Before we dive into the show, I just want to say the Milwaukee crowd was easily the best of the three. They were up for everything all night and didn’t seem to let up. I understand there was a couple of idiots that could be heard on the iPPV, but they were definitely the minority. The Mirmar Theater has become a great venue for DG USA; I certainly hope they make their way back at least once a year. Oh and one more thing. Roadhouse.
Before the show, we got a bonus freestyle match. This wasn’t anything to go out of your way to see, and my mind is drawing a blank as to some of the moves that even occurred in the match. It’s been a long weekend folks. I’ve seen a lot of matches and lots of dudes flipping. Louis Lyndon picked up what I believe was just his second victory in DG USA, the first being one year ago in Milwaukee with his partner Flip Kendrick against Zero Gravity. The doors opened 45 minutes late, but the one positive was the crowd only had to wait 30 minutes for the iPPV to start instead of an hour.
The completion of tag team discovery started the night off. Caleb Konley and Scott Reed wrestled Ronin members Chuck Taylor and Rich Swann. Nothing against Konley and Reed, but I didn’t walk away from this weekend thinking they could be the next hot team in DG USA or that they were “discovered.” It felt more like The Scene were booked on these three DG USA shows in order to get them over Taylor and Swann were the easily the better team on so many levels. Their in-ring work was more crisp, and their bombastic personalities come through. The Scene isn’t terrible in the ring, but Reed in particular does nothing special in the ring. I’d call him a carbon copy of Mike Bennett, but I don’t want to bury Reed THAT badly. Taylor and Swann came away with the victory in a perfectly acceptable opener to the iPPV. It should be noted that no tension took appeared between the members of Ronin. A bit odd considering the previous two shows.
Up next was Silas Young coming out to defend the honor of his wife against Brodie Lee. Apparently Lee was bullying Valerie Malone around at some indeterminate amount of time. What could have easily been a basic squash turned into a very competitive contest. In fact, Tozawa’s distraction may have been the only reason Young didn’t win according to how this was booked. I very much enjoyed this match. While Young wrestles a deliberate, more cerebral style in AAW, he showed off a number of springboard maneuvers and looked crisp. I’m not sure what direction they’re headed with Lee, but he’s a solid worker who I’m glad is a regular member of the roster. As Lee bragged about beating Young, Jon Davis come out to confront the big man. One match basically bled into another.
Tozawa and Davis came next. They didn’t have a four star classic but had a very solid contest. Tozawa is extremely impressive of course, but Davis is a guy who showed off his abilities this weekend. I’m not sure if he’s ever going to get into main event status, but he’s looked good in every performance so far. The visual of Tozawa going for the German suplex is quite the impressive site, so it made sense he walked away with the victory with the move. After the match, intermission came early because of the crappy lighting. I was actually wondering about the lighting myself since the ring looked quite dark even in the building. Props to DG USA for listening to the fans and doing their best to actually correct the problem. Better to take an intermission early instead of making the fans watch a crappily lit show the whole night.
After intermission, Arik Cannon and Sami Callihan had their tag team match against Yamato and AR Fox. Is it repetitive if I once again talk about how great Yamato is again? Because he was once again was unbelievable. He turned this from just another tag team match into one of the real highlights of the weekend. Fox has a long way to go before he becomes a complete worker; however, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt considering his youth and inexperience. I’m hoping he’s able to make more trips to Japan because those are the sorts of intangibles that have improved a number of other wrestlers. Callihan tapped out Fox to end a really good match. One of the big issues in DG USA has become the D.U.F against Fox. I’m glad the Americans are starting to get their own angles separate from what the Japanese guys are doing. As Fox was being worked over by Cannon, Callihan, and Pinkie Sanchez, Sabu made the save. He proceeded to have a fairly formulaic and predictable contest with Pinkie. This was nothing special, but Pinkie worked his ass off for the third night in a row. If this was a two star match, 1 ¾ of those stars would go to Mr. Sanchez. Sabu won by putting Sanchez through a table. Afterward, D.U.F came out again. AR Fox went for the save but ate a vicious beatdown from the heel trio. Locker room geeks had to gather ten strong in order to stop what was going on. Good angle to keep the feud going.
