OELL 03/19 and 03/20

Keep forgetting to mention this and it’s only a few days away. So behind on much. If there’s something I owe you, I haven’t done it yet because I’m behind.

OELL (SAT) 03/19 Lineup
Clyde Park Stadium
1909 So. Laramie Avenue, Cicero IL
Doors open at 7:00
Tickets are adult $15/under 12 $7

1) Gato Samuri vs Renegado Estrada
2) Adrian Serrano vs Dysfunction
3) Buddha & Alto vs Great Milenko & Christopher Michaels
4) Maquinita Infernal & Spider Boy vs Black Boy & Misteriosito
5) Heavy Metal & Discovery vs Black Tiger & El Infernal

OELL (SUN) 03/20 Lineup
Prisco Center (aka Fox Valley Park District)
150 W. Illinois Avenue, Aurora, IL
Doors open at 5:30
Tickets are adult $15/under 12 $7
1) Mascara de Jade vs Renegado Estrada
2) Sagitario & Adrian Serrano vs Holy Terror & Dysfunction
3) Maquinita Infernal & Spider Boy vs Black Boy & Misteriosito
4) Heavy Metal & Discovery vs Black Tiger & El Infernal

They’re advertising the main event as AAA vs CMLL and maybe that was true when they drew up the contracts. Maybe they can put a “loser must go to winner’s promotion” stipulation on it to have fun.

Since Spider Boy is a guy in a thin white guy in a SpiderMan suit – dudes really shouldn’t an extremely visible place to hang out after they’ve showered and demasked – I’m hoping Black Boy is a white guy dressed up about Venom.

One thing that annoys me about these shows, at least how they’ve been done in Aurora. The bleachers (which are the cheap seats and have almost all the people) are on one side of the ring, and the other three sides have folding chairs as ringside seats. In theory, if you’re paying for the expensive seats, the show should be playing towards you, but if you’re wrestling, you want to play up to the side that’ll give you the biggest reactions. Which means the people up close are getting side and back views of the main action.

They seem to have ridden themselves of the (usually barely occupied by paying customers – maybe I’m just slow and everyone else figured it out first) ringside seats for these shows. I think it could’ve worked better if they just moved ring farther away from the bleachers and stuck ringside inbetween, but whatever.

Adrian Serrano is the UFC-like guy who’s name I was blanking on last time. He’s an odd fit for this sort of card; he did his act okay (which is good since he’s apparently a UFC-like guy for real), but it wasn’t the match or wrestling style people were expecting or knowledgable. He did traditional ‘shooter’ type submissions – I remember a CODE RED in particular – but he got no reaction out of this crowd on the moves. The heel was entertaining, the match was not, which leaves me to wonder if it’s worth it bringing him back.

But maybe everyone’s learned something from the experience and we all adjust to the style more this time. I hope so. You do need a bit of a mix, but it’s got to start from the style they’ve come to see. People came for lucha, so give ’em lucha. I figure a lot of indy undercard wrestling is less about creating a good match in the now (since that’s not always in their grasp) and more about evouqing memories of good matches the fans saw in the past, so you must go for what they know.

my theory of working lucha, which may be horribly inaccurate and probably deserving of a larger column, best to beat me down: if you’re using punches or kicks to the midsection as your primary weak transistion move, you are not working lucha. The proper answers are ‘open hand slap’ and ‘shoulderblock’. There’s a lot of lucha-themed guys on these cards who do the rolls and sillyness and the flying but miss on the very fundamentals of the style; it’s subtle but vital stuff, and it’s the difference between being an “American-style wrestler doing lucha” and wrestling lucha style.

They try, and I won’t take that away from them. You make be taking away ‘who’s he to talk about what lucha is and how it’s done’, so I’ll move on.

Getting back to the point: While it’d be neat to see Heavy Metal, I’m going to be in another timezone on Saturday and have obligations Sunday afternoon, so it’s not a good logistical fit.

On the other hand, I’ve gotten a hold of a digital camera, so I have the ablitiy be annoying and lonely outside my place for evening.

On the other other hand, I might also be broke by that point in time. Wait and see.

On the other other other hand, why are we only getting 4 matches? BOOOOOOOOOOO

I may pick up recaps tonight (or I may get to work on dubbing, sorry.) I honestly think I’m avoiding them because (there’s no one hour one to breeze thru and) *that* match is next in line and I’m going to feel bad if I’m wrong.