CMLL (SUN) 07/08/2012 Arena Coliseo [CMLL]
1) Camorra & Cholo COR Freesbe & Höruz
Tecnicos took 2/3.
2) Aereo, Astral, Último Dragoncito b Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Olímpico, Pequeño Warrior
Tecnicso took 2/3. Aereo and Warrior continue to feud, Aereo sneaking in a foul on Nitro after Astral & Olimpico were eliminated.
3) Hikaru, Princesa Sugheit, Tsukasa b Dalis la Caribeña, Lluvia, Luna Mágica
Rudas took 1/3. Crowd enjoyed Hikrau (who pinned Luna for the win) and Tsukasa (who managed to dropkick three people in one kick!)
4) Pegasso b Raziel [lightning]
Pegasso pulled off the upset win in about 7 minutes.
5) Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto b Ángel de Oro, Delta, Hijo del Fantasma
6) La Sombra, Máscara Dorada, Shocker b Mr. Niebla, Último Guerrero, Volador Jr.
Straight falls for the tecnicos, thanks to Niebla and Volador having all sort of problems during the match. They challenged each other after the match.
During the fifth match, CMLL’s Twitter account reported Pequeno Nitro and Aereo will face off in a mask vs mask match next week, which will be back in Arena Mexico again. Those two actually started feuding back in May for a couple weeks, then Aereo disappeared for about a month. They’ve been back at it for the last four weeks. Pequeno Nitro is a slight favorite.
Loco Max has left CMLL. He’ll be working indies, and has already been announced for IWL’s next show. His last CMLL show was 06/04 in Puebla, and he’d only worked about five times in CMLL in the month before (plus the DragonMania show.) He posted on Facebook that he was quiting CMLL just this weekend, but obviously something must’ve happened if they were already cutting down on booking him.
The CMLL announcers, both on CMLL Radio and on today’s Terra broadcast, are saying New Mistico will start in the second or third match. That’s much lower position than Dragon Lee was in. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Rob has highlights of 11/18/11 CMLL and December 11, 2011 Arena Puebla, plus thoughts on Ultimo Guerrero’s wins since being put in charge.
LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.
Great Lucha returns to write about La Fiera vs Babe Face in a hair match in 1986.
Cronicas Y Leyendas has photos of El Dandy in 1988, Villano IV winning Zandokan‘s mask and Tinieblas’ debut in Pavillon Azteca.
Lucha Libre in Japan
07/08 NJPW: Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask IV, KUSHIDA [O], Maximo b Rocky Romero, Alex Koslov, Jado, Gedo [X]
On the same show, Prince Devitt made his first defense of the NWA Middleweight Championship, defeating Taichi (despite much cheating from Taichi and crew.) Late today, NJPW announced Devitt’s next challenger: Volador Junior! Volador will travel to Kouraken Hall on July 29th to try to reclaim his title. It’s one half of a double main event with two ‘junior’ championships (Low Ki vs Kota Ibushi.)
Durign the show, NJPW announced the participation and blocks for it’s annual heavyweight league tournament, the G1. Rush is the singular CMLL representative this year, in Block B. His schedule
08/01: Hirooki Goto vs. Rush
08/03: Rush vs. Lance Archer
08/04: Rush vs. Kazuchika Okada
08/05: MVP vs. Rush
08/07: Tetsuya Naito vs. Rush
08/08: Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Rush
08/10: Togi Makabe vs. Rush
08/11: Rush vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
08/12: (off – final)
Again, off day on the final means he’s not involved in the final. This an extremely tough block; Stuart at Strong Style Spirit is noted it has five of the top six pushed guys in NJPW (just missing Tanahashi). Like Angel de Oro, Rush’s best chances for a win come early; he came close to beating Goto last time around, and Lance Archer is the most beatable wrestler in this group, but no sure bet. 1-8 is a plausible outcome, but Rush does not respect hierarchies, much less predictions, so who knows. Rush will make people’s lives miserable, what he does best.
It is a bit amazing where we’ve come on Rush, from eighteen or twenty four months ago. This concept would’ve been a struggle in 2010, both in level of performance and chances of Rush making it thru in one place. Now, it looks like chances for a few great matches. The Naito vs Rush match sticks out in particular, and it makes me realize that we really need CMLL to do Rush vs Sombra sometime.
Rush on this tour means the CMLL Universal tournament won’t be happening in early August. I wouldn’t expect to see it until post-Olympics (though not that long between that and the NFL season starts.)