Chilanga Mask: 2015-08-16 

Belial multitasking

Recapped: 08/27/15

What happened? Chilanga Mask doesn’t do a lot on show to show angles, so this doesn’t quite work conventionally. There were some stories though: team Oaxaca beat team Estado de Mexico, setting up a rematch on a future Oaxaca show. Disturbio’s Lucha Kaos group debuted with a win. Ultimo Guerrero and Caifan attempted to murder each other with chops, setting up a singles match a month later. The Guerrero Mayas attempted to murder each with everything and will likely fight again some day. 

What was good? Dr. Cerebro versus Virus is one of my favorite matches of the year. I can’t think of a better Mexico woman’s match than Keira/Zeuxis. The Mayas have a super brawl. Pretty much everything is good, though the matches with a lot of people in them can get confusing and the main even requires you to like Pagano’s style.

Where can I watch? It’s all on +LuchaTV’s channel. Links are below

Match 1: Astro Rey Jr., Fulgor I, Fulgor II, Psycko Kid vs Extreme Fly, Luz Clarita, Rey Apocalipsis, Tony Cisneros Jr.
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTV

Winner: Team Oaxaca
Match Time: 12
Notes: Post match promos set up a rematch in Oaxaca, with Fulgor II/Tony Cisneros and Psico Kid/Rey Apocalipsis focused on.

  • Astro Rey Jr. cradle DDT Luz Clarita (14:53)
  • Extreme Fly arm trap Indian deathlock Fulgor 2 (14:56)
  • Psycho kid pin Extreme Fly (15:18)
  • Rey Apocalipsis scorpion Astro Rey Jr. (15:25)
  • Psycho kid clothesline Rey Apocalispis (16:18)
  • Tony Cisneors inside cradle Psico Kid (16:30)
  • Tony Cisneros hammerlock trap cradle (18:23)
  • Team Oaxaca

Review: [good] lot of action, most of it made sense. The elimination rules might have actually worked against them here; the crowd seemed to be less interested as they started eliminating people (enough so that the Fulgor I/Psico Kid breakup didn’t seem to get much of a reaction at all.) The crowd didn’t seem to know the Oaxaca crew and this was a hard format for them to make their characters with eight people all looking for their moment and no clear rudo/tecnico side. (The promos after the match made it clearer the Oaxaca team was supposed to be the rudos, but they didn’t really work the match that way) It’s indy wrestling, so it’s probably not going to be happening, but it would’ve been more helpful if everything wasn’t so even disturbed and they had focused on a couple guys instead. I didn’t really get a feel for the non-Apocalispis members of the Oaxaca team, and he I knew more from Puebla. Seeing Apocalispis in this environment, where he gets to do four minutes of mat work without people whistling, was pretty neat. He and Fulgor I both had botch moments, but they knew enough to just keep on going. I liked how the way they transitioned out of mat wrestling and the combination spots out of the EDM crew, especially everyone coming together for the four man Fulgor stretch. Fulgor’s submission near the end looked great, but the finish itself seemed random. Maybe that’s Tony’s trademark rollup and we were just learning it?

Fulgors knock around Tony
quadruple Fulgor Smash

Match 2: Dr. Cerebro vs Virus
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTVtvluchadelpasado

Virus is smooth

Winner: Virus motocicleta
Match Time: 15:38
Review: [excellent] superb mat wrestling battle, where they go thirteen minutes without a whip (and probably could’ve gone the whole way if they really wanted.) It’s definitely a battle for control, not a Navarro style move exhibition. Both Virus and Doc have to fight for every reversal they get, and there’s a lot of them. When they seem exhausted near the end, it’s more than earned, even though they haven’t been doing the sort of high impact stuff seen in other matches. Cerebro comes off as if he’s just a step ahead of Virus in this lucha chess game, but he’s got no defense for the motocicleta – he can try preventing it, but even that fails in the end. I don’t know where to place this; it’s a lot better than most everything I label great, but it’s probably not going to be in my top ten matches at the end of the year. I’m not exactly sure what more I could’ve asked for it, but I think I wanted more meaning out of it.

checkmate

Match 3: Keira vs Zeuxis
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTV

Winner: Keira (double underhook Lider Storm)
Match Time: 12:50

crushing dropkick

Review: [great] maybe the best women’s match in México this year? An impressive showing for a match where one participant lost the ability to stand for a period of time in the middle of it, and nearly lost her head at the end. Keira & Zeuxis worked hard and hit even other harder. The brawling was good, the run of big finishing moves near the end was great, and Zeuxis going from not being able to put any weight on her foot to putting her foot in Keira’s face was impressive. They got the crowd into this match while still coming off a lot like a ruda/ruda battle. Keira did really well, would’ve come off as a warrior even if she got beat once she kicked out of the package piledriver. (That move may be in every match, but kicking out of it isn’t.) Finish was either extremely well timed or super brutal. Maybe a little bit of both.

