Todo x El Todo: 2013-05-05/2013-05-12

Piratas > fish man

taped 2013-04-27 @ Gimnasio Juan De La Barrera
Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Pirata Morgan Jr. vs Golden Magic & Poseidon (TxT): GOOD. Really strong opener early; Golden Magic and Hijo del Pirata were really fun on the mat and near the end. Poseidon didn’t look as good, but he was sure up for taking whatever crazy move the Piratas want to have. Piratas have terrible moonsault aim. Pirata Jr. was just okay, as usual. Turnaround spot being from a reversed headscissors cradle is at least different, but the tecnicos needed a hotter follow up on it to get the crowd back. The crazy Pirata offense kind of lost the crowd because it went so long, and the tecnicos really didn’t get in much before it was even and then rudo dominated again. Crowd didn’t want to see these guys do a ton of near falls, but did cheer after the finish.

 

Golden Magic plancha

Esther Moreno & Rossy Moreno vs Chik Tormenta & Diosa Maya: OK/GOOD. Much better than than the average CMLL’s women match this year; solid and actually gooda t some points. I haven’t seen a lot of Chik Tormenta and maybe no Diosa Maya, but they were enjoyable in this match. Maya didn’t seem as used to being a ruda as Tormenta, but adapted okay. Morenos really ought to be rudas at this point in their careers, but they wanted to do to tencica spots so they did tecnica spots. You could tell this is a different crowd than AAA or CMLL shows, because they would’ve booed the heck of the match after the missed Rossy Moreno bottom rope springboard spot (and resulting confusing.) TxT fans actually cheered here. This turned into everyone just doing Moves at the end, which is not a complaint I usually have in women’s matches.

 

rudas!

Súper Muñeco, Súper Pinocho, Súper Ratón vs Black Terry, Scorpio Jr., Shu el Guerrero: OK? I had trouble staying interested in this. Trio Fantasia in 2013 are hard to take seriously, and Scorpio Jr. and Shu el Guerrero were both slowed by injuries (or life.) I think the crowd would’ve been perfectly happy with the first fall being the entire match, but did still care when it came to the finish. This was also the third straight undercard match with lots of near falls; they belonged more in this match, but I was ready to move on. The finish really didn’t make sense – Super Muneco pins Shu el Guerrero, rudos claim it was a two count, and so this gets them a title match?

 

double tornillos

Rayman & Saruman vs Dinamic Black & Imposible, Trofeo Angel Blanco tournament semifinal match : only go the last few minutes of this one but it looked exciting, as should be expected with thru (then) IWRG guys who were working together a lot.

Angel Blanco Jr. & Cien Caras Jr. vs Fuerza Guerrera & Pirata Morgan, Trofeo Angel Blanco tournament semifinal match: Fuerza Guerrera and Pirata Morgan as outgunned tecnicos is an odd look. Both have been around for long and thought of killed as so long that they crowd should automatically root for them, but they’re also still some very hateable rudos and this match set up didn’t play to them at all. It would’ve worked better if their comeback at least was them both being old ornery jerks, but instead Pirata did tecnico spots and looked old. This was just a match to establish the Cien/Angel team as more important and definitely did that.

 

Rayman cradle suplex

Rayman & Saruman vs Angel Blanco Jr. & Cien Caras Jr., Trofeo Angel Blanco  tournament final match: Both the complete matches still were joined in progress of a fight, which felt odd (and like they didn’t have enough time.) This also felt shorter than the other complete semifinal. The match itself was about 8 minutes of annoying move turn taking – I rarely notice it in tag matches as long as it happened here, but it was non stop taking a move, kickout a two, and giving the other guy a move. It annoyed me, but the TxT crowd is the least jaded audience in Mexico and was totally good with it. Finish felt like it came out of nowhere.

 

strut?

