Lucha Va Voom Road Report, 2/12/10

This show was a little bit different than the first show I went to. The first one ran right on time, no intermissions, no delays, and had 5 wrestling matches with a burlesque in between every match. This one started about 30 minutes late, had WAY more burlesque performances (usually 2-3 in a row!), and then had an intermission after just the first match (only 30 minutes into the show). So that was a little disappointing. I am used to wrestling shows starting late, and having pointless intermissions. But this felt worse just because the prior show ran so damn smoothly. Wrestling-Dancing-Wrestling-Dancing-Comedian-Dancing-Wrestling. But this show was just so much more disjointed. Dancing-Dancing-Wrestling-30 min. Intermission-Dancing-Dancing-Wrestling, etc.

The last show was about 45 minutes longer, and that's including the intermission. Intermissions should not come after only 30 minutes of action, I'm sorry. Not when the tickets cost $36. I mean, the dancing is all well and good, but last time it just fit so much better with the wrestling. this time they went wayyyyyy overboard with the VaVoom. The wrestling felt like a back drop to the VaVoom, which was definitely not the case last time.

So we got a lot of VaVoom. Lots of it. Girls and guys. Guys disguised as girls. Girls solo. Guy solo on a pogo stick horse. A lot of almost naked bodies doing things that are often unappealing to the eyes. I like naked women. But there are certain things that just don't look good naked. Naked bending over? Sure! Naked violent shaking? Not nearly as hot. For some reason though, the climax of most burlesque revues (now that I've witnessed approximately 15 different performances, I think it's fairly safe to say that I'm an official "burlesque virtuoso") appears to be violent, epileptic shaking. I love how women's asses look in thongs...but I can now safely say that violent-shaking ass just looks like violently shaken jello. All that sexy sleek smoothness of a woman's bottom.....just VIOLENTLY shaking back and forth with horrible purpose. And I love boobs! But violently shaking boobs is just not something I would wish against boobs. I love still boobs. They look great in person or in photo. But this looked like they were being tortured.

So there was all that. Allllll that.

But you know what? The wrestling was really fucking fun. And in the end, I paid to see me some professional wrestling. So how much can I really complain if the thing I paid for delivered? I'm griping about tumultuous ass shaking and standing around waiting for shit to happen, and I loved the wrestling!! So let's just get to that and I'll remember to edit out all of my ranting about ass movement.


1. Lil' Cholo/Dirty Sanchez vs. El Bombero/El Jimador

Lil' Cholo is a chubby cholo that I've seen a whole mess of times working L.A. area flea markets, and Sanchez is a guy with a belly that somehow regularly makes me laugh with spots built around defecating and pie-facing people with his defecated drawers. Bombero is TJ Perkins and Jimador is an awesome tequila-sponsored tie-in gimmick (still not as cool as AAA worker formerly known as Televisa Deportes or American indie worker "MLB Network's MLB Tonight Correspondent 'Wildman' Mitch Williams") that seemed to be Scorpio Sky. The match was real fun and everybody worked in and around each other very nicely. Bombero is a sexy fireman that every lady wants. There was a fun spot where he threw Cholo into the ropes only to hold out his hand to stop Cholo...then express just how sexy he was to the ladies while the action was stopped. Later on, Cholo did the same spot to him. The crowd ate it up and we all laughed...but it really makes no sense to do the "Stop in the name of love while I be ultra sexy" spot TWICE on the same show that Hector Garza is main eventing. Hector does that spot better than anybody (with pants removal!). I mean there are only three matches on the whole card, can two people go without doing the signature spot of the main eventer? Jimador and Sanchez didn't try and kiss the referee. Still, fun times.

2. Chocolate Caliente/Joey Ryan vs. Los Crazy Chickens

Joey Ryan used gobs of baby oil to get the ladies worked up into a frenzy, and the Crazy Chickens are over like mad. The awesome, throbbing, clucking chicken music that plays throughout their matches is incredibly catchy, and their dancing and butt scooting is just too much fun. Chocolate was the real star in this one though. On the last show he was a big chubby guy who did an awesome tope...but here he was just awesome at everything. Great punches, big spin kick, crazy flying knee, and still with the huge tope. Everybody brawls into the crowd, and the Chickens do a tope from the balcony right next to me. Everybody sprawls, Caliente gets too much of his body on me as he pushes his way back to the ring, and this was really awesome.

3. Cassandro/Lil' Chicken vs. Hector Garza/Mini Kissing Bandit
No idea who Kissing Bandit was, but he was neither here nor there. I came to see Cassandro and Garza and they did not disappoint. Cassandro was wearing his playboy bunny outfit and ws over like crazy with the VaVoom crowd, and when you got more charisma than most wrestlers in the world, you're going to get over crazy no matter where you go. Garza is one of my favorite workers in the world when he is a rudo. I love his rudo schtick. His facials are amongst the best in the business when he's playing coy, or mugging to the crowd after doing something dastardly. There were no old ladies at this show (kinda skews a tad younger) so my dream of a rudo Garza getting into it with front row old lady regulars was dashed, but he was still awesome. I'm a giant fan of the Garza clothing removal spots, as the faces he makes as he's doing the reveal are hilarious. Here he was wearing tear-away pants and a wetsuit top, so you KNEW those were both getting removed.

They went right at it with a few great spots, one of the best being an awesome hurracanrana off the top by Cassandro. The Garza clothing removal spot was given new life by Cassandro's selling, as Cassandro gets thrown into the ropes before being stopped by Garza....then the shirt comes off! Well naturally Cassandro can't help himself and tries to get on Garza's business. Well, he is thwarted, but moments later he is tossed into the ropes, stopped, and then the pants come off! Well Cassandro will just not be restrained this time and pounced all over all over Hector.

The action spills to the floor and there was an awesome dive train sequence right in front of me, and my favorite spot of the match comes when the action makes it back to the ring. You can see the spot coming miles away, and it's just totally even better with all the anticipation. Lil Chicken and Bandit and doing some sequences, and every time Chicken comes anywhere near Garza, he starts creeping a little closer, little closer.....before eventually just nailing Chicken with a kick as he's rope running. The look Garza gives to the crowd after obliterating Chicken was absolutely amazing. When Garza works as a rudo, he really exaggerates all of his thigh slaps, and it makes them all so much greater. One way to go with the thigh slap kick is to disguise it as best as possible, and make it look nice and discreet so the rubes are tricked into thinking you just blasted some dude with a nasty shot. Garza takes it in the complete opposite direction, and shows no discretion whatsoever in doing them. He raises his hand nice and high into the air, and then whips it down right into his thigh, the complete opposite goal of everybody doing a thigh slap. It totally turns the concept on its head and makes it into great, theatrical, dickish comedy. It's so perfect, and just perfectly captures his character.

The match itself was awesome as can be expected. As a little treat I recorded it with my camera for all to see. I asked permission from Cassandro before the match, and he told me that if security tried to stop me, to just tell them the Cassandro gave me permission. So we're gonna try and figure out how to upload that thing for you (I still own three VCRs, so I'm not really very good at this type of thing at all, soo....) so you all get to see how much damn fun it was. It was the first match I ever recorded, and it was interesting recording it from a fan perspective, and I won't say that I'm the Scorcese of bootleg lucha wrestling, but I think it's safe to say that I'm at least the Roland Joffe (post 1992 career) of the pirated lucha handheld community.

This show was another fun time, and they'll be back in May, so if Funemployment isn't kicking my ass at that point, then I imagine I'll do another one of those in a couple months.