Jon Moxley made his PWG debut at TWENTY: Mystery Vortex Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Moxley’s debut came on the 20th anniversary show for the country’s most prestigious independent wrestling promotion, with the former WWE & AEW Champion taking on Titus Alexander in a winning effort in the show’s second contest.
In the Mystery Vortex main event, PWG World Champion Daniel Garcia defeated Speedball Mike Bailey in a 60-minute iron man match, winning four falls to three in sudden death overtime after the 60 minutes elapsed.
AEW was represented in every bout on the six-match card, with appearances from Moxley, Garcia, Konosuke Takeshita, Roderick Strong, Evil Uno, and Rey Fenix.
Sunday’s event was the first run by PWG since the 2023 Battle of Los Angeles in January.
Below are full results from the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles:
60-minute iron man match for the PWG World Championship: Daniel Garcia defeated “Speedball” Mike Bailey 4-3 in sudden death overtime to retain the title
This year’s PWG Mystery Vortex show took place from the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday night, featuring a card where the matches weren’t announced in advance.
– Trey Miguel pinned Tony Deppen with double knees off the top rope
Both these guys have good timing and do cool things. Very creative but it was like one long high spot. Really, for this crowd, it was almost a perfect opening match.
The fans really liked Deppen and it felt like a large percentage of the crowd knew who he was, which also speaks to fewer of the WWE fan types that had been at the last few Globe shows.
– Chuck Taylor pinned Orange Cassidy with the Awful Waffle
Another sign of this crowd being very educated towards minor wrestling groups was that Cassidy had never appeared in PWG and the place went absolutely nuts when he came out and went nuts for every spot.
This was all the comedy stuff until the last three minutes. Cassidy is clearly going to be one of the hottest indie acts around because of his uniqueness. I don’t know how effective he’ll be with repeat viewings in the same building. But unlike at the WrestleCon SuperShow, where he got a giant reaction but there were people hating his stuff, everyone was into him here. Really, he should have gone over in his debut.
– PWG World Champion Jeff Cobb defeated Jonathan Gresham to retain his title
Cobb and Gresham had flights out that night, Cobb to Michigan and Gresham to Japan, so they went on early. Cobb broke his thumb on the first spot.
This was very good, but it had a flaw in that the size difference was such that it was hard to buy Gresham being a threat. To his credit, the crowd was very into his near falls and they were so close to three with Cobb’s kickout timing that people actually bought it.
Gresham did a crazy tope where Cobb’s back was turned on the floor and Gresham did a tope into a choke. Cobb then climbed from the floor into the ring while being choked.
– Brody King defeated Trent Barreta and Jake Atlas in a three-way match when he pinned Atlas with a Bruno backbreaker dropped into a piledriver
The amount King and Atlas have improved in the last six months is unreal. When they debuted here, which wasn’t that long ago, they were nowhere near ready for PWG caliber, and now they had one of the two best matches on this show and were top level. Both could go anywhere and be stars now.
– Jungle Boy pinned Puma King
Short match. Very good. Jungle Boy has also improved greatly. He should be pushed like a late 70s Tommy Rich in AEW. He’s just got a natural charisma about him.
Jungle Boy got a huge reaction and people just gravitate to him. He’s also good enough now to carry it where before I’d have a very different idea of getting him over based on the long haul years from now, but now I think he’s got something missing from the major groups.
– PWG Tag Team Champions The Rascalz (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz) defeated Flamita & Rey Horus to retain their titles
Excellent match. Horus is maybe the most underrated guy in the business. Flamita has gained a lot of weight but he can go. Xavier flipped Wentz on top of Flamita for the pin.
– Darby Allin pinned Joey Janela in a Guerrilla Warfare match with a leglock into a bridging cradle
This was insane. Both guys seemed intent on ending their careers before they can start with AEW. Both fell off the balcony together through tables on the floor. There were cinderblocks used but not broken, thumbtacks with Janela bleeding all over his back and especially around one of his elbows, Allin had a garbage can put over his head and fell off the top rope to the floor where he couldn’t see when he was landing, and piledrivers through chairs.
They worked really hard. Janela did a promo talking about returning and what they had done.
With it being Mystery Vortex, no matches for last night’s PWG show were announced ahead of time. They tried to keep the talent so secretive that no wrestlers even came out to sell merchandise before the show, and at intermission, nobody who had yet to wrestle came out to sell merchandise.
Sammy Guevara did come out to shoot stuff for his vlog with fans in line for the show so people knew he was there. And in line word got around of some people there but none of the matches. People figured out the main event because Ricochet had to lose the PWG title since he starts with WWE on Tuesday, and early in the show, Chuck Taylor suddenly left the announcing position to go backstage and didn’t come back out.
– David Starr defeated Fred Yehi
Both men were making their debut. Starr won with a roll-up after a series of reversals.
– Joey Janela defeated Flash Morgan Webster
Janela hit a brainbuster off the top rope and submitted Webster with a crossface.
– Sammy Guevara defeated Rey Fenix
Guevara used a shooting star press to win. The first eight or so minutes of this match were incredible. But Guevara got hit with a tope and the back of his head hit the concrete. He was bleeding from the back of his head and it got worse as the match went on. It was hard to tell where the selling ended and if he was knocked silly, but it was definitely bothering him.
He also did a 450 on Fenix, whose knee was in a bad position and instead of landing on the body, landed on the knee. Fenix was hurt, although we don’t know how bad. They kept going but were careful and you could see some things starting to fall apart.
Guevara told me after he was okay, but then left the building after intermission. Fenix was limping after. Hopefully it’s not bad but it didn’t look good.
– Keith Lee defeated Zack Sabre Jr.
Lee powered out of the Octopus and pinned Sabre with a jackhammer slam. Most of the match was Sabre doing submission attempts.
– Trent Baretta defeated Marty Scurll
Baretta hit the Dudebuster after Scurll had thrown baby powder into his eyes. It made the ref look bad because not only could you see the powder everywhere but he was kicking the powder out of the ring. At least it made ringside smell nice. But the blinded Baretta then hit his finisher.
– PWG Tag Team Champions Matt Riddle & Jeff Cobb defeated WALTER & Timothy Thatcher to retain their titles
Thatcher was pinned after the doomsday knee. This was the best match on the show. Cobb got a bloody nose from a kick and it got worse as the match went on.
– Chuck Taylor defeated Ricochet to win the PWG World Championship
Taylor won the title after Ricochet missed a 630 into thumbtacks and Taylor gave him a piledriver and the Awful Waffle. There was a story here because Taylor trained Ricochet about 15 years ago. They tried to work it like a fight although Ricochet did a lot of in-ring flying, but not much of his crazy out of the ring stuff.
Taylor gave a brief speech about how when he started Ricochet out, he could see very quickly that Ricochet was so much better than he was. He didn’t say Ricochet was going to WWE but implied that every person in the room knew it. There were some “205 Live” comments and heckles during the match at Ricochet, who was playing heel until the end, since Taylor was winning.
Ricochet gave a speech after it was over, saying that while he considers Dragon Gate one of his homes (he did a final tour of Dragon Gate after leaving New Japan to show his gratitude toward them for his early break) that he considered PWG his home as well, since I believe this was his last indie match and they had him win both BOLA and the title in the last few months knowing he was leaving, in gratitude. Almost every wrestler came out and sat in the ring and applauded him after.
