For the past 3 weeks on Sunday at 3 pm PDT, CMLL has been airing the first 3 matches from their show on terra.com live online. Its had its ups and downs in those three weeks. The first week came off without any major problem beyond a few graphic errors like keeping the announcers names on screen a little too long, but nothing major. The first show was praised by those who saw it as having better quality than some of the iPPVs that have come along over the years.

The matches on the 6/17 show were good. For one thing the show is free. Second, you should already know that you are getting the first 3 matches on the card, so you probably have to be a pretty die-hard lucha fan to be watching stuff involving Inquisidor, Sensei, and Metalico level guys. The 6/17 show had the usual CMLL opener, followed by a fun minis match and then had a slightly stronger 3rd match than we might get on a regular Sunday show as it included Averno, Angel De Oro and Super Porky who have bigger names. Usually the 3rd match is home for members of the rudo factions from Los Guerreros Tuareg and Los Cancerberos going against lower card CMLL tecnicos (Fuego, Pegasso, Rey Cometa, up-and-comer types like Titan and Triton, etc.). The show being on Father’s day also included a special dance by some of the CMLL women, which was kind of strange since poor Luna Magica wasn’t much of a dancer and you’d think dads attending this show would rather see the CMLL Ring Girls dancing. Anyway, the show went well. No problems. Matches were good. Show ran a little over 1 hour and it had no commercials. Also I repeat it was FREE! Can’t ask for more…

I’m sold, I’m watching this show if I’m home on Sunday. So week 2 comes in Sunday, June 24th. This time its announced CMLL’s show will be transmitting from Arena Coliseo. We get the “angry Shocker” photo (photo shown above) for a few minutes. Click refresh. Nothing. Click refresh a few more times and the show appears in ‘scramblevision’ style. If you grew up watching wrestling prior to High-definition television, I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. Very little can be seen via the terra feed. You can hear the announcers talking and if you just close your eyes a bit, you can a few people wrestling. Shocker photo back. Click refresh. More blurry, black and white lucha. This went on for a few minutes when terra.com and CMLL pulled the plug and then posted an apology on their page that they couldn’t air the show due to “technical difficulties”. They promised they’d air it on Monday afternoon. Then they backed out and didn’t. The problem probably was due to Arena Coliseo not being up-to-date with what is necessary in streaming a live event.

This past Sunday (July 1st), CMLL and terra.com gave it another shot airing live matches on the site. This time they were back in Arena Mexico. Again another nice mix of matches. An enjoyable hour-plus of lucha libre.

Leono & Sensei b Apocalipsis & Disturbio

Opening match was pretty good. Sensei and Disturbio looked very solid in the match. Leono botched his finish in the second fall which resulted in announcer Julio Cesar Rivera suggesting that Leono was nervous. Led to a hilarious comment from Rob Bihari on twitter…

Poor Leono. I have a feeling the guy maybe has a night job and needs to leave CMLL shows early to get to his other job because there is no way a young, good-looking dude like him, no matter what you think of him as a wrestler, is ever held down. Especially with all the stripper gimmicks, body-builder-types, you would think he’d be force-fed to the fans higher on the card.

Sensei is a fun undercard guy in CMLL. Disturbio was surprisingly good in this match. Apocalipsis was about at Leono’s level, which wasn’t very good. Still a good opening match.

Demus 3:16, Pequeño Nitro, Pequeño Warrior b Aereo, Fantasy, Niño de Acero

Minis were up next. Match was fun. Mainly focused on a feud between Aereo and Pequeño Nitro. They both had a pretty good brawl were they ripped each others masks. Given the amount of CMLL on TV and now this online show, it would be interesting to have those two have a mask match on the site. It could be a way to get more viewers to the show.

Fuego, Mr. Cacao, Triton DQ Arkángel de la Muerte, Hijo del Signo, Skándalo

This was probably the weakest match that aired. Really didn’t have much flow to it. The main feud continued to be the long-running feud between Arkangel de La Muerte and Mr. Cacao. The highlight was the dives to the outside in that there were 3 guys with completely differing results in their dives. Mr. Cacao hit a tope and fell like 1 foot short from hitting Arkangel de la Muerte. That was followed up by El Hijo del Signo doing a tope were he went past the guy catching him and hitting the guardrail. Triton hit his top rope asai moonsault perfectly fine. Arkangel was DQ’ed for fouling Mr. Cacao and the ref saw him.

So far 2 out 3 shows have aired. Both shows that aired have been good.