Since the DVDVR has a link here, I probably should point to DVDVR I was reading to kill time today – #117, an all Lucha review. Off the top of my head, the thing that struck me most was the inclusion of Puerto Rician wrestling. I’m sure the orgins are the similiar and all, but at least in wrestling, Puerto Rician’s always read a lot more like the US than Mexico.
FWIW, if you know more good lucha resources that I haven’t linked to yet over there, just send a link.
I’ve got a longer bored rambling post, but it’s trapped on a computer that is not this one – maybe tommorow.
CMLL NEWS
– Rayo Jr. returns at the end of the month. He’s promised not to leave this time till he gets Unvierso’s mask. Perhaps we should start up a collection plate to buy him one.
– Zumbido (who, as the news notes, is offically out of Guapo U) recently took the hair of one local wrestler Boby Jack. He promises Marvin and Rivera will be next.
– We should start a list of all “X wants to take Y’s hair/mask” from this column. It’d be long.
– FdT returns on 2/21 – Infernales are first in line for a Mexican Trios Title rematch, though Damien and Halloween would like another shot at those tag team belts.
Over in his Figure Four Newsletter preview, Bryan Alvarez notes a “very talented” CMLL wrestler jumping AAA. Unless it’s HsN just now showing up, I have no idea who he’s talking about.
KrisZ doesn’t have any recenty AAA/PAP results up, but it doesn’t look like the ex-Rayo Jr. Jr. was on any of the 12/02 cards, so I’d guess it’s him.
At least it wasn’t Benoit and Angle beating Rey and Ultimo. I would have about died. I think it’d take Ultimo and Rey making a few more trips to Japan – probably in higher profile places than Tory and The PPV That Made The WWE Look Good – for them to get the Observer love. I’m more concerned about keeping them together another year.
While there’s plenty of Wrestler A + Wrestler B possible combos that would rule, there’s not one out there right now as a logical challenger. And since you’d like to have something for them to do, and it’s tempting to put them against each other, I wonder if they’ll start thinking about a turn. Then again, it’s not like we were thinking about Damien/Halloween or Shocker/Vampiro last Spring, so who knows what’s around the corner. I’m probably over thinking it.
Anyway, considering the visbility of CMLL (from discussion) appears to be no better than seventh in the world (I’m just making this up with little thought, but WWE, AJ, NJ, NOAH, ZERO, TNA probably all are ahead), getting the votes they did get is a pretty neat achievment.
It sounds like Dragon/Dragon vs Ultimo/Rey was the best possible matchup of the tour, so at least we get this. You know, the only reason they kept losing all those against the Ultimo/anyone combos had to be because it was only one fall. They were totally out of their element, that’s all. I was heartened to see this result (from the Toryumon USA site): “5. Ultimo Dragon (12:20-DQ by groin attack) Rey Buccanero” – he’s keeping it real! I wonder how much of Rey’s hair will be grown back in by the time we see him again.
Hooligan may have had that one TV match, but Sangre made PPV in ’01, so I think there’s a “one match on TV” limit. Either that, or there all sorts of stable and alliances going on between people we never see on TV. Let us not even speak of the fued between Sicodelico and Alan Stone.
Oh yea, Lucha TV time is up – we’ve got split feeds for both shows this week. Anyone who can correctly predict exactly what matches will air this Sunday before the broadcast deserves some sort of an award.
For those of you who haven’t seen the show yet:
Not only is AAA first, but the CMLL show seems to be a repeat of the 08/10/02 (#46) show – Tarzan/Boricuas vs Anti-Boricuas as the opening match, and the Legend of the Silver Mask Cibernetico as the only other one. The Cibernetico is good if you haven’t seen it of course, but I’m guessing you might have. The show ran 1:15 the first time it aired (omitting a hyped GdI/Wagner vs Shocker/Magica/Santo match) and the CMLL section started with 1:15 left in the block, so I don’t suppose they’ll be anything different added.
Disappionting and I wouldn’t expect next week to be much more satisfying.
I didn’t get this the first time I heard about it, so I thought I’d repeat in case it confused someone else.
Next week, Lucha Libre is one hour. Not one hour for each, one hour for ALL.
We’ll be lucky to get one whole match and Spectacular Moments if they split the time in half. But I suppose they’ll probably just give the whole hour to one show or another.