Phoenix Pro Wrestling 6/7/16

Phoenix Pro Wrestling is a local indy that my pal Tim Livingston and I do commentary for. They've been running shows for over a year now, and sadly THIS show was the first one I had to miss (I was on a cruise to the Caribbean with my family, a trip that combined all of the nightmares of being trapped on a large floating island with Florida strangers, with all of the nightmares of being trapped on a large floating island with your constantly arguing parents; But, also, 24 hour wood fire pizza and a ship full of people whose job it is to essentially be your slave), but they were quick to upload most of the matches, so I took it upon myself to watch those matches (so I won't be completely lost while doing commentary on the next show, and because they all looked like matches I wanted to see). So check them out if they interest you, and enjoy the sometimes-in-the-red commentary stylings of Tim Livingston, sans Eric Ritz.

4. Boyce LeGrande vs. Victor Sterling

Boyce is always one of the guys I look forward to on PPW shows. Boyce was in one of the first matches on the very first indy wrestling show I attended some 17 years ago, so I love seeing still working and still actually having good matches. I love heel champ Boyce, love that he can usually win but doesn't want to risk losing so he has no problem cheating. The good wrestler who also has no problem resorting to cheating is a favorite of mine. Sterling is a guy who always does a thing or two that surprise me in a match, here I really dug his fisherman suplex (with Boyce adding a nice touch by grabbing Sterling's wrist to attempt to stop the suplex) and powerslam, Boyce tossed out a nice northern lights, nice yakuza kicks, and dealt stealthily with a fan who tried to grab his leg while climbing the turnbuckles. These two have worked before and have a nice 10 minutes down. I think they have a really good match in them. Their PPW matches so far have ended non-decisively, but they seem to be progressing well. I do miss seeing Boyce's big lariat, which he uses as his finisher in PPW.

5. Kikyo vs. Brittany Wonder

This ended up being my favorite match on the card, which was not what I was expecting. Not due to lack of talent, but because I liked the look of all 4 matches on paper, and I had never seen Wonder work before. So I was looking forward to it, but wasn't expecting it to be my favorite of the evening. It was tightly paced and both looked real good. Wonder starts with a couple of hug based moves. I guess one cute former Bay Area worker got signed to be a hugger, lightning could strike twice. I loved her hug into a headbutt, where she pounced on Kikyo in a full legs-wrapped-around hug, Kikyo tried to shake her by dropping to her butt, so Wonder leaned in for a peck, and a headbutt. Wonder has a bunch of fun offense, and it's suited nicely to her abilities. She mixed in some fun stuff like a flatliner type moved using Kikyo's own momentum off the ropes. Plus, she has a butt, so might as well do hip and butt attacks and a bombs away! Makes sense to me! Work to your strengths! Kikyo is really great setting up Wonder's offense flourishes, and chooses her own moments wisely. She had a killer lariat, nice STO and a picture perfect yakuza kick right to the side of Wonder's head. We brawl into the crowd and Wonder muscles Kikyo over the guardrail with a clothesline. The Kikyo moonsault is a fitting end, and again this was just a fun, tightly worked 10 minutes. Well worth going out of your way to watch.

6. JR Kratos vs. Sir Samurai

Samurai isn't usually a guy to be put in a position to have a workrate type of long singles match, so he must have been excited to get the opportunity to show off his gas tank. He's got a nice round belly but he certainly doesn't look tired after a 20 minute match. I liked the early one-up stuff leading to Samurai hitting some back elbows, but I really loved things when it spilled to the floor. Kratos hits a nice leaping knee while Samurai is draped over the apron, but soon Samurai ups things with a rolling senton off the apron and into the crowd. The crowd brawl portion was real fun as both guys roll around on the dirty floor, Samurai throws stiff shots, gets a gross in-use trash can dumped on his head (we can get some kind of scuzzy attendees at our shows, so no telling what kind of things could have been in there) leading to Kratos hitting a nice sliding kick to the canned Samurai. Back inside and there's an accidental DQ leading to a fun restart, and Samurai takes all sorts of big slams which...man those did not look fun. Fun match and while crowd brawling can seem like almost a rest spot to extend a match in a lot of cases, here it was my favorite part.

7. Drake Frost vs. Marcus Lewis

Lewis has missed a lot of time with a concussion so it was good to finally see him back (with arguably the furriest ring gear in wrestling), although seeing him bump a huge lariat onto the back of his head really made me cringe. Frost is a guy who has really started to come into his own since the first PPW show. He's got a simple moveset and bumps appropriately for his size, and while there was a couple off moments on dropkicks, but we got plenty of fun stuff for a big title match. Lewis hits a crazy moonsault to the floor on the narrowest side of the ring, and later hits his 450 flush. Frost hits a big fat guy leg drop, huge lariat and finishes it off with a crazy twisting superplex. Good to have Lewis back, excited for more Frost title matches.