Various Comments:

Stuka Jr. in Guadalajara: He's been in a couple full matches and a couple clipped ones. His spots are still jaw-dropping and he moves around the ring like a 20 year veteran. This guy is money in the bank if he doesn't blow out his knees. One of the cooler spots I saw him do was an asai moonsault dive where he landed STANDING ON A FRONT ROW SEAT! His execution is so perfect that it scares me. Reminds me a lot of Volador.

Santo/Mistico vs Averno/Mephisto + Mistico vs Averno: These matches took place in the span of two weeks in Guadalajara with the tag being used to setup the singles match. Tag match was pretty decent early on but fell apart in the third fall. I don't get why but everyone just seemed lost and they botched setting up Santo's diving tope into a tope suicida. The singles match the following week was the usual good Mistico/Averno match but they never tried to make it anything special. If you've seen the 1/30 match, you have no reason to see this one. It's shorter and they do a lot of the same spots. One good thing is the building looked PACKED for both these matches. The same could not be said when Atlantis/Bucanero were headlining on another show I watched.

CMLL TV April 14/1991: What an awesome episode! Started off with a video package introducing Octagoncito who was making his debut. Fun skit with him and Octagon practicing karate with each other. The first match was Mascarita/Octcito/Aguilita Solitaria vs Piratita/Espectrito/Pequeno Cobarde. This was FAR from the norm of mini's matches... at least from what I've come to expect. In fact, this was probably the closest thing to a squash match I've ever seen in Lucha Libre. The tecnicos DOMINATED from the start to finish(only two falls). It was seriously just 14 straight minutes of the rudos bumping all over the place except for 30-40 seconds in the second fall where they did a triple team spot. No exaggeration. The tecnicos were on FIRE throughout the entire 14 minutes and were doing spots they had no right to be doing for a 1991 match. Espectrito at one point took a kick from Mascarita and did a Jack Evans style flip bump onto his head! Where did that come from??? I won't spoil all the amazing spots but this match has my highest reccomendation if you just want to see how amazing mini's can be. The more I watch of the first generation mini's, the more I realize how wrong I was when I said they sucked. They might not be as spectacular when it comes to dive but in the ring they blow the current mini's out of the water. Next up was Mogur/Javier Cruz/Huracan Sevilla vs Herodes/Sultan Gargola/Gran Sheik. Standard match with rudos taking the first fall and tecnicos quickly winning the second fall. Third fall had some nick back and forth stuff and a great finishing sequence. Third match surprised me... it was Atlantis/Mascara Sagrada/Pirata Morgan vs El Egipcio/Mascara Ano 2000/Universo 2000. FUCKING GREAT! It started off slow so I got a little bored and figured it'd be a bad match but they picked it up in the second fall starting with a SICKENING BUMP from El Egipcio. It was the old Fuerza spot where he gets kicked in the ass and flies through the ropes but Egipcio went through the first/second rope and crashed HARD on the floor. It was a great spot b/c it allowed the tecnicos to control the ring 3-on-2 and win the fall which made sense since they lost the first fall b/c they were down 3-on-2. Third fall had tons of great action. I loved the finish as everyone teased doing a dive but kept getting cut off until finally Universo went for one but hit his brother. Once again the tecnicos had a 2-on-1 advantage in the ring and won. Great effort. Before the main event they showed the opener of the show(I guess there was extra TV time) which was Felino/Solar II vs Panico/Chicano Power Jr.. Another fun match. Solar II did a monkey flip on the floor to Chicano Power Jr. which was scary since so many fans were still coming into the building so it could have easily turned into a disaster. Lots of great simple moves by the tecnicos. Nice little finish to the match as well. Main event was the only bad part of the show as it had Octagon vs Satanico. Just 15 minutes of Satanico kicking Octagon's ass, ripping his mask and making him bleed. He got DQ'ed in the first fall and in the second fall Octagon basically hulked up, hit a big move and then for some reason decided to elbowdrop Satanico before pinning him. Pretty crappy end to an awesome show. Definitely worth picking up.

Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Octagoncito/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro/Mini Psicosis/Mini Chessman: This is from AAA TV 7/1/05 in Queretaro. Not so much of a great match... just a match that you must see b/c everyone dies. I hadn't seen the AAA mini's in a while so I was excited to see what Mascarita had invented since I'd last seen him and he didn't disapoint! One of his first spots was a crazy 6-1-9 into a satellite headscissors! The tecnicos all did a bunch of great flying early on before the rudos took over. Mini Abismo is the only mini rudo with decent offence though so the match kinda dragged until the comeback and then things just went fucking crazy. First Octagoncito slides Mini Abismo outside after a great exchange and he runs up top for a dive... does a corkscrew plancha but OVERSHOOTS Mini Abismo and piledrives himself on the floor! BRUTAL! Dead mini count: 1. Next up Mascarita does a few cool spots with Mini Chessman and sends him outside, tries a double springboard twisting moonsault dive but also overshoots Mini Chessman and lands hard on the guardrail, the momentum causing him to land right on his head/neck as Mini Chessman taps him on the back to let him know he's okay. I'm sure Mascarita was happy to know that. Dead mini count: 2. La Parkita must have seen the carnage and figured he had to top them all somehow so after Mini Psicosis missed a charge and went outside, Parkita climbed up for his usual moonsault dive but you could see he had no balance and when he got to the top he slipped and fell onto the ropes, then the turnbuckle and right onto his head in the middle of the ring.:/ Hilarious blown spot but Mini Psicosis covered as well as you can. Dead mini count: 3. Forget how the match ended, it doesn't matter! This was pure carnage for that entire two minute sequence.

Oscuridad/Rio Bravo/Tito Santana vs Hombre Sin Miedo/Laredo Kid/Babe Rap: This was from AAA TV 7/29/05 in Madero. They had two rings setup beside each other, one four sided and one six sided. This took place in the four sided ring. These guys are all locals from Nuevo Leon and shockingly were allowed to get alot of TV time and even got three falls to work with! The star of this for me was Babe Rap. He did this one spot using the ropes... shit... I can't even fucking describe it, I wish I had a capture card for a moment like this. I'll give it a shot though... he grabbed two of the rudos by their hands and then lept onto the second rope(not turnbuckle)... he then did a forward 360 so he flipped right onto the top rope and then backflipped back onto his feet to armdrag them over. It might be hard to picture but I swear that's what he did! Later on he even did a quadrople springboard armdrag where he used the second/third rope on one side of the ring and the second/third rope on the other side to finish it off. He hit it perfectly too! Laredo Kid also looked good here but that may have been just b/c of Rio Bravo who looks like a good base. Lots of dives from the tecnicos. Hombre Sin Miedo lives up to his name as he came close to crashing into the ringpost of the second ring when he did a somersault over the top in the second fall. In the third fall he had the dive of the night with a 10 foot high somersault plancha off the ringpost! Tecnicos won when Babe Rap did a shooting star press as Laredo Kid did a 450 splash. I need to see more of these guys.

Chessman: I've been slowly going through some of the newer AAA and he is still clearly head and shoulders above everyone. It's amazing how in every trios or atomicos match that occurs, every rudo finds one tecnico to work one exchange with and that's it. You never see them at any other point in the match except the rudo beatdown. With Chessman, he makes sure to work one exchange with every tecnico and when it comes time to catch the dives... he's there for everyone. You can see how every tecnico has so much more confidence as well when they are in the ring with him. That has to be the ultimate sign of being a great rudo.

CMLL TV 9/17/05: Ah, the Anniversary Show. Womens match was joined in progress near the end and looked really good. The trios match with Mistico returning was fantastic. Very predictable as the only goal was to get Mistico over and have Ultimo issue the challenge but a hot crowd made the match better than it actually was. Second fall had an awesome Mistico spot where he looked like he was about to slip off the top rope while running but somehow kept his balance and turned it into a GORGEOUS leaping corkscrew plancha into an armdrag on Mephisto. Mexico vs Japan was really fun b/c I love seeing Los GDI work as tecnicos. I got to see Ultimo work a full-fledged tecnico on two Guadalajara episodes and he is just as good tecnico as he is rudo. I was surprised since he doesn't seem like the type that can do the fancy armdrags and headscissors. Stupid me for forgetting that ULTIMO GUERRERO IS A FUCKING MACHINE! The three way hair match made no sense in the world. What happened to the old style coin flips to decide who faces who first? Why did Garza not care that Perrito took the first fall and saved his hair? Why is La Nazi helping Garza? Brutal.

CMLL TV 10/8/05: The women's match wasn't too great. Even though I still love Marcela and Amapola, if I see more matches like this I will turn into Henrik and bitch the women out every chance I get. The National Trios Titles match was FUCKING AWFUL. Forget the title change that made no sense... shouldn't the tecnicos have put forth their best effort since they were getting the biggest win of their career? The best worker in the match was Nitro. NITRO FOR FUCKS SAKE! Third fall was very sloppy and had no drama to it. Mr. Aguila in the Perros Del Mal is fun. Now the matches are still great brawls but you also get some flying tossed in. I am more excited about this feud more than ever. I don't think I even need to mention the main event was tons of fun. It's like AAA '94/'95, you just KNOW the main events are great, no questions asked.

Alan Stone/Catemaco vs Neo/Geo: Got this on an episode of Promo Azteca I was missing and watched this right away but haven't seen the rest of the show. As you can imagine... FANTASTIC. Neo and Geo are wrestling gods. The tecnicos were both really green but the rudos were just AMAZING. There was one spot Catemaco did where he really didn't have to do anything as the rudos just lifted him and spun him and such, then took rolling bumps so it looked like he did this amazing spot but if you rewatch it... it was all Neo and Geo. I could watch a match like this over and over and over and over. PUSH CALIGULA DAMNIT!

Leon Blanco/Tigre Blanco/Tigre Metalico vs Dr. X/Hooligan/Magnum: This was from an October CMLL Guadalajara episode. Can't remember too much about it except that I really enjoyed it when I watched it. Hooligan gets a lot of ring time so that had something to do with it I'm sure. I'm thinking there is gold in a future Leono/Leon Blanco vs Tigre Blanco/Tigre Metalico feud.

1966 Lucha: Yes... 1966 FUCKING LUCHA! This is on the end of Fredo's Classic Lucha 87 Vol. 2 DVD and it's a tag match with El Solitario/someone vs El Rebelde/someone. I knew I shouldn't watched this b/c after seeing the first 20 seconds I loved it so much I had to stop the DVD the other day. But today I watched the full thing and loved it even more! It's hard to explain but everything they did was so simple and yet innovative. Maybe not innovative as much as it was just a different way to do it... a way guys these days just don't bother using. Match was very fast and had a couple of spots I would have never imagined guys in 1966 doing. The only reason I'm trying not to go too crazy over this awesome match is b/c IT'S 1960'S FUCKING LUCHA LIBRE! WHERE THE HELL WOULD I EVEN GET TO SEE ANY MORE OF IT? Exactly! Nowhere! The entire DVD is great by the way. The rest is stuff from 1987 and is a ton of fun. Stuka, Atlantis, Satanico, MS-1, Tony Salazar... you want this all so GET IT!

AAA TV 6/18/05 Part 1: Stupid women's tag to start off. Just awful. Pena should have realized CMLL was gonna start using the women and just brought everyone in for his division. I think I'd like them working AAA better. Next up was a revancha match with El Angel/Colordman/T.D. vs The Black Family. The previous TV taping had this same match and it... wasn't... so... good. Chessman cost the tecnicos the match so naturally he came out with the Black Family here and cut a great promo. T.D. ended up dropkicking him outside and chasing him to the back which let the Black Family take the advantage at the start. After the comeback the match got AWESOME. Each tecnico worked an exchange with each rudo and the exchange were pretty much flawless. It built well with T.D. doing a bunch of great armdrags, Colorman doing basic stuff and then Angel tearing it up with some crazy moves. He did a great satellite armdrag on Ozz and then tore it up with Escoria ending with a neat headscissors sending Escoria outside and then doing the Silver King dive into an armdrag! Chessman then ran out and I thought to myself "why?"... and then I figured it out b/c T.D. sent Chessman outside and nailed him with a running somersault plancha over the ringpost! Remember what I always say about Chessman... the AAA tecnicos will only do their big dives if he is catching! Colorman sent Ozz outside and went for a running somersault plancha of his own but in very Chicago Express fashion, his gut made contact with the top rope and he went... BOOM! Vicious blown dive and he's just lucky he tucked his head at the last second. Angel then sent Escoria outside and *BARELY* cleared the guardrail with a plancha into the crowd! Cuervo grabbed T.D. and Chessman went for a low blow but T.D. jumped and Chessman hit his partner, then got dropkicked outside and T.D. pinned Cuervo to win. Great match and angle. Next up was the now infamous match where Intocable got hurt. Weird match as the crowd was actually boo'ing Antifaz and Alan Stone all match long. Could AAA fans be mad that new guys were brought in??? Match actually started off good so it sucks Intocable got hurt right when the rudos were ready to take over. Tecnicos eventually came back but things were a complete mess. Alan Stone did an ugly running somersault plancha onto Aguila in the only real highspot. A bunch of guys ran out to interfere and while the chaos was going on Alan/Aguila were still doing nearfalls. Psicosis/PsicoHisteria brawled on the outside while Antifaz just watched. In the ring Alan finally pinned Aguila after a missed 450 splash and a headscissor roll-up. Finish got a pop which was Alan's first of the night.