CMLL on Televisa: 2012-02-25

 

Mascara Dorada

file
recap

taped 2012-02-17 @ Arena Mexico
Máscara Dorada & Volador Jr. vs Euforia & Guerrero Maya Jr. in a National Parejas Increible eightfinal match
Máximo & Mephisto vs La Sombra & Mr. Águila in a National Parejas Increible eightfinal match
Atlantis & Mr. Niebla vs Kráneo & Super Porky in a National Parejas Increible eightfinal match
Averno & La Máscara vs Olímpico & Valiente in a National Parejas Increible eightfinal match
quarterfinal match 1
quarterfinal match 2
semifinal match

Sombra & Aguila

If you watch one match from the show, it might as well be the opener. It’s the best match of this block, both teams packing in a lot of match in a compressed amount of time. Those four worked together great, as you’d suspect – Euforia & Dorada have worked a lot together earlier, and Maya and Volador have crossed paths in the trios feuds. Maya really needs to challenge Volador repeatedly for his title.

Zacarias vs Mije

The silver and bronze winners were the second and third Sombra/Aguila matches. Those two worked well as a team. Them versus Dorada/Voaldor was a gimme given the usual rivaliries there, and Sombra played against type well with Niebla & Atlantis. The Arena Mexico crowd loves that winning team, they were a smart pick to win this.

Raziel advances to final, FdT leave Perros del Mal, AAA tries to unmask Santo

(photo by CMLL)

CMLL (TUE) 03/13/2012 Arena Mexico [Estrellas del Ring, Kaiser Sports]
1) Camaleón & Freesbe b Ramstein & Zayco
Zayco was hurt again. Looks like either his eye injury or a concussion based on photos.
2) Metatrón & Tigre Blanco b Artillero & Súper Comando
Tecnicos took 1/3.
3) Raziel b Triton, Disturbio, Robin, Bronco, Hombre Bala Jr., Hijo del Signo, Super Halcon Jr. [Sangre Nueva, semifinal]
Expected winner. Teams were Signo/Robin/Halcon/Bronco vs Raziel/Triton/Bala/Disturbio. Elimination order: Robin (Disturbio), Bala (Signo), Bronco (Triton!), Disturbio (Halcon), Halcon (Raziel), Signo (Raziel). That left partners Raziel & Triton, and Raziel got his third straight elimination to take this and move onto face Dragon Lee. Triton is said to have a had a good night.
4) Fuego, Sangre Azteca, Super Porky b Misterioso Jr., Namajague, Shigeo Okumura
Tecnicos take 1/3.
5) Olímpico, Psicosis, Volador Jr. b Ángel de Oro, La Máscara, Marco Corleone
Rudos took 1/3. Psicosis pulled La Mascara’s mask for the win. Psi & Mascara agreed to a singles match in a week.

Familia de Tijuana

Damian 666, Halloween, X-Fly, Bestia 666, and Super Nova formerly announced their departure from the Perros del Mal group on Tuesday. Most of them were on Tercera Caida talking about the split, and they also sent out an article about it, with a press conference promised for down the line. The five are now operating under the old Familia de Tijuana name, and Damian and Halloween are the leaders. They said FdT is not a new promotion, but an independent group of luchadors which will be open to working for any promotion – even Perros del Mal. They’re just not going to work in the Perros del Mal office any more. They will be working their already agreed upon AAA bookings (and Halloween and X-Fly are booked a lot in the next week.) Super Nova mentioned he had returned the Perros del Mal Light Heavyweight title to the promotion.

Last week, Damian and Bestia had responded to rumors of them leaving the group by insisting they had just spent the early portion of the year elsewhere and were not leaving. This week, Damian explained that the idea just came up Sunday after the Perros del Mal show, and he talked to Perro Jr. about having different visions for the future. Damian and Bestia were going to leave on their own, but the others found out they were leaving and left with them. It’s not explicitly said, but it’s clear they were all upset about having worked for the company the last three years and being passed over for the recent arrivals from CMLL – Halloween & Damian both talked about working hard for the company and how Perros del Mal was a family, and that past tense seems to be important.

