2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Family Feud in Naucalpan

38. LA Park/El Hijo de LA Park vs. Dragon Lee/Rush IWRG 6/17

PAS: Watching Park and Rush work their feud in Arena Mexico is sort of like when a great mixtape rapper releases his studio album, it is going to have the same feel, but it is going to be a bit more produced, a bit less grimey, maybe they will get Chris Brown to sing an R+B hook. Rush and Park working that feud in IWRG was the real street shit, you could hear the DJ Drama tags being yelled out. It starts out with some wild Arena Naculpan brawling, folks getting hurled recklessly into chairs, random pieces of wood being slammed into people's heads, at one point Rush fills a bucket full of beers and hurls it at PARK's skull, later Park uses one of broken bottles to gouge up Rush's forehead. We get some great double team taunting by Rush and Dragon Lee, including some fake soccer and lounging poses. Match drops off a bit in the third fall when Dragon Lee and Hijo do some PWG juniors wrestling, but we do get a huge PARK spear before the inevitable ref nonsense. I doubt CMLL ever lets it get this filthy, so I am glad they took their act into the gutter.

ER: I was going for something similar to Phil, but I like his better. There's a taco truck a few blocks away from our house that is always packed with Mexican families, going there on a Friday night is insane, and there's like one picnic table and questionable cleanliness, but they are legit. Up the street from that (among the 7 other Mexican restaurants on the block) is a "cantina" that is also busy, has good Yelp reviews and will no doubt make you a nice meal at 3x the price. This is street tacos and it is delicious. Get this, Park and Rush brawl around the ring and it's predictably good, and I was flipping out when Park emerges from the crowd with a flat of water bottles, and then a heavy as hell looking metal bucket filled with ice, both aimed at Rush's head. That thing looked SO heavy, totally something I would walk into an arena - knowing I was seeing Park throw down with Rush - and go "Oh my god you guys I hope one of them hits the other with that heavy bucket!!" These two are electric and you know Park is going to bleed and take falls that look impossibly painful because you know he's carrying a lot of extra weight so his knees are killing him and he probably has sore feet. Plus the dude makes towns for life so he probably has a semi-permanent case of driving butt. This up close handheld footage is really good because while thigh slaps are used liberally, you do really get a sense of how hard and fast these two are crashing into each other. The parts with Lee and Hijo were not my favorite, but I do really like Lee working rudo. It makes his flippy stuff come off more cocky, and that makes embellished flipping infinitely more interesting. The close up handheld gave the offense a fun surprise feel, seeing Dragon Lee fly into the frame with a rana or Rush came crashing into frame with a dropkick. It made the match feel more out of control than it might have been, and you get real close-up looks at the agitated Dianabol topography of Rush's back. We get what feels like a lot of mirror exchanges, but they're not bad, and Park is better at it than I assumed. It gets a little taxing once we go through the dueling reverse ranas that are both deadly and yet also cause a man who takes one to spring to his feet to also deliver one. But rudo Lee is great with his bro and Park is a great fat guy to storm triumphantly back into a match. His spears are the best in history, and it would take a lot to make this match-up not work.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST