Lucha Va Voom Road Report, 10/30/09

by Eric

My girlfriend Rachel and I had the honor of being special guests of Cassandro on the most recent Lucha Va Voom run through San Francisco. Neither of us had ever been to a LVV show before and we were all kinda nervous that it wouldn't be that good. I was going in thinking "This stuff is wrestling performed for people who weren't wrestling fans." Would it be dumbed down? Would it be all unfunny comedy? Would the crowd be more interested in the burlesque performances than the wrestling performances? Would the wrestlers be the equivalent of Kaiju Big Battel's "costumed backyarders" who mimmick what they've seen other real wrestlers do? I had many questions, and was nervous how it would turn out. I was worried the stripteases would marred by "back row Shimmer" types chuckling and touching their patchy mustaches. I was basically preparing for the worst.

Well, it was completely awesome, and I would go again in a heartbeat. The crowd was hot all night and might have been the best crowd I've ever watched wrestling with. Everybody was ridiculously respectful and appreciative and impressed by EVERYthing that was done. The ring was mic'd to infinity, so every bump sounding like it would bring the Fillmore down, and the crowd responded accordingly. I won't go into too much detail about the burlesque portions, as I have no experience criticizing stripteases, so can't really tell you if one is good or horrendous.

1. Lux La Croix & ?? danced

These gals danced to the Cramps "Can Your Pussy Do the Dog".

2. Maquiavelico/Zeus vs. Tony Cassanova/??

The first two guys are chubby rudos squeezed into some lime green tights and Tony Cassanova and his partner are babyfaces who can pull off nice ranas. This match - while not super flashy - at least confirmed that the guys were trained wrestlers, so that was a plus. There was a nice plancha to the floor. LLV cleverly has a security guard posted at ringside to act as a base, and it ends up making dives look cool, as there are more bodies strewn about after the dive.

3. Lucy Fur danced

Rachel thought this gal looked like Rachel McAdams.

4. Las Calaveras vs. Dirty Sanchez/Chocolate Caliente

Los Calaveras had cool skeleton get-ups, Dirty Sanchez is a really foul guy in dirty tights, wearing a merkin, and he has a pretty spectacular mask with a Rollie Fingers mustache. Chocolate Caliente is a fat black guy with an afro pick. This match had a bunch of fun spots, including an awesome dive train sequence, with a big flip dive from Chocolate, all capped off by a crazy tope from the 50+ yr. old ref. Match ended when Dirty Sanchez dropped his drawers, there was some admittedly funny miscues resulting in Chocolate and the ref getting dirty sanchez'd, but ultimately Las Calaveras rolled him up.

5. Moana Santana danced

This girl did a naughty nurse/crazy sexed-up mental patient routine, and I got no complaints. A cute gal dancing to Napoleon IV's "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa" (Dr. Demento show, Sunday nights when I was 13, FTW!), transitioning into one of the greatest garage rock songs ever, Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction". Awesome. She also was able to remove her underwear with her high heels. Again, I'm not familiar with this stripteasing, but that move seemed pretty impressive. Maybe it's old hat around the burlesque community, but I thought it was cool. Veteran burlesque viewers might have been watching it with their monocles and spats and whatever else they wear and saying "P'shaw. That tired old gag." But I personally enjoyed it.

6. Cassandro vs. Villano III (Bull Terrier Match)

This was probably the most violent version of "Liza with a Z" I've ever seen. Cassandro is over HUGE with the crowd, as he came out wearing one of the most awesome robes ever and plays to the crowd better than most of the stripteasers. Villano III looked totally bad ass in his black and red get-up, wearing a rad leather-looking mask. They got right to it after getting tied together (none of the usually rudo stalling to get dog collared), and Cassandro instantly starts ripping at Villano's mask. He gets the mask off with a bulldog spot and does a nice little celebratory salsa. Villano gets pissed though, wraps the chain around his fist and starts beating Cassandro in the face.

Things get nastier after that as Cassandro must have taken no less than 6 or 8 bumps directly onto the balled up chain. So damn painful looking. Villano takes a spill to the floor, and Cassandro does a completely nutty dive (could not even get full momentum, as they were connected by the chain and Villano had most of the slack, so Cassandro did a dive with only about 4 feet of runway before takeoff. Insane.). Back in the ring they did a bunch of great near fall spots, with Cassandro's facials really shining through. Most Cassandro matches I've seen have been on grainy camera phone or fan cam footage, so while he comes off as ridiculously charismatic, I'd never gotten a clear read on the facials. The desperation and frustration conveyed on getting and/or kicking out of two counts was just awesome.

He goes up top, does a great missile drop kick (landing RIGHT on a mass of chain, again), few more roll-ups and we're out. Awesome match. After losing Villano goes on a tirade, yelling at fans and posing. One of the commentators (Blaine Kapatch) had a good line: "I don't speak Spanish, but I'm assuming he said don't step to me or I'll fuck up your forehead as badly as mine."

7. Michelle L'amour danced

She seemed the most professional of all the ladies. A quick google search says she has won awards for her burlesque work. I'm assuming Tina Fey won the same award. She wins everything.

8. Los Crazy Chickens/Lil' Chicken vs. Chupacabra/Dr. Maldad/3 (!) Chupacabritas

This match was just too much damn fun and had too much going on to begin to describe. I think the chickens are PWG's Los Luchas, but not sure. If they are then they showed way more charisma here than when I've seen them as Los Luchas. One of them moved like TJ Perkins IMO, but who knows. Lil' Chicken may have been Mascarita Dorada, as he moved really similarly, and did some spectacular spots that few are capable of doing. The rudos were all really fun and this was total chaos, with 8 workers, 4 of them minis just going nuts the whole time with ridiculous spots. The dives started from the ring to the stage, and then went from the stage to the floor where all of the crowd was standing. Everybody in this match (including that same 50+ yr. old referee) did 1-2 dives, whether from the ring, or into the crowd, or from the freaking balcony to the floor (minimum 15 ft. drop). This was insanely fun and had great comedy, great spots, and crazy dives. Mascarita's (?) around the world headscissors was infinitely more amazing here, as his chicken feathers were flying everywhere as he did it. This was 20 minutes of nonstop fun.

So go see Lucha Va Voom. It was 2.5 hours and it was never boring. The time flew by and not only was the wrestling a blast, but the gals were cute, the pacing was great, and the crowd was appreciative. What more could you want!?