alright, i wanted to get to this match for a while, and today is as good of a day as any for it. negro casas is one of my favorite all-time wrestlers, and sam adonis is really good at drawing heat. i’ve only seen adonis before in the gran prix and anniversary show, but he always struck me as fine. anyways this got highly touted by lucha sorpresa, which encouraged me to go back a month later and seek this out. so lets get into it.
this started as with adonis acting like an absolute heat magnet, refusing to send someone into the back as he couldn’t have two seconds. a very quick primera. casas had adonis’s number and locked in the scorpion death lock after a tremendous la silla.
i’ve kind of grown a bigger appreciation for adonis as this segunda gets going. he’s tremendous in the little things. adonis knows to stop, milk in his heat, do something small and get a tremendous response. after breaking down casas pretty effectively (and breaking his ribs i guess from the 450 splash), adonis tied this up and it was time for the final fall.
adonis continued on the attack and focused on those broken ribs. i know that some people get super squeamish about working a pre-existing injury (or getting pretty vicious with it), but this really worked in an apuestas match. the way that arena mexico got really into casas’ comebacks was really awesome. it was proof of both adonis’ character work but also how much sympathy casas gets at this point of his career. it really felt that casas was doing whatever he could to not only stay in this match, but stay upright. i’m not saying folks should ask their opponent to break their ribs, and i feel perverse saying this, but it actually added a lot to this match.
a really tough looking superplex was when i started to lose it. casas was able to convey through real life pain that he was almost out of it and couldn’t barely kick out. another time hitting la silla and a top rope missile dropkick lead to negro casas locking up adonis with la casita gave casas adonis’ scalp.
i really loved this. the two relatively quick falls (and injury in the segunda) set up a strong and heated trecera. the trecera absolutely owned. great brawling and selling, painful looking nearfalls, and a tremendous finish. it’s really a shame that casas got injured, but it added to it. the post match with adonis still drawing in the boos, getting shaved and still trying to beat down casas, also ruled. i think it’s a must watch, even for not usual lucha fans. 4.5
time for my check in on kawato’s excursion. i wasn’t as impressed as others for kawato san’s debut last friday. he seemed a bit off teaming with virus and misterioso, maybe teaming with them again will help acclimate him. he did have a very nice german suplex he threw.
kawato started off with some solid arm work on fuego. it’s interesting him in cmll versus hiromu, who became an absolute madman, and sho and yoh, who i honestly can’t remember a damn thing about them there other than they were called fujin and rajin and had masks. virus soon beat the crap outta audaz with his fantastic mullet and rudo teamwork. virus has a mullet of sincerity and power and it must be respected. kawato showed a bit of the dick he could be as he distracted the ref long enough for misterioso to hold up his leg to for kawato to dash back in and kick. kawato san quickly locked in a kimura on fuego to get the captain’s fall in the primera.
the rudos kept it up to start the segunda. i’m liking this trios’ performance a whole lot more the second time around. it’s like kawato-san and his adopted dads who are going to teach him how to be an asshole and grow tremendous hair. audaz had a great segment with virus which led him to get shitcanned by mysterioso and kawato, which let the tecnicos then focus on them and grab the segunda and tie it up.
audaz really wants to start something with virus, which is something i’m down for happening. not much guerrero maya in this match so he did more in the trecera until misterioso was bored so we got more cool virus and audaz stuff, including a slinging tornillo. virus cleared out of the ring and audaz toped on him leaving kawato san to lock a double armbar on fuego for his second direct captain’s fall and misterioso added a this leg head scissored hammerlock for good measure.
kawato looked a lot better and comfortable in this! maybe he just had some nerves on friday, but him and his two dads worked well here. it’s always pleasant to see fuego out there and i’m hoping that audaz and virus goes somewhere. it’s been a highlight of the undercards over the last few weeks and they’ve got some good chemistry. fun undercard match! 3
i decided to cmll first this week because i was more interested in the parejas tournament and kawato’s excursion debut. plus going live with triple a two weeks in a world might drive me insane.
