Lucha Libre Azteca Vol. 37:

Not even gonna bother match by match. Awful DVD. If I didn't have such a fascination with needing all Lucha footage there is, I would gladly have not picked this up but oh well. Fredo doesn't do refunds, does he? First up was a trios match with Crazzy Boy/Joe Lider/Shiryu Dragon vs Los Divos. The Divos tried but c'mon. THE OTHER GUYS ARE NOT WRESTLERS! Well, Shiryu Dragon tries but he looks at his partners like a 12 year old looks up to his "cool" 17 year old brother that does weed all day long. He seems like he can wrestle solidly but won't do it and prefers to get chairs involved for all his spots. Then you have Crazzy Boy who has a check list of moves he has to get to in each match and if he doesn't get to do all those moves he cries like a bitch. Finally you have Joe Lider. I have to do this now for any Box y Lucha marks that might google his name... JOE LIDER NGX XLAW SPANISH FLY XTREME HARDCORE OLX LUCHA WRESTLING ***JOE LIDER IS NOT A FUCKING WRESTLER! HE IS AN UNTRAINED PIECE OF SHIT WHO HAS NO REGARD FOR HIS BODY WHATSOEVER AND SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED IN A RING, LET ALONE A BUILDING THAT HOLDS LUCHA LIBRE EVENTS!*** JOE LIDER NGX XLAW SPANISH FLY XTREME HARDCORE OLX LUCHA WRESTLING --- OK, that's that. Rest of the DVD was pretty awful. Maybe I am just tired of the LLA stuff. It happened with the last batch where I went through 18 or 19 and could barely finish the final 3 or 4 volumes b/c all the matches started to look and feel the same. Referee interference non-stop... argh. But it isn't just refs being dicks... they take it wayyyyyyyyyy too far in Monterrey. It's funny b/c I was watching Konnan vs Perro - Mask vs Hair today and it was great how Gran Davis was the best rudo ref of all-time just by doing little things. He never beat up a wrestler or held them in the corner for a rudo to come do a move or anything silly like that. He just did small things to make the crowd angry and then shot them dirty looks. These refs in Monterrey get involved as if they are wrestlers. There was a tag match with Blue Panther where he had to sell the refs stomps and take multiple irish whips. It's stupid. Thank god this was the last volume. AVOID IT!

Watched some more of the 1989 stuff but can only remember random things unfortunately...

- El Dandy vs Emilio Charles Jr. - Hair vs Hair: Really great stuff. Not a technical masterpiece or anything but just pure hatred all around. Crowd was red hot and NOBODY could have predicted the awesome finish. I'm so glad I turn my memory off when watching Lucha b/c otherwise I might have remembed the finish to this match and instead I was shocked and loved it. I guess it doesn't matter if I spoil since it was 17 years ago so Dandy did an over the top tope suicida to perfection and then he and Charles just lay on the floor beating the crap out of each other as Gran Davis counted them both out! It was great b/c they did that spot throughout the match and nobody thought twice of it until they ended up getting counted out and then everyone freaked out! The head shaving was incredible with people surronding the ring and both guys lost a shitload of hair unlike these days where Pierroth loses his hair and has it all back in 2 weeks.
- There was another absolutely mind-blowing trios match with Super Astro/Blue Panther on opposite sides. They went NUTS. I sooooooo need more 80's UWA with Astro/Panther working together. Announcers kept saying this was Super Astro's Arena Mexico debut but that can't be right. Can it? He and Panther were doing stuff years ahead of their time and at the end of the match Astro does a springboard blind backwards diving tope knocking Panther into the first row and he goes into convulsions so a stretcher has to come get him. Amazing performance.
- I need more Hombre Bala. Everything I've seen of him from 1989 thus far has been in-fucking-credible.

Also got some 1991 stuff from Bob... quick thoughts:

- Ponzona/Sultan Gargola/Vampiro(1st match) v Huracan Sevilla/Ciclon Ramirez/Javier Cruz: I had already seen this but gotta mention how great it is. The crowd is just in AWE of Vamp while the other guys just do their thing as he stands on the apron since he really couldn't do shit at this point. Great dives from even the rudos and Vampiro's famous BODYSLAM finisher!
- Fiera/Dandy/Atlantis v Vampiro/Herodes/Charles: Bad match for Vampiro to be put in as if you had anyone in his place, this would have been one crazy match but he dragged it down whenevery he got inside. Pretty crazy to go from working the opener to the semi-main event in 2 weeks though. The best parts of this match were the Dandy/Herodes stuff. WOW! They did this one crazy spot straight out of the Skayde/Neo playbook(yes, I know...) where they worked an armbar spot and Dandy had no escape for a bit so he jumped on Herodes for a crucifix and couldn't take him down so with one arm Herodes swung Dandy back around still in the armbar but Dandy turned it into a spinning armdrag sending the rudo outside! It was brilliant! Must... find... more... CHACHO!
- Vamp/MS-1/Fuerza v Pirata/Dandy/Octagon: This was the first match where Vamp actually looked comfortable in the ring. The other guys more than held up their parts which led to a very entertaining match.
- Perro v Konan hair v mask: First time I got see this in full. Really emotional match and I haven't read anything to back this up but I'm guessing the crowd had NO CLUE Konnan was going to lose and figured Perro was just getting his head shaved no matter what. The second fall finish was SICK as Perro went for his silla off the apron but Konnan caught him and maneuvered him into a bodyslam on the wooden floor which made a pretty loud THUD. The finish to the match was brilliance as the ref got knocked down by Konnan(he was pushed by Perro) and they continued the match with the ref outside. Konnan finally MURDERED Perro with the Guerrero Especial from outside the ring to the inside. He covered and the ref slowly came inside... counted... no... paused in pain... counted... no... threw Konnan off Perro... AND RAISED PERRO'S HAND!!! KONNAN GOT DQ'ED! Naturally, the ref was Gran Davis. Crowd went apeshit. There was a kid at ringside who had a Konnan mask on and I assume was his kid. He was crying his eyes out and the unmasking was very emotional as he wouldn't take Konnan's mask off at first and then finally took it off but hugged his dad's face so nobody could look at his face. One of those moments that sends chills down your spine although I'm sure someone will ruin it by replying and saying it wasn't Konnan's kid.

GdR 2/11/06:

La Mascara/Pantera/Volador Jr. vs Hombre Sin Nombre/Misterioso II/Sangre Azteca: Really good stuff early on with a nice mat exchange between Volador Jr. and HSN and some good Pantera/Azteca stuff. Volador Jr.'s Spanish Fly is AWESOME. He needs to come up with a name for it so I can stop calling it the Spanish Fly. Weird how Pantera and Azteca did nothing at the end of the fall. Second fall only had Mascara showing off before HSN killed Volador Jr. with a german suplex counter to a handspring backflip. All the rudos got lost trying to do SOMETHING to Pantera. It looked brutal. But they made up for it with two awesome spots afterwards. Third fall had a BRUTAL CLIP JOB as they just went right to the finish spot which was a psycho triple dive as Volador Jr. did an asai moonsault the same time as Pantera did a tope suicida through the turnbuckles and La Mascara did a plancha over the ringpost. Good extended Momentos segment.

Mistico/Lizmark Jr./Mr. Niebla/Heavy Metal vs Universo 2000/Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy: Mistico/Warrior is the main feud here so each fall has a finish involving them and it ain't a clean one obviously. If Mistico wasn't on the tecnico side, that could be the laziest tecnico team Rayo Jr./Atlantis/Ringo Mendoza in 1998. This match really did nothing for me although the Mistico/Ultimo stuff was fun as usual.

Really average show. Only worth seeing unless you are desperate for footage of the guys who make the segunda matches.

GdR 2/18/06:

Dark Angel/Marcela/Sahori vs La Amapola/Hiroka/Princesa Sujei: I gotta disagree with my man cubs as I thought this was pretty weak and not even close to one of the top womens matches they've had so far. The Coliseo match that just aired on Galavision U.S. and the Arena Mex trios match where Dark Angel takes a header would be the top two in my mind. This was just... bleh. Okay action but some sloppiness and a cheap finish. Crazzy Boy must have been jerking off while watching this though. And no, not for the reason you'd think he would be. Amapola used about 3 different backbreaker variations that are very U.S. indyrific. She nailed them at the right time though and they looked cool. So I'm sure Crazzy Boy just added to his checklist of moves to get through during his next NGX match. I can't believe this got almost 15 minutes! THIS!

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./Negro Casas vs Atlantis/Canek/Ultimo Guerrero: More of the same with Mistico/Guerrero feuding. First fall was especially weak with Wagner just taking non-stop abuse from Canek as Atlantis threw Negro around and Ultimo did the same to Mistico. I called the finish during the entrances and was 100% right as Negro did his dive, Wagner did his and they took it home with a neat spot. Good build to the singles match.

Skippable show.

GdR 2/25/06:

Virus/Sagrado/Texano Jr. vs Nitro/Okumura/Ohara: I really liked this! Okumura has gotten really great as the lucha style and fits right in working fast exchanges along with bringing some of his headdrop suplexes. Virus and Nitro were the stars though. Virus is sooooooooooo amazing. He did a wicked slingshot onto the apron and then a no-look rana to the floor on Nitro at the end of the first fall. Okumura did a nasty top-rope german suplex on Sagrado to end the second fall. Every replay they showed made it look worse and worse. Third fall was edited at the start and then they TRIED to trick us but I caught the edit(and it seems cubs did too) near the end as Okumura DDT'd Virus on the ramp but after they switched to the long camera shot, it was Sagrado and Okumura on the ramp as Texano Jr. sent Ohara over the top for a slingshot somersault plancha. I actually watched until the finish before I rewound wondering how Okumura got laid out on the ramp if he was the one that just DDT'd Virus. I wonder how badly Sagrado botched a spot to have them toss that edit in? Great ending exchange with Virus and Nitro. Virus needs to get out of CMLL as fast as possible. It's a shame he didn't get out back in 1999/2000 when Osaka Pro was willing to take him. The guy is so amazing but he'll never get a shot to move any higher than he is right now. Damn damn damn shame.

Mistico vs Ultimo Guerrero: I'd rank this as the weakest of their singles match so far but it was to be expected. Mistico needs to stop doing the 6-1-9 and then climbing back into the ring. Let's learn to chain moves together and do a 6-1-9 followed by a springboard something please. He also needs to stop doing that insanely fast handspring moonsault b/c I'm already calling his first serious knee injury occuring as he does that spot at some tiny arena in Mexico City. Lucha by numbers until the middle of the third fall when things started to pick up and they had some great nearfalls. They rested sooooooooooooooo long between the nearfalls though. I watched this late at night so I fell asleep and when I woke back up I rewound to see what I had missed... which was nothing! It was only a minute or so but damn they took forever to get from spot to spot! I liked the finish with the small package to counter La Mistica, only for Mistico to get the submission right afterwards. I wonder who will be the first person to counter La Mistica and pin Mistico clean? Warrior? Perhaps to win the NWA Middleweight Title?

Really good episode and worth checking out.

GdR 3/5/06:

Rey Tigre/Metro/Trueno vs Dr. X/Nitro/Sangre Azteca: TOO SHORT. I liked what they did though. Rey Tigre looked impressive for a professional debut. He reminds me a lot of Tigre Blanco but not the current Tigre Blanco, the ORIGINAL Tigre Blanco(now Alebrije). He has a much larger presence than his opponents even though he's not Cien Caras level tall or Gronda level thick. The original Tigre Blanco was like that as well and always looked out of place in the undercard flying matches he was involved in, to the point they eventually moved him up to work with the heavyweights even though he wasn't getting any sort of push to deserve it. I guess it also doesn't help that Rey Tigre does original Tigre Blanco's exact same pose and has a similar moveset. His first fall stuff was good although I thought for sure he would crash and burn on that ugly tope suicida. Trueno and Metro were pretty shitty. Trueno can fly a bit but he doesn't stand out and you gotta stand out on CMLL undercards whether it be gimmick-wise or move-wise as there are just way too many talented guys to just be "okay" and get noticed. The rudos were awesome as usual. I hope they don't over push Rey Tigre and let him develop nicely. I predict big things from him.

Mistico/Blue Panther/Ultimo Dragon vs Atlantis/MA2K/U2K: This might have been a good week to not have Mistico on the show. As cubs pointed out, Mistico has been on 11 of the 19 episodes and there really was no need for him here. We know him and Atlantis hate each other but the next feud was vs Perrito so why not show us something else this week? Standard match. I don't remember Blue Panther being in the ring for more than 30 seconds though. Nothing worth going out of your way to see.

At some point down the road this will be a must-see episode when Rey Tigre becomes a big star and everyone wants to see how average he was in his debut.

GdR 3/11/06:

Pantera/Maximo/Texano Jr. vs Dr. X/Loco Max/Nitro: It makes me very mad to read this also aired on Galavision Mexico. REPEAT MATCHES SUCK! REPEAT MATCHES SUCK EVEN MORE WHEN THEY ARE SHORT AND POINTLESS! ARGH!!! Lucha by numbers although it was great to see Pantera back on TV looking good as usual. He can be spectacular but he prefers to be solid... and I'm fine with that. This could have used a little drama at the end but what can you do. Fine for what it was.

Black Warrior/Dr. Wagner Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs Pierroth/CHUCK PROMBOL/JOHNNY STAMBOLI: What a mess. I liked the foreigners in their debut at Arena Mexico but this was nowhere near that. They must have been missing Ultimo Guerrero's awesomeness. I eagerly await the Ultimo Dragon vs Stamboli epic on the next Toryumon Mexico show.

Average show... get it if you need everything, otherwise you can get a better undercard match on the next show.

GdR 3/18/06:

Virus/Volador Jr./Pantera vs Hombre Sin Nombre/Okumura/Sangre Azteca: I was looking forward to this as I heard from a couple of people in Mexico that it was pretty great and someone told me Schneider sorta liked it. I wasn't blown away or anything but it was a fine effort by everyone. Definitely better than most stuff you'll see on normal CMLL TV these days but that may have a lot to do with the "watching guys you rarely get to see" factor. Great mat stuff early on and then Virus does a cool spot to send HSN outside and eventually takes him down with a frankensteiner off the second turnbuckle. Nice setup as he didn't go up there for no reason, he was put there by Okumura who does his finisher from that position. Pantera decks Okumura with a cornerpost tope suicida and then Volador Jr. with a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE Spanish Fly to pin Azteca. Second fall... oh shit... Volador went absolutely insane and busted out the Babe Rap/Laredo Kid somersault springboard double armdrag spot that I almost shit myself over the first time I saw it. What kind of a mind thinks up a spot like that? I would have prefered to see another fun Pantera exchange before the rudos took over but such is current CMLL. Why does Okumura keep insisting on dropping Pantera on his head? Third fall was *really good* and my favorite fall of the match. Was short(do I need to keep repeating that?) but they did everything really fast so it might have felt longer than it really was. The Virus/Okumura finish was BEAUTIFUL. So was the Virus/HSN finish. Volador's dive was nuts. The Pantera/Azteca finish was also pretty sweet. Crowd seemed to really enjoy the match. I got to thinking afterwards about how weird it would be if Volador Jr. had taken the Mistico gimmick as was rumored when it first showed up. He has way more experience than Mistico so he understands a lot of things Mistico doesn't quiet yet and he had years of training in working the mat and carrying guys through exchanges so his matches would be more even rather than just one guy dominates/Mistico takes over with his spots. In fact, if you go back and watch Volador Jr. stuff from 1999-2001, he's very reminicent of current Mistico. Food for thought.

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Hector Garza/Perrito: Or Perrito was teaming with Mistico if you believe cubs review. Really fun match to build the Mistico/Perrito match the following week. Although to me the feud seemed to be more Mistico/Garza. Oh well. The rudos beating up Monito was AWESOME! I thought they killed him with the dual kicks! Comeback spot got over huge and third fall seemed to get more time than usual. Definitely makes me eager to see Mistico vs Perrito.

Really good show to pick up if you are deciding to only get a few GdR episodes and not all of them.

One complaint about all the GdR shows though... can we possibly only have one skit/extra segment per week? If you are going to spend 5-6 minutes on Monito/Magadan/Mistico, why spend an extra 3-4 minutes on interviewing Olimpico? Or vice versa? An average of 10-15 minutes is wasted every week on various segments than often have nothing to do with who is wrestling. Cut out a segment or two and maybe you don't have to clip matches any more or can show a little post-match stuff so it doesn't feel like the opening undercard match was just a distraction from the real entertainment - the Olimpico interview.

Other stuff I watched...

Mascarita Sagrada vs Espectrito - Mask vs Mask 8/6/94 in L.A.: Meltzer said this was the best mini's match he has ever seen? Why do I get the strange feeling he was confusing this match with the 3/16/94 match also from L.A. but for the IWC Mini's Title? THAT match was spectacular. THIS match was a complete mess from the opening whistle. More focus was spent on Santo/Parka at ringside than the actual guys putting up their masks. The big story was supposed to be Pepe Casas being KO'ed and Tirantes taking over but the spot to set it up was supposed to involve Espectrito tope'ing Pepe Casas... only the old guy was about 10 feet away from the ring and Espectrito knew he would die trying so he refused to do the dive. They set the spot up again(it looked AWFULLY PLANNED) and this time Parka grabbed the ref and held him really close to the ring. It still came off bad. Tirantes of course ran in. Mascarita did a LAME somersault plancha off the apron onto Espectrito. Tirantes did his usual shtick so everyone thought Mascarita would lose. Mascarita ended up tossing Espectrito into Tirantes by accident. Espectrito then put Mascarita in the surfboard and Tirantes signalled the match was over but then raised Mascarita's hand for the DQ win. What a clusterfuck. 5/6 long years to build this match up and this is how it goes down? Weak.

Anibal/Mando Guerrero/Super Astro vs Los Brazos - CMLL TV 11/25/90: Man Los Brazos used to be amazing. They could work the crowd so well so one week they could be the most over tecnicos in the building and the next week they would be the most hated rudos on the card. The best part is when the crowd wants to treat them as tecnicos and cheers for them but the Brazos figure out what to do to get the crowd to turn on them so they can be heels and not upstage the tecnicos. That's something a lot of current guys(especially US indy "stars") don't get. It's a lost art I guess. Anyways, this match was an example of the Brazos playing rudos even though the crowd wanted to cheer them. It also helped that it is IMPOSSIBLE to boo Super Astro. That guy is so freakin' awesome! I am in love with him ever since I watched the 1989 CMLL stuff. Really fun match, especially the Astro/Porky exchanges. The best part is the next episode I have has this same match except with the crap taken out(Anibal) and a good worker inserted(Sangre Chicana). That could be gold!

The Super Astro/Anibal/Chicana vs Brazos rematch was better than the first. Porky was on FIRE! How on fire was he? He almost pulled off a no-hands kip-up! H-O-L-Y-C-R-A-P! Super Astro was the other star here. Just unreal stuff. I need more old Super Astro footage badly. The only time the match was bad was when Anibal was in there but you had to expect that. At least the other guys made up for it. They did a 3 dive train wreck at the end but it seemed like an improvised thing as El Brazo hurt his knee in the second fall so they had to take it home faster than expected. Porky trying the Tiger Mask fakeout just has to be seen... one of the most hilarious spots ever. This match got me thinking about what would happen if you reunited these six guys(okay, replace Anibal with some other stiff like Ringo Mendoza) in 2006 to put on the same match. I'm guessing they'd work the exact same way they did here in 1990 and get a huge reaction. Meanwhile so called lucha experts would watch it and cream themselves, then go on and on about how great workers all six guys are. Since when does working one or two matches a year where you do the same stuff = being a great worker? It's not sad that some guys can do that and get away with it, it's more sad that people fall for that trick... people who should know better but obviously don't. It's sorta like Signo these days who will show up on one IWRG TV show a year and look passable working with guys he's worked with since the early 80's. All of a sudden Signo is some great worker. Explain the logic in that one. Especially to the folks who see Signo working weekly in Oaxaca and not even being able to climb up on the apron at times b/c he's so fat and drunk. Anyways, this all popped into my head as Anibal was being handed money for putting on a great match when in reality he was just as much watching the match as the rest of the fans and he'd still be wrestling today if he were allowed to only work one match with 5 other good to great wrestlers per year. Sometimes it's good to get a reality check.

The best part of the two back to back shows was for some reason they had clips of CMLL action from other arenas that never make TV like Pista Arena Revolucion and Arena Coliseo MTY. It was pretty weird to watch. Octagon and Emilio had what looked to be a great match but you can't tell a lot from 4 minutes. Octagon did a tope suicida into row #2... that was pretty neat. The match from MTY with a middle-aged Negro Navarro looked like a complete fucking mess. Don't know what the deal was with that airing. Also there was a cool skit for the debut of LOS TORTUGUILLOS KARATEKAS! DONATELLO! LEONARDO! RAFAEL! and... Michael Angelo! Erm... okay.

Also got the chance to see a Silver King vs Emilio Charles Jr. hair match from 1996. The camera caught Silver King blading and I thought back to one of the first lucha tapes I got(Lucha Loonies 2) where Barnett played that clip in super slo-mo. It was pretty hilarious at the times since I was just starting to become a smart mark and showed that clip to all of my friends who thought wrestlers used blood packets. The match itself was pretty disapointing. It was bloody... that was good. But there was very little action... that was bad. And the third fall had every generic nearfall you could think of. The emotion was there from the crowd but the wrestlers just seemed to be doing "your turn, my turn" nearfalls and finally Emilio won in what I thought was anit-climactic fashion as he reversed a power bomb into a huracanrana. And that marked the end of long-haired Silver King who was one of my first favorite lucha wrestlers. If you want to see a good Silver King hair match - go find his match against Miguel Perez Jr. from September 1995. FUCKING AWESOME! I think it's on the same TV show as a pretty great Apolo Dantes vs Jericho match from Arena Coliseo.

I was just able to watch Stuka/Flecha(thanks to cubs!) and wow it was way better than I thought it would be. It was interesting as even though the first two falls were pretty short(thought not 1 minute each like I expected), they each got their moments rather than Perrito/Univero style -> 'I'll dominate and pin you, you fight back and pin me'. I hate when guys do that b/c it shows a total lack of work ethic. It was interesting to hear the commentators mention Flecha being the second person to use that gimmick after Skayde and how even Skayde wasn't the first Skayde. Also, did I hear right or did they say Stuka Jr. was Stuka's brother???:/ La Flechecita looked AWESOME to end the second fall. Third fall was the show stealer though and probably the longest fall(in a non one fall match) on TV since Mistico/Averno from over a year ago. Too much awesome stuff to describe starting from Flecha doing a Skayde Special and Stuka Jr. doing this crazy sunset flip counter into one of his own that I've never seen before. I was getting worried they were going to edit and later it got to the point where I thought they did edit and I missed it b/c I clearly remembered pictures of a Flecha dive and it hadn't occured yet. But they didn't clip it which was great. There were a couple of nearfalls that I totally bought even though I already knew the winner. They were just so convincing! Flecha moves around quite nicely for a guy who (when he unmasked) looks like he should be doing brawls in Guadalajara with Ringo Mendoza and Javier Cruz. I liked the finish although Stuka Jr. should just done his move and that's it, forget the lame standing frog splash. Unless that has some historical significance I am not aware of. Great effort by both guys and I know I'm not alone in thinking that as the crowd seemed to really enjoy what they are seeing. Plus, no interference + no referee garbage + no editing = GREAT STUFF! We need more matches like this on TV.

I'd put this on the MOTYC list if we ever get that going on the LuchaWiki(which you should all check out b/c it's being UPDATED LIKE CRAZY!). It'll be interesting to see how it compares to Segura vs Dr. Cerebro which I hope to get really soon as I heard that match was OFF THE CHARTS and one of the best Naucalpan matches in years.

IWRG 1/15/06:

Frisbee/Kid Tiger vs Colt/Rey Estruendo: Typical IWRG opener. Really slow to start, picked up near the end of the first fall, some good stuff in the second fall and a really nice third fall. These openers all tend to blend together so you can rarely distinguish between them but to me... that's OK. I'd rather know I'm gonna get a solid opener rather than hope I'll see a decent match. I like all four of these guys and Colt wins bonus points for once again busting out an old AZTECAS RULES t-shirt. I WANT! Kid Tiger is coming a lot great. Another year or year a half and he may be ready to get buried by Negro Casas on a regular basis.

Star Boy/Mike Segura/Panterita vs Black Jaguar/Fantasma De La Opera/Xibalba: Oh man did I ever like this! Thanks to Xibalba improving his work lately, all six guys here was average(Xibalba/Jaguar) to great(Segura) workers and it made for a good match. Panterita did a PSYCHO running somersault plancha over the top in the second fall and Segura did a bullet tope suicida in the third fall. Panterita is way too talented but way too small at the same time. He's been getting pushed lately as high as the semi-main event so I'm happy his size isn't keeping him in the openers but at the same time... I just can't ever see Panterita working a match involving any big name CMLL guys or the usual IWRG main event crew. His best bet is to get work in CMLL in the mini's division since he's smaller than Bam Bam but bigger than Pequeno Olimpico.

Virus/Volador Jr./Sagrado vs Cyborg/Dr. X/Nitro: I really enjoyed the early portion of the match where the guys were working the mat. Rudos took over to slow things down which was alright but not great. I think Dr. X and Nitro get exposed big time when they don't have a third partner to hold things together for them like Sangre Azteca or Hooligan. They just don't have the imagination to do things on their own and Nitro especially comes off as REALLY LAZY unlike his trios matches with Azteca and or Hooligan and Dr. X. I mean, how do you do a rudo brawl without ANY triple team moves? Or even double team moves? Maybe ten years ago that would have worked but definitely not in 2006 Lucha. Tecnicos won the second fall quick. Could have used some more fast exchanges in the third fall but the work was passable. Camera didn't catch a Virus frankensteiner off the apron on Nitro. Sagrado pinned Cyborg as Volador did a wicked Spanish Fly to pin Dr. X. Crowd popped HUGE for the move! Great moment of the match: Nitro falling for the best chant ever.

Crowd: Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitro!
(Nitro ignores)
Crowd: Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitro!
(Nitro ignores)
Crowd: Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitro!
(Nitro finally looks into the crowd and gives them a thumbs up for cheering him)
Crowd: CHINGA TU MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADRE!

That bit NEVER gets old!

Scorpio Jr./Head Hunter I/El Veneno/Cerebro Negro vs Pierroth/El Hijo Del Pierroth/El Averno/El Mephisto: Usual brawl that you'd expect. I was looking forward to it turning into a regular match at some point to see some Cerebro Negro vs Averno/Mephisto work but that never happened. Pierroth II did a run-in for the DQ.

I liked the first three matches and the main event was not completely horrible as one might think. Definitely an episode worth getting. If you understand Spanish you want it even more b/c Javier Llanes is the best commentator in Mexico right now. He was actually talking about how Xibalba won his trios match the previous week and Segura was out for revenge. I can't even remember the last time any of the CMLL announcers acknowledged something that happened the week before unless it was a huge main event angle.

GDL 1/16/06:

Idolo/Carlo Roggi vs Antrax/Ebola: Only highlights. Idolo looked good in what was shown. I'm gonna miss Antrax and Ebola with no more Guadalajara TV.

Sagrado/Neutron/Kronos/Nube Roja vs Bestia Salvaje/Cesar Dantes/Malefico/Toxico: Motherfuckingshit... this stupid Neutron/Rayman/Nube Roja vs Bestia/Cesar/Malefico feud IS NEVER GOING TO END!!! I love Neutron to death but he can do nothing against any of the rudos except for Cesar who is often paired with Rayman. GDL used to never extend feuds beyond 2-3 weeks and this is still running in April! Needless to say I did not enjoy this match. Too much brawling. Too little of anything shown from the tecnicos who you know can do better!

Brazo De Plata/Black Warrior/Lizmark Jr. vs Angel Blanco Jr./Olimpico/Mr. Texas(Hotstuff Hernandez): Weird to see Hotstuff working Guadalajara for a week and then disapearing. Maybe he just came for one of those hardcore shows and stuck around a few extra days? Match was... well... Porky can't move, Warrior sucks and Lizmark Jr. is Lizmark Jr.... I guess I need not say any more. The rudos tried and actually made quite the interesting random trios team. Nice dive by Blanco near the end but really predictable finish.

Not a great show at all. Tons of empty seats in the arena as well.

Unfortunately there was no IWRG TV on 1/22 or 1/29!!! THEY AIRED REPEATS!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! I was so fucking pissed off b/c I get the shows no matter what airs and was looking forward to new episodes only to get disapointed two weeks in a row. These are the cards that ended up getting skipped:

IWRG TV Taping at Arena Naucalpan 1/19/2006
------------------------------------------------------------
1.Kid Tiger defeated Black Stone
2.Paramedico and Rey Estruendo beat Frisbee and Ultra Mega
3.Black Jaguar/Carta Brava Jr./Fantasma De La Opera defeated Star Boy/Marco Rivera/Panterita
4.Dr. X/Loco Max/Nitro beat Mike Segura/Sagrado/Virus
5.Scorpio Jr./Cerebro Negro/El Veneno/Head Hunter I defeated Pierroth/El Hijo Del Pierroth/Pierroth Jr./Pierroth II in a Cage Match

The segunda looks like it would have been alright. The tercera might have been okay as well. I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE SEEN THE SEMI-MAIN! That was one of the better matches in the new batch that I was looking forward to. I'm glad the main event never got the chance to see daylight.

IWRG TV Taping at Arena Naucalpan 1/26/2006
------------------------------------------------------------
1.Vampiro Metalico defeated Rey Estruendo
2.Ultra Mega and Kid Tiger beat Carta Brava Jr. and Colt
3.Avisman I/Star Boy/Panterita defeated Pirata Morgan Jr./Kaleth/Nemesis by DQ
4.Dr. X/Loco Max/Nitro beat Mike Segura/Matrix/Fantasma Jr.
5.Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner Jr./Sicodelico Jr. defeated Blue Demon Jr./Head Hunter I/Scorpio Jr.

Segunda once again looks like it woulda been okay. Same for the tercera. With IWRG matches you really gotta watch them and not assume they will be alright but whatever. Semi-main once again looks like it would have been the best match even if Matrix blows. Main event is the usual. Oh well. I just wanted to see if IWRG could continue their hot streak.

GDL 1/23/06:

Neutron and Nube Roja vs Cesar Dantes/Malefico: Only clips and nothing of note. Continuing the never ending feud to make me a sad man.

Sagrado/Maximo/Texano Jr. vs Danger/Infierno/Magnum: Rudos won to get a shot at the trios titles the following week. Solid match but could have been way better. I was hoping they were just getting a feel for each other and would try to steal the show the following week. Danger and Infierno are really outclassed by every member of the CMLL side and it shows badly.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Lizmark Jr./Rayman vs Hombre Sin Nombre/Tarzan Boy/Universo 2000: I. DON'T. CARE. Rayman vs Hombre Sin Nombre made me laugh though. If they would have done the Florida Bros. mime spot, I woulda lost it! Tarzan Boy is never going to improve working with Lizmark Jr. so much. Wagner/Universo stuff was really fun.

Another weak GDL episode. More and more empty seats visible. Beer logos replaced by Metro logos. A bad omen of things to come...

GDL TV 1/30/06:

Neutron and Nube Roja vs Cesar Dantes and Malefico: YAY! REVANCHA! Ugh. Just used to set up two singles matches for the following week - Neutron vs Cesar Dantes and Nube Roja vs Malefico. Guess which one aired? You win a cookie, Henrik.

Sagrado/Maximo/Texano Jr. vs Danger/Infierno/Magnum - CMLL Trios Titles Bout: Definitely a step up from the previous match but nothing that would blow you away. Along the lines of the series from 2004 when Felino/Safari/Volador Jr. were feuding with Magnum/Averno/Mephisto for these same titles. Tecnicos tried really hard and looked good with most of the stuff they did. Magnum was once again the star of the rudo team. I really liked the finish with Sagrado doing a backwards handstand right into a Code Red on Danger. I'd put this ahead of the Sagrado/Maximo/Texano Jr. title win over Dr. X/Nitro/Sangre Azteca.

Negro Casas/Felino/Rayman(for no-showing Heavy Metal) vs Pierroth/Olimpico/El Mephisto: Here's one of those questions that is supposed to make your mind go blank(ala the tree falling in the forest) - is there really a winner when Heavy Metal no-shows and Rayman replaces him?

...

*snaps out of it*

Bad match.

Trios match was good but I'd just hope Alfredo puts together some sort of Best of GDL 2006 DVD or else you'd have to feel guilty buying this episode alone just for that one match. I'd do it but then again I buy Arena Coliseo MTY stuff so what do I know?

IWRG 2/5/06:

Antaris and Gran Cuchillo vs Conde Negro and Vampiro Metalico: WHERE... DID... THIS... COME... FROM? My favorite match of the show... IS THE OPENER! Remember what I said above about how it's hard to distinguish these matches? Well... NOT THIS ONE! Antaris was on freakin' fire. Gran Cuchillo was amazing as he always is. Conde Negro has a mask that is too cool for words. And Vampiro Metalico... wow... who the fuck is this guy? I'm guessing he's either an American or one of those wrestlers who only works once in a while and usually does hardcore shows b/c he's such a big fan of American "wrestling". Either way, I hope he shows up more on TV b/c he was a big part of why this match ruled. The matwork to open up was with Cuchillo and Conde who I assume have worked together before b/c it was pretty sweet aside from one blown kip-up by Cuchillo. Antaris and Metalico then worked some nice stuff. Right away Metalico differentiated himself from the other tag match opening guys b/c he showed charisma and was yelling back at the awesome IWRG crowd. First fall had an unreal finish... Antaris ran at Conde who tossed him into the air and up top, Metalico then tripped Antaris from the apron, then climbed up top... AND DID THE LO-KI DOUBLE FOOT STOMP IN THE TREE OF WOE!!! Well that's definitely the first time that spot has made it to Mexico! It looked fucking killer and he transitioned beautifully right into a nice powerslam while Antaris was still hanging in the corner. Second fall had more nice stuff with the rudos dominating including Metalico doing an Atlantida into this crazy backbreaker variation that would have Roderick Strong in awe. Antaris at one point after the comeback does a MOONSAULT off of Metalico's shoulders! Tecnicos take the fall via pins at the same time. It looked GOOD! Third fall was short but the finishing sequence was more complex than usual for these opening tags. Antaris ended up pinning Metalico with an awesome Code Red that they absolutely NAILED PERFECTLY! Laugh all you want, this is on my MOTYC list! Metalico may just disapear into Nowheresville, Mexico but I surely won't forget his only TV appearence. It should also be noted how amazing Llanes was once again. At one point he called Conde Negro - "Vampiro Metalico" and then corrected himself! How often do lucha announcers correct themselves? He even went on to talk about who trained Conde Negro. It's impressive stuff if you can understand what he's saying.

Avisman I/Marco Rivera/Star Boy vs Black Jaguar/Carta Brava Jr./Fantasma De La Opera: Centered around the Avisman vs Opera feud. The first fall was absolutely great and had an amazing finish where Fantasma MURDERED Avisman with a dropkick to the face. It was fucking stiff! Throughout the second fall Avisman was at ringside getting checked by the doctor who at one point tried to snap Avisman's nose back into place. I am NOT joking. Pretty gruesome. Opera ended up bleeding at the end of the second fall and bleeding pretty badly through his mask. I remember seeing pictures but it looked better on tape, especially by the end of the match when the blood was pouring down his chest as he pinned Avisman. Nothing wrong with this at all. Well, except for Marco Rivera and him wrestling with his tiny tights that came off for one exchange. Ugh.

Pantera/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro vs Loco Max/Nitro/Shigeo Okumura: The Pantera/Okumura feud carries over to IWRG! Sorta. I don't know what happened but Pantera did a tope suicida in the first fall and appeared to tweak his knee while he was running the ropes before he did the dive b/c the dive ended up being really weak and he almost crashed and burned badly. Doctors checked him right away but he was fine in the second fall working exchanges with the rudos. It's a good thing Segura/Dr. Cerebro began feuding after this week b/c Cerebro was sporting a really ugly hairdo. His usual black hair was now growing some disgusting blonde patch on the end. Ugh... Alex Shelley level. Cerebros did dual tope suicida in the third fall and they did an old-school finish where Pantera low blowed Nitro but in reaction to the low blow, Nitro yanked off Pantera's mask and got DQ'ed since the refs could see physical evidence of the mask being yanked but not the low blow.

Negro Casas/Mascara Sagrada/Sicodelico Jr. vs Blue Demon Jr./Canek/Scorpio Jr.: Not good. Although seeing Sicodelico Jr. again was nice. He still seems a little green but it's nothing the world class CMLL rudos can't hide so I'd expect to see him and Dos Caras Jr. teaming at some point down the road. Or maybe feuding? Boy, that would be something! Sico Jr. did a great slingshot tornillo in the third fall and then Demon Jr. low blowed Sagrada to win.

Great episode - GET IT! Some of you may even like the main event for all I know.

IWRG is 3/3 with solid TV shows thus far this year. If you are a Lucha fan, I'd strongly suggest checking it out as it's a nice change from the usual rushed CMLL episodes. You will never see an IWRG match go anywhere from 8-12 minutes. They range from 15-25. The obvious thing to note is due to the longer matches, they are definitely worked slower. So if you've ever found yourself in a situations watching CMLL TV where you've said "this matwork is going on for too long"... IWRG episodes MIGHT not be up your alley. You also won't get two or three insane dives per match(if you even get ONE) so if you only watch Lucha to see that, IWRG definitely isn't for you. BUT... if you want solid old-school Lucha where the local arena guys work 3x harder than the CMLL stars and you can see well built feuds that tend to lead to fun stipulation matches - IWRG is for you.


CMLL Guadalajara 2/6/06:

Neutron vs Cesar Dantes - Occidente Light Heavyweight Title Bout: Only clips unfortunately. Malefico runs in to cost Neutron the match and set up the semi-main...

Nube Roja vs Malefico - Hair vs Hair: Aside from a horrible botched spot in the first fall, this was better than I thought it would be. Roja has a wicked roll-up finisher that is right out of the Skayde/Neo playbook although these days I guess I should be saying Skayde/Claudio playbook. Malefico used a couple of neat moves in the second fall which kinda got me more into the match. Third fall was fun but I've seen better hair matches in Guadalajara. If you can't guess what the finish was - SHAME ON YOU! Neutron runs in to cost Malefico the match. BUT... SWERVE! The referee catches him and disqualifies Roja! Nice little twist as I was sure Neutron would interfere and Malefico would get shaved. Good booking.

Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner Jr./Blue Panther vs Pierroth/Olimpico/Mascara Ano 2000: Eh... average. Not horrible but not great. Could have been way better if Olimpico was still a tecnico and Panther was a rudo. Oh well.

IWRG TV 2/12/06:

Gran Cuchillo and Panterita vs Colt and Paramedico: I like all four of these guys so naturally I enjoyed this match. Cuchillo was sporting fancy new dreads. Panterita did his usual crazy running somersault plancha in the second fall. Tecnicos take it in three fun falls.

El Veneno/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro vs Pirata Morgan Jr./Kaleth/Nemesis: This didn't impress me too much. You'd think they would go all out since finally they weren't working opposite stiffs like Marco Rivera, Kung Fu Jr. or Rey De Corazones but it wasn't meant to be. Average match. I've seen all these guys work much harder so this was a pretty big letdown. Surprising to see Los Jinetes go down without much of a fight.

Mr. Niebla/Mascara Sagrada/Sicodelico Jr. vs Ultimo Guerrero/Nitro/Damian 666: Funny pre-match interview where Damian says he is a total profession and that is why he'll put aside the Perros/Guerreros feud for this one night only. This tencico trio is so powerful that they are the key to ending the Perros vs Guerreros feud! Usual good stuff when Niebla was in there with Ultimo or Nitro. Sico Jr. looked good once again as well. Sagrada... is fat. Sucks to be him. Shockingly CLEAN finish! Nobody turned on anyone! No low blows! No ref bumps! God bless IWRG! Average match.

Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Canek - UWA Heavyweight Title Bout: All I'll say is their match from the Year in Review show was much better. And now I know why the previous match ended clean - this match had all the ref bumps, low blows and other various screwjobs you will ever want to see! Canek continues to not catch Wagner on his normal somersault dive.

Not a show I'd go out of my way to pick up.

CMLL Guadalajara 2/13/06:

Chris Stone and El Gallo vs Angel Blanco Jr./Infierno: Only clips as usual. Gallo and Blanco Jr. horribly blew a roll-up spot and thanks to the magic of slow motion, we got to analyze the blown spot for minutes. I don't know what the hell they were trying to do but it didn't work. Why isn't Chris in AAA with Alan?

Volador Jr. and La Mascara vs El Averno and El Mephisto: Pretty fun match. In the second fall the tecnicos had some communication problems which never led anywhere. That kinda bummed me out b/c seeing rudo Volador Jr. in Guadalajara would have been neat, especially against La Mascara. That'd be Henrik's feud of the year. Volador Jr. continues to use the Spanish Fly as his finisher and get HUGE POPS doing it. Nice dives in the third fall and a beautiful clean finish. Worth checking out.

Rayo De Jalisco Jr./Black Warrior/Silver King vs Cien Caras Jr./Damian El Terrible/Emilio Charles Jr.: The string of awful Guadalajara main events continues. It was weird to see Silver King come out to no reaction at all and get no pops for anything he was doing. Hello... Silver King hasn't been around since 1999!!! Where was the big pop for his return? No wonder he wants to work as Dr. Wagner II. Not awufl but nothing memorable.

Get this show to see the fun Volador Jr./Mascara tag match.

IWRG 2/19/06:

Avisman I/Gran Cuchillo/Panterita vs Black Jaguar/Fantasma De La Opera/Raziel: What... a... MESS! I blame Raziel who was just AWFUL. I don't know who he was but I hope I never have to see him again. Just a fat fuck who didn't even belong on this show unless it was working an opener and getting schooled by Mr. Libra. He blew EVERY SPOT. I'm not exaggerating. At one point he was waiting in the ring for a tecnico to get in and none of the tecnicos wanted to tag in and have to deal with him. I think Cuchillo ended up coming in, taking one move and rolling outside. Smart! The saving grace of this match was a rare(for IWRG) third fall trainwreck dive sequence. Avisman I had the guts to do a tope suicida on Raziel who finally did something right and made the catch! Black Jaguar did a pescado. Cuchillo did a tope suicida of his own. Opera got ready to dive but then ended up backdropping Panterita over the top and onto everyone. That was FUCKING CRAZY! Finally Opera did a tope suicida to end the sequence. And when they got back in the ring he pinned Avisman clean with a sitout power bomb. Nice ending to an awful match. What a waste of four good workers.

El Veneno/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro vs Cyborg/El Enterrador 2000/Kryss: What did I do to deserve a show with Raziel, Kryss and Enterrador 2000 all on it? No wonder Fredo's guy didn't tape this episode. This match was awful as well. The Cerebro's are good and so is Cyborg but... ugh... Kryss is not. Let's just leave it at that. Bad brawl. NO REMATCH PLEASE!!!

Negro Casas/Felino/Heavy Metal vs Rey Bucanero/El Averno/El Mephisto: Man, at least with the local guys you can see they are working as hard they can even if the results aren't there. This was just a great example of top CMLL workers trying to get away with doing as little as possible. Just going through the motions with an extra comedy spot or two. Totally predictable match but crowd seemed to enjoy it so what do I know.

Skippable episode. Could have used a fourth match obviously.

IWRG TV 2/26/06:

Kid Tiger and Halcon Salvaje vs Black Jaguar and Fantasma De La Opera: Ugh... Halcon Salvaje is gonna be all over the next tape of March TV and he is not: a) young or b) good. This is a bad omen for the next batch of footage. Kid Tiger looked good as usual but this was a rather weak opening tag match after a series of good ones so far in 2006. Salvaje has the basics down but works way slower than most opening match tag guys. Where's Mr. Libra, Antaris, Shark or Galactik??? They would all be more fun than this guy! Rudos were great as usual.

Kung Fu Jr./Star Boy/Marco Rivera vs Pirata Morgan Jr./Kaleth/Nemesis: Wow, never thought Kung Fu Jr. would ever be the SECOND WORST worker in a match but then Marco Rivera had to come along. He was sooooooooooooooooooooo awful in the first fall. I can't say it for a fact but I'm assuming the rudos began not co-operating with him after he blew a few early spots. You know that spot where the tecnico gets trapped in the rudo corner but one of the rudos ends up slapping his own partners every time the tecnico moves? It's been done about 10,000,000,000 in the history of Lucha Libre on television, not to mention that number mulitiplied by itself for live events. Well... Rivera blew it! The rudos tried to cover for him but he acted like an idiot and ran away from the corner. Then a second later he botched a turnbuckle assisted headscissor move on Kaleth and by the time he corrected the positioning of his legs, Kaleth just tossed him down hard on his shoulder. Rivera got up and kicked Kaleth right in the face so Kaleth was basically like "fuck this" and rolled outside. Nemesis came in and Rivera blew ANOTHER spot but Nemesis was a pro and just sold another move before ducking out so Rivera could dance. So awful... ugh. Star Boy had a good match though. He's hot and cold. Sometimes he looks like one of the best hidden IWRG workers, and other times he looks as good as I just described Rivera. Thankfully this time it was the former. Kung Fu Jr. sucked as always but his suckiness was overshadowed by Rivera's sucktitude. Dual tope suicidas from LOS ESTRIPERS and then Pirata Jr. pulls off Kung Fu Jr.'s mask, powerslams him and gets the win. I hope Pirata Jr. doesn't try to sell that mask on some internet message board!!!

Pantera/Panterita/Sicodelico Jr. vs Cyborg/Xibalba/El Veneno: Well hey now... Panterita in a semi-main! What a nice treat. The big angle here was Veneno trying to convince Pantera to join the rudos since he is a member of La Corporacion but Pantera said no and because of that, Panterita got the shit kicked out of him for the entire match. Sucks to be Panterita. Who's left in La Corporacion anyways? Just Dr. Cerebro, Cerebro Negro and Veneno by my count. Scorpio Jr. jumped, Black Tiger is Silver King and now Pantera is out. Tecnicos ended up fighting back as you'd expect. It got really good after the comeback and turned into a solid match as you'd expect with these guys. In the third fall Panterita geared up for his awesome dive but must have remembered he needed to be back in for the finish and slowed his tope suicida down so he only ended up ON the guardrail instead of IN THE FOURTH ROW! With the speed he had - he woulda made it there! Rudos gang up on Panterita and he's half-dead until... EL HIJO DEL SOLITARIO runs out from the crowd and saves him with mule kicks to all the rudos in sight. El... Hijo... Del... Solitario... well... FUCK.

Mistico/Felino/Mike Segura vs Cerebro Negro/El Averno/El Mephisto: ... Wow! Right? I know that's what you are all thinking. And you know what... you're right. WOW INDEED! This was a half-great match. Why HALF-GREAT you ask? Modern technology. You see, if this was a few years back, the person taping the show could have recorded it to tape from 10pm to 12:05am to make sure everything recorded properly incase there was an overrun. But in today's world with modern technology, you can set a show to record and it will only record 10-12 as the programming guide lists it. Or you can tape it onto DVD but the DVD will finalize when the max 2 hours are reached. Unfortunately, this show was running long so by the time the third fall began, 2 hours had elapsed. My tape cut out soon after which SUCKS b/c this match was getting GREAT! Segura had just finished a crazy exchange with all three rudos before everything went black. The funny(?) thing is, Alfredo actually e-mailed me and told me he will need my copy of the third fall since the one he got cut off b/c the DVD finalized too early during the live taping. It's a shame we'll never get to see how this ended up...

I liked the episode though. The main event was good enough through two falls to be a match worth seeing. Semi-main was pretty good, opener had it's moments and well... you get a bonus match with Kung Fu Jr.!

CMLL Guadalajara 2/27/06:

Tony Rivera/Oro II vs Mascara Magica/Maddona: Usual slow-motion clips which serve no purpose. The end of the second fall was hilarious as Magica had to verbally explain to Maddona how to apply a double team submission and poor Oro II is just being held in mid-air praying for his life. *L* Tecnicos with dual topes in the third fall and the camera misses the finish while replaying a low blow. WHAT A SHOCKER!

Dos Caras Jr./El Hijo Del Texano/Leon Blanco vs Damian El Terrible/Emilio Charles Jr./Tarzan Boy: Oh man, the Emilio/Terrible worked storyline of being father/son has so much potential. They need skits!!! Usual crappy match aside from some fun Emilio/Terrible stuff including the best spot EVER! Dos Jr. kicks Emilio in the face and Emilio does the usual deal where he spits out a tooth but this time Terrible... CATCHES THE TOOTH AND PUTS IT BACK IN EMILIO'S MOUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! BESTEST SPOT EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Must-see match just for that.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Mistico vs Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero: I need to make a mpg of this match and put it on LuchaWiki. To find it you'd have to search the term: MAILING IT IN. The first two falls were just horrible with no action at all and just finishes. But they spent a ton of time stalling and on the floor doing lame brawling that the camera missed. Then in the third fall for some stupid reason, the producers kept editing the match at random points. Not huge edits to take out minutes of the match, just silly edits that made no sense like Mistico getting knocked down by Ultimo and then a quick clip to Mistico getting yanked up by Ultimo. So they had to edit off the 3 seconds of Ultimo getting ready to pick Mistico up. HUH? Even more retarded than all this was they did a clip after two dives right to the finish where Ultimo rolled up Mistico as Wagner was in the Atlantida. THEY EDITED OUT THE MAIN EVENT FINISH! EXPLAIN THAT ONE TO ME! Replays showed Mistico went for La Mistica but Ultimo countered it and rolled him up. FIRST TIME EVER!!!

I am convinced Apolo Dantes is responsible for this. It's so stupid it has to be him. Who else would edit out the main event finish to their show? Has to be the same guy that decided the sponsor they have had for 14 years wasn't good enough, the matches all needed to be changed to one fall, local stars mean nothing compared to his own friends and most importantly - fans won't be mad if you raise prices without any explanation. Yes, from what I read - fans showed up on Sunday and found prices were raised with nobody giving any reason as to why.

Anyways, get this show just for Emilio/Terrible hilarity!

CMLL TV 1/21/06:

La Parka/Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr. vs Pierroth/MA2K/U2K: Holy shit... this was the match that just WOULDN'T END! Had to go at least 16-18 minutes and you had to figure when a match finally went that long at Arena Mexico it would involve guys who have no buisness doing 16-18(Pierroth and comedy mode Wagner). La Parka is so head and shoulders above everyone else in this match it isn't even funny. I know everyone will disagree with me and it will never happen but I'd love to see him go to AAA and feud with the fake Parka, put an end to that and then become the new top star in AAA working opposite Shocker.

Momentos had two useless clips of Los Rayos Tapatios doing their finishers on Polvora and Vaquero. The rest was repeat material.

Negro Casas/Heavy Metal/Mistico vs El Averno/El Mephisto/Hombre Sin Nombre: Well they followed the script to perfection. Okay match but no thought put into it. Negro took a header doing a frankensteiner off the apron instead of his usual silla. Mistico did a great plancha over the ringpost. Metal pinned HSN for fall one. Great stuff by Mistico in fall two. Rudos take over and win before you can blink. Tecnico comeback. Metal is too lazy to do a dive. Negro/Mistico pin Averno/Mephisto immediatly. Matches like this are both why I love and hate CMLL.

Atlantis/Olimpico/Tarzan Boy/Ultimo Guerrero vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Mr. Aguila/Damian 666: An atomicos main event to open the Arena Mexico season. You'd figure they would go all out but this was another case of following the script. PdM take the first fall by DQ(which was lame). Barely ANY exchanges in the second fall - just weak brawling. PdM with triple dives but BOTH CAMERA ANGLES manage to miss Mr. Aguila's! Perro Jr. low blows Atlantis to win obviously.

Weak weak weak start to the new batch of TV. I mean, the fucking womens match from this same show that aired on Guerreros Del Ring was better than any of these matches and I am very sad to say that. Only fun thing on this show was Mistico and that's not me saying he is the best wrestler, that's just me pointing out the obvious - Mistico is the wrestler who is best suited for these style of matches.

AAA TV in Chilpancingo - 12/17/05:

Last big show of 2005 for AAA, would everyone bring their working boots before heading for vacation?

Mascarita 2000/Octagoncito/Prince vs Jerrito Estrada/Mini Abismo/Mini Chessman: Prince is definitely one of Pena's more gay ideas in recent memory. I think he might be Ricky Estrada who used to work indies with Jerrito before he came to AAA. Jerrito seemed majorly drugged up for this match and at one point tried to kiss the camera lens.:/ Other than that weird moment, this was the usual great stuff from the mini's. Mascarita is starting to have great chemistry with Mini Chessman which is good for the future since I want to see Octcito work with Mini Abismo more. They had a great early exchange in this match. During the comeback, Octagoncito did an AWESOME spot that is surely soon to be stolen by Alex Shelley or some other US indy guy that takes lucha spots. Mini Chessman was dropkicked and laying against the ropes but his head was hanging outside the ring so Octagoncito did a running dropkick(ala a Fuerza bump through the ropes) sending himself and Chessmancito crashing to the floor. It looked BRUTAL! Dive time. Prince with a plancha onto Jerrito. Weak. Mascarita with an overshot tope suicida which I think he wanted to turn into an armdrag but Mini Abismo wasn't going for it. Alright. Octcito with a second rope springboard corkscrew to Mini Chessman! We have a winner! La Secta runs in for the DQ.

Decnis/Super Fly/El Costeno vs Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Costeno is another one of those deals where Pena either got sexual favors from him, from his son or he's the local promoter and thus he gets to wrestle in a TV match. Sorta like Voodoo back from the 8/21/05 Pachuca show. If you just ignore him the match is actually pretty fun. Decnis had a new look and seemed to be working extra hard to establish himself on his own. I'm not a big fan of his(Billy Boy = #1, Alan = #2 in Los Barrios) but he looked alright here. Super Fly in his second TV appearence looked GREAT. He had exchanges with all three rudos and blew nothing! His big finishing spot saw him on the apron, Ozz charged him with a baseball slide but Fly jumped to avoid it and right when he landed he did a moonsault to the floor on his feet and into an armdrag on the rudo! Perfect timing and execution! Rudos brawled for a short time. Not many triple team moves like usual. Tecnicos fought back. Costeno did a horrible tope suicida that the camera got the worst show of thankfully. Decnis and Super Fly then did AWESOME dual running somersault planchas over the top rope! I want to say the rudos won but for some reason I can't remember.:/

El Hijo Del Fantasma vs Zumbido - National Middleweight Title Tournament Finals: *Not* a title match, just the finals of the tournament. Nice little psychology as kid Fantasma went over Hator and El Angel while Zumbido went over Oriental and Charly Manson so he definitely had the hardest route and Fantasma was portrayed as being in the match due to having the easier draw. Seconds were Alan Stone and FANTASMA SR.! Isn't that just fabulous - the commisioner who had a segment on TV saying he wants this tournament to be clean is the second for his son and ends up interfering himself. What a joke. Match started with a nice mat exchange and then they sped things up as per the norm. Hijo Del Fantasma did a nice moonsault plancha off the second turnbuckle. Zumbido slipped trying a springboard dropkick and then almost slipped trying his usual dive(which was not funny since a few months before that a local wrestler died when he messed up that same move). Hijo Del Fantasma also did a tope suicida later on. Then it was time for Fantasma and Alan Stone to brawl. Shocker ran out to help Alan. Meanwhile the ref was counting and after slamming Fantasma's kid on the floor, Zumbido got in at 19, did a resorte and WE HAVE A WINNER! Guapos danced afterwards.

Electro Shock/T.D./Pimpinela vs EL ASSESINO DE LA LUZ ROJA... CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CHE-CHE-CHE-CHE-CHE-CHE-CHE-CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(man I love Arturo Rivera's introductions), Charly Manson and surprise luchador... Casandro: No joke people, this was *AWESOME*! Pimpinela and Casandro go back to their UWA days in La Ola Lila(w/ May Flowers and Rudy Reyna) and they looked eager to put on a great show. Their matwork at the start of the match was great and they even put together a crazy exchange. Casandro busted out a handspring moonsault! WHAT THE WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? Rudos took over when Pimpinela went for a rope-walk move and Chessman pushed him off. The beatdown involved in the use of multiple chairs and brutal slaps by Chessman. The comeback involved a cool double kick caught by Electro and plancha off the top by T.D. as the rudos were being held. Pimpinela did a somersault off the apron onto Casandro. T.D./Electro/Manson/Chessman did a complicated series of spots that only looked about 75% good but I'll take it. I'd rather see an effort to try new stuff than the same old stuff I've seen for months done 100% perfect(ala Negro working with Averno and Mephisto). Manson ends up doing a plancha off the top onto Electro while T.D. sends Chessman outside and does a tope suicida... RIGHT INTO A CHAIRSHOT! FUCK YOU SUPERMASCARASAGRADATRIPLEATELEVISA DEPORTES! I feel bad for the guy though. When he was Triple A he was booked to do crazy dives but botched them and hurt himself. Now he finally does a dive properly and he gets booked to take a chairshot, then crash and burn. Irony? Pimpinela and Casandro end up inside the ring to trade nearfalls. Casandro rolls up Pimpinela... 1... 2... 3! CLEAN WIN IN HER DEBUT MATCH! Fucking amazing match. See, this is why AAA TV > CMLL TV these days. CMLL presents a show full of the best workers in totally predictable matches while AAA puts their circus out there in matches where you never know how they are going to go and what the guys will do. I LOVE IT! This is on my AAA 2006 MOTY List. The week after this they aired a taping from Toluca which unfortunately Fredo never got but it had almost these exact same guys and they tore it up once again in a match that MIGHT have been better than this. I'm gonna rewatch and see. Maybe even upload too if it works.

Before the next match there is a skit where Shocker is waiting for Alan Stone who arrives late. Shocker says(translated): Why are you late bro? We need to go inside and EAT THE PIZZA! Yes folks, they were in front of a Dominos Pizza store! It might not sound funny but you gotta hear Shocker's delivery when he says PIZZA and gets this weird smile on his face. Anyways, Alan ends up explaining he is mad at Intocable for stealing his look. Shocker says who cares b/c Alan doesn't need the look since he is talented. Way to build up an important feud! Shocker tries to convince Alan once again... WE NEED TO EAT SOME PIZZA B/C WE ARE GUAPOS! Alan giggles while walking away and tells Shocker to save it for later. Was this skit designed to make fun of Shocker being a little overweight? That's the impression I got.

La Parka Jr./El Intocable/El Zorro vs Shocker/Alan Stone/Zumbido(double duty): Nice exchange by Intocable/Alan was the early highlight of the match. From then on it was all Parka, all the time! His comedy was actually FUNNY! I know... UNREAL! The best stuff was when he was in with Zumbido and kept pinching Zumbido's rolls of fat. *LMAO* The entire second half of the match was all comedy as a matter of fact. But it was funny comedy and then Zorro did some quick work to remind us it was still a wrestling match. Rudos ended up turning Parka's mask around and he low blowed Zorro b/c he couldn't see. Rudos win. Sudden and cheap ending but they knew they couldn't top the previous match so this was perfectly acceptable. Tecnicos make up after the match and Parka dances.

Vampiro vs Cibernetico: Great video package before the match showing Vampiro RISING FROM THE DEAD since he got buried alive on the last TV show he was a part of. They cut right from him emerging from the ground to his entrance at the arena where he is in his old Misfits gear. I hope nobody expects much from these two in the ring though. They tried but mercifully La Secta ran into the ring and beat up both Vampiro and Hijo Del Tirantes for I assume a DQ although since the ref was KO'ed via a Ciber choke slam, who knows? Tecnicos end up saving Vamp who refuses to shake their hands. That was mean.

Excellent TV show! Highly reccomended, especially since Fredo has a CD with just the first five matches so you can skip the main event!

AAA: 1.
CMLL: 0.

Also, I just found out via reading a magazine that Chessman got his name from an American serial killer named Caryl Chessman. Cool trivia fact. I'd also like to point out once again... Chessman is the best kept secret in Mexico right now. The only guy who can outwork him(talking about EFFORT) is Ultimo Guerrero and MAYBE Rey Bucanero. This is a guy who would be PERFECT for TNA to bring in since he would make their guys X Division guys look like a million bucks. Sonjay would be all "dude, I wanna do a super frankensteiner off the top of a ladder" and Chessman would reply with "okay but can I take the bump to the floor instead of in the ring?" MAKE IT HAPPEN TNA! Fuck Team AAA... TEAM CHESSMAN IS ALL YOU NEED!

Random AAA Matches that never made Fredo's TV episodes:


El Alebrije/Pimpinela Escarlata/Cynthia Moreno vs The Monster/Sexy Francis/La Diabolica - 7/29/05: Pretty good match once it picked up after the rudo brawling. Pimpinela and Francis did some good work together. Lots of comedy as you'd expect but when that died down a bit, Alebrije and The Monster entered the ring and it sorta reminded me of Crabtree's gimmick from Chikara where he pops the pills and goes 100mph nuts. Alebrije and Monster were like "comedy out, wrestling in!" and they proceeded to do a really neat little exchange. Alebrije then got to work rudo against Diabolica and he took a nice bump or two and a spinning armdrag sending him outside. That's the fun part about these kinda matches, you get to see guys and girls work roles that they normally don't get to do. Pimpinela did a nice running somersault plancha on Francis. More fun in-ring stuff(match went a while). Francis got a clean pin on Pimpinela! Alebrije nailed Monster with a bullet tope suicida and Cuije followed with a plancha off the apron onto Chucky who seemed to hurt his leg jumping off the apron. Diabolica got a few nearfalls but Cynthia ended up pinning her to win. Nice long match with zero blown spots and good heat.

Alan Stone/El Zorro/Histeria vs Charly Manson/Psicosis/Zumbido - 9/10/05: Rudos brawled right from the start. Histeria/Psicosis ended up in the crowd and the people had to avoid Psicosis' chairshots. That guy is quite sloppy.:/ Tecnicos fought back of course but I just had this feeling that this couldn't go well as guys always try extra hard when they run Madero since it's always at least 15,000 fans(usually packed with 18,000). Well... I was right. Alan/Zumbido had an exchange that was looking good early on but then Alan slipped off the ropes trying a moonsault. No problem, they just moved on. Zumbido then missed grabbing the top rope taking his sallida bump and almost took a nasty spill to the floor. Lucky he caught himself on the apron. Alan then took off... and yep... OUCH! Over the top running somersault plancha but Zumbido misjudged the catch and Alan landed HARD on his tailbone. Zumbido rolled over to apologize and the doctors came to check on Alan. Not to be scared off by what just happened, Histeria and Psicosis had a nice exchange with Histeria looking good until he did a tope suicida and slammed heads with Psicosis. Both seemed shaken up, Histeria moreso. Zorro/Manson then worked a simple exchange which was smart at that point. Surprisingly everyone kept going as Alan, Histeria and Psicosis all got up on the apron after a few minutes. Zorro eliminated Manson early. Histeria did a really nice asai moonsault deep into the aisle on Psic. In his infinite wisdom, Alan did a high angle stunner on Zumbido and seemed to hurt his tailbone in the process. Zorro ended up pinning Zumbido to win the match and then challenged Manson for his title. Not a good match by any means but a fun spectacle.

Antifaz/La Parka Jr./Shocker vs Cibernetico/Chessman/Abismo - 9/10/05: More craziness from this set of tapings as Parka Jr. seemed to legit hurt himself early on and had to be stretchered out. Not sure if it was a work or not but it definitely seemed to screw everyone else up as the match just never went anywhere. Pointless brawling until Antifaz and Shocker were two quick exchanges with duh... Chessman and Abismo. Then the rudos just attacked the tecnicos at the same time and pinned them within seconds. Post-match Shocker got choke slammed through the ringside table and then Antifaz got choke slammed on top of Shocker. Good way to put over the rudos 8 days before the biggest show of the year.

Shika/Javi/Jessy vs Pentagon III/Angel Mortal/Mr. Condor - 9/18/05: The "lucha de regalo" from Verano De Escandalo. Early part was clipped out. Rudos were in control when the action picked up. They weren't particularly doing anything though. Comeback was real weak but the crowd popped b/c it's an AAA crowd. There seemed to be another clip and once again the rudos were in control. I wanted to see flying damnit! Guess I was S.O.L. here. One of the KK and Angel Mortal were on completely different pages so finally the rudo pointed to Shika and told him where to stand so when he got whipped intot he ropes he ran at Shika and got backdropped to the floor, then nailed with a plancha. Javi did a weak tope suicida on Pentagon III and Jessy pinned Mr. Condor to win this awful match.

IWRG TV 3/2/06:

Fucking technology! In the old days if you got a show that was taped when the feed was bad, you could still watch the action alright but once in a while it would get grainy. BUT YOU COULD STILL SEE EVERYTHING! Now when something is taped with digital interference, it's impossible to watch! I tried my hardest but it got so annoying that I quit after the second match and just FF'ed through everything else. Gonna have to get this on DVD somehow. Considering how much I buy off Fredo I'm sure he won't mind if I $hill a bit and just ask anyone who picked this show up to send me a message and we can talk trade. I also never got the 3/9 show sent to me for some reason so I'd love to see that as well obviously. Quick thoughts from what I did see of this show...

Gran Cuchillo/Halcon Salvaje vs El Macho II/Zaiyer: Crappy. Salvaje and Macho II are both old guys who have no business taking up space on IWRG shows unless they are helping the rookies along. Salvaje blows more spots than the rookies though and Macho never once worked with Cuchillo here. Garbage.

Star Boy/Marco Rivera/Panterita vs Black Jaguar/Black Terry/Fantasma De La Opera: Really hard to watch with the digital problems. Did see some nice flying by Panterita and what looked to be an *INSANE* spot in the third fall as he did an ASAI MOONSAULT INTO THE SECOND ROW TAKING FANTASMA DE LA OPERA WITH HIM!!! He better not ever disapear from IWRG TV!

Pantera/Sicodelico Jr./Kung Fu Jr. vs Cyborg/Protector/Xibalba: Unwatchable due to my recording.

Heavy Metal/Mike Segura/El Hijo Del Solitario vs Silver King/El Veneno/Cerebro Negro: Also unwatchable due to my recording. However it cleared up a bit at the end and I saw a really neat finish as Metal went to throw Segura onto Veneno who was outside the ring but Veneno ran away and Segura crashed hard! Metal went to check on him but as he did, Cerebro Negro nailed him with a tope suicida! Genius sequence of spots. I think the rudos cheated to win.

FF'ed through two LuchaMania shows. One had clips of a CMLL show in Cuautitlan and the above IWRG taping. The other had clips of an outdoor IWRG show, the Arena Aficion De Pachuca main event with Wagner/Silver King vs MA2K/U2K and the 3/9 IWRG taping. Nothing else worth mentioning.

I noticed the start of the next IWRG show I have(no digital interference!!!) has a tag match featuring Kid Tiger/Ultra Mega vs Black Jaguar/Zaiyer. 3 out of those 4 guys use the same freakin' gimmick! Damn cats! Meanwhile this is Ultra Mega's unmasked TV debut. Welcome back El Millonario.

CMLL TV 1/28/06:

Black Warrior/Blue Panther/Volador Jr. vs Apolo Dantes/Hombre Sin Nombre/Misterioso II: Only the third fall which is odd b/c I remember the 2nd fall airing as well a few months back. The only thing to say about this is they put together a nice complex finishing series of spots. It wasn't just 'grab a guy and go home' after the comeback. Warrior took a slingshot into the ringpost which was very Vegas-esque. Volador Jr. got assisted by Panther onto the top rope for his great Spanish Fly on Apolo. Great spot! Poor Blue Panther. Whereas the new match format is 100% benefitting a guy like Mistico, it is making Panther look like he has no business in the ring. We all know that's not true but CMLL may not be the place for him right now. I know he left AAA on bad terms but wouldn't a Panther/Fuerza tag team be cool to see again? He won't even have to worry about jobbing to Sagrada Jr. any more b/c Pena hates him now!

Mistico/Negro Casas/Heavy Metal vs El Averno/El Mephisto/Olimpico: Averno was sporting an awesome combo Averno/Rencor Latino mask that I must have! Oh BTW, I don't think I've ever said this surprisingly - I told you all Rencor Latino would be a star some day. Match was lucha by numbers and/or following the script to perfection. I haven't decided which term is better yet. Mistico looked brilliant in his little ring time and did this AMAZING spot where he got assisted into a moonsault by Mephisto and Averno caught him but Mistico countered with a spinning armdrag! The pops he gets every time he springboards into the ring are FUCKING LOUD! Third fall went a little longer than usual. Negro eliminated Mephisto with the worlds worst scorpion deathlock. Metal got eliminated by Olimpico but the refs kinda blew it. Metal looked awful as usual aside from a crazy somersault plancha off the top to end the second fall. Match came down to Mistico vs Averno. TAKE A WILD GUESS WHAT HAPPENED! At least they made it look better than ever! MISTICO! *clap clap clap*

Momentos only had one new spot: Springboard legdrop from Bam Bam to Pequeno Damian 666 who was on the ramp.

Tarzan Boy/MA2K/U2K vs Hector Garza/Mr. Aguila/Damian 666: Really good match. Perfect example of what Aguila brings to this feud as he hit some great spots in this match and took equally great bumps during the comeback. Tarzan looked a little refreshed which was good to see. Maybe this feud is going to keep bringing the best out of him. MA2K and U2K were great as usual but Garza was the star playing a total chickenshit who only got offense when he snuck up on the tecnicos or had a 3-on-1 edge. Definitely worth going out of your way to see.

Atlantis vs Perro Aguayo Jr.: Man the first fall was like amateur hour. It reminded me of a CZW junior match where the guys know all the spots they want to do but don't want to get to them right away and be dubbed spot monkeys. So they do some arm and leg work for a few minutes, then go into their big spots, forgetting that THEY JUST DESTROYED EACH OTHERS LEGS IN THEORY! I'm not a super psychology freak who whines when someone doesn't sell their pinky finger that just got worked on but I expect better from these two, especially Atlantis. In the first fall he looked like a 13 year old trying to have sex for the first time. "Ummm... OK... I've got him on the mat... elbowdrop! *pause* Ummm... ELBOWDROP! *pause*... grab the leg... what do I do... kick the leg!... punch the leg!... put the leg on the ropes!... act like I'm doing something to the leg!... tie the leg up and make a mean face for the camera!" It was pretty embarassing. Maybe Perrito was just being smart when he ended up getting right up after 3 minutes of leg work and just proceeding to run around the ring like nothing happened. Who knows. The third fall was just starting to get good when it ended abruptly. Hey, the analogy does work! These guys can do better and they'll have the chance next week.

Better than average CMLL show. If the guys in the main event had done what they are capable of, might have better a must-see episode.

AAA TV in Toluca 1/19/06:

Yes, Fredo does not have this listed but I have a copy on my computer. I want to share it but when I tried to use YSI while typing this up - it said I am not a member and the file is too big anyhow. I'll try to use megaupload tomorrow. It's only 160mb or so. Quality isn't too hot but I wouldn't complain if I were you guys b/c it's 3 hours of free (awesome) Lucha and you would never get to see this show any other way.

Mascarita 2000/Prince (Star?) vs Mini Chessman/Jerrito Estrada: Now I'm not sure if he's just Prince or Prince Star since they kept using both. Anyways, what a better way to open up a TV show then with - *20 MINUTES OF GREAT MINI'S ACTION*! They worked the mat, they had some nice exchanges, the rudos got the heat up on the tecnicos, there was a comeback, dives and a good finish. Just perfect. Prince had a couple of nice spots with both rudos. Mascarita was amazing as usual but was a little toned down for this match. Plus he didn't have Mini Abismo or Mini Psic whom he trusts the most with catching. Near the end Prince did a nice tope suicida on Mini Chessman and Mascarita did the same to Jerrito but almost crashed and would have if it wasn't for Jerrito making a sudden lunge to catch him. Mascarita goes over Jerrito with a springboard 450 splash. How wrong is it that this match went longer than both the middle CMLL TV matches above combined!!!

Barrio Boys vs Picudo/Nygma/Silver Cat: Triple tope suicidas from the Barrios to start off and then we got some really nice fast exchanges. The improvement of all the Barrio Boys is remarkable, especially Billy Boy. Really good back and forth stuff as the Barrios were even acting as bases for the Vatos which is always fun to see. Rudos did a short beatdown. After the comeback there was some more flying by the tecnicos. Alan did his trademark running twisting moonsault onto Nygma. Decnis then geared up to dive on Silver Cat and went for what looked to be a flip plancha through the ropes but he landed RIGHT ON THE GUARDRAIL STOMACH FIRST!!! Looked BRUTAL on the replay but he survived. This left Billy Boy and Picudo. Billy Boy slammed Picudo and went up for a moonsault. Meanwhile Picudo got handed his torch and as Billy Boy did the backflip - FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!!!!!!!!!!!! Great looking spot and didn't look the least bit predictable as they had the timing down perfect. Vatos win a really strong match although I've seen these teams do better together(AAA TV in San Luis Potosi from August 2004 to be precise).

Histeria vs Psicosis - Winner faces Zumbido for National Middleweight Title: This was the perfect mix of actual wrestling and the usual AAA garbage which this time... (at least to me)... didn't end up being garbage!!! It was entertaining!!! They started with some nice matwork and submission holds. Things picked up and next thing you know Histeria nails Psicosis with a running somersault plancha over the top rope! More fun stuff inside and then Psic hangs Histeria over the top rope and dropkicks him in the back of the head!!! AWESOME SPOT! Surely someone has to steal that b/c it was too cool of a spot to never see again. Psic then flies over the top with what might have been a running tope but he tucked at the last second to avoid death. Smart. Then the angle began as Tirantes was the ref and started to help Histeria out. Why? Tirantes = AAA ref. Histeria = AAA wrestler. Psicosis = LLL wrestler. AHA! The fans caught on and it was kinda surreal to see the tecnico being the one helped by the ref for a change. Psicosis being a good rudo said "fuck this" and showed how the tecnicos SHOULD deal with rudo refs as he got a chaired and hammered Histeria... and then NAILED Tirantes! Nice bladejob by the rudo ref. El Piero came out to take over as referee and he was the LLL ref so now Psicosis had the advantage. OR NOT. Pepe Casas came out and started yelling at Piero who grabbed the old man and threatened to beat him up. Meanwhile Histeria got the chair and nailed Psicosis! Tirantes got up and pulled Piero off Pepe Casas... double dropkicks... DOUBLE TOPE SUICIDAS FROM HISTERIA AND TIRANTES! HUGE POP! Histeria rolls Psicosis back inside... slam... moonsault off the top rope! 1... 2... 3!!! HISTERIA IN THE FINALS!!! Fucking awesome little angle and the match wasn't too bad either. I'm torn between this and Angel/Apache as my favorite tournament match.

Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz vs Antifaz Del Norte/Corazon De Barrio/Hator: Part of the AAA vs Monterrey feud that should have never even begun. Antifaz and Barrio as rudos does NOT work. This was a total brawl. Nothing even worth mentioning. Secta runs in for the DQ. I can see why someone watching this would be tempted to say AAA blows.

But then...

La Parka Jr./El Intocable/Pimpinela Escarlata vs Casandro/Charly Manson/Chessman: ... WOW! The first few minutes of this was pretty bad with just brawling mixed with one or two neat spots from Casandro and Chessman. But the next 13 minutes... yes... 13 minutes, i.e. PART OF A MATCH IN AAA unlike CMLL where 13 minutes is usually A MATCH... OR TWO! As I was saying... the next 13 minutes... OFF THE CHARTS AMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAZING! This is must-see for sure. Awesome work, awesome comedy, crowd loved it, announcers loved it, I loved it and you will all love it! The rudos were putting on an exhibition on how to make your weaker opponents look like ten million billion trillion bucks! First Parka Jr. got to toss all three around with a little added comedy. Casandro took a sickening bump off the top rope to the floor! Then Intocable got to go nuts with any rudo of his choosing. He had a great comedy spot with Casandro where Casandro loved his dancing so much... HE FAINTED! The crowd was going apeshit for all this. Pimpinela then came in and had a fantastic exchange with Casandro, then an even better exchange with Chessman! Finally he worked with Manson and then kissed him which got the huge pop as it was the spot that was building all match. Parka and Chessman then entered the ring and had a SLAP COMPETITION! Holy fuck were they ever loud slaps. Stiff work in AAA? WTF? This might have been my favorite part of the match as the announcers were busting a gut when Chessman went to hit Parka and he shrieked so Chessman stopped and then Parka covered his eyes and signalled "go ahead", then got HAMMERED! Parka nailed Chessman with his second slap and it sounded like a fucking gunshot! The wrestlers on the apron were getting as into it as the fans were! Then it was time for more wrestling and Parka Jr. even tried that crazy move L.A. Park once did where he springboard backwards off the second rope and went for a Victory Roll(that's like STOPPING IN MID-AIR which is impossible) but Chessman blocked it and got a two count. Chessman ended up taking a huge bump outside and Parka Jr. followed with a tope suicida into an armdrag! Pimpinela then threw Casandro around and sent her outside with a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge sallida and followed with a bullet tope suicida! Fucking awesome finish as Chessman ran up the ropes and went for a moonsault but Parka moved out of the way! He then went to attack Chessman who countered with a low blow! Cheap AAA finish, eh? OR NOT! Fucking insane innovative spot where Parka blocked the low blow by squeezing his legs together trapping Chessman's arm... AND TURNING IT RIGHT INTO A MAGISTRAL CRADLE FOR THE 3 COUNT!!! Oh man... I can't say enough about the entire last half of this match and the finish in particular. Fuck all of you who still think the guys in AAA can't put on good match after seeing this!

Abismo Negro vs Cibernetico - Cage Match: NO MATCH could have followed the one that just occured but I have a feeling even if these guys WANTED to top it, they wouldn't have been able to. Secta runs into the cage - Intocable runs out in the Secta get-up and tells Ciber he wants in the group - Ciber celebrates and high fives Intocable but gets low blowed! Abismo gets dragged to safety by Intocable as he took quite the beating. Good angle... crowd seemed to love it.

Matches 1, 2, 3 and 5 were fantastic. Must-see episode even if it will be in low quality. Like I said, I'll work on an upload tomorrow when I find a place to host it since I don't know if megaupload can handle 169mb.

Updated score(as if there was any doubt):

CMLL - 0
AAA - 2

They might both lose to IWRG as the next episode has Segura vs Cerebro - Hair vs Hair! Match of the year potential!

CMLL TV 2/4/06:

What a horrible birthday episode!

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./Brazo De Plata vs Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Olimpico: Awful. Tecnicos win a by the numbers first fall and two minutes into the second fall the rudos get DQ'ed for ripping off the tecnicos' masks. I understand this was put together last minute when Parka no-showed but surely these guys all have the experience to work a solid match under rushed circumstances.

Only new Momentos spot was a wicked Valiente moonsault plancha where he looked to break a rib on the landing. Ouch.

Mistico/Negro Casas/Black Warrior vs Tarzan Boy/Averno/Mephisto: 3 minute first fall, 2 minute second fall and 3 minute third fall. If they don't want to bother working more than 8 minutes, I won't bother spending more than 45 seconds writing about it.

