Pro Wrestling Revolution Live Report 10/27/18

Tim Livingston Reporting:


Pro Wrestling Revolution Road Report – 10/27/18

I made a day out of my trek to east San Jose to see LA Park at a high school gymnasium, getting matcha soft serve at Matcha Café Maiko in San Francisco and finishing my scenic trip down Skyline Blvd with a pizza cheesesteak at Amato’s in west San Jose. I still remember Delco’s when I was working with the Blue Jays in Florida and it’s difficult to find a good cheesesteak anywhere out here; Amato’s is basically the only place to go in the bay area for your cheesesteak needs.

Pro Wrestling Revolution has been around for over a decade and does a good job with its presentation. My first exposure to them was going down with Eric to a high school gym in the Mission District in SF to see Timothy Thatcher literally carry Blue Demon, Jr. to a very good match years ago, and they have a good following with the Latin fans in the Bay Area. The gym had the entrance across from one section of the bleachers with a ramp (short version of the old WCW ramp) and a full lighting setup that made it look pro. Gym was pretty dang full, probably 750-1000 in total. Sartorial choices were of the Bullet Club variety if they weren’t lucha-themed shirts. PWR is always good for bringing in a big name or two, and bringing in LA Park in 2018 certainly qualifies, along with Silver King (with his mask) in the semi-main. No-brainer $15 ticket here.

Card was subject to change here as it looked like Misterioso was unable to make the show which set a domino effect all the way down the card.

Show began with La Migra interrupting the Mexican National Anthem to cut a promo on how they’re gonna send Park and Damian 666 back over the wall and the Lucha Horsemen were gonna take the tag titles. It’s cheap heat, but damn it, it was good heat. Colt Stevens was looking jacked here, as was former Phoenix Pro Wrestling champ JR Kratos. You also had Sparky Ballard out in his suspenders looking like guero Tirantes (referee hate became a theme throughout the show). But it set the tone, got the crowd off to a hot start, and allowed the show to grow from there.

Cu Cuy/Grappler III/Fuerza Azteca vs. Mariachi Jr./Pantera Jr./Ultra Hashi

Fun opener that did a lot of basic stuff well to build off the promo. Hashi is basically a mini, billed at 120 and if he’s any taller than 5 feet, he’s lying. Cu Cuy is only a few inches taller than Hashi but weighs nearly 300 pounds. Does well moving around for all of Hashi’s armdrags, and has great fat boy offense, including a running splash that looks like it crushed poor Hashi. Grappler is Rik Luxury (the ¼ pound during the intro gave it away) and he gets some cool stuff in as he always does. The other three were kinda non-descript, with the tecnicos trying all types of armdrags but not landing them in the most graceful of ways. Pantera’s big high spot was him doing a pescado onto everyone for the stretch run, leaving it down to Hashi and Cu Cuy for the finish, where Hashi gets the win with a crossbody off the top. Kids were doing his pose to him as he left the ring post-match, which is basically everything you want out of the fan experience for an opener.

Ultimo Panda vs. “The Flying Lion” Marcus Lewis

Lewis wasn’t on the original card so I’m guessing he’s the Misterioso sub as he lives in San Jose, which is cool because I love watching him work. Panda is, of course, Vincenzo Massaro working under the hood, and he comes out to Gangnam Style and is over with the kids. Comedy stylings to start out as they get to do the ol’ “Panda gets tired running the ropes sequence” bit, but when it breaks down into a 50/50 match, it gets fun. Panda using his size against Marcus, Marcus using his speed and his strikes, and then some good nearfalls down the stretch. Marcus even gets sat on attempting a sunset flip. Panda wins with his FFF variation with him seated on the top rope, which Marcus bumps big on for the finish. Then they do the Gangnam Style dance together afterwards. Crowd has been hot all night and on that kick, they’re 2-for-2.

PWR Jr. Heavyweight Title: Bestia 666 © vs. Vapor

Vapor is sometimes PPW hand and DDT hand Royce Isaacs, who’s worked the gimmick in a few spots in California and it’s a good look, kind of like Bane but not on the gas. Bestia is Bestia and I kinda figured he might phone it in here, but they really go at it for a good 12 minutes or so. Vapor controls and hits a bodyslam on the hardwood before leering out into the crowd (I can’t undersell how much the crowd went after the rudos during this show). Also counters a slam into a nice Island Driver variant for a near fall. Bestia eventually comes back and hits a DVD on the apron before retaining, which is the only finish of the match I can’t seem to remember offhand. I remember liking the stretch run, but the finish didn’t stick with me. Odd.

