Cavernario cheated to beat Místico in the main event, setting up a singles match next week
Sansón & Cuatrero ran in to attack Último Guerrero when Mascara 2000 was in danger of being put in the Pulpo Guerrero.
Tiger beat both Triton and Esfinge to win, though that seemed partly because Hechicero got himself eliminated after suffering thru an injury. He wasn’t shown again.
Kaho hyped the hair match after her trios match.
Thoughts:
this doesn’t seem fun
The main was totally disappointing, a sub 7-minute match with not the action to make up for the time. The técnico offense was nearly limited to the same Místico led dive run that happens in every match with him. They could’ve done a lot more and still gotten to the same ending and they instead ended with one of the quickest shows in recent memory. This wasn’t acceptable as a main event.
The semi-main was surprisingly not over for a feud scheduled to headline the next major CMLL show in two weeks. The crowd was way into the previous match but this didn’t do a thing for them. It didn’t do much for me either, with the Guerreros not doing any of their flying and the Hijos del Infienro not doing anything in particular. Mascara & UG have a wild brawling spot and not much more, and that wasn’t close to enough here.
Negro Casas did a lot more in the lightning match than normal and survived it better than Soberano. The Canadian Destroyer wasn’t needed, didn’t look good, and didn’t get the reaction the casita did, but everything else went well. The dive catch post spot looked brutal, as did the powerbomb Soberano almost lost him out, but that part enhanced the match. I wouldn’t have tried the fosberry flop dive on Negro Casas but Soberano trusted him and it worked out, like most of the match.
the timing here is pretty great
First two falls of the tercera were pretty hot. Not as much in the third fall to keep it that level. Maybe it was derailed a bit by Hechicero’s injury, though Tiger beating two técnicos made for a different ending than usual. Cometa was the best técnico easily.
The women’s match went a while, built towards big spots at the end and had a quick happy ending. No surprise the crowd liked it. It felt too similar to everything else I’m using to seeing from them for it really to stand out for me, but the effort was still strong. Kaho is likeable enough for the Mexico crowd not to just to root for the (evil) Mexican, which is pretty hard to do.
Magia Blanca was generally better working with Akuma this week than when he was with Espanto last week but still made some hysterically bad looking moves. The Silver King headscissors spot was a good try gone wrong. The first fall springboard headscissors was never going to work unless gravity was suddenly disabled. Everyone else was fine, Espanto wasn’t as horrendous as last week. It wasn’t boring.
Juicio Final is tonight. It’s at the normal Friday night time of 8 pm. Marca will be streaming their show: on their website and on their YouTube. There’s no Facebook video set up and there was no one last week, so maybe they’ve abandoned the platform. YouTube seemed to be getting the 3-4x times viewer, even despite blocking US audiences every week. I will also be streaming the show on my YouTube channel.
I wrote a long preview of the show on Voices of Wrestling, and ended up down on the concept. Virus/Metalico should be great if they get proper time. I’m not sure if anything else will be. The trios matches all could be good, but at least one of them has to get shorted on time with a seven-match card. (It also looks like there may be dance numbers.) Gran Guerrero & Euforia vs Valiente & Diamante Azul could go any way. Amapola & Kaho Kobayashi and Ultimo Guerrero & Mascara 2000 will have a bump from the emotion and the stakes, but neither would be a good match on a regular show. Mascara 2000 in a singles match could be terrible, and it is hard to imagine a way where it’ll be just OK. CMLL saying they’re going to do big shows each month sounds exciting if it actually happens, but less so if the matches are like this. As a draw, this seems like a test to see if billing a show as major without actually delivering major matches is good enough.
Ultimo Guerrero is winning the main event unless the world has gone insane. Amapola, Virus and Diamante Azul & Valiente all are likely winning, though none feels like a certainty. Virus losing would be upsetting, while the other two matches really could finish either way without it feeling a big deal. That is the problem with the card. Matches on big shows should feel like Metalico vs Virus, where the outcome feels important. It’s even better when the outcome is intriguing. The Ultimo Guerrero/Mascara 2000 match outcome sort of feels important, but it would feel really dumb if Mascara 2000 was the first guy to take Ultimo Guerrero’s hair, and then CMLL continue to go with the idea that Ultimo Guerrero was the greatest rudo.
