IWRG 11/8/09

Dr. Cerbero v. Mickie Segura- Cabellero contra Cabellero

TKG:This starts all out with Dr Cerebro really dominating first two fall. He just comes out and tries to wreck Segura. This is a big moves match but isn't a modern lucha back and forward big moves match. Cerebro absolutely dominates the first fall and is a beast until Segura's comeback in the second. Segura also is especially nasty with all his stuff. Post second fall he lays Cerebro's head across bottom rope and blasts it with a headbutt. You get a real sense in this of two guys trying to finish the other off. Problem in many current hair matches is the sense that neither guy wrestles it differently until third fall or that their really isn't anything on the line. Both guys here are trying to win this and treat it like it matters from go. The third fall starts really great and epic but falls apart as a result of way too much second interference overbooking. When Segura wins it almost was a letdown since I was still waiting for the Francine/Beulah cat fight.

PAS: I had a really complicated relationship with this match, I didn't love the first falls as it felt too speedy to me, I wanted them to slow down, do less and have it mean more. By the third fall though, they started really smashing each other with big cool moves and having dramatic awesome nearfalls. Segura hits a sick death valley driver, Cerebro lands a reverse backcracker which looks like it fractured Segura's jaw. If the match ended like this, the start made a lot more sense, and I regretted my earlier dislike of it. However then we get the ECW run in finish, which went way too long, and felt like the lights needed to go out a couple of times "OH MY GOD IT'S CICLON RAMIEREZ HE DOESN'T WORK HERE" , and my dislike of the first couple of falls felt vindicated.

Bobby Lee Jr./Jack/Olimpico v. Fuerza Gurrerra/Oficial 911/Pirata Morgan

PAS: On paper this looked like a match with a great rudo team against a useless technico team. Which it kind was, although we got way more out of the technico team then I was expecting. Unmasked Jack was flying around and had multiple cool moments, including an awesome looking double take down, Bobby Lee Jr looked fine, and even Olimpico looked sprier then he had in years. I wasn't expecting much, as these kind of heavyweight main event trios are usually the turd in the IWRG punch bowl, but I dug this.

TKG: My problem with the cage mach that ended with 911 v Yack was the real sense that you don't start the cage match with Dusty v JJ Dillon and end it with Steamboat v Arn. Here the 911 v Yack sections felt like they were placed appropriately, and I dug mst of the Yack interaction with the other two rudos as well. The first fall of pure rudo beatdown was neat as these are three good rudos. As they started to have to eat stuff I was pleasantly surprised by Pirata. Pirata really felt like a giant bump machine really going up high for everything. Pirata's been a giant bump machine for over thirty years. He isn't taking 1980s crazy Pirata bumps. But you'd think at this point in his career he'd stop leaving his feet. Instead he's flying all around the ring.