taped 2012-02-17 @ Arena Mexico Ángel Azteca Jr., Dragon Lee, Rey Cometa vs Arkángel de la Muerte, Nitro, Skándalo: Dragon Lee looked unsurprisingly rusty in his turn. The big spots he could practice on his own in an empty ring and a crash pad looked good, the inbetween parts requiring timing with other people is still iffy, and his accuracy isn’t great. Somewhat back to normal! Good match between usual sides.
Fuego, Sagrado, Sangre Azteca vs Misterioso Jr., Shigeo Okumura, Vangelis: okay match that got good in the end, despite them ignoring the rules for no particular reason. (Come to think of it, this might have been a good time to set up a double pin draw as a real finish.) Basically the same kind of match this crew always has. Vangelis is okay, but should never try a tapatía again.
Camaleón & Freesbe vs Bobby Zavala & Cholo: Normal opener, except maybe Freesbe making TV doesn’t quite count as normal. Maybe a little better than normal, because there weren’t the usual hesitations and errors that might be normally seen in a opener – everyone handled themselves well.
Aereo, Pequeño Halcón, Último Dragoncito vs Demus 3:16, Pequeño Olímpico, Pierrothito: Seen better minis matches. Neither Halcón or Aereo seems to have progressed all that much since starting here. They’re still the same unfinished guys with spotty records. Pierrothito and Demus looked good and the match was different, but they could use some better people to work with.
Pegasso, Rey Cometa, Starman vs Cancerbero, Puma King, Raziel: Okay match. A bit on the short side, so we didn’t get every Raziel/Cancerbero buzzsaw combo. More a lot of técnico offense, even though the rudos squashed them in the end. Not a particularly memorable match but at the usual level for this crew.
Hijo del Fantasma, Máscara Dorada, Super Porky vs Morphosis, Olímpico, Shigeo Okumura: not sure if I had just watched too much CMLL in a row, but this match was kind of boring. Crowd enjoyed it, but it was the same match as always with Porky and the rudos not doing much of note. Dorada didn’t do much for him (which means he did a crazy dive and a headscissors.)
Atlantis, Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Tiger: Not as good as last week’s TRT! I think this was a lesser TRT performance, thought they did mix in a couple neat spots in here and there. Sets up the next match well enough. Maya and Terrible worked together better than I would’ve figured.
taped 2012-02-19 @ Arena Mexico Diamante, Titán, Triton vs Hijo del Signo, Loco Max, Namajague: A relatively simple win for the rudos. Some neat spots in a usual match. Namajague still is a slight work in progress but much better than Yoshihashi was at this point. Titan & Triton really have lost their momentum, hopefully things change soon.
Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto vs Marco Corleone, Máximo, Rush for the CMLL World Trios Championship: Fun match, easily the best one of the feud. That’s what you want for the title match, but the rudos were much more into this and everything seemed important. They didn’t break any new ground here but they did the usual bits very well and made it seem like a battle between the two best teams. Máximo, Rush and Marco seemed like a completely random team when they were put together but have come together nicely and I look forward to seeing what they’ll be doing with these titles.
Argenis, Atomic Boy, Relampago vs Ángel Mortal, Gran Apache, Tito Santana: Good match; Atomic Boy and Argenis are adding different ideas to their repertoire, which is great if they’re going to be on TV more than once every months. Relampago remains Relampago, but he was better than last time out. Apache and Tito were in the right places at the right time; Angel Mortal looked a little bit slow but it could’ve been the other guys going too fast.
Dinastía, Mascarita Divina, Octagoncito vs Mini Chessman, Mini Histeria, Mini Psicosis: Really good minis match. Felt short than it actually was, but they just had a lot they wanted to get thru. Dinastia looked impressive and unique in his debut, just what you wanted. The rudos seemed better than they have in the past; they could still use one more good one, but they had tricky técnico offense to keep up with and managed it well here.
El Elegido & Fenix vs Alan Stone & Dark Dragon: Fenix and Dark Dragon did their thing and Alan seemed to be trying. Elegido was less than usual. The match finish was one of those nonsensical evil guys doing evil things for no particular reason – if Konnan just wanted Alan out of the group, why even let him have the match? I don’t think we’re going to be seeing a lot of Alan Stone either way. I wonder where this leaves the mixed tag titles (or maybe we’re just not going to be see a lot of those either.)
Cibernético, Daga, Electroshock vs Chessman, La Parka, Último Gladiador: if AAA was the kind of promotion that showed crazy things as much as CMLL shows that clip of Naito being clotheslined on his head, that would actually be a somewhat defensible finish. As it was, the crowd totally bought the brainbuster as a finish (and it will be, because no one besides Gladiador – and maybe Dark Dragon – will be silly enough to agree to something like a top rope Canadian Destroyer), and instead UG kicked out of that at zero to set up the crazy dangerous stop that they’ll never show again. You’re doing crazy moves only to impress yourself, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Chessman and UG did great work here. Electroshock was way into showing off all his moves. Cibernético and Parka is definitely an issue, but not a particularly hot one; changing each sides doesn’t totally take away from this being a decade long feud.
Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Mesías vs el Hijo del Perro Aguayo & Halloween: fifteen minute match with no finish, a great use of my time. Actually, the técnicos were most assuredly about to win, and win easily considering where the Perros used to be. It is Halloween, and Halloween and Damian exist to take losses in matches like this, so it’s not really a big deal. I haven’t been high on Mesías vs Jarrett because Jarrett’s not been around, but it’s not like Mesías has been all that interesting either.
La Máscara vs Volador Jr. for the NWA World Middleweight Championship: Disappointingly, a total CMLL formula singles match. They did the cavernaria spot. They did the guy tries a leg lock and puts on a cradle. They did the guy argues with a count and almost gets beat. They did the many many dives in the last fall (Mascara ran out of them.) Winning wrestler did a Super move to finally win it. I’ve see a lot of these and I’ve seen La Mascara, and this is kind of the match I could’ve just assumed from those. The great news is maybe we’ll see less Máscara singles matches without this title around (though Máscara does have the other one.)
Super Halcon Jr. vs Puma King in a lightning match: Halcón tried to rise to opportunity, breaking out new offense and his best looking gear. The outfit looked better than the kicks. Puma King remains good, and maybe still the best member of the tag team. He must really regret not having a T name.
Dark Angel, Estrellita, Goya Kong vs Amapola, Princesa Blanca, Princesa Sugheit: Another okay trios match. Estrellita fits in much better in this format than she does in the singles matches. Everyone was at their usual level. They gave this a lot more time than they usually give this level match on this show. CMLL’s really trying to get Estrellita over with the crowd, I have no feel if it’s taking. I do feel like I’ve seen this build up long enough.