2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Killshot v. Matanza

44. Killshot v. Matanza Lucha Underground 3/26 (Aired 10/19)

ER: I think this has to be the best possible Killshot match we can hope for. He's stumbly and doesn't really get nuanced selling, but his comebacks were built nicely into the match, and Matanza crushed him when he needed to. Matanza started by just steamrolling him, as he should, and I loved Killshot escaping a possible suplex by grabbing onto Matanza's fingers and bending them back. That makes a helluva lot of sense. He gets too cute and tries headbutting the monster, and that awesomely leads to Cobb throwing his great thrust headbutt, and then his awesome deadlift ragdoll suplex. I wish Killshot didn't almost immediately come back after taking those two moves, but it least he came back by Matanza running headlong into Killshot's boots in the corner. It wasn't like Killshot just got up and went on offense. The top rope teases were all good, with Matanza catching him up top, and teasing a freaking tombstone off the middle rope, and I loved how Matanza got kicked into and trapped into the ropes, and that DDT he took was sick. The whole sequence looked really good. But Matanza is too much for Killshot, blasts him with an awesome running uppercut and splats him into the mat off his powerslam. Match went the perfect amount of time, and I really loved how it was structured.

PAS: Pretty surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did. This felt like the perfect amount of selling for Matanza to do, other points of his LU run he has either sold too little or too much, but this was the Goldilocks middle bear performance. I thought the squash parts of this match were pretty violent, and the nature of the match kept Killshot from doing too much dumb shit. His two moments of offense were pretty fun, loved the finger break counter of the suplex and the rope trap was a little convoluted, but ended great.  He got a moment or two, and then got smashed.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST