02/04 GALLI in Addision

(Shorter? Hopefully.)

I made it to the building around 7:20 for a 6:45 start. No good reason, just screwing around and not staying on schedule. Didn’t matter – the 6:45 start (presumably) was just the start of a meet and great for Jorge “Maromero” Paez. He was still signing autographs at a side table when I showed up, and the actual show didn’t start until he was done. It looked like he was heading out after, but did came back (so maybe he got dinner? maybe I just lost track of him?)

Attendance looked down from last week, but tickets were double the price so maybe that part worked out. No Apocatlyptco tonight.

Around 7:30 or so…

0): (rudo) El Traidor b (tecnico) Golden Dragon

Golden badly needs to work on his basics (taking a clothesline, doing a leapfrog) before he does another rope walk. He must’ve had a bad day, because he did not look even close to ready to being in a match before the crowd; there’s no way you put someone out there who’s this neon green normally. I didn’t get a read on Traidor because his opponent overshadowed him, but the right guy won with a back suplex (or something) in about 4 minutes.

1) (rudo) Valentino DQ (tecnico) Jarod Priest

Jarod Priest is a large man (horizontally, not particularly vertically), but there’s a lot of people here who fit that descrpiton.  Priest, Michaels, Fuenbre, Alfa,

This would be a demonstrative loud large man, who talks to the crowd a lot and tries to get them to react, which gets them talking back. Valentino was amusing. This one started out pretty strong then kind of lost me late – there was a clip spot to set up some leg work here, and maybe it was the kicks that bugged me – but it was fine enough for the opener. Valiento tried to use a chair a couple times without being successful, then used a ref distraction to toss a chair to Priest and simulate a chair shot. Ref turned around to see Priest with the chair and called the DQ. Valentino did a fine job of holding his head as if he suffered a grievous wound, while letting the crowd know he was okay. Priest chased both the ref (two of them this week!) and Valentino to the back.

2) (rudos) GPA & Rob Michaels b (tecnicos) Furia Roja, Dark Scorpion

Dark Scorpion was the only one I hadn’t seen last week. He was eh. (I think he messed up a dive in this match; I know there was an additional one on this show I’m forgetting, besides the one I’ve mentioned later.) Fine enough match with the rudos looking better than the tecnicos. Both tecnicos pounded the rudos in the corners with punches, GPA slipped in a low blow on Roja, hit Scorpion with his book, Michaels powerbombed him, and GPA pulled Roja out of the ropes with a sweet backcracker for the stereo pin. Good thing they made up last week, they’re succesful team.

3) (rudos) Destructor Alfa & Funebre (w/Kid Funebre) b (tecnicos) Pentagono & Flash Metal

Pentagono was returning. He had a neat mask. Rudos destroyed it. They pretty much destroyed him the entire way. They beat up Flash Metal too, but Flash Metal also got in some offense and had a big dive at the end. The rudos beat Pentagono like he owed them money, especially Alfa. There was a brief comeback, and then he was pinned clean with a powerbomb. Just kind of odd.

4) (rudo) Ripper DCOR (tecnico) Bandolero

Ripper had his title belt with him, but this was non-title. These two hit each other loud and hard from the start. This match really didn’t make a lot of sense at time, with the barest psychology, but it was a lot of Ripper in control, Bandolero getting in a few shots, hard chop fights, and occasionally crazy spots. The craziest was maybe two-fifths of the way thru, when Bandolero decided to jump off the ropes for a spinning headscissors to the floor, and Ripper just powerbombed him on the way down onto the hard basketball floor. I’ve seen this plenty where guys have missed and powerbombed themselves onto the floor, but this looked to be a planned spot and a brutal one. Bandolero took it on his back and one shoulder, but not his head (that would’ve been the end of Bandolero), but was down and not moving for about forty seconds. Given where they were going, that should’ve been saved for the finish. Instead, twenty seconds after he pulled himself up, Bandolero did a moonsault off the stairs. The two made it back to the ring to fight for a while. Bandolero has definitely figured out that you can stomp the mat to get people to clap for you, but hasn’t figured out that you should probably get in some offense after you’ve got people clapping for you. You don’t want the clapping to fail, that’s the magic.

