MLJ: Blue Panther Lightning Matches 2: Blue Panther vs Negro Casas

CMLL on Televisa: 2012-02-04
taped 2012-01-27 @ Arena Mexico
1) Blue Panther vs Negro Casas in a lightning match

So yeah, pull my leg and make me watch Negro Casas vs Blue Panther. This was on the road to their hair match a few weeks later. This is before Casas turned the corner in his matches vs Rush, so he was still a little more straight up rudo than he'd become. Likewise, the tecnico fans hadn't all abandoned so Panther, while probably not as over as Casas, was still getting at least his share of cheers.

Casas started this thing by choking Panther with his ring gear:

and blowing a kiss to the crowd:

What a guy.

This was as great as you'd expect and a nice precursor to the hair match. They went ten minutes for the draw, and it was heated and personal as these things could possibly go, with ebbs and flows, and the two of them meeting in the middle for chop fests and exchanges.

Look at the way that Panther used his teeth on the ankle lock! Very personal.

There were nice little elements of storytelling throughout, like Panther being shaken slightly by the fact that Casas was getting so many cheers. He'd hesitate after a clothesline out of the corner due to the reaction, so that Casas could fight back. Mainly though, it presented the two as equal, unable to keep each other in holds. Look at Casas use one finger to get out of a tapatia he sat out of.

Casas played up the rudoness, gleefully locking in Panther's Fujiwara armbar or yanking back with an over the top rope dangling straight armbar but Panther just kept coming, sometimes over-zealously, like when Casas redirected his dive so that he wiped out in a spot no guy Panther's age should be taking. I usually don't hold dropping the selling against guys in lucha but I do wish Panther would have sold what Casas did to his arm a bit more. They were slaves to the time limit though. They had to go back to a chopfest and then into the figure four (with chops) so that they could finish things up for the draw. Old men struggling against each other. This was about as good as you can get in a lightning match. Everything made sense (except for maybe the arm selling being dropped). They really went at each other, and there was a ton of character.