Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs Daga & Rey Mysterio 619(17:04, Meltzer Driver, via videoslucha3000, great)
What happened:
Extreme Tiger, still doing the legdrop
You can’t see it on the version up there, but the post match promos in the main event set up Young Bucks versus Lucha Brothers.
Also, after the opener, Orcaulo and Black Danger argue and are now feuding. James Storm interrupts to beat up all the guys in the opener, then get into a fight with Garza Jr. Konnan makes some stipulations for their match tonight, but that match never went up complete and the stipulations don’t go anywhere, so we can safely ignore it.
For whatever reason, the Máscarita Dorada vs Septimo Dragon and Garza Jr. & Sami Callihan vs Black Taurus & James Storm matches were not put online complete.
Thoughts:
double headscissors
These were four matches of a similar type and differing quality. The matches got better as the night went on, but the variety could’ve used some help. I’m not sure I’d be rating the other two matches that highly, but maybe they would’ve offered something different to help. It’s a lot to watch these four matches heavy on spots in a row and I wouldn’t recommend watching all four.
It does really go ok, good, very good, great in order, probably by design. The Bucks and Mysterio in particular looked like world class professionals in the main event, taking the crowd up and down and keeping them for the entire match. There were definitely guys below them who can do things athletically those three guys can not, but they had much more polish and sense of the moment than anyone else. Daga was not bad by any means, he worked fine as a Young Bucks opponent and they made sure to give him a moment of hope before finishing him off, but he’s didn’t come off as on those guys levels yet. There was education to take from that match, and I hope he learned from it. The crowd reactions were interesting on their own: Rey was the biggest star to them, but they were completely OK with the Bucks winning. This is a lot different audience than usual lucha libre shows.
The fourth match (or third of what we got to see) probably was hurt the most for all the similar type of matches. The main event had the aura of the top guys to overcome what had come before (and also they’re quite good), the match prior didn’t have as strong a reason to exist and had to surpass everything that had been done for it. I think it worked, with Laredo, Strickland and Xavier standing out. It just all started to blend together in my mind by that point. I had to walk away and clear my mind before watching the main event (but those in the building didn’t seem nearly as overwhelmed.)
Daga with the double take out spot
The Gordon/450 vs Divino/Black Boy match was a better laid out than opener, especially early on. It also felt like it went 5-7 minutes too long. It’s not like they over ran a peak, but more that it felt like it kept going to keep going – it would’ve served them and the rest of the show to cut it a little shorter. Mr. 450 is not someone I’m really interested in watching at this point, but he and Flip Gordon looked much more polished than the guys in the opener and their opponents in this match. Arkangel and Black Boy had his moments, when Akrangle not having as many broken spots as he usually does without his brother. This one had two different comeback spots. Not that the técnicos (the Mexicans) came back twice, but that they did one comeback spot (Arkangel headscissoring both guys at once), put a halt to it to put the rudos back in control, and then had Black Danger get in his spot too. That did not flow together well, but it was fitting with the idea of doing more just to do more.
The usual The Crash opener, got the crowd excited but was sort of numbing for me. There’s problems with three fall setups, but it at least causes the matches to have valleys and peaks. These matches feel like never ending chains of one guy in random gear going in, getting in his moves, and the next guy taking over with no particular meaning to it. Some of it looked better than other; the crowd was into Oraculo and his finish looked good, but he and Black Danger didn’t work well together at all (and that’s the feud that came out of this.) This was the first time I’ve seen a full Super Calo Jr. match I believe. He didn’t stand out much, I mean, I spent the first half of he match betting totally unsure if I had him on the other team, because Último Maldito’s mask looked just about as Super Calo as Super Calo Jr.’s. It was confusing to me. At least they figured out a way where Garza Jr. might actually get cheered by putting him against Storm
Just a little bit behind. This is back when VideosLuchas 3000 appeared to be the official video crew for the show, since they were watermarking all their video with Crash logos heavily. All matches were taped in Auditroio de Tijuana on February 25.
Black Danger, Tiago, Último Maldito beat Arkángel Divino, Black Boy, Oraculo (9:58, Black Danger & Tiago fouled Black Boy & Oraculo, ok, via videoslucha3000)
Bestia 666, Juventud Guerrera, Laredo Kid beat Máscarita Dorada, Willie Mack, Zumbi (14:22 including a 1:22 dance break, Juventud brainbuster Máscarita Dorada, ok, via videoslucha3000)
Daga & Rey Fénix beat Rey Horuz & Ricochet (12:48, Fenix springboard double stomp to the face Ricochet, great, via videoslucha3000)
Blue Demon Jr., Garza Jr., Zorro vs Brian Cage, Eli Drake, Jeff Jarrett
(11:50, DQ for Jarrett hitting Demon with a guitar, below average, via videoslucha3000)
Masada (Texas) & Nicho el Millionario defeated Aeroboy & Violento Jack in a no canvas death match in a cage
(14:20, win via escape, ok, via videoslucha3000)
Masada escaped 10:01
Violento Jack escaped 12:18
Nicho escaped 14:20
What happened:
Arkangel Divino flip into a rana
Brian Cage decided he didn’t want his partners to unmask Demon, which led to his partners attacking him and eventually getting disqualified. Rey Misterio, hiding in a Blue Demon mask, made the save. (It’s not shown on the video here, but Rey Misterio joined the Rebellion after the match.)
Challenged followed the fouls in the second match.
Famous B asked for a title match after Flamita retains. Flamita accepts, but still gets dropped with a powerbomb. (This seemed like just a way to get Famous B on the show, since Flamita was headed to Japan after this and they don’t actually appear to be going in this direction.)
Thoughts:
Flamita bumped huge for Septimo
The main event cage match (probably only main event because it was a cage) was not for me, and didn’t seem as good as other matches like this that were not for me and I really could not wait for to be done watching this. I think the tag format actually made it worse, because there was less yelling things as a big deal and more trying to move around to set up something while assuming people were watching the other people. Nicho doing these matches while waking around like his knee is dislocated is sad. Stabbing some with those sticks, pulling the sticks out, and stabbing someone else with those same sticks seems very unhealthy behavior even for this kind of match. There was no real point to this being a cage match, except maybe it kept the match and the light rubes from spilling out to the crowd. Violento Jack escaping while watching his buddy get pulled back seems to be not a good teammate move. This was a rough end to the show and didn’t seem to fit in with anything else.
Trying to do the Mistico/Euforia careta spot with Garza Jr. & Cage was certainly audacious. That’s about all I got out of the semifinal. The crowd reacted to the long periods of aimless brawling and Garza Jr. looked the best he’s ever looked because of who else was in this match. Cage’s turn/fondness for Blue Demon seems to come out of nowhere and actually doesn’t seem to mean anything. Sending out Daga & Fenix to get beat up without getting a shot sure didn’t do much for them, but the fans did go absolutely nuts from the surprise Rey Mysterio appearance.
Daga/Fenix vs Horuz/Ricochet was everything the second match was trying to be but just many times better at it. Just a great exhibition of big moves and escalating action to the end, with a lot of one one one and two one two spots. They mostly split it up to Fenix/Ricochet and Daga/Horuz, but they seemed to work well in whatever combination was in there together. The four way fight spot in the middle looked superb, but a lot of stuff looked great. Daga might have been the fourth best guy in this but that’s not much of an insult. Weird that Daga & Fenix were having the miscommunication spots when they should be the set team but I don’t think they think like that. Ricochet being the most over guy by far (and the best looking) was a little surprising.
not sure the GIF captures how hard it looked like it hit
The tercera one never seemed all that serious or good, and really lost it’s momentum after the dance number. The dancing bit got over but the crowd didn’t much are about the rudos attacking them or the rudos in general for the next few minutes until the dive train. Juvi pinning Máscarita Dorada hurts him as an attraction (and Zumbi was right there), I was surprised they didn’t protected him. Willie Mack and Máscarita Dorada as best friends is an idea worth more exploration.
The second match would look awesome in a highlight video, but doesn’t come across well together. The high points are really high in terms of incredible athletic ability, but there’s almost the same amount of attempts which don’t go as well, and just a lot of pretense of doing a match dropped even for a spotfest like this. It starts out really hot, it gets sloppy, and guys are just walking around to get in position for the next spot by the end. Arkangel can only do the super cool things with his brother, but those things are super cool. Maybe the answer here is Último Maldito is actually really good. Tiago’s chops are not any good and yet he and Oraculo did two sets of chop fights. Better as a highlight video than a match. The finish was weak, there was no real reason for the referee to be staring outside for half minute except the rudo needed to get in fouls.
