Cage of Death II

Kinda pointless to talk about this week’s Arena Mexico show when it’s already underway? So I’ll just hit the general points from the last couple weeks.

Shocker, Negro Casas and Perro Aguayo Jr. will meet Vampiro, Pierroth and Tarzan Boy in a Cage of Death (of hair) match on 06/18: This is the top feud in Arena Mexico, having mixed it up over various forms the last 3 weeks (Tarzan used the BLUE STEPS! on Perro, causing him to be stretchered out and Rey to be pleased with vengeance), with people very happy to boo the rudos. Quick a collection of cheap heat experts we’ve got there.

This is probably a test of their current big show hype cycle. Unlike many stakes matches iterations, there’s no obvious loser here because they’re all big enough names, so it’ll be interesting how well the show draws.

The last cage match we saw in Arena Mexico didn’t impress me much with a similar level of workers, so I don’t have high hopes for this to be an entertaining television event. It won’t air till the first week of September.

The rest of the card will follow.

Felino, Safari and Volador held on to the Mexican Trios Titles: Well, duh.

While it’s a nice side bit to give the Mexican Trios Champions something to do, the driving force behind them seems to take a bunch of promising guys, work them out for a while, and see if anyone of them get over or are worth investing a new gimmick in. Last year, they added Terrible and Genetico (as Sagrado) to the Mexico City lineup, gave more attention to Ricky Marvin (who played a large part in the Pitbulls stuff but has also left) and Zumbido (who they’ve done more with, though not all good), and found a few extra guys like Loco Max that they’ll use from time to time.

This year, the gains have yet to be as much. The second generation team of Misterioso Jr., Texano Jr and Brazo de Plata Jr. made the finals, but with Texano and Plata’s names, you would have expected them to have a chance at some point. It’s Misterioso who seems to have impressed the most, as he’s been booked in low card matches when not involved in the tournament (including today’s show.) Alan Stone was named as the newest Guapo, but he hasn’t actually done anything with Magica and Shocker since then.

Maybe it’ll work itself out of time. CMLL is debuting a wrestler named Misitco on the 6/18 show, and if last year is precedent, it may be one of the discarded Guapo wrestlers. Too soon to tell.

Canek and Dr. Wanger still hate each other: But apparently not enough for a main event, as they’ll meet for Canek’s UWA Title as the semi-final of the 6/18 card. Despite having no good reason to believe otherwise, I can’t believe they’ve done weeks and weeks of hypes for a semi-final match.

The whole 6/18 card
6) Perro/Casas/Shocker vs Tarzan/Pierroth/Vampiro in a Cage of Death match (last out loses hair)
5) Canek (c) vs Dr. Wagner for the UWA Title
4) Satanico vs Emilio Charles and Ringo Mendoza [Satanico’s 30 Years In The Ring Celebration Handicap Match]
3) Atlantis and Blue Panther vs Ultimo Guerrero and Rey Bucanero
2) Volador, Felino, Mistico vs Averno, Mephisto, Olimpico
1) Tony Rivera, Tigre Blanco, Texano Jr vs Dr. X, Nitro, Veneno

I have no idea what the deal with the handicap match is, but I’d guess more a gimmick. They’ve been building up the tag match, so I guess the reason it’s not a title match is because it’s this low on the card and it’ll happen later this summer. Maybe same time they do Wagner/Canek again? Strange they brought in Okemura and they’re not even using him on this card (he’s debuting tonight)

Pretty solid card.