Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 4/25/15

More matches from their most recent show, the 2/28/15 San Francisco show.

1. Kianna Rivera vs. Savanah Riley

Who wants some ref shenanigans!? Not anybody! But as we all know, PWR is a big time fan of referees being the primary focus of a match. Yeah, sometimes is riles the fans up. But I bet if you asked every single fan in attendance if they'd rather see these two work a normal 7 minute match, or a 7 minute match with heel ref schtick, I would be shocked if anybody would request the latter. It's never something that makes a match better. It robs us of actual match time and replaces it with Rivera (who works more commonly as Nicole Savoy) having to argue with ref Sparky Ballard, complain about unfair treatment and slow counts. It also forces Savanah Riley to work like a total putz as due to all of the slow counts to put the ref over, she appears to have had 5 visual losses in just 7 minutes. Both wrestlers are okay workers, but hamstrung having to play second fiddle to the ref. Rivera hits a nice dive (that falls a little short) and keeps going for a KO kick, which eventually lands and must have been one hell of a kick as it keeps Riley down for an 11 second 3 count. I'm just thankful we didn't get Sparky pulling up with a bad shoulder. So in that respect, they fooled me.

2. Vaquero Fantasma vs. Gallo Tapado Jr.

This match is instantly notable as they completely edit out the ring entrances and start with both men in the ring. The main problem with this show is normally how poorly edited it is, with full entrances and unintelligible mic work and "which side of the crowd is louder" being shown in their entirety. This is one of the only times they edit out those things, which have never added one bit to the actual shown matches (that stuff is obviously only shown because the fed does not have enough material for a weekly show, so therefore must streeeeeetch every single match out for content). This shows they actually know how to properly edit a match for maximum impact, and they just choose to not ever do that.

Match itself was weird as we start with some serviceable armdrags and a crossbody exchange, but Tapado appears to get his bell rung taking a crossbody and things seem disjointed and odd the rest of the way out. Tapado is slow getting up, and Fantasma tries picking him up but Tapado clearly does not want to be picked up. But Tapado keeps bumping and going through spots, just much slower and clunkier. A couple of times Fantasma has to put himself into pins. There was supposed to be a pin reversal that ending up seeing Gallo not move a single muscle, so Fantasma had to wiggle himself into position to make it look like his shoulders were down. Then we just cut immediately to Gallo locking on a submission for the end. So....something happened here, not sure what it was. But it looked weird.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 8/30/14

More non-Liger matches from the 5/18/14 show in Morgan Hill. I'm not sure Liger vs. Blue Demon would be any good, but it's obviously the most interesting looking thing on that card and it's odd how they keep avoiding ever showing their biggest matches, meanwhile showing stuff like battle royales.


1. Savanah Riley vs. Nicole Savoy

Rudo refs are just about the most boring way to get me immediately uninterested in a match, and this is a fed that really loves putting over their refs in matches. Sparky Ballard was working his rudo ref gimmick here, which meant the match was all about him, all the grinding a match to a halt with slow counts, all the rudo ref mugging. I guess eventually we'll get to see him get his comeuppance? But who cares? I have zero interest in seeing a non wrestler get comeuppance. What's the most that will happen, a tecnico will give him their finisher at one point? Kewl. In the meantime he just gloryhogs matches and makes them structurally impossible to be any good. Savoy had some cool stuff here, including an awesome capture suplex. Savanah predictably wins with a fast count roll up, but again I can't imagine anybody actually caring. Heel ref antics in 2014! I'm completely stunned this group doesn't have a rudo authority figure.

2. Ultimo Panda vs. JR Kratos

 Oof, awful structure to this one. Kratos took the first 7 minutes (zero offense from Panda) and then they flipped a switch and it was Panda's turn for the next 3 until he won. Awful. Kratos is a large guy with some impressive power spots. Here I especially liked his front powerslam, where he slammed Panda, then deadlifted him (and Panda is very tubby) up to do it again. He also at one point did a bear hug on Panda, a fact that was lost on the announcer. Kratos also did a cool spear in the corner after putting Panda up in a tree of woe. But again, it's 7 minutes of all Kratos tearing Panda apart, and then Panda just hits a clothesline out of nowhere and takes the rest of the match. Just awful. And Panda looked really bad doing offense. He clearly had trouble lifting Kratos for spots, and setting up a tarantula took an uncomfortably long time. Panda is way out of shape (which, I guess is pretty much in line with a panda bear) but man was it tough watching him struggle to lift himself up over Kratos off a missed corner charge. Panda did have a neat roll through on a Kratos chokeslam attempt, but even that was rough to start as Panda's conditioning made the spot take forever to set up and time. No selling to speak of throughout this match from Panda (except when he was moving much slower later in the match), and really guys taking their offense up front and getting there's in back is maybe a worse match format than your move-my move.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 8/9/14

More matches from the 5/18/14 show in Morgan Hill.