Flamita’s the best. He takes some crazy moves from Septimo Dragon in the title match and bumps big to get them over, while still showing confidence that he can get he can shift into top gear whenever he wants and end it. Septimo Dragon put a scare in to him with a big head drop and Flamita does just that, finishing it easy. Septimo is no slouch and the flip escape of the top rope huracanrana looked good but this is definitely the best match he’s had because Flamita is so great. Everything he did looked sharp and perfect.
The matches sound good. Good good – the cruiserweight match might the one to see if/when it turns up elsewhere, but I didn’t see anything complete beyond the main event. The people who wrote about the show on social media seemed to have a very good time, and the Rey Mysterio entrance was crazy. The main event was about a ***1/2 exhibition-y all star trios match that was done well and got very good in the last third, with Nakajima feeling much more out of place than Rhodes. It was worked more US style, they all got in big spots at the end, the crowd went nuts for the 619 spot on everyone and Rey picked up the win. If you’re interested in just the quality of matches, they sound like they were all pretty good, and you can skip the next 2000 or so words.
Apolo Valdes guessed attendance at 60%, maybe a bit more. Estrellas del Ring says 70%. It looked a lot more empty that in the photos, with sections of empty seats and the wide ranges of the upper level completely empty. It looked like Arena Mexico on a Tuesday or a Sunday. It was tough to imagine how The Crash was going to make money running this show even if they drew a great gate, and this sort of turnout surely hurts.
The Crash picked a tough day to run. People have also brought up the high ticket prices and the fans being burned by other people who didn’t bring in scheduled names. These are legitimate issues, but the biggest reason is still the old obvious one: The Crash didn’t convince enough people to spend money on the matches they were offering. This was not a show that more than a few thousand people wanted to see, because that’s all who showed up.
The “all-star card” of meaningless matches has to go. I like seeing lot of luchadors getting work, but most of their efforts were wasted and most of the names didn’t mean much. This style of show has been proven not to be effective, especially in Mexico City, many times. Not enough has been learned from the failure of Elite. Elite brought in any big name they could, brought even more foreign stars for it’s international tournament , and drew horribly for a major league promotion. They drew great for a minor league promotion aimed at fervent wrestling fans, and so did The Crash did tonight, because all the Mexico City people who follow non-WWE international wrestling came to those shows. There’s just not enough of those people to fill Arena Mexico or fill Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera, not even close.
Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera is the home of AAA because that’s how AAA hypes it. They’re not the only promotion who’s run there. FULL wanted to two shows there run there last year, got Mexico City mainstream attention doing an angle with Pirata Morgan and a clown, and sold so few tickets that one show was canceled and the other was pretty vacant. (They’re going to try again with Alberto & Distromania, and it’s likely going to end the same way.) Baracal, who has experience promoting concerts around Mexico, had the hardcore pick for feud of the year, LA Park versus Rush, and drew no better than The Crash did in this same arena a month ago. Maybe a bit worse. The Crash can take pride in outdrawing Baracal, but probably at twice the price.
And AAA, who everyone diehard fan hates, who does have that history of not delivering what they’ve promised, who were putting out really bland cards at the time, filled this same Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera. And they filled much larger arenas with the same sort of cavalcade of foreign stars for the Lucha World Cup. AAA convinced people the (completely new and invented) Lucha World Cup because they got advertisers and media to treat like the competition was an important deal, because AAA had existed in the market for 20 years, and because they convinced people that winning the last match meant a lot. The same thing happened in January: AAA convinced people Johnny Mundo versus Pentagon Jr. was a match they had to see, at prices that weren’t much cheaper than these. The Crash told people they were the new alternative company, and did a great job in convince people they would have really good matches, and drew all the people who would come to a Wednesday night show to see really good matches. There’s not enough of those people to fill the building.
(aside 1: Lucha Memes should’ve also been a warning sign. Lucha Memes does great crowd, much better than the many other Mexico City area promotions who are trying to the same concept. They just had a really good card last month, have a track record of delivering on their shows, and still drew less last time. The quality of matches alone only appears to a relatively low amount of the people, important matches draw more people.)
