MLJ: 2010: A Garza Odyssey 1: Héctor Garza vs Último Guerrero

Taped 2010-01-15 @ Arena México
Héctor Garza vs Último Guerrero

Go to 2:23

2010. So, when fishing for ideas on what to look at next, I received a comment from Jay that 2010 was a good choice. He'd suggested a few things in specific (Felino/Sombra, Mistico/Volador, etc). In my infinite wisdom, I decided to see what was online and just pick a match to get the lay of the land. There's a lot of TV online but the matches aren't pulled out easily, so I picked something that was. And that led us here. It was a Revelos Increibles match from the middle of the year and in it was Hector Garza. He's not a guy I ever gave much thought to. Before I really got into lucha I'd get him confused for Jerry Estrada for some reason. I don't get it either. In this match, however, he had a really entertaining rudo act. So I figured what the hell. I needed some "in" to the year and frankly, he's as good as any. I'm going to trace him through, at the very least until I find something more interesting to latch on to.

Here, at the start of the year, he was a tecnico, and his 2010 started out with a feud with Ultimo Guerrero, so I'm at least well within my comfort zone. This is a singles match, and I assume was lead into by trios matches because it sets up a title match the next week. You know, I should take a moment and see what Cubsfan was saying at the time. Alright, so I guess the deal was that Garza had challenged UG a lot in 2009. He was fouled by UG in their last trios and UG told him that he had to beat him in a non-title match first. According to him, the initial advertising had been Strong Man vs UG so maybe it was a late change. 

Oh hey, he also linked to a comic from kcidis. Awesome. 

Anyway, my air-date on this is 3/20, and I'm going to go with that because it's all I have. I don't think it really matters. But someone can correct me on it if they want. Garza's gear is pretty weird (tight white shirt, red pants, gloves). We get that old Ultimo Guerrero special (not to be confused with the actual Guerrero Special), an ambush on the ramp leading into a fairly heated beatdown, starting with a ddt on the ramp, and including chops in a chair, a shot to the post, a really broad drop toe hold, and lots of taunting from Guerrero. Garza comes back with a big run up moonsault, a back somersault, and a quebadora into a fun roll up submission. So far, Garza has this weirdly broad graze. Big bounds and wide arcs. It's sort of surreal. 

The segunda was pure Ultimo Guerrero. When Garza was taking his shirt off between falls, UG just rolled him up for a completely dickish three count. I'm so used to watching these matches without commercials that it's strangely tedious to sit through both the commercials and the strange amount of time between falls. I would have liked a bit more visceral a comeback since the beatdown was pretty good, if relatively short, but that's not REALLY the purpose of this match, which was to set up the title bout, but we do get a post-commercial plancha, some mask ripping and a nasty kick to the back before UG takes over after booting one corner charge and dodging a second. After this, the story of the tercera is UG maintaining control with clotheslines, until Garza finally ducks one for another run up moonsault and the three. 

Garza had this lazy matter-of-fact charisma and was certainly more athletic than I had reason to expect, so hopefully following him a bit might work. The singles match was nothing new but I think it was fun and has given me some mild sense expectation for the title match and for this mini-project as a whole.