MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 8: Felino vs Sombra 5: Místico & Volador Jr. vs Felino & La Sombra

2010-03-19 @ Arena México (Homenaje 2 Leyendas)
Místico vs Volador Jr. vs Felino vs La Sombra
Mistico vs La Sombra (mascara vs mascara)

3:35 in

This was a perfectly acceptable main event for one of CMLL's big shows of the year. It was however, somewhat disappointing as the match where Felino lost his mask. I had gone back to Cubsfan's news/comments from the time, and there was a sense that while Felino wasn't going to let this stop his career (and it's funny that Cubs posted he thought Felino could easily still be active five years later as he'd refound himself as part of Pesta Negra), he would have preferred a singles match. I would have too. Here's the quote from him about that:

"While in Guadalajara in Tuesdya, Felino did interviews about the mask match. Felino doesn’t feel like he’s close to retiring – if this was a four way with “Tony Salazar, Ringo Mendoza, and Pierroth”, he’d feel that way – and instead thinks it proves he can still go with the young guys. Felino knows he’s the underdog, but believe his experience outweighs any edge the others might have in youthful athleticism. Felino says that if he were to lose the mask, he would take it off with great pride and dignity and not try to hide, nor retire right after. Felino still would’ve rather had the one on one match."

Like I said, though, this was a perfectly fine main event. Adding Mistico to something like this only heats things up. The outcome wasn't really in question, save for some backstage stuff about Mistico's potential future. The front half here was good, worked more or less as a straight tercera of a tag match. Volador and Sombra made a solid high flying unit and Mistico and Felino worked well together as straightforward rudos. They did a little bit of heat, did a quick comeback, set up giant moonsaults off the same turnbuckle to the floor from Sombra and Volador, set back up Mistico vs Sombra some needless backflipping, some more than welcome mask ripping, some revenge mask ripping by Volador, and then a giant Mistico tornillo. All good action which, if you're not going to get heavy heat, is the way to go in something like this.

One thing that the CMLL style of lucha does not get enough credit for are the callbacks and build, not just in matches (and it's easy to do that in a three fall match) but from week to week. Dave Meltzer recently did a big play by play review in the Observer of Kamaitachi vs Dragon Lee and while he praised the action and gave it a high star rating, he overlooked so much of the psychology because it was built on their previous encounters. In that sense, I am glad I went back and watched the build to this. For one thing, it made the way Sombra at the fall so much more interesting. Felino had him primed for the elbow drop off the ropes, but Mistico picked him up for the michinoku driver to steal the fall. This paralleled Felino stealing the fall from Mistico in the previous trios. It drove a wedge between the two of them, who had been working so well before and led to Mistico kicking Felino in the head after taking a tag. That was supposed to set up Volador pinning him and the DUELO FINAL between Felino and Sombra, but they gave it one extra twist I didn't like. After the kick Felino set up for a Razor's Edge/Splash mountain and ate a 'rana reversal for the pin. I would have liked it a lot more if Volador just hit him with something after the kick. It would have punctuated it better than Felino still trying a move.

For the singles portion of the match, the callbacks really helped. They only had one fall to get things over so being able to call on previous matches was huge in getting over certain nearfalls. Case in point was Felino's catching of Sombra's flying rana attempt and turning it into a power bomb. That's how he won a fall on him in a previous match. If you knew that coming in, it became a much more potent near-fall. People who just hop from hyped great match to great match miss so much with lucha. Unfortunately, they went to that in the ring after they had already done something similar on the rampway. If they had switched the order of those spots it would have worked better, because it almost felt like it reversed the escalation. They also used the feet-up counter to the split-legged moonsault, which was a big transition in a previous match, so thus meant more here. Moreover, after the big splash mountain reversals, Felino actually hitting one was the best possible near-fall.

In the end, of course Felino was going to lose his mask, but the finish was appropriate to the match and very respectful of the family's move. He was great post match, really owning the moment of taking his mask off. And yes, he's still going now. This was a perfectly fine main event for a big show but by its nature, it couldn't have the sort of heat and hatred that you'd want out of match that cost a guy like Felino his mask. Sombra certainly had come a long way though.