taped 2015-01-20 @ Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
Virus vs Magnum, Arkángel de la Muerte, Cancerbero, Puma, Tiger, Esfinge, Gallo, Leo, Omar Brunetti in a cibernetico match: [ok] seemed to have a chance to be the worst cibernetico I’ve ever seen for a while, but recovered to be just OK. Some weak work by the Guadalajara locals early on. Gallo had an amazingly slow tope to end the initial faceoffs. It was so slow it seemed like eh had to be stopping, but no, he just leaped a very small distance onto Arkangel. Esfinge’s tope was not much better. Omar Brunetti was doing fine until he totally fell apart in his last sequence with Cancerbero. GDL team seemed in real danger of losing this match zero to five and deservingly so. Magnum making it the final two was a surprise, but he did look better than usual and better than the rest of his team. They didn’t really do any near falls that would’ve given you a sense of how much the crowd believed in him. Tiger was barely in the match before being eliminated and Puma was barely in for the first half of the match. Crowd cheered when they thought Esfinge had actually beaten Puma, but that died as soon as they realized it was a double pin. Ending saw Magnum repeatedly tap out to a referee who didn’t recognize that was meant to be a submission.
La Máscara, Super Porky, Valiente vs Kráneo, Rey Bucanero, Terrible: [ok] It’s hard to argue CMLL doesn’t have enough people but it sure feels like they must no when I can’t help but see a variation of this match on every single show. This match was different in only that Terrible punched La Mascara a lot. La Mascara continues to be complete técnico when not around Sombra or Rush. Valiente and Porky were around, but this came off as Mascara showcase of superkicks. Wrestled better than the previous match but just as skippable. Heroic effort at the end for Bucanero to ignore the pin that was happening six inches away form him.
Marco Corleone vs Shocker: [good] Nice match, better than I would’ve figured. Marco did the something here that Maximo’s been doing in his big matches, getting away from his usual trios character bits to be more serious for a singles match, and it made this into a hard hitting brawl. Shocker was the one doing more dancing for the first half of the match, and the chop/punch exchanges were well done. Match slowed down in the third – Shocker might have run out of gas – but they still had a few twists and the crowd was happy with the finish. Shocker nearly choked Marco to death with the STF in the first fall, did not get disqualified for leaving a hold on too long. I’m starting to believe lucha libre might not be on the level.
