MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 18: Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra, Máscara Dorada vs Averno, Mephisto, Negro Casas

2011-01-28 @ Arena México
Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra, Máscara Dorada vs Averno, Mephisto, Negro Casas

0:40 in

I'm kicking myself a little for skipping over the La Aguila singles match from a little before the Dragon Rojo one, as Cubsfan says it's good, and he'd know. He also said it, with the Rojo match, was a sign that Sombra was finally putting it all together, which has been my sense too, going through this. Again, the problem is that there don't seem to be a ton of great looking stuff in 2011, so I'm going to have to pick a bit wildly.

This is a trios match with a few guys I like. For anyone here just for Sombra, Fantasma is the current King Cuerno in Lucha Underground. He's great as a rudo. He was really good as a tecnico here too. I was high on Averno when I started watching CMLL in 2014 because he was a rudo being a rudo which felt a little rare in the midst of the Negro Casas vs Rush/Shocker feud. The big disappointment in these matches is that the Mascara Dorada of 2011 was not the Mascara Dorada of 2016.

It's a fun match but nothing standout. It's got an initial ambush/beatdown by the rudos and I haven't seen one in a little bit so I enjoyed that. The best part of the first two falls were easily the mascots.

Kemonito looking bemused as his guys are getting beaten on:

Zacarias (Maybe before he was even called that) doing some nasty legwork on Dorada:

And this amazing Zacarias splash and antics in the segunda:

It was your standard beatdown with mask ripping, triple kicks, isolating of the tecnicos valiantly fighting back and all that. The biggest spot was Fantasma eating a double armdrag over the top.

which was especially cool because it actually set up the comeback in a way you almost never see. Tecnicos come back hundreds and hundreds of times with this bounce back of the ropes into a full nelson leading to rudo miscommunication, but here it actually made sense as it was Averno and Mephisto trying the double arm drag over the top once again. Stuff like that makes me way too happy. There's nothing sadder than someone whose day can be made by seeing Flair hit a validating top rope move or Tully hitting a double axe handle  from the second rope on a prone opponent without eating a foot in the face,

Of course, the CMLL Cameras missed the comeback almost entirely since they though it was a good time to go to the crowd. So it goes. Oh, speaking of that, I think, despite saying in the introduction and the graphic confirming it, that Negro Casas was the rudo captain, it was actually Averno. The sequence of falls seemed to indicate that. Not a big deal but it had me confused for a second.

If the mascot antics were the reason to watch the primera and segunda (though, to warn you, Zacarias never gets his comeuppance! The injustice), the tercera was carried by a lot of really good action. All of the tecnicos got to hit their spots. The dives were good even if some of the in ring tandem tecnico offense was a little off. Negro Casas got to be Negro Casas against multiple opponents, including this sequence:

and a great tease of an escape from Fantasma's German before he finally gets flattened. Sombra even hit his insane back flip dive, this time without three people standing around forever to catch him. It ended with a mask rip DQ and more rudo beatdown, which was still not as infuriating as Kemonito never getting his hands on Zacarias. Fun, if disposable, trios match,