APW TV Workrate Report: 2/19/11

Nice, Drake vs. Sanders rematch this week! Submissions match! Oh man, the promo photo for it is hilarious, as the utterly worthless Will Rood is pictures next to Sanders, since he is Sanders' enforcer. But man, Rood is such a goober in his photo. Instead of trying to look at all tough, or intimidating, or anything, he goes in a different direction: His picture looks like a guy who sat in jury duty all day, got out around 3 P.M., then figured his day was already fucked so he might as well go to the DMV and renew his license. THIS was the picture that they took of him at 4:45 P.M. that day. When will he do something right?

We get promos from Timothy Thatcher and Jody Kristofferson, and Thatcher has a good, smarmy attitude that comes off well in a promo. Jody is pretty bland and sounds like he doesn't believe the promises that he is promising me.

1. Timothy Thatcher vs. Jody Kristofferson REMATCH! from a couple weeks back, where Jody reversed Thatcher's crossface to win. Thatcher has good size and a real good build, and nice snarly British teeth. Thatcher throws an awesome Saito suplex to start, really chucking Kristofferson. Jody follows with one of his own and it's on! Thatcher does cool follow-through on things, like grinding his forearm over Jody's face while he goes for a pin. Jody's working on a shoulder that was injured by Thatcher in their earlier match, but body part selling seems a little bit much for Kristofferson to attempt this early in his career. Thatcher still has a bunch of cool ways to take apart an arm, and we get tons of knees, bridging hammerlocks, wrenching it over ropes, etc. I really liked the struggle between the two as Thatcher tried to lock on a Fujiwara armbar, Thatcher trying to keep it in the center of the ring and Jody fighting to get to the ropes. Match kinda falls apart by the end though, as an "injured" Jody Kristofferson got WAY more offense in this match than in the previous match when he was 100%. In fact, he busted out more offense in this match than any one of his matches I'd ever seen. Usually he's a clotheslines/slams/shoulderblock/Spear kinda guy, but in the match where he's "working on one arm" he's breaking out with all kinds of indie moves like a sit-out torture rack and a armbreaker (done like a backcracker, but to Thatcher's arm instead), and using a bunch of submissions that he's never used before. This match seemed like a real strange time to try out a bunch of new moves he's been working on. Thatcher wins with the feet on the ropes after Jody looked more competitive againt him with one arm, and postmatch Jody wants another rematch. So Thatcher challenges him to a WOS rules match, which can be fun. From the WOS I've seen I think that means no moves to a grounded opponent, official warnings issued before DQs, and possibly 2/3 falls. I think that's right. Either way, Thatcher looked really good in this match, but Jody was working a different style match than he should've been.

2. Derek Sanders vs. Dylan Drake in a Submission Match is the main, coming off Sanders losing the title a couple weeks ago. Crowd chants for Will Rood, which seems odd to chant for a guy failing at his job. Nobody chanted for me when I hit a parked car in my Alhambra truck. Although if some guy had chanted "You Fucked Up" I really couldn't have done anything but shrug. Drake throws some armdrags and then hits a dropkick and Sanders takes a nice bump to the floor from it. Killer J wonders if Rood might get involved in this match. Not really sure why else he would be out there, Jay. Sanders takes a really high backdrop bump to the floor, wiping out Rood. So I guess he at least broke his boss' fall, which counts for something. Sanders shakes his fist out after punches, which is one of my favorite things in wrestling. You can have really lousy punch, but if you shake your fist out afterwards it may salvage it. Sanders punches are fine, though.

We go to commercial and there is an ad for a medical Pelvic Mesh Bladder Sling, which seems like the name of a band that would play at a Gathering of the Juggalos.

Back in and Sanders is working Drake's neck with awesome cravates (John Roberts on pbp awesomely says that Sanders is "doing some cravating", which I LOVED. Hey, what are you up to today? Aw, just doing some cravating.), and Sanders knows how to work a neck, nicely shoving Drake's face one way while wrenching his arm the other way. Sanders with a big time superplex and then locks on a Sharpshooter. Drake can't last through much more of this, I imagine. Drake fights out and misses a pretty spectacular crossbody, really leaning into that miss, making it look like he whipped his head into the mat on the way down. Drake goes on an unfortunate run of offense that kinda acts like he hasn't gotten whooped for the last 12 minutes, and then ref Sparky Ballard gets smooshed by a missed corner charge. While down, Will Rood attempts to interfere, but it backfires and Sanders ends up taking a chairshot, then gets tapped out by Drake. Good lord. I feel so bad for Sanders, here. He clearly would have had the match and the title won...but his incompetent lackey Rood screws up again. Rood never even gets yelled at by Sanders!

Is there a reason he can't fire this guy? I'm genuinely confused by this situation.