Saturday, September 02, 2006

CMLL TV 9/2/06:

Lizmark/Lizmark Jr./La Mascara vs Kenzo Suzuki/Pierroth/Universo 2000: I'm struggling to think of any match from this year's CMLL TV that looks worse on paper. Anyone wanna help me out? Panther is the luckiest guy in the world for getting yanked from this match at the last second. A complete waste of TV time. I thought they were going somewhere interesting by having La Mascara upset Universo with a roll-up in the first fall but it didn't matter since the rudos won the next two falls easily and Pierroth made Mascara submit clean in the third. AB-SO-LUTELY POINTLESS!

Alex Koslov/Mistico/Mr. Aguila/Negro Casas vs Damian 666/El Averno/Sagrado/Volador Jr.: Thankfully the battle royale portion was skipped so we could see this in full(or so I assume). Nothing seemed edited but they did come back from commercial with Koslov/Sagrado in the ring. This was quite simply... a dive-a-thon. Really spectacular stuff as Volador busted out 3 dives in his 9 minutes in the match and Mistico used 2. Koslov chipped in one, as did Sagrado and Aguila used a dive he hasn't done in a while and nailed it PERFECTLY! The biggest pop early on came when Mistico and Volador both got tagged in and mimmicked each others springboard into the ring. It was an awesome start to what should have been a great exchange but things fell apart pretty badly for Mistico. He blew a frankensteiner and then when it was time for a double dive, he slipped on a springboard. It would have been one of the greatest sequences ever if it weren't for those slips.:( This will add lots of fuel to the fire when it comes to people who think Volador should be in Mistico's spot. Personally, I love the idea of them as a team now and the crowd REALLY seems to be taking to it. I'd go with that and see what happens. Volador can get the rub from Mistico and establish himself before they eventually feud. Anyways, aside from the dives the in-ring stuff wasn't too special. Sagrado, Koslov, Averno and Negro all went out early which in theory left Mistico and Mr. Aguila against Volador Jr. and Damian 666 but instead they worked it as a normal tag match with the tecnicos against the rudos. Damian got rid of Volador leaving Mistico all alone as Volador and the crowd cheered him on. I read the results already so I knew Aguila would be pinning Damian with a 450 Splash by "accident". How do you do a 450 Splash and then a pinfall by ACCIDENT??? Needless to say it came out quite messy as I expected. Aguila went for the 450 as Damian was holding Mistico down but Mistico moved. The ref counted one... Aguila got up and then Mistico lightly shoved him back down on Damian and sat on them both as the ref counted to three. It might read better than it looked. I doubt anyone would believe Mistico was strong enough to keep Aguila on top of Damian. Even so, he wasn't really trying, he was just posing which made it more awkward. There was no finishing sequence, both guys just stood up and stared at each other for about 30 seconds, then they did the double handspring backflip into La Mistica spot which is always great to see. Huge pop for Mistico winning.

Momentos showed Tigre Metalico's asai moonsault, Mistico/Volador Jr. with AMAZING dual springboard corkscrew planchas, Metron with a ringpost moonsault, Misterioso II with the Gory Driver and Bucanero with the Buca Storm.

Blue Panther/Dr. Wagner Jr./Heavy Metal vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Terrible: Los Perros Del Maaal came out with a guy in a black mask, black t-shirt and black pants. Even if the rumors hadn't been around for a few days, there is no way anyone could have mistaken the way this person walked to the ring. He unmasked himself during the intros and of course it was... SHOCKER! He put on a PdM t-shirt and left the ring as the fighting began. On the ramp he ran into Rey Bucanero who was on crutches and he slapped him before walking off. I guess that's our next big feud. Perhaps Bucanero takes Shocker's hair to end the year as another bonus for not jumping at Triplemania? Usual first two falls as you'd expect. Third fall was quite long... about the length of an actual match these days. Panther had a weird exchange with Perrito and Garza where they blew a spot and Perrito looked to get hurt. Then Panther clotheslined Garza in the corner and Garza sorta rolled all the way across the ring to the outside where Panther nailed a tope suicida on him. It was all very awkward looking. They also had a spot where Garza accidentally kicked Perrito in the face really hard and they had a mini-argument on the outside. The finishing stuff was really good as they did the spot we've seen a billion times as Heavy Metal goes for a pescado but is caught by Garza and Terrible. Panther then does a tope suicida to knock everyone down but instead the rudos held Metal in front of them so Panther just crashed and burned as Metal got dropped to the floor and appeared to legit hurt himself. Perrito/Wagner looked to be setting up the finish but then Perrito got crotched up top and Wagner went to the ramp. He tried his somersault dive as per the norm but Garza and Terrible caught him! They rolled him back into the ring where he got finished off with a triple team double stomp/power bomb combo.

If they had aired the segunda instead of that awful tercera as the opener, this may have been another great show ending what has been a fantastic month of CMLL TV. Instead it's just an overall average show in my opinion.
CMLL Fox Sports Episodes 1 & 2

August 13/06:

Satanico/Sagrado/Volador Jr. vs Damian 666/Mr. Aguila/Terrible: Interesting way to start the new show. Sagrado and Volador Jr. looked good whenever they got in the ring but unfortunately that was only 4 times combined. Really short lucha by numbers match. You got your quick rudo win, two cool dives from the tecnicos and then a predictable quick finish. On the bright side - more footage for an eventual Volador Jr. music video.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Lizmark Jr./Rey Bucanero vs Mascara Ano 2000/Pierroth/Ultimo Guerrero: Another lucha by numbers match all the way through. Would have been better(maybe) as just a tag with Wagner/Bucanero against MA2K/Guerrero as the other two guys brought nothing to the match at all and maybe as well have not even been involved.

