CMLL 60th Anniversary Show of Arena Mexico Preview!
Last night after I completed my list of the ten best Lucha Underground matches of season two (thus far), I swore to myself that I would take the next day off to play Uncharted and get myself prepared to review Lucha Underground’s next episode tonight. So of course I would abandon that strategy right before lunchtime when I decided to do an early preview of CMLL’s 60th Anniversary of Arena Mexico show this Friday. Such is life. At least you can’t blame me for being this excited for the show considering a) ZEUXIS IS WRESTLING and b) the main event features a heavily intriguing mini matchup that could lead to the eventual main event for the 83rd Anniversary Show later this year. Damn, I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s quell the excitement and get to the rest of the card shall we? Moses, the meme.
Flyer and Star Jr. vs. Cancerbero and Raziel
What to Expect: Depending on what CMLL wants either a really fun opener with a whole lot of aerial assaults or the soul sucking snails paced opener we often see too much from them. Let’s hope for the former shall we? It’ll at least be nice to see Flyer get an opportunity; last time I saw him he was getting bounced out of the Gran Alternative tournament in record time.
Winners: Flyer and Star Jr. The result doesn’t matter; only the action. Let’s move on.
Marcela, Princesa Sugehit and Skadi vs. Amapola, Dalys and Zeuxis
What to Expect: Greatness; what the hell did you expect me to say with Zeuxis being involved? In all seriousness this should actually be a pretty solid match, provided Amapola brings her A game here. Marcela, Sugehit, Dalys and Zeuxis have all been doing really good work recently, Skadi has started to show flashes (I was really impressed with her work last night on the Tuesday Arena Mexico show) and it looks like CMLL is wisely starting up a Zeuxis-Marcela program after Zeuxis (rightfully) beat Marcela to win the 60th Anniversary cibernetico last night. All of that is enough to convince me that, if Amapola does perform at a decent level, that this match could quietly be the third best of the evening. That could just be my Zeuxis bias talking though!
Winners: I suppose this depends on whether CMLL is going to continue with the Zeuxis-Marcela tease from this Tuesday or just ignore it entirely. I choose to believe the former, which means we’re either getting Zeuxis stealing a win here in the third fall (yes!) or Marcela getting the better of Zeuxis (no!). Once more I’ll go with the former; like I’m really going to pick against my girl? I’m loyal to a fault people; just ask Stephen A. Smith after he’s felt my wrath for accusing Jake Arrieta of doing PED’s. I WILL MAKE YOU HURT ASSHOLE!
Blue Panther, Stuka Jr. and Super Porky vs. Bobby Z, Hechicero and Kraneo
What to Expect: I look at this match and all I feel is an enormous amount of sympathy for Blue Demon, Stuka and Bobby Z. Here are three really capable performers who have been forsaken in this match by being put into the seemingly never ending Super Porky-Kraneo issues. Seriously, that feud is like those awful series of spoof films that just never ended, and I don’t compare anything to Meet the Spartans lightly. How could you when that movie’s Wikipedia page once described the film as a piece of shit and whose photo was in fact a piece of shit? The lesson as always; never make a spoof film about a film that's clearly a spoof itself.
Alright I’m done rambling. I think I’ve made the point of saying I’m not looking forward to this match and I expect it to be the low point of this Anniversary Show. Sure miracles do happen and this match does have Blue Panther, a wizard in putting together matches and getting the most out of them. But yeah, I have no good feelings here. Maybe Super Porky will miss his flight?
Winners: The technicos in a match that hopefully takes less time than it took me to write this section. For the love of all things next!
Lightning Match
Rey Cometa vs. Cavernario
What to Expect: SALVATION! I guess whoever booked this show recognized that the Porky-Kraneo six man was likely to cause physical pain to the audience and put this match after it as an apology. It’s one hell of an apology too folks; Cavernario is the most underrated performer CMLL has today and Cometa is a close second. I’ve loved the work both have contributed the past few weeks and even though this match will at most go ten minutes I expect it to be in contention for match of the night. These two legit have the ability to do that much in that little of time. Let’s hope that this is leading to even longer matches between the two!
Winner: Considering Cavernario is the current Mexican National Welterweight Champion, it would seem likely this match will be used to set up a title match between this two sometime in the upcoming week. Thus I’ll go with Cometa here to take the victory around the 7 minute mark. I mean it’s either that or Cavernario hits him with a low blow, and this match is too good for low blows. Son of a bitch, I totally just jinxed it didn’t I?
