Todo x El Todo: 2013-08-04/2013-08-11

taped 2013-07-27 @ Gimnasio Juan De La Barrera
Centvrión vs Imposible: I like both of these guys, but I didn’t like this match at all. The first half of the match was highly annoying, with guys doing big moves at random in no particular order, as if they were shuffled in a card deck. It only got better later because they switched to your move/my move kickouts, and at least the big moves fit in better there. It still wasn’t good and stuff didn’t go right. The match felt longer that it needed to be or what they were ready for. I don’t know if the one fall format threw them off, but this wasn’t up to their capabilities. The dark arena really didn’t do much to hide the emptiness (especially the seats right across from the hard camera) but did obscure one of the bigger dives.

Rossy Moreno vs Esther Moreno and Lady Apache: Essentially two matches in one. The first ten minutes of this match felt like the best women’s match on a TxT show yet. It was good action, the three way fight worked well and the crowd got into both Lady Apache winning and the Moreno sisters costing each other the match. This was much better than the opener. It was a good build to Moreno vs Moreno on another show – except they just did it here for some reason, and it wasn’t much good. They changed the tone a punching submission fight. There were some people loudly chanting for them (mostly Rossy, who seemed to be the ruda), but most of the crowd seemed to check out until the very last couple of near falls. The your move/my move stuff bugged me here, but more because I was done with this and really wanted them to go home. I guess this was essentially what they had planned to do for the hair match (though maybe with a different winner), but there didn’t seem any point to do it here.

El Hijo del Medico Asesino vs Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr.: A slow, but more solid match than I figured. I don’t have high expectation levels for a singles match with these two guys, but they kept it together better than I would’ve guessed. It was again way too long; they don’t have 15 minutes of stuff to do and were moving at a snails pace by the end, but they didn’t fall on their face either. Nothing you need to watch but somewhat promising. Strange finish of Medico Asesino clearly fouling Wagner, referee Terry watching the foul and seeing the foul but counting the three count anyway. You’re not really protecting Wagner by having him lose to a foul if the referee sees it, you’re just making the match look dumb. (And you really shouldn’t need to protect Wagner at this point.)

Brian Cage, Heddi Karaoui, Oliver John, Zumbi vs Angel Blanco Jr., Blue Demon Jr., El Hijo del Solitario, Rayman:  A half hour half long match, so everyone did everything they do just to stretch it out even farther. Three straight hot tags was the funniest instance of this. It didn’t hold my attention for that long and it didn’t seem to hold the crowd. They’d still cheer for the técnicos but were totally uninterested in anything the rudos had to do in the second half of the match. John beating Solitario seemed really weird in that context, but the finish did look killer. Cage did some good goofy selling but was totally unmemorable; they probably should’ve given him some strong guys spots somewhere in here.

Cien Caras Jr., Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000 vs Canek, LA Park, Rayo de Jalisco Jr.: I was really hoping there would be a good gif to prove I actually watched this match and didn’t just fake it. This’ll have to do. It seemed unlikely this lineup would produce a match I’d like, and the unlikely did not happen. Strangely the only three fall match on the show (though the other matches weren’t worked much different.) So many chops as comedy, with the rudos being less the Dinamitas and more the three stooges. I didn’t get much into it and neither did the crowd, by little how they were reacting to the late stages of the match. A really long way to go for a mask pull DQ finish, and a weird show where the rudos win all the meaningful matches.