Astral, Oro Jr., Príncipe Diamante beat Akuma, El Coyote, Príncipe Odín Jr.
(13:33 [6:29, 2:48, 4:16], 2/3, n/r, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Cancerbero, Raziel, Templario beat Pegasso, Star Jr., Stigma
(15:06 [7:50, 2:39, 4:37], 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Guerrero Maya Jr. beat Flyerin a lightning match
(7:03, German suplex, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Stuka Jr. beat Kawato San, Luciferno, Pólvora
(15:23 [6:55, 2:45, 5:43], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Gran Guerrero, Marco Corleone, Máscara Año 2000 vs Kráneo, Pierroth, Rushin a relevos increíbles match
(9:18 [4:30, 4:48], 1/2 DQ, n/r, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
Pierroth fouled Mascara 2000 in the second fall to start a feud.
Thoughts:
Templario & Star Jr.
I’m probably not giving the semimain enough credit; they were working hard and yet I found it hard to pay attention to. Stuka, one very much into doing the same moves in every match, broke out the handspring he doesn’t do a lot and a sort of DDT I can’t recall him using. Kawato is still taken aback every time he gets to win a fall. His kicks were better, his headscissors looked good, he probably should be a técnico. Niebla Roja is way over with this crowd.
Guerrero Maya is going to be a Blue Panther-ish rudo at some point in his CMLL career. It’d be ideal if it was sooner rather than latter. This lightning match felt like a small preview of why that chance would make sense. Maya wasn’t a rudo here, and it was broadly a técnico/técnico match where both guys dived. It also was Maya out wrestling and out smarting the more acrobatic flyer, all the way to the quick and nifty German suplex finish. Maya assisted Flyer to maybe his best singles match ever, guiding him thru some good mat wrestling portions and kept the match interesting throughout. This felt like a more complete match than I’d expect Flyer to have in this spot, which makes it intriguing what Maya might due with others.
Star Jr. looked great with Templario in the third fall of the tercera. Everyone looked good in the third fall of the match, which really moved compared to the first two falls.
Tonight is CMLL Homenaje a Dos Leyendas. Angel de Oro and Cuatrero meet in a loser gets unmasked match. The show is not on the usual free services. It will instead be available on iPPV for $10 USD or 100 MXN (about $5.50) if you can convince the purchase screen than you have a Mexican IP address. The show starts at 8:30pm CT local. That’s 9:30 pm in the US – if you switched your clocks last week, it’s an hour later than usual.
I wrote preview of the show over on Voices of Wrestling. To me, this show resembles last year’s Gran Prix, where the show might be good but not important enough to get people to pay money for it. There was even more buzz for the Gran Prix, with the novelty of outsiders having a rare big match in CMLL. Angel de Oro and Cuatrero are well known to CMLL fans but aren’t really known without it, and they’ve never been treated as top guys until this moment. I’m not super excited for this match while still thinking it should be pretty good.
My hunch since this match was first teased was Angel de Oro would be losing his mask. CMLL is as high on the NGD as they’ve been on anyone since the original Mistico push. Angel’s brother Niebla Roja has done well without the mask. So has Volador, and a mix of more unmasked tecnicos makes some business sense.
This card could use a second big match, as the women’s mask match backed up the men’s mask match at the Anniversario. They’re not getting that match. Volador/Valiente versus Terrible/Rey Bucanero is an inescapable lesser version of the Volador/Ultimo Guerrero vs Terrible/Rush tag team final we just saw. They will try to make it work anyway, but it’s not a match people are excited for just because it’s happening. The rest of the card should be at least good, there’s just not that much direction. The unending tournament of the last six weeks has taken all the air out of the room for any other feuds, and not following off that first big tournament outcome (the new Los Ingobernables) on this show is wasted momentum. It’s a big CMLL so it’ll still probably have good matches, but it’s CMLL succeeded despite it’s lackluster programming efforts.
The assistance at the gate they are getting is Mil Mascaras. He’ll be will be honored as the luchador legend on tonight’s show. Mascara is at least one of the ten most important Mexican wrestlers of all time. CMLL usually honors wrestlers by having them simply come to the ring with their music, wave at the fans and get a plaque. There may be more for a someone the stature of Mil Mascaras. Mil doesn’t make many Arena Mexico appearances. He’s usually only coming to shows to wrestle and Ultimo Dragon has used him a couple times. I had a fear CMLL might do the same on this show, and thankfully that didn’t occur. CMLL’s not in the habit of bringing legends to shows outside once or twice a year bits honoring them like this one. I hope Mil Mascaras lives decades more and shows up to Arena Mexico many more times to complain about kids these days not knowing how to really wrestle. The reality of the situation, the thing I think his long time fans and everyone else knows, is they may never get another shot to see Mil Mascaras in his original home arena. That might cause a different fanbase than usual to turn out. The fanbase who comes to the big shows is usually pro rudo and I’m not sure if that’ll be the case this time.
SuperLuchas has an article about the 10 important matches in the history of Mil Mascaras. This is good and I wish there were more pieces like this about pre-90 luchadors.
DTU (THU) 03/15/2018Arena Xalapa, Xalapa, Veracruz [+LuchaTV, DTU]
1) Mini Flash & Samuray Jr. b Ángel Negro & Hermes
2) Billy Gamer, Devitt Rodríguez, Fly Danger b Anarquía, Rey Volador, Vengador Radioactivo
3) Alfa (Baja California) & Pesadilla b Máscara Aerea (Baja California) & Tiburón
4) Lokillo b Draztick Boy, Jimmy, Moria, Adrenalina, Flayer Boy (Veracruz) preview of Lokillo challenging Moria for the ALto Impacto title.