PWR Tag Team Titles – Jungle Boy and Prostipirugolfo © vs. Lucha Horsemen

The Horsemen are Papo Esco and Arkady, with Esco’s tights literally saying “Fat Boy” on them as if they’re booking this show specifically for me. He hits a chokebreaker on the referee during their entrance so that Sparky HAS to be the referee, as he’s the only other guy who could do it, but the champs jump them before the bell to take advantage. This was the Jungle Boy show, as he was flying around and hitting his offense really crisp (along with good basing from Esco and Arkady), and then plays a good face in peril before Prosti gets caught for the longer section. When he gets the hot tag, he takes it up even another notch, clearing the ring and hitting a nice tope to the hard camera side. Of course, the match is full of Sparky shenanigans with either slow counts or not counting or derisively pointing out who the legal man was. That did lead to the finish, where a distraction by Sparky leads to a foul and a quick count pinfall and there’s new champs. For the shenanigans, at least it played into the finish. Jungle Boy was fantastic in this, though, and he seems to be getting a good run in the bay area and with good reason. Slight of build, but he can go. Also of note is the fan next to me continuing to razz Sparky throughout the match, offering him and Esco to eat some chicken nuggets. Popped some of the folks around me, but he did it literally the entire match, which got annoying pretty quickly with me. We get it: Fat guys like fast food.

Silver King vs. El Hijo de LA Park

King comes out wearing the mask, which I was a bit confused about because I remember him without his mask way more than with it. This is where they lost me with the ref stuff, as King and Parkcito take turns trying to coerce him to hit the other one, only for both of them to gang up on him and chop him down. Some matwork to start, where I hope King would work more maestro stuff than try and go 50/50, but Parkcito can go and they trade some nice holds. King starts trying to lay in the strikes but most of them whiff, sadly. Parkcito hits a tremendous tope that pushes King right up against the guardrail. King rudos it up during the second half and unties the mask which leads to him whipping the mask off on a charge and rolling Parkcito up for the win. I have this feeling it might have come off better on tape. Might be worth a second look if I can find it out there.

Cole Stevens/JR Kratos vs. LA Park/Damian 666

Place comes absolutely unglued for Park, who plays the chair as a guitar on his way down the ramp and just absolutely oozes charisma from every pore, posing on the chair in the ring and looking like the legend he is. There isn’t too much structure early on (spots were easily visibly called here) but the chaos adds to it, especially with Sparky having been involved in the shenanigans earlier on. Kratos mauling on Park is a good visual, and Damian is cool just brawling with Stevens wherever he can. Sparky gets run off (complete with going through the crowd to escape Park), which leads to the ref from the previous match coming in and becoming a part of the match AGAIN (kinda tired at this point), but he at least bumps huge on a corner charge and goes back to doing his job. Park’s belt gets involved and everyone gets whipped with it, with the ref taking the most punishment, of course. Park and Damian hit stereo topes right in front of me which makes my year. After a big miscommunication spot, Park grabs the chair, hits Kratos with it, and spears him for the pin. Folks throw money into the ring afterwards and Park acts like he’s ready to Chippendales it up for even more. He then gets on the mic and cuts a promo thanking folks for coming out to support the show (even with his “terrible fucking English” as he put it). Fun, chaotic brawl that was completely charisma driven and held up by everyone just going for it with the molten crowd, a great way to end the show.

I mean, it’s LA Park in 2018 working a high school gym in Northern California; I’ve now seen both him and PCO in the flesh in high school gyms this year and they both come off as huge presences even in that setting. Pretty sure him being there galvanized the entire card because this was good top to bottom. Nobody wanted to go out there and have a stinker with Park ready to show everyone why he’s the man, and it paid off. Well worth trying to find if the tape shows up somewhere.

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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 3/21/15

More matches from the 10/4/14 King City show (that's right, King City! This isn't Salinas motherfuckers!)

