Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 10/11/14

Last week's episode was a repeat of the episode shown the previous week, with the really poor Kafu match. Match so nice you had to pay to air it twice. This show was clearly an old one, as it's always easy to tell how old the matches are when the Border Patrol is featured. Since Brian Cage looked to be about 200 lb. here, you have to assume it was about 3-4 years ago. He looked like a normal human being, not one with a gassed up 260 lb. body and a lifetime of kidney problems. So I searched and sure enough, this featured match was from the 5/11/14 show in Turlock, CA, an awful little town right outside Modesto, CA, an awful larger town right outside of Manteca, CA, also an awful town.

I've talked about the poor editing of this show many times before, but this 30 minute show starts with a full entrance from the Border Patrol, and then several long minutes of mic work from Oliver John running down Mexicans. Then Derek Sanders gets mic time to run down his tag match opponents, which is a match that won't even be happening on this episode. There was nothing revolutionary about these promos. And by the time we go to commercial and get Blue Demon into the ring, we're already 12 minutes into the 30 minute broadcast. Just a remarkably poor use of time. I would think that paying money to air something would keep me in check in regards to what I show, really force me to show only the best stuff, only the stuff that was most important. Not bland mic work building a match that I wasn't going to air. It's just lazy, bad editing.

1. Oliver John vs. Blue Demon Jr.

I've talked before about how Demon always uses weird rudo mannerisms in his matches, despite being pushed as the hero to all the fans in the crowd. He sticks to that here by slapping John across the face before the bell rings. Doesn't seem like something a tecnico would do. So there is occasional weirdness like that in the match, but overall I thought the match was really good. John is a guy who has worked Demon a lot, and they pair up nicely. Demon brings a lot to the table in this match, throwing really stiff strikes and some nice suplexes. John bumps around like crazy for him, then cheats to regain control, and that kind of simple stuff always works well when done well. Demon worked stiffer than I've probably ever seen him here, really leaving some handprints on John's face with some nasty slaps. A couple of them wouldn't have looked out of place on a RINGS card. Demon also threw some really great knee lifts, holding John's head in kind of a cravat while kneeing the side of his head. They looked awesome. John took some big bumps including flying through the ropes to the floor of a running knee, and taking a vertical suplex on the concrete. Rough stuff. Finish saw John get a weapon passed to him by Sanders, but Demon kicks out of the weapons shot, and gets the knees up on a big splash attempt from John. A minute before Demon had done a double leg and locked on a half crab and I would have bet money on that being the finish, as it just seemed like the laziest "I want to go home, Imma do a double leg and lock on a whatever" but it ended up being a nice red herring in the context of Blue Demon matches. You see a sudden random lazy submission and it's easy to think "oh he wanted to end the match" and then when it doesn't it's like a shocking false finish. Fun match, would have been real good live.