CMLL on Galavision Workrate Report, 2/2/13

These matches are from the 1/25/13 Arena Mexico show.

1. Princesa Sugheit/Amapola/Princesa Blanca vs. Luna Magica/Silueta/Estrellita:

The rudas get to tear it up here and Estrellita makes me sad. She is the the embodiment of every woman who makes out with another woman in a bar for attention from weird guys, just because it's some sort of attention. At this point I'm just hoping she takes to aging more gracefully than Lil' Kim. But boy does it make it that much more fun to watch the rudas beat her down. Match ended with a gang beatdown by those evil women that saw Tigre Hispano thrown down. What's insane is that, racking my brain, I don't remember the last time I saw a ref bumped like that. It was such a constant thing in the late 90s/early 00s. My friend Carlos' grandma used to get furious when somebody would hit the ref to end a match. She wouldn't get furious because it was a crap finish, she would get furious because the ref was impartial. "He didn't DO anything! Why would they HIT HIM!?" She felt for those poor refs, so I imagine Hispano getting bumped and then instantly, proudly standing up and calling it for the tecnicas would have made her happy. But seriously, are ref bumps still a thing and I'm just way out of the loop? I know TNA was still regularly doing them as recently as a few years ago, but that's to be expected when they were still booking like Crash TV was all the rage.

2. Lightning Match: Atlantis vs. Mr. Niebla:

Well this is already the greatest lightning match I've ever seen because Niebla ambushes Atlantis with a fucking CHAIN wrapped around his fist and punches ATL right in the face a few times, then WHIPS him while he's prone on the entrance ramp!! Whipping a guy with a chain is a tough thing to pull off in wrestling, as to make it look good you pretty much have to whip a dude with a chain. And these chain whips looked brutal, right across the ribs. Then these guys whip each other into the ringside barriers, and usually those little do-si-do Irish whips look pretty silly but here I totally bought into the physics and momentum of the whole thing. Rest of match was a cool sprint with powerbombs, a great Atlantis dive, nice missile dropkick, slick dana and mask ripping and ball shots and a jacked dude in the crowd wearing a Kemonito mask which made me super jealous. Best lightning match of the last year +.

3. Volador Jr./Psicosis/Mr. Aguila vs. Mascara Dorada/La Sombra/Titan:

First fall of this is a little choppy with some stuff being out of sync and guys hitting their marks a bit early (or a bit late). Volador takes a rana better than just about anybody, and his reverse rana is one of the sickest moves in wrestling (especially with Sombra snapping back over from it). Things pick up a bit in the 2nd with some cool triple teams (love the pendulum powerbomb with Volador running through Titan and making him spin up and over and splat. Dorada's springboard moves are always spectacular and his ranas in this are no different. Him going from the apron, to the inside middle rope, to a rana that ends with him standing just looks impossible to pull off. He also takes a sky high bump over the top to the floor. Volador shows everybody how to take a dive by absorbing Sombra's hilo like a man, and Sombra later repays the favor by leaning way in to Volador's nutso moonsault to the floor. After a shaky start there were plenty of rad spots in the 2nd and 3rd. This was kinda like lucha junkfood as there wasn't much substance but was plenty enjoyable.

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CMLL on Galavision Workrate Report, 8/18/12

1. Lady Apache/Princesa Blanca/Princesa Sugehit vs. Goya Kong/Dark Angel/Luna Magica

These 6 are really good so it's no shock that this match delivered. And it warms my heart that Goya Kong is so over, the fans really go nuts when she tags in. Her working arm drag, arm twist, arm wrench, arm wringer spots with Blanca was hypnotic and awesome. It was like some weird dance that got cut from "Beat It". And I was drunk.

2. Mistico II/Atlantis/La Mascara vs. Ultimo Guerrero/Dragon Rojo Jr./Euforia

Now this was just super fun. Great showing by new Mistico, and an awesome showing by Euforia (who I suppose is going to be the Averno in this relationship) and UG. Euforia and UG bumped wildly all over the place and set up new Mistico very nicely to look spectacular. And boy were there a couple spectacular moments, including another awesome ran from the ring to the floor, which saw UG vault Mistico over his shoulders, over the top rope, into doing a rana on poor Euforia on the floor (who again, sticks the catch awesomely and continues vaulting up my rankings). One of my favorite things about Mistico originale was how high he would bump for everything. He would get insane height on backdrops and bumps to the floor and press slams and all sorts of stuff, and always do really great belly flop bumps as he came back to earth. Lee has started trying to bump that way and it kinda works for him. There was a great press slam spot on the floor with UG pressing him into the guard rail and Mistico spilling out all nastily (I do love press slam spots though). Also there was some really well done team tension with Rojo and UG. both of them want to do their corner offense on a upside down opponent, they argue, UG pie faces him (which I foolishly thought looked too "real" to be part of the match, like Rojo was just in the way and UG got pissed and acted unprofessionally and pulled rank), and then when UG is doing his headstand buttsplash Rojo runs over and shoves him over the ropes. It all looked really awesome and was a great example of team miscommunication adding to a match. Well worth checking this one out.

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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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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report, 11/26/11

Zayco/Camorra vs. Robin/Freesbee:

Freesbee and Camorra ain't that great. Especially Freesbee. That guy is just a stumblebum. Zayco and Robin have made some great strides in 2011, starting the year as guys I didn't think were very good, but being guys I enjoyed by the end of the year. They match up very nicely against each other, too. Maybe they just look good because of their respective tag partners. Huh.



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

Fairly forgettable midcard match that wasn't without its moments. Bronco would work out great as a fake Dinamita. He's a real nice throwback to that style of lucha. Here he goes above and beyond by taking a really low and quick bump to the floor. Sensei is like a Great Sasuke throwback, just without the death wish. The others are fine.



