Due to an ankle injury that he suffered earlier this month, TK Cooper won’t be able to compete in this year’s Battle of Los Angeles.
PWG officially announced the news last night, with Joey Janela being confirmed as Cooper’s replacement in the tournament. Janela will be taking on Sammy Guevara in place of Cooper on night two.
Cooper and Travis Banks (as the South Pacific Power Trip) were scheduled to face The Young Bucks in non-tournament action on night one, but that match is now off and The Young Bucks won’t be appearing on the first night. They’ll still be teaming with Kenny Omega against Penta El Zero M, Rey Fenix & Flamita on night two.
PWG tweeted that they hope to reschedule The Young Bucks vs. South Pacific Power Trip for a show when Cooper’s injury has healed.
Cooper dislocated his ankle at PROGRESS Wrestling’s show in New York on August 12th when doing a twisting dive off the top to the floor. Banks then continued against Tyler Bate & Trent Seven on his own after Cooper was forced out of the match.
Janela is a wrestler who has generated a lot of buzz this year, including for the “Joey Janela’s Spring Break” show he put on with Game Changer Wrestling over WrestleMania weekend in Orlando.
The 2017 Battle of Los Angeles will take place on September 1-3 in Reseda, California. Here’s the list of matches for the first two nights:
Night one —
Donovan Dijak & Keith Lee vs. Matt Riddle & Jeff Cobb (non-tournament match)
Flamita vs. Ricochet
Jonah Rock vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Matt Sydal vs. Penta El Zero M
Flash Morgan Webster vs. Marty Scurll
Rey Fenix vs. Rey Horus
Brian Cage vs. Dezmond Xavier
Night two —
Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks vs. Penta El Zero M, Rey Fenix & Flamita (non-tournament match)
Ricochet & Matt Sydal vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Marty Scurll (non-tournament match)
Welcome to My Favorite Wrestler (This Week). Each week, the Wrestling Observer team chooses, you guessed it, their favorite wrestler of the week. The only criteria are that the reasoning for the choice must be because of something the wrestler did within the last seven days.
There’s not a lot on the news front this week. A bunch of guys left TNA, and another bunch of guys came back. WWE has been building up to Fastlane and WrestleMania, EVOLVE crowned a new champion, and ROH came to Japan for the Honor Rising shows from Korakuen Hall. Here are our favorite wrestlers this week. Who’s yours?
Satoshi Kojima
By Zach Dominello
In a world full of Nintendo Switches and Netflixes, it’s easy to take the simple things for granted, like the sunrise, the air we breathe, or most importantly, bread. Thankfully, Satoshi Kojima has taken to Twitter to profess his love for the often underappreciated food group, and it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread:
I love how he ends his series of tweets in the most Japanese way possible — with an apology. Kojima’s lariat may be his bread and butter, but his Twitter game has been amazing recently. His occasionally incomprehensible slice of life tweets read more like poetry than status updates:
I hope these gems are being collected to be released in book form somewhere down the line. In the meantime, New Japan’s merch team had better jump on this:
I sleep now.
The person who eats five a day of bread is a member of a BREAD CLUB.
Zack Sabre Jr. is my favorite wrestler this week after ending the 596-day title reign Timothy Thatcher had as EVOLVE Champion. He also enjoyed being the recipient of the Bryan Danielson Award for Best Technical Wrestler in the 2016 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards, which were released this week on our website.
Sabre has long been one of the best workers in the world, and while his style is one that not every fan enjoys, I personally enjoy watching him work inside the ring. He puts up consistently good matches in EVOLVE, PWG, and other independent promotions around the world. He was showcased in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic last year, and will be working for New Japan this year. His reign at the top of EVOLVE has just begun, and he’ll be headlining their events over WrestleMania weekend.
For now, though, him ending Thatcher’s reign has sewn up his standing as my favorite wrestler this week.
By Alan Boon
My favorite wrestler this week is also Zack Sabre Jr. Not only is he the new EVOLVE Champion — he dethroned Timothy Thatcher at EVOLVE 79 after almost 600 days of Thatcher holding the title — but he also worked such an intense, intriguing contest that even those EVOLVE fans with little time for Thatcher (and there are more than a few) were drawn into an engaging battle.
Sabre Jr. started and ended the weekend with losses, to new sensation Keith Lee at EVOLVE 78 and to the littlest big man in the game, John Silver, at Beyond’s Under Construction, but showed a killer instinct in his match with Thatcher that he’d been lacking.
Sabre Jr. closed his title-winning night with a short speech to the crowd. “Professional wrestling is for everyone, this Earth is for everyone. Thank you, New York, politics speech over.” Wrestling is art, and all art is political. We’ve got an outspoken champion to carry that message now.
By Joseph Currier
For all of the complaining I’ve done about Timothy Thatcher’s title reign in my recaps, it would’ve been difficult to envision a better ending to it than what happened at EVOLVE 79. The moment was nearly perfect. The match was nearly great. And Zack Sabre Jr.’s speech after was the best part of the whole thing. He’s easily my favorite wrestler this week.
DIY
By Arya Witner
My pick for this week is the former NXT Tag Team Champions, DIY. Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa have long since cemented their reputations as top workers. However, it takes you to another level to not just get one great match out of The Authors of Pain (TakeOver: San Antonio), but they got two (this week’s episode of NXT).
NXT has become a weird hodgepodge of some of the best workers in the world and some of the greenest workers in the world. When you get a combination like that, sometimes match quality literally goes all over the place. The Authors of Pain haven’t had a lot of great matches, but somehow, some way, Ciampa & Gargano have solved the mystery of them.
Matt Riddle
By Mike DellaCamera
I planned to write about the newly crowned EVOLVE champion, Zack Sabre Jr — who incidentally I got to see in person the following day at Beyond Wrestling. But since my fellow contributors already sang the well-deserved praises of the technical wizard, I’ll go with someone else who was on the same Beyond card — Matt Riddle.
Riddle is a borderline incomprehensible mix of pure talent and charisma. The fact that he just finished his first full year as a pro wrestler is, legitimately, mind blowing. For someone who, for all intents and purposes should be completely untreatable to the fans (a former UFC fighter, wrestling prodigy, annoyingly good looking), he has an incredible and organic connection to the crowd. When his music hits, whatever building he’s wrestling in explodes. I’ve been able to see him wrestle for three different promotions, and it’s the same thing every time.
People gravitate towards transcendent talent; they have a certain gravity surrounding them that just feels different from everyone else. It’s special, it’s different. All of this says nothing about his matches, which while they can be on the shorter side, are never a letdown. If the King of Bros is wrestling near you, run, don’t walk, to see him in person.
TK Cooper
By Alan4L
I’m not sure there’s a more eye-catching young heel in wrestling right now than New Zealand’s TK Cooper. One third of the South Pacific Power Trip in PROGRESS, TK has exploded into the new year with some great performances in the Electric Ballroom.
His act is so great as the brash, dungarees wearing, punchable face of the SPPT. With his girlfriend Dahlia Black by his side (and often on his lap) and his tough as nails buddy Travis Banks watching his back, TK has a great dynamic going on around him.
But he’s really started to come into his own with his own performances. In the incredible match against Team Ringkamp at Chapter 43, TKC was throwing himself around like a madman and taking the best shots that “Der Ringgeneral” WALTER had to dish out — the youngster had a death wish. Cooper is destined for big things.
