Tag: RIOT

Recapped: 2020-01-19

This is the 420 show, taped in November. Unlike the other RIOT shows, it’s only on their Pivotshare streaming service so far, not the Highspots Wrestling Network. That may just be a temporary issue. 

Matches:

Madness vs Kill Korton
(12:05, good)

It helps to be a certain level of weirdness to get over in RIOT. Kill Korton had the weird part down, enough to get the crowd really into his match despite being a newcomer. I’m not really sure if Korton actually did a move in the entire match and it still worked. He had no problem taking Madness’s spots and was a good counterpoint to Madness being super athletic. It’s hard to explain why this one worked but it did.

Charro Negro vs Mr. Iguana vs Oro Negro
(14:06, good)

The three-way match was a little up and down. Oro & Charro have promise and worked well with Iguana at times, but often looked more comfortable just with each other. Even between them, there was a missed kick spot the crowd got on them a little. That was overshadowed by the better moments; they did well basing for Iguana’s trickier spots. The match, including the entrance bit, was still vastly entertaining. Fourteen minutes felt a little bit too long for that match but they never lost the crowd.

Lady Flammer vs Baby Love
(10:38, ok)

The women’s match fell short in parts; the two straight failed top rope headscissors near the end was the point where it could no longer be considered good. Baby Love did show a lot of potential and willingness to do aerial spots not typically done by women, so the match did leave hope she might be impressive down the road. Flammer did seem like she was on a higher level but did her best to raise Baby Love up. The finish was brutal.

Caifan II vs Demonio del Aire
(14:12, great)

I was totally impressed by the Caifan II/Demonio del Aire match. It was tough to know how much to expect from Caifan and Demonio’s a guy who seemed to get hurt in every RIOT match. He was a different guy here, a fast and solid wrestler who hit everything except a very tricky dive. The even spots, in the beginning, set a positive tone and they kept it up the rest of the way. Caifan’s senton to the (cement!) floor was crazy. These two followed some wild personalities earlier but kept the crowd into it by just the action. It was impressive.

Muerte Extrema vs Aero Boy
(10:06, good)

Muerte Extrema’s match with Aeroboy was the best Muerte’s looked here; he made steady progress in 2019 and had a good opponent to work with. Aero’s a professional luchador and figured out what to do with him that would look best. The effort was there too, though it felt slower than some of the other matches and didn’t connect with the crowd as much as those too. The wrestling seemed good, they just had a lot of hard stuff to follow.

Lord Byron vs Kaientai
(13:00, good)

The UnMexicans singles match went from parody comedy to serious murder very suddenly. It held together, though it seemed like they did their most brutal bit well before the finish. They went to head drops later after so I guess it worked out. Kaientai seemed like he tried to brace himself on his senton to the apron and it made an uglier noise so that must’ve sucked. The poison rana was even more frightening.

CIMA, Látigo, Skayde vs Erick Ortiz, Kratoz, Prometo
(11:24, ok)

The big-name trios match didn’t come together. The local guys seemed to want to do a big match to impress CIMA, CIMA and Skayde seemed to want a greatest hits match, and the meeting point wasn’t strong either way. The fans seemed to just want to see CIMA do spots they knew, though CIMA seemed hardly invested. It wasn’t bad, but it also was only memorable for the names rather than the action.

Arez © vs Aramis [RIOT CHAMP]

I wrote up this match for a Watch Later post a while back. It holds up well – a Great in the rating – but I don’t have much new to say about it. The crowd going nuts after the finish was entertaining.

Recapped: 2020-01-14

You can buy or rent this show here. This show is named Chicles, after the person who heroically hotwired the power at a previous show after a local outage.

Matches:

Erick Ortiz vs Sayrus
(11:33, good)

There was some fun stuff, but this felt like a learning experience. He can do impressive moves, but the RIOT crowd has seen a lot of fancy spots. It helps if the match hangs a bit better than this one. The accidentally funniest part of this match is when Sayrus does a poison rana, then backs up, then takes a walk around the ring, and then gets on to trying a pin. Waiting eight seconds to cover did not get the win. There was enough action here to enjoy it but there’s was piece missing.

Muerte Extrema vs Silencio vs Hijo Del Espectro Jr.
(8:20, ok)

Espectro gets hurt about three minutes in, dooming this match. The best parts of the match are the first couple of minutes when they get going, with both guys throwing out big moves to get the fans back into paying attention. They can’t couldn’t sustain the pace the rest of the way but it never fell apart.

Madness vs Low Rider
(8:57, ok)

The rudo/rudo battle between Madness/Low Rider was hard to get into. The crowd didn’t have a rooting interest and they neither guy stood out. Low Rider’s personality didn’t shine thru as much in this match as it did getting to the ring.

Fresero Jr. & Mr. Iguana vs Kaientai & Lord Byron
(16:16, good)

The tag match flipped between being a lot of fun and being not very good so many times that I’m not sure where I landed on it. In the end, a small person was thrown from a high distance onto other people so I guess it was good. This match was best when they were doing stunts and didn’t mesh as much when they were doing tricky spots, so setting up a super libre match seemed like a good idea.

