SoCalUNCENSORED.com - Southern California Pro Wrestling - One To Grow On v2.0 by WhiteTrashMark

One To Grow On v2.0
by WhiteTrashMark

Well, I wasn't really planning on doing a review of this show so I didn't take any notes... but since the omniscient Scrub knew I was there apparently, I shall do my best to give you something.

First... let's all take a moment to complain about traffic to the City of Industry from Orange County. It sucks. Really. Especially when there's rain. It may be a slight rain... but it makes people mental nonetheless.

So, I arrived at the Mecca of SoCal Wrestling, the Frank And Son Collectible Warehouse Arena later than I expected. No time to visit some of my favorite booths. By the way, was I the only one calling it Frank And Sons for years?! I just realized today that there's only one Son... only one!

When I got there at about 1:15, I saw no line to the show so I immediately figured that people weren't being let in yet. But as I got closer, I saw that I was unfortunately wrong. When I walked into the Arena, there was a whopping ten people in there. Eeeps. A bad sign. The crowd eventually grew to... oh, I'd say 50 or so. Not horrible... but Rev Pro deserves much better, especially for one of their last major events. If you've ever gone to a PWG/AWS/PCW/GSCW/EPIC/etc. show, you should be supporting Rev Pro in these final days and paying tribute to the company responsible for SoCal wrestling being as strong as it is today.

I was excited for Rev J... even though it didn't look as good on paper as past years... but dammit, it's Rev J. I've only missed one... last year's and I can't even remember why now. But I was there at the Anaheim Indoor in the back of the building where the mats outside the ring were soaked with condensation. I was there with the ARSION girls getting streamers of respect. And then the following year with QUACKENBUSH and the tremendous run by Mr. Excitement to win it all. Great stuff. Rev J is a major highlight of the SoCal wrestling year and I wish someone would pick up its' legacy in the years to come.

Anyways... down to business...

MATCH ONE: Scorpio Sky vs Scott Lost
This was a fun way to start the show. With the light crowd, I had a fear creeping in the back of my mind that some of the guys might mail it in. I couldn't have been more wrong though. There was a lot of great action in this... something I might have more details for if I'd taken notes! [you'll see this as a running theme... disregard]. Sky took the win with the triangle choke. Good stuff to start the show.

The crowd may have been small, but we were trying to be a receptive audience. I think that showed for most of the day's action.

MATCH TWO: Jason Styles vs Wild Storm
Okay... see... I was down with the whole SoCal vs NoCal idea for this show. But the problem with it was, there was too much SoCal vs SoCal and NoCal vs NoCal to make it work. When two NoCal guys were out there, they got very little reaction. Conversely, if you'd done SoCal vs NoCal the whole way through, you would have had one person in each match that the fans were familiar with and could have rooted for/against. Instead, we got a bunch of matches with two guys we didn't know and didn't care about.

Which leads to Jason Styles getting heel heat because he's from San Francisco. You can imagine the rest, I'm sure. It's highbrow entertainment at its finest.

This match was whatever to me. Storm had the standard indy guy offense down pat. Styles seemed more personable in the ring but less talented overall. But at the same time, Storm seemed to burn through his moveset and would have nothing left for a later round. Styles took the win with a counter that basically was a Canadian Destroyer... but different. Storm had him up for a double leg slam like Bob Holly uses... and Styles somehow flipped it into a piledriver. It was a really cool spot actually and a nice way to wrap up the match.

MATCH THREE: Super Dragon vs Dante
I really was kinda looking forward to this one. Dante's gotten a lot of hype as NoCal's top star and well... Super D is obviously ours. So, this had a whole Best of the Best theme going on to it.

Did it live up to it? Sadly, no. In fact, this is the worst Dragon match I've seen since the one with Favi. It had it's moments... don't get me wrong. Dante had a nice STO... a cool attempt to use Doug Williams' Chaos Theory that turned out a little sloppy... and a great running SSP. Dragon had the usual high-level offense of curbstomps, double stomps, etc. But this just never clicked for me.