Angel de Oro, Volador Jr. and Mascara Dorada vs. Ephesto, El Felino and Rey Escorpion
What to Expect: This match was originally supposed to feature Dragon Lee on the technicos side, but a leg strain has sidelined the wunderkind and thus led to Volador Jr. replacing him. Thankfully Volador is a world class dynamo himself so the match loses very little from what should be a high quality encounter. We know Volador will deliver, we know Dorada will do something absolutely bat shit crazy at one point or the other and we know Oro, Felino and Escorpion should perform at a high level too. As long as Ephesto stays out of the way, I expect this will be a contender for third best match of the night along with the women’s match. A damn shame this match doesn’t have Zeuxis though; that puts these three at a disadvantage for favor with me.
Winners: Rudos take it via a mask pull in the third fall. Hey, they need something tonight aside from a Zeuxis victory, so might as well give them one here in a match where nothing appears to be leading anywhere. Now watch CMLL set up a Volador-Felino match and make me look stupid.
Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles Finals
Mistico and Mephisto vs. Caristico and Cibernetico
What to Expect: If the tournament itself was a bit of a slog to some (I personally enjoyed the matches for the most part), this finals promises to make the whole thing worth it. Forget about the match quality for a moment and just look at the match up. We have Cibernetico in his first really big CMLL match set up against his buddy Mephisto, who has really looked good recently thanks to his battles with Mascara Dorada. Normally that alone would be the most interesting aspect; the problem is Cibernetico’s partner is one of the most famous luchadors of the past two decades and Mephisto’s partner is the man who assumed the identity of Cibernetico’s partner after he bolted CMLL for WWE. That’s right kids; for the first time ever, Caristico and Mistico are going to lock horns. We now go live to the internet’s reaction.
Alright maybe that’s a tad too extreme, but silly me, I don’t think it is. Since returning to CMLL Caristico has been excellent; gone are the botches from his run as Sin Cara in WWE and the irrelevance of his Myzteziz run in AAA, replaced instead with a man who resembles the mega star that revitalized CMLL a decade ago and became a lucha libre legend. And hey, Mistico is no slouch himself; I’ve been really impressed with his work this year and he’s capable of delivering just as good a performance as Caristico or anyone else. When you put two guys of this talent level against each other and add in the fact that they’ve both essayed (and still are essaying) one of the most famous lucha libre creations of all time…how can you not be excited? It’s also helped that CMLL has largely kept these two apart from each other, especially on opposing sides, making this encounter a very big deal.
In short, this match is can’t miss for the encounter between these two alone. I do think the match will be great overall regardless; Cibernetico is the only real weak link of the group and he’s been performing at a higher level himself recently. But in the end the talking point of this match will be seeing Caristico and Mistico go at it and what, if anything, their encounter leads to. Remember, CMLL’s reclusive maestro Paco Alonso said a few weeks ago that we’d never be able to guess the main event to the 83rd Anniversary Show this September. Many thought at the time he was referencing the recently returned L.A. Park; is it possible he was instead referring to a Mistico-Caristico match with either the name or their masks on the line? The finals for this tournament often go a long way in building to the Anniversary Show main event and it’ll be interesting to see what happens between Mistico and Caristico during and after this match.
Winners: There’s one of two ways this match will go; either one team will win relatively clean and things will remain as such or either Caristico or Mistico will turn rudo (either somewhat or completely) and win the match for their team that way, thus setting us on the road for Caristico-Mistico at the Anniversary Show as either the headlining match or a co-headliner. I’ll go out on a limb and go with the latter, and I’ll suggest that Mistico will be the one to turn; as great as he is he’s never gotten the full support of Arena Mexico (at least from what I’ve seen) and Caristico still works best right now as the returning hero. Thus, Mistico will turn rudo, or being a turn towards rudo, win the match for him and Mephisto and begin the journey to what could be a legendary Anniversary Show encounter. Note that there’s a 50% chance I’m completely off about this and we’ll be getting something totally different come Friday.
And that’s the sign that the tank is full. Thanks for reading everyone; I’ll be back later this evening with a review of tonight’s Lucha Underground show! Till then, more lucha libre film pics!
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