CMLL on Fox Deportes Workrate Report, 3/1/13

These were the other matches from the 2/15 Arena Mexico show. And like almost every lucha show that I've randomly discovered on my cable, this channel stopped showing CMLL like a couple weeks after this. I don't know why Mexican cable teases me so, but whenever a channel other than Galavision starts showing lucha, it usually just disappears after a couple months. This time it continued to appear on the schedule, and it would record as "Lucha Libre CMLL", but then I'd watch it and it would be an old UFC show from 5 years ago.

1. Amapola/La Comandante/La Seductora vs. Estrellita/Dalis/Silueta

Boy when Silueta is making TV you know you're really digging deep on some women's matches. Amapola blindsides Estrellita during her ring entrance to at least save us all from that sadness. And that's kinda the story of the match. Amapola and Estrellita match up well and work pretty violently with each other but good lord this felt pretty long for what it was. Dalis and Silueta are what they are, Comandante is usually fine as the 3rd best ruda in a trios, and Seductora doesn't do much for me (although I admittedly have hardly ever seen her).  The dive/plancha spot was OK but pretty sloppy, and Estrellita's finisher Indian death lock/armbar was really cool, but took longer than Undertaker's triangle to set up.

2013 Reyes Del Aire Final! 

2. Volador Jr. vs. La Sombra

Holllllllly shit that match was AWESOME! I was excited for it and this was WAY better than I thought it would be. Volador has been one of my favorite wrestlers period over the last couple years and he did not disappoint here. La Sombra was MORE than game and this was an absolutely insane match with some crazy spots. I loved it. You like headscissor hurricanranas? Well I sure do, motherfucker, and there were tons of them on display here. Each of them gorgeous, each of them in a different part of the building: in the ring, on the floor, on the ramp way, into the barricade, tons of ranas and all of them awesome. Volador sending Sombra upside down into the ring barrier. The dives were plentiful and also nuts, with Sombra doing a hands-free flip dive over the ring post and Volador returning the favor with a nutso swanton to the floor. And when you had so many ranas, you know you're gonna get guys getting caught in ranas and planted with powerbombs and motherfucker we had some of that too and it was glorious! Sombra had a couple ridiculous suplex spots, with him going for a schoolboy, rolling through and doing a Backlund-esque one arm dead lift overhead suplex. Later in the match he goes for a wheelbarrow suplex with Volador grabbing his mini sidekick to prevent it, so Sombra ends up heaving both of them overhead and they all sprawl out fantastically across the ring. Everything about this was fucking awesome with Volador stiffing Sombra with kicks, Volador flying all over the place at fast speeds making Sombra shine, a double mask pull-off finish, shit even Tirantes bumps big after getting a dropkick run into his face. I loved it all and this was just truly great. DEFINITELY go out of your way to watch this. You will not regret spending 20 minutes of your life on this. 

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CMLL on Fox Deportes Workrate Report 2/17/13

1. Sensei/Oro Jr. vs. Super Comando/Artillero

I always get stoked when Sensei makes TV, and I don't believe I've ever seen Oro Jr. before. Artillero and Comando easily go under the radar as they only work openers, but usually they look pretty decent. HERE,  however, they look downright AWESOME. This was probably my absolute favorite performance by the two brothers. They were just shit kicking, smack talking jerks here. They also got to shine offensively more than usual. Comando hit a beastly missile dropkick that sent Oro sprawling, and Arti got to work a bunch of real cool wrist/arm work on Oro that likely wouldn't have been shown on Galavision. Sensei gets to do cool stuff (love his triangle rana) and love this as the coming out party for Comando/Arti. They are now officially guys I look forward to.



2. The OTHER Reyes Del Aire semifinal!!

Volador Jr vs. Virus vs. Valiente vs. Psicosis vs. Mascara Dorada vs. Guerrero Maya Jr. vs. Maximo vs. Sangre Azteca vs. Mephisto vs. Rey Escorpion vs. Angel de Oro vs. Diamante vs. Niebla Roja vs. Puma vs. Triton vs. Fuego