Black Terry vs Símbolo
(12:20, ok)

Simbolo/Terry was fine but never more than that. Post-shoulder injury Black Terry matches have a hard time picking up speed. The chops look very strong and the technique is good, but it feels off without the pace picking up near the end, the excitement is missing in this one. Simbolo seemed like a suitable person to work with Terry but didn’t add a lot.

Arez vs Kratoz vs Látigo vs Iron Kid vs Aramis
(8:54, great)

Nine minutes reads short for a main event, but they had done all the moves. There was no more to do. It was the right length. This actually started off going a little slow before going insane in the way of most RIOT multiman matches. The big bit near the ends turned up in clips earlier, but there’s creative stuff earlier almost as cool that comes close to working. The dives are impressive, though I’m not sure how Iron Kid doesn’t break a leg on his. There’s a payoff to fans chanting “Rey Mysterio” at Latigo. This was totally enjoyable.

Recapped: 06/19/2019

Matches:

This show took place on February 2^nd, 2019 at Arena Femenil in Monterrey. I haven’t added timestamps yet but you can see the whole show at https://riotlucha.pivotshare.com/ via a $5 monthly subscription or $3.50 rental. It is also available as part of the Highspots Wrestling Network’s $10/month subscription. The show is worth the money.

Erick Ortiz vs Madness
(10:01, great)

Erick Ortiz has medium length hair and Erick Ortiz showed real charisma in this match. I don’t know if this is causation or correlation but he shouldn’t be allowed to cut his hair until we’re sure either way. Ortiz is always good in the past in RIOT. This one seemed better, with Ortiz just seeming sharp and enjoying what he was doing. There were cool hold exchanges to start that didn’t follow a usual pattern, then generally normal off done really well. It felt like a Caifan match with less chops if that makes any sense. Madness looked better in his in-ring flying than his one big dive, and his spear off the ropes was very well timed. There’s some off moments early on but this far exceeded my expectations.

Kratoz & Prometeo vs Chik Tormenta & Willy Banderas
(12:54, good)

Brian Villa should be concerned about being bumped out of his team by Chik Tormenta. She and Willy showed some good teamwork for a non-team, matching and occasionally outshining the regular Mismos de Siempre team. This match had some entertaining moments and moved well, feeling shorter than the time indicated. It was a bit sloppy at times, sometimes dangerously. Willy looks about knocked out at the finish and Prometo seemed to be hurting earlier. Both do make I to their feet and this was overall entertaining, but it could’ve landed a bit better.

Látigo vs Belial
(15:16, good)

This is two my favorite under the radar guys so I was particularly excited to see it, and then I just wasn’t in it a lot on the first moments. The “proving you can do technical wrestling part” of classic lucha libre matches is tricky. Just doing the same routine everyone else does makes it totally skippable, but overly creative stuff like here (and earlier) seems off because there’s no credibility to holds early in the match. Belial and Latigo were doing a Negro Navarro/Solar bit, with the same hold demonstration quality that keeps me from enjoying some of their work. This is maybe overemphasizing the first quarter of a match that got plenty of time to work with, and stuff like the rolling cradle sequence they pull in right after was really good. Latigo feels like a guy with a lot of Skayde in him right now with the surprising roll-ups and armdrags. Belial did the low elevation tope among other things and I always like that. This just never got me emotionally but I could see others liking it more.

Aeroboy vs Laredo Kid
(14:28, great)

Another Laredo Kid match of just throwing bombs at each other until someone is no longer moving. This in no way felt like nearly 15 minutes, helped by both guys have a big variety of offense to go thru. Laredo’s cutter looked as good as it ever has in this match and his moonsault isn’t far off. Aeroboy is a good match for him, though he gives on his plan to attack Laredo’s shoulder awful quickly. He did absolutely squash Laredo with the senton. This fits in with some of Laredo’s best stuff from this year.

Kaientai & Lord Byron vs Golden Boy & Símbolo
(9:32, good)

These guys are still not my favorite but I liked this Unmexicans matches more than previous ones. They had some good action and it didn’t overstay it’s welcome. They teased a sunset flip bomb thru a lot of objects, did a dive instead, and I think the bomb would’ve been much safer somehow. Golden Boy & Simbolo are a professional tag team and the crowd seemed happy to see them in this environment.

Demonio del Aire vs Aramis
(19:16, good)

It didn’t seem like many in the Monterrey crowd knew who Aramis was when he came out. He made sure they knew who he was by the time they were done. Demonio del Aire is good for his experience level, with some cool moments and some shaky points. Aramis is just a protege. He seems to know not just the moves (and does them well) but has a feel of when to slow down and when to pick up, and when to just let the other guy go for a while. The one count kickout here didn’t quite get over with this crowd, but seems a clear sign he’s been watching a lot of wrestling where it did get over. This was a strong introduction match of what he could do for new fans.

