My Lucha Journey: Rush vs Shocker Part 2: Rush vs Shocker, Mano a Mano

Aired 2013-12-01
taped 2013-11-18
Rush vs Shocker, mano a mano

So this stemmed from Rush's blatant fault in the three-way a week or two before. Both wrestlers were still tecnicos, and I'm not sure how frequent this sort of match would be, even though I saw what felt like a ton of rudos vs rudos matches on the 80s set. Rush isn't your average tecnico anyway.

Once again, this was all about Rush heeling it up and building heat for a more definitive match between the two of them (or maybe even the two of them and Casas if he hadn't gone down briefly with a collarbone injury a bit further into the feud). It started with Rush ambushing Shocker while he was coming out, which feels somewhat more tolerable to do to an outright rudo like Casas than it is to a fellow tecnico. It ended with Shocker almost crashing into the ref and Rush taking advantage with a pretty nefarious fault behind the shook up ref's back for the win.

In the middle there was plenty of Rush being a grade A jerk and Shocker surviving through it. The match was fairly even in the primera caida (with Rush's awesome "soccer kick and look out into the crowd with his hand over his eyes" taunt the most memorable part) until Shocker locked in his clothesline-counter cradle for the fall. Rush immediately acted the bad loser and pounced upon him, taking over for most of the rest of the match. He played to the crowd, demanding appreciation, only to receive a Shocker chant for his trouble. This obviously offended him tremendously. After Rush cut off a very stilted comeback, he used his teardrop suplex/powerslam to set up a senton and an extremely arrogant pin to end the segunda caida.

Rush kept on heeling it up, biting and stomping and bringing the heat. This made the crowd chant for Shocker all the more, so Rush pulled out that old classic crowd-riling card and threatened to leave. One of the best parts of his act is how he manages a level of willful obliviousness, as if he can't understand why the crowd isn't cheering for their tecnico hero who tends to win more often than not. He came back all the more pissed off, channeling it into a huge tope. Ultimately, Shocker walked it off and made a comeback, though with less of the late match selling that really make for the best lucha singles matches I've seen.

There's a lot of attention to detail in how Rush is presented in general. He escaped two roll ups by being too close to the ropes and when he took back over, he just couldn't put Shocker away. They just kept driving home the point on the way to the finish. When the fault finally came and Rush picked up the very tainted win, the crowd and Shocker were both understandably pissed off.

Post match, Rush gloated on the mic leading to Shocker demanding a hair match. Rush shrugged it off which set up the turn that was to come fairly well. Shocker had no other real recourse but frustrated escalation. This was another really great cocky heel performance by Rush that artfully straddled the line between vicious and chickenshit, all the while existing in the surreal reality of being hated by the crowd while being loved on paper and in his own mind.