of-nowhere dive from Ricochet.

Claudio Castagnoli vs Chris Hero

This was very, very good and easily the highlight of the show. I'm not sure wether I liked it over their first title match or not, but the did a good job of making it different enough whilest also keeping most of the things that made that match good. All of the opening matwork was really fun. They worked a bunch of different holds and kept it feeling like a chessgame, I especially loved the fight for leverage over the full nelson. In their first match Claudio targetted Hero's arm, and managed to keep control, but Hero was still managed to come back with elbows after a while, in this match Claudio targetted Hero's leg to much greater effect. They built really well from the mental chess opening stages to both guys getting testy and kicking it up through the gears. Hero moving his knee pad from his good leg onto his bum wheel to give it more protection is the sort of REALLY neat touch that makes a good match great, and I liked him not being able to hit the big discus boot because of it. Claudio used the legwork to hit a fucking insane Giant Swing into a Nuetralizer, and the finish itself was also sick as hell.