Tag: recap

Recapped:05/31/2019

Matches:

Black Panther, Blue Panther Jr., Rey Cometa beat Disturbio, Kawato, Misterioso Jr.
(9:25 [5:30, 3:55], 1/2 DQ, good)

Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Soberano Jr. beat Ephesto, Luciferno, Mephisto
(12:19 [3:47, 2:50, 5:42], 2/3, ok)

Virus beat Metálico in a loser must retire
(20:25, motocicleta, excellent)

Amapola beat Kaho Kobayashi in a hair vs hair match
(9:58, 1/3, good)

1. Amapola sort of Skayde Special (1:01)
2. Kaho Kobayashi headscissors cradle (0:51)
3. Amapola Devil’s Wings (8:06)

Euforia & Gran Guerrero beat Diamante Azul & Valiente © for the CMLL World Tag Team Championship
(13:24 [4:26, 1:56, 7:02], 2/3, ok)

Carístico, Místico, Volador Jr. beat Bárbaro Cavernario, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas
(7:06 [1:23, 1:34, 4:09], 2/3, good)

Último Guerrero beat Máscara Año 2000, hair vs hair
(10:05 [0:47, 0:56, 8:22], 2/3, ok)

1. DQ Mascara faked foul (0:47)
2. Último Guerrero senton de la muerte (0:56)
3. Último Guerrero inside cradle (8:23)

What happened:

Disturbio interfered often to help Mascara Año 2000 as his second, including breaking up a Pulpo Guerrero with referee Edgar turned around. Gran Guerrero got into a fight with Disturbio after that one, causing both of them to be thrown out. A few moments later, all of the Dinamitas (Sansón, Cuatrero, Forastero, Universo 2000 Jr., and Hijo de Mascara Año 2000) came out as a referee distraction. Mascara Año 2000 tried to sneak in a foul kick, but Guerrero blocked it and easily cradled him for the win. The Dinamitas stormed the ring and attacked Guerrero. Security quickly got involved.

Gran Guerrero & Euforia won the tag titles from Diamante Azul & Valiente.

Kaho Kobayashi lost her hair to Amapola, than sat in the ring and got her hair cut.

Metalico’s career came to an end by losing to Virus.

Thoughts:

Many people on this card showed a lot more than was expected of them going in. Mascara Año 2000 was not one of them. The main event had tons of smoke and mirrors by CMLL standards, with Disturbio being as active as the guy he was seconding. Último Guerrero still forced in a few of his usual moves. Mascara 2000 tried, he just didn’t have much to add. This crowd was into everything, which kept this from ever feeling sad, but it wasn’t ever anything great. The post match seemed to tease a lot more to come, which would all have to be better than this match.

The semimain was unnecessary and rushed, but it was the easy fun match it was meant to be. The técnicos did their usual bits but looked sharp doing them. The crowd loved cheering for the rudos and booing Místico. It didn’t hit the peaks of other versions of this match, but it also never really had the time to do so.

Gran Guerrero & Euforia winning the tag team titles won’t be remembered as much, though it is a lot better to see them with the championships. Diamante Azul gave the effort of a man who was not happy to be losing the titles, and Valiente topes couldn’t make the match alone. Los Guerreros showed their usual good team work but didn’t have much to work with here. There’s potential for them to have a lot better opponents down the line. Most opponents will be better than this.

Amapola delivered her best performance in years in the hair match. The match wasn’t perfect – the first two falls seemed cut down as if a consequence of the long-running show. There were times where they seemed to be running out of gas; the battle to get the superplex stuck out. The superplex did look great when they got it to work, and the match had more exciting moments than it seemed like it would at first. The casual crowd wanted to boo Kaho, assuming the foreigner was the evil one as usual, but she kept winning them over with her offense and by coming close to a win. Kaho kept fighting back, even when she got demolished by Amapola’s toe con giro, and the image of her stoically taking the hair cut was memorable.

Virus & Metálico exceeded all expectations. The crowd completely bought into the gravity of the match from go, and both men lived up to the atmosphere. This might have been Metalico’s best match of his career and it goes right along the classics Virus has had. They took this very seriously, hitting each other very hard (and playing off the idea that there’s no way this was ending with a cheap DQ, so punches and questionably low shots were in play.) Virus had his usual bit of stunning reversals, while Metálico went deep in to playbook to pull out moves from him that we haven’t seen since he and Tigre Blanco were still a team. Both men seemed to slow down after the really hot first ten minutes, but they came back strong during the last moments of the match. I really liked Virus killing Metálico with big move after big move until it was finally enough, something completely different than how CMLL usually handles big matches. A lot of this felt different than the big CMLL matches and it;ll be reminded a lot longer for that reason.

The segunda had some cool spots, with the second fall finish coming off well. It lacked the urgency of the opener and felt more like people going thru the usual offense than doing something bigger. Soberano insisting on taking a destroyer in every match is actually good because we’ll be able to easily identify him actually learning something about wrestling when he finally stops doing it.

The opener was worked at a pace suggesting they had no time to mess around. I wish they always had no time to mess around because it produced a heavy action match. This was fully big show effort at work, with Kawato pulling out a dive as impressive as Misterioso actually doing the ring post spear spot to set up a Cometa one. The effort paid off well though, and they got the most out of this time. Kawato & Black Panther is definitely an idea, it remains to be seen if it is a good one.

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.