CMLL on CadenaTres: 2014-07-26

recap

taped 2014-07-22 @ Arena México

Angelito, Astral, Eléctrico vs Demus 3:16, Pequeño Olímpico, Pierrothito: CMLL minis matches are suddenly consistently good now that Pequeño Warrior isn’t around. This does not qualify as a surprise. This match was pretty action packed the whole way. It did fall apart for a few moments near the end before the double dives, but everything up that was really solid. Angelito’s improved some in his brief time and is a really easy técnico to root for. Astral & Eléctrico have really good tag team work that never gets to be a tag team in a regular position. Demus is the best destructive force they have. If this was real and people were being hurt so badly that they were taken away on a stretcher every time he used the move, wouldn’t Demus’ piledriver be banned already? That doesn’t seem good for business.

 

Cachorro, Stigma, Tritón vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Virus Another good match. Rudos area really good when they get to be together and helped the young técnico crew. Triton have a worse than usual match, having timing issues especially in the first fall, but it wasn’t enough. Cachorro actually broke out a spot he didn’t use in the tournament – a farmer’s roll, another move his dad uses – and remains remarkably efficient. I hope he’s in line for a Virus title shot at some point. It’s odd seeing Stigma right after the minis match; there’s no way he’s more than inch or two taller than some of those guys.

Fuego, Rey Cometa, Stuka Jr. vs Ephesto, Hechicero, Misterioso II: Liked this match too. It felt switched up a little but from normal, with the first fall finish particularly out of nowhere compared to usual. Everything flowed from there. Cometa and Hechicero worked together a lot and worked well. Misterioso did his stuff and got out, which meant the match moved a lot quicker than usual Ephesto took a slow knee bump to the floor that the director worked very hard to hide. Hechicero did the same at 100 MPH a fall later.

 

Marco Corleone, Máscara Dorada, Titán vs Cavernario, Rey Bucanero, Terrible: Another good match! I liked the dynamic they played early on, where Bucanero and Terrible were Cavernario’s enforces so he could take apart Titan and keep the others away. Cavernario still won on his own in the end, making him worthy of the title shot (he was already going to get.) The other técnicos really didn’t get in much but played their role well and the action was all solid.

 

Valiente vs Euforia: What a completely absurd finish. Something got messed up, Valiente seemed to panic, and poor Tirantes got shoulderblocked for no particular reason. It came off as really minor league on TV, but I don’t think there’s anyway they could’ve hid it. I’m not sure why Valiente and Euforia need a crooked finish anyway. The rest of the match wasn’t great shakes either and is only tolerable in the context of Valiente trying to work thru an injury as fast as possible. Even then, they should’ve figured out a better way because what they did do often was sloppy or not interesting. Euforia and Valiente ought to be able to pull of a few minuets of good mat wrestling, but they opted to skip by that right and we got minutes of iffy near falls instead. Also, Euforia being the least sneaky person to put his feet on the ropes ever. This was really disappointing and possibly the worst CMLL main event of the year. They can do better.

Bonus: I didn’t put the lightning match in the recap, but I did watch it.

Maximo vs Ripper: (6:36) Good lightning match in that it felt enough like they were trying. Don’t see that dive out of Ripper much. It was a usual Maximo match, with his usual tricks early and late, and but doing a more move based lightning match in between. This wasn’t quite on the level as the other good matches but better than I would’ve guessed.