Perros del Mal have been completely silent, though I’d imagine most of the communication coming out of Perros del Mal previously was via these guys who are leaving. If Perros del Mal is going to exist on any level as a promotion, it’s going to be with a complete internal reorganization. Either AAA is going to completely operate it (they’d been helping out a lot for a while, which may have been another source of tension) or new people are going to be involved.

FdT fully presented themselves as independent luchadors. Damian said they had not talked to CMLL. If he hasn’t, it’s hard to believe he won’t be talking to them soon. There is not enough work on the independent scene for guys the level of Halloween and Damian to make it worth their time. Perros del Mal is down to running one show a month, a small hole to fill, and AAA had not been using them as much on TV since El Consejo came in, but those AAA spot show appearances are going away. I suspect FdT will do more international and more actual Tijuana based shows than Perros del Mal has been, but luchadors need to be on TV to be relevant in 2012. If it’s not AAA, it has to be either CMLL or maybe Todo x el Todo, but they don’t really have a strong reach themselves. I wouldn’t expect FdT to ever be full time with CMLL, but I believe they’ll end up there like the Invasors, working some CMLL shows and free to work outside if they can find the work.

Other News

Yesterday was Marisela Pena’s birthday. She celebrated it by making El Hijo del Santo look like a fool. At a hearing about the TripleMania DVD lawsuit, Santo was set to testify when Pena demanded Santo unmask. They were in court, and she argued she has the right to face her accuser, and even to see if it’s actually him under the mask. Santo was not going to do this, and it sounds like the judge felt this was unnecessary, but allowed the AAA side to postpone the case while this decision was appealed. The reports are just coming from the Santo side, so keep that in mind. It seems to me that if protecting the rights of individual wrestlers is the most important thing, unmasking yourself for a court case to move this process along is a worthwhile price – AAA would’ve looked cruel if he was forced to do it, but they correctly counted on Santo’s ego not allowing that to happen.

 

WWE announced they’ll be stopping in Mexico in May: 05/25 in Aguascalientes & 05/26 in Guadalajara. No TV taping, no Mexico City. There was a sense they had over-saturated the market, and this seems like backing off a bit.

Lucha Libre in Japan

via Purolove.com
03/11 AJPW: Takao Omori, Manabu Soya [O], KAI b Ozz, Cuervo [X], Ronin
03/13 AJPW: Takao Omori [O], Manabu Soya, Kaz Hayashi b Ozz, Cuervo [X], Ronin

There’s a new AJPW named Gillete who they’re claiming is from Mexico, but is apparently a Japanese guy in a new disguise.

Links

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 03/20/2012 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Javier Cruz Jr. vs Demonio Maya
2) Ángel Azteca Jr. & Smaker vs Malefico & Ráfaga
3) Astral, Bam Bam, Último Dragoncito vs Demus 3:16, Pequeño Violencia, Pierrothito
4) Diamante & Sangre Azteca vs Misterioso Jr. & Rey Escorpion
5) Atlantis, Máscara Dorada, Prince Devitt vs Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto

Devitt tour continues, as does the Bam Bam extended Guadalajara stay.

CMLL (TUE) 03/20/2012 Arena Mexico
1) Freesbe, Robin, Soberano Jr. vs Bobby Zavala, Cholo, Disturbio
2) Aereo, Eléctrico, Fantasy vs Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Universo 2000, Pequeño Warrior
3) Dragon Lee vs Raziel [Toreno Sangre Nueva]
4) Diamante Azul, Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra vs Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Tiger
5) Psicosis vs La Máscara

They’re teasing a Psicosis vs La Mascara mask match, which is possible to happen sometime this year.

