Video is from LuchaLibreDeMexico in six parts: 123456
Delta, Fuego, Sagrado vs Pólvora, Shigeo Okumura, Yoshihashi: Sagrado & Okumura are legit feuding! Serves me right for doubting CMLL on this one. I have no idea where they could go with it – they have no titles, an apuesta match between them is bigger than they do at Fan Appreciation shows but not near big enough for a major show – but it is the sort of match one of them should win to give them a bit of credibility for later on. Yoshihashi has progressed from being entertainingly poor to boringly okay. Kind of sad. I tend to think the NJPW fans are going to be content with him when he returns (which should be only a couple months away, since he came here in June.) I would like to see him in a singles match before he goes, just to see.
La Máscara, La Sombra, Máscara Dorada vs Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto for the CMLL World Trios Championship: The strong match you’d expect it to be, and one they’ve done a few times. Match of the Week, though it missed a little bit of epicness to make it MOTYC. (The rudos actually foiling The Star spot makes me waver on this.) Sombra is obviously dealing with an elbow injury – they never bother to work an injury unless he’s actually hurt, weirdly – but it doesn’t seem to be hurting his performance at all. Strong job of setting up next week’s title match too.
IWRG (THU) 04/14/2011 Arena Naucalpan [Black Terry Jr. (flickr), Record (1-3), Record (4)]
1) Centurión & Saruman b Carta Brava Jr. & Vampiro Metálico
2) Dinamic Black, Dragon Fly, Golden Magic b Alan Extreme, Fresero Jr., Imposible
3) Oficial 911, Oficial AK47, Oficial Fierro b Avisman, Bombero Infernal, El Hijo del Diablo [lumberjack strap] Bombero Infenral replaced Gringo Loco, and this was suddenly a one fall lumberjack strap match.
4) Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II b Barba Roja, Hijo de Pirata Morgan, Pirata Morgan Navarros dominated the mat portion of the first fall, but the Pirata would rush in and break up their holds. When the Navarros argued, the Piratas attacked from behind and won the fall. Navarros came back at the end of the second fall to take it. Negro & Trauma beat Pirata & Hijo in the third to take it, and that probably sets up another tag title mat
Maricela Pena did a video interview at the annual AAA show for Escuela Antonio Pena. Pretty sure this interview is not pre-empted by a Santo one.
Rush says the era of Rey Bucanero is over, and now’s the time of Rush. He wants the hair match to prove it.
Ultimo Guerrero explains he was harsh with Escorpion because he’s taught the entire group techniques to win, and he goes out and gets disqualified instead. UG wants good clean competition, how odd.
Aerostar says he, Laredo and Octagon haven’t decided which one gets to have the Super Fly mask match, but he wants it.
Black Warrior is happy the fans have welcomed him back and wouldn’t mind feuding with Negro Casas.
Chica Tormenta thinks this weekend’s DTU show is her biggest opportunity yet, but also hasn’t seen her child since New Year’s Day. That’s rough.
CMLL (SUN) 04/17/2011 Arena Coliseo – just the two mystery matches, via Box Y Lucha
1) Freesbe & Principe vs Disturbio & Semental
2) Dragon Lee, Enrique Vera Jr., Hijo del Signo, Hombre Bala Jr., Super Halcon Jr. vs Artillero, Inquisidor, Rayo Tapatío I, Rayo Tapatío II, Súper Comando [cibernetico]
A big match in the Gen11 vs Primera war…not even listed on CMLL’s official poster.
CMLL has simultaneous told these three stories:
The debuts of the Generacion 2011 luchadors and the opening match wrestlers fighting back against them to protect their spots*
The traditional Gran Alternativa tournament
The Forjando Un Idolo tournament
Some wrestlers are only involved in one of the stories, some of the Gen11 guys are involved in all three, but there’s not a shred of continuity shared between the stories. The Rayo Tapatio activities are not mentioned outside the second match on Sundays. The Gran Alterantiva winner has not been treated any special on other shows, but instead immediately shamed in the Forjando tournament. At best, these storylines are operating completely independent of each other; in reality, they’ve worked at cross purposes, causing no one to stick out.
Three** different stories means (at least) three different programmers. All clearly given the same marching orders (push some young people NOW), but also all working on their own ideas and not interested in supporting each other’s concepts. This is a definite change – it’s always seemed to be one voice from CMLL, but there’s clearly a lot of individuals shouting and not much listening. We’ve talked about how CMLL needs to focus more on a smaller group of guys to get them over, but if everyone’s going to got agree which guys to push at the top, and they can’t even agree 0n eight rookies to push somewhere in the middle.
This is really where someone who supervises these people needs to pick the direction and get everyone behind it. If only CMLL had a hall of fame promoter who could do that.
* – that reasoning for the feud hasn’t really been explained well enough, but I’m 100% sure it’s based on real tensions. There’s only so many matches go to around, adding a dozen new guys means the older guys will lose and be a bit bitter about it.
** – maybe four, if you want to count Palacio Negro & Metal Blanco’s run to the trios titles, but that may be someone doubling up.
Generally, everyone was trying really hard, but the crowd didn’t seem to be into most of the matches both nights. Both semifinals were long enough to draw the fans into rooting for the tecnicos, but it didn’t feel like any one new was coming off a star in the making. (A lot more should’ve been made about Escorpion beating Sombra, but little was.)
I can not believe Tirantes is still in this promotion. He’s great at what he does, but what he does is not what this promotion is geared towards. It’s tough to tell any other story when Tirantes is cheating the tecnicos. If CMLL can’t trust Sombra, Ultimo Guerrero, Avenro and Mascara Dorada to keep the fans interested in their matches without someone making fast and slow counts, then – I dunno, they need to some trust building exercises or something, because that’s kind of silly. Tirantes seems to be only working Friday nights, which means I haven’t been seeing him on the shows I usually recap, and probably indicates whoever is in charge of this show feels a lot stronger about what Tirantes adds than everyone else.
Palacio Negro could not have cared any less about losing his dream of winning the Gran Alternativa. More to the point, Palacio Negro appeared to have been instructed not to care, and was sort of explaining it to fan. It’s one thing for Averno to lose by DQ – it’s not his tournament, he’s more concerned with embarrassing Dorada – but if people in the tournament don’t even care when they’ve been cheating out of winning, why should anyone watching care? It was a horrible act by Averno that no one found that interesting. CMLL paradoxically expects their tournaments to be meaningful while treating the matches as meaningless. (Ultimo Guerrero & Escorpion having a near fight over the same finish in the next tournament was quite the opposite – I don’t think they learned as much as different people booking different tournaments.)