AAA 5/11/95 in Xalapa:
Los Powers Raiders vs Angel Mortal/Marabunta/Mr. Condor/Karloff Lagarde Jr./Perro Silva: Standard Power Rangers match with them showing off some cool stuff before heading into the eliminations portion of the match. Loved the spot where Venum ran up all his partners to do a plancha but got caught. Someone needs to do that into a regular dive some day! Lasser/Skayde had some real neat tag spots in this one. No dives. Power Rangers continue their winning ways. Kind of amazing Karloff Lagarde Jr. ended up here. He was so plain that even Antonio Pena couldn't figure out some weird gimmick to give him. He was a perfect fit for the dull CMLL midcards.
Latin Lover/Super Calo/Winners vs Jerry Estrada/Heavy Metal/Picudo: A seemingly random trios but booked to set up matches for a future TV! The rudos were the "rocker" group which made sense. They reunited over a year later when Super Crazy showed up and in between a couple of Heavy Metal tecnico runs. Super Calo looked real good here, obviously on a high heading into the biggest month of his career. Rudos went over with Jerry beating Latin Lover to earn a title shot & the leftovers would do a straight tag match on the road to Triplemania! Logical trios match building in AAA!
Octagon/Rey Misterio Jr./Super Muneco vs Pentagon/Juventud Guerrera/Fuerza Guerrera: This was actually the debut of Pentagon - ex-Santo Negro. He had revealed the new name already in the press but this was his TV debut under the gimmick with a new nemesis in his path. Tons of heat for his showdown with Octagon including an epic chase from the ring to the back at one point. Fans actually took swings at Pentagon! I bet Santo was re-thinking the family decision to scrap the Santo/Santo Negro feud since that would have been a good money feud. My little takeaway from this, as a hardcore Rey Jr fan, is how well he worked with Pentagon since they had history together working well in trios (when he was Espanto Jr.). First guy Rey did the Dragon Rana with in Mexico! Muneco was largely a non-entity here. Rey/Juvy traded some cool suplexes. Tecs won by countout when Pentagon ran away. This was good stuff.
Perro Aguayo vs Mascara Ano 2000 (IWC Heavyweight Title): All things considered not a bad match. Another super heated match, a lot thanks to the extra bonus of Octagon/Pentagon as seconds. Octagon even got in a bullet tope at one point! The big storyline was the Pepsi bottle attack 2 weeks earlier which Perro was still recovering from. So naturally at the finish MA2K produced another bottle (I don't think it was Pepsi) & hit Perro with it but this time it didn't break. It did get him the win though.
One of the classic AAA TV shows that got passed around all the traders back in the day since it had all the names that would attract you to an AAA event. Probably a must-see just based on the totality & of course it being the debut of a gimmick that still is in existence to this very day although obviously modified.
(The Get Go - "Target")
Music Video
CMLL 5/11/07
A full Friday night show airing in full in 2007!!! Ahhhhhhh... but there's a catch! It was a 3 match show! The torneo went an hour so if you add in entrances that's one TV show right there. Instead they chose to cut it down, skip entrances, air a pointless semi-main & a random Arena Coliseo match. (No, not the one with Ultimo Dragon/Jushin Liger opposite each other) But on the bright side this meant the only leftover Friday match was the rare opener which got bumped to one of the weekend shows. A super rare and happy occurence.
Brillante Jr./Leono/Stuka Jr. vs Euforia/Nosferatu/Virus: This was the new Infernales lineup with Satanico taking a secondary role as Virus had just turned rudo a week earlier. So this was mostly a showcase match for them busting out a bunch of cool double and triple team moves. (Yes, week-to-week CMLL booking existed back in 2007) I can't recall if this was Brillante's debut TV appearence or if he had done one of the weekend shows already but either way it was one of the first chances to see him in action in Arena Mexico. He looked great. DUH. So did Stuka. Leono was a heavily pushed guy at this point for his position on the card but was clearly a guy in way over his head which would become evident in time. Loved the spear on the ramp by Nosferatu!
Felino/Heavy Metal/Negro Casas vs Black Warrior/Averno/Mephisto: Okay now this is hilarious. You may not get it unless you were around as a fan in 2007 but the basic idea is this match went sub 10 minutes with the first fall going like 1 minute or so. I remember the press completely shitting on it when they recapped it the following day. Like it was a joke you could do a trios match in under 10 minutes and to be honest they weren't wrong. This match wasn't very good and it felt like everyone had somewhere else to be (results don't show anyone going anywhere else afterwards). They were even pushing a Heavy Metal/Black Warrior feud which made it even funnier when the post-match challenges went almost as long as the match itself. Of course reading this with a 2020 viewpoint you probably don't get it since MANY matches go sub 10 minutes these days and if the Tuesday main doesn't you often wonder if they messed up. But this was an entire different world. Rudos went over when Black Warrior cheated to beat Metal. BAD.
Gran Prix: This was Ultimo Dragon show weekend so that's why Minoru Suzuki was hanging around. Hiroki Goto was on excursion. Marco Corleone was back to being a rudo for the night, as was Alex Koslov. Jushin Liger was of course the big get so you know how this one ends. Mexico team was pretty straight forward with all the top heavyweight stars so no Mistico, Volador Jr. or La Mascara types but you had Lizmark Jr. & Sagrado hanging around. A lot of the early portion was edited off TV so we jumped in with some eliminations. Couple cool moments like Guerrero/Bucanero reuniting to do their dance/pose & Wagner/Liger facing off for the first time in Arena Mexico since their famous 96 singles match. Eliminations went pretty much as you'd expect. I liked Guerrero reversing Marco's Air Italia. A spot they would do often but this was the first so of course you remember it! Naturally it came down to Ultimo Guerrero vs Liger with the expected result. In fact, Guerrero got A LOT here with multiple cool eliminations so it was kind of a swerve - especially with him winning the year before too - but in the end no swerve... he just won... again... over Liger.
Overall a fine show but nothing memorable. Especially for how hot CMLL was in 2007. I feel like people will look at the torneo lineup on paper and hunt this down only to come away very disappointed.
(Unwritten Law - "Up All Night")
Music Video
CMLL 5/11/10:
A FULL TUESDAY SHOW! YAY!
Bengala & Trueno vs Disturbio & Mortiz: Nice treat with a glimpse of four guys who NEVER made TV in these times. We now see Bengala & Disturbio on a regular basis but this was when they were allowed to actually work & show off the cool things they could do. Excellent work by all here with some innovative stuff & crazy bumps. Trueno does the slingshot somersault senton to the floor like it's no big deal. He & Mortiz always had crazy good chemistry. Tecnicos take a super fun match!
Guerrero Maya Jr./Molotov/Starman vs Bronco/Hooligan/Inquisidor: A very comfort food CMLL match. If you don't understand that basically... you had 2 CMLL match structures at the time for the non-Friday shows. Either a first fall where one tecnico would get a big exchange + dive, then the other two tecnicos would get second fall showcases before the rudos took over to get their shit in & a third fall would occur or the opposite pretty much where the rudos would take the first fall out of nowhere & the second fall comeback would have the spectacular tecnicos spots. This was option A. A perfectly fine comfort food match where Maya looked spectacular, Bronco kept up & got to do his cool dive & everyone got in a spot to shine by the end. You cannot even compare the segundas from these days to what they would become 10 years later.
Fabian El Gitano/Pegasso/Rey Cometa vs Euforia/Nosferatu/Dr. X: Another comfort food match although far more spectacular action with higher quality guys. Rey Cometa & Pegasso were working super hard - especially Cometa who got in both the running corkscrew armdrag and double corkscrew over the ringpost! My man! Nosferatu was running on borrowed time here. It's kinda funny we used to think he was one of the weakest wrestlers on the CMLL roster and for 2020 standards he would be a perfectly fine 3ra level guy in a Polvora role. Rudos got the win.
Blue Panther/Toscano/Valiente vs Texano Jr./Polvora/Efesto: More comfort food, less craziness than previous match. Valiente did his dive but otherwise this was a rudo orientated match & of course Panther tossing in his twists & turns. Another pro to 2010 over 2020... up and down the card so far notice the lack of guys who are awful and you have no use of ever seeing again. They just don't exist. These days you can't go a single match with at least one guy involved who just drags everything down.
Hector Garza/Mascara Dorada/Volador Jr. vs Atlantis/Averno/Rey Bucanero: Storyline advancement main event as Hector Garza was in the middle of an extended rudo turn. He declined to participate in the first fall and was having a blast with an old lady at ringside. It was actually super entertaining. The rudos weren't really buying it & stayed on guard just incase. Volador was pissed and kept trying to get Garza to help out. This ended up backfiring at the end when Garza did get involved but chose to lay down and purposely lose the match. C'MON VOLADOR IT WAS SO OBVIOUS WHY DID YOU GIVE HIM THE CHANCE??? Reads like a disappointing match but it wasn't at all! Garza was so evil it was glorious to watch.
Great show! These C3 shows were a blast to watch at the time and still are. Just 2 hours of good lucha. You used to always be able to count on CMLL for that.
(Forever The Sickest Kids - "Take It Slow")
Music Video
CMLL 5/11/12:
Another full CMLL show! May 11 must be a lucky day! Or we keep running into random tournaments!
Hombre Bala Jr. & Super Halcon Jr. vs Bobby Zavala & Disturbio: Generacion '11 leftovers still trying to make it in 2012! These were actually the top four outside of Dragon Lee who one could argue was never really part of the group since he was destined for greatness. Zavala & Disturbio made a perfect team together. Total ass kicking pricks. It was matches like this where I got high on Bobby as the future with his great basing & brutal counter spots. Those dropkicks were VICIOUS! He also showed tons of charisma which made it a lock he would move up eventually but nobody could remotely guess his end story... haha. Bala & Halcon were both promising rookies. Bala was the better of the two, or at least he more spectacular. This was a fun opener to watch and wish the current openers could emulate. These guys actually got the crowd into it & came off as the future is in good hands.
Astral/Fantasy/Ultimo Dragoncito vs Pequeno Nitro/Pequeno Olimpico/Pequeno Violencia: The CMLL mini's division post-Mascarita Dorada wasn't all that bad to be honest. They were going with the bigger guys as was evident by everyone here and the guys generally worked hard like in this match. Lots of neat spots, some cool dives & a great third fall. The division didn't die a death due to effort level, that's for sure. The most memorable thing from this was Astral doing a double springboard rana onto the ramp sending Pequeno Violencia into the crowd. It appeared he was supposed to take the bump to the floor but chose the crowd. If I remember the story correctly he was already on one warning about going into the crowd and this was not a 3 strikes you're out policy. This was an automatic suspension. One of the earliest cases I can remember of unexplained suspensions where you had to investigate a little to find out why a guy was suddenly off all lineups. The ban on going into the crowd totally killed any fun in watching Ultimo Dragoncito wrestle.
Black Warrior/Sagrado/Stuka Jr. vs Rey Escorpion/Misterioso/Okumura: The Black Warrior/Rey Escorpion feud was the focus here and had been for a few weeks. They just kept doing these trios matches with random partners where nobody else would really matter & every finish would revolve around them. This was straight falls (as most matches in the build were) ending with an Escorpion low blow (as most matches in the build did). All that sticks out apart from that is one of the most crisp toritos you will ever see from Sagrado to Misterioso.
Triton vs Niebla Roja: En Busca De Un Idolo Round 1! A couple weeks in now it was pretty clear Triton was determined to do well here. I think the general idea was everyone knew a new Mistico was coming and assumed the winner would get the gimmick which made the winner super obvious but that's a story for another day. The reason I mention it though is because Triton won his first match with La Mistica of all moves & may have soured the office by doing that because he was never intended to win this no matter how great he did... and great he did indeed do! He really didn't have a bad match the entire first round. This had him flying all over the place & Niebla Roja playing a fantastic rudo in the right position every time. Triton took the loss but as we progressed in the tournament it became evident results didn't matter... which became an issue come time for the finals. LOL
Dragon Lee vs Euforia: A match built around Euforia countering all of Dragon Lee's flying except for shorts bursts where Dragon would hit big dives like his springboard SSP. Euforia is amazing. Literally the perfect opponents for a guy like Dragon Lee at this point in his career. The finish clearly sets up a future rematch in the tournament with Euforia putting on his finisher, winning, refusing to let go, getting DQ'ed. Way to telegraph the final! Except... some Titan fans would have something to say about that. :)
Atlantis/Blue Panther/La Mascara vs Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Bucanero/Terrible: The show is running long so just get in and do your paint by numbers match... match! Damn run-on sentences. This was what it was. It was fine but you will never remember it again after watching. The perfect match for UG to take a loss in.
Marco Corleone/Maximo/Rush vs Volador Jr./Psicosis/Yujiro: Bufete Del Amor! The most random grouping of guys who totally by accident ended up enjoying teaming with each other & invented their own name so they just kept teaming. That's how you gotta play the office! Or at least could play the office when wrestlers had slightly more control. It was this connection that eventually kept Marco tied to Rush and on the fringes of Los Ingobernables when it eventually formed. Marco always said he never wanted to be a part of that group and enjoyed this group far more. The rudo side was Volador Jr. still being alligned with the Invasores (Psicosis... 2 year invasion and counting) & Yujiro stinking up the point with every appearence. Luckily he was hidden well here. Pretty good match with lots of creativity in the comeback & third fall. Even had a dive sequence! Random rudo team went over because... of course they did.
Really great show! Definitely got your money's worth if you went live (bonus Mother's Day strip show... with Puma King???) & made for some good TV/internet viewing. Definitely reccomended for a rewatch!
(Allister - "Waiting')
Music Video
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
May 6 in Lucha History
CMLL @ Arena Mexico 5/6/05:
So in this time period for CMLL we were doing the 3 (sometimes MAYBE 4 matches) from Arena Mexico + 1 random from Arena Coliseo on Tuesday format for TV. This was a week we got a completely random 3ra from Tuesday which actually got La Flecha on TV (as a sub) but was a meaningless match. I menton this because we ended up missing out on the Arena Mexico 2da which was a trios involving Ricky Marvin & Hooligan. That was the norm... except this match also had La Mascara & Dr. X involved who were in a big feud at the time that would lead to a singles title match the following Friday which did air. This was around the time pirated copies of *full* Arena Mexico shows were being sold outside the arenas due to Mistico's growing popularity so it wouldn't shock me if some random person has this laying around somewhere.
Atlantis/Black Warrior/Satanico vs Black Tiger/Okumura/Taguchi: A painful match to sit through knowing the great looking 2da that was skipped over. Also a painful match to sit through because it was boring as shit. Okumura was in his usual role of accompanying any visiting Japanese wrestler so we were stuck with him often and this would become the norm. Satanico was washed up by the end of 2003 & had no business still being around here, especially as a tecnico. Nothing to note here otherwise.
Dos Caras Jr./Heavy Metal/Ultimo Dragon vs Averno/Mephisto/Ultimo Guerrero: So this was around the time Ultimo Dragon & Ultimo Guerrero were big time feuding and there was lots of speculation they would do a mask match. It had all the makings of one coming up as they both tore masks & cut promos like you would to lead to a match like that. It never happened but this went on many weeks including this one. Everyone else was largely a bystander for what they were doing which is funny since Dos Caras Jr. would eventually step into the feud & end up doing a back-to-back series of matches with Guerrero for the CMLL Heavyweight Title not too long after this. Decent match, got over the feud it was supposed to get over.
Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./LA Park vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Tarzan Boy: This set up Mistico vs Perro Aguayo Jr. the following week in their first ever singles match so you can imagine the heat for this one! But it also had Wagner/Park who weren't gonna be overshadowed so they got their shit in and actually looked great as a team! Park did his DOTYC in the 2nd fall - a dive I've never seen him do before or after! First fall ended with Perrito yanking off Mistico's mask (very violently). This was a usual spot where Mistico would have to go run to the back to get a new mask and his return would lead to the crazy heated comeback including him tope'ing Perrito into the first row. Lots of nearfalls as Wagner/Park wanted to do their moves before the finish where Perrito low blowed Mistico and then yanked his new mask off again post-match to setup next week.
Below average CMLL TV show for the time. Only redeeming thing was the main event but it's a main event well worth seeing and is on YouTube!
(New Found Glory - "I Don't Wanna Fall Asleep")
Music Video
AAA in Tlaxcala - 5/6/06:
Jessy/JJ/Kevin vs Los Espantapajaros I/II/III: The scarecrows!!! My favorites!!! Legit love the gimmick and was always thrilled to see them pop on TV in this era. Not entirely sure who was under the gimmick. May have been the Cirios. Wasn't the Diabolicos for sure. Jessy & Kevin were the only leftovers from the wonderful Kumbia Kids stable that Antonio Pena would never let die off. Jessy was related to Tiffany. Kevin was from the Andrade family. JJ was not a Kumbia Kid although he dressed like one here. I'm struggling to remember what his deal with but I think he was a legit singer who they tried to train to wrestle. He was pretty awful. The rudos worked super light with him. Fun enough opener that went haywire during the dive sequence at the end where Kevin torched his ankle on an asai moonsault when he hit the guardrail and he was done. They did a quick improvised DQ after that.
Oriental/Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Cuervo/Escoria/Ozz/Espiritu: Oriental was dubbed as the 'padrino' for the new Fuerza Aerea group but outside of teaming with them here never really played the part. He just happened to be booked instead of Laredo Kid. These teams had been regular opponents and having great little undercard matches. This was no exception although not one of the standouts. Chessman ended up running in to help his teammates and spewed people with mist, threw others over the top & beat up others. A great night for Chessman!
La Parka/Octagon/Intocable/El Angel vs Abismo Negro/Psicosis/Histeria/Kaoma Jr.: The rare match with two Histerias! Yes, after doing a run-in on a previous show dressed as Histeria to join the group - Kaoma Jr. actually works his one TV match under the half Kaoma/half Histeria look here. He actually looked really good and stuck around for a bit (but ditching the copycat look) before getting hurt via Crazy Boy/Joe Lider sloppiness in late June. Traditional AAA style match with the rudo brawling followed by tecnicos all getting turns to show off and do comedy stuff for the most part with each rudo one-by-one. Parka was pretty funny fucking around with Abismo. Angel looked like a world class wrestler compared to his partners. You'll be stunned to know this was third straight match in a row ending with a DQ! Antonio Pena was still alive and booking - don't question things!
Konnan/Ron Killings/X-Pac vs Cibernetico/Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica: A rare rudos vs rudos match with more foreigners than natives! I think this was a special request because X-Pac was clearly enjoying working with Ricky Banderas, much moreso than against the Mexican tecnicos he got paired with at the time. Konnan wasn't moving well so he matched up great with Cibernetico. I actually can't remember how this one ended but luchablog has it as a NC which seems about right.
El Zorro vs Charly Manson (Cage - Mexican National Heavyweight Title): These two were in a never ending feud dating back to something like early 2004 if you can believe it. The end goal was a hair match at Triplemania but along the way they killed time doing matches for Zorro's title which was very important at the time. I believe Charly had already failed once (maybe twice?). He would fail again here although not to any fault of his as he was fantastic in this! Worked very hard, took crazy bumps & bled a ton. These guys always loved working with each other. Another match with interference, even with the cage, as all of La Secta ran in only for Zorro to cane them on by one before dodging them all to escape first. But he would drop that title to Manson soon enough...
Overall a really good AAA show for this time period. You get the wacky in the opener, the flying guys in the 2da, a tradition match in the 3ra & a very good main event. Reccomended viewing!
(Sum 41 - "We're All To Blame")
Music Video
AAA 5/6/07 in Oaxaca:
"La Invasion"
The first to note obviously is this venue is GORGEOUS! Outdoors. Clear view. Sun shining for opening two matches & then lovely night sky for the rest. If you have the weather an outdoor show can be fantastic for a viewing experience on TV!
Mascarita Sagrada 2000 & Mascarita Divina vs Mini Abismo Negro & Mini Histeria: The best of the best with the AAA mini's here! Great stuff as you'd expect. Divina has a slip-up early on a rope spot and Abismo kicks him in the face telling him to get his shit together. 20 seconds later we have the amazing headscissors into the armdrag spot people forget these two invented! It wasn't Flamita! Mini tecnicos win but get laid out post-match because it's AAA booked by Konnan!
Cynthia Moreno/Estrellita/Sexy Star vs Fabi Apache/Rossy Moreno/Tiffany: This was during Fabi's awesome heel run as she had caused Billy Boy to end up in a crazy house (skit later!) & was in top form trolling her opponents - especially Sexy Star who was the newbie on the scene getting her ass kicked weekly by the veterans. That used to be Estrellita's job but she had now advanced to sexy eye candy although she was still at least trying. Had a nice asai moonsault dive in this one. Cynthia & Rossy were reaching their expiration date and would end up leaving for a while before returning for a short stay many years later. Konnan was phasing these women down & I wanna think they knew it. So-so match all thanks to Fabi.
Aero Star/Laredo Kid/Pegasso/Super Fly vs Gran Apache/Super Calo/Alan/Decnis: HELL FUCKING YES! THIS IS WHY I LIVE! This was the version of the Fuerza Aerea most are familiar with although Aero Star was still a newbie at this point. In fact, this was one of his first TV matches as their partner. The rudos were the evil Barrio Boys who had shunned Billy (pre-match skit included him looking down trapped in a crazy house as they laughed!) along with Apache & Super Calo who had returned to form a weird partnership with the old man (and drop his mask at Triplemania). This match was just fucking insane. I remember it was one of my favorites in 2008 & stands up to this day. It's on YouTube so definitely give it a watch! Just madness start to finish with clearly a lot of thought put into it as the sequences were so complex & even the rudo beatdown stuff had purpose. This had one of those one-time only spots where Aero Star goes for a tope suicida, gets caught by two rudos, then thrown back inside so Apache can slam him down as if you hit the rewind button on your VCR. Someone bring it back! Decnis takes a rana from the apron to the floor by Pegasso who looked world class in this one. Laredo Kid does a 450 off the apron to the floor which may have been the TV debut of that spot. They do a crazy ass dive sequence too including old man Apache capping it off with a somersault over the ringpost! Aero Star gets the win for his team with a shooting star press which I like to think was because pre-match they were showing highlights of the Fuerza Aerea doing flips and each one did a spot onto his feet except Aero Star who just crashed doing an SSP. Foreshadowing! This was AWESOME!
