taped at Korakuen Hall, 01/22/2011
recap: here
file: part 1, part 2, part 3
(large gifs, after the break)
Taichi vs Máximo – essentially the usual comedy bits leading to the Arena Mexico main event third fall, with big moves a plenty. Taichi looked better on these shows than he usually does in Mexico.
Máscara Dorada vs Ryusuke Taguchi for the CMLL World Welterweight Championship – when Dorada is not breaking out the Brillo Dorada even for THIS show, he’s in bad shape. A highly ordinary match, not what it could’ve been. Dorada is quite likely the best flyer in the world, but he’s also unfortunately one dimensional. Hopefully, what’s he’s going encourages him to broaden his game.
Jushin Liger vs La Sombra for the CMLL World Middleweight Championship – a very good match, though I’m not sure it’s a MOTYC. One of the ideas of these two shows was clearly to get Sombra over as a big deal. Sombra didn’t get the big pinfall win, because they’re probably pushing that off and want to do it first in Mexico, but he came close enough to come across as a dangerous rival.
Gigante Bernard & Karl Anderson vs Atlantis & Shigeo Okumura for the IWGP Tag Team Championship – they found a way to make this work! It seemed quite unlikely going in, and it was mostly beating up Anderson while Bernard couldn’t be budged, but this was actually good by the end.
La Máscara & Tiger Mask IV vs Dragón Rojo Jr. & Tomohiro Ishii – :(
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Místico, Prince Devitt vs Averno, Shinsuke Nakamura, Tetsuya Naito – really more a Mistico/Averno exhibition to set up the next day’s match. It was a nice touch for it to end up in usual matwork->beatdown->comeback lucha match layout, and there was enough CMLL/NJPW intermixed to not feel cheated, but this wasn’t super memorable.
Discover more from luchablog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I wish you would have said more about the Máscara/Tiger vs Dragón /Ishii match Cubs. I did (http://bit.ly/hFsmm5), and I am linking to it just because I am gonna expand upon my opinion there right now for us lucha folk.
I think everyone here knows I like Rojo Jr. I’m not a big Tiger Mask fan, and I am pretty unfamiliar with Ishii. I like Mascara – I really do. He got hurt on that initial dive, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Maybe Dragon, as he “jumped too far” on the dive, but not really. Mascara went back and hit his head on loose front row chairs and probably got a concussion. He surely got his bell rung by the following events in the match.
I condemn the other three guys in the match for not protecting Mascara once it was OBVIOUS he was hurt. At the very least, Rojo, who has wrestled Mascara many times before, should have been able to see Mascara was messed up and got him out of that situation. Rojo could have easily ate a pinfall early, and gotten Mascara the hell outta there. Or, he could have brawled with him to the back, and let Tiger/Ishii take it home. I understand that the language barrier might have kept Rojo from letting Tiger/Ishii know Mascara was hurt, and that things needed to be changed up, but the two of them should have been able to figure it out on their own and change things up. I blame that match being bad on everyone except Mascara (although he does get blame for continuing that badly for that long).
@Nikita: I didn’t check who the ref was, but isn’t the ref used at certain points to communicate to other wrestlers if there’s a problem in the match? I assume he knows a little basic Spanish.
I didn’t check to see who the ref was, so again I don’t know if he’s fluent, but then again a lot of folks in wrestling know the basic or more commonly used terms in wrestling.
@Nikita: i dont think he got hurt on that dive. he had trouble getting into the ring so he could have been injured previously or whatnot
I know it was a NJPW ref, but I have no clue if he was bilingual. He would be to blame too though for letting it continue though either way. He easily could have thrown up the X and had him checked on.