APW TV Workrate Report: 12/11/10

So APW has been kinda testing my patience the last couple weeks. They have wrestlers I enjoy watching, and none of them are making TV. Add to that an abundance of Jeckels all over my TV screen, and suddenly this has gone from "trying to support my local indie" to an arduous effort making it through an episode. They showed a "classic" match last week that was a 4 minute long squash, which is a very strange choice since they have 15 years of shows to choose matches from. It's wrestling, it's on my TV for free, so I'll watch it. I'm a simple man who's fairly easy to please. So let's work together here.

1. We start with Mr. Wrestling IV vs. Brandon P. Net (already waiting in the ring!) and 4 takes it to the mat and works a cool wristlock takeover and they trade arm locks and they go into some rope running with 4 hitting a nice Thesz press and a rolling Polish Hammer and stops to hike his trunks up over his tummy. Brandon P throws some so-so punches but then he shakes his fist out afterwards which is one of my favorite things in wrestling, so I am torn. I will give him the benefit of the doubt despite his lime green trunks w/ matching bandana. 4 seems really uncomfortable in his mask, as he's always adjusting it. 4 gets a jawbreaker and rolls into a ankle lock but Brandon escapes, misses a kick and 4 gets the ankle again and moves into a figure 4. Mr. Wrestling IV goes for a backslide, Net reverses and 4 hits the big kneelift...and the announcers don't put it over at all, and of course it gets the pin. Just a note, but if one of your workers has been working a Mr. Wrestling gimmick for a few years now, it might be a good idea to bone up on "kneelifts-as-finishers".

We flashback to Rik Luxury punching the uber bland Matt Carlos in the FACE, right after Carlos' title win! And now earlier in the week Matt Carlos wants that match! He's talking with the commissioner and he robotically tells him that there is nothing he wants more than to be a fighting champion. I personally want to see Rik Luxury punch him again.

2. We get the debut of Levi Shapiro, a young Jewish man just trying to make a name for himself against the Italian Vennis Demarco ("the fan favorite of APW" apparently!). Shapiro gets a dropkick to start but gets whipped into the ropes and Shapiro takes a crazy high bump off a backdrop that looked great. Vennis grabs a headlock but Shapiro pushes him off and Vennis helps him out big by leaning into a dodgy spinning heel kick. Vennis has some goofy right hands and Shapiro responds with a slightly better right hand in the corner and after some walking around and punching we go to a chinlock. Shapiro gets a legdrop and hits the chinlock again and both guys look to be sucking wind. Shapiro misses a missle dropkick allowing Vennis to take control with a slingshot somersault legdrop. Vennis throws more of his questionable slo-mo overhand rights, Shapiro gets a fisherman suplex, Vennis gets a DDT, then hits the Stroke for the win. Well...we had a real nice backdrop bump in this one. Real nice bump.

3. YEAAAAHHH! Rik Luxury is out for his title shot and this should be a good one. I've seen Luxury live a few times and he throws nice punches and bumps really well and knows how to work a crowd. He's getting the shot at "Out of Control" Matt Carlos who seems to be actually very much in control and polite. He went through the proper channels to fill out all the necessary paperwork to make sure this title match was official. That seems to be fairly in control of things. I mean, this is a match for the World Wide Internet Title!! You gotta keep your paperwork in order.

Carlos starts with punches and they leave a lot to be desired, but Luxury takes a breather to the floor, regroups, comes back in and Carlos tackles him and blasts him with some nice elbows. Carlos is just working too fast for Luxury here and gets a real cool roll up. He continues working over Luxury until Luxury eventually uses his size to take control. Luxury controls for a bit and then does a spot I love where he snapmares Carlos, leaves him in a seated position, looks to the crowd to get them hyped up for what he's about to do, runs off the ropes for momentum...and slaps on a chinlock. Awesome. Somewhere in here Carlos had a cool somersault single leg takedown that while he was in the middle of doing it I was thinking "Boy this is not working" and then he did it and it looked awesome.

Finish was real lousy as Carlos goes for a splash in the corner and Luxury pulls the ref in the way, taking him out of the picture. Luxury then gets the win, only to have a 2nd ref come out and reverse that decision, restart the match, and see Carlos get the immediate pinfall to retain. So the crafty heel tricks the babyface to splash the ref, then pins him clean with his finisher, and the face only wins because the heel was caught off guard with the restart. And I was really hoping they'd put the title on Luxury so I can see him on TV more.

I was real disappointed that they didn't have any of the newly turned goth Larry Blackwell on TV this week. His big splash finisher can be called the 45(0 lb.) Grave.