(again, another post will show up before the show for discussion and I should be back later tonight. There’s one more post between this and the PPV thread.)
CMLL (FRI) 08/29 Arena Mexico
1) Fantasy, Mascarita Dorada, Pequeño Olímpico vs Pequeño Damian 666, Pequeño Warrior, Pierrothito
2) Hijo del Fantasma, La Máscara, La Sombra vs Felino, Heavy Metal, Misterioso II
3) Amapola & Lady Apache vs Marcela & Princesa Sujei [Relevos Increíbles, hair, mask]
4) Atlantis, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero vs AJ Styles, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin
5) Mictlán vs Dragon Rojo Jr. [mask]
6) Blue Panther, Dos Caras Jr., Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Black Warrior, Mr. Niebla, Rey Bucanero
Notimex preview. In ESTO, Ampola & Lady Apache wonder outloud why they’re not having a direct match instead of this tag, and Mictlan proclaims he’s won four straight and will learn from the experience (not exactly true). Luchando Libre has it’s preview of the show, echoing those issues with the women’s match.
I actually had a whole post about that written, but it didn’t get finished. The short version is: CMLL doesn’t believe the women are a draw, or they would not have put them so low and skipped them on the Sin Piedad ad. (They may be, they may not be, but the point is CMLL visibly doesn’t think so here.) Neither is this big blowoff for a long angle (Marcela & Sujei were feuding for about 2 days before this was announced, Amapola and Apache are about the title, not the hair.) If this was four men, we’d assume someone needs the money. That may be the case here, but I think this is just a misguided at including the women on a big card, done in a way which actually hurts them for being here.
Again, CMLL’s ad has swapped the CMLL/TNA match and the women’s match in it’s add. Don’t know if that’s a change or just randomness. They also don’t have “Crhis” Sabin spelled right, though it seems most other sources are getting it ready.
I don’t think the main event means anything; they’re coasting on the popularity of Wagner.
I don’t think the semimain means anything. Back and forth feuds with mask ripping doesn’t hype a feud when plenty of people who aren’t feuding (or who don’t get around to finishing their feud) do it every week. Mictlan has done absolutely nothing to this point but have below average matches and Dragon Rojo has been treated as The Great Rudo Find Of 2008, so there’s no drama and there’s absolutely no reason to believe anything but Dragon Rojo Jr. winning. Doing a shock tecnico win here would be a tremendous waste of time and effort.
Mictlan really should have won the Arena Coliseo Tag Team titles or some tournament or anything at all to prove CMLL has the slightest faith in him at all. Getting DQ wins when Dragon Rojo yanks off his mask is nothing. Even getting trios wins is nothing, because wins and loses don’t generally mean a whole lot in this promotion; you have the same match next week anyway.
As far as I can tell, they haven’t had these two work a singles match elsewhere before this one. Hopefully they’ll have been training or working small shows or something.
They’ve done nothing to build up CMLL/TNA since the Gran Prix, and the CMLL crew are rudos and acting like rudos in the press. Not seeing the TV, I don’t know if maybe they’ve don’t a good job of selling it there, but it doesn’t come off as especially meaningful. I guess you can make a case that Negro’s on the team (and the champs, which can’t be a coincidence) so it’s CMLL vs TNA, not Guerreros vs TNA. But if you really were going to do that, you should be putting a tecnico on the team to show promotion unity.
I think TNA wants a long term deal with CMLL enough that they’d lose here. I know they wouldn’t have much of a problem with sacrificing the Machine Guns to make something else work – that’s what they do in Orlando already, and Ultimo Guerrero is a slight bit more useful than the Road Dogg.
What I really hope happens is Felino doesn’t help his teammates and befriends the other team after that match, staying a tecnico. That makes more sense than anything else. This ‘turn’ has gotten zero notice.
My guess for results are Rudo Minis, tecnicos by DQ, Sujei losing her mask, CMLL over TNA, Dragon Rojo Jr. and Niebla getting the pin on Wagner to set up a
‘shocking’ mask match announcement.
tie-in: The animated voice of Dragon Rojo Jr. talked to El Universal. Sounds like he had fun.