WWCI Arena San Juan Pantitlan 2/16/19

Another week, another cool looking Indy Lucha show put up by Lucha TV. Grabbed what looked cool to review

Demus vs. Bam Bam

PAS: Bam Bam was a mainstay of the CMLL minis division, but seemed to disappear around 2014. Demus welcomes him to the indies with a classic Demus bloodletting. Bam Bam comes in with Demus style face paint on and Demus tries to wash it off using Bam Bam's blood. Lots of great looking brawling from both guys. Bam Bam hits a great looking tope early, but when he goes for it again, Demus steps aside and flings him head first into some ratty looking chairs. It is a crazy bump and a great way to finish a match. Demus brawls are one of the most fun things in wrestling and welcome back Bam Bam.

ER: Bam Bam was out! He was done! So, welcome back to wrestling Bam Bam, and if you're curious, here's what a bunch of your blood looks like! I loved these two feuding a decade ago, would love to see them feuding right now. Bam Bam is a little chunkier, but that's probably because he was told that people love bleeding chunky luchadors, so he probably took a few years off to get that proper size. The weight doesn't appear to slow him down a lot, his rope running was still whip fast and he hits a tope in the first minute of the match that looks as good as his topes looked a decade ago. Demus won't stand for that, naturally, so proceeds to bust Bam Bam wide open. And it's one of those really great lucha bloodlettings where Bam Bam's face and torso get covered in dark red and you realize Bam Bam is a lunatic who must have wanted this! The finish is incredible, truly a finish worth of a count out victory: We get a scene very similar to the beginning of the match, a Bam Bam feint sends Demus to the floor, tope clearly coming...and Demus steps aside and helps Bam Bam find the front row of painful chairs instead. This needs to be run back all throughout 2019.

Impulso/Drako vs. Fly Star/Toscano

PAS: Three young indy guys and Toscano (the former Tarzan Boy) put on a shortish spotfest. I don't think I have seen Drako before, and I am always going to enjoy a fat guy who wrestles fat. He had a nice tackle, a baseball slide splash to the floor and a stiff powerbomb. Fly Star and Impulso are clearly setting something up, and they try some complex spots, some of which they pull off. The finish was true young guy dippshittery with Fly Star hitting a running electric chair headrop right into the corner, really looked like the kind of thing a backyard wrestler might break a cervical vertebrae with. I think we get hair challenges post match, which makes total sense, I would want to shave a guy bald if he tried to break my neck like that.

Caifan vs. Ultimo Guerrero

PAS: Ultimo Guerrero is one of the five biggest stars in one of the biggest promotions in the world, and for some reason he will show up in a tiny filthy arena to cut him self open and leak all over the ring. I am as captivated by indy brawl Guerrero as I am bored by CMLL main eventer Guerrero. Caifan is a great, great wrestler who never got a break, and he jumps Ultimo and posts him, and 90 seconds into the match Guerrero is dripping. Caifan whoops him all around the ring, including chucking a bunch of beers into his bloody head. Guerrero comes back, opens up Caifan and they just exchange big shots on the floor. This goes about 10 minutes and maybe 90 seconds are in the ring. Finish was kind of a lame low blow DQ, and they set up a hair match on the next show (third hair challenge on this show but they are doing this one.) They sold me.

ER: I loved this! UG is such a bizarre and fascinating glutton for this kind of a dirty gritty small crowd arena brawl, here he is leaving blood souvenirs on chairs and bystanders and merch all over Arena San Juan Pantitlan, beaten bloody and bumping hard on a ring that doesn't move an inch. I don't know what his deal is, but it's weird how my eyeballs glaze over his CMLL matches at this point and yet actively seek his indy work. It would be like if Dean Ambrose were currently working his typical fast forwardable Raw matches, but also bloody brawls from random VFWs near wherever Raw was taped. It makes no sense. Caifan is really great. He's someone who knows just how well to set up UG's trademark offense, while also knowing when to step in and bop him on the nose. And a LOT of the early part of this is nose bopping. I might have to break the stopwatch out to see who started bleeding earlier, UG or Bam Bam, but we're the winners in that race. UG gets smashed around ringside, Caifan is really mean about sending him tumbling and then running after him with a hard kick before UG can regain his bearings, and we get all time great brawl violence like Caifan wrapping UG's head in a banner and then punching his face through the banner. I love Caifan's hockey fight style of lucha. Ultimo's comeback on the floor is great, shoving through fans, grabbing drinks to bounce off Caifan's head, doing his flying hip attack into Caifan who was also sitting on a fan (and that fan went wandering off after being on the bottom of that pile making that teeth sucking face of someone who accidentally opened a car door into their own balls); at one point Ultimo is slamming Caifan's head repeatedly into some chairs and right behind them you can see 4 or 5 young boys just staring at these bloody lunatics in awe, not knowing how to react to the violence right in front of them. I like how Caifan handles a couple signature UG spots, namely how he ran headlong into eating a front suplex off the middle ropes (onto that damn hard ring). We've all seen UG just climb the ropes with his opponent on the way to doing that move, so it's cool that instead we get Caifan setting UG up for something and then getting grabbed on the run. Big ball shot finish works for something like this, and honestly with how much they killed each other here I have no clue what they're going to do in their hair match to top it...but I can't wait to see them try.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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MLJ: Sin Salida 2010 Part 1

