Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 9/6/14

Again, on 8/15/14 (and, now sadly, 8/22/14) it looks like they did a tournament for the CMLL Universal championship. Tournament lucha, baby! Catch that 150 second action!! So we all know these matches will be, best case scenario, the 2nd or 3rd best match on an episode of Worldwide, so I'm not really going to review the matches themselves because why bother. I'll make some notes of standout individual performance. The one positive I can take from this is that we might get some unique match-ups, however brief. It looks like there are a lot of rudos in the tourney so we may get some fun rudo on rudo shenanigans.

^^^ That is what I wrote during the first week of lucha tourney. It was worse than I expected. I expected bad. There was one total match that was not a complete waste of time. I'm willingly going into this expecting to waste my time. And I'm complaining about it. That is the definition of an obnoxious person right there.

1. Ultimo Guerrero vs. Mr. Niebla

Fun mat stuff and headscissor roll throughs that were indeed fun, but always felt very exhibition-y. Niebla broke out his cool code red arm drag, UG threw in the Jerry bump, Niebla did the wild moonsault off the top to the floor and another big moonsault press back in the ring. Niebla is throwing in more cool stuff in his 3 minute allotment than anybody else in this tourney. And it's nice as it actually ties into and leads to the finish, with him going for a 3rd moonsault, allowing UG to polish him off with the Guerrero Special for the win. So that was a good use of the time right there.

2. Virus vs. Dragon Rojo Jr.

Rojo comes out to the theme from Ghostbusters which is kinda weird. It's nice to see Virus in a match like this as he doesn't usually seem to crack the main event picture in CMLL, and at least being in a tournament for a title is something above his usual level. At this rate he might make it into the main event scene when he's 52. Virus works this match real smart, for such an awful format. He's a guy who's really good at mixing up rope running stuff, and is such a different worker than a lot of these guys that you get some unique exchanges. He finds a cool way to reverse Rojo's big seated corner dropkick, by pushing up at the right time to send Rojo's legs under, then locking on a front facelock. Great false finish as Rojo looked taken off guard but was already in the ropes. You got the sense that it could have finished the match otherwise. Finish was smart as it played into the match long story of Virus trying to win using his submission smarts, and it costing him. Virus always breaks out cool subs, and the one that backfired involved him rolling through on his opponent, but Rojo being much larger than Virus, causing him to roll through to far (like over rolling him), ending with Rojo on top and submitting Virus. It even makes sense in the worked setting as Virus usually works guys that are closer to his size, so him locking on a sub incorrectly against a larger guy works for me. Still wish Virus could have gone through to at least the semis.

3. Diamante Azul vs. Niebla Roja

This match was at least a good use of two minutes, though I kind of felt bad for Roja as this was a total Azul showcase. Azul looked really good on the mat with a couple cool ankle picks and looked real good at fluidly moving on to other parts of the body. Really smooth chain wrestling done in a way that didn't feel overly rehearsed. He also hits a big dive (first dive of the whole tournament actually) and then gets to roll back in and hit his awesome delayed german to win. They even put over his finisher by having a doctor come in and check on Roja after the match. Roja got totally steamrolled here, but Azul looked sharp in his showcase.

4. Titan vs. Volador Jr.

Not great, but short and they kept the back spring handstand nonsense to one part of the match. Titan hits a big moonsault and gets a nice false finish by catching Volador in a dragon screw into a sub. Volador's samoa drop driver finisher always looks completely dangerous, like it's just a matter of time before somebody gets their neck snapped.

5. Ultimo Guerrero vs. Dragon Rojo Jr.

Partners collide! But it really wasn't that exciting. Both guys doing moves until it was time for the Guerrero Special. Rojo took a nice bump to the floor off UG's baseball slide, and Rojo's dropkick off the rampway is a truly awesome and incredibly stupid move. Basically just a giant running back bump onto the floor, totally nuts.

6. Diamante Azul vs. Volador Jr.

Super short, very Volador heavy. Azul hit his nice rampway senton. I somehow got bored even though it was 2 minutes.

7. Ultimo Guerrero vs. Volador Jr.

Of course this one gets the most time of the tournament, and since Volador is losing then we get to see tons of goofy ass Volador stuff. None of this was very good. It did have one completely awesome moment though, with UG catching Volador on a flip dive to the floor and power bombing him into the ring post. That looked amazing. But Volador was back in the ring flipping around like a dungus just a few moments later. Match also had a really weird moment where Volador went for a roll up after a superkick, and UG kicked out, and then both of them sat upright on the mat for almost 20 seconds afterwards, just sitting there right next to each other, both staring out at the same direction (but not at each other), not selling or hitting each other or doing anything. Just sitting there. This happened really early in the match too. It was really strange. We'll edit it in post, boys!


Headline:

Tournament Lucha: Still the Worst