May 31, 2019 – luchablog

CMLL on Marca: 2019-05-17

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 thecubsfan

Recapped: 05/18/2019

This is definitely something I thought I posted weeks ago.

Matches:

Akuma & Espanto Jr. beat Magia Blanca & Star Jr.
(11:33 [4:40, 3:29, 3:24], 2/3, ok, 00:00:59)

Kaho Kobayashi, Marcela, Sanely beat Amapola, Metálica, Tiffany
(13:09 [5:34, 3:04, 4:31], 1/3, ok, 00:19:24)

Felino, Hechicero, Tiger beat Esfinge, Rey Cometa, Tritón
(13:50 [5:08, 4:31, 4:11], 1/3, ok, 00:43:25)

Negro Casas beat Soberano Jr. in a lightning match
(8:43, casita, good, 01:08:06)

Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero beat Ephesto, Máscara Año 2000, Mephisto
(8:52 [2:35, 2:40, 3:37], 2/3 DQ, below average, 01:22:37)

Cavernario, Cuatrero, Sansón beat Carístico, Místico, Valiente
(6:33 [1:54, 4:39], 1/2, below average, 01:42:58)

What happened:

Cavernario cheated to beat Místico in the main event, setting up a singles match next week

Sansón & Cuatrero ran in to attack Último Guerrero when Mascara 2000 was in danger of being put in the Pulpo Guerrero.

Tiger beat both Triton and Esfinge to win, though that seemed partly because Hechicero got himself eliminated after suffering thru an injury. He wasn’t shown again.

Kaho hyped the hair match after her trios match.

Thoughts:

The main was totally disappointing, a sub 7-minute match with not the action to make up for the time. The técnico offense was nearly limited to the same Místico led dive run that happens in every match with him. They could’ve done a lot more and still gotten to the same ending and they instead ended with one of the quickest shows in recent memory. This wasn’t acceptable as a main event.

The semi-main was surprisingly not over for a feud scheduled to headline the next major CMLL show in two weeks. The crowd was way into the previous match but this didn’t do a thing for them. It didn’t do much for me either, with the Guerreros not doing any of their flying and the Hijos del Infienro not doing anything in particular. Mascara & UG have a wild brawling spot and not much more, and that wasn’t close to enough here.

Negro Casas did a lot more in the lightning match than normal and survived it better than Soberano. The Canadian Destroyer wasn’t needed, didn’t look good, and didn’t get the reaction the casita did, but everything else went well. The dive catch post spot looked brutal, as did the powerbomb Soberano almost lost him out, but that part enhanced the match. I wouldn’t have tried the fosberry flop dive on Negro Casas but Soberano trusted him and it worked out, like most of the match.

First two falls of the tercera were pretty hot. Not as much in the third fall to keep it that level. Maybe it was derailed a bit by Hechicero’s injury, though Tiger beating two técnicos made for a different ending than usual. Cometa was the best técnico easily.

The women’s match went a while, built towards big spots at the end and had a quick happy ending. No surprise the crowd liked it. It felt too similar to everything else I’m using to seeing from them for it really to stand out for me, but the effort was still strong. Kaho is likeable enough for the Mexico crowd not to just to root for the (evil) Mexican, which is pretty hard to do.

Magia Blanca was generally better working with Akuma this week than when he was with Espanto last week but still made some hysterically bad looking moves. The Silver King headscissors spot was a good try gone wrong. The first fall springboard headscissors was never going to work unless gravity was suddenly disabled. Everyone else was fine, Espanto wasn’t as horrendous as last week. It wasn’t boring.

Mascara 2000/UG, Amapola/Kaho and Virus/Metalico tonight

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 thecubsfan 3 Comments

Juicio Final is tonight. It’s at the normal Friday night time of 8 pm. Marca will be streaming their show: on their website and on their YouTube. There’s no Facebook video set up and there was no one last week, so maybe they’ve abandoned the platform. YouTube seemed to be getting the 3-4x times viewer, even despite blocking US audiences every week. I will also be streaming the show on my YouTube channel.

