Pro Wrestling Revolution 3/28/15 Workrate Report

The show starts with a really nice, well put together Perro Aguayo tribute video. Really nice stuff and I'm still just stunned by his passing. Like it just does not seem real. Really makes me extremely aware of how close to death any of us are at any given moment. It's humbling and frightening

1. El Mariachi vs. Derek Sanders (6/8/14)

Boy this feud is just dead in the water. I've seen them wrestle several times, and nothing about the matches ever feels different. I watched their hair vs. mask match and it was worked exactly the same as all of their other matches. And just like those matches this is an 8 minute match shown as the entirety of a 30 minute program. We get a long La Migra entrance and promo, which is just like all of the other ones with Derek Sanders telling the audience to SHUT UP for several minutes, and then saying that Mexicans are bad and the US is the best, really compelling stuff. Then commercials and Mariachi entrance and Mariachi tossing sombreros to whatever side is loudest, and then ANOTHER La Migra entrance and more commercials. Match started about 17 minutes into the program. I mean, we really needed to show Derek Sanders saying that he dislikes Mexicans, as many viewers could have misconstrued The Border Patrol's true intentions.

Match itself was actually the best match I've witnessed of theirs, with Mariachi actually showing presence and aggression that I haven't seen before. He came after Sanders right at the bell, and throughout the match kept going for his tornado DDT, almost trying to work it into being an "out of nowhere" finisher like the Diamond Cutter. First he tried to run up the corner with it, later the ropes, later on the floor tries to run up the apron and hit it. It lends an immediacy to things and I like it. He hits several nice armdrags that Sanders takes nicely. However, since I've seen their other matches I had a feeling which direction things were going, and sure enough it's only a matter of time before La Migra ref Sparky Ballard pulls up lame with a sore shoulder after a 2 count, and then hero ref Tom Castor runs out to deal with him. Out of all the things this fed can steal from real, actual lucha, their insistence on making referees stars that are paramount to their wrestlers is just maddening. I cannot think of a dumber reoccuring theme in all of the lucha I have watched. So of course that's a trademark that they have to lift, a tradition they have to carry on. So Tom Castor gets the biggest hero moment of the match, dispatching Ballard, but it's all for naught as Sanders punts Mariachi in the balls in all the referee chaos and that's that. I really cannot stand all the stuff with the refs, as it can never build to anything interesting, and it just seems so stupid to me to build all the biggest heat around one ref, and the big hero spot around another. So yes, match itself was fine and their best match-up together, but then end was a predictable crap pile. There is really nothing left in this feud and I really hope they stopped being booked against each other. 

Read more!

Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 2/7/15

Another match from their 6/8/14 show in Watsonville, and after this one there's only Blue Demon vs. Pirata Morgan that hasn't been shown on that card. Boy they've really made that card last damn near two months now.

1. Mask vs. Hair: El Mariachi vs. Derek Sanders

Boy this was disappointing. A hate stip matches that never actually do anything to feel like stip matches. This just felt like a regular match these two would have had, that happened to end in Sanders getting his head shaved. Mariachi was especially bad as he didn't change up his routine in the least, worked this match the same way I've seen him work every other match. There was never any desperation from either man, no struggle, just a regular match that happened to have one participant's mask at stake. Mariachi genuinely worked the match as if he had no idea anything at all was at stake. The big hero of the match was made out to be referee Tom Castor, who ran out halfway through and triumphantly threw rudo ref Sparky Ballard over the top to the floor, even though up until that point Ballard had called the match pretty normally. There was one moment where he kind of argued with Mariachi which led to Sanders ambushing him. Other than that, nothing. It was a real weird moment that had Sanders pull Ballard in the way of a Mariachi missile dropkick, bumping Ballard. Then Sanders hit a move and went for the pin and got the visual 3 count, but Ballard was still selling the dropkick. Then Castor ran out and tossed Ballard. So we get the rudo getting the visual 3 (and then some), and then the hero ref runs in so I guess things will be more fair for Sanders? Real clunky stuff. Sanders looked good throughout this, really liked some of his punches (even shook out his fist after an especially nice one) but by the end this turned to your move/my move, with no drama. Mariachi did not look great throughout, though I liked his tornado DDT that ended the match, so finishing on a nice looking move counts for something. Still, very disappointing when what should be a major stipulation ends up getting worked like other matches I've seen between the two. Man Mariachi is not good. He's real sloppy when he tries to do "lucha" spots (real ugly springboard armdrag…thing…in this), and he does goofy stuff like a horrible people's elbow variation that sees him slam Sanders, then do a way too long zapateado before leaping into an elbow drop. Not only would it look silly in a normal match, it looked completely idiotic for a tecnico to be doing it in a match with his mask at stake. Horrible stuff, disappointing and clueless match.

