2014 Ongoing Match of Year List

48. Negro Navarro v. Virus 11/5

PAS: Man alive is Negro Navarro a beast in this match. Virus is an amazing wrestler and is amazing in this but Navarro is so great he kind of makes Virus look like a Navarro opponent. These aren't guys with a big history together so unlike Solar and Navarro their sequences look pretty fresh. There was a catch and release section, which isn't my favorite thing in Maestro matches, but they violence of the holds they released made it feel more like a threat, then a show of sportsman like grappling. Like both guys were showing each other that they could break them just like that.  There was this totally awesome moment where Navarro used an ankle pick to break a vertical press pin which I had never seen before. Pretty shocked at the clean finish too, figured we would get a double pin, or maybe a roll up, but instead Navarro puts on this nasty hammerlock and taps Virus clean. I wonder how many of these under the radar dream match ups are happening every weekend. God bless camera phones.

ER: Man, this is the closest we'll ever get to some sort of dream Virus/Finlay match, and it was cool to see Virus work this kind of catch matwork as he doesn't really get the opportunity to work guys like Navarro in CMLL. Of course I enjoy his stuff with various floppers, but seeing him hang with a cool old guy is just too cool. I'm a big fan of matches where the combined age of the two workers is over 100. That does happen more often in lucha, but I dig old guys fighting it out. There's more respect, more wear, a little more gamesmanship because each man's tactics and strategies are more well known. Virus broke out some cool tricks I haven't seen him use before, cool drop toe holds, nice little touches like locking on a modified figure 4 and using his free foot to apply extra pressure. This match and the Hechicero match make quite a nice companion piece for Navarro's work. They are both Navarro matches with similar things done slightly different, showing Navarro as a man who yes often works a very similar singles match but also a man so good at his craft that he can do a similar spot with just a little adjustment here or grabbing an arm at a different angle there. It's like when you see raw audition footage of an actor working a scene in a few different ways, or listening to Pavement outtakes where Malkmus reworks lyrics on the fly. It's a treat watching him do his thing.


2014 MASTER LIST