Segunda Caida: MLJ: Hechicero Spotlight 7: Blue Panther, Diluvio Negro II, Último Guerrero vs Caifan, LA Park, Rey Hechicero

Taped 2013-05-05 @ Arena Coliseo Monterrey
Blue Panther, Diluvio Negro II, Último Guerrero vs Caifan, LA Park, Rey Hechicero

I've seen a decent amount of Hechicero now. This is the seventh match in this mini project, and the only verdict I can safely come up with from what I've seen is that he just didn't have the total package even as late as mid 2013. I don't know what it was, whether he just flourished as being the foundation for all of the younger wrestlers around him in the Busca or if working a slightly higher level of workers in front of bigger crowds week in and week out made a difference or even if being in CMLL proper means you have more "agents" editing your match or what. I don't know enough about how lucha works in that regard, but I do know he needed that editing and it seems like he's gotten it.

There are glorious messes and then there was this match: it wasn't even glorious. If I was CMLL and had watched this, I'd slap a mask on Caifan and pass him off as a rookie instead. I am partial to Ultimo Guerrero but he's a ham when he gets the chance to be. Sometimes that makes for an entertaining match. Here it was just a mess. Parka's even more of one and less likely to have a great match because of it. Panther is one of the greatest stabilizing forces in the known world and he was lost to the tide of this disaster. It was nice to see him work rudo again and to see him work rudo alongside of UG (and against Parka and Hechicero) but there was just nothing there.

This started with Parka Jr. getting a beating from Ultimo Guerrero and ended with ref chicanery, Parka, Jr. returning to foul UG and a bunch of challenges. In the middle was some weapons shots from the ringside furniture and Parka's belt, about seventy two flubbed spots (plenty by both Panther and Hechicero which was just disheartening) and more heel ref bs than you could imagine (unless you've watched a bunch of Park matches. Then you probably could imagine plenty.) The height of payoff in this match was the ref getting nailed. I'm not even taking a gif though Park raising up one weapon and then the other so the crowd could decide was pretty funny.

It doesn't mean there weren't high points. The match was a mess but it was a fun mess at times. Hechicero did the coolest tecnico thing I've ever seen him do, catching the ropes on a Hamrick bump and skinning the cat over to hit a headscissors takedown.

Or there was the Parka/UG bullfighter spots. You know, fun stuff, if not groundbreaking.

And this sequence which sums up everything about the match. A nasty shot, the ref going crazy, Parka doing something insane off the ropes and then making poor decisions with whatever was supposed to come next. So many poor decisions.