Dr. Wagner Jr., El Hijo Del Santo, El Hijo del Solitario vs Derek Sanders, Oliver John, Shaun Ricker: I could see this file was listed as 37 minutes before I even started watching it, and I was hoping for a 15 minute commerical break had been left in for some reason. This is actually closer to 30 minutes and actually fine for the time – they just worked a normal trios match slower and longer than usual. It would’ve been completely fine for me if it ended after one fall and La Migra really never got a lot in considering the length, but the the tencicos did get to do everything they could do. You could definitely find matches which would be better per minute but there was nothing wrong with this. Despite doing this long, C3 edited cut out almost all of La Migra attacking the tecnicos after the match, but left all the tecnicos talking post match.

ChilangaMask, CMLL in Naucalpan, AAA in Naucalpan

photo by Black Terry Jr.

CHILANGAMASK (SUN) 12/22/2013 Coliseo Coacalco [@terceracaida, Black Terry Jr. (flickr)]
1) Lady Judas b Stephanie Vaquer
Lady Judas replaced Heroina.
2) Silueta b Chik Tormenta
Early on the card so Silueta could make Arena Mexico. Silueta won the battle of Guadalajara luchadoras.
3) Fulgor I b Fulgor II
One beat two in a good match, but Astro Rey Jr. (w/his brother Astro de Plata) challenged Fulgor I. Fulgor I agreed to it as long as Astro Rey put his title on the line. Rey said okay and the commission said okay, so it was on.
4) Fulgor I b Astro Rey Jr. [EdM WELTER]
5) Belial b Mike Segura, Freelance
Young Belial pulls the upset over two veterans.
6) Titán (CMLL) b Aero Boy
Good match.
7) Arkángel de la Muerte b Dinamic Black [FULL HEAVY]
Arkangel is champion. First defense.
8) Magnifico b Arez
Mangifico wins in his home arena.
9) Extreme Tiger b Impulso
10) Ricky Marvin b Tony Rodriguez

This looks like another fun show. Titan pulled off two wins in the same day, but Fulgor pulled off two wins on the same show and won a title. This group is back in January with the Young Bucks.

photo by Black Terry Jr.

IWRG (SUN) 12/22/2013 Arena Naucalpan [Black Terry Jr. (flickr), The Gladiatores]
1) Fulgor I, Fulgor II, Zurdog b Alfa, Omega, Seiya
Fulgor I won again!
2) Douki & Imposible b Diva Salvaje & Miss Gaviota
3) Black Terry, Bombero Infernal, Dr. Cerebro b Apolo Estrada Jr., Avisman, El Hijo del Diablo
Doc Cerebro and friends challenged for a trios title shot (which they were already getting.)
4) Trauma I, Trauma II, X-Fly b Centvrión, Golden Magic, Veneno
Traumas replaced Puma & Tiger. They feuded with Golden Magic, going after his mask. X-Fly got away with a foul on Veneno.
5) Máscara Púrpura, Negro Navarro, Volador Jr. b Negro Casas, Oficial 911, Súper Nova
Navarro is a tecnico while his sons are rudos, a situation which can’t possibly last. Tecnicos took 2/3. Casas beat Navarro in the third when 911 and Nova turned over a pin, but Volador was able to beat Casas to win the match. Casas claimed he got a shoulder up before three.

This was promoted as standard IWRG shows, but I believe the reality is they’re shows promoted (and paid for) by the same folks who were behind what I was calling the Furor shows. They haven’t really used that name since the first show and there’s no hint of it here, but it’s a solution which keeps everyone happy and allows Arena Naucalpan to host show with both promotions. It probably means the “new season” is more like one CMLL visit every few weeks, but that’s fine. (Half the CMLL people missing the show is not fine, though.)

Fulgor won three matches and a title on the same day. I supposed he went out to the bar to celebrate and got the phone number of every lady in the bar as an encore.

AAA announced their first taping of the year would be in Arena Naucalpan on 01/17. Educated guess on the AAA TV schedule for the next month
12/28: Best of Part 1
01/04: Best of Part 2
01/11: Best of Part 3
01/18: Puerto Vallerta (with maybe UTDN being half psuedo-Part 4 or a lot of travel footage)
01/25: Naucalpan
02/01: Naucalpan part 2?

Terra posted a preview of Friday’s broadcast listing the complete card as airing , but then posted a new one with just the bottom four matches airing.

