06/06 GALLI results

Quick results first. Let’s see how many names I’ve guessed wrong

GALLI (FRI) 06/06 Addison Community Center
0) Brian Slade & Hunter Matthews b Alex Lapad & Zach Thompson
1) Intrepid & Potro b Blade & Venom
2) Mr. Zeus & Pinocho b El Funebre & Emperador
3) Resistencia & Venganza DQ Meteoro I & Meteoro II [GALLI TAG, semifinal]
4) Centella de Oro & Slayer b Guerrillero & Pentagon del Infierno
5) Creston Edwards & Tony Scarpone b Concussion Conselli & Joey Marx
6) Chilango & Gringo Loco b Negro Thunder & Samoan Love Machine [GALLI TAG, semifinal]
7) Charly Manson Jr. b Negrotistico [GALLI]
8) Coco Black, Coco Green, Demencia b Nemesis (GALLI), Quinto Sol, Samuray

If I’m going to spend half the night writing down notes on my iPod, I ought to post them. So they’re after the jump.

You would not quite believe my Friday. The related portion is me stopping for a quick dinner at Taco Bell on a tollway oasis because I thought I had time, only for a truck to break down north of O’Hare to take all that time. I zoomed thru traffic to make the 7pm bell time (and to deal with the effects of my meal – seriously, Taco Bell at a highway oasis, what the heck was I thinking?) Naturally, show started at 7:15.

Unlike the last time I went to an Addison CC show, they’ve cut the gym in half with one of those huge dividers. (There might have been something else going on, on the other side of the gym. Kids did peek back there a couple times.) Cutting the gym in half makes everything tighter and more crowded, so it looks a lot better. It also suffers in practice when you do it on the first really hot Saturday of the year with not much air flow. It felt like the low 80s all night, and it was a long night.

La Vaca worked every match on the show. Hardest working ref in the businsess.

0: White guys novatos match, as usual. Thompson and Lapad (surely not the actual spelling) were the tecnicos. Slade was vaguely doing a Bret Hart homage. I had little interest in this, because it just four random guys doing pseudo-ROH style, the rudos barely having a personality and the tecnicos mostly unidentifiable (the guy in the short was better, but I have no idea which one that was) – if I wanted to see “the American style” as GALLI’s promoter keeps saying, I’d probably bother to go to an American show and see people do it better. (As usual, not many white people who weren’t part of the show here.)

At the same time, GALLI will probably put them under masks if they’re good and they stick around long enough and then I’ll actually care. Which doesn’t seem entirely consistent, but I guess it’s all in presentation.

Rudos tried to give a spike piledriver to one of the tecnicos. I guess you have to save your partner from the possible neck injury/death that comes with a piledriver on a lucha show, but part of me thought you should just take the free victory the rudos are attempting to handle. Most of me hopes someone explained to the rudos the flaw in their plan later on.

I’ve written way too much about this match.

1: Tornado was listed to debut, but we got Blade. At least I know Blade’s rudo turn stuck. This was a loud (smaller room = more noise) fast paced basic win for the tecnicos. So basic, there was no dives.

2: Same thing, another basic tecnico win, though there was a small dive this time. Mr. Zeus again shows a trace of a personality. Pinocho seems green at comedy spots, which never occurred to me could actually happen, but I guess makes sense. Emperador is still a Cruz Azul fan.

3: For some reason, I thought Resistencia & Venganza lost in the first round of the tournament, so it didn’t occur to me that this was a tournament match until it was announced as one. That works out well, because these two teams have faced a bunch recently and set the stage for a good match. Unfortunately, it was not a good night for the Meteoros. It started with a sequence with II in where spots were not going right, and so he was trying to make up for it. He ended up taking a vertical suplex too close to the ropes, and banged his left leg off the bottom rope on the way down. II was limping for the rest of the match. Later, I tried an Asai moonsault but came up way short and hit the (basketball court) floor hard. Meteoro II and others freaked out, and I think it must’ve looked like Meteoro hit the ground head first from the view – it was more legs/shins first from my view, and seemed to knock the wind out of him for a moment. Match really didn’t go far from there. It was disappointing, but everyone here is young and these nights are going to happen.

Rudos took the match by fouling both Meteoros on ‘rana tries, then tossing their own masks off to draw the DQ. Why the rudos just didn’t cover the Meteoros when they were down selling the fouls, I don’t know.

I was expecting an intermission right about here. As it turned out, there really wasn’t more 2-4 minute pauses on the whole show. The crowd could’ve used some time to walk around, buy stuff, maybe go outside for fresh air, but there was a reason for this by the end.

TALKING: Amenaza del Siglo, not scheduled for the card, made an appearance that was mostly running interference to disguise fellow rudo Yakuza to sneak in the ring for an appearance. Yakuza’s still suspended for giving Golden Star a martiente (presumably why Golden Star/Quinto Sol didn’t have their semifinal match on the show) and his requests to get the suspension lifted failed here as well. El Tiger came out for…actually, I don’t know. To celebrate the 1st anniversary, to wear a big fur coat in a hot gym, to suck up to the promoter, to tease an eventually match with Amenaza or Yakuza? It just didn’t go anywhere.

