MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 1: Cachorro, Hechicero, Virus vs Barbaro Cavernario, Dragon Lee, Negro Casas

2014-05-23 @ Arena México
Cachorro, Hechicero, Virus vs Cavernario, Dragon Lee, Negro Casas

I enjoyed looking at some Titan matches and I thought it made sense to fill in my knowledge gap on Dragon Lee, who is probably the wrestler with the most buzz out of CMLL this year so far. I've seen very little and certainly not enough to make an argument so I thought I'd do this the way I usually do: I'd pick a couple of matches to build to and then watch everything I could related to it, even if they weren't matches directly in a build. The two logical choices are Lee's recent victory over Virus for the CMLL World Lightweight Championship and his defeat to Negro Casas in the 2015 Leyenda de Plata. Looking at any time in the last year when he encountered one or the other leads to quite a few matches but maybe he's worth the attention. I could have gone with the Kamaitachi feud instead but that's a lot less interesting to me than him up against two maestros that I really enjoy.

This trios was one of the most talked about matches of 2014. It ranked #17 here on SC, and #16 on Voices of Wrestling. OJ was cooler on it but he was the only one. It was the highlight match of last year's Busca and in that regard is a fairly topical one to start with. I'm pretty sure that most people reading this have seen it so I'm not going to go too deep. I will say that it had a very clear structure, with the initial pairings in the primera leading to a picking up of the pace and a finish, some real (and surprising) heat in the segunda and a comeback to even the falls, and then both sides going all out in the tercera.

I'll talk about what I liked a lot first. This was the mentors + final four showcase trios. Cachorro was moved from Casas' side to Virus' side, as Casas had 3 to Virus' 1 at this point. This was striking since Virus' side was the one that was going to play rudo in the match. I don't think they wanted to move Cavernario over, even though that would have made more sense as Cavernario and Casas were (already I think? developing?) stablemates and it made some sense to move Cachorro given the Panther family's rivalry with Casas. That meant that, when things turned to heat and triple team beatdowns in the segunda, Cavernario ended up playing babyface. Cachorro ended up playing rudo. I thought both of them were fun in their roles, with Cachorro being initially hesitant but eventually dickish (with just one thing I really didn't like). Cavernario was a revelation, though. I've seen him in matches against other rudos, but not any where he really had to play the good guy. As good as he is as a rudo, he has the potential to be the best "hot tag" in wrestling with the way he throws himself into his offensive flurries. I especially loved him tossing Zacarias up and down after they won the segunda. That they worked a much more traditional match than they could have meant that it had heat and meaning and resonance so that when the bombs started coming in the tercera, there was some emotional weight behind it all. Wrestling doesn't need that to be great but it sure as hell helps.

I thought the primera's opening exchanges were smartly worked. They paired the quite green Dragon Lee (more on that later) with Virus and Cachorro with Casas. Hechicero was a ringer in this, of course, and he ended up with Cavernario. The maestros led their opponents through the wringer. Their opponents performed admirably considering. There were some good early dives and Hechicero took a Hamrick bump (more on that later too). The beatdown could have gone an extra minute or two in the segunda but ultimately it was fine and when the comeback came, it was good enough that you just didn't care. The tercera was just pure excitement with some crazy bumps and dives and sequence that happened so quickly and in such quick succession that it was a huge treat. It's very understandable why people went nuts over this match.

Now, on to what I didn't like. The biggest complaint I've seen (and it's never that big) was that Dragon Lee botched some things. I think his last exchange in the finish was not so great and his code red-reversed into a powerbomb that ended the primera wasn't either. That's fine though, perfectly fine. The guy was only training for what, a year at this point? He was so young and so green. I don't think he was some sort of "best in the world" candidate like some people were claiming after the Busca, but he made a few minor missteps in a hugely complicated match. Who cares? Even a match like this is about more than just execution, much of which was good throughout the match. More important to me by far was that he held his own with Virus in the primera, albeit at a slightly slower pace than someone else might have gone in his place. What impressed me, more than the matwork, was showing a ton of intensity in a stare off at the end of their exchange. You can't teach that.

There were a couple of bits of repetition I didn't like much. Cachorro did a very admirable job as a rudo. I really enjoy Blue Panther as a rude in his earlier work so I wouldn't mind if Cachorro/The Panther ended up veering that way at some point too. He was spirited in the beatdown and played along with his partners. That said, there were two moments in the tercera where he stopped everything and tried to get the crowd riled in that Rush vs Negro Casas way (first vs Dragon Lee and second vs Cavernario). I thought the first was good but the second was diminishing returns and overkill. It happened many minutes later and the first had ended with the crazy arm drag bump over the top. They weren't really going to top that so maybe he shouldn't have tried for the riling again. The match also had two Hamrick bumps through the ropes, which felt like one too many. I get that it was the tercera that everyone loved, but I could have really lived with a couple less minutes of that and a couple more in the beatdown in the segunda just to build up the tension for the comeback. I think that would would have worked better for me.

So this was really fun, had a lot of good stuff, and personally, I thought it was a huge accomplishment, given the age and inexperience of some of the guys in the ring. I'm not sure I'm as high on it as a lot of the people who watched it though and I feel much quicker to qualify it as "great for what it was."