More Randomness but mostly 2006 Lucha TV:

CMLL TV 6/17/90:

Mascara Sagrada/Javier Cruz/Justiciero vs Emilio Charles Jr./Espectro Jr./Espectro De Ultratumba: Nothing too memorable here. Everyone looked good but it was your standard second match of the card where they were just trying to warm the people up for what was to come later. Nice dual tope's by Sagrada and Justiciero at the end.

Lizmark/Salomon Grundy/Villano III vs Los Brazos: The big deal here was the Grundy vs Porky battle. They had some really rough exchanges but the crowd was really into it. At first they teased who could lift who but it was weird b/c after a huge struggle where neither would budge, Grundy began tossing Porky around like he was nothing. Then later in the match they went back to the test of strength where neither would budge. Kind of dumb. Entertaining as you'd expect from the Brazos. Porky goes over Grundy clean with a flying splash which was a surprise to me.

Atlantis/Angel Azteca vs El Dandy/Satanico: Crowd was loving this right from the intros. Azteca/Dandy got a huge pop when they finally squared off, showing the fans remembered their classic from two weeks beforehand. Some really nice exchanges. My only complaint is the match was too short. Now, I say that based on old standards since it only went 15 minutes or so. This same match on a current Arena Mexico show would cause the new fans to blow their brains out from pure boredom. They'd be heading for the exits right when they realized there'd be no dives. I liked the finish as Dandy was all confident that he had just evened the match up but he turned around right into the Atlantida which got a huge pop. Solid match but I was guilty of expecting another classic after seeing Azteca vs Dandy.

Ringo Mendoza/Sangre Chicana vs Perro Aguayo/Ken Timbs - Parejas Incriebles: Mostly a brawl as you'd expect. Crowd was really into it. I assume if I could magically be transported back and understand why all these guys hate each other and what led up to the match - I could possibly get into it but since it's 16 years later and just a random match to me, it didn't interest me all that much.

CMLL GdR 5/27/06:

Lizmark/La Mascara/Volador Jr. vs Misterioso II/Mascara Ano 2000/Universo 2000: See, this is an example of CMLL if I had the book. Mixing youngsters with the veterans. Problem is there is a veteran in this match I would stop booking... Lizmark. He needs to retire and FAST. Shame to say it for a true legend but he is an embarassment to himself now. Can't even run the ropes any more... he just hobbles across the ring. About a billion blown spots b/c he is so out of breath that leaving his feet is a hard task. Returning to Mexico City was not a bright move. Hopefully he cashes in really soon and gets a nice cheque for his mask, then goes to Acapulco to enjoy retirement before he suffers another major heart attack in the ring. On the bright side, Volador Jr. and Misterioso II looked great, especially when they were working together. Would love to see a singles match from them in a non-Arena Mexico/Coliseo environment.

Dos Caras Jr./Negro Casas/Heavy Metal vs Rey Bucanero/El Averno/El Mephisto: All about Bucanero's turn. It actually wasn't as if the entire match was put on hold so they could do Bucanero's turn though... it was just that they all worked their standard by the numbers match and Bucanero's turn was the only thing that made it different from a normal match.

Worthless episode.

CMLL GdR 6/3/06:

Tigre Blanco/Tigre Metalico/Rey Tigre vs Dr. X/Mazada/Nitro: WOO! UNDERCARDERS! This wasn't so hot so I think it would be a really bad match to judge undercarders by. It had a couple of problems... the first was the horrible editing. If Tigre Metalico is gonna fuck up a spot and land on his head in the third fall, why would you clip right to that spot instead of right AFTER that spot? Most of the match was fine otherwise except the times Rey Tigre was in there but c'mon... the dude has less experience in the ring than some of the diva search contestants. He did NOTHING right in this match but it would be really unfair and stupid to equate his performance with how good(or not good) undercarders are. He should still be working opening matches off TV but he's a giant so a Rey Tigre vs Artillero match wouldn't exactly work out. Oh well, as long as he keeps working with Hooligan he's bound to be great and learn to take hiptoss bumps.

Lizmark/La Mascara/Pantera vs Black Warrior/El Hijo Del Pierroth/Emilio Charles Jr.: MORE LIZMARK??? What did we do to deserve this? Beyond awful match. Pantera looked okay, so did Emilio but I could live just fine having not seen this match.

Whoever puts these shows together continues to confuse the fuck out of me. Why air these two pointless matches? If you wanna go for a 'what the fuck' type show, at least air an opening tag match and one of the better segundas from Arena Mexico.

CMLL GdR 6/10/06:

Maximo vs Loco Max: I'd go as far as to say this is a worst match of the year candidate for me. Loco Max is probably one of the five worst wrestlers currently in CMLL. Okay bumper but shows absolutely no fire in the ring which is odd b/c he's a house of fire during his introduction. Maximo was working 100% comedy which would be okay if it were a trios match but this was hair vs hair... where was the drama? Absolutely brutal. I wish I could force any person who says CMLL is the best product in the world to sit through this and then see if they can repeat that statement.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr. vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Damian El Terrible: Didn't even watch this. I was starting and then just figured it's the same old shit I've seen a million times featuring guys who are overrated as hell or just plain suck and aren't even good enough to work in AAA. Oh wait, AAA rules so I can't use that saying any more. Well then, I guess Lizmark Jr. and Garza are exactly where they belong.

Terrible episode.

CMLL TV 7/1/06:

Pequeno Olimpico/Ultimo Dragoncito vs Pequeno Damian 666/Pequeno Halloween: Just AMAZING. About as far from lucha by numbers as you can get these days. Had a little matwork to open up which reminded me of reading the Box y Lucha forum after this match aired on TV. A few guys actually complained the match was TOO BORING at the start. Yeah, they didn't hit their finishers or do dives 4 minutes in - THE ABSOLUTE HORROR! The mini rudos were particularly great here as they were total bump freaks and managed to make themselves look great in the process of making the tecnicos look like a million bucks. Dragoncito did a really sweet asai moonsault in the first fall. Second fall seemed to be headed to the by the numbers format after a dive from Pequeno Olimpico but the fall kept going! The ruditos hit a bunch of great double team moves on each tecnico a few times. I was settling into the match! Usually there isn't even enough time to settle into a match on CMLL TV! Finally both tecnicos ended up outside from a CRAZY Pequeno Halloween springboard plancha and Damiancito 333(tm Rudopolis) doing a flip plancha ala Ultimo Dragoncito! Fall over by countout? NOPE! Mini rudos rolled the tecnicos back inside and hit finishers on them. Third fall was the shortest b/c as Chui says, the fans were in the building and god forbid they find out it is still possible to have good long matches. S-I-C-K spot where Ultimo Dragoncito gave Pequeno Halloween an inverted suplex off the apron to the floor and Pequeno Olimpico puts little Damian away with a somersault into a Misteriorana. Great match, in the ***1/2 range.

Pantera/Sagrado/Neutron vs Sangre Azteca/Loco Max/Hombre Sin Nombre: Crowd was lukewarm at first since they just did your generic opening fall. Pantera looked really good and ended up doing ramp spots with Loco Max. Crazy finish with Pantera taking Azteca to the floor with a flying headscissors and Sagrado pinning Loco Max with a moonsault. Second fall had some more fun stuff, especially from Sagrado. The rudos had some nice triple team spots as well when they took over. Match was on its way to being a generic undercard bout when all of a sudden Sagrado had his mask ripped! The crowd kinda woke up and began taking an interest in the match. Third fall had huge heat when Sagrado ripped up HSN's mask! Neutron landed short on a tope suicida and hurt himself. Azteca nailed Pantera with a plancha. Sagrado was dominating HSN and went to take his mask off but Azteca interfered so instead Sagrado snap-mared him down and yanked off his mask for the DQ! Wild finish.

Mascara Purpura vs Stuka Jr.: I was down on this the first time I watched since I was expecting about 10 dives from each guy within the first 5 minutes. I just failed to see the reason behind putting on a Lightning Match unless you wanted a flying spectacle since every match these days is considered a Lighting Match! They started slow doing the mirror spots which included some really nice flips. Purpura can land on his feet from ANYWHERE. Stuka Jr. was really good and took control so Purpura didn't get too crazy. He whipped Purpura into the ropes but Purpura countered by doing a 360 onto the ramp and posing. He then hit Stuka Jr. and did a 360 into an armdrag but ended up taking a nice bump to the floor. Stuka Jr. then LAUNCHED himself with an asai moonsault right onto the first row! Barely seconds after they re-entered Stuka was back outside and nailed with a gorgeous running somersault plancha from Purpura. They then started exchanging nearfalls with Stuka Jr. being in control most of the time until finally Purpura caught him with a top rope armdrag, slammed him and nailed the SSP for the win. Established exactly what they wanted here - Purpura as the new flying sensation.

Felino/La Mascara/Volador Jr. vs El Averno/El Mephisto/Misterioso II: Criminally short. However, for as short as it was they definitely tried to fit in as much as possible and the crowd was into this match more than any other on the night. Lots of mask ripping including Mascara having a huge hole in his. Sorta like the Torneo Cibernetico I uploaded from the week after but he didn't run to the back like a pussy this time. Volador Jr. nailed Averno with a Spanish Fly to end the second fall and another inch to the left and they'd have been stretchered out once again.:/ Great work by Volador Jr. in the third fall. Felino went nuts and actually gave Averno a frankensteiner off the apron to the floor!!! Ended up with Mephisto low blowing La Mascara to win. Damn, they REALLY want us to think Mephisto is losing his mask on Friday.

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis/Marco Corleone/Ultimo Guerrero: Awful. The Bucanero turn has been handled so awful, it's beyond worth making fun of. It definitely seems like a case of a guy getting cheers from the females and rudo fans but now that he's a face the rudo fans don't cheer for him and all you have is the ladies reacting while he tries to work tecnico style and nobody is buying it at all. Rey and Ultimo were the greatest tag team for many years and now they can barely pull off an exchange without screwing something up. What's wrong with that picture? Everyone else in the match was useless. In fact, Corleone outworked all three tecnicos - Dos Jr., Liz Jr. and Atlantis.

Aside from the main event, one of the strongest TV episodes in a looooooooong time. Not at all like the GdR bullshit but then again - you won't see most of these guys on GdR except for the main eventers so there's your explanation. Highly reccomended.

AAA TV in Irapuato - 2/6/06:

Dizzy/Javi/Jessy vs ~LOS ESPANTAPAJAROS I/II/III!: Two of the scarecrows were definitely Kevin and Brandon of Los Warriors. The other was fat so not sure who it could be. Announcers wouldn't shutup about how fat he was either. I really wanted to like this since I'm a mark for the scarecrows and of course I love my young tecnico flyers but nothing here clicked. Lots of blown spots and it's not as if they were only blowing them b/c they were trying insane stuff. Just stuff that should be simple for guys at this level and they were making a mess of it. The announcers were even pointing out all the blown spots.:/ Dizzy looked to break his tailbone after Scarecrow III blew the catch on a running somersault plancha. On the bright side - Jessy and Espantapajaro II danced after the match. On the negative side - they actually had Jesus Zuniga appear on TV afterwards and say the scarecrows were headed back to the gym to improve. They looked fine on more recent TV I've seen...

Super Calo/Cats/Joe Silver vs Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: I really wanna find out who Cats is b/c no way is he a rookie. Gotta be someone we know. He was so fluid in a lot of stuff he did and seemed to be carrying some exchanges instead of waiting for the cue from the rudos ala Joe Silver who sucked. Calo looked about as good as could be expected. Cats/Silver did crazy dives and then Cuervo unmasked Super Calo. He actually threw the mask to the rudo ref who threw it into the crowd and counted the pinfall for the Black Family. In his review cubs seemed pissed that they couldn't even pin Calo clean but when does anyone get pinned clean these days in Mexico? And when it happens, unless there is a title match the following week, does it really matter?

Abismo Negro/Aliens/Pimpinela Escarlata vs Charly Manson/Espiritu/Psicosis: Best match of the show by far. Only about 9 minutes but the work was solid. Abismo seemed more motivated than usual and tried to incorporate some STRIKES into his offense. Warming up for NOAH? Aliens looked fine, perhaps relishing the role of being a tecnico again. Some nice dives at the end and the added bonus of a CLEAN SUBMISSION FINISH after a so-so exchange as Abismo made Manson submit. You give a little(the previous match) to get a little(this match).

Electro Shock/El Intocable/El Zorro vs Alan Stone/Shocker/Zumbido: Why does Galavision insist on always editing the Electro/Zorro matches? It's like they go out of their way no matter what position it is on the card to edit out whatever those two guys are involved in. Perplexing. So all I know about this match is Scorpio Jr. ran-in, not as Sexy Machete Boy.

La Parka Jr./Octagon vs Cibernetico/Chessman - Mexican National Tag Team Titles: Worked more straight-forward than you'd imagine. Rudos took the first fall and had things in control until they screwed up and the tecnicos reacted quick to even things up. I expected most of this to be a Chessman bump-a-thon as Ciber stood and watched from the apron but Ciber was in quite a bit. I'm thinking that was a bad thing though.:/ Tecnicos hit dual tope suicidas and La Secta run out to interfere. Tecnicos still manage to win though. Not as bad as one might expect but nothing great.

Underwhelming show. I really expected much more from this just based on the lineup but what can you do. One of the rare weak AAA TV shows thus far this year.

AAA Handheld 3/2/96:

Puma Jr. vs ???: Only the third fall. They did a bunch of mask ripping and brawling which is weird for opening guys. Crowd was at least red hot for it but that could have been b/c it was a small building and the cameraman was right in the middle of the yelling. Nothing worth seeing here.

Kid Norteno/random fat guy in a singlet vs Los Chacales I y II: Norteno did some nice stuff. Random fat guy kept doing fat spots and didn't know how to bump. It was hard to watch so I began FF'ing. Norteno did a plancha near the end of the match. Random fat guy horribly blew a sunset flip but they went home anyways and crowd was happy so who am I to complain?

Leon Negro/Los X-Men I y II vs Los Pandilleros I/II/III: Alright when the tecnicos were on offense but horrible when Los Pandilleros took over with their awful brawling. Negro looked real good, the X-Men tried hard. In the third fall all three tecnicos did dives with one of the X-Men almost impaling himself on one of the poles at ringside. Rudos cheat to win.

La Parka/Ultraman 2000 vs Halloween/Psicosis: These guys worked really hard considering this seemed to be a tiny show where they could have easily down nothing but comedy and the crowd would have been happy. That's not to say they didn't do comedy... Parka was working more like Parka Jr. in that every spot was designed to get the crowd to laugh rather than make it seem like he was in a fight. I don't mind that though. The first two falls ended with faked low blows, first from the rudos and then from the tecnicos. Psicosis took an INSANE bump in the third fall where he got clotheslined as he was sitting on Ultraman's shoulders and took a flip bump all the way to the apron/floor. Why Psicosis, WHY??? Ultraman 2000(Damian, BTW) hit a tope suicida and then Parka put Halloween away with a twisting bodyblock. Really entertaining match.

Got CMLL TV July 29/90 from Lynch but not even gonna bother with a full review. AWFUL episode. It features a four team six man trios incriebles tourney which is only notable for a Dandy/Ringo Mendoza mat exchange. Otherwise, there is no need for anyone to ever want to get their hands on this DVD unless you are a huge Rafaga Azul mark. Also, Astro De Oro SUCKS.

CMLL TV 7/8/06:

Blue Panther/Mr. Niebla/Satanico vs Pierroth/MA2K/U2K: First fall and second fall are your usual throwaway falls that mean nothing to the story of the match assuming these guys even cared about putting together a story. Universo was the only entertaining part of the match. Niebla is a huge waste of time and CMLL just needs to cut ties with him and ship him to AAA where he'd be tolerable. Panther continues to be horribly miscast as a tecnico much like Bucanero. It's only a matter of time before someone realizes "WTF, we've been booking Panther as a tecnico for the last 3 years?!?!?!?!?!". Panther crashes on a pescado and the Dinamitas put away the other two tecnicos. Missable.

Virus/El Hijo Del Texano/Leono vs Loco Max/Ohara/Okumura: Weird that this aired AFTER the previous match. Would say it's weird that it aired at all but we are coming off a week where they aired the OPENER so I guess anything is possible and I hope the trend continues. Leono is sporting dreads and cool contacts which is a good look for him and maybe a good look = improved wrestling b/c he looked fantastic in the ring during this. Really good match although short(really need to use that as a disclaimer). Rudos take the first fall nicely. Tecnicos take the second fall after a springboard plancha and slingshot somersault dive from Leono and Texano respectively while Virus uses an unseen top-rope Falcon Arrow on Ohara I think. Some nice stuff in the third fall, especially from Leono and Texano. Virus never really got a full exchange which hurt the match. Leono did a CRAZY springboard moonsault dive onto Ohara near the end. Virus went for a dive but got his leg clipped and rolled outside. Texano hit his finisher on Loco Max but Okumura snuck in the ring and used a german suplex on Texano before Leono could get back in and the rudos got the clean win. About as good as you'll get in CMLL these days. Ohara continues to show nothing and I am really hoping DG/El Dorado/M-Pro/ANYWHERE BUT CMLL finds a place for him soon so he can leave Mexico.

Battle Royale to determine teams for the Torneo was pointless to air.

Torneo Cibernetico: I was into this match at the start. The mask ripping and Volador Jr./Purpura exchange were great. In fact the match was progressing just fine... until they made an edit to the final two guys. WHY??? Why not edit out the pointless battle royale instead??? Beyond idiotic. God damn monkeys, as cubs would say. Pantera/Felino stuff was also worth mentioning. Shame we'll never get to see their singles mask vs mask match which has been building since 1991.

I think Momentos aired next but I'm not sure if the clips from the previous week were Momentos or if...

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./John Ce...err...Rey Bucanero vs Ultimo Guerrero/Olimpico/Atlantis: Nice to see Olimpico back for a few weeks until one of his body parts decides to snap again. He's destined to be AAA's Nuevo Gronda at some point in 2007. Why he chose to wear pink in his return match is beyond me. Bucanero gets attacked during his entrance. About 30 seconds later both Jr.'s are hung in opposite corners and Bucanero gets splashed and senton'd by all three rudos for about 20 seconds before the refs calls a DQ. Boy that finish must have taken quite a bit of thinking.:/ Second fall has the comeback within a minute and a half. For the first time I can remember since he turned tecnico over a month beforehand, Bucanero teams with the tecnicos to do a triple team move on Guerrero. Dos Jr. and Liz Jr. try a double enzuigiri on Guerrero and miss by about 10,000 feet. It looked ABSOLUTELY AWFUL and I'm surprised Guerrero even sold it. Bucanero then nails a running somersault plancha. Five minutes of action so far has taken quite a toll on all the participants so it looks like it's time to go home. Lizmark Jr. with a tope suicida and Dos Jr. flies over the top with a running tope. Am I still watching Momentos? Bucanero and Guerrero trade punches and nearfa...*L*...wait this is CMLL 2006, what am I saying? Guerrero just runs right into the Bucanero Storm for the three count. Match time: Roughly 7 minutes and 20 seconds. W-O-W! Guerrero may be the best wrestler in the world right now but I dare anyone to find a match this year that proves it. Bucanero wants a title shot afterwards. I want a match that goes longer than 8 minutes. Naturally, Bucanero gets what he wants and I don't. HORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIBLE main event.

The Torneo was okay and so was the second match but everything else isn't worth even a $5 DVD when it comes out. I think it's time to start combining two weeks of CMLL TV per DVD to make it worth the $5 to be quite honest.

CMLL TV 7/15/05:

Jaula De La Muerte: Really big-time feel on TV as every guy did a promo and then each guy got his own entrance. La Mascara appeared to get locked out of the cage as the brawling began but must have snuck in somehow when I wasn't looking. Volador Jr. however was left behind which set the stage for the spot that seemingly happens in every CMLL cage match... he climbs up top and does a plancha onto everyone... but this time he got caught and slammed down! Awesome spot! The rudos try to cheat and escape early(you have to wait 7 minutes officially) but fireworks go off when they reach the top, causing them to fall back inside. This happens twice to seperate groups of rudos. Problem is later in the 7 minutes, more guys try to escape and there are no fireworks which ruins the illusion. Usual brawling as with 12 guys in a small ring there isn't much space to do anything special and this isn't a stunt-show match ala CZW. Purpura manages to squeeze in a standing SSP though and Sangre Azteca does his top-rope headscissors. The 7 minutes expire and it's a free-for-all as everyone is trying to escape! Crowd is really hot and then the shocking moment... Neutron... up... up... AND OVER! SE FUERA NEUTRON!!!!!!!!!!! Crowd goes apeshit as I'm sure 90% of them thought Neutron was losing for sure. You can hear a buzz going through the crowd immediatly as all eyes fall on Nitro, one of two SEVERE's on cubs' list. But WTF... NITRO IS UP... AND OVER! NITRO ESCAPES!!! Once again you can hear a buzz going through the crowd as two out of three guys who had the best odds of losing are the first two out! Azteca/ and Sagrado rip at each others' masks. Same for Volador Jr. and Mephisto so you have your final four being teased already. Either bad camerawork or a little clip and all of a sudden Mascara Purpura gets tossed into the air, lands on the top rope and pulls himself over the top of the cage! PURPURA SAVES HIS MASK! (I told you all!) Crowd is getting louder with every escape now. Really awesome atmosphere. Lots of guys keep trying to escape. Pantera has had numerous chances but keeps slipping or getting stopped near the top. Averno/Mephisto refuse to fight each other and insist on double teaming La Mascara. Sagrado gets whipped by someone towards Sangre Azteca who launches him into the cage. Sagrado catches the cage, kicks Azteca away, pulls himself up to the top... AND PLUMMETS TO THE FLOOR RIGHT ONTO HIS FACE!!! That had to hurt.:/ But an awesome spot to show the importance of saving his mask. So now Neutron, Nitro, Mascara Purpura and Sagrado are out and cubs' list is causing the Vegas odds-makers to go nuts. Mephisto tries to set Volador Jr. up for something but Azteca signals he is out of position and waits up top for it to be corrected. Mephisto picks up Volador Jr. and whips him into Averno who tosses him up top where Azteca is waiting... SPANISH FLY TIME! BUT AZTECA HOLDS ONTO THE CAGE! He turns around... CLIMBS UP AND ESCAPES! Awesome spot and Azteca keeps his mask! Once again Pantera is close to escaping but gets stopped. Another tease? Averno/Mephisto began double teaming La Mascara including a huge power bomb spot. They grab Volador Jr. for the same move. Volador Jr. gets whipped into Mephisto and he somersaults up right into power bomb position... BUT HE GRABS THE CAGE AND PULLS HIMSELF OVER!!! VOLADOR JR. KEEPS HIS MASK! Half the field is officially gone and we have Averno, Mephisto, Felino, Pantera, Misterioso II(awfully quiet thus far) and La Mascara left. There appears to be a moment of rest as everyone is spent until... Misterioso II goes to leave! But Pantera stops him! Interesting, eh? Roles reversed and Pantera is stopped from escaping. At this point it definitely is everyone for themselves as Misterioso II is forced to stop his friend Mephisto from escaping. Averno/Mephisto talk over Misterioso II being a traitor and decide to stick to just helping themselves as they attack La Mascara. Mascara is whipped into the corner and Averno helps Mephisto with a giant whip into a clothesline. Mephisto gets down and tells Averno to jump off his back. Averno runs at Mephisto, jumps off his back... OVER LA MASCARA, ONTO THE CAGE... AND OUT!!! AVERNO KEEPS HIS MASK AND MEPHISTO IS PISSED! Crowd popped huge for that! La Mascara nails Mephisto with a flying huracanrana as he's stunned. Mascara... CLIMBS THE CAGE UP AND... HE'S STOPPED BY PANTERA! BUT HE KICKS PANTERA AWAY AND... MEPHISTO CLIMBS UP WITH HIM! Both standing on the top rope trading slaps... Mascara ducks one and kicks the rope causing Mephisto to crotch himself! MASCARA UP... FELINO DIVES... BUT IS TOO LATE! MASCARA IS OUT! And we're down to our final four of Pantera, Felino, Mephisto and Misterioso II! Pantera realizes everyone is distracted and tries to climb out but here comes a turning point... Felino convinces him to climb back down so it can be an even two-on-two match with tecnicos and rudos! Mephisto and Misterioso II seem to make up from earlier on and form a friendship once again. Meanwhile Mascara and Averno brawl on the ramp all the way to the back. Lots of attemps to escape are stopped. Both tecnicos manage to take control and slam the rudos. Then... BOTH GET THE IDEA TO ESCAPE BUT ARE STOPPED! Rudos take control and dispose of Felino. They whip Pantera into the turnbuckles. Mephisto with a clothesline. Misterioso follows it up. AND THEN MEPHISTO CLOTHESLINES MISTERIOSO! SENTON SPLASH! UP... AND OUT!!! MEPHISTO KEEPS HIS MASK! Amazing drama! Misterioso II is majorly fucked now as Felino/Pantera team up against him. Felino holds him for a Pantera spin kick... BUT IT GETS FELINO INSTEAD! Pantera doesn't care, he heads up... over... AND OUT! PANTERA KEEPS HIS MASK! But... what? Misterioso slams Felino and decides to escape as well. From the mat Felino points to Pantera and begs him to go stop Misterioso instead of escaping down the cage!!! So Pantera walks across the top rope to dive and stop Misterioso from escaping! Anyone can tell that was a huge mistake. Why? B/c just as soon as both tumble to the mat and get up, Felino hits a clothesline on both, a senton and both... AND FELINO ESCAPES WITHOUT LOOKING BACK!!! Pantera and Misterioso both realize they've been fucked over by their respective partners and begin climbing... both up top... OVER AND OUT!!! But wait... they're the final two! The ref enters the cage and the announcer announces it's one-on-one in a mask match! Lots of nearfalls as they went a good 4-5 minutes just trading moves and building to a finish. Not as much heat as the cage portion though as everyone knew the result by this point, they were just waiting for the big move. Finally Pantera puts Misterioso up top and goes for a frankensteiner but gets crotched and nails with a top-rope La Rosa Driver! 1... 2... 3!!! PANTERA IS THE ULTIMATE LOSER! Fireworks go off as the announcer takes Pantera's info and his son comes into the cage crying his head off. Pantera forces him to shake Misterioso's hand and then takes his mask off and puts it on his son as his name is announced. He congratulates Misterioso and that's that.

If you couldn't tell, I loved the match. I'm usually not into cage matches b/c there is too much brawling and the eliminations aren't teased enough but this was done perfectly. The show was called 'Judgement Day' and the particpants in the match really made you feel like they were in the cage for a reason. They weren't there to do fancy spots off the cage so the crowd could ooh and aah, they were in there and wanted OUT as fast as possible. Every escape was done fast and the guys collapsed to the floor upon escaping. There was none of that stupid slow-climbing BS where you know they are just waiting for someone to stop them ala WWE style cage matches. The psychology behind having Neutron, Nitro, Purpura and Sagrado as the first four to escape was just genius. The crowd popped huge for each of them leaving and got louder once they were all out b/c the only guys left were guys whose masks actually meant something. Lots of interesting mini-stories with Misterioso II/Mephisto breaking up, getting back together and then breaking up again. The whole Felino/Pantera story. Pantera almost being out many times but getting stopped or tripping. Averno teaming with Mephisto UNTIL it got down to six left and then he was GONE before you could actually say the word 'GONE'. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic stuff. Easily one of my favorite cage matches of all time in Mexico, right up there with Rey Jr. vs Juventud and Los Vipers vs Los Vatos Locos from late '98 which was a miracle match and changed the way cage matches were done in Mexico from that point forward. CMLL even realized how successful it was and copied the formula from that match for their future cage matches.

I didn't expect it but CMLL came through with a great main event for their big show. Very much like Zorro/Manson in the sense the wrestling wasn't as important as the drama.