Crazy Boy/Joe Lider/Juventud Guerrera/Psicosis vs Cuervo/Escoria/Ozz/Espiritu: Mexican Powers vs Secta! A classic! Especially for this time period. All the lineups had been announced for this month alrady so we knew an Atomicos Titles match was happening 6 days later & also at this time AAA was naming shows so an event was coming up called 'La Tracion'. Basically implying someone is turning on someone. Without spoiling too much... that someone was in this match. So this was one of the last chance to see these teams in this format go at it. Pretty good match with the Crazy Boy/Joe Lider wackiness you'd expect & including Crazy Boy doing a moonsault off the bleachers in the crowd. They did the spot where the rudos do the careta & Juvy comes to break it up with a flying huracanrana. Secta takes this one.
Intocable/Super Porky/El Zorro vs Abismo Negro/Kenzo Suzuki/X-Pac: Well one match on this show has to be the traditional AAA match for the families so this was it by default. Lots of comedy with Porky involved as you'd expect. Zorro tried some stuff with X-Pac. Tried being the key word. Ryan Shamrock got involved and Zorro sexually assaulted her before X-Pac kicked him low to beat him. Entertaining enough for what it was.
Charly Manson vs Mesias: No Ciber around tonight so his #2 in command Charly Manson was here to fight the cause vs leader of the Secta - Mesias! Funny spot early on where Mesias went to sweep Manson's leg and Manson was either unaware this was coming or didn't wanna go down but Mesias is so much stronger he just yanked that fucking leg and Manson took a header. LOL Things broke down with interference as you'd expect. Zorro actually came out to help his old rival and fight off La Secta with his cane. A board was broken, fire was used & in the end Mesias came out on top. Exactly what I wanted out of my AAA main event!
Great show! This is why AAA was *the* promotion to watch in 2007! Nobody did. But that's okay with me because now I have all these great memories and none of you do!
(Linkin Park - "Beneath My Skin")
Music Video
CMLL 5/6/08 @ Arena Mexico:
Oh man it has to be pointed before even talking about the matches how different CMLL was at this time. Small Tuesday crowd but the makeup was entirely hardcore fans who knew the wrestlers, knew the feuds & were very interactive with the wrestlers. You see this during the main when Black Warrior goes to teach his dace to a blonde girl in the front row who actually stands out because she may be the only foreigner in the building! Compare that to these days when a Mexican sitting in the front row is a rarity. The other thing to note is the ringside area completely packed with photographers from the various magazines since there is a title match on this show. You can see poor Alexis running around all over trying to snap pictures while avoiding others. I can see why he eventually complained.
5 match show - 4 matches aired - the opener that didn't was all women so WE ARE ALREADY IN LUCK!
Fabian El Gitano/Mictlan/Super Nova vs Diamante Negro/Nitro/Skandalo: Ahhhhhhh! Mictlan! DON'T SAY HIS NAME! Well, that used to be the rule since he disappeared randomly out of nowhere you just knew he would be back some day to cause trouble. But then word came out he was having kidney trouble (steroids anyone?) so a return was unlikely. In this match he was playing background to Fabian El Gitano who was in the middle of a feud with Diamante Negro that got dropped a month later when Diamante disappeared and a random guy named Dragon Rojo showed up! And the icing on the cake is Dragon Rojo would be in a mask match come the end of August against... Mictlan! Fabian got screwed. Their partner was Super Nova who at this time was an exciting young guy who didn't make TV enough. Decent match here. Crowd was into it as they had been watching this feud develop every Tuesday & the Nitro/Skandalo/Loco Max/Arkangel group was over with the rudo section. DQ finish with Diamante yanking Fabian's mask.
Bam Bam vs Pequeno Damian 666 (CMLL Mini's Title): YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a treat to get a match like this! This came as a result of a torneo cibernetico on Kids Day the week before where Pequeno Damian cheated to eliminate Mascarita Dorada & then Bam Bam cheated to beat him in revenge and earn #1 contendership. Think about that. We were THIS CLOSE to Bam Bam vs Mascarita Dorada instead! They even did a tease during that same torneo! But you can't complain too much since these guys together are GOLD! Great match that almost got derailed when Bam Bam hit his head on the floor trying a rana to the outside. You can see Damian is immediatly concerned but Bam Bam shrugs it off like a madman. All the great stuff you'd expect from these two who actually feuded all summer which would have been great if it hadn't been shifted to Sunday mostly non-TV shows. Bam Bam went in to regain his belt... but left without it. A Valagueza gave Damian the win in front of a very happy rudo crowd!
Felino/Heavy Metal/Negro Casas vs Averno/Mephisto/Misterioso: Run-of-the-mill trios with the Casas brothers doing their thing against the usual rudos who worked their asses off to make Heavy Metal in particular look good. On the bright side for them they got to go over in the end!
Alex Koslov/Blue Panther/Dos Caras Jr. vs Black Warrior/Sangre Azteca/Ultimo Guerrero: Holy batman it's Sangre Azteca in a main event! Don't adjust your screens! I actually checked good old luchablog to make sure he wasn't a sub! I did come across a news note where Ultimo Guerrero asks that the Anniversary main event be a 4 way mask match with him, Atlantis, Blue Panther & Villano V. It's almost like this guy had inside information & was pushing to be added to the planned match! Fun match. Koslov/Warrior had their antics going & actually ended the match with Warrior getting DQ'ed for a low blow. Sangre Azteca fit in fine and as a smaller guy actually made all of Dos Caras Jr.'s offense look so much better (monkey flip in particular). But being a smaller guy is probably why he got taken out of these matches and eventually moved further down the card.
Good show. Definitely check out the mini's title match & main event too if you've got time.
(Beat Crusaders - "Hit In The U.S.A.")
Music Video
CMLL 5/6/11 @ Arena Mexico:
A full Friday night show making the various TV networks!
Dalys/Luna Magica/Goya Kong vs Estrellita/Princesa Blanca/La Comandante: I had totally forgotten Estrellita was still around as a ruda by this point. I don't think it lasts much longer since she definitely turns by the fall. Usual women's stuff... they tried... they failed at a lot... Luna was espcially terrible around this time and almost reaching the round size of Goya. Dalys was clearly trying as she was the newbie who got the spot for obvious reasons but she had to put the effort in to justify it. She looked scared to death doing her plancha. Rudas got the win. I'd have been pretty unhappy attending an Arena Mexico show live and seeing this as the opener instead of a cool match... haha.
Angel De Plata/Delta/Stuka Jr. vs Okumura/Polvora/Yoshihashi: Plata & Delta were two of the guys who didn't advance from Forjando's group stage. Yoshihashi was this year's random Japanese guy who worked exclusively with Okumura. He was actually okay here even though overall I think we can all agree his Mexico run was not good. He based well for Delta & was always in the right spot. This had a lot of action and I enjoyed it!
Now we move onto Forjando un Idolo matches. We entered the elimination stage at this point so there was no math for CMLL to screw up or voting from fans to compliate what CMLL wanted done.
Diamante vs Fuego: Really good match! They were clearly both out to impress. There was a cool armdrag off the top rope spot where Fuego lept up in one motion. Fuego went over via submission in a somewhat upset. It's hard to remember who was ranked higher at the time but I wanna say Fuego since he was doing the Dr. X feud while Diamante drifted aimlessly outside of a random trios titles run with Rush & Angel De Oro. The seconds (Blue Panther/Negro Casas) got into it afterwards to tease what was to come.
Angel De Oro vs Guerrero Maya Jr.: This could have been you Triton if not for some wacky math & annoying fans! Instead Maya gets his second singles match in days and actually looked much better than Oro here but Maya was never advancing. Oro was the golden child... get it? He didn't look bad, actually did some cool stuff & the finish got a very nice reaction as he used the Mecedora to submit Maya and move on. I think Ultimo Guerrero being his second was a clue!
Rush/Strongman/Blue Panther vs Terrible/Texano/Rey Bucanero: TRT! Strongman breaking a bat during his entrance! Young Rush! What more could you want??? This was actually okay as the rudos were still relatively interested and had some nice trio spots. Panther was involved so each finish was done smartly, especially in the third fall as each tecnico was taken out one by one before a triple super bomb beat Strongman. You could see Rush/Terrible starting to form the chemistry here that would stick with them up until the day Rush left the company.
La Mascara/Mascara Dorada/La Sombra vs Averno/Negro Casas/Ultimo Guerrero: It was La Mascara vs Averno season so everyone else was just background noise. Dorada at least made the most of his quick ring time doing cool things with Ultimo Guerrero. Sombra must have been resting up for a Japan tour or something because he didn't even take off his 3M shirt. I loved Dorada's fakeout right into a plancha over the top. Caught me off guard. Averno cheated to beat La Mascara as we headed to the inevitable (though not as soon as everyone forecasted).
A strong show thanks for the Forjando matches which both delivered big time! Good mix of wrestling and storyline progression overall. A better opener would have put this in must watch territory. Should I rank the Friday night Arena Mexico shows each year at some point? Seems like a decent project but I should try to stick with this one first, right?
(Every Avenue - "Think Of You Later (Empty Room)"
Music Video
AAA 5/6/12 in Merida:
A weird taping with only 5 matches including a weird tag that never even made the National version of the show which was also edited down big time.
Fabi Apache/Mascarita Dorada/Octagoncito vs Sexy Star/Mini Histeria/Mini Psicosis: Fine opener with the minis carrying the work. Dorada was on another level from everyone else here and actually was soon in WWE after this if I remember correctly. Sexy Star may have been fresh off her WWE tryout failure or my timeline is off. Either way she already had her cosmetic upgrade done. Dorada pinned Mini Psicosis and challenged for a title shot. Now I remember. He gets it, loses & leaves soon after.
Fenix & Daga vs Cuervo & Ozz: RANDOMNESS! I think maybe this was around the time Cuervo & Ozz were not only inexplicably working AJPW but also held their tag titles for a bit? Best explanation I have. Fenix & Daga teaming makes no real sense although Daga hadn't officially turned yet but he was a non-entity who had never been paired with Fenix beforehand. They did some cool stuff but the match was very awkward and disjointed. Plus it had a shit double countout finish. Pass.
Psycho Circus vs Halloween/Hector Garza/Psicosis: Now this was a sad watch as it was one of Garza's final TV appearences. He looked in great shape & even did his corkscrew plancha (edited off TV but shown in highlights). This was a big brawl for the most part. Psicosis took a nutty chairshot to the head while trying a tope and in landing smacked his head on the ground to compound things. Clowns went over obviously as this was still a Perros B-team without Perrito around.
Juventud Guerrera & Joe Lider vs Abyss & Chessman (AAA Tag Team Titles): What in the fuck. Why did you do this Konnan??? Abyss was awful here. Juventud must have known Abyss wasn't even going to do shit so he mostly worked with Chessman and in typical Juvy fashion made sure he got all his shit in. Chessman was more than obliging and even took two of the same frontcracker spots to keep Juvy happy. Psicosis interfered (apparently that bump didn't kill him) to cost Lider the match as they were in their yearly feud. This was bad.
LA Park & Perro Aguayo Jr. vs Cibernetico & Dr. Wagner Jr.: Very edited down. Not sure for TV reasons or Perrito in no condition to perform reasons. Total clusterfuck with everyone fighting everyone and interference galore. Not even sure who would have lost this if they neeed to do a finish so maybe it was for the best they didn't even try.
Overall a pretty bad show in a time period when Konnan was bringing in more bad than good with his TNA connections.
(For All Those Sleeping - "I'm Not Dead Yet")
Music Video
CMLL 5/6/14:
Molotov & Robin vs Akuma & Espiritu Negro.: Not much to say here. Funny to see all these guys stuck in the same position 6 years later except the dude who sold his mask & retired. The era of no opener dives or excitement in general, not to mention the drop in quality of the performers, really made these openers unwatchable. Forget about a second time around.
Metalico/Oro Jr./Sensei vs Arkangel/Hooligan/Inquisidor: They had been teasing problems between Metalico & Oro Jr. since the En Busca qualifying torneo cibernetico so they had problems in this one leading to the rudos winning. But since this is a formulaic CMLL show they still had to do 3 falls for some reason. Gotta love #CMLLogic! Oro Jr. got in his springboard corkscrew armdrag on the ramp which was the lone highlight here.
Astral/Electrico/Ultimo Dragoncito vs Demus/Mercurio/Pequeno Olimpico: Maybe it was the elevated spot on the show or something in the water but in a time period when CMLL was gradully phasing down the minis, these guys decided to step up and have a nice little match! They even did a triple dive & Dragoncito busted out a very rare somersault into the crowd like he used to be known for and good for on a semi-weekly basis. In fact, this may be the last good CMLL trios match for all I know. I'd have to double check but it's hard to come up with one off the top of my head.
Round 1 of En Busca De Un Idolo was begining to wrap up with the following matches...
Star Jr. vs Cavernario: Star Jr. wore a shirt, likely covering up his taped up shoulder after Hechicero had almost killed him on a corner power bomb a few days earlier. He was clearly not 100% but did his best and even took the crucifix bomb into the corner like a true luchador! Cavernario worked hard to carry the load here and got the win. I think the idea for the finish was the same move off the top rope but instead Cavernario did it off the second just to make sure we didn't have a second Star Jr. death bump in this tournament. Good stuff.
Super Halcon Jr. vs Hechicero: The weakest performer of the best CMLL tournament ever vs one of the standouts. Hechicero carried Halcon well here but we were long past the point of Halcon trying here. He knew he was outclassed by everyone else and was running out the time until his elimination. Couple of nice spots by Hechicero who wrapped it up with a submission victory. Halcon would redeem himself only in his final match vs Dragon Lee.
Sagrado/Stuka Jr./Super Porky vs Terrible/Vangelis/Herodes Jr.: HERODES JR.??? I barely remember him being this high at any point outside of the Peste Negra short run. I went back to double check and see if he was a sub but apparently he wasn't. Although Sagrado was in for Mistico. Generic trios match with Comandante getting involved and even taking a headscissors from Stuka. Funny to think now how all these En Busca guys were fighting for a spot in main events meanwhile Herodes Jr. (who lost in the qualifying torneo) is here in the semi-main like it's no big deal. Should have taken the shortcut Cavernario!
Atlantis/Delta/Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Ultimo Guerrero/Euforia/Rey Bucanero: Now I'm questioning luchablog and wondering if Bucanero was scheduled in the semi-main instead of Herodes but got switched to replace Niebla Roja in this so Herodes subbed in the semi-main. Either way this was a substitue match basically as the idea was a trios titles program being set up but they were short 1/3 the challenger. So instead they just had a good match. No complaints! Tecnicos went over and the feud resumed as planned the following week before the title match occured on the 20th.
I'd call it a good show alone based on the En Busca matches & minis performance. Toss in a decent main event and I guess you'd bump it up to a borderline very good show. Tuesday shows were starting to dip in quality around this time but as long as En Busca was around you were never gonna get a stinker.
(Fall Out Boy - "Death Valley")
Music Video
So in this time period for CMLL we were doing the 3 (sometimes MAYBE 4 matches) from Arena Mexico + 1 random from Arena Coliseo on Tuesday format for TV. This was a week we got a completely random 3ra from Tuesday which actually got La Flecha on TV (as a sub) but was a meaningless match. I menton this because we ended up missing out on the Arena Mexico 2da which was a trios involving Ricky Marvin & Hooligan. That was the norm... except this match also had La Mascara & Dr. X involved who were in a big feud at the time that would lead to a singles title match the following Friday which did air. This was around the time pirated copies of *full* Arena Mexico shows were being sold outside the arenas due to Mistico's growing popularity so it wouldn't shock me if some random person has this laying around somewhere.
Atlantis/Black Warrior/Satanico vs Black Tiger/Okumura/Taguchi: A painful match to sit through knowing the great looking 2da that was skipped over. Also a painful match to sit through because it was boring as shit. Okumura was in his usual role of accompanying any visiting Japanese wrestler so we were stuck with him often and this would become the norm. Satanico was washed up by the end of 2003 & had no business still being around here, especially as a tecnico. Nothing to note here otherwise.
Dos Caras Jr./Heavy Metal/Ultimo Dragon vs Averno/Mephisto/Ultimo Guerrero: So this was around the time Ultimo Dragon & Ultimo Guerrero were big time feuding and there was lots of speculation they would do a mask match. It had all the makings of one coming up as they both tore masks & cut promos like you would to lead to a match like that. It never happened but this went on many weeks including this one. Everyone else was largely a bystander for what they were doing which is funny since Dos Caras Jr. would eventually step into the feud & end up doing a back-to-back series of matches with Guerrero for the CMLL Heavyweight Title not too long after this. Decent match, got over the feud it was supposed to get over.
Mistico/Dr. Wagner Jr./LA Park vs Perro Aguayo Jr./Hector Garza/Tarzan Boy: This set up Mistico vs Perro Aguayo Jr. the following week in their first ever singles match so you can imagine the heat for this one! But it also had Wagner/Park who weren't gonna be overshadowed so they got their shit in and actually looked great as a team! Park did his DOTYC in the 2nd fall - a dive I've never seen him do before or after! First fall ended with Perrito yanking off Mistico's mask (very violently). This was a usual spot where Mistico would have to go run to the back to get a new mask and his return would lead to the crazy heated comeback including him tope'ing Perrito into the first row. Lots of nearfalls as Wagner/Park wanted to do their moves before the finish where Perrito low blowed Mistico and then yanked his new mask off again post-match to setup next week.
Below average CMLL TV show for the time. Only redeeming thing was the main event but it's a main event well worth seeing and is on YouTube!
(New Found Glory - "I Don't Wanna Fall Asleep")
Music Video
AAA in Tlaxcala - 5/6/06:
Jessy/JJ/Kevin vs Los Espantapajaros I/II/III: The scarecrows!!! My favorites!!! Legit love the gimmick and was always thrilled to see them pop on TV in this era. Not entirely sure who was under the gimmick. May have been the Cirios. Wasn't the Diabolicos for sure. Jessy & Kevin were the only leftovers from the wonderful Kumbia Kids stable that Antonio Pena would never let die off. Jessy was related to Tiffany. Kevin was from the Andrade family. JJ was not a Kumbia Kid although he dressed like one here. I'm struggling to remember what his deal with but I think he was a legit singer who they tried to train to wrestle. He was pretty awful. The rudos worked super light with him. Fun enough opener that went haywire during the dive sequence at the end where Kevin torched his ankle on an asai moonsault when he hit the guardrail and he was done. They did a quick improvised DQ after that.
Oriental/Rey Cometa/Super Fly/Nemesis vs Cuervo/Escoria/Ozz/Espiritu: Oriental was dubbed as the 'padrino' for the new Fuerza Aerea group but outside of teaming with them here never really played the part. He just happened to be booked instead of Laredo Kid. These teams had been regular opponents and having great little undercard matches. This was no exception although not one of the standouts. Chessman ended up running in to help his teammates and spewed people with mist, threw others over the top & beat up others. A great night for Chessman!
La Parka/Octagon/Intocable/El Angel vs Abismo Negro/Psicosis/Histeria/Kaoma Jr.: The rare match with two Histerias! Yes, after doing a run-in on a previous show dressed as Histeria to join the group - Kaoma Jr. actually works his one TV match under the half Kaoma/half Histeria look here. He actually looked really good and stuck around for a bit (but ditching the copycat look) before getting hurt via Crazy Boy/Joe Lider sloppiness in late June. Traditional AAA style match with the rudo brawling followed by tecnicos all getting turns to show off and do comedy stuff for the most part with each rudo one-by-one. Parka was pretty funny fucking around with Abismo. Angel looked like a world class wrestler compared to his partners. You'll be stunned to know this was third straight match in a row ending with a DQ! Antonio Pena was still alive and booking - don't question things!
Konnan/Ron Killings/X-Pac vs Cibernetico/Chessman/Muerte Cibernetica: A rare rudos vs rudos match with more foreigners than natives! I think this was a special request because X-Pac was clearly enjoying working with Ricky Banderas, much moreso than against the Mexican tecnicos he got paired with at the time. Konnan wasn't moving well so he matched up great with Cibernetico. I actually can't remember how this one ended but luchablog has it as a NC which seems about right.
El Zorro vs Charly Manson (Cage - Mexican National Heavyweight Title): These two were in a never ending feud dating back to something like early 2004 if you can believe it. The end goal was a hair match at Triplemania but along the way they killed time doing matches for Zorro's title which was very important at the time. I believe Charly had already failed once (maybe twice?). He would fail again here although not to any fault of his as he was fantastic in this! Worked very hard, took crazy bumps & bled a ton. These guys always loved working with each other. Another match with interference, even with the cage, as all of La Secta ran in only for Zorro to cane them on by one before dodging them all to escape first. But he would drop that title to Manson soon enough...
Overall a really good AAA show for this time period. You get the wacky in the opener, the flying guys in the 2da, a tradition match in the 3ra & a very good main event. Reccomended viewing!
(Sum 41 - "We're All To Blame")
Music Video
AAA 5/6/07 in Oaxaca:
"La Invasion"
The first to note obviously is this venue is GORGEOUS! Outdoors. Clear view. Sun shining for opening two matches & then lovely night sky for the rest. If you have the weather an outdoor show can be fantastic for a viewing experience on TV!
Mascarita Sagrada 2000 & Mascarita Divina vs Mini Abismo Negro & Mini Histeria: The best of the best with the AAA mini's here! Great stuff as you'd expect. Divina has a slip-up early on a rope spot and Abismo kicks him in the face telling him to get his shit together. 20 seconds later we have the amazing headscissors into the armdrag spot people forget these two invented! It wasn't Flamita! Mini tecnicos win but get laid out post-match because it's AAA booked by Konnan!
Cynthia Moreno/Estrellita/Sexy Star vs Fabi Apache/Rossy Moreno/Tiffany: This was during Fabi's awesome heel run as she had caused Billy Boy to end up in a crazy house (skit later!) & was in top form trolling her opponents - especially Sexy Star who was the newbie on the scene getting her ass kicked weekly by the veterans. That used to be Estrellita's job but she had now advanced to sexy eye candy although she was still at least trying. Had a nice asai moonsault dive in this one. Cynthia & Rossy were reaching their expiration date and would end up leaving for a while before returning for a short stay many years later. Konnan was phasing these women down & I wanna think they knew it. So-so match all thanks to Fabi.
