Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 7/19/14

These matches were all from the 7/4 Arena Mexico show, on a day that was decidedly less celebratory than any events happening in the United States that day. I'm not sure anybody in Mexico sat through a fireworks show while a Lee Greenwood CD played.

1. Valiente, Titan & Atlantis vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Niebla Roja & Gran Guerrero

Really fun match. Primera had some fun mat rolls with Valiente and Gran Guerrero, two guys I've never seen go on the mat against each other. They do a series of fun little ankle picks leading into some nice Valiente arm drags. We get UG ripping Atlantis' mask and a big time Atlantis dive. Valiente had some more killer moments in the tercera, hitting some nice ranas (with a beautiful one off the top on Roja) and a super fast dive that Roja mans up for on the catch. Titan and Guerrero clumsy up some things here, with both doing offense that dumps them on their own heads. Titan throws in more silly somersaults than usual, coming off like a more snug RVD at some points. Ending was a nice little surprise as it looked like Atlantis was gonna get the pinfall on UG, but GG sneaks in and snares him into a nasty little submission.

2. Tiffany, Dalys & La Seductora vs. Princesa Sugheit, Lluvia & La Vaquerita

Damn this is kind of digging deep for the women's division. Vaquerita isn't somebody who really pops up that often. And the match is about as forgettable as a lucha trios can be. It's super short, even for just a straight falls match, and is really just a bunch of chopping and poor rope running with some nice apron dives thrown in at the end. Vaquerita didn't look like much, Dalys seemed off her game, Sugheit was working tecnica and seems to thrive when being a dick. Tiffany is always eminently watchable to me, but there just wasn't enough here to warrant even showing it.



3. Rush, La Sombra & La Mascara vs. Negro Casas, Shocker & Mr. Niebla

Oh man, Rush and his boys come out in suits, pork pie hats, Mascara is wearing a vest, Sombra has his dress shirt unbuttoned way too low under a suit jacket, Rush is wearing no shirt under his jacket. They look like the three most aggressive dry humpers at the club. They look douchey enough that one of them should have "Don't you know who I am?!" tattooed on them. And this match was awesome. It was way more even than most matches between these two teams, and while there was never any real flow to it, that was because each team kept cutting off the other in logical ways. It was a really great use of 6 people as right when one side would gain an advantage, a guy who had been on the floor or apron would come in and cut the momentum right off. The work in this was as stiff as expected, with Sombra rattling Shocker's teeth with plenty of elbows, Mascara delivering plenty of on-point superkicks of the non-thigh slap variety, Rush and Casas each leaving boot imprints on the other's face. Shocker had a great showing here with some of his best selling ever. At one point he fell on his butt after some Sombra elbows and it was downright Kawada-esque. Earlier while selling his knee he valiantly limped right into a Mascara superkick. Niebla hits a dive out the corner past the turnbuckles like it was 1999, Rush boots a charging Casas right off the rampway, Sombra goes full douche by posing while splayed out across the middle rope, and this shit was all awesome. Go watch this.

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 5/24/14

These matches were from the 5/9 Arena Mexico show



Ephesto, Mephisto & Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. Valiente, Titan & Marco Corleone

Real fun match, bunch of cool Ephesto stuff, nice Mephisto showing and maybe the best Marco performance of the year. Definitely the best showing from him in my recent memory (jeez we sure do talk a lot about Marco Corleone on SC these days). With just a liiiitle bit more time and a littttttle less Titan silliness I could see throwing this on the MOTY list. Primera was a short blast, with Valiente and Ephesto tearing it up on the mat (wish I got to see these two go on the mat more), Marco tightening up his punches more than he has in a long time (he's been doing these big looping hooks, here he was tossing them more like a short left uppercut and they looked real good). Ephesto and Mephisto did a nice job of cutting off Marco, especially Ephesto coming in and blindsiding him with a big kick to the chest. Marco still does obnoxious stuff (here he bumps to the floor off a dropkick, and the first thing he does is bend over and hike his kneepads), but also breaks out some great stuff like using his abs to mime punching buttons on a telephone, before walloping Dragon Rojo, and tosses out some real slick armdrags that would look cool even if they were done by a smaller man. Valiente hits his lightning fast dive (probably the best straight dive in lucha today), Mephisto has a goofy devil mask like he's in a Damn Yankees production, Titan hits a nice rana on the floor, and this was a nice brisk 15 minutes. Tons of fun.

Tiffany, Princesa Blanca & Dalys vs. Marcela, Princesa Sugheir & Lluvia

YES! Tiffany is back on my TV! It's been too damn long. She and Blanca have the matching pleather catsuits like they're in the Doll Squad or something and this is awesome. Dalys is sporting her fashionably short 'do with pride! Dalys looks awesome here, breaking out a sweet running Akiyama knee in the corner on Sugheit, and a mean running corner clothesline on Lluvia. The rudas absolutely own the first fall and get DQ'd for Blanca shoving a ref, because they're strong women who don't let men run their lives. Dalys continues to rule throughout this, catching a slick Marcela rana from the apron to the floor. Lluvia's fishnet bodysuit seems like it would take ages to get into. Oh shit the match ended with Sugheit hitting La Mistica. Damn that was short. Fun for the time allotted, maybe best Dalys performance I've seen, and it's been too long since I've seen Tiffany. She's like the Christine Baranski of CMLL.