CMLL TV 7/15/06:

Ultimo Guerrero vs Rey Bucanero - CMLL Light Heavyweight Title: I'd be lying if I said this wasn't a personal dream match of mine since 1999. I just wish it could have taken place outside of the current CMLL environment. Really had a big match feel with great entrances and the crowd 100% focused on what was going on in the ring with dueling chants(not like ROH). They did a little matwork to start and then out of nowhere Bucanero caught Guerrero in a roll-up for the first fall. Already I had a bad feeling.:/ Second fall started with Bucanero pretending he is Mistico which he REALLY NEEDS TO STOP DOING! He almost blew a Misteriorana but no way Guerrero was going to have a blown spot in one of his big matches so he covered nicely. Bucanero went up top but Guerrero crotched him(weakly) and then joined him up top to hit a super powerslam for the three count. No way that second fall was anywhere close to two minutes. Checking O'Campo's results, he has it as 1:32 which is probably a little over what it really was. EXTREMELY WEAK. I knew they would be saving everything up for the third fall so of course after the first spot... AN EDIT. Yep. This totally ruined the match for me b/c they had only been wrestling for 4 minutes on TV and after that edit, the action resumed with both men completely out of breath looking like they had been through a war. I really hate when wrestlers do that. I can understand needing to do it on a U.S. TV show when you are running through tons of spots in 5 minutes but these guys did NOTHING that we(the viewers) saw that would make them gasp for air as of yet. They did a cool spot where Guerrero went for his bronco buster move but Bucanero countered into a power bomb for a two. He then took his famous backward bumps to the outside and Guerrero nailed a running somersault plancha. More selling of exhaustion as Bucanero barely made it back inside. They did three or four nearfalls and an awesome teased spot where Guerrero had Bucanero up for the Guerrero Special but Bucanero desperately flung himself backwards before Ultimo could lift him up and they crashed to the mat. A bit later Bucanero caught Guerrero with the Bucanero Storm and the crowd went crazy b/c that finisher is more protected than La Mistica. But only a 2! Both guys sold for over 40 seconds on the mat which is quite the contrast from the AAA TV show when Lider hit the same move on Tiger except more dangerously and both got up right away. Anyways, Bucanero went up top and got crotched. Guerrero followed him up and... GUERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRERO ESPECIAL! 1...2...KICKOUT!!! Crowd went crazy as Ultimo questioned the referee's count. Before the crowd even had 2 seconds to digest what happened though, Bucanero quickly crucifixed Guerrero in a last ditch effort to win...1...2...3!!! NUEVO CAMPEON!!! And thus ends Ultimo Guerrero's 3+ year reign as CMLL Light Heavyweight champion! Crowd went nuts for the finish which was truly great. The fantastic finish doesn't make up for the lackluster match though. I can't justify even putting this on my list as a possible MOTYC. The 6 minute third fall really only had 2 minutes of wrestling as 60% of the fall was spent selling exhaustion. This would be an example of a dream match gone bad. I wish both guys would have shook hands afterwards and agreed to be friends again. Instead I'll have to suffer through Perrito vs Bucanero matches.

IWRG TV 3/26/06:

Kid Tiger and Halcon Salvaje vs Colt and Paramedico: Well I have to apologize for bashing Halcon Salvaje in my last batch of IWRG TV reviews. He looked excellent in this match, especially when working with Paramedico. Maybe they're both veterans from the same area? They had a great mat exchange including this amazing spot where Paramedico had a weird leglock on Salvaje, sorta like a figure four from the side, so to counter it Salvaje shifted his body and stood up on his hands turning it into a pinning combo! Kid Tiger continues to progress really well and you really can't look bad against these two veteran rudos. Good ending to the first fall. Second fall was all rudos but also had a cool ending as Paramedico had Halcon Salvaje in a figure-four leglock but he wasn't giving up so Colt bodyslammed Kid Tiger onto him and he gave up. Genius. Good comeback in the third fall and a creative finish. Perfect TV opener from all four guys. Special mention to Javier Llanes who was alone for commentary on this show and was awesome. He had this great rant in the first fall about how it was nice to see guys actually wrestling instead of using punches and kicks or diving outside the ring.

Star Boy/Kung Fu Jr./Panterita vs Cyborg/Magnum Project/AK-47: Kicks off with brawling right away. Rudos control the entire first fall until the tecnicos react. Kung Fu Jr. looks lost so Panterita enters the ring and sends one of Los Oficiales outside, then connects with a plancha over the ringpost! Tecs take fall one. Second fall has each tecnico in an exchange designed to make them look good with Panterita looking the best of course. Star Boy was no slouch either. Kung Fu Jr. was just HORRIBLE and barely ran the ropes properly. Rudos took over and used some nice triple team moves to win the fall. More third fall rudo domination which might have went a bit too long b/c they kept using the same moves over and over. Finally Kung Fu Jr. and Panterita dropkicked Project and AK-47 outside. Kung Fu Jr. nailed a tope suicida while Panterita FLEW over the top with a gorgeous running somersault plancha! Cyborg pinned Star Boy clean with a pumphandle powerslam to win the match for his team. They might have gone a bit long by doing an almost 25 minute match but overall it was really solid. Of course extra special mention to Panterita who is right up there with Mistico, Mascarita 2000 and Jack Evans as flyers who right when they step in the ring - you know there is the possibility of seeing something that will blow you away. He really is far too talented to not be working in CMLL right now... is what I would say if they had a mini's division that mattered. He's quickly moving up the list of my current favorite wrestlers.

Mike Segura/Metro/Fantasma Jr. vs Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro/El Veneno: The focus of the match was on Segura/Cerebro Negro as they built to their hair match the following week. Rudos brawled early on, concentrating on destroying Segura. He eventually fought back and decked Cerebro Negro with a tope suicida. Tecs took the first fall. Metro had a horrible exchange to start the second fall. He got to face all three rudos and took bad in each exchange. How is that possible? With Veneno I can understand but how do you look bad against the Cerebros? Rudos destroyed the tecnicos to win the fall. Both Segura and Cerebro Negro began bleeding in the third fall during the tecnico comeback. Metro took out Dr. Cerebro with a pescado and Fantasma Jr. went for an asai moonsault(yeah right!) but Veneno yanked his feet out from under him and then took him out with a somersault bodyblock off the apron. This left Segura with Cerebro Negro and Segura used this *AWESOME* somersault dragon screw move that someone in Japan must steal right away and then used a half crab for the submission. Dr. Cerebro(the captain) then entered the ring and took Segura down. Metro entered the ring to break it up but the ref told him to get out and as he was focused on Metro, Cerebro Negro re-entered the ring and low blowed Segura who then got pinned and since he was the captain... rudos win! Average match that was smartly booked.

Negro Casas/Felino/Heavy Metal vs Damian 666/Damian El Terrible/Mr. Aguila: Ah yes, the standard warning to anyone new to IWRG - if you see top CMLL guys in the main event, no matter how good the match looks on paper - IT WILL SUCK. Nobody is gonna push themselves to put on a great match with the Friday/Saturday/Sunday double and triple shots coming up. This was your typical Casas family comedy match. The highlight for me was Heavy Metal forgetting how to run the ropes during the finishing sequence. Match ends with Terrible throwing a cup of water into the ref's eyes by accident and then some low blow wackiness that I had to fast forward. Even Aguila couldn't save this one(not that he tried).

Very refreshing to see IWRG once again. It's a totally different product than what CMLL and AAA offer which is good. It thrils me to be watching Lucha and not having to hit the FF button for replays of fall finishes every 3 minutes.


IWRG TV 4/2/06:

Avisman I/Panterita/Puma vs Danger/Fantasma De La Opera/Panterita: Much to my surprise, IWRG does NOT have their own Danger - it's the same Danger from CMLL undercards wearing yellow and red. The only reason I suspected it was a different Danger was b/c he was on the rudo side and why in the world would you put a green <20 src="http://luchaworld.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_sad.gif" alt="Sad" border="0"> I loved the finish with the Cerebro Driver being teased at first and then Segura getting caught in mid-air with it as the announcers were screaming. He sold it huge and got stretchered out + taken to hospital from the arena. Second/third fall could have gone a bit shorter b/c the longer it went, the less the crowd was into it. The only real drama was when Segura used his somersault dragon screw into a half crab. I have a strange feeling Cerebro Negro vs Mazada will be better than this.

IWRG TV 4/9/06:

Avisman I/Marco Rivera/Star Boy vs Black Jaguar/Carta Brava Jr./Fantasma De La Opera: Holy crap, Marco Rivera was entertaining! The usual small IWRG crowd was pro-rudo since the GDI were in the main event so he actually heeled it up and mocked the rudo fans. He even nailed an armdrag and then danced in front of them which got huge heat. Here's hoping for Los Strippers turning rudo soon! Avisman/Fantasma was once again the center of attention. First fall went back and forth between both teams until Avisman tope's Fantasma and the other two tecnicos got dual submissions. Second fall went to the rudos after some nice brawling and teamwork. Third fall had dual tope suicidas from Marco Rivera/Star Boy, then Fantasma pinned Avisman with his feet on the ropes. I liked the rudo team here.

Felino/Pantera/Puma vs Cyborg/Magnum Protect/Xibalba: I had high hopes for this but it kinda blew. Lazy effort from everyone except Puma and Cyborg. I dunno what the deal is with Felino but it's SCARY how the guy who used to be one of the best workers in Mexico is now approaching Gato Volador territory in that he has 3/4 spots he always does and can do really fast to make himself look great but other than that he does comedy selling and uses any tactic besides actual wrestling to get pops. Age becoming a factor? Finish was very Monterrey-esque and just a cheap way to escape without anyone taking a fall but at least it was creative. The referees were on the floor checking on Puma and Magnum while inside the ring Cyborg held Felino for a Xibalba move. As Xibalba hit the ropes, Pantera entered and yanked off Felino's mask, then tossed it to Xibalba. Referees re-entered the ring and saw what happened so they gave the match to Felino's team by DQ. At first I enjoyed the finish b/c it was new to me and I figured alright, they must be saving the workrate match for the main event and don't want to burn the crowd out...

Brazo De Plata/Negro Casas/Silver King vs Atlantis/Nitro/Ultimo Guerrero: ... I was wrong... way wrong. This was your typical mailed-in main eventers match. Porky huffed and puffed his way through a first fall exchange with all the rudos and was then immobile until the finishing spot which we've seen a million times. No effort at all from anyone except Guerrero as you'd expect. Strong match on paper is the best thing I can say about this.

Weak set of two shows. Hoping the next one is a huge step up with a 4 match show including Ultimo Tigre's debut, Los Jinetes returning, Volador Jr. in action and rudos vs rudos in the main. Surely SOMETHING has to rule out of all that, right?

CMLL Sin Limite De Tiempo 1/15/05:

Remember this show? The great CMLL TV show that popped up out of nowhere one day when Bob Barnett posted on LuchaWorld "hey, there's Arena Coliseo matches on Channel 22 right now". Unlike Guerreros Del Ring, this show allowed for 3 matches and THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE INTERVIEW IN THE ENTIRE RUN OF EPISODES!!! Imagine, an hour show with 44 minutes of wrestling instead of an hour show with 18-22 minutes of wrestling! Even better is they didn't just air the top matches from each show, they'd be all over the place unpredictable and air mid-card Coliseo matches or openers from Arena Mexico. It was just fantastic stuff and this was the one episode I never got to see.

Satanico/Negro Casas/Alan Stone vs Universo 2000/El Averno/El Mephisto: I gotta get used to my timeframe first as Universo is masked and Averno/Mephisto are in their plain black/red outfits. Rudos attacked right away and took the first fall easily. Focus of the match seemed to be on the Satanico/Averno & Mephisto feud as the Infernales had just split the week or two before this. Nice comeback spot in the second fall which led to the tecnicos winning shortly afterwards via triple pinfall on Universo. Third fall had a nice Alan Stone/Universo 2000 exchange which surprised me. After a few more exchanges, Satanico cleanly pinned Averno, eliminating him. Alan went for a pescado on Universo who stepped back to avoid it and kicked Alan until Negro caught him with a silla dive. This left Satanico and Mephisto. Satanico had it won until Averno entered the ring to break up a submission and thus the tecnicos won by DQ. If I remember correctly, there was a revenge match the following week in which the third fall only made regular CMLL TV.

Brazo De Plata/Felino/Mr. Niebla vs Dr. Wagner Jr./Emilio Charles Jr./Pierroth Jr.: Pretty boring. Action never picked up as the match was mostly controlled by the rudos who did nothing although Pierroth out-bumped Wagner which says a lot. Porky brought an older wrestler, whose name I can't recall right now, out of the crowd and raised his hand at ringside in a show of apprecation. Of course during that moment was when his teammates got pinned to lose the second fall so it was quite odd. Rudos take it and at least it ended quick.

Volador Jr./Virus/Sagrado vs Arkangel/Mazada/Nozawa: Now *THIS* is why you buy Sin Limite DVD's! Really great 15 minute or so match. Both falls had creative finishes that involved actual THOUGHT. Another of my major current CMLL criticisms is every fall ends with a dive and finisher with no build. The guys just go straight to those spots and the fall ends. I like a match like this where the fall can end at any time and when you think it's over, it just keeps going. Great start on the mat and picked up with a nice Virus/Arkangel exchange. Back-and-forth action until Sagrado got whipped into a tope suicida on Mazada. Tecnicos seemingly had the fall won after a few nearfalls but then the rudos countered some moves and took the fall. Arkangel used a wicked submission on Volador! No brawling as the action just picked up fast in the second fall with some nice exchanges. Sagrado especially looked really good. I'd call this entire match a perfect example of why Sagrado can be a star if he always wrestles like this. Surprisingly the rudos took over quickly and PINNED Sagrado! As they were one pinfall away from winning the match, Mazada made the mistake of trying to dive onto Volador Jr. with some sort of headscissors through the ropes but Volador caught him and power bombed him on the outside! OUCH! Virus then rolled Arkangel up with this insane pinning combo that would have made Skayde really happy so the tecnicos evened things up! Already this was twice the length and had more action than any recent CMLL TV match. Third fall had some more nice exchanges. Sagrado used a really neat sunset flip roll-up on Arkangel. Volador Jr. ended up taking out Mazada with a nice asai moonsault. Virus then went for a dive on Nozawa who side-stepped, Virus slid under the ropes, Nozawa charged him but got picked up and rammed into the ringpost shoulder-first! Inside the ring Sagrado and Arkangel traded nearfalls. Finally Sagrado was able to head up top and nail a flying dropkick for the win! Really good match in the ***1/4 - ***3/4 range.

Glad I hunted this episode down. The opener and main event were really fun to watch. The entire Sin Limite De Tiempo series seemed to slip under the radar to most Lucha followers which is a shame b/c it had some great matches on during it's run. The above match would rank in my top #5 for sure. Hey cubs, if you've got time and have no backlog, you should definitely go back and check these shows out, possibly even review them. Might remind you why CMLL used to rule.

Random Matches:

Dragon De Oriente I/King Flash vs Black Bull I/Toro Negro II: If you understand Spanish you might be scratching your head right now but don't worry, the rudos were confused as well. During the intros, Arturo Rivera introduced "LADIES AND GENTLEMAN... THIS IS BLACK BULL NUMBER ONE!" and both rudos raised their hands thinking he was called them The Black Bulls. Then he said "y Toro Negro II!" and both rudos just looked at each other all confused without raising their hands. *L* Los Dragones De Oriente are a local team from Queretaro who really are FANTASTIC workers. Ever since 1993 they've been in almost every dark match when an AAA TV Taping came to Queretaro. Some of you may have even seen Dragon De Oriente II last on an AAA TV episode from mid-2005 where he teams with Rey Cometa and Pony I believe. Dragon De Oriente I is easily the worker of the team though so I'm glad he was the one used in this match. He's the smaller of the two and might be one of the most graceful flyers I have ever seen. This was only one fall and was obviously the first match of the night so these guys knew their role and played it well. The tecnicos got to show off a bunch of flying spots early on with Dragon De Oriente I looking amazing including moonsaulting off Toro Negro I's shoulders and then off the apron over both charging Black Bulls. King Flash wasn't too bad himself but did have a really awkward moment where he went to clothesline both Toros over the top rope but one of them didn't make it and landed back in the ring so Flash got another running start and unleashed with a huge clothesline except just before he went for it, the Black Bull tried to flip himself over the ropes and managed to do it so both he and King Flash took nasty over-the-top bumps but both were alright. The rudos took over and pinned King Flash after about 12 minutes of action. Dragon De Oriente I tried to tie things up but got caught with a huge spinebuster slam and was pinned. Los Black Toros win the match! I liked it.

I also saw a good Rey Misterio Jr.(does WWE even use the Jr.?) vs Jamie Noble match from an old episode of Velocity. Might have been early 2005? This is the type of match that makes me want to watch Smackdown regularly again at least to see Rey Jr. in action but it seems like for every week I catch a good match, the next week has Rey vs Mark Henry or some stupid shit like that. The match with Noble went about 12 minutes and was far from spotty but I loved it. Rey is just sooooooooooooooo awesome at everything he does. Might be one of my favorite Rey Jr. WWE matches although I stopped watching back in early '04 so who knows what I missed. Thankfully I have 6 DVD's of Rey waiting to be watch now so props to Bix.

WOO-HOO! New Lucha TV time!

Gonna do it a bit differently than last time as there are more CMLL TV shows than AAA shows so it's hard to match them up and compare 1 by 1. Also, AAA TV will in all likelyhood absolutely destroy CMLL TV on a weekly basis which makes it unfair to compare.

CMLL TV 4/1/06:

Dark Angel/Diana La Cazadora/Princesa Blanca vs La Amapola/La Medusa/Princesa Sujei: Oh man this may be the most beautiful statement ever coming up... this was joined in progress and clipped! Alright, I'm being a little unfair, I just dislike women's wrestling. This was a revancha as Amapola used the ropes to pin Sarah the week before. We joined with the rudos brawling and about a minute later the tecnicos react which I totally missed as they didn't make it out to be anything special. Diana decides to do a somersault dive off the apron and misses 95% of Sujei somehow, injuring her ass. Princesa Blanca does her Silver King dive onto Medusa and guess what... Dark Angel/Amapola left. Angel makes Amapola submit clean to La Reinera right away. Not much of anything here. Rating: 0

Only new Momentos spot was ROH message board regular Ramstein legdropping Starman as Apocalipsis held him in the air. Poor Starman got sat on and looked to get hurt. One of the clips was Blanca doing the same dive she did in the previous match from the week before. Who picks these spots?

Next up is La Copa Junior...

The battle royale didn't air thankfully. Time saver!

El Averno vs Perro Aguayo Jr.: Annoying match. Averno kept dominating Perro Jr. who would sell for a second, then sit up and start laughing or pointing at the crowd which was really awkward. Averno nailed a somersault bodyblock off the apron but later missed a somersault splash off the top and Perro pinned him with a flying double stomp. 2 and a half minutes.

Dr. Wagner Jr. vs El Mephisto: Easy match to remember b/c Mephisto attacked right away and the entire match was him on offense since he was losing. Crowd didn't buy him winning at all. Even when he hit his double underhook facebuster the crowd didn't react to the nearfall. Finally Wagner took over with a dropkick to the face, a powerslam and the Wagner Driver to win. Might have gone a touch over 3 minutes.

Dos Caras Jr. vs Heavy Metal: Actually pretty decent at the begining with some matwork. Metal goes for a cover but Caras kicks out which launches Metal to the outside and he eats a Caras running tope over the top. They take their time getting back inside and Metal escapes the press slam/german combo into an anklelock which is a great spot but Metal NEVER uses that submission so nobody thought it was over. Metal goes for a press slam of his own and actually gets Caras up!!! He drops him right into the german but Caras reverses and nails his own german for the win. A touch over 3 minutes. Unbelievable... I liked this.

La Mascara vs Apolo Dantes: WTF? Apolo Dantes? That was pretty much the crowd's reaction. There is no reason Mascara should be doing the job here but this is CMLL so... yeah. Nice start with Apolo putting over Mascara and bumping around for him. He ends up eating a tope suicida. Dantes tries to re-enter but Mascara stops him and enzuigiri's him back down to the floor, then follows with a ringpost plancha. They blow a spot when they re-enter but Apolo calms things down and soon afterwards catches Mascara with a Northern Lights Suplex as he runs the ropes for the absurd win. Didn't get to 3 minutes. Stupid booking aside, I liked this too.

Brazo De Plata vs Hector Garza: Pretty embarassing. Garza was hilarious as usual. He took Porky's plancha off the apron but that seemed to take whatever was left out of Porky. When they re-entered he took a bump and you could see he was done. Garza nailed a spinebuster slam and pinned Porky. MAYBE over 2 crappy minutes.

Lizmark Jr. vs Mascara Magica: See: Apolo Dantes comments. They couldn't have made up Bucanero being a junior and inserted him into the tournament instead? El Troyano wasn't even that important for crying out loud! At least Magica was finally involved in a match where he was the worker of the two. He nailed a tope suicida and got a few nearfalls but everyone knew he was losing. Lizmark Jr. nailed a pathetic side slam to win. Just under 3 minutes and pretty bad.

Volador Jr. vs Olimpico: They didn't even bother with the slow start knowing how little time they had and got right into it. Volador sent Olimpico outside with a frankensteiner, slipped on a Super Quebrada but recovered immediatly with an asai moonsault. Olimpico got a 2 count with a top-rope sunset flip. Volador used an enzuigiri for a two. Olimpico quickly caught Volador in a really neat roll-up that really should get a name some day and won the match. Didn't reach the 2 minute mark but had more action than any match so far. I liked it.

Negro Casas vs Misterioso II: Rudo is in control as the whistle goes but Negro fights back. Misterioso nails some stiff kicks as Negro is on the apron. Negro fights back and tries a cross body press but Misterioso catches him, puts him on his feet and lariats him! Nice spot there. Misterioso continues to use power to dominate Negro until a quick comeback and Casita eliminates Misterioso from the tournament. Didn't reach 3 minutes but was a really smartly worked 3 minutes where you actually thought Misterioso might get the win. Thumbs up from me.

I liked 4 of the matches in this round so I'll give it .50 out of 1.

Quarterfinals:

Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Perro Aguayo Jr.: O'Campo had this going 5+ minutes and the longest match of the tournament but TV told a different story. Although I guess I should first mention - THIS IS THE FIRST EVER MEETING BETWEEN WAGNER AND PERRITO! In a throwaway QF match!!! Joined with Perro beating on Wagner. He goes up top but misses the flying double stomp and about 30 seconds later he is pinned *CLEAN* with the Wagner Driver. Didn't come close to 2 minutes. What was shown was bad. Wagner rushes to the back afterwards holding his side.

Dos Caras Jr. vs Apolo Dantes: Dantes in control to start but this time the crowd is positive he isn't winning so not much heat. Caras misses a moonsault off the second turnbuckle. Apolo gets caught with an enzuigiri as he sits up top but only a 2 count. Caras eventually catches Apolo in a flying armbar for the submission. 3 minutes of okay action.

Lizmark Jr. vs Hector Garza: Alot like Volador Jr. vs Olimpico as they didn't wait at all and just went into the action. In fact this was the match: Garza attacks Lizmark Jr. and whips him into the turnbuckles. He charges and drops down so Lizmark can do a handspring moonsault, hit a shoulderblock and then moonsault over and onto his feet. Then it's Garza's turn to get backdropped onto the apron, push Lizmark away, do a 360 onto his own feet and a somersault, catch Lizmark with a spinebuster turned into a Boston Crab and that's it. Didn't reach 1 minute and a half but was exciting for what it was.

Negro Casas vs Olimpico: Joined at the whistle with Olimpico kicking Casas' face in. He nails a running facewash and tries another but gets kicked in the face by Casas who then nails a running corner dropkick. In a bit of a silly moment, Casas then rolls outside to setup his silla dive but Olimpico is still laying in the corner. He suddenly realizes what spot is next and for no reason rolls outside to take the dive.:/ They trade nearfalls back inside. Olimpico even escapes the Casita! Negro slams Olimpico down and goes for his secondary finisher - the Scorpion Deathlock - but Olimpico cradles him and gets the surprising win to a nice pop! 3 minutes and another great Casas performance in working with a young(well... in CMLL's eyes) guy.

Only match I disliked here was Wagner/Perrito so I'll give .75 out of 1 for this round.

Semi-Finals & Finals:

Dos Caras Jr. vs Dr. Wagner Jr.: The story here is Wagner comes to the ring with his ribs taped up and is in obvious pain. He dominates Caras early and nails a somersault plancha off the ramp. In the ring he tries to end it quick with a Mexican Stretch but Caras struggles to get the ropes. Wagner wants the match over fast since he's hurt so he locks it on again but Caras powers out this time. Wagner nails the Wagner Driver but can't cover b/c he hurt his ribs. When he does cover it's only a 2. Out of nowhere Caras gets behind Wagner and hits a wicked snap german suplex for the 3! Just over 3 minutes and had a nice little story going on.

Olimpico vs Hector Garza: Olimpico starts off in control and ends up dropkicking Garza onto the ramp for no reason. He rolls him back inside and then dropkicks him to the floor, then follows with a running somersault plancha. Flying dropkick gets a 2. Not many nearfalls here as Garza just puts Olimpico away to advance. Barely over 2 minutes.

Final - Dos Caras Jr. vs Hector Garza: Garza is laying down on the stairs pretending to be hurt as Caras makes his entrance and gets jumped. Garza throws him inside the ring and pounds away, including tearing at his mask. Then in a moment only a Mexican produced show would be capable of... they edit forward. Yes, they edit the FINALS. We go right to Caras trying to monkey flip Garza who lands on his feet and goes for a clothesline but gets snap german suplexed! Dos Caras Jr. wins La Copa Junior in a 1 minute final! (O'Campo has this listed as going 3:52 live) Post-match has Garza congratulating Caras on his win but then yanking his mask off!

I'll give the semis and final a combined .50 out of 1.

Mistico vs Black Warrior: This was a good Guerreros Del Ring style match with more heat than it would have gotten at Arena Coliseo. Mistico hits the ramp plancha to start and they do some cool ramp spots. Warrior is largely in control and even hits a 6-1-9 early on. Mistico makes his comeback but during the comeback Warrior accidentally kicks the referee, then yanks off Mistico's mask and covers. Ref wakes up and awards the fall to Mistico by DQ. Second fall starts with Warrior... ripping off Mistico's mask! DQ? Nope... the ref grabs a new mask and hands it to Mistico to put on. And people say AAA ignores all the rules? Anyways, at least it gets better from there with the flying spots. Mistico nails a plancha over the ringpost. Warrior then DEMOLISHES Mistico with a tope of death. I love the Warrior tope's when the camera is shooting from the side and the tope is so brutal that both guys end up out of camera range. Some decent nearfalls including a cool spot where Mistico pretty much flew backwards but got caught with a wheelbarrow facebuster from Warrior. La Mistica ends this one of course and lots of challenges afterwards. Rating: .75

Overall this episodes gets a 2.5 out of 5. Better than expected going in. I think the key is I went in with low expectations since I knew the matches would be extremely short as you can't run 15 medium-length matches on a 2 hour show. Some of the matches even impressed me unlike the first time I saw them but I did have high expectations back in April. Mistico/Warrior was just a teaser for their future title match which I expect to deliver way better than this one did.

AAA TV 3/31/06 in Oaxaca: (this will air on Galavision this week... maybe)

Rey Cometa/Pimpinela Escarlata/Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Martha Villalobos vs Kaoma Jr./Polvo De Estrellas/Mini Abismo Negro/La Diabolica: Mascarita and Mini Abismo have this beautiful mat exchange early in the match which is to die for. They really need to put together another program leading to a singles match with those two at a future TV taping. Cometa and Kaoma Jr. of course tear it up when in the ring together. They work so well together and Cometa is so not your generic young guy who hits a ton of spots and misses a ton of others. He's just so fluid and doesn't look like he's being carried at all. He nailed a gorgeous diving frankensteiner to the floor off the second rope on Kaoma. Rudos took over after that and the beatdown might have dragged a bit longer than it should have. Comeback spot wasn't too hot either. Then it was time to clear out and let Martha/Diabolica finish the match since they were feuding. Pimpinela took out Polvo with a running somersault plancha. Kaoma took a beautiful shoulder-bump to the floor behind the ringpost and Cometa nailed a DOUBLE CORKSCREW PLANCHA OVER THE RINGPOST!!! HOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT! Mascarita then nailed his usual spinning headscissors moves on Mini Abismo taking him outside and then nailed a diving frankensteiner off the top rope with an extra twist on the landing! After Martha missed a plancha off the second rope, Diabolica nailed a senton and got the win. Fine opening match. In my head I wondered if this entire match would go longer than the full first round of the CMLL tournament? It did. Rating: 1.

Abismo Negro/Histeria/Psicosis vs Antifaz Del Norte/Corazon De Barrio/Hator: Abismo got taken out with a tombstone as he made his entrance(it probably wasn't even the real Abismo) which turned it into a 3-on-2 match. Actually, 3-on-1 as Psicosis wasn't helping Histeria at first since they had been feuding forever. After the northerners dominated for a while, they sat Histeria on a chair and were ready to triple dropkick him but Psicosis stopped them. Histeria got up to defend himself but Psicosis tossed him a chair and then they cleaned house! LOS VIPERS ARE REBORN! They used dual tope suicidas on Corazon De Barrio and Hator. Antifaz was eliminated after a TKO and flying senton from Psicosis. Histeria took out Hator with an asai moonsault. Psicosis had Corazon pinned by Antifaz interfered behind the ref's back and low blowed Psicosis who got pinned so El Terror Regio won the match since Psic was the captain. Entire match was just an angle with a few nice spots thrown in but I thought it came off very well. Rating: .75

Chessman/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Alan Stone/Zumbido - Mexican National Atomicos Titles Bout: In no way did this live up to my expectations but it had it's moments for sure. They paired off early on until the Guapos took over and used some nice double/triple/quadrople team moves to take the first fall. It's so weird how Shocker used to stand out and you could see he was the star, no matter how many other people were in a match and now... he's just one Guapo out of four. There really is no difference between him and the others as far as presence in the ring which used to be Shocker's strength. Second fall had the inevitable comeback by the champions. Escoria took out Shocker with a WICKED running corkscrew plancha between the ropes! Ozz and Cuervo then used their dual finishers on Scorpio Jr. and Zumbido while Chessman used a TKO to pin Alan. Again they paired off in the third fall starting with Shocker and Chessman who had a fun minute or so where they did a neat spot exchanging stiff kicks. Just as they both connected at the same time, Escoria and Alan Stone used springboard dropkicks to clear the ring and then they got going. Ozz/Zumbido ended up taking those two out and then Cuervo/Scorpio took those two out. Finally the trend ended as Cuervo took Scorpio out and nailed a tope suicida. Alan then went at it with Ozz and they showed a replay of Cuervo's dive but immediatly after that we re-joined an Alan springboard plancha in progress! Holy shit, a dive sequence! Ozz was next with a bullet running corkscrew through the ropes! Zumbido then geared up and launched himself over the top with a no-hands running somersault plancha to perfection! Next up was Escoria... or was it? NOPE! CH-CH-CH-CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESMAN! Up top... MOONSAULT PLANCHA ONTO EVERYONE!!! Fucking amazing spot for a guy his size! This left Shocker and Escoria in the ring of course. La Secta came out to watch the match on the ramp. Escoria used a top-rope frankensteiner but Alan broke the pin up. Chessman didn't like that and entered the ring but was dropkicked outside and taken out with a tope suicida from Alan! Shocker put Escoria up top and went for La Valagueza but Espiritu ran to the ring and low blowed him, Escoria landed on top and the champs retain! Shitty ending but I was sorta expecting that once I saw La Secta come out. As I said, match had it's moments but overall was a bit of a mess. Rating: .75

Post-match was a dumb angle where Electro Shock turned on AAA and gave Pena a weak chairshot which Pena bled for.

