Falcon's Joshi Blog: REINA International Jr. Championship

CMLL-REINA sponsored International Jr. Championship belt (finals on September 10)

Photos by Masanori Horie

There were three quarterfinal matches in the CMLL-REINA International Jr. Championship tournament today. It is a strange tournament structure that bears some explaining. There were three quarterfinal matches today and one participant, Zeuxis, gets a bye until August 27 when she will face the winner of Sachiko Sendai v Hierro la Dama. The final match for the belt is scheduled for September 10.

Today's Results:

1) Sachiko Sendai def. Hierro de Dama
(Sachiko will now face Zeuxis on August 27)
                            TIME: 8:25 (moonsault press)

2) Ray def Luscious Latasha
                            TIME: 9:55 (Single Sky Twister)

3) Mia Yim def. Sa Ya
                              TIME: 7:59 (Hayato Kick)

Ray speaks to the crowd prior to the start of International Jr. Championship matches

It seems that Mia Yim and Ray will face off next Saturday, August 20, to determine one finalist. Then the following Saturday, Sachiko Sendai will face Zeuxis to determine the other finalist. I hope I got all of that right! As of now, one American, one Mexican, and one Japanese have been eliminated, but one American, one Mexican, and two Japanese (one in each bracket) are alive for the CMLL-REINA belt. Because CMLL-REINA sponsor the belt, one would assume that either Ray or Zeuxis would win it the first time. Ray would normally be favored over Mia Yim and Zeuxis favored over Sachiko. We will see how things unfold though. Mia Yim is very popular in Japan and Hotta seems to like her (giving her very nice bookings). Yim is also scheduled to return to Japan in September for a week, but I'm not sure whether that will be for the International Jr. title bout or for the busy REINA week from Sept 17-24 when they have four shows in seven days. Time will tell.