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.

No CMLL TV to talk about this week, but we have a few ends and odds to hit upon.

They wuz robbed: Rey and Ultimo finished second in the Tag Team of the Year catagory in the Wrestling Observer Awards. They were beaten out by Eddie and Chavo Guerrero, who beat the GdI by 2 (yes, two) points. Ultimo and Bucky even got the most first place votes, but apparently Los
Guerreros received a lot more second and third place votes. This is the second consecutive year the GdI finished in the runner-up slot (last year they were beat out by Kojima and Tenzan).

My expert analysis: this sucks, but it’s not surprising. Pretty much everyone gets Smackdown, but how many people get lucha television, and how many actually follow it? I’m guessing a lot less. If everyone knew about the GdI, they’d win easily. I can’t imagine anyone voting Los Guerreros over the GdI, since Rey and Ultimo were around all year having great matches, and I’d stack their best matches over Eddie and Chavo’s.

You know, I didn’t vote this year, but man, I wish I had now.

GdI in Japan:The only available match from the best tag team in the world is on a new Toryumon tape spotlighting Ultimo Dragon’s comeback. The match is Ultimo Dragon & Dragon Kid vs. Ultimo & Rey from 12/20/02. Looks like we only see 15 of about 19 minutes. No word if other Toryumon matches will see the light of day. Of course, their Wrestle-2 match will be readily available, but the rest of the card was junk. Anyone making a comp tape?

End Notes: Hooligan, Ramstein, and Sangre Azteca have formed a stable called “La Alianza” (I probably butchered that spelling), which translates to the “Alliance.” Sounds like a fun group, but they need a better name.

“We’ve formed an Alliance.”
“What are you called?”
“The Alliance.”

You know? And we all know what happened to the last group calling themselves the Alliance.

And isn’t Hooligan disqualified since we saw him wrestle a full match on TV? Isn’t that like having Goldberg in the JOB Squad?

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.

CMLL.com has announced the return to Arena Mexico (01/24) card. Not anything ground breaking but still worth a quick mention.

• Pierrothito/Mini Violencia vs Ultimo Dragoncito/Mini Olimpico
• Alianza (the Alliance – “Holligan”, Sangre Azteca, Ramstein – sure to be a SM favorite trio if they stick together) vs Alan Stone/Chris Stone/Neutron vs
• Arkangel/Zumbido/Nosawa vs Volador Jr/Ricky Marvin/Virus
• Infernales vs Blue Demon (apparently back as a tecnico?)/Super Crazy/Felino
• GdI vs Vampiro/Shocker/Atlantis

Sounds like Mascara Sagrada and Dick Togo will be teaming up with Vampiro at Coliseo on Sunday 1/19 – not typical a TV date, but Coliseo season always screws with that.

Super Crazy’s back in NJ from 1/29 to 2/18 – that Mexico show is probably one of his last till mid Feb.

The older news section wonders about Arkangel vs Pantera (mask vs mask), Juvi vs Felino (Welterweight or Hair/Mask) and Wagner vs Shocker or Niebla (mask vs hair/mask) – if one of those three come through, it’d be nice.

Seems like the Emilio/Atlantis middleweight title match will make air – I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

Lucha Times is updated – those of you who get the West Coast feed get one of those late night airings.

The good thing about all the Coliseo shows is that we’re getting a look at some of the undercard guys – Arkangel will probably be on three straight shows, which seems like three more than he was on all of the last six months – and that some of the older less fun guys aren’t around (very limited Boricuas, no Markus, no Pierroth, no Rayo). If we could just do something about all that Porky, though…