APW 6/12/15 War at the Shore Road Report

APW has been running quarterly shows at a community center up the hill from the Cow Palace, and they've been getting some good, lively crowds with tons of kids. We've been to a few of them (maybe all of them?) and figured hey, why break the streak?

1. Truex vs. John Redito

This was a "dark match" so it was kept to about 3 minutes. Truex is a real great slime, skinny with long greasy hair and a real punchable face. The kind of guy who should not ever work face. Redito is a short chubby Filipino guy who did not look very good. Truex had a couple nice suplexes, but this wasn't much.

2. Reno Scum & Nicole Savoy vs. Joey Ryan, Candice LeRae & Ryan McQueen

This match was a blast and probably the best of the night. Scum were supposed to team with Christina Von Eerie but for reasons not given she was replaced by Savoy, which only helped the match. CVE is not good, and Savoy looks better every time I see her. Ryan and LeRae have their schtick down (dig their matching gear and Joey's white members only jacket), and it works. McQueen was pretty bland. Savoy gets to be the star of the match which I was not expecting, but she totally worked up to it and looked awesome. She has long legs and throws big high kicks, decking LeRae at one point (who did a nice falling tree bump) and throwing nice strikes all around. This all builds to a triple dive into the entranceway, with  Savoy's being particularly wild as she flips completely over (think those wild old Shocker dives). We get an absurd tower spot with McQueen taking the worst of it and doing some great Terry Funk fish flops, and we get tons of suplexes all around. LeRae throws her ball grab suplex to Lester, Savoy dumps LeRae on her head with a nasty German, Joey Ryan does a sleazy suplex on Savoy while grabbing her boobs, everybody gets left in a pile. Fun match, went the right amount of time, and Savoy is somebody I want to see more.

3. Pistolero vs. "Out of Control" Matt Carlos

Ahhhh, one of my least favorite gimmicks in wrestling. Matt Carlos - aside from making the choice to devote his life to professional wrestling - is oftentimes the most in control wrestler on a card. He has a normal haircut, he has no tattoos, probably drives a fairly fuel efficient car, has likely never shared needles when doing intravenous drugs, has likely never committed arson, and wrestles just about the most boring indy style you can imagine. You can call Matt Carlos plenty of things, but "Out of Control" is really not one of them. Carlos has a bunch of moves that need to be set up by kicking a guy in the stomach, and not only do the kicks to the stomach look bad, but the moves aren't too inspired either. Pistolero throws a couple of decent punches, plants himself nicely on a DDT, and has hair and facial expressions that are clearly more out of control than "Out of Control" Matt Carlos, and man this stunk. It all built to what was supposed to be a big spot, which was Pistolero giving Carlos a Russian leg sweep into the ring post, with Pistolero in ring and Carlos on the apron, but Carlos missed the post completely and just kinda fell to the floor, and Pistolero ended up looking like the one taking the move. Not good.

4. Timothy Thatcher vs. "The Butcher" Tyler Bateman

Hmmmm, maybe *this* was the best match of the night. Tough call. The 6 man was a fun spotfest, these guys went out working a body part based mat match. Personal preferences I suppose, but both hit the right marks. I had never seen Bateman before, and he's...well I don't quite get what he is. He's called the Butcher, and I suppose he vaguely sorta somewhat looks like Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of NY (he has the quirky handlebar mustache at least), but then has a long ponytail, wore weird capri leopard print tights (I thought there was a pro wrestling rule that only islanders can wear capri tights...) that had a cartoon bunny with a handlebar mustache. But he doesn't really act quirky or odd. I just don't see how the whole package fits together. The match itself was just 9 or 10 minutes, but everything was paced nicely so that it didn't feel too short. All the opening mat stuff was good, as you'd expect from a Thatcher match, with Thatcher locking in some nasty wrenched in cravates, and then Thatcher began working over Bateman's right hand. Thatcher is a guy who always has compelling hand work, but it doesn't always factor in to anything later, so it was awesome when Bateman broke free of Thatcher's mat stuff, then belted him real good, only to have to shake out and hold his fist, which gave Thatcher time to belt him back. Bateman abandoned the mat game and started throwing strikes at Thatcher, hitting him with a nice straight kick that allowed Thatcher to do his really great sell where he drops to his butt. Thatcher lures him back into exchanging elbows, but it's a trap to set up Thatcher's great out of nowhere Fujiwara arm bar for the win. This was a pretty basic Thatcher match but that will always be a good thing, and Bateman's selling added to things. So basically the two matches I was hoping would pay off on the card, have paid off. So I'm a happy camper.

