New Footage Friday:VILLANOS! ULTIMO! AMERICAN DRAGON! YANO!

Villano IV/V/Sanguinario vs. Ultimo Dragon/Pantera/Tineblas Jr.  AAA 9/8/96

MD: Nice trios match that got some time. Pantera was the standout from the tecnico side, with a long, very good, opening exchange with Villano IV (I think it was IV; for someone who writes on this site, I'm terrible at telling Villanos apart). I was very much ready to joke that there was no point in having Tinieblas, Jr. there if you weren't going to have Alushe but Sanguinario worked well with him, and not just in the stalling and being cowed by his superior size. Dragon, despite getting the focus moment at the end of the match, after the dives, and comporting himself well there with a few slick spots, was barely in the match otherwise. He got a nice pop whenever he showed up and got to show off with the corner handstand. I liked the moment of comeback, most especially Pantera charging the rudo corner after hitting a lucky move so that they couldn't immediately cut him off, but the beatdown needed a little more viciousness, maybe. Good stuff all around though.

American Dragon/Metal Master vs. Liverpool Lads 3/08

MD: More lost 80s heel Brian Danielson, this time with Collyer getting in on the act. I'm pretty certain that having a bunch of British kids chanting "cheat" at him for working southern tag antics was Danielson living a pro wrestling dream. There's one moment where he hits a roundhouse kick in the corner and immediately remembers he should be doing more conventional stomps instead. Lots of commitment to the act with some fun heel miscommunication spots. They have some nice cutoffs towards the end but instead of building to a hot tag, they go the fed-up-partner route instead, which is almost never as satisfying. Still, everyone played their role well and this reinforced what we saw of Danielson's range last time. No Rick Rude hip swivels but he did taunt the crowd with a USA chant at least.

PAS: Fun to watch Collyer and Danielson work like the Rock and Roll RPMs. They are full foils in this match, but very fun foils. I am mark for the spot where one guy gets whipped into the turnbuckle, and is saved by his partner, only to have the heel try the same thing and get clowned. Brookside is a guy with a lot of skill, Danielson thinks his best match ever was against him, but this is more of pop the crowd kind of match, and it fulfilled its purpose. 

Keita Yano vs. Taro Yamada Wallabee 6/24/12

MD: Nice (and relatively surprising) accomplishment here as they fill a lot of time, in a dojo type setting, with a fairly measured sense of escalation. My complaint about Yano's comedy 'rope-running' isn't that it exists but that it's not funnier. If they were going to break in that direction anyway, they should have made that break worthwhile by having big comedic payoffs. As it was, it felt more like lip service towards the idea of it but they weren't imaginative enough there or they thought it might have devalued the rest of the work/atmosphere, maybe. If you're going to break suspension of disbelief in the first place, make it worth it! Anyway, the rest of the match was full of imagination and struggle, with them tying one another up and stretching the hell out of each other in a very tit-for-tat manner. There were times where you got the sense that Yano especially was just twisting limbs this way or that to see what would stick but whenever it seems like it might work, you tended to believe it would.

SR: Damn great match, I imagine if Yano had never stunk up BattlARTS and instead was only known for doing weird technical matches while wearing his joker makeup and clown singlet in a tiny gym we’d all be Yano superfans. Taro Yamada is the last guy in Japan still holding up the T2P style matwork and one of the most underrated grapplers on the independent scene. This was 25 minutes of matwork that was like a great IWRG style title match. It was a mix of Yamadas llave holds with Yano going along and some cool RINGs-like leglock work thrown in, with both guys doing a great job escaping and transitioning between holds. Whole match felt fresh and competitive and never was like a derivative or weird LARP, these guys were trying to pop each others shoulders and/or ankles the whole time. There were one or two geeky moments where Yano did some “rope running” although it was more like a comedy spot with Yano hooting like an owl, and both these moments lead to cool spots, one where Yamada actually trips Keita with a drop down and another where Yano tricks Yamada into his special hold. There wasn’t some kind of story if you are into that but there were a few great nearfalls and I deeply respect these two for just grappling it out for 25 minutes without slowing down, and never throwing a strike or even a body slam, it was all submissions and funky cradle pins (especially loved Yamadas weird Delfin Clutch variation), just really tightly worked stuff that wouldn’t look out of place in a WoS or lucha title match. I did love Yanos dickish knee slide across Yamadas face and the moment where Yano had enough of the llave holds and challenged Yamada to an amateur match was really cool. Finish was great as well. Best Yano match I’ve seen by far and actively a great match, which is a major shocker. Yamada played a huge part too but I’ll be damned if Yano wasn’t feeling it that night. Apparently there have been a few matches between these two and I look forward to checking them all out but as it stands this is the best I’ve seen from Yano by a mile.