Mascara 2000 says this is just beginning of the war between Los Guerreros and Los Dinamita. It would make more sense starting with this if it really is the start of something but wait and see.
Marca visits Valiente’s restaurant. Valiente, especially when he was first becoming a star, was always compared to Super Astro and now both of them are in the restaurant business.
There are other shows today. The event most likely to turn up on +LuchaTV is the Wrestling Resureccion show in Arena Azteca Budokan. Golden Magic & Jack Evans face Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Herodes Jr. in the Montanez focused show. Possibly the best show tonight is the AAA/EMW show in Tijuana. The show includes LAX debuting for AAA against Hijo del Vikingo & Laredo Kid, as well as the dramatic Willie Mack appearance. He teams with Taya against Daga & Tessa Blanchard. This will probably turn up on the usual Tijuana YouTube channels.
Personality Media conducts a yearly survey of 20,000 Mexicans about 1,300 athletes, trying to determine the best known and most highly regarded. They’ve done it for five years. This year is the first where a luchador made any part of the list. El Hijo del Santo is the 8th highest rated athlete among men only, rated 7.23 out of 10 and known by 98% of the male respondents. Santo doesn’t show up on the overall top 10, indicating women didn’t rate him quite as highly. I’m not sure why he would’ve shown up this year more than the past. I noticed this list only because Santo was happily tweeting about it.
Lineups
CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2019Arena México
1) Leono & Metatrón vs Cholo & Príncipe Odín Jr.
2) La Jarochita, La Maligna, Sanely vs Dalys, Metálica, Reyna Isis
3) Drone, Fuego, Rey Cometa vs Sagrado, Universo 2000 Jr., Vangellys
4) Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Luciferno [lightning]
5) Flyer, Kráneo, Stuka Jr. vs Hechicero, Máscara Año 2000, Mr. Niebla
6) Atlantis, Diamante Azul, Valiente vs Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón
Not a thrilling card. Leono & Metatron versus Cholo & Principe Odin Jr. seems like torture. Maybe the lightning match will be fine.
CMLL (TUE) 06/04/2019Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) El Alteño, Luminoso, Magnum vs Mr. Trueno, Paymon, Rey Trueno
2) Magnus, Star Black, Star Jr. vs Cancerbero, Raziel, Tyson La Bestia
3) Avispa Dorada, Marcela, Princesa Sugehit vs Amapola, La Comandante, Tiffany
4) Esfinge, Niebla Roja, Tritón vs Cavernario, Felino, Negro Casas
5) Ángel de Oro, Carístico, Volador Jr. vs La Bestia Del Ring, Rush, Terrible [Relevos Increíbles]
Rush at least gets a day off between working the Pacific Northwest for ROH and Guadalajara. Speaking of the PNW, Avispa Dorada makes TV.
Audaz had the shiny gear but Freelance had the shiny wrestling. The tone of the match was established early on, when Audaz tried to do a tricky rope run and fell down, then Freelance did his own and nailed it perfectly. Audaz can do cool spots but was outdone with them in this match by Freelance, who also landed them much more effectively. This match never developed more than an exhibition of those highspots but it flew by and seemed less than the 10 minutes it went.
The Super Nova/Iron Kid was a better laid out match then Freelance/Audaz. It just didn’t have the excitement, with Nova doing a professional but relatively sane match for Naucalpan standards. Iron Kid’s out of control dives were the things that woke me up. Super Nova seemed to want to make a point about how they didn’t need to go crazy to have a good match and it was a good match, it just wasn’t a lot more than that.
that’s a lot of twists
Sádico vs Hijo de Canis Lupus
(17:23, great, mluchatv)
Hey, it’s the annual Sadico spectacular, somehow not featuring Flamita this year. It’s only March, I guess there’s still time for that. Hijo de Canis makes a worthy substitute in a match that puts everything together. They do some good back and forth on holds early on, it escalates into scray dives, and there’s big moves that keep the match going and going. Sadico messing up his chair dive was sad, but deciding to make it up by going headfirst towards the floor was a solid make good. Lupus matched him when he needed, including the big dive that wiped them out over the barricade, and they made this come off as an important outcome by the end. This match felt better put together than most of the Lupus matches I’ve seen, which seems like a Sadico thing. However it go there, it got to the end really well.