MATCH FOUR: UK Kid vs Disco Machine
My immediate thought as Disco came out is what a great choice he would be to win the tournament. We'd already seen Dragon win... Excitement win... Rising Son win. With the possible exception of TARO, there'd be no one better to win the final Rev J tournament, in my opinion.

Apparently my opinion was wrong as the UK Kid spiked him with a second rope tombstone for the pin [impressive spot, by the way].

The match was solid. No complaints. The UK Kid seems much better than the last time I saw him and has really developed a strong in-ring persona. He drew a lot of heat, worked the crowd welll, and showed a lot of potential to be a top indy star at some point in the future.

MATCH FIVE: Chris Bosh vs Hook Bomberry
Great match. These two were all over the place and put on a really fun match to watch. Great strikes... nice backbreakers from Bosh. Hook got to use more offense than I think I've ever seen from him. I'd like to see these two in a longer match to see if they could put together something really special. PWG, make it happen! Bosh/Lost vs Hook/Apollo for the tag titles might be worthwhile too.

MATCH SIX: Joey Harder vs El Hijo De Chupacabra
Riiiiiiight. This match also was solid... nothing to complain about. Chupacabra also seemed to be burning through his moveset too fast to go on in the tourney. Harder was... okay. He was vanilla as hell, dammit! Don't let these people fool you! HE'S NOT THE NEXT GENE SNITZKY!

But he was... okay. The match was... okay.

Next!

MATCH SEVEN: Quicksilver vs Human Tornado
See, this just seems like an example of bad planning to me. Unless Tornado doesn't have enough to go deep into a tourney, why would you toss him out there to lose in the first round? The fans love him. They want to see him win. Why not let him beat Chupacabra or someone and advance to face Quicksilver in the second round if that's what the plans call for? Eh, I'm no booker... but I just don't know about that one.

Tornado continues to get a "PLEASE DON'T DIE!" call from me as he throws himself onto Quicksilver with a somersault plancha to start the match, wiping out a bunch of ringside chairs.

Highlight of the match? The pimpslap exchange near the corner. High quality stuff.

In the end, Silver spikes him with a piledriver to move on in the tournament. Another very fun match.

And for the final match in the first round...

MATCH EIGHT: JJ Perez vs Dana Lee
Who?

Well, Dana Lee gets credit for coming out to "Kung Fu Fighting".

JJ Perez seemed to be the kind of guy who probably has a great match in him... and probably has had some in the past... but this just wasn't his day. This match was blah as hell. Of course, it suffered from the "We don't care who wins" syndrome though.

Perez won with... something. I don't know! NO NOTES!

So, at this point, Round One is over. By my book, we had four matches that were enjoyable... four that weren't. Not what I was hoping for but there's still room for improvement!

Wait. Round Two is starting without even a short intermission? Uh oh.
We're in for a long day.

MATCH NINE: Scorpio Sky vs Jason Styles
This match was okay. I'm becoming a believer in Scorpio Sky to the point where I think it's very difficult for him to have a bad match. Styles played to the crowd who wanted to think he was gay. Whatever. There were some blown spots in here which would make you think it was a good idea to have NoCal vs NoCal early... but it wasn't! I tell ya!

Sky wins with the triangle choke again. I like submission wins...so this gets a bonus point from me. We're up to 5 for 9 on the "quality match scale". As this match ends, I realize how many matches are left and how little time and I wonder if we're going to get some kind of weird ending to the show to hold the finals on another day or something. As much as we'd all love a USA Pro style marathon show, I think Frank and his Son want to get the fuck home.

MATCH TEN [no intermission still! We're dying, people!]: Super Dragon vs UK Kid
Ahhh... now this is a Dragon match I can enjoy. It still wasn't on the upper end of Dragon match quality... but it was a lot closer to that. I enjoyed watching Dragon punish the UK Kid. My mind wandered during this, enthused by a semis of Scorp/Dragon and Quick/Bosh with any of the four possible finals being excellent to look forward to.

