Month: June 2003

The editing you’ve been getting recently is strange. I didn’t get the hair match from Wrestleholics, but did get to see Felino vs. Juventud. Both have done better in the past, but it is good to see a Juvy match where evidence of some of his personal problems that plagued some of his work the previous year weren’t evident. Unless you count Juvy’s bright orange ring jacket that looks like it was made from the same material you’d see covering up the seats of a K-Car. The Vilanos/Tinieblas vs. Mephisto/Averno/Bestia match is filler. I can pull out my tape and write up summaries of those matches, for completeness’ sake.

As for writing, my latest recap from my tape collection is 3 episodes from March 99 of WWF Super Astros.

They skipped a show. Which means no Shocker/Vampiro hair match on TV. Someone at master control must really hate Vampiro hair/hair matches, because this would make the second they’ve chosen not to shown since he’s been back in.

Lucha Times has been updated with what they’re doing instead. They may be doing a thing where they’re skipping every other episode to catch up (as that’s what they’ve done the last two weeks), but it’d be pretty dumb unless they were going to show the missing ones on Saturday.

I can’t find anything on the Havana Pitbulls wrestling in AAA, although they have wrestled as Los Cubanitos as well. I’ve only seen them once, and that was in New Japan, teaming with American Dragon in a funky triathalon match. They looked ok. It’s cool that they’re coming in but it won’t change your life, dig?

Good News: I was able to watch last week’s show.
Bad News: My tape cut out the Markus/Pierroth clips, the first two caidas of the first match, and the last caida of the main event. But at least I saw some!

I liked what I saw of the opener in a “Here’s a random bunch of guys we don’t see often” kind of way. It’s always good to see Mr. Mexico, even though he’s no great shakes in the ring (gotta love the facial expressions, plus he looks like a roid raging Freddy Mercury). Virus’ flip somersault dive to the floor where he landed on his feet was pretty nutty. And I liked how they reviewed the replay footage from a million different angles like it was the Zapruder film. I mean, is it really beyond the realm of possibility that Mascara Magica, who recently turned rudo again, would cheat in a match?

I see Black Warrior is back as a rudo, even though they never really showed why on TV. Me, I don’t care why, I’m just glad he’s a heel again. Let’s face it, here was a guy who was never cut out to be a tecnico, and it hurt his in-ring performance. I’m a lot more enticed by the thought of BW/Niebla and BW/Atlantis than any matchups he may have had with a rudo. And maybe they’ll reunite the awesome Wagner/Panther/Warrior combo.

Shocker also went rudo, but this is a guy who can work both sides of the coin equally well. The feud with Vampiro is going to make mad money if they do it right, and let’s face it, who do you trust more than CMLL to do angles right? It was still weird, almost shocking (no pun intended–ah, who am I kidding?) to see El Hombre Electrico slapping around Super Porky. That’s what happens when you don’t have 100 guys turn every year.

With his head shaved, Gran Markus now looks like a crooked Mexican sheriff in a Clint Eastwood western. And he and Porky were feeling it in the main event, and I think it went further than the GDI bumping big for them. Maybe Gran is some sort of anti-Samson or something. Now I really do wish I saw that last caida.

Oh no, this new Blogger interface is SCARY. I’ll have to get over it.

Last night/this morning, I did finally get done with TV. While nothing that’ll blow you away, I though it was good.

NEWS:

Your CMLL LH Champion is…still Ultimo Guerrero. He had and Shocker had yet another good match, if you can believe that. CMLL.com gives high marks to the finale of a tag team tournament on that show (this past Tuesday at Arena Coliseo), where Blue Panther and Black Warrior defeated Ricky Marvin and Negro Casas.

CMLL will be holding another CMLL #1 contender Trios Tournament, with elimination matches on 7/4 and 7/11 leading to the title match on 7/18. Entered in are the Brazos, the Tailban, the Guapos and GdI. KrisZ says this is going to be a 4 team tournament, but the bit on CMLL.com made it sound like those 4 teams are the only ones announced so far. We’ll see.

