Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 4/5/14

These matches are from the 3/21 Arena Mexico show, a pretty big show with TWO hair matches and the finals of the Parajes Increibles.

Atlantis & Euforia vs. Rey Escorpion & Maximo

Decent if unspectacular match for the Parajes Increible final. It started out very promising and seemed like it was going to go really long because we actually get extended mat pairings with Atlantis/Rey and Maximo/Euforia. It was cool as you rarely get to see Maximo show off his mat flash, and it's nice seeing Atlantis do more outside the box from his normal match. All the guys get to hit dives with Maximo's flying headbutt being especially nice. Onto the end, I really liked Atlantis locking in Atlantida on Maximo, leading to Rey kicking him in the gut to allow Maximo to do a slick roll up. Then we get Maximo getting too friendly and misreading the signals that Escorpion was giving him leading to Rey turning on Maximo. The end kickouts between Euforia and Rey were a little dry, with no real build. Just had the feeling like "well this will end eventually" without any drama.




Hair vs. Hair: Shocker vs. Rush

Very good match that just narrowly missed our MOTY cut. I could easily see arguments for its placement. But the comebacks seemed like there was footage missing, but it was likely more indicative of lousy your move my move culture that has been happening in CMLL main events for awhile. The intensity was great and it's nice seeing Shocker still able to bring it, bring up fond memories of his epic late 90s/early 2000s run. He did gas pretty hard at the end, but the intensity was there and him tiring kind of served for a better match story. He just got outlasted by the young punk. Rush gets a reaction that is totally unique in wrestling today. I don't think there's any heel that currently gets the heat that he does (even though, erm, I guess he's still a tecnico). Rush is a total dick but he also can take a mean beating, and not all guys take it as well as they give it. Here he let Shocker kick him a bunch in the face and took a stupid German suplex on the entrance ramp. That's why it was a tough choice to leave this off the MOTY list. Both guys really did beat the shit out of each other here. That's usually the quickest way to get me to love a match. And the violence was great here. I just kept getting annoyed by little things like Rush hitting a monster dive, leading directly to Shocker just holding Rush in a leg lock back in the ring. Still, Rush is THEE guy to have in these kinds of matches right now. His charisma is off the charts and those locks are just begging to get trimmed.