EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Lucha Central and Masked Republic.
By El Cultico
To quote a certain bald War Boy, oh what a day; WHAT A LOVELY DAY! Not only did I partake in a delicious Wingstop order and continue my undefeated Queens Park Rangers run in EA Sports FC 26 (it’s the game), but the World Cup started today with Mexico picking up a 2-0 win. It was truly glorious stuff; the Azteca atmosphere seemed amazing, “El Lobo” Raul Jimenez got emotional first ever World Cup goal, and in the final minutes the referee seemed to morph into a cross of El Tirantes and one of those corrupt authority figures in movies that seems fine until the final act. Like I said, glorious stuff. And the only way to follow a World Cup game like that is not by watching South Korea vs. Czechia, but by tuning into IWRG in Arena Naucalpan, where we can only hope some of the festivities and celebrations from the game have carried over into this show. I will tell you one thing this IWRG show will have over the World Cup; a review with a Dragon Ball Z tune. LA MUSICA!
Last time, ON IWRG Z, Hell Boy’s loyalty to Legion Oscura continued to teeter on the edge, as he refused to participate in a beatdown of his tag partners Las Shotas, which was interrupted by former AAA luchador Cuervo. Just days later, another development occurred, after El Mexicano and Samoa accidentally cost Hell Boy the Rey del Ring Championship, causing Hell Boy to attack the duo. Cuervo again appeared to make the save for Hell Boy, but IWRG’s top luchador refused to shake his hand. Now, tonight will attempt to answer the question of where Hell Boy stands, as he once again forms an uneasy alliance with Las Shotas’ Jessy Ventura and Diva Salvaje, as they battle Revolution Crew’s El Hijo de Canis Lupus, Multifacetico Jr, and Rey Mitclan, in a rematch of last week’s main event. Meanwhile, in the main event, Falcon Fire will finally collect the IWRG Intercontinental Tag Team Championship match he earned with Flamita last month, only with Histeriosis stepping into Flamita’s place, as they challenge champions Noisy Boy and Spider Fly, coming off perhaps the biggest week of their careers. Will we have new tag team champions? Will Noisy Boy and Spider Fly keep their near 530 day reign going? Whose side is Hell Boy on?! And will the Mexican National Football team inexplicably decide to celebrate their win today by showing up in Arena Naucalpan? Find out, TODAY!
It’s a unique start to the show tonight, as we didn’t start with a match, but with Big Mike leading a training session with both trainees and children! I had no problem with this whatsoever, mainly because I got started late and this allowed me to get all the mechanics for the review in order! Seriously, a lot goes into reviewing these matches and doing so with as many World Cup and pop culture references I can come up with. Another positive to this training session was it gave us a chance to take in this crowd, which was PACKED. I was wondering last week how the World Cup would affect IWRG, and it seems it’s had a positive effect, at least so far. TBD with future shows I suppose.
Harley Williams & Lady Panther defeated Bione & Jacket after Lady Panther pinned Jacket with a Sliced Bread and Williams pinned Bione with a Sliced Bread. A lot of sliced bread in this one Mr. Garrison (sorry, was possessed by Donald Sutherland from JFK for a moment). First off, this was an IWRG opener without Boca Negra! Tears of joy streamed down my face when I saw that. Second, and most importantly, this match featured a luchador named Jacket who inexplicably did not wear a jacket. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?! This would be like if Tackle (remember him?) wrestled without his football gimmick. Did he do that? No, because his name was Tackle and he knew he had to look like a guy that tackled! And yet, here’s this dude named Jacket, and he doesn’t have a jacket.
