APW TV Workrate Report: 4/30/11

1. Rock of Love (Billy Blade and Kadin Anthony) vs. Suburban Commandos (D-Unit and T-Rent) starts us off, and this should be a pretty awesome show starter. I hadn't seen Rock of Love for many years (back then they worked a vampire tag team gimmick) and I didn't care for them too much, but then got to see them live in Santa Rosa a couple months back and they were awesome. Both had gotten so much better in the few years since I'd last seen them. Commandos are two fat dudes who look like Rik Luxury, have nice offense AND take offense well. This should be real good.

Billy Blade looks like he's wearing those pajama jeans that I've seen on infomercials. Some go behind sequences come and go and D-Unit nails a sweet flying back elbow on Blade, and then they go into a brutal chop exchange that the audio doesn't really do justice. Blade hits some LOUD chops live, and D-Unit looks like he more than holds up his end, but the audio is mixed so the fucking horrible announcers (Matthew Theall doing shitty Gordon Solie riffs and John Roberts talking in forced announcer voice) are squealing over the ring noise. Oh well. So instead of hearing the chops, I hear two doofs yelling "These chops are so loud right now!" T-Rent calms me back with two GREAT press slam spots, one throwing Blade to the floor on his partner, and the other dropping Anthony stomach first over D-Unit's knee. Press slam spots are not used enough in wrestling. They look awesome, they're impressive, and they look painful. All wins. Interference allows RoL to take over for awhile (with Blade air guitaring T-Rent's chest while holding a chinlock). Anthony does a real stiff corner clothesline, and Blade follows it up with one of those nice sliding legdrops that X-Pac used to do but nobody does anymore. They look really cool. RoL has a chubby roadie who had been interfering, and there was a GREAT spot when T-Rent knocked him off the apron using Anthony as a weapon, and the roadie takes a MASSIVE bump to the floor. Kudos, roadie. Hot finishing sequence with Blade throwing a nice yakuza kick, the roadie taking another big bump off the floor, and the Commandos finish with a massive flapjack into a powerbomb. This match was a total blast with a bunch of big moves and nice offense, really lived up to how good I thought it was going to be. WELL worth taking the time to watch.

2. Dave Dutra vs. Mikey Jay: I haven't seen too much of Jay as he seems like a recent APW graduate, and Dutra is usually as good as his opponent, so we'll see about this one. It was worked pretty even and that really wasn't a very interesting way to work this. Roberts kept putting over that "This is the kind of skills you can expect if you go to the APW Boot Camp", so it was being pushed as a showcase of wrestling skills which means this was a REALLY bad way to work this. Really your-move-my-move right up to the end, especially the stretch run with Jay "barely" kicking out of a move, and then of course immediately doing something like a missle dropkick. Boy did Jay throw some bad body shots in the corner. John Roberts gets props here for at least trying to put them over as "plam strikes" instead of really bad punches. Dutra had a couple nice moves like a forward suplex and a superplex, but they really didn't mean too much in the grand scheme of things. Jay is just too new and not good enough to work a even-skilled "war" kind of a match. This wasn't good. Heart, fire, hear to say, after all he's been through in the boot camp blah blah.

3. Main event is Corvus vs. Mr. Wrestling IV. I actually like Corvus' look here, as the singlet top with long tights actually works for him. It's a look that doesn't work for everybody (APW's own Vennis DeMarco as an example), but with the studded black gloves he gives off a recent Undertaker, or 90s Yoji Anjoh vibe, which is a look I think is pretty cool. Matthew Theall gets on my good side in this one when Corvus hits a nice back suplex, John Roberts actually calls it a suplex for once, and Theall says, "Are you sure that wasn't a suplay?" Few things annoy me more than Roberts' "suplay" call, so thank you Mr. Theall. Corvus controls most of this, and has some pretty nice control offense with decent forearms, a cool kick from the floor while 4 was on the apron, and some nice punches to the gut. Darkness (Corvus' short and wide and often embarrassing valet) earns her keep by taking an accidental baseball slide dropkick to the face from Corvus in a pretty great spot. Mr. Wrestling moved, and Corvus looked like he didn't hold up much at all, really blasting her in the face. 4 gets the kneelift for the win, and that was a pretty satisfying ending to a pretty average match.

Next week we get Wil Rood teaming with Jody Kristofferson, and I seriously wish I could screen cap Rood's "tale of the tape" photo. It's still the photo where he's making a face like those starving kids or abused kittens in those commercials where the sad Sarah MacLachlan song plays and I fast forward because they make me too sad and make me want to adopt 12 kittens. His photo makes me want to donate money to give him three square meals a day. Can't wait!