After this segment finished, Yakuza stuck around the ring. He’s a vile suspended rudo – and he’s tossing out free shirts to the crowd, just like always. Lucha libre is weird.

4: Centella de Oro being announced as from Puebla makes me happy every time, since there’s another Centella de Oro who wrestles in Arena Puebla quite often. That’d be a fun commute. I don’t remember much about the match, just the frequently back and forths between the rudos (and La Vaca) and a lucha mom in the crowd. On and on they went, with La Vaca all night. She was more over than the tecnicos. After the tecnicos win, rudos tried to punk them out after. Tecnicos made another comeback, though Slayer left Centella de Oro 1 on 2 for long enough I thought this was a rudo turn. Slayer brought in a chair to hit Vaca, then plans were changed and Vaca took a big atomic drop instead. Which got much more of a reaction the chair shot would’ve got, but that’s me pushing my agendas.

5: highlight of this match was Tony Scarpone chasing children around before the mat with the intent to harm, and then Scarpone doing it again after the match, this time with a chair. Those kids were scared out of their minds. No different from anything else I’ve seen with Scarpone in it since he’s come in – okay but goes on a bit long. Joey got stuck in by the rudos and sold for a long time, then was killed dead by a Scarpone clothesline shortly after the tag, so we never got to see his cool offense. Sold well, though.

6: Negro Thunder and Samoan Love Machine were tecnicos here, after being rudos in their debuts. Maybe they were just tecnicos for this match because Gringo and Chilango are rudos, or maybe they were just rudos for the first match because the other team was tecnicos. Who knows. For the (insert number here)th show in a row, Gringo Loco had a special song for the occasion. Thunder and Machine tried hard to get the crowd into it, but this (quick) match finished up around 9:40 and the crowd was low on energy. Highlight of this match might have been Gringo Loco wearing Negro Thunder’s giant afro wig. Actually, the other highlight is me finally realizing Negro Thunder has the first part of the name because he’s actually a black man – that’s how total body covering his leisure sure gear is.

Chilango looked woozy after taking a big DDT in here. Finish came with Vaca distracted and Gringo fouling Negro Thunder before giving him a martiente. I’ll catch up on the tag team tournament at the end.

7: I was so looking forward to this match and ended up disappointed.

Negrotistico seems to have permanently acquired Walk as his entrance music. No seconds for the match, but then there weren’t many minutes. They were about 8 into a good match when Gringo Loco suddenly appeared. Negrotistico grabbed Charly, Gringo snuck in a missile dropkick, Charly moved, Negrotistico took it and Charly quickly wrapped up the match. Not the most interesting way to end Negrotistico’s win streak (who oddly did not seem angry with Gringo after the match) or to do the big title match.

Post match, Gringo wasted no time putting himself back in front of the line for a title shot. Then he changed his mind and suggested one better – Gringo and Negrotistico vs Charly in a handicap match for the title. Before I could really think about how this could work, Samuari showed up to be Charly’s backup. Someone – Gringo? – suggested alternate stipulations if a handicap match wasn’t going to work, and ended up on a TLC match (“we’ll use tables, ladders, and chairs!” “ah, an extreme match” – way to stay out of trouble) for the belt. Promoter got involved, and we ended up with these four guys in a TLC match for the belt at the July 11th Odeom Show. Gringo will also compete in the tag team tournament final on that day, so that’s going to be a bit of work.

It’s past 10 at this point, it’s hot, the show has been good but the match I wanted to see is over and I’m so tired. And then main event is announced as three falls – the only three falls of the night – and I hate the world.

8: Also causing hate – this match getting about 16 minutes, twice the title match. Though I guess if the title match went 16 minutes and had the same finish, I still would’ve been sad. This was okay but I was only still there because I wanted to outlast the show and don’t remember much of it. A portion of the crowd had cleared out, and everyone who was there was about as dead as I was.

Clowns are now using English color names – also trying to stay out of trouble? This was just a typical trios match – rudos take the first, beatdown until the tecnicos take the second, rudos come back to hit top rope splashes for the win. Rudos attacked the tecnicos after the match.

Main event was over at 10:30. Clowns were still beating down the tecnicos and taking their masks, but I was done. I’m thinking I’ll go to the Ice Arena show in a couple weeks, but I pretty much had my limit for one night.

GALLI’s running shows between now and next month, but the angles are pointing to the Odeum show.

– Negrotistico vs Gringo Loco vs Samuary vs Charly Manson Jr. in a TLC match for the GALLI title
– Gringo Loco & Chilango vs Venganza & Resistencia vs the winner of Quinto Sol/Golden Star and Siglo & Emperador

Quinto Sol and Golden Star are the only tecnico team left, so they gotta be advancing. It would make sense for them to win and turn around to feud with Yakuza and Amenaza del Siglo for the belts. I’m not really looking for TLC and other US indy tropes in my lucha libre, but those four are more than capable of having a great match. It’s enough for me to check it out, easy.