Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 6/14/14

These matches were from the 5/30 Arena Mexico show.

Ephesto, Mephisto & Gran Guerrero vs. Valiente, Atlantis & Titan

They had been getting away from these short inconsequential matches, but that seems to be the style de rigueur again and it's obnoxious. I do like the energy levels in these shorter matches as there's a lot of action and things are so short that nobody has time to gas out. There's no down time, but everything is too rushed and there's no drama. I had hardly written down who the participants were when Guerrero had already won the first fall by powerbombing Atlantis. There was a nice little Valiente performance in here, including a beautiful rana with him running up the ropes. Atlantis showed a lot of fire here too, and Titan hit a top rope Asai moonsault to the floor that was pretty crazy. But this was all pretty insignificant. Everything was done so quickly that nothing stuck.

Terrible, Vangellys & Rey Bucanero vs. Stuka Jr., Maximo & Super Porky

Fun enough match, with there being way more Porky focus than most recent Porky matches. That can be both a good and bad thing, as his offense is fun, namely when the rudos implausibly always end up sitting three in a row so Porky can run at them butt first. There are also things Porky does that would be completely inexcusable and get any other worker ripped to shreds. He rarely sells strikes and almost always seems to be just waiting for guys to stop hitting him to get to the next spot. Numerous times here guys kick him in the stomach and he can't even be bothered to slightly bend at the waist. It would be one thing if he was doing a comical "your kicks don't hurt me due to my large tummy" thing, but he's clearly not and mores just looks tired. The match did have one extremely watchable segment, with Maximo squaring off against Terrible. Maximo has a bunch of these super cool fast flurries in him, which somehow still surprise me even though I've been watching him for 8 years. He breaks out these cool hanging armdrags that nobody else does and really has a great rhythm with Terrible. Stuka also regularly has standout moments in match. He arms-at-side splash always looks incredible and he and Maximo hit synchronized dives in another big moment. Porky had some good moments where he fought back against numerous guys, and that seems to be the moments where he works best now, as an easy target who gets pushed to far by bullies and then ends up snapping and chopping and punching and flattening them all.

Relevos Increibles!

Rush, La Sombra & La Mascara vs. Negro Casas, Shocker & Volador Jr.

So, this was the first time I kind of started to get bored with the Rush v. Casas/Shocker dynamic. A lot of heel dragging at this point. I like the participants, I like the energy, but it's on Lucha Azteca *every* week it seems like, and they really need to bump things up to a different level, mix up the combatants, something. This isn't quite Dolph Ziggler/Kofi Kingston levels of "how many times can they run this match!?" but I hate that they're even making me think that may be happening. I love Rush mowing throw Casas/Shocker/Volador and kicking torn t-shirts into the Arena Mexico crowd, but whatever direction this story was headed has stalled out. They've upped the heel antics from Sombra/Mascara so that is a slightly new wrinkle, but this is starting to really feel like "this is good, but something I regularly see, and it's no better than their best stuff, and worse because it feels like a rehash". So again, this had elements that you liked in previous encounters. It started as the same squash match formula that happened this week, except this time the tecnicos actually got their comeback. Casas is a great fired up comebacks guy, and his running "balls to Rush's face" off the apron was pretty epic. La Mascara is starting to find his role in the rudo stable. He was kind of lost once Sombra starting being Rush's cheapshot artist. But this match he was good at hanging back and kinda playing bouncer for Rush and Sombra. Rush would be kicking the shit out of Casas and Volador would be all "man my friend is over there! I need to get over there to help my friend" and Mascara would just be all "Hey buddy, a lot of people's friends are over there. Hang behind the rope." Or Sombra would be choking Shocker and the ref would be all "Hey I'm supposed to be over there." And Mascara would be all "Hmmmm...what was your last name again? Says you're not supposed to be over there."