Demonio InfernalbeatFresero Jr.
(5:34, ok, +LuchaTV)
Fresero & Demonio Infernal sure ended quickly, though the move they used to end it fit. This wasn’t far off the Fresero/Corsario match in the previous round as far as going hard-hitting, it just didn’t last as long; this match is a step behind that one for this one. Fresero doing the series of supelxes and not going for a pinfall right away is bad tournament wrestling. Demonio Infernal is the guy I’ve liked the best out of this group as a single, and he seems like a good adversary for the next round.
Hip Hop Man comes off as such a one-note foreign heel in his promos – “Argentina is better than Mexico!” – and it seems like it undercuts his wrestling. I guess it makes sense that the +LuchaTV regular would most see the +LuchaTV tournament as something worthy of a big effort, but he still felt like the guy trying to do the most here to make people take him more seriously going forward. The rest of his entire bit doesn’t seem to be meant to be taken seriously, it’s an odd fit. Anyway, Arez provided the usual amount of weird moves and interesting reversals, and Hip Hop Man doing the one fall kickout fire up spot straight out of PWG killed me. This was good fun.
Ricky Marvin playing the underdog tecnico seems strange given his last decade of indie work. They set it up well – and most of this match seemed to exist to further his knee damage for future matches – but it felt like it ended too quickly before they could really exploit it for drama. Nova does seem to fit better as a rudo nowadays.
Aramisbeat Hijo de Pirata Morgan
(6:09, good, +LuchaTV)
Aramis moves fast. Hijo del Pirata Morgan kept right up with him. This was a strong performance from a guy who used to be considered good when he was hanging around AAA but never seemed to find the missing character piece. That’s not as important in this setting; all he had to worry about was moving here and he moved well. There were a couple of rough moments that still added to the match. Pirata’s expression after the wheelbarrow back suplex spot seemed to indicate it didn’t happen exactly as planned but it still went well. Pirata also has a beautiful missed suplex. I was happy to see Aramis move on but I hope we get to see more of this Hijo del Pirata Morgan.
What Happened: Payaso Purasanta and Jitsu both came out to be distractions at the end of the match, though they end up balancing each other out.
Review: Taking the fall onto the tiles stood on a slow-paced match. Ciclope wasn’t in any hurry, which early seemed to be a product of not taking Infernal seriously and alter just came off as just not being any hurry to do much. Demonio Infernal moved well when there was actual movement. The referee allowing some chair usage but stopping others didn’t make much sense. The run-ins made this a confusing pick to lead off this concept – and came off as if someone walked out too soon – but it’s not like they were disrupting a match that was firing along.
Angry Ricky Marvin took the form of a submission guy in this one, but Miedo Extremo’s inability in making those submissions look meaningful hut the match down soon. This is otherwise the usual Marvin indie format, with the younger guy getting a stretch of throwing everything he has at Marvin to pull the upset. It doesn’t work as well without a crowd to get behind Miedo and he’s not strong at come off as an underdog on his own. Miedo also spent the match going after Marvin’s knee, which serves a tournament long story for Ricky but not really this match.
Arez beat Payaso Purasanta Jr. (11:46, ok, +LuchaTV)
I don’t think I’ve seen Purasanta Jr. outside of the FILL cibernetico, which makes it hard to tell how much he was affected by working in an empty arena. His control section of the match seemed to include a few spots playing to a non-existent crowd and not a lot of action. Purasanta did take the GTS knee right to the face, something a lot of people make look bad by bailing out on. He also was pretty suicidal on his flying legdrop to the floor, something that oddly led just to Arez charging Purasanta as he came back in (so Purasanta could do Arez’s finish.) There wasn’t anything here that made me want to see more of him. It was odd to see Arez do the NXT frustration face after getting in his first move in after minutes on the defense. Arez seemed tired at the end but this wasn’t the best out of him.
Jitsu/Aramis was closer to the style of match I tend to enjoy most, but they weren’t getting all the way there. It was the third straight match where the winner was good and the loser couldn’t keep up with the style of match he worked. Jistu came closer; he understood the idea, he just couldn’t make it work. Jitsu had a few agile spots that were close to looking good but only close. Falling out of Aramis’ torture rack was the moment that most hurt the rhythm of the match.
Fresero Jr. beat Corsario Negro Jr. (7:36, ok, +LuchaTV)
The Eddie Guerrero tribute three suplex sequence is such a cliché mid-match bit that it threw me off to see it actually a finish. It also seemed to throw off the people in the match. Corsario & Fresero had the best match they were going to have under the circumstance, just hitting each other hard for a short period of time, and were a better match to do it than most of the first round matches. It was missing a bit of excitement, but there’s not a lot more they could’ve done about it.
Camuflaje & Hip Hop Man were both working rudo but also doing a lot of flying and it didn’t mesh into any particular story. It felt like two guys trying to do their version of a Best if Super Juniors match with mixed success. They were both fine, Hip Hop Man was a little better, Camuflaje needs to apologize to Elix Skipper for his Play of the Day attempt. I think they’ll remember this stronger than I will.
shoot style
Súper NovabeatHijo del Alebrije
(6:49, ok, +LuchaTV)
They had to stop the match to check to see if Alebrije was ok after his match opening dive. It wasn’t exactly the best way to start when the idea is to build Alebrije as a flying star for this match. Nova was listed as tecnico but worked as the grounding rudo most of the match to build to that big comeback. It wasn’t really big enough to make it work, but maybe it’ll pay off building Super Nova round.
Hijo de Pirata MorganbeatMetaleón
(15:04, good, +LuchaTV)
There wasn’t a longer first-round match than Pirata/Metaleon. It never felt like it dragged. They paced it out well, with Metaleon fighting back through Pirata Morgans attacks every so often to keep it interesting. Hijo del Pirata comes off sound technically and showed some good aggressiveness along with a nice variety of attacks. Metaleon has had more spectacular performances but this was one where he fit the role the match was asking of him. Aramis might be even better at it, and I’m looking forward to how that one might go.
