taped 2014-06-06 @ Arena México
La Máscara, Rush, Titán vs Felino, Negro Casas, Shocker: Good! This turned out to be better than I thought it would be, and thought it was for stretches of the first fall. The last few minutes real brought up, as did the post match celebration/scrum – though it did seem like something was edited out there. Casas was so happy at beating Rush (and beating him clean!) Rush is much better at being a rudo, not just by his personality but going up and down for the técnicos, then his partner La Mascara. Titan being a rudo meant a lot more closed first punches, a little but more posing, and basically having his own private match with Felino as intermission to the other guys – this match was a preview to the tag match with other guys coming in. took a phone call during this match, and consider not screaming into the headset when Rush obliterated Negro with a dropkick to the face. That was horrifying. In this match, Babe Richard thought you had a 10 count to break a hold. Poor Negro Casas.
Volador Jr. © vs La Sombra © for the NWA World Welterweight Championship and for the NWA World Middleweight Championship: This was different from the other Volador/Sombra matches, which is in theory good. In reality, Sombra spent so much time being arrogant that the match dragged early and never really recovered. Sombra’s act would’ve been a fine device to avoid 15-20 minutes of your turn my turn and avoid burning out the near falls before the finish (they can’t exactly do mat wrestling the way the feud’s gone.) Instead we got a much slower version of the usual match, with a decent amount of turn taking by the time they got into the third fall. It was almost like the match they’d be working in 2050, working at that era’s version of a Legends show, making sure to put in enough time between spots so they could recover him. I don’t think the problem was injury here (though it could be), but just trying to get Sombra and friends over as heels at all costs and Volador as a valiant técnico. That may have worked – they got garbage littering the ring at the end of match – but it was definitely at the cost of this match being any more than a curiosity. (There’s a bigger problem of this match being all built up to see someone Sombra or Rush being beat, and those are the two guys CMLL doesn’t want to beat at all.)
Magnus, Pegasso, Starman vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Sangre Azteca: Very good match. Primera in name only, as they worked a lot more complex match than than the usual opener. The last two falls had a lot more back and forth action and team spots than seen in average midcard match. They got plenty of time and freedom to do bigger spots, just not the allowance of dives. Raziel was super in this match, but he always is. Magnus is the only one of the group currently working a lot of actual openers, and seemed here like he should definitely be working a level higher – the headscissors backcracker spot looked good, and a lot of his stuff looked sharp. Sangre Azteca looked motivated and happy to be there. Even Pegasso’s 450 splash didn’t look so bad. Not quite Great, but not far off.
Cavernario vs Cachorro in a En Busca de un Idolo match: Good. This one had had a few more holes in it to me when I watched it again for a recap, and I still didn’t understand why these two guys wanted to murder each other. Cachorro trying for the martinete never made much sense, and neither did Cavernario refusing to let go of the hold. The big moves were really big moves, and nothing in this tournament has been much bigger than Cachorro’s running powerbomb on the floor here. Cavernario goes from spot to spot very easily.
Hechicero vs Dragon Lee in a En Busca de un Idolo match: Very good match. Finishing sequence was great, with Hechicero pointedly using an eye poke to set up his final two moves. I liked the Top Rope Submission that preceded it, just for the randomness. Hechicero was bigger and stronger than Lee, but Lee kept finding a way to fight back until Hechicero got in the cheap shot. There were spots that actually didn’t work, which seem very strange for a Hechicero match (but that reverse monkey flip seems to have a high level of difficulty.)
