Lucha Underground Episode 17: A War Started in Mexico... Workrate Report

ER: Loved Dario in the opening with Patron, especially the faces he was making after Patron swept everything off his desk. I hope this guy gets more exposure for his work, excellent casting job.

1. Mil Muertes vs. Fenix

ER: So let me get this out of the way, but jeez I was so distracted by Fenix pulling up his tights the whole match. It has to be some weird nervous tick, because he would only do it after taking offense. He would never do it when he was in control, instead he would take a devastating bump and then immediately hike the back of his pants up while he was KO'd. It drove me bonkers by the end of this thing. Outside of the constant gear adjusting I liked the way Fenix bumped for Muertes (especially the way he kept banking his head off the apron when Muertes was slamming it), and Muertes had some pretty great moments too. I loved Fenix gearing up for some rope running offense and everybody else seeing a massive Muertes right hand coming a mile away. They try some things here and not all of it works, but mostly I thought they filled the time well.

ER: I'm not sure how to feel about this Konnan vignette. A) I thought it was awesome, looked amazing, totally badass. B) It's for Konnan, who can barely walk and is one bump away from having to Kickstarter a new kidney. Now one of my all time favorite wrestling matches is "old broken man vs. young punk", but in most of those matches the old broken guy was a guy who was an excellent wrestler in his prime., which would never apply to Konnan (unless you read the Hall of Fame bio he wrote for himself in the Observer). Still, the vignette was good enough to make me interested.

2. Big Ryck vs. Sexy Star

ER: This was about what was expected. Even then it looked silly that Ryck sold any of Star's offense even slightly. The fact that he bumped for a crossbody looked silly. The size difference was just too much, and Star's offense looked like it wouldn't move Ryck an inch. I did like how Ryck went through the motions of doing his finisher, but instead just held her shoulders down. Still not really sure how this helped either of them, but we'll see where things go with The Crew.

3. Alberto el Patron vs. Texano

ER: Well, this got a lot of time, but it felt pretty aimless and definitely didn't show the same kind of hate and wild passion that Alberto was showing in Dario's office. This was kind of worked like a TNA main event that got some time, with Alberto throwing out a bunch of finishers and Texano kicking out of them, with Alberto eventually drawing the DQ. I was amused that they started a "This is Lucha" chant when the guys were basically doing superplexes and arm bar teases. The crowd was pretty noticeably annoying during this episode, now that I think about it, with a bunch of dumb chants. Usually they've come off like everybody is really into the show, this was the first time I noticed that it felt blatantly "getting ourselves over!!!" There were chants for the referee, a "She's so Sexy" chant during the Star match, annoying little things like that. Both men looked fine enough in this, just felt like they didn't know how to fill time, and kind of worked the wrong match for their first big (rushed) fight. Some new stuff Alberto tried didn't really work. In WWE he was always good about hitting a smooth arm bar. Here he did this dorky thing where he called for it from the corner like Edge calling for the Spear, then sprinted across the ring to a downed Texano, came to a complete stop, and then tried to lock on the armbar. He did hit a nice dive, and the bull rope whipping looked good, but this was kind of a flop for me.


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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno A-3: 2000 CMLL Tag Team Title Tournament

Alright, onto the comp itself (so this is the third entry in this series, but it's an A category). Again, apologies for not having matches to show people here, but Fredo was kind enough to transfer this over from VHS for me so it's out there. We're starting with the tag team tournament for the CMLL titles. These were vacated around this time due to El Hijo Del Santo going independent instead of working for CMLL full time. He had been teaming with Negro Casas.

It took me a little bit to figure out what happened here, as I have this listed as one half of the tournament bracket, with Emilio Charles, Jr. and Mr. Niebla winning the other side. On the comp itself though, this is listed as the 1st round, semi finals, and finals. Apparently what happened was that Charles was injured, so GdI having won their side of the bracket got the belts by forfeit, and then had their first defense against Niebla and a substitute partner (Villano IV) at the Entre Torre Infernal PPV where the finals were supposed to take place.

