Lucha World Cup Day 1: 2016-06-03

Matches

1. Lady Apache, Mary Apache, Faby Apache defeated Cheerleader Melissa, Santana Garrett, Sienna (OK)
   • Lady Apache defeated Cheerleader Melissa in 5:45 via super armdrag
2. Aja Kong, Sumire Natsu, Yuki Miyazaki b Allie, Taya, KC Spinelli (OK)
   • Aja Kong defeated KC Spinelli with a brainbuster in 7:32
3. Pentagon Jr., Texano Jr., Psycho Clown defeated Akebono, Masato Tanaka, Ikuto Hidaka (good)
   • initial trios match went to a 10 minute draw
   • Masato Tanaka versus Pentagon Jr. went to a 5 minute draw
   • Texano Jr. defeated Ikuto Hidaka with a side slam in 3:51
4. Taiji Ishimori, Naomichi Marufuji, Maybach Taniguchi defeated Spud, Mil Muertes, Apolo (OK)
   • Marufuji beat Spud with a shiranui in 7:46
5. Cage, Johnny Mundo, Chavo Guerrero Jr. defeated Canek, La Parka, Blue Demon (OK)
   • Chavo defeated Blue Demon Jr. via frogsplash in 9:09
6. Rey Mysterio Jr., Dragon Azteca Jr., Dr. Wagner Jr. defeated Ethan Carter 3, Eli Drake, Tyrus (good)
   • initial trios went to a 10 minute draw
   • Dr. Wagner Jr. versus Eli Drake went to a 5 minute draw
   • Rey Mysterio versus EC3 went to a 5 minute draw
   • Dragon Azteca Jr. defeated Tyrus in 3:03 via 450 splash

Sunday’s Lineup

(show listed to start at 4pm; they were a half hour late and did a half hour of opening ceremonies tonight; maybe it won’t be as long the second time, but there’s no way it’s actually starting at 4.)

• Team Canada faces Team USA in the women’s third place match
• Team Mexico faces Team Japan in the women’s first place match
• Team Japan/Zero One/Oudou, Team Rest of the World, Team Mexico/Leyendas and Team USA/TNA will compete in a special four team battle royal. One member of each team will be in the ring at a time, and the next member of the team will replace them when they’re eliminated. Once they’re down to two people total left, those two men will face off in a one fall match for a trophy.

They’re weren’t clear if the order the men’s matches tonight line up up with the brackets for tomorrow. If they are the same, it would be

• Team Mexico/AAA faces Team Japan/NOAH
• Team Mexico/International faces Team USA/LU
• A men’s third place game
• A men’s first place game

Thoughts

This was the amusing event is appeared to be on paper. I laughed, I was entertained, I flooded your Twitter (and I’m really sorry about that.) This was not a show with a lot of great matches – the Team Japan vs Team AAA match is the only one I’d strongly recommend seeking out – but it was the weird bit of mixing people in unusual fashion with not a lot of idea of going on. Maybe I’ll make some popcorn before Sunday’s show to better go with the atmosphere.

There were no big surprises in outcomes. Konnan posted what he said were spoilers early in the show (during the show, so it’s not like he cost AAA any business, he just potentially hurt the show for those people who bought it), but everyone match finished the way most people would’ve guessed when they finally announced the matchups a couple hours earlier. All of them really made sense. For me, the toughest call was Team Canada losing to Team Japan, since Taya’s the only one of the six who’s going to be around after this weekend. For them, it appeared the toughest call was having the TNA team lose, since they appeared to be the promotion working strongest with AAA in this (at least among those they don’t part own.) That was reflected in the booking, where Tyrus got a visual pinfall over Dragon Azteca before taking the loss. Team TNA is the obvious favorite to win the hastily announced competition for the losers, though I’m not sure how they’re going to beat Akebono in that.

They also shortened the time limits to 10 minutes, from 15 last year. I didn’t like the sound of that at first, but the show went 3 hours with 6 matches under that format and we’d still be watching if they did 15. They should’ve held back on the overtime bits tonight as it was, since given they’ll want to do them all again on Sunday. It also seemed like they tried at least twice for pinfalls to happen just as the time ran out, only they were running 10 seconds ahead of the clock. Luckily everyone kicked out.

