CONSEJO MUNDIAL DE LUCHA LIBRE

GRAND PRIX 2019

AUGUST 30, 2019

MEXICO CITY, MÉXICO

ARENA MÉXICO

Watch on: YouTube

MARCELA & JAROCHITA DEF. DALYS & LA METÁLICA

Nothing to see here. Marcela and Dalys are likely facing off at Aniversario for the Women’s Championship but this match didn’t attempt to heat a feud between the two. Metálica has improved a little bit this year, but she was quite sloppy in the match. At the end, Jarochita pinned Dalys after a Gory Bomb. **

ATLANTIS JR., FLYER & AUDAZ DEF. REY BUCANERO, TIGER & HIJO DEL VILLANO III

This was a nice little exercise between young luchadores that showed exactly who the breakout star is. It looked like CMLL wanted to give Flyer the spotlight, but the man is just not good enough: despite earning the two falls for his team’s victory, Flyer looked very sloppy and unfocused. On the other hand, Audaz was just fantastic: everything he attempted was executed to perfection and whenever one of his partners did something cool, he would immediately surpass it with an even cooler move. There was a big contrast in display here: when both Audaz and Flyer dived off the stage into the rudo team, Audaz landed perfectly but Flyer landed badly, almost injuring his legs. In the finishing stretch, Audaz hit a picture perfect Frankensteiner on Villano III and literally seconds later, Flyer hit the world’s ugliest Spanish Fly on Tiger, almost injuring him in the process. It was day and night. One man showing he belongs in the company’s top tier while the other showing a complete lack of confidence. 

Also, Atlantis Jr. looked good and worked hard to get some heat into his face-offs with Hijo del Villano III (playing up to their father’s historic rivalry); the young man managed to get some well deserved pops by busting his butt off in this match that ended up being quite entertaining, mainly thanks to Audaz’ efforts. ***¼

CHAMUEL DEF. MICROMAN BY DQ

The match started hot with Chamuel attacking Microman during his entrance and proceeding to beat him up with tremendous intensity. Chamuel dragged Microman all over the ring, then pushed him into the barricade and even used a wire to whip his back. This got tremendous heat and the crowd was going bananas for it, so when Microman got his comeback, the pop was GIGANTIC. The absolute masterpiece of a comeback saw Microman quickly evading a Chamuel attack and then walking the barricade in Jeff Hardy-esque fashion to hit some beautiful tijeras on his enemy.

The match got even better with some fun pin exchanges, Microman dives, and a dramatic nearfall where Microman hit his signature corner splash, but Chamuel stopped the referee’s three count with his own hand. Microman argued with the ref about the count, Chamuel got back up and tried a tackle but ended up hitting the ref. It was all part of his plan: with the ref down, Chamuel took his mask off and threw it at Microman. The ref stood up, saw Microman with Chamuel’s mask and disqualified him. This little Eddie Guerrero finish was well executed and it added more fire to the great feud these two are having. ***¾

Microman took the mic and challenged Chamuel to a Mask vs. Mask match. Chamuel laughed in the most evil of ways, and then accepted the challenge. I am not being sarcastic here: Chamuel vs. Microman is the best feud CMLL has right now and there’s no doubt it would deserve to be Aniversario’s main event. It’s not even close to the UG – Ciber feud that I shall bury later in this review.

SANSÓN, CUATRERO & TEMPLARIO DEF. ÁNGEL DE ORO, NIEBLA ROJA & EL VALIENTE

A fun match in which the rudos stole the show; Cuatrero and Sansón showed the usual great chemistry, dominating the técnicos and getting themselves over while Templario looked like a perfect fit for them… heck, I would dare to say he was a better third wheel in their act that Forastero. Valiente showed great fire, running and diving all over the place, giving the match some much needed pace. The end saw Templario taking out Valiente with a Sasuke Special, allowing Cuatrero to pin Ángel with the Crucifix Powerbomb. ***½

CIBER THE MAIN MAN, TITÁN & GILBERT EL BORICUA DEF. CARÍSTICO, ÚLTIMO GUERRERO & MÍSTICO

CMLL is trying hard to sell us this horrendous Ultimo Guerrero – Ciber the Main Man feud, but no one cares. The crowd reaction for his is not even in the same league as Microman vs. Chamuel. 