5. Idris Jackson & "The Mad Tongan" Sione Finau vs. Buddy Royal & Mikko Maestro-Shapiro

Well this was a waste of everybody's time. Short match with not much happening anyway, and then it ends when Finau turns on Jackson. Finau/Jackson have been teaming for awhile, but they haven't teamed much at the Bayshore shows, and most of the people at these shows only go to the Bayshore shows. So the break-up didn't really mean much to the majority of the crowd. As far as bright spots, Donovan Troi is always an amusing heel manager, usually more entertaining than the guys he manages. And I had never seen Mikko before and he's a great entitled white douche, wearing a wrestling singlet that says "Varsity", and he has this obnoxious fluffy white hair and rosy cheeks. You know he'd have an awful flesh beard if he could grow one. Couldn't get much of a feel for him as a worker, but his douche presence was high end.

6. Willie Mack vs. MVP

The battle of secondary TV wrestling promotions!! Slow-paced but smartly worked match. It's nice seeing MVP not dogging it post-WWE. The guy has worked hard in TNA and in the indies, just nice to see. He and Mack worked pretty stiff, with MVP at first laughing him off and Mack laying in some insanely loud chops, with MVP responding nicely with some hard forearms to the jaw. They took it to the floor with MVP hitting a pescado and then a mean yakuza kick over the ring barrier. Back in and Mack hits a couple of his impactful and beautiful dropkicks, but misses a huuuuuge frog splash, really committing to that miss and doing a big belly flop. Finish could have been better as MVP hits a couple Plays of the Day that Mack kicks out of, which is good as that really doesn't seem like a viable 2015 finisher. But then MVP kinda whiffs on the Drive-By and it gets the win anyway. It seems like it would be easy to work out a secondary finish ahead of time, something like "hey if my kick doesn't land I'll yell something like ONE MORE and do it again". Something like that wouldn't even look like a re-do, it would look like somebody putting an exclamation on the finish. MVP would look better as the kick would land better, and Mack would look better for looking like it took two of them to put him down. It's surprising that more guys don't work out audibles like that ahead of time.

7. Bobby Hart vs. Virgil Flynn

Had higher hopes for this one as I like both guys, but it barely goes 4 minutes. Virgil hits a nice SUWA pump dropkick that Hart bumps kind of recklessly into the corner, also hits a wild standing corkscrew senton off the top, and a stiff cannonball senton. But Hart kinda just brushes him off and crushes him for the clean win. Would have liked to see more from Hart as this was kinda worked like Virgil getting his highlights before Hart just decided it was time to go home.

8. Marcus Lewis vs. Roberto Rodriguez

Well this was really fun! It's possible RR was not using that name, but I missed what name he's using on the indies now. This was another match that went just the right amount of time. Rodriguez gave Lewis a lot here: leaned into a big shoulderblock, and admirably bounced his face off the mat taking a  rana while on his knees. Rodriguez gets a nice fast snap suplex, but really Lewis took most of the match with some pretty awesome stuff: big dive to the floor, and then an insane reverse rana that RR takes like a complete lunatic. I mean RR just planted himself vertically and stayed that way for a split second. It looked disgusting and was easily the spot of the night. Lewis hits the 450 and that's that. Nice little showing from both guys. Damn that rana was gross.

9. "Mr. Athletic" Jeff Cobb vs. JR Kratos

Was really excited for this one, and it delivered. Both guys are meaty tough guys so seeing them slam into each other is always fun. Cobb has freakish Backlund strength so seeing him do a one arm vertical suplex to a guy as thick as Kratos is always eye popping. Cobb has added a nasty headbutt into his arsenal and it always adds with a gross smack. Both guys throw some rough shots to the other's jaw, Cobb ends up laid up over the bottom rope and Kratos hits a great running knee on the floor (think Roman Reigns' dropkick but as a nasty jumping knee), and later does his nice running dropkick in the ring. Cobb didn't do as much flying as he normally does and this was worked more like a slugfest which is fine with two big guys. Finish kind of fell flat. On paper it wasn't a bad idea, it was a KO stoppage with Kratos beating Cobb unconscious. But their ring placement could not have been worse. The way the crowd is situated is three sides of the ring have people on them, with the entranceway taking up all of the 4th side (and the most seats being the side opposite entrance). Well the did the mounted punches on the side of the ring with no fans, meaning Kratos' back was to 60+% of the crowd and you couldn't see any of the shots landing. So not only did anybody see the finish coming, but most people literally couldn't see how why the shots would be devastating enough to KO Cobb. The idea doesn't sound bad on paper, but it wasn't executed great.

10. Jinxx, Jeckles, Dylan Drake, Jody Kristofferson & Will Cuevas  vs. KMJ, Damien Grundy, Will Rood, The Almighty Sheik & Boyce LeGrande

Well this was a giant mess. This was billed as Team APW (that first team up there) vs. The Animal Farm. But the match structure was pointlessly absurd. Instead of just doing a 10 man tag, it was War Games rules, where a new person would come in every minute, but eliminations could happen at any time, and you could get eliminated by getting thrown over the top rope as well as pinned. It was also No DQ, but you couldn't pin the guy outside the ring. So basically not too long into this you just had guys wandering around the ring hitting each other, but to eliminate them they always had to find a way to implausibly make their way back to the ring. It was billed as a team based match, but there was minimal semblance of teamwork throughout and it came off WAY more like an every man for himself match. Since there was no sort of flow whatsoever to this, and parts really dragged, I'll just hit a few notes on certain guys: standouts in the match were Will Rood and amazingly, The Sheik. I've never seen Sheik look good in any match, but a no DQ match where he can wander around and hit people with shit seems to be an environment he thrives in. He showed a lot of personality and came across great running through the crowd and hitting people with chairs and trashcans. Rood had some nice stuff too, including a molar rattling clothesline. Kristofferson showed some fire and got a surprisingly huge reaction. I had no idea he was so popular. He kinda looks like Bison Smith and acts like kind of a reckless asskicker, but needs to tighten up his strikes a lot more. It would be one thing if they looked dangerous, but they just sort of look not good. Jinxx hit a nice dive and a massive corner dropkick, and seems to be improving. I think he hasn't been wrestling very long. A bunch of his stuff still looks bad, but he's looked better each time I've seen him. Dylan Drake is the most forgettable wrestler ever. I have seen him live at minimum 10 times, and my friends and I always marvel how we never remember a single thing he did in his matches. If he was really horrible we'd remember that, and if he was actively good we'd remember that. But he's just an instant distant memory. Amusing anecdote: Our friend Brian joined us this time, and he is not in on our Dylan Drake "most forgettable wrestler" joke. But he's definitely seen him live several times before. So when Brian asked "Hey who is this guy? Is he new?" we all burst out laughing and poor Brian thought we were laughing at him, but we were just tickled he helped prove our point. The best thing about Drake is his robe, and he didn't even wear his robe tonight. He has this really awful full back piece tattoo that just looks like colorful spin art, and it seems to get bigger every time we see him. It is a tattoo completely devoid of interest, creativity, personality, etc. It is a tattoo somebody gets if they have no idea what to get a tattoo of...except they keep adding to it and adding to it, for reasons they possibly don't know. They're driven to add to this shapeless splattery mess of a tattoo, it is beyond their control. What is driving me to keep making this bigger!? It is slowly taking over my body, slowly spreading to my lower back. Soon it will creep around to my stomach and onto my arms. What could be happening to me!? What am I infected with!? Why does my back now look like a blurry polaroid of a sunset reflected in a murky lake!?!? Dylan Drake threw surprisingly nice mounted punches. The end.

Show went on way too long. Ten matches is just wayyyyyyy too much wrestling. I was yawning by the end and it wasn't even that late. It's just too much and we really don't need to find a way to get *34* wrestlers on one card. THIRTY FOUR!! That's far too many wrestlers to shoehorn into matches. There ended up being a lot of dead weight, and it distracted from some of the very fun matches. A tight 6 or 7 match card would be best for everybody. And 10 matches is WAY too many when you still plan on having a 30 minute intermission. Also, shows at Bayshore have been $10 in advance, and this show was $15. Maybe that's because they had some names like MVP on the card, or maybe it's because they've been drawing well there so why not try and make some extra scratch. I get it, smart move. If you sell 85% less tickets than before, you're still making more money since you're charging more. Why not play around with the price point a bit. Plus they only run every 3 months so $5 extra wouldn't quite be enough to make me skip it or not. If a card looks good then I'm game. So overall it was a fun night, but also had potential to be better than it ended up being. But a fun show is a fun show, and my time didn't feel wasted. That's a win.

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APW TV Workrate Report: 12/4/10

1. Timothy Thatcher vs. Adam Thornstowe starts us off and Thatcher is British, comes out to London Calling, and has a good build. Thornstowe is in Reno Scum working a punk stable kinda gimmick. Thatcher starts with some nice arm work (including stomping on Thornstowe's arm really nasty like) while the goofball announcer makes vague allusions to Rancid's song "Hooligans" ("a certain well known Bay Area punk rock band..." Not really sure why they had to dance around Rancid.). Thornstowe had tights and a shaved head last I saw him and now he has a goofy Mantaur haircut and silly skull shorts and kick pads. Thatcher is pretty engaging working the arm, dropping knees and elbows on it and bending it all over the ropes. Thatcher misses a corner charge and Thornstowe takes over with some soccer kicks to the face, but Thatcher comes back with a German suplex (and the announcer again calls it a total cringe-worthy "suplay", so apparently that's a thing).

Adam transitions back to offense after another missed charge and hits a pretty great stomp off the top rope to the back of Thatcher's head. We do a headbutt/chop exchange and then the two of them awkwardly mistime a superkick spot.....twice....but Adam covers for it somewhat with a stiff kick to Thatcher's chops. But Thatcher kinda just shrugs it off and gets the tap with a crossface for the win. Entertaining match and Thatcher cuts a condescending promo afterwards showing off his very British teeth.

2. We get a "classic" match now from 2/19/05, Kafu vs. Cheerleader Melissa. Melissa starts with elbows to stun him and follows up with a missle dropkick. Kafu levels her with an elbow and does some throws as the crowd feebly and uncomfortably chants "No means no". Kafu is doing things like pulling her up for 2 counts and then blasts her with a lariat. The announcer giddily exclaims that we might get some blood here. If they're gonna have a cute athletic girl in a skirt get beaten bloody, Bay Area TV 50 might also be interested in showing some apartment wrestling or crushing videos. I mean, if you're going to target a demo, might as well throw out a wide net. Kafu lands a ridiculously loud chop and gets the 3. A four minute man-on-woman squash match is a really odd choice to showcase as a classic match-up. It's like VH1 Classic showing a Tin Machine video highlighting Bowie.

Interview with Jeckels the Jester makes me magically skip forward in time using the power of DVR!!

APW Boot Camp students are in the back putting up some insulation (Diante is apparently the best at it! Sorry, Maria!) but they're interrupted by a doughy heavy breathing goth guy with a lip piercing and anal bead necklace who spits green stuff in some woman's (Tina!) face and she starts making zombies sounds.

We flashback to a goth stable promo with CORVUS (the spitting guy) who is with a couple other doughy goths wearing vinyl and brooding and holding candles and LARRY BLACKWELL interrupts and wants to join!!! Yes!!! The fattest, palest guy in the company wants to go GOTH (why fight it amirite?!) and he gets SPIT ON and Blackwell is IN!! He made a fucking rad mixtape with Birthday Party and Christian Death and Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy and it was actually really fucking good you guys. It wasn't some greatest hits mix OK? He threw on some Theatre of Hate and a really choice cut from Juju and the real treasure was all the memories they made while listening to it in their BLACK CAR and drinking Dr. Pepper (probably the gothiest soda). I hope they recruit Dana Lee because the goth movement is actually looking for some diversity and could really use some chubby Asians to kinda balance things out.

3. And we get a match with the goth stable member OMEGA (accompanied by CORVUS and DARKNESS (yeah I know right?)) vs........Jeckels. Aw come the fuck on. They have to have a deep enough roster so that they don't have to give this chump match AND interview time each week, right? Right? Omega is the definition of a chubby dude who had money to either go to video game design school, or wrestling school, and he based his decision on which school would let him wear shitty face paint.

We start with a shockingly awesome elbow exchange and every buttery curve of Jeckels is on display thanks to his old friend "torn mesh top". Jeckels hits a vertical suplay (good lord) and apparently the guy working retarded carnival of souls employee is the babyface here. Omega throws a decent left hand and Jeckels responds with a really really shitty right hand and then Omega does Jeckels a favor by bumping big for a really lousy clothesline. Despite his embarrassing appearance (think of something Peter Murphy might be wearing in 2020...only baggier) Omega might actually be good. And then he goes and makes me regret typing that by doing the most preposterous triangle choke in the history of the indies. There was no hyperbole used in that last sentence. Think for a moment on all that entails. I mean he sets it up using a Shining Wizard (we here at the "Indiest Moves Committee also would have accepted it being set up with a Facewash) and then fumbles with it for a really really long time and man oh man MMA moves in wrestling are getting awful. Corvus interferes and cheats to Omega's transition and we get some knee work and Omega brings some real nice attacks to the leg, great kicks and a nice dropkick. But the ref sees additional interference and that's all she wrote. DQ finish and Jeckels is left in the ring making the shittiest faces you can imagine.

OK. APW. You have wrestlers that I like. But those wrestlers are not ending up on your TV for some reason. We better get some GOTH Larry Blackwell SOON and please stop with the Jeckels stuff. Please. It's really not good in any way.

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