Atlantis vs Perro Aguayo Jr. - NWA Light Heavyweight Title: Better than the previous week. In fact, pretty good match overall aside from the shit finish. Perrito is big time exposed trying to work a straight wrestling match since that's not his style(never was his father's either) so they covered well by doing some brawling and creating drama for the finish with the seconds brawling on the floor. Still... a main event title match ending on a DQ for a low blow? No challenge for a rematch? No mask vs hair the following week? No commision interfereing and ordering a fourth fall? Really weak booking.

If CMLL was going to beat AAA, this woulda been the week to do it but they really blew it. After reading the recent rudopolis TV reviews I do kinda get where the guy is coming from when he says CMLL seems to purposely put on as awful TV shows as possible and that even if asked for 3 hours they would probably turn it down. The mindset there is still that TV takes away from their attendance. Yet... they book matches that revolve around TV time being so short. What am I missing here?

AAA TV in Salamanca - 1/29/06:

Billy Boy/Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Martha Villalobos vs Gran Apache/Mini Abismo Negro/Tiffany: 2 out of 3 falls!!! Nice surprise. Rudos brawled and won the first fall. Apache is so awesome. The comeback sequence in the second fall was BRILLIANT. When you think comeback spot, you're likely to think of the generic rudos pull their own partner into the ringpost or rudos get tripped while running the ropes or the way overused rudos screw up the Sabu corner spot. These guys(and girls) all managed to put together a spot where everyone was in the right position for about 8 straight spots(all via different tecnicos) that got HUGE POPS for 8 moves. It was like a full 30 seconds of constant insane crowd reactions culminating with a really fast spinning headscissors by Mascarita 2000 and a huge tope suicida onto Mini Abismo! Tecs take the fall. Third fall had more fun stuff aside from when Martha got in. Mini dive train with a Billy Boy tope suicida, Tiffany flip plancha and Martha plancha off the apron. For a change Mascarita *DOESN'T WIN WITH HIS SPINNING OCTOPUS HOLD*!!! Instead Mini Abismo fights off two nearfalls and uses a cool submission to get a clean win. Fun opener.

Histeria vs Zumbido - Mexican National Middleweight Title: 2 out of 3 falls!!! TWO SURPRISES IN ONE SHOW!!! Some decent matwork to start off and then the usual "we're equal" spots. Histeria with a nice tope suicida and then a moonsault to take the first fall. Second fall starts fast and this time Zumbido nails a dive catching Histeria with a plancha off the top. They do a few nearfalls(the type of thing CMLL doesn't allow their guys to do) which gets the crowd a little more into the match as they didn't care at first b/c Histeria really isn't a) a tecnico or b) a good tecnico. Zumbido wins the fall with a moonsault as well. Nice head games. Third fall has some more nearfalls. Histeria did an asai moonsault. Zumbido did a slingshot somersault senton. Then after a few more nearfalls, the stupidity began. JJ Jr. was Histeria's second and did a flying dropkick knocking Zumbido outside. He almost fucked up a tope suicida and then did actually fuck up catching a Histeria tope suicida. Zumbido rolled Histeria inside and used an upside down Indian Deathlock(???) for the win. Guapos beat up JJ Jr. afterwards. YAY!

El Alebrije/El Zorro/Electro Shock vs Charly Manson/Chessman/The Monster: The two week run of MOTYC's from Chessman stopped here. Crappy brawling early on. Crappy comeback spot. Some okay exchanges but nothing to go crazy for. Alebrije tope'd Monster. Chucky did the same to Alebrije. Cuije did the same to Chucky. Chessman did a worked knee injury so he could be excused while they did an angle where Zorro/Electro teamed up to beat Manson with a double team power bomb but Zorro refused to pin him and kept beating the crap out of him with his kendo stick and fist. Manson was a bloody mess and finally Electro looked like he was going to snap and cane Zorro but he didn't. The problem with this is it went about 6-7 minutes. If they had done it once... twice... maybe three times... the tease would have been good but they teased it for so long that it got stupid. Manson got stretchered, Electro walked off and then Zorro pinned Chessman while Alebrije pinned Monster. Electro and Zorro had a staredown afterwards. Good angle in theory.

Octagon/La Parka Jr./Triple A vs ZUMBRAZO!/Pirata Morgan/Espectro Jr.: This made no sense as the last time I saw Brazo he was opposite Morgan at Triplemania. And Espectro Jr. hasn't been around in ages... WTF? Just an excuse for Parka to do his comedy I guess. Not much of a match. Tecs win when Espectro yanks off Triple A's mask. BAAAAAAAAAAAAD!

Vampiro vs Shocker vs Cibernetico - Dog Collar Match: Well... at least it was short. Some of the spots were creative, I'll give them that. Ciber unhooked himself and left to go get La Secta. I think this was the start of the Secta/Guapos feud but I guess the next TV show will tell for sure.

Really average AAA TV episode. First two matches are worth seeing but from then on it's all downhill.

Even with an average episode, AAA was competing with CMLL garbage so the shutout continues:

CMLL - 0
AAA - 3

CMLL 2/11 is a one match show so I'll probably just combine it with the 2/18 show when doing a comparison.

I must restate this: PICK UP SOME AAA PEOPLE!!! Yes, CMLL has the best roster of wrestlers in the world but it's like the Yankees signing up every great player in the league and only playing them every 5th game for half a game and they still manage to lose 70% of the games they play. Blue Panther actually had an interesting interview recently where he said he calls the new style of Lucha Libre(refering to CMLL) - "suicidal". He expected the new guys to revolutionize Lucha Libre by combining their insane new spots and moves with the old style but instead Lucha is just evolving as the old style completely disapears. He said he is amazed that even though Lucha has been on TV for 16 years, it took this long for TV to finally start changing what Lucha Libre really is and that is not a good thing.

I couldn't agree more. Thank god for AAA still being around.

CMLL TV 2/11/06:

Short episode b/c of the Olympics. But I think if they had just aired the top 3 matches from 1st fall start to 3rd fall finish with no repeats or introductions, they could have squeezed everything into 45 minutes.

Momentos had BAM BAM jumping off the edge of the ramp onto Pequeno Violencia with a plancha and Ultimo Dragoncito using a nasty tiger suplex on Pequeno Halloween who looks awesome.

Mistico/Negro Casas/Black Warrior vs El Averno/El Mephisto/Tarzan Boy: 1st/2nd falls were just Momentos Estelares. Great dives by Warrior and Mistico to end the 2nd fall. The 3rd fall was FANTASTIC! It's a shame they couldn't have two other good falls to make this a complete match. Lots of mask ripping which the crowd went nuts for. Casas dropkicked Tarzan off the apron and then hit the silla. Straight home with Warrior submitting Mephisto and Mistico hitting THE BEST MISTICA EVER on Averno. You gotta hear the crowd reaction... it's insane!

For a one match show this was a pretty great show.

AAA TV in Puebla - 2/3/06:

Pimpinela Escarlata/Super Fly vs Aliens/Drago: This was a randomly thrown together match as Pimpinela was supposed to face Cassandro but he/she got hurt a week before. Instead Pimpi teamed with 1/4th of my new favorite stable against two random rudos. Drago is not the Gronda's brother Drago, just a local guy. Rudos brawled early on. Tecnicos made a comeback. Super Fly did some fantastic highspots ending with a gorgeous 12 FOOT HIGH ASAI MOONSAULT... TO NOWHERE!!! Drago ran away so Super Fly had to land on his feet from so high up in the air and he looked like he hurt himself. But only "looked like" b/c about 15 seconds later as Pimpinela/Aliens squared off, Super Fly came running between them and lept onto Drago with a tope suicida! Definitely a 'holy shit' moment as nobody could have seen that coming! Pimpi kissed Aliens and the crowd went crazy. Why? Aliens has this huge mask that shows none of his face! More fun stuff from the tecnicos ending with a running somersault plancha by Pimpi as Super Fly does a plancha off the top onto Drago. Rudos get DQ'ed for using a chair. Once again AAA comes through with a solid opener.

For some reason they have Cassandro cut a promo AFTER the previous match where he explains his injury and they even show the clip. He tried an asai moonsault but overshot and landed hard on the guardrail in Monterrey. YIKES! It's a shame b/c the Pimpi/Cassandro feud was just getting started and they had two weeks in a row of fantastic matches.

Ultraman Jr./Chivas Rayadas I y II vs Angel Mortal/Mr. Condor/El Gallego: The Chivas had to be the Apache's or at least Apache II and another old-school luchador b/c the Chivas were KICKING ASS in this match. Great mat exchange at the start with Chiva I and Angel Mortal. Mortal used this wicked transition into an armbar that had me marking out. While that was going on the announcers tried to figure out who the other member of Los Diabolicos was. They never figured it out. Poor Marabunta. Rudos brawled to win fall one. Good spot in fall two with a false comeback stopped when Angel Mortal dropped Chiva II on the guardrail throat first. Tecs win by DQ when Ultraman Jr. has his mask torn off. Chiva II and Angel Mortal had a FUCKING AWESOME exchange in the last fall. The soccer goat even busted out a REVERSE MONKEY FLIP which I haven't seen done in years! Sequence ended with Chiva II skinning the cat from inside the ring to the outside into a headscissors on Mortal! WHOA! Later in the fall with Chiva I standing on the second rope, his brother goat stood ON HIS SHOULDERS and did a flying cross body press on one of the Diabolicos. The Chivas ended up doing dual running somersault planchas while holding each other's arm which must have been really scary. Ultraman Jr. wins the match with La Campana(what's that? LUCKAWIKI.COM!). Really strong effort from everyone.

Super Calo/Cats/JJ De La Barbola Jr. vs Alan Stone/Scorpio Jr./Zumbido: Scorpio Jr. is a surprise luchador but he comes out wearing a Scorpio Jr. jacket and tights with scorpions on them. OK. This was pretty awful but at least they didn't TRY to wrestle. Just brawling until the tecnicos got a hope spot which included Super Calo doing an asai moonsault to Scorpio Jr. and JJ Jr. doing a frankensteiner off the apron on Alan Stone. Cats and Zumbido horribly blew a top rope armdrag spot. Cats wanted Calo to help him do a dive but Calo was in the wrong spot so Cats just shoved him in the right spot and then took off again to nail a GIGANTIC assisted running somersault plancha! He looked to break his ankle on the landing and ended up stretchered out. Nice knowing you local boy. Rudos beat the crap out of JJ Jr. until Intocable makes the save.

El Zorro/El Intocable/Electro Shock vs Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Continuing the Zorro/Shock feud here as neither wanted to be friends and Intocable had to keep seperating them. 75% of the match was dominated by the rudos anyhow. When the tecs made their comeback, Electro struggled through an exchange with all of them. He is sooooooooooooooooo awful. They did a miscommunication spot with Electro and Zorro leading to both going outside. Escoria went for a pescado but got caught and thrown VIOLENTLY into the second row! He so didn't deserve that after bumping his ass off all match long. Then came a really innovative spot where Electro teased going for an asai moonsault but as he jumped up onto the second rope to do so, Ozz ran at him from inside the ring so Electro spread his legs to avoid it and Ozz ended up nailing Inotcable on the floor with a tope suicida!!! Today was the day for innovation, what can I say. Zorro had Cuervo beat inside the ring but Electro wouldn't let the referee count and walked off. Zorro and Intocable then got their asses beat down until a DQ was called.

Octagon/La Parka Jr./Abismo Negro/El Magnate vs Cibernetico/Chessman/Charly Manson/Fuerza Guerrera: You know, for as smart as some of AAA's booking is... it totally gets overshadowed by these really idiotic decisions Pena makes every so often. EL MAGNATE? It was Luzbel without the bodypaint doing a Million Dollar Man gimmick. It made no fucking sense and why bother using him as a tecnico in that role? Magnate is such a 1992 gimmick anyways. Not only was that gimmick a mess, so was this match. Typical awful AAA main event. Not even Chessman could save it. Abismo came out with an injured leg so the entire match was a beatdown. Abismo disapeared halfway through the match. Then Magnate and Fuerza disapeared somehow. Chessman yanked off Octagon's mask and pinned him. Octagon low blowed Chessman but no ref called anything. Ciber then injured Parka's leg and made him submit. Rudos then challenged for a shot at the tag titles which aired the following week but Fredo's source never taped it. This match was absolutely a complete 100% abomination.

Aside from the horrible main event and not so great tercera, you'd still get your $5 worth picking up the DVD. AAA continues to roll...

AAA - 3 1/2
CMLL - 0

I won't give AAA the full 4 until I watch the 2/18 CMLL show and see how that compares.

IWRG TV 3/19/06:

Kid Tiger/Ultra Mega vs Black Jaguar/Zaiyer: I think it's really neat to be watching Kid Tiger now b/c you know in 7-8 years he will be one of the top CMLL mid-carders just based on who he is. It's interesting to see him now(young kid who is learning) and in 7-8 years we can see how he turned out... which will hopefully be as well as his dad. Ultra Mega's unmasked debut here so he decided to bust out some really good wrestling. They split the first two falls and in the third fall the tecnicos start to have problems which leads to Ultra Mega turning on Kid Tiger and then letting himself get pinned. Hey... it had to happen. Everyone knows Ultra Mega = Millonario and he just doesn't have the look to be a tecnico without the mask. Can't wait to see him working rudo again. Millonario was actually one of the first guys to regularly work with the Toryumon crew when they were in Mexico. Back on Fredo's early IWRG/MTY comps., there is a really great match with Susumu/Kanda/Arai vs Millonario/Colt/Rodi. I remember marking out over that while watching with Jose.

Avisman I/Panterita/Star Boy vs Cyborg/Magnum Protect/AK-47: New IWRG police rudos! Continuing the long history of that gimmick which is: Oficial, Guardia, Vigilante, Maniac Cop, Cyborg Cop, Vader Cop, Policeman, Policeman II, Xibalba, Polizon and now... Magnum Protect & AK-47. FWIW, their outfits are the same ones Policeman I and II wore. They looked really good in their debut. In fact, this match was fucking killer and highlighted by the SPOT OF THE YEAR SO FAR! But that's later. First fall started slow as usual but then the rudos took over. Panterita got backdropped into the fucking rafters! Right after that he seemed to get hurt somehow and the doctor had to check on him. The 20 foot backdrop doesn't hurt but a fist to the face causing blood to pour out of his mask. Tecnicos fight back(this is still the first fall!) and Panterita does a PLANCHA OVER THE RINGPOST on AK-47! Star Boy pins Cyborg for the fall as Avisman DDT's Magnum on the outside. Second fall... holy fucking shit... Panterita goes craaaaaaaaaaaaazy and starts throwing all the rudos around. He does this insane rope assisted frankensteiner on Cyborg and then... ladies and gentleman... SPOT OF THE YEAR TIME! I don't want to spoil for anyone who might still want to see this show w/o knowing so...

[SPOILER]Panterita is in the ring with AK-47 and gets backdropped onto the apron. He shoulderblocks the rudo who turns around. Panterita then slingshot somersaults himself over the ropes and rolls off AK-47's back right into a bodyscissors! So it's like a slingshot 360 into a bodyscissors and then as AK-47 picks him up in the bodyscissors - Magnum Protect comes running over but Panterita catches him with a spinning huracanrana!!! UNREAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone with this DVD needs to make a video clip of this spot NOW![/SPOILER]

Panterita then does some more stuff and an asai moonsault onto his feet as the crowd goes apeshit with a huge 'PANTERITA' chant! After some more exchanges by the tecnicos, Avisman and Magnum end up outside the ring. Panterita and AK-47 seem to get a little crossed up so Panterita shows AK-47 where to stand, runs into the ropes... AND GETS ASSISTED INTO A FUCKING HUGE RUNNING SOMERSAULT PLANCHA!!! He got so high... I kid you not... he was OUT OF CAMERA RANGE! This kid is something to see. Star Boy gets double teamed by the remaining rudos but after winning the second fall they refuse to stop the beating so they get DQ'ed. Revenge match agreed on for next week! YES! Awesome match!

Lizmark/Pantera/Fantasma Jr./La Sombra Del Golfo(who? what? where?) vs Cerebro Negro/El Averno/El Mephisto/El Hijo Del Pierroth: I'm too lazy to check who no-showed on the tecnico side but for some reason the name Fantastik is in my head. No clue who Sombra Del Golfo was but he was dark skinned(like Salsero) and the announcers kept saying he was from Acapulco. He wasn't too bad for an unknown replacement wrestling in the pants he came to the arena in. This match was really good aside from the parts when Lizmark was in the ring. He needs to quit wrestling b/c he is ruining his rep at this point. Could BARELY execute his famous huracanrana and in the first fall he almost crashed and burned bad trying his diving tope off the top. Pantera did an awesome flip plancha in the third fall. Rudos won the match CLEAN!

Mike Segura vs Dr. Cerebro - Hair vs Hair: What... a... LETDOWN! I was predicting MOTY from this and they didn't even come close. They might have if not for the fact it turns out this match was just being used to setup Segura vs Cerebro Negro. Maybe THAT will be the MOTYC? Panterita/Cerebro Negro were the seconds so right away you knew something was up. Match started really fast and Cerebro won the first fall in no time at all. Cerebro Negro kept interfereing in the second fall until finally Segura dropkicked him off the apron into the first row! *L* Segura was able to make Cerebro submit clean with no Cerebro Negro to interfere. Third fall started with a neat little new spot as Cerebro sent Segura outside and nailed him with a tope suicida! As Segura regained his senses and got up... Cerebro was waiting with another tope suicida! Back-to-back tope's! Genius. Segura bladed but it wasn't his usual gruesome bladejob. Some nice nearfalls and nearsubmissions. I liked this one spot they did with a frankensteiner by Segura and it looked like Cerebro was going to sunset flip him but Segura barely hung on except Cerebro rolled back as well and turned it into a half crab but Segura was in the ropes. Segura nailed Cerebro with a moonsault plancha off the second turnbuckle. Then it was time for the screwy finish as Cerebro Negro interfered and low blowed Segura behind the referee's back. The original referee countred the pinfall but as he hit 3, another ref came in and raised Segura's hand for the DQ win. Lots of mic work afterwards with Cerebro Negro/Segura agreeing to a hair match and Dr. Cerebro getting his head shaved even though he thought it was undeserved. Damnit, I wanted a fourth fall! Okay match if you don't mind the screwjob ending. Definitely didn't hit my expectations.

This is one IWRG episode you NEED to pick up.

What a great day for new spots. Panterita's insanity, Ozz's tope suicida and on AAA TV Rey Cometa did a gorgeous running corkscrew plancha(ala Mistico) into an armdrag on Apache!

CMLL TV 2/18/06:

This one is a must-have folks.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./La Mascara vs Atlantis/Rey Bucanero/Sangre Azteca: Awesome to see Azteca working in a big match like this. He fit in so well and took some big bumps that the older crew in CMLL wouldn't have taken if their lives depended on it. Wagner even looked a little more motivated knowing he was working with another rudo that would bump hard for him. First fall had lots of neat spots. Wagner took out Atlantis with a somersault off the ramp and the other two tecnicos used their usual finishers to take the fall. Mascara and Dos Jr. both did exchanges in the second fall before the rudos took over. Azteca hit Wagner with a huge plancha to the floor! Other rudos used their finishers on the remaining tecnicos. Third fall had a really nice finishing sequence with Wagner taking a sick bump to the floor along with Atlantis. Then Dos Jr. yanked Azteca off the ropes while he tried an asai moonsault. Bucanero attacked Dos Jr. on the floor but then got nailed by La Mascara who flew over the ringpost with a plancha! Another example of things just starting to pick up when Wagner countered a huracanrana with a sunset flip and got the three right away. Would 30 seconds more have killed them?

Momentos was all new due to the shortened previous show. Cool spots included Tigre Metalico with a moonsault plancha on Apocalipsis and Ultimo Guerrero countering the Code Red by yanking La Parka's mask off.

Universo 2000/Ultimo Guerrero/Tarzan Boy vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Terrible: All you need to know is the finishes b/c that's all there was. In the first fall Ultimo assisted Tarzan into a plancha on Garza and Terrible. Then Ultimo nailed everyone with a plancha off the top. Perrito missed the Lanza in the ring but sold it like he was dead so when Universo went to lock on a submission, Perrito rolled him up for the win. Perrito nailed Universo with La Silla in the second fall but his team lost anyways. I forget how. As usual things started to pick up in the third fall when everyone went home. Perrito went up for La Lanza but got distracted by two guys coming to the ring in Dinamitas masks. They ended up attacking Universo's team though which caused a DQ. They cut promos and of course unmasked as Damian 666 and Mr. Aguila. Crowd seemed more confused than anything. I was pretty confused myself. Why did Perrito get himself DQ'ed?

Averno/Mephisto vs Mistico/Black Warrior - CMLL Tag Team Titles: This was the SHOW SAVER! MOTYC for sure, at least in my book. First fall started nice and slow. I liked the Mistico/Mephsito stuff. Rudos took over and won the fall within seconds. In the second fall the tecnicos did a nice comeback and won seconds afterwards. Third fall got plenty of time and they did a bunch of neat stuff unless you count one fucked up Black Warrior spot. There was a crazy series of complex moves which included some Mistico flying in the ring, a springboard armdrag to Averno on the ramp, Warrior tripping so Mistico could 6-1-9 him on the ramp and Warrior doing a slingshot legdrop taking he and Mephisto to the floor. It came off way better than it reads and the crowd was RED HOT afterwards. They did some really good nearfalls. Crowd was just waiting to explode and cheer Mistico winning another title. Both rudos got sent outside by Mistico and Warrior hit his awesome tope of death knocking Averno into the front row, then Mistico did a plancha over the ringpost onto Mephisto! Both tecnicos got whipped into each other on the outside and Mistico got crotched leaving Warrior all alone. He was able to fight off both rudos and eliminated Mephisto but then Averno pinned him immediatly afterwards. DOWN TO TWO! Crowd was big time into seeing Mistico win and they did two nearfalls that got HUGE REACTIONS. Finally Mistico hit Averno with the same move(somersault into a sunset flip) that won him the second fall but Averno rolled forwards and grabbed the ropes. 1... 2... Warrior dropkicked Averno from the ramp to break it up! The referee argued with Warrior as Mistico and Averno got up... Mistico into the ropes... LA MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTICA! NUEVO CAMP... NO! THE REF RAISED AVERNO'S HAND FOR THE DQ!!! Can't say enough about the finish here. You had the 12,000 Mistico fans screaming at the top of their lungs b/c they thought he was the new tag champion and then you had the remaining 2,000 rudo fans scream equally as loud when Averno's hand got raised. It was AWESOME! It was so heated that a fan actually tried to hit the ring while the post-match confusion was going on but security stopped him. Really fun match and crazy finish.

Well if you combine this episode with the 2/11 show:
AAA - 3
CMLL - 1

The comeback begins! This was seriously a really great show and well worth the $5.

IWRG 11/3/05:

Old episode I never ended up watching...

Antaris/Kid Tiger vs Colt/Black Jaguar: Colt had his working boots for this one. Awesome mat exchange early on including a Skayde specialty where he controls Antaris' arms while throwing him all over the place and then covering him. The Kid Tiger/Black Jaguar stuff was fun too. Unforunately we missed lots of the middle and end of the match as the cameras kept cutting backstage as Javier Llanes was interviewing everyone in the Castillo Del Terror main event. Rudos win after Colt armdrags Antaris off the top rope and Jaguar uses a tiger driver variation on Kid Tiger.

Aquiles/Panterita/Ultra Mega vs Pirata Morgan Jr./Kaleth/Nemesis: Also suffered from various cutaways to backstage stuff. Reminded me of early IWRG TV episodes from 1999 where they would do this all the time and edit out entire falls just to show interviews.:/ This was actually one of the more spotty matches I've seen in recent IWRG history. You had to figure it would be with the participants. Ultra Mega did a tope suicida in the first fall. Tecnicos took it. Rudos brawled to start the second fall but the tecnicos made their comeback early. Panterita did a handspring monsault but got superkicked by Nemesis. After recovering, Panterita sent Nemesis outside and hit a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE running somersault plancha where he landed ass-first ON the guardrail. Tecnicos had the match won but out of nowhere the rudos reversed moves and hit dual moonsaults for the win. After coming back from more interviews we were in the middle of more flying. Aquiles horribly blew a pescado. Ultra Mega did another tope suicida where it looked like he was aiming for a first row landing but came up short. Panterita tried to win the match but no such luck. Aquiles/Ultra Mega re-entered but got sent back outside by Kaleth/Pirata Jr. who nailed a plancha/tope suicida respectively. Horrible camerawork ruined the spot. Panterita was finally able to pin Nemesis and win the match for his team. A+ for effort from all involved.

Mike Segura/Sagrado/Matrix vs Cyborg/El Enterrador 2000/Nitro: Nitro replaced an injured Dr. Cerebro(got tombstoned the week before by Mazada). Entire match was just a huge brawl designed to get Enterrador 2000 over as a monster. When the brawling stopped, Segura sent Cyborg to the floor and hit an AWESOME tope suicida taking both guys into the crowd and two fans + one security member down hard. Now that's chaos! In the ring Matrix had Nitro giving up but Sagrado was put in a torture rack by Enterrador 2000 who kicked Matrix to break up the hold and then threw Sagrado onto the referee for a DQ. Well... it doesn't make for a good match but that's definitely how you establish a monster.

Cage match was the main event and I already reviewed it somewhere else. Mazada won Cerebro Negro's mask in a huge upset.

Good episode, glad I remembered to pick it up finally.

CMLL TV 2/25/06:

This was a *FULL ARENA MEXICO SHOW*!!! Unfortunately they picked one of the weaker weeks to do something like that but if you are a fan of conspiracy theories then they MEANT it.

First up they aired a trios match from the week before that aired on Guerreros Del Ring instead of something new. The only positive to this is it aired without the stupid third fall editing that Canal 52 did.

Leono/Tigre Metalico vs Apocalipsis/Hooligan: Undercarders - YAY! Right? WRONG! Don't get me wrong... fun seeing them... but the match was shorter than a Momentos Estelares segment! I timed it at 6:03 of whistle-to-whistle action. The third fall which didn't appear to have any clipping lasted less than a minute and a half and had only ONE EXCHANGE. First fall was neat only b/c the rudos used cool double team moves as finishers. Second fall was about a minute long and had an ugly dive by Leono. I was happy here b/c I figured with such a short second fall they would speed things up in the third fall and have some really nice stuff. WRONG. One exchange and Tigre dives onto Hooligan with an ugly tope suicida. Leono suplexes Apocalipsis and springboard frog splashes him. 1. 2. 3. O...K.

