Wednesday, November 01, 2006

RXLL + Toryumon Mexico!

RXLL 9/2/06:

No need to get too much into the backstory as you should all know it by now. This is(read: was) Vampiro's short-lived promotion which I'm sure he hopes everyone will forget soon. I believe the idea was to creatle a Mexican version of the upcoming MTV wrestling show called 'Wrestling Society X' but instead of it came off more as XPW Mexico which is no surprise at all considering who the main players were behind the scenes.

This entire show is a comedy of errors. First off, the arena is really dark to hide the fact they drew nobody. Second, there is one announcer who sounds alot like Larry Rivera of XPW fame. Needless to say he is awful and had trouble remembering the names of anyone who wasn't an ex-XPW wrestler. More embarassing than that is they obviously had to insert him saying "we'll be right back after this break" in post-production so you had him screaming about a big move and all of a sudden in a quiet sleepy voice he says "we'll be right back in a moment". Very amateurish.

Los Hego Boys I y II vs Phoenix Star and Zokre: The latter team are wrestlers from California who I enjoy watching on PWG shows so I was looking forward to seeing them in Mexico. Of course I am not a paying customer and I'm pretty sure nobody who paid had any clue who they were. Waste of money? Check. Los Hego Boys are from Tijuana and are actually comprised of three guys. The two in this match are Luminoso and Iron Boy. An intelligent person may ask - why would they bring in two unknown from Tijuana? I would defend the promotion by saying they probably had big plans for them and wanted to focus a tag division around them. Of course in reality, I'm not even sure the promotion know why they brought them in. They weren't even identified seperately and we just "Hego Boy I" and "Hego Boy II", with each guy getting to place each number throughout the match depending on what Rivera called them even though Luminoso is twice the size of Iron Boy. Right away I knew I was in for an annoying 2 hours of TV b/c they were clipping back and forth in between moves with crappy music inserted during the cuts. Tons of flying as you'd expect and the teams worked a little better together than I expected. There were still a couple of obvious screwups though. Luminoso did a tope suicida early on. There was a really embarassing sequence where Phoenix Star did a fancy flip and then tried a backflip kick but landed on his head. He followed it up with a slingshot frankensteiner to the floor but Luminoso couldn't support the weight and fell backwards. The crowd laughed. Phoenix tried to clothesline Luminoso into the crowd but they were using taller than average guardrails so he couldn't clear the rail and eventually just jumped over. The crowd laughed. Iron Boy did a plancha off the ringpost into the crowd. Zokre then did a huge springboard moonsault into the crowd as well. They did some U.S. indyish moves for a couple minutes before the PWG team went over. Interesting dives but not much of a match. That was definitely an omen for the night.

Someone and Someone vs Someone and Someone: The deal here was to send four unknowns out there to start working a match and eventually get squashed by the Head Hunters. I guess the TV production crew was not informed of this b/c the graphic for the match said the Head Hunters were involved so it was no surprise when they did their run-in. One of the guys did a running somersault plancha and horribly undershot it. Another guy who looked like an American wrestler did a bullet tope suicida that the camera barely caught. I think the guy that did the undershot somersault got hurt so the Head Hunters ran out early and just started killing everyone. It was pretty bad so they just quickly set up for the big finish but as one of the Hunters setup for a moonsault, his brother came off the top with a flying elbowdrop which shook the ropes and the other brother slipped and fell backwards onto his opponent. He just laughed and got the three count. This was beyond awful.

Lacey vs Nic Grimes: Look... I don't like women's wrestling. It's just not my thing. But I will say this... *BEST FUCKING MATCH OF THE NIGHT*! Why? Simple. They didn't do dives, they didn't do crazy U.S. indy "holy shit" moves and they worked a straight tecnica vs ruda match. All of that wasn't available anywhere else on the show so this was a refreshing change. Only went about 5 minutes or so but the work was solid and the crowd enjoyed it. Good job by both ladies. I just wish they could have stayed out there for the rest of the show.

Vampiro vs Sean Waltman: This was the TV main event for the first half of the show. It was supposed to be an "extreme" match so a bunch of phony props were used and Vampiro bled after getting nailed with various weapons. The big spot was saved up as they had one of those old Big Japan style beds of barbed wire set up at ringside and when Waltman went for a kick, Vamp caught him and suplexed them both into it. It exploded. The crowd went "WHOA" and the referee raised Vampiro's hand for no reason at all. Another beyond awful match but Vamp definitely took enough punishment to earn his pay on this night.

Turbo vs X-Fly (wearing his Kumbia Kids outfit for some reason) vs Black Thunder vs Flash (CMLL guy) vs El Depredador vs someone I am forgetting: I feel bad b/c I know there was a sixth guy involved, I just can't remember who it was. Naturally this was the match I was looking forward to the most but they brutalized it on TV and just aired a bunch of highspots from early on, then skipped forward to the eliminations. I guess they were told to just do every highspot they know without even trying to pretend like they were trying to beat each other early on. X-Fly and Depredador had a nice exchange ending with a Depredador tope suicida. This cued everyone to dive. Turbo used a spectacular double springboard blind moonsault! Flash did a run-up-the-ropes corkscrew and a half turn plancha! Black Thunder did a running somersault plancha! The guy I'm forgetting probably did something cool. Lots of fancy moves when they skipped forward. Turbo was easily the class of the match as he was nailing all his complicated spots and kept getting the crowd into the match. For such a clusterfuck, he really stood out which makes me even sadder than he bombed in Dragon Gate.:( This could have used more Flash/X-Fly and Turbo/Thunder exchanges but oh well. The eliminations began but honestly... there were so many fancy moves I forget who did what and when. I know at one point it came down to Turbo vs X-Fly and Turbo took him to the floor with an insane run-up-the-ropes frankensteiner off the apron!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! That's an example of a crazy spot that takes timing and athleticism unlike Extreme Tiger who just jumps off high places onto others. Turbo won the match thankfully but even though the winner was promised a "contract", I don't think he appeared on any other shows. This was basically just a six-way spot exhibition to emphasize why Turbo and Black Thunder are considered good workers, why Flash is still too green, why Depredador and X-Fly are still in nowheresland and the reason I probably can't remember who the other guy was is self-explanatory.

Flash II and someone vs Aaron Aguilera and Kaos: The XPW guys cut a promo beforehand and nobody in the crowd gave a shit. The Mexicans came out and attacked them. This was probably the second best match of the night b/c once again they worked a fine tecnicos vs rudos formula building to the tecnicos fighting back but getting cut off and beat. Nothing fancy which was a refreshing change from the previous match. XPW guys win of course. That shouldn't surprise you at all. Mystery guy looked like one of the CMLL Guadalajara regulars but it wasn't Toxico or maybe it was a guy named Toxico but not the guy who works in Guadalajara as Toxico (ex-Guerrero De La Muerte).

Bobby Lee Jr. vs Ron Killings: I guess the promotion needed a favor from Bobby Lee so they agreed to let his son work. Remember when this was originally Blue Panther vs Ron Killings? I kinda wish that had happened just for curiosity's sake. Bobby Jr. came out to no reaction. Killings was over huge but started as a heel and kept playing a heel even though the crowd was on his side. Bobby Jr. started as a face but realized the crowd hated him and began working heel. Since Killings didn't switch too, it was just a mess. Lots of miscommunication but Killings was trying to salvage what he could. Thank god he ended it quick and didn't drag it out longer than it needed to be. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWFUL.

Extreme Tiger vs Mortiz: They spent about 30 seconds pretending like they knew how to wrestle and armdragged each other about 20 times, then did a stand-off which the crowd was trained to stand up and cheer for. I was waiting for a 'RXLL' chant but no such luck. Tiger then did what he knows best... he blew a spot. Mortiz rolled outside and Tiger did a springboard tornado onto him which was nice. They came back in the ring for more clumsy moves and there was some clipping forward to Mortiz missing a running flip dive through the ropes and landing on a chair (and breaking it). Good for him. Tiger set up a table on one side of the ring which was the obvious finish the way it was set up. He tried a springboard move but slipped and fell to the floor hurting his shoulder in the process. BRAVO! Mortiz set up another table, not realizing Tiger had already done it. They did a couple more moves that didn't matter b/c I had seen them in the previous matches and finally... MERCIFULLY rather... went to the finish which was a Spanish Fly off the top rope to the outside through a table. No three count once again... the ref just raised Tiger's hand. I guess RXLL is going a step beyond admitting wrestling is fake and is just stopping the match when the planned moves are executed. Genius. Horrible match. Worse than Tiger vs Lider from DragonDoor if you can believe it.

