Recapped: 10/16/2017
All matches taped from Auditorio de Tijuana on 07/14/2017.
Starting with this group, I’m watching The Crash matches via Konnan’s Patreon. These matches are single cam handheld versions. They’re inside the guardrail and so can follow the action a lot better when it moves it around, but it’s not what you’d expect from a normal promotion. The later ones are from are closer to pro shot and easily worth the $5/month fee, these handhelds are more arguable. I was really tired of looking at the back of people’s heads so this worked for me.
The Santo/Daga vs Garza/Maximo video did not seem to work, so that one I watched elsewhere. You probably don’t need to make that effort.
Matches:
Arkángel Divino, Black Boy, Último Panda beat Eli Everfly, Famous B, Último Maldito
(14:13, Arkangel Divino 450 splash Eli Everfly, good, via Patreon)
Oráculo & Serpentico beat Black Danger & Jonathan
(7:58, DQ for Black Danger unmasking Oraculo, ok, via Patreon)
Rey Horus & The King beat Hanson & Raymond Rowe and Sami Callihan & Shane Strickland
(20:32, The King Mexican Destroyer Raymond Rowe, good, via Patreon)
Jack Evans beat Bestia 666 in a super libre match
(13:51, Jack Evans backslide, good via Patreon)
Garza Jr. & M-ximo beat Daga & Santo Jr.
(17:34, DQ when Garza faked a foul, below average, via MegaKakashi619)
Penta Zero M beat La Máscara, Jeff Cobb, Marty Scurll
(11:58, Pentagon package piledriver Marty Scurll, good, via Patreon)
What happened:
Danger & Oraculo talked up their mask match after Black Danger unmasked Oraculo. Garza messed with Daga a bit. Jack and Bestia continued towards their mask match, but there weren’t much in the way of angles on this one.
Thoughts:
The main event was more of an all star match than one with a lot of seriousness. Everyone did their own taunt, and then later someone else’s taunt. That sort of thing. They did well enough in what they did but no one felt at the top of their game. The crowd liked the novelty of seeing Scurll and he gave them enough for his signature spots that I think they were satisfied. Penta needing a foul after a long ref bump was weird, and he came off more rudo-ish than normal.
Nieto del Santo isn’t any good. Maybe he’ll get there some day, but he doesn’t appear close in the semifinal. There’s a lot of stalling and fooling around here, and it comes off as if they knew they had to get around the handicap of having someone not ready for this position. Maybe it was nerves, because he looked better in his previous match in TJ, and here he was messing up stuff in embarrassing fashion. The crowd turns on him halfway thru. The other three tried, but it wasn’t working – Daga messed up his own submission on his first try, and the referee died for about a minute and a half before getting up and calling the DQ. Go out of your way not to see this one.
The super libre match took advantage of the stipulation to do something different with the weapons and the interference. It came off as a serious personal rivalary, even with the interference. Oraculo’s overshot dive looked like it really sucked for him. The finishing reversals were a nice touch.
I liked the three way tag, but I’m guessing not as much as others. The first half seemed off with me, lacking impact at points. Strickland & Horus had an early exchange that seemed more like a dance than a fight, War Machine would set up for a hard hitting move that wouldn’t end up that hard, it just kind of seemed like a b-night. It got better and they did so much that it was hard to deny it, and the crowd obviously liked it enough to toss money in. Fenix & Horus had some good work together and Strickland looked good. It was not my favorite match even as I knew it was a good one.
The 2v2 segunda didn’t really work. The start was hot, but the two teams didn’t have great chemistry with each other. Jonathan especially didn’t mesh well with the Florida team, with some bumpy looking action. The action itself didn’t particularly work for the match. I couldn’t remember which guy was feuding with Black Danger until the finish, because they didn’t really push the 1v1 rivalry during the match. It was a lot of everyone doing stuff.
The opener was a lot of Último Maldito & Arkangel Divino doing their usual bits with the other four around them. Último Panda obviously stood out. The comedy was good, and it’s nice to have something slightly different on this shows (which often feel like six attempts at the same style of match with different levels of success), but it did feel like it went a long time without anyone else getting involved. It definitely worked as an opening match bit and the crowd got into him as a character more than anyone else. Eli was the other new guy here, who’s done well elsewhere but didn’t totally stick out here. I think he does better later on.