A special freestyle took place with Flip Kendrick, Sugar Dunkerton, Façade, and Uhaa Nation doing battle. Nation went from a guy who wasn’t even on the radar of DG USA into seemingly becoming a roster member by the third night. I’m assuming that putting him into this match and having him go over is leading to more appearances in the future. As far the match goes, this had some sloppy moments but wasn’t all that bad. Sugar Dunkerton’s commentary throughout the match was the real highlight, and I’m almost sad he had to do the job to Nation. Poor guy can’t catch a break. Façade did almost nothing on this night and didn’t do much in Chicago either. Not to say he’s terrible or anything, but I question why he was even around considering just how little he did.
Johnny Gargano took a big step forward this weekend. Although he technically went 1-2 over the weekend, his performances on all three nights were stellar. His match with Tozawa was better, but he really had the crowd with him on this night as he made Naruki Doi tap out. I enjoyed Doi’s match with Callihan a great deal, and this was very different. Doi is quite excellent, and it was good to see him back in DG USA. I think I was way more into this match than Matt Waters was. We’ll have a discussion on the merits of this contest in a podcast later this week I’m sure. Afterward, Gargano tried to talk about being the number one contender for the Freedom Gate title, but the microphone was not cooperating. A sidenote: Gargano losing to Tozawa is even more questionable now that he’s apparently challenging for the belt in New York in the last show of 2011. How is he the number one contender when Tozawa defeated him and then Jon Davis? He was even on the winning team of the main event in Indianapolis. Just odd booking in this case. A second sidenote: Lenny Leonard mentioned the BxB Hulk/Yamato match being in Boston but not for the title! What? Why shouldn’t Hulk get a rematch for the championship considering he was champion for 18 months? Again with the odd booking. Chuck Taylor came out and elbowed the microphone to thunderous cheers from the Milwaukee crowd. I guess he changed his mind about when he was going to cash in his preverbal money in the bank opportunity since he announced his own challenge for Yamato on November 12 in Philadelphia. We’ll have to see how this all shakes out, but I’m hoping this all ends with Ronin holding all three title belts at the end of the year. If that happens, then all the weirdness of this weekend is forgiven.
In the biggest match of the weekend, Cima and Ricochet won the United Gate titles and retained their Twin Gate titles. It should be pointed out that these championships are not unified, but Blood Warriors are the tag team champions of both Dragon Gate and Dragon Gate USA. I did predict this result and was very happy when they won. No offense to PAC and Masato Yoshino individually, but I was never into their team. Quite frankly, I think Cima and Ricochet are an awesome duo. Ricochet rules as a heel, and I fully expect him to be considered the best high flyer in wrestling by the end of 2012. If WWE is looking for a high flyer to replace Rey Rey, they should be breathing down Ricochet’s neck. The match itself was quite incredible and is in close contention with the six man tag from Indy as my best match of the weekend. There were a number of great false finshes. PAC and Ricochet seemed to have a better series of sequences in this match than in their singles match. I thought this was very odd but wrote it off to this being a main event as opposed to the third match on the card. Cima and Ricochet holding the belts and mock pissing on them was not exactly a happy ending, but it put over Blood Warriors strong at least. One final side note: You fans who were just booing Ricochet at the end of the show were not funny or cool. You were just being annoying indy wrestling fans. I have no idea what he said, but I bet it was far more interesting than listening to some idiots booing.
Milwaukee had the best crowd of all three shows, and I’m almost positive they had the best show of the weekend. It’s very close with Chicago, and a second viewing of both will have to settle that debate. I hope if DG USA does the Midwest tripleshot next year that they move Milwaukee to an earlier start time. Having a show start at 7:30 central time on a Sunday night is pretty dumb. I’m sure more Chicago fans would have made the 90 mile trip if they knew they weren’t going to get out of the building at 10:30. In fact, DG USA might as well start the iPPVs in the Midwest at least an hour earlier just so people in the Northeast can begin watching them before 9’o’clock. Still, this was a really good weekend with a lot of excellent matches all three nights. Johnny Gargano, Akira Tozawa, Rich Swann, and Jon Davis were the stand-out performers, but I give credit to the entire roster and staff for working their asses off in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee. This is Jerome Cusson. I’m going to bed and not watching wrestling for a few days.