Tony Rivera/Sagrado/Metro vs Hombre Sin Nombre/Hajime Ohara/Shigeo Okumura: This was probably my match of the show. I remember reading in the Observer how Meltzer said the fans hated this entire show b/c of short matches and they hated this one in particular b/c they did 3 falls in 7 minutes. I think he got his info wrong somewhere b/c the fans boo'ed the NEXT MATCH and this was actually about 10-11 minutes of solid action. Sagrado did an in-ring Aguila/Venum tornillo in the first fall! Metro did a tope suicida onto someone. Watched this two days ago so memory is foggy. Second fall was really good with the non-formula finish where a tecnico got pinned and it looked like they were done in two straight falls but they came back and evened things up to a big pop. Rivera did a tope suicida into a sunset flip in the third fall which seems like a very hard spot to pull off correctly. Lots of back and forth stuff at the end, ending with the rudos pinning Sagrado who was the captain. Very good effort by everyone. Not lucha by numbers at all. In fact, far from it.

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./Heavy Metal vs Apolo Dantes/Mascara Ano 2000/Rey Bucanero: Let me say this first - I understand this was awful b/c 30 seconds into the match MA2K dislocated his shoulder. It looked pretty gruesome and right away he tried to get Apolo to pop it back into place but it wasn't working so he and Apolo left to get medical help backstage. Here is where my problem with the match starts... these are six guys who are trained veterans and yet they couldn't even continue the match for 30 more seconds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They went into panic mode and Metal pinned Bucanero with the Casita. Apolo walked back out and refused to get in the ring. WHY? So he got counted out and that was that. Fans boo'ed it big time. Dos Jr. and Bucanero had an exchange to start the second fall and then the remaining five guys who are suppoed to be big talented Lucha Libre stars couldn't figure out what to do next. Everyone stood around scratching their head until finally Bucanero low blowed EVERY TECNICO! Even stupider was one of the idiot old guy referees counted to three and gave the falls to the rudos while Babe Richard said "...no" and disqualified the rudos. 2 falls - 5 minutes - match over! Yes, MA2K needing to leave definitely interrupted the match. But did all five guys have to quit and not even bother trying to continue? This was an embarassment.

Momentos had no new spots.

At this point I had to stop watching the show b/c it was so bad. I resumed it the next day...

U2K/Ultimo Guerrero/Tarzan Boy vs Perrito/Garza/Damian 666: Same deal as the previous week except this time Apolo and Cien were under the Dinamita masks and they attacked Perrito. Also the same deal as the previous week with dives at the end of each fall and no real wrestling or good brawling. Just a lot of punch, kick, slap - you do your dive - we do our finish. Lots of promos afterwards to set up Perrito vs Universo.

Mistico/Black Warrior/Negro Casas vs Atlantis/Averno/Mephisto: Another short two fall match(but this went 10 minutes or so) except this time IT WORKED. There was an actual reason to do a short match b/c the entire story of the match was to show Mistico/Warrior were better than Averno/Mephisto and deserved another title match. The usual great spots from everyone as you'd expect. Warrior killer tope, Mistico corkscrew plancha(insane sequence...), Negro silla and finally dual submissions on the rudos to setup a tag title bout revenge match.

Hooligan, second match and main event were the only things worth seeing on this episode. I remember the days of a match having 5 dives(the semi-main) making me very happy and now it isn't even worth watching again!

AAA TV in Orizaba 2/18/06:

Annual Reina De Reinas night with such a loaded show that no mini's, youngsters or locals were even booked!

Barrio Boys vs Vatos Locos: Really weak match considered the teams involved. They tried to do fast complex exchanges early on that got all messed up b/c once one set of guys gets out of sync - the others just tend to follow. Billy Boy absolutely destroyed Picudo with a bullet tope suicida. Alan and Decnis did dual dives onto the other two Vatos. Something got screwed up near the end but I'm not sure what. Yes, THAT'S HOW SCREWED UP IT WAS! Billy just quickly pinned Picudo to end things. Maybe Tiffany missed her cue b/c she ended up running in after the pinfall. Estrellita then attacked Tiffany.

Octagon(replacing Abismo Negro)/El Zorro/Electro Shock vs Charly Manson/Chessman/Espiritu: I was hoping for another great match to steal the show since none of the other matches looked promising but this didn't deliver. Some fun stuff but not as much rudo-awesomeness as you'd expect. Charly/Espiritu did cool double tope suicidas onto two of the tecnicos but Octagon pinned Chessman to win the match. It all didn't matter anyways as immediatly afterwards the real purpose of this match became clear as Zorro brought a cake to the ring and if you are a wrestling fan you know what happens next. He told Charly it was for his birthday and he wanted to celebrate just like Charly celebrated his birthday the year before... so he did exactly what Charly did... CAKE TO THE FACE!!! Except Charly DUCKED and Electro Shock got NAILED with the stiffest cakeshot ever! The rudos laughed as Electro got mad at Zorro and eventually stormed off.

Reina De Reinas Battle Royale: Just... horrible. Lady Rabbit... Hechicera... Martha... La Chola... Mujer Demente... JUST FUCKING KILL ME!

El Intocable vs Alan Stone: Pretty good brawl with the odd highspot or two. Brawling through the crowd was probably not the smartest idea since the girls just wanted to grab onto each of them rather than run away from the 'madness'. Both guys used moonsaults with Intocable hitting and Alan missing. Alan did a running somersault plancha that didn't air b/c they were in the middle of showing a replay. Shocker came out and they did a crappy finish full of referee distraction and cheapness. Good way to setup the gimmick vs gimmick match.

Cynthia Moreno vs La Diabolica vs Martha Villlaobos vs Miss Janeth - Reinas De Reinas Final: Tiffany is the AAA gal that holds things together and without her the weakness of the division really shows. Cynthia is alright but she is boooooooooooooooring. It came down to Miss Janeth vs La Diabolica and since the crowd could care less about either woman - the match had ZERO heat. Janeth finally won with a flying spinning leg lariat which is an odd finisher. All the participants hoisted her up afterwards. Where was she hiding for the last 4 years?

Octagon/La Parka Jr./Sexy Machete Boy vs Cibernetico/Konnan/Shocker: Latin Lover came out before the match and did mic work. So did Shocker, Konnan and Cibernetico. That part was way more entertaining than the actual match which was... awful. S.M.B. did nothing and for some reason ripped off his mask during the post-match brawl to reveal Scorpio Jr. but... who cares? It was during a brawl so nobody noticed anyways. Beyond horrible.

As much as I didn't enjoy the CMLL show, there wasn't even one thing I liked on the AAA show so unfortunately we'll give this one to CMLL making things:
AAA - 3
CMLL - 2

CMLL TV 3/4/06:

Pantera/Maximo/El Hijo Del Texano vs Dr. X/Loco Max/Nitro: JIP at the 2nd fall but it doesn't matter b/c I already reviewed this when it aired on Guerreros Del Ring. REPEAT MATCHES SUCK!

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs Ultimo Guerrero/CHUCK PROMBOL/JOHN STRAMBOLI: Not a bad debut at all. I was expecting a total mess but the gringos fit in well and got a lot of heat as you'd expect. Ultimo was just in the match to take all the bumps and make Ultimo Dragon look great. So... the usual. Lizmark Jr. did a tope suicida onto Guerrero in the third fall. Prombol went to tombstone Ultimo Dragon but Dos Jr. stopped him. Then Dos Jr. went to tombstone Prombol but Stramboli ripped his mask off for the DQ. Entertaining.

Momentos was all repeats from the full Arena Mexico show. Hate to say it but this segment is kinda useless these days.

Perro Jr./Garza/Damian 666 vs Atlantis/MA2K/U2K: Waste of my life. I can barely remember what went on. Usual buildup for Universo/Perrito but could have been so much more.

Mistico/Black Warrior vs Averno/Mephisto - CMLL Tag Team Titles: Not as good as the previous match. First two falls were finishes only(as it - that's all they did not that's all that was shown). I liked the second fall finish even if it was short as Mistico was doing his usual 1 on 2 spots with Averno/Mephisto when all of a sudden he got cut off out of nowhere which had yet to happen until this point. It's weird b/c they didn't tease even ONCE that Mistico/Warrior were having problems. Third fall had two or three nice exchanges. Mistico did a slinghsot into a huracanrana on the floor to Averno. Mephisto did an asai moonsault onto Warrior. Astro Rey Jr. flashback! Still no tease of a turn. Warrior murdered Mephisto with the tope of death. Averno then hit a gorgeous running somersault plancha on Warrior. Finally Mistico did the move that initially got him famous - a running corkscrew plancha to NOWHERE! Actually I think he was supposed to land on top of Warrior who was laying on the floor but his aim was off and he barely grazed his partner after Averno moved. Neat idea though. I remember reading magazine articles in early 2004 where Astro Boy did that same spot and Koreano moved. The Arena Mexico fans supposedly went nuts when they saw it. Anyways, for some reason MISTICO got mad at WARRIOR for what happened and began to yell at him. Warrior shoved Mistico down. The rudos teamed up to eliminate Warrior but Mistico came back inside and managed to pin Averno with an awesome somersault into a sunset flip bomb. One or two good nearfalls with Mistico/Mephisto before Mistico hit LA MISTICA and Warrior came into the ring and dropkicked him to a huge pop! That spot showed how Arena Mexico has changed over the last few years. Back in the mid to late 90's, the fans would have popped but it'd be a calm reaction. Now with more young/smartmarkish fans in the first few rows - everyone jumped up when Warrior turned and were going crazy all around however many old fans are still left. Mephisto pinned Mistico with an ugly power bomb to keep the belts and then Warrior beat Mistico down. It was a good beatdown but Warrior kept it going for some unknown reason and it got lame b/c he was using weak moves. Good start to their feud although would have been nice to see a tease or two.

Not the best show. Money would be well spent elsewhere.

CMLL TV 3/11/06:

Lizmark/Lizmark Jr./Blue Panther vs Atlantis/Pierroth/Universo 2000: WOW. This is perhaps the worst match that could be put together under the current CMLL style. Just horrific. Lizmark is worse than Perro Sr. ever was post-1995 and Panther has no reason to be on TV any more unless it's a 3 hour show with matches that are given 15 minutes+. Probably the worst match of the year so far.

Mistico/Negro Casas/Heavy Metal vs Black Warrior/Averno/Mephisto: New heel Black Warrior got very little reaction coming out. Mistico got a HUGE POP though. Begining of the match was good with Mistico getting triple teamed until his partners kept appearing to save him. Rudos won and Warrior tore at Mistico's mask. Second fall had the generic comeback with dual corner dropkicks by the Casas brothers as Warrior ran away from Mistico. Third fall was more of Warrior running away from Mistico so Mistico had to take care of both Averno/Mephisto with awesome spots until he finally got Warrior, sent him outside and nailed the running tornillo! Metal did a running somersault plancha onto Mephisto as Casas did his silla onto Averno but the camera missed it. Mistico did a handspring backflip and Warrior yanked his mask off, then pinned him. Good way to continue the feud but boy did they botch it in the upcoming weeks.

Only new Momentos spot was a wicked double jump corkscrew plancha by Bam Bam!

Dr. Wagner Jr./La Parka/Mr. Niebla vs Perro Jr./Garza/Damian 666: Let's see... we have brawling in the crowd, brawling on the ramp, guys wrestling in t-shirts, chairs being used, ringsteps being used, more foreign objects being used, a post match run-in and tons of comedy + stalling tactics. People used to and still do shit on AAA when matches like that happen/happened but I'm guessing we'll all turn the blind eye since some 'known' good workers are in this match. Wagner is good at one thing... he can take simple stalling spots that usually last 7-8 seconds and turn them into 30-40 second spots. Just another way for the good ol' doc to coast through the rest of his career. Parka was great as usual but he used a few stalling tactics as well which were unneccessary since Wagner was doing enough already. Parka did a crazy running sunset flip over the referee to take Damian hard onto the ground! Sick! Oh, I should mention they did NOTHING in the first fall and still managed to blow a spot. The crowd laughed at them and rightfully so. If you only do 4 spots in a match, could you try and get them all right? Post-match Universo ran out to attack Perrito. *yawn*

Usual show the week before a big one. Full of nothingness. Not worth watching unless you are a jaded CMLL fan that thinks anything Wagner, Parka, Garza and Perrito touch = gold. I feel for those of you who fit that description.

AAA TV in Cuernavaca - 2/25/06:

Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Mr. Condor/Angel Mortal/El Gallego: Great way to open the show with the young flyers vs veteran rudos. It's a formula they've been using since the inception of the promotion but it's a formula that WORKS. Compare it to the 3/11/06 CMLL TV opener. MMHMM. All the tecnicos did mat exchanges to start off and then each got to do a sequence where they flew around the ring. Nothing spectacular but everything was solid which is good to see since we know these guys can be spectacular when they want. Nemesis did a cool huracanrana through the ropes to the outside on one of the Diabolicos before the rudos beatdown began. Rey Cometa took a SSP bump off a clothesline. Crowd was really into the match. Tecnicos fought back and then began their speacialty... DIVES. Super Fly did a rather weak tope suicida but he had to save himself for the finish so it's understandable. Nemesis did a plancha off the top rope. Rey Cometa showed them both up by doing a crazy somersault plancha off the ringpost getting HUGE AIR AND DISTANCE! Rey Cometa is so great. Rudos yanked off Super Fly's mask and pinned him setting up a revancha match on the next show.

Some Mexican ladies vs Some Japanese ladies: I dunno. The Mexicans won I think. Hard to know for sure with the 16x FF speed going on.

Chessman/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Alan Stone/Zumbido: Before the match they had a skit where JJ/Super Calo and a bunch of GANGSTAS attacked Shocker, stuffed him in a trunk and drove off leaving him unable to attend this taping. So Aliens took Shocker's place. Makes sense... Aliens = GUAPO! Mostly a brawl which is unfortunate but it fit the storyline. Alan/Zumbido did dual tope suicidas to initate a Guapo comeback. Scorpio bled big time. Alan/Zumbido did dual running somersault planchas which was awesome. Aliens tried a tope suicida but Chessman blasted him with a chairshot for his trouble. Thanks for showing up! La Secta ran out to give the Guapos the match by DQ. Sets up what should be an awesome feud and I can't wait for the Mexican National Atomicos Titles match.

Noti AAA had LOS ESPANTAPAJAROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY CAN SPEAK!

El Zorro vs Electro Shock - Mexican National Heavyweight Title: Hold on a second... a 20+ minute clean match with tons of matwork, tons of teased submissions, a hot crowd and some creative nearfalls. DID FREDO MIX UP THE AAA/CMLL DVD LABELS?!?!?!?!?!?!? Honestly, if there was any video technology capable of inserting Perrito and Atlantis into this match instead of Zorro/Electro, people (on the board!) would be shitting themselves calling this a classic and easy MOTY until the finish. But it's Zorro and Electro so nobody except me and Alfredo will ever see it. As I said - lots of matwork to start off including Electro working Zorro's leg which led to a quick submission about 8 minutes into the first fall. Zorro got his knee taped up in between falls but Electro attacked it again to establish him as the heel. Zorro kept escaping submissions holds and finally used a quick magistral cradle to even things up about 5 minutes into the second fall. Third fall was really good and had an awesome teased dive spot. Best nearfall was Electro trying for the german suplex trifecta but getting stopped after two... then nailing the third a few seconds later but getting 2 and a half. Crowd went NUTS! 20+ minutes into the match with both guys exhasted, Charly Manson made an appearence and seemed to want to shake hands with Electro. Before Electro could decide whether to shake or not, Zorro spun him around and nailed a jumping kick for the win. Weak finish to a match that really exceeded expectations. After the match Manson made it clear he wants to be friends with his brother again but if anyone is taking the title from Zorro, it will be him. Nice little angle which should be resolved later today in Guadalajara with Electro winning the belt(I assume). Maybe even setting up the eventual Zorro vs Manson hair match at Verano De Escandalo?

Octagon/La Parka Jr./Intocable vs Cibernetico/Charly Manson/Espiritu: Lots of brawling early on. Bunch of chairs got involved and technology Televisa Deportes showed us why getting power bombed on 8 chairs hurts. I'll have to rewatch that b/c I still don't get it.:/ Tecnicos fought back and then it was time for the rudos to bump around for the lazy tecnicos. And by rudos bumping around I obviously mean Charly and Espiritu. Ciber actually took an armdrag or two which surprised me as he still can't bump for shit. Rare dive train for an AAA main event with Parka doing a tope suicida to Espiritu, Manson with a pescado onto Parka and then Octagon with a tope suicida onto Manson. Cibernetico was all but pinned until Alan Stone ran out and low blowed Intocable so Ciber could use a horribly botched small package for the win. La Secta posed in the ring afterwards until the tecnicos chased them off and Parka danced to end the show.

Decent episode although not up to the usual high AAA standards. Still worth checking out to see the debut of La Fuerza Aerea, the start of the Secta/Guapos rivalry and a really good Zorro/Electro match.

As much as I still think it's unfair to compare two weeks of CMLL with one week of AAA, I guess I'll give the win to CMLL although they should be ashamed that they need a handicap to beat AAA with the roster they have. So...

AAA - 3
CMLL - 3

3/17 CMLL goes head-to-head with La Gran Tracion and 3/24 CMLL goes up against the Rey De Reyes.

CMLL TV 3/18/06:

Dark Angel/India Sioux/Marcela vs La Amapola/Hiroka/Princesa Sujei: Best combo you could get with the CMLL women but a bit of a mess at various times. Hiroka is quite awful. I am dreading the match vs Marcela b/c their opening exchange here was beyond awful. Rudos took over after that one exchange and hit a couple of neat triple team moves. Amapola missed a corner charge and flew outside. During the comeback, everything was absolutely chaotic. Everyone was running around with no direction and they kept getting in each others way. That's not good. Marcela went for a top-rope dropkick and Hiroka just stood there taking the move but didn't bump backwards so Marcela landed on her and Hiroka is lucky she didn't break her leg. Dark Angel and Sujei blew a spot badly but then made up for it with a nice ropeflip armdrag spot and then Sarah hit a wicked tope suicida. Marcela did a silla off the apron onto Hiroka. India Sioux did some awesome acrobatics with Amapola which was the highlight of the match for me. She then tried the Silver King dive but smashed her face on the apron on the way down. They finally ended the match with Sarah ripping off Amapola's mask and pinning her but this got no reaction as b/c Amapola's hair was hanging down, nobody even saw that she got her mask ripped off. Weird finish. I will say this, in the one fall format - the 8 minutes didn't feel rushed at all and there seemed to be more action than usual for a TV match.

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs Damian 666/Damian El Terrible/Mr. Aguila: They put more effort into their entrances than the actual match. Typical lucha by numbers. In the second fall Aguila blew his 450 splash by landing on his feet and sorta plopping down onto whoever he was doing the move to. Ultimo did an asai moonsault b/c he knew the match would make TV. Dos Jr. couldn't hold Aguila up for the press slam part of his finisher. Awful effort considering this was a major show.

Only new Momentos spot was Ramstein giving Sensei a Michinoku Driver off the second rope. They showed Volador Jr.'s Spanish Fly on Sangre Azteca from the week before(aired on Guerreros Del Ring) but both announcers said it was Hombre Sin Nombre instead of Azteca. That must make Sangre feel good about his future with the company.

Mistico/Negro Casas/Heavy Metal vs Black Warrior/El Averno/El Mephisto: 2 falls in 6 minutes. *shakes head* Beatdown to start, Mistico teased a comeback and then Warrior yanked off his mask for the DQ. Mistico went to get a new mask and came out 2 minutes into the second fall... but before I tell you what happened, let me just say this is a great example of how green Mistico still is... he came out and was supposed to break up the rudos triple team with a springboard dropkick but he slipped and had to use a weak slap instead. LOUD BOO'S! Now a veteran may realize he needs to get the crowd back on his side by doing something they want to see. Instead, Mistico did the 6-1-9 on Black Warrior. The crowd boo's Mistico EVERY TIME HE TRIES THE 6-1-9! It's associated with Rey Jr. and everyone knows Mistico is CMLL's version of Rey Jr. but they don't want him copying the guy move for move. Unforunately Mistico knows no better and after he hit the move the crowd got on him BIG TIME. It was hard to watch. He did a plancha over the ringpost onto Warrior which was also boo'ed. Metal sent Mephisto outside and did a somersault plancha over the ringpost but came up short and hurt himself. Watching it once more, it appeared Mephisto purposely moved to the side as Metal came down. A little revenge for all the times Metal has made Mephisto look bad? I ain't complaining. Casas did his silla onto Averno after a really stiff corner dropkick. Mistico and Warrior were left and once again... this is where a veteran who understands he needs the crowd on his side will react accordingly and improvise by doing... something. I don't know what but SOMETHING. Instead... right into La Mistica which is the finish all of Arena Mexico hates. 50/50 cheers/boos post-match. Easily Mistico's worst performance of the year. Will be interesting to see how he reacts the next week b/c usually after a bad week where the crowd boo's him, he tends to step his game up.

Universo 2000 vs Perro Aguayo Jr. - Hair vs Hair: Already commented on this back when I put it up in the matches folder. I was really dissapointed by it. It was a good match to do if the NEXT WEEK was the mask vs hair match but as the big end to a long feud... meh. Can't even touch even the average hair matches from the early 90's. Perrito seems scared to work. Like every time the match is getting to a point where he needs to take a move and sell, he avoids it by looking at the crowd and getting 'pumped up'. I dunno. Not a fan of this at all even though the emotion was crazy.

Biggest show of the year = one of the weaker episodes of the year. That says a lot.

AAA TV in Tlaxcala 3/4/06:

LA GRAN TRACION! Great storyline for a TV taping except for one thing... only one person turned and it wasn't important. *L*

Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Angel Mortal/Mr. Condor/El Gallego: Revenge match from the previous week. Fast start with Nemesis doing some impressive spots with Angel Mortal. Ends up with a flying backwards body press off the turnbuckle outside the ring into an armdrag on the floor! Super Fly then does a bunch of impressive flips for no reason and Rey Cometa does the same. Rudos aren't too impressed b/c they jump all over the tecnicos and start the beatdown. A chair gets involved much to the delight of the tecnicos... or not. While showing a replay the comeback occurs so I'm not sure how it started. Nemesis is back in for another exchange which is weird since the other tecnicos haven't gotten one yet. He took a wicked tornillo bump off a shoulderblock though. Super Fly then gets to do some spots and looks impressive as usual except for one minor slip. It's funny b/c even with the slip he managed to nail a crazy twisting armdrag. How great would it have looked if he didn't slip? Nemesis ends up doing a tope suicida into an armdrag on Gallego. Rey Cometa does his own flying all over the place. So fucking smooth... so awesome. He ends up sending Angel Mortal outside, does a baseball slide over the rudo, gets vaulted back onto the apron, kicks the rudo away... AND BECOMES THE FIRST PERSON IN MANY YEARS TO DO A VENUM STYLE SPRINGBOARD TORNILLO PLANCHA!!! Oh maaaaaaaan... it was a thing of BEAUTY! I can't even remember the last person to do that move. Might have been Escoria in 2000. Super Fly/Mr. Condor are left inside. Fly gets thrown into the air, lands on his feet, then yanks his own mask off and shoves it down Mr. Condor's pants and covers up. As Mr. Condor reaches into his pants to pull it out, the ref turns around and sees Condor holding the mask so he calls for the DQ! Crowd pops HUGE. The great booking of the youngsters continues. Coming up at Rey De Reyes will be a 2 out of 3 falls match to settle things except Rey Cometa is out(moved up thankfully, not dissapearing) and Laredo Kid is in.

Mexican women vs Japanese girls: I fast forward at only 4x speed through this b/c Martha Villalobos came out with her "I'm gonna kill these idiots" look and that is always fun to watch. I'm convinced this was a 100% shoot as Martha wouldn't sell anything for the Japanese girls and kept slapping them really hard. Even during the rudos beatdown when it was her turn to get in the ring, she laughed when they hit her and started throwing them around by the hair. It wasn't a vicious beating by any means but it was definitely quite the unproffesional performance, especially when she screwed up a spot herself and then yelled at the Japanese girls out loud before continuing to shoot on them. Diabolica ended up turning on Martha which led to Martha selling her FIRST MOVE OF THE MATCH - an armdrag off the top. Oh god, a Martha vs Diabolica feud. That's at least one wasted match per week on AAA TV.