Soberano’s struggles at putting together good matches outside of CMLL (and outside of trios) continues. This was a total empty calories match, full of fireworks dives and absolutely no substance. There’s no story here, and it is unclear either of these guys know there can be a story in matches, just different ways to fall on their head they’ve seen in other matches. The big spots have to be absolutely nailed to make this not feel silly, and the head drops they came back in to do didn’t look so good. I usually try to avoid spoiling direct finishes in these. The finish here is so terrible that it needs to be mentioned. Dragon Bane gives Soberano a head drop, then takes a bump for no reason, and both men carefully position an arm over each other for a totally unconvincing double pin. It is terrible, the kind of finish that must’ve only been approved because the people in charge didn’t want to deal with these guys any longer. There are far worse matches that get the same grade but few were as frustrating at the finish.
that said, being able to fold up on the tope was cool
I was surprised about how much Angel de Oro took from Aramis in their match. That was the smart way to do the match, tease Aramis getting the big upset for as long as possible until Angel de Oro put him away. Aramis landing the spinning torture rack looked super impressive and he didn’t seem to lose anything by Oro surviving time after time. Aramis looked super smooth thru this match. Angel de Oro didn’t do a whole lot but what he did mattered, and he kind of just gave a platform to Aramis to take the fight to the bigger star.
Laredo Kid & Imposible drifted back towards moves just for moves sake. Being the sixth match (of those I’m watching) on this show made that a harder sell than it might’ve been isolated. They had a much better variety of moves than Soberano/Dragon Bane and not a stupid ending, so it wasn’t a big problem. It never got more than surface deep, but Laredo Kid is spectacular enough that they can get by with just some cool spots.
No AAA on Twitch this week. The AAA YouTube show should be up to Nogales. I will be unreasonably upset if they cut out the Poder del Norte match and leave in the Killer Kross match.
Juicio Final is a show that is definitely happening. At least it is free on Marca.
Caristico vs Mr. Niebla on Puebla will be weird and maybe good but not definitely good.
WrestlingInc posted an interview with Dorian Roldan, mostly about the AAA/MSG show, which hasn’t been talked about since the tickets went on sale three weeks ago. The article transcribes most of it, the interview on the podcast itself starts at 59:00. For our purposes, the big news is the show is not planned to stream on Twitch. Roldan says it wasn’t part of the package of shows for Twitch. It doesn’t sound as though Twitch won’t take it, but that they think they have a better ability to put in on TV (in Mexico & the US) if it’s not on Twitch.
Dorian is open to working with talent from other promotions for talent on their show but none are specifically confirmed at being part of this card at this point. They’re also open to working with “people who used to be in AAA before and are really important to the Mexican fans.” Johnny Mundo technically fits that category, but it also sure sounds like the LA Park signal. Roldan says the card will have something for every type of fan and they’ve partnered with radio stations to promote those shows. Roldan also attended the NJPW/ROH show at MSG with other AAA people to get an idea of the production required.
AAA is still set at running other shows (and slow ticket sales for MSG don’t come up at all here.) A second show is planned to be announced soon. That’s probably the Los Angeles one that was previously reported. AAA is hoping to run 10 shows in the US next summer, which is hard to believe. Roldan gives credit to the company they’re with on this, Oak View Group, for setting up deals with venus and sponsors and even TV.
