Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 5/2/15

1. The Grapplers (Grappler III & VI) vs. Los Campesinos vs. Anarkia & Cazador del Alma vs. Los Chicanos (Memo Cuevas & El Pistolero)

You know you're hilariously bad at pacing your TV show when the show starts with ring entrances, then has to take a commercial break in the middle of the ring entrances, only to return for the rest of the ring entrances. I mean damn, guys. But you know? This match was actually quite good. Sometimes their multi mans can be kind of a mess, and this was still kind of a mess but had plenty of good. The Grapplers looked really good here. They're Rik Luxury and Bay Area vet Bobby Hart under masks with their long ponytail braids popping out the back. They're both the biggest guys in the match, but that doesn't stop them from breaking out some large dude topes. Hart has some cool offense and nice presence, his Psycho Driver looks crushing and rightly gets a pinfall, and I dug him slingshotting Anarkia into an ace crusher. He and Luxury bump around nicely for bigger guys. The dive train in this was a nice one, Anarkia especially had a nice one getting backdropped to the man pile. Oddly the match felt a little clipped, which would be amusing if they clipped the match but showed full ring entrances. Pistolero only got in towards the end, and other things felt rushed or skipped. Some of the match was designed to put over new valet Sada Simone who is a curvy pretty gal who apparently was on a TV show called The Real L Word, which existed, and she was on it. I don't know if it was reality or scripted reality or a drama or what. But she was on it. It is kinda funny to book a woman as distracting and foxy to men, when she's most famous for being a lesbian. The distraction spots were all clunky, through no fault of her own. The finish comes when a Campesino has Cuevas pinned for the likely win, but boneheaded referee Tom Castor stops counting the pin to tell Sada to get off the apron. I'm....unsure why he couldn't have finished counting the pinfall, as she was several feet away on the apron and not affecting the finish in the least. But then of course, as a tecnico, that Campesino has to threaten to forcefully tongue kiss Simone, while the announcer creepily chants "Beso". This leads to him losing. Woof. Still, with this fed it's best to ignore as much of the braindead stuff as possible and try and enjoy the good, and this match had more good than most. A bunch of big dives, really good performance from the Grapplers, some fun armdrags, and some decently paced action (until the too-quick eliminations).  This may have actually been the quickest paced match I've seen from this fed. Normally there is a lot of cliched rudo stalling, or ref shenanigans, or just guys that aren't good at working fast. Here they made good use of having a lot of fresh guys, as multi man matches always should. A pleasant surprise.

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 12/20/14

The matches from this episode were from the 6/8/14 show in Watsonville, CA which actually looked kind of stacked. Pirata Morgan was in the main event (against Blue Demon) and I'm very interested in seeing 2014 Morgan in a podunk CA town so hopefully that gets aired at some point. Show also had a mask vs. hair match and some other interesting sounding stuff. They've been good about showing new things so hopefully we get to see the complete show over the next few weeks.



1. Timothy Thatcher vs. El Pistolero

Well shoot, I can't complain too much about a fed who's putting a Thatcher match on Saturday morning television for all to see. Maybe it's possible that some young child will be skipping through TV channels, come across Thatcher stomping the life out of someone's arm and think, "Hey, wrestling is cool!" But that won't happen because ugh kids these days am I right? With their tablet devices and Nintendo Power Gloves. This match was mostly a Thatcher showcase, with a short fun comeback burst from Pistolero. So you got to see a bunch of cool Thatcher stuff that you love to watch in Thatcher matches. He doesn't always do things the same way, and he doesn't do things in a similar order, so they're always a treat. You know you're getting some nasty uppercuts, you know you're getting some arm work, and you know you're going to enjoy it. His arm stuff is always cool and I never get tired of seeing him bend somebody's wrist in different directions, hold down somebody's arm with his boot while he twists their ankle, stomp on somebody's hand if they are on the mat for too long. He does some awesome stuff here on the mat that's unique and logical. He crawls all around Pistolero while always keeping some sort of pressure on some tender area. Working on the arm he digs his knees into Pistolero's back as he transitions to another limb. It's stuff I haven't seen somebody else do, and I loved seeing it used here. Pistoleror's comeback is fun as he gets to blast Thatcher with some forearms and a leaping elbow, but Thatcher catches him quickly and puts him down with a Fujiwara. Note: Probably a bad idea to go into a Thatcher match with your arm already wrapped. It's like showing up to an orgy already naked. It's something that's going to happen anyway, but we prefer that it happens organically.

2. Kikyo Nakamura vs. "La Diamante Negra" Kianna Rivera

These were two women I've never seen before, who I'd like to see again some time. Match was short but both showed promise. Nakamura is a large woman who tries to work like Aja Kong, and I will never criticize a gal for that. She doesn't have the stiffness or bulldozer mentality of Aja, but she has size and attitude and is willing to take some shots. She could be one to watch. Rivera had some cool running kicks and was an easy face to get behind, so while this was probably a standard touring match or practice match for them it was still plenty fun for a 5 minute match.

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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 9/29/13

So this was from a fairly recent show, happening in May 2013. Which means we jumped from airing 4+ year old matches on up to present day. We're never going to see those missing 4 years of matches, are we? Still that actually gives me hope that Santo's 2013 appearance from the same show eventually turns up on this show.

1. Persian Prince vs. Pistolero

I know Pistolero is a PWR trainee (there's a cringe-y statement from him on the Pro Wrestling Revolution site that seems written by the owner of PWR, talking about how they were a great place to train, but with a bunch of petty thinly-veiled digs thrown in at APW, who I think started training him before he moved on to be trained at PWR. He even calls them "that school up north" which tickles me to no end) and I know nothing about Persian Prince (I could not locate any internet flame war letters that he wrote). Match seemed kind of built to showcase Pistolero, and I dug what I saw. Nothing flashy but I don't believe he's been working for long. He had nice elbows and forearm strikes, took a big bump off a reversed bulldog, and did a cool deadlifty German suplex. Couldn't get much of a read on Prince, but he did ragdoll and fold up nicely for the German suplex. Match ends suddenly and flatly on Prince's first offensive move, a flying shoulderblock with some wonky timing. Something seemed off and Pistolero landed funny taking it, then they just went to the pin. Crowd seemed confused. I seemed confused. Rewound to see what happened, still couldn't really tell. Prince threw a shoulder block, Pistolero bumped kinda fast and awkwardly, match ended.

2. Pequeno Halloween vs. Octagoncito

On paper this was one of the more exciting matches I've seen on a PWR card. And the match delivered and would have been killer live. We get 4 minutes of cool matwork stuff that is kind of exhibition-y, not so much mat struggle as "here's some cool stuff we can do" but that doesn't really matter here. Halloween busts out plenty of cool intricate twisty submissions where he has 3 limbs tied up all at once with all of them doing different things, and Octagoncito has some cool roll ups to get out of them. It builds really nicely to maximize the crowd getting into it, leaping into a couple of really hot dives and big bumps from both guys. Cool spot where Octagoncito tries something from the apron but Halloween hits a drop toe hold, then dropkicks him to the floor and follows up with the Halloween face first slide bump but does this one as a splash on Octagoncito. The match was as good as I hoped it would be. Aside from a couple flubbed headscissor spots everything looked cool, and Pequeno Halloween still looks just as good as he did when he was making tape more regularly in 2007-2009 (when I thought he and Pequeno Damien and Bam Bam were three of the best workers in the world). Pretty impressive that he's kept his work up to that level while working as a freelancer. I just wish he showed up more often.

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