Recapped: 07/20/2018
Matches:
Espanto Jr. & Yago beat Príncipe Diamante & Súper Astro Jr.
(12:53 [6:15, 3:12, 3:26], 2/3, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Amapola, Dalys, Reyna Isis beat Lluvia, Marcela, Mistique
(13:05 [6:40, 3:31, 2:54], 2/3, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Esfinge, Titán, Tritón beat Kawato San, Okumura, Pólvora
(14:16 [4:00, 5:23, 4:53], 2/3, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Cuatrero went to a time limit draw against Mephisto in a lightning match
(10:00, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Carístico, Dragón Lee, Mistico beat Cavernario, Negro Casas, Penta El Zero M
(12:17 [5:26, 6:51], 1/2 DQ, good, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Ciber the Main Man, Scharly Rock Star, The Chris beat Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
(11:26 [4:02, 4:35, 2:49], 1/3, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
A promo aired, with LA Park saying he’d be at the 85th Anniversario. The match with Rush was implied but definitely not said.
Cibernético used the ropes (barely) to beat Último Guerrero in the main event.
Barbaro Cavernario fouled Carístico and unmasked him to end the semimain in two falls.
Rayo de Jalisco was remembered before the third match.
Thoughts:
Klan Kaoz versus Los Guerreros didn’t have the Guerreros flying all over the place out of the gate and suffered for it. It had a lot of the Klan Kaoz working together on team moves instead. They are trying – they don’t do the dives and take the big bumps in the third fall if they’re not trying. This was much better than the debut. It’s just also visibly not working and that’s making it a tough watch. Kaoz is not good enough to come off as a threat to the Guerreros, the fans already want to write them off for just being ex-AAA wrestlers, and they’re missing the presence and charisma they had to overcome the work. They’re just coming off as guys who do some moves, nothing special. The Guerreros comeback was fun, UG teasing there might be another match before Ciber made it clear it was the title match was not fun. That feels like it will be it for Kaoz, but maybe CMLL will see the crowd booing afterward as a great rudo reaction and not them rejecting the match.
The semimain didn’t totally fulfill the potential of the people involved, but still was easily the best and most heated match of the night. Fans were excited for Penta versus Dragon Lee and Carístico, and the técnico in-fighting was done well soon. The brawl at the start was superheated, even if CMLL’s cameras didn’t seem to follow Penta into the crowd. The disappointment is CMLL didn’t really take as much advantage of it. They telegraphed it only going two falls from early on and downplayed Penta despite him being the most over character in the match. Maybe Penta’s not coming back for a while, but this should’ve had more than a taste of the Dragon Lee/Penta stuff teased over the last couple months, and Penta instead losing to Mistico was weird. (Perhaps we’ll have to see that match elsewhere.) Negro Casas took some big bumps for any age and Cavernario looked good as always, it was a good match, just not really the match everything leading in suggested. Don’t run your own feuds in CMLL, I guess.
The Cuatrero/Mephisto match followed the Rayo de Jalisco tribute and had an uphill battle to get the crowd back up. It wasn’t really the right combination for that, and the match they had wasn’t much good. It was generally a professional lightning match, with one cringe moment in the middle where Cuatrero stayed still until Mephisto walked over to whip him. Neither man played técnico and the usual pro-NGD crowd didn’t care much about the generic action they were treated towards. They worked slower to make sure they could go long enough, and that didn’t help either, but neither guy seems like a great singles wrestler on their own in 2018. This was cold and disappointing. Giving it an OK grade is probably a little bit generous.
Tercera really dragged with rudo control in the first two falls and never got solidly beyond that. Titan & Triton had some moments, but not enough to make this worthwhile. Matching up Kawato and Esfinge to end a fall was some special magic, delivering the botched spot we were all expecting. They went back to in the third fall, it didn’t look good, and Esfinge was at least selling an injury after. Maybe don’t do that.
Dalys and Marcela had a good opening exchange, Lluvia looked the best she has since this return (and better than some time before), and the rest was a totally forgettable women’s match. Mystique is shaky and slow. Her blowing her entrance to the match turned the crowd against the tecnicas and it was odd they had her go last in the opening exchanges. The last two falls weren’t much.
Principe Diamante/Super Astros openers are better than Electrico/Astral ones, though this kind of cooled off after the good first fall. Yago’s willing to go along with their offense, which comes off as fresher than the muscle minis. Super Astro Jr.’s reverse tope looked nice. At least Espanto Jr.’s over the top Canadian Destroyer on the floor was a countout this time.