Read more!

Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 12/27/14

More matches from the 6/8/14 Watsonville show, more hilarious use of paid time. Show starts off with a 3 minute Mariachi promo, then him standing in the ring while a loooong Mexican fight song plays in its entirety, then La Migra comes out and beats him down, and then commercials, and then more wrestlers get their full entrance for a match, and then they cut looooong promos. And our first match of the half hour program ends up going on 17 minutes into the show. Last week they had advertised Mariachi vs. Sanders mask vs. hair, but I assume with so little time left in the show that all we'll end up getting is that opening "Mariachi stands in ring while music plays". Think about that. Let's break it down. Let's say they get their time REALLY cheap. I have no idea what paid TV time on a Saturday morning costs, but let's say for this exercise it costs $200 per half hour. Now 8 minutes of that half hour is commercials, so really it's $200 for 22 minutes. You showed a guy standing in the ring while listening to a Mexican fight song for 150 of your 1,320 seconds. That means IF you are paying $200 per half hour of programming, then you just paid over $20 to air that. This kind of time wasting blows my mind.

1. JR Kratos & "El Chicano" Memo Cuevas vs. Los Campesinos

Well, this match happened. It was kind of clunkily structured as we start with a long heel-in-peril segment with both Campesinos working over Cuevas. I have seen one other not good match with Los Campesinos, and here they looked somewhat better but still sloppy. They both throw really ugly and poorly timed armdrags. I would have been somewhat hesitant to blame the armdrags on both of them, as Cuevas could have been responsible for taking them poorly, but they threw them this badly in the other match I saw them in. Again the promotion is obviously billed as lucha libre, but nothing in this match (or most of their matches) would ever be mistaken for lucha style. This match was just bad American indy wrestling. Campesinos may dress like luchadors, but they aren't fooling *THIS* guy. They just do a bunch of bland dropkick/arm drag/arm wringer spots. They basically wrestle like an AWA jobber tag team. Kratos is a big local guy I like a lot, and he got some fun moments of throwing Los Camps around (big deadlift fallaway slam is impressive, as Los Camps weren't tiny guys). Cuevas was more of a sneaky heel but he doesn't really have schtick, he just had to run into Los Camps (often) poorly timed double teams. He took their implausible double arm lift slam finisher with speed and impact. This whole thing just wasn't much.

Read more!

Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 12/13/14

This week we get the main event cage match from the 5/24/14 show in Turlock…

1. Brian Cage & Derek Sanders vs. Blue Demon Jr. & El Mariachi

…and it was not good. The match was about 90% Demon's team, and the cage was actually used as a "weapon" one time. So essentially it was a Texsa Tornado match that happened to take place in a cage. The promotion was clearly pushing this as an epic war, going to the "15 minutes have elapsed, 15 minutes" call approximately 8 minutes into the match (which came barely 2 minutes after the "10 minutes elapsed" call). So that either means 1) they were lying about the match time for…reasons? 2) they clipped the match to air on television (though I didn't see any parts where clipping was apparent), or 3) they clipped the actual match, yet left in the complete ring intros and singing of the national anthem. This match didn't start until the 11 minute mark of the 30 minute broadcast, meaning if they actually DID cut out some of the match it was so they could show full rings entrances, Mexican vs. American promos, Demon standing in the ring while the Mexican national anthem plays, etc. So obviously option 3 would be the most hilariously inept option. Yeah.

