Lucha Report for August 14th, 2001

I think I am going to stop putting pictures on these reports. It simply takes too much time, time that I do not have to spend. But then again I never stand by what I say, so next week I’ll probably have 40 pictures.

Giant Silva is at some restaurant, he orders a meal fit for a giant. They give him a large hamburger and a big hero for Porky, but Silva switches the places of the plates and says that he should get the bigger sandwich, because he is bigger and stronger.

Giant Silva, Rayo de Jalisco Jr, Super Porky vs. Apollo Dantes, Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000- Well this here is your basic Porky/Silva match. A bit of comedy, and a lot of Silva overpowering everyone. Rayo tosses his mask away to Universo to get the rudos DQed.

Villano IV, Villano V, and Villano III vs. Scorpio Jr, Bestia Salvaje, & Emilio Charles- This would be the return of Villano V to the ring, back from his killer knee injury. Charles’ number one fan is sitting at ringside again. They edit the first fall down to mere seconds, where III is pinned via a Scorpio inverted atomic drop. Villano V gets a lot of offense in the second fall, doing the painful snap mare/knee to the face combo to all three Guapos(of which Emilio does a spit sell, apparently spitting out something that might have been a tooth!). The Villanos end up using three different rana variations at the same time, to take the second fall. The Villanos and the Guapos all are in the ring in the third, as Villano III does his “whistling” DDT to the rudos, but Scorpio senses his team is soon going to lose and rips off Villano V’s mask. A pretty boring match. The Guapos are very unexciting, it seems like Shocker brought 100% of the electricity(pun probably intended) to the team.

A ras de Lona- Highlights of Signo vs. Villano III. It looked a lot like V3’s bout with Atlantis in that it was slow paced but the crowd was very hot.

Mephisto goes to the doctors and they show he has a broken shoulder.

Satanico & Averno vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero (CMLL Tag team Titles)- The match starts fairly with a hot exchange between Averno and Guerrero, but both teams almost immediately want to turn this into a brawl. Satanico ends up getting held back by the referees, so the young Infernales dismantle Averno with a double press chokeslam into straightjacket choke. Satanico gets slammed and put away with a double boston crab. Second fall Satanico starts a comeback, doing some fast take downs with Ultimo Guerrero and even using a set of flying headscissors!! Bucanero gets knocked out of the ring and taken out with an Averno tope con giro, then Satanico catches Guerrero’s arm and uses a backslide to even things up. In the third, lots of mirror/stereo spots, with Satanico and Averno trying to take both Infernales out at once, but they get powerbombed near the ropes, though they kick out! We clip ahead, for some unknown(and asinine) reason, where Satanico uses the nudo on Guerrero while the ref is down. Mascara Magica enters and clotheslines him in the head then Guerrero covers for the pin. They then try to set up a spike facebuster on Averno, but Guerrero turns his back and Bucanero is rolled up and pinned! Big surprise there and it gets a big pop! Guerrero and Averno trade stiff shots, ending with a wiplashing clothesline by Guerrero. Averno uses a trick rana, which Guerrero rolls through for a two count! Brainbuster to set up a moonsault- but it misses! Averno goes up top and the crowd is really into it, but Magica low blows him off the top, and Guerrero uses the valaguesa! Mephisto distracts the ref, allowing Satanico to enter the ring and low blow Guerrero… Averno drops onto him and hooks the leg… 1, 2, 3!!!! New champs!!!!

Then the refs overturn the decision because of Satanico’s low blow, and Magica reveals himself to be Tarzan Boy! Felipe Ham Lee, commisioner then suspends Tarzan Boy. This was a good match, with a hot crowd, and a wild finish. I just wish Televisa hadn’t edited it so much. This is EMLL’s hottest angle right now, why clip the matches? It makes no sense.

AAA(From Torreon)

Akino & Fabi Apache vs. Lady Apache & Cinthia Moreno- For some reason this was treated more as an exhibition match, between teacher(Lady) and student(Fabi). Fabi’s team shows some awesome moves, including an assisted tornado DDT where Fabi lifted Akino onto her shoulders to give her the leverage for the DDT. Then Lady Apache comes back with a double DDT of her own and they crush Akino with a double team reverse superplex. At this point the action is so hot and so fast I can’t call it. Tons of counters and switches and reverses. It all comes to a head when Fabi catches Cynthia’s arms and does a pedigree. Fabi misses a missile kick and Lady uses a pendulum hold. Then, to end the match, Akino does a flying cross armbreaker on her! Ok, so this was basically all spots, but it was awesomely fast and fun to watch. Plus most of the spots were in the ring not out so it was like a beehive.

