Recapped: 04/30/2017
Matches:
- Canelo Casas & Espanto Jr. beat Flyer & Magnus (9:53 [5:15, 1:59, 2:39], 1/3, ok)
- Arkángel de la Muerte, Metálico, Sangre Azteca beat Oro Jr., Starman, Stigma (18:07 [8:46, 3:53, 5:28], 1/3, ok)
- The Panther beat Sagrado in a lightning match (9:32, springboard dropkick, good)
- Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Vangellys beat Drone, Esfinge, Guerrero Maya Jr. (15:34 [5:39, 4:14, 5:41], 2/3, ok)
- Ángel de Oro, Blue Panther, Johnny Idol beat Gran Guerrero, Luciferno, Mephisto (8:26 [2:55, 2:37, 2:54], 1/3 ok)
- Dragón Lee, Mistico, Valiente beat Euforia, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero (10:52 [2:48, 2:45, 5:19], 1/3, ok)
What Happened:
Niebla Roja continues to not get along with his partners, wanting to fight the técnicos fairly instead and by himself. Niebla Roja blamed his partners for the loss and demanded a singles match with Dragon Lee for next week. Dragon Lee accepted, though he tried to make it a mask vs mask one. Roja did not agree.
The semimain didn’t really get going to any great level, and finished iffy because they were down a man. Johnny Idol not being totally sure he won the first fall until Blue Panther gave him some approval was definitely the highlight.
Thoughts:
It’s good we’re finally getting the Dragon Lee/Niebla Roja match on a stream, and it’s not like this turn is taking much longer than normal, but it still makes these matches kind of useless in the meantime. The Guerrero seem to be far more successful while breaking up than any other team in history. There were some good moments but the angle stopped the match from really going anywhere.
Angel de Oro seems to hurt his back by sometime in the middle fall. He’s grabbing when he ought not to be selling it, and goes thru some lengths not to fall on it when Gran Guerrero decides to give him a chokeslam. Replays suggest he threw it out trying to give Luciferno a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. The match stops before the third fall as he’s carefully loaded into the stretcher and taken away. The match finishes 2 on 3 with a messy third fall.
Everyone seemed fired up to for a big match in the first fall of TGR/tecnicos fourth match. That was done by the second fall and they were easily on cruise control. The big with the rudos catching all the técnicos and throwing them into the crowd was nice but maybe should’ve been saved for a match where they were trying more of the way.
The lightning match was an entertaining match to me that didn’t seem to entertain the crowd as much – they couldn’t have been any quieter for most of this match. Panther is trying to get the crowd going more often (and borrowing some of his father’s tricks) and it still didn’t seem to do much for the Tuesday crowd. Both guys brought out their bigger moves and worked all the way to the time limit, only slowing down a bit at near the end, but it would’ve been funnier in front of a crowd that cared.
Starman was pinned inches away from the técnico corner in the second match, and Oro & Stigma seemed to have no interest in extended the match. I applaud them for this decision. Like many an Arkangel match, this felt like it went on and on and I’d yet only three minutes had passed. The botched monkey flip/sunset flip bit was hilariously terrible. They tried, Stigma did a tope into an armdrag even in a second match, but it just wasn’t all that interesting. Maybe Edgar didn’t try as much – Metálico appeared to be the captain in the second fall, and Arkangel suddenly was in the third fall.
Canelo Casas being smart enough to trip up Flyer for trying a top rope move in the rudo corner was a smart Canelo Casas moment. And the dropkick at the end was a well timed finished. This what passes for a good Canelo Casas match.