Escoria/Cuervo/Ozz vs Picudo/Nygma/Cassandro: This is one of those matches that makes you embarassed to be an AAA fan. The shows used to be full of these but thankfully they are far more rare these days. Cassandro basically turned on his partners right away by refusing to shake their hands and hugging La Secta (<- La Secta is LLL and so is Cassandro). Then even though they were out numbered four-on-two, Picudo/Nygma started to double team everyone and had the ADVANTAGE. They couldn't take a hint and kept asking Cassandro to help but he wouldn't. So like ten billion minutes later La Secta fights back but Picudo stops it quickly and does an ugly tope suicida to someone. Nygma and Cassandro stop brawling on the floor just to send the other two Secta members outside and they go for dives but Cassandro trips Nygma and they fight. Espiritu runs out for god knows what reason and just stands around IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RING trying to decide if he should help his old Vatos Locos pals or his new Secta pals. He ends up doing nothing and goes to the back. WTF? La Secta make Picudo submit to win as Espiritu comes out once more to stop his new buddies from killing his old buddies post-match. I don't get it. If he's still buddies with his old Vatos friends who are anti-Secta/LLL, why is he even a part of La Secta? I want to forget this match existed. El Intocable vs Alan Stone - Dog Collar Match: Not bad at all. Crowd was really into it and they were actually doing some moves and dives instead of the usual dog collar match style brawling and chain spots. Intocable did a slingshot somersault plancha into a huracanrana which reads better than it was executed. Alan did a KILLER springboard plancha not ONTO Intocable but rather INTO Intocable and the guardrail. Pretty fucking vicious. I wonder if that's the dive he blows next week at the Rey De Reyes? Lots of near wins for each guy(you gotta touch all six corners) until Shocker comes out and accidentally hits Alan Stone with a chair, then gets said chair dropkicked in his face and Intocable wins the match by touching all six corners. Alan/Shocker argue afterwards. Before the main event we have THE BESTEST SEGMENT IN THE HISTORY OF LUCHA LIBRE! If you are a fan of the corny CMLL skits, you will love this. First off just to show it's AAA and sometimes things aren't really thought out - the skit opens with Shocker tied up and bloody laying on a sofa. So you have to forget you just saw Shocker a few minutes ago doing a run-in. JJ/Super Calo/JJ Jr. enter the room and tell Shocker he got what he deserved and he shouldn't mess with them again. They leave and a short while later a hot chick comes into the room... she sees Shocker laying there tied up and takes the tape off his mouth and the ropes off his hands. She asks him what happened and before he can explain... SHE REALIZES HE'S 1000% GUAPO! She starts to make out with him and Shocker is all into it of course. He flips her over onto her back and it's time for HARDCORE PORN ON AAA TV! Well, maybe if you're a fan of the slaphappy videos. Shocker proceeds to slap her in the face(LOUDLY!) and says he has no time for any more games - he has to go wrestle! So he runs out of the room and into the street. He hails a taxi but instead of accepting a ride to the show, he decides to throw the taxi driver out of the cab and drives himself to the show! Ladies and gentleman... this was AMAZING! Shocker then makes his entrance along with Ciber/Parka Jr./Abismo. They have a battle royale to decide who faces who in the mini Russian Roulette tournament. Abismo/Parka Jr. lose. La Parka Jr./Octagon/El Zorro vs Abismo Negro/Electro Shock/Histeria: Wow, haven't seen tecnicos vs tecnicos in AAA in quite some time. Pretty short for AAA standards(i.e. normal CMLL match length) but 100% clean and crowd was really into it. Some good work by everyone. Histeria was bumping like a mofo for Octagon as was Abismo for Parka. Zorro/Electro had a really nice exchange and the staredown beforehand was perfect. Octagon nailed Histeria with a tope suicida. Parka took the Ultimo Guerrero corner bump to the floor and Abismo nailed him with a tope suicida of his own. Zorro and Electro traded false finishes before Electro made Zorro submit to his new leglock finisher. A+ for effort and execution. Really wish they'd have booked a revancha match or something. Cibernetico/Muerte Cibernetica/Espiritu vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Zumbido: Espiritu came out first and got attacked by all the Guapos. Shocker and Zumbido did wicked corkscrew elbowdrops at the same time. Ciber came out with Muerte Cibernetica who has a half Parka/half Ciber mask and naturally comes out to both Parka and Ciber's music. Weird gimmick. When things calmed down, Espiritu and Zumbido were inside the ring for an exchange which is great since that is the best combo you can get out of these six. After a nice exchange, Zumbido nailed a moonsault off the second turnbuckle. Muerte Cibernetica then did a pescado onto Scorpio Jr.. Shocker had Cibernetico beat but La Secta interfered and Cibernetico choke slammed Shocker off the top rope for the win. An AAA episode without Chessman is like a CMLL episode without Mistico. a) It makes me sad & b) It just doesn't seem right. Still, this was an okay episode as the opener rules, the dog collar match was really good and the entire main event segment went 45 minutes straight with good action all around. I'm gonna give this battle to AAA since even though their show wasn't as strong as it could have been... just look at that awful CMLL show. CMLL - 3 AAA - 4 I should also mention one thing that popped into my head when seeing Electro wrestle the week before that I forgot to mention - how stupid were he and Lady Apache to get those huge matching tattoos on their back? Now they are supposedly broken up but those tats ain't goin' nowhere! Kids, never get a tattoo that has anything to do with a significant other. CMLL TV 3/25/06:

Maybe due to the negative reaction to the big show the week before there was more actual wrestling on this show? Seemed that way.

Dark Angel/Diana La Cazadora/Princesa Blanca vs La Amapola/Princesa Sujei/La Medusa: Medusa has an awesome mask with fake hair. Entire first half of the match seemed to be cut out. Why would CMLL want Princesa Blanca? She was one of the worst females AAA had. Why not steal Estrellita, Cynthia Moreno, Miss Janeth or Tiffany instead? Hell, ask Gronda if Esther Moreno and her enormus boobies can come in.;D Blanca looks like a 40 year old woman pretending to be a 21 year old. Not the best match. These women could probably do better or maybe it was just the editing that made it awful. Blanca did the Silver King dive properly. If that's all she was there for, why not just use India Sioux? Clumsy finishing sequence with Amapola holding the ropes and pinning Dark Angel.

Felino/Heavy Metal/Ultimo Dragon vs Rey Bucanero/Olimpico/Misterioso II: I liked the Felino/Misterioso II mat exchange to start off. Otherwise this was lucha by numbers but with more highspots than usual. Heavy Metal actually looked really good and took his old famous Fuerza bump before Olimpico nailed him with a tope suicida. Really cool finish with Misterioso II using a La Rosa off the second rope! He was actually the star of the match in my opinion. We need a Volador Jr. vs Misterioso II feud badly.

Momentos was as useless as Princesa Blanca.

Dos Caras Jr./Mr. Niebla/Blue Panther vs Perrito/Terrible/Aguila: Pretty long match by TV standards. I timed it at 15+ minutes. Everyone seemed to get in an exchange to go along with lots of brawling. The finish actually took a while and seemed more... I don't know how to say it... it seemed more legit rather than everyone just saying "oh, time for the finish? Let me get in my position" like it usually seems. Good match.

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./Negro Casas vs Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrero: Take out Negro, put in Parka and you have the same main event this Friday. In a perfect world this would have gone 20+ minutes and stolen the show but instead... yeah. Pretty lazy match by all involved. No Mistico/Guerrero exchange was probably the saddest part. Hell, did Negro even do anything? Now that I think about it, the only spot I remember him doing was the Casita at the end of the match. What a payday! Mistico did an awesome tornillo onto Black Warrior in the second fall. In the third fall they traded 6-1-9's to loud boo's. Mistico helped Negro pin Warrior and then Warrior interfered to attack Mistico for a cheap DQ finish that the crowd hated.

Average episode. Some good action but... meh... I take it back. Good episode. As good as you're gonna get these days from CMLL.

AAA Rey De Reyes - 3/10/06:

Bulldozer/Darling Boy/El Guerrillero vs Loco Castillo and... LOS KU KLUX KLAN I Y II!!!: Everyone will be happy to know Los KKK's were not dressed like actual KKK members. Not that I think anyone would have been offended if they were. Anyways, if you attend indy shows in the U.S. regularly and understand what goes on - this is basically the match with the promoters friends who have no gear and can do a couple of cool flips but can't throw a proper punch or take a normal bump. But at the end of the day they get to call themselves wrestlers. Darling Boy looked like he weighed less than me which is just INSANE! He was doing a bunch of flippy stuff that looked really awkward until he launched himself outside with a Super Quebrada and landed on his feet. Loco Castillo was actually bumping well for a no-name guy. Bulldozer was this fat dude who kept laughing at his own moves b/c he knew they were so bad. Loco Castillo did a running assisted somersault plancha. Darling Boy did a really crazy springboard corkscrew plancha near the end. I forget who won. Pretty much a mess with the odd cool spot or two. Must have been a thrill for these guys to see themselves on TV though.

Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Los Diabolicos: Now here's the REAL opener! Tecnicos have cool entrance music. Diabolics took the tecnicos apart in the first fall with brawling and triple team moves. Tecnicos fought back with their usual aerial offense. Nemesis did a tope suicida. Super Fly did an awesome running somersault plancha. Laredo Kid MURDERED Mr. Condor with a Stardust Press. Absolutely no give on the landing... he crushed the poor rudo! Doctors checked on Condor as fall three got started and the tecnicos did some more fun flying. Nemesis keeps showing flashes of brilliance but still isn't flying like he probably could. He did a running twisting splash, then Super Fly did a frog splash and then Laredo Kid hit a weird 450 splash where he turned as he landed. I can't wait to see him bust out the 630! He did a crazy second rope springboard tornillo onto Angel Mortal in the third fall. Rudos cheated to win. I was expecting an insane match with tons of dives but I'll settle for a good match with a few dives. This feud just gets better and better!

Mexico women vs Japanese women: *yawn* KENTA was at ringside. Konnan, Killings and Joe did a run-in so KENTA used his flying knee move on Joe while they were on the floor. Heated brawl. Match was okay I guess... I just don't care about the AAA women enough to say anything. I also can't identify any of the Japanese women nor do I want to bother trying.

Intocable vs Alan Stone - Image vs Image: Really good match! Both guys were working harder than usual... or at least I thought so. Alan was doing a good job carrying Intocable. They had quite a few nearfalls in just the first fall! Stone finally won with his roll-up move. Second fall had an Intocable tope suicida and more nearfalls before Intocable won with a submission hold. Things stayed strong in the third fall with the crowd getting more and more into what was going on. Intocable nailed an asai moonsault. Shocker ended up running out and trying to cost Intocable the match. It backfired of course and Shocker ended up outside. So did Intocable. Then Alan kicked Intocable into the crowd and set up for a dive. Now let me say this... there is NO WAY IN HELL that Alan planned to hit this dive. His "KO" was definitely a work. The dive was the same as the one Rey Jr. did to Juventud back in April 1995 when he did a springboard plancha into the crowd getting them both counted out. Most of you should have seen it already as it's all over the net and various best of Lucha Libre comp. tapes. Anyways, picture how far Rey had to jump there and DOUBLE IT!!! There is NO WAY Alan was supposed to connect on this. More proof is that as he came off the ropes, Intocable was moving away from behind the guardrail so he was gonna move no matter what. Anyways, Alan crashes face first into the guardrail and then Shocker refuses to let Intocable re-enter the ring and it's ruled a double countout, not a no-contest as reported. Really great finish though and the match certainly lived up to expectations.

El Zorro/Pimpinela/El Angel/Rey Cometa vs Electro Shock/Charly Manson/Hator/Cassandro: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW! Definitely the show stealer. This was just madness, especially at the end. Lots of exchanges to start off. Electro looked cool with his sub-zero look for the night. Good to see Rey Cometa moved up into a high position like this and he certainly kept impressing. Early spot of the match was him doing an asai moonsault to the outside into an armdrag on Hator! Cool spot but awful for his knees I'm sure. The Zorro/Electro stuff looked to have huge heat(I say looked b/c for some reason there was no audio on this disc...) as the crowd went nuts and all stood up when they got in the ring. Pimpi/Cassandro were great as usual. Anyways the match was awesome even during the rudo brawling and comeback but at the end things just got IN-FUCKING-SANE! First up... Angel sends Hator to the floor and does a plancha off the top getting HUGE air. Cassandro then gets on the apron and does a killer asai moonsault with such force than both Angel and Hator's heads snap back and they crash into the guardrail! Now the fun begins. Some idiot fan decides it'd be cool to slap Angel on the arm as he lays there. Angel obviously not being in a good mood after catching that crazy dive takes offense to the fan hitting him, gets up... AND STARTS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF HIM!!! Meanwhile Pimpi sees none of this and is already taking off for a dive. Cassandro is barely standing up to catch, Hator sees the brawl and wants to help Angel but has to choose between that or saving Pimpi's life and thankfully helps Cassandro make the catch on a running somersault plancha. Meanwhile the brawl is still going on with Angel and the fans so Rey Cometa runs over to try and pull Angel away but then remembers it's his turn to dive so he has to leave. Hator jumps in to try and help Angel and security fight off the fans as Cometa goes up top and does a fucking DOUBLE CORKSCREW PLANCHA!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately he overshoots everyone and his last line of protection is of course... Hator... who is busy with the fan situation. So Cometa crashes HARD and looks to hurt his knee big time. Manson does a dive as well but unfortunately they felt like showing a replay of a previous dive so we missed it. This leaves Zorro and Electro. Electro completes his rudo turn here as he puts Zorro in his leglock finisher but refuses to let go even after the referee awards him the match. Hijo Del Tirantes ends up having to hit Electro with the kendo stick to force him to let go of the hold. The madness continues on the floor as Angel is visibly pissed with all the fans in the section and is being held back by security. Meanwhile Rey Cometa is just laying DEAD on the outside and nobody checks on his condition. The angle continues in the ring with Electro grabbing the kendo stick and knocking out both referees, then continuing to destroy Zorro. Now comes the beautiful When Worlds Collide moment(think Eddy/Perro/a fan)... Electro is in the middle of his angle where he is hitting everything that moves including his own partners with the kendo stick just so he can keep destroying Zorro. Security ends up pushing Angel into the ring to keep him back and Angel starts jawing with the fans from inside the ring. Electro comes up behind Angel and HAMMERS HIM WITH A KENDO STICK SHOT! Angel no-sells! He can't even tell he is being hit! *LMAO* Electro does it again and still no reaction b/c Angel is too busy yelling at the fans! Finally Electro throws the kendo stick away and just potatoes Angel in the back of the neck with a clothesline. Angel turns around and gives Electro a "what the fuck are you doing?" look before rolling outside and storming off. Way to fuck up the Electro turn! Absolute madness and pure hilarity in the last few minutes of the match makes this a MUST-SEE! I have a new-found respect for Angel who was probably the smallest guy in the match and yet wanted to take on all the fans by himself! I will never doubt Oscar Sevilla again in my life!

Rey De Reyes: This was AAA vs TNA vs Secta vs Guapos but it was a horrible mess. I don't want to waste too much time going over what happened b/c it was just 25-30 minutes of horrible brawling. If you are a Samoa Joe fan, make sure to not watch this match as he gets no offense and is selling weak shots from Octagon, Parka and Shocker. Konnan appeared to be quite the mess due to his injury. He did nothing the entire match except bark out instructions and then was majorly limping when he tried to put on the Tequila Sunrise. Poor guy.:/ Why doesn't he just get the surgery already? Guapos counted out first. TNA DQ'ed second. Chessman/Octagon injured at some point. Parka tope's Muerte Cibernetica. Vamp pins Ciber and celebrates with the crowd. I will say this... the entrances were killer and this really felt like an important match which is something AAA always does right and CMLL always does wrong.

Not as strong as Guerra De Titanes or Verano De Escandalo but still a pretty good showing by AAA. As if there was any doubt it would be.

Final score:

CMLL - 3
AAA - 5

Thoughts on last 6 weeks of Guerreros Del Ring...

3/25/06:

Satanico/La Mascara/Pantera vs Hombre Sin Nombre/Mazada/Misterioso II: Fun little match. I'm a Pantera mark so nice to see him getting lots of TV time on this TV show. Mascara/Misterioso II seem to have good chemistry together. The finishes to the second fall were indy-rific with a Code Red and Styles Clash used. Still weird to see those moves in Mexico. On CMLL TV the other week, Momentos had Pantera doing a second-rope Styles Clash! Liked the entire third fall as it was full of exchanges. Good stuff.

Mistico vs Perro Aguayo Jr.: Cubs' comment sums it up perfectly - "nothing special". Some nice bumping from Mistico but your run of the mill Sunday singles main event. A few trademark spots and a cheap finish. Someone really needs to coach Mistico into using certain spots only once in a while b/c these singles matches are starting to get far too similar.

Alright episode, worth checking out.

4/1/06:

Satanico/Starman/Ultimo Dragon vs Mazada/Misterioso II/Shigeo Okumura: I didn't get the point of the comedy. Might have made the match a bit more memorable but there really didn't seem like it served any purpose other than waste time so there could be less actual wrestling. Starman looked the same as he did from back when he was regularly on TV in 97/98. No improvement = no push? I guess I'll do my Ultimo Dragon rant now rather than later...

Is there a worse worker in CMLL besides Ultimo Dragon? Is it possible TNA was fine with the list of guys CMLL sent them but wanted Ultimo Dragon pulled off the team and Ultimo wouldn't budge? The guy is practically unwatchable. I posed an interesting question to a friend the other day about who is the better worker right now - Mil Mascaras or Ultimo Dragon. It's really hard to pick Ultimo. Ever since his WWE stint, he's been brainwashed into thinking he is some sort of superstar/legend which is VERY debatable. Let's look at the main things Mil Mascaras gets insulted for:

1. Doesn't sell
2. Same moves over and over
3. Always gets the win

Ultimo Dragon... doesn't sell. Sure he'll take a 3-on-1 beatdown and act hurt for 2 or 3 seconds but even Mil does that if you go re-watch CMLL Japan tapes. Ultimo has even started to use the spot where he fights back during the beatdown, then rolls outside and watches the rest of the fall so he doesn't have to take the pinfall. It's an old Rayo Jr. trick. When it comes time for a pinfall, Ultimo will gladly get pinned as long as two or three guys are covering him, never when one guy is over him. Mil has submitted many times to three-man submissions in 2/3 falls matches. Finally, Ultimo Dragon is probably the most predictable wrestler on the planet now. He never changes up his offense and uses the asai moonsault like Mil uses the flying cross body press. At least in Mil matches, you might see the odd nice mat exchange if he's in a good mood. Ultimo just doesn't seem to care. He's as lazy as Wagner... MAYBE MORESO!!! Maybe it's not laziness. There were always rumors he got a huge attitude when the WWE came calling and it's no secret he would drop everything just to get another shot there. I think his WWE stint caused so much psychological damage, that he is trying to repair it by pretending he is a Mil Mascaras-esque legend who doesn't have to sell for anyone, always wins and never has to work to impress. At least he's working in the right promotion to do that.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr. vs Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero/Universo 2000: Big time mailed in. I was calling spots 30 seconds before they happened. Finish was sudden and should have led to a Wagner/Universo match or at least a re-match the following week but oh well. Another quick pay day and time to move onto another arena.

You really don't need this episode.

4/8/06:

Stuka Jr. vs La Flecha - Mask vs Mask: Already posted my thoughts on this. Fantastic. Puts every other match in the history of Guerreros Del Ring to shame although I guess that's not a huge compliment.:/ Let's leave it at this - it was excellent.

Dos Caras Jr./Negro Casas/Ultimo Dragon vs Olimpico/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy: I felt like I saw this match somewhere already but am too lazy to check the old CMLL TV reports and see if they just did the same match as another time. I dunno... what can you say about this match? It was so normal, I honestly have nothing to say about it.

Get this show b/c Stuka Jr./Flecha was great.

4/15/06:

Pantera/Maximo/Mascara Purpura vs Emilio Charles Jr./Loco Max/Nitro: I'm still not quite clear why Mascara Purpura wears red. Or why his mask is just a red Universo 2000 mask. Has anyone noticed that yet besides the Box y Lucha forum lurkers? Purpura looked alright in his debut. He does a lot of flips. Naturally, I enjoy that. But you could have had Tigre Cota in his place doing cool brawling and I would have enjoyed that just as much b/c it was just nice to see a new refreshing face. Fine match with one or two decent exchanges by Purpura and Pantera each. Maximo just did comedy which is fine by me. Emilio pins Purpura clean with a power bomb to win. Oh how I wish that would have led to a singles match between them!

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr. vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Damian 666: I kinda liked this. The comedy spot in the first fall where all the rudos fell off the turnbuckle was HILARIOUS! Match seemed to go longer than usual although there was no added in-ring work, just comedy and stalling. Still - a fine effort for a Sunday main event. Dos Jr. shocked me as I never pictured him doing his tope over the top onto anyone except all of Los Guerreros or Universo. Mistico and Perrito blew La Mistica but it turned into a cool spinning headscissors rollup so points for the nice cover!

Alright episode, worth checking out. Does this mean GdR has a 33% chance of being good?

4/22/06:

Marcela/Lady Apache/Sahori vs Hiroka/La Medusa/Rosa Negra: UGH. Don't care. I did find it hilarious watching Lady Apache doing early 90's mix-up spots with the two rudas who had no clue what to do and were just stumbling through the exchange. WHAT? STUDY OLD SPOTS AND LEARN TO WORK? PFFT! THIS IS CMLL 2006! Hiroka pins Marcela clean to setup a title match which... just... thrills... me.

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./Heavy Metal vs Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Olimpico: WOW. So mailed in it isn't even worth making fun of. The finish made no sense as Mistico did La Mistica and Ultimo's mask came off so he won by DQ. I guess that's just a way around having Mistico pinned clean.

You don't want this show.

4/29/06:

Marcela vs Hiroka - CMLL Women's Title: *sigh* Still don't care. Yeah, the match wasn't as awful as I expected it to be but... it's still women. I don't care about women's wrestling. Marcela wins obviously. Hilarious to hear the commentators struggle to find reasons why Hiroka could win the title. They finally seemed to agree on she wants to win the title so she can take it back to Japan and never return to Mexico. They followed it up with this equally hilarious thought: If the belt went to Japan, it would probably never be seen again b/c Mexicans rarely go over to Japan to wrestle.

Mistico/Lizmark Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs Ultimo Guerrero/Tarzan Boy/Olimpico: This is the type of match where Lizmark Jr. and Ultimo Dragon weren't really needed. You could have had Mistico vs these 3 rudos and the match would have gone exactly the same. Finish has Ultimo reversing La Mistica... so he should have the advantage... but then he low blows Mistico for no reason. I don't get the booking of this at all. If Ultimo had thrown his own mask off and won by DQ, you'd have another singles match setup but what reason does he have to kick Mistico in the balls besides being annoyed that he keeps doing that awful handspring moonsault onto his own chest?

Another episode well worth missing. But hey, the 1 in 3 rule means the next episode will probably be fantastic! (Judging by the listings, it probably was! I might be onto something here!)

Damnit I sound so negative. I feel like my old buddy Chris Cooey. What is CMLL doing to me?

Totally random match alert...

Venum and Los Chivas Rayadas I y II vs Los Duendes I/II/III - AAA TV Feb. 1/97: Inspired by watching a great Chivas/Ultraman Jr. vs ESPANTAPAJAROS match this past weekend, I busted out another old match with similar pairings. Everyone assumes the current Espantapajaros are Los Diabolicos but I'm thinking they are the ex-Warriors - Brandon(soon to be feuding with Billy Boy?), Kevin and Vangelis. I mention that b/c back in '97, everyone assumed Los Diabolicos were playing Los Duendes but I'm positive that ain't the truth. The Duendes are dressed like jesters obviously and you have purple, red and blue. Purple Duende is the original Duende who had been in AAA for a while and is a very good worker who trains guys in a city that slips my mind right now. No clue who the other two Duendes were. Everyone knows Venum. Los Chivas at this point were being played by the Apaches. Here's the thing about AAA in 1997... EVERYONE HATED LOS CHIVAS! It was the most embarassing thing watching soccer goats wrestle and I clearly remember hating them. Doug Corti used to always dread seeing them in his reviews and likewise Pogo Pete. It's typical Pena to use two great workers in stupid gimmicks. To me though, that's part of the genius that is AAA. If I nominated a Chivas vs Hampones match as a MOTYC, I'd be laughed at. But if I said hey I found this gem with Los Apaches vs Angel Mortal and Marabunta, suddenly the smarter lucha fans would go "hey, I wanna see!" So now I'm tempted to rewatch all this old AAA with Los Chivas and see how good the matches were since they were pretty great workers. This match is a perfect example. Not worked standard style at all as in addition to the mat exchanges, you have a fast paced first fall with everyone working exchanges with each other. No pairings, just one guy in after one guy goes out and everything was moving fluidly. No craziness, just simple spots. The best thing though was Los Duendes were ACTUALLY WORKING THEIR GIMMICK! In between any move or during the exchanges, they'd be doing somersaults! It was the craziest thing! They'd be able to do all that and still end up in perfect position for the next spot. It was remarkable. Tecnicos take the first fall after double dives and then one of the Chivas pins a Duende. Second fall had more great exchanges. Venum was looking fantastic here. Shame to think what became of him only a year and a half later. Los Duendes took over on offense and I can't even describe how great their moves were. They kept doing the somersaults between beating up the tecnicos and were executing double and triple team moves so fluidly... it was unreal. There was this one crazy triple team move where two of the Duendes were kicking one of the Chivas up and down like he was a soccer ball! BRILLIANCE! The end of the third fall was the only time they got a little mixed up as the Duendes were in the wrong positions for the dives and had to move into the right place so all 3 tecnicos could nail them. Duendes ended up DQ'ed for beating up Venum too much. It's a shame this was their only appearence on TV under these gimmicks. Actually, they had a match vs Venum, Muneco and Demon Jr. but only the first fall was shown. This was really awesome though and I'd reccomend checking it out if this is your kinda thing.

Time to begin the 1980's Lucha Comments!!!

Americo Rocca/Chamaco Valaguez/Stuka vs Blue Panther/El Dandy/Talisman: This is from November '86 according to Bob so would this be officially the earliest footage available of Panther? I know there is a match of his from Mar. '87 floating around but that's it. On paper this looked like match of the 80's potential but that's the problem with judging a match before you see it. Not that this was a bad match... I don't think these six guys are capable of putting on a bad match when in the ring together... it was just missing... something. Really good work early on, especially an exchange with Stuka and Panther followed by a better exchange with Valaguez and Talisman. Nothing spectacular at all, just solid matwork and exchanging holds. Tecs take the first fall. More exchanges to start the second fall with Panther looking the best on the rudo side. His rolling bumps that he now only seems to do with Santo are Herodes-esque here. Just fantastic stuff. Rudos take over and win the fall as the crowd gets a little more into the match. Comeback in the third fall was a bit uninspired. Rocca and Dandy(I think) take a tumble to the outside leaving the remaining four guys. Tecnicos get whipped into each other and Stuka ends up outside the ring for a Panther tope suicida. The other two tecnicos are forced to submit for the rudos win! Rather lackluster third fall and finish which was disapointing to see.

Javier Cruz/Mogur/Tony Benetto vs Jerry Estrada/MS-1/Satanico: Well you get the idea of what will happen in this match right at the begining when Satanico and Estrada argue over who is going to get in the ring. Cruz looked absolutely horrific here. No clue why as I've always found him fun on the older Lucha footage. Benetto(Gran Markus Jr.) was obviously the star of the tecnicos. I continue to wonder if he had a bad accident running the ropes as a rookie which caused him to start running the ropes like he is running into a wall and has to brace himself. Anyways, the entire match was built around Estrada not getting along with his partners much like you can expect to see on Guerreros Del Ring this weekend with Rey Bucanero. Tecnicos don't do anything too flashy... Estrada takes a couple of sick bumps off backdrops in the ring and outside the ring... and it's over in two falls. 2/3 of Los Infernales beat up Jerry afterwards but I don't think Jerry went tecnico. Did they do a Bucaneros vs Infernales feud? Imagine how awesome that must have been! Oh yeah, the other interesting thing during the match was on two seperate occasions a fan got into a fight with Satanico. Police rushed over both times and it was nothing major but a bit entertaining.

Both the above were from Arena Mexico by the way. Shifting to Arena Coliseo now...