I wrote a long preview of the show on Voices of Wrestling, and ended up down on the concept. Virus/Metalico should be great if they get proper time. I’m not sure if anything else will be. The trios matches all could be good, but at least one of them has to get shorted on time with a seven-match card. (It also looks like there may be dance numbers.) Gran Guerrero & Euforia vs Valiente & Diamante Azul could go any way. Amapola & Kaho Kobayashi and Ultimo Guerrero & Mascara 2000 will have a bump from the emotion and the stakes, but neither would be a good match on a regular show. Mascara 2000 in a singles match could be terrible, and it is hard to imagine a way where it’ll be just OK. CMLL saying they’re going to do big shows each month sounds exciting if it actually happens, but less so if the matches are like this. As a draw, this seems like a test to see if billing a show as major without actually delivering major matches is good enough.

Ultimo Guerrero is winning the main event unless the world has gone insane. Amapola, Virus and Diamante Azul & Valiente all are likely winning, though none feels like a certainty. Virus losing would be upsetting, while the other two matches really could finish either way without it feeling a big deal. That is the problem with the card. Matches on big shows should feel like Metalico vs Virus, where the outcome feels important. It’s even better when the outcome is intriguing. The Ultimo Guerrero/Mascara 2000 match outcome sort of feels important, but it would feel really dumb if Mascara 2000 was the first guy to take Ultimo Guerrero’s hair, and then CMLL continue to go with the idea that Ultimo Guerrero was the greatest rudo.

Lucha Central has a preview of the show.

Mascara 2000 says this is just beginning of the war between Los Guerreros and Los Dinamita. It would make more sense starting with this if it really is the start of something but wait and see.

Marca visits Valiente’s restaurant. Valiente, especially when he was first becoming a star, was always compared to Super Astro and now both of them are in the restaurant business.

There are other shows today. The event most likely to turn up on +LuchaTV is the Wrestling Resureccion show in Arena Azteca Budokan. Golden Magic & Jack Evans face Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Herodes Jr. in the Montanez focused show. Possibly the best show tonight is the AAA/EMW show in Tijuana. The show includes LAX debuting for AAA against Hijo del Vikingo & Laredo Kid, as well as the dramatic Willie Mack appearance. He teams with Taya against Daga & Tessa Blanchard. This will probably turn up on the usual Tijuana YouTube channels.

Personality Media conducts a yearly survey of 20,000 Mexicans about 1,300 athletes, trying to determine the best known and most highly regarded. They’ve done it for five years. This year is the first where a luchador made any part of the list. El Hijo del Santo is the 8th highest rated athlete among men only, rated 7.23 out of 10 and known by 98% of the male respondents. Santo doesn’t show up on the overall top 10, indicating women didn’t rate him quite as highly. I’m not sure why he would’ve shown up this year more than the past. I noticed this list only because Santo was happily tweeting about it.

Lineups

CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2019 Arena México
1) Leono & Metatrón vs Cholo & Príncipe Odín Jr.
2) La Jarochita, La Maligna, Sanely vs Dalys, Metálica, Reyna Isis
3) Drone, Fuego, Rey Cometa vs Sagrado, Universo 2000 Jr., Vangellys
4) Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Luciferno [lightning]
5) Flyer, Kráneo, Stuka Jr. vs Hechicero, Máscara Año 2000, Mr. Niebla
6) Atlantis, Diamante Azul, Valiente vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón

Not a thrilling card. Leono & Metatron versus Cholo & Principe Odin Jr. seems like torture. Maybe the lightning match will be fine.

CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2019 Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) El Alteño, Luminoso, Magnum vs Mr. Trueno, Paymon, Rey Trueno
2) Magnus, Star Black, Star Jr. vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Tyson La Bestia
3) Avispa Dorada, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Amapola, La Comandante, Tiffany
4) Esfinge, Niebla Roja, Tritón vs Cavernario, Felino, Negro Casas
5) Ángel de Oro, Carístico, Volador Jr. vs La Bestia Del Ring, Rush, Terrible [Relevos Increíbles]

Rush at least gets a day off between working the Pacific Northwest for ROH and Guadalajara. Speaking of the PNW, Avispa Dorada makes TV.