Zeuxis gets a new headless character

Match 4: Alas de Acero, Aramis, Iron Kid vs Ciber Punk, Disturbio, Garrobo Punk and Arez, Belial, Impulso and Aeroboy, Magnifico, Super Mega
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTV

  1. Aeroboy cross armaber Garrobo Punk (12:12)
  2. Impulso wheelbarrow moonsault splash Aeroboy (12:50)
  3. Arez out [knee injury]
  4. Alas de Acero shooting star press Belial (14:29)
  5. Magnifico powerbomb Alas de Acero (14:58)
  6. Super Mega double powerbomb Iron Kid (15:05)
  7. Disturbio wheelbarrow, Cyber Punk front cracker Magnifico (15:51)
  8. Disturbio legdrop Impulso (16:46)
  9. Super Mega El Pulpo Ciber Punk (20:34)
  10. Disturbio tirabuzón bomb Aramis (22:27)
  11. Disturbio figure four Super Mega (23:43)
wild triple dive

Winner: Disturbio
Match Time: 23:43
Notes: Garrobo Punk, Ciber Punk and Disturbio are the debuting Lucha Caoz group. Arez is mentioned as commentary as being taken away with a knee injury. It’s not immediately clear when it occurs. Late in the match, when it’s down to three, Disturbio sets up Aramis for a top rope move by Super Mega, but Super Mega instead falls to the floor and his knee connects with ringside photographer Mr. Reyes (who’s seated and has his back to barricade, so it’s a bit of distance.) Disturbio and Aramis continue the match with no confusion. Super Mega can’t get back up for a few moments after Aramis is eliminated, and limps while running the ropes before he’s submitted.

Review: [good] Some really good parts, some rookie moments and some randomness. This was a hard match to follow at times – there was so much going on, it didn’t even occur to me that Super Mega had attacked his partner by mistake, and even then I could totally understand it. (And they nicely turned it into comedy.) This match was one where they could’ve gone shorter without people feeling short changed. If they had ended it after the Kamikazes beat Belial (and one person on every team had been eliminated), it would’ve been a very strong match. There were definitely good spots in the second half of the match, like Super Mega’s crazy tope, but the weakest parts of the match seemed to happen in that section too. The extra time allowed them to give more people moments – this did a better job of highlighting people than the atomicos – but the elimination rules and people lingering around ringside made it hard to keep it track of who was actually still in the match. Belial was the standout luchador as long as he was in there, with his early tope looking so good and his 1 on 2 segment prior to his elimination impressive. The Punks were a bit of the opposite, having some weak moments (especially Ciber Punk) and looking like random guys off the street. That may be part of the Punk look, but the presentation needed to be more impressive when they were coming in as a new trio – the Indystongibles look professional, the Kamikazes are a little tough to tell apart but very easy to identify as a team, and the all-star team had three recognizable guys. The Punks needed to look like they belonged there and just didn’t here. The finish was weird and flat. Super Mega seemed to fall off the top rope and knee smash Mr. Reyes all on his own, and Disturbio and Aramis continued on the match with no hesitation as if that was a planned spot. Super Mega limped so huge that it felt like selling. Either Disturbio is a genius to use a figure four he never uses for a finish or it was part of the plan, but it meant a match with pinfalls only coming after big moves ended on a ‘freak’ occurrence.

so weird

Match 5: Trauma II vs Blue Panther
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTV

Winner: Blue Panther (fujiwara)
Match Time: 13:06

“I’ve escaped! I’m free! I’ve lost!”

Review: [good] This suffered from following Virus & Dr. Cerebro, but it also suffered because Trauma II did his usual bit of releasing holds and working the match like it’s a modern art demonstration of holds rather than a fight for the first half. I feel like I’ve been writing about this for half a decade now and it seems to be working for them and it doesn’t work for me so I should probably stop wrting, you know. Panther was not doing the same, but Trauma II would just stand up out of his holds too and I didn’t have much time for this. It wasn’t completely tha tstyle, there were definitely some transitions from move to move, which sometimes made it more annoying when it wasn’t there. I kind of prefer to see the Traumas in heated brawls than mat wrestling at this point. It was strange to see Trauma give up immediately in a hold after a match built around people battling in holds. It wasn’t that he was trapped and he couldn’t get out, he just decided that was it.

