Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 4/18/15

We flash forward to their most recent show which is cool, this is from the 2/28/15 show in San Francisco. I have attended a few of their SF shows in the past, but this card really didn't do much for me on paper. Last year Timothy Thatcher was on the card in a singles match so that got my money. After this card I found out Fuerza worked it (in place of his son, who was announced and billed for well over a month, and shockingly* didn't make the trip) and it really would have been cool to see Fuerza work a high school gym. He seems like the kind of worker who would have some nice stuff to see up close in a high school gym. So hopefully they eventually show that match (and considering they milk every single match on a card so they can turn one card into 8 TV shows, I'm sure they will).

1. Willie Mack & Ultimo Panda vs. Los Luchas (Zokre & Phoenix Star)

Mack has been getting some nice TV time lately, not only through this but obviously Lucha Underground (I would be curious what kind of numbers this show draws. I can't imagine it's much, and it is possible that I'm the one person who DVRs it every week, but I'm curious nonetheless. PWR has not exactly been helpful whenever I've emailed them with questions) and he is a guy I love having on my TV. Crowds dig him as well and here he does a bunch of cool stuff, a guy who has some spectacular spots but also pays tons of attention to making his clotheslines, shoulderblocks and other contact look good. Maybe his best moment here was when Los Luchas were slumped in opposing corners and Mack kept charging back and forth with increasingly nasty avalanches. He kept building up more steam and just really went crashing into both guys. Sadly it seems like PWR always sticks him with Ultimo Panda, who outside of a cute mask brings next to nothing to the table. An amusing gimmick to hide Vinny Massaro cosplaying as a bad worker, which becomes not amusing when he's holding back the best worker on the show. You would think he would end up being hidden more in tags, but more often than not he works more of the match than his partner. Most of his work is shtick, or moves that take way too long to set up. Here he hits a very nice crossbody off the top but my god the set up involved one of Los Luchas holding his hand while he got to the top, and both members just standing there waiting for him to stabilize his balance. The end result only looks good if you turn a blind eye to the previous 10 seconds of men standing around waiting. Los Luchas are a shade under efficient as they never do anything memorable, but they're often put into positions in this fed to not succeed. This fed specializes in "Heel in Peril" tags meaning that the rudos don't often get to rudo, and instead are just constantly put into a loop of taking offense. Los Luchas don't do anything spectacular, but I'm sure they would work up to an occasion. Match itself was fine enough and well worth watching just to see Mack do his thing.





*not shocking to anyone

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 2/28/15

This week we get a match from their 10/4/14 show at the King City fairgrounds. What's odd is this was the main event of the show, and usually this promotion milks every single match on their cards, showing just one per week and making a 2 hour card last two months. But they almost always show the main event last, going through all the undercard matches first. So it's curious that the first King City match we get is the main.

1. Juventud Guerrera & Alex Koslov vs. Los Luchas (Phoenix Star & Zokre)

As expected, this was a customary Juventud indy match, where he is on the apron for 80% of the match, doesn't get involved in any situations where he has to sell, just comes in to hit his stuff and pop the crowd, then gets back out. That was expected. The match was odd as there were no real heat segments, yet Los Luchas were supposed to be the rudos (despite not really doing anything rudo-ish). So Koslov was the FIP but was never really in that much danger, and worked fairly even with Los Luchas. Juvy tagged himself in and at this point he kind of works like Rey after his 14th knee surgery, except without taking bumps. His stuff in ring looked good, threw some really nice kicks and ran some quick exchanges, but it was clear and at times pretty obvious he didn't really want to bump or practically leave his feet. At one point he hip tosses one of Los Luchas over the top to the floor, then does the same to the other, tossing him into his partner. Then he teases a dive, but doesn't dive. Then he gets out onto the apron, but doesn't dive. He did do a really great crossbody off the top in ring, but it did seem like most of the time he was actively trying to not leave his feet. It's an interesting workaround and a testament to the skills he still has, that he can still be engaging while also being lazy. Alex Koslov was fine enough here, although not doing tons to stand out. His forearms were much tighter than Los Luchas, which again made the FIP section not great since he seemed to regularly overpower LL. This was pretty much the match you would expect.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 3/9/14

These matches were from the 5/10/13 card in Sacramento that also had a Hijo Del Santo match. Here's betting that match mysteriously never airs.

