Schedule of Discussion:
Monday: Best Wrestler
Tuesday: Best Promotion, Best Rivalary
Wednesday: Best Tecnico, Best Rudo
Thursday: Best Legend, Best Female, Most Improved, Most Underutilized
Friday: Best Match, Best Singles Match, Best Non-Singles match
Best Promotion
2005 Winner: CMLL
Just to make this much more confusing, yet slightly more useful; instead of just making this an obvious parade of votes where everyone votes CMLL first and AAA second, it’s not going to be that simple.
I group promotions under CMLL or AAA banners because that’s where the top wrestlers are contracted out from, and it may be the banner the show runs under. In reality, most every different arena is a seperate promotion’s kingdom. Some strike deals to get major promotion talent (usually in exchange for not completely counteracting their storylines) and some go it out on their own, bringing in whoever they can afford and who’s available that week. Within their means, each arena is it’s own little world, and I figure they ought to be treated that way.
This year, we’re (and by we, I mean ME) are treating each arena as it’s own promotion, even the CMLL weekly spot shows buildings. If you want to place your three votes for CMLL-Mexico City, CMLL-Guadalajara and Arena Coliseo Monterrey, that’s perfectly acceptable. (The notable exception is Arena Mexico and Arena Coliseo counting as the same prmomotion.)
Once again, you can sort these into groups:
Places with TV shows (which actually made the internet)
If you’re watching CMLL, you’re probably watching the lucha from Mexico City. It is the hub, and has the advantage of doing the biggest matches (and doing the less big matches first). The downside is the sometimes limited amount of wrestlers you’re sell; there’s a lot more local flavor outside of the big city.
Guadalajara had a few very well recieved matches, including a really good Averno/Mistico match I need to watch already. Apolo Dantes and Mascara Magica were credited as bookers, and seemed to push away from trios matches and towards a lot more undercard singles, giving the lineups a look unlike others in Mexico.
Matches from Monterrey arena’s Gimansio Nuevo Leon & Arena Solidaridad made tapes under the name Lucha Libre Azteca, though I’m not sure if I’m making a mistake by grouping them as one. The shows seemed to fall from interest as the year went on, but hey, at least they were out there.
Someone somewhere likes AAA, and I hope they can make a case for votes. I really can’t without blatant and obvious lies. They did draw well, which seems to be a smart strategy of running big shows where CMLL doesn’t run big shows. If only everything else made as much sense.
US Lucha Promotions You May Have Seen In Person
FMLL and it’s twisted sister Lucha Va Voom were pretty fun when I saw them in Chicago and sounded pretty good when they were in Los Angeles. Of course, that’s two places, so those of you who werne’t there might not feel the same.
Promotions Which Existed In Name Only, Seemingly
I don’t think any IWRG got out of Mexico this year; I don’t see it where I’m looking.
Events at Arena Neza and Arena Aficion may or may not have been booked by people who comment on this board. I can neither confirm nor deny.
Best Rivalary
2004: El Hijo Del Santo vs Perro Jr.
I’m so sure I’ll miss plenty of smaller neat ones, but the biggies:
Atlantis vs Dr. Wagner Jr.
Perro Aguayo (and PdM) vs Universo 2000 (and Capos)
Perro Aguayo vs Mistico
Casas Family vs Perros
Ultimo Guerrero vs Mistico
Averno vs Mistico
Konnan (and LLL) vs Vampiro (and AAA)
Discover more from luchablog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Promotion of the Year…
Splitting it up is a great idea but still leaves very few choices.
Arena Mexico/Arena Coliseo – Easy winner. I wonder if voting is even neccessary. The day better come where Arena Coliseo shows are available online, even if it is at a small cost.
Arena Coliseo De Guadalajara – Fun weekly TV. Horrible editing. Used to complain about only getting two matches and now we get three and even sometimes four which just leads to everything being chopped up horribly. Now I would seriously prefer going back to two. Problem with this building is feuds are rare and if they even exist, they end in two weeks or three at most.
Arena Naucalpan(aka IWRG) – TV suffers from what it will always has suffered from… blandness. Every singles opener and tag segunda is the same damn match every week except with one or two different spots. The tercera is usually a trios match with guys doing as little as possible. The top two matches are generally screwjob heavy. My only positive towards IWRG is you get to see a lot of guys you normally wouldn’t see without them having TV. Also once in a blue moon you will get a blowaway match with the locals. Don’t expect it from the stars though as they will always treat this building as a night off.
Gimnasio Nuevo Leon/Arena Solidaridad – Can’t vote for either of these b/c Fredo is just starting to list stuff from 2005.
Arena Coliseo De Monterrey(AAA) – This is the show that is available over the internet. Screwjob heavy to the MAX! It’s not uncommon for every match to be decided with a low blow or referee screwiness. Probably the worst TV show out there.
AAA – My easy #2. I have no problem with AAA TV and am very happy they have an extended time slot now so they can show entire events within the span of one week and sometimes two. Bonus points for allowing the dark match guys(i.e. locals from the area) to get TV time and try and impress. In my ideal world, CMLL’s talent gets AAA TV’s time. Sorta like this past week’s CMLL show where an entire card aired. We need more of those. But back to AAA… ignoring the work, they promotion revolves around TV. If you want evidence of that, just look at Histeria vs Psicosis from 7/29 in Madero where the finish involved hanging Histeria upside down outside the arena and Psicosis running back into the ring to win by countout. Live… the fans had no clue what happened. On TV… it makes sense and is a pretty funny angle in my opinion. Since they rely on TV so much, they try to make the best use of it as possible.
Arena Neza – I know the booker and he’s a real genius. However the building is in a shitty part of Mexico City so it will never draw and the only thing that goes on here is getting undercarders/midcarders/main eventers working together to get them ready for when people get elevated at Arena Coliseo/Arena Mexico. In a perfect world, this stuff gets taped for TV and replaces Guerreros Del Ring. Or even better, gets put online as an internet show.
I would start talking about Tijuana but I haven’t seen much footage and so many promotions run cards down their… every week is a different promotion so it’s impossible to judge them.
Best rivalry…
My mind is starting to go blank so I’ll have to think this one through some more. I really loved Mistico/Averno and Mistico/Ultimo, the latter moreso. The feud pops up every once in a while and every time it does it’s good for business and brings forth an entertaining match. Perrito/Universo is obviously another candidate though I felt after the hair match in March, the feud dragged big time and aside from 2 or 3 decent matches in the summer, I really had no interest in their hate for each other until Mr. Aguila jumped and the Capos/Perros Del Mal feud was taken to a new level. That happened late in the year though so I’m tempted not to pick it. Mistico/Perrito was too short of a feud to rank higher than Mistico/Ultimo and Mistico/Averno. Los Casas Bros. vs La Familia early in the year was really good but also suffers from being too short. Wagner/Ultimo feuded throughout the year but never had that big singles match which would have given them more possible votes… or at least my possible vote. As for AAA… Konnan/LLL vs Vampiro/AAA may be the biggest joke feud of the year. Histeria/Psicosis/Nicho’s 3 way which has now just turned into Histeria vs Psicosis was entertaining to me. It sounded dumb from the reports but after watching it on TV, it made more sense and the head games Histeria played with his ex-friend Psicosis was cool. They need to bring Mosco and Maniaco back and… okay, no more fantasy booking Rob. Like I said, my mind is blank right now but maybe something else will come to me tomorrow.
Rob