AAA (SAT) 04/21/2012 Vive Cuervo Salon
1) Metallium vs Punker
2) Mascarita Sagrada & Octagoncito vs Mini Histeria & Mini Psicosis
3) Canelo Casas & Dani Casas vs Destroyer & Heddi Karaoui
4) Sexy Lady & Sexy Star vs Lolita & Ludark Shaitan
5) Cibernético & Heavy Metal vs Chessman & Octagón

A Rock & Lucha show, with five bands performing. Weirdly, the article says Jennifer Blake and Que Monito are on the card, though they’re not on the poster right next to it. (And Que Monito on the card would be odd aone.)

CMLL (TUE) 03/20/2012 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Javier Cruz Jr. vs Demonio Maya
2) Ángel Azteca Jr. & Smaker vs Malefico & Ráfaga
3) Astral, Bam Bam, Último Dragoncito vs Demus 3:16, Pequeño Violencia, Pierrothito
4) Diamante & Sangre Azteca vs Misterioso Jr. & Rey Escorpion
5) Atlantis, Máscara Dorada, Prince Devitt vs Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto

AAA on Televisa (Regional): 2012-02-18

Atomic Boy/Angel Mortal

taped 2012-02-10 @ Gimnasio Municipal de Zumpango, Estado de México

file:
match 1
match 2
match 3
match 4
match 5

recap

Argenis, Atomic Boy, Relampago vs Ángel Mortal, Gran Apache, Tito Santana: Good match; Atomic Boy and Argenis are adding different ideas to their repertoire, which is great if they’re going to be on TV more than once every months. Relampago remains Relampago, but he was better than last time out. Apache and Tito were in the right places at the right time; Angel Mortal looked a little bit slow but it could’ve been the other guys going too fast.

 

Dinastia

Dinastía, Mascarita Divina, Octagoncito vs Mini Chessman, Mini Histeria, Mini Psicosis: Really good minis match. Felt short than it actually was, but they just had a lot they wanted to get thru. Dinastia looked impressive and unique in his debut, just what you wanted. The rudos seemed better than they have in the past; they could still use one more good one, but they had tricky técnico offense to keep up with and managed it well here.

 

giant splash

El Elegido & Fenix vs Alan Stone & Dark Dragon: Fenix and Dark Dragon did their thing and Alan seemed to be trying. Elegido was less than usual. The match finish was one of those nonsensical evil guys doing evil things for no particular reason – if Konnan just wanted Alan out of the group, why even let him have the match? I don’t think we’re going to be seeing a lot of Alan Stone either way. I wonder where this leaves the mixed tag titles (or maybe we’re just not going to be see a lot of those either.)

 

just so someone sees it again

Cibernético, Daga, Electroshock vs Chessman, La Parka, Último Gladiador: if AAA was the kind of promotion that showed crazy things as much as CMLL shows that clip of Naito being clotheslined on his head, that would actually be a somewhat defensible finish. As it was, the crowd totally bought the brainbuster as a finish (and it will be, because no one besides Gladiador – and maybe Dark Dragon – will be silly enough to agree to something like a top rope Canadian Destroyer), and instead UG kicked out of that at zero to set up the crazy dangerous stop that they’ll never show again. You’re doing crazy moves only to impress yourself, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Chessman and UG did great work here. Electroshock was way into showing off all his moves. Cibernético and Parka is definitely an issue, but not a particularly hot one; changing each sides doesn’t totally take away from this being a decade long feud.

missed senton? weird double legdrop to the midsection?

Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Mesías vs el Hijo del Perro Aguayo & Halloween: fifteen minute match with no finish, a great  use of my time. Actually, the técnicos were most assuredly about to win, and win easily considering where the Perros used to be. It is Halloween, and Halloween and Damian exist to take losses in matches like this, so it’s not really a big deal. I haven’t been high on Mesías vs Jarrett because Jarrett’s not been around, but it’s not like Mesías has been all that interesting either.