2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Cavernario vs. Soberano

22. Cavernario vs. Soberano Jr. CMLL 3/27

ER: This was a great big-time modern lucha singles match, with a super strong sadistic rudo and a tecnico who gets more sympathetic the longer the beating goes. Cavernario's beating goes from before the bell on into the tercera. I'm not a major Soberano fan but at a certain point in this match I just wanted him to fight back and beat Cavernario's ass. Cavernario jumps him, swings him violently a bunch into the barricade, hits his big full force Vader bomb, punches him in the neck, and then at the segunda he starts slowly dismantling him piece by piece and soaks in the boos between each moment. He roughs Soberano up, rips up his tights, kicks at him, undoes his mask, and then finally just yanks it right off. Cavernario is a snarling mad man with spit hanging off his face, no bumps turned into The Worm here, this is a savage caveman. Soberano finally makes his big comeback in the tercera, weakened but determined, and did a series of big spots while Cavernario was excellent at making them feel like big spots. Soberano is in the zone and hits a big plancha to the floor, his big dive off the entrance (with a great theatrical stumbling stair climb to get there), really snaps off a pretty flying rana off the top, even gets fired up enough to do a big flipping dropkick on the hard floor (which Cavenario pays respect to by taking a massive flip bump on his shoulder). The "moonsault into boots" spot has been pretty overdone in CMLL ever since Mistico started using it near 15 years ago, but here they work it in wonderfully, with Cavernario catching face on boots when attempting another Vader bomb. Working something into an established spot seems like an obvious smart turn, but it doesn't always happen. We get a great false finish with Cavernario locking in an especially painful looking Cavernaria, but it's close to the ropes, and as Soberano desperately flings his arm out to grab the bottom rope you get the sense that he wouldn't have been able to survive in this hold for any length of time. But Serano hits the big flipping piledriver (because those are totally fine now) and the fans absolutely ERUPT when Soberano gets the win. It really felt like a star making turn, fans were clearly ready to get behind this guy, and it's pretty awesome that this felt like two under 25s being treated as stars.

PAS: This was really great, maybe the best Cavernario performance ever, I love the lucha match set up of one guy being totally dominant, and Cavernario was vicious here. He demolishes Sobrano in the first fall, crotching him on the barricade, and using him as a club to try to knock down the barricade (totally appropriate for a Caveman, it is something I could imagine Bam Bam doing to Barney Rubble). He gets a countout win in the primera, and then tosses away the Segunda by ripping up Sobrano's mask and pants and getting DQed. Sobrano hits all of his big highspots perfectly in the third fall for the comeback and I totally loved the near fall on the Cavernaria. It felt like Cavernario felt the match slipping away and was going to rip Sobrano's head off to avoid losing. I did feel like Cavernario kind of shoehorned in his worm comedy spot in the third fall when he didn't need it, but otherwise this match was complaint free.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST