The Dark Nights are Drawing Regal In, and Your Humor is Black as Them

William Regal vs. Dean Ambrose, FCW 10/13/11 - EPIC

PAS: Man alive this was a corker of a match. It is worked very similarly to the other big 2011 King Bookers courtesan v. Switchblade Conspirator match. Regal cuts a great promo about how his inner villain has been reawakened and he is at his vicious best. This is probably the most violent Regal we have seen since the Benoit series. He and Ambrose just lay into each other with nasty uppercuts and forearms, and Ambrose threw some nice clotheslines. Eventually Regal takes over, trapping Ambrose's arm into a turnbuckle and smashing it up which is something I have never seen before. It is pretty great that 20+ years into his career Regal is still breaking out new tricks. Regal then delivers some nasty armwork including finger manipulation and trapping him arm in the ring steps. Ambrose does a great job of selling, basically working the comeback entirely with his other arm. He comes off as a really tough motherfucker screaming at Regal while getting beaten on, and surviving some big exploders and escaping the Regal stretch. Just great stuff, it felt like a hugely important match to both guys, and after the match Regal felt like a killer and Ambrose felt like a future star standing up to a legend. I saw Finlay v. Callihan live which really helped my appreciation of it, but on first view this was right up there with that, and anything else in the world in 2011.

ER: Yeah this was great. It was a double surprise for me as I followed the link Phil sent me and thought it was going to be a fun 7 minute match...and then realized there were 7 MORE minutes waiting in the next part. This really feels like the best Regal performance of the last 2-4 years. He's had other great stuff in that time to be sure, but this was twice as long as most of those matches and really felt like he could stretch his wings (and clearly showed that he has no problem filling time in matches). It's matches like these that make me want to dive full in to FCW, but nothing else there could possibly compete with something like this. Regal was just a beast in this, playing a role I don't remember him playing in a long time. And clearly Regal is great at playing the ruthless killer. Finlay must be kicking himself for thinking of the awesome ring skirt spot, but not thinking about hooking a guy's arm through a turnbuckle. Shoot, I even bought the struggle to get Ambrose' arm out of the turnbuckle, just kicking around like a trapped animal while the ref struggled to pull his arm through. I loved how Regal sold the clothesline/hammer fist to the face. It looked like his orbital bone exploded. There wasn't really anything that DIDN'T work about this, from Regal's awesome mule kicks, all the arm work, the forearms, everything. This was really a great, great war. I would've have loved to see another Ambrose comeback spot, but still this was so awesome.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE REGAL

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report, 11/5/11

1. Robin/Freesbee vs. Camorra/Zayko:

Probably my favorite Robin match of the year so far, seems to be breaking out a bit and gaining confidence. I liked his armdrag exchanges (and they looked better compared to a couple of Freesbee's). I also loved his fast fall-ending rana (and I forget if it was Zayko or Camorra that SUWA'd the rana and made it look worthy of finishing a fall). Robin also had an awesome out of control dive in the 3rd, sending Camorra flying. Zayko and Camorra are serviceable but fairly uninteresting rudos. Camorra at least is starting to make it look like he's legitimately missing things like clotheslines, instead of just looking like he's getting into position. Freesbee don't do much for me.



2. Metatron/Sensei/Starman vs. Apocalipsis/Bronco/Inquisidor:

That was good clean fun that was about the same amount of time as the first match, but flew by much quicker. Plenty of dives (really liked Sensei's corkscrew asai moonsault), and Bronco hit an insanely great top rope splash to end the 2nd that saw him leap 2/3 of the way across the (large) ring. Very impressive. Inquisidor had a fun but goofy springboard assisted lungblower, Metatron did nothing I remember, and it's always fun seeing a Sensei appearance. It seems like he's only on like once every 6-8 weeks.



3. Ayumi/Estrellita/Luna Magica vs. La Seductora/Princesa Blanca/Princesa Sugei:

Opening match card says it's Estrella Magica, but it's kind of hard to miss that it's Estrellita. This match was really fun and the CMLL women have been bringing it pretty nicely in 2011. I'm far from the biggest women's wrestling fan in the world, but I've found myself enjoying a bunch of the CMLL ladies this year. Sugei has quietly been having a real good year, always works stiff and still puts over all the tecnicas (stooges better than maybe all the other women), and Blanca has been just as good, but in different ways. Blanca bumps tecnica offense really well (really gets high on monkey flips, slides far on armdrags). I liked Ayumi's comeback offense, but it was done in a real puro kinda way and the fans didn't seem to respond to it much. Luna Magica is very underrated but always seems to put on a good show. Estrellita has ridiculous fake boobs. And where has Tiffany been, now that I think about it...seems like I haven't seen her in months and she has always been one of my favorite luchadoras.



4. Atlantis/Delta/Guerrero Maya Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Escorpion/Dragon Rojo Jr.:

First 2 falls were pretty rushed, but the 3rd had tons of good action. Delta especially got to throw in some awesome stuff in the 3rd, with Rey and Rojo bumping around great for him. Delta's rope flip headscissors was done slower than he normally does it, but the end result looked really good. I would have liked more Atlantis vs. Ultimo as all their sections seemed short, but this had tons of moments showcasing the worth of Rey/Maya/Delta.



5. Hector Garza/La Mascara/Super Porky vs. Rey Buccanero/Terrible/Texano Jr.:

It's really weird that LATV has commercials for syndicated episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" every commercial break. That seems like a very strange show to be pushing to hispanic households. I can't imagine too many spanish speaking American homes gathering around to watch nerds crack jokes about theoretical physics and Deep Space 9, but I'm not in advertising. Very good match that would have been downright awesome if it had a real 2nd fall. La Mascara got to look like a star all throughout this, hitting a bunch of great rana variations and really whipping around on them all cool. There's a fan in the crowd that looks exactly like Terrible. I looked up and saw him standing in the crowd and thought it was Terrible...until I realized Terrible was standing in the ring LOOKING at that guy. It's like wearing a t-shirt of you wearing a t-shirt of you wearing a t-shirt. Garza must have it written into his contract that he just gets to totally own the 3rd fall of every match he's in. He tore it up here with all sorts of cool kicks, made women scream, hit a neat assisted headscissors, Porky hit a fat crossbody off the apron, crowd was way into Mascara, and there was a great moment in the first fall where Terrible just beats the shit out of Porky. Just beats him down with great punches and then kicks him a bunch while he's down. Looked awesome. Porky looks infinitely better with a goatee. I'm so glad it's back. He looked weird with just jowls. Fun match, easily worth the time.

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