2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

30. Blue Panther/Valiente/Diamante Azul v. Terrible/Vangellys/Rey Bucanero CMLL 4/11

ER: Wasn't really thinking tons of it from the on-paper line-up, just kind of an unhyped Arena Mexico midcard trios, that ended up really delivering. Primera had a bunch of Blue Panther/Terrible mat work and it was so damn good. Terrible is not a guy I think of when I think of matwork, and this is probably the most I've ever seen Terrible hit the mat, and definitely one of Panther's longer mat rolls of the year. It's all really good stuff too, with Terrible working around a keylock and Panther finding ways to reverse out of it. Panther breaks out a cool British style backspin wristlock and a smooth arm drag into a headscissor lock. Terrible yanks on his arm a bunch and BP does simple little things to relieve pressure such as grab his own wrist for leverage. Terrible at one point floats over out of a BP head scissors to grab a headlock in one beautiful motion. Just a bunch of cool mat stuff from two guys I don't recall going at it on the mat (Terrible almost always sticks to brawling so him looking so damn good on that mat just makes me a bigger Terrible fan). We also cut to a Mexican girl in the crowd wearing an Arctic Monkeys trucker hat. That's weird. Plenty of cool moments after the awesome Panther/Terrible twisting. Terrible did leaping punches to guys in corners (abandoning the matwork that got him NOWHERE!), Valiente plastered Bucanero into the barricade with a dive, Comandante looks slimmed down and was on point with the interference, Terrible kicked some guys in the taint in vicious style (Panther even sold it like he was guesting on Chavo, with an incredible Ay Dios Mio hard sell eyeroll into the back of his head, right at the camera). Killer match.

PAS: Yeah I was totally blown away at how comfortable Terrible looked hitting the mat with Panther. He wasn't just a passenger he was delivering as many cool little additions as a Panther. Loved that backspin wristlock. Middle of this match meanders a bit, and then it comes back together with a really cool finally run. Vangellys is a big dude and he takes a really high monkey flip, and I loved Azul's delayed Tamon Honda style german suplcex. Good overall lucha match with the matwork being truly first class

2014 MASTER LIST