Image: Marc Raimondi
This year’s PWG Mystery Vortex show took place from the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday night, featuring a card where the matches weren’t announced in advance.
– Trey Miguel pinned Tony Deppen with double knees off the top rope
Both these guys have good timing and do cool things. Very creative but it was like one long high spot. Really, for this crowd, it was almost a perfect opening match.
The fans really liked Deppen and it felt like a large percentage of the crowd knew who he was, which also speaks to fewer of the WWE fan types that had been at the last few Globe shows.
– Chuck Taylor pinned Orange Cassidy with the Awful Waffle
Another sign of this crowd being very educated towards minor wrestling groups was that Cassidy had never appeared in PWG and the place went absolutely nuts when he came out and went nuts for every spot.
This was all the comedy stuff until the last three minutes. Cassidy is clearly going to be one of the hottest indie acts around because of his uniqueness. I don’t know how effective he’ll be with repeat viewings in the same building. But unlike at the WrestleCon SuperShow, where he got a giant reaction but there were people hating his stuff, everyone was into him here. Really, he should have gone over in his debut.
– PWG World Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Jonathan Gresham to retain his title
Cobb and Gresham had flights out that night, Cobb to Michigan and Gresham to Japan, so they went on early. Cobb broke his thumb on the first spot.
This was very good, but it had a flaw in that the size difference was such that it was hard to buy Gresham being a threat. To his credit, the crowd was very into his near falls and they were so close to three with Cobb’s kickout timing that people actually bought it.
Gresham did a crazy tope where Cobb’s back was turned on the floor and Gresham did a tope into a choke. Cobb then climbed from the floor into the ring while being choked.
– Brody King defeated Trent Barreta and Jake Atlas in a three-way match when he pinned Atlas with a Bruno backbreaker dropped into a piledriver
The amount King and Atlas have improved in the last six months is unreal. When they debuted here, which wasn’t that long ago, they were nowhere near ready for PWG caliber, and now they had one of the two best matches on this show and were top level. Both could go anywhere and be stars now.
– Jungle Boy pinned Puma King
Short match. Very good. Jungle Boy has also improved greatly. He should be pushed like a late 70s Tommy Rich in AEW. He’s just got a natural charisma about him.
Jungle Boy got a huge reaction and people just gravitate to him. He’s also good enough now to carry it where before I’d have a very different idea of getting him over based on the long haul years from now, but now I think he’s got something missing from the major groups.
– PWG Tag Team Champions The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz) defeated Flamita & Rey Horus to retain their titles
Excellent match. Horus is maybe the most underrated guy in the business. Flamita has gained a lot of weight but he can go. Xavier flipped Wentz on top of Flamita for the pin.
– Darby Allin pinned Joey Janela in a Guerrilla Warfare match with a leglock into a bridging cradle
This was insane. Both guys seemed intent on ending their careers before they can start with AEW. Both fell off the balcony together through tables on the floor. There were cinderblocks used but not broken, thumbtacks with Janela bleeding all over his back and especially around one of his elbows, Allin had a garbage can put over his head and fell off the top rope to the floor where he couldn’t see when he was landing, and piledrivers through chairs.
They worked really hard. Janela did a promo talking about returning and what they had done.