Aside from Jacket letting me, IWRG, Mexico, and frankly the rest of the world down, this match was far, FAR better than most IWRG luchadors. Enough to make me forgive Jacket for not having a jacket? No, but I’ll admittedly still take it over the slop Boca Negra was giving us. He may not have a jacket (yes, I’m still hung up on this, get over it), but Jacket sure can base, and he did a mighty fine job of it for Lady Panther, who showed off a lot of explosiveness and potential to do more than she did if she had gotten more minutes. I’m not sure how she’d look against other luchadoras (and given how IWRG books women’s matches, we may not find out until 2049), but she showed enough here that I’d like to see her again. Meanwhile, Bione and Harley Williams were also here, with Williams standing out a bit more, but neither really doing much otherwise. I’m grading on a curve here given how sullied IWRG openers have been, but this was solid. Now Jacket, I implore you, get a gorram jacket! STOP LETTING YOUR FANS DOWN! ** ¾
Baron Rojo, Comando Negro Jr., and Shura King defeated Angelux, Cobra Kid, and Eligor after Comando pinned Cobra by reversing an attempted Super Rana into an Avalanche Powerbomb. This match had moments where these guys did good things, moment that were unfortunately sandwiched in between a whole lot of nothing. It felt like the biggest mistake here was giving the rudos the usual long beatdown sequence; Baron Rojo, Comando Negro, and, Shura King proved to not be that interesting doing that, but were just fine basing and feeding for the tecnicos finally had their moment. Speaking of them, Angelux and Cobra Kid both were fine, while Eligor was a little bit above. I would’ve thought he’d have been the least of the trio, given he’s a bit taller, but instead he showed the most pop in his dives, and everything else he did too. Let’s hope we see more of him, and hopefully in matches better than, as Ted Mosby would say, aggressively average. And trust me; that guy knows aggressively average. ** ½
Lucha Libre Radio Active (Cosmico, El Hijo del Rey Pantera, King Lobo, Mariachi, Radioactivo, Rey Pantera Jr., and a guy who I missed) defeated Gym Fill (Angel Kid, Black Ninja, Fly, Mascara de Hierro, Toki, and X-Devil) in Torneo Fill 130 after Radioactivo pinned X-Devil with a Spiral Tap after Yorvak, Lucha Libre Radio Active’s coach, threw a drink in X-Devil’s face, blinding him (this was right after he pulled Radioactivo under the ropes as well.. The order of elimination prior to that, was Black Ninja, the random guy, Mariachi, Toki, El Hijo del Rey Pantera, Angel Kid, Rey Pantera Jr., Fly, Cosmico, Kenji, King Lobo, Mascara de Hierro, and, obviously, X-Devil. If ever there was a match to give a show a kick in the ass, this show was that. In other words, the show prior to this was Mexico up 1-0 against South Africa, and then this match was the El Lobo goal. Speaking of which, let’s see a photo of that El Lobo celebration!
Beautiful stuff
Oddly enough, it looked for a moment that this match may struggle before it received a (possibly) fortuitous moment where Toki landed on his head while hitting Mariachi with a huricanrana. Everyone seemed to think he was hurt, including the officials and doctors, but it was either a work, or Toki just was rocked briefly, because the rudos quickly attacked him, and Toki continued on shortly after. Whatever it was, it took this match from being a fine, heatless multi-man into something with some real hatred between the two teams. That heat carried over, and as it did, the action got better and better. There were some real moments of inspiration here, with the highlights being an all too brief sequence between Angel Kid and Cosmico, Fly living up to his namesake by flying all over the place, and just some really good lucha with very little in the way of sloppiness. Only the guy whose name I didn’t catch was iffy, and he was also out of the match quickly. Other than him, everyone was good, although the aforementioned Fly and especially Cosmico stepped out as a notch above. I don’t know if he’s trained with Arez or Komander, but Cosmico showed signs of both; he dodged a head bump the same way Arez did, he moved around the ring like Arez did, and he did cool rope walk moves like Komander. Anyone who works like those two is cool with me, and he’s another guy that IWRG should be bringing back ASAP. Frankly, if they want to match these two teams up again, that would be fine by me! Very good stuff. *** ¾
Caballero de Plata, Hip Hop Man, and Principe Centauro defeated Team Chile (Jasper Faster, Pablo Rivas, and Tirano) defeated Caballero de Plata, Hip Hop Man, and Principe Centauro after Caballero pinned Rivas with a Muscle Buster. Hip Hop Man and Tirano were eliminated moments earlier, after pinning each other with dueling Small Package pins. Last week, these two teams met (with Shocko in the spot Tirano occupied tonight) and wrestled a match more akin to the pace the Chileans liked. This week, the pace was more befitting of Caballero, Hip Hop Man, and Principe Centauro. After seeing both, I have to say the latter was a significant improvement. They started hot with the Chileans attacking Centauro as he made his way to the ring, and it never let up; there were no heat segments, no extended beatdowns, just these two teams going neck and neck for about 10 to 15 minutes. And it was absolutely delightful. I am not always high on Jasper Faster and friends, but they’ve proven they can be good, even if their formula sometimes grates the same way 24 does after season five. But in this match, they proved they can wrestle an exciting style at a high level, which kind of makes it all the more frustrating that they don’t! Either way, I’ll take matches like this from them, and I’ll especially take it from Caballero, Centauro, and yes, even Hip Hop Man, all of whom came off really good here. Two straight really good matches! The World Cup truly is raising everyone’s game. *** ¾
Revolution Crew (El Hijo de Canis Lupus, Multifacetico Jr., and Rey Mictlan) defeated Hell Boy and Las Shotas (Diva Salvaje and Jessy Ventura) after Lupus pinned Hell Boy after a Top Rope Double Stomp. There was miscommunication yet again between Hell Boy and Las Shotas, with Jessy Ventura giving him a kiss meant for Lupus, and following it up by delivering a Shotgun Dropkick to Hell Boy by accident. So to recap, Hell Boy has lost both his titles, he’s on the outs with his stable, he and Las Shotas keep screwing things up, and he can’t seem to win a match. That’s probably why he attacked Jessy after the match, although he quickly seemed to have second thoughts and walked away. So there you go; the story of Hell Boy turning into one of the TV episodes where nothing is resolved and you’re left looking at this.
Story advancement aside, this match was…well it was very similar to last week’s match these two teams had. Hell Boy and Las Shotas were a bit more cohesive than in the previous match I suppose, but otherwise it followed the same formula; Revolution Crew beats the technicos (and Hell Boy) down, there’s a comeback, they settle in, and then the dreaded MISCOMMUNICATION occurs. I’m overall fine with it cause they’re telling a story with Hell Boy that I’m interested in, but as a match, it leaves a bit to be desired, especially since all six of these luchadors are good and could deliver a really good match if asked. There was even glimpses of it here and there. Perhaps they’ll one day resolve this Hell Boy story, and we can do a match with these two teams where it’s actually a match. Till now, I guess we’re stuck with this; nothing more and nothing less than decent. ** ¾
Mexa Boy’s (Noisy Boy and Spider Fly) (c) defeated Falcon Fire & Histeriosis to retain the IWRG Intercontinental Tag Team Championships. The finish came after Noisy Boy pinned Histeriosis after hitting him with (and I’m not making this up) a Twisting Super Rana, and Falcon Fire was counted out after Spider Fly hit him with a Super Calo dive into the third row of the Arena Naucalpan crowd. This is the type of match that would make The Undertaker’s blood boil, a match with seemingly all flips and no story, the kind of thing he’s trying to eradicate with his vision of “lucha wrapped in storytelling” philosophy for AAA’s ravaged corpse. He can keep that vision and leave this stuff for dorks like me, because I LOVED this. I may have loved this more videos about how the streets won’t forget Adel Taarabt, and that says a lot because I love QPR legend Adel Taarabt! Just look at him!
Now I will say; I could’ve done without the Crucifix Destroyers in this match. They looked cool and all, but that’s a crutch that these four don’t need to rely on. And that’s where my criticism begins and ends. The best part about this match though, aside from the awesome flips, is that it did tell a story, and it did it with the flips! That story, by the way, was Falcon and Histeriosis trying to prove that they, not Mexa Boy’s, were the coolest, most innovative young high flyers in Arena Naucalpan, and they were going to prove it. This was exemplified best early on, when Falcon Fire and Histeriosis mocked Noisy and Spider’s pose, a moment that fired Spider up and briefly switched up the momentum. In the end, Noisy and Spider proved them wrong on this day, being just a bit more ambitious, and deadly, with their high flying than Falcon and Histeriosis are. Good story right?! I don’t know, perhaps we should ask Undertaker first!
Hmm, perhaps later when he’s looking less confused
I’ll certainly wonder what might’ve been if Flamita had been in this spot as originally intended, but you ultimately can’t complain when the match was this much fun. Plus, the way it wound up showcased four young high flyers instead of just three, showing, once again, that IWRG made the right choice picking Falcon Fire as their tryout winner, that their faith in Histeriosis (who can get a bit wild and inconsistent) is well founded, and that Noisy Boy and Spider Fly are that damn good (and having a hell of a two weeks between this and the RIOT match). A must see main event! **** ½
Now that I’ve been reviewing IWRG for a few months, I am beginning to see the pattern when it comes to these shows more and more each week. And like most patterns, there’s upsides and downsides. The lower part of the card can still use work, although it was better this week than previous ones, and then gets better as it goes along, culminating in a match that’s legitimately great or at least close to it. There’s also usually one match later on that you feel should be better, but isn’t, and of course, there’s Hell Boy, caught between wanting to be good, wanting to be evil, or perhaps wanting to be both at the same time (he’s a complicated man). Like I said, it’s not perfect, but it usually makes for an entertaining ride, and tonight was no different, and actually was a bit better than usual thanks to Torneo Fill and the Chilean match being borderline great. And so I once again leave this Thursday night a satisfied customer. Will that be the case next week? Tune in then I suppose! In the meantime, how about some Nakamura? No, not that Nakamura.
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