RIOT: 2019-05-04 (Chicles)

Recapped: 2020-01-14

You can buy or rent this show here. This show is named Chicles, after the person who heroically hotwired the power at a previous show after a local outage.

Matches:

Erick Ortiz vs Sayrus
(11:33, good)

There was some fun stuff, but this felt like a learning experience. He can do impressive moves, but the RIOT crowd has seen a lot of fancy spots. It helps if the match hangs a bit better than this one. The accidentally funniest part of this match is when Sayrus does a poison rana, then backs up, then takes a walk around the ring, and then gets on to trying a pin. Waiting eight seconds to cover did not get the win. There was enough action here to enjoy it but there’s was piece missing.

Muerte Extrema vs Silencio vs Hijo Del Espectro Jr.
(8:20, ok)

Espectro gets hurt about three minutes in, dooming this match. The best parts of the match are the first couple of minutes when they get going, with both guys throwing out big moves to get the fans back into paying attention. They can’t couldn’t sustain the pace the rest of the way but it never fell apart.

Madness vs Low Rider
(8:57, ok)

The rudo/rudo battle between Madness/Low Rider was hard to get into. The crowd didn’t have a rooting interest and they neither guy stood out. Low Rider’s personality didn’t shine thru as much in this match as it did getting to the ring.

Fresero Jr. & Mr. Iguana vs Kaientai & Lord Byron
(16:16, good)

The tag match flipped between being a lot of fun and being not very good so many times that I’m not sure where I landed on it. In the end, a small person was thrown from a high distance onto other people so I guess it was good. This match was best when they were doing stunts and didn’t mesh as much when they were doing tricky spots, so setting up a super libre match seemed like a good idea.

Black Terry vs Símbolo
(12:20, ok)

Simbolo/Terry was fine but never more than that. Post-shoulder injury Black Terry matches have a hard time picking up speed. The chops look very strong and the technique is good, but it feels off without the pace picking up near the end, the excitement is missing in this one. Simbolo seemed like a suitable person to work with Terry but didn’t add a lot.

Arez vs Kratoz vs Látigo vs Iron Kid vs Aramis
(8:54, great)

Nine minutes reads short for a main event, but they had done all the moves. There was no more to do. It was the right length. This actually started off going a little slow before going insane in the way of most RIOT multiman matches. The big bit near the ends turned up in clips earlier, but there’s creative stuff earlier almost as cool that comes close to working. The dives are impressive, though I’m not sure how Iron Kid doesn’t break a leg on his. There’s a payoff to fans chanting “Rey Mysterio” at Latigo. This was totally enjoyable.