Welcome To Mi Barrio is in the midst of a twenty-four man tournament to crown a first singles champion. It’s been going since August, but it was only this past week when I put a bracket together for the luchawiki. It got me curious to actually watch the tournament and see what it was like. I’ve watched very little of Welcome To Mi Barrio since it debuted as a Mas Lucha staple about a year ago. They use a lot of people who don’t seem to work outside the promotion (except for planned inter-promotional bits.) didn’t expect to find a treasure-trove of an unheralded match of the year candidates if went through the tournament, but I wanted to get at least have a sense of what the product.
The tournament – “El Poder de Barrio Calavera” – either doesn’t actually have a playlist on Mas Lucha’s channel or I’m terrible at finding it. A fan helpfully created one if you want to look through it. They appear to be alternating blocks each week, which means there’s a lot of tournament matches in the first three weeks and increasingly fewer each week. The first two rounds of the tournament are up, the semifinals started on Wednesday (didn’t see it yet), and the final will air around 10/28 at the current pace. These have been all empty arena shows so far, though it’s possible they’ll have fans there by the final.
It’s a slow pace. It matches the house style. Welcome to Mi Barrio, at least for this tournament, has a slower and less impactful sort of wrestling compared to what you’d see almost anywhere else. The matches hold together generally well. I only saw one or two which fell apart to the level of the worst CMLL empty arena matches. They’re also as intended to be casual fan crowd-pleasing matches in the way CMLL does them. There’s more time between the moves, more in control brawling, and a lot less flying. The current en vogue indie moves are not be found, making WTMB feel older while also a bit fresher. Gym Shu el Guerrero is listed as a sponsor and he’s been mentioned as a trainer for some of these guys before, so I wonder if this his influence. The outside guys stick out more for working differently. The main roster wrestlers seem to struggle to build towards a finish at times. I’m always biased toward a faster pace and a bigger finish, so this wasn’t really in the wheelhouse. They did push forward a few interesting people, enough that I’ll try to catch the last couple rounds later on.
The Panteras – Hijo is the one who was in Japan, Jr. is the one we haven’t seen much before – were both highlights. They’re working at a different speed than everyone else, and there’s a sharpness with them that the regular WTMB roster just doesn’t have at this point. They’re also coming from different experiences. One of the funnier moments of the tournament was Hijo del Pantera doing a 20 count count-out tease. He saw it a million times in Japan, I’m sure. Payaso Purasanta has been wrestling in Mexico instead and had no idea what was going on, staying out to hold Pantera in a chinlock before Pantera visibly told him to go back to ring so he could dramatically slide in at 19. The Hijo del Pantera/Camuflaje and Pantera Jr./Mara second-round matches were the ones I’ve liked the most so far. The Mara one is a feather in someone’s hat because Mara’s first-round match with Radical was among the weakest matches. I would love to see the Pantera’s in other environments to see how much of their speed is real and how much it is just relative to who they’re working with.
(Random thing I was distracted by: there’s a red digital clock on one of the walls visible when the wrestlers go outside. It’s only very occasionally on-screen, but you can see it enough to notice how they’re taping these matches in no particular order, sometimes hours before the last one. Or on vastly different days, I guess.)
There are three Payaso Purasanta luchadors in Welcome To Mi Barrio. The idea is it’s a father and two sons, though that may be a gimmick. Payaso Purasanta moves like you’d expect for an old man. Hijo del Payaso Purasanta is solid. Payaso Purasanta Jr. seemed like the best of the trio: showed good personality, had a range of impressive offense, made something out of an opponent who didn’t seem entertaining on his own. And then he lost, which was the strangest decision. DTU’s Kevin losing in to an inferior seeming opponent in the first round also was surprising, but he was a late sub whom I’m willing to believe just wasn’t available for future tapings. (Kevin’s good though; he’s got to be the guy getting the shot at the DTU Alto Impacto title.)
The tournament opening Criatura Azteca/Ambu match was better than I was expected, and may have messed up my expectations for the rest of the tournament for a bit. Xerjes was not at Pantera Jr.’s level here yet has promise as a skinny guy who can get beat up well. Secreto Negro seemed intriguing even if his match wasn’t much to talk about. It’s just hard to figure out positive places for these guys to go elsewhere because the style they worked here would get rejected as boring elsewhere. The positive thing Welcome to Mi Barrio is doing is a lot of in-between vignettes to try get over personalities and feuds. If they can get fans to care about the luchadors and their stories, the style issues aren’t nearly as much an issue.
Nothing here is must-see. I’d have maybe two matches borderline good, but people looking for AAA style action are not going to want to spend time on this. Both the Panteras have made the semi-final six (with the final as a three way.) I presume one will be eliminated, but at least one of the making the final gives it a chance at being something. Rugido or Hijo del Payaso Purasanta, based on being regularly focused on luchadors in this promotion, seem the most likely to actually win the whole thing. Tournaments are generally overdone, but this one was useful to get looks at a lot of different people without feeling like I needed to watch every match of a six week (and counting) show.