Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report, 10/6/13

This is from that same 5/11/13 Turlock show as last week's matches (they really love showing Turlock cards apparently) that had Santo in the main event. We'll see if we ever get the Santo match. I have been to Turlock exactly one time, for one weekend. My girlfriend-at-the time Hillary had a friend getting married on a Sunday (come on, people, do you know how inconvenient that is?) and it was 88 degrees and all the girls' hair was melting and they had a horrible loooooong service that had every bullshit wedding thing you can think of (lord knows we needed a candle lighting ceremony while "My Heart Will Go On" played). And the rehearsal dinner was at a really bad pizza place. Turlock, everybody! Catch it!

1. Fantasma De la Opera vs. Willie Mack vs. Ultimo Panda vs. Zokre (Phoenix Star?) vs. Vaquero Fantasma

Website lists this as being Zokre, onscreen graphic lists it as Phoenix Star. I've seen both live a couple times, but that was long enough ago that I couldn't tell you which was which in this match. I also know one Uso has a small tattoo on his pec and the other doesn't, but since I regularly forget if Jon or Jey or Jimmy has the tattoo it doesn't do me much good. Announcers refer to him as Phoenix Star so we'll go with that. Mac is a chubby black guy who moves real well. I've seen him live a bunch, at PWG and Lucha Va Voom and I'm always really impressed by his agility. He's got great leaping skills for a big man and throws some power moves with some oomph, stiff shoulderbocks and some decent comedy as well. This is an elimination match and it's pretty hot. Mac gets eliminated first which is a shame but he gets tons of cool stuff in before taking the fall. His standing moonsault is super impressive as he hits it really fast. It would be impressive if he were 100 lb. less, but as a man of size it looks pretty incredible (his kip-up also is pretty stunning). Match kinda goes lame right after the Mac elimination as two guys get eliminated almost immediately. Fantasma looked good but we only got to see a little bit of him before he was gone. Vaquero Fantasma also seems fairly solid, and he's perfected the "take lucha arm drag while sliding under the bottom rope to the floor" bump. Ultimo Panda is a fat guy in a Kung Fu Panda suit who doesn't seem that good, so naturally he goes over with some sort of dangerous looking torture rack piledriver thing. Match would have been worlds better if it hadn't been elimination style, as a 10 minute match where 4 people have to be eliminated just does not work. Guys start getting pinned after taking next to no offense the entire match. The work WITHIN the match was real good, but the match format and pacing just gave it no chance.

2. "La Migra" Brian Cage vs. El Mariachi

I'm sure I've seen Cage before in PWG, but here he is like 25+ pounds larger than I remember. Dude has been hitting the gas HARD. He's been hanging out with Jon Anderson too much. Mariachi is pretty so-so. They work a lot of reversal spots where timing is pretty important, and he's just a split second off which makes everything look confusing. For example, a spot where both guys are supposed to throw forearms, but Mariachi is supposed to be quicker on the draw, ended with Mariachi being late, so both guys hitting each other at the exact same time. Only Cage was supposed to be hit, but both guys took a shot, but they went with the end result anyway which means Cage bumped for the shot, while Mariachi didn't and just kinda stood there. Stuff like this happened a few times. For a guy named "La Migra" I expected a little bit of crowd work from Cage, but there was none. The crowd appeared to be 90% hispanic (if not more) and you're playing a Border Patrol guard. And there's not the least bit pointing to the crowd bullshit. This did not work for me.