CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 7/6/14

So this week we appear to catch back up to the previous schedule (not sure what the 6 month flashback was all about, but lucha gonna lucha). These matches were all from the 6/8/14 Arena Coliseo show.

1. Puma, Skandalo & Metalico vs. Triton, Oro Jr. & Sagrado

Boy, just about as forgettable a match as you can get. Most CMLL guys have enough talent where if they're given a decent amount of time they can through together something suitable. And even though this was straight falls, it was still given over 10 minutes. And there was practically nothing memorable about it at all. Skandalo did that thing where he targets a guy's taint the whole match, so poor Oro got kicked in the taint a couple times. Triton broke out wretched early 2000s Scoot Andrews offense. Sagrado has improved less than anybody else in CMLL in the last decade. Oro Jr. did the most hilariously bad missed dropkick you've ever seen. You know that overused missed lucha dropkick? The one that happens so much that you just accept it as part of lucha instead of recognizing how awful it looks? The one where a guy kind just jumps up and lands on his tummy, basically to get into position for somebody else to do offense? It always looks bad, some guys make it look less worse. But Oro Jr. took the bad missed lucha dropkick to levels of high art here. To get into position he just dropkicked gently into the center of the ring, with no other wrestlers within 7 feet of him. Anybody watching would have had no reason to believe he was attempting to hurt somebody. It's like he just took a really bad bump from a move that never happened. So…I guess something memorable did happen!

2. Lightning Match: Valiente vs. Vangellys

Too short to be much of anything, shorter than a lot of lightning matches. Valiente blasted Vangellys with a couple of consecutive dives, although that might have been because Vangellys stumbled a bit on the catch of the first one, so when Valiente hit him he looked like he sold it by kind of tripping over a lady's purse in the aisle. For all I know Valiente was like "dude we're doing that again and you're gonna bump down the aisle).

3. Blue Panther, Fuego & La Mascara vs. Virus, Niebla Roja & Comandante Pierroth

Boy that's a WAR-like random assemblage of 6 guys right there. And hey look at that, the match was really fun. Everybody got a chance to do their thing, so we got Panther doing some fun mat stuff with Pierroth, Fuego being a nice punching bag for Virus and Pierroth. Virus was easily the star of this as he always knew what tone to hit at the right time. He stooged for Panther (though really would have rather seen them tear it up), bullied Mascara and especially Fuego, even threw in some comedy when Mascara  took his shirt off and soaked in lady squeals, Virus teased his own shirt removal before shoulder tackling Mascara's knees. Plenty of neat Virus "little things" on display here. He really throws himself into everything, and it adds to the match that he also does that on planned misses. He cuts low on missed clotheslines and leveled teammate Roja with a nasty elbow on a miscommunication spot (you know, as if he was actually aiming for the guy he was supposed to hit and wasn't expecting him to move, sending him into his own guy). Fuego ended it on a real slick trapped leg Russian leg sweep rolled into a snug submission. Looked cool.

4. Negro Casas, Rey Escorpion & Felino vs. Rush, Maximo & Atlantis

Another short match, fitting 3 falls into about 9 minutes. I mean, there was a lot of action, but when the whistle blows and there's only 10 minutes left in the episode you kinda know you're not about to watch a classic. This is kind of an odd match as Casas works most of it rudo and Rush works most of it tecnico but it's pretty clearly opposite when they're opposing each other. So Rush was kind of tecnico for half the time, except when he was being kicked a bunch by Casas. Not enough Escorpion. Escorpion/Rush would have been an interesting pairing, I don't remember the last time I've seen them oppose each other. Also, I just don't want to see Felino on TV anymore. I'm getting sick of the ceiling being "well Felino wasn't entirely miserable to watch during this match". He ran the ropes nicely at one point here. His comedy (?) is very much not funny.