The women’s trios was the best match, by far, I’ve seen them do. They seemed sharper and more advanced than prior weeks. Not how I’d figure we’d get there
– Dark Angel’s pre-beatdown stuff was clipped out, she had no stretch of action till about 9 minutes in, and she was still the focus. I have no idea what this ultimately means.
– Hiroka looked a notch (or two) above where she’s been in the other matches. Since a fair part of this was her kicking people in the face, I don’t know if it’s going to last (Marcela, for one, seemed annoyed by the end), but it gives me hopes she’s not just C (or lower)-level filler she seemed pegged for.
– OTOH, Princesa Sujei looked not good early. Either she or the people she was working with had timing issues in the section of the match before the break. She was better during the beatdown and after.
– Marcela was the female Ultimo Dragon here – respected tecnica who’s fine->good but (oddly) irrelevant to what’s going on in the match.
– Sahori got to get the big move on the comeback and get a lot of credible offense on Amapola before she was pinned. Kind of layout you’d expect if they were just now going into the title cibernetico and building everyone into contenders.
– Amapola got pinned by Dark Angel clean, which I wasn’t expecting at all. The screwjob at the end was to negate it, but it’s almost as if they want to build up something with Sujei as well. Dark Angel’s comments seemed to counteract that.
Watching this stuff come together from the start and the current (with no middle in between), it’s fascinating how Amapola’s gone from being the #3 ruda (with Sujei and Dark Angel ahead of her) to being the focal point. The CMLL belt isn’t relevant yet in CMLL, and really neither is Amapola’s IWRG belt. It’s all about Amapola constantly getting those cheap wins.
Still, I’ve got the feeling, if we’re getting any singles matches in Arena Mexico of the women, we’re more likely to get one of the titles on the line (Amapola vs Dark with a title change or even Marcela vs Sujei without.) Unlike Wagner, CMLL surely can afford Amapola’s mask – I just don’t know if they believe in this strong enough to actually pay for a woman’s mask. That’d be a turning point.
Getting back to this match – it did benefit from details usually reserved for more important matches: non-simultaneous eliminations, longer back and forth sequences at the end, actual near falls. The atypical wrinkles are a big part of the difference from it being a good match and a memorable one, because we don’t get them that often. It’d be strange to see them every week.
The men’s match was fine, but it was indeed the same match you would’ve got any time in the last year four months with these guys – they didn’t adjust my thinking on things enough to get 2/3rds of a page.
If the Mistico/Ultimo match makes TV this week and is any good, this is a good set of three episodes.
Lucha Wiki thoughts coming tomorrow; got busy reading and never got around to it.
