CMLL on ClaroSports.com: 2017-05-19 

Recapped: 05/19/2017

Matches: 

All matches aired live from Arena Mexico and can be seen on YouTube. My feed was iffy for the start of third match, and I had to restart the stream.

Magnus & Sensei defeat Akuma & Espíritu Negro (11:05 [4:12, 3:06, 3:47], winning falls 1/3, good)

La Jarochita, Princesa Sugehit, Silueta defeat Amapola, Dalys, Zeuxis (14:47 [6:54, 3:09, 4:44], 2/3 DQ, good)

Drone, Guerrero Maya Jr., Stuka Jr. defeat Sagrado, Dragón Rojo Jr., Pólvora
(15:52 [4:02, 2:44, 9:06], 2/3, good)

Cavernario defeated Titán in a lightning match (9:17, cavernaria, good)

Ángel de Oro, Atlantis, Valiente defeat Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero
(7:22 [4:55, 2:27], 1/2, ok)

Carístico, Marco Corlone, Mistico defeated Ephesto, Mephisto, Negro Casas
(11:16 [4:51, 2:06, 4:19], 2/3, good)

What Happened:

Niebla Roja and Los Guerreros finally split. Niebla Roja had been refusing to participate in rudo tactics and wanting to wrestle only cleanly since March 28^th. On this show, Niebla Roja would not fight his brother Angel de Oro, and tripped up Último Guerrero to cost him the first fall. The Guerreros confronted Niebla Roja, who still refused to work with his partners and cut off Último Guerrero with a superkick as he was going for his over the barricade elbow smash. Gran Guerrero immediately attacked Niebla Roja. The Guerreros brought Roja back to the ring to rip his mask off, but were cradled for the straight fall win.

Angel de Oro saved his brother after the match, and the two sets of brothers faced off. Último Guerrero kicked Niebla Roja out of the group, and demanded Roja return the mask and make his own name if he truly believed he was good enough to go on his own. Roja dared UG to take the mask and UG did, storming in the ring and ripping it off Niebla Roja in a scrum. Roja ended up wearing an extra Angel de Oro mask.

The big outside the ring storyline saw Marco Corleone replaced Máximo, following the incident between the Alvardos and Último Guerrero’s car earlier in the day. CMLL made no statements about the incident and Último Guerrero passed on the usual post match interview.

Sagrado also replaced Bobby Villa.

The second and third matches both ended in mask pulls. Zeuxis unmasked Princesa Sugehit in their continuing rivalry, while Pólvora fouled and unmasked Stuka for no particular reason.

Review:

The crowd was well into the main event, but it felt like it pushed the guys into it to do more than just coasting on. Carístico was moving really well and had a smooth match. Casas had fun playing opposite of Marco Corleone. Mistico looked super. It was just a better version of the usual show closing match, but it came off as definitely a better verison.

It really didn’t matter how good the semimain was, it was just great to finally have Niebla Roja (apparently, hopefully) broken up with the Guerreros. What they did here was good, and would’ve been more appreciated if it didn’t take so long to get there. They had a good brothers versus brother direction to come out of it, they know what they’re doing, it’s just been a little bit slower

The lightning match was a fun match with the old rivals breaking out a lot of the usual tricks but doing it well. It was the best of the group of good matches to me. They pushed the time limit pretty far while keeping in a pace, and it felt more creative than the usual lightning match. Titan’s timing on his moonsault was incredible and needed Cavernario to be ready for him. Cavernario is really good and I hope he gets moved onto Soberano sometime this year.

The tercera was pretty fun until the finish, which didn’t make any real sense in the context of the match or with it having just happened about the same way in the last match. Sagrado was at his best being a jerk to everyone and the getting kicked in his head. All the big dive spots got over, and the técnicos generally had a lot of good offense. Dragon Rojo seemed to almost take himself out with a double stomp but everything else went ok. I like all the first three matches about the same and can’t decide if that means they’re all good or all OK.

The segunda one of the better women’s matches in a while, with the six women working well together. Silueta had a really good match, asked to cary a lot of action and doing it smoother than usual. Zeuxis was very good as always, the dropkick was as awesome as always and her partners did well. Jarochita wasn’t a big presence but her dive went well and she’s willing to get killed by big moves. Sugehit had some odd moments but was overall positive.

The opener was a bit better than usual. Espíritu & Magnus aren’t around much and were fresh. Espíritu does enough weird things – the flip bump especially – that he sticks out in these. Maybe I wouldn’t feel that way if he didn’t disappear for six months a time. Magnus was sharp. He’s also much thicker than he used to be – not out of shape, but he’s put on weight without it hurting his flying, bigger than most of the técnicos (especially at this level.) Third key to this match was it was under 12 minutes; I’d much prefer time limits than move limits on these, just to force them to go at a good pace. They don’t all need to go 15.