Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 6/21/14

These matches were all from the 6/6 Arena Mexico show.



1. Rush, Titan & La Mascara vs. Negro Casas, Shocker & Felino

Match that started pretty same ol' and was saved by a great tercera. These Casas vs. Rush trios are already starting to seem pretty samey, with this one being slightly different due to Titan replacing Sombra (in the title match later). But they all have a real similar construct to them that seemed unique a few months ago but now is getting stale. Rush jumps Casas on the ramp, we get a one-sided primera and a one-sided segunda that leads to Rush's team dropping a fall by DQ. This pattern seems to happen in every Rush trios now. It's kind of shocking how dominated the tecnicos get in all of these. I would think guys would be worried about not looking "weak" (or is that only predominant in WWE?), as Rush always just mows through these guys. I'm not sure Rush strutting around, dishing big boots and puffing out his chest will ever get old to me, but it definitely feels less fresh than earlier in the year. Where they surprise me is by actually letting Casas and crew come back and kick ass in the tercera. Shocker had maybe his best fall of the year in the 3rd, looked like a guy fighting for his job. He threw a bunch of great elbows, worked some cool sequences with Rush/Mascara where he would foil their double teams. All of them looked really cool with him ducking guys at the right time and working circles around them. I also really dig the snug Stunner he's added. Felino also looked not as awful as normal, even becoming my momentary hero by dropkicking Titan in the face during his little handstand. I was ready to kinda glaze over during the tercera here, and they go and shut my face with an awesome one.



2. La Sombra vs. Volador Jr. (NWA Welter/Middleweight Title Match)

Wow. I was not expecting to like this one. I have seen these two match up a few times, and even when I liked rudo Volador this was a match-up that embodied my least favorite things about modern lucha. But I gotta say, I actually dug this one. Volador comes hot out of the gates with a couple big dives, never letting Sombra get a chance to catch his breath. Sombra finally catches him in the segunda and then slows the pace way down, to a satisfying rudo pace. Volador's dives looked pretty great, and here he puts over Sombra, taking an eminently rewindable bump over the guardrail off a Sombra clothesline. I mean holy shit. Sombra went for bell ringing, but good lord Volador flew over at a lunatic speed. In the tercera Volador throws out some really slick ranas, including a nice slingshot one over the top to the floor. Sombra also has no problem dumping himself on his head several times to put over Volador's reverse rana and crucifix slams. Rush puts the capper on things by interfering to spike Volador with an arm-trapped piledriver. Now, the moves in this looked great. The execution was on point, many of them looked way dangerous, and they seemed to build in a somewhat logical way. The transitions were a problem, as the moves looked so big sometimes that there was minor silliness when the other would go back on offense. But, nothing was bad enough that it couldn't be written off by "adrenaline because of double title match". It didn't devolve into awful move trading 2.9 counts like I was expecting from the beginning, and I was into it the whole way through. Somebody rewatch this, maybe I was drunk. Maybe I've hated their other singles matches so much that anything remotely passable would look like a  classic. But I'm pretty sure that was actually good.