Mini Abismo Negro, Rocky & Rocco Marvin vs. Octagoncito, La Parkita & Mascarita Segrada- First fall is a squash by los ruditos. The tecniquitos come back in the second and rile up the crowd. Mini Abismo and Mascarita spend some time tearing into each others mask. Mascarita uses a rana on Rocky to take the second and I guess establish a feud. As we return to the match in the third, the rudos are somehow in complete control once more. This doesn’t last long as Abismo rips off Segrada’s mask for the DQ. A disappointing match but I think they are trying to set up a title match between Mascarita and Rocky.

Cibernetico, Abismo, Electro Shock vs. Hector Garza, Latin Lover, Heavy Metal- Garza and Latin Lover could not get along even from the start. After Lover knocked Abismo down a few times, they got into a shoving match, which caused Garza to flee the ring. So Latin Lover gets placed in a straight jacket camel clutch and has to give up. After the rudos left the ring to showboat for a bit they had a fight and Latin Lover ended up fouling Garza. See this is where AAA is aggravating, Garza is LLL with Cibernetico and feuds with the top face in the company Latin Lover, but somehow he still is a face and the crowd is taught to cheer for him. Then again, the last thing AAA needs is more rudos. Garza stays out of the ring for the entire second fall, and so eventually his teammates are overwhelmed.

The Monster(w/ Chucky), Texano, Pirata Morgan vs. La Parka Jr., Alebrije(w/ Kuije), Mascara Segrada(Cage Match)- Preceding this match was a great skit with Chucky chasing Kuije around a park, only to be caught and choked by Alebrije. Standard cage match stuff, except this one has absolutely no point and no blood. Kuije does a plancha off the cage. Awesome. I love that little guy. The fat derelict monster and Alebrije escape and Kuije and Chucky are left alone to battle it out! Kuije hits a senton and it looks as if he will escape, but then Pirata knocks him off the cage and Chucky escapes!

Lucha TV Report for August 21st, 2001

EMLL

The show opens up with a segment with EMLL’s commission meeting to discuss the events that transpired at the last tag title match. They decide to suspend Tarzan Boy for two weeks for helping the young Infernales win the match. Ultimo Guerrero is upset because he feels that they should wait for Tarzan Boy to show up and offer a defense and also he says Mephisto interfered on the behalf of Satanico.

(Coliseo)Villanos III, IV, La Fiera vs. Satanico, Averno, Emilio Charles Jr.- Emilio’s blonde bombshell admirer is at ringside. He refuses to help his team at first because Satanico is known to have an alliance with Shocker but eventually gives in. Lots of slow action to start the first fall, with the tecnicos having the majority of the offense. Fiera blasts Charles with an enzuigiri while III gets Averno in a crab to take the first fall. The second fall is a slow rudo caida, but Charles stops cooperation with his teammates and Fiera uses the confusion to blast Averno with a jumping kick while IV rolls up Satanico. I like all of these guys but the match was really horrible despite a hot crowd. It’s like everyone barely showed up here and the angle had very little point.

(Coliseo)Dr Wagner Jr, Shocker, Apollo Dantes & Cien Caras vs. Gigante Silva, Lizmark, Mr Niebla- Something I noticed now is Arena Coliseo has a new ring announcer, who really sucks. Lizmark and Shocker feuded throughout this, spending lots of time in the ring against each other. Niebla and Apollo Dantes do some funny slapstick as well. Then Silva tags in and the match hits it’s depression for a bit, although Wagner does crack me up by poking Silva in the eyes to break a bearhug. Silva ends up pinning Dantes but before he can score a second pinfall, Shocker uses a low blow on Lizmark and get the pinfall.

