Keyra & Zumbido vs Lady Maravilla & Steve Pain
(LLB @ Arena Lopez Mateos, 06/17, 14:41, good,CaritaJC LuchaLibre)
Video Note: This is lightly clipped.
Review: I’ve got this match as good, but its borderline higher. I haven’t seen a lot of Zumbido in the last decade, but this is the best I’ve seen him look since he was in CMLL. He’s great as the técnico who isn’t going to put up with any of Maravilla & Pain’s cheating, plays to the crowd well, and is effective in his moves. Keyra & Zumbido are the best working team thanks to what seems like Zumbido’s ideas. He’s a little off at times but still worth the show. Everyone is good, Maravilla shows more personality as a ruda than the Keyra does a tecnica, and the finish looks outstanding.
Hijo de LA Park & LA Park vs Dragón Lee & Rush
(IWRG @ Arena Naucalpan on 06/17, 22:28, good,IWRG tv)
This match is one where almost everyone writing about lucha libre has already written about this match and I have nothing interesting or new to add. I think I like it a little less than most, but it’s still pretty good. It’s a great Naucalpan brawl around the building for two falls. Park & Rush bring more intensity to the usual wandering around the building, and the younger Park & Dragon Lee fit in fine when they mix the fights. The third fall loses the plot a bit – it goes too long, Dragon Lee & Hijo de LA Park are going back to a highspot match (and less than perfectly done) that just seems like an interruption to Park/Rush – but the first half of this is well worth watching.
Aramis © vs Freelance for the IWRG Rey del Aire match
(IWRG @ Arena Naucalpan on 07/01, 5:05,good, via +LuchaTV)
Video note: This aired live on one of +Lucha’s first times streaming from Naucalpan, but the feed died a few times in that show. This is joined in progress after one of those dead moments. The announcing comes and goes during the match, seemingly as they try to figure out if they’re on air. It never got posted as a stand along match later.
Review: I don’t know if this match counts as a sprint, because they’re not moving faster than the usual rapid speed Aramis & Freelance wrestle at. It’s more this one goes only five minutes (of what we see) because they’re throwing big moves from the start. It’s not going to last long and shouldn’t last long if they’re just throwing the IWRG lightweight equivalent of big bombs. Freelance got Aramis in a position where the next move was probably going to win, and Aramis escaped to land that move himself. Five minutes doesn’t make much of a remarkable match, and it doesn’t reach the insane level to make it a must see level. It’s still a good fireworks show.
Soberano Jr. © vs Cavernario for the Mexican National Welterweight Championship
(CMLL @ Arena Coliseo Guadalajara on 07/10, 20:28, good,thecubsfan)
Video Note: my video is dropping frames at different points. It’s a little distracting but never unwatchable.
Review: I know I watched this one back in July but I guess I never wrote anything about it. Watching it again, it’s striking how much of it is Cavernario control. Soberano gets in almost nothing in the first two falls, just getting a surprise pinfall. Cavernario’s good enough that they don’t seem to lose the crowd at the end. Cavernario’s good enough at the end too to keep them going after the finishing sequence doesn’t work right the first time. Soberano adds his big spots and dives but this is Cavernario making the match work.
Penta El Zero M vs Senza Volto vs Gringo Loco vs El Bandolero
(GALLI @ Arena GALLI on 06/24, 22:00,great, GALLI Lucha Libre)
Video Note: Match actually starts at 8:41, though there’s still a bit of interior decorating before anyone fights.
Review: This match is turned into an extreme match before it starts – the long delay before it starts is for people gathering weapons, and then tossing those same weapons back out so they have room to do stuff. They certainly make use of the rules to do some crazy stuff. There’s total insanity in this one, punishment they’re taking in the first half of the match they probably shouldn’t be doing in front of this size crowd (or maybe any side crowd.) It probably didn’t need to get 20 minutes and it never developed into more than just craziness, but it was a good crazy match. Bandolero takes the most brutal things. I have not seen France’s Senza Volto prior; he’s obviously super athletic to do big dives with ease. He could use more refinement in some areas, but there’s a lot of potentials to tap into – like, the pull up he does to get on top of the entrance set is somehow more impressive than the dive off it. I was going to rate this as good, and then the finish happened. The finish came off as insane enough looking on video to push it over the line. It was probably a normal bump for the situation but it just looked amazing the way we saw it.
Daga vs Matt Riddle
(The Crash @ Auditorio de Tijuana on 07/14, 9:53, good, Lucha Libre De Tijuana)
Video Note: This version is edited. All the version are edited and this one had the longest running time. The editing doesn’t seem bad at first, then it gets more present and more obviously being used to cut out any point where there’s no action as it goes on.
Review: The Daga/Riddle match is built around them being equals, while Riddle also comes off as the more impressive guys. He’s better at taking Daga’s offense, and his own looks more impressive. Daga looks good too, though getting distracted to tell of a fan doesn’t help his cause much. I was expecting a little more grappling than they get to, at least until the final moments. The moves they do instead look good, it’s just more of a regular indie match done well than a different style of match. This was good fun.
