CMLL (FRI) 03/17/2017 Arena México
Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, 2017 (Villano III & Salvador Lutteroth)
1) Estrellita, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Amapola, Tiffany, Zeuxis
2) Dragón Lee, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja
3) Atlantis, Carístico, Marco Corleone vs Kráneo, La Máscara, Rush
4) Matt Taven vs Último Guerrero © [NWA MIDDLE]
tenth defense
5) Mistico, Valiente, Volador Jr. © vs Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto [CMLL TRIOS]
ninth defense
6) Pierroth vs Diamante Azul [mask]
This lineup was the big news from the CMLL press conference today. CMLL picked the Pierroth/Diamante Azul direction a while ago and stuck to it. There’s no drama in the main event – Pierroth is Arturo Muñoz Sánchez, 48 or 49 years old, who lost his mask in this same arena in 2002, and will almost certainly lose his mask again – and it’s probably going to be a poor match. They’re going to try to make it good, but neither man is that good. I think Diamante Azul might be able to have a good match with the right person, but Pierroth is definitely not that person. I don’t think Pierroth can have a good singles match with anyone.
Both men are bulked up bodybuilders who are more focused on their looks than their skills, and choosing to focus on these two over the dozens of more deserving people seems an insult to most everyone else who works in CMLL. I think there’s plenty of people who work in CMLL who know this is a dumb and bad idea, but the priorities of the people in charge appear to be elsewhere. This is one of those shows where a fan is reduced to hoping the show completely fails and everyone responsible is shuffled away from responsibility, but that’s an unlikely event. (Even when a show does fail, like TripleMania 2015, it doesn’t mean the right lessons are learned or that people stop denying the obvious.)
The rest of the show is the alright but CMLL big show stuff. A Sky Team (or equivalent) trios match on a big show is the usual thing, and this is somehow the first time they’re facing the Hijos del Infierno for the trios titles during this reign. The Hijos del Infierno may or may not be Mexico Trios champions at this moment. Volador wanted the title match to be a double title match. The rudos responded that they were so confident, they’d give up the national trios because they were sure they’d get the world ones. Volador re-explained his team wanted both titles, and it was unclear if Mephisto and friends actually gave up the trios titles or not. It’d be a really dumb way of taking the titles off the Hijos del Infierno. It’s also seems very unlikely Puma, Tiger and Negro Casas will ever get that trios title shot, as CMLL appears to have completely forgotten that angle and the only people who bring it up are those of us out here.
Matt Taven is back as part of the CMLL/ROH interchange. CMLL appears to have very limited knowledge of ROH – there’s work being done during WrestleMania weekend to fix that – and Taven did well enough in his appearance last year to come back. This is probably just a showcase match for UG, but there are worse ideas than ROH taking one of CMLL’s two dozen championships. The rest of the show are the usual filler opener trios matches on a big show, or the middle of a card on a regular show.
It’s a Friday show. There will be 52 of them this year. The trios title match will likely be great, and the Taven/UG match and the second match might be, but it doesn’t strongly positively distinguish itself from the 150 other free to internet shows CMLL will run this year. I wouldn’t want to pay $10 for it and there’s nothing that makes me excited to see it. It looks like it’ll cost a lot more: tickets go on sale Thursday, running 304 MXP up to 1849 MXP. (That’s $15 USD to $93 USD.) The low end is even with the bigger recent anniversary shows (Sombra/Atlantis, UG/Atlantis), and the high end is a little bit lower than last year’s Anniversary show (1989 MXP.) CMLL is going to make a lot of money if they can actually get people to come out for this, but those prices seem way too high.
There wasn’t a lot of other actual news on the press conference, just people talking about matches that had already been announced. Volador, Cavernario, Valiente and Ultimo Guerrero talked about Friday’s tournament final. Pierrothito talked about the minis tournament. Zeuxis talked about her title defense on Saturday. Some of those people will talk more in about an hour on Informa.
And even, i remember that Pierroth was the second of Rush in some of his matches as Toro Blanco….this has been the worst identity cover up in lucha history…it´s a joke…