MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 23: Blue Panther, Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Shinsuke Nakamura, Volador Jr.

2011-06-12 @ Arena México
Blue Panther, Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra vs Dragón Rojo Jr., Shinsuke Nakamura, Volador Jr.

I wanted a Nakamura match from this period and this was the one that looked the best on paper. People who have followed me on this know that I'm no big fan of Volador, but he's perfectly acceptable in trios as someone who can hit a lot of stuff. That's one of the great things about lucha. The nature of trios is one where people's flaws are very often hidden and their strengths are emphasized. You need to be great to be great in one, but if you're great at certain things, those can shine through. EVeryone else here is pretty great, though. I especially loved both that Panther was called El Jefe de Jefes on the way out and how Nakamura had a weird executioner's mask and interacted with the ring girls.

And this was another hugely fun match. Nakamura was able to interact with just about everyone. He had a lengthy mat sequence with Blue Panther to begin which was everything you'd want from the two of them together. He was great during the beatdown in the segunda, including fun strikes and plenty of choking. He had the chop off with Sombra. All good stuff.

Volador and Sombra matched together well too. Them doing two or three minutes of spots works so well in this environment and never quite becomes overkill like it might in a singles match. That's not to say everything hit, though. There was a moment in the tercera where Volador wanted a handshake and a hug, even appealing to the kids to get Sombra to go along with it, and it ended up lasting just a little too long, with him shushing everyone way too obviously before chopping. The idea was good, but the execution just wasn't there.

It was the only down part of pretty exciting tercera. The segunda had ended with a very earned comeback and Fantasma's arrow from the gates of hell (or whatever they call his tope in Lucha Underground) and things didn't really let up after that. There were lots of cutoffs and dives and resets and saves with Nakamura fitting right in (another reason why I grabbed a match towards the end of his tour instead of the beginning). The string of fun Sombra trios continues. Either I'm picking well or he just had a very good, even if slightly unmemorable 2011.

(And for some reason the only thing I decided to mark to gif was BP being especially hurty to Nakamura):