My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience Final: Marco Corleone vs Lizmark, Jr., Cabellera vs Cabellera

2008-10-17 @ Arena Mexico
Marco Corleone vs Lizmark Jr., Cabellera vs Cabellera

I wasn't actually going to look at this one. I never intended to do a career retrospective on Marco, after all. I just wanted to get a sense of him and how he was in different situations, like I did with Valiente. I think I've got that more than down at this point. He's a great foil for very good workers, can work some fairly elaborate sequences, especially comedy ones, that play up his size, can work the crowd fairly well, but ends up doing stuff that maybe he shouldn't be doing anymore. Back in 06-07, he was a lot smoother and his physical stuff looked more impressive, but he hadn't yet honed the more mental aspects of his work. You could sort of do a chart where one element rises and the other one sinks. That's, in a way, why I'm stopping back here, a year and a half after the hair match with Universo, at a point where he was still physically in his prime, but had amassed more experience. That sounds good, doesn't it? Really, this was always the first youtube result and I just never took a look at it. I figured I ought to before I tied all this up, not expecting to write it up, and then it was good enough that I felt like I sort of had to in order to end all of this on a high note.

There were some trios leading up to this, but let's not go more overboard here than I already have. Ten is a nice round number. Fourteen is, perhaps, a little much. Also, now that I've gotten a taste of it, I am definitely itching to go back and see more 2006 that doesn't involve Marco, so I'm done lingering. I don't think anyone can blame me too much there. That said, if I learned anything from the Rush vs Shocker series, it's that context really does matter, so I'm going to miss some nuance here. Thankfully, it wasn't really a "nuance" sort of match, and what did exist, I could pick up from just having seen a lot of Marco. I haven't seen a lot of Lizmark outside of WCW, just that one trios match from before and he was a tecnico then. He had lost his mask the year before this in a big multiman cage match but he developed a pretty good look without it, with the contact lenses and the long hair. Of course, losing his hair here probably didn't help that too much.

Frankly, this was pretty much how Marco should work every match he's in, at least the big ones. They beat the crap out of each other. At least half the match was Marco's really nice punches and him eating chops from Lizmark very, very well, with big spots, moments, sequences, and selling interjected in at the proper times, paced well. It didn't have as much of a big match feel as some of the previous hair matches I've seen. It looks sort of like it was just on a random episode of TV, but that's a guess. The crowd is very hot for it, however, with the huge majority of them behind Lizmark, and I think every female in the arena (and it looks and sounds like there are plenty) rooting for Marco. They had good reason to be into the match as it was worked with an intensity that I really had no idea that Marco could reach. It definitely wasn't boring. It wasn't some sort of frenetic mess either.

The first two falls were fairly smartly put together. They would go back and forth from trading blows into a larger move or sequence and back to the measured striking. This led to Marco hitting his back suplex/chokeslam and the first superman leap of the match for the pin. He celebrated it by playing to the crowd in a fairly cocky manner, which would come back to haunt him in the segunda. There, after some more back and forth and strike exchanges, Marco hit a big top rope press only to lift Lizmark up at two and mock him to get back up. Well, he did, and Marco ate a superkick and a deep half crab for his trouble. When against someone who's got a fairly decent offense, Marco's size could be a huge advantage visually. The kick is way up high and looked great and even something so pedestrian as the crab looked interesting between Lizmark's facial intensity and just how long Marco stretched from head to toe.

It's not as if the tercera immediately shifted into a higher gear than what they had been working, but then again, it didn't really have to. The back and forth strikes were carrying the match and dropping that for a bunch of dives and rope running would have probably been a mistake. Instead, they escalated the stakes, interjecting more big moves, whether it be a pretty impressive powerbomb by Lizmark (who didn't have Marco jump up into the position like  he usually does) or a superplex or Marco's clothesline from the ramp to the floor. Lizmark more or less had the advantage throughout, with him hitting the larger moves and Marco getting a reversals or snap pin attempts in. It all came to head in a very fun finishing stretch. They let loose with one final strike exchange, which didn't veer into annoying fighting spirit mode since it played upon the earlier parts of the match, had very good selling, and was ultimately fairly brief. It ended with Lizmark charging at Marco who backdropped him over the top to the ramp. He then flew at him at high speed, hitting the Superman leap from the inside out and set him up to do it from the ramp back in. Lizmark rolled through for a near-count which completely and utterly had the crowd. It was a downright brilliant sequence. I think the body presses are overdone in a lot of Marco's matches and make him look fairly limited, but rarely they can make them really pay off like they did here. They took it home immediately thereafter, with Marco hitting a corner splash and then a sunset flip from the outside in. Lizmark grabbed the rope at the last second but the ref missed it, so he was able to save some face but not his hair.

It's funny. Marco's selling of strikes is very good. His punch is great. In some ways, his size is almost a detriment in that regard, because on a visual level, he rarely gets to just walk around the ring brawling with guys. He could have a great match with a wrestler like Lawler, for instance, especially if we're talking back in 2008. He's always going to have the size and he can use it more subtle ways like he does now with some of the comedy sequences he works in trios. It doesn't always have to be him changing momentum of a match with a big body press or his clothesline of diminishing returns. I think it'll be interesting to see where he's at in a couple of years when he's been forced to adapt his act a little bit due to aging. This match, however, might have been the peak intersection of his physical gifts and his development as a wrestler. I'm sure it didn't win any match of the year awards, but I think it was well worth watching.