Aero Star/Laredo Kid/Pegasso/Super Fly vs Gran Apache/Super Calo/Alan/Decnis: HELL FUCKING YES! THIS IS WHY I LIVE! This was the version of the Fuerza Aerea most are familiar with although Aero Star was still a newbie at this point. In fact, this was one of his first TV matches as their partner. The rudos were the evil Barrio Boys who had shunned Billy (pre-match skit included him looking down trapped in a crazy house as they laughed!) along with Apache & Super Calo who had returned to form a weird partnership with the old man (and drop his mask at Triplemania). This match was just fucking insane. I remember it was one of my favorites in 2008 & stands up to this day. It's on YouTube so definitely give it a watch! Just madness start to finish with clearly a lot of thought put into it as the sequences were so complex & even the rudo beatdown stuff had purpose. This had one of those one-time only spots where Aero Star goes for a tope suicida, gets caught by two rudos, then thrown back inside so Apache can slam him down as if you hit the rewind button on your VCR. Someone bring it back! Decnis takes a rana from the apron to the floor by Pegasso who looked world class in this one. Laredo Kid does a 450 off the apron to the floor which may have been the TV debut of that spot. They do a crazy ass dive sequence too including old man Apache capping it off with a somersault over the ringpost! Aero Star gets the win for his team with a shooting star press which I like to think was because pre-match they were showing highlights of the Fuerza Aerea doing flips and each one did a spot onto his feet except Aero Star who just crashed doing an SSP. Foreshadowing! This was AWESOME!
Crazy Boy/Joe Lider/Juventud Guerrera/Psicosis vs Cuervo/Escoria/Ozz/Espiritu: Mexican Powers vs Secta! A classic! Especially for this time period. All the lineups had been announced for this month alrady so we knew an Atomicos Titles match was happening 6 days later & also at this time AAA was naming shows so an event was coming up called 'La Tracion'. Basically implying someone is turning on someone. Without spoiling too much... that someone was in this match. So this was one of the last chance to see these teams in this format go at it. Pretty good match with the Crazy Boy/Joe Lider wackiness you'd expect & including Crazy Boy doing a moonsault off the bleachers in the crowd. They did the spot where the rudos do the careta & Juvy comes to break it up with a flying huracanrana. Secta takes this one.
Intocable/Super Porky/El Zorro vs Abismo Negro/Kenzo Suzuki/X-Pac: Well one match on this show has to be the traditional AAA match for the families so this was it by default. Lots of comedy with Porky involved as you'd expect. Zorro tried some stuff with X-Pac. Tried being the key word. Ryan Shamrock got involved and Zorro sexually assaulted her before X-Pac kicked him low to beat him. Entertaining enough for what it was.
Charly Manson vs Mesias: No Ciber around tonight so his #2 in command Charly Manson was here to fight the cause vs leader of the Secta - Mesias! Funny spot early on where Mesias went to sweep Manson's leg and Manson was either unaware this was coming or didn't wanna go down but Mesias is so much stronger he just yanked that fucking leg and Manson took a header. LOL Things broke down with interference as you'd expect. Zorro actually came out to help his old rival and fight off La Secta with his cane. A board was broken, fire was used & in the end Mesias came out on top. Exactly what I wanted out of my AAA main event!
Great show! This is why AAA was *the* promotion to watch in 2007! Nobody did. But that's okay with me because now I have all these great memories and none of you do!
(Linkin Park - "Beneath My Skin")
Music Video
CMLL 5/6/08 @ Arena Mexico:
Oh man it has to be pointed before even talking about the matches how different CMLL was at this time. Small Tuesday crowd but the makeup was entirely hardcore fans who knew the wrestlers, knew the feuds & were very interactive with the wrestlers. You see this during the main when Black Warrior goes to teach his dace to a blonde girl in the front row who actually stands out because she may be the only foreigner in the building! Compare that to these days when a Mexican sitting in the front row is a rarity. The other thing to note is the ringside area completely packed with photographers from the various magazines since there is a title match on this show. You can see poor Alexis running around all over trying to snap pictures while avoiding others. I can see why he eventually complained.
5 match show - 4 matches aired - the opener that didn't was all women so WE ARE ALREADY IN LUCK!
Fabian El Gitano/Mictlan/Super Nova vs Diamante Negro/Nitro/Skandalo: Ahhhhhhh! Mictlan! DON'T SAY HIS NAME! Well, that used to be the rule since he disappeared randomly out of nowhere you just knew he would be back some day to cause trouble. But then word came out he was having kidney trouble (steroids anyone?) so a return was unlikely. In this match he was playing background to Fabian El Gitano who was in the middle of a feud with Diamante Negro that got dropped a month later when Diamante disappeared and a random guy named Dragon Rojo showed up! And the icing on the cake is Dragon Rojo would be in a mask match come the end of August against... Mictlan! Fabian got screwed. Their partner was Super Nova who at this time was an exciting young guy who didn't make TV enough. Decent match here. Crowd was into it as they had been watching this feud develop every Tuesday & the Nitro/Skandalo/Loco Max/Arkangel group was over with the rudo section. DQ finish with Diamante yanking Fabian's mask.
Bam Bam vs Pequeno Damian 666 (CMLL Mini's Title): YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a treat to get a match like this! This came as a result of a torneo cibernetico on Kids Day the week before where Pequeno Damian cheated to eliminate Mascarita Dorada & then Bam Bam cheated to beat him in revenge and earn #1 contendership. Think about that. We were THIS CLOSE to Bam Bam vs Mascarita Dorada instead! They even did a tease during that same torneo! But you can't complain too much since these guys together are GOLD! Great match that almost got derailed when Bam Bam hit his head on the floor trying a rana to the outside. You can see Damian is immediatly concerned but Bam Bam shrugs it off like a madman. All the great stuff you'd expect from these two who actually feuded all summer which would have been great if it hadn't been shifted to Sunday mostly non-TV shows. Bam Bam went in to regain his belt... but left without it. A Valagueza gave Damian the win in front of a very happy rudo crowd!
Felino/Heavy Metal/Negro Casas vs Averno/Mephisto/Misterioso: Run-of-the-mill trios with the Casas brothers doing their thing against the usual rudos who worked their asses off to make Heavy Metal in particular look good. On the bright side for them they got to go over in the end!
Alex Koslov/Blue Panther/Dos Caras Jr. vs Black Warrior/Sangre Azteca/Ultimo Guerrero: Holy batman it's Sangre Azteca in a main event! Don't adjust your screens! I actually checked good old luchablog to make sure he wasn't a sub! I did come across a news note where Ultimo Guerrero asks that the Anniversary main event be a 4 way mask match with him, Atlantis, Blue Panther & Villano V. It's almost like this guy had inside information & was pushing to be added to the planned match! Fun match. Koslov/Warrior had their antics going & actually ended the match with Warrior getting DQ'ed for a low blow. Sangre Azteca fit in fine and as a smaller guy actually made all of Dos Caras Jr.'s offense look so much better (monkey flip in particular). But being a smaller guy is probably why he got taken out of these matches and eventually moved further down the card.
Good show. Definitely check out the mini's title match & main event too if you've got time.
(Beat Crusaders - "Hit In The U.S.A.")
Music Video
CMLL 5/6/11 @ Arena Mexico:
A full Friday night show making the various TV networks!
Dalys/Luna Magica/Goya Kong vs Estrellita/Princesa Blanca/La Comandante: I had totally forgotten Estrellita was still around as a ruda by this point. I don't think it lasts much longer since she definitely turns by the fall. Usual women's stuff... they tried... they failed at a lot... Luna was espcially terrible around this time and almost reaching the round size of Goya. Dalys was clearly trying as she was the newbie who got the spot for obvious reasons but she had to put the effort in to justify it. She looked scared to death doing her plancha. Rudas got the win. I'd have been pretty unhappy attending an Arena Mexico show live and seeing this as the opener instead of a cool match... haha.
Angel De Plata/Delta/Stuka Jr. vs Okumura/Polvora/Yoshihashi: Plata & Delta were two of the guys who didn't advance from Forjando's group stage. Yoshihashi was this year's random Japanese guy who worked exclusively with Okumura. He was actually okay here even though overall I think we can all agree his Mexico run was not good. He based well for Delta & was always in the right spot. This had a lot of action and I enjoyed it!
Now we move onto Forjando un Idolo matches. We entered the elimination stage at this point so there was no math for CMLL to screw up or voting from fans to compliate what CMLL wanted done.
Diamante vs Fuego: Really good match! They were clearly both out to impress. There was a cool armdrag off the top rope spot where Fuego lept up in one motion. Fuego went over via submission in a somewhat upset. It's hard to remember who was ranked higher at the time but I wanna say Fuego since he was doing the Dr. X feud while Diamante drifted aimlessly outside of a random trios titles run with Rush & Angel De Oro. The seconds (Blue Panther/Negro Casas) got into it afterwards to tease what was to come.
Angel De Oro vs Guerrero Maya Jr.: This could have been you Triton if not for some wacky math & annoying fans! Instead Maya gets his second singles match in days and actually looked much better than Oro here but Maya was never advancing. Oro was the golden child... get it? He didn't look bad, actually did some cool stuff & the finish got a very nice reaction as he used the Mecedora to submit Maya and move on. I think Ultimo Guerrero being his second was a clue!
Rush/Strongman/Blue Panther vs Terrible/Texano/Rey Bucanero: TRT! Strongman breaking a bat during his entrance! Young Rush! What more could you want??? This was actually okay as the rudos were still relatively interested and had some nice trio spots. Panther was involved so each finish was done smartly, especially in the third fall as each tecnico was taken out one by one before a triple super bomb beat Strongman. You could see Rush/Terrible starting to form the chemistry here that would stick with them up until the day Rush left the company.
La Mascara/Mascara Dorada/La Sombra vs Averno/Negro Casas/Ultimo Guerrero: It was La Mascara vs Averno season so everyone else was just background noise. Dorada at least made the most of his quick ring time doing cool things with Ultimo Guerrero. Sombra must have been resting up for a Japan tour or something because he didn't even take off his 3M shirt. I loved Dorada's fakeout right into a plancha over the top. Caught me off guard. Averno cheated to beat La Mascara as we headed to the inevitable (though not as soon as everyone forecasted).
A strong show thanks for the Forjando matches which both delivered big time! Good mix of wrestling and storyline progression overall. A better opener would have put this in must watch territory. Should I rank the Friday night Arena Mexico shows each year at some point? Seems like a decent project but I should try to stick with this one first, right?
(Every Avenue - "Think Of You Later (Empty Room)"
Music Video
AAA 5/6/12 in Merida:
A weird taping with only 5 matches including a weird tag that never even made the National version of the show which was also edited down big time.
Fabi Apache/Mascarita Dorada/Octagoncito vs Sexy Star/Mini Histeria/Mini Psicosis: Fine opener with the minis carrying the work. Dorada was on another level from everyone else here and actually was soon in WWE after this if I remember correctly. Sexy Star may have been fresh off her WWE tryout failure or my timeline is off. Either way she already had her cosmetic upgrade done. Dorada pinned Mini Psicosis and challenged for a title shot. Now I remember. He gets it, loses & leaves soon after.
Fenix & Daga vs Cuervo & Ozz: RANDOMNESS! I think maybe this was around the time Cuervo & Ozz were not only inexplicably working AJPW but also held their tag titles for a bit? Best explanation I have. Fenix & Daga teaming makes no real sense although Daga hadn't officially turned yet but he was a non-entity who had never been paired with Fenix beforehand. They did some cool stuff but the match was very awkward and disjointed. Plus it had a shit double countout finish. Pass.
Psycho Circus vs Halloween/Hector Garza/Psicosis: Now this was a sad watch as it was one of Garza's final TV appearences. He looked in great shape & even did his corkscrew plancha (edited off TV but shown in highlights). This was a big brawl for the most part. Psicosis took a nutty chairshot to the head while trying a tope and in landing smacked his head on the ground to compound things. Clowns went over obviously as this was still a Perros B-team without Perrito around.
Juventud Guerrera & Joe Lider vs Abyss & Chessman (AAA Tag Team Titles): What in the fuck. Why did you do this Konnan??? Abyss was awful here. Juventud must have known Abyss wasn't even going to do shit so he mostly worked with Chessman and in typical Juvy fashion made sure he got all his shit in. Chessman was more than obliging and even took two of the same frontcracker spots to keep Juvy happy. Psicosis interfered (apparently that bump didn't kill him) to cost Lider the match as they were in their yearly feud. This was bad.
LA Park & Perro Aguayo Jr. vs Cibernetico & Dr. Wagner Jr.: Very edited down. Not sure for TV reasons or Perrito in no condition to perform reasons. Total clusterfuck with everyone fighting everyone and interference galore. Not even sure who would have lost this if they neeed to do a finish so maybe it was for the best they didn't even try.
Overall a pretty bad show in a time period when Konnan was bringing in more bad than good with his TNA connections.
(For All Those Sleeping - "I'm Not Dead Yet")
Music Video
CMLL 5/6/14:
Molotov & Robin vs Akuma & Espiritu Negro.: Not much to say here. Funny to see all these guys stuck in the same position 6 years later except the dude who sold his mask & retired. The era of no opener dives or excitement in general, not to mention the drop in quality of the performers, really made these openers unwatchable. Forget about a second time around.
Metalico/Oro Jr./Sensei vs Arkangel/Hooligan/Inquisidor: They had been teasing problems between Metalico & Oro Jr. since the En Busca qualifying torneo cibernetico so they had problems in this one leading to the rudos winning. But since this is a formulaic CMLL show they still had to do 3 falls for some reason. Gotta love #CMLLogic! Oro Jr. got in his springboard corkscrew armdrag on the ramp which was the lone highlight here.
Astral/Electrico/Ultimo Dragoncito vs Demus/Mercurio/Pequeno Olimpico: Maybe it was the elevated spot on the show or something in the water but in a time period when CMLL was gradully phasing down the minis, these guys decided to step up and have a nice little match! They even did a triple dive & Dragoncito busted out a very rare somersault into the crowd like he used to be known for and good for on a semi-weekly basis. In fact, this may be the last good CMLL trios match for all I know. I'd have to double check but it's hard to come up with one off the top of my head.
Round 1 of En Busca De Un Idolo was begining to wrap up with the following matches...
Star Jr. vs Cavernario: Star Jr. wore a shirt, likely covering up his taped up shoulder after Hechicero had almost killed him on a corner power bomb a few days earlier. He was clearly not 100% but did his best and even took the crucifix bomb into the corner like a true luchador! Cavernario worked hard to carry the load here and got the win. I think the idea for the finish was the same move off the top rope but instead Cavernario did it off the second just to make sure we didn't have a second Star Jr. death bump in this tournament. Good stuff.
Super Halcon Jr. vs Hechicero: The weakest performer of the best CMLL tournament ever vs one of the standouts. Hechicero carried Halcon well here but we were long past the point of Halcon trying here. He knew he was outclassed by everyone else and was running out the time until his elimination. Couple of nice spots by Hechicero who wrapped it up with a submission victory. Halcon would redeem himself only in his final match vs Dragon Lee.
Sagrado/Stuka Jr./Super Porky vs Terrible/Vangelis/Herodes Jr.: HERODES JR.??? I barely remember him being this high at any point outside of the Peste Negra short run. I went back to double check and see if he was a sub but apparently he wasn't. Although Sagrado was in for Mistico. Generic trios match with Comandante getting involved and even taking a headscissors from Stuka. Funny to think now how all these En Busca guys were fighting for a spot in main events meanwhile Herodes Jr. (who lost in the qualifying torneo) is here in the semi-main like it's no big deal. Should have taken the shortcut Cavernario!
Atlantis/Delta/Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Ultimo Guerrero/Euforia/Rey Bucanero: Now I'm questioning luchablog and wondering if Bucanero was scheduled in the semi-main instead of Herodes but got switched to replace Niebla Roja in this so Herodes subbed in the semi-main. Either way this was a substitue match basically as the idea was a trios titles program being set up but they were short 1/3 the challenger. So instead they just had a good match. No complaints! Tecnicos went over and the feud resumed as planned the following week before the title match occured on the 20th.
I'd call it a good show alone based on the En Busca matches & minis performance. Toss in a decent main event and I guess you'd bump it up to a borderline very good show. Tuesday shows were starting to dip in quality around this time but as long as En Busca was around you were never gonna get a stinker.
(Fall Out Boy - "Death Valley")
Music Video
Sunday, May 3, 2020
May 3 in Lucha History
AAA 5/3/95 in Aguascalientes:
Los Power Raiders vs Angel Mortal/Marabunta/Mr. Condor/Maremoto/Rabana: The Power Raiders were the Power Rangers knock-offs who had a couple months left under these gimmicks before a poor decision to advertise them for an LA Sports Arena show backfired & a lawsuit showed up. Who'd have guessed? This version was Green (Venum), Black (Ludxor), Blue (Discovery), Red (Lasser) & White (Skayde). The first three were obviously the green kids so not only did they have veteran partners (who lacked charisma so were given new identities... an Antonio Pena staple) but they were also constantly matched up against veteran rudos who only had one job - help them improve and ***COVER FOR THEIR MISTAKES***. Something very much missing in today's world of lucha libre. These matches were always held under "Relevos Japonesa" which really isn't a thing but the idea was the Power Raiders were from Japan (that won't help the court case!) so their style of match was each team has a captain and the match doesn't end until the captain is pinned or submitted but you can beat the other guys all you want... they just get eliminated so you have the number advantage. You'll be stunned to know... this being pro wrestling... it often came down to captain vs captain at the end. Such as happened with Rojo submitting Mr. Condor clean. Match was pretty good. Not the spectacular variety we would come to expect from the tecnicos down the line but they hit all their stuff crisp & did lots of spots messing with the rudos who were good at the stooging.
Dragon De Oro/Super Calo/Torero/Winners vs El Duende/Los Payasos: How did this rudo quartet not end up teaming more often? They were made for each other! I always thought Duende was super underrated. It's funny because luchawiki has him listed as Maremoto too but I am pretty sure something is wrong there or he was a Duende at a different point because Maremoto in the opener and Duende here are nothing alike physically. You know the tecnicos outside of maybe Dragon De Oro who was Black Warrior in one of his many gimmicks. He was kind of treated as the star of his team in this match which was strange since Calo/Winners were in the big feud of the moment and a month away from their mask match series with Angel Mortal & Marabunta. Gotta spread the wealth I guess. Dragon De Oro did an asai moonsault in the first fall where he COMPLETELY OVERSHOT his clown target and was lucky not to get hurt. We also got the Super Calo flip plancha but this was more of the bullet variety and not the launch yourself off your opponent into the crowd variety. This only went two falls and ended with Duende unmasking Dragon De Oro in mid-air as he flew off the top rope. Nice timing! These days you would jump to a conclusion a mask match or feud was forthcoming. Back in '95 with TV tapings multiple times a week and no idea what would or wouldn't air - it was just a rudo finish.
El Hijo Del Santo vs Psicosis (WWA Welterweight Tilte): THE MATCH. If you haven't heard of it I can only assume you are a lucha newbie which is fine. Let me quickly sum up for you since a blow-by-blow of this match is the least important thing. Santo was a huge star. Psicosis was an up-and-coming rudo. Santo knew Psicosis was going to be a star too & respected him for bumping all over the place for him for a couple years. So he decided (probably with pushing from the promotion) to make him in one night. I wouldn't say this officially made him but it certainly didn't hurt! Santo proceeded to not only put Psicosis over... clean... in two straight falls... but he also let him win one of those falls by submitting him via the camel clutch. Yes, you read that right. Unheard of by 2020 standards. The equivalent would be... I don't know. I can't even pretend to see anyone doing that these days. Santo himself wouldn't do it any longer. He got in a lot of stuff during the match & you could tell Psicosis appreciated what was happening because he bumped his god damn ass off to make Santo look like a superstar which logically makes sense... you want the crowd to treat your opponent as a big deal on top of his game if you are about to beat him. The reaction of the crowd when Psicosis pinned Santo in the 2nd fall and they realized... it's over... was priceless. Just stunned silence. If they had internet feeds at the time I'm sure we'd have all been speculating Tirantes messed up the count. But there was no controversy. Santo got pinned & even put the title around Psicosis' waist after the match. THIS. IS. HOW. YOU. MAKE. STARS. AND. BE. A. PROFESSIONAL.
Perro Aguayo/Mascara Sagrada/Latin Lover vs Los Hermanos Dinamita: Your usual AAA main event. Super heated, largely brawling. Really gets put over the top during the awesome tecnico comeback led by Mascara Sagrada. Dinamitas always got a bad rap because everyone was so into the Rey Jr./Psicosis led crew as what lucha actually is but a match like this just shows they were perfectly fine. They bumped their butts off when it was time to sell & played great foils for Perro who was the star the fans came to see (along with Santo but that didn't turn out well for them). Rudos ended up winning by DQ due to frustrated tecnicos. Things were heating up as we were fresh off the beer bottle angle & Sagrada/Universo were constantly teasing a mask match that never came to be.
(The Loved Ones - "The Bridge")
Music Video
AAA 5/3/03 in Mexico City:
Rare Gimnasio Juan De La Barera stop for AAA who didn't use the venue much in these times.
Gran Apache/Fabi Apache/Martha Villalobos vs El Brazo/Histeria/Tiffany: Man & 2 women vs Two Men & 1 woman. But you see Martha & Brazo are both fat so they count as the same. Look... I'm just explaining it as Antonio Pena told his announcers to! We entered the AAA 1 fall era in January so god bless that. This had moments where it was really funny - especially with Brazo doing sumo with Martha but ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY Brazo "accidentally" getting his head rammed into the ringpost by his own partner Tiffany who made him feel better with a kiss. Apache/Histeria had a couple cool spots together but this is AAA in 2003 so you know how this ends! Chessman ran in and spewed Apache with mist (they were feuding at the time).
Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Octagoncito/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro/Mini Psicosis/Rocky Marvin: Look... a lot of people hated AAA in these times. But the one thing even they refused to say was that the AAA minis sucked. Everyone could agree these guys were special - in particular Mascarita & Mini Abismo. These guys had their usual excellent match, always reccomended to go back and watch this crew. But.. and get used to this... it's AAA in 2003! WHAT'S THE FINISH? You guessed it! After a big dive Mascarita is celebrating only for a "fan" wearing his mask to jump out of the crowd and hug him. The humorous part about this is one of the security dudes was not clued in and strolled over to pull the Mascarita "fan" away. He was followed by another security dude was in on it but didn't want to make it so obvious so he had to sorta hold back his clueless security buddy while a fan came over to try and help out thinking it was a legit fan gone nuts situation. Thankfully the "fan" cut straight to the angle and attacked Mascarita, then unmasked himself as Mascarita Maligna - the evil Mascarita Sagrada! Only one problem - he lost his mask the previous month to Mascarita in a cage match! So he then took off that mask too and revaled his face. With AAA 2003 you just gotta appreciate the good match & not even think twice about the ending.
Octagon/El Hijo Del Solitario/El Zorro vs Cibernetico/Mr. Aguila/Pirata Morgan: The Zorro/Aguila show. Literally. Nobody else did anything. These guys were good friends & both spent time in the US (Zorro did a couple ECW shots/Puerto Rico) while Aguila did all that WWF stuff you may have heard about. They were both clearly into Jerry Lynn vs RVD matches because they copied a lot of those spots but put their own spin on it. Legit those guys did some INCREDIBLE stuff together and were a highlight of any trios match where they opposed each other. It was hard to sell people on that back in the day though because once again... it was AAA in 2003. Noody was watching except me & Fredo (Esparza). Finish was very AAA in 2003 with a mistimed cane shot hitting Tirantes (very poorly) & his son calling a DQ on the wrong guy.
Heavy Metal vs El Dandy (Dog Collar Match): Okay here's the thing... dog collar matches in Mexico suck. It's basically a chain/strap match where you gotta touch every corner. It's bad enough with four corners... now picture a six sided AAA ring. They would take FOREVER AND A DAY just for the teases! Thankfully Heavy Metal decided to make this somewhat interesting by bleeding all over the place to the point his entire chest was red by the end. Dandy looked fine but this was all just punches and kicks for the most part until the screwiness began with Copetes Salazar turning on both wrestlers. Don't ask me why... I don't remember. It may have been an AAA vs LLL thing. It was dumb. This led to Pepe Casas running out to get him & helping his son win the match.
La Parka/Latin Lover/Mascara Sagrada vs Abismo Negro/Hector Garza/Leatherface: Your typical AAA main event during this era. All rudos brawling until a tecnicos comeback. That's the way to do it with this type of crowd to be honest. Garza was really coasting by this point doing much more shtick than actual work which he would save up for his US runs. Leatherface only existed to fall onto his own chainsaw but this shtick was over. The finish was very AAA (any time era) as they set up a table and lit it on fire. So you're thinking Leatherface is going through it, right? Wrong. You're thinking the fire went out too early? Wrong! The fire actually played it's role great and engulfed the table. Parka power bombed Abismo onto it but............... it didn't break. The fire was still raging so they decided to try it again and poor Abismo took a second bump onto the table................ which still refused to break. But Parka pinned him and we were done here.
A very AAA in 2003 show! I enjoyed it. Minis & Zorro/Aguila parts of their trios are the quality stuff to watch. The rest I would only reccomend to a hardcore fan or someone looking for things to make fun of. Interestingly included in the music video are clips of two guys participating in the yearly young stars tournament. One is Canibal who actually never appeared on TV outside of this spot and wouldn't be hard from again until 2007! The other was unnamed as far as I remember but had a cool futuristic look. I'm sure he became someone.
(Paramore - "My Number One")
Music Video
CMLL 5/3/11
The C3 days! Normally we'd get 4 matches but this was a special show as I will explain later so while we got 4 matches, it was not the scheduled 4 matches so the mini's got axed. In 2011 this was considered a huge disapointment, not so much now. Mini Maximo! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! He was hilariously adorable!
Fuego/Pegasso/Rey Cometa vs Arkangel/Dr. X/Loco Max: Who would have ever imagined in 2011 that less than 10 years later all 3 tecnicos (2 recently having jumped from AAA) would still be in CMLL (in the same spot... haha) but all 3 rudos who were locked into spots here for many years would be gone for various different reasons. Mostly death. Sorry to be a bummer. The rudos were part of the Tuereg at this point and their motivation ranged from show to show. It was somewhat up here, maybe due to an actual feud occuring as Fuego/Dr. X were doing their months long build-up to nothing which caused Dr. X to quit the company. In this match he tossed his mask to Fuego for the DQ after Fuego got the visual submission.
Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Metal Blanco: And here is the "special" I had referenced above! CMLL was in the middle of the precursor to En Busca De Un Idolo... this was Forjando Un Idolo. A 16 person 4 block style round robin tournament where you got points for winning, judging & ... DUM DUM DUM... an online popularity contest. Always a poor idea for a company that doesn't give a shit what the fans think & is going to push who they want no matter what. Also, a company that is bad at math. So what happened was the round wrapped up on the previous Friday & the elimination matches were set for the following Friday. SLIGHT PROBLEMO. Maya & Blanco had tied in points. The obvious solution here was for CMLL to work the system. Math is not CMLL's strong suit. They chose not to. Then a press released noted there would be a tiebreaker match unless one of them got the bonus point handed out to the person with the most votes. Neither guy was popular, neither guy got a point. So we were off to the tiebreaker as a special added match to Tuesday's show. ONE MORE SLIGHT PROBLEMO. Maya was booked in Guadalajara. Thankfully CMLL, in a rare move for 2011, changed plans & kept him in Mexico City for the tiebreaker match. All this drama for nothing since it was very obvious the plan was for Maya to advance, CMLL just needed to make it official. And official they did by sending these two guys out to do a quick one fall match that Maya won. The match was great! Triton looked fantastic including slipping on a dive but catching his balance in an incredible show of athleticism. There was another great spot where he went to climb the ropes but Maya followed and dropkicked him. Triton was probably supposed to bump right to the floor but felt into the ring. Either way someone should steal that! But do the bump right! Maya then OBLITERATED him with a tope. Like seriously... this was murder. Straight forward and down. He then finished him off with the sick piledriver spot. A welcome bonus match! Once again proving the best stuff in CMLL is the accidental stuff!
Diamante/Metro/Sangre Azteca vs Misterioso II/Raziel/Virus: See, with 2011 eyes I can laugh at seeing Diamante teamed up with the guy who would eventually steal his name (Metro -> Diamante Azul). Yes, Sangre Azteca was in the middle of his god awful tecnico run that nobody wants to remember & he has openly said was a terrible decision that he only requested thinking it would move him up the lineups but he never got moved and eventually requested to switch back so he could at least be on the side he was meant to be if he was gonna just waste away anyhow. The rudo side really shows the lack of depth in CMLL at this time. Also they were sending more powerful lineups to Guadalajara. This was the highest Raziel & Virus would ever reach in CMLL rings. Misterioso was a semi-main regular at times but only faded from here. Azteca/Misterioso had a slight issue since they were a trio (with Polvora) before Azteca's turn. Match wasn't much of anything. Your usual Tuesday semi-main where everyone did their moves but didn't exhert much energy doing so.
Black Warrior/Maximo/Super Porky vs Atlantis/Hector Garza/Mr. Niebla: A very weak main event by CMLL 2011 standards. Four comedy guys & Atlantis as a last second sub for Dragon Rojo according to luchablog. Don't even remember why, don't even care. Nothing going on here except Garza feuding with Zacarias who was with Niebla. You won't see entertaining main events on Tuesday like this these days but you will see better quality in-ring performances than what these six gave here.
Definitely watch that singles match but you can safely skip everything else.
(No Use For A Name - "Black Box")
Music Video
CMLL 5/3/13:
In the era of 3 matches airing on Galavision, 2 matches on Fox Sports. So the unaired opener was Oro Jr./Soberano Jr. vs Artillero/Super Comando. We had already entered the phase of letting guys do less in the openers so I doubt we missed much.
Aereo/Fantasy/Shockercito vs Pequeno Nitro/Pequeno Violencia/Pequeno Warrior: Still in the era of mini's being exciting! This had some neat stuff by Aereo, Shockercito too & a death bump from Pequeno Nitro! Definitely not the 'A' class mini's CMLL had at their disposal at the time but a perfectly fine showing from this crew.
Fuego/Rey Cometa/Stuka vs Misterioso/Namajague/Okumura: Namajague was fading from existence like Marty McFly at this point. He had lost his mask 7 weeks earlier and his hair the previous week. In typical CMLL fashion he got a win here so kind of save face (get it?). This was really great though with the tecnicos shining - Rey Cometa in particular. He hit his Brillo Dorada perfectly & they did one of the best triple moonsaults from the same turnbuckle spots you will ever see.
Rush/Super Porky/Blue Panther vs Rey Bucanero/Terrible/Tiger: TRT! How can you forget a group with a name like that! It's their initials - get it? They may as well have been called 'Team What The Fuck Do We Do Now That Texano Left, God Damn It We Need Another T'. Tiger was never vital to his group aside from the letter 'T'. As soon as these guys stopped teaming he was back to teaming with his brother in lower card matches. The group never really came off as anything important either outsdie of one trios title challenge. Pretty standard match with Rush/Terrible looking good together (the year before was their hair match at the Anniversary Show). Random tecnico team went over regular rudo group of course.
Atlantis vs Averno: Special match to celebrate Atlantis' 30th Anniversary in professional wrestling. He came out on a motorcycle which was a staple of CMLL special entrances back in the day (one of the bookers is big into motorcycles... even drove some guys to the ring once upon a time). They did all the pre-match pictures and such. Match itself was nothing special. Averno dominated a bit, Atlantis did his usual stuff, Atlantida for the win. The big deal was post-match when Ultimo Guerrero ran out to cut a promo on Atlantis as they teased the mask match at the Anniversary Show. This led to ANOTHER Ultimo Guerrero attacking Atlantis from behind! I think at the time we were waiting to see one of the Ultimo Guerrero's unmask as Niebla Roja or someone new but he didn't. Instead that was his gimmick. Gran Guerrero! Debate raged online whether he was Ultimo Guerrero's son or brother and in the end it was revealed it was his much younger brother who was coming off playing Taurus (no, not the current Taurus obviously). He was not all that impressive as Taurus but got the rocket to instant main events because this is how lucha libre works!
Mascara Dorada/Mistico/Thunder vs Ultimo Guerrero/Euforia/Niebla Roja: This is actually the best usage of Thunder that CMLL ever figured out. Random 3rd guy teaming with two spectacular dudes who could carry the workload and opposite three rudos, including his main trianer, who would do nothing but bump for him and always be in the right spot. He looked fine here. Which is actually saying something since he was total trash & completely untrained outside of whatever he picked up in his less than 1 month in the ring here. Do you realize if he hadn't died he would still be headlining CMLL shows to this day? It sounds crass, yes... but I'm just giving it to you straight. This guy would be a multiple Anniversary Show headliner & doing multiple singles matches per month. Unreal. Dorada/Mistico looked fantastic as you'd expect for their 2013 selves. Rudos got the win because you can't beat Ultimo Guerrero after the angle in the previous match... or any time really.
Main event is a real good watch, as is the semi-main & undercard trios with Cometa. Nothing wrong with the minis either to be honest. A really good Friday show with a quality level you would expect when attending a CMLL show.
(Zebrahead - "Until The Sun Comes Up")
Music Video
Los Power Raiders vs Angel Mortal/Marabunta/Mr. Condor/Maremoto/Rabana: The Power Raiders were the Power Rangers knock-offs who had a couple months left under these gimmicks before a poor decision to advertise them for an LA Sports Arena show backfired & a lawsuit showed up. Who'd have guessed? This version was Green (Venum), Black (Ludxor), Blue (Discovery), Red (Lasser) & White (Skayde). The first three were obviously the green kids so not only did they have veteran partners (who lacked charisma so were given new identities... an Antonio Pena staple) but they were also constantly matched up against veteran rudos who only had one job - help them improve and ***COVER FOR THEIR MISTAKES***. Something very much missing in today's world of lucha libre. These matches were always held under "Relevos Japonesa" which really isn't a thing but the idea was the Power Raiders were from Japan (that won't help the court case!) so their style of match was each team has a captain and the match doesn't end until the captain is pinned or submitted but you can beat the other guys all you want... they just get eliminated so you have the number advantage. You'll be stunned to know... this being pro wrestling... it often came down to captain vs captain at the end. Such as happened with Rojo submitting Mr. Condor clean. Match was pretty good. Not the spectacular variety we would come to expect from the tecnicos down the line but they hit all their stuff crisp & did lots of spots messing with the rudos who were good at the stooging.
Dragon De Oro/Super Calo/Torero/Winners vs El Duende/Los Payasos: How did this rudo quartet not end up teaming more often? They were made for each other! I always thought Duende was super underrated. It's funny because luchawiki has him listed as Maremoto too but I am pretty sure something is wrong there or he was a Duende at a different point because Maremoto in the opener and Duende here are nothing alike physically. You know the tecnicos outside of maybe Dragon De Oro who was Black Warrior in one of his many gimmicks. He was kind of treated as the star of his team in this match which was strange since Calo/Winners were in the big feud of the moment and a month away from their mask match series with Angel Mortal & Marabunta. Gotta spread the wealth I guess. Dragon De Oro did an asai moonsault in the first fall where he COMPLETELY OVERSHOT his clown target and was lucky not to get hurt. We also got the Super Calo flip plancha but this was more of the bullet variety and not the launch yourself off your opponent into the crowd variety. This only went two falls and ended with Duende unmasking Dragon De Oro in mid-air as he flew off the top rope. Nice timing! These days you would jump to a conclusion a mask match or feud was forthcoming. Back in '95 with TV tapings multiple times a week and no idea what would or wouldn't air - it was just a rudo finish.
El Hijo Del Santo vs Psicosis (WWA Welterweight Tilte): THE MATCH. If you haven't heard of it I can only assume you are a lucha newbie which is fine. Let me quickly sum up for you since a blow-by-blow of this match is the least important thing. Santo was a huge star. Psicosis was an up-and-coming rudo. Santo knew Psicosis was going to be a star too & respected him for bumping all over the place for him for a couple years. So he decided (probably with pushing from the promotion) to make him in one night. I wouldn't say this officially made him but it certainly didn't hurt! Santo proceeded to not only put Psicosis over... clean... in two straight falls... but he also let him win one of those falls by submitting him via the camel clutch. Yes, you read that right. Unheard of by 2020 standards. The equivalent would be... I don't know. I can't even pretend to see anyone doing that these days. Santo himself wouldn't do it any longer. He got in a lot of stuff during the match & you could tell Psicosis appreciated what was happening because he bumped his god damn ass off to make Santo look like a superstar which logically makes sense... you want the crowd to treat your opponent as a big deal on top of his game if you are about to beat him. The reaction of the crowd when Psicosis pinned Santo in the 2nd fall and they realized... it's over... was priceless. Just stunned silence. If they had internet feeds at the time I'm sure we'd have all been speculating Tirantes messed up the count. But there was no controversy. Santo got pinned & even put the title around Psicosis' waist after the match. THIS. IS. HOW. YOU. MAKE. STARS. AND. BE. A. PROFESSIONAL.
Perro Aguayo/Mascara Sagrada/Latin Lover vs Los Hermanos Dinamita: Your usual AAA main event. Super heated, largely brawling. Really gets put over the top during the awesome tecnico comeback led by Mascara Sagrada. Dinamitas always got a bad rap because everyone was so into the Rey Jr./Psicosis led crew as what lucha actually is but a match like this just shows they were perfectly fine. They bumped their butts off when it was time to sell & played great foils for Perro who was the star the fans came to see (along with Santo but that didn't turn out well for them). Rudos ended up winning by DQ due to frustrated tecnicos. Things were heating up as we were fresh off the beer bottle angle & Sagrada/Universo were constantly teasing a mask match that never came to be.
(The Loved Ones - "The Bridge")
Music Video
AAA 5/3/03 in Mexico City:
Rare Gimnasio Juan De La Barera stop for AAA who didn't use the venue much in these times.
Gran Apache/Fabi Apache/Martha Villalobos vs El Brazo/Histeria/Tiffany: Man & 2 women vs Two Men & 1 woman. But you see Martha & Brazo are both fat so they count as the same. Look... I'm just explaining it as Antonio Pena told his announcers to! We entered the AAA 1 fall era in January so god bless that. This had moments where it was really funny - especially with Brazo doing sumo with Martha but ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY Brazo "accidentally" getting his head rammed into the ringpost by his own partner Tiffany who made him feel better with a kiss. Apache/Histeria had a couple cool spots together but this is AAA in 2003 so you know how this ends! Chessman ran in and spewed Apache with mist (they were feuding at the time).
Mascarita Sagrada 2000/Octagoncito/La Parkita vs Mini Abismo Negro/Mini Psicosis/Rocky Marvin: Look... a lot of people hated AAA in these times. But the one thing even they refused to say was that the AAA minis sucked. Everyone could agree these guys were special - in particular Mascarita & Mini Abismo. These guys had their usual excellent match, always reccomended to go back and watch this crew. But.. and get used to this... it's AAA in 2003! WHAT'S THE FINISH? You guessed it! After a big dive Mascarita is celebrating only for a "fan" wearing his mask to jump out of the crowd and hug him. The humorous part about this is one of the security dudes was not clued in and strolled over to pull the Mascarita "fan" away. He was followed by another security dude was in on it but didn't want to make it so obvious so he had to sorta hold back his clueless security buddy while a fan came over to try and help out thinking it was a legit fan gone nuts situation. Thankfully the "fan" cut straight to the angle and attacked Mascarita, then unmasked himself as Mascarita Maligna - the evil Mascarita Sagrada! Only one problem - he lost his mask the previous month to Mascarita in a cage match! So he then took off that mask too and revaled his face. With AAA 2003 you just gotta appreciate the good match & not even think twice about the ending.
Octagon/El Hijo Del Solitario/El Zorro vs Cibernetico/Mr. Aguila/Pirata Morgan: The Zorro/Aguila show. Literally. Nobody else did anything. These guys were good friends & both spent time in the US (Zorro did a couple ECW shots/Puerto Rico) while Aguila did all that WWF stuff you may have heard about. They were both clearly into Jerry Lynn vs RVD matches because they copied a lot of those spots but put their own spin on it. Legit those guys did some INCREDIBLE stuff together and were a highlight of any trios match where they opposed each other. It was hard to sell people on that back in the day though because once again... it was AAA in 2003. Noody was watching except me & Fredo (Esparza). Finish was very AAA in 2003 with a mistimed cane shot hitting Tirantes (very poorly) & his son calling a DQ on the wrong guy.
Heavy Metal vs El Dandy (Dog Collar Match): Okay here's the thing... dog collar matches in Mexico suck. It's basically a chain/strap match where you gotta touch every corner. It's bad enough with four corners... now picture a six sided AAA ring. They would take FOREVER AND A DAY just for the teases! Thankfully Heavy Metal decided to make this somewhat interesting by bleeding all over the place to the point his entire chest was red by the end. Dandy looked fine but this was all just punches and kicks for the most part until the screwiness began with Copetes Salazar turning on both wrestlers. Don't ask me why... I don't remember. It may have been an AAA vs LLL thing. It was dumb. This led to Pepe Casas running out to get him & helping his son win the match.
La Parka/Latin Lover/Mascara Sagrada vs Abismo Negro/Hector Garza/Leatherface: Your typical AAA main event during this era. All rudos brawling until a tecnicos comeback. That's the way to do it with this type of crowd to be honest. Garza was really coasting by this point doing much more shtick than actual work which he would save up for his US runs. Leatherface only existed to fall onto his own chainsaw but this shtick was over. The finish was very AAA (any time era) as they set up a table and lit it on fire. So you're thinking Leatherface is going through it, right? Wrong. You're thinking the fire went out too early? Wrong! The fire actually played it's role great and engulfed the table. Parka power bombed Abismo onto it but............... it didn't break. The fire was still raging so they decided to try it again and poor Abismo took a second bump onto the table................ which still refused to break. But Parka pinned him and we were done here.
A very AAA in 2003 show! I enjoyed it. Minis & Zorro/Aguila parts of their trios are the quality stuff to watch. The rest I would only reccomend to a hardcore fan or someone looking for things to make fun of. Interestingly included in the music video are clips of two guys participating in the yearly young stars tournament. One is Canibal who actually never appeared on TV outside of this spot and wouldn't be hard from again until 2007! The other was unnamed as far as I remember but had a cool futuristic look. I'm sure he became someone.
(Paramore - "My Number One")
Music Video
CMLL 5/3/11
The C3 days! Normally we'd get 4 matches but this was a special show as I will explain later so while we got 4 matches, it was not the scheduled 4 matches so the mini's got axed. In 2011 this was considered a huge disapointment, not so much now. Mini Maximo! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! He was hilariously adorable!
Fuego/Pegasso/Rey Cometa vs Arkangel/Dr. X/Loco Max: Who would have ever imagined in 2011 that less than 10 years later all 3 tecnicos (2 recently having jumped from AAA) would still be in CMLL (in the same spot... haha) but all 3 rudos who were locked into spots here for many years would be gone for various different reasons. Mostly death. Sorry to be a bummer. The rudos were part of the Tuereg at this point and their motivation ranged from show to show. It was somewhat up here, maybe due to an actual feud occuring as Fuego/Dr. X were doing their months long build-up to nothing which caused Dr. X to quit the company. In this match he tossed his mask to Fuego for the DQ after Fuego got the visual submission.
Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Metal Blanco: And here is the "special" I had referenced above! CMLL was in the middle of the precursor to En Busca De Un Idolo... this was Forjando Un Idolo. A 16 person 4 block style round robin tournament where you got points for winning, judging & ... DUM DUM DUM... an online popularity contest. Always a poor idea for a company that doesn't give a shit what the fans think & is going to push who they want no matter what. Also, a company that is bad at math. So what happened was the round wrapped up on the previous Friday & the elimination matches were set for the following Friday. SLIGHT PROBLEMO. Maya & Blanco had tied in points. The obvious solution here was for CMLL to work the system. Math is not CMLL's strong suit. They chose not to. Then a press released noted there would be a tiebreaker match unless one of them got the bonus point handed out to the person with the most votes. Neither guy was popular, neither guy got a point. So we were off to the tiebreaker as a special added match to Tuesday's show. ONE MORE SLIGHT PROBLEMO. Maya was booked in Guadalajara. Thankfully CMLL, in a rare move for 2011, changed plans & kept him in Mexico City for the tiebreaker match. All this drama for nothing since it was very obvious the plan was for Maya to advance, CMLL just needed to make it official. And official they did by sending these two guys out to do a quick one fall match that Maya won. The match was great! Triton looked fantastic including slipping on a dive but catching his balance in an incredible show of athleticism. There was another great spot where he went to climb the ropes but Maya followed and dropkicked him. Triton was probably supposed to bump right to the floor but felt into the ring. Either way someone should steal that! But do the bump right! Maya then OBLITERATED him with a tope. Like seriously... this was murder. Straight forward and down. He then finished him off with the sick piledriver spot. A welcome bonus match! Once again proving the best stuff in CMLL is the accidental stuff!
Diamante/Metro/Sangre Azteca vs Misterioso II/Raziel/Virus: See, with 2011 eyes I can laugh at seeing Diamante teamed up with the guy who would eventually steal his name (Metro -> Diamante Azul). Yes, Sangre Azteca was in the middle of his god awful tecnico run that nobody wants to remember & he has openly said was a terrible decision that he only requested thinking it would move him up the lineups but he never got moved and eventually requested to switch back so he could at least be on the side he was meant to be if he was gonna just waste away anyhow. The rudo side really shows the lack of depth in CMLL at this time. Also they were sending more powerful lineups to Guadalajara. This was the highest Raziel & Virus would ever reach in CMLL rings. Misterioso was a semi-main regular at times but only faded from here. Azteca/Misterioso had a slight issue since they were a trio (with Polvora) before Azteca's turn. Match wasn't much of anything. Your usual Tuesday semi-main where everyone did their moves but didn't exhert much energy doing so.
Black Warrior/Maximo/Super Porky vs Atlantis/Hector Garza/Mr. Niebla: A very weak main event by CMLL 2011 standards. Four comedy guys & Atlantis as a last second sub for Dragon Rojo according to luchablog. Don't even remember why, don't even care. Nothing going on here except Garza feuding with Zacarias who was with Niebla. You won't see entertaining main events on Tuesday like this these days but you will see better quality in-ring performances than what these six gave here.
Definitely watch that singles match but you can safely skip everything else.
(No Use For A Name - "Black Box")
Music Video
CMLL 5/3/13:
In the era of 3 matches airing on Galavision, 2 matches on Fox Sports. So the unaired opener was Oro Jr./Soberano Jr. vs Artillero/Super Comando. We had already entered the phase of letting guys do less in the openers so I doubt we missed much.
Aereo/Fantasy/Shockercito vs Pequeno Nitro/Pequeno Violencia/Pequeno Warrior: Still in the era of mini's being exciting! This had some neat stuff by Aereo, Shockercito too & a death bump from Pequeno Nitro! Definitely not the 'A' class mini's CMLL had at their disposal at the time but a perfectly fine showing from this crew.
Fuego/Rey Cometa/Stuka vs Misterioso/Namajague/Okumura: Namajague was fading from existence like Marty McFly at this point. He had lost his mask 7 weeks earlier and his hair the previous week. In typical CMLL fashion he got a win here so kind of save face (get it?). This was really great though with the tecnicos shining - Rey Cometa in particular. He hit his Brillo Dorada perfectly & they did one of the best triple moonsaults from the same turnbuckle spots you will ever see.
Rush/Super Porky/Blue Panther vs Rey Bucanero/Terrible/Tiger: TRT! How can you forget a group with a name like that! It's their initials - get it? They may as well have been called 'Team What The Fuck Do We Do Now That Texano Left, God Damn It We Need Another T'. Tiger was never vital to his group aside from the letter 'T'. As soon as these guys stopped teaming he was back to teaming with his brother in lower card matches. The group never really came off as anything important either outsdie of one trios title challenge. Pretty standard match with Rush/Terrible looking good together (the year before was their hair match at the Anniversary Show). Random tecnico team went over regular rudo group of course.
Atlantis vs Averno: Special match to celebrate Atlantis' 30th Anniversary in professional wrestling. He came out on a motorcycle which was a staple of CMLL special entrances back in the day (one of the bookers is big into motorcycles... even drove some guys to the ring once upon a time). They did all the pre-match pictures and such. Match itself was nothing special. Averno dominated a bit, Atlantis did his usual stuff, Atlantida for the win. The big deal was post-match when Ultimo Guerrero ran out to cut a promo on Atlantis as they teased the mask match at the Anniversary Show. This led to ANOTHER Ultimo Guerrero attacking Atlantis from behind! I think at the time we were waiting to see one of the Ultimo Guerrero's unmask as Niebla Roja or someone new but he didn't. Instead that was his gimmick. Gran Guerrero! Debate raged online whether he was Ultimo Guerrero's son or brother and in the end it was revealed it was his much younger brother who was coming off playing Taurus (no, not the current Taurus obviously). He was not all that impressive as Taurus but got the rocket to instant main events because this is how lucha libre works!
Mascara Dorada/Mistico/Thunder vs Ultimo Guerrero/Euforia/Niebla Roja: This is actually the best usage of Thunder that CMLL ever figured out. Random 3rd guy teaming with two spectacular dudes who could carry the workload and opposite three rudos, including his main trianer, who would do nothing but bump for him and always be in the right spot. He looked fine here. Which is actually saying something since he was total trash & completely untrained outside of whatever he picked up in his less than 1 month in the ring here. Do you realize if he hadn't died he would still be headlining CMLL shows to this day? It sounds crass, yes... but I'm just giving it to you straight. This guy would be a multiple Anniversary Show headliner & doing multiple singles matches per month. Unreal. Dorada/Mistico looked fantastic as you'd expect for their 2013 selves. Rudos got the win because you can't beat Ultimo Guerrero after the angle in the previous match... or any time really.
Main event is a real good watch, as is the semi-main & undercard trios with Cometa. Nothing wrong with the minis either to be honest. A really good Friday show with a quality level you would expect when attending a CMLL show.
(Zebrahead - "Until The Sun Comes Up")
Music Video
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
PWG BOLA 2015
PWG Battle Of Los Angeles 8/28/15 - Night 1:
To say I was excited for this year's BOLA would be a huge understatement! Lucha Undeground was the hot thing & thanks to the exposure the show gave some of the guys the tournament was loaded up with 1/4 AAA wrestlers, 4 of whom making their PWG debuts. Not to mention the arrival of UK guys Will Ospreay, Mark Andrews, Marty Scurll & Tommy End who were all relatively unknown to me. I specifically went out of my way to avoid watching their footage leading up to the tournament because I wanted to go in with fresh eyes and be blown away. The announced non-tournament matches were also off the charts ridiculous with multi-man matches headlining both nights.
Aero Star vs Brian Cage: Starting off hot with one of my favorite wrestlers of all-time vs Brian Cage! Normally this would be a huge mis-match but these guys had actually shown some chemistry on Lucha Underground & Cage vs a small flying guy usually works. The problem with Aero Star, as would become far more evident in later years, is he is not built for singles matches and/or he needs a Steve Pain/Eterno/Gringo Loco type opposite him who come prepared to base - and only base. Cage did nothing wrong here, he was always in the right spot & gave Aero Star everything he wanted. The problem, as usual with Aero Star, is he didn't fully trust Cage & thus couldn't really relax and get into the flow of the match at any point which led to much awkwardness. Also, Aero Star was still pretty green to the US scene at the time and didn't seem to fully grasp PWG is a step above where fans demand more. Case in point: Doing a 2nd rope backwards dive. Not even in Aero Star's top 10 repitoire of dives but he was "saving up" for the final two nights. Big mistake. He did pull off a cool double springboard dropkick which is super difficult and one of the few times he's done that version of the springboard. Cage finihed him with the drill (Steiner Screwdriver). Definitely the worst match of the tournament this year & probably the weakest BOLA match from 2014-present day outside of the ZSJ vs Jonah Rock snoozefest in 2017.
Andrew Everett vs Biff Busick: Everett was not fucking around this year. He was coming to steal the show! Knowing he was going out in round 1 he took it upon himself to bust out everything in his repitoire including the springboard SSP to the floor, taking some crazy suplexes onto his head & the ultimate... the imploding Phoenix Splash! He actually knocked himself a bit loopy on it since it's so hard to protect yourself on that landing. Biff showed great fire when on offense and really laid in his shit. The setup for the finish with Everett doing the springboard SSP right into Biff's uppercut was AWESOME! A spot of the show winner on any normal show but this is BOLA!
Will Ospreay vs Mark Andrews: This is how you make a debut! A compacy version of these two running through all the stuff they've perfected. Great spots throughout. My holding off on seeing their stuff worked out great because everything they did was new to me (not Fredo who kept saying "watch this!") & had me going absolutely bonkers. Pulling off the slingshot into a wheelbarrow bulldog was TO DIE FOR. The bulldog is the best move you know. Ospreay pulled off a perfect Venum tornillo dive & Andrews hit a perfect snap springboard huracanrana. They only went 10 minutes but they made perfect use of their time. Left the crowd wanting more which is how it should be done. This was the match Aero Star needed to have.
Ricochet & Rich Swann vs Angelico & Jack Evans: Inner City Machine Guns vs Los Gueros Del Cielo! A dream tag match to some and definitely right in the Bihari wheelhouse of matches he would fantasy book! Angelico & Jack had actually worked the previous PWG show against the Young Bucks so they were the LU guys here not making their debuts. Melissa Santos was guest ring announcer which was more LU influence on this year's tournament. Nice eye candy but she kinda stood out as trying to get her own shit in throughout the night which came to a head in the main event but more on that later. This was the exact tag match you'd expect with everyone getting to do their trademark stuff and a dance-off at one point (which Jack won obviously). Angelico did his crazy running somersault dive over the ringpost at one point. We had dueling 630's - first from Ricochet who SPLATTERED the mat & may have broken one of the boards because it made a sick sound live and everyone was frightened. There were moments where everyone got on different pages but they pulled it all together and a hot finishing run. 20+ minutes may have been slightly too much for most but not for me. I could have used 10 more!
Trent vs Trevor Lee: The battle of two of the more underappreciated guys at the time and maybe still to this day. Hard fought match. The match post-intermission is usually the hardest as people are still filing back in when it starts & everyone starts to get soaked in sweat again. They did a good job though. Trent took a sick german on the apron. Trevor took the super german suplex spot which is always crazy. Trevor went over in a very good match that just got overshadowed by what a stacked lineup night 1 had.
Drago vs Pentagon Jr.: It's crazy how over Penta was! So many people in the crowd had his merch and I think he sold out of everything he brought on the first night. And this wasn't even yet at his peak level of popularity, he was still a pretty rare guy in the US at this point. I knew he had no
chance of losing but was still bummed Drago was gonna be one and done with no night 2 match booked but such is life with a loaded up tournament. Drago got in two big dives, tons of big spots including a jumping Destroyer & enough to where he wasn't just there to be a plaything for Penta. But this was the Penta show either way with him playing to what the crowd wanted and them eating up anything he did. Place went nuts for his package piledriver to secure the win!
Fenix vs Matt Sydal: I was still #TeamAeroStar in the battle with #TeamFenix at this time as O'Connor would let anyone know so this was a tough spot as Aero Star had shit the bed and I knew Fenix was going to kill it. Sydal didn't really bring his 'A' game if you ask me but Fenix wasn't gonna stand for a clunker so he stepped it up. The top rope springboard switching positions into the Spanish Fly was soooooooooooooo impressive! Especially considering how slippy those ropes were by that point. The big spot of course was Sydal taking on the role of Penta as Fenix's base for the flip into the huracanrana. The behind the scenes of that spot was Penta/Fenix actually demonstrating how it was done to Sydal pre-show and even so Sydal/Fenix were never able to pull it off in all their practice attempts. They still went with it though and my group had a little bet going on as to whether they'd be able to pull it off. I was in the no camp and thankfully incorrect! They went for it and they nailed it! That adrenaline will make you do crazy things! Like Fenix's double corkscrew plancha! I guess the finish would be the only negative here but hindsight is 50/50. If you look back on it Fenix winning makes all the more sense as instead of being dumped in an 8 man on Night 3, he would have matched up with Ospreay which would have been bonkers. Meanwhile Sydal slides seamlessly into that 8 man based on the trios on Night 2 & he didn't really need the match with Ospreay. Not that this was a disasterous result or anything... you don't lose either way with the way things turned out... again because the tournament was that loaded! Just from a personal point of view there was no reason for Fenix to exit in round 1.
Zack Sabre Jr./Marty Scurll/Tommy End vs Roderick Strong/Young Bucks: MY FUCKING GOD! What a main event! Any PWG show that ends with a multi-man is epic but this one especially was just off the charts and spoiler alert... gets topped 24 hours later! Near half hour match with every combination of guys in the ring you could wish for. Crowd was super hot as this was peak Mount Rushmore 2.0 coming off the big Super Dragon angle on the previous show. Much like when I get to writing about tomorrow's non-tournament matches... there are no words I can write here to sum up what went down. My favorite spot was probably Zack fighting all three heels and slapping the shit out of them before they obliterated him with a double superkick/flying knee combo and then he got sick kick'd immediatly afterwards. Honorable mention to Marty basically taking a bump straight to the floor when he got back suplexed on the apron but missed his landing. I think this was the debut of the double Meltzer Driver as well which played off the debut of the move the year before.
Amazing night of wrestling. Leaving the building it was hard to imagine anything was going to top what we had seen tonight but my goodness nobody had any idea what tomorrow was going to bring.................
(MV: Taking Back Sunday "Stood A Chance" & "There's No 'I' In Team")
Music Video
PWG Battle Of Los Angeles 8/29/15 - Night 2:
It was lucha tag night! Easily the match I was most hyped for all weekend based on announced stuff. Pre-show highlight was definitely watching Aero Star practice rope trick springboards. Without boots! I wasn't the only one in awe.
Rich Swann vs Marty Scurll: Good choice for opener as both guys were super over so it only made the crowd even hotter. Not a long match with both guys just doing their trademark stuff. Winner never really seemed in doubt with Marty on his way in & Swann on his way out. Good stuff.
Jack Evans vs Angelico: Well... this was a thing! Jack definitely had an idea for a match and he was going to do it no matter what. Thankfully the match went so long we had both Jack's Drunken Master stuff, his Sandman act & then the actual Jack/Angelico match we all wanted to see. The funny stuff was okay. They even got Meltzer & his notebook involved in the early stages. I liked the Drunken Master exchange itself although the entire bit went really long. At one point they included a fan in one of their sequences! Imagine being the guy entrusted to do that! ;P The spot where Angelico was going for his corner dive and Jack scaled the ringpost to stop him was awesome! Angelico murdered Jack on the Splash Mountain into the corner but Jack got the win with his backslide bridge. I would rather watch these two team than fight.
Chris Hero vs Timothy Thatcher: This was not the previous match! Thatcher was not a highlight for me and at this point was the only thing keeping me from my lucha tag. But Hero did really well here keeping me interested. They played up the Thatcher is a monster bit early with him no-selling all of Hero's strikes and them brawling through the crowd. Then Thatcher used a sickening headbutt to take control and things slowed as they usually do with him. Hero hit a sick piledriver for the win after working Thatcher's supposed unbreakable neck. I was double happy that Hero moved on and it was time for the lucha tag!
Aero Star & Fenix vs Drago & Pentagon Jr.: After all that build up... I really have nothing to write here. This is the type match that's impossible to describe in words. You just have to watch it or have been one of the lucky ones there in person live to experience it. Still ranks as my second favorite live match ever right behind the Atlantis vs Ultimo Guerrero mask match. Each guy had their best opponent and they did a 100% authentic lucha style match. Aero Star busted out the very rana 2nd rope outside springboard rana & his crazy double jump rope trick rana. Fenix/Penta did their crazy fast exchanges. The climax (I think) was Aero Star doing the plancha off Fenix's shoulders and as Rick Knox was counting Fenix took off into the crowd with a wild springboard tornillo almost taking out my buddy Teichman! Finally we got the double finish with the tecnicos going over & a huge ovation. I was debating throwing money but someone beat me to it and then it started to rain. Ring was flooded with bills and "please come back"/"that was awesome"/"PWG" chants. Fenix & Penta spoke on the mic which was cut from the DVD. Just an awesome spectacle.
The most amazing part for me was leaving the building for intermission to go cool down since it was boiling hot inside. EVERYONE outside was still buzzing about the match. Anywhere you went, anyone you talked to, any coversation you overheard were people recounting all the insane moves & how great it was. That was an incredible moment because I wasn't sure if I was just inflating the match since I was so hyped & those were my boys or if it really was as great as I thought it was. This was the confirmation. I was so happy for those guys.
Tommy End vs Drew Gulak: Rough way to come back from intermission after that insane tag. After killing it on night 1, Tommy really didn't impress me here in a slow paced match. Drew didn't get much in aside a couple of stiff lariats. I *think* the finish was an early 3 count and they just went with it or they purposely wanted to do a surprise finish when you didn't expect it but either way it came off as an accident and led to more confusion than anything. I would have no pause calling it the weakest match of the night.
Mike Bailey vs Drew Galloway: My feelings on ex-WWE guys were I wanted them nowhere near PWG. Especially coming off last year's debacle with that Bryan Myers dude. Thankfully we didn't get a repeat here - presumably because Drew Galloway is a million times better than Myers. This was a fucking awesome small guy vs big guy match with Galloway really selling his ass off when it was time to do so. The moonsault double kness was SICK! Galloway catching the moonsault dive and slamming Speedball on the apron was another cool spot. Ton of great nearfalls ending with a surprise finish out of nowhere and Speedball advances! On a weekend of high end matches this is right up there. I came out of it very impressed with Galloway's professionalism and work ethic. How WWE ever released him is beyond me but I guess they fixed that now.
Ricochet vs Zack Sabre Jr.: Fitting last first round match between last year's winner & the guy most expected to win this year. It was a toss-up. Even before the show when doing predictions it seemed 50/50 for the most part. I think this was their first ever meeting? If it wasn't it was definitely their most high profile one. Went as great as you'd expect. More of a Zack match than a Ricochet match with Zack grounding Ricochet and Ricochet doing more power stuff to counter rather than flying all over the place. Zack catching Ricochet in an armbar off a springboard was one of the cooler spots that had everyone going nuts. They went realllllllllllllly long and had an awesome back-and-forth finish with Zack getting the surprise pinfall during a complicated exchange. It was such a surprise even the ref paused before counting which meant technically Zack got a 5 count on Ricochet! Last year's champ done in round 1! Excellent stuff.
Biff Busick/Andrew Everett/Trevor Lee vs Super Dragon/Young Bucks: IN-FUCKING-SANE! What else can you say? My first live Guerrilla Warfare experience. Before the match the guys near us threw their chairs under the ring which we found odd and asked why they did that. They (long time regulars) said you'll be standing all match anyways and the brawl will probably go all over so this just frees up space. These guys knew the deal! The match started with a brawl right beside us & there was never a moment where we would have actually been sitting down. The Dragon/Biff brawl right outside the curtain actually may have traumatized my friend Mark! LOL Pure madness. Just like the lucha tag there's not many words that can sum anything here up. Trevor Lee dove OVER Excalibur off the announce desk at one point! Ladders got involved... tables... many chairs... thumbtacks for the finish. Everything flowed so great though. There were never moments where the action stopped just to take time to set up some nonsense contraption. Nor should there be with 6 guys involved. Everett was a madman doing a springboard SSP, 630, shooting star into an Ace Crusher & taking some vicious weapon shots. After his round 1 match & this it's not a surprise he was basically done going into the final night. Super Dragon was Super Dragon. An absolute killer. The crowd loved anything he did with Biff. Finish was the double stomp as Biff's head lay on tacks followed by the Psycho Driver/Indytaker combo. I'd go ***** on this for sure. All-time classic live match for me. Second of the night!
Post-match had Excalibur saying goodnight but also burying Mount Rushmore which led to him being attacked. This led to many others trying to make the save but also getting attacked. It was a Mount Rushmore destruction. We all know plans get derailed on Night 3 when Super Dragon suffers an injury but I *think* the idea here was to setup the Guerrilla Warfare that happened in December as Super Dragon/Young Bucks/Roderick Strong/(Adam Cole as a surprise) vs Biff Busick/Joey Ryan/Candice/Excalibur/(Kyle O'Reiley as a surprise). Unconfirmed obviously... just my guess based on how everything went down here. Excalibur isn't cutting that promo and taking the beatdown by Dragon unless he's actually getting involved and he did get involved in the actual match when it happened.
Overall for sure one of the all-time great nights of live wrestling. Second for me only to the 2013 CMLL Anniversary Show. People still rave about the show to this day, especially those were there live to see the magic in person.
(MV: Four Year Strong - "Bring On The World" & "Heaven Wasn't Built To Hold Me")
Music Video
PWG Battle Of Los Angeles 8/30/15 - Night 3:
Jack Evans vs Brian Cage: TEAM JACK! Figured he had no chance here. He was hilarious doing his heel shtick (for the first time in PWG I believe?). The match went the way you'd expect... Cage just throwing Jack every which way including like 4 germans in a row onto his head/neck. The press slam to the floor was nasty as hell. Jack managed to shock the world with a roll-up but then Cage took his head off with a spinning lariat which was pretty rude if you ask me. Great start to the night!
Chris Hero vs Biff Busick: Poor Biff looked SPENT after the previous night. Hero usually likes to go long so I figured we were in for a good 15-20 minutes here but they actually went sub-10 so I'm gonna assume that was Biff just being done with the weekend. Was a good match though with Biff fighting through the elbows. Loved the spot where he went for his running blockbuster only for hero to "catch him" and hit the spinning elbow. Solid follow-up to the opener!