the primera had astral & electrico against el coyote and templario. astral and electrico were too dang concerned with getting their tearaway pants off and the rudos got a double submission for a long first fall. there was a really cool springboard missile dropkick double team onto astral. lots of cool double teams but el coyote might have knocked electrico silly on a monkey flip senton so that was when doing double teams go wrong. i thought these teams were about to lose it, but astral did a real neato rana from the ring to the floor using electrico’s back as a spring board. electrico followed it up by bonking his head on the fall for the tecnicos so it’s astral doing the entire last fall by himself. templario did another dope move by doing a sasuke special from the ramp to the ring onto astral for the third fall. this kind of fell apart but the individual spots were fun! 2.25
hirai kawato’s debut was with virus and misterioso against audaz, rey cometa and pegasso. audaz was really good at unnecessary flips so he’s now my dude. a bit of interaction with everyone and a quick first fall with audaz getting the submission on a flying armbar on virus to a bunch of boos. kawato wasn’t showing anything advanced other than getting chopped to hell by cometa. cometa got chopped back by everyone, kawato hit a really bad clothesline, and misterioso got a rough looking kneebar on cometa to tie it up. third fall had some better moves out of kawato including a pretty deep german on cometa. audaz had another really solid segment with virus. i could deal with these dudes having a longterm thing. virus got sick of this shit and unmasked audaz for the dq. please let audaz and virus continue. kawato needs much more mat time. this was okay. 2
now next was the entire block a of the parejas incredible tournament. given that there is also a main event. i expect these to go quick. oh so this going be a battle royal. okay. never seen a lucha battle royal so we’ll see how well this goes. everyone ran at diamante azul and he gave them tilt a whirl backbreakers. and it seems like it’s only tecnicos. i have no idea what’s going on. valiente did completely waste titan on this elimination. diamante azul and valiente won. i’m not bothering to rate a match i had no clue what was going on.
i’m being told that determined match order. okay. so now it’s blue panther/sam adonis versus niebla roja/gran guerrero. panther still hates adonis and they started fighting. niebla submitted panther and guerrero chokeslammed adonis for the first match. this was nothing. 1.5
hechicero/soberano jr and mephisto/mistico was next. mephisto and mistico had halfsies masks which was neat! hechicero tore his straps down like two minutes into this match so this is my team for this block of the tournament. huge pop for the mistico soberano faceoff. bunch of neat dives from soberano and hechicero. hechicero’s crazy tope might be my favorite move of this year. mephisto won with a destroyer on soberano and la mistica on hechicero! boo! might have been my favorite match of the show so far! 3
soberano looked like he got ko’ed on that destroyer. no not my poor lanky son!
ultimo guerrero/volador jr versus titan/barbanero cavenario next up. this one was really quick. there was a cool tope from titan. a top rope springboard huricanrana from volador on cavenario and the ulitmo special on titan was an awesome finishing stretch and we moved on. 2.5
the last first round match was valiente and rey bucanero vs azul and pierroth. i think i’m about ready to fast forward to two weeks from now and the finals of this. this was also nothing. NR
gran guerrero/niebla roja and mephisto/mistico was the first semi. this slow counting referee was killing me. this tournament was killing me. mistico and guerrero were trying to kill each other which was cool. mephisto and niebla roja got into a fun lariat battle. niebla roja and gran guerrero started fighting and mephisto and mistico advanced on a quick roll up due to that. it was a stronger tournament match, but i’ve stopped caring about this tournament and now just want to survive. 2.75
ultimo guerrero/volador jr got beat down as they made their way down to the ring by diamante azul and pierroth wasn’t super happy about that. volador and ultimo guerrero work together a lot better than other teams. ultimo tapped out diamante azul and volador pinned pierroth. 2
so the finals are mephisto/mistico and ug/volador. thank god this has only been a single fall tournament. twin topes from mephisto and mistico starting off was cool. ug beat the hell out of mistico to start. lots of big spots and the crowd was here for it. volador/ug win the block after a destroyer from volador onto mistico and what the camera missed, but what i bet was an ultimo special onto mephisto. this was given more time and i liked it more than the rest of the tournament. but this tournament is fuckin exhausting and felt super aimless. hoping for a good main event to bail this show out. 2.75
