That one time a potential Cruiserweight Classic winner wrestled the one-day Universal champion

It's a bit hard to believe that just a couple years ago, Finn Balor was still Prince Devitt and working indie shows between New Japan appearances. One of his last few appearances was for PROGRESS Wrestling on their thirteenth show aptly titled Chapter 13, which due to camera issues they released for free on Youtube. That match was against Zack Sabre Jr., a figure anyone watching WWE Network knows has some interest from the higher ups at WWE.

Finn may have lost his Universal title in only a day due to injury, but let's look back at the good old days, before the Demon King, when Prince Devitt was just a crazy cosplay guy.

Get ready for the second biggest weekend in wrestling!

WWE has two big shows coming this weekend, which I'll talk about in more detail in the next couple days. But they are far from the only promotion running pay-per-view events. Several independent promotions are also running shows over the weekend, including internet pay-per-views and even a streaming special over an indie service akin to WWE. Here's the details on some of the happenings going down.

Ring of Honor isn't quite an independent, but they are running on Friday night. It's also the odd show out as it is the only one not in the northeast area.

• ROH World Title - Jay Lethal vs. Adam Cole: The storyline behind this one is ridiculous. Lethal insisted on a title match because he had his head shaved by the Bullet Club. Why not just demand he get a one on one match with Cole non-title? The whole thing presents Lethal as an idiot, especially since he's likely to drop the title.
• ROH World Television Title - Bobby Fish vs. Mark Briscoe.
• Silas Young vs. Katsuyori Shibata: Shibata makes his United States debut. I look forward to seeing Silas get his face kicked off.
• Toru Yano and Roppongi Vice vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Guerrillas of Destiny: None of these stars make regular appearances for ROH, though Roppongi Vice has made more than the others. It feels strangely inserted, especially with regular Bullet Club members Adam Page and Young Bucks not with a listed match.
• No other matches are listed despite Los Ingobernables De Japon, Michael Elgin, Jay Briscoe, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and tag champs The Addiction all in attendance. Strange to see ROH selling their show on so little, especially when compared to their Japanese partners that give away all planned matches ahead of time. 

The more interesting card on Friday though has to be EVOLVE 66. Gabe Sapolsky's promotion has some of the best wrestling in the world every show and this one brings the independent debut of one Cody Rhodes. And Cody's not facing just some scrub.

Image Credit: WWNLive.com.

• Cody Rhodes vs. Zack Sabre Jr.: Most folks might just be learning about Sabre, but this should push Rhodes' wrestling skills to the test in what I hope will be an epic encounter.
• EVOLVE Title - Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle.
• Two battles between Cruiserweight Classic talent: Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese and TJ Perkins vs. Cedric Alexander.
• DUSTIN (a.k.a. Chuck Taylor) vs. Ethan Page
• Catch Point's Tracy Williams and Fred Yehi vs. Jigsaw and Peter Kaasa

Mercury Rising delivered a supershow in a way Wrestlemania didn't

Image credit: MoreThanMania.com.

Every year WWN throws a Supershow to end their nights of wrestling action over Wrestlemania weekend called Mercury Rising. This year it was a tribute to Terry Funk as well as a chance to show off three title matches from three different WWN brands. But honestly the best part of the night was easily the six man main event.

The show opened with another match in an ongoing feud between Zack Sabre Jr. and Chris Hero. Sabre is a world class cruiserweight, The two had an epic battle that used much of both men's love for traditional British wrestling, though Hero focused far more on his elbow and knee strikes against Sabre. Hero has fallen seriously out of shape in the last few months, but he put on a hell of a match at Mercury Rising.

I finally got my first view of internet darling Fred Yehi in the second match as he battled Drew Gulak. The two men put on a stellar technical match in a company already known for stellar technical wrestling. Gulak proved to be slightly better, but Yehi earned another opportunity to join Gulak's stable Catch Point. This time he shook Gulak's hand and accepted the title offer.

Zack Sabre Jr is the 2015 Battle of Los Angeles champion!

After three nights and four matches, Zack Sabre Jr. is Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's 2015 winner of the Battle of Los Angeles.

Image credit: TheSuplex.com.
(Check out his merch there!)

I had an inkling that the British technical wrestling impresario might come out on top in PWG, a promotion he's visited on multiple trips stateside. He had an interesting route there though as the second round featured a shuffling of opponents to keep things even more interesting as the tournament progressed.

After what has been described as a great opening round contest against another regular international star Ricochet, the NOAH and Progress wrestler moved on to a second round match-up against Pentagon Jr. And while Pentagon almost certainly sought to break Sabre's arm, not even Cero Miedo could get him past the eventual BOLA winner.

Battle of Los Angeles takes over Reseda this weekend!

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla consistently puts on some of the best wrestling in the world from their homebase in sunny Reseda, California. The company has become a local hotspot with celebrities and those in the know flocking to their burgeoning business. Every year in late August or early September they throw one of their two annual tournaments, the single elimination, 24-person Battle of Los Angeles.

This year they have brought their widest range of talent ever into the event with names from the UK and from Mexico (via Lucha Underground.) In fact the tournament has so many Lucha Underground stars that an all lucha final could actually happen. The company usually uses the tournament to set up their regular talents or new stars they plan to use regularly, but there's two things you can be sure of in PWG: 1. expect the unexpected and 2. know the Young Bucks will always win the tag titles back.