IWRG (SUN) 01/26/2020Arena Naucalpan [+LuchaTV, The Gladiatores]
1) Dinámico & Voltrex b Águila Oriental Jr. & Spider Fly
2) Black Dragón, Chicanito, Legendario DQ Canival King, Carnicero, Death Metal Metal tried to foul Black Dragon, Dragon faked it, fouled him and faked his own file.
3) Diva Salvaje, Jessy Ventura, Pasion Kristal b Oficial 911, Oficial AK47, Oficial Fierro
4) Demonio Infernal & Fresero Jr. b El Hijo del Medico Asesino & Hijo de Pirata Morgan
5) Black Terry, Emperador Azteca, Lindaman b Fuerza Guerrera NG, Relámpago, Súpernova Emperador snuck in a foul on Fuerza
6) CIMA & T-Hawk b Puma King & Séptimo Dragón and Dragón Bane & Hijo de Canis Lupus Relampago interfered (twice), but CIMA still snuck in a foul. Relampago/Bane/Lupus vs Stronghearts match teased.
The Golepador brothers (Bane/Lupus) left T-Hawk with a mark to remember them by. That match could’ve gone better. The Stronghearts are off next week (MLW) and then back the week after. (That lines up with the AAA show in Queretaro.) The next Naucalpan show is a trainee show on Wednesday. Sunday’s show is Lucha Libre Boom show with Hijo del Santo.
The built to match on tonight’s Arena Puebla show is Stigma versus Kawato San. There’s a couple of Mondays of feuding to set up, just as there was a month ago to set up Stigma versus Rey Cometa. Cometa’s definitely been better than Kawato in CMLL and may be ranked higher, so the match doesn’t look all that interesting.
Caristico, Soberano and Titan team up against the NGD in the main event. That’s not a match seen on FantasticaMania though it could’ve been done. Templario teams with Shocker and Vangellys against Audaz, Dulce Gardenia, and Flyer in the semi-main. It’s a small card, with just a women’s match and a 2v2 tag match to open the show. Not sure if that’ll mean one match goes long to get close to the normal two-hour show, or if it’s just a shorter show. It starts at 9 pm CT either way.
Lineups
CMLL (TUE) 01/28/2020Arena Coliseo Guadalajara
1) Mágico & Tigre Blanco vs Paymon & Relámpago
2) Magia Blanca, Mr. Samurai, Retro vs Hijo del Signo, Inquisidor, Jabalí
3) Dulce Gardenia, Fugaz, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Dark Magic, Kawato San, Universo 2000 Jr.
4) Kráneo, Stuka Jr., Valiente vs Ephesto, Mephisto, Vangellys
5) Ángel de Oro, Diamante Azul, Niebla Roja vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero, Último Guerrero
Nothing notable from last week. Maybe a trios title match coming out of the main event.
CMLL (SAT) 02/01/2020Arena Coliseo
1) Bengala & Sonic vs Cholo & Yago
2) Alexandra, Lluvia, Skadi vs Amapola, Dalys, Jaelynn Miner
3) Átomo, El Gallito, Microman vs Chamuel, Mije, Perico Zakarías
4) Flyer vs Pólvora [lightning]
5) Guerrero Maya Jr., Kráneo, Volcano vs Luciferno, Shocker, Terrible
6) Cavernario, Negro Casas, Último Guerrero vs Ángel de Oro, Diamante Azul, Niebla Roja
Alexandra is probably Alex Gracia. Jaelynn Miller is fellow Texas wrestler Melia Jae. They’re among the group training for a couple of weeks after winning a tryout with Nitro in Texas. This whole process seems strange for CMLL but new blood is a good idea.
Bárbaro Cavernario, Okumura, Último Guerrero beat Carístico, Kojima, Stuka Jr.
(11:27, Okumura cutter Stuka, ok)
What happened:
Douki, more interesting than most of the CMLL rudos
Nothing important. This is the annual tour kickoff show with slight builds towards later matches and no English commentary.
Thoughts:
The finish came abruptly in the main event, which happened a couple of times on this show. The only difference here is this was a mostly CMLL match with a non-quite CMLL feeling ending. The action leading up to it was fine. Kojima taking the UG front superplex on a show like this surprised me, and it may have been more than anyone else watched. This match, like the rest, was fitting of a current CMLL b-show.
The semi-main was Dulce Gardenia plugged into a NJPW house show match and worked just that hard. I think Naito tagged in but I’m not entirely sure. There were brief moments of triple submission fun and nothing was blown, but it is entirely skippable.
A lot of the CMLL matches on this show seemed a little bit slower than usual. It may be the environment or the Japanese wrestlers just working at a different pace. The NGD match felt the same way for a while but picked up a lot during the comeback. It did follow the usual NGD pattern – Titan got triple-teamed on the outside to start the beatdown – but the work was sharp. Titan looked great on the rope flip spot. Cuatrero may have handled a bit more of the action near the end but Sanson didn’t stick out as greatly limited by his injury. They’ve got better in them but this was a good start towards the title match.
Caristico in full bloom
Soberano diving to nowhere on tour shows in Osaka is not recommended. A plus for effort though. Not sure if that threw off the rest of the match, but it felt short and got the end quickly. Flyer looked smoother here than he has in Mexico, which is a nice start.
The segunda was not an authentic CMLL presentation because the rudos managed to perform La Careta without someone jumping into headscissors the rudo posing on top. Audaz & Namajague had good chemistry early and less so during the beatdown. The Mexican tecnicos could’ve got more, but this was a set up to Namajague beating the young lion and that part went fine.
FantasicaMania is lucha tag rules, but the opener was building all to a hot tag – where there was no for Fuego to hit. They eventually got his offense going a bit, though still not as much as you would’ve thought. The rudos took a lot of this. Douki’s transition to the Gori Special set up looked smooth at least.