This was horrendous and it was on its way to being a 2019 Worst Match of the Year Contender, but it ended up being saved by Titán, who gave us some minutes of quality in the middle of it. Ciber was absolutely atrocious and I struggle to think of a worse major league wrestler in the world right now, the man makes Jinder Mahal look like Will Ospreay: he struggles to do the most basic maneuvers, is clumsy and in this case, kept somehow bumping into Gilbert, adding even more inconsistency to the action. By the way, Gilbert looked bad too, mainly because the match was trying to tell a dumb story in which Gilbert and Ciber were competing to see who would pin UG first. At the end Gilbert powerbombed UG, but Ciber pushed him aside and tried the pinfall himself. Both of them ended up covering UG’s body and the referee refused to count. Gilbert argued with the ref who showed his back to Ciber, allowing him to kick UG in the genitals and thus getting the three count. 

Gilbert took the mic and said the has always wanted a singles match with Ultimo. Ciber interrupted and said he wanted UG’s hair and championship. UG said he had enough for both of them and will be beating Gilbert after finishing with Ciber. Ugh. Are they actually thinking of inserting Gilbert into the feud? What a big turd sandwich of a match and promos. ½*

VOLADOR JR. WON THE CMLL GRAND PRIX 2019 

The Mexico team was: Rush, Volador Jr., Diamante Azul, Bárbaro Cavernario, Negro Casas, Dragon Lee, Forastero & Soberano Jr.

The Rest of the World team was: Matt Taven, Jay Briscoe, Delirious, Kenny King, Oráculo, Mecha Wolf 450°, Luke Hawx & Big Daddy.

This traditional Grand Prix match uses a Cibernético rules format: A tag team elimination match in which there must always be one winner, meaning that if two or more ‘survivors’ of a team manage to eliminate the entire opposition, then those survivors must eliminate each other until we get a single winner. 

Before the match, soldiers came out and the Mexican national anthem played. Of course, the Puerto Rico and USA anthems were completely ignored because they are evil and we don’t want to honor them, there’s only time for Mexico. After such a patriotic ceremony, the crowd was absolutely ready to go… and a huge, chaotic brawl was perfect to kick things off in the match. The opening moments were tremendous fun because you literally didn’t know where to look. You had 16 men hitting each other all over the floor and the first few rows; and of course, with experts such as Rush and Jay Briscoe in the mix, the entire thing was even more violent, allowing the crowd to roar in excitement as this madness was developing before their eyes.

Then, the match became your typical Grand Prix, with two opposing team members facing each other for a couple of minutes in rotation. As expected, the Mexican team was completely over and every time they connected with a move – no matter how weak it was – the crowd would erupt. On the other side, only Kenny King was able to get a significant positive reaction from the crowd, everything else was received with either indifference or heavy booing.

This was long and disorganized with some bright spots here and there. A couple of weeks ago, the Briscoes had a great match with Rush and Dragon Lee in ROH; without Mark (injured), they managed to recreate some of that magic here, brawling in the crowd and getting one of the biggest pops of the night in the process. Kenny King and Soberano Jr. also showed good chemistry, as well as Oráculo and Diamante, but that was it. Some other face-offs flopped tremendously: Soberano – Delirious bombed; Hawx might not have wrestled for all I remember; Volador Jr. and Mecha Wolf had trouble connecting. In fact, Mecha Wolf – who was heavily featured – was very sloppy throughout the match. He failed to impress even while facing bright wrestlers like Bárbaro and had a horrendous mistake when attempting a tope suicida, causing him to crash into the ropes. I was expecting Mecha Wolf to be the star of the match but he disappointed big time.