1. Los Campesinos vs. The Persian Dynasty (Kia and Cyrus)

I'm not sure I've seen either team here before (although I have seen Welsh indie pop band Los Campesinos before…), but I immediately appreciate that the show starts with the Persian Dynasty attacking Los Camps at the bell. No ring entrances, just brief intros. That's maximizing your short time! Good. Campesinos are called Numeros Uno y Dos. Not sure which Persian guy is which. One has a mask and the other doesn't. Camps wear full red and white body suits, and I think I've maybe seen the chubby one before. Match itself wasn't much to write about. It went about 6 minutes, nobody looked very good. The fed really pushes itself as lucha libre, obviously, but it's weird as most guys in the fed don't work anything close to a lucha style. It's pretty standard wrestling, only the guys wear masks most of the time. I mean…I guess Los Campesinos did dropkicks at one point, but they were kind of sloppy. Both teams were pretty sloppy in general. Persians controlled with bodyslams, Kia (I think) hit an ugly leg drop at one point, and some not good chops and wimpy elbows in the corner (but they kinda looked like the type of elbows that look really bad, but probably actually hurt the other guy). Kia hits a nice yakuza kick at one point. On the hot tag one of Los Camps does these goofy uppercut things, that I'm not actually sure what they were supposed to be, and the match ends shortly after with double sunset flips. Huh. This was not good.

2. Battle Royal!

Bunch of people coming out for this, with Ultimo Panda, Famous B, JR Kratos, both of the tag teams from above, Savanah Riley and another woman. Kratos immediately goes after a woman, which is a really odd thing for the biggest face in the match to do, considering there's at least a 120 lb. difference, and there are several actual males in the match. But yeah, good guy, you go grab that woman by the hair! The ring announcer also regularly states over the mic for parents to keep their children in their seats so they don't get hurt. Where would both the children and wrestlers be going during this battle royal that would involve children getting hurt!? This was a pretty standard battle royal (read: not interesting to live crowd or television viewers) with people wandering around until it was time for eliminations to take place. Pistolero tried bringing extra stuff to it by attacking women, and then women getting their revenge. Famous B also tried bringing some personality by hiding behind Savanah. Spot of the match was probably JR Kratos press slamming the other gal out of the ring onto one of Los Campesinos to eliminate her. So…I guess all the good spots involved men beating up women, which…yeah.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 7/5/14

The last several weeks they've been showing reruns of this show, but now they're back to showing fairly recent stuff (which is a nice trend compared to them showing 4 year old matches). This match was from the 2/22/14 show in SF that we all attended. We ended up running a little late as Tim wildly took a turn like he was trying to shake a tail, a turn nobody suggested he take. It's possible Tim is leading a secret life and was trying to avoid running into his secret family or something. So we walked into this match right when the bell rang.

1. Cheerleader Melissa vs. Christina Von Eerie vs. Savanah Riley

Pretty disappointed when this was announced as a three way. Three ways are always a mess, lead to tons of awkward exchanges, tons of weirdly shoehorned three person spots, one person disappearing for way too much time, just bad. I much rather would have seen a singles match with any combo of the girls. I'm unfamiliar with Riley, but she worked the crowd better than the others, threw some nice forearms and chops, seemed fine. I've seen Von Eerie a lot more, and she is not very good. Really sloppy (she almost spikes herself delivering a sunset flip) and the "Oi" chants seemed a little lost on the audience made up mostly of hispanic children. Though I assume (if it hasn't happened already) that Colt Cabana will be using an Oy chant in a similar way Daniel Bryan does the Yes! kicks. This match had plenty of nice individual moments. Von Eerie took a nasty bump off the apron to the floor, letting Melissa/Riley work solo for awhile. Melissa bent Riley in half with a vicious indian deathlock/boston crab combo, and threw some cool axe kicks. The times the match fell apart were when they shoehorned  in 3-way spots, like the dreaded "superplex/powerbomb" which took a loooong time to set up for the payoff. Riley and Von Eerie kind of just had to freeze time, standing on the ropes waiting for Melissa to wedge herself into position to do the powerbomb, but Von Eerie is tiny so there really wasn't much space for Melissa to fit into. Just a predictable spot that rarely looks good, and really needs to be retired.  Brian Cage interferes on behalf of Riley, and Melissa takes him out with an awesome, out of control dive off the top, allowing Von Eerie to win the title back in the ring. Pro Wrestling Revolution always has a hilariously misguided and bad knack for making the good guys look bad in matches. Here they clearly wanted a big moment for Von Eerie, but they have her win the title by pinning the person who isn't the champ, while the actual champ (Melissa) dominated the whole match and was only out of the ring because guy twice her size interfered. Quite a special moment.

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.

Another major problem I was hoping the fed would fix on their TV hiatus, is the actual time management of their TV show. But my god it's as bad as ever. They have 30 minutes, and that's not a lot of time. But most weeks of television are one match stretched to fill the 30 minute run time. This three way was 11 minutes long, and it's the only match to get shown. We get 7 minutes of ring entrances, 11 minutes of match, and then 3 minutes of highlights of the match we just watched. Just a brutal and wasteful use of your 30 minutes. I know they don't have an extensive library, but their insistence on showing full ring entrances is maddening. This is time that can be much better spent showing some short features on your wrestlers, wrestler promos, promoting upcoming events, anything. But stretching an 11 minute match over the 30 paid for minutes is so, so foolish. It should not take 6 weeks to show one event's worth of matches, but I know they're going to milk this whole damn event, match by match. It's stunning how clueless this fed is when it comes to their TV.

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