Sin Salida 2010 Part 1

I'm going to tackle the first two matches on the card today. The plan is to make it to the main event, double back to the trios which helped set up Maximo vs Taichi and then finish with 2010 with the hair match. I'll probably double back through the anniversary show (sticking with Garza) at some point.

I've seen very few whole shows in my lucha watching. I've also seen almost nothing when it comes to mini matches, ever, as in "ever," my whole life. I'm sure I've seen a bit of what WWF fed me back in the late 90s but for lucha, nada. I'm sort of curious to see these first two matches in the context of a card, because I don't have a great idea for how one's put together in Mexico, especially a big CMLL show.

For big shows in the states, there are a couple of things I'd expect from the first couple of matches on a card.

1.) The first match is there to get the crowd going, engaged. This is a principle dating back at least thirty years and probably far longer. Wrestlemania I started with Tito Santana vs Buddy Rose for a reason, an admitted reason. Most WWE PPVs over the last two years started with a spot-filled tag team title match for the same reason. Again, I'm not super familiar with minis matches but my instinct is that they're high-velocity affairs and it makes sense to lead off the card with them.

2.) These aren't the matches that are supposed to steal the show. They should be energetic and for a certain breed of fans I'm sure that's what's most engaging. I have a feeling, however, that they're not supposed to contain some of the more key themes that'll be in the later matches. There'll be less build and payoff, less heat to the beatdowns, less complexity to comebacks.They'll get a little less time and maybe won't even have the big dives that'll come later in the night.

Now, these are just assumptions. I honestly don't know, and there's never been any assurance of CMLL being logical about this.

Taped 2010-06-06
Bam Bam & Shockercito vs Demus 3:16 & Pierrothito


So, minis. Bam Bam is just an inch shorter than me, so there you go. I would probably be a mini. I feel a connection already. He was the Mini-Estrella champ. Shockercito is 500% guapo which is pretty funny. Pierrothito is the NWA Light Heavyweight Champ which is a belt they had cycled down to the minis a year before. Demus used to be mini Damian. He's got a pretty good look.

This was what I expected. It had about ten minutes and it was almost all quick action with most of the normal elements of a match compressed (shrunk down even). Now and again you'll see a match structured in two falls with a shine, beatdown (ending the first), extension of the beatdown and then the comeback foiled in some horrific way. This was what happend here.

The early exchanges were really just "an early exchange." One or two interactions and then out of the ring and back to the other pairing. What they did was smooth and athletic though. The rudos took the primera with a wheelbarrow into a facebreaker. onto Bam Bam and then this really cool reverse powerslam/rolling neckbreaker submission combo by Demus onto Shockercito.

The segunda started with the continuation of the beatdown (including a giant swing/dropkick combo) followed by the comeback that consisted of comedy miscommunication by the rudos mainly. This all set up the finish which was Shockercito and Pierrothito ending up on the apron with Pierrothito flat on his back. Shockercito charged forth but got monkeyflipped. He was supposed to end up in a powerbomb position by Demus on the floor but it didn't quite work out and looked nasty. Back in the ring Demus and Bam Bam had a roll up fest with the rudo getting the better of it for the win.

This was quick but fun. I really need to dip my foot deeper into the mini waters.

Taped 2010-06-06
Metro, Rush, Stuka Jr. vs Histeria, Maniaco, Monsther


This was my first look at Monsther. He fit right into Los Invasores, far more so than some other guys in the stable. Chucky is so in your face and over the top as a mascot too. He was all over the match and you can hardly blame them for it. Stuka was the captain for the tecnicos and pretty much the only guy over in a good way. There were signs with the Porra Tecnico and everything. Rush had a surprising amount of boos for so early in his career. I hadn't realized they had turned on him so quickly.

