Independent News and Notes: PWG, CHIKARA Tournaments Announced and DGUSA News

Two of the most interesting and exciting tournaments in professional wrestling have begun to take shape.

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s annual DDT4, or Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament, will take place on March 4 this year, and the promotion recently revealed the eight teams that will be participating.

Typically, the reigning PWG World Tag Team Champions are an automatic entry into the tournament, but the 2011 version will not feature the current champions, Paul London and El Generico. Instead, eight teams will be competing for the right to earn a title shot against the ¡Peligro Abejas! at a future date.

The 2011 field includes the following teams:

Brandon Gatson and Willie Mack, The Cutler Brothers, The RockNES Monsters (Johnny Goodtime and Johnny Yuma), The Young Bucks (aka Generation Me), The Briscoe Brothers, The American Wolves (Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards), The Kings of Wrestling (Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli), and the team of Kevin Steen and Akira Tozawa.

The level of talent included in this year's DDT4 is off the charts. Current ROH World Tag Team Champions, Hero and Castagnoli, were arguably the best tag team in all of wrestling during 2010. The Briscoes are six-time ROH tag champs and the American Wolves are making their debut as a team in PWG.

PWG homegrown talents like The Cutlers and the RockNES Monsters are exciting up and coming talents, while The Young Bucks have become a regular part of TNA lately as Generation Me.

The pairing of Steen and Tozawa has already drawn a ton of support and interest from the PWG fan base. They seem to be the favorite choice of the So-Cal die-hards to take this year’s version of DDT4.

Whoever comes out on top on Match 4 will undoubtedly have earned their shot at the PWG World Tag Team Titles, but will they be able to upend last year’s winning team of London and Generico and end their nearly year-long title run?

Meanwhile, CHIKARA has announced the first four teams participating in this year’s King of Trios tournament.

The annual tournament, spotlighting six-man tag team action, has been one of the biggest CHIKARA events of the year since its inception in 2007. The tournament spans three days and features many top stars from around the independent scene, who are brought in to compete for the right to be known as the top trio in pro wrestling.

The first four teams announced for this year’s tournament are all CHIKARA staples.

Team F.I.S.T, who won the 2009 version with their original line-up, have entered the 2011 edition with their revamped roster of Icarus, Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano.

Green Ant, Fire Ant and Soldier Ant of The Colony, perhaps CHIKARA’s most popular trios team, attempt to make the finals of the tournament for the second straight year. In 2010, they were defeated by the Bruderschaft des Kreuzes team of Claudio Castagnoli, Ares and Tursas in the finals.

Amasis and Ophidian have brought a third member into the Osirian Portal. Jonathan Gresham made his debut as Heiracon at the first CHIKARA show of 2011, and these three have entered the King of Trios field.

Da Soul Touchaz team of Acid Jaz, Marshe Rockett and Willie Richardson round out the first group of teams to be announced.

The 2011 King of Trios tournament will take place on April 15-17 in Philadelphia, PA. With approximately two months to go, the remaining teams should be announced shortly. It will be interesting to see who CHIKARA brings in for this year’s edition of perhaps their most popular event.

Dragon Gate USA is hot off the heels of their first three shows of the year, and they are now preparing for Wrestlemania weekend.

DGUSA heads south for the first time, hitting Burlington, NC on April 1 before joining the wrestling festivities in Atlanta on April 2 and 3. The promotion recently announced a new concept, the Stable Shootout, which will take place in Burlington.

The Stable Shootout will pit members of Ronin (Chuck Taylor, Johnny Gargano and Rich Swann) against the Blood Warriors (CIMA, Naruki Doi, Dragon Kid, Ricochet, Brodie Lee) in a series of matches to determine who the most dominant stable in DGUSA is.

The three matches will include a singles match between members of each stable, a dream partner tag team match where one member of each stable has to pick a team mate from outside their group and two singles matches where a member of each stable will face an opponent chose by the rival stable.

It is an interesting concept that should only serve to fuel the already heated rivalry between Ronin and the Blood Warriors and will likely produce some memorable matches as DGUSA enters North Carolina for the first time ever.

That brings an end to this edition of independent news and notes. Be sure to check out the respective web sites of each promotion for more information about these events and keep an eye out for future updates here on Bleacher Report.