So the match itself goes about 12 minutes (or I'm sure 35 if announced by the promotion), and most of the match is Demon's team in control. During brief moments of La Migra gaining control, Demon can't be bothered much to sell or take bumps. He can't even do a back bump off a Cage clothesline, instead falling on his butt with his arm out, the same way you'd fall if you slipped while walking downhill. Midway through Brian Cage escapes, leaving the classic situation of two tecnicos ganging up on the rudo back in the cage. Demon eventually leaves the cage because Cage lures him out by taunting him. Which is kind of hilarious and really plays up the hubris of Demon. Here he and Mariachi have the 2 on 1 advantage over Sanders, but Cage saying he's too scared to come out and fight him followed by Demon actually coming out of the cage and running after Cage makes Demon out to be a laughably insecure twerp. Odd booking decision there. Back in the ring we eventually have heel turn swerve when Demon/Mariachi's second turns on Mariachi allowing Sanders to win. It was telegraphed from the beginning with La Migra having no second, yet some guy under a mask we've never seen before suddenly accompanying Demon. Just a mess of a match.

Read more!

Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 7/26/14

This is pretty shockingly from one of their most recent shows, the 5/18/14 show in Morgan Hill which featured a Jushin Liger vs. Blue Demon Jr. match that I'd actually be really interested in seeing. The odds are that we'll never actually get to see that match. I'm still waiting on the Santo matches they ran a year or two ago.

We immediately start with a tremendous use of paid for TV time, as we get the audience standing during a recording of Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem. La Migra then interrupts the Mexican National Anthem with their entrance, but I guess we needed the full context of what happened to really show how dastardly they are. This promotion is oddly obsessed with showing full entrances and time killing mic work, often starting a match 10+ minutes into a 30 minute show. And sure enough,  we get the bell here at the 13 (!) minute mark of the show. I guarantee the match would have been just as enjoyable if they just opened from the ring bell.

1. Derek Sanders & Colt Stevens vs. Los Gallineros

I assume these are the same Crazy Chickens from Lucha VaVoom (they ARE wearing tights that say Lucha VaVoom after all) but I don't remember who they were at this point. TJ Perkins? Rocky Romero? Scorpio Sky? All possible. One of these chickens seems chubbier than other chickens I've seen, so who knows. Also not sure who Colt Stevens is, maybe a Bay Area guy I've never seen before. So…this match happened. Wasn't bad, wasn't really good. It was a 12 minute match stretched out over a 30 minute show. Sanders is always solid if unspectacular. Best part of the match was probably when he leveled a chicken with a clothesline and that chicken flipped over and bumped in nasty fashion. Couldn't get a good read on Stevens here as he didn't get to work much of a match. Chickens matches tend to be built 85% around chicken comedy spots. They don't ever seem to spend too much time in danger, so it's mainly the rudos stooging, or taking offense from the chickens. Great for kids, probably more fun live, didn't do tons for me on TV. Chickens do have some nice spots, including a great double springboard somersault sentons, but it's tough to get too invested when the match is formatted for minimal drama.

This show, man.

Read more!

Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 7/19/14

This week they show more matches from the SF show we went to on 2/22/14. At least they're showing matches, plural, as opposed to stretching an 11 minute match out to fill 30 minutes.

Pistolero vs. El Campesino

I believe both of these guys are Pro Wrestling Revolution trainees. I've seen Pistolero before and he seemed fine, and this would be my first time seeing Campesino. We did not see this match live as we felt it was more important to savor our delicious meal at Papito than rush over to see an opener. I'm pretty sure this was the only match that happened before the woman's 3 way (that I wrote up a couple weeks back). I really liked Pistolero in this. He doesn't really work a "lucha libre" style but instead more of an American indy style (especially with his snap mare into big kick to the back), but he has nice chops, cuts low on a clothesline, commits to missing a big elbow off the top, feeds Campesino's armdrags well, and hits a mean Tenryu-style falling clothesline that had a bunch of speed and force behind it. Campesino didn't show me tons here, but didn't look bad. He didn't really have offense, instead doing some armdrags and sunset flip variations to win. I'd really like to see Pistolero against somebody else. His style would work easily with almost any worker, and while I'm not sure how long he's been working, he definitely had some polish.