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

Damn do Sugei and Ayumi match up well. Just a whole bunch of nice kicks and knees getting thrown around. Estrellita makes me sad. She's not a very old woman, but dressing so young makes her seem so much older than she really is. I get the fake boobs. Some gals get them to fill out tops better. Others get them because they desperately want attention. Whatever. But the hot pink outfits and now the pigtails? I'm surprised she doesn't have dark red blush painted on her face. She comes off as a mom who wears the same outfit to the mall as her 15 year old daughter and dances with her daughter's friends at birthday parties. Something about it just bums me out. Just...play it down a bit. Your desperation is playing to the back row.



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

LATV has this stupid visual effect that they use occasionally, where in the middle of a match they'll start showing it in "widescreen". Now I put widescreen in quotes because it's not actually widescreen, they just add large black bars across the top and bottom of the screen, literally obscuring about 40+% of what's going on. Matwork going on? tough luck, buster, because it's underneath the bottom bar. It's really maddening and happened a bunch in this match. TNA does this as well when they take up the bottom third of the screen with their "Upcoming Events" news. The matwork from the recent Storm/Roode match was almost totally obscured by these screen pop-ups. I just don't get the point in doing that. That being said, I don't think the youtube videos do this, I think it is specifically LATV. Allll that being said, this match was fast-paced and fun, and seemed to be built as a major showcase for Maya and Escorpion. The more time he gets to shine, the more Maya shows that he totally belongs. I love the snap he puts on his dropkicks. Big things should be happening for him. Ultimo continues to have maybe the comeback of the year, as he's been busting ass all 2011.



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

Pretty paint-by-numbers. Garza strips in the 3rd and hits some great headscissors, Mascara hits a few nice ranas (each one faster than the last), Terrible and Texano are total pros bumping around for those two, and the spot where Terrible punches Porky down to the mat and follows up with kicks to his stomach was great. Not much to the match, but there are always fun moments.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report, 12/10/11

Princesa Blanca/La Commandante/Zeuxis vs. Marcela/Luna Magica/Lluvia:

Not really sure why this match needed so much time to stretch its legs. It's good to see Luna Magica back on TV, as she brings something different to the table than most of the tecnicas. Her butt splash in the corner in the match was awesome. Blanca/Marcela is always a match-up worth seeing, but Lluvia/Zeuxis is about as polar opposite as you can get. And we got a lot of that here, with a lengthy match never really evolving beyond "one side lying around while the other side does sloppy triple teams". Plenty of painful moments of Zeuxis or Commandante struggling to lock on lousy submissions. Just mostly ugly stuff here. Zeuxis' bodysuit is pretty fantastic, though.



Arkangel de la Muerte/Nitro/Skandalo vs. Rey Cometa/Stuka Jr./Dragon Lee:

This was all about Rey Cometa: Bump Freak, and Arkangel: Twister of Young Tecnico Limbs (you probably already guessed that last one would happen). Arkangel gets cool sequences with everybody here, including throwing Lee around by his arm in the first fall, but the 3rd is really his time to shine. He works some cool spots with Cometa, and Arkangel/Cometa is fast becoming one of my favorite pairings in all of lucha. CMLL must agree with me, too. Arkangel is just the perfect base for this guy, never getting lost on his inside out armdrags and catching all his ranas (dropping from some great heights). Arkangel looked flat out great here. Cometa, though, also looked great. He took two nasty bumps in the 1st, one a flat back bump to the floor after spilling through the ropes; the other a massive bump from the ropes to the ring ramp, sending him asshole over elbow after being dropkicked by Nitro. Lee is always good for some spectacular flying, same goes for Stuka. There were also two separate synchronized dive trains by the tecnicos (the first with all three doing big somersault topes almost totally in sync). This match really had potential to be just a tossed off throwaway midcard trios, and the longer it went the more it kinda built into something special. It just kept gaining momentum and being just about the best possible version of this match-up. I recommend you watch it.



Misterioso Jr./Polvora/Okumura vs. Valiente/Metro/Sagrado:

Pretty longish match that doesn't really go anywhere but is never unpleasant. Kinda seemed like a house show match instead of a match taped for TV. None of the faces get to unload and do anything really spectacular (though Valiente did leap up like he was about to do Valiente Special, but leaped back into the ring to do a halfway-across-the-ring rana). Misterioso still got to look like a tassly, slick-bumping star, Okumura threw some fine back elbows, Sagrado threw in a surprisingly good performance, and Metro had an brutal somersault senton into the corner in the first fall. Just full on sprint and then splatted right into Misterioso. Ending move was pretty great as Sagrado just leveled Polvora with a superkick, which knocked him into a bridged Metro german suplex (landing him on his head).



Terrible/Rey Buccanero/Mephisto vs. La Mascara/Angel de Oro/Rush:

Second match in a row with a kind of random rudo team of guys who usually team with others. First fall showed potential for this to be a pretty great main event, but then the rest of it got kinda rushed. Rudos were getting good heat (not exactly difficult to do opposite Rush), Terrible has stepped up his game over the last couple months and has been coming off like a superstar, and Mephisto stepped things up here (maybe saw an opportunity to shine more than usual since he wasn't teaming with Averno and Ephesto). Oro has been bringing it, too, and Rush kinda just stayed out of the way so it could have been worse. Kind of the story of most of this episode, with a bunch of wrestling that mostly stayed out of the way, exiting your memory as soon as you see it. The Arkangel/Rey Cometa match is worth spending 20 minutes on, but the others are kinda "fan only" affairs.

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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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