La Llave a La Gloria semifinal, CMLL continues towards Anniversario, Canada preferred LU country

america

CMLL (FRI) 08/11/2017 Arena México [CMLL, Culticonthecubsfan]
1) Mercurio & Pierrothito b Shockercito & Stukita LUCHA LIBRE VIERNES ESPECTACULAR DE ARENA MEXICO 11 DE AGOSTO DEL 2017 FUNCION COMPLETA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
13:44. rudos took 1/3.
2) Blue Panther Jr., Esfinge, The Panther b Disturbio, Puma, Tiger LUCHA LIBRE VIERNES ESPECTACULAR DE ARENA MEXICO 11 DE AGOSTO DEL 2017 FUNCION COMPLETA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
13:59. tecnicos took 1/3
3) Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis b Lady Maravilla, Princesa Sugehit, Silueta LUCHA LIBRE VIERNES ESPECTACULAR DE ARENA MEXICO 11 DE AGOSTO DEL 2017 FUNCION COMPLETA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
13:36. Rudas took 2/3. Zeuxis pulled Sugehit’s mask to win, and they agreed to a mask match.
4) Cavernario, Negro Casas, Sam Adonis b Carístico, Soberano Jr., Valiente LUCHA LIBRE VIERNES ESPECTACULAR DE ARENA MEXICO 11 DE AGOSTO DEL 2017 FUNCION COMPLETA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
15:11. Rudos took 2/3 after Adonis hit Caristico with the flagpole from outside. Cavernario argued with Adonis over the flag and Adonis attacked him, which eventually led to everyone beating up Adonis.
5) Diamante Azul b Rush LUCHA LIBRE VIERNES ESPECTACULAR DE ARENA MEXICO 11 DE AGOSTO DEL 2017 FUNCION COMPLETA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
10:56. Azul took 2/3. Rush was DQed for smashing a piece of plasterboard over Diamante Azul’s head. Azul pinned him clean in the third.
6) Dragón Lee, Mistico, Niebla Roja b Gran Guerrero, Mephisto, Último Guerrero LUCHA LIBRE VIERNES ESPECTACULAR DE ARENA MEXICO 11 DE AGOSTO DEL 2017 FUNCION COMPLETA (posted by VideosOficialesCMLL)
10:45. Straight falls, Gran DQed for unmasking Niebla Roja. They agreed to a mask match after.

CMLL continued on to it’s apuesta matches matches. They’re very clear that Gran Guerrero/Niebla Roja is happening on 09/16, and what else happens still doesn’t seem to be clear. Even as sure as Roja/GG is as happening, they’re not bringing up it being the main event, just on the show.

Azul/Rush seemed like a test to see if it would work on the Anniversary show rather than specifically building towards it. They were working like something important was on the line, and not like it was a Tuesday show they couldn’t get done quickly enough. It looks like the 09/16 possibilities are Niebla Roja/Gran Guerrero in the main and Zeuxis & Sugehit in the fourth match, or Diamante Azul/Rush in the main and Niebla Roja/Gran Guerrero in the fourth. I think the first possibility are better matches but the fans are likely to be more accepting of the second one.

The Adonis thing was probably to set up a united Mexico versus the World leading into the Gran Prix next week.

AAA held the semifinals of it’s La Llave a la Gloria tournament today. They held twelve matches, and all of them are watchable on their Facebook page. On his Facebook page, Vampiro said there were 72 people trying out. I haven’t gone back and counted, but that seems about right – and means that a couple dozen people got in outside of tryouts.

AAA says the winners will be announced on Wednesday in Record. We still don’t know what the winners exactly will be. AAA announced various things at the press conference, mostly pointing towards either one winner or one winner in each category, but they do need opponents to face. My guess is it’ll be actually six winners (two men, two women and two men as minis) for a trios match, but no one knows.

Roshfrans posted a La Llave a la Gloria recap video on YouTube. It’s nice, but it has a whole 19 views and I think at least 3 of them are mine.

TLN in Canada is now ahead of El Rey on airing Lucha Underground episodes. TLN had been airing up to 3 episodes a night of Season 3, since starting the season in May. Apparently, El Rey/LU must’ve sent them the full 40 episodes, because they’re airing the episodes before El Rey gets them on air. That’s usually not permitted in these sort of international syndication deals, and this is probably a simple goof up, but LU simple goof ups have a way of not getting fixed. I’ve looked around and haven’t seen the episodes which aired last night – the semifinals and finals of the Cueto Cup – probably because not many people thought to look for them to be airing. I suspect later episodes will turn up TLN continues airing in advance.

Lucha Underground did post a video of Marty Elias explaining the rules, which are helpful to know 90 episodes into a wrestling series

This is a quiet weekend of lucha shows

Saturday

Sunday

Kcids draws Gran Guerrero vs Niebla Roja.

Lineups

CMLL (FRI) 08/18/2017 Arena México
1) Astral & Robin vs Cholo & Espíritu Negro
2) Esfinge, Fuego, Stigma vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Universo 2000 Jr.
3) Marcela, Princesa Sugehit, Sanely vs La Metálica, Tiffany, Zeuxis
4) Stuka Jr. vs Dragón Rojo Jr. [lightning]
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr. vs Ephesto, Gran Guerrero, Mephisto
6) Diamante Azul, Valiente, Volador Jr. vs Juice Robinson, Marco CorleoneMatt Taven

Main event is listed as tecnicos vs tecnicos. Taven was a tecnico last time we saw, but it’s also more of a Mexico vs the World thing. Juice is probably so beat up by NJPW’s G1 that he may be on vacation mode here.

