Virusbeat Universo 2000 Jr.in a lightning match (6:41, step over toe hold chickenlock, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL
Hechicero, Máscara Año 2000, Pólvora beat Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa, Tritón (14:40 [6:01, 2:58, 5:41], 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Ángel de Oro, Carístico, Titánbeat Gran Guerrero, Mephisto, Shocker (9:09 [2:45, 2:07, 4:17], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
flying cat
Nothing as far as storylines. This didn’t build up anything for another show.
Shocker is now wrestling without his face protection head gear.
Mije is with Mascara Año 2000. This Is Triton’s first match here in about 9 months, spending that time in the US. He seems to have lost some weight and is no longer wrestling a shirt, at least for his debut.
Espíritu Negro suffers some a facial injury when Sangre Imperial messes up a boosted up dropkick and forearms Espiritu in the face. Edgar is slow to realize what’s going on, more concerned with Negro’s feet getting out off the ropes for the pin. The doctor is slower, and Flyer actually springboard over Espiritu to land his legdrop on Akuma. They strangely can’t wait until Espíritu is off the pain to start the third fall.
Thoughts:
Coyote senton
The main event wrapped up well enough even if it was a bit of a drag earlier. The third fall really got over well with the tourists, with spots that shouldn’t surprise hardcore fans getting loud reactions. Shocker seems slightly better the last couple of weeks, even as he sucks large amounts of air on the apron in between runs. He still needs to lose weight, for his own sake and for his mobility, but he might not be the worst wrestler in the promotion.
The rudos didn’t seem all that into in the semimain. Maya’s comeback starts in the seconds fall with Pólvora & Mascara watching peacefully as he runs by for a tope. The técnicos got in a little in the third fall, but this was an underwhelming match. Triton seemed to be in good shape in his return, even if his return was treated as a minor deal.
The lightning match actually told a logical story: Universo 2000 Jr. is much bigger than Virus and used his size to batter Virus for most of the match. Virus could occasionally avoid a shot, but was one chop away from being knocked back down. Universo 2000 just didn’t have enough to put away Virus, and Virus just needed an opening to submit him. It covered nicely for Universo 2000 Jr. not really being able to do a lot right now: for a match built around Universo offense, he didn’t impress much. This is probably about as good a match as you’re going to see out of him for the time being.
Shocker DOWN
The tercera was closer to good than usual for matches with Sangre Azteca & Nitro. I didn’t hate myself for watching it. It’s not just the entertaining técnicos, the rudos brought more energy than usual for whatever random usual. Fiero didn’t get to go crazy like he does with Templario around but did get in one nice dive at the end. Drone’s corkscrew headscissors submission is an interesting idea but it looked too much like he was getting pinned by Disturbio at the end.
Sangre Imperial is bad and dangerous. I thought maybe Flyer didn’t boost him high enough, but it’s not like Imperial tried to get the dropkick at any point. He screwed up and someone else paid the price. He then set Akuma in the wrong corner to do his moonsault, which made it take much longer and he still missed it after all. Akuma and Flyer continue to look like guys who would do fine at a higher level – they handled having to come up with an extra finish well. Good luck on them getting out of there.
Sangre Azteca is so into his dropkicks
There must be some standard of deciding when a trainee is ready to make the leap onto shows, but it’s not one that’s really evident by their performance in the matches we see: Yago, Coyote and Retro all look at far different points in progression. Bengala might as well be considered an official trainee, because either he’s teaming with a Sonic or he’s facing a Coyote pretty much every match. Retro shows nothing and looks awkward, but he’s tall and his body is changing so Rob’s point about him eventually getting a big push makes sense. Yago knows he’s got to get over the moment he steps out there, and acts like a guy who’s been around for a lot longer that most of these trainees. Maybe I’m just suspicious of everyone’s age after Signo, but Yago just doesn’t come off like the other guys.
CMLL (MON) 01/01/2018Arena México [Claro, CMLL, Culticon, ESTO, Ovaciones, thecubsfan, Wrestling With GIFs]
1) Eléctrico & Último Dragóncito b Mercurio & Pequeño Olímpico 12:03. Tecnicos took 2/3.
2) Oro Jr., Star Jr., Starman DQ Cancerbero, Hijo del Signo, Raziel 11:42. Signo and Starman feuded. Starman was DQed for fouling Signo in the second, and Signo unmasked Starman in the third.
3) Blue Panther Jr., Pegasso, The Panther b Nitro, Sagrado, Virus 14:35. Tecnicos took 1/3.