(aside 2: PWG seems to be the cited example for The Crash, I bring it up too, but the goal should be NXT. PWG isn’t running 5000 seat buildings, and is getting friendly wrestler discounts because being there is so important. NXT is getting discounts in their own way, but their big show started in the sizeof buildings The Crash tries. NXT also made their shows easy to see for people who were not in the arena, which substantially helped spread the word about the brand. This is a horse I’ve beaten long past the point of death, but The Crash and other promotions inability to broadcast their shows isn’t just costing them the money they make from people buying iPPVs, but greatly diminishing the benefits they’d get for running good shows. In 2017, if people can’t see a professional looking version of your event, no one but the most diehard fans are going to care. Distributing their should not be something The Crash “should be trying to get to” or “aiming for”, this is something they should’ve been doing for months and everyone involved with the company should be freaking out that this hasn’t happened yet.The Crash is trying to start a fire with two rocks when there’s a convince store with matches around the corner, and it’s craziness. It’s nice of the Crash to take a cell phone into the crowd and shoot video from the 20th row, but that means nothing.)
This is not bleak. Any buzz for a good show helps. The Crash didn’t drew well in Tijuana when it started out, and worked it’s way there by being the Tijuana show people had to go to see. They started off with a Mexico City with a good show, and should draw better if they keep delivering good shows. This is not hopeless, this show is just a stark reminder of the job ahead of them. I suspect the spin is going to be that The Crash knew they weren’t going to draw well in the first try and it would always be this hard, but then it would’ve made sense to built to a show this jammed with stars instead of trying to take over night one. The Crash can still get where they want to be, but it’s going to cost them a lot of money in the short term to build their name in Mexico City. They’re going to figure out if it’s worth it.
The decision to run Wednesdays seemed to be because it was the only day they could get a lot of these wrestlers, especially Fenix & Penta. The Lucha Brothers schedule shows no sign of slowing down, and I wonder if The Crash is ultimately going to have to choose between centering around those guys or choosing more friendly days to run. The show ended live around midnight, which is a rough end time on a Wednesday. The fans were into the main event, but there were people visibly walking out before the show ended.
Hijo del Pirata Morgan actually announced he was leaving AAA earlier in the day, but word generally hadn’t gotten out before he debuted. Pirata quit AAA in the fall, but came back at Heroes Inmortales as a surprise entrant in Copa Antonio Pena. He left AAA for such a short time that most people who follow AAA probably just thought he wasn’t used on a few TV tapings. AAA didn’t have any more interesting plans for Hijo del Pirata of late, occasionally teasing a breakup and feud with Pirata Sr. (who might also be gone.) Pirata was talked up by Konnan when he was still with AAA and fits in better with the Crash. Pirata is listed on both the San Luis Potosi and Tlaxcala tapings, but AAA taping cards are expected to change anyway.
Demus 3:16 is a logical jump along the same lines. He’s already working a lot of indies, and he’s got no hope of doing anything in CMLL. CMLL’s decided most of the minis matches are going to be the first or second card, once in a great while they’ll have a title match or an apuesta match in the fourth card, but no more, and not many of those chances. Those matches pay about nothing, while Demus can make some good money by being Mascarita Dorada’s opponent in Mexico, in the US, and beyond. He wasn’t as definite about leaving CMLL, but the gig he’s taking is much better than one he has. Demus bringing up the idea of merging the minis with the regular division was reflective of this reality: the minis have no chance of earning bigger opportunities in CMLL as it’s currently run, are just dependent on the rest of the promotion getting hot and everyone being paid well. (Of course, the minis who did move up aren’t doing much better.) Both Demus & his brother Akuma were listed as working at least one US lucha indie, and in upcoming months, and I’d assume there will be a lot more.
Sexy Dulce’s suffering an ankle injury, which conveniently took her out of a title match she repeatedly implied she wasn’t doing, is suspicious. I know there’s a report saying it’s serious, but it’s the third straight Mexican title she’s lost without actually losing. It doesn’t really mean anything. Everyone Mexican promoter should’ve already been aware that Sexy is essentially the new female Mil Mascaras, someone who’s going to be forever popular but isn’t going to be putting anyone over. She has value and could be useful, but probably shouldn’t be around anything important. (The Crash’ Women’s title is not important and probably will never be, so whatever happened is pretty much irrelevant.) I’d say we’d know this is a legit injury if she misses the boxing match, but she still doesn’t have an opponent for it right now and reports about her career have mentioned plans for her debut being pushed back previously. This could be a convenient way to push it back again.
