November 7 CaraLucha

BTJr. likes it when I do these write-ups of my weekend trips. Hopefully some others of you do too.

I made an overnight trip to see CaraLucha's November 7 show in Arena San Juan Pantitlán. The show started and ended strong and was overall pretty solid throughout. You can't ask for much more.

Nominal start time was 6pm. Doors opened a little bit after that, and I have the first match entrances starting at about 6:33pm.

1) Estrella de Oro, Zonik b Vengador, Yin Sang [1/3]
I'm not sure why you'd have the opening match be three falls in a promotion with mostly one-fall matches, but it worked out here, because these guys were good and did lots of cool stuff. This match will fly under the radar, but it was easily at least the second-best match of the night. The crazy thing is that, since this match was the "una lucha más" on the card, I had to ask the promoter afterward who was in this match; I didn't recognize anyone, and unfamiliar names are hard to make out with the echo in the arena.

I have my current rating as very good, borderline great. I could be convinced to upgrade on a rewatch when this makes DVD.

2) Centvrión, Látigo, Fly Warrior b Leo, Rafy, Mike [1/3]
Very good match between Mala Hierba and the Tortugas Ninjas. As you may have seen on Twitter, I actually lost track live of whether this was one fall or three (blame the effects of going to the airport at 5am).

I initially had this as good rather than very good, but on reflection was being a little too hard on it in comparison to the first and last matches.

Post-match promos mentioned Látigo's "betrayal" of the Tortugas.

3) Toxin Boy, Fly Star, Aramis b Magnífico I, Magnífico II, Templario
Everyone looked good here, and the Kriminals/Aramis team wanted a rematch afterward. Seems like a sound idea to me. This was another good match, borderline very good.

4) Emperador Azteca, Drastick Boy, Sensei b Guerrero Míxtico, Danger, Andy Boy
Drastick Boy was easily the best guy on his team. Emperador Azteca did not have a good night here. He botched a Brillo Dorada (and had to leave the match temporarily), and there were several other spots, including the finishing torito, that were not especially smooth. Sensei was his CMLL opening match self, but didn't get a whole lot of ring time and so was largely unobjectionable.

I have this one as a disappointing OK; it was definitely the worst match of the night.

5) Tiger b Golden Magic
With the botched Castillo del Terror finish still fresh in memory, the CaraLucha crowd was thoroughly anti–Golden Magic, chanting "Golden Fraude" during the match. Tiger won with back-to-back Canadian Destroyers. There was nothing really "wrong" with this one, but I wasn't into it live.

My gut-reaction rating was OK, but that may have been my not caring for the finish and/or having higher expectations. Overall, this was a better match than the previous one, so on reflection, I'm calling it good.

6) Carístico b Ángel de Oro, Hechicero, Cavernario
I had guarded expectations about this match after the card change (more on that later), and this easily exceeded those. Early in the match, Hechicero proceeded to destroy Carístico (and a wooden chair in the process) right in front of me; I don't think I would have appreciated that bit of brawling nearly as much had I not been there. This was a really fast-paced match after the brawling subsided. I criticize Ángel de Oro's bingo-card offense a lot, but his spots work nicely (and somehow seem fresher) in a more chaotic match setup like this, as opposed to the CMLL trios match formula.

Carístico beat Ángel de Oro with La Mística. I called this very good initially, but am changing my rating to great after a rewatch.

Concluding thoughts
This was a very good show, and I'm glad that I made the trip to see this live, even though, rationally speaking, Carxyus (@carxyus on Twitter) and BTJr. (@BLACKTERRY) would have full matches available shortly afterward. The best matches were the first and last, which as you can tell from my ratings revisions, had a bit of a damping effect on my initial impressions of the rest of the show, but the reality is that there was only one weak match. As usual, the crowd was hot all night, and CaraLucha delivered a strong card for that crowd. CaraLucha is my favorite promotion right now.

Most of you reading this probably know that the main event was originally announced with Flamita instead of Ángel de Oro. I committed to making the trip under the presumption of the original main event; Flamita and Hechicero are currently my favorite luchadors not named Titán, so I was really looking forward to that match as originally booked. However, I did foresee the risk of a change, and the card was strong enough throughout that I reasoned that I'd have a lot of fun even without the main event. (I said something along these lines to Flamita, who was in fact nice enough to contact me personally when he knew that he wouldn't be at CaraLucha, out of concern that I was making the trip especially for that show.)

I was right. The show was a blast.