Tag: Lucha Fighter

Recapped: 2020-05-02

Matches:

La Hiedra beat Big Mami
(9:30, powerbomb, ok, 00:11:45)

Lady Shani beat Lady Maravilla
(5:27, submission, ok, 00:26:58)

Psycho Clown beat Texano Jr.
(8:13, Canadian Destroyer, ok, 00:40:26)

Chessman beat Pagano
(6:59, foul, ok, 00:57:21)

Pentagón Jr. beat Hijo Del Vikingo
(9:44, Factor Miedo, great, 01:10:37)

LA Park beat Dr. Wagner Jr.
(7:47, LA Park spear, good, 01:27:40)

What happened:

Wagner argued with Piero on a two count, and Piero shoved him into LA Park’s spear. Chessman snuck in a foul on Pagano.

Big Mami and Lady Maravilla exchanged attacks after each match.

Psycho Clown suffered a shoulder injury in his match but still won his match.

The announcers were not on set for this taping, calling the matches instead from what appeared to be a TV studio. (They were shot as if they were separated though they had the same furniture behind them.) Maximo and Vanilla were also shown commenting on social media and appeared to be in a TV studio somewhere. AAA used crowd noise for the first match and then for some of the entrances later on.

Thoughts:

The early mat exchanges between LA Park and Dr. Wagner played out as you’d expect from two guys proving they could do something other than brawl, right before they start brawling anywhere. The Wagner/Park match never got to that second part, ending when it just felt like it was about to get going. These guys were going at a measured pace, which also suggested a longer match than it happened. It was still enjoyable for how it lasted and shocking for how relatively straightforward it was, but the shortest singles match they’ve had is probably not going to be one people need to seek out much later.

Pentagon Jr. figured to be one of the least invested performers in this tournament. AAA is his side job and this could’ve just been something to fill time while waiting for the ability to return to AEW. Penta’s also been getting by with a lot of help from his charisma and crowd connection, which weren’t going to be in play here; he’d stand out more here if he was just coasting. Pentagon instead has turned into the MVP of the tournament so far. Hijo del Vikingo was great here, pulling off moves no one in the world is even trying, but he wasn’t really asked to do more than his flashiest high spots in this match. A match with Octagon Jr. or Myzteziz Jr. would’ve been less exciting but it’d be hard to find another rudo who could’ve pulled off Penta’s side of it. The match structure, especially Vikingo’s desperate attempt to end it before Pentagon even got started, was remarkable. Penta gleefully beat up on Vikingo and did in such a way that there was no question who everyone was supposed to be cheering for in this match. (Perhaps Pentagon is better at playing a complete heel with no crowd rooting him on for being evil.) They built well into Vikingo’s comeback and his near chances at winning, making Vikingo look as good as possible before he took the loss. This was different than Hamburguesa being smothered, as it should’ve been. It was same in being another strong Pentagon performance.

Chessman defeating Pagano was standard AAA booking leading into TripleMania. (You’d have to go back to their similar TripleMania apuesta to find a time where Texano actually beat Psycho Clown.) It’s still hard to believe Chessman’s going to get the same outcome there but it is hopeful that AAA is booking their matches as if TripleMania is still happening. It’s equally hopeful these two had a match that didn’t fall apart. AAA doesn’t seem to be editing these, so Pagano putting together a move heavy match where he doesn’t have a major flip is a positive sign. The execution of the moves still aren’t pretty – the neckbreakers look worse than the dives to me – but Pagano’s not going to be a guy with pretty looking offense and probably shouldn’t be one. This is close to a border line match but I can’t imagine someone sitting down to watch this who wasn’t a big Pagano fan already. Chessman still has looked better in this tournament than recently though.

The action in Psycho Clown/Texano Jr. was fine, but it wasn’t memorable enough to overcome the obvious outcome. Texano hasn’t won these matches for about six years and this wasn’t about to be a different outcome. It was about as dramatic as a Tuesday CMLL lightning match, where maybe Psycho Clown’s shoulder injury was more meaningful than anything they had in the match.