Rush showed that ‘larger than life’ aura that makes him look like such a star in Arena México and was the MVP of this match. One of the things I was most interested about all of this was seeing his interactions with CMLL legend Matt Taven, because it seems like those two will have a ROH World Championship match soon. They interacted for a couple of minutes and delivered some fun sequences that ended with Rush getting himself disqualified by using a cable to whip Taven’s back. Taven then engaged in a mini-battle with his CMLL archrival Volador Jr., that ended with the latter using a Frankensteiner to get a pinfall over the ROH World Champion. 

At the end we got Bárbaro Cavernario eliminating Jay Briscoe, leaving us with… Big Daddy as the sole Rest of the World Team survivor. Yes, Big Daddy Yum Yum outlasted the ROH World Champion. And the ending was bad. Big Daddy eliminated Bárbaro with a lariat, and then an angry Bárbaro tripped Big Daddy’s feet; Negro Casas took advantage and pinned Big Daddy with La Casita. The crowd thought the match was over and exploded with joy at the victory of the Mexican team, but Volador Jr. immediately attacked Negro Casas. Big Daddy tripped Negro, and Volador hit a Back Cracker to pin him, winning the Grand Prix The match was entertaining at times, but too much of a mess for my taste and as expected lasted nearly 50 minutes. ***

If you’re curious, here’s the order of elimination:

  • Rush eliminated Oráculo
  • Kenny King eliminated Forastero
  • Delirious eliminated Soberano Jr.
  • Bárbaro Cavernario eliminated Luke Hawx
  • Rush eliminated Delirious
  • Diamante Azul eliminated Kenny King
  • Mecha Wolf eliminated Diamante Azul
  • Rush was disqualified after hitting Matt Taven with a cable
  • Dragon Lee eliminated Mucha Wolf 450
  • Jay Briscoe eliminated Dragon Lee
  • Volador Jr. eliminated Matt Taven
  • Bárbaro Cavernario eliminated Jay Briscoe
  • Big Daddy eliminated Bárbaro Cavernario
  • Negro Casas eliminated Big Daddy
  • Volador Jr. pinned Negro Casas to win Grand Prix 2019

But that’s not it. If the ending wasn’t confusing enough, an enraged Negro Casas took the mic and racially insulted Big Daddy. The crowd roared and laughed in approval (yes, unfortunately that’s my country). Then, Big Daddy got on the mic and tried challenging Negro but Bárbaro interrupted and challenged Big Daddy to an Apuestas match, but Volador interrupted Bárbaro and said that he wanted revenge for last year’s Aniversario main event… and challenged him to a Hair Match. Then Negro Casas interrupted and said he wanted an Apuestas match too… or something like that. Then everyone attacked each other for a couple of seconds. Then they suddenly stopped. Volador Jr. was presented with the trophy and he basked in his evil ways. 

As you see, this was a big, dumb, horrible, nonsensical mess that seemed to tease the most dumb, horrible, nonsensical idea: a four way Apuestas match at CMLL Aniversario that will probably end up being inside a cage. If that is the case, CMLL has reached a new low (well, at least in recent years) of lazy booking. Everything about this angle was bad and it showed the absolute ineptitude there is in the CMLL booking department. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

This was another in a long string of bad CMLL shows, so avoid it. Maybe watch Microman vs. Chamuel, but even that ended in DQ, so no need to invest your time there. 

To be honest, I felt quite disgusted at the end of this show. A huge crowd celebrated Negro Casas’ horrible racial slur and I’m sure no one will care about it tomorrow. And then we are presented with a terrible idea for an Apuestas match that will somehow draw a full house; regardless of the insulting booking, I’m certain that people will go in hordes to fill Arena México. Whether we get this or the atrocious Ciber/UG Apuestas, CMLL will end up earning big money and they will be reassured that they can keep putting the minimal effort into their planning and giving excrement to their fans, who don’t complain and keep filling arenas. Then the cycle will repeat itself… over and over again.