Battle of Los Angeles (professional wrestling)

The Battle of Los Angeles tournament (the BOLA) is an annual independent wrestling tournament in North America, run and promoted by Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. Over the years, the tournament has attracted numerous famous independent wrestlers from A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels to Bryan Danielson.

In the first year of the Battle of Los Angeles there were sixteen participants, with eight opening round matches, four quarterfinal matches, two semifinal matches, and a final. In 2006 the tournament was expanded to 24 participants, which caused the addition of another eight person bracket and created three semifinals matches and an elimination three-way final match. In 2008 the tournament returned to its 16-man format. In 2011, the tournament was completely revamped, taking place for the first time as a one night tournament with only eight participants. Since 2014, the tournament has reverted to a 24-man format held over three nights. The first two nights are all first-round matches, while the third night contains the quarter- and semi-finals before culminating in a three-way match for the championship. All nights also feature non-tournament special attractions, which are usually tag-team matches involving tournament participants from other nights or eliminated wrestlers.

The first annual Battle of Los Angeles was held on September 3 and 4, 2005, in Los Angeles, California.

The 2006 BOLA was held on September 1, September 2 and September 3, 2006 in Reseda, California. The tournament saw the PWG returns of The Briscoe Brothers, after no-showing a number of events, and Super Dragon, who had been injured by the Dynasty earlier in the year.

Alex Koslov was originally scheduled to take part in the tournament, but was replaced by Austin Aries, after going on a six-month learning excursion to Mexico. After no-showing Threemendous a month earlier, Jay and Mark Briscoe were taken out of the tournament and replaced by Bryan Danielson and Dragon Kid, respectively. However, Danielson separated his shoulder on August 26 in a Ring of Honor match against Colt Cabana and was therefore taken out of the tournament and replaced by Disco Machine.

...
Wikipedia