So this side of the bracket had Felino and Tarzan Boy, Blue Panther and Bestia Salvaje(who with Scorpio, Jr. had been the team trading the belts with Santo and Casas), Porky and Olimpico, Lizmarks Sr. and Jr., Cien Caras and Universo 2000, Gran Markus, Jr. and Pimpinela Escarlata, and GdI. In case anyone's curious, the other side had Niebla and Charles, Jr., Fuerza and Black Warrior, Scorpio, Jr. and Zumbido, Tony Rivera and Antifaz del Norte, Wagner, Jr. and Shocker, Rayo and Atlantis, Tinieblas, Jr. and Rivera, and Satanico and Apolo Dantes.

This was absolutely CMLL tournament lucha, but that's okay, because tournament lucha can be fun if you come in with the right expectations and are looking for specific things. Here, I wanted to see just what GdI brought to the table in 2000, both giving and taking. I've seen them in trios with Satanico to lead them, but here they were out there on their own on what would probably have been one of the biggest nights of their careers up until this point.

And I have to admit, it was all a lot of fun. Before the first match, they showed us this awesome training video with the two of them running tumbling drills and hyping each other up. That's going to be a theme in this. They are a team, a unit, in the sort of way that I've rarely seen with a tag team in my CMLL watching. Titles are defended so rarely and straight up tag matches, as opposed to trios that are almost always there to push a singles program, are pretty rare too. GdI were a team and I think that's part of why they stood out so much.

2000-06-30 @ Arena México
Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Felino & Tarzan Boy [CMLL TAG, 1st]

I want to stage the complaint of having Tarzan Boy's theme in my head once again. Just to give some perspective here, UG was 28, Rey was 26, Tarzan Boy was 27, and Felino was 36. According to cubs' Match Finder, Rey and UG only had one straight up tag match together in their career up til this point. GdI took over immediately, using either tandem offense or paralleled offense (as in Rey would hit a flapjack and then UG would hit a flapjack). After some mauling, both Tarzan Boy and Felino got to do "vs. the world" exchanges where they out-quicked both opponents. UG was more agile at this point and ate this stuff especially well.

Eventually though, Felino ran into a double flapjack/facebuster thing and then a cool double lift up into a double sit down choke slam. They were very smooth with this tandem offense and it really stood out. Then they flipped back with the arms into a cool double submission:

Tarzan Boy met much the same fate with another double flapjack, then a double wheelbarrow suplex and a really nasty arm pull/foot choke double submission. Striking stuff.

Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Villano IV & Villano V [CMLL TAG, quarterfinal]

The Villanos had pretty awesome music. They were tecnicos here and took a good chunk of the short match due to well-timed rudo miscommunication. The best spot here was Rey accidentally clotheslining UG over the top to set up stereo topes and a nice little exchange where UG got shrugged off while trying to bulldog a Villano into Rey's foot (as he was on the apron), followed by him shrugging off the Villano, only to see him float back over and hit a powerslam for two.

Eventually though, GdI took back over with whip reversals and tandem dropkicks. They hit another double facebuster, yet another (and different) double submission and then a double corner clothesline which I don't think I've ever seen before but it looked great. Then they finished it all up with this cool double leg lock roll into a double crab. I didn't grab screen caps of all these but you have to take my word on it that they were novel and cool, but at the same time fit well into the albeitly short matches.

Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Hijo del Lizmark & Lizmark Sr. [CMLL TAG, semifinal (de facto finals)]

Like I said, Charles' team had already won their bracket (I think the week before on June 23). The match finder has him wrestling up until July 28, and then not again until August 18, with the supercard being on August 4, so unless it was an angle, they didn't book this match with the injury in mind.

I say that because, for a de facto tournament final, this was very, very decisive. GdI swarmed. UG hit a corner clothesline. Rey leapt off his back with a poetry in motion body attack. UG slapped a leglock on Lizmark and leaned down a bit. Rey leapt off his back again (while he kept on the leglock) and hit a dropkick on Lizmark, Jr. in a really spectacular and novel spot. Rey locked in a reverse figure four and UG grabbed a double-underhook to really grind in the leglock. He rolled back. Rey turned over and just like that, within a minute, they won. It was a massive exclamation point to the night.

So, to sum up, this was tournament lucha so nothing went long or had much substance but GdI got to show off their teamwork in their first match, how well they could feed tecnicos in their second match (as well as some cool offense), and then totally dominated in the third, and I think the crowd absolutely noticed their presence. All of this was a lot of fun for what it was.

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