Dave Meltzer’s lucha article in the WON this week was about half and half about the general resergence of attendance in Mexico and the specific Mistico/Ultimo Guerrero match which aired last week.
Meltzer says there are “three reasons” for the turn around, but does a poor job of defining them. Reasons he give include
– possibly just the growth part of a cyclical business
– top guys switching sides
(and CMLL specific)
– headliners are portrayed as superstars
– Dr. Wagner’s tecnico turn
– appreciation for the abilities of GdI
– Perro Aguayo’s feuds
– Mistico
After giving some background info (Mistico’s 25, wrestled as Dr. Karonte Jr, adopted the Astro Boy gimmick which his older brother had first used.) Melzter identifies the 08/20 Gran Alternativa win and the 01/01/05 NWA MW title win over Averno as his big catapult moments. (Meltzer digressed to debunk some hype surrounding the win as ‘the fastest from debut to title win ever’ – guess that hype didn’t make it this far?)
The key, as Meltzer picks up, is Mistico hardly ever loses. He’s just got the CMLL LH title loss to Ultimo as his one high profile singles loss, and he’s kept protected in the final fall of the trios matches.
Meltzer does give some voice to the theory others could’ve been in Mistico’s spot and done just as well – Ricky and Volador are specifically named. He doesn’t shoot down the theory, as much as point out that Ricky’s otherwise busy with (better paying) NOAH tours.
He segues into talking about the Ultimo/Mistico match, but it only hurts his opening – the crowd for Mistico/Ultimo was lesser than usual (10000), and while the match had spectacular moments, it was a bit of a one fall and one spot match that’s not as good as Villano IIII/Atlantis (which is hard standard for any match to live up to – but he’s just saying it was merely a ‘good match’.)
For the audience who doesn’t follow lucha or only casually does, it’s a good primer on Mistico and a little bit on CMLL. At the same time, it’s also typical of Meltzer’s lucha coverage, where he doesn’t seem to have much information that’s not already available elsewhere. His sources in Japan, WWE and elsewhere tower above the lucha insights he seems to get.
Probably should’ve checked out the match before using it as a focal point.
My thought is no one gives el Hijo del Perro Aguayo enough credit. Mistico’s great, GdI’s great, but he’s got to make the matches with slow lucha guys work and draw, and he does. I’m not sure you could stick anyone else in his spot and do quite as well.
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Aside from 1 or 2 inaccuracies(Misterioso II wasn’t Komachi, Volador Jr. was and Mistico never challenged Ultimo for the LHW Title b/c that would be a total joke), my only problem with the article was how Meltzer totally didn’t understand the Mistico/UG match b/c he doesn’t watch Lucha weekly.
Rob
Also…
“- possibly just the growth part of a cyclical business”
Could be but there has to be more reasons than this.
“- top guys switching sides
(and CMLL specific)”
Don’t get how guys leaving CMLL led to the rise in attendance.:/ Sure they got Garza… but Perrito had been around since ’03 and Gronda doesn’t count.
“- headliners are portrayed as superstars”
Not in all cases.
“- Dr. Wagner’s tecnico turn”
Jose can elaborate more on this if he’s around. As he noted to me after his recent trip – “Dr. Wagner Jr.(current) is the Hulk Hogan of 1985”.
“- appreciation for the abilities of GdI”
I dunno about this… sure they are both awesome workers but they were just also great back years ago when they headlined and attendance was down. They are definitely bigger stars now which ties in with his headliners as superstars point.
“- Perro Aguayo’s feuds”
Definitely.
“- Mistico”
Definitely.
He forgot to mention ~DARK ANGEL!:p
Rob
I continue to hold out hope that DARK ANGEL! will be on the SuperGirls shows in BC in September.
*crosses fingers*
Dave hits many of the main points but clearly doesn’t follow the product or have a reliable source anymore. He’s missing the point thinking this is something that has exploded out of nowhere. This has been building for years, because it was Shocker who started bringing people back to Arena Mexico after years of stale main events. The problem is that he was alone, but now there’s three characters moving the numbers.
Mistico is their Manami Toyota in 1995, far from the best worker but has the best output. He’s also moving more merchandising pieces (not money) than anyone since Austin but it’s 90% unlicensed anyway.
Wagner is Stone Cold or Hulk Hogan in their primes and you just have to be there to get it, because badly miked TV doesn’t make it justice.
Aguayo Jr. is like Aguayo Sr. at El Toreo – he’s so intense and charismatic that most people love him even though he’s a bastard. Pierroth is every week in 5 vs 1 situations but he gets 0 sympathy, in fact after all of it he gets “por pendejo! por pendejo!” chants.
The Guerreros are the glue holding the promotion together but they mean 0 at the box office.
I also totally disagree with the somewhat preconceived notion that lucha matches are more spectacle than drama. All of lucha libre’s most famous matches ever are drama and not spots, but Meltzer pretty much started with AAA so that’s his idea of what lucha is or should be.
On the other side, he talks about AAA making a monster comeback and this is only half true. They are doing slighty better in non TV shows, but their TV and big show business has been strong forever. He just didn’t have Konnan in his ear telling him about how awesome the numbers are.
By the way, Ricky Marvin’s NOAH salary is actually pretty shitty.
By the way, the Wagner comment was only meant as in reaction he gets, not drawing power because he’s not the one man show Hogan and Austin were.