(gifs came out particularly huge this time, you are warned)
03-31: Flamita vs AR Fox for the CZW TV Title.
Saw this both on the TV version and the Terry handheld. There were some really athletic spots and crazy moments (that DDT the most), but it was a bit short on drama for me. (The crowd making little noise doesn’t help; it’s helped a lot by having the TV commentary, but maybe it’s also me not used to as many handhelds.) They got closer to what I wanted in the end, but earlier seemed to be more showing what they could pull of than fighting. Still, this match had some of the most brutal landing onto someone’s knees bits I’ve seen. I’m sure other people will like this much more than I.
01-13 Mr. Leo vs Alan Extreme vs Centviron: GREAT. I preferred this one for as a crazy spotty match. There was so much packed in to about 11 minutes of no-stop destruction. Lots of moves, very occasional selling (mostly when they were all were dead at the same time) and no breaks. The slaps came thru very strong on the handheld and they had a ton of three way ideas, and really got me at the triple zero cover bit. There was no story here, outside of 100 ways to mess up someone’s neck or shoulders (those german suplexes near the end) but it was still something to see.
04-14 Negro Casas vs Ultimo Dragon: It must be noted – Ultimo Dragon is getting kind of chubby. This became a problem in this match. It’s actually a surprisingly good maestros-like match with Dragon busting out Santo spots for the first five minutes, then Dragon gases and Herodes Jr. has to get involved to give him time. The last half of the match slow down and are limited by what Dragon can do, but I think this was going to work for a while. It wasn’t the routine match I was fearing at least at first, and still turned out fine thanks to Casas, but this was on track to be much better.. I hope Dragon got better before he went to AJPW. Nothing amuses me more than to see Negro Casas wildly cheered for beating Ultimo Dragon in Ultimo Dragon’s vanity promotion.
06-24 Black Metal (Guadalajara), Pegasso, Tritón vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Espíritu Maligno, Skándalo: GREAT. Exciting random trios match. This was Barbaro and Black Metal’s first three day trip to Mexico City and the best match for both (Metal struggled the rest of the way but Barbaro was good the rest.) Barbaro and Espiritu would be a very entertaining tag team if this wasn’t probably the only time they’ll ever team up; their styles and looks work together well, probably even more so now that Espiritu is unmasked. Triton had a good night and Pegasso and Skándalo have worked against each other a million times, but it was really the guys trying to make a name for themselves which made this especially worth watching.
07-06 Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards vs Drastik Boy & Flamita and Daga & Eterno: GREAT Borderline great match; interesting to see this Wolves in Mexico doing well, though maybe this match wasn’t quite as good as it could’ve been. Sixth best guy in the match got the winning pinfall. Drastic Boy wasn’t bad, but had bad moments and was the least consistent of the guys in this match. I was sorry to see Daga & Eterno leave as early as they did, though I really liked their elimination. I have no watched a lot of Davey Richards the last couple years, and he was being much more of a rudo than I expected – it was fun, and the first half of this match was built around the Mexican teams both going after the annoying invaders because Davey was so annoying. The native teams didn’t realy start fighting until about 14 minutes in. I watched only the handheld version of this one, and the audio drifted out of sync with the video, so you’ll probably want to stick with the TV version.
07-28 Dinamic Black vs Oficial 911 for the World Wrestling Stars Welterweight Championship: AYM missed the finish on this one too, and this time you can’t really totally figure it out until they start doing the post match argument. I’m told they had the literally the same match on 06/20 if you want to buy that handheld. This was another borderline great match until the usual problems at the end, playing out like a Mascara Dorada or Titan title match in it’s strengths (including both a Brillo Dorada and a rope flip moonsault) and weaknesses (move turn taking in the last few minutes.) You’re not getting a lot you’re already seeing in those title matches, you’re getting one more iteration of it.