CMLL GDR - 03/11/06 (#16)

Running bits: 
- Interviews with Stamboli and Palumbo. They're completely in character and heeling it up to a massive degree (or at least I hope that's the idea.) What does Johnny think of Mexican wrestlers? "I think they're all s[naughty word here!] You know, we came here to show them what real wrestling is all about." So I guess he brought a DVD? Johnny is pro-"street" style in wrestling and anti-backflip. When asked about Mistico, Chuck Palumbo says all the flipping stuff is nice, but it doesn't win matches and he doubts Mistico would ever want to face him. There's lots of odd zooms of Palumbo's face here. Magadan actually takes Mistico's side and Palumbo threatens to beat him down. Johnny and Chuck steal the microphone and cut promos on Mistico, with Stamboli going down on his knees to make an even fight. Later, Johnny reveals he loves Mexican women - his girlfriend is a Mexican. Even later, Chuck says he's not impressed by Mexican wrestlers - they beat them at Arena Mexico and Arena Coliseo
- Outside The Ring with Dr. Wagner Jr.
- Plugs at every break (and drop-ins during the show) for the changed timeslots, which of course would've been better before they changed the timeslot.

Match 1: Nitro (c), Dr. X, Loco Max vs Maximo (c), Pantera, Texano Jr.
Arena Mexico, 03/03/06

  1. rudos
  2. tecnicos
  3. tecnicos

Winner: Tecnicos (2-1)
Match Time: 10:37
Approx Rating: Fine. Not spectacular, but what you'd expect with this crew.
Other Match Notes: No entrances. Announce is by the B-Team, but sounds dubbed, which would be atypical. Rudos, all Guerreros, are all wearing white.

Maximo and Dr. X start, and Dr. X is slow to get going. Dr. X doesn't appreciate Maximo's dance escapes and poses. Onto Texano and Loco Max. Texano wants to fight Nitro it seems, but Loco eventually strikes him into deal with him. Texano doesn't like this matchup because he's much bigger than Loco, as demonstrated when Loco's running shoulderblocks fail miserable. Texano tries one of his own, ducks Loco's clothesline, and runs him over. Texano goes after Nitro again - is this a secret feud? Nitro ends up holding him and Loco connects on the dropkick- beatdown is on. Texano gets put thru the wringer, culminating with a camel clutch/dropkick to the face combo. Pantera next, and he ends up also taking the same combo, though for a second they tease a crotch. Maximo yelps when struck. Loco Max spears him, and then they hold him on the apron to be dropkick all the way to the floor. Pantera back in, Dr. X gives him a four four headlock, Nitro ties the legs and pulls Dr. X forward, on top of Pantera for a tough double submission. (4:19) Rudos celebrate like they've won the fall - and I guess they have since the referee goes along with it. Sure seems like Pantera wasn't the captain here, but maybe they thought the submission move was good enough to get away with it. Replays, a couple vignettes, and a break. 

Texano side steps a dropkick form Loco max and is able to sneak back in the ring, and that's all his partners need as a distraction to pull the rudos out and work them over. They didn't quite figure out which guys would actually be fighting on the beatdown, because we first watch Dr. X beg off on Maximo (and Maximo not really care), and then we watch Texano yank around Loco Max's hair a bit. Superkick count, 1! Texano goes for a dive on Loco Max, Dr. X ends up distracting him with a missed clothesline, and then grabbing Texano for a Nightmare on Dr O'Borman's Street. Texano's dropkick ed out, and Maximo is on to take his place. Spinning armdrags sends Dr. X out, and Maximo teases a dive when Dr. X runs away. Just as Maximo's posing, Nitro's dropkicking him out, and Pantera takes his place. Pantera escapes a backdrop and lands a spinning armdrag. Unlike his partners, there's no one to save Nitro and he doesn't run for cover, so Pantera is able to land a tope on him. Texano and Dr. X in, and Texano quickly loads up the Doctor on his shoulders. Maximo waves him over towards his corner, Texano drops Dr. X in position, and Maximo adds a top rope frog splash, one two three. (1:47) Texano's trying to finish off Nitro with a torture rack into a headcrusher, but no one's paying any attention. Not the production people, who award the fall before Texano actually gets the pin to win it (2:04) but I guess that worked last fall.