Shani/Maravilla was the better of the two women’s matches easily, so it was strange it went so short. Maravilla comes across as a lot more aggressive than she used, making it a bigger deal when Shani’s able to turn the table and put on holds. Maravilla still needs to keep it up at all times; her stomps are not so good.

La Hiedra’s strategy of doing nothing and just getting hit by Big Mami worked out for the win – she just pulled Mami off the ropes for a powerbomb – and worked out better for the quality of the match. They didn’t do a whole, so nothing went wrong. It was a better result than last week but it wasn’t something anyone will need to see again.

Recapped: 2020-04-25

Matches:

Big Mami beat Vanilla
(5:39, Gori Special, below average, 00:14:26)

Lady Maravilla beat Keyra
(7:13, Maravilla back bridge neck crank, ok, 00:28:27)

Lady Shani beat Faby Apache
(8:05, powerbomb, bridge cradle, good, 00:45:03)

Chessman beat Myzteziz Jr.
(7:11, spear, ok, 01:00:14)

LA Park beat Laredo Kid
(10:35, hanging DDT, great, 01:17:22)

Pagano beat Octagón Jr.
(4:43, rebound inverted suplex, ok, 01:35:44)

Pentagón Jr. beat Niño Hamburguesa
(8:26, top rope double stomp, good, 01:47:50)

What happened: 

Lady Maravilla did a promo about beating mixed tag champion with Villano III for years to come. It seemed only to exist to set up a mixed tag title match to come. She also attacked Big Mami after her match (with Faby Apache making the save), only for Mami to do the same to her and Keyra after her match.

Laredo Kid attacked Chessman after his match for no explained reasons. Carta Brava Jr. ran out for the save, only for Laredo Kid to attack both of them. This bit made no sense. Myzteziz was laying hurt on the mat being checked on (though seemed fine late), so perhaps his part was missing wand would’ve explained it.

Lucha Fighter did a more thorough job of explaining the concept, though they’re hazy on some details. It remains a single-elimination tournament. Next week is the semifinals, which makes sense for the women’s tournament (four people left) but not the minis (two people left) or the men (eight people left.) The minis could just be skipped. The size of the men’s field suggests AAA is going to sidestep having to pin most of these people by doing a non-elimination four-way match or a battle royal similar to Lucha Capital. It also leaves open a question of what would be left for the final week – surely it can’t only be the three final matches.

There were many run-ins on the show, nearly one after most matches. Many seemed to have little or no purpose on this episode. (Also, if we’re to believe this was live, as insisted by the announcers, that meant AAA had Carta Brava Jr. come to a show he didn’t have a match on, simply to catch a dive. That seems non-essential.)

The announcing did mention some of the people’s donations via SuperChat, so either the commentary was live or they had people working the chat room.

Those still alive:

• Men: Hijo del Vikingo, Dr. Wagner Jr., Texano Jr., Psycho Clown, Chessman, LA Park, Pagano, and Pentagon Jr.
• Women: La Hiedra, Big Mami, Lady Maravilla, Lady Shani
• Minis: Laredo Boy, Dinasita

Thoughts:

The main event was truly an extended squash. Hamburguesa got in offense solely to prolong the match. He was never in danger of actually winning a thing. He was only in danger of suffering, the suffered Pentagon was more than happy to provide. Pentagon showed respect to Hamburguesa before and after the match, while enjoying destroying him in between it. He had fun doing it and the joy was infectious.

I will never think about Pagano & Octagon Jr. again. It was fine for a TV match. Pagano worked a technical style and nothing went wrong. Octagon was steadier than his teammate Myzteziz but didn’t steal the show.

