Hector

Is it just me or have the CMLL minis matches gotten a lot better compared to where they were a year ago? They're still kind of botchy in parts, but it seems like they're getting bolder with highspots and such.

How did Wagner bring more to the table than Park? I don't even remember the guy taking a single bump until late into the third fall.

Loved it. Lots of psychology, lots of chaos and the crowd was into everything. If they ever book Rush vs. Park in an apuestas match, I will try my best to be there. Watching those two together is like watching Ishii vs. Ishii with rabies.

Pitchfork's top 200 songs of the 80s fucking stinks! I was looking forward to it since their lists were some of the better ones around, but it's obvious they're just staffed with soft millennials now.

http://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=2504&page=10 This seems like a good starting point based on all his stuff I've seen. There's a singles match with Comando Negro not listed here that was outstanding, but you would have to get that from Black Terry Jr.

8/16 Chilanga Mask thoughts: Opener was rough, though Rey Apocalipsis tried his best to hold it together. Virus vs. Cerebro was magnificent. Even better than anticipated. I’m in awe of how smart both guys are in the ring. Belial is a nasty little fucker. If I were running a Mexican super indy, he would be my Speedball Mike Bailey. The match was really cool, but the wrong guys finished it out. Panther vs. Trauma II was solid. Might have been a MOTNC on a weaker card. Maya Sr. vs. Maya Jr. was an awesome bloodbath. Terry headbutts his son like he just found out he dented the car. Brutal stuff. I loved the visual at the end with both guys bleeding and on their knees laying into each other. Hechicero & UG vs. Caifan & Avisman was another excellent match. The pacing kind of felt like a usual 2/3 falls, but you didn’t have to deal with all the starting and stopping. UG is having a really good year and I hope this leads to singles match with Caifan. Skipped the Pagano and women’s match, but even so this is the best card we’ve seen this year. There's no good reason why anyone would want to miss out on a show with 3 MOTYC.

Hechicero vs. Valiente from the C3 show was decent enough. It kind of seems like Hechicero purposely toned down his mat wizard style to not show up the tecnicos as much. It might not be the case but that's how it appears watching him in CMLL. Oh well.

Congratulations to Boby, I guess. Match was fairly disappointing, but that's par the course for this year's tournament. It probably would've came off worse if the rest of the show wasn't so fun. Not sure why the controversial finish was needed, but hopefully they drop it there.

Well thank goodness he hired this Brian Alvarez fella. I'm sure he'll look into it.

It's nice to see Park and Wagner back, but I just hope they keep their dopey kids home where they belong.

We're getting another stream this year, right?

I just hope they keep the editing to a minimum, but beggars can't be choosers. The CMLL vs. Indy guys tag looks insane from the highlights Black Terry Jr. uploaded.

I would say the stuff on Cubsfan's MOTY lists is pretty accurate in regards to AAA. A lot of the good stuff tends to be spotty undercard matches and bloody brawls but apart from that it's not the hotbed of incredible matches that LU might suggest. IMO, the best Pentagon Jr. match in Mexico isn't with AAA but in the indy fed XMW.

My guess is it was a Rey tease but they have to make it ambiguous because things aren't finalized yet.

The trios match was very good, though slightly marred by having worthless Esfinge out there instead of Flyer. Worst part of the match for me was watching him look perplexed at the crowd when they failed to pop for his weak-ass fake out that we've all seen a million times. Boby and Disturbio killed it though. Those guys can do no wrong. Casas was the clear star of the match. His FIP segments add a lot to this. This is the kind of performance what pushes him into the WOTY conversation.

So it looks we're just about down to the final four now? We got the maestros/students trios match to look forward to at least. It's pretty hard to screw that up.

Are the CMLL Puebla uploads going to be a regular thing or was that a one time only experiment?

This is the first night I've caught and I liked Flyer/Distrubio quite a bit. I wouldn't put it up with the best of last year, but it was very fun for the time allotted. Panther Jr/Esfinge was just average match in every sense of the word. Panther Jr. doesn't have the in-ring smarts of his dad or the engine of his brother. He would be better off just suplexing everyone on their noggin like Diamante Azul . The judging was fucking atrocious. Hijo del Gladiator is the embodiment of everything that sucks about CMLL, Shocker is a buffoon and Tirantes says all the right things but hands out the most baffling scores. UG was the only guy who seemed to be giving everyone a fair shake. To me this is the biggest problem with this year's edition because their is so much parity across the board and it's obvious that family connections are giving certain guys a bump. It's not going to be fun if it's not going to be merit based.

The inaugural cibernetico was pretty decent, all things considered. At the very least, the tecnico side feels about right to me. Canelo making it is bad enough, but to have Stigma make it after that awful botch would have been too much. Flyer was the most impressive guy, so it was cool to see him get rewarded. Same with Disturbio. We'll see how it goes from here.

It's hard to take Gawker seriously when you have staff people in comments section asking people if they heard any rumors and to PM them if they know of any other rumors. That said, it's now apparent to me Louis stinks on this show, monologues aside.

I took it as pure sarcasm. That's what made me laugh anyways.

The Terry 2000 trios from this week's lucha links was pretty fun. AULL isn't completely useless after all.

Arez & Belial vs. Iron Kid & Aramis- Chilanga Mask 4/12 Things got off to a clunky start, but it ended up being a blast in the end. I think 10 minutes is the right length for a match like this. I only wish they could’ve tacked on another minute to get in one of Belial’s nasty bullet topes. It’s obvious Arez and Belial are the more polished guys, but Iron Kid and Aramis broke out the cooler stuff like the corkscrew tope from the top rope and the finger stomps into the seated dropkick. And for a guy who would probably be relegated to the mini division in CMLL, Belial is a powerful little suplex machine. Really entertaining stuff all around. If you’re the type to get bent out of shape over no selling, sufficed to say this probably isn’t for you. I for one am always open to some fun crash-and-burn lucha. Black Terry vs. Juana La Loca- Chilanga Mask 4/26 I love when matches escalate naturally like this. They start off with some sportsmanlike matwork, then Juana tries to sneak in a kiss and all hell breaks loose when Terry cuts him off with the big headbutt. There was some great brawling here. Terry unloads some brutally stiff headbutts and chops and Juana responds in kind by busting him open the hard way. I really wasn’t digging Juana’s unconvincing exotico act early on, but the guy proved himself to be a legit asskicker in the end. These are my favorite kind of Black Terry matches. I hope there's more of them to come.

Oh man, if people think LU has booking problems then WWE must be three hours of Tom Green molesting farm animals in comparison.

Thanks. I was thinking about getting that because the highlight video looked so cool, but I'm always concerned about the botch count with matches like that. I'll put it on my purchase list next time.