CMLL Puebla: 2019-12-30

Recapped: 12/30/2019

Matches:

Asturiano, Millenium, Rey Samuray beat Black Tiger, Fuerza Chicana, Policeman
(13:14 [6:49, 3:01, 3:24], 2/3, ok, 00:03:13)

Arkalis, Drone, Súper Astro Jr. beat El Malayo, El Perverso, Toro Bill Jr.
(13:30 [6:22, 3:35, 3:33], 2/3, ok, 00:25:06)

Stigma beat Rey Cometa in a lightning match
(6:03, Stigmatica, good, 00:46:30)

Diamante Azul, Felino, Rey Bucanero beat Ángel de Oro, Terrible, Valiente in a relevos increíbles match
(12:03 [4:30, 1:57, 5:36], 2/3, n/r, 00:56:28)

Carístico vs Volador Jr.
(17:18, 2/3, good?, 01:18:12)

1. Volador backcracker (4:46)
2. DQ Volador mask pull (2:44)
3. Caristico La Mistica (9:38)

What happened:

The main event starts with three minutes of Caristico trying to get Edgar thrown out. Edgar then distracts Carisitco into getting hit by Volador. Volador pulled Caristico’s mask and rolled him up for the three count, seemingly ending the match. Volador dumbly held up the mask to celebrate and Edgar called the DQ. Both faked fouls in the third fall before Caristico won.

Thoughts:

It’s strange to end the year where AAA does athletic matches with big moves and clean finishes while CMLL does a main event with referee shenanigans and a lot of cheap reactions. It isn’t all like that, but this main event was a lot of playing heavily rudo and tecnico to get the crowd. It worked for them, even if it wasn’t a competitive match. It did kind of work in an expectation-defying way. Carisitco took most of the offense in the way that usually happens in main event matches he’s going to lose, except he actually won this one. The seemingly only alternative here would be a match with a lot of near fall spots, rest breaks, and repeats, and I’m not sure that would’ve been any better. Maybe if there was an ongoing narrative, if Carisitco getting a (rare) win over Volador meant something, this would have more meaning. I don’t know. This was successful in getting a lively crowd to reaction big in the same way an AAA main trios match would do the same. I’m not sure I’m looking for that out of a CMLL match but the job wasn’t to give me what I was looking for out of a match.

I was not paying a lot of attention to the semi-main but even the announcers couldn’t remember who was on which team and who was the captain. Angel de Oro & Felino seem to be keeping their feud going on their own at this point, which suggests they got turned down for whatever was happening.

Rey Cometa was great at moving around at fast speed, pulling off some moves and doing his best to make Stigma look good. Stigma wasn’t awful, Stigma was just stuck in generic CMLL tecnico mode outside of the Santo screw headscissors. The best part of this match was Stigma won clean and there were no challenges. It’s hard to understand why Cometa was used in this feud instead of any rudo if there’s no payoff but I’m not complaining about it being finished here. It was better than a typical lightning match.

The rudos got the crowd going a bit during the second match but there really wasn’t much action. There have been cooler Super Astro performances. Toro Bill did take a crazy bump to the floor in the third fall.

Black Tiger was the worst person in the opener, which is a problem when he’s also the trainer of the school. Rey Samuray came the closest he’s ever going to come to landing the springboard 450. It’s still not very good. The match moved quicker than the time suggests, especially with the brief last two falls.