5) Crazy King b Johnny Lloyd
6) Erick Ryan, G-Raver, Kenji Fujimoto b Cíclope, Miedo Extremo, Violento Jack
DTU is in Guadalajara tonight, with Crazy King defending the main title against Halloween and Lokilla and Moria facing off for the Alto Impacto championship.
The legal threat has not deterred the Wrestling Observer Newsletter from posting results from the last two tapings. It’s right after where he’s reported about that legal letter, and it’s very detailed. I do sense the sites which repost much of the WON content (and sometimes credit the WON) have backed away from writing about Lucha Underground. I’m not sure if it’s fear of getting the same legal letter – it might have just someone doing the math and realizing LU is not worth the headache when they can write about the lowliest person on the WWE roster and get many times the same traffic. The spoilers are still there for people who want to read them and less people are talking about Lucha Underground. I’m not sure that was a great outcome.
I guess Faby is back in April. And Lady Shani & Hades/Hashatary aren’t expected back. Probably just one more match to go, and then they can tear all of this up and announce something completely different.
+LuchaTV has a sit down with Ricky Marvin. Among other topics, Marvin explains he’s frustrated by his current situation: he was a star in NOAH, but that didn’t transfer at all back home. CMLL says they don’t have a spot for him, and AAA put him under a mask and it didn’t really work. It’s a shame Marvin isn’t CMLL. In his return to the indies, he seems like a veteran who can still go, and CMLL could use a few more of those on the rudo side. Marvin would also be an internationally valuable name for them; he’d create new matches for FantasticaMania and ROH would probably be interested in using him thru CMLL.
Fuerza Guerrera says he’ll take that mask match with Octagon, but he’d really like a mask match with Atlantis. Someone needs to tell Fuerza that he should be saying he’d really like test himself against Psycho Clown & Hijo del Fantasma because the payoff he’s looking for could actually happen that way.
CMLL (TUE) 03/20/2018Arena México
1) Acero & Aéreo vs Pequeño Olímpico & Pequeño Violencia
2) Oro Jr., Sensei, Star Jr. vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Universo 2000 Jr.
3) Kaho Kobayashi, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis
4) Rey Bucanero vs Ephesto [lightning]
5) Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa, Stuka Jr. vs Johnny Idol, Kawato San, Okumura
6) Mistico, Soberano Jr., Volador Jr. vs Cavernario, Felino, Mr. Niebla
Cavernario won’t lose another feud this week. Maybe next week though.
I do not know who wants to see an Ephesto/Rey Bucanero singles match in 2018. I do not think they want to have a singles match in 2018.
Arkángel de la Muerte, Nitro, Templario beat Lestat, Rey Samuray, Tigre Rojo Jr.
(17:11 [6:45, 3:57, 6:29], 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Diamante Azul, Hechicero, Stuka Jr. beat Johnny Idol, Kráneo, Titánin a relevos increíbles match
(10:37 [7:01, 3:36], 1/2, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Cavernario & Último Guerrero beat Valiente & Volador Jr.
(8:06 [2:21, 2:07, 3:38], 1/3 DQ, below average, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
Soberano flattened
Cavernario faked a foul in the third to cause a quick end to the main event and set up a singles match.
Kraneo splashed his partners by accident to cost them the first fall. Idol & Kraneo argue after the fall. Idol trips up Kraneo to cost his team the second fall and the fight after the match.
Thoughts:
The main event was nothing even by CMLL b-show nothing main events. The third fall didn’t feel like it got going before Cavernario faked the foul, and the first two falls weren’t much. They went shorter in this match than the one where Volador broke his nose. The show ran long, but this shouldn’t be so short.
Soberano/Mephisto was kind of similar to Volador/Mephisto, except we haven’t seen three dozen Volador singles matches and have all his spots memorized. There were other touches, like young Soberano being utterly baffled by Mephisto using a Gedo clutch for the win, and Tirantes being a troll in what might have been an attempt to get the fans more Soberano. (That may be a generous read of how much Tirantes was doing to help the match and how much he was doing to entertain himself. Whatever the intent, it felt more like it distracted than helped.) The second fall moved and ended quick. This third fall didn’t really. Mephisto matches turn into slow kick out affairs, and Tirantes slowed things down even more by making everyone react to his antics. Soberano still looks athletic and impressive, and took the super Devil’s Wing impressively. I wish he’d just stop taking the Canadian Destroyer as every big match finish. This match felt like it hit the upper limit of what this type of match is going to be, and it was a borderline good/great match to me.
Soberano
The most impressive sight on that show is Hechicero somehow being able to pull Kraneo in it’s weird submission. Neither of these make shift teams showed anything unusual as a team, it was just weirdness to set up the weird Idol/Kraneo feud. Idol is in the right, Kranoe is not so accurate with his splashes.
Poor Templario took the knees to the gut on Rey Samuray’s 450 try because he thought hew as helping by moving closer, then lurched forward to catch Lestat’s dive and got a leg to the head. Templario saved Samuray from being dropped on his head at the end, so it worked out. Match was not interesting outside of Templario.
Astro would fit right in CMLL Mexico City’s minis matches. Unfortunately, so would Guerrero Especial, because those matches aren’t much. This was Mercurio doing the same Mercurio moments and Stukita not going off as much as he will on Fridays. Astro himself has had better showings.