A ras de lona- Profiles Emilio Charles’ girlfriend…

(Arena Mexico)Black Warrior, Fuerza Guerrera, Blue Panther vs. Negro Casas, Black Tiger, Villano V- The match opens up with some mat wrestling, featuring impressive sequences between El Blue and the Villano and Warrior and Tiger. The crowd started turning on Black Tiger here, apparently buying into the Japanese gimmick. Both teams go back and forth for a while, but the tecnicos end up taking the first fall as Casas and Villano V hit their finishers. The second fall is joined in progress, as Blue Panther uses the armbar to pin Villano. He then kicks and gets Tiger ready for the powerbomb, but Tiger counters with a facejam and sets Blue in the corner for a triad of moonsaults. Blue gets his knees up on the third one, but gets knocked over the ropes running in and Tiger then uses a planchita to take him out. Warrior and Casas then start going at it, but Black Tiger enters the ring illegally, decks Warrior in the back of the head really hard, shoves Casas out of the way and uses a rather vertical Death Valley Driver to pin Warrior. Then in one of the greatest interviews ever, Silver King playing the part of the Japanese wrestler, cuts a promo in broken Spanish with a Japanese accent… too funny. I guess he is having fun with this gimmick, but I really have no idea what direction they are taking this angle. Match was good.

Momentos Estelares

Sombra del Plata with a triple jump missile dropkick
Enemigo Publico with a tope con giro
Pantera with a double jump springboard sommersault plancha…. Nice!
Silva with a plancha off the apron
Tzuki with a quebrada into an armdrag into a crucifix on the floor on Torito!
Antifaz del Steroids uses a corner post tope con giro

(Arena Mexico) Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero, Mascara Magica vs. Hijo del Santo, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Atlantis- Lots of matwork to start, until Santo tags in and speeds up the match with his beautiful headscissors and armdrags. Bucanero takes a _killer_ salida de bandera over the top rope, going totally vertical with one arm. I made a video of it. After a series of double teams, Rayito and Santo end up on the same turnbuckle, and one after the other using a flying tope and tope en reverse knocking Guerrero and Magica down. Rayito uses his father’s goofy headbutts, Santo uses ‘la de caballo, and Atlantis with la Atlantida to end the first fall. Rayito starts the second fall off with some quick headscissors and an armdrag sending Bucanero up the ramp. Atlantis then enters and schools the young punks for a bit, but when Santito enters the rudos gang up on him and send him to the floor hard. Atlantis is put in a team cavernaria, then Rayito hit with a flapjack - missile kick- double wheelbarrow suplex into a bridge combo from hell. Awesomely done. This is where the greatness of the Infernales really shine, in their smooth creative teamwork. The announcers must be having fun as they start randomly talking English here. The Infernales continue to punish the tecnicos in the third, including ripping the silver mask apart, but a comeback is imminent. Guerrero takes a corner post bump and gets nailed with a mean bullet tope from Santo. Rayito dives onto Bucanero. Atlantis gets Magica tied up, so Santo tries a plancha over him, but Guerrero rolls through with his mask and scores the pinfall, causing the rudo section to go wild! This was a really good match, maybe ***1/2 or so… the work was pretty and fluid and both teams looked impressive. Hijo del Rayo and Santo make for a nice team, I think, and apparently they think so too as they challenge for the Infernales’ belts. Atlantis also challenges for Mascara Magica’s mask and the front row started laughing.

AAA

Akino vs. Lady Apache- They open with some AWESOME matwork, working off a bodyscissors into an eventual rolling cradle. Fabi Apache pulls her sisters(?) feet out running to the corner allowing Akino some control time to work the arm. Lady Apache comes back with some fancy lucha stuff and then nails Akino with a tope. They then start working off a switch for a belly to back suplex, but neither woman can pull one off. Akino tries an elbow and gets fisherman suplexed. Akino then ends up on top and Lady uses an armdrag into the ring, but Fabi pulls the refs leg. Akino now makes a short comeback but accidentally hits her second Fabi Apache with a plancha. It looks like Lady has the match won but then Akino uses the flying armbar hold, only to have it broken in the ropes. Then lady Apache comes back and wins the thing with an airplane spin. Jeez. Despite that, the match was quite ok, it was kind of like they were trying to have Japan vs. Mexico both in terms of the luchadoras and in terms of the moves used.

Mascara Segrada, Alebrije, La Parka Jr. vs The Monster, Pirata Morgan, Texano- I am pressed for time so this will be quick. The match had almost no wrestling, but lots of comedy. Surprisingly it was kind of funny, and I am starting to find a soft spot for the terrible Monster + Chucky duo now that they don’t take themselves seriously… Alebrije and Parka remain a good comedic duo. Somehow Kuije won the match for the tecnicos by pinning Chucky in the third with a rana.