Four of PWG's Finest Received a WWE Tryout Last Night

Two of the WWE's tryouts last night

I mused on Twitter last night that I thought I saw Scorpio Sky among the throng of security installed to keep CM Punk from attacking Kevin Nash last night. Apparently, I wasn't dreaming, as Sky was in attendance at RAW last night. According to Mike Johnson of The Site That Shall Not Be Linked (PW Insider for those new to the blog), Sky as well as Joey Ryan and the Young Bucks all received tryouts last night before the show.

This is huge news, although in the case of the Bucks, not surprising, as Triple H seems to want to bolster the tag ranks. Both the Bucks and the teaming of Ryan and Sky as The Dynasty would be tasty additions to the tag team division from where I sit. My guess is that there'll be a long hard look at body types. Then again, if Trips is all for pushing Daniel Bryan and seems to be going all in on CM Punk, maybe the mindset that bodybuilders are the only potential stars as an institutional condition of stardom is going out the window.

Hopefully, at least someone gets signed out of this though.

Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein - Please visit his site to view the plentiful amounts of pictures he's taken for DGUSA, ROH and other indie feds: Get Lost Photography

Weekend Wrap-Up: Iron Women, Hardly Hardcore and Hollywood Ouster

New Champion, New Heel?
Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com

- So, is an event really hardcore if there's only one hardcore spot in the whole thing? I'm not sure people would have cared if Impact Wrestling gave them a good show in Hardcore Justice, but the consensus seems to be that they failed to deliver. Two new Champions were crowned last night, Kurt Angle the new World Champion (after, in many people's view, pointlessly turning heel) and Winter dethroned Mickie James to become the Knockouts Champion. I can get behind the latter because Winter, nee Katie Lea Burchill, is pretty awesome, but the former just sounds more like bad Russo writing. Also on the card, Crimson defeated Rob Van Dam in a Bound for Glory Series match to continue his undefeated streak. Anyone else get the feeling that he's going to main event their signature PPV, only to lose via shenanigans? After the match, Jerry Lynn appeared again and got in RVD's grill, meaning more RVD/Lynn rematches in the future.

- Rey Mysterio apparently hurt his knee at a house show this past weekend, with it being so severe that they ran an injury angle the next night to shorten his match against Alberto del Rio. Some reports are calling it a "tweak", but with his knees, a tweak can still be serious business. He's expected to work around the injury and appear at SummerSlam, which afterwards, hopefully he'll get a fucking vacation. The man needs to just go home, sip margaritas with his wife and relax for a bit so he can come back before the end of the year, refreshed, recharged and ready for the Internet to find new ways to slur him because they don't like his finishing move.

- Speaking of injuries, Daizee Haze has been listed as "out indefinitely" on the official Chikara message board. Circumstantially, it's because of the injuries suffered at the hands of Mima Shimoda and Claudio Castagnoli at Chikarasaurus Rex, Night 2. It leads me to believe it's all kayfabe, but at the same time, if it is legit, here's to a speedy recovery.

- In better news, Sunday's best show arguably took place in Cleveland, OH, with PWO putting on Wrestlelution 4. I really want to give you some results here, but for the life of me, I can't find them on the Internet anywhere. Bummer. However, what I can say is that according to TWB superfan and friend of the blog Jarret Aubry, the Josh Prohibition vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Matt Cross match was SUPER AWESOME. The man knows good wrestling, so take his word for it.

- JSCW's kickoff event was Saturday night free of charge on the Seaside Heights boardwalk. Judging from the picture posted in the results post, they did alright for themselves. The main crux of the show was the Tag Team Championship tournament, which had four first round matches headlined by a tilt between the SAT and All Money Is Legal, won by the latter team. Also on the card, Dan Maff defeated Apollo Star,

- Mercedes Martinez and Lexus set a modern women's wrestling record by going 73 minutes at the WSU tapings Saturday night. Martinez, who already has one superlative in the longest current Championship tenure under her belt (and may be the longest continuously defended women's title reign ever, given that Fabulous Moolah's 27 year reign was very much sparsely defended), now has another big record under her belt. The match was stopped as a 60 minute time limit draw, but the match was demanded restarted, and 13 minutes later, Martinez won with a fisherman's buster. Also at the tapings, Roxie Cotton made her redebut as Gabby Gilbert, taking two matches. The second taping ended with a WarGames match announced for the next iPPV between the newly formed Midwest Militia of Sassy Stephanie, Jessica Havok and Allison Kay and Team WSU, comprising of Martinez, Alicia and Brittney Savage.

