Over at the Observer site, there's a report up from renowned Georgia indy writer Larry Goodman about Ron Simmons' (one of the few black men to be a world heavyweight champion in wrestling history) retirement show this past weekend promoted by Purks International Championship Wrestling.  It was the 4th consecutive monthly show at the Purks Building in Cedartown, GA to draw an impressive and lively crowd in the range of 1,000 people.  In the main event, Simmons teamed with David Young and Air Paris (accompanied by Christy Hemme) to face Bobby Hayes, Terry Lawler & Alexander the Great (with Jackie Rosedale).  Simmons' team lost when Young turned on Paris.  After the show, Simmons said that he would continue to do appearances and even some minor physical interaction, but no more matches.

The Insane Clown Posse has announced that their Juggalo Championship Wrestling promotion will now run monthly shows and open a wrestling school in the same building in Novi, Michigan.  It should be interesting to see how well it does given how rabid ICP fans (the "Juggalos" and "Juggalettes") are.  Several years ago, ICP was somewhat notorious for showing up and indy shows and offering to wrestle for free.  The promoters usually agreed.  I'm sure you're wondering why, and the reason is that they were always accompanied by a busload of ICP fans who would then pay to get in to the wrestling show.  With a fanbase that's ready and willing to spend money on ICP, the new version of JCW and its wrestling school could be one of the most successful ventures of its kind in the business.

Thanks to TigerDriver98 for another amazing hype video for tonight's Pro Wrestling Guerrilla 2009 Battle of Los Angeles night one!

We will be livetweeting tonight via http://www.twitter.com/cagesideseats so follow us tonight and tomorrow at approx. 8pm PST.

One lineup change tonight is that Chris Sabin has been pulled from all bookings for a few weeks after re-aggravating a neck injury at this past week's TNA tapings.  A few weeks ago he was brutalized on a uranage by Brother Ray and it's really for the best that he takes the time off.  He was scheduled to go up against Roderick Strong in the first round tonight.  He will be replaced instead by local wrestler Johnny Goodtime. 

Get excited!  Battle of Los Angelesssssssss

View full size photo »

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla will be presenting their annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament this weekend in Reseda.  Friday, November 20th will feature the sixteen competitors in opening-round singles matches to see who will be advancing to night two on Saturday.  The winner of this single-elimination tournament will emerge as not only the winner of this year's BoLA, but also as the new PWG World Heavyweight Champion!

Bryan Danielson vacated his freshly-won title before leaving for the WWE, and now 16 of PWG's top stars will be slugging it out.  Cageside Seats will be in attendance, and we will be live-tweeting results and points of interest on our handy-dandy Twitter feed. 

First Round Matchups on Friday night are as follows:

Block A:
Kenny Omega vs. Kevin Steen
Scott Lost vs. Jerome "LTP" Robinson

Block B:
Austin Aries vs. Brian Kendrick
Colt Cabana vs. Joey Ryan

Block C:
Brandon Gatson vs. Nick Jackson
El Generico vs. Alex Shelley

Block D:
Chris Sabin vs. Roderick Strong
Matt Jackson vs. Human Tornado

Visit PWG's Official Site for more information!  Hope to see you there!

EvolveWrestling.com - Davey Richards (via EvolveWrestling)

Possibly bad news for Ring of Honor: former booker Gabe Sapolsky and former DVD cover/website design man and Florida Impact Pro owner Sal Hamaoui, and current ROH Tag Title holder Davey Richards have announced a new promotion, EVOLVE Wrestling.  Fight Game Blog has a bunch more information, including that Sal has applied for a New York State promoter's license.  They've also started a YouTube account which currently features a video with Richards, which is assumed to be the first in a series of viral videos.  To that same effect, they have launched a bare-bones website which features a countdown clock to the website's next "Evolution" with the idea that fans can watch the information about the promotion be revealed a piece at a time. 