The other feuds continues on in the 5th and 3rd matches. Cholo’s still around after losing his hair.

CMLL on ClaroSports.com: 2017-08-11 

if the tope doesn’t get Rush angry, the drink definitely will


Recapped: 08/11/2017

Matches:

Mercurio & Pierrothito beat Shockercito & Stukita
(13:44 [4:54, 3:41, 5:09], 1/3, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL )

Blue Panther Jr., Esfinge, The Panther beatDisturbio, Puma, Tiger
(13:59 [4:05, 3:35, 6:19], 1/3, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL )

Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis beat Lady Maravilla, Princesa Sugehit, Silueta
(13:36 [5:39, 2:27, 5:30], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL )

Cavernario, Negro Casas, Sam Adonis beat Carístico, Soberano Jr., Valiente
(15:11 [7:04, 3:14, 4:53], 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL )

Diamante Azul beat  Rush
(10:56, Arena México, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

  1. Rush corner dropkick (1:52)
  2. DQ Rush plasterboard (2:58)
  3. Diamante Azul German suplex (6:06)

Dragón Lee, Mistico, Niebla Roja beat Gran Guerrero, Mephisto, Último Guerrero
(10:45, 1/2 DQ, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL )

What happened: 

this was insane

Niebla Roja and Gran Guerrero feuded heavily during their match, with Gran Guerrero unmasking Niebla Roja for the straight fall loss. Gran Guerrero and Niebla Roja agreed to sign contracts for a mask match next week before Gran Guerrero unmasked Niebla Roja again.

Princesa Sugehit & Zeuxis also agreed on a mask match, though they set no date. Zeuxis picked up the win this week with a mask pull, after both earlier so destroyed each other’s masks that they had to take an unofficial time out to fix them.

Sam Adonis hit Carístico with his flagpole to set up a Cavernario win in the fourth match. Cavernario didn’t seem happen with Adonis and threw down the USA flag post match. Adonis attacked Cavernario, Negro Casas attacked Adonis and got the flag pole and everyone ended up stomping down Adonis. This was possibly a Carístico/Adonis tease for Japan, since both they and Diamante will be in AJPW by this time next week.

Rush was pinned cleanly by Diamante Azul – well, he was yelling at Edgar and didn’t see Azul coming to grab him for a German suplex, that’s close enough. No challenges were made after the match, though Rush suggested the possible of an Anniversary match on commentary.

Juice Robinson and Matt Taven were announced as appearing next week.

Thoughts: 

when you have one thing that’s working, just keep running with it until someone stops you

An overall good show. I had couple matches rated OK, but the show in it’s enterity was enjoyable and went by well. It was better than it looked as a lineup.

The main event was the most effective Niebla Roja and Gran Guerrero have been so far. They went after each other hard and Niebla Roja showed more fire (by doing not much more than one move he does well many times.) They were handicapped a little bit doing a bit of crowd brawling after Diamante Azul & Rush did a lot of crowd brawling. The bigger problem is it comes off as the third most important técnico feuding with maybe the third important rudo in every one of these matches. Niebla Roja & Gran Guerrero work work as a main event of a lesser show or a lesser match on a main show, but there’s not enough here to make it a main event of the Anniversary show and everyone knows it. They’ve got four more Fridays to find it, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening.

Diamante Azul versus Rush probably does have enough to be the main event of an Anniversary show, and they were working like this singles match was an audition for this spot. It still wasn’t great, but it was much better than what they’ve delivered before in a watered down version of Rush’s matches with LA Park. It’s weird the much older and much heavier LA Park has a bigger tank than Diamante Azul, and Rush here didn’t put exactly the same effort, but it was better than usual. There wasn’t enough here for me to want to see that match on the big stage but CMLL hasn’t left themselves with a lot of options.

I expect this to happen to me every time I go to Mexico

Something with Adonis seems like the only other option, and the post match set up all sorts of interesting possibilities. The trip to Japan is ill timed to work any of them out, and it seems like it’d be almost too late to do anything by the time he and Carisitco are back, but I guess we’ll see if anything settled by then. The match itself was the weakest of the night for me, btu the post match made it worthwhile.

Zeuxis/Princesa Sugehit is definitely happening and yet still seems unclear. JCR teased it for the Anniversary show and it may be, but not giving a date is another thing that suggests CMLL still didn’t have their plans locked in before tonight. They actually seem to be taking less of the matches as it goes on, but the mask ripping came off serious. Maravilla wrestles impressively, but is clearly meant to be the least important woman on any tecnica trio right now and we may have a long wait before we see her in anything beyond those trios. She’s ready now. Silueta had an iffy night, with things derailing badly at the end of the second. Dalys was all over the place in this match.

The Panthers and the Casas brothers continue to have good matches with whoever they’re teaming with. This wasn’t quite their peak, but it was pretty good. Puma & Tiger have teamed up with Disturbio enough that they’ve adapted their own finishing sequence to work in his double knee smash. Esfinge seemed to disappear on me for long periods of time but looked sharp in the third fall. Blue Panther Jr.’s backbreakers land awfully to me, but he might as well keep doing as long as the multiple ones get a strong reaction.

The minis match was a higher end match for both minis and the opener; the Shockercito monkey flip into a huracanrara was more exciting in 10 seconds than most of these matches are in 15. Mercurio even did a new taunt (even if it was the same Dragon Ball fireball bit people have been doing for a decade.) this warmed up the show well.

Gran getting him up was as impressive as throwing Niebla Roja hard