PAS: I am a real Yano skeptic, but it is hard not to enjoy this. You rarely see two guys just hit the mat like this, and this was a weird mix of shoot mat work and llave  Both guys found really interesting ways to twist and turn body parts, and with no ropes to break, they had to find a way out of all of the holds. I also thought the rope running was stupid, but it was my only complaint in a 20 minute plus Yano match. I loved the partier stuff near the end, I love when wrestlers challenge their opponent to amateur restarts, and both guys to interesting attack and defenses from that position. Feels like I need to dig a bit more into no ropes clown makeup Yano

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RIP Big Ovett

 Ovett/Los Traumas vs. Los Panteras/Aramis IWRG 2/18/18

PAS: IWRG trios have been one of the most consistent styles of wrestling for the last two decades. There were lots of very capable wrestlers here, and the Traumas come off like real superstars. Ovett is fun as their tubby muscle, although he doesn't really hit any of his big spots (they tease an Ovett dive, and that is a mean tease not to deliver on). Pantera is an old old guy at this point, but still executes his somersault tope really well, and his kid can really fly. There was a bit more referee nonsense then I would prefer, but watching the Traumas run Naucalpan is always a blast. 

Ovett vs. Mosco X-Fly IWRG 6/2418

PAS: I watched their hair match too, and while I thought that got too far into geek show territory (syringes and shit), this was much more my style: A pair of fat dudes beating on each other. This basically feels like the Rotten brothers' Mexican cousins. It started with some solid matwork. It wasn't Blue Panther or anything, but it was perfectly respectable, and built nicely to the point where they started punching and bleeding. Ovett uses his fat nicely, including an Abby style elbowdrop, and I liked when they brought out the lighttubes. They were used more like a roll of quarters, as a foreign object to use behind the ref's back.

JR: I think one of the things I like about lucha is how much they embrace weird bodies. US wrestling over the past few years has become homogenized, just as the style has seemingly become homogenized. It’s strange, as I think the indies embracing the Meltzerian wet dream of wrestling like a five year old bashing his action figures together over and over has directly led to the people with weird bodies only being booked for their ability to do this style; the Keith Lee’s of the world flying around and making sure to land softly enough so that someone who is 185 pounds doesn’t die while trying to base for them. In a way, it has positioned large wrestlers, heavy wrestlers as even more freakish than they were presented at any other time in wrestling history, as now they are reduced to a big man who can move like a light man rather than a big man who can squish you.

All this is a rather long preamble to say that I enjoy lucha embracing mat work by large men, and clobbering by large men, and all other regular things by large men. In fact, in some ways this match feels like it is a direct response to the very idea that large men must excel at the things that small men do, for the first major spot is a huge crossbody, and there seems to be a clear decision to not continue with this trend but to instead start walloping one another with chairs and wooden planks and fists and whatever else they can find.

I don’t necessarily think the purpose of this series is to try and convince anyone that Ovett is some super worker that has been toiling away in obscurity. That being said, he is rather charming here, understanding what he does well, doing everything with purpose, throwing his considerable weight behind all of his offense. The finish is both sublime and bizarre, with a wondrous light tube assisted low blow followed up by an interminably long wait for a three count. It feels loose and unrehearsed in a way that only lucha does. In the US, there would have probably been a kick out and a few more high spots.

Ovett/Lunatik Extreme/Advertencia vs. Shere Khan/Memo Romero/Terromoto Zona 23 1/20/19 (Complete version on IWTV)

JR: Have you ever been to one of those pop up haunted houses? Not like, an extreme haunt or whatever where you have to sign a waiver, but one of those run of the mill ones that are all throughout the Midwest, with a hay ride and a hastily erected indoor gimmick. This match is the closest wrestling gets to the energy and feeling of a haunted house. The camera man wanders cautiously and wearily, focusing on the place he thinks his eyes should be going for progress, and almost assuredly, something graphic and intense is happening in the periphery. It feels like a ride, as if at any moment something else predetermined but completely unforeseen will occur; someone breathing fire, or showing up with a chainsaw.

This match is incredible. I’m not even sure how to describe beyond the way I just did or to single out Ovette other than to say everything he does lands with such impact, including a second rope elbow drop that could’ve killed a man. In a match where almost everything is exclamatory, Ovette taking off his shirt is a moment that stands out for the reaction it gets. There is a clear connection. I don’t want to waste words on this match, really. It’s revelatory. I think everyone should watch it. I suppose this is somewhat hyperbolic, but it feels like a celebration. It feels like something that should be played over and over until the sound of it reaches the heavens. 

