MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 1: Black Diamond, Brillante, Principe de Oro vs Charles Lucero, Susto, Tigre Universitario

2006-04-02 @ Gimnasio Nuevo León
Black Demond, Brillante, Principe de Oro vs Charles Lucero, Susto, Tigre Universitario

I rarely do things that are actually topical, but I thought it'd be interesting to chart Sombra's career over a number of years to look at his development. It'll also point to a few matches for people unfamiliar with him that want to check him out now that he's headed to NXT.

A few points to start:
1.) My impression (and part of this is to see if it's true) is that he improved a lot over the years and he didn't really come into his own until he became part of Los Ingobernables over the last couple of years and with the rudo turn. These early matches, while interesting, probably aren't the best indication.
2.) I'm just going with things that look interesting to me. I'm planning on mainly looking at singles matches. Usually I like to see the trios' build as well, but we'd be doing this for three months if I did that. Sometimes it was hard to pick. He had a ton of matches with Dragon Rojo, jr. for instance.
3.) No Volador singles matches. If you are interested in Sombra and new to Sombra, you should check some of them out, though. It's a feud which really shows off what he can do from a physical standpoint if not a psychology one. I'm not going to cover them here, however.

So this isn't the first match we have online with him, but it's one of the first. He was working the Brilliante, Jr. gimmick after his father. He was sixteen here. I went with this one over the other one because this had Lucero as well, and I really do want to see as much of him as I can as he's a more than solid indy mainstay. Unfortunately, this wasn't really a good match to see him do much. The tecnicos were all precious metal themed. Black Diamond is not someone I've found a lot of information on, but he may have ended up in prison for 25 years after killing someone in 2010. I'm really going to get better at Spanish at some point, I promise. The three years of high school classes just aren't cutting it. I have no idea who Susto is, but wiki says his name translates to: "a cultural illness primarily among Latin American cultures described as a condition of being frightened and chronic somatic suffering stemming from emotional trauma or from witnessing traumatic experiences lived by others." so that's pretty cool for a gimmick, I guess.

This was second to last on a card that ended with Damien 666 and Garza vs Pierroth and Super Parka. Hechicero was in the second match up against Panthro, Jr. and "X-Man." It's a shame we don't seem to have that one too. It felt like an indy match. That's pretty much what I'll say about it. Immediate beatdown, eventual comeback, reset and tecnico shine and cutoffs heading to the finish. The central story thrust was Black Diamond vs Tigre Universitario but I don't see a singles match between the two that it led to. The beatdown was heated enough, with a lot of triple beatings on Diamond. I liked Susto's over the top style of selling. Here's a gif:

There was a heel ref, liberal amounts of weapon shots, and a pretty good finish, so far as bs finishes go, with a double ref bump, a weapon shot, and a roll up out of nowhere despite that. So far as indy-styled matches go, it was a controlled mess but contained enough, with heat and some good spots. I wish Lucero had gotten to do more (or was caught on camera more. He didn't get much focus).

So, what about Sombra? Well, Brilliante didn't get a ton of focus either, but he let himself get pinballed and kept out of the ring well enough during the beatdown. The focus was on Black Diamond but he certainly didn't get in the way. He had a good corner dropkick and a bad legdrop. He could already do the back handspring off the ropes and a backflip, but he was a half step slow in making some of his spots actually live and breathe in the match. His big moment to end the segunda was an internal springboard moonsault, and he very gingerly got up to the top rope for it (keep in mind the gif is sped up so it doesn't seem as bad. I should find a better way to make gifs at some point):

Later on he'd have a pretty clumsy 619 set up, but then followed it up with a nice enough (if still a big hesitant) headscissors on the outside. Definite potential as a spot-hitting, high-flying tecnico, even at 16:

Really, though, you could only tell so much here. I'll probably hit one more trios and then move on to singles matches, where we can get a better sense of things.