Yeahhhhh buddy. Really looking forward to this as I think my boys Volador and Virus and Valiente can shine in this type of setting. I think on paper this Cibernetico looks stronger than the other one. And there is some awesome shit at the start of this. Psicosis takes a nutty Fuerza bump, Valiente hits an amazing bullet tope that sends Escorpion into the crowd, Maximo hits a gorgeous rana on Virus, and this is just a blast. Sangre Azteca is a guy who more people should talk about as being awesome, because he is. He doesn't get a long run here but he shines BRIGHT. You know that spot where guys drop to their tummy when an opponent is running the ropes to trip him up, but usually it just looks like going through spots as the guy drops down immediately? Well Sangre actually slides into Angel de Oro  , MAKING Oro jump over him or else he actually would have tripped. It's that extra mile. He gets eliminated by Valiente but goes out looking killer, taking two massive monkey flips into the ropes (like Eddy used to!) and shit that guy is good. But then holy shit Guerrero Maya does a flip tope that sends him flying into the 2nd row and YES that guy is awesome. I'm loving this.

Eliminations start flying fast and Maximo hits a wicked tope with no wussy hands to shield the blow, just face into face, arms at his side. Brutal. Volador and Valiente have a hot segment like you knew they would. And okay why is everybody doing a goofy "powerbomb a guy onto my own knees" spot. Three different guys have now done this same spot in the last 2 minutes. Admittedly Volador may be the guy who brought backcracker offense into Mexico and he seems to be amongst the biggest offenders, but fuck it. He does all that stuff with such speed and snap that I don't give a damn if it's all played out. As with all these matches, they do their thing until the finishes start happening, and then there's a pinfall every 45 seconds. But this was consistently awesome and I would highly recommend checking it out. All the guys seemed to be treating it like a really big deal and this was definitely better than the other one. Tons of awesome stuff.

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CMLL on Fox Deportes Workrate Report, 2/10/13

Yay! I was hoping since it wasn't shown on Galavision that the Reyes del Aire would be shown on Fox Deportes, and they have not let me down! And it looks like no other matches will be shown on this episode so this should be a rock solid 35+ minutes of awesome, with likely zero minutes of awesome provided by Sagrado.



1.  Rey Cometa vs. Averno vs. Namajague vs. Felino vs. Stuka Jr. vs. La Sombra vs. La Mascara vs. Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. Euforia vs. Delta vs. Titan vs. Mr. Aguila vs. Hijo del Fantasma vs. Polvora vs. Tiger vs. Sagrado

I've been super high on Namajague after his killer performance in a recent trios, so was hoping for more out of him in this match and lo if he does not take a lunatic bump over the rail within the first 10 seconds of this match. Again, the Namajague bandwagon line forms to the left. First 5 minutes are pretty crazy with some assorted dives (Sagrado hits a nice bullet tope that Averno eats, big flip dive by Aguila, Rey Cometa hits a missile dropkick and then a gorgeous tornillo), but then Namajague comes in and steals things again by taking a wild out of control bump to the floor after getting crossed up by Stuka, and then gets bent in half into the rail on a Stuka dive. Mascara has the Brazos throwback gear and it looks incredible. Booking crew knows I'm watching as Sagrado gets eliminated early after clumsily running through some spots.

Rudos team is awesome as Fantasma hits a nice moonsault to the floor, and then they all jump him. Namajague is SUWA as he jaws with fans, pushes Stuka into Baby Richard and then kicks Stuka right in the balls. Felino is awesome as Namajague's cheerleader at ringside. Namajague is in for like 5 straight minutes and he kinda gets dumped directly on his head by Cometa. He goes all limp and Cometa seems totally oblivious as started picking him up by his head and then Nama is a total lunatic as he keeps kicking out of shit even though it seems like his head may not be connected to his spinal column any longer. What the hell is wrong with this guy!?

A few of the guys I like most are gone at this point but Titan is emerging as being pretty awesome as he flies into kicks and dishes swift kicks of his own that remind me of Black Terry. Euforia has also quietly become a very nice rudo base. He's never a guy that I think about but he really holds these kind of matches together. Although in the same match Averno is right there eating all the dives and taking head scissors off the apron to the floor, so Euforia is a pretty easy guy to overlook.

And the last part of the match is really just Averno doing his best to get in the way of La Sombra's unlikely offense, which Sombra always seems to doing kind of selfishly. He'll bump Averno to the floor mid-ring, and then immediately start to set up his "over the ring post" moonsault to the floor before Averno has even gotten up. So it makes Averno look like a total goon who has to get up and just happens to move 16 feet over to catch it. It's pretty hard to do that stuff convincingly.

This match was plenty fun but there's always that sense just a couple minutes into these things that Sombra is going to win no matter what, and that takes most of the drama out of them.

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