El Zorro vs El Intocable vs Charly Manson vs Electro Shock - Chain Match: Oh god these matches are AWFUL. I like 3 out of these guys and I like the stipulation but it should be kept to a singles match. The problem is they have all four chains connected together and there is absolutely NO WAY to not avoid the chain getting tangled up. Poor Hijo Del Tirantes is running around the ring all match long trying to untangle the mess. And at many points guys would try moves and be unable to do them properly b/c the chain didn't extend far enough. So this was just one huge mess. Manson tried to blade himself and it failed miserably as he only got a slight trickle of blood but sold it like he was a bloody mess. Intocable ended up winning but even the AAA crowd was sorta quiet for all this b/c they knew it was awful. Rating: 0

La Parka Jr./Octagon/Luzbel vs Cibernetico/Muerte Cibernetica/Espiritu: Espiritu gets to take over Chessman's role of being the guy to take all of Octagon's boring offense. Lots of boring brawling early on. Luzbel then got an exchange and actually took TWO BUMPS! He's already 10x the worker Gronda is! Ciber yanked off Parka's mask for the D...or not...Parka Jr. used a L.A. Park spot where his mask is off but he covers his face with his own hair and dropkicks Ciber outside for a tope suicida! Luzbel speared Muerte Cibernetica after a blown spot and pinned him while Octagon made Espiritu submit to send the crowd home happy. Rating: .25

Overall we wind up with 2.75 out of 5. I enjoyed the episode alot at various points and hated it at various points as well. The added bonus was this was an outdoor show and it went late into the night so the setup looked cool with the darkness in the background and the stadium lights on to light the ring. Of course the lazy AAA TV production crew decided to have pre-made crowd shots to insert when they edited so what do you think happened? Yep... crowd shots with the sun out as a match occured in total darkness. Only in Mexico. Well, and WCW I guess. The next show is in Queretaro from 3/31 and on paper looks like a real strong show so I have high expectations. There are 3 matches that look can't miss, 1 that could be great if the guys are working hard and then the TNA guys in the main event which I heard wasn't as bad as you'd think.

Random match...

Aguila De Acero(Mascara Sagrada Jr.)/Slayer vs Angel Mortal/Marabunta: God bless KWHY for this random match that Lynch doesn't have! This looks like a randomly put together tag match from a taping in Queretaro. Anyone who has known me for a while knows that Slayer is the answer to a trivia question of mine that I've had since early 1996. If only I had known a Damien Lauly tape had the answer to the annoying question of WHO WAS THAT THIRD MASKED GUY IN THE OLD AAA INTRO?!?!?!?!?!!? When I found out it was Slayer I was a bit disapointed since I've seen him work AAA and IWRG and he's looked...well...not too good. But damn... he was pretty great in this match! He tried a Super Quebrada to enter the ring and slipped BADLY. The crowd and announcers were laughing at him but he made up for it by looking like a star the rest of the match. Acero... did not look too good. So of course he's the one that eventually got the push. Rudos were great bumping around as you'd expect. The refs seemed to be telling them to take it home earlier than they expected in the third fall. Acero ends up using a slingshot into a blown roll-up to win the match. They really should have improvised b/c the spot was just awful. Fun match though.

CMLL TV 4/8/06:

Team Laziness: Ultimo Dragon/La Mascara/Felino vs Olimpico/Okumura/Takemura: Takemura looked better than I remembered although you really can't show much in these types of matches. Ultimo did his best Mil Mascaras impression where he took one move and stayed outside until it was time for him to be on offense and destroy everyone in his path. Short and uneventful. Rating: .25

Momentos had Mascara Purpura doing a wicked second rope springboard tornillo! I wonder why he hasn't busted that out in a regular TV match yet. There were a few more clips of stuff that didn't air the previous week which was fun instead of seeing the usual repeated spots since Tuesday's Coliseo shows stopped being filmed.

Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy vs Mr. Aguila/Damian 666/Hector Garza: This match started the build for the future 4/28 big matches. Looked like we were gonna get a clean start but then Los Perros started brawling. They took the first fall and of course Los Guerreros responded to take the second fall. Garza recently gave an interview where he called AAA's product "pure show", i.e. no wrestling. So of course he spent the first two falls mocking Los Guerreros, having a woman at ringside take his shirt off and then hiding in the same woman's arms to avoid the comeback. CMLL = pure wrestling! Third fall was fun as we got a couple of exchanges. Damian went nuts and did a run-up-the-ropes frankensteiner! DAMIAN! He's like 50! The finishing sequence was pulled straight from the 2003 AAA playbook which needs to be renamed the 2006 CMLL playbook. Lots of low blows and people forgetting where they were supposed to be looking. I like the new ref Adonis Salazar staring right at a low blow and then looking away as the pinfall is occuring. Shouldn't it be the other way around? To sum up this match... Garza and Ultimo blew a spot. ULTIMO GUERRERO NEVER BLOWS SPOTS! Rating: .50

Mistico/Negro Casas/La Parka vs Atlantis/El Averno/El Mephisto: Well thank god for this as it saved the show. Really good match. Mistico and Averno had an awesome exchange early on which didn't even include flying. Parka then got in the ring and began tearing it up. He is such an underrated worker... probably one of the most complete guys in CMLL right now, that is if you still count him as a CMLL guy. Great ending to the first fall although Parka was going so fast with his moves Atlantis just couldn't keep up. The second fall had more fun work which was good to see since I was expecting a beatdown right away. Rudos eventually got to the beatdown and won the fall. Parka took a sickening bump on the outside. I should also add he was getting boo'ed all match long but played it off like a pro and at the same time didn't make himself the center of attention since the match was booked to revolve around the tag title buildup. Good for Parka... you can bet it'd have been different with a guy like Wagner in his place. Third fall had a very awkward moment during the comeback sequence as Mistico blew his springboard dropkick but recovered nicely. However Atlantis seemed to get really confused and ended up elbowdroping... Averno... for no reason at all. Time stood still as everyone was like 'WTF?'. Parka got the match going again and the finishing stuff was really done by everyone. Great setup for next week. Rating: 1

1.75 out of 3 overall. The show was saved by the main event. Next week might be the same. I wanna see if the tag title match holds up to what I remember from it.

AAA TV 3/31/06 in Queretaro:

Laredo Kid/Nemesis/Super Fly vs Gran Apache/Kaoma Jr./Espantapajro (pretty sure Brandon was under the mask): Before the match they introduced La Fuerza Aerea which included Super Fly doing three moonsaults in a row in some park and then running up a *WALL* and doing a moonsault which looked cool. This was three falls for some reason? Started slow and then the rudos took over. They did some nice double/triple team moves and won the first fall. Apache was clearly keeping things together here so far. The comeback spot in the second fall ended up being the pinning spot as Nemesis tried to do a top-rope monkey flip on Apache but they slipped and still did the spot anyways although it wasn't as nice. Laredo Kid nailed a springboard legdrop for the pinfall. Third fall was full of great acrobatics from the tecnicos. Super Fly almost killed Espantapajaros with a frankensteiner to the floor spot. Laredo Kid looked really good with everything he did. He looks like the type of guy that is trying stuff way too wild to be done properly but he manages to pull the moves off somehow. Speaking of wild... after a turnbuckle bump to the floor, Laredo Kid nails Kaoma Jr. with a *SPRINGBOARD TWO AND A HALF FORWARD CORKSCREW PLANCHA*!!! AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWESOME! Next up is Super Fly who sends the Scarecrow outside and nails him with a 12 FOOT HIGH HANGING ASAI MOONSAULT TO PERFECTION!!! As crazy as it sounds, I think I liked that dive better than Laredo's b/c he had so much hang time and it made for a brutal impact. Nemesis sent Apache outside and they did the old Kimba/Mr. Cacao spot where Nemesis did a flip plancha through the ropes and transitioned back into leaping onto the apron for an asai moonsault on Apache! Laredo Kid and Kaoma Jr. were somehow still alive and finished the match. Laredo did a 360 onto his feet and Kaoma Jr. threw water in his face, then got the pinfall. After the match Los Vipers recruited Kaoma. Not the perfect opener but it had everything you'd expect from it, i.e. awesome Apache, a scarecrow and crazy dives. Rating: 1.

Billy Boy/El Angel/Rey Cometa vs Alan Stone/Scorpio Jr./Zumbido: I love during Angel's intro the announcer says (in reference to him beating a fan up in Madero at Rey De Reyes): "El Angel... o... en Madero - el Diablo...", hehe. But seriously, Sevilla needs to get off whatever is making him all angry and fucked up in the head b/c he has turned into quite the awful wrestler. This was SUPPOSED to be three falls but only went one fall for some reason. Guapos showed off some wicked moves early on including Scorpio Jr. holding Rey Cometa up(like for a monkey flip) as Alan Stone springboard halfway across the ring with a sunset flip bomb! The comeback spot was a triple tope suicida from the tecnicos with Cometa's being the best as he was still going high-speed with Zumbido until they crashed into the guardrail to stop the momentum. Billy Boy worked spots with all the Guapos and was looking fantastic until the last spot where he tried a slingshot frankensteiner to the floor and Alan screwed up the catch so they kinda got caught on the apron but smartly Billy turned it into an armdrag for a passable spot. Angel was up next and tried a moonsault onto his feet but just slipped backwards onto his ass as everyone laughed at him.:/ I feel bad for Sevilla. Cometa came in next and tore it up with each Guapo. I'll say it again - THIS GUY IS AWESOME! After taking Alan to the floor with a springboard 360 with a twist into an armdrag, he hit the spot of the night(year?)... *RUNNING TORNILLO PLANCHA INTO AN ARMDRAG*!!! FUCKING AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWESOME! The timing to pull that off is incredible. They faded right into Angel doing a plancha off the top onto Scorpio so I thought he blew something really bad to the point they couldn't air it but replays showed he hit the setup spot fine. This left Billy and Zumbido and just as Zumbido was ready to lose, Apache ran out with a chair and smacked Billy Boy for the DQ. Then he beat Billy into a bloody mess. Aside from the El Angel sequence, nothing to complain about here. RATING: 1.

Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Octagoncito/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro/Mini Chessman/Jerrito Estrada: Weird that only the rudos entrances were shown. Your usual minis match although less flying than usual which was a bummer. At least they have a revancha match coming up where I'm sure they will go all out. Parkita comedy dominated early on and then the rudos took over. Mascarita led the comeback spot and then MORE PARKITA COMEDY. Boy did it ever get annoying. The Octagoncito/Mascarita stuff was good enough to make up for it though. Finish had two insane dives... first Mascarita with a springboard somersault into a frankensteiner on the floor!!! Camera missed what Parkita did(somersault off the apron) but did catch Octagoncito with a psychotic 15 foot high springboard moonsault plancha!!! Mascarita and Mini Abismo had an awesome nearfall spot and then Mascarita low blowed Mini Abismo who in the process lost his mask so I think it was a draw to setup the revancha in Hidalgo. I expect alot from the minis so it didn't reach it's full potential but was a really fun match. Rating: .75

La Parka Jr./El Intocable/El Zorro vs Electro Shock/Histeria/Psicosis: I had a headache after watching this. Tons of brawling, tons of comedy and zero wrestling. It was mind-numbing to see the same Intocable dance spots 5 times in a row and Parka Jr. doing slow-motion comedy for a full 5 minutes. I think this went close to 25 minutes and it might have been the worst 25 minutes of AAA TV in years. This is the type of match that makes cubs think I'm crazy for enjoying AAA. Rating: 0

Cibernetico/Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica vs (as AAA TV spells it) Frank Cazaria/Scot De Amore/Border Patrol: If you can't tell - that's Frankie Kazarian, Scott D'Amore and Mike Modest. This was re-shuffled as Konnan and whoever he was supposed to bring down no-showed so TNA just sent 3 random guys. It worked out for the best as these guys worked a really smart match with La Secta playing tecnicos and the TNA guys bumping real well for them. Chessman started the match with Modest and they did some decent stuff. Crowd was REALLY into the match cheering for La Secta and booing the TNA guys which added to the match big time. Muerte Cibernetica then did some fancy stuff by his standards including a tope suicida onto all three TNA guys! Cibernetico and Kazarian even had a passable exchange and when's the last time you could say Ciber had any sort of passable exchange?!?!?!? The TNA guys eventually took over with brawling and just as the comeback was starting, D'Amore used a low blow for the DQ. Crowd was happy as La Secta came back after the match and sent the TNA guys to the back with a beating. Could have been a disaster but was smartly worked which got the crowd into it instead of being disapointed that certain guys no-showed. See Konnan, you really aren't needed. Rating: .75

Overall the shows gets 3.5 out of 5. All it needed was guys working hard in the semi-main or a completely different semi-main and this would have been another blowaway TV taping. Definitely a reccomended episode. Should air on Galavision next week although if I'm following correctly, Gala edits off one match per week, right? Pray they edit off the semi-main instead of the mini's or segunda.

Quick thoughts on this week's Lucha...

CMLL: Pretty shitty episode. The main event was really good and was given more time than usual. The Mistico/Perrito dynamic is amazing. Match had more heat than almost anything on TV this year b/c of Mistico's return and the Perros being so over. Aguila looked great again and Terrible looked pretty shitty. Too much commercials, not enough gym time. Oh yeah, Bucanero was there. Note to CMLL: Never have him and Mistico on the same team. Eclipse's debut was alright but he wasn't protected at all. Just another new guy who isn't even booked next week. His moonsault finisher got a huge pop and it looks like he will be used as Dos Jr.'s regular opponent. The tercera was just booked so stupidly that it sucked. You have a team with Volador Jr., Blue Panther and Satanico. So what do they do? Volador Jr. gets a mat exchange, Satanico gets a medium-speed exchange and then Panther doesn't take it to the mat... he begins flying around like he's Santo... which he isn't. So dumb. Volador Jr. looked AMAZING in the ring although I can't say the same about his half-black look. WTF is up with that? He got a huge reaction and is back in the tercera next week thankfully.

Two important things to note:
1. Everyone wears gloves now. Mistico, Volador Jr., Aguila and Bucanero. Is this a Rey Jr. thing?
2. 3 matches... 9 falls... *NOT A SINGLE NEARFALL OR TEASED SUBMISSION OR TEASED FINISHER*. What does that mean? It means every time a wrestler went for his signature move, he nailed it and got the pinfall. There was no suspense in any of the matches and right when you thought it was going to be over... it was. These guys seem to put more thought into their ring entrances than their matches. FUCKING LAZY PROMOTION!

AAA: Opener was a tag featuring locals from Tulancingo who all wanna be like Crazzy Boy. They had some cool spots but that's about it. I liked the one guy(Tlaxsys, I think) who did a fallaway slam but his opponent took a corkscrew bump for it. Another guy did a springboard corkscrew + an extra rotation dive. Before MexPower vs La Secta, Crazzy Boy cut a promo saying he is a leyenda just like El Santo and Blue Demon. HA. Match wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Crowd was way into it with the hometown guy involved. A couple of neat dives and Lider didn't drop anyone on their head which is always a plus. The semi-main looked very disorganized with Dandy no-showing and them rushing to debut the new aliens group who were never named by the announcers. Crowd seemed to enjoy it though. I don't mind it that much, could be fun if there are good workers under the masks. Gronda II took the tombstone like a man in the main event! Next week's Madero card should be awesome.

Also wanna mention I just saw Takemura vs Virus from AJPW and Virus looked awesome! I will be shocked if he doesn't get invited back just based on that match alone. Takemura also impressed me and I wish he worked more like that in CMLL rather than lazy Okumura-style.

IWRG TV 4/23/06:

Gran Cuchillo and Kid Tiger vs Black Jaguar and Black Stone: First time seeing Black Stone and he really didn't make much of an impression. He's taller than your average IWRG opening match guy though so I wouldn't be shocked if he eventually got a push to tercera status instead of disapearing. Kid Tiger keeps looking better and better. It's only a matter of time now before he is forming a tag team at Arena Coliseo with Spider Kid. He used to be very tenative but now he's starting to move more like his dad and takes control of exchanges. Black Jaguar also looked alright. Good opener.

Avisman I/Panterita/Ultimo Tigre vs Pirata Morgan Jr./Kaleth/Nemesis: Another tiger gimmick! Ryan would be so happy. Cool mask on Ultimo Tigre but I knew I'd hate him right from the start. He is the new guy on the block so logic says he lets the rudos dictate the pace of the exchanges, right? Not this guy... he must not be a rookie under the mask b/c he began tossing the rudos around so everyone was out of position. It looked bad. I guess karma really is a bitch though b/c at the end of the fall he went for a slingshot somersault senton dive and HORRIBLY blew it. This ranks right up there as one of the most embarassing blown dives ever. His hands slipped off the ropes and he took a header onto the apron, then tumbled to the floor as the crowd laughed at him. Panterita then did a cool plancha over the ringpost to a huge pop. Tecs took the first fall. Second fall had some really nice exchanges, especially by Panterita. I think the rudos were supposed to do double dives to end the fall but Ultimo Tigre was out of position so they scrapped it. Kaleth takes the fall with the move Doi uses as his finisher in Dragon Gate where he hits an elevated spinebuster into a sitout power bomb. I thought he KO'ed poor Panterita with it but thankfully he continued on. Third fall was back and forth. Eventually Avisman did a tope suicida and Ultimo Tigre barely nailed a pescado. Panterita got a few nearfalls but got caught coming off the ropes with a springboard frankensteiner and was power bomb by Pirata Jr. for the rudo win. Fun match b/c of Panterita and the rudos.

Volador Jr./Star Boy/Marco Rivera vs Black Terry/Fantasma De La Opera/Shigeo Okumura: I really liked this. Some matwork early on before the rudos took over and won the first fall. Tecnicos had an awesome second fall comeback and then third fall was just tons of fun. Smartly booked too. If you remember what I wrote about Blue Panther NOT being given a mat exchange on CMLL TV this week, here Marco Rivera was also NOT given a mat exchange. But see, that HELPS the match. Instead he did his basic armdrags and dancing which the crowd loved. Tecnicos did triple tope suicidas but the match kept going after that and the camera missed the finish as Volador Jr. got his mask yanked off by Okumura and was pinned.

For some reason my copy of the show ends there without the main event but I don't think I'm missing much by not seeing a Head Hunters match. Show is worth checking out just for the first three matches.

Random matches...

Silver Fox/Poder Negro/Amenaza Del Siglo vs Lima Lama/Centella Azul/El Dios Del Trueno: Really weird match with NOBODY I recognize from a Mexico City taping. These guys must have all been friends with some of the workers. They were all really short and could easily pass for mini's these days. Lima Lama is the only guy who lookd remotely decent and he'll be happy to know he has been the punch line to make jokes between Jose and I over the years. Awful awful awful match with some really bad spots and thankfully it only went two falls.

El Charro/El Mariachi/El Mexicano vs Rambo/Dracula/El Hijo Del Espectro: Really good match. The tecnico team was just so awesome together... I wish they wouldn't have split up so soon. The rudos were all great bumping around for the armdrags and old-school lucha tactics the tecnicos were using. Hijo Del Espectro used a nice tope suicida in the second fall and the rudos took it when Rambo faked a low blow. Of course that set the stage for dual tecnico dives in the third fall and then Mariachi faked a low blow by Rambo to win the match. Rambo's faked low blow was at least realistic as he rolled around the ring in pain. Mariachi kept jumping 10 feet in the air while the referees looked at him which is not exactly what I'd be doing if I got low blowed. You'd think the referees would have been tipped off that he was faking when they raised his hand and he began celebrating like nothing happened to him.

CMLL TV 4/15/06:

Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy vs Mr. Aguila/Damian 666/Hector Garza: Didn't even tease matwork this time, just a brawl right from the start. First fall finished in 2 minutes... if that. Second fall was half that time. Garza spent the entire fall posing for pictures with some celebrity as his partners got their asses kicked. CAN YOU FEEL THE HATRED BETWEEN THESE TEAMS??? Third fall had a few pretty moves from each team but it also only lasted like 3 minutes max. Guerrero did a really ugly dive onto Garza. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Ultimo is getting weird... first he blows a spot the week before, now he does a dive... is a new guy under the gimmick? Cheap finishes continues! This was so freakin' disapointing. Rating: .25

You know the entire problem with this Guerreros vs Perros feud is you have teams full of guys who CAN produce great matches but they are too concerned posing for the crowd and doing pretty moves to each other instead of getting the hatred over. Whereas the Perro and company vs Capos feud was full of guys who really aren't capable of great matches from a workrate perspective but it actually felt like they were feuding b/c they tore into each other. Show me a match where Mascara Ano 2000 is posing for photos at ringside while Perro kicks the shit out of Cien Caras.

Momentos had an awesome Volador Jr. springboard moonsault but that's all I remember.

Dark Angel vs La Amapola - Hair vs Mask: Joined in progress it seemed. Could there have been a more predictable outcome here? Stupidness all over early on with Hiroka interfering from the outside. Scorpio(the commisioner) gets out of his seat and stands behind Hiroka... I guess trying to tell her not to interfere but the guy is an old cripple, what can he do? You lose all respect for the commision when they stand there watching interference take place. Of course Hiroka then JUMPS INTO THE RING... yes, a run-in during a mask/hair match at Arena Mexico... boy have times changed. Marcela then jumps in the ring as well and dropkicks Hiroka outside. They start brawling as I think back to when apuesta matches were clean and had drama from you know... the actual participants in the match. They brawl to the back while Scorpio limps around ringside wondering what's for dinner. The match itself only goes about 5-6 minutes after that and has a REALLY weird moment near the end where Amapola power bombs Dark Angel and covers here... for a 3. Ref only counted two but Amapola seemed to grab Dark Angel's hands so she couldn't kick-out. Sarah tried to get her shoulder up but it was clearly a 3. They got up, Sarah nailed a power bomb herself and then locked on the Reinera. Seemed like a rushed finish. Chui speculated perhaps Amapola was double-crossing the promotion. I kinda ignored that idea when I read it but after watching the match... you do get that feeling. Not only did she get a 3 count, she also ripped her mask off and ran to the back before anyone could see her face. Crowd seemed really pissed at that. Rating: 0

El Averno and El Mephisto vs Mistico and Negro Casas - CMLL Tag Team Titles Bout: Once again, leave it to the main event to save an awful show. This is a huge MOTYC. I'm not gonna go into detail and spoil it but any lucha fan needs to pick this episode up off Fredo as this match alone is worth the $5. First two falls are exactly what you'd expect but the third fall is a brilliant masterpiece. In fact now that I add up the times in my head, the third fall went longer than both previous matches COMBINED. It's not only time that made it great though, the fall was laid out brilliantly(I assume by Negro) and had so many ups and downs. Right up there with the fantastic Santo/Negro vs Bucanero/Guerrero matches, in the ****+ area. It wasn't even the Mistico show either with tons of dives or anything of the sort. Just a great great great lucha match. Really can't say anything bad about this. Rating: 1.25, yes a bonus .25!

1.50 out of 3 overall for the episode but obviously only because of the tremendous main event. It really is a crying shame that CMLL could tell their wrestlers to put on matches like that on a weekly basis - maybe not epic matches like this every week, but matches that show the wrestlers are putting in an effort to work hard and nearfalls/pinfalls do matter.

AAA TV 4/2/06 in Hidalgo:

Billy Boy and Martha Villalobos vs Gran Apache and La Diabolica: For some reason this was three falls. Started off fine with the rudos attacking right away and staying in control. In the second fall is where things sorta seemed to get a little awkward as it seemed nobody here wanted to do a three fall match so they reluctantly ended the second fall quickly and with little thought which killed the comeback spot. Third fall didn't have much either b/c Billy Boy was busted open and tired, Martha sucks and Apache was a little lost. Weird finish as Martha had already been pinned but stayed in the ring anyways to help Billy Boy beat Apache. Rating: .25

Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Octagoncito/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro/Mini Chessman/Jerrito Estrada: *MUCH BETTER* than the week before and even that match was quite good. This got three falls which was a plus(unlike the opener which was the opposite). Octagoncito may have looked the best out of the mini tecnicos. He was doing some crazy stuff and did two wicked dives. Mascarita continues to look great although he should update his exchanges with Mini Abismo which are getting a little predictable. Although I will contradict myself now b/c the third fall finish was awesome as Mascarita went for his usual flying frankensteiner to the floor but... MINI ABISMO FINALLY COUNTERED IT!!! AFTER FIVE LONG YEARS... A COUNTER!!! He caught Mascarita upside down, then flung him up into the air and onto the guardrail! Mini rudos win the match as Mini Chessman kicks Parkita low after being eliminated and Mini Abismo uses a german suplex. Rating: 1

Rey Cometa/Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Charly Manson/Espiritu/Escoria/El Cuervo: WOO-HOO! This was a match I was eagerly anticipating. It ended up being just an introductory match so-to-speak as these teams must have known they'd be programmed together for months and just wanted to get the feel of each other. Some nice mat/simple exchanges early on instead of crazy armdrags/headscissors/dives which I'm sure we'll see later on. Rudos took over and used some cool moves to beatdown the tecnicos. They edited out what must have been a bad blown spot between Manson and Fly as one second they are standing on the top rope together and then after a quick crowdshot they are standing in the ring together. Laredo Kid had his mask ripped and led the comeback. Manson missed a slingshot asai moonsault and was sent outside for a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE moonsault plancha by Super Fly!!! The best part about it was as he did the hanging moonsault, Cuervo dove at him in a last ditch effort to stop the move which made for a great visual. How does Super Fly hang in the air like that on those moonsaults? Nemesis was next with a nice armdrag and a running somersault plancha. Finally Rey Cometa and Espiritu had a fantastic exchange which ended with a plancha by the tecnico. Laredo Kid crotched Escoria who fell off the top rope. Laredo went up top and nailed... A 630! The debut of that move in Mexico! He got up and got low blowed by Manson who then him with a Canadian Destroyer! The non-NGX debut of that move in Mexico! 1, 2, 3... LA SECTA WINS! Great introduction to the upcoming feud between these teams. Rating: 1

El Zorro vs Electro Shock - Mexican National Heavyweight Title: Something early seemed to be edited out as we joined with them working the mat. Was worked a lot like their previous 2/25 match. In fact it had the same story with Zorro's knee being hurt, the doctor checking on him, him losing the first fall but then coming back to take the second with a magistral cradle. Third fall is where it seemed to get different a bit as after Electro stopped his dive, they brawled into the crowd for some spots. At one point Manson(Electro's second) power bombed Rey Cometa(Zorro's second) through two chairs at ringside. This set the stage for the awkward finish where Zorro kicked Manson off the apron and then used a German Suplex to pin Electro and retain his title. Pretty good match like last time with a lot of heat. Cubs will still hate it for the awkwardness of the finish but this time Zorro's kick really nailed Manson! Rating: .50

Who would have ever thought two Zorro vs Electro matches would blow away the Bucanero vs Guerrero dream match?

Vampiro/La Parka Jr./El Intocable vs Cibernetico/Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica: Awesome. Simply - AWESOME. Chessman is a genius of course but now he's got a buddy as Banderas was pretty good in this and has good chemistry with Vampiro and even Parka a bit. Crowd was really into this and everyone was working harder than usual, especially Vamp. Chessman/Vamp had an awesome exchange early on which was more strong-style I guess... although I hate that term. It was just smart the way they built to one headbutt by Chessman getting the crowd to go nuts. Rudos took over and used chairs to beat Parka senseless. The comeback included a wicked bump by Banderas from one of Vampiro's kicks. Intocable and Chessman had a nice exchange thanks to... obviously... CH-CH-CH-CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSMAN! Whataguy. He ate a Parka tope suicida and then Intocable used a pescado on Banderas. Chessman re-entered the ring and tried to spew mist but missed. Mini Chessman ran out and ended up spewing Parka. Then La Parkita ran out, knocked Mini Chessman to the floor and followed with a tope suicida but then got beat up by all the rudos. Finally he got his mask yanked off and somehow that equaled a tecnico win? Lame finish but enjoyable main event match. Rating: .75

3.50 out of 5 overall. Really good episode for the future on Galavision. I suggest tuning in 30 minutes late to avoid the opener and then watching straight-through.

