My Lucha Journey: Rush vs Shocker Part 7: Diamante Azul, La Máscara, Rush vs Rey Bucanero, Shocker, Último Guerrero

aired 2014-03-16
taped 2014-03-03 @ Arena Puebla
Diamante Azul, La Máscara, Rush vs Rey Bucanero, Shocker, Último Guerrero




I have two or three trios matches to watch before coming in for a landing with the Luchas de Apuestas match. I know this was sort of a roundabout way to get at it, but I have really been enjoying watching everything in context for once. I think you do get a lot out of doing things this way and while I know it's going to be tricky to do so with every big match I want to watch, I'll go back to this format now and again. With wrestling, a lot of times the journey IS worth as much as the destination, if not more so, and that's very true with this match.

This was a tecnico team I wasn't super familiar with. I kind of like Mascara's music since it's the only thing the ring girls can properly dance to. I'll fully admit that I still can't differentiate him and Sombra well. They're both masked tecnicos with hoodies to me. I know Sombra's been tweenering it up a bit more lately, so that will probably do it, if familiarity in and of itself wouldn't. I'm not sure I had ever seen Diamante Azul before this, but I did like him here. He worked pretty well with Mascara in tandem. Rush, as always, was Rush. Likewise, Bucanero is a guy I'm not sure I had ever seen though I'd heard about him and thought he played his role pretty well here, tossing himself around the ring and doing some pretty smooth tandem stuff with Ultimo Guerrero, who yes, I need to see loads and loads more of. I was just reading about the various trios he's been in over the years and some of those matches/feuds sound really great.

Shocker worked this match much differently than he had the earlier matches in the feud. He was super aggressive to start but once things got going, he turned on the full, beautiful, Buddy Rose-esque chickenshit heeling. It was this massive, character driven, crowd-manipulating, effective breath of fresh air. In this match, and the trios that aired a week later, he was so good at playing his role that the fans were actually really behind Rush, as much as I've ever seen them. To me, it played out like this: Rush and Shocker were both tecnicos. Rush continued to insult Shocker. Shocker, far more self-conscious than Rush due to age and wisdom both, was affected by this. He walked the line for as long as he could, expecting that Rush would be the first one to blink. CMLL wasn't big enough for both of them to be tecnicos and he was the one who was exhibiting the rudo tendencies. Rush, however, was so self-assured and so full of himself and his leanings, so deluded, in truth, that he was utterly unshakable. Therefore, Shocker blinked first, turning on his teammates and going rudo. It meant that he could draw things to a conclusion, could force Rush towards the hair match, but it also came at a cost. Shocker could no longer lie to himself or anyone else about who he truly was. Rush actually believed it about himself, but Shocker couldn't fool himself, and while he was full on aggressive in the first trios after his turn, there's a moment here where he just snaps and starts really heeling it up, dodging Rush, hiding behind his partners, using them as interference (both literally and figuratively) and as goons and to hold Rush so he could hit him and even jawing with the fans. It's really primal, terribly enjoyable pro wrestling. The whole thing ended with Shocker having Rush so pissed at him from his antics that he made a mistake and let himself get powerbombed out of the corner and extra-leverage-on-the-rope pinned. There was a real sense that Shocker's rudo mindgames won his team the match.

The rest of the match was plenty enjoyable. Shocker's antics meant that things were a little less formulaic than usual. He'd mess up the combinations by ducking out of the ring at key moments. The transitions were pretty great too. The rudos took over after a very subtle shot to the back of Rush from the outside by Guerrero during the first real Shocker vs Rush exchange. It punctuated a great tease and let Shocker continue to heel it up, mauling Rush on the outside and allowing his partners to take the fall on the inside. The second transition had a tease of Rush fighting back, a cut off, and then Rush countering his way out of the corner feet-first. It was the most I'd ever heard the crowd behind him which was a real testament to the match and Shocker's rudo work. Rush, with the crowd against him, is fun to watch but there's a real energy to Rush-With-The-Crowd-Behind-Him that doesn't always transfer to the tweener role.

All in all, this was a really enjoyable trios, one of the best I've seen for 2014. It was more story-driven than action-driven, and works best in context, but the action supplemented the story and everyone played their roles well.