Mistico defeats Averno, Coyote wins Gran Alternativa

CMLL

CMLL (SAT) 12/25/2021 Arena México [CMLL, ESPN, ESTO, Estrellas del Ring, Kaiser Sports, PubliMetro, R de Rudo, The Gladiatores, thecubsfan]
1) Átomo, Chamuel, Mije b Gallito, Micro Gemelo Diablo I, Micro Gemelo Diablo II   
15:02. One fall. Mije replaced Gallito, who switched sides to replaced Zacarias (but they still played Gallito’s video)
2) La Jarochita, Marcela, Reyna Isis b Dalys, Princesa Sugehit, Stephanie Vaquer [Relevos Increíbles]   
20:14. Team Jarochita took 2/3, leading to Jarochita to challenge Sugehit to a CMLL WOMEN title match next week.
3) Fugaz, Soberano Jr., Volador Jr. b Cavernario, Negro Casas, Templario    
13:12. Tecnicos took 2/3.
4) El Coyote & Euforia b Atlantis Jr. & Sangre Imperial [Gran Alternativa]    
18:20, one fall. Coyote & Euforia win the 2021 tournament.
5) Místico © b Averno [NWA MIDDLE]    
16:41. One fall. Mistico challenge Averno to a hair match.

Mistico and Averno “agreed” to a hair match, just as Mistico and Ultimo Guerrero “agreed” to one after their last match. Averno would’ve won the title if that match was actually a firm plan.

This was a fine enough show, definitely for free. The tournament final and the main event were Good. I think there was an effort to do new stuff in the Mistico/Averno match so it wouldn’t feel dated, even if all of the stuff (Averno doing the big dive) didn’t quite fit. It gave enough of what people were looking for from the old rivalry that I think people probably went home satisfied. Sangre Imperial & Coyote were outshone by Atlantis Jr. in the Gran Alternativa. Euforia is going to look better than the two rookies as well. Imperial & Coyote were steady in a big spot and broke out a few new moves for a bigger match but not memorable. Coyote should get in a higher position for a time, CMLL needs younger rudos, and the howling bit has gotten noticed, but I don’t see a great upside for him. This year’s Gran Alternativa tournament felt like CMLL thought they needed a tournament for December, wanted to do this one, but didn’t have any great idea for who should win it. It’s like most every other tournament CMLL’s run of late in that way.

The Gran Alternativa is now the third tournament in the last few months where Atlantis Jr. has gotten to the final but not won. It should be a story at this point.

The men’s trios felt thrown together to get to the big high spots, and almost resulted in Fugaz’s broken neck when he and Templario weren’t on the same page with one high spot. The last few minutes of the women’s match were good but it took a while – and a too-long ruda beatdown section – to get there. No CMLL trios match with no stakes needs to go over 15 minutes, but there’s also no one in CMLL who’s going to hold people back from going as long as they want. (The hard two-hour show limit due to COVID rules seems to have been quietly dropped a few weeks back, with the two Gran Alterantaiva shows going past it with no rush to finish up.) Jarochito/Sugehit could be interesting, feels like the right sort of secondary match under the cage match.

This must’ve been the first full match I’ve seen of the Micro Gemelos Diablos. They have the wrong gimmicks – they should be Micro Fugaz and Micro Star Jr., or two other flyers. They have the Gemelo Diablo gimmick maybe because they’re actually twins and probably because CMLL loves nostalgia (useful and not), but they don’t fit those characters at all – their big moments were a series of highspots to close out the match. They work best as tecnicos opposite Chamuel, which means the micros will be forever in relevos increibles format until someone turns.

CMLL’s Friday show also moves to Saturday next week, but this time it’ll be a 230 peso Ticketmaster Live show. CMLL aired this Christmas Day show on a few hour delay; post-March 2020 CMLL has taken the view that live & free access to their shows on YouTube was hurting their attendance and the bottom line, so fans who didn’t go to the show had to wait to air about three hours. (CMLL is getting paid by Marca for those Tuesday shows, so they can still air live.) This CMLL strategy doesn’t seem to have helped the turnout as of yet; attendance was OK but nothing special, seemingly less than CMLL did on the 2019 Christmas Day show. There are much bigger issues with CMLL than how they’ve changed their YouTube approach in 2021, but there’s also no sign this new strategy is helping in anyway.