Rudos are slow to entry the ring to start the third fall, but that's how it goes sometimes. Texano and Dr. X start, though there's a clip early in their sequence. Dr. X takes a slingshot into the middle rope. Are the fans booing Texano's bang bang pose or something else? I don't really know. Loco Max and Maximo next, and Loco's fired up as he works Maximo over. Maximo works a Thesz Press variant of the sunset flip->dropkick to the head spot. He ends up getting scared off by Nitro, who fights for Pantera for a couple seconds before they end up on the floor. Pantera get an apron headscissors bit there. Maximo and Dr. X next. Magadan just called Maximo "the son of Porky" like it was no big deal, so I suspect that bit of info is no big deal. Maximo takes a backdrop to the apron, and instead of more, Texano just comes into take his place. Texano gets a corner headscissors to send Dr. X out, and Maximo flattens him with a plancha, hurting himself in the process. Loco Max gets on the bottom rope and fired up for a dive, but Texano dropkicks him out. Texano tells Maximo to grab Loco Max (who might have hurt his groin on that landing) and Texano bowls them both over with a top rope tope con giro. Pantera and Nitro in, Pantera trying a 'rana one two NO. Announcer calls Nitro a boricua here, which is a great forgotten character note. Pantera gets a forward legsweep roll into a grounded octopus, and that's that. (3:27) Replays and dives.

Match 2: Chuck Palumbo, Johnny Stamboli, Pierroth (c) vs Black Warrior, Dr. Wagner Jr. (c), Ultimo Dragon
Arena Coliseo, 03/05/06

  1. rudos
  2. tecnicos
  3. tecnicos

Winner: Tecnicos (2-1)
Match Time: 13:58
Approx Rating: Not the disaster it could've been, but nothing you want to recall a week from now.
Other Match Notes: The names for the rudos are spelled by CMLL like so

Chuck Prombol
Jhonn Stamboli
Pierrot

So, oh for three. Quite the job. Makes me proud to be fan. "Jhonn" is pronounced "John", so that's fine, but the other one isn't close. The first few times each announcer says "Prombol", there's a pause before it, as if they can't quite accept that's the correct name - but they go with it. After I while, I started to wonder if maybe Prombol really is his real last name and there was a mix up, but who would purposefully choose a gimmick name of "Palumbo." (And then there's his brother, who probably wouldn't be using a worked name in the army.)

The FBI (which they refer themselves as) enter to No Sleep Till Brooklyn - the FBI's music in the WWE was a generic version of that song. They're much more demonstrative to the fans near the aisle than most rudos. Johnny gives a kiss to his valet, while Chuck makes some kids flinch. Was Stamboli bald before? He's bald now.

Black Warrior exhibits no signs he was a rudo Friday night and a rudo Saturday night who fought Ultimo Dragon for 95% of this match. He does react positively to a pre-match "you are a rudo!" chant from a few fans, and the announcers do mention him turning on Mistico on Friday. Wagner wears the UWA Heavyweight Title to the ring. 

Lots of stalling to start. Which is fine for me. I don't really want to type too much for this match. Pierroth starts, the wise idea. He's match up with Dr. Wagner, and they do the mat section, also a smart move. Palumbo gets tagged in and works over Wagner with strikes. Wagner pops up fine due to the crowd support, and Chuck pushes him in the back of the head, confused about the no-selling. Wagner fires back with kicks to try and take the big man down, but Palumbo gets him with a back elbow. Tag to Stamboli, who kicks Wagner down and boot chokes him in the corner. Snap mare, kick to the back, Wagner quickly turns the table to get in his own spine kick. Running dropkick to the head. Ultimo takes over for a double boot scrape. Dragon taunts Palumbo to come in, but he he backs out - they don't really have any idea about the "roll out and someone else can come in" deal, I think. Clip ahead to Dragon posing and the rudos rushing him. Beatdown is on. Dragon gets a double pump powerbomb. Wagner's brought in and takes a hard back suplex before the FBI give him the Kiss of Death (or at least, whatever their backbreaker/top rope legdrop is called now). Johnny covers for the fall. (4:48) Break.

