Day: May 25, 2008

CMLL FSE #85

thecubsfan 2 Comments

taped 03/26, aired 04/06

I think my opinion on the whole Dr. Wagner/CMLL is heavily colored by my dislike for the wrestler Dr. Wagner has become in 2008. He spent most of the main event doing all he could to make sure the crowd paid attention to him, and not the feud everyone else was working to get over. Wagner has no interest in selling, really no interest in doing anything except what will get the fans to chant his name at that moment. I think Atlantis was actually thrilled to work with him at the end, just because he knew they wouldn’t be doing anything at all.

I understand the wrestling business can be nasty and there are real advantages to beefing up your own profile at the direct expense of others, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun to watch in action. (And when a guy is so clearly out for number one, it makes it really hard to believe him a couple weeks later where he’s claiming to represent more than that.) Wagner’s become the worst example of all that’s problematic of the current CMLL style (stopping the match for chants like you’re panhandling for a reaction, disinterest in doing more than the same exact sequences every match, promos centered around catchphrases and worthless challenges) and worst of indy lucha (living off the name and past achievements for eternity.) It doesn’t have to be that way, it’s not like Wagner is shot, and that makes it even more frustrating.

I don’t begrudge Dr. Wagner for doing it a way he thinks works and makes him money. But I don’t mind him doing it someplace far off my TV set either.

It was nice to see the novatos here. Not just because they were different, but they were fun and you don’t actually get too many straight tag matches here.

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06/13 Arena Mexico (Jucio Final cage match) announced

thecubsfan 6 Comments

Remember when this was supposed to be an all masked man match? CMLL would like you to forget that now.

The run of the mill tecnicos vs Perros match from Friday is being spun out into a cage match three weeks ago.

In the cage so far
– Damian 666
– Terrible
– Texano Jr.
– Alex Koslov
– Negro Casas
– Perro Aguayo Jr.
– Heavy Metal

Blue Panther is NOT in the cage, because this is a hair only deal (so far) and whatever plan there was for him and V5 seems to have been lost. Perro and Heavy were not in the cage match but we’re pretending they still have issues from Friday.

They’re one tecnico short – Marco? Shocker? Hector? Mistico? (Yea, probably Mistico.)

Damian would appear to the most likely rudo to lose, and probably Negro for the tecnicos.

AAA #827

thecubsfan 18 Comments

I’m out today. I’ll get in news when I can, but just so there’s something up here…

taped 03/05, aired in the US 04/05

Minis match was good, probably the best trios they’ve had post-Dorada. It helps that they’re not sidetracked by a turn and can just do their normal stuff.

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Really odd that they gave away the final participants for Rey de Reyes, who wouldn’t qualify until the following week of TV. It kinda makes sense because Rey de Reyes would be starting just as next week’s TV is ending. People going to the event wouldn’t probably see the TV show and see Billy and Super Fly qualify, but it’s not something they’ve done in the past and they do sort of treat the TV show as ‘live’. With AAA, I’m not even sure if they meant to give those two away or if they just lost track, but it seems like there should’ve been a more elegant way to handle the situation (like just saying “the winning team of next week’s match” so people would understand how the winners got there even if they didn’t see the winners get there.)

Even though the Apache angle was fun, this was a definite step back for the Clowns. They’re facing people they should’ve advanced past just for the sake of the Apache angle.

Abismo was pretty much a jerk and Psicosis had full right to turn on him, though it didn’t really make sense for them to fight in the context of the fight, and it didn’t make sense for Alebrije to break it up. I don’t know where Gronda went for the last few minutes of that match, but I hope he’s happy there and never returns.

The funny thing about the mixed trios was Zorro and Kenzo acting disinterested bit while Juvi was living it. He so did not want to be in this match, to the point where I wonder if Zorro’s “I’m better than this, give me better matches” lines might have been cribbed from a Guerrera speech earlier that day. That seemed to be attitude Juvi was displaying. Meanwhile, Billy worked a million miles an hour and no one cared.

Triangle main event was okay. They could get anyone really cheap to do as much or more than Konnan can do in the ring, and Konnan probably would be happy about it, so I still can’t believe he’s wrestling. At some point, you know X-Pac’s not going to be there and you should have a new, workable, plan. AAA seems to have an idea on how work the multi-team tags fine enough, but they keep playing with teams breaking up pinfalls like it’s first pinfall wins when it turns out to be elimination. That’s one of those things that should only need to happen once before they either change the rules or change their strategies, but it came up a bit in Rey de Reyes.