Lucha Azteca7 Elite: 2016-10-01 

Recapped: 10/18/2016

What happened: Blue Demon beat LA Park by DQ in the usual Elite bad finish (with some horrendous production.) Xtreme Tiger beat Ciberentico by DQ when Ciberentico decided to give the referee a martinete for no really good reason. None of these things are going anywhere.

What was good: I wouldn’t recommend anything. This was a really bad episode and fitting a pattern with this show: the singles matches are not good and have awful finishes, and the trios matches are frequently OK but disappointing.

Where can I watch it:  It’s on my channel and the Liga Elite channel, with some handheld also around

Blue Demon & LA Park is pushed with the two being held apart backstage and on an Azteca sports show.

Match 1: Xtreme Tiger vs Cibernético in a Liga Elite match
Gimnasio Benito Juárez, Cuautitlán, Estado de México, 09/30/2016
Video: Liga Elite, thecubsfan

Winner: Extreme Tiger (DQ)
Match Time: 7:41
Notes: Cibernético has Tiger pinned twice, including once with his finish, and pulsl Tiger up both times. Cibernético tries a martinete for whatever reason, Babe Richard Jr. breaks it up, Tiger falls out of the ring, and Cibernético gives the referee a martinete instead.

Review: [bad] the Liga Elite needs to stop if only to stop us from having to see any more Cibernético singles matches. This was among his worst efforts; even when he tried, he wasn’t much good, and he didn’t try all that much. The failed attempted at the one arm lift of Tiger was where the crowd really turned on this. The match humiliated Extreme Tiger, who was shown over and over to be no real competition, and they might as well have Cibernético just get the clean win at that point. Instead, it’s yet another nonsense finish. Rush was “suspended” for three weeks the last time someone did a martinete, and Cibernético was of course on the show the next week. It’s also dumb because Babe Richard Jr. was of course going to turn up later in the show fine; they could’ve thought to had him not work the rest of the show, but they didn’t think.

Match 2: Ciclón Ramírez Jr. & León Dorado Jr. vs Imposible & Peligro
Gimnasio Benito Juárez, Cuautitlán, Estado de México, 09/30/2016
Video: thecubsfan, Liga Elite

1. rudos
   • Imposible reinera Leon Dorado Jr. (5:12)
   • Peligro side slam Ciclon Ramirez Jr. (5:23)
2. tecnicos
   • Ciclon Ramirez torito Peligro (5:36)
   • no pin (countout? edit?)
3. técnicos
   • Imposible cross armbreaker Leon Dorado Jr. (3:47)
   • no pin

Winner: técnicos (2/3)
Match Time: 14:46
Notes: This appears to be the new Peligro, not the old DTU guy (though it might be an existing person changing names.) Camera work distracted from the rudos dives in the third fall, and there’s either some editing or lack of logic following.

Review: [ok] much better than the previous match, though still kind of all over the place and sloppy to make it recommendable for me. Imposible is a little selfish but still pretty great, and easily the guy coming out of these looking like the biggest star. It helps that the técnico just were OK with him destroying them at times. Leon Dorado seemed much better as Metaleon than he did in this match; it’d kind of be forgettable if not for the big balcony dive. Peligro was not good, but more not good as an indie guy who hasn’t put it together rather than a true novato; I’m sure this is a name switch for him and not a new guy.

Match 3: Diamante, Emperador Azteca, Intocable vs Decnnis, Mr. Águila, Zumbido
Gimnasio Benito Juárez, Cuautitlán, Estado de México, 09/30/2016
Video: Liga Elite, thecubsfan

1. técnicos
   • Intocable shiranui Decnnis (0:38)
2. rudos
   • Mr. Aguila jumping heel kick Intocable (1:35)
   • Decnnis northern lights suplex Emperador Azteca (2:10)
3. rudos
   • Zumbido moonsault Emperador Azteca (1:30)

Winner: rudos (2/3)
Match Time: 4:18 shown
Notes: Babe Richard Jr. is back as referee, fine (because this match took place before the other one, not that it’s explained. It’s joined in progress and shown as highlights. Camera work continues to have problems with dives (both being in the wrong way), and the switcher picking a poor shot. It seems like every Guapito bit gets left in. Announcers insist Intocable is the captain even after the second fall goes on, and they may be right.

Review: [not rated] Intocable has a buzz cut now and it’d take a moment to recognize him if you hadn’t seen him in a while. (He’s been on Azteca reality shows, so that’s probably not an issue for the intended audience, and it’s more a surprise it’s taken this long for him to turn up. The crowd was pro-rudos anyway. This match seemed like it could’ve been a good matchup, but they edited it to get over the high spots and the comedy, so it’s hard to really tell. Decnnis gear looks like Super Fly’s gear and Intocable’s looks like Rey Cometa, so this match was occasionally confusing.