CMLL TV 4/22/2006:

Dos Caras Jr./Heavy Metal/Negro Casas vs Atlantis/Mascara Ano 2000/Pierroth: Nothing special here. Run of the mill match for these guys who are trying to get by doing as little as possible. It was funny at the end of the match when Negro was ready to give Pierroth the silla but they both looked around as if something was missing... so of course La Nazi comes running around FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RING and just stands behind Pierroth waiting for Negro to hit her with the move. I know Lucha isn't about realism but c'mon... you have one spot per match and you can't remember to be standing in the right place? Dos Jr. wins the match with his press slam/german combo and Atlantis is stretchered. Rating: .25

Momentos had an awesome series of clips as Mascara Purpura did ANOTHER awesome springboard Venum-style tornillo, Satanico did a senton off the apron and then Volador Jr. did a gorgeous Spanish Fly on Misterioso.

Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Mr. Aguila/Damian 666 vs Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy/Olimpico: About time they did the stable vs stable match using everyone who matters. Good brawl in the first fall with Los Perros in control after a sneak attack during the intros. They seemed to have everything in control until Mr. Aguila missed a running tornillo plancha and took out his team leading the comeback. The final fall had some nice exchanges and they tried to do a trainwreck spot where Perrito did a silla onto Olimpico as Bucanero and Tarzan came flying over the referee/ringpost with running somersault planchas but the camera missed Bucanero's dive and Tarzan was a bit late. Still a nice idea though. No nearfalls as per the norm, Ultimo just slams Garza down and gets rolled up right away. Surprise pinfalls are really good finishes, don't get me wrong... it's just it doesn't really come off as a surprise roll-up when the referee has to walk over, get down and count really slow. Are you trying to convince me Ultimo was shocked he got rolled up for an entire 10 seconds? Rating: .75

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./La Parka vs Universo 2000/Black Warrior/El Averno: Once again - Parka is head and shoulders above EVERYONE else. This was another great main event, mostly due to his hard work which made up for Wagner being involved. The Mistico/Warrior feud was centerstage but so was the teasing of Parka/Wagner not getting along. The comeback spot in the second fall was done really good with Averno taking a GIGANTIC backdrop from the ramp to the ring and then getting nailed with a tope suicida from Parka as Wagner did his same old running somersault plancha off the ramp on Universo and Warrior fell victim to La Mistica. Third fall had some great action including a fantastic Parka sequence which ended up with him spearing Black Warrior off the apron onto his partners who were on the floor! It was hilarious as right before he went for the spear, Universo gives Averno this look as if to say "this is gonna be bad..." but they pulled it off nicely aside from Parka landing a bit short and crushing his knees. Mistico was on fire except for one blown springboard spot. He nailed Warrior with a ringpost plancha and then Parka/Wagner pinned the remaining rudos. Right when they got up to celebrate, Parka punched Wagner in the face and walked off! Awesome! Wagner went after him and as they yelled at each other on the ramp, poor Mistico was getting his mask ripped off by all the rudos. Rating: 1

Overall 2.25(~Momentos bonus!) out of 3. Pretty good episode for CMLL. I've given up on looking for amazing MOTYC's or anything resembling a match that will be memorable in a year or two, I just want to be entertained and this show definitely entertained me.

CMLL TV 4/29/06:

First it must be mentioned that there is a special guest in the crowd for this show... MANUEL 'MOCHO' COTA! Oh man, he looked SOOOOOOOOO old and this was two months before he made his AAA return! He looked sad sitting all alone in the crowd but maybe he was just sad b/c of the wrestling he was watching?

Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Heavy Metal vs Atlantis/El Averno/El Mephisto: This looked just as scary as the week before and the first/second falls kinda stunk as expected. Second fall at least had two nice dives at the end from Wagner/Caras and then a hilarious spot where as usual with no build they just rushed to a pinfall. Metal whipped Atlantis into the ropes but Atlantis reversed and I guess he was supposed to do a drop-down, get caught and rolled up with the Castia. Except he didn't do a drop-down, he just got down on all-fours and put his hand out to be rolled up. WTF? Or maybe that was a drop-down and Atlantis sucks more than we thought. Third fall saved the match from being a big zero as there was some nice back-and-forth action. Caras did an awesome top-rope enzuigiri as Averno was standing on the second turnbuckle. Metal did a weak tope suicida and then a Wagner Driver/Press Slam-German combo later - tecnicos win the surprisingly long fall. Averno got stretchered out. Somewhere there is a DVDVR Mexico board where a bunch of people are complaining Caras works too stiff and is always injuring his opponents ala Lo-Ki or Senshi or whatnot. I think the stretcher thing is a work to get the spot over as dangerous and it works b/c that finisher is probably the most protected right now aside from La Mistica. Rating: .50

Momentos had a Pequeno Olimpico tope suicida on Pequeno Halloween and then all repeated material from the week before including out first glimpse of the Bucanero/Tarzan dives without horrible camerawork.

Ultimo Guerrero vs Hector Garza - CMLL Light Heavyweight Title: First fall was mostly on the mat and went 2-2 1/2 minutes before Ultimo scored the pinfall. Second fall had a nice exchange or two and some stalling of course before Garza countered a monkey flip by landing on his feet and then pinned Guerrero. Third fall is what they were obviously saving up for but so were the editors b/c right as the fall began... EDIT TO FINISH. *L* Well, not as bad as that but they edited to late in the fall b/c the results list this fall as going 10 minutes-ish and we only saw 3 of those minutes. Garza got two nice nearfalls and went up for his tornillo but got crotched and nailed with the Guerrero Special. Not much of a match due to editing. You get the feeling it was good b/c the crowd was really into it but hard to tell by watching what was shown. Major disapointment. Rating: .25

Rey Bucanero and Tarzan Boy vs Damian 666 and Mr. Aguila - Hairs vs Hairs: Red hot crowd right from the start. They were focused on the edecanes as the early spots took place so we may have missed an Aguila dive. Tarzan had a beautiful spot where he ran down the aisle and lept halfway across the ring for a sunset flip on Damian. Strangely they did some neafalls early in the first fall. The thing about the match was... everything was awkward. They were trying a bunch of new stuff and some hit... some didn't... but in the end, no matter which of the two it was, the action seemed to pause and everyone sat around as if trying to remember what the next planned spot was. I'll still give them credit for trying new things and I was enjoying it. Perros took the first via Valagueza/450 Splash at the same time. Guerreros took the second fall with some double team moves and dual submission spot which was neat as they both locked on STF's as Aguila and Damian were face-to-face. Insult to injury! Tarzan had the right idea for a wicked spot in the third fall as he countered a backdrop right into a gutwrench power bomb but it didn't come off so great. There was another awesome intended spot where Bucanero had a submission locked on Aguila, Damian then grabbed Bucanero and turned him over with a Boston Crab and at the same time this rolled Aguila over so he was pinned with a Casita type move but it only got a two. Damian did a tope suicida, Bucanero did a running somersault plancha over the ref and then Aguila did a wicked DOUBLE CORKSCREW PLANCHA TO NOWHERE!!! He smacked hard face-first on the ground and came up bleeding from the tip of his nose. That could have been a disaster if he had KO'ed himself and not been able to finish the match.:/ They kept going with some new spots which culminated with Damian sliding through both Bucanero and Aguila's legs as they fought for a rolling cradle on the ropes. Damian then grabbed Bucanero for a power bomb to the floor but couldn't get him down until Aguila used a spin kick. Bucanero was essentially done so they double teamed Tarzan and pinned him after a Valagueza/flying dropkick combo. Bucanero came back(obviously) and pinned Damian with the Bucanero Storm. Aguila/Bucanero did nothing special until the finish came but it got screwed up somehow. The refs were either in the wrong position or someone forgot to do something b/c Damian came in the ring with his cane and hit Aguila by accident. EVERYONE saw this happen and kinda froze. Bucanero picked the cane up and smacked Aguila once more in full view of the referees and instead of helping his partner, Damian just stepped outside onto the ramp and watched him get pinned as fire exploded from the ringposts a bit too early which ruined a potential teased nearfall. Maybe Tarzan forgot to pull Damian out of the ring? Came off really bad. I guess when people watch this, the opinion will either be it was a gigantic mess or it was four guys trying hard to work a different than normal match. I'm somewhere in the middle I guess. I appreciated the effort a lot and it the new spots made up for the clumsiness. Oh, a fan ran in the ring afterwards and before security could get him, he asked Tarzan to shave his head since he supported the Perros. As he had half his head shaved, security grabbed him and pulled him outside. How do you explain that to a wife or girlfriend? Rating: .75

Overall 1.5 out of 3 for what should have been one of the best shows of the year. If Ultimo/Garza had been given more time, I could have seen this as being one of the best shows of the year. But they weren't and it wasn't. Good show to pick-up though if you are a fan of the Guerreros/Perros storyline obviously. Or a huge Mr. Aguila mark. *ahem*

AAA TV 4/7/06 in Victoria:

Cynthia Moreno/Estrellita/Martha Villalobos vs La Diabolica/Miss Janeth/Tiffany: I'm not a fan of the women and any match with Martha usually = awful so I had my hand on the FF button for the first half of this. Cynthia/Estrellita did some okay stuff although Miss Janeth looked very rusty and almost caused Cynthia to take a header trying some sort of top-rope move. The big spot was to build to a plancha off the top rope from Cynthia and then one from Estrellita. But Estrellita slipped and had to climb back up. She dove off with a corkscrew plancha but only Miss Janeth was ready to catch her and something got fucked up b/c Janeth hit her head hard and seemed out of it. Doctors rushed to ringside and they immediatly called for the stretcher. Everything in the ring was fucked up at this point as I guess Janeth was supposed to be involved with the finish since Martha kept yelling for her to get up. They put Janeth in a neckbrace and took her away as nobody knew what to do in the ring and eventually Piero just DQ'ed the tecnicas for some reason. Some action but a clusterfuck at the end. Rating: .25

El Zorro vs Charly Manson - Mexican National Heavyweight Title: Your seconds this time are Laredo Kid and Espiritu. Yes, you need to know that. You also need to know Electro Shock was shown watching the match from the ramp early on and applauding Charly when he won the first fall. So at least as a viewer you *KNEW* there was gonna be a screwjob ending. Knowing that, the match was a lot more enjoyable in my opinion. In fact, I'm tempted to say this was REALLY REALLY REALLY good but I know cubs will just think I'm even crazier if I did that. They worked the mat early on and did the same storyline as Zorro/Electro where Manson went after Zorro's knee. After about 5-6 minutes of action, Charly quickly applied El Pozo(I think that's the name) and got the win. Zorro had his knee taped up and Manson kept working on it in the second fall. Zorro did a great job selling and I thought the story was fantastic as Charly just kept locking on submissions and waiting for Zorro to quit but he never did. Finally Zorro made a half-hearted comeback but when he went for a drop-down, Charly figured this was the time to end it and he rolled Zorro up with La Magistral... but Zorro blocked it and got the quick three count to even things up! I really liked that finish. Manson's own fault he lost the fall. Third fall had too much stuff to write. Manson nailed a great ringpost tope suicida. They traded a bunch of nearfalls. It went for a good 7-8 minutes before Zorro knocked Manson outside and went for a dive but Espiritu pulled his legs out. Laredo Kid did NOT appreciate that and flung himself onto Espiritu with a slingshot into a frankensteiner on the floor! Cue the screwiness! Electro ran out with a chair and ended up hitting Manson by "accident" which allowed Zorro to nail his old finisher - the back suplex into a facebuster - for the win! Roughly 20+ minutes of action. I thought this was great. Better than the two Zorro/Electro matches for sure, mostly b/c Manson is better than Electro and the second fall finish didn't involve Zorro forgetting to sell the knee for his comeback. Post-match had a bunch of challenges which was to build for their 3 way match at the big April 30th show with all three falls having a different stipulation. I have high expectations for that b/c even the Mexican message boards that hate AAA said it was an awesome match. Rating: 1

I'd also like to take a moment to point out how awesome the Zorro vs Manson/Electro storyline has been:

- July '05, Electro returns to AAA and teams with Zorro to battle Manson.
- Zorro/Manson feud heats up.
- Electro and Zorro begin having problems.
- Manson eggs on Zorro and Electro so they keep hating each other.
- Electro can't decide if he just hates Zorro or if he wants to be a rudo with his brother.
- Electro cleanly pins Zorro on at least two occasions, proving he deserves a title shot.
- Manson twice interferes and costs Electro the National Heavyweight Title by "accident".
- Manson gets his own chance at the belt and Electro "accidentally" costs him the match.
- Throughout all this drama, Zorro keeps taking abuse on every show with his knee being destroyed and having to keep his belt with two guys always trying to take it.

Really great stuff IMO.

Rey Cometa/Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Gran Apache and Los Diabolicos: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! This was the perfet type of Fuerza Aerea match. Much like the old-school Cadets vs Diabolicos match as the tecnicos got to shine early, the rudos then took over and bumped the flyers like crazy, then they'd screw-up somehow and eat a bunch of dives. All the tecnicos got their own exchanges early on. Nemesis was up first and looked alright. He did a tope suicida into an armdrag on Gallego, sending the rudo into the crowd. Cometa was next with Apache and he was AWESOME. I mean... REALLY AWESOME! He ended his exchange with a running tornillo into an armdrag sending Apache into the crowd as well! WOO-HOO! Laredo Kid was next and actually didn't do anything too crazy like I expected. I guess he got his one big spot in the previous match. Super Fly's exchanges(he faced multiple rudos) had *five* backflips. The guy has SCARY balance. His moonsault into an armdrag spot was to die for! Rudos took over and threw around La Fuerza Aerea. They also ripped Nemesis' mask open again. As usual they screwed up on the crotch your opponent in the corner spot and the comeback was on! For a short time at least as Apache then began scooling all the tecnicos. Nemesis used a nice move where it looked like he was going for a Campana and turned it into a pinning hold. After Apache finished showing everyone he is still the best, the tecnicos knocked the rudos outside. Laredo Kid springboard plancha! Nemesis plancha! Gallego outside on the other side for a Rey Cometa - MOONSAULT OVER THE RINGPOST INTO THE AISLEWAY!!! And finally... Super Fly up top... 12 FOOT HIGH PLANCHA TO NOWHERE!!! He smashed his head on the ground! Really scary spot to watch in slo-mo. Cometa was about to win the match when Tiffany ran out and tripped him, then Apache used his Tormenta Apache to get the win. Perfect 15 minute match for everyone involved. Rating: 1

Vampiro/Octagon/La Parka Jr. vs Chessman/Espiritu/Electro Shock: Weird order of matches for this show. Chessman had an awesome entrance and staredown with Vampiro. In fact, all throughout the match they had great chemistry together. They weren't even repeating spots from the previous week. After the brawling by the rudos finished, Parka looked like a million bucks with Chessman and Espiritu bumping all over for him. Chessman took a cool bump off an enzuigiri while his foot was stuck in the ropes. Octagon did the same old shit we're tired of. Vampiro looked great when in the ring with Chessman. I think Vamp turning rudo and leading Chessman as his protege would be an amazing angle. Octagon used a tope suicida and then Parka blew a tope suicida badly but Electro still flew into the crowd for no reason. Chessman and Vamp exchanged stiff strikes which ended with Chessman sweeping Vamp's legs out from under him. There was a crowd shot and when we came back, Vamp had Chessman in an STF or crossface and the entire Secta ran out for the DQ. Crappy ending but brawling was kept to a minimum and rest of the match was more enjoyable than usual. I'm probably in the minority but I enjoyed it a lot. Rating: .75

Haven't watched the main event yet which is Black Family vs the weird team of Pirata/Intocable/Abismo. Why is that the main event and why is it obvious that Intocable is gonna be destroyed by everyone?

Random matches...

Octagon/Santo/La Parka vs Los Payasos - Dec. '94: This was from Mexico City and right after Parka finally turned tecnico. Pretty fun match as I've always liked the Payasos and Parka wanted to look good in his first tecnico match. They had a great angle going in the third fall with Santo/Octagon both trapped in the corners(Octagon tied to the ropes by his mask as usual) and Parka all alone to fight the Payasos. He could have saved both the idols! Instead he got triple teamed and had his mask yanked to shreds which caused a DQ. Good effort.

Octagon/Volador/Kick Boxer vs Blue Panther/Universo 2000/Tony Arce: This was from a weird show in Tulancingo where a battle royale decided all the matchups for the night so you had stuff like Rey Jr./King Balam(who?) against MA2K/Rocco Valente, Latin Lover in the segunda with nobodies and then this as your main event match. At least the work with Volador/Panther was good when they got in the ring together. Kick Boxer didn't look too bad but definitely looked out of his element with the big stars. Volador did a nice tope suicida in the third fall. Kick Boxer did a not-so-nice one. Octagon made Panther submit to win the match. Average match but I'm a huge Volador/Panther mark when they are in the ring together so I'll rewatch at some point to see their exchanges.

Also saw two crappy tournament matches featuring Volador/Lizmark/Super Muneco vs Los Payasos and Konnan/Chicano Power/Misterioso vs Psicosis/Fuerza Guerrera/Blue Panther. I had high expectations for both but they stunk! Too much brawling and nonsense endings.

Finishing up AAA 4/7/06 in Victoria...

El Intcoable/Abismo Negro/Pirata Morgan vs Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: As I said above, totally predictable with Intocable getting destroyed by all. Didn't start that way as the entire hype was that AAA/LLL/Consagrados could team up to fight La Secta which they did for a bit. Quick match with a few nice exchanges. Escoria used an awesome counter to la segadora(I think that's the name) where he got kicked into the ropes and bounced off with a twisting somersault. Intocable went for a pescado but took out Pirata by accident. He ended up back in the ring and used the Asai DDT to pin Escoria. Pirata came to congratulate him but of course began to beat the snot out of Intocable. He got a chair and went to KO the poor tecnico but ended up hitting Cuervo who then got rolled up and pinned. So Intocable won the match all by himself and celebrated with Abismo! ... For a few seconds at least. Abismo began beating him up and it was a 5-on-1 which left Intocable a bloody mess to end the show. Good way to build a guy as a top tecnico though. Short match which shouldn't offend anyone. Rating: .75

One of the best AAA episodes so far in the new batch of DVD's. 3.75 out of 5 so definitely a thumb up and highly reccomended show.

AAA 4/22/06 in Cuautla:

I breezed through this today as the show was a combination of the Cuautla taping and a review of everything leading up to the big Guadalajara show. They had about 7 segments on the show which always started with an older match or two, then they'd join one of the Cuautla matches in progress and conduct interviews afterwards. The good thing about this is you get almost 3 full hours of wrestling... the bad thing is it's a lot of repeated stuff and the new stuff is edited down big time. Here is what was shown from the Cuautla taping though...

El Angel/Los Barrio Boys vs Gran Apache/Los Diabolicos: Joined with all four tecnicos hitting tope suicidas on all four rudos. Angel passes off an exchange with Apache to allow Billy Boy to get at him and Billy Boy ends up smacking Apache with a chair, busting him open big time. Apache was SOAKED in blood by the time the match was over. There were some quick exchanges and we double the dive count with Billy doing an AWESOME BULLET TOPE SUICIDA on Gallego which really should have killed the rudo with the force Billy connected. Angel did an asai moonsault onto Apache. Alan and Decnis did dual tope suicidas on Angel Mortal and Mr. Condor respectively. It came down to Angel and Apache. Angel's light blue outfit started turning red from Apache's blood, hehe. Angel tagged out to Billy Boy and let him finish the match. Billy dominated Apache and got him to submit to end the match. What was shown was really good and was actually the perfect setup to their upcoming singles match.

Martha Villalobos vs La Diabolica - Dog Collar Match: I totally skipped this. Just FF'ed all the way through and saw some interference leading to Diabolica winning. I'm sure it was shitty.

Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Joined right after the tecnico comeback(I suppose). Super Fly is flipping around the ring with Ozz catching him. Chessman immediatly runs out and spews Super Fly with mist! El Hijo Del Tirantes doesn't disqualify the rudos though which is odd. La Diabolica and Charly Manson also run out as all of La Fuerza Aerea get destroyed until Martha Villalobos, Angel and Triple A make the save! Chaos around ringside with everyone just running around. Eventually we wind up back where we joined the match. Super Fly/Nemesis send Cuervo and Escoria outside for double dives... ringpost plancha by Nemesis and a *SCARY AS SHIT 15 FOOT HIGH HANGING TOP ROPE SPRINGBOARD MOONSAULT* by Super Fly!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOA! He got so much height and it was his patened moonsault where he just hangs in the air and you think he's gonna come straight down to his death. In this case he almost did as since he got no distance at all - he almost crashed face-first into the apron! One of the most spectacular dives I have seen in a long time. Rey Cometa slams Ozz and does a senton bomb. Then Martha comes running into the ring again and uses a second rope splash on Ozz who then gets pinned by Cometa. A chaotic brawl, a crazy dive and a finish to get the new flyers over = works for me!

El Zorro/Triple A/Laredo Kid vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Alan Stone: This is joined late in the match as Triple A is working an exchange with the rudos. He ends up nailing all three with a running somersault plancha. Zorro then has a nice exchange with Shocker and the other two rudos. More Triple A flying but it ends with Alan sending him outside for a tope suicida! Laredo Kid gets to show nothing and gets pinned immediatly. Zorro then rolls up Scorpio Jr. as Shocker isn't looking. Crowd is really hot for a Zorro/Shocker finishing exchange but Charly Manson runs in and low blows Zorro for the DQ. What was shown was actually EXCELLENT. I fear for how the full match would have looked though.

Octagon/La Parka Jr./El Intocable vs Cibernetico/Charly Manson/Chessman: Once again joined really late as Intocable is dancing for Charly. He sends Charly outside and then does his usual moves with Chessman. Ciber then gets dropkicked outside and more dancing. Octagon comes in and actually... USES A NEW SPOT! Not only that... A NICE NEW SPOT! Full credit to Chessman though. The spot was where Octaogn goes for la jarocha but instead of connecting, he then uses a spinning armdrag to send Chessman outside. I thought it was kinda neat. Parka then comes in and does his usual shtick. He uses a tope suicida on Cibernetico. Octagon uses a tope suicida on Chessman. We see Televisa Deportes Technology for a bit but they rejoin the match where it left off. Zorro ends up getting in the ring and using his cane to beat Manson to a pulp earning his fellow tecnicos the DQ. Good way to build for the Guadalajara show.

Not sure why they aired so little of this show but it was definitely really good build-up for the following week. In the closing video they show a few spots not shown in the matches like Angel with a headscissors on the outside, Nemesis with a tope suicida and Rey Cometa with a second rope Venum style tornillo where he almost totally overshot Ozz and looked to be landing pretty badly!

Next up is the Guadalajara show which could be fantastic if everything comes together properly. Can't go wrong with a Fuerza Aerea vs Secta opener, the 3 way which I heard was great, Billy Boy vs Apache finally coming to an end and Chessman bumping all over in the main event.

Random matches...

Salsero/Giro/Colorado vs Chilango/Picudo/Rabana - AAA 3/16/95 in Zacatecas: Ah, classic AAA gimmicks all over here. It was really weird to see Giro/Colorado listed as they are the two chickens who were in the first official AAA TV match when the company was formed and had not been listed in my results since 1993. So their appearence was quite surprising but even more surprising(or not really if you follow AAA) is they ended up doing an angle where they turned on each other! Of course they were never seen again afterwards. Maybe that's called writing off a gimmick? Usual slow start with matwork and there is a clip to join a cool Salsero armdrag in process. The chickens do some nice stuff and Colorado has a submission on Picudo as Giro does a pescado on Rabana. Salsero goes for a silla dive on Chilango who moves and the tecnico eats the guardrail! Rudos put away the tecnicos afterwards. Great finish! Second fall has the tecnico comeback. Salsero uses an INSANE assisted springboard moonsault plancha on Rabana who barely caught him! Sometimes it's hard to remember El Hijo Del Pierroth used to be quite the insane flyer. Then the angle kicks in as Picudo and Giro exchange masks which brawling. Colorado gets in the ring and is a little groggy. He looks up and sees a Picudo mask and just starts HAMMERING him with punches and kicks. Before he can realize what he's doing, he gets rolled up and his partner gets pinned as well. Rudos win in two falls! Post-match Salsero tries to stop the two chickens from killing each other.

Aguila De Acero/Antifaz Del Norte/Coliseo 2000 vs Mr. Condor/Marabunta/Angel Mortal - AAA in Nuevo Laredo: I was excited to see this as all the tecnicos were likely gonna work hard and be carried well by Los Diabolicos. But... it wasn't meant to be. I'm sure they had a great match in mind but halfway through the first fall it began to rain quite heavily and everyone was having problems just standing up in the ring b/c the mat was so slippery. Needless to say the match sucked as nobody could move. The rain slowed down a bit near the end of the match(of course!) so Antifaz could hit a tope suicida and Coliseo 2000 almost slipped while running the apron for a running dropkick. Acero pinned Marabunta to win the match. Damn weather!

CMLL TV 5/6/06:

Negro Casas/Heavy Metal/La Mascara vs El Averno/Misterioso II/Olimpico: Extremely short lucha by numbers match. More of a highlight package than anything as Mascara on the third exchange of the match does a tope suicida and then Negro/Metal win the fall. Right away the rudos win the second fall. The third fall was the worst as the tecnicos won the match DURING the comeback. Imagine a tag match going 15 minutes with 10 of those being used as the heat segment... finally the tag is made and the guy on the apron does one dropkick to win the match. Beyond stupid. Only thing worth mentioning here is how good Misterioso II looked working with Negro. Rating: .25

No Momentos was on the DVD. No big loss since 90% of the time it's all repeats and you can see a couple of spots from it in the closing of the show.

Perrito/Mr. Aguila/Damian 666 vs Universo 2000/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy: Early highlight is a hot hot hot chick coming out with Los Perros and almost losing her top(if you wanna call it that) while getting in the ring. Hey now! Again this was an extremely short match. Lots of brawling in the first fall. Perros actually won the fall but then got DQ'ed for using too many cane shots. The second fall was also over quick when the Perros used stereo power bombs which is always a weak finish. Third fall had some fun action and dives. Universo horribly blew a tope suicida and like a green rookie Perrito jumped backwards into the crowd pretending like he actually got hit. Aguila did his old Vuelo De Aguila onto Tarzan which was neat. Bucanero pinned Damian with the Buca Storm and then used an assisted running somersault plancha on Aguila/Tarzan but mostly just Tarzan. Damian kicked Universo in the balls after a ref bump and Perrito got the win for his team. A little enjoyable at the end but nothing you'd need to see. Rating: .25

Mistico/Dos Caras/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrero: Mistico/Warrior was the center of attention here as they built to the title match the following week. Rudos win the first fall quickly. Second fall is the comeback which consists of a Mistico springboard dropkick and running tornillo onto El Black. Finish comes 5 seconds later and I don't even need to tell you what happened. They finally got down to business in the third fall and did some nice stuff, particularly Mistico and Dos Jr.. Wagner was his usual self... so... yeah. Wagner and Dos Jr. did their usual double dives at the end and if you've been following you should know what those dives are. This left Mistico, Warrior and a red hot crowd. Mistico got a couple of nearfalls and then went for La Mistica... which was countered into a side suplex!!! Warrior then locked on a neat submission... AND MISTICO GAVE UP!!! Booooooooooooooooooooo! Clean win for Warrior earns him the right to have a title shot. Lots of mic work afterwards. Rating: .75

Overall 1.25 out of 3. Not the greatest show. In fact, totally skippable if you are looking to catch up on CMLL TV and only want episodes that are really must-sees. I fear for lots of these episodes coming up b/c May and June were brutal from what I recall.

AAA TV 4/30/06 in Guadalajara:

This show was a semi-big show as it wasn't Triplemania level but you could say it was Verano De Escandalo level. It was dubbed 'La Gran Sorpresa' and you should really remember that for later on.

Opening match was Relevos AAA but that didn't air till the next week so I won't recap it with this show.