MDA Dosis: 2019-03-17

May 31, 2019May 29, 2019 thecubsfan

Recapped: 05/28/19

This isn’t a full review of this show, but enough of the matches popped up on this indie watch list that just focusing on it seemed worthwhile.

All matches from Arena Naucalpan, 03/17/2019

Matches:

Freelance vs Audaz
(10:32, good, mluchatv)

Audaz had the shiny gear but Freelance had the shiny wrestling. The tone of the match was established early on, when Audaz tried to do a tricky rope run and fell down, then Freelance did his own and nailed it perfectly. Audaz can do cool spots but was outdone with them in this match by Freelance, who also landed them much more effectively. This match never developed more than an exhibition of those highspots but it flew by and seemed less than the 10 minutes it went.

Súper Nova vs Iron Kid
(11:14, good, mluchatv)

The Super Nova/Iron Kid was a better laid out match then Freelance/Audaz. It just didn’t have the excitement, with Nova doing a professional but relatively sane match for Naucalpan standards. Iron Kid’s out of control dives were the things that woke me up. Super Nova seemed to want to make a point about how they didn’t need to go crazy to have a good match and it was a good match, it just wasn’t a lot more than that.

Sádico vs Hijo de Canis Lupus
(17:23, great, mluchatv)

Hey, it’s the annual Sadico spectacular, somehow not featuring Flamita this year. It’s only March, I guess there’s still time for that. Hijo de Canis makes a worthy substitute in a match that puts everything together. They do some good back and forth on holds early on, it escalates into scray dives, and there’s big moves that keep the match going and going. Sadico messing up his chair dive was sad, but deciding to make it up by going headfirst towards the floor was a solid make good. Lupus matched him when he needed, including the big dive that wiped them out over the barricade, and they made this come off as an important outcome by the end. This match felt better put together than most of the Lupus matches I’ve seen, which seems like a Sadico thing. However it go there, it got to the end really well.

sometimes you just need to clothesline a dude

Dragón Bane vs Soberano Jr.
(10:19, ok, mluchatv)

Soberano’s struggles at putting together good matches outside of CMLL (and outside of trios) continues. This was a total empty calories match, full of fireworks dives and absolutely no substance. There’s no story here, and it is unclear either of these guys know there can be a story in matches, just different ways to fall on their head they’ve seen in other matches. The big spots have to be absolutely nailed to make this not feel silly, and the head drops they came back in to do didn’t look so good. I usually try to avoid spoiling direct finishes in these. The finish here is so terrible that it needs to be mentioned. Dragon Bane gives Soberano a head drop, then takes a bump for no reason, and both men carefully position an arm over each other for a totally unconvincing double pin. It is terrible, the kind of finish that must’ve only been approved because the people in charge didn’t want to deal with these guys any longer. There are far worse matches that get the same grade but few were as frustrating at the finish.

that said, being able to fold up on the tope was cool

Aramis vs Ángel de Oro
(11:52, great, mluchatv)

I was surprised about how much Angel de Oro took from Aramis in their match. That was the smart way to do the match, tease Aramis getting the big upset for as long as possible until Angel de Oro put him away. Aramis landing the spinning torture rack looked super impressive and he didn’t seem to lose anything by Oro surviving time after time. Aramis looked super smooth thru this match. Angel de Oro didn’t do a whole lot but what he did mattered, and he kind of just gave a platform to Aramis to take the fight to the bigger star.

Laredo Kid vs Imposible
(12:55, good, +LuchaTV)

Laredo Kid & Imposible drifted back towards moves just for moves sake. Being the sixth match (of those I’m watching) on this show made that a harder sell than it might’ve been isolated. They had a much better variety of moves than Soberano/Dragon Bane and not a stupid ending, so it wasn’t a big problem. It never got more than surface deep, but Laredo Kid is spectacular enough that they can get by with just some cool spots.