Impacto/Lemus/Sombra Poblana vs Leon Chino/Pierroth Jr./Tierra, Viento y Fuego(yes, that is one man): Wooooooooooooo - Arena Coliseo tercera! It's like the people on Lost, they are in the middle of NOWHERE. Impacto and Lemus are both unmasked and look kinda old which is nothing like I imagined. Sombra Poblana I've seen in 1989/1990 footage where he is an unmasked angry rudo... but here he is a smiling masked tecnico who flies. Leon Chino is masked and has a fucking awesome afro! Pierroth Jr. is... well... you know. He's got his cool black and yellow outfit going though. Meanwhile TVyF is ex-Damian El Guerrero(or should that read future Damian El Guerrero?) and he dwarfs everyone else in the match. This started really slow and the prevailing theme to me was that the tecnicos really have ZERO offense. Just generic armdrags and throws aside from Poblana who hit a nice move or two. I thought that would hurt the match but Leon Chino kicked into high gear and looked great himself. That's right, the rudo got to show off some of his own moves! I like that a lot. The match built extremely well as the crowd was very apathetic to it at first, started to care a little in the second fall and by the third fall they were actually pretty loud which is a compliment to how well these guys were doing. The tecnicos did this really lame spot where two of them held a rudo in the air and the third would come off the top with a double axhandle or elbow. The did it twice to Chino which was lame. Then they did it once to Pierroth and the crowd wanted to see him get it again! So they did! It got a huge pop. Yes, such a simple spot got a HUGE pop. Then the crowd saw TVyF standing around doing nothing and the tecnicos grabbed him which got a huge pop b/c the crowd knew what was coming and he got the move x2 as well! Such a simple move... such a loud pop b/c of the way it got built up... lots of current wrestlers should watch this match. After that they teased a dive or two and it ended up with Pierroth holding one of the tecnicos for... A TVyF DIVE?!?!?! WTF?!?!?!?! The gigantic(compared to the others) rudo dove off the top with a really awkward plancha and combine the fact he looked like someone falling out of a plane with the fact Pierroth blew the catch... and it was quite the fucking mess. I think Lemus was supposed to dive onto one of the rudos after that but neither survived the collision so they went straight home with Impacto pinned Chino. Very good effort from everyone involved.

No blow-away match yet but a great start to the new Barnett 80's stuff!

More 80's Lucha via Bob!!!

Cachorro Mendoza/Rokambole/Stuka vs Enfermero Jr./Tony Arce/Vulcano: Wow... this may have been the most pedestrian effort I have ever seen. The only two guys seemingly trying were Arce and Vulcano but even their great bumps couldn't save this. Just the most basic by the numbers lucha match you can imagine. I keep getting excited every time a Stuka match is up next but he continues to show NOTHING. This is a match I intend to never watch again.

Alfonso Dantes/Atlantis/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Hombre Bala/Jerry Estrada/Pirata Morgan: This was pretty good as you should expect. The rudos are just 100% awesome. They bump like mofo's for the tecnicos and allow Alfonso Dantes to do... whatever it is he does... and they sell it like death. I dunno what Alfonso's deal is... I'm guessing this was the end of his career and he was just sticking around b/c he was a draw? He obviously couldn't bump and had no chemistry with anyone. Maybe the style had just changed so much, there was no room for what he does best. Atlantis was on FIRE throughout the match and the rudos were perfect foils for him. He did these two wicked combo armdrag/headscissor and armdrag/dropkick spots that blew me away. Definitely worth checking out.

During the replays of the finish, the announcer hypes the card for the following week with MOGUR VS CHAMACO VALAGUEZ, Alfonso/Rayo/Herodes vs Los Bucaneros and Los Bravos vs Los Javieres in a revancha match which is perplexing since Valaguez was part of Los Javieres.

El Acertijo/Solar I/Stuka vs El Dandy/Guerrero Negro/Talisman: Another amazing looking match on paper that didn't quite deliver but was alright without going in with too high expectations. My first time seeing Acertijo and he was great. I wonder whatever became of him? He did some awesome spots in the fall. The rudos were bumping all over the place for the tecnicos in the fall leading to a spot where all three ended up outside and Guerrero Negro accidentally crashed into the famous old lady at ringisde so she kicked him really hard. *LMAO* Nice end to the first fall with the rudos turning the tables on the tecnicos to win. Second fall was all rudos until the comeback but surprisingly the rudos won in two after Stuka/Acertijo crashed on pescados and Solar was easily beaten. Could have used an all-out third fall.

Kung Fu/Mogur/Rokambole vs As Charro/El Egipcio/Jerry Estrada: Man I will never understand how Kung Fu's routine was over for almost 10 years in Mexico. I can see it being kinda fun for 6-8 months as he goes to different arenas and has a feud or two but that's it. Lame kicks and the constant no-selling and then bowing... ugh. For me the star in this match was As Charro. He seems like an old dude with a chip on his shoulder who just wants to kick ass but can wrestle clean if he wants. He used this INCREDIBLE submission to win the second fall. Estrada was his usual amazing bumping self. Finish was sorta neat as Charro went to back suplex Mogur but in the process of flipping over to land on his feet, Mogur accidentally yanked off Charro's mask for the DQ. I guess this was the start of their feud so I'd peg this footage around July '87.

Next up is a match where the announcers keep saying it's Satanico, MS-1 and Masakre but Masakre has a mask which makes no sense since he lost it in 1986. I have no idea who it could be.:/ Red/black-ish mask, kinda tall and lanky...

Atlantis/Ringo Mendoza/Ultraman vs Masakre/MS-1/Satanico: Been a while since I watched this but from what I remember it was pretty good. Announcers said it was Ultraman's Arena Mexico debut so you know he was inspired. Atlantis and MS-1 seem to have good chemsitry together. I think the rudos won but I really can't remember much about this.

Before the next match all the rudos ran out to attack Satanico for some raeson. They beat him up big time and he ended up being dragged to the back by his partners. REALLY good angle.

La Fiera/Lizmark/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Babe Face/Cien Caras/Pirata Morgan: Fiera/Babe Face was the big feud. Fiera bled HUGE! Rayo and Cien looked good working together. It's still tough to write that after sitting through their feud for about 10 years now as a regular lucha fan and thinking they were awful. Well... they are awful. But thank god for 80's Lucha so we know they weren't ALWAYS awful unlike Ringo Mendoza. In the third fall Rayo did a HUUUUUUUGE plancha onto Pirata Morgan. Babe Face low blowed La Fiera to win. Crowd was red hot for everything here.

CMLL TV March 5/89:

Blue Demon Jr./Huracan Ramirez/Super Muneco vs Masakre/MS-1/Satanico: Joined in progress seconds into the match with the rudos in control and it stays that way throughout the first fall. Second fall had some okay stuff by the tecnicos but nothing worth mentioning. The rudos went over clean in the third fall without much drama. Just an average match.

Atlantis/Magico/Ringo Mendoza vs Cien Caras/Mascara Ano 2000/Universo 2000: Magico would be current Mascara Sagrada. It's weird to see him in the same outfit but being refered to as Magico or Hombre Sin Nombre. This was actually pretty good. Dinamitas used a CRAZY INNOVATIVE triple team submission move on Ringo in the first fall. I marked out for a Dinamitas spot! Atlantis did a bunch of nice stuff which is to be expected. Surprisingly it was another clean win for the rudos! Good stuff.

El Texano/Konnan/Lizmark vs Fabuloso Blondy/Mike Stone/Rick Patterson: Aw man... just a huge brawl. I don't think there were ever less than 3 people in the ring at the same time. Not much of a match but I guess it wasn't supposed to be one as they were just setting up a revenge match for the following week.

CMLL TV March 12/89:

Before the first match on the DVD starts, the episode seems to be joined in progress as a Fuerza/Arce/Vulcano vs Dandy/someone/someone match is just ending.

Ciclon Ramirez/Huracan Ramirez/Super Muneco vs Emilio Charles Jr./Hombre Bala/Pirata Morgan: Announcers say this is Ciclon's debut which makes sense. I always wondered the logic behind creating a Ciclon Ramirez charachter since he's basically just a new Huracan Ramirez with a lighter colored mask. The rudo team looks absolutely awesome on paper. They dominated the first fall. Bala LAUNCHED Ciclon over the top backwards with a flapjack toss. Tecnicos fought back in the second fall. Muneco/Charles had some funny exchanges. Ciclon backdropped Huracan into a somersault plancha on one of the rudos and then did what I assume is a crazy tope suicida on another rudo but the camera missed it. Third fall had some nice exchanges but once again... RUDOS WIN CLEAN! Damnit, I'm a tecnico fan - when do they get to win???

I decided to continue that DVD another time b/c the next match was Infernales vs Dinamitas - rudos vs rudos.

Siglo XX and Rokambole vs Comando Ruso and Pierroth Jr.: If you're reading this Bob - I screwed up when I sent the listings so this is the correct match. Announcers confused the shit out of me by talking about the opening match of the night which had just finished. Anyways... this was pretty shitty. Why would I ever want to see a full tag match with fat ass Rokambole, THE KILLER and Pierroth Jr. who is good... but has no tecnicos to bump for. Ruso was the only highlight of the match. Crowd was into everything he did and he took some killer bumps for the lazy tecnicos. Pretty bland match overall though.

Americo Rocca/Cachorro Mendoza/Kung Fu vs El Dandy/Guerrero Negro/Talisman: *LMAO* - Before the match, the rudos steal Kung Fu's nunchucks and make fun of him but in the process they accidentally hit each other! Then they hit themselves while Kung Fu just watches. Finally they give up! TEN STAR MATCH ALREADY! Man... WTF happened to Guerrero Negro? He is like the hidden great Jerry Estrada-esque super-worker. I guess injuries must have ruined his career since he took some suicidal bumps. This match was pretty great and had all the usual stuff you'd expect from Los Bravos as they bumped all over the place for the tecnicos and had the crowd going nuts when they kept bumping into each other. Can you imagine one extended spot where the rudos bump into each other goes longer than the average CMLL fall these days? A SPOT GOING LONGER THAN A FALL! Americo Rocca was easily the best tecnico. He was doing some out of this world simple spots like giving Talisman's ARM a headscissor takedown(armscissor?) and then doing a wicked comination enzuigiri/headscissor spot. Talisman low blowed Cachorro to win the second fall so after a double tope suicida in the third fall, Cachorro and Talisman were exchanging pin attempts until finally Cachorro snapped and low blowed Talisman for the DQ. Really great stuff!

La Fiera/Lizmark/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Babe Face/Cien Caras/Mascara Ano 2000: More Fiera/Babe Face feuding although this time Rayo and MA2K got into the action. Rayo even bled a ton much like La Fiera the week before. A lot of brawling instead of exchanges which is alright. Lizmark did some nice stuff when he got a few minutes to shine. He did a tope suicida onto Cien Caras in the third fall, then MA2K made Rayo submit clean and Babe Face pinned La Fiera after a really weak elbow strike and an armlock submission that I'm sure is leading to something in their upcoming hair match since Babe Face used it TWICE in this match and Fiera gave up right away.

Hecatombe and Sombra Poblana vs MS-2 and El Salvaje: I screwed up these listings as well Bob b/c for some reason I swear the audio from the previous match got carried over into this match... unless I'm just going crazy. But I could swear I heard Rayo/MA2K challenging each other as the matwork was going on here. Hecatombe is early Mascara Sagrada. Poblana I already wrote about. He's still masked here. MS-2 is new to me as well. El Salvaje is... I have no freakin' idea! First fall is pretty average. Tecnicos win when Hecatombe uses the WORST MOVE IN THE HISTORY OF WRESTLING. It's like he is going for a frankensteiner but instead he just uses both legs to smack his opponent in the head! He did it TWICE IN A ROW to Salvaje before pinning him. How lame is that move? Half the time he does it, he ends up landing on his own head. It looks like he is just screwing up a frankensteiner! *L* Second fall only had a few seconds shown before the match got cut off for some reason.:/

Slowly but surely the 80's footage continues...

Alfonso Dantes and Kiss vs Cien Caras and Mascara Ano 2000: Turns out this was for the National Tag Titles. Match really didn't do much for me b/c Alfonso Dantes was in for 70% of what was shown and his style really isn't clicking with me. Kiss looked good for the short time he got in the ring and it definitely is not the same Kiss I was expecting after seeing his mid to late 90's stuff. Seemed they were building to a long third fall but only two falls were on the DVD.

Javier Cruz/Kiss/Ultraman vs El Egipcio/Enfermero Jr./Masakre: Joined in progress early in the first fall. Enfermero Jr. was maskless and bald so he must have been having a rough year. He looked the best on the rudo side though and was bumping all over the place. All the tecnicos looked good themselves. Match only went two falls(or maybe the match was joined early in the second fall?). In the second fall Ultraman did a tope suicida and Cruz did a slingshot somersault plancha over the top leaving Kiss to get low blowed and win by DQ. Fine effort by all.

Atlantis/El Hijo Del Santo/Tony Salazar vs El Dandy/Espectro Jr./Satanico: One thing immediatly struck me while watching this match - watching Santo at this time reminded me a lot of people's complaints about current Mistico. Santo looked fine when he was in the ring with Dandy doing his trademark spots but when it was time to work with Espectro Jr. or Satanico, it seemed like he was on a different planet and very tenative to try anything that he would blow. There was one exchange where Santo and Espectro Jr. just ran at each other and neither did anything. It looked awful. But then Santo and Dandy got in the ring and you had a really fluid exchange with all the trademark Santo craziness and the crowd went nuts. Anyways, that's just what I noticed. Match was alright. Atlantis/Dandy exchange early on was fantastic but they never got paired up again(maybe after seeing what happened between Santo/Espectro?). They split the first two falls and in the third fall Atlantis did a somersault off the apron onto Espectro, Santo did a plancha onto Dandy and Salazar pinned Satanico with a rolling tope which got a huge pop. I expected way more but it was decent.

Kung Fu/Lizmark/Siglo XX vs Masakre/MS-1/Satanico: Eh, I'm not digging the Infernales just yet.:/ Never was a fan of their late 80's/early 90's stuff(even with Pirata) and this footage isn't helping their cause... at least not yet. Lots of brawling with very little triple team moves. They just looked really uninspired considering the entire match was built for them to look dominant. Finish had Satanico low blowing Lizmark b/c he had take a bunch of kicks to the butt and was sick and tired of it. Really flat ending.

La Fiera/Rayo De Jalisco Jr./Tony Salazar vs Masakre/MS-1/Satanico: This was a little better but hard to get into b/c it was your typical Rayo Jr. show. You know this type of match... Rayo comes out, Rayo gets attacked right away, Rayo has his mask ripped and bleeds a little, Rayo's partners try not to get in his spotlight, Rayo leads the comeback, Rayo does his usual crummy spots, Rayo hits every move to beat his opponent but then missing a jumping tope and gets pinned to setup his big revenge the following week. I've seen it played out hundreds of times and it sucks each time unless the rudo is Apolo Dantes. Salazar did absolutely nothing and Fiera was sporting an injured knee so he just kept doing his trademark enzuigiri and that was it. Dissapointing match.

Been on a string of weak/bad/uninspired matches lately which has killed my mood to keep watching a lot of stuff even though I have a bit of a backlog. Either way some quick comments...

1987 Lucha:

Atlantis/Rayo De Jalisco Jr./Super Halcon vs Masakre/MS-1/Satanico: This match was full of Rayo and Halcon not getting along and I really don't mind when they do stuff like this but if you are going to do it - PLEASE GET IT OVER WITH FAST! I hate how Halcon teases the turn all match, then blatantly turns on his partners but come the third fall they welcome him into their corner and act surprised when he turns on them again. Tecnicos are STOOPID. Much of nothing.

Alfonso Dantes/Atlantis/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs El Dandy/MS-1/Satanico: I still don't get the point of Alfonso Dantes wrestling in 1986/1987 from this batch of Barnett footage. He may as well have not even shown up here as he got in the ring MAYBE three times for short periods of time. Dandy was absolutely incredible here and took POSSIBLY the highest sallida bump I have ever seen aside from a special few from Jerry Estrada and Super Crazy. Okay match but really seemed too much like 2 tecnicos vs 3 rudos. Rayo Jr. did a nice plancha in the third fall.

1986 Lucha:

Alfonso Dantes/Lizmark/Tony Salazar vs El Signo/El Texano/Negro Navarro: NO NO NO - NOT MORE ALFONSO DANTES!!! At least this match had the bonus of the crowd laughing at all his 70's spots like tackles, a diving splash and tons of inverted atomic drops. In the third fall he put on possibly the worst submission move I have ever seen. Navarro couldn't decide whether to sell it or not AND the referee couldn't tell if it was a real submission that he should be checking on. To make things worse, Signo and Salazar were waiting to do their finishing spot and couldn't tell if that was their cue or not. Finally Dantes let go and put on a different submission but that screwed up Salazar and Signo's timing so Signo tried to low blow Salazar but screwed up somehow and nobody could tell if it was a low blow or not. Salazar got revenge a few seconds later with one of his own and the referees DQ'ed him but the crowd was confused since the original low blow was so awkward. It was a very bad finish to an average match at best. The Missioneros didn't look too motivated for some reason and I still question a regular trios team not having any trios moves. Or even double team moves until the middle of the third fall. Salazar is one repetitive guy. Dropkicks, rolling topes or jumping topes and then 1000 versions of flying cross body presses. What an offense!

Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Mascara Ano 2000 - NWA Light Heavyweight Title Bout: I liked this. Weird to see Rayo in a good singles match unless you talk about the miracle of Apolo Dantes. Rayo freaked me out early on by escaping from a waistlock by doing a half-split and then kipping up! I had to rewind that one! Some nice work in the first fall with Rayo getting the win via grounded torture rack. Second fall had some more good stuff and to these guys credit the match was wrestled 100% clean. MA2K takes it via submission to a Cavernaria. Third fall was your traditional third fall style title match where MA2K did a tope suicida, Rayo did a tope suicida and then he did a plancha. My only complaint is after Rayo did his tope suicida and both guys rolled back inside, MA2K just stood over Rayo and locked on a camel clutch. I like the spot where a wrestler is celebrating his dive thinking he's won by countout and then gets caught in a Cavernaria b/c it makes sense but I hated how Rayo seemed to be fine after NAILING MA2K hard but when they got back in, suddenly MA2K was in control easily.:/ Lots of good nearfalls at the end but a weird finish. MA2K slaps on an abdominal stretch and lets go thinking he won the match. The referee says Rayo never gave up. Rayo then whips MA2K into the ropes for a spinning backbreaker but turns it into a tombstone! Ref counts 1, 2, 3! Rayo wins and immediatly afterwards the commentators start debating about why the referee allowed a pinfall from an illegal move but the decision stands. This is officially the second greatest singles match I've seen Rayo involved in.

La Fiera vs Babe Face - Hair vs Hair: Surprisingly the crowd heat was not what I expected for a match of this much importance. Is it weird that I don't mind Kidman countering every power bomb into a faceslam but I hate seeing the spot where Fiera goes for a kick, his opponent catches it but then Fiera poses for a few seconds and kicks his opponent in the head? JUST PUT HIS FOOT DOWN! YOU KNOW WHAT'S COMING!!! Fiera took the first fall but lost the second fall when he had his shoulder re-injured as they had built for two weeks coming into this match. Third fall was the usual for a traditional hair match. Fiera did his no-touch running tope suicida over the top but sorta went up... and down. BARELY cleared the top rope and looked to really hurt his knees on the landing. They did a fantastic spot where both guys were trying to re-enter the ring and kept yanking each other off. Finally Fiera kicked Babe Face away and lept off the apron with a reverse flying body press... BUT HIT THE FLOOR HARD! Crowd(and myself) popped like crazy! That should have been the match right there... what a fantastic ending spot. But Roberto Rangel started to count and as he got near 20, Babe Face stopped the count for some reason and gave Fiera time to recover! That was certainly weird. Then they did some nearfalls that weren't too dramatic until Face headbutted Fiera NEAR the groin which the crowd thought was a low blow. He then picked Fiera up on his shoulders but Fiera rolled through and grabbed the ropes... IN FULL VIEW OF THE REFEREE! Rangel counted to three anyways and Fiera won as the crowd rushed the ring. Babe Face complained Fiera was holding the ropes but Rangel said he saw nothing... which is confusing to me. Very bloody match with some cool moments.

1989 Lucha:

Masakre/MS-1/Satanico vs Cien Caras/Mascara Ano 2000/Universo 2000: Man, I was expecting A LOT from this just based on the match listing but the disapointment was akin to a typical PhilTom over-pimped match. I have never seen these two teams face each other which was part of the initial excitement but this was just REALLY bad. A ton of weak brawling and the match ending in two straight falls via weak DQ finishes. I don't even remember any blood or mask ripping so how can you book two teams to have a 'hate-filled match' without any of that happening?

El Texano/Konnan/Lizmark vs Fabuloso Blondy/Mike Stone/Rick Patterson: I honestly can't remember much about this as all the Blondy/Stone/Patterson matches blend together since they all stunk. I think Lizmark got hurt somehow in this but watched it a few days ago so don't take my word on that.

El Texano/Lizmark/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Masakre/MS-1/Super Halcon: Also saw this a few days ago and right now my mind is blank as to what happened. I know Rayo got his mask ripped up and he was feuding with MS-1 but that's about it. Boy early '89 CMLL main events were really shitty. How bad would it have been without the Atlantis' team vs Dandy's team midcard feud going on?

Cien Caras/Mascara Ano 2000/Universo 2000 vs Fabuloso Blondy/Mike Stone/Rick Patterson: OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!

UWA TV June 20 + 27/92:

Coloso/Canadian Tiger/Ojo De Tigre vs Espanto Jr./Kahoz/Scorpio: I admit part of ordering these two TV blocks was b/c I was hoping Ojo De Tigre would prove to be a hidden gem of a worker. I... was... oh so very wrong. Typical mailed in boring UWA match where it appears NOBODY is trying. A Lucha-newbie could watch this match and figure out half the reason why the UWA was spiraling into death at this point.

There was a short feature on TAKEDA that was AMMMMMMMMMMMMMAZING and worth the price of the DVD alone. If any of you remember the 1998 sketches from AAA with Los Kamikazes in their debut or the Cuije/Chucky running around a park angle... this was filmed in the same location as those. Basically Takeda is being interviewed while walking and some lady walks by. Suddenly some evil men come and steal her purse! Takeda tells the interviewer to hang on for a moment and CHASES DOWN THE ROBBERS! The shootfight is on from there as he gives one of them a bunch of wacky spinning kicks. The other thinks he can take Takeda and charges... BUT GETS NAILED WITH A SPINNING BACKBREAKER! In the middle of a park - YEP! Bad guy #2 even takes an extra bump off a kick and oversells the bump by doing two flips onto the concrete! Takeda returns the purse to the lady and continues the interview as if nothing happened. Takeda is sorta dressed like Shredder by the way so this entire sketch is A+. Whatever happened to this dude? Jose says he was amazing.

Eddy Guerrero/Villano I/Villano III vs El Signo/Negro Navarro/Black Power: Okay match but once again... BORING. It's a UWA '92 staple, I know... but I always hold out hope that in some random match the workers will get inspired to do something out of the ordinary. This was not that match. Crappy low blow finish, no Navarro matwork, no Villano III/Signo exchanges, no young Eddy awesomeness... no reason for me to ever watch this again.

Canek/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Miguel Perez Jr./Ricky Santana: Canek kills evil Puerto Ricans with Wagner's help... version 1,419! I don't think I've ever seen a crowd as dead for a main event as they were here. Even the usual UWA regulars that bang that annoying drum were busy talking amongst themselves. Probably wondering what was going on at the AAA show nearby.

Ninja Sasuke(yep, Great Sasuke)/El Matematico vs Cassandro/Rudy Reyna: Cassandro was wearing a sash that said "Miss Gay"! *L* Matematico looked really old wrestling in plain blue tights and with no mask. I thought he had retired by this point and only the new Matematicos were around but I guess I was wrong. And so was Jose!!! Cassandro worked well with both tecnicos but Reyna is a giant sack of shit. I kept waiting for Matematico to do some tricked out matwork or flying but it never came. This sucked.

Celestial/Coloso vs Dr. Wagner Jr./Espanto Jr.: Hey now! This was a special unadvertised match as Lynch's listings doesn't have this. I'm all for more Blackman(Celestial) so WOO-HOO! Easily the best match of the DVD. Coloso is a young Mr. Mexico who likes to FLY and has a ton of neat moves even if he is a bit sloppy. Rudos are perfect bumpers for the tecnicos. Rudos take the first fall, tecnicos take the second after stereo weak dives and then a fun third fall goes to the rudos. It really is a shame guys would only work 50% of their normal ability during the dying UWA days. All four of these going at 100% could have made for an amazing match.

CMLL TV June 18/89:

Aguila Solitaria/Javier Cruz/Mogur vs El Supremo/Fuerza Guerrera/Hombre Bala: Oh man... the pain, the absolute pain! I wanted this to be good but it was far too long for a match that had only brawling for the most part. It lasted from 0:00 to 39:00 on my DVD player with post-match stuff included! The big feud was Cruz vs Bala as they ended up deciding the match and then issuing hair challenges. Wonder if that ever made TV? What a mess.

Angel Azteca/El Dandy/Steve Nelson vs Emilio Charles Jr./Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr.: Anyone wanna clue me in on who Steve Nelson was? Was he a GWF or USWA guy? That would explain me having no clue where he came from. I asked Jose about him before ordering this show and Jose said he was a good amateur wrestler so I was hoping for some fun matwork but he was ABSOLUTELY LOST AT EVERYTHING. There was one spot where Dandy and Emilio were chasing each other outside the ring and the refs went outside to stop them as did their partners. Nelson refused to let go of the hold he had on Markus inside the ring even though NOBODY was watching them and it looked so awkward. Later he picked Pierroth up and threw him across the ring with the most dangerous bodyslam ever and Pierroth just rolled outside shaking his head as if saying "enough of this shit". In the second fall Nelson almost killed Markus by doing an armdrag on the wrong side(for Mexico) which caught Markus totally off-guard and he almost took a header. Needless to say that was Nelson's last singles exchange of the match. Aside from the Dandy/Emilio stuff throughout, this was a pretty bad match. Maybe it could have been better with someone besides Nelson on the tecnico side.

While we're on the topic of foreigners in Mexico - anyone know who David Gold is?

Mascarita Sagrada Jr./La Parkita vs Espectrito I/Mini Karis La Momia - AAA TV October '96: I got this a long time ago from Jeff Lynch but recently rewatched and had to make mention of it. Would EASILY be in my top #10 mini's matches of all time. It's better now when you know who is under the gimmicks b/c it's like a dream match - Tzuki/Octagoncito AAA vs Espectrito/Mini Abismo Negro. For such a random undercard tag match at the time, these guys went all out and put on a fantastic performance. The rudos were brilliant with the tecnicos and timed all their comebacks perfectly. Both tecnicos were on fire and doing some amazing flying, in particular Sagrada Jr. who was working spots ten years ahead of their time with Mini Karis. More reason to want to see Tzuki in AAA as Mini Abismo was still pretty green back here. Both tecnicos did psychotic dives as you'd expect but that wasn't even the highlight as the in-ring stuff was just so crisp and full of innovative spots you still don't see these days. I liked the flow of the match as well as it wasn't just tecnicos dominate and win fall one, rudos dominate and win fall two, then the usual fall three stuff. They took their time and brought crowd up and down at various points during each fall. Well worth checking out if you are making a purchase off Lynch.