Trevor Lee vs Marty Scurll: This had my group going back and forth. Most of us thought Trevor was winning the entire thing or at the very least going to the finals but a couple of us said no way if he's matched up against Marty. This was the first real intense back-and-forth match of the night with the red hot crowd really into Marty's antics. Can't say enough about Trevor's selling. World class. He is the best at the exhaustion selling where you think he has nothing else to give and then BOOM he hits a big move. Unfortunately he was not victorious here so the majority lost out on our hopes. Really good match!
Pentagon Jr. vs Zack Sabre Jr.: I guess this shows how different we remember things compared to reality. I was SURE this was the final first round match of the quarters but in reality it was only fourth up on the night. Too bad the intros don't make the DVD's because I remember Zack coming out and the place ERUPTING when Penta's music hit and we knew what match was coming up next (since it's a blind draw and all). Non-stop "this is awesome" & "holy shit" chants pre-either guy touching the other. Genius first part of the match with them just exchanging submissions and people being shocked Penta could hang with Zack. Absolutely died at the spot where Penta tripped Rick Knox just to use his back for a running dropkick. That's the type of absurd spot that would anger most if they just watched a gif and made all their assumptions of PWG from 3 seconds worth of action. Really awesome match as you'd expect & not at all any kind of style clash. I knew deep down in my heart Penta didn't stand a chance of advancing and naturally Zack tapped him out. I was hoping for a different finish to save the Penta aura a bit but this was still his PWG debut weekend so I don't think we even knew if he would ever be back so no point protecting him. Crowd was spent after this and still two more first round matches to go!
Mike Bailey vs Tommy End: Using cagematch as my cheat sheet I'm shocked to discover this didn't even make it as a recomended match! This was great! Sub-10 minutes but no complaints. They did everything and more. The moonsault kneedrop on the apron... holy god damn mother fucking shit... I thought Tommy was murdered there. Brutal fucking knee strikes from Tommy & crowd erupting for Speedball's kick sequence. I'd easily go ****1/4 or even ****1/2 for this. Speedball got the win which made me happy although I came away a fan of Tommy End after this weekend!
Matt Sydal vs Will Ospreay: The contrast in styles for all these first round matches was just absolutely incredible. This was a dream match of high flyers... not sure if they had wrestled each other before but knowing the way PWG is booked I'd assume not. Ospreay just continued to steal the weekend for me. Multiple dives, crazy flippy moves... everything I want in a wrestler! I was torn on who was advancing here because Ospreay was new just the luchadors so who knew if he'd be back and Sydal had the longevity but I was happy to see Ospreay go over because it meant at least one more match!
Angelico/Rich Swann/Ricochet/Fenix vs Super Dragon/Roderick Strong/Young Bucks: So this was set up with Mount Rushmore 2.0 attacking Angelo (ring announcer) after intermission and then each babyface made their own way out to attack them and do some spots until they got cut off and the next one would come. This led to an AMAZING sequence with Fenix working with the heels. There was also a quadruple dive spot that almost went terribly wrong as I think it was Swann who jumped onto the wrong heel which meant Fenix had nobody to jump onto but thankfully he held up and just reset himself to dive onto the two heels who stood back up to catch him. That could have been super scary otherwise! I like the balls to just reset and go dive not even knowing if anyone was gonna stand up to catch you. :) Just a crazy as all hell match as you'd expect with these guys and really any multi-man in PWG. Of course this goes down (sadly) in history as Super Dragon's farewell match. Just a total non-descript spot he always did where he charged the corner, his opponent moved & he hit shoulder into the ringpost but on landing something went bad in his leg and he limped off to the back. I don't even think anyone really noticed. It happened right in front of us and we thought he was just going to the back as part of something to come later in the match but he never returned. They continued the match and really did some super complex stuff all things considered since they had planned to have another guy out there as part of the action. Only like once or twice do you really notice them pausing to figure out a way to get to the next spot without Dragon around. I can't help but often think what happens if Dragon doesn't get hurt in this match but such is life. Wrestling isn't safe & every match is a risk for the competitors no matter how safe you try to take it.
Jack Evans vs Chris Hero: The 1 count match! I'm not even sure what the intention was because Jack was clearly the heel and Chris was clearly the babyface but the more Jack kept kicking out at 1 the more over he got and the more people wanted to see him win. At first I thought it was actually gonna be a comedy bit if we're beng honest. Maybe that was the goal? I dunno. Chris knows this blog exists so maybe he'll tell me one day! They went like 15 minutes which I had no issue with but a lot of the drama was gone with the 1 count kickouts. And I felt it peaked but they just kept going. The finish was lackluster because if I remember right Hero actually gets a 2 count at one point which surprises everyone but then just puts Jack away. It was a nice idea conceptually but I can't get past it in my head that the person constantly getting 1 counts kind of HAS to win in the end with a fluke roll-up.
Mike Bailey vs Will Ospreay: Another dream flyers match! At one point they did like 6 dives in a row right in front of us. Incredible these two could put together such a good match on short notice even after having wrestled once already. Crowd was really split even with Speedball being at his peak over level in Reseda. He ended up getting the win to move onto the final & all I could think of was I gotta go back home and look up all the Ospreay matches I can!
Zack Sabre Jr. vs Marty Scurll: OH BOY. This is the match that everyone I know who attended still argues about to this day. It was boiling hot. It was already a very long night (show was almost 2 and a half hours old by this point). There were still 2 matches left to go. All the makings of a spot on the card where the guys hitting the ring needed to be aware and know not to let things drag out. Just do your thing and move on. But... their thing was they wanted to do their classic which meant they wanted to go a half hour. LOL Just an absurdly slow match to start full of generic heel stalling spots & exchanging submissions even to the floor where they just wouldn't let go. Let me be clear... they weren't having a bad match and they most certainly weren't trolling the crowd. They were having a good match and doing what they wanted to do. Some people live had enough and actually walked out mid-match to go get some air. Others even stayed but boo'ed the kickouts eventually. But a lot of people were also respectful and cheered them on. It was as devisive of a crowd reaction as you could have. Eventually Zack tapped Marty to move on. Of course you are wondering which side did I fall on? I loved it. I thought it was a superb technical match, one of their best together. Lots of interesting counters and clever escapes. But I also do think it was very selfish of them to do this match at that point on the show. The cagematch rating is super high which backs me up... it was technically a great match. But if you polled the live crowd they wouldn't have this anywhere near best match of the night. I know both guys immediatly left to go outside and just lay on the ground exhausted. (Most fans did as well)
Aero Star/Drew Galloway/Chuck Taylor/Trent/Drew Gulak vs Drago/Timothy Thatcher/Mark Andrews/Tommaso Ciampa/Andrew Everett: Yep... this is as weird of a 10 man tag as you are likely to see! Usually the 10 man tag exists to provide a long break for the main event guys. But can you really do a 30 minute match after one just occured? haha Instead they did a big tease before the match where one team needed an extra guy and Chuck just happened to be sitting in for commentary and eventually ripped off his shirt to join Trent's side which got a huge reaction. Excellent time filler! The best part for me was watching the Mexicans try to understand the wacky comedy that comes associated with this match (and having to explain it to them pre-show). They did well! Aero Star managed to figure out the tricky springboard just to kick someone spot and got a huge reaction for it! The low blow sequence was great too because it allowed me to watch Aero Star take out Timothy Thatcher which is something I never thought I'd be able to brag about! Dive sequence to top things off and perfect finish with Chuck and Trent hitting their big moves to send everyone (almost) home happy. Perfect match. And a group hug afterwards providing a great photo op!
Mike Bailey vs Chris Hero vs Zack Sabre Jr.: Another interesting choice here as this went over 30 minutes in total on a card that was hitting the 4 hour mark just as it got started. I actually think it hurt the match because they started so slow that the crowd was aware this was going to go a while and I think nobody was really in the mood for that. (Maybe especially the folks who booked red eyes and were now worried about making it on time LOL) I honestly wasn't a fan of the 3 way portion because it involved a lot of standing around watching someone else lock someone in a submission. Very creative ways of going back-and-forth beween which two guys would be involved at a time but I felt things didn't pick up until Speedball did his kicking sequence on both guys. There was a funny moment where Zack had a submission on Hero and Speedball went up top to do his shooting star double knees which was a planned spot.......... just not planned at that specific moment. So Hero kinda awkwardly moved out of the way and Speedball crashed but didn't really sell it because he was intending to hit it. They eventually went back to it which is when I realized what had happened. Speedball was most definitely the crowd favorite which made it all the worse when he was eliminated first but I thought the ending run with Zack & Chris was really good and exciting. I was sure Chris was finally taking it but Zack managed to tap him out and the match with Marty was forogtten as the crowd cheered very loudly in support of his victory! All the Europeans came out to congratulate him afterwards. He was exhuasted! But still stayed to take pictures with every single fan who wanted one until we were all finally kicked out.
Just an incredible weekend of wrestling. To this day some still call it the best weekend of wrestling of all-time & the best BOLA that existed. Just based on the amount of different styles that were presented. It really is the prototypical wrestling weekend you can look at and explain it's the different styles coming together that makes wrestling so special. The challenge of course was how could PWG possibly top this in 2016? Maybe by presenting one of, if not the, greatest PWG match ever? ;)
(MV: A Day To Remember "Right Back At It Again", "Here's To The Past", "All Signs Point To Lauderdale" & "Better Off This Way")
Music Video
To say I was excited for this year's BOLA would be a huge understatement! Lucha Undeground was the hot thing & thanks to the exposure the show gave some of the guys the tournament was loaded up with 1/4 AAA wrestlers, 4 of whom making their PWG debuts. Not to mention the arrival of UK guys Will Ospreay, Mark Andrews, Marty Scurll & Tommy End who were all relatively unknown to me. I specifically went out of my way to avoid watching their footage leading up to the tournament because I wanted to go in with fresh eyes and be blown away. The announced non-tournament matches were also off the charts ridiculous with multi-man matches headlining both nights.
Aero Star vs Brian Cage: Starting off hot with one of my favorite wrestlers of all-time vs Brian Cage! Normally this would be a huge mis-match but these guys had actually shown some chemistry on Lucha Underground & Cage vs a small flying guy usually works. The problem with Aero Star, as would become far more evident in later years, is he is not built for singles matches and/or he needs a Steve Pain/Eterno/Gringo Loco type opposite him who come prepared to base - and only base. Cage did nothing wrong here, he was always in the right spot & gave Aero Star everything he wanted. The problem, as usual with Aero Star, is he didn't fully trust Cage & thus couldn't really relax and get into the flow of the match at any point which led to much awkwardness. Also, Aero Star was still pretty green to the US scene at the time and didn't seem to fully grasp PWG is a step above where fans demand more. Case in point: Doing a 2nd rope backwards dive. Not even in Aero Star's top 10 repitoire of dives but he was "saving up" for the final two nights. Big mistake. He did pull off a cool double springboard dropkick which is super difficult and one of the few times he's done that version of the springboard. Cage finihed him with the drill (Steiner Screwdriver). Definitely the worst match of the tournament this year & probably the weakest BOLA match from 2014-present day outside of the ZSJ vs Jonah Rock snoozefest in 2017.
Andrew Everett vs Biff Busick: Everett was not fucking around this year. He was coming to steal the show! Knowing he was going out in round 1 he took it upon himself to bust out everything in his repitoire including the springboard SSP to the floor, taking some crazy suplexes onto his head & the ultimate... the imploding Phoenix Splash! He actually knocked himself a bit loopy on it since it's so hard to protect yourself on that landing. Biff showed great fire when on offense and really laid in his shit. The setup for the finish with Everett doing the springboard SSP right into Biff's uppercut was AWESOME! A spot of the show winner on any normal show but this is BOLA!
Will Ospreay vs Mark Andrews: This is how you make a debut! A compacy version of these two running through all the stuff they've perfected. Great spots throughout. My holding off on seeing their stuff worked out great because everything they did was new to me (not Fredo who kept saying "watch this!") & had me going absolutely bonkers. Pulling off the slingshot into a wheelbarrow bulldog was TO DIE FOR. The bulldog is the best move you know. Ospreay pulled off a perfect Venum tornillo dive & Andrews hit a perfect snap springboard huracanrana. They only went 10 minutes but they made perfect use of their time. Left the crowd wanting more which is how it should be done. This was the match Aero Star needed to have.
Ricochet & Rich Swann vs Angelico & Jack Evans: Inner City Machine Guns vs Los Gueros Del Cielo! A dream tag match to some and definitely right in the Bihari wheelhouse of matches he would fantasy book! Angelico & Jack had actually worked the previous PWG show against the Young Bucks so they were the LU guys here not making their debuts. Melissa Santos was guest ring announcer which was more LU influence on this year's tournament. Nice eye candy but she kinda stood out as trying to get her own shit in throughout the night which came to a head in the main event but more on that later. This was the exact tag match you'd expect with everyone getting to do their trademark stuff and a dance-off at one point (which Jack won obviously). Angelico did his crazy running somersault dive over the ringpost at one point. We had dueling 630's - first from Ricochet who SPLATTERED the mat & may have broken one of the boards because it made a sick sound live and everyone was frightened. There were moments where everyone got on different pages but they pulled it all together and a hot finishing run. 20+ minutes may have been slightly too much for most but not for me. I could have used 10 more!
Trent vs Trevor Lee: The battle of two of the more underappreciated guys at the time and maybe still to this day. Hard fought match. The match post-intermission is usually the hardest as people are still filing back in when it starts & everyone starts to get soaked in sweat again. They did a good job though. Trent took a sick german on the apron. Trevor took the super german suplex spot which is always crazy. Trevor went over in a very good match that just got overshadowed by what a stacked lineup night 1 had.
Drago vs Pentagon Jr.: It's crazy how over Penta was! So many people in the crowd had his merch and I think he sold out of everything he brought on the first night. And this wasn't even yet at his peak level of popularity, he was still a pretty rare guy in the US at this point. I knew he had no
chance of losing but was still bummed Drago was gonna be one and done with no night 2 match booked but such is life with a loaded up tournament. Drago got in two big dives, tons of big spots including a jumping Destroyer & enough to where he wasn't just there to be a plaything for Penta. But this was the Penta show either way with him playing to what the crowd wanted and them eating up anything he did. Place went nuts for his package piledriver to secure the win!
Fenix vs Matt Sydal: I was still #TeamAeroStar in the battle with #TeamFenix at this time as O'Connor would let anyone know so this was a tough spot as Aero Star had shit the bed and I knew Fenix was going to kill it. Sydal didn't really bring his 'A' game if you ask me but Fenix wasn't gonna stand for a clunker so he stepped it up. The top rope springboard switching positions into the Spanish Fly was soooooooooooooo impressive! Especially considering how slippy those ropes were by that point. The big spot of course was Sydal taking on the role of Penta as Fenix's base for the flip into the huracanrana. The behind the scenes of that spot was Penta/Fenix actually demonstrating how it was done to Sydal pre-show and even so Sydal/Fenix were never able to pull it off in all their practice attempts. They still went with it though and my group had a little bet going on as to whether they'd be able to pull it off. I was in the no camp and thankfully incorrect! They went for it and they nailed it! That adrenaline will make you do crazy things! Like Fenix's double corkscrew plancha! I guess the finish would be the only negative here but hindsight is 50/50. If you look back on it Fenix winning makes all the more sense as instead of being dumped in an 8 man on Night 3, he would have matched up with Ospreay which would have been bonkers. Meanwhile Sydal slides seamlessly into that 8 man based on the trios on Night 2 & he didn't really need the match with Ospreay. Not that this was a disasterous result or anything... you don't lose either way with the way things turned out... again because the tournament was that loaded! Just from a personal point of view there was no reason for Fenix to exit in round 1.
Zack Sabre Jr./Marty Scurll/Tommy End vs Roderick Strong/Young Bucks: MY FUCKING GOD! What a main event! Any PWG show that ends with a multi-man is epic but this one especially was just off the charts and spoiler alert... gets topped 24 hours later! Near half hour match with every combination of guys in the ring you could wish for. Crowd was super hot as this was peak Mount Rushmore 2.0 coming off the big Super Dragon angle on the previous show. Much like when I get to writing about tomorrow's non-tournament matches... there are no words I can write here to sum up what went down. My favorite spot was probably Zack fighting all three heels and slapping the shit out of them before they obliterated him with a double superkick/flying knee combo and then he got sick kick'd immediatly afterwards. Honorable mention to Marty basically taking a bump straight to the floor when he got back suplexed on the apron but missed his landing. I think this was the debut of the double Meltzer Driver as well which played off the debut of the move the year before.
Amazing night of wrestling. Leaving the building it was hard to imagine anything was going to top what we had seen tonight but my goodness nobody had any idea what tomorrow was going to bring.................
(MV: Taking Back Sunday "Stood A Chance" & "There's No 'I' In Team")
Music Video
PWG Battle Of Los Angeles 8/29/15 - Night 2:
It was lucha tag night! Easily the match I was most hyped for all weekend based on announced stuff. Pre-show highlight was definitely watching Aero Star practice rope trick springboards. Without boots! I wasn't the only one in awe.
Rich Swann vs Marty Scurll: Good choice for opener as both guys were super over so it only made the crowd even hotter. Not a long match with both guys just doing their trademark stuff. Winner never really seemed in doubt with Marty on his way in & Swann on his way out. Good stuff.
Jack Evans vs Angelico: Well... this was a thing! Jack definitely had an idea for a match and he was going to do it no matter what. Thankfully the match went so long we had both Jack's Drunken Master stuff, his Sandman act & then the actual Jack/Angelico match we all wanted to see. The funny stuff was okay. They even got Meltzer & his notebook involved in the early stages. I liked the Drunken Master exchange itself although the entire bit went really long. At one point they included a fan in one of their sequences! Imagine being the guy entrusted to do that! ;P The spot where Angelico was going for his corner dive and Jack scaled the ringpost to stop him was awesome! Angelico murdered Jack on the Splash Mountain into the corner but Jack got the win with his backslide bridge. I would rather watch these two team than fight.
Chris Hero vs Timothy Thatcher: This was not the previous match! Thatcher was not a highlight for me and at this point was the only thing keeping me from my lucha tag. But Hero did really well here keeping me interested. They played up the Thatcher is a monster bit early with him no-selling all of Hero's strikes and them brawling through the crowd. Then Thatcher used a sickening headbutt to take control and things slowed as they usually do with him. Hero hit a sick piledriver for the win after working Thatcher's supposed unbreakable neck. I was double happy that Hero moved on and it was time for the lucha tag!
Aero Star & Fenix vs Drago & Pentagon Jr.: After all that build up... I really have nothing to write here. This is the type match that's impossible to describe in words. You just have to watch it or have been one of the lucky ones there in person live to experience it. Still ranks as my second favorite live match ever right behind the Atlantis vs Ultimo Guerrero mask match. Each guy had their best opponent and they did a 100% authentic lucha style match. Aero Star busted out the very rana 2nd rope outside springboard rana & his crazy double jump rope trick rana. Fenix/Penta did their crazy fast exchanges. The climax (I think) was Aero Star doing the plancha off Fenix's shoulders and as Rick Knox was counting Fenix took off into the crowd with a wild springboard tornillo almost taking out my buddy Teichman! Finally we got the double finish with the tecnicos going over & a huge ovation. I was debating throwing money but someone beat me to it and then it started to rain. Ring was flooded with bills and "please come back"/"that was awesome"/"PWG" chants. Fenix & Penta spoke on the mic which was cut from the DVD. Just an awesome spectacle.
The most amazing part for me was leaving the building for intermission to go cool down since it was boiling hot inside. EVERYONE outside was still buzzing about the match. Anywhere you went, anyone you talked to, any coversation you overheard were people recounting all the insane moves & how great it was. That was an incredible moment because I wasn't sure if I was just inflating the match since I was so hyped & those were my boys or if it really was as great as I thought it was. This was the confirmation. I was so happy for those guys.
Tommy End vs Drew Gulak: Rough way to come back from intermission after that insane tag. After killing it on night 1, Tommy really didn't impress me here in a slow paced match. Drew didn't get much in aside a couple of stiff lariats. I *think* the finish was an early 3 count and they just went with it or they purposely wanted to do a surprise finish when you didn't expect it but either way it came off as an accident and led to more confusion than anything. I would have no pause calling it the weakest match of the night.
Mike Bailey vs Drew Galloway: My feelings on ex-WWE guys were I wanted them nowhere near PWG. Especially coming off last year's debacle with that Bryan Myers dude. Thankfully we didn't get a repeat here - presumably because Drew Galloway is a million times better than Myers. This was a fucking awesome small guy vs big guy match with Galloway really selling his ass off when it was time to do so. The moonsault double kness was SICK! Galloway catching the moonsault dive and slamming Speedball on the apron was another cool spot. Ton of great nearfalls ending with a surprise finish out of nowhere and Speedball advances! On a weekend of high end matches this is right up there. I came out of it very impressed with Galloway's professionalism and work ethic. How WWE ever released him is beyond me but I guess they fixed that now.
Ricochet vs Zack Sabre Jr.: Fitting last first round match between last year's winner & the guy most expected to win this year. It was a toss-up. Even before the show when doing predictions it seemed 50/50 for the most part. I think this was their first ever meeting? If it wasn't it was definitely their most high profile one. Went as great as you'd expect. More of a Zack match than a Ricochet match with Zack grounding Ricochet and Ricochet doing more power stuff to counter rather than flying all over the place. Zack catching Ricochet in an armbar off a springboard was one of the cooler spots that had everyone going nuts. They went realllllllllllllly long and had an awesome back-and-forth finish with Zack getting the surprise pinfall during a complicated exchange. It was such a surprise even the ref paused before counting which meant technically Zack got a 5 count on Ricochet! Last year's champ done in round 1! Excellent stuff.
