APW TV Workrate Report: 1/22/11

Last week's episode had some ridiculous Jeckels the Jester drama which embarrassed everybody. This week we start with a Rik Luxury promo, which is much better. Luxury can work the stick really well, claiming he's the real TV Champ, not Matt Carlos. He's also in the opening match.

1. Rik Luxury vs. Brandon P.Net (P Dot Net is how it's pronounced) starts the show. There's a pre match graphic telling us that the referee for the bout is APW Referee Toby! Not sure why I would need to know that. Now I'm just going to be suspicious that APW Referee Toby is up to something this whole match, like at King of the Ring '93 when the camera focused on that one shady looking camera man for too long. I'm watching this asshole like a hawk. P.Net shows off his sub-Nova matwork and grabs a limp wristlock. Luxury cheats to transition and 1 minute into the match announcer Killer J Mattias is already comparing this to a Tyson/James Buster Douglas situation. Holy fuck really? P.Net with an armdrag, and this is basically the 1980 Miracle on Ice. P.Net hits a horrible spin kick and arguably the worst yakuza kick I have ever seen. Man this guy is bad. He has looked lost every second of this. He gets suplexed and spends his time on the mat fixing his hair. P.Net's punches are almost as good as babyface Tori Wilson, but not there yet. They're nowhere close to heel Tori Wilson. Wow P.Net fixes his hair a lot. He's clearly been watching his BJ Whitmer tapes. Blecch. He even hits the lame stlye bulldog, with one hand gently coaxing Rik's face into the mat. This guy is the worst. I don't think P.Net is ready for 11:00 Saturday mornings on local TV. Luxury wins with a backcracker. Well that was a bad 10 minutes right there. Luxury is easily top 3 in APW, but you wouldn't know it here. Whole match was spent on laughably awful P.Net and Rik in his ear desperately trying to relay spots that P.Net would then make look awful.

2. "Out of Control" Matt Carlos vs. Dave Dutra is next, and there's a picture-in-picture promo with Matt Carlos, where he talks about how out of control he is, and it sounds like the most bland, level-headed thing you've heard in your life. "I'm fighting my good friend. For the title." I want to see him throwing drinks in peoples' faces and lighting bags of shit on fire and lighting off bottle rockets indoors, or riding a mini horse or blowing off a job interview or stealing sunglasses he won't even use. Just anything. He's so boring and in control.

They start on the mat, and it looks pretty decent. Good struggle, Carlos does a cool roll up into a nice single leg crab. Announcers are pretty unbearable 5 minutes in, putting over what a classic we're witnessing. Let the match breathe a bit, guys. Carlos is good at making pinfalls, kneeling on Dutra's arm while holding him down, putting an elbow across the chin. Dutra helps Carlos out on a sloppy headscissors, really whipping himself around. They have a pretty fun fight on the apron, with some good reversals and some cool teases of trying to knock the other off the apron. Back in and Dutra takes over with a vertical suplex and nice running knee. Carlos gets in my good graces by hitting a really great fist drop off the middle rope. Really looked good. Then he hits what the announcer refers to as the Out of Control Leg Drop, which was a leg drop after bouncing off the ropes. It seemed really safe and very controlled. If he had legdropped him and accidentally put a boot in Dutra's eye, or accidentally stepped on one of Dutra's balls before doing the leg drop, that would be pretty fucking out of control. Matt was totally in control though, very safe and careful.

The commercials are kinda hurting this match, as both times they've gone to break and come back with the other guy suddenly in control, with no explanation of how we got to that point. So now Dutra is taking back over, and with Carlos standing on the apron, brings him back in the ring with a vertical suplex. The announcers are awful here, with the one still insisting on calling it a suplay which sounds so incredibly douchey, and Killer J calling the suplex a "forced entry". Good lord. That's what I want my finisher called, the Forced Entry Suplay. Look at those tights he's wearing, it's like Carlos wanted it! Carlos is getting his back worked over, but goes back on offense with a springboard DDT that Dutra took really well. Another commercial, and of course we come back with Dutra in complete control. Man whoever edited this match is awful. Also very possible that the transitions in the match were just handled really badly.

Dutra hits a powebomb and folds Carlos over for the pin which looked really good, then when Carlos kicks out, Dutra (still holding on) lifts him back up for a sit out powerbomb. Really nice, impressive spot. But Carlos goes right back on offense and the match ends limply with a double pinfall where each guy clearly had a shoulder off the mat. Woof.

So that match took up the last 1/2 hour of the show, and while it had some really great moments, it was either a) hurt badly by 3 commercial breaks, or b) the guys might have just jumped back and forth on offense with no real rhyme or reason. It wasn't a bad match, and a lot of the stuff was hit really nicely, but the ending was lame and it was a bit too much time for these guys to fill.

Post-match "Out of Control" Matt Carlos takes a shit on the American Flag, right in the middle of the ring. Really gross and completely out of control. He smears it a bit and puts on Braveheart make-up with his own shit! What!?!? This is public access TV, Matt, regain control! Have some pride in your country for Pete's sake! Or he really politely thanks all the fans for their applause, shakes Dutra's hand, goes home and does the dishes and thanks his mom for a really great meal. She made homemade mac 'n cheese and topped it with tasty panko crumbs! Yummmmm. Every night she goes to bed and thanks Jesus that she raised such a polite boy, completely in control.