CMLL (SUN) 12/26/2021 Arena México [CMLL, Kaiser Sports]
1) Disturbio, Pegasso, Stigma DQ Espíritu Negro, Nitro, Sangre Imperial [Relevos Increíbles]
Disturbo unmasked Pegasso, Stigma and Sangre Imperial
2) Okumura, Pólvora, Virus b Dulce Gardenia, El Audaz, Hombre Bala Jr.
rudos took 2/3, Okumura beating Dulce
3) Gemelo Diablo I, Gemelo Diablo II, Sagrado b Esfinge, Fugaz, Star Jr.
Rudos took 1/3.
4) Titán b Negro Casas
Titan took 1/3.
5) Atlantis Jr., Místico, Volador Jr. b Euforia, Hechicero, Mephisto
Tencicos took 2/3. Rudos DQed in the second, Mistico beat Euforia in the third. Volador and Mistico wrestled each other in a “bonus” fall after the main event, no mention of how it went.

Casas/Titan was a three fall match after all, the recap makes it sound good. It’ll air on 01/07. I’m looking forward not exactly to the cage match, but to the week after it when everyone who has intensely feuding quickly forgets all about it.

Today’s Puebla show seems like it’s setting up Mistico/Templario, or maybe Mistico/Atlantis.

CMLL (TUE) 12/28/2021 Arena México
1) Fantasy & Último Dragóncito vs Mercurio & Pequeño Violencia
2) Eléctrico, Robin, Sonic vs Apocalipsis, Cholo, Inquisidor
3) La Vaquerita, Marcela, Skadi vs Amapola, Metálica, Tiffany
4) El Audaz, Esfinge, Fugaz vs Felino Jr., Hijo del Villano III, Pólvora
5) Atlantis, Star Jr., Titán vs Felino, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero

Nothing pops out as notable. Felino Jr. & Polvora get paired up a lot since they’ve become a tag team champs, which seems like a normal thing but isn’t always. Electrico & Cholo are in the 01/01 cage match.

Black Terry Jr. posted a handheld of Averno versus Mistico from Coliseo Coacalco.

Other News

While the US, Canada, and other countries have seen effects from the Omicron COVID-19 variant, Mexico seems to be so far unchanged. Few cases have been reported. That’s probably because Mexico is testing far less, but that’s also a feature and not a bug – Mexico’s government seems totally focused on getting their economy going. The chance of reapply restrictions, needed or not, seems small at this point.

There were many Christmas weekend shows – a return after largely being off last year – but there’s not a lot of news from most of them.

Trauma I won Toxico’s hair in a cage match in Arena Lopez Mateos on Christmas. Toxico is a masked wrestler, they had announced prior that the loser would lose only their hair even if masked.

Pentagon Jr. won the new Robles championship on their Christmas Day show. He pinned Texano, which led to challenges after. Peter John Ramos debuted as The Beast, a masked man with fake hair, and looked about what you’d expect out of a seven-foot basketball player with only a handful of matches. (I wouldn’t list a masked man’s name, except everyone else keeps doing it so maybe it’s not meant to be a secret?) He was eliminated by slowly chasing Electroshock to the back. Robles announced plans to return in February with a Joe Lider/Maximo hair match after Lider beat Maximo to win a multi-man match. Maximo will be the heavy favorite.

The Robles show had the lights turned down low to hide the typically poor attendance. The fans we can see on media photos all seem to be grouped together in a few sections to look fuller. (You can see it’s empty in other areas.) Robles definitely wants the fiction of being of being a successful wrestling promotion, and I guess I can only hope they’re trying to work someone else instead of themselves about it.

Mocho Cota took Carta Brava Jr.’s hair in Orizaba on Sunday. This is the same venue as Heroes Inmortales and it looks about half full, though they have more areas than they did back in October (no capacity limitations now.) The show also started late due to travel issues. There was a report briefly after Heroes Inmortales saying TripleMania Regia would be moved to this venue, and I now wonder if it was just confusion over this show.

Hijo del Espectro jr. is said to have suffered a concussion in Arena San Juan on Christmas and was out at least the rest of the weekend.

Flamita was scheduled to work DTU’s show on Sunday; MasLucha was posting results and dipped out before his main event. If he did work the show, it’d be his first DTU appearance since 2017, though his Twitter handle remains @flamita_dtu.

Angel el Elegante del Ring has video of Andrade versus Pagano versus Dr. Wagner Jr., a few days before Christmas It’s a house show match where the biggest anticipation is waiting the ten minutes between when a table is setup and when it’s finally used, but it’s cool to see Andrade back home in front of a totally packed crowd.

Box y Lucha 3497D has Mistico and Averno on the cover, teasing the hair/mask match.