Rey Cometa/Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Espiritu/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Great entrances by both teams. The tecnicos came out first and did a bunch of different flips to enter the ring, then La Secta just looked plain awesome coming out all together. I dunno if there was an edit early or if they setup the spot during a crowd shot but when we saw the ring, all four tecnicos nailed the rudos with tope suicidas! Or should I say three b/c Rey Cometa overshot Ozz and tope'd a fan in the front row. Rudos took control and the highlight was Ozz giving Rey Cometa a flying legdrop while he was hanging in the ropes sending them both crashing to the floor very hard! The comeback was a little screwed up but the crowd was into it anyways. The tecnicos then got to fly around for a bit. Super Fly looked really good in his exchange which ended with a headscissors to the floor on Ozz(who has turned into an awesome base/catcher!). Nemesis was next and as usual he worked with Escoria. They had one awkward moment but the rest was really good and the exchange ended with a frankensteiner to the floor by Nemesis. They did some more back and forth stuff but eventually two of La Secta ended up outside on opposite sides and look out... SUPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR FLY! He went up top and nailed a BEAUTIFUL Sasuke-style swanton bomb over the ringpost to the floor!!! Camera missed what Nemesis did on the other side but replays showed he did a running somersault plancha over the ringpost on Escoria! Laredo Kid then sent Cuervo to the floor and connected with a second rope springboard tornillo!!! This left Rey Cometa and Ozz. Ozz tried a moonsault but missed. Cometa slammed him down and went for a crazy tornillo of his own but overshot! It didn't matter anyways b/c Chessman was in the middle of running to the ring. He tried to spew mist at Cometa but most of it got Ozz! Cometa went up top but Chessman tripped him and then hopped off the apron. Super Fly decided to take care of Chessman with a tope suicida... BUT GOT A CHAIR TO THE FACE! MWAHAHAHAHA! DIE SUPER FLY! In the ring Laredo Kid crotched Escoria and went up top for the LAREDO 630! Chessman would have none of that though and broke up the pin by spewing mist at Laredo and then all of La Secta covered him for the win before Pepe Casas could call for the DQ! SECTA! SECTA! SECTA! Crowd loved it. Another great performance by these teams. Rating: 1

Billy Boy vs Gran Apache - Hair vs Hair: Awesome entrances once again. Billy Boy came out alone while Apache had Tiffany with him. Fabi Apache was in the front row so HUGE angle alert right there. Crazy start as Billy Boy sent Apache to the floor and connected with... as I'm gonna start calling it now... THE BILLY BOY TOPE OF DEATH!!! Billy Boy > Black Warrior! When they got back in the ring Apache took control and won the fall quickly. The second fall was also short but at least it had some cool spots. Billy went for his usual spin into a Stunner but Apache had a beautiful counter with an inverted suplex. Just as Apache was ready to win the fall, Billy Boy used a WACKY rolling submission turned into a cradle to tie things up. You know Apache taught him that one! Third fall was of course what they were saving up for seeing as though the first two falls were 4 minutes combined. Tiffany began interfering freely and they kept zooming in Fabi Apache wondering who she was supporting. I was eagerly anticipating the Fabi run-in to help Billy. Billy Boy got busted open first and he was bleeding badly! Good thing he wore white as it made the scene that much more dramatic. He ended up grabbing a chair and nailing Apache a few times causing him to bleed as well and Apache managed to bleed worse than Billy Boy somehow! So with both guys soaked in blood, the drama really began to kick-in with some great nearfalls. The crowd threw stuff at Tiffany every time she tried to get involved. Apache ended up slapping her by accident and then Billy dropkicked Apache outside and took them both out with a plancha off the top! Apache almost had the match won on at least four different occasions. Hijo Del Tirantes accidentally got slapped by Apache and then Tiffany low blowed Billy Boy! I thought for sure that was the end but then Billy rolled up Apache but only got a two count! A short while after that, Apache tripped Billy into the ropes and Tiffany hammered him with a chair! Apache covered...1...2...2.5............ 3!!! APACHE WINS! I would have lost the house since back then I was sure Billy was winning the match. Crowd was a little stunned as they must have been thinking the same way as me and it took a few seconds to realize he really did lose. For some reason AFTER Billy lost was when Fabi finally snapped. She jumped over the guardrail, into the ring and dropkicked Tiffany outside. In the process she almost had quite the wardrobe malfunction as her tits have gotten HUGE. She looks way hotter after the pregancy. Shouldn't it be the other way around? The post-match stuff was very touching with Fabi crying on the mic and telling her dad that she loves Billy and he needs to leave them alone, if not b/c he loves her then at least b/c he has a grandchild. Fabi then grabbed her kid from ringside and hugged a bloody Billy Boy as he got his head shaved while holding his son. The kid and Fabi both got covered in blood. *L* As if you needed anything else to make the angle more dramatic, it began to rain just as Billy and Fabi kissed. Lots of girls in the crowd were crying while the guys mostly just clapped but they didn't shit all over the angle which I was surprised to see. But hey, you'd have to be quite the lonely heartless person to not enjoy the post-match stuff here. Billy had all his hair shaved and raised Billy Boy Jr. into the air as the crowd cheered big time. Rating: 1

El Zorro vs Charly Manson vs Electro Shock: Holy shit, talk about the deck being stacked against Zorro. He now has to face both his enemies at the same time with his title on the line! The rules here were the first fall would be a regular mathc, the second fall would be a street fight with falls count anywhere and the third fall would be an extreme match with weapons and such. You gotta give these guys tons of credit for what they did here b/c early in the match the ring was SOAKED as the rain was coming down hard. Instead of matwork in the water, they just went into dropkick and bodyslam spots. Manson/Electro worked as a team until Manson caught Electro sleeping and tried to roll him up. He kinda blew it although it wasn't his fault since the ropes were really wet. They did some fun 3 way stuff and eventually both Zorro/Electro ended up outside the ring brawling. Then Manson must have had a flashback to the days of wanting to be a CZW wannabe b/c he went IN-FUCKING-SANE and did a ***SPRINGBOARD SENTON SPLASH TO THE FLOOR*** on both his opponents!!! This is still while it was raining heavily and he could have easily slipped badly. When they got back inside, they did a triple german suplex spot where Manson took a huge header. A little bit later on, Electro had his submission finisher on Zorro but Manson broke it up with a springboard legdrop turned senton. But that backfired for Manson who then got hit with Zorro's back suplex faceslam finisher and nobody was there to save him! Zorro gets the first fall. Second fall was a brawl right away and they went outside immediatly b/c at least they wouldn't be slipping around the ring. Manson got backdropped into the crowd, Electro got clotheslined into the crowd and then Zorro dove on them both over the guardrail! They brawled all through the bull ring and both Zorro and Manson did planchas off some stage. Electro almost went after a fan with a chair at one point but his brother held him back. They eventually made it back to the ring and there was an AWESOME finish where Electro was going for his submission on Zorro again and just like the first fall Manson tried to break it up with a springboard... except this time Electro caught him with an armbar and he still had Zorro trapped! Manson tapped! Electro wins the fall! The visual at this point was awesome as all the guys were tired and soaked b/c of the rain which was finally begining to stop. Third fall was an extreme match so of course the weapons got busted out and early in the fall, Zorro got knocked outside. Manson and Electro then traded nearfalls and during the sequence, Electro got kicked towards the ropes where Zorro was waiting... WITH A BOTTLE... WHICH HE SMASHED OVER ELECTRO'S HEAD! Electro collapsed to the floor and was bleeding heavily. The doctors checked on him while Zorro/Manson continued the match. There may have been an edit when they cut back b/c Zorro was nowhere to be seen and Manson was standing beside the entranceway hiding with a kendo stick in his hand. As Zorro came walking out with a table, the crowd screamed but it was too late b/c Manson nailed him! Great spot. Meanwhile Electro was put on a stretcher and carried out so it was one-on-one! Zorro got thrown through one table. Manson went to get another but Zorro managed to get control of it and threw the rudo through it! Then it was Manson's turn to bleed courtesy of some sort of weapon shot. Both guys were spent as we were nearing the 30 minute mark of the match! Manson managed to find another bottle at ringside and smashed it over Zorro's head! He then grabbed Zorro and locked on El Pozo - his submission finisher! Tirantes checked Zorro who wasn't responding b/c he was KO'ed from the bottle shot. MANSON WINS THE THIRD FALL! But this leaves us with a draw so no title changes hands! Zorro keeps his belt but also gets stretchered out. Manson cane barely make it to the back as well. Fantastic story, pretty good match and great finishes to each fall. Rating: 1

Konnan vs Vampiro vs Cibernetico vs Shocker: Dave Meltzer's #1 source for AAA info came out first and got ZERO reaction. If Meltzer ran his radio show like Howard Stern, he should get a tape of this and play the reaction after the announcer says "KONNAN, EL BARBARO!" right when Konnan goes into his usual rap about how big of a star he is in Mexico. Ciber and Vamp got the biggest pops out of all four men. Usual crappy match as you'd expect since Konnan can't move, Vamp has nobody to bump for him, Ciber is barely a wrestler and Shocker was probably drugged up to the point he didn't even know where he was. FEAR NOT THOUGH... Antonio Pena is here to save the day! You see, the show was called 'La Gran Sorpresa' as I said at the start and he came out saying it was time to reveal the big surprise that was going to change AAA forever...

*drumroll*

... MOCHO COTA AND LA FIERA!!! Holy shit... there was even less of a reaction to them than Konnan got! Nobody in the crowd had ANY idea who these two old men were and it didn't help that they tried to run down the aisle but were doing more limping than running. Jair Soria(Shocker's dad) also came to ringside for some reason which was odd since he was being friendly with Cota/Fiera were only there to attack Shocker. After that mess finished, a new one began. Pena said he had another surprise and introduced LOS MEXICAN POWER. Crazzy Boy, Juventud and Psicosis. They did a run-in but were attacked by all of La Secta. MexPower did some interesting double teams and somewhere in the mess of bodies in the ring, Crazzy Boy managed to nail a flip plancha through the ropes onto two Secta members. Somehow this left Konnan and Cibernetico as the only two left in the match and they agreed to be friends which may sound like a crappy ending, but do you really want to see Konnan attempt to wrestle with someone who might be BETTER than him at this stage? Rating: .25 (a little part of me loved the chaos)

Octagon/La Parka Jr./El Intocable vs Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica/Ron Killings: I love the fact Chessman got intoduced LAST on the rudo side meaning he was the top star! Usual stuff here with brawling by the rudos to start and then ensuing tecnico comeback. Intocable had a HORRIBLE exchange with all three rudos. He and Chessman just cannot get that power bomb into a sunset flip bomb spot to work at all. Killings looked really good working with Parka. Muerte Cibernetica was even bumping around the ring really well. As if you needed more reason to love Chessman... let me explain why he is so amazing. He gives, gives, gives and when he's done that... he gives some more! He carries every AAA tecnico to exchanges they never thought would be possible, makes the catch on every dive b/c Cibernetico and Banderas aren't trusted, often does run-ins to take bumps in matches he isn't a part of, takes awful bumps for the tecnicos but ALWAYS turns to them afterwards to see if they are okay and the bottom line is... most of all... HE IS A ONE MAN SHOW. And how does he get repayed? None of the tecnico take ANY moves of his. It's been like this for years now so I knew when I saw Killings involved that Chessman MIGHT get to do something cool and of course he did as he went for a slingshot tornillo plancha at the end of the match and ended up being caught by Killings when Octagon moved. Octagon never takes anyone's moves anyways, he's untouchable. Anyways, Chessman right away checks to see if Killings is alright and then gets up to eat an Octagon tope suicida! Intocable goes up top for a plancha but notices Parka and Muerte punching each other in the ring with Muerte getting the advantage. So Intocable jumps down and yanks off the rudo's mask for the DQ! Crowd was a bit stunned at the finish but I guess that was the point... to show Intocable isn't all about dancing and does have a mean side to him. Eh... passable main event. Rating: .50

3.75 out of 5 for this week's TV. I really enjoyed it and would reccomend it big time. The first three matches are great for different reasons(flying, drama, story/brutality) so people with different tastes will enjoy something. I'm sure the rating will only go up after they show the Relevos AAA opener on the next DVD. This show was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than Rey De Reyes.

As usual, quick thoughts on AAA/CMLL TV from this week...

CMLL: Semi-main was good from what I saw. Bucanero and Perrito work well together. Finish was screwy as usual but the third fall got way more time than I expected which was a plus. Main event was OFF THE CHARTS OUT OF THIS WORLD. MOTYC for sure. Full building + guys working as hard as they can + match being given time = FANTASTIC. Must-see match when Fredo gets it in on DVD.

AAA: The entire Madero show aired as expected. Fuerza Aerea vs Secta opener was AWWWWWWWWWWESOME. Lots of great flying spots as usual and a candidate for spot of the year! Ozz was sent outside and Rey Cometa(of course - HE RULES!) did a springboard off the second rope, then turned it into a twisting armdrag on the floor! It's REALLY hard to explain but think about the twisting armdrag Skayde does off the turnbuckles on Claudio usually(he did it in the Chikara tag finals) except this was OUTSIDE THE RING and nailed 100% perfect! Fucking awesome! I am convinced one of these days Rey Cometa is gonna bust out the first ever Venum-style tornillo into an armdrag. Hell, maybe next week in Monterrey! Finish had a bunch of crazy dives such as Super Fly with another gorgeous springboard hanging moonsault! Centauro made his debut in the next match although I'm not sure why. I picked this big jacked up dude ala Luzbel but he was just a normal looking dude in a bad mask. He wasn't awful in the ring but he definitely didn't stand out. Mascarita/Mini Abismo were supposed to save the match but they didn't get to do much and what they did was the same stuff they've been doing for years.:/ There were a bunch of dives at the end, the best being Estrellita's blind corkscrew on a running Mini Abismo Negro which was dangerous as hell. MexPower vs Barrios wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. They gave it three falls for some reason. Lots of the usual U.S. indy style moves. They did a pretty crazy triple suplex from outside the ring and back inside with the MexPower guys taking the bumps. Alan horribly blew a tope suicida and the crowd laughed at him. Joe Lider then superplexed Billy Boy off the top rope to the floor onto Alan/Juventud. Scary spot. Even scarier was the finish as Decnis setup two chairs and laid a few tighttubes across them. He went up but Psicosis did a run-in and crotched him. Then Crazzy Boy used a Spanish Fly to put Decnis through the lighttubes but he got DQ'ed for it. They're gonna hurt someone really bad doing spots where they take no damage at all ala the superplex and Spanish Fly. Semi-main was above average and main sucked as you'd expect. Gronda II taking the clean pinfall, even if all three guys were covering him, is still odd.

CMLL TV 5/13/06:

Mexico vs The World and Pierroth - Torneo Cibernetico: Both teams came out together which was great b/c I thought for sure we'd see individual entrances taking up 15 minutes and then a clipped 10-15 minute match. The match actually really exceeded my expectations and was quite good. I think having all the foreigners in there actually helped the match b/c they aren't used to the CMLL main event style which is: move -> pose for 10 seconds -> rinse/repeat 4 times in a row. So every time a guy would start posing, he'd get attacked and they'd go into a sequence. The match was joined a few minutes in and poor Hajime Ohara got eliminated right away so his appearence lasted all of 25-30 seconds. This wasn't a typical Torneo where every exchange led to a pinfall which was a refreshing change. I'd say Pierroth was the star of his team. He seemed to be giving instructions from ringside and took about 10 out of the 20 bumps he has left in him in this match alone. Probably his best in-ring performance since he came back from his injury in 2000. None of the foreigners looked out of place at all. Garza seemed to hurt his back when he did his tornillo to eliminate Milano and then had to take a german supelx from Takemura. Parka/Wagner had issues with each other which led to both their eliminations and a brawl as the in-ring action continued. The only flaw in the match was when it came down to the final four. I was about to congratulate CMLL for booking the first every Torneo where no double pinfall occurs... and then of course it happened. But even worse was they BLEW IT. Dos Jr. went to put a surfboard on Takemura but they were right beside the ropes. I dunno what he was thinking. When both their shoulders came down, they were almost falling out of the ring and the refs refused to count. So Dos dragged Takemura to the middle of the ring and they did the EXACT SAME SPOT OVER AGAIN. Wow. If this had been a GdR match with Tigre Blanco/Dr. X doing that spot, we'd never hear the end of it. Absolutely horrible. Guerrero and Stamboli made up for it with a nice ending exchange. First few minutes were cut out but this still got 25+ minutes! I hope the Torneo they are taping next week at Arena Coliseo gets that much time. Rating: 1

Momentos had a cool spot where Tigre Blanco assisted Tigre Metalico into a plancha over the ringposton Dr. X. Then Pantera gave Mazada a Styles Clash off the second turnbuckle. Everything else was repeats.

Atlantis/Rey Bucanero vs Keiji Mutoh/Ultimo Dragon: Hooooooooooooooooooooooly crap this was awful. Us folks on the internet know Mutoh's glory days are way behind him but right when it was announced he would be in Mexico, all the magazines began hyping his debut as something special b/c he was a huge star... so to the average Arena Mexico fan - they were expecting him to be this huge star with insane charisma or at the very least... be an entertaining wrestler. Instead they got a bald old man who was blowing every spot! They even began to boo him at a couple of points. This worked well for Ultimo Dragon of course who looked like a star since he was hitting all his spots perfectly. Mutoh barely caught Bucanero trying a dive in the second fall which could have been really bad. In the third fall Los Guerreros had some miscommunication leading to Atlantis giving Bucanero a forearm and then Mutoh nailed his Shining Wizard while Bucanero was pinned with the Asai DDT. Really awful match with tons of miscommunication. Rating: 0

Mistico vs Black Warrior - NWA Middleweight Title: Mistico busted out the Santo headscissors on the mat spot early on which got a huge pop. They sped things up a bit and it ended in a spot where Mistico superkicked Warrior on the outside but then did his usual asai moonsault into opponent's feet spot. Warrior threw him back inside, hit a flying elbowdrop and then locked on a submission to win the fall. In the second fall Mistico got his knee worked over but of course fought back and used his generic second fall singles match winning move -> somersault into a sunset flip. Third fall had the expected fast start and Mistico nailing Warrior with a plancha off the top rope. Unfortunately they CLIPPED AHEAD immediatly after that to a shot of both men laying in the ring tired. Mistico sent Warrior outside again for a running tornillo plancha! I'm guessing they edited out all of Warrior's offense b/c it turned into the Mistico show with him hitting moves and getting nearfalls galore. This all led to a horrible ref bump + low blow finish. Really disapointing match. Probably the worst Mistico's singles match that has made TV so far. Rating: .25

1.25 out of 3 but that is so deceiving. Just a one match show pretty much. Pierroth was the star of the entire show! YIKES!

AAA TV in Tlaxcala 5/6/06:

Before the Tlaxcala show begins, we get the remaining match from the Guadalajara show...

Oriental/Pimpinela/Mascarita 2000/Martha vs Psicosis/Cassandro/Mini Abismo/La Diabolica: Oriental and Mini Abismo began things but instead of showing what could have been a nice exchange, we clip ahead to Psicosis bullying Mascarita. They blow a spot which almost causes Mascarita to fall on his head outside the ring. He responds with a frankensteiner off the top and then the beatdown is on. Longer than average beatdown so I'm still not sure why they wasted time showing this and not the opening exchanges. Finally the tecnicos react and finish is easily predictable. Oriental with a moonsault on Psicosis. Mascarita/Mini Abismo with the standard spots but at least the frankensteiner dive looked cool. Tecnicos win. Rating: .25

Now to the small building in Tlaxcala. This wasn't the same place they ran before in Tlaxcala b/c that was HUGE and outdoors. This was tiny and indoors. In fact it was so tiny that the entranceway and the ring only had about 2 feet between them. The guardrail was made into a circle to allow for more room on the floor but still... dive space was limited for sure. This is a factor in the opening match...

Kevin/Jessy/JJ Jr. vs ~LOS ESPANTAPAJAROS I/II/III!!!: The scarecrows come out throwing stuff(hay?) at the crowd which they throw back. Kinda funny. Rudos take control after the early stuff is clipped out. They hit some moves okay and other moves... not...so...okay. Second fall has the tecnico reaction which consists of triple tope suicidas! Soon after that one of the scarecrows ends up outside the ring and Kevin launches himself out with an asai moonsault! Unfortunately he learned the hard way you can't do dives like that in this building b/c his ankles hit the guardrail very hard and he was in big-time pain! Tecnicos won the fall but Kevin got carried out while screaming in pain.:/ So it was 2-on-3 for the final fall but they played it alright. Not great exchanges but still some fun stuff to watch. JJ Jr. did a horrible tope suicida on one of the scarecrows and just as another scarecrow was getting ready to dive... THEY REPLAYED JJ'S AWFUL DIVE! I hate that! Are Mexican wrestling fans supposed to have short-term memories? I hate replays after every move. When we come back, Jessy nails everyone with a corkscrew plancha. They replay that too! Except this time they make it back in time to catch the final scarecrow doing a somersault plancha off the top rope. Scarecrows win after a low blow but Pepe Casas reverses the decision which makes the crowd very happy. Rating: .25

Oriental/Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Espiritu/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: No Laredo Kid this week so Oriental takes his place. He's the unofficial "padrino" of La Fuerza Aerea. Decent exchanges early on but nothing crazy to the floor since there is no space to do anything pretty much. Rey Cometa has an AWESOME exchange with Ozz at one point. Oriental then kicks into high gear... wait... what did I just say? ORIENTAL KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR?!?!?!?!?!? He went nuts and started using spots on all four rudos. Ended his exchange with a pescado into an armdrag on the floor and then he used Virus' run-up-the-ringpost armdrag on Espiritu! I am... amazed! Tecnicos get the beatdown after that which again includes Ozz legdropking Rey Cometa to the floor. Oriental uses CPR on Cometa to revive him! *L* Beatdown doesn't last long as chairs come into play but end up being kicked by the rudos into their partners which leads to a pescado from Oriental, tope suicida from Nemesis and dual running somersault planchas by Rey Cometa and Super Fly! Oriental and Espiritu(the captains) re-enter and I thought for sure the match was done there but they kept going and had near submissions/nearfalls for a bit. Finally Oriental and Nemesis connected with dual tope suicidas and then Cometa/Super Fly were supposed to do dual 450 splashes but Super Fly...well...I have no idea what the fuck happened but he was slipping all over the ropes in his corner and ended up falling to the mat. He made up for it with a wicked ropeflip moonsault where he did the splitz across the top ropes before nailing the move! Oriental meanwhile locks on a submission on Espiritu to win the match for La Fuerza Aerea! Chessman runs out afterwards and spews mist + chairshots everyone he can find. Nemesis dropkicks Chessman but gets the huge beatdown for his troubles. Strong effort considering the limitations of not being able to do crazy dives. Oriental looked amazing compared to what I've been used to seeing for the last year or two. Rating: 1

Octagon/La Parka Jr./El Angel vs Abismo Negro/Histeria/NOT PSICOSIS, BUT KAOMA JR.!: This is why it is sometimes helpful to watch introductions. I thought Psic was on the rudo side and stopped paying attention for a bit... then all of a sudden he is on the mic in the ring and I'm wondering if they now have a Psicosis III and I missed some huge storyline. But it turns out it was Koama Jr. in a combo Histeria/Psicosis mask which was neat but I doubt anyone knew who he was. Psic gave a speech about becoming a Mexican Power and leaving Los Vipers. Rudos attacked right away but the beatdown lasted only 2 minutes or so. THANKFULLY. Rest of the match was all about the Parka Jr. comedy show which went on way too long. Octagon did his four spots and Angel had a nice sequence surprisingly. No dives, no big moves, just went straight to the finish with Psicosis running out to crotch Abismo and the Parka Jr. covered him for the win. Really pointless match in my opinion. Rating: 0

Cibernetico/Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica vs Konnan/Ron Killings/X-Pac: OK... what? Didn't Konnan and Ciber agree to be friends at the Guadalajara show? This was so weird b/c they acted like friends in the ring but why would their teams be fighting each other? X-Pac looked good early and did a running somersault plancha on Banderas(who also looked good once again). Konnan limped into the ring and must have hurt himself just stepping inside b/c he just stood near the ropes as Chessman took bumps for him. Seriously. He would just stick his arm out and Chessman would run into it and bump. Then Ciber and Konnan seemed to make buddies again and the fighting stopped.... for a few seconds. Then it continued. Sooooooooooooooo confused. X-Pac and Ciber ended up in the ring which you KNEW was gonna be a disaster. Ciber took his first bump in over 5 years when X-Pac gave him a hiptoss. I guess that was it and Ciber didn't want to risk injury so the two teams just shook hands and agreed to a pointless draw. MexPower and all the tecnicos ran out to brawl with the guys in the match. A guy in a Fishman mask came out and sided with Konnan it seemed but he never unmasked so... what the fuck? This was beyond confusing. Cubs' head may explode if he ever tries to review this. Rating: .25(perversly entertaining)

El Zorro vs Charly Manson - Cage Match: For most of the match they used that stupid camera angle from on top of the cage which makes the action hard to follow. Not that there was much action... or any heat for that matter. Just some clumsy spots involving the cage and chairs. Both men bled really badly which was the only positive things. I liked the finish with all of La Secta running in and Zorro giving them cane shots one-by-one until finally he got beaten down since it was about 12-on-1 or something like that. The tecnicos and MexPower came to ringside but weren't able to get in the cage so Zorro got destroyed and stretchered to end the show. Rating: .25

2 out of 6. Looked like a much stronger show on paper.:/ I don't think anyone involved was comfortable working in that building and just decided to take the night off aside from the Fuerza Aerea match and the opener. The stupid booking also made the show awful. Coincidence that Konnan was around? Hmmm... probably not. The least he could have done for me was gone to his usual backup plan and just have had La Fuerza Aerea do run-ins and dive off the cage in the main event. Or hell, Crazzy Boy was standing at ringside. Just tell him some CZW wrestler did a tornillo off a cage once and tell him to start climbing!

CMLL TV 5/20/06:

Brazo De Plata/Heavy Metal/Mr. Niebla vs Atlantis/Rey Bucanero/Tarzan Boy: Lucha by numbers. Heavy Metal's new way to waste time is to pretending like he's playing guitar as the crowd chants his name. I can totally see everyone copying that at some point so in a month or two we'll have everyone doing their own move while the crowd chants their name which can easily kill 45 seconds worth of actual wrestling. Not to mention how annoying it is when an exchange is just starting and he stops to do it... so fucking stupid. Anywyas, Niebla looked alright here and Bucanero was great as usual. I thought this would be used to push the Bucanero/Atlantis deal since they had problems the week before but... NOTHING. Just a pointless match really. Rating: .25

Only one new Momentos spot and it was from the ladies. Blech...

Mistico/Negro Casas/Ultimo Dragon vs Black Warrior/El Averno/El Mephisto: Mistico/Warrior was the big deal here obviously. The other guys were just around to do their spots and as usual Averno/Mephisto were there to fall for all of Mistico's usual spots when he wasn't busy ripping at Warrior's mask. Mistico sorta blew a ropeflip moonsault in the first fall. He really needs to stop doing that move b/c he almost never gets it right. I thought Negro looked okay and Ultimo was his usual shitty self. Final fall was really good and saved it from being a disapointing match. Rating: .50

Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr. vs La Parka/Johnny Stamboli/Marco Corleone: Ah... the start of the feud that killed business for a few weeks. Parka/Wagner went at it right away and were the center of attention for pretty much the entire first two falls. Parka dumped Wagner in the crowd and then tried to throw the ringsteps on him but hit some fans instead. One guy got pissed and tried to get at Parka. The section they did it in was the Box y Lucha section(where they hold up the anti-Mistico signs) so on TV it really came across great that the fans were into all this brawling but the overall attendance proves otherwise. Scorpio was the commisioner at ringside and seemed like the biggest bitch in the world. He kept chasing Parka around and grabbing weapons from him but Parka would have already used them. Or he'd wave his hand at Parka not to do something and Parka would do it anyways! Scorpio may as well just have bent over while he was at it. Parka eventually got DQ'ed in the first fall which made no sense b/c to start the second fall(no replays or break, they just went straight into it) he was hammering Wagner with a chair. Why wasn't that a DQ? This is acceptable in Monterrey but c'mon... at Arena Mexico? Oh yeah, the other guys were in the match too. First time you noticed them was to end the second fall when Corleone nailed a wicked flying clothesline to stop the tecnico comeback and the two big guys pinned the two smaller Mexican big guys. Third fall was really good. I liked the Dos Jr./Liz Jr. vs Stamboli/Jindrak stuff more than the Parka/Wagner stuff. In fact, if there was any match I would want to see from this it would be the tag match rather than the singles match. The Italians took some wicked bumps and fit right in perfectly. Dos Jr. looked extra motivated and hit a couple of wicked spots including a leap to the top rope springboard enzuigiri on the middle of the ropes as Jindark was crotched! Finish had Liz Jr.'s tope suicida and Dos Jr. flying over the top with his. Wagner got a couple nearfalls on Parka and then the ref bullshit kicked in. Low blow by Parka and pinfall. Fun match... actually a really great match if you ignore the finish. I.e. Just like any Monterrey main event. Rating: 1

1.75 out of 3 for this show. I can't wait to see more of Stamboli and Jindrak against the Jr.'s. Never thought I'd come out of this episode saying THAT.

AAA TV in Leon 5/15/06:

Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Los Diabolicos: I was pissed this was only one fall. Perfect time to do a 2 out of 3 falls match with it being a trios match and them opening the TV show up. The early section of the match was really good with some slow exchanges and then some faster ones with each tecnico getting to work with the rudos for an extended time. That's how they will learn to be better overall wrestlers. In fact, if I had my choice as of this taping - I'd have booked a match where La Fuerza Aerea got to work a 2 out of 3 falls match where the first fall was against Los Diabolicos and second/third falls were against La Secta. Diabolicos are much better working with the kids early on and calming them down. Anyways, Laredo was the only tecnico who got to do a spectacular spot early on as he used the same spot Mistico did this past week on TV(except Mistico's was much cleaner) where he gets thrown from the floor and lands on the second rope, then jumps backwards with a twist into a frankensteiner on the outside. Really insane move and he nailed it... just not as smooth as Mistico. Super Fly is so fluid with all his flips... which of course I love to watch. He did this springboard 360 onto his feet where he hung in the air and landed PERFECT. Just like his backflips, you think there's no way he's gonna land it and will die coming up short but he just times it perfectly. Nemesis is obviously the weak one in the group but he's only 16 so we'll cut him some slack. It's weird b/c usually the younger you are, the more insane you tend to be and he's actually the most reserved of the group who busts out the weaker dives but likes taking the in-ring bumps. I like him but if I had my choice I'd put Pegasso in the group and let Nemesis just work dark matches till he gets older. Rudos eventually took over but it wasn't for long as this was just a tecnicos showcase match. Super Fly/Nemesis hit dual planchas and then Laredo slammed Mr. Condor down hard and hit a Stardust Press(onto Condor's knees) to win the match for his team. Condor went into "convulsions" and got stretchered as La Secta hit the ring to attack. Rey Cometa came out to give his team the advantage but then Espiritu came out to even things up. Of course this led to all the rudos on the floor and each tecnico hitting a tope suicida with Rey Cometa's being the best of course. Good match and good angle. Rating: 1.25(bonus for the angle!)