It must appear I'm being quite negative but you really have to see this show for yourself to understand how unbelievably bad it was. About 2 minutes of insane highspots mixed in with 1 hour and 58 minutes of garbage. Sorry... 1 hour and 53 minutes... the women were great.

If someone ever puts something like this together again, perhaps they could arrange all the wrestlers beforehand and go over what each wrestler plans to do so we don't see three matches that all have the Code Red as a nearfall, two matches with the Spanish Fly used, four matches with the same dives and three matches with the same generic stand-off spot. Also, perhaps the wrestlers could be told who is face and who is heel b/c otherwise it's just a stunt show as the six way match was. It would have helped if we knew to cheer for Turbo or Mosco at the end.

Worst show of the year in Mexico by far.

Toryumon Mexico 3/4/06:

Chris Hero vs Claudio Castagnoli: Did not air.:(

Banana Senga and Passion Hasegawa vs Daisuke Hanaoka and Toshiya Matsuzaki: I guess these guys were all making their debuts? Pretty good match. They kept it simple and didn't try to bust out 50,000 big moves to get the crowd to pop (*cough*!). They focused more on getting their gimmicks over and the face/heel structure was definitely there. I loved the finish.

Jorge Rivera vs Hayato Fujita Jr. vs Kanjyuro Matsuyama: Awesome as expected thanks to Rivera. At one point he did this crazy double leglock move I've never seen before and there are like a billion different spots you can do from that position. RIVERA - IS - GOD! Matsuyama went out first via the Riveracita I. At that point I knew he'd lose but he always does the job on these shows anyways. Fujita was unimpressive as usual but got the win with a choke. I have a strange feeling he will be super-pushed when he makes it to Japan.

Dos Caras Jr. and Lizmark Jr. vs Arkangel and Shigeo Okumura: By the numbers. Both tecnicos treated the rudos like they weren't on their level at all. This should have ended way sooner.

Hiromi Horiguchi and Kazuchika Okada vs Mark Jin... no... CHUCK PROMBOL! and Johnny Stamboli: It's been so long that I forgot Palumbo was even in Mexico for a short while! Highlight of the match was Horiguchi trying a running somersault plancha and Stamboli being too far back to make the catch properly so Horiguchi got hurt and stretchered. If the tecnicos won the previous match, it was really no shock who was going to win this.

Negro Navarro/Hajime Ohara/Amigo Suzuki vs La Mascara/Milanito Collection A.T./Shinji Nohashi: Just seeing Navarro work is worth the price of a DVD alone. It's amazing how bad he makes everyone else look on the mat and how good he makes them look when he's giving them offense. El Dorado needs to bring in Navarro, Rivera, Arkangel, Pantera and Blue Panther as a group of pissed off old bastards that want to school all the youngsters. I guarantee you something like that would be 10x more over and draw way more than 465 fans who had the "privelage" of seeing an angle revolving around a feud from high school. The big feud here was Ohara vs Mascara and since both those guys are extremely bland and can't wrestle for shit... the match wasn't too hot. Nice double dives at the end from Milanito and Nohashi followed by the predictable finish. I feel bad for Milanito. He is so talented but needs a new gimmick in the worst way possible.

Mistico/Silver King/Ultimo Dragon vs Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrero: Rudo beatdown and tecnico comeback. Then each tecnico got to do some moves and they went to the finish. What I'm trying to say is... 100% by the numbers. At least Mistico had a cool mask.

Dos Caras Jr. and Lizmark Jr. vs Chuck Prombol and Johnny Stamboli: Really boring match. I at least expected a double dive from the tecnicos but it wasn't meant to be. Rudos cheat to win and Palumbo gets a cool bike to drive back to the States forever and ever and ever.

Pretty boring show overall. Could have used Nohashi down in the triangle match and Rivera opposite Navarro. I'm not too impressed with this crew of Ultimo's students. They seem more like average Japanese rookies with their basic offense and no charisma which is a far cry from the older group of Toryumon/T2P students. It seems like each year the talent pool gets worse and worse. Instead of running shows, Ultimo should just tape 2 hour of Rivera and Navarro working with the students. I'd buy 10,000,000 copies.

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