I thought Rush looked good here. It's the earliest I've seen him and my plan is to spend more time with him in 2011 after I finish this show. He was definitely Rush, down to beating the crap out of Chucky in a way that put sympathy on the mascot and elicited boos from the crowd. Monsther was pretty funny as Stuka tried to rope run with him and just got goozled for his trouble. The tecnicos took the primera after Stuka did his reverse course leap out of the ring, leaving Rush and Metro to take out the remaining rudos (including Metro doing this really great backcompression submission over his knee.)

Rudos took over in the segunda, in part because the tecnicos were spending too long going after Chucky. It wasn't anything special. Histeria got Stuka from the outside in on a rope running sequence. The finish was a little goofy as I swear he got pinned twice and Monsther splashed his legs instead of something that made more sense, but it was ultimately harmless. Anyway, and this could be an indication of the spot on the card, the comeback in the tercera was almost immediate with Stuka moving out of the way of a charging Chucky, some humorous rudo miscommunication, and Stuka's dive bomb.

This was short and sweet, with a bit of flubbing here and there. Metro looked good. Monsther fit in well and Chucky was certainly energetic and happy to take a lot of abuse. It was pretty much what it was supposed to be. I thought it was most interesting how quickly Stuka started his comeback in the tercera and that they managed to clear the ring without dives (since they were saving those for later in the night, I guess).

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CMLL on Galavision Workrate Report 2/16/13

These matches originally happened on the 2/8/13 Arena Mexico show.

1. Demus 3:16/Pequeno Violencia//Pequeno Olimpico vs. Bam Bam/Fantasy/Astral

Hey! A TV appearance from Fantasy! Demus vs. Bam Bam is one of the modern great lucha match-ups, so I always get excited when they're opposite each other. Demus' charisma is a cut above the rest of the minis division and it's a shame he didn't get to become a real boy the other year. Match is good junk food. No substance but goes down pleasantly. Fantasy is always good for some fun (his springboard moonsault while his opponent is hung up in the ropes is pretty nutty), Astral at least finally works with a shirt on to spare me from his topographical back, Bam Bam crashes and burns pretty spectacularly (though not as good as Demus), and the ending made me jump forward in my chair. Demus has Bam Bam up in a muscle buster, parades him around the ring, and Bam Bam wriggles free and drops straight down, catching Demus legs at the last minute and rolling him up. Sounds normal, but the way it looked flipped me out. Bam Bam just sheer vertical dropped, head straight down, and tucked at the very last minute possible. I thought he was just going to get spiked and die. Dude is crazy.


2. Namajague/Misterioso Jr./Okumura vs. Rey Cometa/Stuka Jr./Hijo Del Fantasma

Short but really fun match to build up to the eventual hair/mask match. Namajague is his awesome self here, blowing mist and ripping Stuka's mask, throwing nasty back elbows and taking a massive monkey flip bump on the rampway. Fantasma hits his really cool running ramp-to-ring clothesline and a massive flip dive. Cometa gets spectacularly bullied by Misterioso and does his great flip bump off a stiff clothesline. Misterioso beats him up good and it all builds to some beautiful ranas and the tornillo you want to see. Okumura looked great here, too working his low-rent SUWA/Dinamitas style. I dig all these guys.



3. Ultimo Guerrero/Terrible/Tiger vs. Atlantis/Rush/Shocker

This was alright but also was used to build up the UG/Atlantis mask match, which is a MASSIVE mask match right there. The UG resurgence these past couple years has been really awesome. He's a guy who was one of my absolute favorites in 2000-2001, and my the middle of the decade he kinda personified all my least favorite parts of lucha. So it's nice to see him so energized and awesome again. Speaking of guys who were amongst my favorites 12 years ago, Shocker looks soooo sloooow these days. He looks to be getting in better shape than last year, but he still tries to do all his old spots, just so much slower. Terrible is fun here slapping around Rush and I know I'm way down to see UG and Atlantis tear it up. UG levels him at one point in the match with a brutal baseball slide dropkick (basically did a Fuerza bump dropkick) that sent Atlantis flying. Best "through the ropes" dropkick since the Owen Hart/1-2-3 Kid KOTR match. I'm game for two dudes in their 40s bleeding and dying for their masks.

Also was I napping or did CMLL rock una caida matches this week?