Dragon wins it with a Psycho Driver. UK Kid was favoring his foot after the match and actually grabbed it immediately after hitting the canvas on the Psycho Driver. Hope he's okay.

MATCH ELEVEN: Chris Bosh vs Joey Harder
Bosh forfeits. I'm annoyed for a lot of reasons. If this was pre-planned, why send Bosh to the second round? Hook had a great showing and I would have liked him in the main event more than SoCalSnitzky. Also, if it was pre-planned, how many possible people deserve a spot in that match more than Harder? I'm the Anti-Harder fan! I will stand alone against those in the Legion of Harder! I WILL SURVIVE!

MATCH TWELVE: Quicksilver vs JJ Perez
Whatever match. I was still annoyed that Bosh was done to pay much attention to be honest. Silver won with a small package counter to something.

So, they finally call for intermission... twelve matches and two and a half hours deep into the show. I call home to tell my girlfriend that I may be running late since there's four matches left at 4 PM. Guess not. As they bring out the cage, I wonder why they'd do the cage match before the semis. Seemed odd.

During intermission, I wandered over to buy PWG's The Reason on DVD. I was at the show... but I wanted the DVD... which honestly, is truly the sign of a fantastic show. I wasn't paying any attention at all as I picked up the DVD, handed over my money...and as I reached up to grab my change, I notice it's Joey Ryan giving it to me.

Now _that's_ dedication! Pretty soon Excalibur will be selling hot dogs at PWG shows and we will all be at one with the wrestling world.

MATCH THIRTEEN: Los Sanchos vs Los Cochinos
If there's one thing in this world that I never need to see again, it's Bigg E Biggz' ass. This match was eh. It was just kind of all over the place with no structure... no major spots... nothing really. I didn't even see the need for the cage when it was done. Just seemed like a waste of time to set it up.

After the match, AWC cut a promo about the history of Rev Pro... announcing his retirement again and I think he referenced a final show on Nov. 21 in Hollywood but I can't be sure on that.

MATCH FOURTEEN: Four Way Elimination Match
Aha! Here's the screwjob. I was mixed when the announcement of a four way was made. On one hand, I was getting pretty drained at this point. On the other, I really was looking forward to Sky/Dragon one on one and a Silver/Sky singles match Finals.

They did a pretty good job with the match though, turning it into a tag match at one point with Young Padawan Harder training at the knee of Obi-Wan Dragon, learning the Curbstomp [barely] and the Violence Party.
But of course, Dragon had to punk him out and essentially cost himself the match. Silly Dragon.

Sky/Silver looked like it had the potential to be a Match of the Month contender. Towards the end, Sky went for a deadleap reverse rana to Silver who was up top... but somehow they both toppled all the way down to the floor. Both got up slowly and went right to the finish inside the ring. I'm hoping neither was hurt too badly and that it was just time to end the match.

Postmatch, Silver slapped Sky which I started to think just might lead to a Mask vs Mask at the final Rev Pro show... but in the end, they hugged and made up at AWC's urging.

FINAL THOUGHTS
This was by far the weakest of the three Revolution J tournaments I've been to. It had its' moments but you could almost feel the death of the promotion hanging over your head, dragging you down. It was an odd show to witness. A fun one at times... but very sad.

I hope the final show is one fitting the Rev Pro legacy. When all is said and done with this great promotion, I want to remember great moments like the first Spirit of the Revolution finals, the death of Ultrataro Jr and the birth of TARO, the Mask vs Mask match... and so many others.

I was hoping this Rev J would add to that list of great moments. Unfortunately, it came up short.

I enjoyed seven of the thirteen matches... so I guess this show would definitely get a thumbs in the middle from me. And since everyone else is doing it... my five favorite matches in no order...

** Scorpio Sky vs Scott Lost
** Chris Bosh vs Hook Bomberry
** Quicksilver vs Human Tornado
** Super Dragon vs UK Kid
** Four Way Finals

That's the way I see it and I'm stickin' to it!

WhiteTrashMark