They don’t do the usual “picture with a name” graphics for the cibernetico and they actually never list the guys involved, so you have to pay attention to the ring announcer to get names. There’s some people who haven’t been on much, and others who haven’t been on except Stellar Moments. So, here’s a quick who’s who.
Group A:
Tony Rivera: larger, older, unmasked man
Stuka Jr.: red pants with no top, pilot looking mask with goggles
Valiente: green and black outfit. Short/stout compared to the others
Neutron: Black and lightning bolts; looks inspired by the Rayo de Jalisco family (though he’s not a member)
Loco Max: Bald, short, easy to pick out
Group B:
La Mascara: Black out fight with gold features, including a big “M” on his face.
Mascara Purpura: full body red outfit with white features. Skinny.
Danger: Yellow outfit with red lines
Oro II: Black with a big gold lines
Leono: Younger thinner long haired man
And the deal with the cage match is particpants are not allowed to escape till the match goes five minutes (or sometimes ten or fifteen, but it’s closer to 5 here; they might have started the clock when the fighting started?) That’s why Maximo keeps trying to leave, could leave and stops – the officals are telling him no.
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My comments on the match cross-posted from DVDVR:
(you won’t like it Henrik but the truth hurts!:P)
Not sure this is the right place to post since it’s more of a lucha forum-esque discussion but here goes…
Saying this was quite the disapointment would be a huge understatement. This BLEW. I mean BIG TIME! I know certain people will be quick to say all the undercarders suck and this is why they are never given a chance but I really don’t think that’s the case. And it wasn’t just the guys we never see that were stinking up the joint… La Mascara had two exchanges where he looked absolutely lost. Cubs said it best doing his running commentary: “oh no they’re completely lost.” He only said that during the Purpura/Stuka Jr. exchange but you could have said that AT LEAST seven times in the match by my count after the second viewing(which was painful).
1. Stuka Jr./Purpura early exchange
2. Valiente/Leono on the floor
3. Oro II/Loco Max after the springboard armdrag
4. Oro II/Neutron after the scary backdrop
5. Stuka Jr./Leono before Leono’s elimination
6. Mascara/Loco Max as they exchange dropkicks
7. Neutron/Danger armdragging each other
The first thing that stuck out after watching the first time was that it seemed like ten randomly assembled guys(i.e. whoever didn’t have a booking elsewhere) who found out they were doing a Torneo and didn’t plan at all. I’m not saying wrestling needs to be 100% talked-through beforehand so you know exactly what is going to happen and when… in fact I’m against that. There is no talent in memorization of spots. I just think wrestlers should have SOME clue as to what they are going in the ring to accomplish and what their specific role will be in the match. To me it seemed like these guys didn’t get together at all beforehand and just picked out which big dive they were going to do. Yes, Oro II’s dive was amazing. So was Mascara Purpura’s. But what else did they do right in the match? Why should I care that they didn’t win? What will I remember of them from this match filled with ten guys? A dive? I forget about the crazy dives by the time the match was done!
Here’s the main problem I had with the match though and what prevented it from coming anywhere CLOSE to touching last year’s Rey Del Aire match…
***No rudos.***
I know… last year’s match had ZERO rudos and this year’s actually had one – Loco Max. First off, Loco Max is barely a rudo and he is shit awful in the ring. Second, let’s look at last year’s lineup:
Alan Stone/Volador Jr./La Mascara/Tigre Metalico/Stuka Jr. beat Ricky Marvin/Virus/Leono/Tigre Blanco/Misterioso II in a Torneo Cibernetico
All tecnicos… yes. But as I mentioned above – everyone went into that match KNOWING what their role was going to be. All ten guys did not fly all over the place just trying to squeeze their spots in. But more importantly – at least five of those guys worked rudo at various points in the match because you NEED that to make a match like this work. If you go back and watch the match from last year – Marvin, Virus, Misterioso II, Alan Stone and Volador Jr. were the rudos at various points. In fact, Marvin was a rudo the entire match. I don’t mean he cheated and stalled, I just mean he was the base and the guy that held the match together when he was inside the ring. That was one of the problems with this year’s match… there was not a single person in that list of wrestlers who you could send into the ring to calm things down. The closest looked like Stuka Jr. who took charge at least twice when he was around a blown spot. If you are relying on Stuka Jr. to control a match… WHOA… that’s bad news.
As I said, it’s not just a matter of understanding what role you have to play – you need to be able to play that roll. It’s all fine if I book a Laredo Kid vs Mocho Cota match but if I tell Laredo to be a badass rudo and tell Mocho to fly around like crazy during his comebacks – it’s safe to say my match will blow. With this match you couldn’t have told anyone to be a rudo. Rivera sucks… Stuka is a natural flyer… Valiente is probably the closest but cannot be held responsible for nine guys yet… Neutron is a prototype tecnico… Loco Max sucks… La Mascara is too green to even be a top card tecnico, let alone trying to carry someone through a decent exchange… Purpura is Mr. Aguila in 1997… Danger is 18 years old… Oro II can be summed up by cubs saying the following: “You know, it’s no longer a surprise why Oro II was injured for four years, just why he ever came back”… and finally Leono is Tony Rivera in 1997. BOTTOM LINE: It just COULDN’T have worked with this group of guys.
It was called the ‘Reyes Del Aire’ so my next suggestion would defeat the purpose but I really think the match would have been better if Satanico had been involved. Not b/c he would have made the match better with his amazing wrestling… he’s 50+ years old and doesn’t have the stamina to work a match this long any more. His presence alone though would have changed the match dramatically in two aspects. The first is that he could coach half the guys while on the floor waiting to tag in. The second is that by just being there, the guys would have stepped up their game while working in front of a true maestro. If you recall back to the Group Cibernetico Torneos in 1998/1999 – there was always a trainer in the ring with them whether it was Americo Rocca, Ringo Mendoza or El Hijo Del Gladiador. It’s just smart booking. But as cubs said, this seemed like a rush-job just to put together a card that could try(and fail miserably) to compete with Triplemania.
The final thing I want to mention but won’t go into too much is that this match really symbolized the direction CMLL is heading towards with the new crash-TV style wrestling. In a sense they’ve kind of adopted the mindset most American fans had when they started seeing WCW style Lucha. It’s just dives and nothing else. This is how they want all the TV tapings to be like now. The wrestlers have caught on by now and guys like Danger, Leono, Stuka Jr. and Mascara Purpura aren’t learning anything in 12 minute 3 fall matches. This past week on Galavision Purpura had to sell two or three moves in the first fall, did a big dive in the second fall, had an acrobatic exchange in the third fall and then got pinned soon after. You don’t learn anything from that. You DO learn something in 20+ minute matches where you have to work the mat and make the crowd care without having to do a springboard 360 armdrag. But like I said, this is where CMLL is going as long as the current boom continues. The wrestling will suffer but at least we still have AAA.:)
The dives were crazy, the match went longer than 12 minutes and it was nice to see fresh faces on CMLL TV. That’s about the best I can say about this mess unfortunately.:(
Rob