They took away the crowd, so LA Park could not brawl among them, could not rely on them to go nuts for spots, could not steal the drink trays in between. LA Park still did great. It’s like he’s a great wrestler. He did a great number of things with Laredo Kid that I was sure were not happening when the match started, especially taking the Spanish Fly spot. LA Park also seemed to be watching his Kenny Omega taped judging by the V-Trigger spots. I doubt we’ll ever get an interview with LA Park where he’s totally open and introspective about his wrestling thoughts but he seems like a guy who makes a point of adapting his style to the times. He adapted to the situation here, going heavier on the action in a short time. Laredo helped a lot, sold big, wasn’t totally hurt by this, but this was another LA Park show. (It’s also got to be the shortest LA Park singles match in quite a while.)

Chessman rare singles TV matches in the last decade have tended to be lumbering brawls, and he’s not looked like his younger self in basing for tecnicos. It was a pleasant surprise to get him doing as much as he did for Myzteziz Jr. in their match. The tecnico seemed a little hesitant at times, but Chessman was right there with him for his high spots. Maybe Chessman getting the win motivated him, but he came off as the better guy of the two in the match.

The best women’s match was easily the Shani/Apache encounter. Shani’s progressed that she can go hold for hold with Faby. She’s also not afraid to kick hard, knowing the hard kick is coming back the other way. Faby teasing being stopped early by a shoulder injury seemed like a bad sign – not that she was actually hurt, but that it felt like a veteran who was very unhappy about being asked to lose and might tank the match – but she did great as a sarcastic ruda here. Clapping on the tapatia for the non-existent fans was nice. They mixed up what they did well, and Faby can still go at a high level.

The running theory on Dr. Wagner’s tired performance last week is it was actually his second or third match that night, with AAA quietly having taped earlier that day. That might have happened with Lady Maravilla too. Or maybe she was just gassed from the run-in prior, or not having wrestled for a month, because she looked exhausted early on. She got a second win later on, but Keyra carried most of a match that doesn’t really live up to the ones they’ve had in the past (or might again in the future.) The kicks to the face were nice and the last few minutes were good, but better is expected here.

Vanilla is a limited wrestler. Big Mami is a very limited wrestler. Putting them in a cold match was not ideal. Mami’s limitations are easier to overlook in a bloody match where she’s fighting for her life with the crowd rooting her on. The empty arena just showcased her kicks that came nowhere close to the intended target and struggles selling. Vanilla probably can be carried to a good match with a strong opponent but wasn’t the person who could make this Mami match work. In a better situation, Mami is left out of a tournament like this entirely; she’s instead wrestling at least two matches (and maybe a third based on the promos.)

Recapped: 2020-04-18

Dinastía beat Octagoncito
(8:49, Spanish Fly, good, Lucha Libre AAA)

Laredo Boy beat Drago Kid
(6:50, springboard moonsault, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

La Hiedra beat Hades
(6:19, sit down powerbomb, good, Lucha Libre AAA)

Hijo Del Vikingo beat Mamba
(7:40, Cuerno de Vikingo, good, Lucha Libre AAA)

Dr. Wagner Jr. beat Mr. Iguana
(6:35, front slam that’ll we’ll pretend was the Wagner Driver, good, Lucha Libre AAA)

Texano beat Dave The Clown
(6:10, piledriver, ok, Lucha Libre AAA)

Psycho Clown beat Drago
(8:14, sit down powerbomb, good, Lucha Libre AAA)

What happened:

Lucha Fighter is a limited-run series featuring men’s, women’s, and minis tournaments. The show will include 16 men, 8 women, and 4 minis. Both Wagner and Mamba were surprised. Pagano, Chessman, Nino Hamburguesa, Octagon Jr., Laredo Kid, Myzteziz Jr. and two more yet to be announced wrestlers are left to compete on the male side. Lady Shani, Big Mami, Faby Apache, Lady Maravilla, Keyra and Vanilla are left for the women.

These are believed to be single-elimination tournaments – the idea that the winner would advanced was mentioned after matches – but there was no explanation of the overall concept. (The minis tournament may instead be a round-robin tournament or be just about over, it’s not immediately clear.) There was a lot of emphasis on having fan votes determine the matches. A Facebook poll set the Mamba/Hiedra match and the men’s matches were determined by YouTube poll results through the night.