NJPW (mostly the LA Dojo) wrestlers the Havana Pitbulls (Rocky and Ricky) will be in as soon as week from now. Actually, the translation makes it unclear if they’ll be in a week from now or a week from that end of that trios tournament, but let’s just pretend sometime before the summer’s over. This gets us one step closer to my dream of dreams, American Dragon in a CMLL ring. Anyway, their bios say they competed in AAA but I know nothing about their stay there – Homer? Joe?

Been editing things around – hope that didn’t cause any problems.

Galavision decided to skip a week of TV and dramatically edit down the show that did air. Lucha Times has been updated to reflect what happened. I may actually recap that episode tonight?

Apparently they really shouldn’t have waited a week to do the Mexican National Trios Championship title change – Nicho no showed the Friday Arena Mexico show (picked a date in Tijuana). They gave the titles to the Infernales, but the Infernales didn’t want to win them without a match and so they’re vacant. (Not sure if you give them a title reign there.) Violencia ended up working twice on the night (on the losing rudo team with GdI in Heat’s CMLL debut) as the Infernales got a relatively meaningless win.

In the main event, Pierroth defeated Cien Caras and took his hair. I guess they ARE building to a Universo 2K hair/mask match?

I should be able to see tomorrow’s CMLL for the first time in forever. Huzzah!

Dave Meltzer in this week’s Wrestling Observer newsletter ran down the recent AAA Triplemania event (not CMLL related, but you’ll want to read this). The first Triplemania, held April 20th 1993, drew 48,000 to see Cien Caras beat Konnan in a retirement match thanks to interference from Jake Roberts. It’s the still the largest crowd ever to see live wrestling in Mexico.

The 2003 version drew 15,500, which is amazing, when you consider that (a) not many promotions anywhere can draw like that these days, and (b) AAA blows. Here are the results:

1. Esther Moreno & Mascara Sagrada Hr. & Mascarita Sagrada & May Flowers beat Poly7 Star & Picudo & Mini Abismo Negro &Polvo de Estrellas when big Abismo Negro ran in and used a flame thrower (!) on Sagrada Jr. Each team consisted of a male wrestler, a female wrestler, a mini, and a transvestite. I have no idea what to call a match like that.
2. Electroshock & Lady Apache won a four corners match over Gran Apache & Fabi Apache, El Brazo & Martha Villalobos, and Chessman & Tiffany to win the World Mixed Tag Titles.
3. Hijo de Solitario (subbing for Canek) & Latin Lover & AAA Mascara Sagrada beat Jason the Terrible & Leatherface & Eddie Watts.
4. Rayman & Zorro beat Juvie Guerrera & Mr. Aguila (Essa Rios siting!) by DQ.
5. Heavy Metal beat Pirata Morgan (subbing for El Dandy), El Texano, & and Sangre Chicana in a handicap hair match. Whoever took the pinfall on the rudo side would lose their hair. If Metal lost, he and his father, Pepe Casas, would get cueballed. Metal pinned Morgan. Only problem was, Morgan just lost his hair to Latin Lover in Dallas, so when he removed his bandana, he was already bald, so no haircut.
6. Lizmark Sr. & La parka Jr. & Octagon & Super Calo beat Abismo Negro & Cibernetico & The Headhunters. Dave says “Finish saw a DQ when Cibernetico pinned La Parka Jr.” I have no clue what that means.

You maybe, just maaaaaybe, want to pass on this one.

Some notes:
–Dr. Wagner and Black Tiger will soon be feuding with the GdI over the tag titles. ME WANT TAPE
–I can’t remember if this was mentioned, but on 6/15 Rayo de Jalisco Jr. beat Mascara Ano Dos Mil to retain the WWA World Title. The kicker? The match lasted forty minutes. FORTY MINUTES.
–I asked Alfredo about a comp of the GdI matches in New Japan. He told me that not enough aired to make a comp, but he’d probably stick them on a juniors comp down the road. Worth looking into if you want to see the matches but don’t want to buy whole New Japan shows (like me!).