MLJ: Recent Uploads: Shocker vs Héctor Garza

2007-12-28 @ Arena México
Shocker vs Héctor Garza

We're endlessly lucky. Certainly, we're lucky because we can watch live lucha on Monday (and sometimes Friday) or because almost everything ends up posted on Youtube, but also because there's just so much out there online in general. To me, though, we are especially lucky when channels dataintcash or decadas80s90s2000 post something from the archives. So we've been lucky this last week and I wanted to watch some of it.

First up, Shocker vs Hector Garza from 2007. I think I'm as high as anyone on Garza, especially rudo Garza from the back part of his career. He was this amazing mix of athleticism and charisma. He had so much of the latter that it he barely needed the former. That he had it too made him all the better. Shocker would become increasingly diminished as the decade went on, but he's always been able to go when motivated and this was the sort of setting which seemed to motivate him, a singles match against so logical a rival. I really haven't looked at any Perros del Mal stuff as of yet, and I mean to, but just not in any sort of comprehensive way yet.

One of my favorite things about Garza matches is how gif worthy they are. This is probably the earliest in a match I ever wanted to capture something, but it's transcendent.

There's more character in that ambush of Kemonito (and Shocker too, I suppose) than in a thousand other matches of lesser rudos. The primera was a blast in general. It started with that ambush but Shocker fought back and hit a giant, sudden tope. Garza was able to propel him off of a charge into the turnbuckle face first, though, and locked in a Tapitia in the middle of the ring. If you're going to have a three minute primera, that's the way to do it: rudo ambushes, tecnico comes back, rudo gets a cheap/finesse shot in and scores the fall.

And of course, it led right into the beatdown in the segunda, which started with a bang with this great baseball slide:

and continued with a ton of thoroughly enjoyable Kemonito abuse, including Garza putting the Perros shirt on him. Shocker's one of those guys who gets the importance of fighting back during a comeback to keep the crowd behind him, within the match itself, but in a general sense as well. He especially needed to stay in it here as the crowd was split with lots of Perros fans. It all made for a sort of gradual comeback with some fun moments and an ample amount of Kemonito revenge. Garza played chickenshit well, including hiding in the corner (leading to a ref break and another cheap shot), and this amazing brilliance of using a girl in the crowd as protection:

Eventually though, Shocker hit his complicated tie-up roll-up to even the falls and lead into a tercera reset. Very fun tercera, too, as they did a lot of stuff, with the fans hot but still split. Both Shocker and Garza had great dives and there were some solid near falls including teases of La Reinera by both wrestlers. The finish was something I'd never seen out of lucha before though. Shocker went off the top. Garza nailed him with a low blow on the way down, which was timed great. Shocker had a cup on though, and rolled him up out of nowhere. I'm actually amazed I've not seen that spot more. That seems like something that would get overused, not underused. I'm almost amazed by CMLL's restraint.

Very fun match. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Garza from this era.