This was a first round match in the 2012 DDT4 tournament.
Beyond just being ridiculously stacked, this is also Callihan’s PWG debut and he’s especially on his best/worst behavior in this. He’s immediately a perfect fit and exactly the sort of guy PWG needs to freshen up a just-starting-to-stagnate middle of the card. Beyond just whipping ass, the main thing that happens here is Kevin Steen shit talking up a storm on commentary about Callihan. He’s calling him the flavor of the month and constantly tearing him down, and generally doing a great job of building up to the obvious big match that everyone demanded when Sami was first announced as coming in. Good little non-traditional build up work.
THE MATCH ITSELF HOWEVER.
Big dumb strike and move fest, but just about perfect for that sort of thing. Just because a match is stupid as hell doesn’t also mean it can’t rule, and that it can’t make sense. Sami is a hyperaggressive shithead and he brings that back out of Roderick Strong. They’re bad influences on each other throughout the match in a way that’s both consistent with who they’ve both always portrayed themselves as, but also in a way that helps put a little something behind all this nutty violence and cool offense on the other end. Roderick gleefully rips apart Willie Mack now that he has help, proving himself in their second meeting to no longer be able to do it to Willie on his own. And then, of course, the best babyface in wrestling and a top five best in the world level guy is waiting on the apron.
El Generico finds his way in, and the bad guys pay the price for doing bad guy things. Willie stands up for himself more in the back half, and El Generico is El Generico. We get an month early glimpse at how good a Generico vs. Callihan confrontation can be, and Generico and Strong YET AGAIN work exceptionally well together. Strong and Callihan make a better team at the end, but Generico is a dynamo that neither has an answer for, so it doesn’t matter. Roddy and Sami both got caught up in punishment, whereas El Generico came in and always was clearly moving towards a finish. Willie’s able to keep Sami at bay long enough for Generico to get there, hitting Strong with the Brainbuster for the win.
One of the best bombfests of the year on top of a real simple story. No fat on the thing. all killer, no filler. Just about every moment of this ruled, and it did so with such incredible ease. There are few better examples of Peak PWG than a thing like this and the casualness with which a match this great got thrown out there.
HANDWERK 