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General Lucha Libre Comments


Robert

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22 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Lucha Mexico only got two stars on rogerebert.com. They say it's not very in-depth and kind of skims over a lot of different people, and has a misguided message. Of course we're all gonna watch it but you be the judge: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lucha-mexico-2016

I saw it tonight. In ambitiously trying to tell the entire story of lucha libre, they get pulled too thin. It's really missing a narrative direction; it feels like an anthology of lucha libre stories, with the movie dipping into one or another but not really telling a story in full at any point. There's so many people who get face time and then disappear for quite a while, and then a half hour later are brought up again (or, like Faby & Sexy, are treated as important people early and then just disappear.) It doesn't feel like they hit on a deeper theme or get past a surface reality. Fabian el Gitano is a major character early on and they spend with his brother and Shocker and Strongman talking about Fabian dying, but all of them dance around it being a suicide and I'd have no idea what happened had if I hadn't written about it. (In a way, they point at his unmasking leading to his death, that he was unable to separate his luchador and real life, as to sell how hard it was to be a luchador.)

It's not without value; it's pitched as a 101 to Lucha, but in some ways hold more value to the people who've followed it. The last 10 or so minutes jump forward to both Perro's death and to the 83rd Anniversary show, but most of it's around to 2010/2011 period - the first scene even is the CMLL versus Invasors press conference - so it's already sort of a time capsule of a previous lucha libre era, the end of the last boom. The old Lucha Libre Expo is shown, and there's mentions of economy failing and places being shut down due to drug violence getting out of control. It's a great movie for spotting random people you've forgotten about or to see people just radically change because they're just jumping around. (I spotted Titan early, then Palacio Negro about 25 minutes later. I saw young Dragon Rojo, I saw fat Dragon Rojo, and then I saw skinny again Dragon Rojo.) Perro Aguayo Jr.'s sort of wedged in here - when you have him in 2010 saying something along the lines of "you never know when it might end", you understandably end up using it and some footage of him that match -  but there was enough footage of him in action to remind you that he was pretty great. (Not pretty great is having people say he died from Rey's kick.) There are some random inclusions - there's a scene of Strong Man pushing himself hard in the gym at one point back in California, seemingly long after he's been in CMLL, I guess to try and bring a conclusion to his character but really just feeling like another Thing That Happens. This movie is a lot of Things That Happen.

It's crazy to think Shocker was a lead character on two reality shows (CMLL's En Busca de un Idolo and AE's El Luchador) and lead in a documentary at the same time. I feel like El Luchador, which was very clearly a semi-scripted reality show, got the most out of him. This one might have been been the best if they just committed to telling Shocker's story all the way, but there were too many character they were fascinated by and couldn't focus.

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10 minutes ago, Charlie M. said:

Do you guys talk about Rush and Park? Are they trying to get themselves a huge payday for a mask vs hair match before Rush potentially signs with WWE?

Little bit at the end. If you go to the link, i posted the Azteca version of the match thats on youtube. 

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Park/Rush has more of a chance of happening than Park/Wagner but will suffer from the same issues. Park/Wagner claim they want a mask match and have named their price in the past. The problem is that price is so high it's hard for any promoter to run a show and make money even by charging insane prices and selling out. So you'd have to run a bullring pretty much and if a promoter does that, first he has to trust Park/Wagner to follow through and not bail on the show. Then the reality is if tickets are selling well, Park/Wagner will raise their price even more to the point the promoter can't make money even in a bullring. The truth is they are both supermarks (as Konnan would say) and neither wants to be unmasked. If it ever happens it'll be when both guys are approaching 60 & it'll have to be when some big TV company gets behind the match & can afford to lose money on the show but get paid in all the attention for the station. Or like with Parka vs Pierroth back in 1999 they have to hope the show gets funded by some bad people who are filthy rich and just want to blow cash on a monumental match.

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Pod episode 39 - of Proud Adonis - Lucha Wek continues with wreslter Sam Adonis. We talk about working in Mexico, joining CMLL, feuding with Shocker, the Grand Prix, favorite opponents so far, the atmosphere at lucha shows, lucha vs British Wrestlng, James Mason and other British workers, the Knight family, being trained by his brother (Corey Graves / Sterling James Keenan) and more.

http://Tinyurl.com/winter39

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Watching last week's Lucha Azteca, I'm afraid for Porky's future. The man shouldn't be stepping into a ring in his condition and it looks like every bump he takes might be his last.

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6 minutes ago, Pete said:

Watching last week's Lucha Azteca, I'm afraid for Porky's future. The man shouldn't be stepping into a ring in his condition and it looks like every bump he takes might be his last.

It's hard sometimes to even watch him walk down the stairs. 

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CMLL seemed to institute a rule this year where Porky wasn't allowed to work back to back matches. But lately he's been getting pulled from just about everything. He's clearly sick and his career is over but he refuses to give it up until he can do that one final retirement tour. But you know deep in his brain he's thinking the retirement tour will get him hot again for one more big run on top...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hmmmmm. So do we get excited about tonight's Mistico vs Cavernario singles match? On paper, it's better than anything that Raw could possibly put on tonight, right? But it's a Puebla main event, which are usually rushed, with the wrestlers just wanting to get the hell out of there. Still, free and live on Youtube. I'm leaning towards excited.

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1 hour ago, Matt D said:

Hmmmmm. So do we get excited about tonight's Mistico vs Cavernario singles match? On paper, it's better than anything that Raw could possibly put on tonight, right? But it's a Puebla main event, which are usually rushed, with the wrestlers just wanting to get the hell out of there. Still, free and live on Youtube. I'm leaning towards excited.

I look forward to tirantes trying to steal everyone's heat. 

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Tirantes is the CMLL office guy in charge of the Puebla shows (along with Stigma's uncle) so there is nobody to stop him from what he does. Just another on the list of things that could be easily fixed but the handful of people who can actually instigate change within CMLL don't care enough to do anything.

To show an example of how nobody in a decision making role actually watches the matches - they recently approved a new referee, something that was majorly needed. Of course this referee is almost 60 years old, out of shape & oh yeah... was already a member of the office so this is just an extra paying gig.

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