El Mariachi vs. "La Migra" Derek Sanders

Live I remember this match being an evenly worked affair with no cheating, just two guys working a normal match, and with Mariachi coming off like the whiniest tecnico possible always whining about not getting a fair shake during the match. Here's what I wrote the other week about the promotion always making tecnicos look weak:

"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."

Watching the match again and match itself was better than I remember, with a finish way more confusing than I originally thought. Sanders looked good in this, working around the limited Mariachi. Mariachi worked a lot of headlocks and Sanders actually found ways to make them amusing. Another decidedly non-lucha match in a "lucha libre" fed (for the most part the only lucha thing in the fed is that they broadcast on spanish-speaking TV stations and a lot of their wrestlers wear masks). Mariachi's comeback is really just two clotheslines (nice ones) and a nice body press. The confusing moment I mentioned comes at the end, with Mariachi suplexing Sanders back into the ring, with Mariachi's valet then holding Mariachi's legs, allowing Sanders to fall on him for the win. I could not see that from where I was sitting. We were directly across the ring side that the "interference" happened on so from our angle it just looked like Sanders reversed the suplex for the win, and then Mariachi complained about interference that didn't happen.

But this finish was somehow even worse than that. What they did here was book Mariachi's own valet, who was not established in the least or had any sort of history with this audience, to turn on Mariachi…but then show immediate remorse and apologize to Mariachi. There was nothing whatsoever indicating that she was working with La Migra, and what would her motives be anyway? Is this some sort of far reaching plan that's been in the works for a year, just so Sanders could win the 3rd match on a card at some point?  She's wearing a traditional Mexican dress, does nothing to help Mariachi throughout the match, and apparently was only there to lead to a SHOCKING finish which nobody whomsoever could possibly care about. Just because something is unexpected doesn't make it good, or interesting. What could possibly be gained from telling an audience "Hey here's Mariachi's valet! SHE TURNED ON HIM! They're back together." All told over the span of 10 minutes. Introducing a character for the sole purpose of turning them is one of the cheapest, most narratively bankrupt ideas a writer can do, and here they didn't even have the balls to go all the way with it. Instead they pathetically tried to go for something deeper, really focusing on the valet's tortured facials as she held down Mariachi's boots. The ANGUISH she was going through! Hand to the temple, what had she done! Was it all worth it!? And it's not like this fed runs shows very frequently, so if god forbid this lamebrain story is something they actually intend to come back to, it will be months and months before the next chapter in this thrilling tale of betrayal. Truly one of the more clueless ways they could have chosen to finish this match. Unless they're really targeting a demographic of Mexican American males who feel like the only thing holding them back in life is their traditional Mexican spouse. That seemed to be the lesson I learned from this. Mariachi was making a name for himself, and about to win the title, until his traditional Mexican spouse held him back and crushed his dreams. Were men in the crowd supposed to go "hey yeahhhhh. My life would be WAY better without my woman holding me back!" So, so much dumber than I initially thought.

Thanks Pro Wrestling Revolution!!

Read more!

Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 2/15/14

This is appropriate as this match is from their 2/23/13 San Francisco show at John O'Connell high school, which is exactly where I am going tonight to see them. So they're showing the main event to their last show there, right before the next show. That's a cool idea. Good work, guys. They had a couple full commercials advertising tonight's show as well, though oddly billing Rocky Romero as 2nd from the top. You obviously lead with Blue Demon Jr., but I would think Super Crazy would be your 2nd lead. Who even knows who Rocky Romero is?

