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 8/16/14

Another match from the 5/18/14 Morgan Hill show.

Atlantis, Gallo Tapado Jr. & Mascara Sagrada vs. Damian 666, Zokre & Vaquero Fantasma

Gallo Tapado Jr. may be the weirdest lucha fly-in I've ever seen. I'm unsure how big a star his dad was, but his dad likely retired in the 80s or early 90s. I think I've seen this guy on an IWRG undercard, maybe. But that's a weird way to bring in guys. "I think this guy may have worked an IWRG undercard before! Fly him in!" Damian gets on the stick and talks for a few minutes, and literally 80% of what he says is muted. Then Sagrada grabs the mic and the same thing happens. I have no clue what they said, but apparently it was a) bad enough to be unsuitable for TV, and b) so important that it had to be left on the broadcast, even if you couldn't understand what they were saying. And so here we are, 10 minutes into a 30 minute broadcast, with no wrestling having occurred. This would be like Raw starting their first match at the 40 minute mark. Is this why the "Revolution" is in Pro Wrestling Revolution? I'm still completely unclear about what exactly is supposed to be revolutionary about any of this. It's a name that's dumb enough to get angry about if you actually think about it. How, in any way at all, is anything they do revolutionary, or even just a change from the norm?

Match itself was not great, but decent. Sagrada looked enormous here, and I've seen him before in this fed and he was as lazy and selfish as you remember him being. But here he really busts butt and seemed like he was really trying to not dog it. He was slow (his majistral took forever) but he took some big bumps for a fat guy crammed into a bodysuit (nice backdrop bump and a nice spill into the ropes) and while he didn't look great, he tried and that's worth something. Gallo Tapado was probably the best of the bunch here as he really worked from bell to bell, always doing something. It was not a performance I was expecting and he really tried to make this match into something more than "let's work around Damian stooging for Atlantis". He really worked hard to turn it into a tecnicos vs. rudos battle, threw some fine armdrags, nice apron work, did a nice springboard body press onto Damian onto the ground (which always looks extra great when it's outdoors and into dirt, like this was). So yeah, sorry for making fun of you up above Tapado. Damian kind of worked like 2014 Damian would work, which is wander around and punch people, take a couple spots from Atlantis, and then hit the floor to jaw with fans. Zokre had a weird billy goats beard sticking out of the bottom of his mask (unsure if it was real beard or beard on mask) but Atlantis had several fun spots involving him ripping at the beard. I especially liked Atlantis holding the beard while climbing up to the top, then doing a cool leverage "beard drag" jumping off and flinging him. The whole match is essentially arm drags, leading to multi-man pinfall attempts (the estrella, the triple sunset flip, etc.), with the big springboard body press by Tapado being the big high spot. Not a mind-blowing match, but fun enough to air for sure.

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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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