Billy Boy/Pimpinela/La Parkita/Fabi Apache vs Gran Apache/Cassandro/Mini Chessman/Tiffany: Hey, a fresh Relevos AAA match! No Mascarita/Mini Abismo combo, no Polvo and no Martha! The Guadalajara angle worked brilliantly b/c Fabi didn't used to be over at all and when they announced her as the mystery wrestler - she got a HUUUUUUUUUGE pop. I think the angle hit hard with the girls b/c the same ones screaming for Intocable were screaming for Fabi every time she got in the ring. Early part of the match was really great with everyone nailing their spots and getting an exchange against their enemy in the match. Rudos eventually took over on Billy Boy. The brawling wasn't too bad b/c there was lots of triple teaming which you rarely see in this type of match since nobody is used to working with their partners. The comeback was Cassandro taking a sick bump to the floor(one of TWO in the match!). Fabi grabbed a chair and busted Tiffany open badly. Weird to see Tiffany bleeding.:/ More fun exchanges leading up to Billy Boy sending Apache outside and going for his reckless tope suicida... BUT CRASHING AND BURNING! His arm got caught in the ropes but luckily he just bounced onto the apron instead of the floor or he'd have been hurt bad. Cassandro nailed Pimpi with a great tope suicida right afterwards. Then much to my surprise... Parkita nailed a gorgeous one on Mini Chessman! He ALWAYS used to fuck that spot up! Fabi pinned Tiffany with a german suplex but she wasn't the captain. La Parkita got eliminated as well soon after. Finally with Pimpi/Cassandro brawling outside, Tiffany used the distraction to sneak in and low blow Billy so Apache could pin him. Really great match... one of my favorites this year from AAA. Totally unexpected too as I was just expecting a fun match as usual but this may be in my top 3 of favorite Relevos AAA matches of all-time. Rating: 1

Juventud Guerrera/Psicosis/Crazzy Boy/Joe Lider vs Espiritu/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Joe Lider was the surprise wrestler much to be disapointment. This was only one fall and REALLY SHORT. I think it only went something like 8 minutes. The early part was controlled by La Secta and it exposed their weakness which is aside from when they work against Los Barrio Boys... they have NO double or triple team moves. It's all just throwing a guy around so one of them can do a move... no teamwork at all. At least when the MexPower made their comeback, they were using double and triple team moves so it made it seem like they were an actual TEAM. Scary spot during the comeback as you'd expect with Crazzy and Lider in the match. Lider picked up Escoria on the apron and gave him a BRAIN BUSTER!!! Who would EVER agree to take a stupid spot like that? It wasn't just a normal suplex on the apron, Lider actually held Escoria up and then jumped off the apron to the floor while giving him the brain buster! Sooooooooooooo idiotic. Crazzy Boy nailed Ozz with a flip plancha through the ropes. Lider and Psic did dual running somersault planchas. Escoria missed a cool Venum style tornado off the second turnbuckle and Juventud pinned him with the 911 Juvy Driver. Oh, of course there were also about 100 Crazzy Boy U.S. indy moves in the middle. Rating: .75

Octagon and La Parka Jr. vs Alan Stone and Charly Manson - Mexican National Tag Team Titles: OK... I don't get it. Electro was supposed to team with Manson but got fired a few days before. So with no explanation, they stick Stone in the match as his replacement? Aren't the Guapos and Secta enemies? Well, that's not a question... they are enemies. So naturally the two didn't get along. But why didn't Charly pick a different partner? Or just go at it alone? Really dumb. Entire match was just the rudos not getting along. There was literally no action till the finish. In fact, the opponents didn't TOUCH until 10+ minutes into the match by my count. Octagon pinned Manson and made Stone submit to keep the belts. What a waste of time and it furthered no angles! Rating: 0

Vampiro/El Intocable/El Zorro vs Cibernetico/Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica: Alright match. The brawling wasn't too bad and the comeback was nicely done. Intocable had some nice spots with Chessman of course. Cibernetico seemed to be working a little harder than usual which helped the match. Zorro ended up taking Banderas out with a pescado. Intocable went for a dive but Shocker and Alan Stone ran out and yanked him to the floor. Shocker held him for a tope suicida but got hit by his own partner! Shocker got jumped by Vamp and chaos ensued. Tecnicos ended up winning the match I think. For some reason I really can't remember. But the ending had La Secta posing at the entrance which was cool. I just don't get why La Secta always runs away from the tecnicos when they have them outnumbered 10 on 6 or so. Rating: .50

3.50 out of 5 which is really good. I thuroughly enjoyed this episode aside from the Tag Titles match. Well worth picking up if you wanna try and get into AAA and just want to see a solid show where you can get to know all the main players and angles. I guess that makes sense since this wasn't really a "spectacular" show as those tend to have weaker matches but better highlights.

Random match...

El Charro/El Mariachi/El Mexicano vs Los Destructores - 4/16/95 in Mexico City: This was a weird match. First fall was really good and went about 10-12 minutes with some nice matwork and all of the tecnicos getting to go nuts with their usual spots. I thought it was only going to get better but then 2 minutes into the second fall, the rudos start to rip off one of the tecnicos' masks and suddenly a DQ is called! Really disapointing considering what they were building to.

IWRG TV 3/2/06:

Already half-reviewed this but couldn't watch the full show due to satellite interference. Good thing I chose to pick it up off Fredo b/c it was a pretty good 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 good match! I added it to my list of 2006 MOTYC's. This would probably be the #1 match I'd reccomend to someone who wants to check out Panterita and see what the hype is all about. He is on fire in this match right from the opening mat exchange. Everyone more than holds up their share of the match and you get an entertaining 20 minute bout with limited boring spots. Panterita is a PSYCHO as in the third fall he does an asai moonsault into the crowd on some fans while taking Black Jaguar over the guardrail with him! Rudos win the match cleanly. Great stuff by all and a must-see match.

Pantera/Sicodelico Jr./Kung Fu Jr. vs Cyborg/Protector/Xibalba: Pantera and Sico Jr. looked alright. Kung Fu Jr.... not so much. I'm assuming Protector is the guy who turned into Magnum Protect? And I guess this was AK-47's debut as the finish had a tope suicida from Kung Fu Jr., slingshot tornillo from Sico Jr. and then another tope suicida from Pantera which knocked Protector into the crowd. Pantera went back in the ring with Xibalba and pinned him but he wasn't the captain. Suddenly another police dude(AK-47) entered the ring and pinned Pantera clean since he was fresh. The tecnicos tried to show the ref that Protector was still in the crowd but the refs didn't know what to do so the rudos kept the win. Nice angle.

Heavy Metal/Mike Segura/El Hijo Del Solitario vs Silver King/El Veneno/Cerebro Negro: I can't believe this but this was actually GOOD! Really good! Lots of back and forth action and it looked like Metal and King actually came to work instead of take a night off! Solitario wasn't even stinking up the joint too much. The Segura/Cerebro Negro feud was at it's peak here as they were building to a singles match the following week. Another good 20 minute match in the ***+ range.

Definitely pick this episode up if you want to see some really good Lucha. Even the opener wasn't as bad as I made it out to be when I first saw it.

CMLL TV 5/27/06:

Blue Panther/Mr. Niebla/Satanico vs Apolo Dantes/Misterioso II/Tarzan Boy: I wasn't a huge fan of this. Nobody here really has a story so the match had very little heat. If you're gonna throw something random out, you may as well let them play to their strengths and work the mat but instead they tried to work the match as if the crowd cares and wanted to see them do main event style spots which didn't work out. Tarzan/Misterioso tried dual flying dropkicks in the second fall and I'm surrpised Tarzan didn't break Niebla's ankle b/c he came flying forward way too late. Dantes looked particularly awful. Nothing you need to see here. Rating: .25

My memory might be a bit off but I seem to remember Momentso having a cool Volador Jr. Super Quebrada and one other cool spot or two from an undercard trios match... which of course couldn't be shown b/c we need to see Apolo Dantes!

Negro Casas/Felino/Heavy Metal vs Rey Bucanero/El Averno/El Mephisto: This was the match where Averno/Mephisto turned on Bucanero so it was obviously all angle and very little wrestling. Some nice dives and I guess they got the storyline over but this isn't my type of match. I don't like when you KNOW what is going to happen and yet they still drag it out through an entire match instead of just working normally and doing the angle at the end. Rating: .25

Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./Lizmark Jr. vs Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrero: Whoa, something doesn't belong here. Usual CMLL main event... lucha by numbers pretty much. I loved the comeback spot by Mistico in the second fall but hated how Wagner/the other guy just went for their finishers right away b/c the crowd was still cheering and wanted the fall to continue. Third fall was same old same old aside from Mistico using a rare asai moonsault. Explain to me why nobody used to EVER do dives to the place where Wagner nails his somersault off the ramp but now every rudo seems to magically end up standing there and waiting 10 seconds for Wagner to pose. I think I hate that spot more than any other spot these days. Mistico is about to make Warrior submit when Atlantis interferes to setup the tag match the following week. Rating: .50

1 out of 3. AWFUL episode although this looks like gold compared to the following week...

CMLL TV 6/3/06:

This was the Gran Alternativa show. Already discussed it in-depth(check thecubsfan.com archives if you want PBP and a description of the first round that had less than 30 moves in 4 matches) so not gonna do match-by-match. Show started with the women in a trios match that actually wasn't too bad. It was Shimoda's debut match. Why wouldn't they team her with Hiroka? Seems logical. Rosa Negra looked really good... I wanna see more of her. She did the old Enemigo Publico fireman's carry into a faceslam move that I am a huge mark for. She reminds me a lot of Flor Metalica who used to be Marcela's regular opponent but seemed to disapear when the women became a hit at Arena Mexico. She's definitely not a rookie whoever she is. There were some nice dives and the finishing stuff was well done so I'd give the match a full point and I rarely do that for the women. Then came the Gran Alternativa which will make for a great couple of clips on my latest Lucha Spotfest tape but that's about it. Short matches with horrible clipping in some cases and awful wrestling throughout. I can't even remember a single nearfall. How do you run a tournament without doing ONE nearfall in ANY of the matches? Purpura and Volador Jr. got like 4 moves combined in MAYBE 4 minutes of action... yes... combined! Easily the worst Gran Alternativa ever and the biggest disapointment of the year for me. Main event was lucha by numbers with Mistico/Wagner vs Atlantis/Warrior. Wagner used a tope suicida! I had never seen him use it before so I popped for that but sadly that was it. The rest of the match was your generic formula to send the fans home happy which is good I guess but with such a disapointing show I would haved loved it if they went all out and had a great match that we'd be able to remember in year-end discussion.

Skip this show... it'll only make you sad and wonder what happened to such a great promotion.

AAA TV in Toluca 5/18/2006:

Ultraman Jr. and Los Chivas Rayadas I y II vs Los Espantapajaros I/II/III: For some reason I remember this being three falls when I originally saw it but it was only one. Was the action that good? *L* No idea who the Chivas were in this match but they definitely weren't either of Los Apaches. I'm thinking they were ex-Nino De Oro and Chamagol. If you remember they did soccer gimmicks a couple years ago when they were roughly 15 years old each. I'm not 100% sure though... I would be if the match sucked and the Chivas blew everything but they DIDN'T. They were actually quite awesome! Started slow with your usual matwork and then the rudos took over. They actually worked as a team and used various moves like one guy held Ultraman Jr. in wheelbarrow position for double dropkicks. Then they did a combo german suplex/double clothesline spot. The comeback was a little weak but oh well... crowd still got into it. Ultraman Jr. got to work the first exchange and reminded me why I hate certain juniors. I hate the juniors that copy exactly what they father used to do in the ring and don't try to differentiate themselves at all. Ultraman Jr. worked a perfectly acceptable exchange but it was so generic. I've seen that same exchange like 1,000 times already. If you're just gonna copy your father, you'll end up like Kato Jr. and Kung Fu Jr. working nowhere for nothing and being forced to rip people off online to make a living. Then it was time to get awesome as Chiva I came in and had a really nice exchange with one of the scarecrows. He did this AWESOME double springboard armdrag I've never seen before. His partner then worked an equally great exchange and used the old Niebla(was he the first to use it?) flip into the ropes with no hands and bounce backwards spot. Except Chiva ended it with a backflip! He then did the Babe Rap/Laredo Kid/Hombre Sin Miedo/Volador Jr. spot where you bounce off the second rope, do a forward somersault onto the top rope and flip back with an armdrag... EXCEPT... he was doing it without two rudos balancing him!!! How insane is that? He got a huge pop afterwards which was well deserved. The match ended with some amazing dives. First, one of the Chivas did a headstand on the top while his partner kicked away all the incoming rudos. Finally one of the scarecrows nailed the ringpost and flew outside, soon to be joiend by his partner. The Chiva doing the headstand then sat on the top turnbuckle facing the outside and his partner climbed up... STOOD ON TOP OF HIS SHOULDERS... THEN THE FIRST CHIVA STOOD UP AS WELL SO HIS PARTNER COULD HIT A GIGANTIC 12 FOOT HIGH PLANCHA!!! Incredible spot! Ultraman Jr. followed up with a nice bullet tope suicida and finally the remaining Chiva hit a plancha to the outside. Back in the ring one of the scarecrows used a backwards rolling russian legsweep into a submission for the clean win! Probably the best Los Espantapajaros have looked since their return to TV earlier in the year. We really need more Chivas on TV if these guys are always under the gimmick. God bless the upcoming youngsters tournament where we may get to see one of the Chivas paired up with Apache! Rating: 1

Rey Cometa/Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Espiritu/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Pre-match skit had the tecnicos working out and saying they were ready for a title shot. I love their entrance with the flips in the aisleway and backflips as each guy has his name announced. This had a different started than most matches with these guys as the rudos attacked right from the whistle and began teaming up on each tecnico. This time La Secta managed to incorporate some alright double/triple/quadrople team moves which made the brawling a little more interesting. It's never fun when it's just slaps and kicks with the occasional individual move. Crowd was big time in favor of La Secta and boo'ed the tecnico comeback big time. The boo'ing continued throughout the entire match and seemed to bother all the tecnicos except Rey Cometa. Speaking of Cometa... he opened the exchanges part of the match and WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW... he went NUTS! Probably the best exchange he's ever done on TV aside from his first match with Kaoma Jr. as he and Cuervo tore it up! I won't spoil it for when it airs but the series of spots ends with him doing the Niebla backflip into the ropes causing Cuervo to slide outside to the floor and he follows up with a slingshot into a frankensteiner! Next up was Laredo Kid and unfortunately there was no way to follow what Cometa did but he tried and had a nice exchange as well. Next in was Super Fly who once again defied the laws of physics by doing the smoothest springboard 360 into a forward flip. I already can't wait for AAA TV in 4 weeks when he is scheduled to face Kaoma Jr.! His exchange with Ozz was nice and ended with him doing the Mistico springboard twisting armdrag and then a handspring backflip into his usual pose which got a huge negative reaction. Poor guy. Nemesis was next and as usual he wasn't as spectacular as everyone else but he had a nice spot where he stepped onto Escoria's arm and got throws into the air for a frankensteiner! They did a couple nearfalls and near submission but then it ended up with Cometa/Nemesis sending two rudos to the floor... or at least trying to. Nemesis screwed up so Cometa had to wait for him to finally knock his rudo to the floor and then Cometa nailed Cuervo with a running double corkscrew plancha!!! Haven't seen that in a while! Nemesis connected with a tope suicidia a second later. Super Fly took out another rudo with a gigantic plancha off the top rope! Such a simple dive but he makes it look so good! This left Laredo Kid and Cuervo. Laredo rolled up Cuervo with a sunset flip and Ozz entered the ring to break it up but just as he was about to connect with a dropkick - Laredo Kid rolled back so Ozz hit his own partner! Laredo covered... AND GOT THE WIN! Great finish. The entire deal so far has been La Secta cheating to win and now for the first time, La Fuerza Aerea managed to score the win and even better... they outsmarted the rudos! This of course sets up a revancha for the next taping. To emphasize that, both teams brawled after the match. Rating: 1

Pimpinela Escarlata vs Cassandro: Brawl on the floor right from the start. Really weird match. I thought it'd either be a huge brawl that went nowhere or a straight match that went long and had a cheap finish. Instead it was a very short match(maybe 7 minutes) with an ending that had nothing to do with getting their storyline more over. They did some nearfalls but nothing dramatic and then Cassandro got a chair. He hit Pimpinela a few times so El Piero told him to stop and grabbed the chair away. But Cassandro grabbed it back and nailed Piero which busted him open! From behind Pimpinela grabbed Cassandro and hit an ugly looking suplex and Piero fast-counted Cassandro! After the match Cassandro went after Piero and beat him up some more including throwing him off the stretcher. This was quite pointless in my opinion. May as well have been a dog collar match as they usually do in these types of feuds. Rating: .25

Juventud Guerrera/Psicosis/Crazzy Boy vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Zumbido: Wow... I kinda hate to say it but am also kinda happy to say it... this match might have been a turning point in how I view Crazzy Boy in AAA. He actually... wasn't... too... shitty. He and Scorpio Jr. opened with a mat exchange that was actually interesting and had a couple of neat things. This means an entire 3 minutes went by with Crazzy Boy NOT doing a U.S. indy-esque move! I thought for sure they'd do the usual armdrag/legtrip sequence and all of a sudden Crazzy Boy would give Scorpio a Storm Cradle Driver or something but he refrained! First fall was kinda slow overall like that until Los Guapos took over and won with a cool spot as Shocker had Psicosis held over his knees and Zumbido did an asai moonsault onto him! Second fall had the expected comeback and another really neat finish as both Zumbido and Shocker were bridged over the knees of Psicosis and Crazzy Boy as Juventud did a spirngboard legdrop to both of them! What made the spot even more spectacular was they were quite the distance apart so Juventud really had to do the splits to nail them both! Third fall went really quick and right after the first or second exchange, Zumbido nailed Psicosis with his plancha off the second rope in the ring. Juventud took out Scorpio Jr. with a pescado but then X-Pac ran out and gave him the X-Factor on the floor taking him out of the equation. They probably should have went home there but for some reason they did a couple nearfalls and then it looked like Shocker just said to end it and he power bombed Crazzy Boy out of nowhere as Scorpio pinned Psicosis. Guapos win! This also sets up a revancha for the next taping. Rating: .75

Vampiro/El Zorro/El Intocabel vs Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica/X-Pac - Cage Match: CH-CH-CH-CH-CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESMAN! Or as I might start calling him - QUINTO ELEMENTO! Man it rules knowing I have 1998 footage of Chessman as a rookie! He was the abosolute 100% star of this match and this time it wasn't just b/c he bumped all over for everyone and had the biggest move in the match. He was booked to be the MONSTER and the crowd definitely reacted to it. He confronted Vampiro right at the start of the match and nailed an awesome spear. Everyone began nailing moves on each other after that. It was more of a U.S. style cage match than a typical Lucha cage match where guys just stand around and brawl until it's time to have someone escape. Lots of neat back and forth moves. Muerte Cibernetica was the first to escape. Then Intocable nailed Chessman with a gorgeous satellite DDT and used Chessman as a springboard to jump over the cage and escape! All of a sudden Los Guapos' music began playing and they ran out to attack Intocable! Vampiro was next to escape and he ended up coming to Intocable's aid! He brawled with all the Guapos, especially Shocker. Then he confronted a "suspended" Cibernetico who was at ringside but La Secta quickly ran out to make sure Ciber didn't get attacked. Next out was X-Pac although I forget how but he joined the brawl on the floor too. It spilled into the aisleway and that's when it got really chaotic as the fans began throwing a ton of shity at Los Guapos who were pissed, especially Scorpio. He tried to get at a fan but security stepped in and all 7/8 guys who were brawling ended up just working their way to the back to get out of the way of all the flying objects. When they cut back to the ring, Chessman powerslammed Zorro and began climbing! To escape? NOPE! ... *drumroll*... A MOONSAULT FROM THE TOP OF THE 15+ FOOT HIGH CAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Obviously* Zorro was not taking that impact and rolled out of the way causing Chessman to die a horrible death. Seriously, that is the spot of the year! Fuck that roided up Olympian! Zorro had the match won as Chessman was KO'ed. He began climbing but Escoria climbed the cage. Zorro knocked him down with a kick! Instead of climbing some more, he jumped off the ropes with a frog splash on Chessman to make sure he'd stay down! Zorro then climbed up again but was met by Cuervo who had the kendo stick! Ozz also began climbing the other corner of the cage and just as he reached the top, Cuervo went to hit Zorro... BUT NAILED HIS PARTNER! Ozz fell to the floor and Zorro shoved Cuervo to the floor! But before he could escape, Espiritu ran out and climbed into the cage to yank Zorro down! Meanwhile... Chessman was starting to roll around! HE WAS ALIVE! He managed to drag himself up on the ropes but could barely move. Can you imagine how much confidence they had in Chessman to book spots that would involve him knowing he was going to do that insane spot beforehand? He held himself up using the cage and grabbed Zorro. Espiritu got a running start... but tackled Chessman into the cage! Zorro then climbed up and just as Espiritu ran over to grab him... he pulled himself up to the top of the cage and escaped! ZORRO WINS THE MATCH FOR HIS TEAM! Huge pop for the finish! Zorro climbed down and had a few words for Cibernetico. After a billion replays of the huge spot, the camera showed La Secta dragging Chessman out of the ring and both X-Pac and Muerte Cibernetica helped him to the back as the crowd cheered. They showed a replay from a different angle which made the moonsault look even more impressive and you get to see Cibernetico all freaked out that Chessman would even try something so stupid. *L* Perfectly booked match and any match that revolves around Chessman is going to get great reviews from me. Maybe Cibernetico not wrestling any more is a good thing for Chessman getting over as the main rudo. Rating: 1

4 for 5! Arguably the best AAA show of the year that I've seen so far. You want to see this just for Chessman's moonsault! And as a bonus, you get so much more awesome action. Honestly, CMLL has 3 TV shows now and you can combine everything that airs and it still wouldn't top this episode. AAA RULES!

Random match...

Satanico vs Hector Garza - CMLL Middleweight Title (4/21/95 @ Arena Coliseo): This had been building for a while with Garza losing the first time he got a title shot and then taking Satanico's hair about a month before this. Current CMLL booking says Garza gets another title shot and wins cleanly but this is CMLL 1995 booking! This was worked Satanico's style as it was almost entirely on the mat. There was an edit in the first fall which the announcers claimed went 12 minutes but we only saw 6 or so. Still longer than most current CMLL matches. Satanico won with a backslide. Second fall was again all Satanico style as Garza kept trying to get him to submit. He was finally able to after another 6 minutes or so of action. Third fall didn't have much drama and had a cheap finish. Garza slammed Satanico and went to climb to the top rope... but for no reason at all he shoved the ref out of the way and while the ref was down, Satanico pulled Garza off the top with a power bomb type move and covered him for the win. Ugly ending to what was a pretty great match. Definitely could have used a more traditional style third fall. I guess this was CMLL's way of protecting Garza who was being built to be their big star but surely they could have done something better like have him crash on a dive and get counted out or have Satanico use the ropes and pin him. The ref bump was weak and the crowd seemed to hate it, not just b/c their favorite lost if you get my drift.

CMLL TV 6/10/06:

Marcela vs Hiroka - CMLL Women's Title: Anyone know what theme song Hiroka used here? It's the same music a lot of the cool midcarders used to use back in 1999 when Fox Sports was airing CMLL and I was never able to find out what it was. This wasn't as well laid out as their Guerreros Del Ring match where they had more time to play with but I ended up enjoying this more(I was never a big fan of the GdR match). Amapola connected with a somersault plancha off the apron early on. Then they did a neat series of spots where Marcela was knocked outside and tried to re-enter three times, only to be knocked back outside and on the third time Hiroka connected with an asai moonsault landing on her feet! They went into the nearfalls about 5 minutes in and used a couple of really nice ones. There was this awesome spot near the end that I loved where Hiroka went up top and jumped off only to met by two feet from Marcela! It looked vicious. But right when Marcela picked her up for something, Hiroka rolled her up... for a 2! Best nearfall of the match. Strangely, right after that Hiroka hit a Ki-Krusher type move and won the belt. Anti-climactic ending which nobody seemed to be expecting. Perhaps Marcela was hurt? I'm happy they kept this short and had lots of action. Rating: 1

Lady Apache/Mima Shimoda/Diana La Cazadora vs La Amapola/Princesa Sujei/Rosa Negra: No way this was the same Rosa Negra as the week before. Looked like a completely different person. Perhaps the results are wrong and it wasn't Rosa Negra the week before? This was also short thankfully but didn't have as much action as the title match. Some sloppy moments throughout. Amapola tried this weird backbreaker variation at one point which seemed like a good idea but it came off horribly. I especially hated Sujei eliminating Shimoda with the same move Hiroka used to win the title. Is that the generic women's division finisher? Amapola made Diana submit to a cool move to win the match for her team. Couple of things really obvious in a match like this:

1) Amapola is worlds better than any other woman except maybe Marcela.
2) Diana La Cazadora needs to wear a more revealing outfit or she is useless to everyone.
3) No Dark Angel = fans don't give a shit about anyone in this division.

You could hear a pin drop at certain points in the match and my favorite moment was when one of the tecnicas was kicked outside the ring and she crashed into a fan at ringside who was slumped over in his seat half-asleep. My reaction exactly. Rating: .25

Lizmark/Lizmark Jr./La Mascara vs Tarzan Boy/El Averno/El Mephisto: Ah, the start of the not-so-memorable two week Lizmarks vs Averno/Mephisto feud. Really short match which I'd say was lucha by numbers with a little mask ripping tossed in. It's bad enough I have to watch Mascara with his generic offense and 20 second exchanges but why should I be forced to watch Lizmark limp around the ring during the same match? Mephisto pins Mascara clean to win the match for his team. Crowd wasn't as hot as you'd expect considering a legend was getting his mask torn to shreds. Rating: .25

Can't remember anything from Momentos.

Negro Casas/Heavy Metal/Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrero: Take a wild guess at what the big feud was in this match. Pretty good effort from all involved although not a memorable match by any means. It should have been considering it was Bucanero's tecnico debut after 13+ years as a rudo but what can you do? The Bucanero/Guerrero stuff was disapointing b/c Bucanero wasn't wrestling... like himself. He was working more like Mistico would against Guerrero and trying all sorts of armdrags and headscissors which don't really work for a guy his size and it's harder for Ultimo to make the moves look as good against a guy who is bigger than him. Bucanero did a nice dive at the end of the second fall. The old Psicosis-style twisting moonsault off the top that is rarely used any more. In the third fall they did an awful dive sequence which left Bucanero/Guerrero alone in the ring and Bucanero won with the Buca Storm. Since when does Ultimo ever do moves where he jumps into wheelbarrow position? That move made sense when Bucanero was a rudo b/c all tecnicos do that at some point but as a tecnico it makes no sense for guys like Guerrero, Mephisto, Averno, Tarzan and Warrior to be jumping right into position for his finisher. It's sorta like in Mistico singles matches when his opponent goes for a double underhook move only to have Mistico counter with an armbar. Since when do Ultimo and Perrito use a move like that? Rating: .50

2 out of 4 for the disapointing show. Entire skippable. Yes... the biggest turn of the year - SKIPPABLE!