1. Brian Cage, Derek Sanders & Phoenix Star vs. Blue Demon Jr., El Dinamita & Kafu

Kafu is billed as being 6'4" which is hilarious as that means Demon would be about 6'1", and if you've ever stood next to a luchador you know the odds of them being over 6' are slim. We get a lot of ganging up on Demon to start which is cool, as most Demon matches I've seen don't see him selling or showing much ass. But all the rudos here get to take turns chopping him while he is helpless. Brian Cage is freaking massive at this point. He's close to Jon Anderson levels. He has a look that would work well in WWE, if they didn't do wellness testing. You know who may be a worse wrestler than Blue Demon Jr.? Kafu. I remember when this guy broke into APW and had a silly capoeira gimmick, and then went through his long Brody gimmick, and now is just some sort of semi-Brody who has been working 12 years and can't throw a clothesline. I don't think I've ever seen a match of his where he was anything but the worst guy in the match. Gotta tip my cap to Demon in this one as he clearly has his working boots on in this match. His kicks on Cage look real nice, then he does a nice double dropkick to clear Cage/Sanders out of the ring, and then actually breaks out a spinning headscissors against Phoenix Star! Follows that up with a nice baseball slide dropkick to the floor with a cool uppercut I've never seen him use. Who the hell is this guy? I hope he shows up when I'm there tonight. The match itself was fine, if not a little predictable. Once the tecnicos took over at the 2/3 point there was no real looking back. Not excited at all for the feuding refs things they have going on between Sparky Ballard and Tom Castor. Match ends with Sparky pulling up lame during Blue Demon's likely pinfall victory, but then Tom Castor saves the day by running in and usurping Sparky's authority. Man I don't want to see feuding refs. Maybe if the good guy ref was like a local kid with cancer or something and he got to come in and be the hero. I think that's the only thing that could make me enjoy that spot. I want my refs to be wallpaper, not focal angles during a match.

Read more!

Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 11/17/13

More matches from the 5/30/09 show from Milpitas. Milpitas is the land of endless strip malls and a seemingly constant ass smell thanks to a large landfill. You *gotta* brag about running a show in Milpitas, so I totally get unearthing every match from that card, no matter how old. I actually emailed the owner of PWR asking him why they are showing old matches and hardly any new matches, while not actively pushing upcoming live events or any sort of merchandise. I was very polite, saying that I was very interested in seeing the two recent Santo matches that took place and wondering if they would ever be shown. I got a response fairly quickly that just said "Glad you watch our show. We air our library, sorry you don't agree." You see, they have a library that they have to show off, outside of any sort of context. What if some Joey Ryan completists were watching local paid-for programming on a Saturday and happened to catch this match, presented without any sort of date or purpose? Made that kids night. More than anything, that response told me that they don't actually have any idea why they air what they air, and have given minimal thought into why they air it.

1. Joey Ryan & Rik Luxury vs. Golden Lion & Chimaera

Fun tag that threatened to be ruined by lousy editing (cut to commercial right when the hot tag happens, back from commercials and the rudos are in control with no explanation of what happened). Luxury is one of the best Bay Area workers  and is kinda like a more modern Arn Anderson. Works cool spots that should be used more (like raking eyes with boot eyelets) and can build heat. Not sure who Golden Lion is but he had some nice headscissors (including a real cool one where he got vaulted over someone's shoulders and then hit a rana). Chimaera is the WWE's Ricardo Rodriguez (though hilariously I don't think they ever brought that up. Gotta keep that kayfabe alive!) and I've never actually seen him in a serious wrestling setting. Dude looked good and took some nice bumps. This was some perfectly fine wrestling, bizarre editing aside.