Mascara Dorada, Atlantis & Volador Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Niebla Roja & Gran Guerrero

Well blink and you'd miss this match as the whole thing is less than 10 minutes, but it's packed with tons of killer action. Dorada was on fire here and had a pretty wild death wish. His ranas always look spectacular but here he includes his high speed tornillo which is just so sick. Volador can snap off a nice rana of his own when he's not being a shithead, and he looked better here than he has during most of his 2014 run. UG was a good ringleader here (though I like the team WAY more when Euforia replaces Gran G) and took his Jerry bump super fast (since the whole match looked like their normal match, but played about 25% faster). My dvr cut off the very end so I assume there were Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero mask challenges lobbed back and forth. Skim through for some Dorada craziness.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report, 2/11/12

Haven't done one of these in quite awhile, but that's because CMLL on Galavision hasn't been airing in my area, and LATV has been nothing but reruns dating back to December. It seems like LATV is showing mostly shows from November, some that have already been shown 3 or 4 times. So this show was also taped in November (11/22/11 at Arena Mexico to be exact, thanks Cubsfan!), but I don't know if this actually originally aired. I'm pretty sure I never missed an episode, and this never turned up where it should have. So this may be the first time this has aired in America, even if it's 3 months late.



1. Princess Sugei (Sugheit? I never get this name right)/La Commandante/Zeuxis vs. Dark Angel/Luna Magica/Lluvia:

Well this had a couple nasty spills that came to define the match. First fall went very nicely with Commandante leading Lluvia through some capable-looking matwork and some fun arm drag sequences, and Lluvia holding up her end while wearing an awesome mesh catsuit. Mesh catsuit might have made me forgive some sloppy mat transitions. Sugei and Magica tag in and smoke the previous moves exchanges, but also lacks the mesh. Fall ends with Zeuxis hitting an insane dive on Commandante that sees her fly way overhead and splat at a horribly awkward angle into chairs and chubby front row guys. I'm worried about her spine and Rachel is wondering how her boobs didn't fall out. Magica then splats her with an awesome apron Thesz press. Full point for Zeuxis for getting up from that splat and instantly taking that move. Rest of the match is pretty fun. Dark Angel and Sugei match up nicely together, and I'm a big fan of Sugei who always walks around and slaps people and kicks them in the face. Match ends abruptly with Dark Angel falling off the top rope and crashing to the floor, and then the other two calling an audible and quickly finishing the match with Angel being stretchered out. Too bad the ending had to be that way, the rest of the match was quite nice.



2. Misterioso Jr./Okumrua/Vangellis vs. Sangre Azteca/Diamante/Sagrado:

Really fun match with a bunch of guys that nobody ever really talks about. Misterioso Jr. is probably one of the best current lucha guys that nobody really pimps that much. He takes offense really well and bumps big and can control and reign in a match nicely. Here he gets matched up with the weakest of the bunch, Sagrado, and makes him look good through the whole match (going down like a gunshot for his superkick, splaying out on the floor for his rana). I really like Sangre Azteca, and loved his little mat section with Okumura. Fast paced and he did a few cool ankle picks. Vangellis is a stocky nazi powerhouse who moves fast and can barrel into guys. Diamante is very young but always has a couple nice highspots in his matches (here he hit a solid chest to chest springboard 450). Well worth your 20 minutes.



3. Terrible/Rey Buccanero/Texano Jr. vs. Maximo/Super Porky/Rush:

LATV pulls a vintage LATV move here, showing the first fall of this match, going to commercial and coming back with the 3rd fall of a different match from one week later. They used to do this all the time when they randomly started showing IWRG/AULL stuff. First fall didn't really make me want to watch the other two on youtube. I have been one of the staunchest Porky defenders over the last decade, but some of these throwaway six man performances are getting pretty brutal. The man can still go when he wants to, but the big key is how often does he want to? The hair match teaming with Maximo from early 2011 saw him looking really good, but the first fall had some pretty bad moments including the slowest bump through the ropes onto the rampway I have ever seen. It looked like a youtube video of a panda bear falling off a teeter totter.



4. Averno vs. La Mascara

If this had about 8 minutes lopped off the end then I probably would have liked it a lot more. It just kind of kept going, and the nearfalls just got less exciting the more of them they did. First 8 minutes were all about Averno tearing apart Mascara's knee, and it was some fine knee tearing. I was expecting Mascara to have plenty of moments where he just conveniently sold the knee, but to his credit he sold that knee for like >90% of the match, so gets full credit for that. He even hit an awesome limping tope in the 2nd. The selling wasn't the problem, it's just that there was so much damn lying around by both guys. It had its moments to be sure, but there was so much "Averno bumps to floor, Mascara stays in ring, Averno slowly gets up and walks back to ring" moments. Some of them were cool, like when Brazo de Oro would be glaring at him and Averno would just smugly strut past him. Some of the nearfalls worked great, but it was diminishing returns. 18 minutes of work in a 25 minute match. Not the worst crime as the work onscreen wasn't ever bad, just. needed. to. end.

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