main event was angel de oro, caristico and atlantis vs sanson, cuatrero and euforia. angel got fucking dumptered to start the match by cuatrero to start which fuckin ruled and woke me up. really hot action in the primera caida with caristico getting la mistica on euforia after the ngd members were knocked out the ring. euforia distracted tirantes enough for sanson and cuatrero to get at angel’s mask. this feud is getting really heated up for hdl. eventually this left all the tecnicos laying and all three started to attack angel, which was pretty great. angel tried to hulk up and started to tear at cuatrero’s mask. the crowd was exploding for this and tirantes was cool to let this slide. however, he wouldn’t let the foul and unmasking of angel de oro slide and gave the match to the tecnicos. this was much better. cuatrero officially challenged angel de oro for mascara contra mascara. i guess it’s going to be at homenaje a dos leyendas. angel was carried out by caristico and atlantis. this was better than anything else on this show. 3.25
so i don’t think i’m going to bother with next week’s tournament blocks. that was a pretty miserable viewing experience. the opener was alright until electrico got injured and kawato had a very inauspicious debut. the main event was fun, and i’d probably would have liked it a lot more if i watched it separately versus after that slog.
this took me a few days later to get to because of the world deciding that everywhere needed the wrestling this weekend.
the primera had akuma/espanto jr win over flyer/robin. i liked how in the first fall flyer got too flippy and the rudos decided they weren’t having any of this and double dropkicked him. this was my first time seeing all of these opening match wrestlers and i liked espanto jr and akuma more than the tecnicos. it felt like it’s easier to show character as a lower card rudo than a tecnico. the rudos won the first and third falls. this was okay, but a bit long and lifeless for an opener. 2
the older rudos won over younger and smaller tecnicos for the segunda. the rudos kinda ran roughshot for the majority of the first two falls. the tecnicos had their moments until taking the second fall. this was just okay until everyone came online for the second fall. last week must have been an aberration as raziel was just ok. i did love that cancerbero kick the crap out of astral for being showy getting into the ring. don’t get fancy round these lower card rudos. they won’t stand for it. cancerbero and raziel basically potato sack bombed star jr on the ramp and then held him up to be kicked in the but by nitro. this got grimy and sloppy at the end which i liked, but it started to overstay its welcome before that. 2.5
drone got taken out of the tercera for what he may or may not have done at fantasticamania. this had misterioso jr. but not the one i saw in dragon gate last year who wasn’t that great. this is going to confuse the heck out of me. virus has an impressive mullet that he doesn’t get enough credit for. it’s a mullet of respect and power. they really picked up the pace of the show with a quick first fall and audaz was pretty impressive in it. misterioso got a captains fall on soberano jr immediately tried to undo soberano’s mask. if this was aaa, that thing would have already been off. virus cheated to win the last fall. soberano jr felt like a star and audaz has a lot potential. this was fun! 3
stuka jr/ángel del oro/niebla roja took the first fall over la nueva generacion dinamita in short order with stuka jr getting a splash (and a kemonito one as well) on sánson. ángel del oro did a really impressive stage dive in between falls on cuatrero. the crowd really woke up for this one. random pose off with niebla roja because why the heck not. lets slow down a hot match. a pretty good stretch at the end going into ángel del oro getting unmasked by cuatero so the tecnicos won it over ngd in straight falls. this was good and this show is blazing along. 3.25
the semifinal was the méxican heavyweight title match with terrible defending against diamante azul. real fast first fall with diamante powerslamming terrible. i’m not a huge fan of either of these guys, but this has been fine. terrible evened it up with a john woo. really mad that diamante didn’t do the proper sell of a john woo, but that was on him, not terrible. diamante decided it was time for big boy season topes. the first one was dead on the mark onto terrible, but the second one took out his second, stuka jr. terrible figured out “oh i guess we are doing topes now” and got one of his one onto the both of them. diamante’s leaping ramp clothesline is really cool and i wish he did more of that rather than just being big and plodding. diamante probably got the pop of the night to this point with a top rope falcon arrow nearfall. terrible saw the second ramp clothesline coming and turned it into an armbar for the last fall and to retain his title. this was decent bordering on good. 2.75
this show has been remarkably easy to watch, especially in comparison to how brutal aaa got towards the end. not as many high or lows as aaa, but just kind of a chill good show. easy to watch too.
