2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Corleone & Kraneo CKlash! Diamante Vanquishes Terrible!

9. Kraneo/Vangellys/Terrible vs. Marco Corleone/Diamante Azul/Caristico CMLL 1/12

ER: I love this kind of Godzilla vs. King Ghidora match in wrestling, and it's especially weird and cool in Mexico where you don't really have many "monsters". But they don't come much larger than Kraneo and Marco, and I always love when they cross paths. This seemed more violent than past confrontations, which always had more Kraneo stooging for Marco. This was much more them kicking each other's ass. Diamante Azul is a strong tecnico and probably underrated, and Vangellys is a great heavy who occasionally really steps up, Terrible is always a reliable asskicker, Caristico still has his value to a trios. That's a great lineup of guys for a quality trios. We get a couple nice fired up Diamante moments and Terrible beating him around ringside, Vangellys beats Caristico around ringside and hits a brutal atomic drop on the barricade, and when Kraneo starts mixing in this thing gets great. He punches Marco hard in the face, knees him in the gut, then really chokes him over the ropes while Mije kicks the shit out of Marco's face from the apron! Holy shit!! Terrible keeps smashing Azul into things at ringside, and Kraneo continues to mug Corleone, violently running in with a corner hip attack that whips Marco's neck.

The segunda has an awesome Diamante tecnico hero sequence, with Kraneo and Vangellys holding him while Terrible punches him in the face, and Diamante breaks free just to rip Terrible's shirt and throw it on the ground, only to get beaten back down by all three. Marco gets triple teamed next and his comeback is awesome, flying through the giant Kraneo and Vangellys with a shoulder separating shoulderblock, and Azul fires into the ring with an awesome superkick on Terrible, following it up with hard low dive. Tercera is filled with great moments, like Mije giving his best match performance of his life, with those earlier kicks on Marco, now grinding in his face and then slapping him in the tercera, allowing Kraneo to shoulderblock a distracted Marco (and then later Mije gets absolutely launched onto Kraneo by a Marco press slam). We do get great Kraneo stooging, taking a big bump to the apron that sees him slowly go high up and over, then he wobbly knee sells on the apron before getting upended by a Marco haymaker. Tercera is just packed with great tecnico/rudo showdowns, Azul getting great comeuppance against Terrible, plastering him with a flying elbow and putting him away by catching him midair and dumping him with a deadlift German. Vangellys does a lunatic spear to Marco on the entrance ramp, taking both out of the match. Kraneo catches a Caristico rana better than anybody you've seen take one, whipping over fast and sliding to the floor, then Caristico flattens him with a heavy crossbody to the floor. This trios was all so awesome, you could realistically build three quality singles feuds off this one match, that's how good everyone matches up. Here's to more of this kind of lucha in 2018!!

PAS: There were a lot of really fun performances in this, I especially loved Mije, his Kawada kicks were awesome, he really laid it in for such a tiny human, I also loved Marco hurling him in the air like pizza dough. Kraneo has a great hip attack, he is a super fat dude, with a but that is outsized even for his big body, so it really looks violent when he smashes Marco with it. Last minute was really awesome and what got this match on a list for me. I loved Marco's ramp running in ring plancha, and the Vangellys intercepting it with a spear felt like the kind of thing that would be on an NFL films highlight before the league got all squeamish about head trauma.  Also really love Azul's German, he isn't a great luchador, but that is one great German.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST