Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 7/5/14

The last several weeks they've been showing reruns of this show, but now they're back to showing fairly recent stuff (which is a nice trend compared to them showing 4 year old matches). This match was from the 2/22/14 show in SF that we all attended. We ended up running a little late as Tim wildly took a turn like he was trying to shake a tail, a turn nobody suggested he take. It's possible Tim is leading a secret life and was trying to avoid running into his secret family or something. So we walked into this match right when the bell rang.

1. Cheerleader Melissa vs. Christina Von Eerie vs. Savanah Riley

Pretty disappointed when this was announced as a three way. Three ways are always a mess, lead to tons of awkward exchanges, tons of weirdly shoehorned three person spots, one person disappearing for way too much time, just bad. I much rather would have seen a singles match with any combo of the girls. I'm unfamiliar with Riley, but she worked the crowd better than the others, threw some nice forearms and chops, seemed fine. I've seen Von Eerie a lot more, and she is not very good. Really sloppy (she almost spikes herself delivering a sunset flip) and the "Oi" chants seemed a little lost on the audience made up mostly of hispanic children. Though I assume (if it hasn't happened already) that Colt Cabana will be using an Oy chant in a similar way Daniel Bryan does the Yes! kicks. This match had plenty of nice individual moments. Von Eerie took a nasty bump off the apron to the floor, letting Melissa/Riley work solo for awhile. Melissa bent Riley in half with a vicious indian deathlock/boston crab combo, and threw some cool axe kicks. The times the match fell apart were when they shoehorned  in 3-way spots, like the dreaded "superplex/powerbomb" which took a loooong time to set up for the payoff. Riley and Von Eerie kind of just had to freeze time, standing on the ropes waiting for Melissa to wedge herself into position to do the powerbomb, but Von Eerie is tiny so there really wasn't much space for Melissa to fit into. Just a predictable spot that rarely looks good, and really needs to be retired.  Brian Cage interferes on behalf of Riley, and Melissa takes him out with an awesome, out of control dive off the top, allowing Von Eerie to win the title back in the ring. Pro Wrestling Revolution always has a hilariously misguided and bad knack for making the good guys look bad in matches. Here they clearly wanted a big moment for Von Eerie, but they have her win the title by pinning the person who isn't the champ, while the actual champ (Melissa) dominated the whole match and was only out of the ring because guy twice her size interfered. Quite a special moment.

Later in the live card there was a match between Border Patrol member Derek Sanders, against clear tecnico El Mariachi. I mean, he was the obvious tecnico, coming out in full mariachi gear in front of a 85% hispanic crowd, doing a stylish zapateado with his intricately dressed valet, facing a guy who came out shouting about sending Mexicans back home. And all through the match you had El Mariachi yelling at his valet, complaining about interference to the ref, and then threatening to break up with his valet when he lost. The thing is, there WAS no interference, and he lost 100% clean to Sanders. So your big tecnico just whined the whole match and then blamed his loss on his chica, and the promotion genuinely thought he would leave to a polite ovation from the fans. I mean just a completely clueless way to book tecnicos.

Another major problem I was hoping the fed would fix on their TV hiatus, is the actual time management of their TV show. But my god it's as bad as ever. They have 30 minutes, and that's not a lot of time. But most weeks of television are one match stretched to fill the 30 minute run time. This three way was 11 minutes long, and it's the only match to get shown. We get 7 minutes of ring entrances, 11 minutes of match, and then 3 minutes of highlights of the match we just watched. Just a brutal and wasteful use of your 30 minutes. I know they don't have an extensive library, but their insistence on showing full ring entrances is maddening. This is time that can be much better spent showing some short features on your wrestlers, wrestler promos, promoting upcoming events, anything. But stretching an 11 minute match over the 30 paid for minutes is so, so foolish. It should not take 6 weeks to show one event's worth of matches, but I know they're going to milk this whole damn event, match by match. It's stunning how clueless this fed is when it comes to their TV.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 11/10/13

Journey with us further back into 2009 (5/30/09! They're somehow airing even older stuff!) West Coast indy wrestling, during another installment of Pro Wrestling Revolution's "paying to air matches from last decade". These matches are so old that if you had mentioned the black president during this card I'd assume you were talking to me about Fela Kuti.

1. Raesha Saeed vs. Christina Von Eerie

I liked Von Eerie's look but at this point she was still really green and tentative in the ring, and just didn't have enough presence to be a very engaging babyface. I mean, weren't we were all green 5 years ago. I was a young man in my 20s! I had a flip phone when this match originally happened! You want to talk dated look no further than right here when promotions still thought it was relevant to have a pretty, talented, charismatic worker use a Taliban gimmick. Saeed gave a good effort here and tried to lead Von Eerie through some stuff, but again she was not good at engaging the crowd at this point and the match was pretty flat. I was amused by Saeed messing up Von Eerie's mohawk and then spitting, just disgusted by our Americans and our luxurious hairstyles.

2. Mascarita Dorada vs. Pequeno Pierroth

Alright, if they're going to show ancient irrelevant matches then I really have no problem seeing guys like Dorada. That's a guy I can genuinely see being used as a draw to your live events (even though they don't mention their live events during the TV show), and this is exactly the type of "classic" match they should be showing if they stubbornly insist on showing old footage. The match itself was awesome as these guys have their touring match down at this point and it's a formula that is impossible to fail in front of a high school crowd. Watching Dorada do his thing is pure joy and Pequeno Pierroth is great at getting things from A to B to C. Both guys are great at expressing a lot of personality through the mask and Dorada seems to go hard no matter where he works. Here he's in a high school gym and does an insane moonsault into the front row and a couple lunatic dives into the entrance way. Match pacing was really great with fun matwork at the beginning into some teaser arm drags, back into their fun reversal-heavy matwork and then into the hot end run of crazy spots. When two guys like this are matched up you know you're going to get 10 really fun minutes that will almost always steal the show.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report, 10/20/13

Alright, so with this episode (with more matches from the 5/11/13 show in Turlock), literally EVERY match on that card EXCEPT for the Santo match has now been aired. Does the match exist on tape? Did the match actually even happen?

1. Pantera/Famous B vs. Kafu/Dinamita

I realize fairly early that this is not the real Pantera, just some guy. Kafu and Dinamita are two Brody-ish clones (But look more like El Terrible a few weeks after losing a hair match). Match is structured really weird as Kafu is billed at 6'4" and 240, and Dinamita looks to be the same size or larger. But they're both working FIP to Famous B and Pantera who each look about 70 lbs smaller. None of the heel control segments worked well, as neither Pantera or Famous B seemed believable enough to control two significantly larger dudes. There was a real ugly Total Elimination where Pantera's weak leg sweep and Famous B's whiffed spin kick left Kafu just kinda windmilling his arms around before just softly bumping. Kafu is a guy who started in APW over a decade ago, and still does not look good at all in the ring. He had a WWE developmental deal at one point, but still looks tentative and soft in the ring. Real light clotheslines thrown at half speed, slow big boots, okayish knee drop. Leaves a LOT to be desired. Dinamita on the other hand looked like somebody I would want to see again. Everything Kafu did lousy, Dinamita made look good. Plus he busted out a real nice rana, big slingshot somersault senton, squashed Pantera with a back senton, etc. His offense didn't fit his look at all, as he's decked out like Brody but then does moves like a 170 lb indy undercarder (I'm gonna catch your bodypress off the top with a Diamondcutter!!!). Face-dominating tag matches are pretty pointless, especially when your two faces tower over the two "heels" (who didn't really attempt to be heels). Still, goofiness aside, I'd like to see more Dinamita. Preferably not with the other three. Also Sparky Ballard now appears to be working a heel ref gimmick but completely half-assed, as the only times you would notice it would be when he'd slow count Kafu or Dinamita, and then after the match he was pissed that they won. Other than that he was totally normal. I don't get it.

2. Cheerleader Melissa vs. Ivelisse Velez

Short match, just a few minutes. Ivelisse didn't really look that good. I have almost zero memory of her on Tough Enough, but she apparently hasn't learned tons since then. There really just isn't much that happens here. Melissa carries her through some sequences, Velez throws a weak kick to the stomach, Melissa ends up winning after a nasty curbstomp and a cool surfboard variation. Too short to be much of anything.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 10/13/13

Looks like we're back to 2009 matches this week. I'm not sure why nothing from 2010-2012 is being shown here, as some of the matches they've shown from 2009 have been pretty uninspiring (the Mr. Wrestling IV match especially standing out as a poor use of air time). I mean, they have 5 years of shows to cherry pick from, you'd think that would mean some pretty strong material

1. Cheerleader Melissa vs. Christina Von Eerie

First few minutes are mostly Melissa domination which is fun. Von Eerie gets some counter roll-ups but mostly it's a Melissa stomping. She grabs Von Eerie in a wheelbarrow lock and walks around the ring, swinging her into the guard rail on every side of the ring numerous times. Awesome. Melissa also bends her in half with a neat modified Texas Cloverleaf. Ladies always make submissions look cool with how flexible they can be, really getting contorted while in a move. Melissa hits a hardway pump handle slam, looking like Von Eerie sandbagged her the whole time. Von Eerie is tiny but Melissa still looked like she had some Backlund strength there. I dig Von Eerie struggling out of a DVD attempt by Melissa and planting her with a DDT (Melissa really took it great, too). CVE sets up a chair in the ring to vault off of into the corner, but Melissa catches her and plants her on the chair with an Air Raid Crash. Melissa looked really great here, but it was pretty clear she was holding CVE's hand through this, even having to do moves to herself.

2. Vaquero Fantasma vs. Hijo de Rey Misterio

Again, they have 5 years of matches to cull from, so not sure why they seem to be showcasing fake Rey Misterio. I fully understand having fake Rey Misterio on your live shows, but don't understand the purpose of showcasing his 4 year old matches on their valuable air time. Is their goal to trick new viewers into thinking they're watching a Rey Mysterio match? Or is their goal to bring new viewers to their live shows. The former seems odd, as it won't bring them new business. I'm pretty sure the fake Misterio no longer even works. The latter would make more sense, except this match is showcasing a guy who no longer works, and I've yet to see the TV show advertise any upcoming events. They advertise the training academy, and I believe Fantasma is the trainer...but they don't specifically mention that in the ads. So...I'm really wondering what the goal of this TV show is supposed to be. I'm trying to remember if they even advertise the website, and I'm drawing the blank. All I remember seeing ads for each episode is the training academy, and the Killers-meets-Dashboard Confessional theme song.

This match is basically all Misterio, with Vaquero Fantasma tasked with getting into proper position for Misterio's random move generator offense, and attempt to put it into some sort of structure. It's not much use though. Fantasma bumps around nicely, and Misterio's moves look mostly fine, but they're all fairly meaningless. It's the type of moveset that works really well when making a 3 minute youtube music video, but doesn't do a whole lot for me watching it in full. Every time I see a Hijo de Rey Misterio match he's added one or two "hey that move looks cool I want that!" This time it was the Code Red. His aresenal really is a greatest hits of the last few years of indy lucha. I was stunned he never went for a Backcracker. Hats off to Fantasma for making one of the more contrived spots look killer, as Misterio took a while setting up Fantasma seated on the apron, holding a chair in front of his face (similar to that old Scoot Andrews spot where a guy has to balance himself on the ropes as if he's stuck, so Scoot could do a legdrop from the middle rope), so Misterio could do a baseball slide into him. Well Fantasma leans all the way into it and take an incredible Hamrick-esque bump from the apron back-first onto the floor. Awesome bump, above and beyond what he needed to do (and for that, we thank him). In summary, Misterio getting the pin was never in question, match was worked as Misterio moves exhibition, Fantasma gets full point for trying to string it all together.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report, 9/22/13

Another week of Paid Programming late Saturday night lucha libre that apparently even Cubsfan was not aware of. I'd be pretty stunned if it had been on his radar, as these matches also appear to be from a 6/26/09 show and are now airing on a local paid time slot. Neither of the matches on this show even have a hint of actual lucha, soooo...

1. Rain vs. Cheerleader Melissa

I vaguely remember Rain from her cup of coffee with AAA (which was probably right around the time this show actually took place) and I've always been a big Cheerleader Melissa fan (and pretty sure I saw most of her earliest matches live). Both women seem pretty familiar with each other so it's possible they worked each other a few times in Shimmer. Rain works a decent heel schtick for the crowd, making Kevin McCallister faces whenever Melissa would kick out of a pin. Rain also brings a real 2010 indy lucha feel to things when she breaks out a lungblower. Crowd was way into Melissa here, especially her rapid fire pump kicks in the corner. This was a perfectly fine womens match. Not much drama as things were somewhat rushed through, but comparable to something like Mona vs. Little Jeanie from Worldwide.

2. Gangrel vs. Mr. Wrestling IV

I...can't imagine a crowd that appears to be 90% hispanic and attending a show billed as lucha libre getting too into MW4's butt wiggling move escapes, but then again I can't see most crowds being too into it. This match is particularly anal-centric with 4 wiggling his butt constantly at the crowd, patting his butt after move breaks, really obnoxious stuff. He's the tecnico here but he presents ass here more often than any exotico rudo I've ever seen, so his desired reaction falls pretty flat. Once we get past the interminable 7 minute long feeling out process we only have a couple minutes of actual match beyond that, which was plenty good. I am not a man opposed to bullshit feeling out processes in matches. Fucking John Tatum is one of my favorite workers for gods sake! But it has to be a brand of bullshit that I actually am amused by. Mr. Wrestling IV's bullshit is really hacky and obnoxious and counter-productive.

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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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