I love this show for bringing back the back the wacky lucha vignette. CMLL no longer gives you Shocker & Mascara Magica evaluating wacky candidates for the Guapos, but real life info on the people. (Except for Peste Negra, which is part of why that works.) AAA feels like it’s been in a life or death struggle for control of the promotion for multiple lifetimes. The only time you get funny backstage skits is on accident. Lucha Libre USA gives me minis playing poker and Tinieblas meetings of evil, and it’s great. Please keep it up!
Trios was a fun crazy go nuts match, the match you really get on US TV elsewhere. notAeroForm looked great, Dorada was good, Halloween was good, Neutronic held up his end, but Saber Claw was the surprise. Flashmagic figured out he’s a friend of Magno’s (and better than Incognito, based on this match) and I hope he gets to stick around. But, yea, PR Flyer & San Juan Kid stole this one, and this show.
Other matches didn’t do a lot much for me. They told the story they wanted to in the main event, but it wasn’t much of a match. Not really interested in RJ Brewer, and his gimmick is already not to be interesting, so it’s all up to Magno to carry it…and I’m not sure that’s the spot for Magno.
typical conversation from a luchablog staff meeting
What a brawl that we’ve agreed never to talk about again. Maybe there’s a special half hour of Lucha Libre USA where they talked about the brawl, Treachery, the huge rivalry between Amazing Kong and Tigresa Caliente, Mini Park’s uncle and RJ Brewer’s mom. Or maybe I’m just better off with a show where I don’t pay attention to the commentary, that’s probably been a big benefit over the years.
Trios match was good, solving the mystery of who would win in a fight between Lizmark Jr. and Octagoncito. I’m guessing the plan here is Lizmark vs Marco in the heavyweight final (or at least it was before Carlito) and they seem to be moving well in that direction. Rellik/Charly didn’t really make either guy seem really interesting. Amazing Kong was treated like a huge star, but she needs someone better to face than Tigresa Caliente.
The better stuff was the vignettes. La Vida la Lujo as a telenovela is a bit inspired, as was Tinieblas & Oriental meeting. They did a better job of setting up matches for the next show, but those kind of disappeared to the background.
I recapped shows long enough to know I should tape a few minutes long. It’ll be better next time.
1) who was this mysterious guy helping Lizmark Jr.?
2) was there some sort of alliance between Tinieblas, Neutronic, Lizmark Jr., and Hombre Sin Nombre?
The answers given
heck of a dive
1) Sydistiko, which was mentioned in the first moments of the show as if it was not a mystery to be solved, and barely as if it was a mystery – they knew plenty about him later
2) who knows, it was never brought up.
The big question for next week: uh – people in the title tournament? Maybe? Definitely not named people in the matches. Maybe who attacked Super Nova, but the announcers were certain it was Rellik for reasons not clear to me.
Is RJ Brewer a joke because he lost his first match (after getting quite a bit more promo time than Magno) or he totally proven correct about the wrongness of lucha libre after loses in a finish that isn’t fair and wouldn’t work in US wrestler? Maybe both? I think I need to mention his mom here because I don’t think you’re allowed to go 30 seconds without referencing her.
I liked the Lizmark/Syd vs Nova/Manson tag match and thought Sydistiko was really good as his character. And Lujo’s dive in the other tag match was impressive.
obscure trivia answer which only exposes my complete geekiness: 181 pounds, Seattle, Washington was Brian Kendrick’s weight/hometown in WWE. Probably elsewhere too. I have no idea why I remember that.
This didn’t hold up as well when I watched it for the recap. The stuff I didn’t like (the announcing, for one) didn’t get any better than second time and there was choices that didn’t seem to make sense the second time.
around and around and around...
It makes sense to have a fast paced trios to open the show, and it was good along those lines, but it was also six guys who were thrown out there with little introduction and disappeared back into the mist. Neutronic turned up in the main event but was not seen the following week, and Mascara Purpura was just seen in passing in a vignette. I know these people. If you’re reading this blog, you probably know these people, but anyone watching lucha for the first time needs it hammered home who these people are and while they should care, and probably shouldn’t be expected to remember them when they disappear for a couple weeks. You’ve got to make people appear to be stars, and stars don’t show up only every other week.
Same vein: there was also the odd choices of who got put over in the first couple of matches. Of the six guys in the opener, Mascara Purpura was treated as a big singles star, Neutronic had a role later in the show, PR Flyer & San Juan Kid are a set team and likely will either hold or challenge for the tag team titles, and yet it was Oriental & Limon who got the wins. Maybe the PR Powers get that win back down the road in the tag team tournament, but you can’t take the long road when kicking something like this off. 52 week contract with the network or not, you don’t have a 52 week contract with the fans, you can’t plan with the idea they’ll be around for a payoff six weeks down the road.
And then the mixed tag ended with Tigresa Caliente going over. Chi Chi got the win, but the vignette the next week set up Tigresa as the star of the duo. I dunno
Main event showcased the different between wrestling for the live crowd and for the TV audience. I don’t know if the rudo gesturing to the crowd for cheers works under any circumstance, but it definitely doesn’t if the crowd is being dubbed over anyway.
I think I’m missing my point here. (Maybe, like the announcers, I’m explaining something until I got distracted halfway thru.) None of this is big stuff. It’s all tweaking stuff, thinks that can be fixed and probably will be fixed with time. The larger point is I don’t think promotions like this have that sort of time. This would’ve been fine as week #13, but you’ve got to have a blowaway premiere, or the momentum built up to it is lost and very hard to get back. This show came off as something I wouldn’t mind watching again, but not something I needed to watch again. It wasn’t a failure, but I wasn’t surprised when half the people didn’t come back the next week.