Notable that Tirantes and Piero (along with the same NOAH & LU referees as last year) were on the show. I did not see Copetes, who did this show instead of Hijo del Tirantes last year.

The two most over matches of the night seemed like the Mex AAA/Japan Other match and the Mex International/TNA. It’s good there are three Mexico men’s teams, because the crowds aren’t in the foreigners (they don’t know) versus foreigner (they don’t know) matches, and the quietness carried over into the Leyendas match. Fans took the overtime in the AAA Mexico match, though it seemed to run out of steam with Hideo & Texano. Tyrus wasn’t much good (and gave off the impression he didn’t care about being there much), but he’s big and so they built the finish around him. Dragon Azteca getting the big pinfall should lead to something – Octagon Jr.’s spot is vacant – but you never know with AAA.

Meanwhile, Mil Muertes performance was unmemorable. There was no obvious reason why he was using that character. Dario did a fun heel promo before his team’s match, but (if it was possible), they would’ve been better off bringing Catrina to make Mil come off like he meant something.

The two women’s matches were kind of all over the place, but fine for openers. Team Japan was all built for Aja Kong spots. Natsu got beat up most of the match (and wasn’t impressive selling) and Yuki seemed to barely be in the match. The Canadian team didn’t look great, but it wasn’t a match made for them to look great. Their match against Team USA sounds more interesting. The opener was frantic, all over the place and the shortest match of the night. The crowd dug it because it was the Apaches, but it needed more time to settle down.

Photos showed there were a couple of sets not filled. You could occasionally spot them on TV, but mostly it was a dark room where it was hard to see far in the arena. (No idea on the bleachers.) The crowd was loud at times, but it didn’t feel well miced. It’s a convention center they cut off in half via curtain, there’s limitations in that. Production was iffy; they couldn’t get the countdown clock on the screen early and we got shots of the big screen instead. They missed Texano’s winning pin while going to a long shot, making it feel underwhelming (even more so than it did from ending a move he never uses to win.) The set looked great, opening in the middle for each team to debut. The opening ceremony was nice, but would’ve been better appreciated has AAA just announced they were starting at 9 so there wasn’t a half hour of waiting & stress to find out if the iPPV was even going to work.

(It looks like Josh did mention the show was starting at 9 on his Twitter. There’s no time on the iPPV site, and the only time listed on the main website was 8:30.)

Hugo mentioned that TripleMania would take place in August – which I know is obvious, but is the first time they’ve actually said that so far this year. Josh and Hugo were hinting there’d be TNA wrestlers on TripleMania. I don’t think they’d mean much, but we’ve seen AAA bring in foreign wrestlers for TripleMania many years just to make some point about being international, so it seems likely to happen unless something changes with TNA. There was no mention about Verano de Escandalo in two weeks, but handful of plugs for Slammiversary during the show. It only got overbearing a couple times, and once it was Hugo drawing Josh into a conversation about Bram versus Eli Drake. Hugo was being a super team player, trying to put everyone over, and it was a bit too much at times.

Josh was mostly fine in the first half of the show, doing well enough at identifying people and giving background that it seemed like he had done a lot of preparation. And then he identified La Parka as the chairman from WCW and it appeared he had not done nearly enough. Neither he nor Hugo appear to be fans of Season 2 of Lucha Underground, because they spent the main event calling one of the guys “Aztec Dragon” for no explained reason; someone gave them bad notes. They must’ve given them to Melissa as well, as that’s what she announced, but she should’ve known better. (It’ll be telling if they don’t correct that on Sunday.) Overall, I like Josh better than Striker, because Josh avoids Matt’s tendencies to be too clever for his own good, but he was just fine here. I suspect, if TNA will be back for TripleMania, he’ll be back doing English announcing as well.

Sunday’s show should be entertaining. I don’t know if it’s $25 worth alone, and I don’t know if Friday’s show will hold up to rewatching at all. But I enjoyed it while it was on.