Vampiro posts many videos on his Facebook. One from yesterday, despite a list of injuries a mile long, he’s going to get in shape and start taking wrestling bookings again starting late this summer. I believe the second part. I wish Vampiro and any indie who books him luck even though I’m uncertain about his strategy about getting booked. This is relevant to a lucha libre blog mostly for how disconnected it is from AAA. Vampiro talks about taking indie bookings, in Mexico and elsewhere, but AAA doesn’t get mentioned. I’m sure Vampiro has some connection with AAA because he’s also not burying AAA, but whatever talent/production role he has seemed to have ended around the time he moved to Las Vegas. It’s the Vampiro decline in power everyone figured would happen once Konnan was back with AAA, and this just seems a little bit like confirmation it is has happened.
The Burger King Mexico/Blue Demon Jr. bit took place in a two-hour facebook video yesterday. I am not watching two hours of a Burger King ad, but it seems like it came off well. It included dozens of Blue Demons and a lot of fans attending a Burger King. AAA should borrow the sea of Blue Demons for his TripleMania entrances.
CMLL Informa revealed the first two teams for Copa Dinasita. If you’ve forgotten, this was announced at the most recent CMLL press conference. It is sadly not a celebration of the reigning AAA minis champion, but instead a tag team tournament with eight family teams beginning June 7th. Informa announced Negro Casas & Felino and Soberano & Euforia as the first two teams.
That leaves space for six teams. CMLL families include the Munoz (Bestia del Ring, Rush, Mistico, Dragon Lee), the Guerreros (Ultimo & Gran), the Dinamitas (Mascara 2000, Sanson, Cuatrero, Forastero, Universo 2000 Jr.), the Chavez (Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja), the Villanos (Hijo del III & IV), the Atlantis (Sr. & Jr.), Familia Real (Flyer & Volador) and all the Panthers. That’s eight more teams, so two will be left off the tournament.
Mascara 2000 is nervous but confident going into his hair match with Ultimo Guerrero. He figures he faced Perro Aguayo so he can handle Ultimo Guerrero. Mascara lost every apuesta match he had with Perro Aguayo.
Metalico’s family asked him if he was crazy when he challenged Virus to a retirement match.
I haven’t written much about the NJPW’s Best of Super Juniors here. I would like to blame the cold I have (somehow I still have a cough?) completely derailing me but also I’m always unclear if I’m risking spoiling things by mentioning promotions people aren’t expecting here. This is a long intro paragraph to say maybe you want to scroll down a little bit, though I’m going to go more luchador by luchador instead of match by match.
Dragon Lee had the most successful tournament of the four Mexican representatives. He’s had the most wins, 6, of any Mexican wrestler has had since Black Tiger II (Eddie Guerrero) also had 6 in 1994. It’s partly a factor of this being a bigger block field than usual, though Guerrero’s tournament actually was larger. Dragon Lee can break the record with a win over Marty Scurll in his final block match. Dragon Lee will likely end up third in his block, with Shingo Takagi probably ending up undefeated. Takagai figures to challenge Dragon Lee at the NJPW Dominion show and would be the heavy favorite to end Dragon Lee’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight reign. Dragon Lee’s block match with Takagi has probably been his best-received match so far and the reviews have been overall strong for his work.
Titan has two wins. He got three wins in his previous BOSJ appearance and can tie that with a win over Tiger Mask in his final match. Titan won’t finish last, but that final match is basically a playoff game to determine who finishes second to last. Titan’s had a fairly unnoteworthy tournament, both in wins and matches. Titan has been good but usually not memorable. His highest regarded matches have been against Dragon Lee and Jonathan Gresham.
Bandido is in the middle of the table in Block B with an even 4-4 record so far. His final match is against Rocky Romero, who is right behind him in the standings. A win or loss could greatly shift Bandido’s final ranking as everyone’s bunched together, but he’s never really challenged for first place. Bandido’s early matches didn’t get strong reviews. Things picked up with a match against Ren Narita, and he’s gotten good marks for his ones with Will Ospreay and Robbie Eagles.
