Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 1/4/14

These matches all aired on the 12/20 Arena Mexico card.

1. Leyenda de Plata semi-final cibernetico: Virus, Averno, Okumura, Olimpico, Felino & Tiger vs. Titan, Stuka Jr., Atlantis, Delta, Triton & La Mascara

This had the right amount of big spots to work well for me. I had some friends over while watching it so it's kind of the perfect thing to throw on while you're part watching/part chatting as you don't have to follow any sort of psychology or match storyline very closely. It's just guys coming in and doing their thing, so big spots stand out to you and stop the conversation, and the rest of the stuff kinda flies by the subconscious. Atlantis had a nice run in the middle, giving out spinning backbreakers to anybody that got close. Averno bumped all around for flippy juiced up tecnicos, including a painful bump off the apron from a nutty Titan somersault headscissors. La Mascara splats on the floor with a flip dive that doesn't quite get caught. Stuka's hands-free body press over the turnbuckle is absolutely breathtaking and completely insane, as is Delta's crazy flip dive that sees him run up the turnbuckles from the apron and vault over the other side. Also, Virus is Virus. This match was a blast and was made to look infinitely better when I stopped my DVR and Impact was on and killed the entire room.

2. Reapper vs. Volador Jr.

Boy, I am just not feeling Volador ever since the tecnico turn. He feels just totally neutered now. He used to work real well as a tweener, and he had great body charisma. That seems almost completely gone now, and getting to see his smooth pretty boy face doesn't really help things. The mask match basically killed any sort of rudo believability in him. I also used to think it was cool when he would do something goofy like come out dressed as Darth Maul, but now dressing like Spider-man -without a mask - just makes him look like a kid wearing his Spider-man jammie jams while his mother screams at him to stop doing flips on the couch. "But moooooommmmm, I'm practicing almost killing Reapper with a Spanish Flyyyyy!!!!!"

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report, 12/14/13

These matches took place on the 11/29 Arena Mexico show.



1. Atlantis, Diamante Azul & Shocker vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Euforia & Tama Tonga

Match starts out as a pretty slow-paced nothing type affair, and sometime around the middle of the 2nd picks up a bit, before having a hot as hell tercera caida. Ultimo and Atlantis stood out early with both guys working fast (Atlantis can often slowly go through the motions, so it was noticeable here that UG was forcing him to pick up the pace on their sequences). This is probably the best I've seen Shocker look in months as he's moving as fast as early decade slim(mer) Shocker as he breaks out a cool headscissors and starts working circles around Euforia, to the point that Euforia appears to gas out! Yes, modern Shocker caused somebody else to blow up. Third fall is awesome as everybody starts working up a notch, with Azul doing his crazy somersault senton into the corner and a crazy flip dive off the ramp way, Atlantis working fast and throwing spinning backbreakers at everyone who comes near, UG bumping around big and cutting low on lariats, just tons of fun in the 3rd. I was seriously ready to write this off after the first and I'm glad I didn't.



2. Torneo Cibernetico: Kraneo, Psyco Ripper, Volador Jr., Morphosis & Mr. Aguila vs. Blue Panther, Mascara Dorada, Valiente, Mistico & La Mascara

These ciberneticos are like lucha junk food. Depending on the participants they can be really good, or they can be like a lot of so-so lightning matches stacked on top of each other. Thanks to the internet we can at least see all the opening matwork (which was almost always edited off Galavision broadcasts). Panther and Morphosis tear it up for the first couple minutes, with Morphosis (the former Histeria) really impressing me with not only keeping up with BP but tossing off some cool armbar transitions and leglocks. Kraneo gets paired up with Dorada which is hilarious since Dorada is probably the fastest guy on the tecnicos side. Kraneo squashes him with a nice leg drop and then catches a cool rana from Dorada. Eliminations start early (which always happens in these which is disappointing as these matches could really go twice as long as they normally do) which robs us of some potentially awesome pairings. The brief Panther/Volador pairing was a treat as I don't remember these two matching up before and it's only 20 seconds but made me want to see a bunch more. Bunch of wild dives happen, people gang up awesomely on Kraneo with him taking a headscissors to the floor from Valiente and then eating two dives in a row (with Dorada's being completely reckless and has him ricocheting off Kraneo on the floor). Kraneo towers over everybody here, with he and Valiente looking like Batman coming face to face with Killer Croc. Kraneo uses his size well, knowing when to cut off tiny little tecnicos by just running into them. Shame that Aguila is one of the final two rudos with Psyco Ripper and Volador. Aguila is clearly the worst guy in this cibernetico (watch him hit the worst standing moonsault I've ever seen, then not call an audible and still end an elimination with it!). Overall the match was fun as hell and got plenty of time. Dorada is a lunatic, Kraneo is my new fattie obsession, Volador still gots the goods even though I liked him more when he worked full rudo instead of this tweener mess he's in now.

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 12/7/13

These matches were from the 11/22 Arena Mexico show. Also, I should be thanking cubsfan a lot more than I do, not only for uploading all these matches, but for sending a lot of you our way whenever we do lucha reviews. The guy is awesome. You knew that.



1. Blue Panther, Atlantis & La Mascara vs. Kraneo, Psyco Ripper & Vangellys

This was really fun and what's funny is the TV version cut out the coolest minute of the match. At the 17:30-18:45 part, Panther hits a sweet rana off the top, Kraneo bumps huge to the floor and takes a dangerous looking backdrop into the ropes, and then Psyco Ripper takes some sort of maniacal hybrid Cassandro/Hamrick bump by flying out the corner and around the ringpost, then landing on his back. Pretty sure Kraneo and Psyco Ripper are my new favorite guys. Kraneo is the former Alebrije, whose body is now 35% Golden Corral Chocolate Wonderfall. Psyco is the former Psicosis II who was always much better than most people assumed. Kraneo is just the coolest as he's gigantic both in height and in width, but he busts his ass harder the fatter he gets. I can just picture him at dinner with other workers saying "Yeah, I'm gonna eat this second entree. And then I'll get in the ring and work harder than all of you!" He's super fat now and he's working harder than I've ever seen him work. Everybody needs to get on the Kraneo bus (it makes frequent stops for snacks).




2. Negro Casas vs. Rush

Well this was a match I assume a lot of internet lucha fans were looking forward to. But I could not tell you why it was so damn short. I'm not sure why it wasn't the main event, and I'm not sure why it was only a una caida. I would assume there are going to be more singles between these two, hopefully including a hair match with blood! For a 10 minute match, this was really good. I wanted a 25 minute epic, but for the 10 minute match I got, it was really good. Both guys have great chemistry with the other and holy lord do they have no problem dishing out seated dropkicks to each others' face. So many nasty kicks, with one on the outside against the barricade being especially gross. I liked the end with Casas cheating to win with leg wrapped around the ropes. I liked seeing Casas on the defense for the bulk of this after taking an early nasty kick from Rush. It gave it a Fujiwara type "looking for a way to sneak a comeback" element. I was pretty bummed when I realized the one pinfall was the end, as I was thinking "Oh man, if the first fall was THAT hot then this is shaping up to be LEGENDARY!" but for what we got it was a real good roll in the hay.

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