4) Mr. Niebla, Shocker, Vangellys b Drone, Esfinge, Titán 10:36. Rudos took 1/3. Drone replaced Vailente (moved up.)
5) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Valiente b Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón 13:17. Valiente replaced Carsitico (on Monday) Tecnicos took 1/3.
6) Negro Casas b Sam Adonis [hair] 12:37. Negro Casas took falls 1/3 to win Adonis’ hair.
This was a one match show like last week, but a much better one match. Crowd seemed a lot better than last week, but they never did big crowd shots. It didn’t seem close to last year’s Panther/Adonis match visually, but maybe along the range of a decent Friday night show.
This show seems dumb, but I do hope it turns up so I can see exactly how dumb it is.
TSW (MON) 01/01/2018Arena San Juan Pantitlan, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, Estado de México [+LuchaTV, R de Rudo]
1) Aerodinamic b Kalibus, Shura
2) Thunder Storm b Baby Star Jr.
3) Toro Negro Jr. b Heddi Karaoui The mystery French man with Heddi Karaoui attacked Toro after the match.
4) Black Warrior Jr. b Toxin Toxin replaced Thunder Storm
5) Oro Jr. & Starman b Lokillus & Yoruba Starman replaced Templario (Puebla). Lokillus and Yoruba buried the match in a back stage post match promo as the CMLL guys doing nothing and challenged each other to a match.
6) Golden Magic b Sagrado Sagrado want a rematch in vale todo rules (!?!)
7) Blue Panther Jr. & The Panther (CMLL) b Ciclón Ramírez Jr. & Emperador Azteca Matematico was honored.
8) El Bandido b Niebla Roja a bit of a upset, but Niebla Roja had his foot on the ropes on the pin
Really just wanted to post this because the indie guys burying the CMLL guys was amusing. Attendance didn’t see much: it doesn’t seem like you can throw CMLL guys (at least these ones) against indie guys with nothing going on and have people care enough to turn out.
DTU (MON) 01/01/2018Arena Aficion [DTU]
1) Angelito Mágico & Irving El Travieso Montiel b Centella De La Muerte & The Black Jr.
2) Devitt Rodríguez & Hard Boy b Águila Mágica & Brook Duncan Brook Dunch replaced Fly Star.
3) Pasion Kristal & Yuriko b Cámuflaje & El Exótico Exotico replaced Junior. Kristal/Yuriko want a NEXO tag title shot.
4) Draztick Boy b Steel Dragón, Jimmy
5) Cíclope & Miedo Extremo b Billy Gamer & Toto Gamer
6) Crazy King b Paranoiko DTU champ beats winner of the cage match on the anniversary show.
if DTU is nice enough to post results, then I can post them too
Pagano’s fractured rib turned out to be quite bad: AAA announced Pagano will be out three months. Pagano didn’t have a lot going on screen after the Mesias feud wrapped up but he was one of the busiest wrestlers on AAA live events thru the year and will be tough to replace. On the other hand, Pagano is known for his dangerous stunts and doesn’t always seem to be doing things in the safest way, so it’s a little surprising he made it this long without a serious injury. AAA doesn’t have a lot of top guys left healthy who would normally be thought of as full time main eventers – maybe Psycho, Texano, Fantasma and Parka – but they’ve already been offering main events with guys who don’t feel like main events and it doesn’t seem like local promoters have stopped using them. I would guess that Psycho Clown also going down any time soon would really hurt AAA, but they may just be able to sell AAA shows on being AAA at this point.
On the positive note, Atlantis says he’s ready for FantasticaMania. It does not appear he’ll wrestle in Mexico prior to that tour at this point. That was the same thing that happened with Mistico the year he came back from the motorcycle accident, and he looked far less than 100%. Hope it goes better with Atlantis.
Today’s CMLL show has the NGD against Angel de Oro, Niebla Roja and Caristico. There’s also a Triton vs The Panther match that could be fun, and Maligna debuts in the women’s match. It airs at 7:30pm on YouTube. Guadalajara has Volador/Sam Adonis.
Last night’s Zona Ruda had a gimmick where the show was presenting a TripleMania lineup to Dorian Roldan. They posted it on Twitter. bold type: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL CARD, THIS IS NOT SOMETHING AAA ANNOUNCED, THIS IS JUST A WHAT IF. Still going to spend too much time talking about it because it is so confounding.