Finish had Bandolero getting sent out of the ring, Ripper attempting to follow with a tope, Ripper hitting the ropes on the way thru and Ripper coming up way short. Bandolero helpfully sold it anyway, but Ripper got up and hit the tecnico hard, and threw him into chairs harder. No one hits harder than a luchador angry about blowing a spot. Bandolero came back enough to keep the fight going for the twenty count. And they kept brawling. And they kept brawling more, so most everyone from the opening matches ran out to separate them. They did a spectacularly poor job of it, so these two kept fighting for a while until Bandolero dove onto all the rudos to end it. Post match brawl was really good, and this seemed to me to be the best match of the night. Effort was definitely there, and it’s the one I wish I had video of by the end of the night.

Intermission!

5) (tecnicos) Noriega, Acid Jazz, Jake Shining b (rudos) Mason Conrad, Joshua Cristian, Ovirload

Rudos had Conrad’s belt and manager James Russo (thanks Kevin!) with them. Standard trios action – every tecnico gets a turn against a rudo, a tecnico gets trapped for a while, hot tag (that doesn’t get much of a reaction), craziness and finish. Straight forward and well done. First two were Jazz/Ovirload and Noriega/Cristian, leaving the very indy-Zack Ryder looking Jack with Conrad. Mason’s champion without a current challenger, so it would’ve made sense for Jake to pin him to set something up – and that’s actually what happened, Jake pinning Conrad after a rocker dropper-ish move the 10-12 minute range. The tag champs, Cristian and Ovirload, looked better than last week. Cristian seemed the better of the two here. Ovirload looked good with Jazz in their opening sequence and less so laster on. Jazz took out Cristian and Russo with a plancha right before the finish, with Ovirload and Noriega out elsewhere (though he was still able to flash a smile at the front row despite his crippling pain.) No particular challenge post match.

6) (rudos) Gigolo Americano (w/girl & Kid Funebre), Skayde, Emperador Azteca (?) b Discovery, Rey Fuego, Atomico

Only three fall match of the night – rudos took 1/3. This was disappointing, probably for them too. The Emperador Azteca spot was a mystery man spot, which was supposed to be someone of note. Their plane did not arrive in time. Emperador Azteca (this is who CPW has listed) was just out there as a replacement – they didn’t try to make it as if he was the surprise, he was just the guy. First fall turned in to a very long beatdown, and was fine for that. Second and third fall…yea, no. No. Just a ton of unscheduled miscommunication spots – people staring at each other, people tremendously off in moves, people taking bumps from moves they were a foot away from. A large amount of this centered around Azteca, who maybe didn’t know he was wrestling and wasn’t ready, but he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time a lot. It’s not just him, everyone involved has to take some of the blame. Including the referee, who was in the way on spots and quite not in the way on the scheduled ref bump. It took Skayde and Discovery three tries to make contact with him (Skayde hilariously veering off course to clothesline him) and that set up the finish.

First, Skayde got Discovery in a campana, but no ref. Skayde let go, and Discovery eventually lifted him in a over the shoudler submission. (This took a couple tries, which was one of a couple depressing moments in the match.) Gigolo foul uppercutted Discovery, which caused him to let go of the hold, but not fall down or really sell the foul in any other way. Skayde knocked him down, sentoned him, and the ref returned to count the three.

Fuenbre walked to ringside for no real reason after the match. Paez – the boxer from the beginning – got in the ring to avenge the tencicos. He argued with Azteca briefly before getting into it with Gigolo. Gigolo tried a punch, Paez blocked it and gave him a right and a left. At least that was the idea; it must be hard for people who throw real punches for a living to try and fake them, because they know they can actually hurt people with them, and they’ve never tried to throw a real looking fake one. These looked less like KO punches and more like The Mummy slaps to the side of the head. (though there was one later to a kneeling Gigolo that was great.) Paez taunted Kid Fuenbre (!) and left the ring, but someone must’ve decided it didn’t look good enough and sent him back. Paez grabbed a chair (holding it the wrong way) and stepped back in against the rudos. He thankfully never got to make contact with the chair, but the punch spot with Gigolo (with Gigolo telling him to do it while we all waited for Paez to catch up) was only marginally better. These was a mic bit setting up something with Paez and Gigolo later – maybe Sunday?

Match just fell apart. You laugh and move on.

Let me try to find some positives here: Discovery has lost a lot of weight and is much better shape than the last time I saw him (prior to last week.) Rey Fuego was better than last week. The fans like Atomico’s act. It doesn’t work for me, but maybe he just needs a funnier look to match the gimmick. Paez seemed to enjoy himself. I was entertained in a way I was not expecting.

Bandolero/Ripper was memorably good and there was some servicable stuff on this show.

GALLI’s next show is Sunday afternoon. It’s a brave promotion that expects to get a paying crowd to an indy show opposite the Super Bowl. I wish them well. I’ll be back at some point.