Match 6: Guerrero Maya Sr. vs Guerrero Maya Jr.
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTV

Winner: Guerrero Maya Sr.
Match Time: 19:16
Notes: both men brawl around ringside and destroy each other’s masks. Crowd chants for “Terry” and against the CMLL luchador. An exchange of fouls leads to the finish.

unending fight

Review: [great] Super brawl which was a great change of styles from the rest of the show so far. The fight would’ve worked on every show, but it was so different than the moves and the maestro style. They did do a few spots at the end, but this was all about guys hitting each other very hard and reacting to each other and the crowd. Crowd loved Guerrero Maya Senior. Guerrero Maya Junior is only a rudo here, maybe only a half dozen times a year, but he’s so adept at it every time he does it. He was playing off the crowd well, came off like a movie villain when he was knocking Terry around and was perfect begging off later. The near falls near the end weren’t on nay big move, but came off as believable because of the brutality of the match. Maya Junior’s spinning armdrag doesn’t seem to be working for him as of late and I’m not sure why, and the finish was a weak. (Senior should’ve won, but maybe that couldn’t happen.) The severity of the post match brawl salvaged it.

see, they just keep on fighting

Match 7: Avisman & Caifan vs Hechicero & Último Guerrero
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTVtvluchadelpasado

Ultimo Guerrero feels as though a light gust of wind just touched him
  1. Hechicero rolling kneebar Avisman 21616-23920
  2. Caifan super huracanrana Hechicero 24121
  3. Guerrero Special Caifan 24314

Winner: Hechicero & Ultimo Guerrero
Match Time: 26:58
Notes: Prematch promo reveals Avisman actually know Spanish!

Avisman armdrag

Review: [great] an entertaining story telling match, even if I’m not totally sure everyone was in on the story. Ultimo Guerrero was here to have a nice match in front of the Arena Naucalpan crowd, while Caifan was here to demonstrate he was one the five best wrestlers in all of México, and dragged Ultimo Guerrero into a fight to prove it. Before that, the Caifan/Hechicero stuff all looked great, and their next singles match will be fantastic, but this was Caifan being awesome seemingly just to prove a point and seemingly while Ultimo Guerrero tried to disregard him as some old rival Hechicero had long moved on past. Caifan couldn’t hit Ultmo Guerrero hard enough to actually sell at all for his chops, but Caifan could provoke Ultimo Guerrero enough to drop him very hard on his big moves of doom. (Crowd booed loudly when Caifan called for a moonsault at the end; everyone’s smart to UG’s patterns.) They weren’t the only two in the match. Hechicero showed he can flipped back into to an indie style when the situation calls for it. Avisman was reduced to a limited presence in this match, but had a couple of beautiful looking spots. They all worked together to make this a nearly 30 minute match which totally flew by, but the story to me was just Caifan coming off as a top guy

the end of Caifan

Match 8: Pagano vs Trauma I in a super libre match
Arena Naucalpan, 08/16/2015
Video: 
+LuchaTV

Winner: draw (double countout of the ring)
Match Time: 18:24
Notes: a Pagano dive took them both over the barricade, where they brawled for the 20 count. Pagano wanted a rematch and Trauma accepted. Trauma I suffered a bad cut on an elbow sometime late in the match and is urgently checked on before the post match promo.

referee takes the fork out of his pocket and hands it to Pagano!

Review: [ok] better than I would’ve guessed, even if it still wasn’t something I was a lot into. The brawling worked and they avoided turning into a weapons/masochism fest. It was still a noticeable slower pace than any other match on this show. Pagano only moved fast when going for his dive at the end, and his lumbering nature when applying holds. The match really grinded to a halt after Trauma I got cut open for quite a while. Pagano’s Ari Romero shirt is a nice touch and using the fork to escape Trauma’s leg lock was a smart move. He seems to be a pretty good promo too. The visual of Trauma I getting a bottle and breaking it on the ring post so he can better stab Pagano was pretty great. I don’t know how Pagano manages the schedule he does with the beating he puts himself thru. Probably would’ve had it as good with a better finish. A countout finish in an extreme match is a weak ending. I’m not sure if it can ever really work as an ending – if the match is strong enough, people might be more willing to overlook at it but it’s tough to ever accept when it’s not done regularly. (I think it helps if it the countout is at least teased as a possibility once or twice before it happens; it seems lamer when the first time the official is noted as counted is the finish.)

Pagano runs into a chair

One thought to “Chilanga Mask: 2015-08-16 ”

  1. If Cubs’ praisng of this show was not enough for you, Matt D reviewed it in the new Odessa Steps Magazine. (Still available in print or digital form)

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