MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 3: Virus vs Dragon Lee [lightning]

2014-09-02 @ Arena México
Virus vs Dragon Lee [lightning]

So far in my Dragon Lee watching, he's been a cog in a machine, generally playing the role of the quick tecnico to do the rope running and hit the dives and get a little sympathy. This match showed his development over the last many months previous, however. Being in there with Virus is a huge boon, of course, but he looked liked he belonged. That's not to say he looked like he was on the same level, because of course he wasn't, but not only didn't he embarrass himself on this stage, getting moved around by his opponent, but he also added flourishes of his own to the overall match.

This was about half matwork and then half picking up the pace for rope running, sequence and a finishing stretch. The matwork was about what you'd expect. Virus was just absolutely relentless, hanging on, turning Dragon Lee about, and shifting from one move to the next. Dragon Lee, to his credit, portrayed this real sense of persistance and energy. If one thing didn't work (and against Virus, it often didn't), he moved on any tried something else. It felt exploratory, as if he was experimenting, but in a very genuine way.

Things like this:

He also sold the effect of some of Virus' holds. Even in the moment, that means so much and not everyone does it.

Things transitioned smoothly into rope running and sequence. They tossed in a lot of reversals and missing and it all made sense. Dragon Lee kept firing shots off until he hit a kick. He got overconfident and ran into a clothesline. Virus got some heat but eventually let his guard down out of complacency and Dragon Lee was able to fight back. All good stuff. They were pretty back and forth at this point but they still endowed everything with meaning and made most of it look pretty good like this sliding kick by Dragon Lee:

and then Virus doing a great ambush chopblock and a revenge kick of his own; he is so good:

After that they move into the dive and the finishing stretch with big impact moves and strikes by Dragon Lee and some crazy submissions by Virus, leading to this perfectly timed, really clever, and totally natural feeling big moment:

and shortly thereafter the Virus win. I know it's not true with every luchador, but if you keep working matches like this with someone like Virus you're bound to get better quickly.