los guerreros laguneros vs volador jr/dragón lee/atlantis was the friday main event. i haven’t seen any of fantasticamania, but apparently atlantis came back way too early so i’m kind of worried to watch this. find someone who doesn’t like raising the roof and you’ve found someone i don’t want to spend any time with. último distracted atlantis by trying to undo his mask so his teammates could take out lee and volador to win the first fall. a series of top rope moves by volador and dragón lee got them the second fall after atlantis took out ug with a tope. i don’t think atlantis can do a whole lot so they’re trying to hide it with that dive/mask stuff. volador has been the star of this with a bunch of to the floor headscissors. volador and dragón lee wipe out euphoria and gran on the floor allowing atlantis to lock the atlantida on último for the deciding fall. this did a great job of hiding how rusty atlantis was by relying on his team to do spectacular stuff. 3.25
really easy watch of a show. nothing had the highs of guerra de titanes (or close to the almas/gargano nxt match), but nothing came close to the frustration of the last two matches of guerra. feels like they were buying time before the parejas incredibles tournament next week, but no complaints. everything was ok to good.
so this was the first full show i watched when i started this project. i’ve been told it was a weak friday arena mexico show because of the vast majority of the names being in japan for fantasticamania. overall, i thought this show was alright. most of the matches were just fine/nothing, but the lightning and tercera matches were fun.
the opener was a minis tag. mercurio and pequeño ninja won and they seemed alright. i was more amused by the fact that there was an último dragóncito. the dude’s been wrestling since 92 as that gimmick! último doesn’t even have toryumon mexico anymore! i wonder if he still gets residuals for the gimmick. i bag on him a lot, but there is no denying that último is the consummate businessman (until his students blindside him and take his penny bank away from him and kick him to the side to build said penny bank into the number two promotion in japan.)
the segunda was a women’s trios match. i’ve seen princesa and zeuxis before on cmll’s 84th anniversary show. i thought the world of that match (ranked it 10th on my vow moty ballot), so i was relatively stoked going into this. the tecnicas were all good and did some neat stuff. maravilla took a couple of sick bumps due to tiffany not being that good. zeuxis still had great charisma to hold up the rudas, but the rest of that team was not that good.
the trecera was probably the “best” match of the night. sagrado was probably my “wrestler i haven’t seen before that i liked the most” of this show. he ruled and i dug his offense. i hope that when the regulars come back he doesn’t get shoved off the cards. raziel is apparently not that good but i thought he was fine in this. tritón had the botch of the night and i thought he almost hurt himself. really really fun stuff.
the lightning match was a blast. kraneo is soooo much bigger since the last time i saw him and it gave him a bit of thicc boy charm. mije has one of my favorite costumes and probably is my favorite mascot. hechiero has his presence down pat. it felt like hechiero and kraneo both wanted to find ways to flatten mije which was a fun bit to do in a match like this. if it was a standard 2/3 match, i woulda felt this would have been done to death. hechiero did this insane tope where he decided to go over the top and lawn dart himself into kraneo. that was probably my favorite moment of the show.
the semi and main both were there. i knew of stuka jr and titán from njpw/roh shows. niebla had a real funny afro wig. that’s all i remember from the semi. the main had vangellys, who spent time in dg back when tozawa was a young boy. i can’t believe that guy is 1) still this weird german nazi stripper, 2) still wrestling (he was real bad back then), and 3) main eventing (even with how depleted the roster was this night). terrible and diamante azul are doing a title challenge after that, so that’s okay i guess?
2018 is Lucha Libre for Mike Spears 