Dr. Wagner appeared as a surprise at the start of the show, announcing his return to AAA. (He’d been gone 108 days.) Mr. Iguana tried to pick up Hiedra after her win and met no success.

This was the first of four shows from a closed set – a TV set or a warehouse judging from the ceiling. AAA showed the set being fumigated before the show and the ring cleaned in between each match. The two announcers for the show sat at opposite sides of the entrance set. The referees and ringside personal all wore masks and gloves. There seemed to be a half dozen people standing behind the hard camera when that side very occasionally made it on air.

Thoughts:

This was a positive show. I’m not excited about these types of shows for both health and quality reasons, but they did as well as possible with both. It did seem as though they took the health concerns as well as possible for something that still is a professional wrestling show. The quality was helped by keeping matches under ten minutes, keeping the show under two hours, and setting up an environment where it felt like the noise was bouncing off the close walls rather than overpowered by the stillness. Nothing was exceptional – a factor as much of the odd matchups as much as the environment – but it was still an easy watch.

Drago & Psycho meshed well despite not having a great dynamic. Psycho was among a few guys who play to the crowd a lot as part of their normal matches and had to adjust. He didn’t have too many problems with that adjustment. (He also was really good at finding the camera to play to it instead; don’t let WWE find out.) I would’ve liked to see Drago in a different match but a tournament of Pyscho Clown singles matches could be pretty fun.

The dynamics between Texano & Dave the Clown didn’t really work. It didn’t work as a hard-hitting enough match to make the rudo/rudo bit work, and neither was much of a tecnico. The piledriver at the end looked bad for old Dave.

A fun thing about this tournament, like the Lucha Capital shows, is it provides a lot of non-tag matches to a promotion that’s 90% tag. There’s going to be twenty-eight singles matches by the end if AAA follows this out in a normal pattern, and it is unlikely there will be 28 singles matches on normal AAA TV the entire year. (There were 18 last year.) Even in a promotion full of singles matches, it’s unlikely AAA would get around to do a Wagner/Iguana match. This tournament gave us that Wagner/Iguana match and so it justified itself. The match was not the greatest match ever and Wagner was a tired doctor by the end, but the rest of the match was everything you’d want out of the matchup. Wagner sold for Iguana for his submissions, Wagner went along with Yeska spots, Wagner generally made Iguana feel like a bigger deal just by being in there with him while still putting him away fairly at the end. Wagner generally did a lot more in this match than he had in his last few AAA matches – I guess you can’t just sell and look at the crowd as much when there’s no crowd – and that might have contributed to the last couple of spots not going well. It was still a fun interaction from two people unlikely to interact even in AAA.

The Vikingo/Mamba clash, but it was really just nice to see Vikingo do Vikingo things again. He was on point, even landing the Cuerno de Vikingo cleaner than usual. Mamba had a lot of size over Vikingo but didn’t really use it during their control part of the match. Mamba wasn’t a negative but didn’t add a lot.

I think Hiedra/Hades have a better match in them a couple of years now if they’re still at it, but this was enjoyable for a random tournament match. Hades and Hiedra messed up the first big high spot they tried, though they got it back a bit with the two dives. Hades still needs the right situations to look good and singles matches may be pushing it. Hiedra impressively destroyed Hades in the end.

Laredo Boy and Drago Kid was rough, though it has some moments. Drago Boy seemed to come short on dives and catching them, and there were some spots that didn’t go well. Laredo Kid versus Dinastia looks like the match of this group. This seems like a decent experience for Drago Boy even if the matches don’t turn out great.

Dinastia & Octagoncito had a lot of spots. It held together well enough for being two tecnicos, but they weren’t really didn’t have any direction. Dinastia is good enough to make Octagoncito interesting, but the best comes out of him with a rudo. Four tecnicos in this tournament is a bit of a limitation in styles.