AAA/CMLL TV 2/20/97:

Octagon/Heavy Metal/Hector Garza vs Cibernetico/Killer/Pentagon: Entire match was just an angle as Cibernetico was in the middle of his tecnico turn. I know - that doesn't make much sense at all. Yet Pena has tried to have him tecnico on at least 4 different occasions. Ciber eventually cost his team the match and then got beat up for his troubles.

Noti AAA had footage of ~MACH ONE! making his AAA debut. Looked like Venum/Discovery/Super Nova vs Histeria/Maniaco/Mach One from Arena Naucalpan. Why didn't anyone tape that match?

Latin Lover vs Pierroth Jr.: Crowd was actually SPLIT b/c this was taped in Cuernavaca - Pierroth's hometown. As the match went on though - the genius that he is - Pierroth got them to boo him and he had help from Tirantes and his evil refereeing ways. Pentagon kept interfereing so Octagon ran out from the back and nailed him with a tope suicida. While that was going on though, Pierroth low blowed Latin and pinned him. Things got reversed in the third fall so Latin won.

CMLL started right away with a music video(holy shit - THAT MEANS SOMEONE DID POST-PRODUCTION!!!) showing highlights from the battle royale to determine who faces who in the tag titles tournament.

Dos Caras/Ultimo Dragon vs Bestia Salvaje/Emilio Charles Jr.: Weird to see a motivated Ultimo Dragon in Mexico.:/ Standard match with the tecnicos on offense the entire time leading to a win.

Atlantis/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Head Hunters I y II: Wow, this one was fast. Rudos attacked right away and squashed both tecnicos for the three count in less than 3 minutes. I think the idea was to push them through all the way to the finals like this and make it a surprise when they lost in the finals which is smart booking.

El Dandy/Lizmark vs Dr. Wagner Jr./Silver King: Great entrance as Bad Medicine hits and THREE Dr. Wagners come out. Wagner Jr., King and Wagner Sr. of course. Long debate before the match about whether Silver King should be allowed to wrestle in a Wagner outfit which the commisioner wins so King unmasks and the brawl is on. On paper I thought this would be the best match of the first round but there were moments of miscommunication which were really obvious and led to some hilarious blown spots. Rudos win after about 10 minutes of action.

Negro Casas/Black Magic vs Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata: I can't believe THIS was an Arena Mexico main event match. It would explain the <7,000 src="http://luchaworld.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif" alt="Smile" border="0"> As weird of a main event as it is - all these guys worked fucking hard and this match was fantastic. Not traditional lucha style at all... more puroresu based if I can use that term. At one point Porky had Negro in a submission and refused to let go for at least two minutes, even with Magic kicking him right in the face really hard. At one point with both tecnicos down on the mat, Porky lept off the top with a twisting senton which was NUTS. Magic sorta rolled away leaving Negro to take the entire impact. They did a short dive sequence with tope suicidas from both Brazos. Los Negros went over though and both teams shook hands while the crowd applauded. Great effort from all four guys.

CMLL GdR 5/5/06:

Blue Panther/Brazo De Plata/Virus vs Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Olimpico: Criminally short although I noticed at least two clips. Based on what aired I am very mad we didn't get at least one Virus/Guerrero exchange at some point. In fact, I don't recall Virus get A SINGLE EXCHANGE in the match. It was sad seeing Porky go through two of his usual spots and heaving like he was on his death bed. Even worse later on when he could barely roll over. Dude needs a reality check. Much like what cubs said - seemed like a fun match for the setting. You can't expect 100% workrate on a kids show where the entire crowd just wants to laugh and see their guys win.

Mistico/La Parka/Negro Casas/Heavy Metal vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Damian 666/Mr. Aguila: Aguila looks good fresh off being shaved bald. Damian looks 20 years older than his usual 40 year old look. Of course this entire match was based around Parka turning on his team and eventually walking off. Angle was played nicely and had some creative spots such as Parka's usual comedy spot with Rey Jr.(Mistico played Rey - DUH!) except not meant for comedy as he was really pissed at him and Parka catching Negro to block the silla dive onto Perrito. Dunno WTF Perrito was trying afterwards as he kinda lept off the apron at Negro and came up way short but Negro bumped anyways. Always good to see the top heel blowing a simple spot as badly as an opening card rudo. Rudos win when Parka walks off.

Really strange main event booking. You have weeks and weeks to run the Parka turning rudo angle on a regular Friday show so why save it for a special Sunday show in front of an audience full of irregular fans who were just celebrating kids day? And anyone with half a brain knows the crowd came to see the good guys win so they could cheer for them so why run a finish where the rudos kick everyone's ass? Simple booking like this used to be right up CMLL's alley.

On paper this is one of the best GdR episodes in ages and you can understand why people who don't get GdR are dying to see it. In reality, the show kinda blew and you just end up confused as to why people still think GdR is the greatest show they aren't able to see.

CMLL GdR 5/13/06:

Has anyone noticed the show starts with clips of the entire Arena Coliseo show? Not just the matches they are airing - the undercard stuff as well. It goes by real fast but for example on this episode they had a Shockercito tope suicida, multiple rotation headscissors from someone(Mini Starman?) on Pequeno Halloween and various other clips. So the full shows are being taped and are probably in storage somewhere. I wonder how the ratings for this show are b/c maybe if they are good it can get extended by a half hour or even an extra hour to show some bonus material or even just 3 full matches which would still be good since the curretn 1 hour and less than 20 minutes of wrestling is getting old.

(skipped first match for now)

Mistico/Lizmark Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs El Averno/El Mephisto/Universo 2000: Wow... BEYOND AWFUL. I didn't expect it to be good but even by normal mailed in Coliseo standards, this was atrocious from start to finish. I guess the tone was set right away as Mistico was running the ropes and Averno had a really confused look on his face. Mistico did a handspring... something... realized Averno was just looking at him awkwardly, landed on his feet... and took a bump. O.............K. Rudos took over from there and won the first fall in short order. Mistico springboard dropkick leads the way for the second fall comeback but if you've been watching with any regularity, you knew it was coming. Rudos obviously don't have time to watch TV. Mistico with a slingshot tornillo to take Mephisto out of the equation. Lizmark is busy bodyslamming Universo on the floor and telling Quemonito jump off the apron but Monito obviously realizing what a fucking mess this match is - refuses to do so and just stands there. Meanwhile the equally useless Ultimo Dragon is standing in the ring waiting for... someone... something... I really don't know. Oh wait - Averno enters the ring so Dragon attacks him but Universo enters as well. If you guessed a power bomb from Lizmark Jr. and the Asai DDT from Ultimo in under 30 seconds to finish the fall - you win! Third fall has your generic Ultimo Dragon exchange and Lizmark Jr. exchange where both look like they'd rather be anywhere but in a wrestling ring. Mistico rinses and repeats his same spots on all three rudos, ending by sending Universo outside with the springboard twisting armdrag. Lizmark Jr. with a tope suicida. Ultimo and Averno then enter and have a very awkward moment where they both head towards each other... then stop... then back off... then stop... and finally Averno just runs into the ropes and Ultimo waits for him to get close before hiptossing him to the outside and doing an asai moonsault. If you guessed La Mistica in under 30 seconds - you'd be wrong b/c we're setting up a singles match here so instead it's a low blow on Mistico in less than 30 seconds.

I'm honestly very afraid that one year from now I will not be able to distinguish between ANY of these GdR episodes. Usually I have a good memory b/c I can remember certain creative spots or moves or angles and then the entire match comes flooding back to me no matter when it's from... 80's, 90's, etc. Doesn't even matter if it's some short shitty WWA TV show from 1991. As long as SOMETHING stands out, I can remember it clearly. But there is NOTHING to remember most of these GdR episodes by. I can even stretch that by saying there is NOTHING to remember most CMLL television shows these days. Another reason it'd be nice to get some new faces on TV. Even if the matches suck, at least it would help differentiate shows.

CMLL GdR 5/13/06:

Dos Caras Jr./Felino/Brazo De Oro vs Emilio Charles Jr./Hombre Sin Nombre/Misterioso II: I had no problems with this. It was odd to see Dos Jr. working like he was more motivated even though he had a lower spot on the card. Isn't it usually the other way around? Oro was nothing but an extra body. Emilio was really fun as usual. He can't work like he used to but he is hilarious with his selling and facial expressions. I found it funny when Felino thought it was time for the rudo beatdown in the second fall only it wasn't and he interrupted a Brazo/Misterioso exchange. OOPS.

(main event above)

Average episode.

CMLL GdR 5/20/06:

Lizmark Jr./Brazo De Plata/Black Warrior/Universo 2000 vs Great Muta/Ultimo Dragon/Marco Corleone/John Stamboli: WTF happened in fall one? Looked like the foreigners won and they just kept wrestling. I think someone forgot to tell them the fall ends and there is a rest period so everyone got confused and the refs eventually just raised their hands. Odd. I'm shocked Ultimo Dragon hasn't turned rudo yet b/c he didn't have to do ANYTHING in the match. As a tecnico he has to run through his boring spots we've seen a million times, if he turned rudo he could mail it in without having to break a sweat! Warrior's tope of death was nice but otherwise this was a mess. The magazines ripped on Muta's performance in Mexico by saying he was lazy. Well... he was just trying to fit in!

Mistico vs El Mephisto: Wow, not the Mistico by numbers match I was expecting. Right from the start Mephisto worked the knee and Mistico sold it for the entire match. Of course it helps this was the week his knee was really bothering him. As the match went on, I couldn't help but feel the nearfalls were pointless. The crowd knew Mistico was going to win with La Mistica so they were just waiting for it. It might be time to give him a new finisher that he can use once in a while to create some suspense as to how his matches end. Even with that said, I liked the finish with the first Mistica tease, low blow block and then La Mistica. Mistico continues to sell afterwards and gets bonus points from me. I wonder if the match would have been even better if they hadn't clipped out the early third fall stuff.:/

Another average episode worth seeing if you're a Mistico fan.

CMLL TV 6/3/90:

Americo Rocca/Cachorro Mendoza/Cesar Dantes vs Hombre Bala/Tony Arce/Vulcano: Average match... no memorable moves or anything of the sort. It's still funny to think at one time a lot of people thought Cesar was the star of the Dantes' family and Apolo would never make it b/c he was too skinny. Rocca/Bala seemed to be feuding here... can't remember if a hair match ever came out of it. Weird stuff in the first fall as Arce refused to lock up and went to the ringside doctor to check his eye b/c he claimed to have something stuck in it. This was the second match on the show so fans were still ariving and at one point Vulcano got sent to the floor and deep into the aisle. As he lay there selling pain, the fans just walked right by him, one even gently nudged him aside.

Blue Demon Jr./Javier Cruz/Mogur vs Bestia Salvaje/Emilio Charles Jr./Jaque Mate: Rudos brawled early on but the tecnico made a first fall comeback and won the fall easily. Second fall had some fun exchanges. Cruz did this *AMAZING* armdrag out of a headlock takeover that I've never seen before. Rudos once again took over with brawling and won the fall. Tecnicos rebounded in the third fall and there was a mini-dive sequence as Demon Jr. did a tope suicida, Bestia nailed one of his own and Mogur finished things off. Tecs took the match. Some good stuff here but the brawling went on too long.

Los Brazos vs Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Pirata Morgan: Usual Brazos match where they work 100% tecnico style for the kids. Lots of Porky belly-bump spots and big splashes. For some reason the fans chanted "mascara" at Markus and each Brazo kept trying to unmask him. Then they started to rip Pierroth's mask. That's a feud that I never heard about.:/ Pirata was fabulous when he and Porky were in the ring. Brazos eliminate Pierroth in the third fall and then appear to have the other two rudos about to submit when Pierroth re-enters and starts hammering Porky which earns the Brazos a DQ victory.

Angel Azteca vs El Dandy - NWA Middleweight Title Bout: Now *THIS* is why I bought the DVD from Lynch and I suggest everyone gets their hands on a copy of this. This... was... FUCKING... AWESOME! I had this on the 1990 Year in the Review show but they only show the last few minutes of each fall and was curious to see how it would hold up in full. Well... it more than held up... it exceeded all my expectations. The match ran *45+ minutes*!!! I'm not talking two quick falls and then a long third fall that just dragged on. They were still working the second fall at the 25 minute mark! Can you imagine if anyone on the current CMLL roster minus Blue Panther, Ultimo Guerrero, Satanico and Virus were told they'd be working a match where the first two falls would have to last 25 minutes and they'd still have to work that same amount of time in the third fall? I think Pena would have about 150 guys wanting to jump within minutes! Tons and tons and tons of amazing matwork early on as Azteca tried to injure Dandy's shoulder. The first fall finish is just fucking unbelievable. The second fall is when the crowd starts to really get into it and add all the drama b/c it was going so long they were convinced Azteca was winning the match in two straight(playing off the fact he beat Emilio Charles Jr. in two straight about a year ago in the same building under the same circumstances). Dandy comes through and takes the fall which gets a *HUGE POP* and in the third fall the crowd is split 50/50 for each guy. Even the front row regulars who are normally subdued get into it and begin standing up to cheer on their man. Third fall is just an absolute work of beauty with some great nearfalls and perfectly timed spots. I won't spoil the finish for those who want to pick it up. Crowd goes apeshit at the three count and rushes to ringside(at Arena Coliseo which is rare and also that usually only happens after mask or hair matches, not title matches). The champ cries afterwards as he is presented the belt. 45 fucking minutes of brilliant Lucha. I'm giving it ****3/4 although I can't come up with a reason as to why it shouldn't be a ***** match. I think I'm just looking for validation from someone like Cooke or Jose before declaring it a perfect match.

Next DVD has Atlantis/Angel Azteca vs El Dandy/Satanico from Arena Mexico! I fear it will be a 100% angle match though.:/
Just finished watching Triplemania XIV so here's a quick review of the SHOW OF THE YEAR so far in Mexico...

Show started with the Mexican Power(s?) coming out for a promo. Joe Lider's mic skills are on par with his wrestling skills. Thankfully Juventud quickly took over and got the crowd pumped up.

Mascarita 2000/Octagoncito/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo/Mini Chessman/Jerrito Estrada: The usual awesome opener with the mini's. They got to go almost 20 minutes and the match went back and forth between tecnicos on offense and rudos on offense. Every time it got slow, the tecnicos would take over and make things interesting again with their flying. Octagoncito looked more motivated than usual(coinciding with his return to regular TV?). He nailed a gorgeous springboard 450 splash at one point. Mascarita 2000 and Mini Chessman are starting to work good together so the Octcito/Mini Abismo tandem was finally reunited for a large chunk of the match. Tons of dives... I think about 7 from the tecnicos. 2 by Mascarita, 3 by Octagoncito and 2 by Parkita. It was nuts. Tecnicos take it via triple pinfall to get the night started wrestling-wise.

Gran Apache/Tiffany & Abismo/Diabolica over Billy Boy/Fabi Apache & Alebrije/Estrellita: Brandon ran out to attack Billy Boy during his entrance continuing the angle where Brandon is supposed to be the father of Fabi's kid. Lots of brawling early on but it settled down into a really solid four way match with a few nice exchanges and of course EVERYONE getting a chance to do dives. Tiffany did a flip plancha, Diabolica did one as well, Billy Boy was way out of control on a tope suicida and landed hard after bouncing off Apache, Estrellita did a tornillo and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others. The strange thing was that Alebrije and Cuije had many disagreements during the match! It got to the point where Alebrije kicked Cuije into the corner and Cuije responded by getting a chair and giving it to Abismo to hit Alebrije! WTF? Billy Boy's team went out first after he got pissed off at Apache and low blowed him in view of the ref. Alebrije's team was next out after he missed a flying cross body press and landed on a chair really hard. So the rudo teams should have advanced to face each other for a shot at the Mixed Tag Titles but AAA may have just ignored the result here. I dunno. Solid match though. 2 for 2.

La Fuerza Aerea vs The Black Family - National Atomicos Titles: In the 3 months leading up to this match, these teams(minus Chessman, plus Espiritu) had faced each other 6 times by my count. So they had lots of preparation to go all out and put on a great performance. Didn't get to see the early part of the match but joined it in the middle while things were getting chaotic. Escoria nailed Super Fly with a Canadian Destroyer. Rey Cometa went for a frankensteiner over the ringpost to the outside but undershot and cracked his skull on the floor which was REALLY SICK. He got up fine though which is shocking since it was similar to the bump Averno took last week that KO'ed him. Laredo Kid hit one of the most amazing spots of the night... A SPRINGBOARD *TRIPLE* CORKSCREW PLANCHA!!! You knew he was gonna bust something special out and holy shit... what an insane move. Laredo Kid definitely seems like the most spectacular guy in La Fuerza Aerea however I've been hearing on the weekly Nuevo Laredo shows he takes it to the mat with Mocho Cota! The fans even gave them money the other week! But back to the match, Espiritu ran out and things got nuts so Scorpio came to ringside and ordered a no-contest. La Fuerza Aerea weren't happy and the fight continued. Oriental(who has been playing the role of a mentor to the young kids) came out to even things up by drokicking Ozz in the aisle, nailing Cuervo with a spinning backbreaker, sending Espiritu out of the ring and nailing him with a bullet tope suicida! Crowd was eating all this up. Super Fly/Nemesis/Laredo Kid dropkicked Ozz/Cuervo/Escoria outside and went for tope suicidas but Fly/Nemesis ate the ground when Ozz/Cuervo stepped back while Escoria caught Laredo Kid and speared him into the guardrail! All of a sudden the crowd started screaming b/c Chessman had brought a table to ringside, propped it up against the guardrail and lit it on fire!!! He got in the ring and Cometa charged him but got backdropped onto the apron. Chessman then got a running start... AND FUCKING SPEARED COMETA OFF THE APRON THROUGH THE FLAMING TABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Crowd went *CRAZY*... as did I of course! There is a spot of the year candidate! The guardrail was really far back for this show so they had a ton of distance to cover and nailed the spot PERFECT. Man I need a video clip of that for my signature! With everyone laying around dead on the tecnico side, La Secta beat Hijo Del Tirantes to a bloody pulp and the match was thrown out. Amazing spectacle to watch. 3/3.

Pimpinela/Mocho Cota/La Fiera/Sangre Chicana vs Cassandro/Brazo/Espectro Jr./Pirata Morgan: Brazo came out wearing a mask. Pirata Morgan came out with his two "sons" who seemed to be Kaleth and Nemesis from the IWRG. They attacked La Fiera before the match began and nailed him with an asai moonsault/legdrop combination. Big brawl early on but it eventually settled down for some old-timer exchanges! Brace yourself folks... Mocho Cota nailed a tope suicida!!! It wasn't a pansy-ass tope either! Chicana one-upped him with a classic Chicana bullet tope onto Pirata! Honestly, Fiera was the only old guy in the match who looked like he didn't belong in a wrestling ring. Things broke down at the end as Pimpinela/Cassandro were slapping each other and all the Consagrados took offense and beat the shit out of them. May Flowers and Polvo De Estrellas ran out to help their buddies but got the beatdown as well. I'll give it half a point just for the old guys impressing on a show they really had no right to get over on. 3 1/2 out of 4 so far.

Vampiro/Octagon/Intocable/El Angel vs Los Guapos VIP: The entrances took almost 12 minutes but it was well worth it! Awesome old-school AAA feel. Every guy had a video package that was nicely done. The only guy who didn't get a pop was Angel. You all need to hear the reaction Intocable got... he is soooooooo the next Latin Lover already. He got raped by a ton of girls on his way to the ring. The same girls were planning to do the same to Vampiro but he got attacked by the Guapos before he could get down the aisle. Octagon's intro video featured clips of El Santo wrestling b/c he came to the ring with El Nieto Del Santo! Not Axxel... an actual 11 year old kid who is supposedly going to work under that name when he grows up. Major fuck you to Axxel. TV edited off the early portion which was all Guapos brawling and cut right to the exchanges which were awesome. First up was Intocable. Just to hear the reaction to everything he did was amazing. Huge pop after huge pop for every move and he even hit some nice ones including a double Asai Cutter on Shocker and Scorpio. Octagon worked spots with every Guapo. Zumbido took a gigantic sallida bump to the outside. Angel then came in and fucking TORE IT UP. I've never seen him so on with all of his spots, even as Sevilla. He flew all over the place and did double/triple team moves that were really cool. Then Vampiro and Shocker went at it on the floor ending up with Vamp tossing Shocker into the crowd where Shocker attacked a fan in a Parka mask! It was of course a plant but more on that later. Zumbido missed a slide into the corner and ended up outside for a ringpost plancha from Angel! Intocable/Alan Stone had a nice exchange ending with Intocable going for a dive but Stone sliding back into the ring and dropkicking Intocable about 10 feet back(where the guardrail was!) and nailing him with a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE springboard plancha! Motivated Alan Stone makes me one happy dude. Vampiro and Shocker entered again and Shocker took out Vamp with a plancha off the turnbuckles. Octagon sent Scorpio outside for a wicked tope suicida! Head-on-head impact! Finally Angel and Zumbido were left to exchange nearfalls and they actually went a solid 2/3 minutes before Angel finally got the win with a magistral. Shocker then attacked the fan in the Parka mask and of course it was one of JJ's guys and the entire JJ army ran out for a confrontation. Lame angle but it got huge heat. The match itself was better than it had ANY RIGHT TO BE so 4 1/2 out of 5 so far.

El Zorro vs Charly Manson - Hair vs Hair in a closed Cage: Now THIS should have been the main event. Both guys got enormous reactions for their entrances. The match had a 'special feeling' about it, ala Rock/Hogan which I was there for live. Crowd was buzzing just during the intros and when the guys began brutalizing each other, EVERY MOVE, no matter how little, got a GIANT reaction. Crowd seemed to be split which added a lot. Both guys bled early. Tons of weapons were used but it wasn't the clumsy AAA style garbage match, they seemed to have things worked out quite well and things were very equal so both guys had taken a ton of punishment just 10 minutes into the match. Manson took a sick Psicosis corner bump through a table! Later he got german suplexed through another table in the corner! Some lighttubes got involved as did a knife(or something like a knife). This was a WAR! After about 12-13 minutes, Chessman and Escoria ran out to smash Tirantes' head into the cage. They then climbed up top and Chessman pulled out a pair of pliers which he began using to take apart the top of the cage! Normally in AAA they overbook this shit and something malfunctions and the match falls apart. Thankfully that didn't happen this time(Chessman = god) and Chessman easily tore the top of the cage open as the crowd screamed. He climbed inside and spewed Zorro with his red mist! He then grabbed a chair to hit Zorro... BUT MANSON STOPPED HIM! Manson threw the chair away and yelled at Chessman to leave the cage! Huge pop as Manson scolded Chessman! Chessman reluctantly left the cage and Manson hit Zorro with a Vertebreaker type move. Not only did Tirantes start counting but THE ENTIRE CROWD counted along and when it got to eight you could barely hear the announcers talking as the entire place was fucking screaming for Zorro to get up. NINE... and... and... and... TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!!!!!!! Manson collapsed to his knees and began crying as fireworks went off and the crowd went insane since I don't think ANYONE expected Zorro to lose, especially after he had just lost the National Heavyweight Title a few weeks before which was the ultimate swerve. La Secta ran out to congratulate Manson who still seemed pissed at them. The doctors attended to a KO'ed Zorro and for some reason put an iron mask on him?!?!?! I guess that's his new gimmick. He did indeed get his entire head shaved as the mask was on though so this was no Pena 'fraude'. If you're looking for pure wrestling, this is definitely not the match for you. If you want drama and violence - you NEED to see this! One of the most dramatic matches I've ever seen in Mexico. If we just talk about AAA, it's probably right up there with Perro/MA2K from the first Triplemania. Incredible atmosphere.

5 1/2 out of 6 heading into the main event!

La Parka Jr. vs Muerte Cibernetica - Mask vs Mask: The winner was obviously never in doubt so it was just a matter of killing time until Parka could get his win. These guys unfortunately had to follow the previous match which would be like booking Atlantis vs Panther in a mask match but having Bucanero/Guerrero for the Light Heavyweight Title in the main event. Usual AAA smokescreens as Cibernetico was at ringside with Porky and La Secta made their way out rather quickly. The mini's also made their way to ringside but surprisingly didn't dive all over the place as I expected. Vampiro/Octagon got involved by chasing some rudos to the back. So in between shots of the chaos in the ring, you had Vamp/Octagon and the minis fighting various rudos backstage. All the guys in Mexican Power ran out to finally lead the Parka Jr. comeback. He did a tope suicida onto Muerte and then it was time for more chaos as La Secta and Mexican Power went at it. Juventud/Psicosis dove onto two Secta members and Lider did a running somersault plancha on the other side of the ring. They made their way to the stage area and Crazzy Boy climbed up the lighting stand(about 10-12 feet) and did a moonsault onto everyone! It actually wasn't that spectacular b/c the week before on TV he did a moonsault from WAY HIGHER so this was kind of a letdown for the big spot to end the night. Muerte Cibernetica had Parka Jr. pinned in the ring somehow but I think Porky(maybe someone else) counted to three and Muerte stood on the second turnbuckle celebrating his win. Parka got up and snuck up behind to hit a running power bomb. Tirantes ran into the ring and counted the three! Ricky Banderas was obviously under the mask and the night ended with Parka Jr., Mexican Power and Porky all celebrating in the ring as fireworks went off. Mess of a match but had some fun moments so I'll give it a half point meaning my final Triplemania rating is: 6 out of 7.

Fuck...ing... AWESOME SHOW! Easily my show of the year so far in Mexico and it's gonna be hard to top. CMLL doesn't do big shows well at all(case in point, two Fridays from now) so I can't see them topping this but we'll see. I'm open to all impossible possibilities. My favorite matches in order:
1. Zorro/Manson
2. Vamp's team vs Guapos
3. Fuerza Aerea/Secta (might be #2 when I get to see it in full)
4. Mini's
5. Parka Jr. vs Muerte
6. Four way
7. Exoticos/Consagrados mix

An AAA show where the MINI'S are only in the 4th best match! WHAT - THE - FUCK!

In conclusion, do yourselves a favor and buy the 2 or 3 DVD set from Fredo when it comes in later this week. Or from Bob if he has it already.