- NWA Hollywood got a big shakeup as Joey Ryan was ousted as the head booker AND a contracted talent. I don't know what's going on that caused the coup, but it's a shocker to me. It's also very disappointing as Ryan has been embroiled in a pretty decent feud with Colt Cabana over the last couple of months. It especially sucks given that now, the only place you can find Ryan is on PWG, and that's only once a month. Granted, one show of Ryan a month is better than none, but at the same time, I can't help but feel that Hollywood is dropping the ball here by at least not keeping him on as a wrestler, even if they want to go a different direction behind the scenes.

- Ending on a happy note, according to the PWG message boards (a lot of message board news today, eh?), not only is Finlay scheduled to appear at Battle of Los Angeles this year in the tournament itself, but TJ Perkins and the Super Smash Bros. will appear at their next card after Battle of Los Angeles. Super psyched to see the SSB get some dates outside of the East Coast and Quebec, because they're a really fun tag team. Not surprising to see them touch down in SoCal though, as PWG has been really good about importing guys from Quebec, as seen with their thrusting of El Generico and Kevin Steen into the mainstream. Looking VERY much forward to this.

This Week in DVR, Part 2: The Internet!

Match of the week? Maybe match of the month!
Screen Grab Credit: WWE.com

I watched what I missed on vacation on the Internet. This is what stood out:

Matches

Rico Dynamite, Ray Rosas and Peter Avalon vs. Aaron Bolo, Famous B and Ryan Taylor on NWA Hollywood - Nice trios action to open up NWA Hollywood. The tecnicos did some good work giving Dynamite and then Avalon the what-for early on. I was a bit wary of Famous B's face-in-peril work and his selling though, and bad production cut out for commercial before the hot tag was made. That being said, it was still a really good opener match. I thought the finish, Dynamite getting the pin by dubious means, worked well because this didn't feel like a blowoff match to their feud.

Colt Cabana (c) vs. Joey Ryan, NWA World Heavyweight Championship Match, on NWA Hollywood - This match was the centerpiece for the show, and it delivered despite not having quite as long a build as the prior title match. This felt like a perfect "Backlash" title defense after the "WrestleMania" moment win against Adam Pearce for Cabana. For having been a NWA Hollywood heel for only a couple of weeks himself, he did a great job turning the crowd against him during the match. Cabana's pin and submission game is tight, and I liked Ryan working the rib. The finish with Cabana countering the superkick into the Billy Goat's Curse was pretty slick. It's clear this issue probably isn't over, but yeah, it was a fitting TV main event.

Yoshi Tatsu vs. Tyson Kidd on Superstars - Screwy booking post-match and in the finish aside, this was what you'd expect from these two. Solid affair, hard kicks, good pacing, good counters. Nice little sprint.

Drew McIntyre vs. Evan Bourne on Superstars - Wow. What a match. I loved every moment of this one. It was a well-paced pace-clash that worked really well because of the two guys involved. The beginning was an expertly played game of cat and mouse that led into the spot on the apron where McIntyre just LEVELED Bourne with the clothesline. Between that and the big boot, Bourne's willingness to take the big bump shone through here. I also loved the whole delayed superplex spot as well. I mean, they took what was usually a mundane spot and turned into a nice struggle spot and a high spot worthy of a PPV. I thought that Bourne would eat another big bump, but with the running on the apron spot, McIntyre ate one. The finish was well done too, with McIntyre countering a rana into a corner bomb and then segueing into the Future Shock. This was definitely PPV quality.

Shows

NWA Hollywood - This was an episode that was billed around three grudge matches, although the only one that superficially resolved was the one with the seeming least build. I did like that the whole show was built around the NWA World Championship, and the match delivered, as did the trios match to kick off. However, that women's match was awful. Candice LaRae tried, God bless her soul, but Buggy is way too green to be on TV right now. They need to get Portia Perez up to speed to the Hollywood crowd so she can step in, or maybe they can get Christina von Eerie or import some other SHIMMERites to come West, because Buggy as the top female face ain't cutting it.

NXT - Worthless episode. Then again, I'm not sad to see Jacob Novak go.

Superstars - Honestly, it was a tale of two shows. The good show that took place involved the wrestling action in the ring. It was on point as usual, and the main event was worthy of being a PPV main event, y'know, excepting the fact that the heel won clean. The bad show was the symptomatically annoying trend of quick-set rushed angles. ON one hand, we have Michael Hayes abandoning Tyson Kidd after one week of faltering, after he didn't even try to bail him out in the finish? In character, Hayes is the laziest manager ever. On the other hand, Vladimir Kozlov and Santino Marella got their comeuppance over the Broski Bros. one week after the initial interference? Bad booking is the theme of the week for the WWE, and sadly, it affects the show that's usually good.

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