My Lucha Journey: Valiente Interlude 2: La Sombra, Mistico, Valiente vs Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero

aired 2014-05-04
taped 2014-04-21 @ Arena Puebla
La Sombra, Mistico, Valiente vs Gran Guerrero, Niebla Roja, Último Guerrero




I figured I ought to look at something a bit more up to date, especially as the Shocker/Rush series gets further and further away from "Current." Here's a more current Valiente match (very much so actually) that also lets me see the Guerreros Laguneros/Los Guerreros del Infierno. I've seen extremely little Ultimo Guerrero and he's another guy, much like Virus, that I really intend to watch a lot more of in the upcoming months.

From the get go, there was something weirdly refreshing about this. I hadn't seen Gran Guerrero or Niebla Roja at all before and their gear matched pretty well; it had actually been a while since I came into a match not able to tell the luchadors apart well and it brought back a nostalgia of, what, four months ago? Also refreshing was how thoroughly primal/tecnicos vs rudos this match felt. There's been a lot of shades of grey stuff going on this year with Casas and Rush and La Sombra and what not, so the fact that the rudos here were brazen and dickish and the tecnicos were flashy and daring and had the crowd behind them was nice to see.

It was also nice to see, now that I've got a bit more lucha under my belt, that the formula does work. This was by the numbers. The tecnicos started out with an immediate finesse advantage. The rudos lured Sombra into their corner and the mauling began. One by one, the tecnicos would end up out of the ring and the next one would valiantly go up against the odds only to fall to the numbers game. Finally, the Guerreros locked on a couple of finishers and took the primera caida. The mauling was perfectly fine, varied and interesting, even if the whole affair was just a little sloppy (though not ineffective). The tecnico fire was believable. A lot of character came through from both sides.

The character kept on coming through the transition too. There was little time between falls, as the Guerreros did a great triple vault onto Sombra using the ramp, followed by some awesome stooging. When they tried it again on Sombra a minute or two later, though, Valiente was recovered enough to break it up, leading to a hiptoss over the top rope in, a couple of pretty spectacular acrobatics from Mistico, and a quick knotting up/split-legged moonsault allowing the tecnicos to even the falls. It wasn't an extended comeback by any means but it did sort of hit the spot and set things up for a reset to start the tercera caida on equal terms. The tecnicos came out the better of the early action, the cheer-off, use of rudo miscommunication, and even the big dives, but Ultimo's able to slip Mistico onto the top rope and hit his reverse superplex for a quick win.

This was all very straightforward but no less enjoyable because of it. It's funny. I said that the Valiente vs Virus lightning match from 2009 was what I might have thought lucha to be back then, but this trios was a lot of what I would explain it to be now, structured with an opportune rudo mauling leading to a big tecnico comeback and a tercera caida that gave some closure to the pairings and some big moments, with an exclamation point at the end. It's what I might call middle of the road but not in a bad way; it's a road that I'm really enjoying to walk down, after all. As for Valiente, he's got the best tope suicida out of anyone I've seen recently: he's like a bullet given his body type and the speed he can manage. He's also one of the best tecnicos on the roster at rousing the crowd and playing to them in the heat of the moment. Sombra might have led them in a bit of a cheer-off here, but it was Valiente who was able to make it feel all the more natural and organic. I still need to see more of him though, both him and Ultimo.