PAS: This has all you want from a Zona 23 match. Filthy mat, wrestlers getting thrown into drunks, people doing dives off of trucks, and lots of blood. Some of the stuff was a bit set up, which is kind of the style, and I could have done without the section of just shoving thumbtacks into Romero's cheeks, but this had plenty to like. Ovett clearly seems like a cult favorite, he gets the biggest chants of the match, and I enjoyed him cutting off the Sweet Child of Mine entrance by smashing Khan on the head with a box. My favorite part of the match was Ovett and Khan just exchanging hard punches to the jaw on the floor, Ovett could really throw heat. I wouldn't say this match was technically good, but it was really entertaining. 

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 2/1/14

This is from the 1/27/13 show in Watsonville, CA, so we're at least getting stuff within a calendar year. So, I've done over 15 reports on this TV show. You readers that actually read the reports have probably noticed that I bitch and complain about how lousy (for the most part) this show has been. This is not hate-viewing on my part, I just really, really want this show to actually be good. They're a local fed with some workers that I like and it's rough watching them botch so many things in regards to the TV show and presentation. I don't think they're maximizing their opportunity. Over the last few episodes they've at least advertised the dates of their upcoming shows, which should have been a no-brainer from the beginning. They don't do any interviews or background on any of the wrestlers, the spend WAY too much time showing entrances (more on that in a bit), they often feature workers that haven't worked the fed in 2+ years, they put over the referees way too much during commentary. It's like the only lucha they've watched is Guadalajara, as it genuinely feels like the only episode-to-episode continuity they're building up is a potential Tom Castor vs. Sparky Ballard referees feud. There is no rhyme or reason to the matches they air. The dates of shows jump around wildly. The last three weeks have been one match each from one card in July 2012, the week before was some random matches from May 2010. One of the matches was not even particularly good. I'm unsure the benefits of showing almost 4 year old material, but there can't be many if the material in question isn't even good. "Hey, did you hear this Stone Temple Pilots album from 2010? It was horrible! But you should check out their new stuff!" Who are you? Why are you talking about a bad album from 4 years ago?  Why are you talking about STP? But then add to that the fact this is a PAID timeslot. They are paying to show this stuff. So if you're not showing your most recent stuff and making people want to see your current product, you'd likely want to showcase your best all-time matches. A mixture of both would make a lot of sense. "Here's some of our current roster, and here's a classic example of the kind of action you can expect LIVE!" It seems so simple. And yet...

1. El Mariachi, La Pantera & Ultimo Panda vs. Famous B, Fantasma de la Opera & Persian Prince

Over the last few weeks they've gone in a simple presentation direction, either as a way to focus more on specific guys, or (more realistically) as a way to milk their recorded footage to cover more airings. To do this they've been airing just one match per episode, regardless of match length. Thing is, I don't know if I've seen a match in the promotion go over 15 minutes, which means they have one short match stretched out over a full 1/2 hour of programming. It happened the other week with the Lady Apache match, and here we go again. We get FULL wrestler ring entrances and full announcer introduction. Each wrestler comes out separately. Slaps fives with the fans, walks all around the ring. We see ALL of this. We get to the 11 minute mark. Still entrances. We go to a commercial break. Long story long the first actual physical exchange does not happen until my DVR reads 16 minutes. 16 minutes!! Of a 30 minute show that you PAY TO AIR! How is this even possible!? Even then we get a lot of stalling to start, leading us into another commercial. So essentially most of the first 2/3 of their money was spent on guys walking to the ring, standing in the ring, and then doing "who can get this side of the crowd to cheer louder!?" spots. Good lord.

Match itself was fairly decent, as decent as a 9 minute match hacked by commercial breaks into 3 parts could be. La Pantera is not *THEE* Pantera, so pretty lame choice of name there. Panda is a smart gimmick by the promotion of putting a chubby not-very-good guy into a Kung Fu Panda costume. Doesn't matter that he's not good, the kids love it and it gets easy pops. Smart move. The rudos (team with Famous B) don't really get much offense, which is another thing that's really starting to grate on me about this promotion. Most of the matches are just extended tecnico squash matches. It's fine to have those on the card, give the kids something to cheer for, but 80% of the matches they air are tecnicos running wild on rudos, rudos rolling to the floor, and then tecnicos winning. Hardly any times in peril.

Why am I paying money to see these goofs live this weekend? Well, because they booked Timothy Thatcher and Super Crazy. But also...Rocky Romero Workrate Report coming this weekend!!!

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