MLJ: Cavernario Spotlight 5: Black Metal, Pegasso, Tritón vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Espíritu Maligno, Skandalo

Aired 2013-07-17
taped 2013-06-24 @ Arena Puebla
Black Metal (Guadalajara), Pegasso, Tritón vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Espíritu Maligno, Skándalo

It's actually a lot of fun to watch some of these lower card, more provincial matches. This, for instance, was given a ton of time, and while it had some unpolished work, it was for the most part competent and I'm glad I saw it. In some ways the lack of the sort of polish you get with the upper card workers was what made it so interesting.

Triton almost felt like he was slumming here, but I could be wrong about that. I spent a chunk of a match being unable to figure out him out from Black Metal, and while that inspires a lovely sort of nostalgia in me of not being able to tell one luchador from another, it did get a little old by mid match. Skandalo is good at what he does, which is mainly kick people in the crotch and serve as a perfectly acceptable base for his opponents. There was one match in May of 2013, right before this one actually, where Skandalo and Kraneo were on different sides and it didn't make tape; that's got to be one of the great losses of our decade right there.

Structurally, this was A-B, B-A, C, which is to say that there was a pretty even shine with a slight tecnico advantage, followed by the rudos catching the tecnicos out of nowhere to end the primera, then a long beat down, followed by a quick comeback to end the segunda, and then a back and forth tercera leading into a finish. I'm not saying it's the best possible structure for a trios match, but it's definitely the most straightforward and by its nature, it's both fun and effective.

Here, given the time that the match got, everything was able to breathe. We had fully developed opening exchanges between Triton and Cavernario, Maligno and Black Metal, and Skanadlo, and Pegasso, the first two being mat based and pretty solid. I really like Cavernario's sliding leg pick. It broke down in the end, with the tecnicos gaining an advantage, but they ended up caught after an over-complicated alley oop into a powerbomb with Cavernario simultaneously hitting a great looking belly to back into a sort of pumphandle slam for three.

This, after a slight delay where it looked like the tecnicos were going to immediately fight back, led to an extended beat down, and to be honest, it might have gone on a little too long. The rudos worked well together and the tecnicos fed back into the ring one at a time, believably, to get beaten. Skandalo's offense where he had his partners hold his opponents in complex positions so he can dropkick them in ridiculous ways probably stood out the most.

Finally, the tecnicos came back by reversing a poetry in motion attempt in a triple corner charge. It was a nice spot, but loads of dropped selling. It didn't feel like an adrenaline burst or the rudos overextending and getting their comeuppance. It was just time to shift gears so Black Metal was magically recovered enough to hit the spot. A lot of matches manage that element of it better. The best part was Cavernario tripped into his Hamrick bump through the ropes but ending up stuck there so that he could eat a second rope legdrop while dangling. It looked far more organic than it should have been.

The tercera was back and forth with mostly solid exchanges. There was a Black Metal vs the World segment which could have worked better. Metal ended up flubbing a bit too much including a kip up. In the end the rudos took the advantage again but stumbled into a few miscommunication spots, allowing Black Metal and Triton to fly in with arm drags and follow them up with some great, giant dives. That cleared the ring for Pegasso to try to win it, but he was caught by Skandalo and his reverse pile driver to end the match. Not a great match but a fun one and a decent enough way to kill 25 minutes. Cavernario played his role well, as usual: solid in opening exchanges, in cut offs during beat downs, and in being clowned by the tecnicos when it's time to show ass.