CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 5/4/14

These matches were all from the 4/20 Arena Mexico show. Earlier today I watched part of an episode of The Price is Right and some chubby goof in a bucket cap on contestant's row guessed $420 on some jewelry, then made an obnoxious "did I say that!?" face and turned to his matching-shirt friends who were all going "ohhhhhhhhh!" Then it cut back to Drew Carey who was shaking his head as if to say "Man what a doof." People, man.

Blue Panther, Valiente & La Mascara vs. Puma, Tiger & Vangellys

Damn this was really good. This is two matches within about a week where Panther gets to stretch out a bit on the mat, and his 4 minutes here with Puma was probably his best mat stuff of the year (so far). What's great is it was completely different from the stuff with Terrible from 4/11. He and Puma do a bunch of cool leg takedowns, with BP doing cool roll throughs and leverage moves. It is true poetry watching him do his thing. Valiente and Vangellys roll as well which is fun as you don't get to see two of the stockier guys do extended mat sequences. It's also good, in a different way from BP/Puma, more brutish, with each guy trying to use his size to hold the other down while twisting limbs. Segunda is fun in as Valiente and BP switch partners and get to show off their fun ranas, with it ending on a nice throwback to the primera, with Mascara going to the well the won it before, and the rudos immediately recognizing it and cutting it off. Tercera was nice and extended with us actually getting some drama with eliminations. It's such a regular part of lucha that it's easy to forget how lame the "all three guys pin/submit the other three guys at about the same time to end a fall" ending is, and here we get the non-captains getting picked off first, actually making the finish built to something. Vangellys sells Valiente's silly-and-nasty inverted power bomb to knees great, mainly because he took Valiente's boot toe right to the mouth. Panther started the year nicely and has been really ramping up his work in trios as the year goes on. Puma and Tiger have also gone from guys I didn't really know last year to guys I actively look forward to in 2014.

Negro Casas, Felino & Mr. Niebla vs. Rush, Atlantis & Titan

Match immediately feels different than other Casas/Rush affairs, as Casas attacks from the get go and controls most of the early action. Just when I get used to seeing Casas as sympathetic old man he turns into sadistic ass beater, kicking Rush into the crowd and attacking him in front of families on a Sunday afternoon. At one point in the ring Rush does his (arguably the current most awesome thing in pro wres) thrust headbutt into Casas' chin and Casas appropriately sells it as if he just took a thrust headbutt to the chin. Tercera has nice moments from everybody, with Felino working fast and feeding Atlantis admirably, Niebla taking a fun Race bump to the floor and dumping himself on his neck and shoulders Titan hitting a giant moonsault off the top to the floor (although I really wanted Felino to punch him in the dick during his handstand, which actually seems like something that would fit the current Felino…"character"). But we all want the Rush/Casas interaction, and we get it. Casas dominated the first, and Rush gets his heat back in the third, breaking down Casas in the corner in the most beautiful way. Arms flying, and when Casas starts to buckle he kicks Casas' legs out from under him, dropping him onto his seat where Rush then leaps and stomps all over him (to the hisses of the crowd). The match was pretty short but the work was quick, and the match-ups ranged from solid to great. Not one of the must see matches in the Rush/Casas canon, but as watchable as ever.

Rey Escorpion vs. Maximo, for the CMLL Light Heavyweight Title

Good lord, Escorpion is all painted up in blue wearing  some sort of Avatar get up, and it is every bit as horrible and cringeworthy as when Volador did it last year. Is Avatar still a really big deal in Mexico? His hair is in a ponytail, but not in a tight braid (which it will need to be in order to have sex with a dragon's ponytail vagina). This was a fairly short match for a Title match, but they crammed a lot of action into it. Maximo did his really nice pendulum rana, and hit maybe his burliest tope ever, looking much more like a flying shoulder tackle than a dive. He really just slammed right into Escorpion. I get kind sucked out of the match as they do one of my least favorite "big match feel" lucha tropes, where the match devolves quickly into Move > Pinfall > Both Lie On Mat Selling > Repeat. It's obnoxious and I suppose it's supposed to make things more dramatic, but it really makes the whole affair disjointed to this viewer. Hurricanrana roll-up, slow count, kick out at two, both guys lie there breathing heavy and selling. I'm not sure why Maximo was selling the effort it took to get his move kicked out of, but apparently this wrestling is tiring business! I'm about as far removed from a go-go-go super workrate freak as you can get, but this style just doesn't feel like a match to me. It feels like several separate move demonstrations, with breaks in the middle for both demonstrators to rest. This match is hardly the guiltiest offender, or even a bad match (it was actually a pretty decent match, both guys looked good....well, in a wrestling sense. Escoprion of course did not LOOK good, due to his dorkgasm Avatar cosplay), this is just me finally coming to terms with being sick of this phony big match feel. The classicly slow lucha pinfall counts only make it more exasperating to me. Sorry guys, wrong place wrong time.