Match 4: El Bandido & Golden Magic vs Rey Escorpión & Silver King
Gimnasio Benito Juárez, Cuautitlán, Estado de México, 09/30/2016
Video: Liga Elite, thecubsfan

1. rudos
   • Rey Escorpión sit down powerbomb Bandido (4:04)
   • Silver King Death Valley Driver Golden Magic (4:18)
2. rudos
   • Rey Escorpión Aguijon Mortal Golden Magic (8:20)
   • Silver King powebomb? Bandido (8:20)

Winner: rudos (1/2)
Match Time: 12:38
Notes: Rey Escorpión attacks Golden Magic while he’s taken selfies, then takes a selfie while beating up Escorpión. Announcers call a Silver King dropkick that misses by a foot “tremendous” and I’m not sure they’re technically wrong.

Review: [ok] this is becoming repetitive: an Elite match that was good in parts and very shaky at other times. It’d make a great highlight package but not a great 14 minute watch. The rudos could do good things with the técnicos, but they could also look out of position or on different pages than the young técnicos. And it could’ve just been they weren’t interested in doing all that much with these guys. It’s weird, because Elite seems to be higher on Golden Magic & Bandido the most of the young guys, but they were beat as cleanly as definitively here as anyone’s been beat. The clear idea is Rey Escorpión and Silver King are Top Guys and these two are not, and I’m not sure why they book this match if that’s the belief. Even these announcers were surprised there’d be a second match to do a balcony dive, and this one took a while to set up because there was less editing. Crowd and announcers reacted big, but the effect wears off if you’re seeing it twice a night. Editing/replays hurt this match – the rudos win came out of nowhere because they were showing a replay at the same time, and they missed Silver’ finish without out ever getting a replay. I understand logistically why they’re running Fridays (don’t want to give up those weekend bookings), but they’ve got to get better production work if they’re going to essentially produce the show live.

Match 5: Blue Demon vs LA Park in a Liga Elite match
Gimnasio Benito Juárez, Cuautitlán, Estado de México, 09/30/2016
Video: Liga Elite, thecubsfan, RINGEXTREMO

Winner: Blue Demon (by DQ)
Match Time: 19:43
Notes: Demon’s left shoulder is taped up, and Park attacks it immediately and frequently. There’s distracting crowd shots covering up edits. Demon bleeds heavily after getting hit by a drink tray. He gets in no offense for the first 9 minutes of this match, though the referee accidentally distracts him once, then stops him from punching Demon again. (So it’s the usual Park bits.) Park bleeds after a chair shot. A low speed ref bump set up a Park foul, but they edit ahead instead of showing a pin and Demon’s back on offense next thing they show. They do another a ref bump moments later, after missing it on the first time, and Demon fouls Park this time to get a visual pin and a two count when the referee finally comes around. Park gets up and rips off Demon’s mask in full view of the referee, who I guess is supposed to be selling. Park goes to rip off a turnbuckle and apparently hits both the referee and Demon with it, which the announcers react to but the production is showing replays of the match as if it’s over (and the mask pull was so blatant that they might have thought it.) Elite keeps switching from their reel of the replays of the matches to ‘live’ action, missing the action and making it even harder to follow. An unidentified commissioner makes LA Park stop and awards the match to Demon. Eventually, they try to replay LA Park hitting the ref with the turnbuckle, but miss the impact. It’s a mess and hard to follow.

Review: [below average] a total trash finish produced horribly make this quite the waste of time to watch. AYM handles live production better than this, and that’s no great bar. It’s like there was a computer automatically going to replay as soon as they saw the replay, and not a person at the switch who knew to bail back to live action as soon as there was more action. People make mistakes and run replays when they shouldn’t, but it wasn’t hard to realize they needed to stay with the action once it continued, and they kept going back to replays for no reason. The whole thing was incoherent, and it’s not great that they left in that way.

This match had another bad ending, something that’s quickly becoming synonymous with the promotion, and it’s not like the feed dying at the end of Volador/Cavernario. The match before it wasn’t at the level, with Demon being cold and uninteresting victim of LA Park for a long time. Both the match layout, the random heel ref spots and the finish (where Park looks like the winner even though Demon gets his hand raised) are totally LA Park, which makes me think he probably had a lot do with it. They could’ve really used Demon making at least a small comeback a couple times before his him, and they could’ve used Demon doing anything interesting when he finally fought back. Demon has an inherent fame that got the crowd to care, but they could’ve stuck most any indie luchador into this spot and had the same (if not better match.) There’s so many better LA Park brawls – the Monterrey ones have the same bad finishes, but at least they can shoot them.