August 20/06:

Volador Jr./Dr. X/Mascara Purpura/Virus/Apocalipsis/Misterioso II/Satanico/Hombre Sin Nombre/La Mascara/Sangre Azteca - Torneo Cibernetico: Another candidate for most disapointing match of the year. They aired the ENTIRE BATTLE ROYALE. Totally useless and took up 5 minutes which on this type of show is an eternity. When they came back from commercial, Dr. X got elminated within 30 seconds and Virus was out after another 30 seconds. Does that seem right at all? La Mascara/Sangre Azteca were the first to do an 'exchange'(I use that term VERY LOOSELY) which consisted of... you guessed it... a running frankensteiner from Mascara followed by a tope suicida. After that the eliminations just kicked in like crazy with everyone gone except Azteca/Mascara/Volador/Misterioso within 5 minutes. Azteca went next and then Volador pinned Mascara in a battle of former tag team partners. The ending with Volador and Misterioso was interrupted by a commercial but then they went a solid 2-3 minutes with a nice dive by Volador and a couple of nice nearfalls before Misterioso got hit with the Spanish Fly and lost. Good to see Volador Jr. getting some wins to build himself up as a true semi-main event type guy.

Mistico/Blue Panther/Dos Caras Jr. vs Atlantis/Black Warrior/Olimpico: Your standard GdR main event except on Fox Sports Espanol.:) Beatdown, Mistico comeback, two random guys picked to feud in the third fall, two dives and a cheap finish. You get all that with every CMLL weekend episode you order. Our new random feud seems to be Dos Jr. and Black Warrior who agreed to a singles match for the following week. At least it's new instead of Mistico/Atlantis again.

I don't know what I was expecting with the new show but it really doesn't matter now anyways as it's pretty obvious it's just a second hour of Guerreros Del Ring. The negative is quite obvious - see all the Guerreros Del Ring complaints(too many interviews, matches too short, none of the matches stick out). The positive is a bonus hour of footage gives us a chance to see some guys we might not normally get to see. So while I may have been negative on some of the above matches, just remember it means the other show is getting undercard matches which may turn out to be great so it's a fair trade-off, right?

It's also great to see CMLL now has more TV time than they've had in the history of the promotion.

Weekly Galavision Mexico - 1:45/2:00
Guerreros Del Ring - 1:00
FSE - 1:00

The only matches that don't air these days seem to be the Sunday Coliseo opener and Arena Mexico opener + segunda(which sometimes makes the cut on the normal show). Nothing to complain about footage-wise these days if you are a CMLL fan.
IWRG TV 5/11/06

Ave Fenix/Kid Tiger vs Bacteria/Black Stone: First time seeing Ave Fenix. He's not exactly going for an original look as his outfit looks exactly like this luchador you might have heard of before named Rey Misterio Jr.. Ring a bell? Fenix is pretty tall but seems to be athletic. His spots don't look too great b/c he's doing stuff that a small guy could do 10x more fluidly. Average match that is only memorable for seeing the new guys. I've certainly seen better IWRG opening tags.

Vertigo/Panterita/Fantasma Jr. vs Brute Issei/Cyborg/Enfermero Jr.: Issei is this really fat guy from All Japan that has no business working in a Lucha Libre promotion. His presence alone dragged this match down big time b/c he was probably told not to sell for the smaller tecnicos and he followed orders perfectly. The one comeback they had on him got botched as he was supposed to catch a tope suicida by Fantasma Jr. but he wasn't in position so Fantasma just jumped off the apron at him which looked really weak. In the third fall Issei tossed Panterita over the top to the outside for a DQ. Really bad match.

Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro/El Veneno vs Mazada/Nozawa/Takemura - Distrito Federal Trios Titles: I expected much more from a title match but they just worked it like a straight boring trios match. Mazada has obviously been coaching Cerebro Negro to work more strong style so after he nailed him with a Ki Krusher, Cerebro just popped right up and hit a german suplex, then both guys sold death. ~STRONG STYLE! *gag* Cheap finish didn't help matters. REALLY disapointing.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Mascara Sagrada/Mr. Niebla/Negro Casas vs Pierroth/Pierroth Jr./Los Head Hunters I y II: Usual brawl-filled main event. IWRG 4 on 4 matches are especially usually a mess b/c the matches aren't given any direction. Sagrada/Niebla did tope suicidas onto the Head Hunters and Sagrada looked to get hurt. I forget who won.

This is not a show you need to go out of your way to track down. Panterita can usually make IWRG DVD's worth it all by himself but not this time.
Well, it seems like the blog works now thanks to the amazing cubsfan who has a wonderful blog himself right here

Now that I've got all the older reviews up, I will start posting newer ones one-by-one so they are easy to find and if anyone decides to comment, it can be show-specific.

Hope everyone finds these reviews useful as I know it's almost impossible to find reviews of Lucha shows online these days.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Checking if I broke the blog already...