CMLL TV 6/17/06:

Lizmark/Lizmark Jr./Mr. Niebla vs Black Warrior/El Averno/El Mephisto: OH COME ON! For fucks sake... from an episode with TWO WOMEN'S MATCHES to this! I told you all there was a bad stretch of CMLL coming up. This match gets my vote for worst match of the year. It barely went 10 minutes and still gets that honor! First fall had the rudos attack right away. So get this... Lizmark Jr. comes out from the back... he's fresh and should be in shape to be involved in a competitive wrestling match, right? He gets tripped, nailed with a dropkick... and pinned. 10 seconds in! Surely I'm not the only one that has an issue with that. BTW, he was the captain - fall over! Second fall has the comeback within 3 minutes and to cap it off we get dual tope suicidas from both Lizmarks who both barely manage to clear the ring apron. Sad, sad, sad stuff. Niebla pins Warrior after one move. Third fall has more stalling than anything else. Lizmark Jr.'s mask is torn up but he doesn't seem to care too much. Niebla dives onto Warrior and we get a DQ finish that the crowd is pretty apathetic towards. Like I said - worst match of the year. Rating: 0

Dos Caras Jr./Negro Casas/Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis/Tarzan Boy/Ultimo Guerrero: Lucha by numbers. If you've seen a CMLL main event at least twice, you'd have been able to call every spot in this match. My theory(and I've said this before) is that the CMLL guys blow just as many spots as the AAA guys with the only difference being AAA guys blow spots mroe spectacularly b/c they are trying new and difficult things. It's hard to hide it when you blow a springboard 360 into an armdrag. However it's easy to cover up when you are supposed to eat a dropkick and are facing the wrong way. In this match there was a funny moment where Negro gave Ultimo a slingshot and either Bucanero or Dos Jr. were supposed to clothesline him so he's hanging over Negro's knees but neither was paying attention. So Ultimo kinda just stood there for a few seconds looking around until he got smacked and fell backwards. Should guys who have been doing that spot in every match for the last 5 years be blowing it?:/ Dos Jr./Negro did double dives at the end of the second fall. Dos Jr. flew over the top with a running tope and Negro did his silla. Guess which dive the camera focused on? Once again Ultimo helped Bucanero hit his finisher. I was kinda hoping the comedy would continue in the third fall with Bucanero climbing up top by himself and sitting on the top turnbuckle so Guerrero could hit his finisher but sadly it didn't happen. Instead Bucanero used another crazy old-school dive of his - a running tornillo. This left Negro and Dos Jr. to hit their finish...erm...excuse me... this left Atlantis and Tarzan to help the tecnicos nail their finishers. Very anit-clamctic. Rating: .50

Momentos was all repeats. Oh wait, there was a Wagner somersault dive off the ramp from the skipped main event the previous week.

Dr. Wagner Jr. vs La Parka: Sign #1 you might have the wrong idea of what the fans want: Wagner is beating Parka up outside early on and tries to get an old lady to give him her purse so he can hit Parka with it. She says looks at him like he's retarded and walks away. Lots of brawling and chair spots. At one point in the second fall Wagner went for a walk to find a weapon but found nothing. Time really stood still there. Parka did a tope suicida on Wagner as he sat in a chair. Wagner blew me away by nailing a bullet tope suicida of his own!!! How does he come up with that move after 15+ years of never taking to the air? He also did his somersault off the ramp almost onto his head due to a bad catch by Parka. Wagner used a piece of glass(I think) to cut up Parka's forehead but the camera went to a crowd shot instead. Not many believable nearfalls. Referee Babe Richard got bumped and when he got back in the ring, he counted to 2 and couldn't count 3 b/c his arm was hurting too much.:/ Same thing happened again after a power bomb from Wagner. Crowd was more laughing at this than anything else. Wagner low blowed Parka and nailed a flying splash. This time Richard smartened up and counted with his non-injured arm so Wagner won. What was the point of the injured arm angle if he was going to make the winning count for Wagner anyhow? Crowd left pretty quickly after the match even though Wagner was cutting a promo. Rating: .50

1 for 3. Horrible episode. I told you June was gonna be a terrible month for CMLL shows. Right now the entire month is totally skippable.

AAA TV in Puebla 5/20/2006:

Octagoncito and La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro and Mini Chessman: Man... why would you book something like this and have 70% of the match Parkita/Mini Chessman instead of Octcito/Mini Abismo? That's just silly. Parkita is pretty awful and only works part-time anyways. Mini Chessman isn't awful... but he definitely needs to get A LOT BETTER if he wants to live up to his name. It might be time to let Mini Chessman play Mini Abismo and have Mini Abismo become Mini Chessman. Only highlights here besides a great leg trip escape by Mini Abismo early on were some crazy dives at the end. Parkita got assisted into a huge somersault plancha and Mini Chessman blew the catch(YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO USE THE CHESSMAN NAME IF YOU ARE BLOWING CATCHES!!!). As they showed a replay of that spot - Octcito nailed a running twisting dive through the ropes onto Mini Abismo. Parkita was alright and re-entered the ring to lock a submission on Mini Chessman. This brought out big Chessman and then big Parka. The two Parka's then used dual tope suicidas onto the two Chessman's which was neat. Tecnicos win by countout. La Secta ran out afterwards and tried to kill Parkita. Really disapointing for the usual great mini's action you expect. Rating: .50

Cassandro/Los Barrio Boys vs Gran Apache/Pimpinela Escarlata/May Flowers/Polvo De Estrellas: The teams here made no sense at all so you sort of knew exactly what to expect. Lots of brawling early on with both teams playing tecnicos at different points. Alan/Decnis did dual dives. Billy Boy went for a dive on Apache but Cassandro tripped him. Everyone was mad at everyone after that. Billy Boy managed to knock Apache outside once again and this time he connected with a wicked bullet tope suicida! Los Barrios beat up Cassandro and then all the Exoticos on the other side piled onto her for the win. Apache walked off and the Barrios disapeared for a bit while it was announced Cassandro was celebrating her birthday! Naturally with a cake involved - someone was going to get it in their face. Billy Boy ran back to the ring and shoved it in Cassandro's face which led to a fight between the Exoticos and Barrios. It seemed like all the Exoticos made friends after the match but storyline-wise Pimpi and Cassandro are still supposed to be feuding so who knows. Waste of a match. Rating: .25

Rey Cometa/Laredo Kid/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Espiritu/Escoria/El Cuervo/Ozz: Pre-match interview with the tecnicos + Oriental where they officially challenge for a title shot. Crazy start with Laredo Kid/Rey Cometa nailing two Secta members with bullet tope suicidas and a few seconds later Super Fly/Nemesis doing the same thing on the other side of the ring. Then it was time for the beatdown which once again was alright b/c La Secta were using double/triple team moves including a triple team Splash Mountain/flying dropkick combination! Tecnicos fought back and then it was time for the exchanges. Everyone looked good once again. Super Fly is just awesome the way he does all his acrobats. I'm torn as to who to cheer for more - him or Rey Cometa. Both have their positives and Cometa is definitely the better all-around but Super Fly is so crips with his big moves. Laredo Kid looked good again(he has TONS of potential) and nailed a beautiful springboard corkscrew armdrag on Ozz after a springboard flying headscissors takedown. Nemesis/Espiritu were in the middle of what would have been an amazing spot as Espiritu did the Tiger Mask fakeout and Nemesis went for a handspring off the ropes and then tried to moonsault over Espiritu's back but they both tripped.:/ See - THAT is a noticable blown spot that is impossible to cover-up for. Cometa was the last to go but of course had the best exchange out of everyone. He ended up trying a slingshot double corkscrew plancha on Escoria but missed by one rotation! Awesome try though. The remaining three tecnicos knocked the remaining three rudos to the floor and... *drumroll*... TRIPLE RUNNING SOMERSAULT PLANCHAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How long has it been since a team used that spot? Maybe the Barrios at some point but I can't remember a specific example since the '98 Vipers. Laredo Kid/Super Fly's somersaults in particular were GORGEOUS(Sasuke style!) while Nemesis was a split-second late as usual. Back in the ring were Cometa and Escoria. Cometa had a submission locked on but Chessman ran out and spewed Escoria with mist by accident! This brought Oriental out and he knocked Chessman to the floor and took him out with a slingshot into a frankensteiner! Cometa nailed Escoria with a 450 splash for the win! Another great match in the series with the final pre-Triplemania match coming next week in San Luis Potosi! It might be time to put together a Fuerza Aerea vs Secta comp. tape! Can't wait to see the Triplemania match again and also the rematch for the Atomicos titles which all you lucky Galavision people got to see already! Rating: 1

Juventud Guerrera/Psicosis/Crazzy Boy vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Zumbido: This was three falls for some reason. Guapos brawled early on and then began throwing each MexPower into the crowd one-by-one which was fun. They ended up getting DQ'ed after about 5 minutes. Second fall ended up going as long as your typical CMLL entire match so we're talking a good 10-12 minutes. Crazzy Boy looked good again for the second straight week. Why? Because THIS is the Crazzy Boy I like -> doing crazy dives and staying out of the way otherwise. I think Lider is the bad influence b/c whenever they get together it becomes U.S. indyrific. Although it's hard to forget that awful Crazzy Boy CMLL TV match from January.:/ Shocker took a brutal dropkick to the face while he was being held upside down on the top turnbuckle by Psicosis. Juventud really seemed to lay it in even though Shocker tried to cover his face. Some nice back-and-forth action ended with Zumbido taking a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE and SCARY sallida bump. Shocker grabbed Crazzy Boy and Scorpio Jr. went to low blow him but Crazzy Boy jumped and Shocker got kicked instead! Crazzy Boy then used his second crazy dive of the match - a second rope springboard twisting plancha! Juventud pinned Shocker and the MexPower took it in two straight falls! Rating: 1

La Parka Jr./El Intocable/Vampiro vs Chessman/Cibernetico/Muerte Cibernetica: This was confusing b/c wasn't Ciber suspended? They did some sort of angle about that pre-match but I wasn't paying too much attention. I wonder if this was even a match as right from the start the rudos began brawling and it never stopped. Banderas used a pescado on Parka. He found a wooded board at ringside and ended up using tape to crucify Parka to it. The rudos hung Parka upside down in the corner so it was an upside down cross.:/ Pena has a weird fascination with doing angles involving crucifying someone. Suddenly the Vatos Locos music hit and Pena came out with Picudo, Rey Cometa and Super Fly. Why is PICUDO saving everyone? They burned an LLL banner and then I was hoping they'd storm the ring and use dives on the rudos but instead more people kept coming out like the MexPower, Nemesis, Oriental, Laredo Kid, Barrios, etc. It turned into a huge standoff between La Secta and AAA with Picudo chasing the rudos away by blowing fire at them. All angle, no wrestling. Rating: 0

2.75 out of 5. The weakest AAA show in a while b/c of the letdown of an opener, pointless segunda and even more pointless main event. Although I must say - the main event was better than that horrible Lizmark/Lizmark Jr./Mr. Niebla trios match. I'd rather rewatch this main event 50 times in a row than be forced to sit through Lizmark limping his way across the ring with his man-boobs flopping around as he attempts to not die on a tope suicida.

Quick thoughts on this week's Lucha:

CMLL: First thing on the show was Blue Panther and Eclipse taking it to the mat! *L* Eclipse actually didn't look as awful as you'd think and he was quite passable in an exchange with Wagner late on. It was lucha by numbers though. Semi-main was easily the best match of the show and didn't reach the level of the previous week's main event but I'd say it was 70% as good. It wasn't lucha by numbers at all as you had momentum shifts and exchanges that went quite a while. Parka/Santo wasn't the focus of the match which is what most people were expecting. The DQ ending was to push Parka as a complete rudo rather than just a tweener who hates Wagner. Parka promised to form his own stable afterwards. Yay, more rudo stables, just what the company needs! I could care less about Perrito vs Bucanero b/c Perrito in singles matches against anyone besides Mistico bores me and Bucanero as a tecnico is just WRONG. The clincher was hearing Garza provided non-stop interference so I skipped it.

AAA: Any taping in Monterrey = crazy highspots. It's always been like that. Hombre Sin Miedo used a somersault dive over the ringpost and almost landed on top of the guardrail! I hope he gets re-gimmicked and joins La Fuerza Aerea. Yes, I know... if I had my way La Fuerza Aerea would have Cometa, Super Fly, Laredo, Nemesis, Pegasso, Miedo and Principe Diamante(Babe Rap). Too many guys? Perhaps. Or maybe they just need to find 7 amazing rudos to play catchers. Mascarita Divina is definitely not Novillerito. He's too big and... good. Works with well with Mini Charly and I just read they are brothers so that makes sense. Segunda was three falls for some reason. Only action was early in the first fall with Laredo Kid doing a springboard frankensteiner to Escoria as he stood on the ramp! Cometa then nailed Cuervo with a CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY second rope springboard cancun tornado!!! Every fall in the match had a DQ finish which was pretty lame. Tercera was Vipers vs MexPower. Tons and tons and tons of dives. Dual somersaults from Lider/Psic... flying legdrop to Juventud on the guardrail by Extreme Tiger... a crazy dive sequence that BEGAN with Tiger doing a Stardust Press to the outside and completely missing Juventud! Psic did a nice running tope over the top. Histeria's dive was missed by the cameras. Rio Bravo was horribly out of place b/c he isn't even a flyer. He got boo'ed for doing a lame cross body block which is to be expected when 7 other guys in the match are killing themselves. Crazzy Boy used a flip plancha through the ropes. Abismo finished things off with a plancha onto everyone. Then everyone except Juventud and Tiger brawled into the crowd which set up Crazzy Boy's usual spot where he did a moonsault off the balcony except this time he managed to miss EVERYONE and seemed to hurt his head when it hit the ground after he fell backwards. Is Ric Blade under the mask? In the ring Juventud and Tiger low blowed each other at the same time so Juventud still thinks if TNA wants Tiger they are gonna have to bring him in as well. Missed Zorro/Electro. Main was 100% angle but at least it's interesting to see what will happen with Chesssman.

IWRG TV 3/9/06:

Halcon Salvaje and Kid Tiger vs Carta Brava Jr. and El Macho II: Fool me once, shame on you Halcon, fool me twice... shame on me! He sucked the first time I saw him... was okay the second time so I gave him the benefit of the doubt... but he was AWFUL here. I hope he disapears for TV and fast. They have so many other undercarders worthy of TV time. Whatever happened to the new Frisbee? I liked him. Really boring match with no highlights whatsoever unless you count Javier Llanes going into a long speech about how Arena Naucalpan makes stars and breaking kayfabe to mention Kraneo = Alebrije.

Sicodelico Jr./Fantasma Jr./Kung Fu Jr. vs Cyborg/Magnum Protect/AK-47: Man, I wonder who AK-47 is? He was really really really good here. In fact, all of Los Oficiales were but AK-47 stood out the most. Oficiales used some nice double and triple team moves. Sico Jr. looked the best out of the tecnicos I think. There was a quick dive sequence at the end. Fun match.

Mike Segura vs Cerebro Negro: Dr. Cerebro came out as Cerebro Negro's second while Segura had nobody b/c Mini Mike Segura had yet to lose his mask. First fall was short but they crammed a lot of action into it. Segura won with his amazing somersault dragon screw into a half crab. Second fall was really good with the action going back and forth. Cerebro Negro took control with a couple of suplexes and then used his finisher(the California Roll as Donovan Morgan calls it) for the win. Third fall didn't have the nearfalls you'd expect b/c this was just building to a match against the good ol' Doc, not between these two. Segura used a tope suicida. They did a clumsy spot to knock the ref down. Segura used a spinebuster off the second turnbuckle and then got low blowed by Dr. Cerebro which led to him getting pinned. He challenged for a hair match afterwards. Good match and angle to build to what would happen in future weeks.

Mistico/Negro Casas/Felino vs Damian 666/El Averno/El Mephisto: Typical mailed in main event with the stars who are saving it up for the Arena Mexico + weekend shows. Everything was half-speed, especially Mistico's stuff. The only thing that makes this different from a typical mailed in main event was they actually did nearfalls at the end instead of going home right away. Maybe someone realized they hadn't given the fans their money's worth? Damian hit a few moves that Mistico was forced to kick out of and finally a sloppy La Mistica ended things.

Average episode. Middle part of the show was the high point. Lots of wrestling instead of just talking and stalling so that's a plus.

CMLL TV 6/24/06:

For some reason the show started with a repeat of the awful women's trios match from the 6/10 show. SKIP!

Sagrado/Pantera/Mascara Purpura vs Hombre Sin Nombre/Nitro/Sangre Azteca: Arena Mexico segunda! Thank god for Parka/Wagner matches being edited off TV! Azteca used his custom theme music which is neat. First fall was good. Purpura looked great working with Nitro. He's so fluid with everything he does although I'm sure against an unexperienced rudo he would be exposed horribly. Sagrado also looked pretty good. Rudos ended up taking over and winning the fall easily. Typical second fall comeback after a few minutes(longer than usual) and then a teased cutoff with HSN dropkicking Sagrado as he did a handspring off the ropes. Sagrado ended up taking him outside with a ropeflip armdrag and connecting with a great springboard somersault plancha! Purpura one-upped him with an even better running somersault plancha on Sangre Azteca and Pantera took the fall over Nitro with a huracanrana. Third fall had some nice exchanges, particularly with Purpura and Azteca. The tecnico used a 360 into an armdrag and then a great rolling on the apron into a headscissors move I've never seen before! There was a funny spot where Pantera nailed Azteca with a huracanrana and Nitro broke it up with a dropkick but in the process he landed right on Azteca's face. Azteca looked pretty pissed off afterwards. Nice build to the finish. Sagrado got murdered on the outside with a dropkick from Azteca. Then Purpura was held upside down and dropkicked in the back of the head which led right into a power bomb. Rudos win! Rating: 1

Felino/La Mascara/Volador Jr. vs El Averno/El Mephisto/EL REY DE YOGURT!: Sadly this was the match where Volador and Averno got hurt. It was at the end of the second fall and really scary. Major props to Volador for trying to catch Averno before he fell on his head and then telling everyone he was fine and to go worry about Averno who was obviously KO'ed. Random question b/c he got his mask ripped: Why does Volador need to wear a headband under his mask?:/ Third fall was just a rush victory for the tecnicos. Crowd was hot for the mask ripping and you can tell they were building to something special but the injury ruined it. I still liked it though. There was a sorta botched spot in the first fall where Volador went for a handspring and Mephisto tried to dropkick him but the timing was off so Volador came down into a sort of Lung Blower type move. I wonder if anyone has ever done that before? Should be a regular spot. Rating: .75

Momentos had a slingshot somersault senton by Trueno on Apocalipsis which looked about as awkward as you can imagine since the guys doing the spot are two of the most awkward wrestlers in the company. HSN used a tope suicida on Sagrado and then Volador somersaulted up Misterioso right into the Gory Special Driver which was a neat spot. Finally Volador used a Super Quebrada on Misterioso to end the new spots for the week.

Before the main event they had a skit with Negro/Metal where I think Metal was claiming his car was broken and he couldn't give Negro a ride somewhere. Then the FUCKING GORGEOUS NEW CMLL EDECAN comes up to them and says she needs a ride somewhere. Of course Metal suddenly realizes how to fix the car and offers her a ride instead of Negro. Negro is all confused as to why he would choose her over his own brother so I guess that confirms the Negro rumors. HILARIOUS moment early in the skit where a taxi driver obviously unaware something is being filmed stops beside Negro to offer him a ride and Negro has to tell him to pretty much get the fuck out of the shot.

Negro Casas/Heavy Metal/Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero/Universo 2000: *yawn* Generic main event you've seen a billion times. The previous match had more heat than this. Metal is just an embarassment. I'm sure you could get a great drinking game out of any Metal/Atlantis exchanges though just to see who is the first one to blow a spot and how quickly it will take Atlantis to forget he is supposed to be the rudo. Guerrero pins Bucanero while holding the ropes in a really anti-climactic finish. Rating: .25

2 out of 3. Not a bad episode but that main event left a bad taste in my mouth. They should have aired the Parka/Wagner match instead even if it involved Kenzo Suzuki.

AAA TV 5/31/06 in San Luis Potosi:

HOLY SHIT! The most insane dive of the show was *NOT* in the Fuerza Aerea match!

Oriental vs Toro Irisson: Horrible. Just plain horrible. The announcers kept talking about how Irisson trained the U.S. to be a vale tudo fighter and that is speacilty is kicks and punches. Naturally he followed up with the worst punches and kicks in pro wrestling history. Even worse is he doesn't even look or act like a wrestler. He looks like some dude that should be starting a Sunday afternoon BBQ and relaxing with a few cold ones while WATCHING wrestling on television. Oriental hit a plancha at some point. They blew a ton of spots and for no reason Irisson kicked Oriental in the balls for the DQ. Why was this even booked? Can you believe they end up following this up two months later in Torreon with a revancha tag match? Rating: ZERO

Mascarita Sagrada 2000/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro/Mini Chessman: This was three falls for some reason. Mini Abismo seems to have really gotten better at his matwork(and yes, he used to be really great before so imagine NOW). He has some cool counters and somehow makes things believeable against guys half his size. Rudos took over after the slow start. At one point Mini Abismo used a flying keylock! I don't think I've ever seen that in Lucha and how the hell was little Parkita able to hold him up? Usual tecnico comeback. Mascarita used an awesome spinning headscissors pinfall on Mini Chessman to win the second fall. Third fall had some decent exchanges but it wasn't mind blowing and as I said above... it's still the same with Mascarita/Mini Abismo. Parkita used a tope suicida. Mascarita had the match won but Chessman slid into the ring(like a pro!) and spewed him with mist. Parka then ran out and grabbed the bottle of blood(well, isn't it?) and spewed some at Mini Abismo to knock him outside which was just weird b/c Parka's mask covers his face so there's no way he could have poured the stuff in his mouth so naturally nothing came out.:/ Mini Abismo sold being blind anyways and fell outside for a diving frankensteiner by Mascarita. Parkita then pinned Mini Chessman to a huge pop. Rating: .50

FUERZA AEREA VS LA SECTA - BEST OF 1,241: The tecnicos have enough spots for a music video in their intro alone! This may have been the best planned out match from these two teams yet(not including the Atomicos Titles match since I'm pretending I haven't seen that yet). Started just like the previous match with La Secta being sent outside and both Super Fly/Rey Cometa went for asai moonsaults but were yanked off the apron to the outside. This is where the brawling/double-triple-quadrople teaming kicked in and that lasted 7-8 minutes or so. Ozz really loves doing the old Eddy Guerrero shoulder shake thing. After the comeback came... get this... 6-7 minutes straight of each tecnico getting to work with each rudo! It was awesome! This is exactly how I'd have had them work at the start of the feud if I was booking it. It's good so everyone can get used to each other. I'm assuming the point here was to figure out who worked best with who for the upcoming title matches. Rey Cometa was first and nailed all his spots perfectly and looked like a million bucks. His final matchup was against Ozz and he used a slingshot frankensteiner to the floor where Ozz took a huge header at the end of the move! Next in was Nemesis who wasn't as spectacular but also hit all his spots perfectly. The tecnicos seemed a lot more over than I expected considering La Secta are cheered big time in most places. Next in was Laredo Kid and he was on FIRE on this night. His first spot was reversing an Escoria whip into the turnbuckles by doing a RUNNING SSP ONTO HIS FEET! HOW AWESOME IS THAT? And why hasn't a U.S. indy guy stolen that yet? Laredo kept the insanity going with a running springboard moonsault and some wicked armdrags. He kind of screwed up the springboard somersault backflip armdrag spot but... IT'S A SPRINGBOARD SOMERSAULT BACKFLIP! You try hitting it right all the time! He ended all his spots by doing a running somersault plancha to NOWHERE... AND LANDING ON HIS FEET! ~LAREDO KID! Next in was Super Fly and he started his exchange with a backflip off the first turnbuckle and another backflip all the way across the ring! He then grabbed Escoria and used a one legged twisting armdrag ala Mistico! After a gorgeous handspring moonsault, he got knocked down by Ozz but then sent the rudo flying with a huge sallida bump! And then... ASAI MOONSAULT TO PERFECTION! Nemesis/Cometa sent Cuervo/Escoria outside and Nemesis connected with a flip plancha through the ropes(he should use that move more!) while Cometa knocked Escoria into the crowd... climbed up top... waited for the fans to move... AND NAILED AN INSANE PLANCHA OVER THE RINGPOST INTO THE CROWD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UN-FUCKING-REAL!!! Usually when I've seen that spot done, the wrestler doing the move tries to go for distance and launches himself but Cometa decided to get as much height as he could so the dive look absolutely GORGEOUS! In the ring Laredo Kid used a handspring enzuigiri on Espiritu and put him up top. He went for something but Espiritu shoved him off which Laredo countered by backflipping only to met by a flying dropkick. Espiritu missed an asai moonsault and Laredo went to use a surfboard but Ozz snuck in and low blowed him for the instant DQ! The refs brawled afterwards but I didn't care. Perfectly laid out match and if AAA were on weekly and I saw this, I'd be DYING to get to Triplemania already. Rating: 1 (duh!)

El Intocable vs Alan Stone: Whoa, flashbacks to March AAA TV! I guess this feud never did have a true ending. Fast start with Intocable ending up outside and Alan Stone launching himself with a RUNNING SOMERSAULT PLANCHA *ONTO* THE GUARDRAIL!!! Oh maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. I have no clue how the fuck he continued the match! This was equal to the infamous Alan Stone/Rayde vs Moto Cross/Hijo Del Diablo Promo Azteca match where he did the exact same thing in a smaller building. The difference here was he got way more distance but he got folded up pretty badly! He continued to bring the awesome inside the ring by nailing a wicked corkscrew splash! Working with Intocable really brings out the awesome 2000/2001 Alan Stone. They brawled to the floor where Intocable hit a LAME silla dive. Stone ended up getting backdropped into the crowd and they brawled there for a bit. Stone got pelted with garbage from some girls who like Intocable(or some guys?). After a couple of nearfalls, Stone tried a springboard dropkick but nailed Hijo Del Tirantes who took a good bump. He tried to low blow Intocable who countered and used one of his own. He then used a sunset flip and Hijo Del Tirantes woke up... counted...1...2...and Intocable let go b/c he thought it was 3. OOPS! Didn't matter b/c the 3 was counted anyways and the crowd was cheering no matter what. Maybe it's good that Gala skipped this episode b/c cubs woulda had a field day with this finish. Rating: 1

Vampiro/Octagon/El Zorro vs Konnan/Ron Killings/Chessman: Chessman got the last intro again! SUPERSTAR! This wasn't a bad match at all. Vamp seemed extra motivated and once again took Chessman's awesome spear. Later on Vamp even took a header off a kick from Killings. Unlike when Killings was around before, they didn't just make sure he was in the ring with Parka as he got to face all the tecnicos in this one and it led to some neat segments. Vamp and Killings almost killed each other at one point when Vamp went for a spinning kick as Killings went for his corkscrew elbow and they hit hard. Octagon sent Chessman flying wtih a huge sallida(better than Ozz's!) and then used a bullet tope suicida. Zorro tried to DDT Konnan on the apron but Konnan was in too much pain to take the bump which made Zorro look like an idiot.:/ Crowd didn't get the finish at all which was Vamp rolling Killings up as he tried to put a submission on him. You can tell Vamp was pissed afterwards but the crowd was happy either way. Way better than I expected, good job by all six guys. Rating: .75

La Parka Jr. vs Muerte Cibernetica w/ Konnan as ref: CH-CH-CH-CH-CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSMAN! This is another match to point to when it comes time to vote for AAA's MVP. What do you do when you are having a match involving two guys who need to be healthy for an upcoming huge show and are limited as workers? Easy... insert Chessman to take all the punishment. He and Rey Cometa were the seconds but Cometa got taken out early. Chessman interfered freely and Konnan didn't care obviously. In fact, Konnan also helped beat up Parka. Parka grabbed a weapon the rudos were using and knocked Banderas and Chessman to the floor, then hit CHESSMAN with a tope suicida. Konnan beat Parka up some more and CHESSMAN held him for a Banderas tope suicida but he moved and CHESSMAN took the move. Parka got back inside and this time actually tope'd Banderas! But then he re-entered the ring with CHESSMAN and began doing moves on him. Konnan grabbed Parka and CHESSMAN went for a superkick but of course nailed his friend. CHESSMAN got knocked outside and Parka rolled up Banderas as Hijo Del Tirantes was ordered to run to the ring by Pena and count the pinfall. Parka wins! This was a very entertaining one man show and these same two guys have a rematch on the final AAA TV before Triplemania in Pachuca. How much you wanna bet Chessman is involved again and ends up taking more punishment than he did in this match? Rating: .75

3 out of 6 but once again misleading b/c overall this was a killer episode. Great build to Triplemania and one of the hottest crowds of the year. Easily a highly reccomended episode for any AAA fans or people who want to become AAA fans but don't know what episodes to start with.

CMLL TV 7/1/06:

Fantastic episode!

Ultimo Dragoncito/Pequeno Olimpico vs Pequeno Damian 666/Pequeno Halloween: No, you are not misreading things! Mini's on TV! Absolutely fantastic match. Not one of the greatest CMLL mini's matches of all-time(there have been tons better) but once again this proves the CMLL mini's are quite possibly better than the AAA mini's, they just rarely get the chance to show it on TV. The key to why this match was so good, in my opinion at least, was that it may as well have had a "Lucha Classica" graphic beforehand since the style was completely different from what you see on CMLL TV these days. It was not a finisher-fest! They actually started slow, picked up the pace, used lots of creative spots and the second fall especially was a masterpiece as it wasn't the rudos just taking over, hitting one or two big moves and then pinning their opponent. Finish was really good and has a sick Pequeno Halloween bump. I definitely need to see more of him. The only bad thing about this match is that we may never get to see any of these guys again. Rating: 1

Pantera/Neutron/Sagrado vs Sangre Azteca/Loco Max/Hombre Sin Nombre: A bit on the short side but everyone looked decent(Neutron) to excellent(Azteca). Crowd really got into it in the third fall b/c of the mask ripping. Pantera used a wicked headscissors off the top to take Azteca to the floor in the first fall but the camerashot was awful. Sagrado got DQ'ed in the third fall for ripping the masks off HSN and Sangre Azteca. Rating: .75

Mascara Purpura vs Stuka Jr.: I initially disliked this b/c I was expecting so much and wanted to see at least 2 dives by each guy. But when I rewatched it, I liked it a lot. And now after getting the Fredo DVD's and not having seen it for a while, it holds up as one of the better Lightning Matches. Stuka looked great in the role of the rudo and controlled Purpura nicely. Both dives they nailed were excellent, especially Stuka's asai moonsault into the seats! The in-ring flips were well done and it was sorta played like the two were trying to one-up each other which I thought was neat. They definitely impressed the crowd which popped huge for Purpura's SSP finish so they accomplished their goal. I think this was a last second addition to the Arena Mexico show after the Reyes Del Aire match bombed so the promotion must have felt they needed to make up for that. In that case, job well done. Rating: 1

Felino/La Mascara/Volador Jr. vs El Averno/El Mephisto/Misterioso II: Revenge match after what happened the week before. Rudos were in control to start and this fall was classic current Lucha with the rudos doing NOTHING AT ALL until they hit their generic finishers 2 minutes in and that was that. Comeback in the second fall was quick and well-executed. Mascara used a tope suicida on Misterioso. Volador Jr. nailed Averno with the Spanish Fly(I knew they'd go for that spot even after what happened the week before) and then he rolled up Misterioso with a somersault into a sunset flip. Third fall was all about Volador looking great and mask ripping from everyone. Have the masks gotten cheaper or do current luchadors just not know how to rip them properly? So many times during the buildup to the July 14th cage match, guys would get their masks ripped so bad that they'd run to the back and have to get a new mask to wear. For some reason, I have no recollection of ANY LUCHADOR at ANY TIME in the past having to run to the back to get a new mask. They used to just keep working with ripped masks... it helped with the emotion. So I dunno what the deal is with that. In this case Misterioso had to borrow an Averno mask from someone at ringside. The cameramen showed they learned nothing from the second match as they got a horrible shot of Felino taking Averno to the floor with a frankensteiner off the top rope. Volador used an asai moonsault on Misterioso right before that. Ref bump and Mephisto low blowed Mascara to win. My only complaint is this was too much lucha by numbers with the short first fall, comeback/dive/finisher and only 3 real exchanges in the third fall. Otherwise, a fine effort. Rating: .75

Momentos was all repeats.

Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr./Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero/Marco Corleone: Short match... about 10 minutes tops for two falls. Rudos were in control early and Jindrak was on FIRE hitting a bunch of neat moves. He ended up doing a running plancha onto his partners which cued the comeback. Bucanero did a running somersault plancha onto Guerrero. Jindark was AWESOME to finish the fall as he and Caras squared off and Caras went to grab him for the german suplex for the finish and Jindrak had a priceless look on his face as if saying "you're kidding me, right?". Prime example of how lame the current format is as Caras has a finisher where he needs to be BEHIND HIS OPPONENT and he can't even be bothered to come up with a way to transition into it, instead he just runs up and tries to do his move. Pathetic. Second fall was the usual Bucanero/Guerrero stuff and a nice Dos Jr./Jindrak exchange. Tecnicos used their usual double dives which left Guerrero to low blow Bucanero for the DQ. I thought Jindrak looked great once again but the Lizmark Jr./Atlantis exchange really hurt the match. It's just pure torture to see those two in the ring together. Rating: .75

4.25 out of 5 overall. Like I said - FANTASTIC EPISODE! Not a single match was even half-disapointing and you had a hot crowd for the undercard stuff. Definitely go out of your way to pick this show up off Fredo.

CMLL GdR 6/17/06:

I still love the opening segment where you get to see undercard highlights really quickly.

Negro Casas/Heavy Metal/Rey Bucanero/Maximo vs Universo 2000/Tarzan Boy/Terrible/Okumura: Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Only guys in this match I'm really a fan of right now are Negro, Universo and Tarzan, plus they were building to a cage match so I figured this would be a long pointless brawl. It started like that but the tecnicos made a comeback soon afterwards. Terrible showed the effects of him becoming a part-time wrestler over the past year as right when he and Maximo got in the ring - EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER WATCHED LUCHA LIBRE *knew* that Maximo was going to hit the ropes and do his usual headscissors spot. Seriously - it was as predictable as Octagon's moveset. Of course Terrible horribly botched it and just decided to get out of the ring before he fucked anything else up so Maximo could tope him. More horrible Terrible and Heavy Metal stuff later in the match that almost made me hit the FF button. Match ends with the rudos fighting amongst themselves and the tecnicos scoring quick pins. Challenges for the cage match afterwards.

Ultimo Guerrero/Averno/Mephisto vs Damian 666/Mr. Aguila/Misterioso II: Really really really short... even by current standards. Cubs has this timed at 7:37 for 3 falls and I swear he's over by at least a minute, if not two. Prime example of a dive + finisher-fest. Only good thing to say is at least the dives were cool since you rarely get to see Averno/Mephisto fly like they used to. Guerrero pined Damian with a superbomb to win.

MAYBE 17 minutes of wrestling in the one hour show. Just fan-fucking-tastic. The only thing worth seeing on this episode were the cool dives in the main event so my suggestion is to go watch any AAA match which is longer, has better wrestling than this entire show had and will have the same cool dives.

CMLL GdR 6/24/06:

First match was the Reyes Del Aire which has already been discussed to death.

Negro Casas/Heavy Metal/Rey Bucanero/Maximo vs Universo 2000/Tarzan Boy/Terrible/Okumura - Cage: This kind of match has only been run roughly 15 times in the last 3 years and yet still Maximo doesn't understand you have to wait a few minutes before escaping. HUH? Okumura has the same problem... oh no wait... he's the one booked to jump off the cage this time. Maybe next time they can pick someone who doesn't look like he's more falling off the cage rather than willingly jumping onto everyone. Time for everyone to escape and they do so quickly without much emotion. Only real story is Maximo being stuck inside for a while but you know he's not losing so he eventually leaves with 3 guys left. Comes down to Bucanero vs Okumura so ending is predictable... not just b/c of who the wrestlers are but also b/c there's a great camerashot of Bucanero telling Okumura it's time for the finish. Okumura assists Bucanero into using the Buca Storm and we're done here.

If you want to see the undercard flyers in a rare TV match, get this show b/c it'll be your only chance for a while. Otherwise - AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!

CMLL Guadalajara 2/19/06:

El Hijo Del Texano and Tony Rivera vs Magnum and Malefico: Not a bad match. Each team got their moments(i.e. the first and second fall) and used some okay moves. Tecnicos did dives in the third fall. They did more nearfalls than I was expecting which was neat and the tecnicos came out on top. Better than expected.

Rayo Jr./Rayman vs Blue Panther/Dos Jr.: It's so embarassing how out of touch Rayo is with the current CMLL guys. He and Dos had no chemistry at all and you know Rayo wasn't getting in there with Panther! The Rayman/Panther stuff wasn't as good as you'd expect but then again Rayman isn't in-shape and has lost a step or five. Rayos win to assure themselves a first or second place finish in the mini-tournament.

Terrible/Emilio vs Olimpico/Tarzan Boy: Not so great. Lots of boring brawling. Terrible/Emilio make a funny team but why is Emilio doing all the hard work? Terrible has to keep himself healthy for his commercials? Infernales win.

Blue Panther/Dos Jr. vs Terrible/Emilio: Better than the previous match but nothing memorable. Panther with a tope suicida on Terrible and I think the tecnicos won. Honestly, this episode was getting pretty boring so I began to FF through.

Rayo Jr./Rayman vs Olimpico/Tarzan: Mostly a brawl with Rayo Jr. getting his leg stuck in a chair for half the match. Then he came in and had to win the match for his team all by himself. First he used a Rock Bottom on Olimpico which must be Rayo's way of improving his moveset.:/ Then Dos Jr. came out to distract Tarzan so Rayo could hit the worlds lightest back suplex to win the tournament.

Opening tag match is good but the rest is just your average awful Guadalajara TV show. I hope the new episodes show more local guys than CMLL "stars".

AAA TV 6/4/06:

Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Laredo Kid/Nemesis vs Gran Apache/Los Espantapajaros I/II/III: THREE FALLS! Los Espantapajaros came out with NEW OUTFITS!!! The masks were all evil looking and it looked like their eyes were glowing. Fucking AWESOME! Tecnicos got a huge pop for their entrance. First fall was full of flying from each tecnico. This rudo team was obviously put together just to catch for the youngsters. Cometa did a running tornillo into an armdrag on Apache taking him into the crowd! Laredo Kid looked super fired up and was hitting a bunch of great spots. Fall ended with dual running somersault planchas from Cometa and Super Fly! Second fall got really interesting as the tecnicos stayed in control and kept hitting their flying moves. Nemesis finally looked like he fit in b/c Apache was holding him by the hand the entire time like he used to do with Sevilla. Before they got to the rudo domination, perhaps the greatest exchange ever took place. Apache jumped in the ring and was confronted by both Cometa and Super Fly. I thought someone screwed up and came in at the wrong time but instead Apache began to work an exchange with both guys at the same time!!! It was your typical back and forth action with armdrags and flips but Apache was working with both of them at the same time so fluidly! He ended up reversing a whip so they both got sent into the ropes and he dropped-down so they could do handsprings over him and then he took them out with double clotheslines! The only thing missing was both guys taking flip bumps. Rudos began to beat the tecnicos up and if there were any doubt as to who Los Espantapajaros were, there definitely isn't any more b/c they did the old Warriors spot where they lifted Laredo Kid up and began marching before they slammed him down. Some nice double/triple team moves to end the fall. Third fall was short. Tecnicos fought back but during the comeback Laredo Kid missed a really crazy Stardust Press on Apache. He had so much air, he may as well have just done the 630. Ended up hurting himself on the landing b/c he was overrotating as he smacked the canvas. The scarecrows then grabbed their giant sack and shoved him inside! This actually took quite a while and they seemed to be having problems so we got to see replays of the four or five spots beforehand. Finally Laredo Kid was jammed inside and rolled to the side so the match could continue. All of Los Espantapajaros got dropkicked outside and the tecnicos went for triple tope suicidas but were met with chairs! Nemesis took a horrible bump onto his head b/c not only did he get hit with the chair but he also crashed and burned on the tope suicida. The rudos then picked up the bag containing Laredo Kid and launched him over the top to the floor! THANK GOD Rey Cometa was standing there and made the catch or Laredo would have been dead. Rudos got DQ'ed. Great way to get the youngsters over as sympathetic babyfaces. Rating: 1

Juventud Guerrera/Psicosis/Crazzy Boy/Joe Lider vs Abismo Negro/Electro Shock/Histeria/Kaoma Jr.: Another three fall match! The best way to describe the entire match is... LOTS OF MOVES. There was really no flow as it was just guys doing various big moves and tagging out but that's to be expected. In the first fall Crazzy Boy did a spot where he picked Kaoma up on the apron for a fireman's carry and then jumped to the floor so Kaoma's face hit the apron on the way down. Then he nailed him with an asai moonsault. Joe Lider pussied out and did a lame somersault off the apron. I think Psic did a plancha. Not sure... so many spots it's hard to remember what came where. I know the second fall belonged to Los Vipers. Third fall had a cool move by Lider so I'm wondering where he stole it from? He grabbed Electro for an STO and then flipped as delivered the move. It looked neat. Then it was time for more death moves. Juventud ended the madness by doing a slingshot somersault plancha onto Abismo. Kaoma then ended up on the apron with both Crazzy and Lider... WHICH IS SOMETHING YOU NEVER WANT TO DO IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!! They tried to give him a Spanish Fly off the apron and all three guys almost died. Kaoma didn't flip with the move as you're supposed to which caused Lider to mess the timing up on his flip. It was straight out of a car crash from then as Crazzy Boy basically moonsaulted himself onto the ground, Lider only got halfway over and took a nasty fall on the top of his head, and finally poor Kaoma Jr. was driven face first into the ground with wrist getting twisted at an awful angle as he tried to save himself at the last second. IDIOTS. FUCKING IDIOTS. You'd think one of them would have had the brains to go up to Kaoma before the match and make sure he knows how to take a Spanish Fly properly. Oh I'm sorry, in the NGX and XLAW - EVERYONE knows how to take that move. Kaoma got stretchered immediatly, Crazzy Boy was alright and Lider disapeared... sadly, not forever. I forget how the match ended. Rating: 1

El Zorro vs Charly Manson - Mexican National Heavyweight Title: Pretty disapointing compared to their past matches. It seemed to be heavily edited and they were really gassed out by the end which led to some blown spots. They tried to play up the respect factor as guys came down to interfere but Zorro sent Intocable away and Manson told Electro/Abismo to take a hike. On the bright side though, this was a great crowd that understood the importance of selling bodyparts and how each guys had a specific finisher so when Manson went for El Pozo, the crowd ERUPTED! It really made up for the fact they blew a lot of stuff and the edits ruined the flow of the match. Manson won the title and began crying afterwards. Announcers said it ended Zorro's 5 year reign but that's not even close to being right. Rating: .75

Vampiro/Octagon/El Intocable vs Shocker/Scorpio Jr./Zumbido: I called the finish right when I began wondering where Alan Stone was. Typical match as you'd expect from these guys. Some good, some bad but generally entertaining. Octagon tope's Scorpio, Zumbido plancha'd Vamp and then Stone attacked Intocable for the DQ. Rating: .50

La Parka Jr. vs Muerte Cibernetica - Street Fight: Vampiro was referee for this and he let everything go! Chessman and Juventud kept interfereing freely. Crowd was really into the match and cheered Parka on as he got a huge beatdown. La Secta ran out as did the Mexican Powers. They brawled into the crowd and they were running the show in a bullring in Pachuca so you could probably tell what was coming. Crazzy Boy climbed up this INSANELY HIGH WALL. To me it looked higher than the ledge people jump off in Korakuen Hall! He waited till everyone was in the right position and MOONSAULTED OFF OF IT!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT!!! Crowd went nuts. The guy has balls, I've give him that. He barely had his footing when he jumped! Of course with 10 guys below him, guess who ended up being the only one to catch him? If you guessed Chessman, you are master of the obvious! Of course Juventud was the furthest away and actually seemed to run away as Crazzy Boy came down but when everyone else fell, Juventud fell as well. Back in the ring Muerte used a low blow and pinned Parka b/c Vamp didn't see the low blow. Rating: .50 for the craziness

3.75 out of 5. Hot show to lead into the show of the year -> Triplemania. Definitely reccomended viewing.

I re-watched Triplemania and it holds up to the first time I reviewed it(check back to the July 3rd post). Easily the overall show of the year. Every Lucha fan needs to go out of their way to pick it up. I enjoyed the four way tag match more than the first time I saw it and actually understood the finish this time around so it made sense. Vamp's team vs Los Guapos was shockingly great. It's a shame the Fuerza Aerea vs Secta match got so clipped but there are some must-see spots in the match! Crazzy Boy's moonsault off the entrance wasn't as spectacular as the week before but had the same ending with Chessman doing the catching and Juventud running away. When will Juventud finally grow up? Anyways, once again... GET - THIS - SHOW!

CMLL GdR 7/1/06:

Blue Panther/Brazo De Oro/Satanico vs Emilio Charles Jr./Misterioso II/Pierroth: Oh... my... goodness. If I wasn't on a such a CMLL-high after the amazing TV show today, I'd have ripped this match to shreds. Instead I'll just sum it up by saying this was HORRIBLE and another worst match of the year candidate. Lots of stumbling around doing nothing and zero bumps. I don't even think the match ever settled down into any one-on-one exchange. I guess that's to be expected in a match where 3 guys are a year or two past when they should have retired, another guy is approaching the year he should retire and the remaining two guys are being horribly miscast in their roles here. One good thing about the match - Panther's submission at the end. OUCH.

Mistico/Negro Casas/Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis/Tarzan Boy/Ultimo Guerrero: Match of the show! Well... yeah... I guess Diana La Cazadora vs La Medusa in a 40 minute match would qualify as well if it had occured and aired. Typical lucha by numbers main event. No new spots, not much effort and crowd wasn't as into it as I expected them to be. Finish was really amateur with Bucanero just holding Atlantis in a wheelbarrow as everyone setup for their own finishers. I'll blame Atlantis since I love doing that.

How does anyone watch this show without a fast forward button?

Why did it seem like there was more than 30 minutes of talking compared to the 16 minutes of wrestling?

PLEASE tell me the new Fox Sports show is nothing like this.

Usual quick thoughts on this week's Lucha, which happened to be an EXCELLENT week...

CMLL: Top 4 Arena Mexico matches aired which means Tigre Metalico got a rare TV appearence which will make Ryan happy. In fact with this match airing and the new TV show, it gives guys like Virus and Sangre Azteca two matches per week! Virus looked great but I hate saying that b/c he has no chance of ever moving past where he is now. He needs to find good pay in Japan and just go there where his talent will be appreciated. It's much the same position Marvin was in before he left for Japan full-time and now he refuses to return to Mexico since he is making better money, getting more respect and has a family he can't leave. Anyways, match itself was above average with everyone looking good. Next up was Alex Koslov's debut and WHAT A MATCH! I've added it to my MOTYC list but you all need to judge for yourselves. Reminded me of the old Habanas matches in the sense the Mexicans all stepped up their game to not be upstaged by the newcomer(s). Every fall had some fun moments and lots of back and forth action. Koslov got over really well for his wrestling and then got his shtick over as well by putting on a russian hat in the third fall which Sagrado ended up knocking off with an enzuigiri. Speaking of Sagrado... WOW! What an improvement. Felino/Terrible looked the best they have in months. Insane finishing sequence. I love Koslov's russian legsweep into a crossface move. I'd say an easy **** match in my book. Momentos was next and finally whoever was editing understood the TRUE PURPOSE OF MOMENTOS. Nobody gives a shit about seeing stuff from the previous week! First up was VALIENTE tossing his name into the hat for dive of the year candidacy as he got a huge running start, lept onto the second rope, then lept *BACKWARDS* onto the top rope on the other side of the ring and moonsaulted high into the air onto Apocalipsis Now! IN-FUCKING-SANITY! Next up was Metron(TM me! Thanks Henrik!) with a ringpost moonsault. Then Felino with a somersault plancha, Volador with a Spanish Fly and Metron again with a diving tope. That match looked good from the photos/clips. Semi-main had Volador replacing Negro Casas. Really short lucha by numbers match but any time you get to see Mistico/Volador teaming you are in for some nice spots. They did dual tornillos in the second fall which I loved. As usual I'll complain the match was too short since the first two falls were over in 3-4 minutes. Third fall had a slingshot somersault dive by Metal followed by a Volador out of control Spanish Fly on Mephsito and La Mistica for Averno which got a HUGE POP! Main event was more about the pre-match activities than the actual match. Latin Lover came out to a huge pop and there was chaos at ringside with all the photographers wanting to get the best shot of him posing with Los Perros Del Maaal. The match itself was alright... made a little extra special due to the hot crowd which was another near sellout. Third fall was the best fall of the match as usual. Caras Jr. did an incredible move where he ran down the ramp and lept to the top rope in one fluid motion for a dropkick on Damian! Perrito low blow got the win. Really great episode of TV.

AAA: This was the Morelia taping(why no results from the past week of tapings yet?) which didn't look too good on paper but ended up being surprisingly decent. Opener was a weird mixed six person tag with BRANDON showing up out of nowhere. I guess the idea is Apache organized the match on purpose to exclude Billy Boy and include Brandon so he could hit on Fabi. Before they did the angle, the wrestling was actually kinda good and there is officially no doubt in my mind that Brandon was the Espantapajaro (let's say... #1) that kept doing the flip on the ropes deal. Short dive sequence at the end which left Fabi and her dad all alone in the ring. She was in control until Brandon forced her to kiss him which brought out Billy Boy. He low blowed Apache and then AB-SO-FUCKING-LUTELY MURDERIZED Brandon with one of the most sick tope suicidas ever. I wouldn't be shocked at all if Brandon was injured. Next up was a rare three fall mini's match! My first time seeing Mascarita Divina and Mini Charly Manson for an extended time and they looked good... but I still want to see more and especially against different guys. I wanna make sure they don't have Cheech/Cloudy syndrome which means they can only work well with each other. Mini Manson has something wrong with look but I can't put my finger on it. He doesn't remind me of his counterpart at all. They need to just make him into a Mini Espantapajaro to make me happy. Minis went a good 20 minutes with lots of dives and flying. I will never understand how cubs can't enjoy these guys and says it's the same thing over and over. Mascarita...erm... guess I can't say that any more... Sagrada did a wicked frog splash style tope suicida in the first fall. Octagoncito had two great dives. Mascarita Divina used a tope suicida into an armdrag which sounds crazy for a mini but he's not exactly that tiny. Finish was really good with a couple of teases and then all three tecnicos(especially Divina) used cool roll-ups on the rudos. Great work. Would have been match of the week if not for Koslov's match. Noti AAA previewed the upcoming dream match tournament. It's basically just like the Alternativa where the winner gets a chance to be in the big matches except the same problems exist that CMLL had with their tournament. Misterios II won but he's still a tercera match wrestler and semi-main event Sunday Coliseo guy. Meanwhile the AAA tournament features guys like Rey Cometa and Laredo Kid who have already been given semi-main matches. Plus you have Apache and Mr. Condor(shouldn't that have read Angel Mortal?) who participated in rookie matches back in 1985! But I guess we need some guys to do the catching. I'm sure the format of the tournament will change but the idea seemed to be three tapings with three matches on each show and the finals held at Verano De Escandalo. Here's my question... three tapings + three matches each taping = 18 guys are needed. They only announced 12. Plus they said the 3 winners will meet at Verano De Escandalo and how do you get 3 winners from 9 matches? There's a taping on September 3rd in Tulancingo so perhaps we'll understand when that lineup is released. JUST FUCKING PUT REY COMETA IN THE MAIN EVENT! Third match was La Secta vs MexPowers. Really sloppy match with lots of walking around and looking for tables/chairs to create really hard to do spots. I won't go into details but Ozz and Lider ended up going through tables, both looking very weak. I thought Crazzy Boy was about to kill Ozz by putting him through another table but Psicosis ran in and two Secta guys ended up going through the table. Psic accidentally smashed a lighttube over Juventud's head and Escoria faked a low blow for the DQ win. What a mess. Semi-main had my hero -> LAREDO KID! His two spots easily made the match a must-see. He did a 450 splash off the apron onto Alan Stone and later he did a Venum-style second rope springboard tornillo with NO HANDS onto Histeria! The landing looked sick b/c he was tucked in. I don't know HOW he did that spot. If Pena stays alive for another year and all these Fuerza Aerea guys keep doing stuff like THAT... I'm afraid to say it but they may pass Los Cadetes Del Espacio as my favorite flying stable ever. Main event was actually good. Chessman was bumping all over the place and for some reason so was Electro? Get this folks... *GRONDA II USED A DIVE*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He got assisted into a pescado on... well... I won't even bother saying who caught him b/c any true AAA fan knows already. Of course Gronda II got "hurt" but I'm not sure if AAA is just parodying the original Gronda with this one getting injured every week but still wrestling the following week. Then there was a real scary spot as Zorro picked up Electro Shock for a running power bomb and I think Electro was supposed to reverse and frankensteiner Zorro to the outside as they got near the ropes but he either forgot or Zorro forgot to hang on b/c Electro ended up taking a nasty power bomb onto the edge of the apron and then falling to the floor!!! Joe Lider woulda been so proud. He seemed alright but that could have easily been the end of Electro's career. Stop smiling cubs!

IWRG TV 4/27/06:

Avisman I/Puma/Ultimo Tigre vs Black Terry/Los Hermanos Muerte II y III: Finally after reading about Los Hermanos Muerte for years in lucha magazines - A REAL MATCH TO WATCH OF THEIRS! Ultimo Tigre looked better than he did in his debut match and I could easily see him becoming another under-appreciated worker named Tigre. The rudos bumped well and made the tecnicos look great in the first fall. I still think Puma is horribly miscast as a tecnico but I will admit he looked alright against Terry. Second fall was all rudos and they looked good dominating the tecnicos. Third fall was also good and had dives from Both Avisman and Tigre on Los Muertes. This left Terry and Puma and this time Terry got the win with a reverse lungblower which seems to be his new trademark move. Very good match.

Volador Jr./El Hijo Del Texano/Fantasma Jr. vs Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro/Pierroth Jr.: A lot more mailed in than I would have expected. The only real highlight of the match was a nice exchange where Volador Jr. did this crazy springboard somersault double armdrag on Los Cerebros in the third fall. Tecs did triple tope suicidas and Hijo Del Pierroth low blowed Volador for the win. You'd think these guys could put on a better match.

Dr. Wagner Jr./Lizmark Jr./Mr. Niebla/Pantera vs Bestia Salvaje/El Veneno/Head Hunter I/Pierroth: Ouch. Pretty bad match. Just a long brawl with Lizmark Jr. trying to stay outside the ring as much as possible since he seems to hate wrestling and all that. Weak dives by Pantera and Niebla at the end and just a mess of a finish.

Very Imevision UWA-ish show with the solid but unspectacular opener, mailed in semi-main and brawl-filled main event in front of a horribly mic'ed crowd. Skippable episode... perhaps could have been saved by showing the tag segunda as they would usually do.

IWRG TV 5/5/06:

Debut TV show from Arena Neza!

Me at first: YAY! ARENA NEZA!

Me 1.5 seconds later: BOO! ARENA NEZA!

There were technical issues to open the show so Llanes just stood there like an idiot waiting to do the intro. Then just as they went to the first match you knew this may have been a bad idea b/c the arena is a dump and they didn't bother setting up any extra lighting. So my advice for people with bad eyes is to definitely skip this show b/c it involves a lot of squinting.

Los Payasos Tricolor vs Kaleth/Nemesis/Pirata Morgan Jr.: So I read the Torneo Leyenda De Plata last night for 14 minutes and naturally I complained at how a match like that can be so short. Then I watched this today and the first fall went *15 minutes PLUS*!!! However in this case I'd like to beg whoever books IWRG to please please please never do something like that again. Same stupid clowning around spots we've all seen before and it just never seemed to end. It continued into the third fall after the rudos got 2 minutes of offense. Entire match ended up going about 30 minutes but there was very little action and no highspots to speak of. Naturally it ended on a cheap DQ for jumping onto the ref.

At this point I actually did pop the DVD out to make sure I wasn't watching UWA stuff by accident.

Pantera/Felino vs Mazada/Shigeo Okumura: With the opening match and following interviews taking up 45 minutes of the show, you knew something would have to be shortened and since IWRG doesn't edit their matches b/c they have the worst production of any Lucha show EVER... you knew this match wouldn't go long. It barely went 10 minutes and what the fuck... ANOTHER HORRIBLE DQ ENDING! Entire match was just a huge waste of time, even if it was only 10 minutes. You'd think they would have alerted the guys beforehand that it's a TV taping so they may want to work a LITTLE harder than usual.

Fantastik vs Matrix - Mask vs Mask: Well, it's definitely an IWRG show when you have two guys who haven't been on TV in ages suddenly having a random mask match for no reason at all. My initial thought after seeing Fantastik come out was there was NO WAY he would bust out his trademark dive b/c there was so little room at ringside and the ground looked like it would KILL to land on. First fall was all Matrix as he ripped up Fantastik's mask and beat him easily. Second fall had the standard comeback and some mask ripping from Fantastik who won with a cool rollup I've never seen before. Third fall was little on drama and heavy on tons of moves. Matrix did a somersault off the apron onto Fantastik. Then he tried a tope suicida but nailed Cyborg(his second; why were Niebla and Cyborg seconds if they weren't even wrestling on the show?). Then even though I said no way he'd do it... FANTASTIK DID IT! RUNNING SOMERSAULT SENTON SPLASH OVER THE TOP!!! That looks like it KILLS! Back inside the ring both guys looked really careless at various points. Fantastik almost dropped Matrix on his head trying a Michinoku Driver. Fantastik grabbed Matrix for a Styles Clash but seemed to try and climb the turnbuckles while holding him, realized it couldn't be done and instead just went for the move before Matrix could protect himself. That was scary. Matrix sloppily dropped Fantastik on his neck with a power bomb. Fantastik finally won with the same cool rollup he used in the second fall. Fun match.

Canek/Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Head Hunter I: Oh boy... a match where Perrito is the best worker involved... now that's bad news. Lots of fast forwarding. I realized the match was over when I saw two Head Hunters so I guess that team got DQ'ed for interference. OVER! YAY! RIGHT? WRONG!

Canek vs Rayo De Jalisco Jr. - IWRG IC Heavyweight Title: WILL THE TORTURE NEVER END? At this point I was begging for both guys to KO each other even if it meant seeing Perrito vs Head Hunter instead. Sadly they wrestled... or... did whatever they do... for about 10 minutes. Canek cheated to win the belt.

3 DQ's... a horrible main event with Canek cheating to come out on top and win a title... I guess I was watching UWA after all.

CMLL GdR 7/15/06:

Volador Jr./Sagrado/La Mascara vs El Hijo Del Pierroth/Misterioso II/Olimpico: Far too short and mailed in. La Mascara's offense now consists of a running frankensteiner, tope suicida and La Campana. He should be so thankful the current style has changed or he'd be in the Mano Negra Jr. position of 1996, getting his butt handed to him on a nightly basis by mad undercard veteran rudos. Volador Jr. and Sagrado looked alright but had no time to go the extra mile and do anything really cool. I thought the third fall was worse than lucha by numbers. No term has been coined yet to name what happened there.

Oh man, I just realized I forgot to watch the main event.

I need new AAA to review...