2. Derek Sanders & Zack Reeb vs. Human Tornado & El Amante

Short decent match. Derek Sanders was in both 2013 PWR matches opposite Santo, but I guess it's probably a better idea to show a 5 yr. old match against two guys who haven't worked the promotion since 2010. That should make your fed seem like a bigger deal. They also regularly talk about Amante's normal tag partner Ulysses a lot during the match, who again hasn't worked the fed since 2010. Sanders looks pretty meh here, normally looks better. Here he leaned way out of spin kicks and stuttered on some bumps. For some reason they keep calling Human Tornado "El Snowflake" here, despite him just dressing and wrestling like Human Tornado. Makes sense. There were fun spots here if you turned your brain off. But good lord this show makes my brain hurt.

Read more!

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?

Read more!

Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 10/27/13

Come journey back in time with me to 7/25/09, thanks to a promotion inexplicably willing to use paid programming to show 4+ year old matches at midnight on a local Spanish-speaking network.

1. Strongman Jon Andersen vs. Oliver John

It's kind of shocking how poorly edited this show is, as the bell for the match doesn't even hit until 10 minutes into the show. It is a half hour show. Literally the first 10 minutes of the program were ring entrances. You are paying money to show guys walking to the ring, jawing with fans, slowly wandering around ringside, and standing in the ring for A THIRD OF THE SHOW THAT YOU PAY MONEY TO AIR! They easily could have fit two matches onto this show if they had just started with Andersen and John in the ring. But I guess we needed to see La Migra revolutionize the art of getting heat by throwing tortillas at Mexicans for 8 minutes. Hilariously, when the bell finally rings, THAT'S when we go to our first commercial break. Amazing. That means that halfway through the show there has been zero wrestling, zero promos, zero ads for upcoming shows, nothing whatsoever that could benefit the promotion or viewers at home in any way. I would LOVE to hear any sort of justification from the people that paid for this to represent their company.

And why did we sit through 10+ minutes of ring entrances? Why, so we could get a 2.5 minute match that ends with John getting counted out by walking to the back, of course! Once the bell rang, John tried to avoid locking up with Strongman, rolling to the floor a couple times. Eventually Andersen caught him and clotheslined him to the floor. Then the other two guys in La Migra got on the apron, and got clotheslined off. Then John snuck in with a chair, hit Strongman with it, and bailed to the floor again, followed by all of La Migra walking to the back and getting counted out.

Yep, couple clotheslines, a chairshot. That's why we needed more than 10 minutes of ring entrances. You see, we wouldn't have been able to figure out that we need to boo one of the guys, and cheer the large roided up guy who kept asking for the crowd to cheer. This match set up a tag match later on in the show, so I assume we get that in a coming week, because lord knows we need to take up a few weeks of programming to set up a tag match that took place last decade.

I have no clue what the point of this program is.

2. El Amante & Ulysses (The Latin Explosion) vs. Derek Sanders & Zack Reeb (La Migra)

Ironically this match is joined right when the bell rings and both teams are in the ring. So...they DO know how to edit filler...which means that they just genuinely felt that showing 10 minutes of ring entrances was the best possible use of their paid programming. Wow.

This is a fun match, a solid 8 minutes of wrestling. Ulysses is a smaller guy who is good when sticking to his size, and stumbles when working bigger. Here his armdrags and headscissors look real good, but then he starts working as if he's much bigger and tries a powerslam and backdrop and it becomes clear that Sanders is working with a Real Doll. Amante is the better of the two and is real fluid in his ranas and dropkicks. Sanders and Reeb are a good team, know how to stooge, and know how to give logical comebacks. Match ends with Reeb hitting an accidental clothesline on the ref, then Latin Explosion getting the pinfall when another ref runs in. Naturally the ruling is reversed and La Migra are still the tag champs. Obviously this was such a devastating moment for Latin Explosion that they felt it would still be relevant 4 years later. Also, 3 of the guys in this match are no longer with the promotion. Jon Andersen hasn't working here in over 3 years. Only Oliver John and Derek Sanders remain in the promotion, so they paid money to promote a guy who hasn't worked there in 3 years, and a heartbreaking moment of an underdog tag team (who also hasn't worked there in 3 years) almost winning the tag titles.

This is a promotion that runs practically monthly, and has been doing so for 5 years. What could possibly be gained from showing matches this old?

Read more!