MLJ: Atlantida Rising 11: Místico, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

Aired 52MX: 2006-07-01

taped 2006-06-25 @ Arena Coliseo 

Místico, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Atlantis, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

So, even despite hitting some less than pertinent matches, I still missed a thing or two due to footage availability. There was a bit more of a build to Dos Caras, Jr. vs Ultimo Guerrero for his World Light Heavyweight Championship and also the title match where UG defended it. There was also a tag match between Atlantis and Rey and Mutoh and Dragon where Atlantis accidentally hit Rey to set up the turn to begin with, back from May 12 or so. I only see it clipped so I didn't do a full write up but I'll attach it at the bottom of this entry. It's fun to see Rey eat Mutoh's offense as well as some of the fun Guerreros tandem moves. I also don't have the match where Atlantis and Tarzan Boy turn on Rey. Ah well.

What I do have is this, which is either the first real Rey vs Guerreros match or close enough to it for my purposes, and it's pretty satisfying. Rey got to face off against all of his former teammates. It set up the title match to come vs UG. The crowd was hot the whole time. There wasn't a ton of depth to the structure here but sometimes basic really is the way to go. Rudos ambushed and thoroughly won the primera. Tecnicos came back to win a quick segunda and then they got to shine in the tercera to set up the matches to come. Paint by numbers but with a lot of frenetic offense and visceral hate. Who can argue about that?

The details were pretty great too. Los Guerreros' beatdown was full of flourishes. They hit the clothesline over the knees/top rope move on Rey. Usually that was Rey's corkscrew senton to finish it. This time it was Tarzan Boy's legdrop. The evolution of UG's press slam on Mistico continued. Here it was onto both Atlantis' and Tarzan Boy's knees (He'd do an awesome one handed slam in the tercera). They finished it with this insane multi man submission (including power bombing Mistico onto the other two). Skip ahead to 6:10 on the video to see it. It's nuts.

The tecnicos really got to shine in the back half of the match. In the segunda, Rey got to make the comeback out of the corner and then hit the Guerreros' alley oop body splash. Mistico flew with his giant one hand dive even as Casas hit his seated senton dive. Rey got to fight off Atlantis and UG at once in the tercera, and then recover from a Tarzan Boy cheapshot to take him out as well. Mistico had some brief but fun exchanges with UG and Atlantis too. Casas got to tough it out with Tarzan Boy and then they all came together for a triple tecnico pin at the end.

There were a few tiny issues, though; things to worry about in the future perhaps. For one, Mistico was still way more over than Rey. He got to come out last, was the captain, and was the first one that the crowd chanted for. To be fair, later on, when faced off against Tarzan Boy in the tecera, they did chant for Casas too (it was just that sort of crowd) but even when they chanted for Rey during his comeback, they couldn't wait for Mistico to get back in there. There was an absolute cap for how far Rey could go as a tecnico, just like there had been for him in Los Guerreros after the Atlantis turn. Mistico also had picked up Wagner's terrible habit of trying to get the fans to cheer for him by holding his hand to his ear during a beatdown. Terrible stuff. And mainly, like I said, there wasn't a whole lot to the match. The tecnicos took almost the entire back half which let them have plenty of time to shine, which was what the situation called for, but also means that this won't end up on anyone's match of the year lists.

That's fine. It was a match with a purpose and it served that purpose very well, setting up the title match and showcasing tecnico Rey Bucanero vs his former teammates. For the moment at least, things had to seem pretty promising.