A Little Bit of Post-Aniversario CMLL

CMLL 2014/9/28

MATCH RELAMPAGO: Fuego vs. Kamaitachi

Good little MR, nice mixture of exhibition and attacking lucha. For those living under the rock, Kamaitachi is New Japan’s Young Lion Hiromu Takahashi. I dig his character, he just needs to modify the mask a little bit, to make it more heelish. Fuego is awesome and one of the discoveries of 2014.

***

CMLL 2014/9/28

Blue Panther, Rey Cometa, Angel de Oro vs. Polvora, Cavernario, Hombre sin Nombre

Five out of six names involved are either good or marvelous, so of course it’s gonna be a damn good trio. The main story is Cavernario and Cometa continuing their beef after the cabellera match, and it’s intense, naturally, Cometa wants a piece of caveman, and caveman wants to wrestle on his own terms, which means ambush tactics and endless stalling. Goddam it, I’m in love with Cavernario, incredible rudo and luchador in general. The rudo trio provided some really good and effective brawling here, what’s awesome is that Polvora looked like a competitive brawler here, which is surprising to me as I didn’t watch much of him. Good trio match, tons of fun, Cavernario/Panther needs to happen ASAP.

***3/4

CMLL 2014/9/21

MATCH RELAMPAGO: Stuka Jr. vs. Hechicero

Not a good MR, too dry and slow in a bad way, by far the worst Hechicero match and performance I’ve seen.

**

CMLL 2014/9/21

Atlantis, Volador Jr., Valiente vs. Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Escorpion, Mephisto

The first Atlantis/Ultimo match after Aniversario, and the main selling point for everyone was to see one of them unmasked. As we all know, Ultimo lost the mask in a highly emotional match, but here there was no place for emotions, he’s angry and wants to unmask Atlantis badly, his rudo trio ambushes the tecnicos during Atlantis’ entrance and it’s all great wrestling until the very end of the match. Electric atmosphere, high intensity simply a majestic lucha with Atlantis and Ultimo headlining the match, that was some damn good booking, Ultimo displayed what I’d call one of the greatest rudo performances of the year, this is a must-see trio.

****1/4

Destruction '14 in Okayama: Three Great Matches

Destruction 2014 in Okayama

(2014/9/23)

1.      Ryusuke Taguchi, Cpt. New Japan, BUSHI vs. Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask, Maximo

**3/4

2.      Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) vs. Forever Hooligans (Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov)

***1/4

3.      Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki, Takashi Iizuka, TAKA Michinoku) vs. Toru Yano, Kazushi Sakuraba, Gedo

***

4.      Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata vs. Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma)

**1/2

5.      IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Taichi & Desperado vs. Time Splitters (KUSHIDA & Alex Shelley) ©

****

6.      Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Tomohiro Ishii

***1/2

7.      NWA World Tag Team Championship: Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi vs. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) ©

****

8.      NEVER Openweight Championship: YOSHI-HASHI vs. Yujiro Takahashi ©

***3/4

9.      AJ Styles & Doc Gallows vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tetsuya Naito

***

10.  Tokyo Dome Heavyweight Title Shot: Karl Anderson vs. Kazuchika Okada (G1w)

****

Have no idea why no one raved about the show, it was pretty damn good, great even. Two tag title matches and main event rocked, three awesome matches, plus there was the NEVER title match that was so good, the Ishii tag was swell, there were three other good tags, the opener was perfectly solid, and the only letdown was the Shibata tag, but that was short and hurt nobody. The three great matches I mentioned were all equally awesome, but if I really had to choose the MOTN, then I’d pick the Junior tag, although the veteran NWA tag gave them a run for their money. Main event was another smashing Karl/Okada match, those dudes have scary good chemistry. Okada is just a brutal god of pro-graps at this point, he’s been scoring great matches for the third year in a row now, he just can’t go wrong and turns everything into gold, such a supreme wrestler.

If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, then just cherry-pick 5, 7, 8 and main event, you won’t regret it.

Park/Wagner: Ever Seen a 100 Year Old High-Flying Ref?

Llaves y Candados 20??/?/?

SUPER LIBRE: La Parka (original) vs. Dr. Wagner Jr.

I got this match from a torrent site, have no idea when it happened, although the commentators kept referring to Park as “La Parka”, which means this has to be around 2003, because that’s when the legal war between Park and Pena started. The venue is famous Arena Coliseo in Monterrey, and my god, that place loves rigged refs, overbooking and massive screwjobs. But hey, that’s the charm, and let me tell you something, it’s more fun than frustrating, most of time. Honestly, Park and Wagner have one of the greatest chemistries together, they work immensely with each other. Of course this was a stiff brawl with your classic lucha ingredients, and when you add your vintage Monterrey antics such as high-flying 100 year old refs, lethal board shots, interferences and some comedy, then you get a fun match. However, this is the place where just about everything clicked, and considering it’s Park and Wagner, the shit is fantastic.

  

****1/2

Great Shit From That Hunter Hearst Helmsley "Indie"

NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way

(2014/9/11)

NXT Championship: Sami Zayn vs. Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze vs. Adrian Neville ©

Same rating like Shield/Wyatts, but if I had to choose, I'd pick this one, if nothing then because visually it's more captivating (no Michael J. Fox on camera), just a perfectly booked multi-man match right here, very easy to get into, and this is coming from a man who only watched Cesaro/Zayn from NXT 2014. Shit, just realized I have that one at ****1/2 too. My favorite parts of the match were Kidd's control segment and Neville cutting off Zayn and his moonsault. I’ll rewatch both Cesaro/Zayn and this one down the road to pick my favorite. NXT has this totally non-WWE feel, and I refuse to look at it as a part of WWE Universe, I like to think of it as an indie promotion funded by WWE.

  

****1/2