CMLL on CadenaTres: 2014-01-11

recap

taped 2014-01-07 @ Arena Mexico
Camaleón, Oro Jr., Soberano Jr. vs Artillero, Canelo Casas, Súper Comando: This was a disguised opener match for the first half, but got more interesting when the rudos took over and pulled off their double teams. Third fall went well too – Oro even got to do a dive! – but it seemed like something went wrong about a minute before the finish and it wasn’t as sharp as planned. It looked like an innocent Camaleon dropkick to break up a Super Comando pin threw him off for a moment. There were a lot scarier looking things in this one – Oro’s freefall to the floor in the first, and Canelo’s positioning on the splashed second. It seemed like he was for sure getting squashed by his partners, but they knew what they were doing and worked fine with the four less experienced guys here. Hope they get more chances at this matchup because it has potential.

Negro Casas, Puma, Tiger vs Black Panther, Blue Panther, Cachorro: Nice match to debut in for the new Panthers. You got more of a sense of them then in the Copa Junior last week, and they had some people who can cover up for their weaknesses, plus a reason for the crowd to care about the match right away. They were excited the moment Negro Casas stepped in the ring. Cachorro seems Super Halcón/Hombre Bala sized, but Black Panther is way bigger (and more muscular) than most técnicos outside his level, and uses more of a stronger rudo style. He might ultimately be better of being on the rudo side. They both need to work on their timing, and there were issues that Casas family were able to get past here but other rudos might not be, but this was a fun good match to start out with.

Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr., Shocker vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Euforia, Niebla Roja: Shocker feuding with Barbaro Cavernario is too random even for the CMLL booking hat. Barbaro did deserve a beating by interfering in the first fall about a million times and livened up a match that was not otherwise that memorable. Tecnicos didn’t do interesting things and rudos were not as sharp as normal. Guerrero Maya’s post match strut was hilariously awful, for the one second we saw of it.

Rush, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Rey Bucanero, Terrible, Virus: The Rush/Terrible stuff was on a different level than the rest of the match and made it feel like a main event enough though it wasn’t the usual names. The other guys were fine but those two had something more. Titan using the inverted Gori stretch is a cool idea, but he’s got to be a 100 times more careful dropping the guy after it – he came close to really messing Virus up, and it was only luck that it didn’t turn out worse. He lost his balance dropped Virus very carelessly.