Bandido vs Sammy Guevara
(21:01, great)

This would’ve been a “dream match” if it had been announced beforehand, and Bandido and Sammy Guevera live up to the expectations that didn’t actually exist. There’s a lot of flying, there’s a lot of superkicks, Sammy Guevera flips off many people. They did a good job of mixing up what they were doing throughout the match to not run anything in the ground by the end. The backbreaker bit worked much better for the RIOT crowd than most, as did the over the top Canadian Destroyer bit that ended up going viral from this match. The end game lacks a little of drama. They both got to do their big moves, and they both had a lot of impact on them, but there was not a lot of fight to them. It’s about a straight forward as it goes. I keep going back and forth about the rating. It’s somewhere in this area.

In a strange turn of events, a Mexican indie promotion has actually recorded their own shows and put them on the internet for people to purchase them. This behavior, the standard in pretty much every other major wrestling country in the world, is quite novel for Mexico. It also means I get to watch them without figuring out which of six YouTube versions is the closest to watchable.

You can find RIOT shows on their own Pivotshare site. Shows are still available on the renamed IndependentWrestling.TV, though just one of the 2018 shows. I believe Pivotshare is getting the shows going forward and has more of them. Three of the four RIOT shows from 2018 are up there now. The July show is the missing one, with the Jack Evans/Sammy Guevera match I wrote about a while back.

Matches I liked from each show:

February (No Sabes Quien)

 

• Low Rider vs Último Ninja vs Laredo Kid [great]: I did not watch this in ideal conditions – I kept finding myself watching RIOT shows when Humberto Carillo was wrestling on 205 live – but the match worked despite having to stop and start a bunch. Ultimo Ninja in a past life did well with his power moves against the smaller guys. Laredo Kid was all around solid as usual. Low Rider wasn’t quite at their level, with his dive gone wrong being a painful spot in the match, but he definitely didn’t drag it down.
• Kratoz vs Kamikaze vs Mr. Iguana vs Arez vs Jack Evans [good]: best spot fest of the undercard, Creativity in fair amount of spots, and a fast pace taking advantage of having five guys involved. The Sammy Guevera cameos all nice played out nicely with his interaction with Jack Evans, continuing the build to that match.
• Erick Ortiz vs Dralion & Caifan II vs Furor were both [good], though borderline. Both fit as cool moves matches with not a lot connecting them. These are cases where the excited RIOT crowd helps the show, making the matches feel more exciting then if they were in front of a dead CMLL crowd.

May (Riotmania)

• The match of the night was Mr. Iguana vs Erik Ortiz [great]. Ortiz usually comes off as dry to me but Iguana was a great fit for an opponent. Ortiz found a good niche as the bigger/hard hitting guy who was punishing Iguana thru the match. The crowd is into Iguana and naturally was rooting for his comebacks anyway, so Ortiz gave him a big imposing obstacle to come back from. This is a match where having a camera crew (and not just one person shooting what they can) helped because the ringside work really made the chops come thru as painful. It could’ve been better with a little more variety on offense but still easily worth watching.
• Bandido vs Ultimo Ninja was [good] in an exhibition-y. It just never found that extra level of intensity, which always seemed to be an issue with Ultimo Ninja matches in Mexico. (That last match with Dragon Lee is a strong exception.) Bandido has wrestled best as a babyface and that probably wasn’t going to work in Monterrey with Ninja, but it leaves the match with no real direction.
• bonus note: There’s no commentary on these shows so it’s never explained (and the usual show opening speech doesn’t happen), but this was the show delayed 90 minutes due to a power outage. The power finally returns halfway into the opener and everyone reacts big. It’s strange if you don’t know what’s going on.

September (Fanboy)

• Prometo vs Demonio del Aire vs Arez vs Willy Banderas vs Látigo is the match of the nice and an easy [great]. It’s the match I’d most strongly recommend from this show if the ending wasn’t someone being legit knocked out. Demonio del Aire – who also turns up under the hideous Baby Extreme name on Monterrey indies – comes off as the greatest high flyer no one has ever heard of, pulling off tricky spots with ease until his untimely demise. (He also got hurt on the July show, having no luck at all.) Arez & Latigo team up during a middle section of the match and looks like one of the best teams in Mexico in that stretch alone despite not actually being a team much. Banderas’ names on Guadalajara indies forever; he has some smooth spots early, and there’s a fun dive sequence with Prometo and Latigo too.
• Kratoz does fine in his match with Jack Evans [good] as far a moves, though his inability to connect with the audience much limits his matches from being a lot better. Skayde versus Erik Ortiz [good] is certainly watchable, having a lot what you’d expect from a Skayde match, but he’s also very much slowed down these days. Muerte Extrema shows up a lot on these shows; his match with Madness is the best of the bunch [good], though they probably could’ve cut a fair bit of time off it. I don’t feel too strongly about any of these matches.