MLJ: 2010: A Garza Odyssey 3: Blue Panther, Héctor Garza, Shocker b Averno, Mephisto, Terrible

Taped 2010-02-05 @ Arena México
Blue Panther, Héctor Garza, Shocker b Averno, Mephisto, Terrible

39s in

4:45 in

2:38 in

One reason I decided to go with Garza is that he just seemed to be in the middle of a lot of things in 2010, both as a tecnico and later as a rudo. There are a lot of matches before he turns, so I'm not sure if I'll skip ahead here and there or what. If 2010 is like 2006 at all, I'll have a better sense of the year as I go. For now, though, I get to look at matches like this, which, on paper, are a lot of fun.

The rudo team is pretty straightforward. You can probably watch a lot of Averno, Mephisto, Terrible matches from this period. I like Averno, though I like him more without the mask because that's how I first saw him and he had a great look without it, very good at emoting and being a straight up rudo, the heir to Satanico. He still has it here. I hadn't realized that Terrible had been kicking around CMLL since 2002. Wikipedia also tells me that his nickname is the Czar of Evil. That's almost enough to make me regret not moving forward right into the Rush vs Terrible mini project I wanted to do. Ah well.

The tecnico side is great. Blue Panther lost his mask around a year and a half before this. I was still sort of dreading seeing lazy tecnico Shocker as opposed to the fairly inspired version we've gotten in 2014 but he didn't quite seem there yet. He hadn't really put on the weight. Garza was a pretty good fit with these two, sort of a natural partner to Shocker with Panther there to provide the contrast.

This was a fairly standard A-B-A match, with the beatdown either cut or just non-existent. A match structured thusly will going to come off as more of a tenico showcase than something with more substance, but that can be enjoyable if done well. This had the talent to pull it off.

The primera had Blue Panther kicking out matwork to start, which is always a good thing. Averno kept up well enough. Garza was pretty entertaining working the crowd on the apron. Eventually, Panther tied him up like a pretzel and they shifted to Terrible vs Garza. This, of course, began with Garza taking off his shirt and getting nailed from behind and ended with Garza using a hairpull to get back at Terrible, knocking him out, and then deciding to hit a huge moonsault to the outside on him instead of wrestling Averno who had come in. The remaining tecnicos did a bit of fancy footwork around the rudos, redirecting them around the ring until they could lock them up into submissions for the caida.

The segunda was quick and ended abruptly with the match's transition. There were some solid moments like Terrible bumping out and over in the corner and Averno getting frustrated at Shocker and deciding to leave. Ultimately, the rudos rushed Shocker, ut he got the better of them until they were able to catch him in a double hiptoss into a Terrible power bomb and then a Styles Clash for the pin. After this was where I sort of suspect there was some clipping because the rudos only stayed on top for a minute or so, and they even showed us footage from the break where the rudos tossed Kemonito through the ropes to the tecnicos. Eventually, the tecnicos hit a bunch of roll ups to come back and then that rare occurrence, the triple tandem dives, with Garza hitting a plancha over the top and the other two nailing topes suicidas, followed by a triple roll up for two. A few more dives later (including a neat flipping tope through the ropes by Shocker), we ended up with Averno (the captain) vs Garza. Garza eventually knocked him down and did his twisting moonsault for a dubious three (Averno got his arm up to boos).

This was rapid fire for the most part and the sort of fun you get out of a tecnico-dominant match with solid character work from all parties. While it would have been nice to have more of a beatdown to add some emotional stake, if I'm going to end up with twenty more matches like this, I definitely won't complain too much.