(I’m more concerned about Atlantis’ vacation – he’s an old man, let him rest! Maybe he snuck in a short one.)

Brazo Jr. talks about spending many Christmas mornings with his brothers and cousins and Brazo uncles. I’m pretty sure Brazo de Plata has previously stated Brazo Jr. is unrelated to the family and just someone who was supposed to pay for the name but ripped the family off. Awkward.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

DJ Spectro has part 4 of the Ultraman bio  and a look back at the November 7, 1975 Arena Mexico show.

La Copa looks back at the year in small Pachuca arena Gym del Valle.

Lucha Libre in Japan

12/22 REINA: Shuri beat La Comandnate [CMLL-REINA INTL]
I thought this was for Shuri (a wrestler from the Philippines who’s name I’m surely spelling wrong)’s REINA World Title, but this was actually for the vacant CMLL title. That makes this luchawiki update declaring this title dead the dumbest thing I wrote on the internet Saturday night.

Lineups

AAA KDNA (SUN) 12/29/2013 Arena Coliseo Monterrey
1) ? vs ?
2) ? vs ?
3) ? vs ?
4) Panthro Jr. vs Mini Androide, Atomo, Eclipso, Tequilita, Chakira, Chamaco Gurrola, Ángel Espacial, Destructor [cage, mask, hair]
5) Monsther Clown & Murder Clown vs Machine Rocker & Soul Rocker
6) Texano Jr. vs Psycho Clown [AAA HEAVY]
Texano Jr. is champion. Ninth defense.

Main event should be good and interesting to see what kind of match they have when they’re doing this matchup on a spot show as opposed to a big show.

AAA on UTDN: 2013-11-21

dancin’ Mascarita Sagrada

 

Great Blake headscissors

recap

taped 2013-11-03 @ Domo de Parque Solidaridad, Tonala, Jalisco
Faby Apache, Jennifer Blake, Mascarita Sagrada vs Mary Apache, Mini Psycho Clown, Taya Valkyrie: Really wasn’t working for me for the first segment but picked up after the break. It was a lot of the usual mixed tag opener. Mini Psycho Clown and Mascarita Sagrada was not working as a matchup; Psycho seemed to do a lot better in his one exchange with Jennifer. Finish was fine.

 

cartwheel headscissors
suicide shooting star press

Angélico, Australian Suicide, Jack Evans vs Eterno, Juventud Guerrera, Steve Pain: Another good Jack/Angelico/Suicide vs Eterno/Pain match, now with an actual purpose for the rudos to exist. Juvi was generally good as well, but his changes with Angelico were the weakest parts of this match – it didn’t look as smooth with them as it did with any other combination. Crowd didn’t get into the hot tag as much as the others did, and I’m kind of done with everyone taking a turn (in non breaking order! Everyone must go!) series of moves, but I did like how the rudos derailed the usual técnicos finishing sequence leading into their own win. This would’ve been helped by the new group explaining why they were together (not just why Juvi turned on the MPs, why he wanted Pain/Eterno on his side and likewise) but that’s not a new complaint here.

 

Mesias shoulder first tope

El Mesías vs AJ Styles [TNA HEAVY]: Better than the last AJ Styles/Mesías match, though one day they should try a match where one guy works like a good guy and the other guy works like a bad guy. The all technical style made it hard to get invested in the early portion of the match but it got more interesting late and the crowd was well drawn in by the end. The midshow skit with AJ and Konnan set up Konnan interfering if Dixie called him, so it feels like we missed a skit where Konnan got that phone and recruited Texano, Fantasma and Chessman (since there was still no explanation of why they would be there or care at all) and the run-in didn’t amount to anything but a rest break for the guys in the match. The idea might have been that Mesías’ knee injury meant he submitted to AJ’s hold, but it didn’t come across like it was that meaningful; he got trapped in the hold all the same, so Mesías either needed to escape from it pre-injury (showing the difference of the injury) or have the knee injury cost him some other way. It turned out to be just a thing that happened, like the run-in and like the match. The match was still good.