CMLL 2006

El Hijo del Santo/La Mascara vs. Blue Panther/Tarzan Boy, 1/1/06

Mistico/Negros Casas vs. Averno/Mephisto, 4/14/06

El Hijo del Santo/Negro Casas/Mistico vs. Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrero, 8/04/2006

El Hijo del Santo vs Perro Aguayo Jr, 8/25/06

Black Warrior vs. Mistico, mask vs. mask, 9/29/06

Negro Navarro/Villano 4/Villano 5 v. Dos Caras Jr./Heavy Metal/Solar 1, AULL 11/2/06

While searching for this stuff, I kept reading that CMLL didn't have a good year in 2006. Still, I liked these better than the matches from 2005.

The Mistico/Casas tag was really good... Probably the best match I've seen in the new style. It helped that the third fall was long & they worked a bit of story into it. It was obvious to all and sundry who was gonna win, but lucha is satisfying like that. Personally I've had a problem with Casas' offence since the mid-90s onwards & I'd love for Averno and Mephisto to have more rudo shtick, but this was great work even if it was aping New Japan juniors.

The Mistico/BW match was also a perfectly acceptable two out of three falls sprint. I think I saw an edited version, but it doesn't matter. As important as masks are in Mexican wrestling culture, the majority of mask vs. mask matches are amazingly shitty, and since the thought of Black Warrior being unmasked leaves me unmoved, this sufficed.

The Santo/Panther tag was weak... Panther's always been a better worker than Santo, IMO, and showed it again in his brief exchanges with La Mascara. Santo's always been predictable, he just gets away with it because even predictable Santo is excellent. As far as being a big match singles worker, he can still bring it in spades. The match with Perro wasn't as good as their match from 2004, but it was good stuff. I kinda get the impression that Perro thinks WWE is cool, though.

Once again, Negro Navarro shows up and is part of a really great, old school trios match. In a sense it was bread and butter stuff, and I was just excited because it built in a way I'm familiar with, but an entire fall of mat wrestling in the latter part of this decade is like mana. It really is.