MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 10: Delta, Dragon Lee II, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Kamaitachi, Puma, Virus

2015-02-08 @ Arena México
Delta, Dragon Lee II, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Kamaitachi, Puma, Virus

I've tried to avoid the Kamaitachi feud because it's been covered well elsewhere, but this has Virus in it, so I'll do a brief shot here. I think by now it's obvious that spotty wrestling isn't my favorite wrestling, in and of itself, but when someone is good enough to make those spots matter and resonate, as opposed to just rushing to the next one to get the oohs and the ahhs out of the crowd, then I love it as much as anything in wrestling. It's marrying excitement and drama with logic and meaning and big monents that makes lucha amazing, and I think, even so early into his career, Dragon Lee is well along the path of getting that. Working so much with Virus probably helped, but for his experience level, he's come a long way.

Then you have a wrestler like Delta, who has 1-2 really fantastic dives, can garner some level of sympathy in getting beaten down, and can be led in early matwork or exchanges, but ultimately doesn't seem to be able to put it all together. He was fairly well exposed during this year's Busca and it was frustrating because his big spots are so good. Guerrero Maya, Jr., on the other hand, is someone who I think we only see part of what he can do in the CMLL setting. I was very impressed with his quasi-rudo work against his father earlier this year on the indies. I could see him as the person NJPW selects to go over there for a year as he's as capable to manage a Mil Mascaras impression as anyone on the roster under the age of 50.

This was another fun trios, feeling like one of the older style tecnico spotlights until about midway through the match and ending in a way that kept the momentum going for the Kamaitachi/Dragon Lee apuestas match which was about a month and a half away. Virus was paired with Delta, Puma with GM, Jr., and Kamaitachi with Dragon Lee. The primera had  relatively brief exchanges that escalated in speed. Delta did a good job hanging (or being strung along) with Virus. They rushed to the spots here, with Kamaitachi flying in.

and a really nice flip dive by Delta:

It ended with GM, Jr. cinching his head crusher on Puma and the double stomp on Kamaitachi. The crowd (which was surprisingly rowdy; I think there was a give away or something that night) booed the tecnicos going over.

The segunda was more of the same, a tecnico showcase, right up until the point that Dragon Lee showed some hubris. You can't keep the mandate of heaven if you're a tecnico who goes to mask ripping first in a match. The second he started on Kamaitachi's mask, the rudos ran in and made short work of things, including a nasty Virus vertebreaker.

The tercera continued the beatdown, including Virus being all sorts of great, doing some tandem spots with Puma as if he was Tiger and having a really fun moment of winding up with one hand and smacking GM, Jr. with the other. The late match comeback really felt like the tecnicos just being too much and the rudos not able to beat them up fast enough, which was effective.

I usually try to gif things other than the dives, but GM, jr.'s dive on Puma to set up the finish was just too good:

That helped clear the ring for Kamaitachi and Dragon Lee and the subsequent foul and mask pull right in front of the ref. Effective. Just another fun trios. It's great to be able to pick and choose and keep up with CMLL when they're putting out matches like this (nothing groundbreaking but so easy to watch) just about every week.