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Sunday, June 22, 2025

2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Hechicero vs. Komander

 

13. Hechicero vs. Komander AEW Rampage 11/30/24

ER: With DEAN~! 2 in the rear view, I wanted to write about a guy who was almost a part of DEAN~! 2, but plans wildly changed. Hechicero was someone we tried to get from CMLL...and instead somehow wound up with Blue Panther, Virus, Valiente, and a host of others who all worked insanely hard to give us the greatest lucha Cibernetico of the last 20 years. I am not sure what would have changed had CMLL sent Hechicero, Mascara Dorada, and Barbara Cavernario instead of Averno, Virus, Euphoria, and Neon, but I'm sure it would have been great in an entirely different way. So we didn't get Hechicero, but Hechicero gets to show up in AEW every couple months and get a fun 10 minute match against a great opponent who he's never faced before. It's one of those gifts from Tony Khan, a match that exists simply because he wanted to see what it looked like. Hechicero vs. Danielson was an outstanding example of that, but I'm just as excited that we got to see Hechicero vs. Orange Cassidy. Collision is on in the background as I type this, and Hechicero is main eventing against Dorada, two DEAN~! Guys who never were.  

When the Hechicero/Komander match aired I wasn't sure if it was the last we'd see of Hechicero in AEW. It played as a fitting swan song if that's what it became, not just as a Hechicero AEW swan song, but also  to a Rampage era that I already greatly miss. Rampage was a show I really loved, with the hour format and shorter match layouts allowing a different feel from Dynamite and Collision. Hechicero/Komander was a great example of what made Rampage great, to me: A 13 minute classic main event, the perfect length for TV and perfect length for Rampage, the spiritual successor of guys getting to show out on Velocity or Superstars or WWECW. It got right back to the basics of the great Danielson match by letting Hechicero go full freak and break out all the tricked out work he wanted, with an opponent that would qualify this as a Dream Match. Is this the secret to Hechicero? Just let him go out there and control and break out Hechicero Things? Seems easy enough. 

His blue gear is gorgeous, with lighter offset blue boots to juxtapose the deep royal velvet of his tights. It's the perfect ensemble for him to go Hechicero Unleashed! When he starts rolling around with Komander's ankle for a tricked out stretch muffler only for Komander to do a full sit up until he was scaling the side of Hechicero's body, trying for a headscissors but landing in a Hechicero pin from guard, later getting pancaked after several revolutions on another headscissors attempt, I knew we were there. Hechicero moves like his own man in that ring. The way he leans out of a superkick, letting it scrape by his chin, before hitting a leaping Kawada style gamengiri to Komander's mouth was just one great example (of many) of his Big Spot attention to the small details. The gamengiri feels even better when we all know how close that superkick came to fully connecting. 

Hechicero and Komander are highlight reels who connect the highlights with snug submissions and effective highspot teases. Komander and Hechicero make it all matter. Komander has a missile dropkick (bouncing off multiple sides of the ropes) that hits like something that would bump not just Hechicero but anyone in AEW. Hechicero's powerslam is on the level of Dustin; Every clothesline is a headhunter. One of my favorite spots in wrestling was Bill Dundee's clothesline sleeperhold. It always looked like a lethal snare, a crazy way to follow through a lariat. Hechicero has to be the first person I've seen do the Dundee clothesline while also leaping over the ropes to the apron. Of all the ways I was expecting Hechicero to counter, I was not expecting him to wind up so suddenly on the apron pulling Komander's head over with him. 

Hechicero hangs in for the high catch on a crazy Komander moonsault to the floor, and catches a Komander moonsault into the ring in a trapped scissored armbar, rolling around with it into another one of his leveraged cradles, almost getting pinned underneath in the melee. Defense to offense to pin to escape, and they both recognize the value in not showing any kind of light on a small package cradle nearfall. The finish run is Hechicero at his most punishing. The Mad Scientist Bomb is a finisher worthy backbreaker but he uses it to set up the best running knee in wrestling. Hechicero runs up the buckles so fast, size and speed and impact, slashing and driving with that left knee, spinning around Komander with a decapitating guillotine. Of course this is a Dream Match. Foolish to suggest otherwise. It's Hechicero showing out in the main event of a sadly defunct Good Wrestling Program, and Komander never has to be asked twice to show out. 


2024 MOTY MASTER LIST


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