MLJ: Oro, Jr. vs Metalico [mascara contra mascara]

Aired: 2014-08-10
Taped: 2014-08-10 @ Arena México
Oro Jr. vs Metálico, mask vs mask


4) Oro Jr. vs Metálico, mask vs mask by thecubsfan

This is not a good match. It's the worst mask match I've ever seen on a stage like this. I might even call it the worst big match I've seen on a stage like this. I had been intrigued enough, mainly by Metalico's rudo work in the last trios, to take a look at it. I am a fool. I've been watching big matches out of Cavernario and Titan, both of whom weren't that older than Oro, Jr. and the difference is just striking. Frankly, the difference between the two of them and Metalico, who has years and years more experience than they do, is striking.

A few things to set this up. Oro, Jr. had his father Plata out with him. Metalico had a cool shiny Darth Vader like over-mask. The cat ears definitely look goofy on him as a rudo even if it was look that sort of worked as a tecnico. This was a Sunday show at Arena Mexico. Without doing more research it doesn't look particularly special. They just stuck a mask match on it, fourth match out of six. It's way down there on the poster (which Cubs posted).

That's about where this match deserved to be. Being at Arena Mexico, the crowd was more behind Metalico than Oro, Jr., who I don't think they buy into fully as a tecnico to root for, even if they were inclined to root for tecnicos in the first place. Metalico had more history with them, but he also had this sort of crazy charisma. He was a little too energized by being a rudo and would react to things very broadly. It was sort of endearing in its own way. AND they kept showing his loving mother in the crowd. The flip side was that he had maintained too much of his tecnico offense once things got going.

The primera was okay. It was really what it should have been. Unfortunately, what followed made that a negative, not a positive. Lucha, especially apuestas lucha, is about the build up and the pay off. The primera was the build and it was a build meant to put sympathy on Oro. Metalico ambushed him from the start. He tossed him around the ring and into the guard wall on the floor. He shot down Oro's paltry attempts to come back, stomped the hell out of him, and finished it off with a leg submission (with a nice belly shot to open Oro up so he could get it on).

So far, so good. Now the trick would have been to build to the come back, pay it off, and lead into a dynamic, action packed, fall-heavy, spot-heavy tercera. That didn't happen. The segunda started with more beatdown. Then, Metalico started pulling on Oro's mask, which I get was the signal to come back. Instead of anything actually violent or spirited, this mainly consisted on some rough (in a bad way) rolling suplexes and his really goofy fireman's carry slam finish. It's a really bad finisher and was the tiniest period to punctuate the tiniest sentence of a comeback. Oro just had no idea how to make the emotion work.

The tercera wasn't much better. Metalico did too much tecnico stuff with flipping and roll ups and waht not. He had some good stuff, like catching Metalico on a leapfrog with a samoan drop (very good transition back to offense for him), but they couldn't make it mean anything. They ever ran a second heat segment here, with Oro's dad trying to lead a chant to spur the eventual comeback and it was paced and paid off all wrong. Things that should have meant something felt hollow. When they eventually hit some dives, they barely even sold them. They just moved on to the next thing.

I'm not sure if the finish was clever or a screw up, which says a little about me, I'll admit, but more, I think about the match. Oro's big submission was a rolling arm bar, and he went for it multiple times with his ring positioning horrible the first few. Metalico ended up in the ropes, and maybe it was a brilliant and novel storytelling device: the young tecnico hitting his move, but the match being so close that he can only get it too close to the ropes until he finally hits it in the middle of the ring! Just given the way the rest of the match went, I can't really give them the benefit of the doubt.

Eventually, he did get him in the middle of the ring with it and Metalico was forced to tap. They kept showing his mother after he unmasked and he took it with enthusiasm and grace. He came off way more gallantly than Oro did. A high stakes match with two heat segments and two comebacks should just be more gripping than this. Not good.