MLJ: Los Guerreros Flashback: Satanico & Averno vs Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero

2001-06-19
Satanico & Averno vs Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero

The last match was fun to see Rey and UG so young. This on was just flat out fun. There's no real way to get any sense of Averno here, but it's in the very same month that he started with the gimmick. In fact, we start out with one of the things I've wanted to see the most,a  Satanico vignette with him in the flames introducing his new protege (Mephisto I think, with Averno in the background). Satanico is the best. On some level he's even better when you realize he started as a Dr. No gimmick and morphed into the world's coolest Kevin Sullivan.

Anyway, this was in the midst of Averno and Mephisto challenging the newly independent GdI for their titles and coming up short. This was not a title match though. It was, however, a really great little brawl. That goes back to Satanico's versatility. More than that, though, it also had a really fun story, unlike anything I've seen yet in lucha, answering one of my long-percolating questions: What happens when someone loses their mask in the first fall? It's such a great little facet of lucha: if the mask gets pulled off in the midst of the match, it leads to a DQ for whoever did it. There are a lot of different narrative things that can be done with that. They use it to create clever finishes where a sneaky luchador will do it himself (as seen by UG in the Nuevo Infernales match) or have it happen accidentally, or on purpose due to rage or general dickishness. It's a great way to save face and prolong a feud, which is helpful given the weekly shows and the neverending nature of most of these pairings.

Here, there was a lot of rage and dickishness. Both sides were rudos and they were in the midst of an unholy gang war with each other, a very personal one. Averno had debuted earlier in the month with the character, but the GdI had to look strong too. I do think that almost every match has some goal it's trying to achieve, some way to justify the money spent by the crowd and entice it to draw more. That leads to limitations and opportunities. Lucha's no different than anything else that way, though, when you don't see these things in context, it sometimes makes it harder to figure out.

On first watch, I thought Averno looked pretty weak for a character who was so newly developed. He got overpowered early on when Rey put his cape over his head, allowing for the GdI to hold an advantage and the primera ended with a flurry of their teamwork followed by them tearing his mask off entire. They were DQed for the fall but not the match and he rushed to the back. This allowed for a fairly massive beating of Satanico until Averno found another mask and made it back. It was sort of a tecnico moment, if not for the fact that they almost immediately tore off UG's mask which DQed them for the segunda, and then followed that with a just as brutal beating of Rey. I have to admit that while GdI looked pretty smooth together here, Averno had a few moments of awkwardness. Eventually, of course, UG ran back in with a new mask, but Satanico, crafty as ever, was ready, meeting him with a kick and taking a firm advantage.

Satanico and Averno keeping control of the match and cutting off the paralleled comeback led directly to the finish and the escalation of their feuding. With UG deposited out of the ring, they were able to lock on a fun double-pin on the beaten down Rey. Then, as they overpowered Guerrero and were about to lock on that double pin and win the match, Mascara Magica came out to distract them with a chair. Thus distracted, UG pinned Averno with Rey holding him down. Satanico was tripped from the outside shortly thereafter and locked in a submission to give GdI the win, stolen from the jaws of defeat. This unevenness in the numbers game led in nicely to the debut of Mephisto and the continuation of the feud. Fun little brawl with the masks being used to create a nice bit of cleverness. Rey and Ultimo Guerrero still felt like equals here so it's striking how things had changed so significantly by 2006.