Douki still doesn’t have a Wikipedia profile, the only person on the tournament who doesn’t have one. He’s been shown the same level of respect in the rest of the tournament, losing to everyone except rookie Narita. This is one where me being way behind hurts; it seemed like he struggled to adjust to NJPW in the first few matches but reports are that he’s steadily improved as the tournament has moved on. Douki was thrown into the deep end by being added to the BOSJ at the last minute and he hasn’t drowned. There is a clear route for him to be a reoccurring NJPW character – TAKA obviously would prefer not to wrestle much, Desperado might be elevated into a singles wrestler when he returns from this injury, Kanemaru would need a replacement partner – but I have no feel for how likely that is to happen.
Ring of Honor has made a few announcements about upcoming matches:
06/01 Kent, Washington (TV taping)
Rush vs Dalton Castle vs Flip Gordon vs PJ Black
06/02 Portland (HonorClub)
Rush & Dalton Castle will be a tag team in a five-team match
06/28 Baltimore (PPV)
Bandido vs Shane Taylor (c) for the ROH TV Championship
probably Dragon Lee vs Dalton Castle
06/29 Philadelphia (TV taping):
Dragon Lee & Rush vs Mark & Jay Briscoe
Lineups
CMLL (MON) 06/03/2019Arena Puebla
1) Astro, Asturiano, Último Dragóncito vs Espíritu Maligno, Joker, Mercurio
2) Arkalis, Halcón Suriano Jr., King Jaguar vs El Perverso, Hijo del Signo, Toro Bill Jr.
3) Kráneo, Stigma, Volcano vs Hechicero, Misterioso Jr., Templario
4) Ángel de Oro, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero vs Máscara Año 2000, Rey Bucanero, Terrible [Relevos Increíbles]
5) Carístico vs Mr. Niebla
This will be the first time they’ve had this match since 2010, assuming Mr. Niebla is there. This is currently more a Mr. Niebla issue, CMLL doesn’t trust him in a singles match. It is the first they’ve given him since 2017.
Ultimo Guerrero and Mascara 2000 seem as though they’ll continue their feud. I would respect the Chavez brothers if they just immediately betrayed UG and walked off to leave him to die.
Guerrero Maya Jr. beat Templarioin a lightning match
(7:30, bodyscissors cradle, good, VideosOficialesCMLL)
El Audaz, Flyer, Kráneo beat Mr. Niebla, Rey Bucanero, Shocker
(10:37 [3:57, 4:27, 2:13], 1/3, n/r, VideosOficialesCMLL)
La Bestia Del Ring, Rush, Terrible beat Ángel de Oro, Atlantis, Niebla Roja
(10:55 [2:45, 8:10], 1/2, n/r, VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
this is not a view you want to have in life
Terrible snuck in a foul on Niebla Roja for the pin. The técnicos try to set up a rematch for next week but get punked out for a second time.
CMLL loses the picture for a couple of minutes starting with Metalico’s entrance. It only removes about 15 seconds of the match. Super Astro took a stretcher after Nitro’s piledriver. That happens fairly frequently with piledrivers; CMLL no longer treats anything besides the tombstone version as a DQ, but they’re all still treated as dangerous moves. In this particular case, following Silver King’s death and the lax medical attention, it might have also had to do with demonstrating CMLL’s procedures. Referee Edgar, in particular, seems much more alert to the situation and waving in help than usual.
Thoughts:
The lightning match was one of Templario’s best performance as a power style wrestler in CMLL, just dropping Guerrero Maya with strong moves after another in the closing half of the match. He still does a handspring and all, but Templario comes off as a dangerous threat in a way most of the rudos don’t. Guerrero Maya hasn’t looked this good in a singles match in a long time, mostly because he hasn’t had someone who pushed him this hard and made him go beyond the usual. I really wish they had a stronger finish or had just kept going thru the one that didn’t work to something better. The idea of Maya’s experience catching Templario was good but the execution of that particular spot was not.
Not quite as exciting as Halcón Suriano’s Friday exhibitions, but he still has some good moments. He might have won if he would just stop moonsaulting but there are worse ways to lose I suppose. Grako’s clapping on his corner charge is so obvious that I’m sure it’s supposed to be part of the spot but I’m not sure how. Grako & Coyote can sometimes do sequences while hesitating onto the next one, which causes these matches not to feel a bit rough.
