I had wanted to check out a UIPW show for awhile, so when I had to go up the area for something unrelated I managed to schedule my plans so they matched up with May 28th’s UIPW show. I met up with Andrew, whose review you can read just a few posts down, and we headed inside to pick out some seats. We thought they were great seats, but that would later come back to haunt us.
The show was scheduled to start at 8:00 pm, and started only about 10 minutes late which is pretty good for an indy show. Starting on time has always been a pet peeve of mine. Can you imagine if you go to the movies for a 7 o’clock showing and they waited till eight to start? I’m not sure why indy wrestling promotions think that is OK. Kudos to UIPW.
“Rocketboy” Dmarco Wilson over Seiya [9’39]
I have become a big fan of both these guys. Seiya may be the best kept secret in all of SoCal. He is so crisp with all his movements and has a lot of quickness in the ring. If Revolution Pro was still around he is the type of guy who would really have shined there. Dmarco Wilson is really good and gets better every time I’ve seen him. He works a lot of lucha shows and has really shown the ability to work a lucha style match too. I would put him in a group with guys like Douglas James, Eli Everfly, Danny Limelight, Ju Dizz, Mike Camden, etc who I really feel are the future of wrestling in SoCal. This was a good match, and a great start to the show.
Superboy Jr., Principe Indu Jr., & Nightmare Azteca over Legacy, Mariachi Loco, & Lestat [13’47]
This was a pretty entertaining match. Superboy Jr. and Principe Indu Jr. are really good, and like their father they really move well for their size. Nightmare Azteca is another guy who has been fairly impressive as of late. Awhile ago when I’d go to a local lucha show, the undercard could be atrocious. In recent years the undercard quality has really picked up. Mariachi Loco passed out shirts before the match, and hilariously the ref took one. He should get it back as they still lost. Legacy, Mariachi Loco, and Lestat all looked pretty good. There have been a few different Mariachi Locos through the years, but this current version is probably the best wrestling wise.
Thunder Rosa defeats Amazona, Sage Sin Supreme, Cristal, Lady Lee, and Datura to win the UIPW Women’s title [12’56]
This seemed like the match a good percentage of crowd came to see. Originally La Goloza was scheduled to be in the match, but they were replaced by Datura. I have yet to see Lady Lee have a good performance in person (though I have seen a couple matches on video that were decent), and she wasn’t good in this either. She was eliminated a little over three minutes into the match, so it didn’t really bring the match down. Everyone else looked really good I thought. They would have some wrestlers brawling on the outside while two or three others would be in the ring. I mainly focused on the ring, so if anything crazy happened on the outside I missed it. The last two wrestlers in the match were Thunder Rosa and Datura and they looked to be really work stiff with each other. Hopefully we’ll get a Datura versus Thunder Rosa singles match out of this as they worked really good together. A good match that got better as it progressed.
Steve Pain over Teddy Hart and Brian Cage [9’55]
Another really good match. Steve Pain has gotten so good. I saw him in a match earlier this year at Lucha Underground, and it was easily the best match on the show. His feud with Teddy Hart has been going on pretty much all year, and rather than using this match as the finish, they used it to build it up even more which I thought was great. Brian Cage looked great in this match as one would expect. He worked well with both guys. Judas Draven did a run in to help Steve Pain. The crowd chanted ” Luchasaurus” at him. They destroyed Teddy Hart. After Rush from CMLL came in for the save. A challenge was made, and it looks like Steven Pain and Judas Draven versus Teddy Hart and Rush is set for a future show.
Los Luchas (Zokre & Phoenix Star) over Sin Limites to retain the UIPW tag team titles [12’55]
This first four matches were pretty good, but this one was a bit of letdown. Los Luchas are really good. Recently I listed them among what in my opinion was the top 10 tag-teams in SoCal of the last fifteen years. They were solid in this, but one of the Sin Limites, Sin Limite Jr. I think, was really off on his timing and his stuff did not look good. The other Sin Limite looked fine but the match but they just didn’t seem to be able to keep up with Los Luchas.
Enigma, Stuka Jr., & “Rocketboy” D’marco Wilson over Shamu Jr., Ultimo Shamu, & Mr. Aguila two out of three falls [19’37]
This was the tale of two matches. When Shamu Jr. and Ultimo Shamu were in the ring it was fine. They were whipping their opponents with a belt that had half the crowd wincing. When Mr. Aguila was in the match, it just wasn’t good. We happened to be sitting in the section that was directly behind where Mr. Aguila would stand waiting for the tag. He wore trunks that didn’t appear to be more than tighty whiteys that were seemingly sucked into his crack and then glued there with the same stuff he kept his hair in place. To top it off he wore a dirty wifebeater shirt for an overall unsettling appearance. Long gone are the days of Essa Rios. Normally I’d just ignore it, but the entire crowd in my section was yelling about it the entire match to the point it took away from the match. I’m not sure why D’marco Wilson ended up in the main, but he was as good a replacement as anyone, as he still managed to look good. Really, the match just seem unorganized and without a plan, and Mr. Aguila didn’t really seem to want to put much effort into it. Los Luchas came in to attack the Shamus, but somehow it appeared the technico team won anyway.
Overall I thought this was a good show, with the first four matches being very good. The main event was bad, but as with most local lucha shows, the “name” wrestlers they bring in change every show so that match shouldn’t reflect on future shows. UIPW did a great job of extending the Teddy Hart and Steve Pain feud, which is a great thing, and laying the foundation to a Thunder Rosa versus Datura feud, which if their sequences together in the women’s match are any indication should be really good as well.
UIPW will have their 5th anniversary show on June 11th. Check out the SCU Events Page for more information.
Also check out Chad’s photos from the show.
Update: Since the original posting of this review UIPW has announced that Shamu Jr., Ultimo Shamu, and Mr. Aguila won the main event.
