2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

66. Rey Hechicero v. Caifan 7/5



PAS: Hechicero is a master, we have gotten to see him work on the big stage in shorter matches, so it is a treat to see him in a garage work a longer crazier match. This was against his long time Monterey opponent and tag partner, and was kind of the equivalent of Dean Ambrose going back and working a crazy match with Sami Callihan in IWA-MS. The mat work here was awesome lots of cool twisty counters and takedowns that had real violence to them, every leg lock looked like it was going to rip out a knee, every takedown looked like it was going tear out a shoulder. The finish run was a little indy, but Hechicero smashing a plastic chair with a powerbomb, and the finishing armbar were pretty spectacular. Great match, so happy this showed up.

ER: This match had a pretty difficult task, which was filling 33 minutes of time with no real rest or breaks, and it did that admirably. 30+ minute, una caida lucha matches are pretty rare. Normally you get the breaks in between falls to kind of reset things, but these guys really just go go go for the duration. It's pretty impressive. At times it did give the match a kind of aimless feel, not quite filling time, but more that there was no real ebb and flow, not always rhyme or reason for the comebacks or dominance transitions. But this was quite a nice little feather for Hechicero. He plays into Caifan perfectly and finds plausible ways to deal with some of his stumbles. Caifan takes far to long to get Hechicero into a pendulum? Hechicero bides his time, waits for it to be locked on, and then immediately grapevines a leg, hooks Caifan's arm and reverses things. Caifan taking a bit too long to do a rope walk rana? Hechicero busies himself with his own hubris. Hechicero's subtle hubris led to some logical Caifan comebacks throughout this, with Hechicero easily having the upper hand, but waving Caifan to keep going, to come at him. I really loved all of the submissions throughout this, especially the first 8 minutes. Hechicero really gets to show off his full arsenal of subs and I get the feeling he could have kept going. Caifan eventually brings strikes, using some Moe Howard type stuff, like grabbing Hechicero's nose and smacking downward. The powerbomb tease was awesome as there was no way I thought Hechicero would take a powerbomb on the floor, and he made the struggle look sooo great, really clutching those ropes and hugging them tight. When Caifan finally broke him free and planted him through a chintzy plastic chair it felt like he had just plain worn him out. Good match that never lagged, impressive with what they had to fill. The referee had the worst pants.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST