Todo x El Todo: 2013-03-31 & 2013-04-07

taped 2013-03-23 @ Gimnasio Juan De La Barrera

Lobito & Octagoncito (original) vs Mascarita Sagrada & Tzuki: OK. Among the great mysteries of the world: why is a tourist bus company sponsoring the TxT mat? This was a short six minute match, and although Lobito looked really good (like he either should be working some place with more regular bookings or already is doing that under another name), it probably was best served being brief. It was nice to see Tzuki back, it was sad to see him basically done. He could take a beating, but he couldn’t do much more than (or get up from that beating.) I don’t know if he had the same problems on this night as he did to cause him to leave CMLL or if was just a life of hard work catching up to him, but there was nothing here.

Alan Extreme & Imposible vs Dinamic Black & Saruman: A good young match derailed by a Novato referee. A more experienced referee would have just stayed out of the way, a most experienced rudo would have worked around it better. I’d bet the luchadors got the blame backstage, but it should be on the promoter for putting an new referee on the show. TxT wouldn’t put a guy who hasn’t wrestled a match on their show, same should apply for the referee. It really screwed up the finish in the end. First fall wasn’t at the level of the last two, and the last two were derailed by the referee being obsessed with keeping Alan Extreme from double teams, but Alan made the técnicos look good when he was allowed in.

Angel Blanco Jr. vs Rayman [WWA WELTER]: Rayman looked much better when they stopped doing the mat wrestling. Not a lot to the second fall, and hurried to the dramatic third fall cradle reversals and the usual singles match clichés. Angel Blanco just generally did not work well with Rayman or look great on his own; he had a bad handspring move and the valagueza at the end was weak. Okay match, but just barely.

Dr. Wagner Jr. & El Hijo del Solitario vs Derek Sanders & Shaun Ricker: Solitario & Wagner are here as the Nueva Ola Blanco, and neither guy wore white. That was about the effort level here. Dr. Wagner fooling around and stalling and being annoying, not sympathetic when they got beat down. The first fall was so stretched out, I forgot it was meant to be three falls, and then the ending of the match went on a lot longer than it needed to be . Crowd was way into the match (enough so that TxT must’ve thought it would be an easy sell out to bring Migra back for another month), but the match itself didn’t do much for me.

El Hijo Del Santo vs Oliver John [CMB LUCHA]: Better than I expected; much more serious than the tag match and Oliver John kept up with Santo, who really took a lot of the early match. There was still some absurdity – a piledriver spot here that meant nothing – but I liked how it was more a battle of long runs by either guy instead of move turning taking and clichés as in Blanco/Rayman. Oliver John came off as a legitimate challenger and not a guy playing an easy gimmick character. The bits with John getting out of the camel clutch worked well and the finish was nice. Rayman was taken out on a stretcher in his title match, but fine here. The anthems were a nice touch. La Migra eventually figured out which way to hold the flag and were kind of awesome at times with their pre-match silliness. The security breaking up the post match fight was strange and seemed like not everyone was on the same page, since the técnicos had to ignore it to get their revenge.