Recapped: 08/03/2018
Matches:
El Audaz & Fuego beat Templario & Virus
(12:54 [6:51, 3:15, 2:48], 1/3, good, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Ángel de Oro, Blue Panther Jr., Niebla Roja beat Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
(11:44 [3:46, 3:56, 4:02], 1/3, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL)
Carístico, Hijo de LA Park, Mistico beat Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón
(14:31 [3:35, 3:43, 7:13], 1/3, great, VideosOficialesCMLL )
Atlantis, Blue Panther, Negro Casas beat Fuerza Guerrera, Octagón, Solar I
(11:25 [5:22, 3:10, 2:53], 2/3, ok, VideosOficialesCMLL )
Volador Jr. beat Matt Taven © to win the NWA World Welterweight Championship
(16:39, 2/3, great, VideosOficialesCMLL )
- Matt Taven frogsplash (3:43)
- Volador Jr. backcracker (1:51)
- Volador Canadian Destroyer (11:05)
King Phoenix, LA Park, Penta El Zero M beat Jay Briscoe, Mark Briscoe, Rush
(19:35 [4:29, 4:59, 10:07], 2/3, great, VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
Rush dropkicked LA Park twice at the close of their match, covered LA Park, and picked him up before three both times. Rush then purposefully unmasked LA Park and fouled the referee when he called for the disqualification. Rush grabbed camera cords from the outside and brought them in to repeatedly whip Park, payback for Park doing the same thing after their singles match. Rush told Park the time for talking was over, he wanted a mask versus hair match at the Anniversario show, and he wanted it to be no rules because he wasn’t planning on following them. LA Park wanted that too, and said the rules were the only thing stopping him from finishing Rush last time they met. No one specifically said the match was on. CMLL was careful to say they were on the road to it happening, not that it was happening. Still, fans were left with the idea that would be the match with tickets going on sale tomorrow.
Volador regained the NWA Welterweight Championship from Matt Taven, despite some slow counts from Tirantes. Rush, for no particular reason, attacked Volador after the match. Taven got involved and got attacked, but Taven and Volador were eventually able to repel Rush out. (Flyer, Volador’s second, was no help.) Taven was clearly a técnico afterwards.
The Negro Casas Anniversary match was wrestled cleanly, with no match being set up. Negro Casas’ family (including Warrior Jr. and the Psycho Clown babies, but not Psycho himself) came to the ring to honor him and Sofia Alonso gave Casas a plaque. Many of the wrestlers and referees wore silver 4:40 armbands in his honor.
Thoughts:
The show delivered. If there’s a better top to bottom CMLL show this year, it’s going to be an amazing show. The legend match felt special even it wasn’t good, and the segunda felt more like it belonged on a regular show. Everything else was very good or better, and it felt like a huge night of wrestling.
It probably felt even better in the building. It’s two straight days of pretty good wrestling shows where the production was unable or unwilling to show all of the action. Outside of the usual bit of missing in between fall action to air replays, CMLL seemed reluctant to show LA Park & Rush brawling past the barriers. There were multiple moments in the opening falls of the main event where CMLL went to a wide shot of the arena, showing nothing in particular, while Park & Rush were a half-dozen rows deep into the crowd. It sounded like an exciting match, but it wasn’t looking like one when they were giving us shots of the Lucha & Briscoe Brothers keeping in a little lowkey when they thought the attention was elsewhere. The third fall was outstanding, with the Jay & Mark vs Fenix & Penta action being surprisingly well laid out action for two teams who hadn’t interacted before. All four worked really well together, and I’d love to see them have a straight tag match down the line. LA Park and Rush was LA Park and Rush, with an amazing reaction for the faceoff they did near the end. I wish I could trust that they were actually doing the mask match, but CMLL spent a summer with Último Guerrero & Atlantis declaring they were going to have a mask match only to end up with Volador & La Sombra. Giving wrestling promotions the benefit of the doubt is foolish.
Matt Taven versus Volador was the usual big Volador title match. It had the two early falls, it had all of his big spots, and it had Matt Taven getting near falls off moves he’d established early. The crowd very much feared Taven was going to win off the frog splash in the third fall. (They didn’t react as much to the headlock driver, which was what set up the win last time around. CMLL doesn’t remind people of finishes from five months ago.) I still don’t understand why CMLL did this title change, but Taven’s willingness to work a Volador style match on Volador’s home turf might be a reason they keep going with him. Taven seemed as if he hurt his knee early in the third fall, but perhaps it was just a slip since he kept on going fine and was there for all of Volador’s offense. I wonder why they had to turn him técnico post match, but maybe there’s as much reason as there was for this title change.
The legends match was the expected more of a “good to see these guys” than an “actually good” match. Fuerza Guerrera stole the show by actually doing a dive and instigating fights where every they could. I assume they’re going to keep bring these same guys for legends matches regardless, but the number of Solar matches left in Arena Mexico can probably be measured in single digits. He looked very old struggling to finish the first fall. Octagon looked usual Octagon bad more of the match but did manage a dive in the end. They got thru the match well enough, but the money getting thrown in at the end spoke more to these guys being legends enough for the fans to overlook the quality of the match.
Everyone was on in the tercera. Mistico & Carisitco looked clean in their big moves. The NGD did a pretty good destruction for a fall and a half, adding some new ideas to the stuff they have in down right away. The big show crowd always has it’s hatchets out for Mistico. He was good enough in big matches to get them to forget to boo him at times. It was easily Hijo de LA Park’s best match in CMLL so far and a match fitting a big show.
The second match wasn’t really impressive. It didn’t seem to be any better than the usual match between these teams, and you’d expect it a little bit more for this bigger show. Panther did get his dive right and had better backbreaker than usual, but didn’t seem all the way into it. All the técnicos seemed a little thrown by the boos for them, which should’ve been expected. Mephisto and crew did the usual ok but unspectacular work as usual.
The opener was a solid match. The crowd was in the mood for more flying than they were doing early and so was I. The no opening match dive poly was well in effect, but they figured out a way to pick it up. Templario’s apron dropkick looks to be a frequent spot now, while Audaz made up a new move when his original idea didn’t go well.