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report, 10/22/11

1. Trueno/Bengala vs. Camorra/Zayko:

So CMLL loves me so much that they decide to throw up a rematch from the crappy match that happened two weeks ago....except the match was TOTALLY AWESOME THIS TIME! What the fuck happened here!? I've been seeing Bengala and Zayko all year, and these dudes have sucked in everything. Camorra popped up more recently and he was even worse! And yet here we have Zayko looking like a top notch rudo, taking a MASSIVE Jerry bump that saw him spill into the front row, stiffing up the tecnicos (when did he suddenly gain an awesome elbow drop?) and working a convincing mat sequence with Bengala. What the hell is going on here? Camorra doesn't look like a total goof either! In other weeks he's looked like a bad version of Bronco, and now he just kinda...works like Bronco, which is a massive step up. Bengala is still kind of a chump, but you can pair up a fairly bland tecnico with a couple good rudos and suddenly you don't mind their sequences at all. Trueno is a guy with a bunch of potential, and again, good rudo just makes a decent tecnico even better. Man this was a pleasant surprise, especially Zayko. Sooooo many minutes wasted watching Zayko matches this year, and now he's tricking me into actively looking forward to more Zayko matches. I'm such a sucker. You need to watch this to see if I'm crazy. I was eating a donut while watching, so I could have just been basking in the warm glow of cake donut, chocolate frosting and sprinkles.



2. Electrico/Bam Bam/Astral vs. Demus 3:16/Pequeno Warrior/Pierrothito:

Well, this was fucking awesome. Who would have guessed it would be awesome when you have the two best rudo minis (Demus/Pierrothito), the best tecnico mini (Bam Bam), and one of the more underrated minis (Electrico). This was just as awesome as it looks on paper and you want every hot little second of it. For some reason Demus has only been showing up on all the CMLL shows that air in Mexico this year, and almost never showing up on US TV. He and Pierrothito bump faster than you can imagine, flying into and out of the ring and working intricate multi-level spots with numerous guys, always telling cool little stories, making the tecnicos shine and still looking like total badasses. Electrico gets time to shine here, working two GREAT sequences with Demus/Pierrothito, and basically everybody looks good here. Dive train in the 3rd fall is nuts with Astral vaulting off the ring post with a NUTS corkscrew dive, Warrior and Bam Bam flattening the first two rows of chairs (great visual with chairs and fans spilling out everywhere). There are too many great spots and sequences here (Bam Bam getting rana'd off Pierrothito's shoulders was crazy), and you seriously want every single bit of this. So awesome. One of the best minis matches of the year.



3. Ladies Cibernetico! Dallys/Lady Apache/Goya Kong/Silueta vs. Princesa Blanca/Princesa Sugei/Kiara/La Seductora:

This was really awesome, until it got to all the one and done eliminations. First half gave every woman a little chance to shine, including a nice long mat sequence between Apache and Seductora. Crowd is pretty quiet until Goya Kong comes in and then the crowd instantly wakes up, cheering and blowing air horns and going nuts. This gal is over. Between Goya Kong and Melissa McCarthy, 2011 is becoming the year of the BBW. My girlfriend Rachel warms my heart by recognizing Princesa Sugei, saying, "Hey, that's the one woman that works stiffer than all the other women!" Yes. She completely is. I have never seen Kiara and Silueta doesn't show up too much, so it was neat seeing them in longer segments. Blanca is really good and doesn't seem to get talked up that much by people who enjoy ladies wrestling. So yeah, first 10 minutes are really fun, but then once people start running in, getting eliminated by one move, someone else runs in and eliminates someone with one move, etc. it starts getting pretty meh. Still well worth checking out. This is a killer week of LATV so far.



4. Metro/Sagrado/Stuka Jr. vs. Virus/Euforia/Vangelis:

Looks good on paper, in practice it doesn't go very long. Tecnicos win in straight falls, pretty by the numbers in the limited time they got. Virus works twice as fast as everybody else, Vangelis has some cool vulture spots (where he just kinda swoops in and kicks a dude while he's distracted), and nothing bad happens...it's just super short.



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

Yeah! Now this is an ace main event! Garza is just killer here and the crowd is amped to boo team TRT. Buccanero clearly lost a hair match that I have not watched yet. Garza/Sombra with a sweet asai moonsault (landing on the feet) into an instant standing moonsault to end the first fall. Crowd shot of a cute woman in the crowd screaming her head off as Garza removes his shirt. Sombra starts to remove his and Terrible/Texano instantly kick the shit out of him. There wasn't a dull moment here and these guys all match up really nicely. 20 minutes breezes by and judging by a horrendous recent Observer poll, more people really need to get on the 2011 Hector Garza tip.

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