Uprising Lucha Libre Workrate Report 11/3/13

Blue Demon Jr., Mascara Sagrada & Strongman Jon Andersen vs. La Migra (Oliver John, Derek Sanders & Zack Reeb)

Wow, I can see why they took the time to unearth this 4 year old match. What a pile. You know that Blue Demon Jr.'s side is going to go over, but there are plenty of interesting ways to get to your destination. This was not one of them. The tecnicos get - I kid you not - 98% of the offense. The only offense that La Migra got would be when one of them was in a submission, and one of the others would come in a break up the submission. That was it! Oliver John got a couple chops in on Demon, also hit that Jeff Jarrett move where your opponent is draped over the ropes and you run at him and end up draping your leg over him.

The match was almost 16 minutes long! That is so much time to have an awesome match. But the tecnicos did not show ass for two seconds in this whole match. The first 7 minutes were spent with one of the tecnicos (Demon or Strongman, as Sagrada sat on the aprong until the final minute of the match) standing in the middle of the ring, then a member of La Migra would come in, get chopped by Demon, flat back bump and roll to the floor, then repeat with the next member. Strongman would get in the ring, a member of La Migra would come in, lock up with him, and Strongman would shove him down. Usually each guy got shoved down a couple times. This literally happened for the first 8 minutes of the match.

The rest of the match were members of La Migra getting put into submission holds, coming in to break up submission holds, and then getting put back into submission holds. It just would not end. Demon would slowly lock on a submission, it would get broken up, and then he'd just put on another submission. Eventually all three of them came in and awkwardly all got into position to be put into submissions by the tecnicos, including Sanders doing the hilarious "I'm gonna jump at you legs first like we're at a picnic and the wheelbarrow races are starting!" as Demon left him no good option of getting into position. Then the match mercifully ended with a clunky triple submission.

So I'm still dying to know, what the hell is the point of this show? They pay to air it, so they must have a goal in mind. They air mostly matches from 4+ years ago, featuring mostly wrestlers who no longer work for them. A lot of the matches they air aren't very good (with this one being arguably the worst one they've aired so far). They don't advertise upcoming live events. They don't try and sell merchandise. They don't even mention Pro Wrestling Revolution, their own brand name. For some reason they chose to re-brand their TV property as "Uprising", which doesn't make tons of sense in building their PWR brand. They just seem to exist to show old matches, but they PAY to show these old matches.

The best case scenario is that people find the show, and tune in the next week...but since they don't get advertising dollars this really doesn't benefit them at all. Please, anybody, tell me why you think this show exists?