MLJ: Cavernario vs Titan 1: Blue Panther, Cachorro, Titán vs Cavernario, Felino, Mr. Niebla

Aired 2014-07-12
Taped 2014-07-08 @ Arena México
Blue Panther, Cachorro, Titán vs Cavernario, Felino, Mr. Niebla

I'm dropping everything I've been doing for this. Thus was the power of the recent Barbaro Cavernario vs Titan title match. People really talked it up and while I haven't had a chance to see it yet, I figured it was about time I did a focus on something very up to date.

I'll be honest that Titan is a tecnico that I've seen a bit of, but just a bit, and in what I've seen, I didn't really have the strong need to look for more. I know I'm less high on people like Valiente than most (and certainly Volador, Jr., but I think none of us are super high on him).

I'm sure he hits his moves well, that he's smooth, that he's dynamic. What I don't know is whether he hits the marks I really care about too though, his character work and making those moves matter, and storytelling. I haven't seen enough though, so I don't know, but hey, he's touted highly by a lot of people and I'm looking forward to figuring it out.

I wanted to start after the Busca last year because that's been covered heavily and some of these mid-card trios haven't as much. I'll probably be avoiding tournaments because no one wants to watch tournament lucha. So the plan is to watch everything that they've done  together in the last year or so ending with their recent title match.

First on the docket is Blue Panther, Cachorro, and Titan vs La Pesta Negra. I'd rather we have Casas in this instead of Felino or Niebla, but neither were too offensive here. Felino had his working boots on and Niebla's stooging was a little more tightly focused than usual due to Panther reining him in.

A lot of these matches are going to be fun, mid-card lucha trios and that was the case here. The primera was enjoyable enough. Felino and Cachorro did well together, with a few leglocks and clean breaks. BP and Cavernario did as well (And I liked that they put the young guys in with the vets instead of just matching them up), with their share of limb grabbing and positioning. The second Blue Panther got the advantage the rudos swarmed (Starting with a nice Niebla punch). Titan didn't get a spotlight here save for his bump into the railing on the outside as Cavernario hit his mid ring Vader Bomb to pin BP. This was a pretty standard start, some game, competitive matwork and rudos being rudos.

Between falls the rudos goofed about, with Felino kissing a woman and Cavernario doing goofy kissy faces. Goofy but kind of awesome too:

The lucha equivalent of southern tag ref distraction is absolutely "goading the tecnico in and having your partner ambush him from behind." And Pesta Negra does it really well in the segunda. At one point Felino drew Titan in only to roll away so his partners could get him. At another, Panther came in only to immediately get double teamed by Niebla and Cavernario; then they danced:

Niebla is a bad example for Cavernario. Case in point: the tecnicos come back because Niebla's so busy slapping everyone that he accidentally hit his partner. To make it up, he kissed Cavernario. This distracted everyone in a two mile radius and let the comeback begin. Titan didn't get to do much here, just a plancha into the ring, but he did finish it with a great headstand into a roll up.

And I think that's evidence towards quality. The body language of Cavernario made that work but he couldn't accomplish it without something worthwhile to react to. I think it does show why the two of them are potentially so great a pairing.

They reset for the tercera and there were a number of pairings. Cachorro and Cavernario worked well together with a lot of elaborate but organic stuff. Titan vs Felino was interesting since Felino, more or less went into business himself, trying to get the crowd to boo Titan. The payoff here (and I'm not convinced this payoff would exist without Panther in the ring to control things) was BP working with Titan and getting the crowd to boo Felino big. I'm sure they've done that spot a lot of times, but I think without Panther as the equalizer, Titan's crowd-favor would have been eaten alive by Felino. Panther in general showed me a bunch of character, containing Felino and then clowning for Niebla's strikes:

Especially masterful is how BP manages to sell his belly after getting punched in the face a bunch in order to do a Shocker-Style pulling of his tights. A real maestro, folks. As you can imagine the spit spot followed and then BP clocked Niebla, because that's what he does. It's amazing how much the crowd loves that stupid spot.

Titan vs Cavernario followed and I thought Titan worked the crowd well in a chop exchange. This was followed by an awesome ducked clothesline/hangman's clothesline, crazy stomping and even crazier Cavernario-ing. Great stuff:

Cavernario ended up the top rope but was bicycle kicked off by Titan who then had to contend with Niebla (he did this by matrix-ing under a clothesline so Niebla could go sailing through the ropes). It was a fun little Titan vs the World Segment tht ended with him backflipping over the top rope for fun (which was impressive bug cognitively goofy).

The finish was fun. I always like when it looks like it's going one way and veers another. Here, the tecnicos had set up an estrella, with Titan about to victory roll Niebla in the middle, but Niebla dropped him right on his partner in sort of an unintentional assisted splash. The falls came quick after that, first with a rudo double press slam and Felino elbow drop, then with a Cachorro Fujiwara arm bar out of nowhere, and then, finally due to the numbers game, the press-up into a Cavernario missile dropkick, which is probably the most underrated finisher of 2014.

This was definitely good for what it was, which was a sort of disposable Pesta Negra match. I was impressed by how well Titan and Cavernario worked together, with Titan's impressive agility bouncing well off of Cavernario's outlandish ferocity. Both of them showed a good deal of charisma too.