Biff Busick/Andrew Everett/Trevor Lee vs Super Dragon/Young Bucks: IN-FUCKING-SANE! What else can you say? My first live Guerrilla Warfare experience. Before the match the guys near us threw their chairs under the ring which we found odd and asked why they did that. They (long time regulars) said you'll be standing all match anyways and the brawl will probably go all over so this just frees up space. These guys knew the deal! The match started with a brawl right beside us & there was never a moment where we would have actually been sitting down. The Dragon/Biff brawl right outside the curtain actually may have traumatized my friend Mark! LOL Pure madness. Just like the lucha tag there's not many words that can sum anything here up. Trevor Lee dove OVER Excalibur off the announce desk at one point! Ladders got involved... tables... many chairs... thumbtacks for the finish. Everything flowed so great though. There were never moments where the action stopped just to take time to set up some nonsense contraption. Nor should there be with 6 guys involved. Everett was a madman doing a springboard SSP, 630, shooting star into an Ace Crusher & taking some vicious weapon shots. After his round 1 match & this it's not a surprise he was basically done going into the final night. Super Dragon was Super Dragon. An absolute killer. The crowd loved anything he did with Biff. Finish was the double stomp as Biff's head lay on tacks followed by the Psycho Driver/Indytaker combo. I'd go ***** on this for sure. All-time classic live match for me. Second of the night!
Post-match had Excalibur saying goodnight but also burying Mount Rushmore which led to him being attacked. This led to many others trying to make the save but also getting attacked. It was a Mount Rushmore destruction. We all know plans get derailed on Night 3 when Super Dragon suffers an injury but I *think* the idea here was to setup the Guerrilla Warfare that happened in December as Super Dragon/Young Bucks/Roderick Strong/(Adam Cole as a surprise) vs Biff Busick/Joey Ryan/Candice/Excalibur/(Kyle O'Reiley as a surprise). Unconfirmed obviously... just my guess based on how everything went down here. Excalibur isn't cutting that promo and taking the beatdown by Dragon unless he's actually getting involved and he did get involved in the actual match when it happened.
Overall for sure one of the all-time great nights of live wrestling. Second for me only to the 2013 CMLL Anniversary Show. People still rave about the show to this day, especially those were there live to see the magic in person.
(MV: Four Year Strong - "Bring On The World" & "Heaven Wasn't Built To Hold Me")
Music Video
PWG Battle Of Los Angeles 8/30/15 - Night 3:
Jack Evans vs Brian Cage: TEAM JACK! Figured he had no chance here. He was hilarious doing his heel shtick (for the first time in PWG I believe?). The match went the way you'd expect... Cage just throwing Jack every which way including like 4 germans in a row onto his head/neck. The press slam to the floor was nasty as hell. Jack managed to shock the world with a roll-up but then Cage took his head off with a spinning lariat which was pretty rude if you ask me. Great start to the night!
Chris Hero vs Biff Busick: Poor Biff looked SPENT after the previous night. Hero usually likes to go long so I figured we were in for a good 15-20 minutes here but they actually went sub-10 so I'm gonna assume that was Biff just being done with the weekend. Was a good match though with Biff fighting through the elbows. Loved the spot where he went for his running blockbuster only for hero to "catch him" and hit the spinning elbow. Solid follow-up to the opener!
Trevor Lee vs Marty Scurll: This had my group going back and forth. Most of us thought Trevor was winning the entire thing or at the very least going to the finals but a couple of us said no way if he's matched up against Marty. This was the first real intense back-and-forth match of the night with the red hot crowd really into Marty's antics. Can't say enough about Trevor's selling. World class. He is the best at the exhaustion selling where you think he has nothing else to give and then BOOM he hits a big move. Unfortunately he was not victorious here so the majority lost out on our hopes. Really good match!
Pentagon Jr. vs Zack Sabre Jr.: I guess this shows how different we remember things compared to reality. I was SURE this was the final first round match of the quarters but in reality it was only fourth up on the night. Too bad the intros don't make the DVD's because I remember Zack coming out and the place ERUPTING when Penta's music hit and we knew what match was coming up next (since it's a blind draw and all). Non-stop "this is awesome" & "holy shit" chants pre-either guy touching the other. Genius first part of the match with them just exchanging submissions and people being shocked Penta could hang with Zack. Absolutely died at the spot where Penta tripped Rick Knox just to use his back for a running dropkick. That's the type of absurd spot that would anger most if they just watched a gif and made all their assumptions of PWG from 3 seconds worth of action. Really awesome match as you'd expect & not at all any kind of style clash. I knew deep down in my heart Penta didn't stand a chance of advancing and naturally Zack tapped him out. I was hoping for a different finish to save the Penta aura a bit but this was still his PWG debut weekend so I don't think we even knew if he would ever be back so no point protecting him. Crowd was spent after this and still two more first round matches to go!
Mike Bailey vs Tommy End: Using cagematch as my cheat sheet I'm shocked to discover this didn't even make it as a recomended match! This was great! Sub-10 minutes but no complaints. They did everything and more. The moonsault kneedrop on the apron... holy god damn mother fucking shit... I thought Tommy was murdered there. Brutal fucking knee strikes from Tommy & crowd erupting for Speedball's kick sequence. I'd easily go ****1/4 or even ****1/2 for this. Speedball got the win which made me happy although I came away a fan of Tommy End after this weekend!
Matt Sydal vs Will Ospreay: The contrast in styles for all these first round matches was just absolutely incredible. This was a dream match of high flyers... not sure if they had wrestled each other before but knowing the way PWG is booked I'd assume not. Ospreay just continued to steal the weekend for me. Multiple dives, crazy flippy moves... everything I want in a wrestler! I was torn on who was advancing here because Ospreay was new just the luchadors so who knew if he'd be back and Sydal had the longevity but I was happy to see Ospreay go over because it meant at least one more match!
Angelico/Rich Swann/Ricochet/Fenix vs Super Dragon/Roderick Strong/Young Bucks: So this was set up with Mount Rushmore 2.0 attacking Angelo (ring announcer) after intermission and then each babyface made their own way out to attack them and do some spots until they got cut off and the next one would come. This led to an AMAZING sequence with Fenix working with the heels. There was also a quadruple dive spot that almost went terribly wrong as I think it was Swann who jumped onto the wrong heel which meant Fenix had nobody to jump onto but thankfully he held up and just reset himself to dive onto the two heels who stood back up to catch him. That could have been super scary otherwise! I like the balls to just reset and go dive not even knowing if anyone was gonna stand up to catch you. :) Just a crazy as all hell match as you'd expect with these guys and really any multi-man in PWG. Of course this goes down (sadly) in history as Super Dragon's farewell match. Just a total non-descript spot he always did where he charged the corner, his opponent moved & he hit shoulder into the ringpost but on landing something went bad in his leg and he limped off to the back. I don't even think anyone really noticed. It happened right in front of us and we thought he was just going to the back as part of something to come later in the match but he never returned. They continued the match and really did some super complex stuff all things considered since they had planned to have another guy out there as part of the action. Only like once or twice do you really notice them pausing to figure out a way to get to the next spot without Dragon around. I can't help but often think what happens if Dragon doesn't get hurt in this match but such is life. Wrestling isn't safe & every match is a risk for the competitors no matter how safe you try to take it.
Jack Evans vs Chris Hero: The 1 count match! I'm not even sure what the intention was because Jack was clearly the heel and Chris was clearly the babyface but the more Jack kept kicking out at 1 the more over he got and the more people wanted to see him win. At first I thought it was actually gonna be a comedy bit if we're beng honest. Maybe that was the goal? I dunno. Chris knows this blog exists so maybe he'll tell me one day! They went like 15 minutes which I had no issue with but a lot of the drama was gone with the 1 count kickouts. And I felt it peaked but they just kept going. The finish was lackluster because if I remember right Hero actually gets a 2 count at one point which surprises everyone but then just puts Jack away. It was a nice idea conceptually but I can't get past it in my head that the person constantly getting 1 counts kind of HAS to win in the end with a fluke roll-up.
Mike Bailey vs Will Ospreay: Another dream flyers match! At one point they did like 6 dives in a row right in front of us. Incredible these two could put together such a good match on short notice even after having wrestled once already. Crowd was really split even with Speedball being at his peak over level in Reseda. He ended up getting the win to move onto the final & all I could think of was I gotta go back home and look up all the Ospreay matches I can!
Zack Sabre Jr. vs Marty Scurll: OH BOY. This is the match that everyone I know who attended still argues about to this day. It was boiling hot. It was already a very long night (show was almost 2 and a half hours old by this point). There were still 2 matches left to go. All the makings of a spot on the card where the guys hitting the ring needed to be aware and know not to let things drag out. Just do your thing and move on. But... their thing was they wanted to do their classic which meant they wanted to go a half hour. LOL Just an absurdly slow match to start full of generic heel stalling spots & exchanging submissions even to the floor where they just wouldn't let go. Let me be clear... they weren't having a bad match and they most certainly weren't trolling the crowd. They were having a good match and doing what they wanted to do. Some people live had enough and actually walked out mid-match to go get some air. Others even stayed but boo'ed the kickouts eventually. But a lot of people were also respectful and cheered them on. It was as devisive of a crowd reaction as you could have. Eventually Zack tapped Marty to move on. Of course you are wondering which side did I fall on? I loved it. I thought it was a superb technical match, one of their best together. Lots of interesting counters and clever escapes. But I also do think it was very selfish of them to do this match at that point on the show. The cagematch rating is super high which backs me up... it was technically a great match. But if you polled the live crowd they wouldn't have this anywhere near best match of the night. I know both guys immediatly left to go outside and just lay on the ground exhausted. (Most fans did as well)
Aero Star/Drew Galloway/Chuck Taylor/Trent/Drew Gulak vs Drago/Timothy Thatcher/Mark Andrews/Tommaso Ciampa/Andrew Everett: Yep... this is as weird of a 10 man tag as you are likely to see! Usually the 10 man tag exists to provide a long break for the main event guys. But can you really do a 30 minute match after one just occured? haha Instead they did a big tease before the match where one team needed an extra guy and Chuck just happened to be sitting in for commentary and eventually ripped off his shirt to join Trent's side which got a huge reaction. Excellent time filler! The best part for me was watching the Mexicans try to understand the wacky comedy that comes associated with this match (and having to explain it to them pre-show). They did well! Aero Star managed to figure out the tricky springboard just to kick someone spot and got a huge reaction for it! The low blow sequence was great too because it allowed me to watch Aero Star take out Timothy Thatcher which is something I never thought I'd be able to brag about! Dive sequence to top things off and perfect finish with Chuck and Trent hitting their big moves to send everyone (almost) home happy. Perfect match. And a group hug afterwards providing a great photo op!
Mike Bailey vs Chris Hero vs Zack Sabre Jr.: Another interesting choice here as this went over 30 minutes in total on a card that was hitting the 4 hour mark just as it got started. I actually think it hurt the match because they started so slow that the crowd was aware this was going to go a while and I think nobody was really in the mood for that. (Maybe especially the folks who booked red eyes and were now worried about making it on time LOL) I honestly wasn't a fan of the 3 way portion because it involved a lot of standing around watching someone else lock someone in a submission. Very creative ways of going back-and-forth beween which two guys would be involved at a time but I felt things didn't pick up until Speedball did his kicking sequence on both guys. There was a funny moment where Zack had a submission on Hero and Speedball went up top to do his shooting star double knees which was a planned spot.......... just not planned at that specific moment. So Hero kinda awkwardly moved out of the way and Speedball crashed but didn't really sell it because he was intending to hit it. They eventually went back to it which is when I realized what had happened. Speedball was most definitely the crowd favorite which made it all the worse when he was eliminated first but I thought the ending run with Zack & Chris was really good and exciting. I was sure Chris was finally taking it but Zack managed to tap him out and the match with Marty was forogtten as the crowd cheered very loudly in support of his victory! All the Europeans came out to congratulate him afterwards. He was exhuasted! But still stayed to take pictures with every single fan who wanted one until we were all finally kicked out.
Just an incredible weekend of wrestling. To this day some still call it the best weekend of wrestling of all-time & the best BOLA that existed. Just based on the amount of different styles that were presented. It really is the prototypical wrestling weekend you can look at and explain it's the different styles coming together that makes wrestling so special. The challenge of course was how could PWG possibly top this in 2016? Maybe by presenting one of, if not the, greatest PWG match ever? ;)
(MV: A Day To Remember "Right Back At It Again", "Here's To The Past", "All Signs Point To Lauderdale" & "Better Off This Way")
Music Video
Saturday, January 18, 2020
PWG BOLA 2014
PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 1- 8/29/14
This was my first ever PWG show. I remember getting the invite and actually being on the fence about whether I wanted to fly out to LA for 3 days. Especially just days before I was ready to leave for Mexico City for 2 weeks. Yes, I was an idiot. Thankfully I came to my senses, accepted the invite & the rest is history because I never wanted to miss another live PWG show. I remember walking into the building for the first time and being shocked at how small it actually was and wondering how they were gonna squeeze all those fans lined up outside into this small place. I also remember how overdressed I was because once everyone filed in it was INSANELY HOT and I was dripping in sweat before the matches even began.
TJP vs Bobby Fish: I didn't even remember until I looked up results that AR Fox was scheduled for this match but got replaced by Bobby Fish due to injury. But then it jogged my memory and I did recall one guy I was sitting with saying it was so obvious the replacement would lose that he was probably actually going to win and I got all worried because I was so into TJP. Thankfully TJP won and you can actually see me on video as the only guy in my section standing up and clapping. This match was awesome! That finish was super slick.
Roderick Strong vs Biff Busick: This was not the Roddy performance he had been usually delivering in PWG and I'm not sure what the deal was. Maybe he was saving it up the final night? Maybe it was Biff's fault? I just remember being let down a bit by the end of this.
Cedric Alexander vs Trevor Lee: This was another one where maybe my expectations were too high going in. They had a really good match but I think I was expecting some way crazier spots. The outside-in armdrag by Trevor was a really cool spot I'm sure surpirsed nobody has swiped. Trevor was one of my favorites to win the entire tournament at this stage.
Ricochet/Rich Swann vs Chris Daniels/Frankie Kazarian vs Candice LaRae/Joey Ryan: Now this was the PWG craziness I came for! Tons of crazy shit in this match as you can see in the video. Candice is perfect for a match like this and was easily the most over person in the match. The winners were never in doubt considering who was getting a title shot the following night.
Michael Elgin vs Tommaso Ciampa: A war! Definitely the best first round match of the night. They had this one striking exchange that was to die for and had the crowd explode. Ciampa escaping the corner Falcon Arrow to hit his power bomb onto the knees was a crazy spot! Great nearfalls at the end. This was some good matchmaking! There was also a spot mid-way through the match where Ciampa gives Elgin a DVD into the corner and comes up short which appears to destroy the board under the ring so that corner was very iffy for the rest of the show. Surprised Elgin was okay.
AJ Styles vs Brian Myers: Yeah... well... this. LOL One of the more infamous PWG matches since you don't often see actual bad matches in PWG and this was definitely a bad match! I think Myers had left WWE and was out to prove he could hang so naturally he was back in WWE months later. He brought nothing to the table. It's a shame a rare AJ indy match (at the time) was wasted on him. The culmination of this debacle was the finish being a top rope Styles Clash where Myers appeared to have zero clue how to take it so AJ had to force him into position and dropped him due to that. They bumbled into a new finish but crowd was done with this. Post-match Myers blew a second Styles Clash which got edited off the video and then they showed AJ finally giving it to him properly. Poor AJ then had to get to airport as he flew all the way back to where I came from - Toronto - to get driven to a show a couple hours away. He worked that show and then flew all the way back for Night 3 here. That's rough!
Kyle O'Reilly vs Drew Gulak: Not my type of match. It wasn't bad obviously... in fact some people had it ****+. I just wasn't into the faux shoot stuff and headbutts that don't look spectacular but clearly hurt so... what's the point of pro wrestling again? I would not rewatch this.
Kenny Omega/Chuck Taylor/Zack Sabre Jr. vs Adam Cole/Young Bucks: Another person missing the weekend with an injury was Trent so I presume he was supposed to be here instead of Zack although I can't actually remember if that is 100% true. It just makes sense based on the teams. Or maybe Kenny was the sub? I don't recall... but what I do recall is this was the match of the night and my first though after the final three count was HOLY FUCK ROB WHY DID YOU EVEN CONSIDER NOT COMING? Just an absolutely incredible match with crazy spots like Kenny getting double superkicked in mid-air while trying a dive, the Cole brainbuster onto his knee combined with a double superkick, the entire finishing sequence... I can go on all day. Trent got involved at the end after Rick Knox was taken out by a Zack Sabre Jr dive... yes... A ZACK SABRE JR DIVE! The perfect ending that really makes no sense (Trent counting a pin?) but sends the crowd home beyond happy so you don't question it because this is the point of wrestling you see - it's absurd!
A great show that gives me all the happy memories since it was my first live PWG show. I couldn't even believe there were two more nights to come of this madness!
(MV: Mae "Sometimes I Can't Make It Aloen" & "Brink Of Disaster")
Music Video
PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 2 - 8/30/14
I came dressed lighter! It was still boiling hot! No wonder this place cleaned up on beer sales.
Candice LaRae vs Rich Swann: A fact I didn't remember is that this was Trent's spot and Candice stepped in. This time I was sure the replacement was winning as to not make it so predictable the sub always loses and I was right! The first spot of this match is Swann slapping the FUCK out of Candice and I popped. I like face/heel dynamics in my match so that pretty much established it right away. Of course that gif probably didn't do Swann much good down the road. There was also a sick spin kick as Candice charged him in the corner at one point. Candice is the best at intergender wrestling was so this was good.
Chuck Taylor vs Johnny Gargano: My vivid memory from this match is a spot where Gargano goes for a tope suicida only for Taylor to catch him and give him a release suplex onto the apron... except Gargano completely missed the apron and just fell hard on his shoulder on the floor in front of my friend Mark who was horrified. LOL Anyone who says Chuck can't work needs to watch this match. It was great! They had this amazing corner exchange of knees & superkicks. Checking cagematch I see this didn't even get into the recommended territory which I find shocking.
Ricochet vs Chris Sabin: Whereas I see this got the recommended tag on cagematch and am perplexed because this was a totally fine match but nothing I would go back and watch because it was so great. Ricochet did a lot of power stuff rather than flying. It was good but not at the level of the previous two matches.
Biff Busick & Drew Gulak vs Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly: A very non-Bihari match! They got 20 minutes to work a solid tag with groundwork and strikes. I am sure the people who enjoy this style much more than me loved it. After seeing the 3 way tag & trios from night 1 I couldn't get my brain into the mode to enjoy this very much.
Chris Hero vs Matt Sydal: This was full of cool moments where Sydal would try something (like his standing moonsault) and Chris would catch him right into the cravat. A very good big man/little man match with a surprise ending as I think most had Chris pegged to advance. I certainly did.
Adam Cole vs Zack Sabre Jr.: AMAZING! So many cool counters and moves out of nowhere. Crowd was red hot for Zack and wanting to see Cole lose. I'm not sure how many actually thought it would happen since Cole moving on seemed logical as he was a top guy and Zack was the guest star in for the weekend. I nearly died when Zack did his standing armbar and Cole countered right into the brainbuster onto the knee! The finish was absolutely incredible with Zack trapping Cole's legs and getting the three count as the place EXPLODED! Best singles of round one this year by far.
ACH vs Kenny Omega: It's kind of incredible to think back to getting the chance to see Kenny when he was just another dude in this tournament, probably less popular than many of the other competitors and nowhere near what he is today. This was a really good match but of course everyone remembers is as Rock vs Austin. I guess earlier they had seen this fan who was in attendance wearing a Stone Cold sleeveless jacket and decided to incorporate it into the match. ACH grabbed it late in thematch and started doing Austin spots. As he went for the Stunner, Omega blocked it and started doing Rock punches and went for the Rock Bottom. After a series of exchanges ACH finally hit the Stunner and the crowd was NUCLEAR! My first moment of being at PWG live and getting "oh... yes... this is the perfect wrestling atmosphere". Grown men losing their minds at two guys cosplaying a famous rivalry. To be honest I'm not sure why this hasn't caught on more to this day. Seems like the easiest way to get a huge reaction & amuse yourself if you aren't going 100% on the night. Not to say these guys weren't going 100%... ACH was a madman in this match. He took a sick bump for Kenny's kick into the corner and on the hadoken to set up the finish. This is is exactly the type of match you should your friend you want to get into PWG.
Young Bucks vs Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian: These guys had a hell of a job following that previous match and honestly I think they did it with flying colors but over time it has gotten lost in the lore of Rock vs Austin. I honestly thought by the end of the weekend this was in the top three but nobody will listen to me! These guys just work so well together and they didn't waste any time by starting off right away with the highspots and going for 20 minutes. There was a scary Spanish Fly by Kazarian who barely made the flip over. Nick took a nasty slingshot DDT to the floor right onto his tailbone. There were the usual great superkick out of nowhere spots. Really just a great match leading to the end and the debut... of the... MELTZER DRIVER! Often incorrectly confused with the Indytaker which is just a springboard spike tombstone. This was the springboard somersault spike tombstone. You can see me on video just standing up with my hands on head like WHAT DID I JUST SEE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? An incredible moment. Going behind the curtain - I had seen them working out the match but had no idea this was coming because you don't practice this stuff. You just calculate the distance and go for it in the moment. So they did... and they nailed it! Excalibur & Chuck Taylor lost their ever loving minds on commentary! A perfect end to the evening.
BOLA Night 2 has a rep for always being the best night and I can definitely say without hesitation this topped Night 1.
(MV: Anberlin "Glass To The Arson" & "Change The World"
Music Video
PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 - 8/31/14
Johnny Gargano vs Candice LaRae: A couple that wrestles each other stays together? You would have never guessed Gargano was her boyfriend the way he was tossing her around here! There was a great spot I wish we'd see more often where Gargano counters a top rope rana by just dropping Candice right on the top turnbuckle. I'll admit I was worried Candice would advance... not a big fan of the intergender dynamic here. Thankfully Gargano went over in a hot opener.
Ricochet vs TJ Perkins: What a great pairing! Perkins was my boy on night 1 but I couldn't cheer for him here since I wanted Ricochet to go far. They had some awesome exchanges. Ricochet showed off his underrated strength at one point by muscling up Perkins into a fireman's carry from an awkward position. Second straight match that went 10 minutes which is perfect for opening round of a long night.
Michael Elgin vs Trevor Lee: Unfortunately I was sitting with someone who spoiled this result as the match began. I won't name names! But I can read faces! So I knew Trevor was going over which made the nearfalls slightly less climactic. Still a great match though as Trevor was one of the MVP's of the night. Elgin took some awesome bumps for all Trevor's moves too.
Matt Sydal vs Kenny Omega: Another great pairing! I remember Kenyn being over but not super over like these days obviously. I don't think many gave Sydal a chance of winning but the nearfalls got nice reactions. They tried this one crazy spot where Omega was going for the One Wing Angel and Sydal was supposed to stomp him out of it but they kinda fucked it up which is understandable.
AJ Styles vs Roderick Strong: God bless AJ... after all that travel he still brought his A game and put on an incredible performance in this one. This was the result everyone was curious about obviously since AJ was IWGP Champ so you knew he wasn't getting pinned but I don't think anyone thought he was winning the tournament either. Roddy was a beast here tossing AJ around. Some of his combo spots were fucking brilliant. The AJ counter into the asai DDT was tremendous. You had the ref bump as expected, the title getting involved & then the DQ so Roddy gets to move on but AJ doesn't actually lose. To be honest with 2020 eyes even seeing NJPW agreed to their guy taking a DQ loss is surprising but I'm thinking PWG was still under the radar since it hadn't been invaded by Meltzer yet.
Kyle O'Reilly vs Zack Sabre Jr.: So the honest truth? I didn't like this live. Following all those previous matches this was worked sooooooooo slow and combined with the heat in the building and length of the show so far it was one of those matches you were just waiting for to end. But watching it back I definitely appreciated it much more. These guys are naturals against each other obviously. Kyle was either gonna win the tournament or drop a match to someone who would be his next challenger and Zack's time was not yet so Kyle submitted him clean in the longest match of the opening round. Some had this as the match of the night.
ACH/Chris Sabin/Brian Myers vs Adam Cole/Young Bucks: Back from intermission with a six man tag - just the way I like it! No time wasted as both teams hit triple dive spots early on. ACH did the crowd surfing and got superkicked in mid-air which was CRAAAAAAAAAAAAZY! Myers sorta stayed out of the way but the little he did was better than the AJ match and he ate some superkicks really well. ACH teased doing his Stone Cold shtick again but it didn't happen. Mount Rushmore went over in a really quick match but Bucks did all their stuff so no complaints.
Next up was supposed to be Kyle O'Reilly vs Roderick Strong but Roddy attacked him and suplexed him through a chair bridge.
Johnny Gargano vs Trevor Lee: THE HIDDEN GEM OF THE 2014 BOLA! This match was a fucking masterpiece in counter wrestling. Basically every spot you know these guys do... the other had a counter. Genius stuff really. Near the end of the match they do this crazy back-and-forth rope running sequence and it's hard for me to even contemplate how they remembered who was supposed to go where and when. Gargano ended up getting Trevor to tap in a legit ****3/4 match. These guys (& the next match) were helped by this year only having two semi-finals so they didn't get shorted on time.
Ricochet vs Kenny Omega: WHAT. THE. FUCK. Just a semi-final! Imagine finding out you are getting to see this on the mid-card of a show and it would only be 1 of 3 Ricochet matches in one night. And you wonder why BOLA was considered the ultimate indy tournament? This was as good as you'd expect and live I had it as the match of the night. Re-watching I'd put Johnny/Trevor & the finals above it. But the live atmosphere put this over the top. My one complaint would be Ricochet just doing a running somersault plancha in a spot where I felt he needed to do something bigger with Kenny having just done one. The biggest moment of the match was Kenny setting up for Croyt's Wrath OFF THE TOP ROPE and having trouble getting Ricochet off his shoulders. He tried once... no go. He tried twice... no go. Crowd was super hot by this point ad on the third try... he got him! And Ricochet landed on his feet! UNREAL! My nitpicky brain for cool spots has to point out Ricochet took too long standing there selling he landed on his feet so by the time Kenny got up to take the next spot the moment was kind of gone. Still an incredible visual! In a mild upset Ricochet went over and Kenny put him over after the match as well.
This is where it was announced Kyle was "taken to hospital" & Roddy was given a buy straight to the finals.
Biff Busick/Bobby Fish/Cedric Alexander/Drew Gulak/Tommaso Ciampa vs Chris Hero/Chuck Taylor/Joey Ryan/Rich Swann/Willie Mack: Ah the annual BOLA 10 man tag! My first one! Many other companies try to duplicate but none have done it so far. It's just the perfect thing to happen on a long night instead of an intermission you just get to watch 10 dudes have a blast and entertain you with their dumbest ideas! LOL This had more wrestling than we'd see in future years but still had the usual crazy fun spots. I thought Hero really stood out doing a big dive and taking everyone out with elbows at one point. Had to look up who went over and it was Hero's time which surprises me since I figured Mack would go over in his farewell. Post-match everyone hugged and we had the emotional goodbye for Mack in one of those strange but true situations where one week he's leaving forever and the next week he's looking for indy gigs after WWE passed on him due to the ever mysterious "medicals failure"... whatever that actually means. He never did make it back to PWG so at least he got his farewell one way or the other.
Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet vs Roderick Strong: The best final until 2018. In fact if not for 2018 - this was the best BOLA final of the decade. Don't argue with me! They did a perfect 3 way match with everyone always being involved and nobody standing around at any point just watching two others guys wrestle. I kinda figured Roddy wasn't winning since he already had his title shot in theory by what he did to Kyle so it made sense when he went out first. Then the final two was super tense with Ricochet coming out on top to take him the trophy in an excellent match and definitely in the top 3 of the night. My #2 but I can see it swapping with Ricochet/Kenny in other's eyes. Post-match Roddy destroyed the trophy to continue his heel tactics on the night.
All good things must come to an end! Including my first live BOLA! I remember just being overjoyed at my decision to come and laughing the entire flight home the next morning at the mere thought that I almost decided against it. I knew I'd never make that mistake again and this would end up being a yearly thing. We filmed some cool shoot interviews that weekend as well & I got to meet a lot of guys for the first time. Drew Gulak was really cool & convinced me to start attending SMASH shows here in Toronto. Rich Swann was super happy because he had secretly signed with WWE and was finally gonna make some real money. Zack was fucking hilarious post-show on the final night.
(MV: Anberlin "Autobahn", "Naive Orleans", "Cold War Transmissions" & "Godspeed")
Music Video
This was my first ever PWG show. I remember getting the invite and actually being on the fence about whether I wanted to fly out to LA for 3 days. Especially just days before I was ready to leave for Mexico City for 2 weeks. Yes, I was an idiot. Thankfully I came to my senses, accepted the invite & the rest is history because I never wanted to miss another live PWG show. I remember walking into the building for the first time and being shocked at how small it actually was and wondering how they were gonna squeeze all those fans lined up outside into this small place. I also remember how overdressed I was because once everyone filed in it was INSANELY HOT and I was dripping in sweat before the matches even began.
TJP vs Bobby Fish: I didn't even remember until I looked up results that AR Fox was scheduled for this match but got replaced by Bobby Fish due to injury. But then it jogged my memory and I did recall one guy I was sitting with saying it was so obvious the replacement would lose that he was probably actually going to win and I got all worried because I was so into TJP. Thankfully TJP won and you can actually see me on video as the only guy in my section standing up and clapping. This match was awesome! That finish was super slick.
Roderick Strong vs Biff Busick: This was not the Roddy performance he had been usually delivering in PWG and I'm not sure what the deal was. Maybe he was saving it up the final night? Maybe it was Biff's fault? I just remember being let down a bit by the end of this.
Cedric Alexander vs Trevor Lee: This was another one where maybe my expectations were too high going in. They had a really good match but I think I was expecting some way crazier spots. The outside-in armdrag by Trevor was a really cool spot I'm sure surpirsed nobody has swiped. Trevor was one of my favorites to win the entire tournament at this stage.
Ricochet/Rich Swann vs Chris Daniels/Frankie Kazarian vs Candice LaRae/Joey Ryan: Now this was the PWG craziness I came for! Tons of crazy shit in this match as you can see in the video. Candice is perfect for a match like this and was easily the most over person in the match. The winners were never in doubt considering who was getting a title shot the following night.
Michael Elgin vs Tommaso Ciampa: A war! Definitely the best first round match of the night. They had this one striking exchange that was to die for and had the crowd explode. Ciampa escaping the corner Falcon Arrow to hit his power bomb onto the knees was a crazy spot! Great nearfalls at the end. This was some good matchmaking! There was also a spot mid-way through the match where Ciampa gives Elgin a DVD into the corner and comes up short which appears to destroy the board under the ring so that corner was very iffy for the rest of the show. Surprised Elgin was okay.
AJ Styles vs Brian Myers: Yeah... well... this. LOL One of the more infamous PWG matches since you don't often see actual bad matches in PWG and this was definitely a bad match! I think Myers had left WWE and was out to prove he could hang so naturally he was back in WWE months later. He brought nothing to the table. It's a shame a rare AJ indy match (at the time) was wasted on him. The culmination of this debacle was the finish being a top rope Styles Clash where Myers appeared to have zero clue how to take it so AJ had to force him into position and dropped him due to that. They bumbled into a new finish but crowd was done with this. Post-match Myers blew a second Styles Clash which got edited off the video and then they showed AJ finally giving it to him properly. Poor AJ then had to get to airport as he flew all the way back to where I came from - Toronto - to get driven to a show a couple hours away. He worked that show and then flew all the way back for Night 3 here. That's rough!
Kyle O'Reilly vs Drew Gulak: Not my type of match. It wasn't bad obviously... in fact some people had it ****+. I just wasn't into the faux shoot stuff and headbutts that don't look spectacular but clearly hurt so... what's the point of pro wrestling again? I would not rewatch this.
Kenny Omega/Chuck Taylor/Zack Sabre Jr. vs Adam Cole/Young Bucks: Another person missing the weekend with an injury was Trent so I presume he was supposed to be here instead of Zack although I can't actually remember if that is 100% true. It just makes sense based on the teams. Or maybe Kenny was the sub? I don't recall... but what I do recall is this was the match of the night and my first though after the final three count was HOLY FUCK ROB WHY DID YOU EVEN CONSIDER NOT COMING? Just an absolutely incredible match with crazy spots like Kenny getting double superkicked in mid-air while trying a dive, the Cole brainbuster onto his knee combined with a double superkick, the entire finishing sequence... I can go on all day. Trent got involved at the end after Rick Knox was taken out by a Zack Sabre Jr dive... yes... A ZACK SABRE JR DIVE! The perfect ending that really makes no sense (Trent counting a pin?) but sends the crowd home beyond happy so you don't question it because this is the point of wrestling you see - it's absurd!
A great show that gives me all the happy memories since it was my first live PWG show. I couldn't even believe there were two more nights to come of this madness!
(MV: Mae "Sometimes I Can't Make It Aloen" & "Brink Of Disaster")
Music Video
PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 2 - 8/30/14
I came dressed lighter! It was still boiling hot! No wonder this place cleaned up on beer sales.
Candice LaRae vs Rich Swann: A fact I didn't remember is that this was Trent's spot and Candice stepped in. This time I was sure the replacement was winning as to not make it so predictable the sub always loses and I was right! The first spot of this match is Swann slapping the FUCK out of Candice and I popped. I like face/heel dynamics in my match so that pretty much established it right away. Of course that gif probably didn't do Swann much good down the road. There was also a sick spin kick as Candice charged him in the corner at one point. Candice is the best at intergender wrestling was so this was good.
Chuck Taylor vs Johnny Gargano: My vivid memory from this match is a spot where Gargano goes for a tope suicida only for Taylor to catch him and give him a release suplex onto the apron... except Gargano completely missed the apron and just fell hard on his shoulder on the floor in front of my friend Mark who was horrified. LOL Anyone who says Chuck can't work needs to watch this match. It was great! They had this amazing corner exchange of knees & superkicks. Checking cagematch I see this didn't even get into the recommended territory which I find shocking.
Ricochet vs Chris Sabin: Whereas I see this got the recommended tag on cagematch and am perplexed because this was a totally fine match but nothing I would go back and watch because it was so great. Ricochet did a lot of power stuff rather than flying. It was good but not at the level of the previous two matches.
Biff Busick & Drew Gulak vs Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly: A very non-Bihari match! They got 20 minutes to work a solid tag with groundwork and strikes. I am sure the people who enjoy this style much more than me loved it. After seeing the 3 way tag & trios from night 1 I couldn't get my brain into the mode to enjoy this very much.
Chris Hero vs Matt Sydal: This was full of cool moments where Sydal would try something (like his standing moonsault) and Chris would catch him right into the cravat. A very good big man/little man match with a surprise ending as I think most had Chris pegged to advance. I certainly did.
Adam Cole vs Zack Sabre Jr.: AMAZING! So many cool counters and moves out of nowhere. Crowd was red hot for Zack and wanting to see Cole lose. I'm not sure how many actually thought it would happen since Cole moving on seemed logical as he was a top guy and Zack was the guest star in for the weekend. I nearly died when Zack did his standing armbar and Cole countered right into the brainbuster onto the knee! The finish was absolutely incredible with Zack trapping Cole's legs and getting the three count as the place EXPLODED! Best singles of round one this year by far.
ACH vs Kenny Omega: It's kind of incredible to think back to getting the chance to see Kenny when he was just another dude in this tournament, probably less popular than many of the other competitors and nowhere near what he is today. This was a really good match but of course everyone remembers is as Rock vs Austin. I guess earlier they had seen this fan who was in attendance wearing a Stone Cold sleeveless jacket and decided to incorporate it into the match. ACH grabbed it late in thematch and started doing Austin spots. As he went for the Stunner, Omega blocked it and started doing Rock punches and went for the Rock Bottom. After a series of exchanges ACH finally hit the Stunner and the crowd was NUCLEAR! My first moment of being at PWG live and getting "oh... yes... this is the perfect wrestling atmosphere". Grown men losing their minds at two guys cosplaying a famous rivalry. To be honest I'm not sure why this hasn't caught on more to this day. Seems like the easiest way to get a huge reaction & amuse yourself if you aren't going 100% on the night. Not to say these guys weren't going 100%... ACH was a madman in this match. He took a sick bump for Kenny's kick into the corner and on the hadoken to set up the finish. This is is exactly the type of match you should your friend you want to get into PWG.
Young Bucks vs Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian: These guys had a hell of a job following that previous match and honestly I think they did it with flying colors but over time it has gotten lost in the lore of Rock vs Austin. I honestly thought by the end of the weekend this was in the top three but nobody will listen to me! These guys just work so well together and they didn't waste any time by starting off right away with the highspots and going for 20 minutes. There was a scary Spanish Fly by Kazarian who barely made the flip over. Nick took a nasty slingshot DDT to the floor right onto his tailbone. There were the usual great superkick out of nowhere spots. Really just a great match leading to the end and the debut... of the... MELTZER DRIVER! Often incorrectly confused with the Indytaker which is just a springboard spike tombstone. This was the springboard somersault spike tombstone. You can see me on video just standing up with my hands on head like WHAT DID I JUST SEE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? An incredible moment. Going behind the curtain - I had seen them working out the match but had no idea this was coming because you don't practice this stuff. You just calculate the distance and go for it in the moment. So they did... and they nailed it! Excalibur & Chuck Taylor lost their ever loving minds on commentary! A perfect end to the evening.
BOLA Night 2 has a rep for always being the best night and I can definitely say without hesitation this topped Night 1.
(MV: Anberlin "Glass To The Arson" & "Change The World"
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PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 - 8/31/14
Johnny Gargano vs Candice LaRae: A couple that wrestles each other stays together? You would have never guessed Gargano was her boyfriend the way he was tossing her around here! There was a great spot I wish we'd see more often where Gargano counters a top rope rana by just dropping Candice right on the top turnbuckle. I'll admit I was worried Candice would advance... not a big fan of the intergender dynamic here. Thankfully Gargano went over in a hot opener.
Ricochet vs TJ Perkins: What a great pairing! Perkins was my boy on night 1 but I couldn't cheer for him here since I wanted Ricochet to go far. They had some awesome exchanges. Ricochet showed off his underrated strength at one point by muscling up Perkins into a fireman's carry from an awkward position. Second straight match that went 10 minutes which is perfect for opening round of a long night.
Michael Elgin vs Trevor Lee: Unfortunately I was sitting with someone who spoiled this result as the match began. I won't name names! But I can read faces! So I knew Trevor was going over which made the nearfalls slightly less climactic. Still a great match though as Trevor was one of the MVP's of the night. Elgin took some awesome bumps for all Trevor's moves too.
Matt Sydal vs Kenny Omega: Another great pairing! I remember Kenyn being over but not super over like these days obviously. I don't think many gave Sydal a chance of winning but the nearfalls got nice reactions. They tried this one crazy spot where Omega was going for the One Wing Angel and Sydal was supposed to stomp him out of it but they kinda fucked it up which is understandable.
AJ Styles vs Roderick Strong: God bless AJ... after all that travel he still brought his A game and put on an incredible performance in this one. This was the result everyone was curious about obviously since AJ was IWGP Champ so you knew he wasn't getting pinned but I don't think anyone thought he was winning the tournament either. Roddy was a beast here tossing AJ around. Some of his combo spots were fucking brilliant. The AJ counter into the asai DDT was tremendous. You had the ref bump as expected, the title getting involved & then the DQ so Roddy gets to move on but AJ doesn't actually lose. To be honest with 2020 eyes even seeing NJPW agreed to their guy taking a DQ loss is surprising but I'm thinking PWG was still under the radar since it hadn't been invaded by Meltzer yet.
Kyle O'Reilly vs Zack Sabre Jr.: So the honest truth? I didn't like this live. Following all those previous matches this was worked sooooooooo slow and combined with the heat in the building and length of the show so far it was one of those matches you were just waiting for to end. But watching it back I definitely appreciated it much more. These guys are naturals against each other obviously. Kyle was either gonna win the tournament or drop a match to someone who would be his next challenger and Zack's time was not yet so Kyle submitted him clean in the longest match of the opening round. Some had this as the match of the night.
ACH/Chris Sabin/Brian Myers vs Adam Cole/Young Bucks: Back from intermission with a six man tag - just the way I like it! No time wasted as both teams hit triple dive spots early on. ACH did the crowd surfing and got superkicked in mid-air which was CRAAAAAAAAAAAAZY! Myers sorta stayed out of the way but the little he did was better than the AJ match and he ate some superkicks really well. ACH teased doing his Stone Cold shtick again but it didn't happen. Mount Rushmore went over in a really quick match but Bucks did all their stuff so no complaints.
Next up was supposed to be Kyle O'Reilly vs Roderick Strong but Roddy attacked him and suplexed him through a chair bridge.
Johnny Gargano vs Trevor Lee: THE HIDDEN GEM OF THE 2014 BOLA! This match was a fucking masterpiece in counter wrestling. Basically every spot you know these guys do... the other had a counter. Genius stuff really. Near the end of the match they do this crazy back-and-forth rope running sequence and it's hard for me to even contemplate how they remembered who was supposed to go where and when. Gargano ended up getting Trevor to tap in a legit ****3/4 match. These guys (& the next match) were helped by this year only having two semi-finals so they didn't get shorted on time.
Ricochet vs Kenny Omega: WHAT. THE. FUCK. Just a semi-final! Imagine finding out you are getting to see this on the mid-card of a show and it would only be 1 of 3 Ricochet matches in one night. And you wonder why BOLA was considered the ultimate indy tournament? This was as good as you'd expect and live I had it as the match of the night. Re-watching I'd put Johnny/Trevor & the finals above it. But the live atmosphere put this over the top. My one complaint would be Ricochet just doing a running somersault plancha in a spot where I felt he needed to do something bigger with Kenny having just done one. The biggest moment of the match was Kenny setting up for Croyt's Wrath OFF THE TOP ROPE and having trouble getting Ricochet off his shoulders. He tried once... no go. He tried twice... no go. Crowd was super hot by this point ad on the third try... he got him! And Ricochet landed on his feet! UNREAL! My nitpicky brain for cool spots has to point out Ricochet took too long standing there selling he landed on his feet so by the time Kenny got up to take the next spot the moment was kind of gone. Still an incredible visual! In a mild upset Ricochet went over and Kenny put him over after the match as well.
This is where it was announced Kyle was "taken to hospital" & Roddy was given a buy straight to the finals.
Biff Busick/Bobby Fish/Cedric Alexander/Drew Gulak/Tommaso Ciampa vs Chris Hero/Chuck Taylor/Joey Ryan/Rich Swann/Willie Mack: Ah the annual BOLA 10 man tag! My first one! Many other companies try to duplicate but none have done it so far. It's just the perfect thing to happen on a long night instead of an intermission you just get to watch 10 dudes have a blast and entertain you with their dumbest ideas! LOL This had more wrestling than we'd see in future years but still had the usual crazy fun spots. I thought Hero really stood out doing a big dive and taking everyone out with elbows at one point. Had to look up who went over and it was Hero's time which surprises me since I figured Mack would go over in his farewell. Post-match everyone hugged and we had the emotional goodbye for Mack in one of those strange but true situations where one week he's leaving forever and the next week he's looking for indy gigs after WWE passed on him due to the ever mysterious "medicals failure"... whatever that actually means. He never did make it back to PWG so at least he got his farewell one way or the other.
Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet vs Roderick Strong: The best final until 2018. In fact if not for 2018 - this was the best BOLA final of the decade. Don't argue with me! They did a perfect 3 way match with everyone always being involved and nobody standing around at any point just watching two others guys wrestle. I kinda figured Roddy wasn't winning since he already had his title shot in theory by what he did to Kyle so it made sense when he went out first. Then the final two was super tense with Ricochet coming out on top to take him the trophy in an excellent match and definitely in the top 3 of the night. My #2 but I can see it swapping with Ricochet/Kenny in other's eyes. Post-match Roddy destroyed the trophy to continue his heel tactics on the night.
All good things must come to an end! Including my first live BOLA! I remember just being overjoyed at my decision to come and laughing the entire flight home the next morning at the mere thought that I almost decided against it. I knew I'd never make that mistake again and this would end up being a yearly thing. We filmed some cool shoot interviews that weekend as well & I got to meet a lot of guys for the first time. Drew Gulak was really cool & convinced me to start attending SMASH shows here in Toronto. Rich Swann was super happy because he had secretly signed with WWE and was finally gonna make some real money. Zack was fucking hilarious post-show on the final night.
(MV: Anberlin "Autobahn", "Naive Orleans", "Cold War Transmissions" & "Godspeed")
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