1. Virgil Flynn & Orion vs. Willie Mack & Ultimo Panda

Ah Pro Wrestling Revolution, where wrestlers I enjoy go to have boring matches. And this was another program highlighting their staggeringly awful time management. This is an 11 minute match. This is a 30 minute TV show. The only thing they showed was this match. No promos, no highlights, nothing else. Just one 11 minute match, stretched out over a 30 minute broadcast. Unacceptable. And the match itself was very much nothing. I like Virgil Flynn, always love Willie Mack, and yet here Mack had one of his weakest showings. I get that this is not a workmate fed, so why would guys ever bust ass more than necessary if the live crowd is entertained? I get it. Ultimo Panda actually handles the first 50% + of this, which is bad. The guy is not good. He's fine in a six man when he can come in, hit some okays fat dude offense, and then dance while other guys do the heavy lifting. Here he works half the match around slapping Virgil on the ass and then dancing. Amusing once, unbearable after you realize this is the only match they're gonna air. Mack does none of his awesome fat dude flying spots, also relying on dancing, as well as a couple of his nice kicks. I'm still beyond tickled the promotion just calls Virgil Flynn "Virgil" on its advertising. Like what other reason could there be for that!? I would LOVE to see the one person who wanted to see Wrestling Superstar Virgil. I'm surprised they don't bill Orion as "The Viper" Randy Orion. The match was much filler. Much, much filler. Again nearly half of it was Panda working ass slapping and/or dancing exchanges with Flynn. Mack didn't do any of his impressive flying spots, instead sticking to some schtick and the occasional nice kick (I do like his fast flying heel kick). Panda and Mack hit a pair of nasty stereo over-the-shoulder piledrivers for the win, and this was essentially an 11 minute squash, broadcast over 30 minutes. Rough, rough stuff.

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Pro Wrestling Revolution Workrate Report 1/24/15

This match was from the 6/8/14 Watsonville show.

1. Virgil Flynn & Famous B vs. Willie Mack & Ultimo Panda vs. Brian Cage & Colt Stevens vs. Gallo Tapado Jr. & Orion

Seems like an odd resource allocation to bring in a bunch of talent and then just dump them all in to a 4 team tag match, but we'll see how it all goes. Virgil Flynn, who wrestles a lot all over the Bay Area (and even won the main event of the inaugural Phoenix Pro Wrestling show that I did commentary for) is billed only as "Virgil" here, and appears to always just go by Virgil on PWR shows. That's strange since he wrestles everywhere as Virgil Flynn, which makes me think that PWR is doing the world's most hilarious bait and switch, trying to lure Wrestling Superstar Virgil's biggest fan. And wrestling shows draw some weird people. People who aren't up on current names and could very well think they're seeing the same Virgil who they barely remember from two decades prior. We once saw three weird obese racist triplets in their 60s at a WWE show screaming at the black wrestlers. People are weird. I saw somebody rent War of the Worlds 2 at a Redbox because they loved Tom Cruise and didn't realize he had made a second one (he did not). People are dummies. But potentially using the name Virgil as a means to lure somebody is really something. This is a promotion who booked several Hijo de Rey Misterio matches, and while they never stated "WWE's own Rey Misterio", I''m positive that most kids and even many adults were expecting Rey Misterio based on the way they advertised him. But I mean, at least that's Rey Misterio. I'm endlessly tickled by the idea of trying to game unsuspecting ticket buyers with Virgil.

The match itself was plenty fun, although as I predicted there were too many guys so some stuff was rushed and the eliminations coming as quickly as they did was predictable and silly. Going through each of the guys, Flynn didn't get tons of time but looked good when in. He and Panda don't match up very well as Flynn is tiny and Panda is not very good. So those parts weren't the best. But he got to hit one of his awesome cannonballs into the corner on Gallo and hit a big somersault dive to the floor. Willie Mack always shines in multi man matches and this was no different as he has great looking offense that really fits a tag type setting. Cool flying offense for a big'un and at one point he took a nasty bump off a Cage clothesline. Always love seeing Mack. Panda was really in this too much. There's 8 guys, and even with the match spread across 7 other guys his act started wearing thin. A bunch of comedy spots with ref Sparky Ballard isn't my cup of tea, and Panda is just really clunky at times. Cage is humongous here compared to how he's looked recently on Lucha Underground (which was likely taped a couple months ago), and he always shows a bunch of ass in PWR. So far he's been a monster in LU, so it's weird seeing him selling Panda comedy one day and mowing through fliers the next. Colt Stevens wasn't really in enough to make an impression. Gallo Tapada is arguably the weirdest luchador to have gotten a few working dates in America. I don't know if I'd call him "good" but he always tries and that counts for something. I actually thought he was going to do a crazy dive onto everybody towards the end divetrain, but he kinda wisely pulled back and did more of a crossbody. But the guy leans into offense (didn't flinch while taking Virgil's nasty cannonball) so I never mind seeing him. Orion was your kind of workrate-y indy guy who did a couple nice things, but didn't make a huge impression on me.

Match was fun but had eliminations the way they always do in those ciberneticos: the match goes on for awhile with no eliminations, and then suddenly all of them happen within 2 minutes. I hate that, like they got the call to go home and are like "Crap nobody is eliminated! 'Sko!!" There was also a fun divetrain that was kinda sloppy, everybody was really bad at catching everybody else. Maybe I'm spoiled watching King Cuerno regularly demolish Drago, but it was kind of funny watching almost every dive end with a guy mostly missing a sea of bodies.

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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 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 2/1/14

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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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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