I had some harsh things to say on Twitter about this concept card. With some time to reflect, it’s still not any good. I don’t know why people would want to the bottom half of the card, most of the big matches are unappealing, and there’s stuff in the middle that makes no sense. (Why are two masked women having a hair match? Why is bald Kevin Cross [sic] and bald Hernandez in a match where the loser could lose their hair or mask?) This is the kind of idea for a card that makes me think either I don’t really understand what people want to see in lucha libre or the people like those who put this together at Zona Ruda don’t really understand what people want to see in lucha libre. They live in Mexico, are paid to talk about lucha libre, so they probably have a better feel for these things and I’m the crazy one, but to my crazy US eyes, it’s a card that’s miles away from being good.
Chris Jericho is there because he’s the big name of the moment. His NJPW deal seems to have gotten enough of buzz that I suspect he’ll be in no hurry to go back to WWE and he’ll end up doing some more stunt appearances like a TripleMania. Probably not specifically a TripleMania. On his podcast, Jericho usually doesn’t say negative things about people still working in wrestling, but he buries Vampiro whenever he comes in conversation (which is not that often.) Maybe AAA could write a big check to help Jericho get past it, but it seems next to impossible he’ll be turning up in AAA.
Zona Ruda will get posted during the week, so you can see if Dorian Roldan disagreed with the lineup more tactfully. I don’t have high hopes for any TripleMania being good, because their goal seems to be something other than to have good matches, but I think they can probably do better than this in reality.
+LuchaTV posted the complete Daga vs Caifan match from Lucha Memes. If Caifan really doesn’t come back, and if his match from Monterrey on the 29th doesn’t turn up, that’d be the last Caifan match to make the internet.
CMLL Guadalajara posted photos and limited results for their 12/17 show today. Turns out, Difunto beat Joker for their Occidente middleweight championship. Shocking that no one cares about these titles when it takes two weeks to note a title change.
El Manana interviews Zarzy Tiger, who is the son of El Zarzy and related to Halcón de Oro, Asterisco, Asterisco Jr, Hijo del Zarzy, Hija del Zarzy, Halcón Negro and Sweety.
CMLL (SUN) 01/07/2018Arena México
1) Bengala & Sangre Imperial vs Artillero & Grako
2) Pegasso, Stigma, Tritón vs Akuma, Arkángel de la Muerte, Disturbio
3) Esfinge, Soberano Jr., Valiente vs Johnny Idol, Okumura, Sam Adonis
4) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Stuka Jr. vs Cuatrero, Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000 Jr.
5) Carístico, Diamante Azul, Marco Corleone vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
The most exciting thing about this card is there’s a new background texture on the poster. Universo actually gets to team with family members this week; it’d be amusing (if not good) they ran with a Mascara 2000 Sr/Forastero/Universo 2000 Jr. for a couple weeks.
I can’t claim to know what’s going on here but Star Black losing his mask still seems like it would be a surprise.
CMLL (MON) 01/08/2018Arena Puebla
1) Centella Roja & Vega vs Ares & Guerrero Espacial
2) Flyer, Millenium, Pegasso vs Fuerza Chicana, Hijo del Signo, Policeman
3) Guerrero Maya Jr., Rey Cometa, Stuka Jr. vs Hechicero, Pólvora, Universo 2000 Jr.
4) Dragón Lee, Soberano Jr., Valiente vs Felino, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas
5) Marco Corleone, Rey Bucanero, Terrible vs Diamante Azul, Gran Guerrero, Pierroth
Main event is a rematch from last week, so something. What happened? I dunno. We could probably ask Marco but it doesn’t seem that important.
Dragon Lee is back. I’m suspicious he’s in Japan like last year for NJPW’s Toyko Dome show and the follow up show. He’d be able to get back in time for this show if that was the case.
IWRG didn’t air a new episode, so we’re stuck on just two shows.
CMLL Guadalajara: 2017-12-30
taped 2017-12-26 @ Arena Coliseo Guadalajara – Mega/YouTube
1) Oro Jr., Pegasso, Stigma vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Sagrado
2) Blue Panther Jr., Esfinge, The Panther vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón
3) Mistico, Valiente, Volador Jr. vs Johnny Idol, Okumura, Sam Adonis
CMLL Lucha Azteca: 2017-12-30
taped 2017-12-22 @ Arena México – Mega
1) Drone, Guerrero Maya Jr., Soberano Jr. vs Puma, Tiger, Virus
2) Rush vs Mr. Niebla, Último Guerrero, Terrible, Shocker, Sansón, Kráneo, Euforia, Máscara Año 2000, Rey Bucanero, Gran Guerrero, Forastero, Pierroth, Hechicero, Misterioso Jr., Vangellysin a CMLL Leyenda de Azul Tournament match