Someone lost the fall cards. They just have giant numbers. It's odd. In the ring, Pierroth's untying Wagner's mask, taking it 90% off before Wagner can stop him. This goes nowhere. Wagner takes big punches from the FBI, but rallies back with the crowd's chant. FBI goofily stand on the apron while Pierroth works over Universo - I think he'd like for them to come in, but they don't seem to get it. Pierroth waves Johnny in and, in the most ridiculous spot I've seen in a month, goes down to all fours so Johnny can theoretically springboard off his back for a move on Black Warrior. That's a not a good idea for so many reasons. Luckily, Warrior gets to Pierroth first and springboards off him into a clothesline on Johnny to start the comeback. Warrior works Pierroth in the ring while the others brawl on the floor. Wagner gives Palumbo a suplex on the ramp. Warrior and Dragon work together of finish off Pierroth, with Warrior landing the Asai DDT and Warrior helping to pin. (2:56) Replays and stuff I don't pay attention to here.

Everything resets for fall three, so you get a Stamboli/Warrior exchange. It's fine, nothing goes wrong, which is actually disappointing. Warrior gets the 619 in. Switch to Wagner and Pierroth. Wagner clocks him good with the dropkick to the head at the end of the exchange. Wagner invites an FBI guy to come into face him, and Chuck figures out he can come in without a tag. It's quite a moment. Dragon subs in for Wagner, and spends a lot of time posing, and gets punked out for it again. We learn nothing this match. While the announcers are trying their fake Italian (hey, where was Tania this week?) Dragon's easily knocked down by a chop, leading Wagner to come in. He waves Palumbo away, and decides Dragon needs to be more fired up, so he chest slaps his partner. Dragon's like "wha?" Warrior follows the example, and slaps Dragon in the back of the head. And for the briefest of moments, Warrior looks at Dragon, Dragon looks at Warrior, and together they recall they have issues. Which manifests in - a lot of standing around and doing nothing, mostly, so it's not that good. But it was a glimmer of hope! (What the heck happened to me not typing much?) Before this gets going again, Wagner does a weirdly mocks someone. I have no idea anymore. And then he comes in laughs at Chuck. uh huh. Chuck gets Ultimo with a knee and Johnny helps him out in the ring. Warrior walks out here, not that anyone really notices, especially the people in charge of the cameras - or Warrior himself, who changes his mind and comes back. I dunno anymore. Palumbo uses strikes (and pauses) to wear us all out. Dragon gets a 'rana on Palumbo, Warrior returns to cut off Pierroth, but Stamboli breaks up the pin anyway. Warrior sorta kinda takes out Pierroth with a pescado (quite bad), Wagner throws out Stamboli and looks for a dive, but Stamboli isn't up. Warrior picks him up, and Wagner goes with a safe axhandle. Meanwhile, Ultimo is rallying on Chuck, and heading up. Top rope plancha is caught by Palumbo, and Palumbo sets up a Tombstone. It's fun to listen to the sound here change - from the usual "don't do it!" screeches from the crowd on the tease, and the slight gasp as Palumbo actually does Tombstone Ultimo. Obviously, that's the end of the fall (DQ 6:14) - well, not so obvious if you're Chuck, but they eventually explain it to him. The doctor gets in the ring to check on Dragon, who isn't moving, and the quickly  bring out a backboard to take him out of the ring. Replays of the tombstone. Pierroth cuts a promo - congratulating himself on his great plan, I'm sure - while Palumbo and Stamboli taunt the crowd before coming over to intimidate the announcer. 

That's it.