11/2 Pro Wrestling Guerrilla: Battle of Los Angeles Tournament Night 2 with Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinnness, Low Ki, Chris Hero, plus a note on a WWE performer hanging out backstage

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla
Burbank, Calif.
Report by Saul Stradlin

PWG presented Night 2 of the BOLA tournament in Burbank on Sunday. The crowd was about the same as the night before, with the total around 400.

1. Nigel McGuinness over Brandon Bonham to advance in the tournament. Hot opener. Nigel received a busted lip or nose and a black eye during the match. Goes over with a Tower Of London for the pinfall victory. Nigel didn't really hit that many lariats this weekend, which was pretty cool.

2. Low Ki over Masato Yoshino to advance in the tournament. Another match the fans were hot for. The two wrestlers blended really well in this. Low Ki makes Yoshino tap to the Dragon Clutch. Post match saw the fans give Yoshino a "please come back" chant.

3. Bryan Danielson over TJ Perkins to advance. Awesome match. Runner up for MOTN. Perkins shined in this as opposed to last night. He played an affective heel and Danielson did a great job at rallying the fans behind him. Great technical wrestling match, and a great story to go along with it. The finish saw them tease a countout finish with Perkins keeping Danielson out of the ring, and Danielson finally making it in with a sunset flip to get the victory.

4. Chris Hero over Scott Lost to advance. Really fun match. Lost started out strong going after Hero right at the start to try to gain the upper hand. Really disappointed Scott Lost didn't make it but he had a good showing here. Lots of cool spots in this like Scott Lost hitting an ace crusher onto Hero outside the ring.

5. Low Ki over Nigel McGuinness via DQ to advance to the finals. This started out really good, but the finish was weak. The two fought over a chair during the match, it got inside, several minutes later the ref took a bump, Nigel ended up hitting the Tower of London on Ki onto the chair and the referee saw it which led to him DQ'ing Nigel. The referee (a ref from WSX) got major heat from the fans.

6. Chris Hero over Bryan Danielson to advance to the finals. Hot finish here. Sorta like how Danielson/Richards ended last night. The fans were really hot for this and they teased things really well.

7. Austin Aries, Davey Richards, & Roderick Strong over El Generico/Nick Jackson/Necro Butcher and Kenny Omega/Joey Ryan/Chuck Taylor. Insanely fun match. There was a really scare moment in this. Kenny Omega went to run the ropes, but the middle and top ropes snapped and he took a stumble to the outside. He was taken to the back, but came back in the middle of the match. He cut a promo at the food table, proclaiming that everyone in this match was a loser (from the night before) and that there was no reason to fight each other. Everyone then chased him all over the building, and outside.

The finish saw the referee screw over Necro Butcher as he did a fast count when Davey Richards gave him a school boy. After the match Necro blasted him with a crazy chairshot that got a giant reaction from the fans. This was the most fun match I've ever seen in PWG.

Following the match, there was a short break for the ring crew to try to fix the ropes. They couldn't fix them so there was only one rope used for the finals.

8. Low Ki over Chris Hero to win the 2008 Battle Of Los Angeles. This match should be considered a MOTYC. Without the top rope, this ended up being a crazy strikefest with really good mat wrestling mixed in. Ki ended up busting Hero's nose with a kick to the face, and Hero was bleeding big time. He was a few feet away from me when he got out of the ring and blood was pouring from his nose. Towards the end both wrestlers tried to land several knockout blows to each other, but couldn't get the job done. Several fans at ringside were really caught up in this, encouraging each wrestler whenever someone was down. That really helped make the match great, and added so much to the dynamics of the finals. Low Ki gets the victory after making Hero tap out to a Dragon Clutch.

Post match, Hero put over Low Ki and said he's found his new No. 1 contender for the PWG World Championship. Low Ki then got on the mic, and cut a very passionate promo and put over PWG and it's local wrestlers big time. It was really well done, and it was extremely classy of him to put over wrestlers such as Scott Lost, TJ Perkins, Davey Richards, and PAC.

Awesome show to close out a great weekend from PWG. MOTN honors goes to Hero/Ki, which is my PWG MOTY and an overall MOTYC in my book. Danielson/Perkins is right behind it.

Notes from the weekend

-WWE superstar Paul London, and WWE referee Marty Elias were in attendance on Night 1.

-After the show, I saw Kenny Omega walking around and he looked like he was in good spirits after his scary moment. I really hope he comes back.