LuchaMania Monterrey Anniversary Show: 2014-07-05

taped 2014-07-05, Gimnasio Factores Mutuos, Monterrey, Nuevo León

Dralion vs Arez: [GOOD] The match wrestling spots early and the short chop exchange nicely mixed up the style so it wasn’t a 15 minutes of big moves but they did have big spots when they got there. Arez was the better guy, but Dralion looked good too – his kicks were really sharp and his suplexes looked painful. Arez threw his body around, as he usually does. I’m not a big fan of middle rope package piledrivers but it was improved by them teasing it once prior to getting to it. The match was missing something to carry it out of being a cool exhibition and to a big story fight and that helped a bit. They got the crowd thru the dives, including Arez’s crazied elbow driver, they just needed to keep them when not doing moves. You know, when I’ve thought of all the hassles entailed in running a show, I never considered “emergency knee repair”. There it was!

 

 

 

 

Black Terry vs Charles Lucero: [GOOD] Good match that was only disappointing for not being great. The accidental brainbuster messed up Terry and messed up the flow of the match, it was hard to scale back down to less big moves for a while. Terry deserves a lot of credit for keeping and firing back with the backcrackers but it never picked back all the way. I’d like to see a rematch because there were elements of a good match here. I would’ve preferred more mat wrestling at the beginning and less near falls later and Terry seemed a step faster than Lucero, but it also felt like they would have a better match at some other time.

 

Tony Rodriguez vs Kaientai, Erick Ortiz, Kratoz, Low Rider, Antonio Garza: [GOOD] Nice scramble match with some cool multiman match. It was rought a times – Kratoz in particular looked very raw and wasn’t in the right place quite a bit – but it was still a fun time. Antonio garza was the other one who didn’t really impress, even before he slipped coming into the ring, but the other four were quality. I’m pretty sure I got Tony Rodriguez and Erik Ortiz confused during the match, so hopefully one of them picks different gear if they eventually have the singles match teased at the end here. It was nice to see Low Rider, but sad for him not to have the bandanna and to look somewhat like an adult. He’s still very amusing. Kaientai looked good when he wasn’t doing slow cartwheels (and when Kratoz wasn’t out of position on him.) They took more advantage of the numbers in the second half of the match, to the point where it became a question of how they’d ever manage a finish with so many other people hanging around to break it up, but it made for some creative ideas.