BRM Reviews PWG Neon Knights

[Big Red Machine]

PWG Neon Knights (2/16/2018)- Reseda, CA


ADAM BROOKS vs. BRODY KING- 6.5/10
MOVEZ. Don’t get me wrong; they sold everything just fine. But there really wasn’t a story so much as just a collection of moves. Any time you do a Canadian Destroyer and then decide you need to hit a top rope dive next instead of just going for the pin, you might want to rethink your psychology.

DALTON CASTLE vs. JOEY JANELA- 8/10
I’m not going to spoil anything about it, but after the first spot in the match, Janela made a comment that had Excalibur laughing so hard it sounded like he was about to start crying. After a bit of good mat wrestling, he then proceeded to say something else that I won’t spoil that got Dalton to not only crack up, but break character and talk in his real voice instead of his Dalton Castle voice.
This match started off with comedy, but they managed to be comedic without being farcical. From there, they did an excellent job of transitioning smoothly and logically into serious wrestling, which built up in both scope and intensity throughout. Awesome match!

DAVID STARR vs. TRAVIS BANKS- 6.75/10

ZACK SABRE JR. vs. FLIP GORDON- 7.5/10
Flip did a bunch of his flips until Zack cut him off with submissions. Flip started his comeback with a springboard Slingblade, a move that I am hereby officially naming the “Spring-Blade.” From then on they just basically continued that same idea of flips vs. submissions until the finish. Great action and storytelling.

KEITH LEE vs. MATT RIDDLE- 8.5/10
They did the “two proud warriors” story that just hit my limit for fighting spirit and then went no further, which was nice. Everything built extremely well, and they left me clamoring to see a rematch. AWESOME!

PWG WORLD TITLE MATCH: Chuck Taylor(c) vs. Trent?- 6.75/10
Chuck has learned his lesson from his match against Ricochet and is paying no mind to his (best) friendship with Trent?, even when Trent? has shown no signs of having any intention of betraying him. Then he feels bad about it and they hug… and Trent? turns it into a roll-up. Chuck was upset, but he has no leg to stand on here because he took advantage of Trent? first.
Despite there having been count-outs the rest of the night, there aren’t any here. Ditto for DQs. They brawled on the outside for a while, then Chuck erected a big tower of chairs and publicly announced his intention to “kill” Trent?... but of course they made up later in the match, so there went all of that story. Trent bled from somewhere around the eye so Chuck started to work over his head with lots of strikes (put also some piledrivers and stuff). They did their nearfalls, then randomly veered back into the original story for the finish when Trent? grabbed the PWG World Title belt and went to hit Chuck with it but then stopped and gave the belt to referee Rick Knox, who, despite having allowed the use of weapons for the entire match and not having made any effort to stop Trent? from using the belt, apparently felt it was imperative that the belt be removed from the ring this instant, and when he turned around to do so, Chuck hit Trent? in the nuts and pinned him. The action in here was good, but the storytelling was a complete and total mess, entirely dictated by the whims of what would be “cool” at the moment without actually trying to make things make sense together.


This was a below average in-ring show from PWG, with the main event particularly disappointing, but there certainly wasn’t anything on it that could really be called “bad,” and almost all of the match-ups felt fresh and interesting. At under two hours, it’s also one of their shorter shows, and the fact that everyone actually made an effort to work a different style made the show very easy to sit through because it didn’t feel repetitive the way most PWG shows do, so I’d still recommend checking this one out.