CMLL Martes de Nuevo Valores: 2018-06-19

Recapped: 06/21/2018

Matches: 

Mercurio & Pequeño Nitro beat Angelito & Fantasy
(12:26 [5:02, 2:51, 4:33], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Hijo del Signo, Metálico, Signo Jr. beat Bengala, Leono, Príncipe Diamante 
(13:48 [5:45, 4:09, 3:54], 1/3, n/r, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Disturbio, Espanto Jr., Virus beat Astral, Eléctrico, Star Jr. 
(16:04 [6:10, 5:03, 4:51], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Esfinge, Titán, Tritón beat Kawato, Okumura, Templario
(13:38 [3:50, 3:30, 6:18], 2/3, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Dragón Lee, Soberano Jr., Stuka Jr. beat Ephesto, Mephisto, Shocker
(12:32 [3:53, 5:25, 3:14], 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

Atlantis beat Rey Bucanero for the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship
(11:16, 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)

1. Atlantis Villano cradle (2:24)

2. Rey Bucanero inside cradle (0:53)

3. Atlantis huracanrana (7:59)

What happened: 

Seconds in the main event were Stuka and Shocker. Shocker & Bucanero are now Senores Bien. Shocker punched Atlantis to set up Bucanero’s second fall win. Shocker did it again in the third time, but Atlantis kicked out and got the pin soon after.

Thoughts:

Rey Bucanero put in a lot of work in the main event, carrying most of the action to make it a passable main event. Atlantis seems slow and had trouble getting to the top rope for his plancha. He did pull it off and took a superplex, though he didn’t do a lot more. Atlantis was never a guy who did a lot of different moves, instead of using a lot of armdrags and rollups, and while I’m not sure why that is, it turned the match into a rare bit of a rudo dominating the flow of the match for a long portion of the third fall. Bucanero brought a variety moves, old and new, and kept the match moving along. I’m not sure a Shocker or an Ephesto could’ve done it as well.

The semifinal was good for watching Shocker stand in the corner while the other rudos did most of the work. It’s not a good match on paper and came up as a lesser version of the match which preceded it, but Dragon Lee trying to fix Shocker’s jaw with a tope was something to see.

The fourth match was good by some grading curve of B-shows. Friday matches need to be completely good matches. Tuesday matches which have simply have some good sequences seem pretty good by comparison to what else is going on. Kawato kick exchange with Titan in the first fall was startling competent, but he and Okumura disappeared into the background afterward. That worked out well, because Templario got his first real showcase of a trios match in a while, wrestling the entire técnico team and looking impressive doing so. Hechicero wanted to see a Titan/Templario match out of this and I was right with him; they are both super athletic and also prone to doing creatively silly things. The last couple of minutes do a lot sell these técnicos as a team, though I appreciate Titan’s refusal to ever join in on Esfinge & Triton’s pose.

The tercera was thoroughly average, where I could barely think of something to write about it. It’s unfair putting Signo & Espanto in back to back matches because they’re the same boring rudos. Pimping wanted this over so quick that he called Star Jr.’s third fall submission before Virus could finish putting on the hold.

I watched the opener to see if Angelito was still alive. He was! He had some good moments and showed more energy than usual for these dire openers. I hope Angelito wrestles more outside of CMLL where he might get something to do. This is worth checking out to see him if you haven’t watched him in a while, and the match overall was better paced than usual. It slowed down in the third fall, and Fantasy still pretty generic, so I couldn’t give a good. It wasn’t far off.