Given Gabe's relationship with the new Dragon Gate USA promotion and their willingness to go head-to-head with ROH on WrestleMania weekend in Arizona in March, and given Richards' apparent commitment to Gabe and Dragon Gate in that situation, the writing may be on the wall that Richards may not be with ROH that much longer.  Add into the equation that Richards is FIP's current heavyweight champ and the only public face of EVOLVE, as well as one of the singles stars of DGUSA, and it's not too difficult to see where this is going.

ROH has been rumored to be having problems or in danger of folding for a year or two now, but has shown no real outward signs of that being the case.  If they were to lose one of their big stars and champions so soon after the losses of Bryan Danielson to WWE and Nigel McGuinness to TNA, however, the cracks may be beginning to show.  EVOLVE would certainly be in a good position by launching in 2010 if ROH were to fold within the next couple of years, and having a bona fide indie superstar with a ton of buzz onboard certainly doesn't hurt.  It's also no secret that Gabe is well-liked with indie workers everywhere and he shouldn't have any problem getting top-level talent booked, assuming he has the right money men backing him.

iIt's certainly going to be interesting seeing where EVOLVE goes from here.  Stay tuned.

BOLA

View full size photo »

Historically, Southern California's Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's biggest weekend of the year has been their annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament.  Hyped and received as their version of WrestleMania, BOLA never disappoints and generally features PWG's finest in-ring work of the year.

This year, the stakes are even higher, as the tournament winner will also be crowned the new PWG World Champion.  Bryan Danielson vacated the title upon winning it from Chris Hero in his last match with the company before leaving for WWE.  Hero, who is entitled to a rematch as the former champ, has declined entering a tournament that would require him to win four matches in order to reclaim his title.  He will instead be cashing in on his rematch clause in 2010.

Presented on November 20 and 21, 2009, BOLA will be the last event for PWG in 2009, a year that has been hailed as the best in PWG's six-year-plus history. 

With the absence of Hero, the final sixteen in this year's Battle of Los Angeles are as follows:

• Kevin Steen
• Jerome "LTP" Robinson
• Brandon Gatson
• Scott Lost
• Brian Kendrick
• Chris Sabin
• Matt Jackson
• Nick Jackson
• Roderick Strong
• Human Tornado
• Joey Ryan
• Colt Cabana
• Austin Aries
• El Generico
• Kenny Omega
• Alex Shelley

It should be quite an event, and the winner is definitely up in the air at this point.  The favorites going in appear to be Omega, Lost, or possibly Strong, with Kendrick being the strongest heel in a dark horse bid.  I'll be there live and providing results via Twitter, so stay tuned in three weeks for the Battle of Los Angeles!

For tickets and more information, check www.prowrestlingguerrilla.com

PWG 2009 BOLA Profile: The Human Tornado (via TigerDriver98)

TigerDriver98 has done it again, putting together a fantastic and inevitably hilarious Human Tornado video to hype Tornado's upcoming participation in PWG's Battle of Los Angeles. 

Human Tornado is a longtime veteran of the indie scene from coast to coast, and has wrestled for just about every independent promotion from Ring of Honor to Insane Clown Posse's Juggalo Championship Wrestling.  Tornado is roundly beloved for his antics and persona of a 70s blaxploitation pimp.  We conducted an interview with Tornado not too long ago, and it's a fun read.  If you ever get the chance to check out "H-Tizzle" live, I recommend you take it.  He's a solid performer in the ring, but his main assets are his cartoonish facial expressions and infectious charisma.

View full size photo »

Scott Lost is one of the founders of southern California's Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, which has quietly been one of the best independent wrestling promotions for some time.  PWG's 2009 thus far has been increasing that reputation, and along with the growing word-of-mouth, wrestling fans are beginning to take more and more notice of Scott Lost.  He spent much of the early part of his career in legendary tag teams with flamboyant partners Chris Bosh and Joey Ryan, but 2009 has featured more of Lost as a singles competitor than ever before. 

Scott was kind enough to take the time for an interview with Cageside Seats, which you can find after the jump.

Continue reading this post »