The latest update on DJ Z is he’s going to have surgery on his colon, which they believe he fractured in the match. That sounds awful and they’re not even sure if that’s it. DJ Z was scheduled to be in Mexico for a while, but I’m sure he wasn’t hoping to be in a hospital bed.
Matt Sydal posted on Twitter that weather issues caused his flights to be delayed for eight hours and he apologized for missing the show. Sydal was flying out of Atlanta and I believe man of no social media AR Fox is based out of Atlanta, so I would guess he had the same issue. It didn’t appear either absence was mentioned to the crowd. It didn’t seem to matter except for people looking for autographs before the show. Most of the roster was in the day before for the press conference.
Fenix’s name was listed as both Rey Fenix (US) and The King on the video screen. I could not tell you what that man’s name is right now.
Kind of wonder if the Carlito/Alberto thing was actually setting up the new DistrioMania main event, since that’s probably the next show Alberto is working in this building and he needs a someone to replace Drew Galloway.
La Aficion reported there were problems with the meet & greet (Rey showed up late and fans only got about 15 minutes with him) and online ticketing. There was also a paragraph about being unhappy about the media area being overcrowded which seems to have been removed during the night. They took advantage of their media access to write a story that still included Matt Sydal in the main event. (Again, Sydal can’t be that well known if people didn’t even notice he was not there.)
No next date in Mexico City was announced. Actually, the Crash hasn’t announced any next dates yet, likely because they’re were so focused on this show. They’re expected to run in Tijuana on May 5th with the Young Bucks.
What happened: Daga, Pentagon Jr., and Garza Jr. all left AAA and to join this promotion and the greater indie landscape. Garza and Fenix were added to the Perros del Mal. All mutually decided to relinquish the Perros del Mal name sometime after the show. The “La Rebelion” name came a week later officially, but this is the beginning of that story.
According to the people involved, those three people didn’t tell anyone (including Pentagon telling the other two) that they were going to jump. That’s hard to believe and certainly people in charge knew some point on this day before the big angle, since that big angle only makes sense if they knew they were changing the main event that Fenix was about to get a tag team partner. Still, it’s also clear many people out there for the big angle were not clued in on what was happening, even while it was happening.
The adjusted main event saw the Lucha Brothers (Penta/Fenix) win a five way match which was announced as for the The Crash’s vacant tag team championship. Super Crazy & Juventud Guerrera protested, and the reward was changed to a title shot at a future show. The tag titles instead were determined in a tag match between Super Crazy & Nicho el Millionario (not Guerrera, for unclear reasons) and the Hardy Boys. The Hardys won the titles. If you are reading this on Thursday February 16th, that final match is airing today on Impact Wrestling in some form.
In other action, Flamita kept The Crash Cruiserweight championship over AR Fox and Arkangel Divino defeated Black Danger to win the The Crash Junior Championship.
(Also, I decided I needed to try to do proper reviews on these. I’m not sure how I’ll manage if it’s an ongoing concern and both Elite and LU are back, but that’s a problem for down the road.)
What was good:Everything on this show was watchable. The bonus Hardys match was just OK as a stand alone match, but it was about giving the fans who came to see them all the Hardy Boys spots in a low impact match, and they delivered. Despite being in Tijuana, this was a crowd very familiar with the Hardys and often reacted more like a US indie show than a Mexican one – most of the reactions were ooh”-ing at big spots, and there were few chants beyond “DELETE!”.
I had stylistic issues with the trios match, but otherwise this had good matches. They could’ve cut down the time a little bit, it did feel a little long, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you’re picking and choosing. AR Fox vs Flamita was the best match on the show and the one you should go out of your way to watch.
My GIFs aren’t much good – I didn’t zoom in enough.
Where can I watch it: All the links are below videosluchas3000 has the show complete from a hard camera. Unfortunately, they’ve put up giant translucent watermarks all over the video. It’s not covering ring as long as the entrance screen is lit up bright, but you can tell it’s there and it’s a little distracting. +LuchaTV has commentary and multiple camera versions of Fox/Flamita, the big angle, and the five way tag match. TKD has handhelds of some of the matches.Read More
