Found Footage Friday: BIG BUBBA~! ARNOLD~! HAMILTON~! MIGRAS~! FALCON~! HALCON 78~! TAKANO~!

Larry "The Missouri Mauler" Hamilton vs. Don Arnold Hollywood Wrestling 8/31/53

MD: This was 2/3 falls and went over 30. The first fall was clean and mostly hold based. Arnold would put on a hold (armlock, toehold, headscissors), and then after a great deal of struggle, Hamilton would get a counter (hammerlock, bodyscissors) and control with that for a while. Within five or six minutes, they were looking fairly haggard, just for how hard they were working the holds. Arnold was clearly the aggressor here, but Hamilton took it with his great "rodeo" headlock takeover, which has a big windup, enough to be a viable finisher. Second fall had the cracks start to show. Early on Arnold turned a legsplitter into a standing anklelock and the commentary called it a "Hackenschmidt". When he won the fall with an abdominal stretch, called as such, which he got on cleverly by ducking another windup for the headlock takeover, commentary called it a Billy Varga special. As the match went on the fans started to boo Hamilton as he kept going to the ropes to escape. It was subtle. He also grabbed the hair for a smaller headlock takeover and went for a toehold after a rope break too soon. It wasn't much but it was enough to turn the crowd. That meant when Arnold put on a long and fast airplane spin to pick up the win, everyone was pretty happy with the result. A lot to like here in between the formula of the first fall and how hard the holds were worked, the callback counter that won Arnold the second fall, and the subtle but definite heeling from Hamilton as things went on. 

Migra I/Migra II vs. Falcon/Halcon 78 WWA 9/19/87

MD: Los Angeles WWA with two teams that basically look alike. Cheat sheet is that Falcon has some extra flourishes on the sides of his mask. And Migra I is the more massive Migra. The commentators work with the ring announcer and spend the first three minutes of this trying to figure it out while the Migras just hug one another repeatedly to get heat. We only have the first two falls of this (best as I can tell) but they're fun.

Primera was full of fun stuff. Halcon clowned Migra I on the mat. Migra II kept going to the eyes and hanging on to Falcon's mask to keep a headlock on until he got shrugged to the floor and ended up punching the post. They had a pretty elaborate finishing sequence where Halcon and Falcon had to figure out how to avoid getting tossed into one another so they could get distance and lure the Migra's into a trap. Crowd-pleasing stuff. 

Segunda had Migras take over just by separating their opponents and leaning hard on Falcon. This ended up mostly mask ripping and wound work, but we like mask ripping and wound work. It seemed like they were going to end a caida once Halcon finally got past the ref to get in and they took him out too, including with a nice stump puller, but things kept going. At one point, Falcon, bloodied and sprawled on the ground was offered a drink by a kid through the guardrail so that's always nice. Eventually the ref just called it and the tape cuts after twenty minutes with the last fall still to go. Good for what we had though. 

Shunji Takano vs. Big Bubba AJPW 3/27/88

MD: Maybe the most fun four and a half minutes you'll have today. This was a Classics drop we're just catching up on. Takano, by 88, had a lot going for him. Size and fire. He'd grow into it even more in 89 before his career started to take weird turns. Looking at him here and he looked like the future of the company though. Also, oddly enough, Bubba looked like the future of the company too. He looked like a guy who could have toured as much as Doc and Gordy and fit right in. Yeah, he was a different size and shape, but he had such presence and could move. He looked like a million bucks here.

He pressed in right from the start with punches to the face and this great axe handle. Takano turned it around and dropkicked him out. He sold it with huge frustration, going after the guardrail, only to come back in and dominate. Lots of great power offense here, his spinebuster slam, back body drop, clothesline, and more great strikes, a headbutt and this beautiful sweeping chop. Then he got out the belt and started choking Takano with it, jarring, effective stuff. He climbed up to the top with it but that just let Takano come back tossing him off in a big moment. Takano followed up with a body press off the turnbuckles but Bubba turned it around for the Bubba Slam. It felt like a really refreshing WCW Syndicated TV match in a way AJPW very rarely does. Ah, what could have been.

ER: Shunji Nakano is a kind of under-discussed guy. Maybe people just hated Super Ninja, I don't know. His look was Larger Japanese Mike Awesome and he could really take a hit and throw a suplex. This is 4 minutes of Big Bubba dishing out hit after hit after hit and Takano had one suplex that might have been the biggest suplex bump Bubba had taken to that point in his career. Bubba is barely 100 matches into his career, in his 2nd match ever in Japan, a couple months away from WWF, just a baby. Boss Man was my favorite wrestler as a kid because he was shaped exactly like my dad. That same exact belly, dress shirt pulled tight, hugging his stomach because of the tuck. Never fat enough where they had to get larger pants and tuck their stomachs into their pants - that's what we call Ronnie P. Gossett fat - but incredible belly hang over the waistband of their slacks. Some of us have Bald Dads, some of us have Tall Dads, I was lucky enough to have a Fat Dad. 

How quickly did Bubba get this good? When was he Actually Good? He's a marvel here. Find me a single misstep, all match. It's the perfect 4 minutes of material. Every detail, every hit, every miss. Complete package. 15 year pros don't have a fast swing and miss clothesline as good as Bubba's. The speed he takes a dropkick bump over the top to the floor, and the anger he shows after (scaring a few ringside fans) is done with a veteran's confidence. He double axe handles Takano in the back of the head; the man hits a sidewalk slam with one suspender down like the world's largest Jeff Leonard. He tosses Takano so high with a back body drop, and the visual looks nuts because you never see guys Takano's height taking back body drops. Bubba throws his full weight into his falling clothesline, like a big fat guy STO. His enziguiri slashes across the face. The casual removal of his belt before choking Takano to his knees, climbing to the top rope for choking leverage, was like something you'd see a hitman do in an 80s Hong Kong action movie. 

And, while I'm not sure it needs to be said, I will say that the Bubba Slam clears the Black Hole Slam every day of the week. This isn't swing dancing. This stomach goes over the belt. 

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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!!

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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?

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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?

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