1. Willie Mack vs. Phoenix Star vs. Brian Cage vs. Ultimo Panda

Cage is juiced to the gills (working a border patrol gimmick is pretty ironic since if I saw a guy crossing the border that looked as gassed as Cage, I would instantly flag him) and what's crazy is that I've seen him on two Bay Area shows within the last month and he's gotten even more massive. If you saw the TNA gut check match with him from a year ago, and then saw what he looks like now? He's put on a dangerous amount of muscle mass in one year. For some reason whenever they have Willie Mac in one of these elimination matches he's always the first guy eliminated, which is lunacy since Panda and Phoenix Star aren't very good. Mac is perfect for these types of matches, as he's a big fat guy who has a bunch of cool offense. I've seen him work long singles matches before so I know he has a decent gas tank. Here he does all his fun stuff like big flying heel kick and awesome standing moonsault. He's also really fun working lucha exchanges as he's just as smooth as tiny guys, but seeing a big guy do a rolling kip-up is way cooler. Now they actually did something right here and started the match at the actual bell time. Usually they show every second of each guy's entrance which is hilarious on a show they pay to air. But they do something that pisses me off just as much, as Mac's elimination happens during the commercial break! This is a taped show, and it's a match that happened almost a year ago. You couldn't figure out how to air this match in full? That is unspeakably annoying. Cage has to hold the rest of this together which he does well, able to take all of Star's armdrags and advancing each spot so it isn't just an Eliminators movez exhibition. Panda's offense never looks that great and he always does a lot of distracting mask adjusting and shorts hiking, but he takes moves well and gets blasted by a Cage clothesline that looked great. Finish was cool with Cage turning a Gory Special into a kind of Sister Abigail which was a nice lucha move with a modern twist. Fun match, but it's going to gnaw at me wondering how much was edited out...

2. Pequeno Halloween vs. Octagoncito

Really fun match that's needlessly shit all over because of a heel ref gimmick getting shoehorned into everything. Sparky Ballard actually makes for a good heel ref, but I have zero interest whatsofuckingever in seeing refs hone their character chops. Still, you ignore eyerolling slow counts and match interrupting bullshit and you focus on Octagoncito hitting a nutso high speed dive into the dirt (match took place in the dirt rodeo arena at a county fair) and Halloween hitting his awesome under the bottom rope sliding splash to the dirt. Pequeno Halloween is killer bumping around for all of Octagoncito's armdrags and flips and flops and I kinda regret not going to this show. I mean jeez, Peq. Halloween and Santo in an outdoor fair setting. Seems like a no brainer (a quick date check shows that I was seeing Yo La Tengo in SF that night, so that's kind of a pretty good excuse).

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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.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report, 10/6/13

This is from that same 5/11/13 Turlock show as last week's matches (they really love showing Turlock cards apparently) that had Santo in the main event. We'll see if we ever get the Santo match. I have been to Turlock exactly one time, for one weekend. My girlfriend-at-the time Hillary had a friend getting married on a Sunday (come on, people, do you know how inconvenient that is?) and it was 88 degrees and all the girls' hair was melting and they had a horrible loooooong service that had every bullshit wedding thing you can think of (lord knows we needed a candle lighting ceremony while "My Heart Will Go On" played). And the rehearsal dinner was at a really bad pizza place. Turlock, everybody! Catch it!

1. Fantasma De la Opera vs. Willie Mack vs. Ultimo Panda vs. Zokre (Phoenix Star?) vs. Vaquero Fantasma

Website lists this as being Zokre, onscreen graphic lists it as Phoenix Star. I've seen both live a couple times, but that was long enough ago that I couldn't tell you which was which in this match. I also know one Uso has a small tattoo on his pec and the other doesn't, but since I regularly forget if Jon or Jey or Jimmy has the tattoo it doesn't do me much good. Announcers refer to him as Phoenix Star so we'll go with that. Mac is a chubby black guy who moves real well. I've seen him live a bunch, at PWG and Lucha Va Voom and I'm always really impressed by his agility. He's got great leaping skills for a big man and throws some power moves with some oomph, stiff shoulderbocks and some decent comedy as well. This is an elimination match and it's pretty hot. Mac gets eliminated first which is a shame but he gets tons of cool stuff in before taking the fall. His standing moonsault is super impressive as he hits it really fast. It would be impressive if he were 100 lb. less, but as a man of size it looks pretty incredible (his kip-up also is pretty stunning). Match kinda goes lame right after the Mac elimination as two guys get eliminated almost immediately. Fantasma looked good but we only got to see a little bit of him before he was gone. Vaquero Fantasma also seems fairly solid, and he's perfected the "take lucha arm drag while sliding under the bottom rope to the floor" bump. Ultimo Panda is a fat guy in a Kung Fu Panda suit who doesn't seem that good, so naturally he goes over with some sort of dangerous looking torture rack piledriver thing. Match would have been worlds better if it hadn't been elimination style, as a 10 minute match where 4 people have to be eliminated just does not work. Guys start getting pinned after taking next to no offense the entire match. The work WITHIN the match was real good, but the match format and pacing just gave it no chance.

2. "La Migra" Brian Cage vs. El Mariachi

I'm sure I've seen Cage before in PWG, but here he is like 25+ pounds larger than I remember. Dude has been hitting the gas HARD. He's been hanging out with Jon Anderson too much. Mariachi is pretty so-so. They work a lot of reversal spots where timing is pretty important, and he's just a split second off which makes everything look confusing. For example, a spot where both guys are supposed to throw forearms, but Mariachi is supposed to be quicker on the draw, ended with Mariachi being late, so both guys hitting each other at the exact same time. Only Cage was supposed to be hit, but both guys took a shot, but they went with the end result anyway which means Cage bumped for the shot, while Mariachi didn't and just kinda stood there. Stuff like this happened a few times. For a guy named "La Migra" I expected a little bit of crowd work from Cage, but there was none. The crowd appeared to be 90% hispanic (if not more) and you're playing a Border Patrol guard. And there's not the least bit pointing to the crowd bullshit. This did not work for me. 

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