Lucha Worth Watching: Niebla's Return! Mephisto's Title Loss!

Mr. Niebla/Mephisto/Rey Bucanero vs. Diamante Azul/Dragon Lee/Mistico CMLL 3/12/19

ER: This was Niebla's return to Arena Mexico after 6 months of suspension, and he kind of owned it. Niebla owned this with the confidence of a white dude waltzing back into his old government job after accepting a voluntary demotion. Niebla was walking around ringside slapping fives with regulars like someone greeting people at the You Served Your Time cookout thrown in his favor. This is a total throwaway straight falls Arena Mexico main event, but I love that straight falls because Niebla lost the first fall for his team because he was kicking too many asses. Always feel bad for the tecnico getting his hand raised because his ass got kicked too hard. This whole thing just livens up the second Niebla high-stepped it across the ring to palm slap Mistico across the dome. I was dying. It looked like a hilarious move Sandman would use to kick someone off the Apollo stage. Niebla just slapped his way through this whole match, in the ring and out, and it was great. He mugged with fans, slapped face, and looked like a megastar. Azul hits a great dive, Bucanero throws some nasty chops at Mistico's throat, Mephisto plants Dragon Lee with a powerbomb, the whole thing was short mean and triumphant.

Mephisto vs. Dragon Lee CMLL 3/19/19

ER: A match that lost me at points during the long tercera, but that overall felt like a big enough match for a title to change hands. I know lucha titles don't mean a whole lot to American fans, Mexican fans, or the promotion themselves seemingly, but it feels like Mephisto has had this thing for ages and that should mean SOMETHING. They went big enough with this that it felt like a big stip match, so I think it earned it's third fall bloat. Also, I just really liked Mephisto in this, especially his work in the primera/segunda, but he had plenty of nice rudo moments in the tercera. It really felt like a guy sadistically beating down Lee, smacking down this punk coming for his belt, and that's a great pro wrestling feeling. The primera is short but mostly matwork, and it's cool to see Mephisto work some maestro exchanges that we don't often get to see from him, some cool tricks like standing on Lee's foot while shoving him over. He controls all the matwork, and when Lee breaks free into some rope running he immediately tricks Lee into a pin. And then Mephisto only gets MORE dominant in the segunda, when he starts stalking and dishing stiff kicks. He does a flapjack and hits a mean kick on the way down (possibly because Lee didn't get as much height as expected), and then does a second flapjack, Lee gets tons of height, and then gets kicked just as hard on his way down, again. I liked Lee's selling during these nasty kicks a lot, as he showed great pain through the mask, and was also working to loosen the area of his mask around the nose, freeing up the pressure and selling it like Mephisto had broken his nose [note: if I find out later that Lee just got his nose broken, forget all the stuff I said about good selling]. Mephisto goes on to throw a few more kicks, slowly, confidently, letting Lee crawl around on the mat while he would come in with a hard kick to the face or chest, letting the crowd really build a Lee comeback. The comeback stuff wasn't as exciting to me, as we knew we'd eventually get a long series of nearfalls, but some of them I really liked and the match threatened to lose me at a couple points but never did. There was always something to bring me back into it, like Mephisto casually waiting on the apron to catch Lee's high jump rana and just planting him with a nasty powerbomb on that apron, or Lee crashing fast into Mephisto on two straight topes. There were at least two moments where I was positive Mephisto had sealed up the title defense, and while I didn't love a couple of the kickouts in this I thought the overall excitement level sustained. Mephisto is 50 now. He lost his title that is a thing. Now he needs to go on more grimy indy shows like Ultimo Guerrero and be an old guy asskicker.