2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Latin American Five Way

 

2. Belcegor vs. Australian Suicide vs. Dinamico vs. Taurus vs. Octagon Jr. AAA 5/11/24

ER: This is an elimination match for AAA's Latin American Title, which is a title belt that I know nothing about, and mostly, these are wrestlers I know little about. This might be me writing about the 18th best match that these guys have had over the past 2 years, but I won't know that because this match is knowing them enough. Belcegor has a red pentagram goat mask with big horns and is shaped like a 5'7" Sultan; like Gronda, but if he didn't lift, and if he had a fat ass instead of ass implants. Australian Suicide is an Immortan Joe War Boy who was too ugly to get cast in Furiosa. He's got a great Australian bunched up face and looks and works like an Evil Darby Allin. He takes back bumps to concrete, tornillos like Jack Evans, and climbs nice and fast to the 2nd floor of the Olympic Gym to shooting star press off it while taking a selfie with some guy. His dive was filmed expertly from above, perfectly capturing the distance of his dark world beady-eyed suicidal tendencies. 

Belcegor can base, hits a wild twisting superplex that lands like a bookcase falling off a pickup, and gets eliminated by a folding head drop driver straight out of 2000s CZW. Taurus has an incredible look and hits a tope spear that aims to cut Dinamico in half at the waist. Dinamico is a guy I have seen either this one time or a dozen times. There are a lot of guys who look like Dinamico. He, like many of the best Dinamicos, gets great height on everything, has great commitment to bumps, and stands up to punishment in surprising ways. Dinamico gets Taka Michinoku distance on his plancha. He took Taurus's tope as full on as possible and that really impressed me. He took it right to the damn stomach and Taurus was moving heavy. He goes down with a real fight, and could have died on Octagon Jr.'s appropriately match-finishing fallaway slam off the top. It was like a more dangerous Spanish Fly and a cool death defying way to end a sprint. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

Aerostar/Australian Suicide/Fireball v. Hijo De Pirata Morgan/Steve Pain/Daga AAA 11/6

PAS: Totally lunatic spotfest, the best crazy lucha spotfest of the year. Steve Pain and Aeorstar have just crazy chemistry, breaking out some super awesome next level spots, felt like nuclear powered Rey v. Psicosis, Dick Togo v. Yakushiji stuff. Aerostar also breaks out an insane tope where he goes fully vertical. Daga and Australian Suicide were fun potato shotting each other, and all the other guys broke out some cool spots. Still you have to watch this for Pain v. Aerostar

ER: When you're going to do a spotfest, do a spotfest! And this right here was a good spotfest. And while you would rightfully come for the Aerostar vs. Pain match-ups, the rest of the guys all had value as well. Hijo de Pirata Morgan is not a guy I watch much, and after he took the safest bump possible on an early rana I already had him as the weak link, but after that I thought he looked good. He's a nice power wrestler, stands up to dives, hits a really nice vertical suplex, hits a really great moonsault and handles some basics very nicely. He was a pleasant surprise. Daga is not a guy I love, but a guy who certainly works far better as a rudo. And he was a total dickhead in this match. That was a major strength of the match, not just Daga being a dick, but the rudos feeling like rudos. And more than that, the rudos felt like a TEAM. Not just three assembled rudos, but they felt like three like-minded dickheads. That adds sooooo much to a match like this. The tecniocs all had fun stuff, with Fireball dying on a dive and breaking out some nice ranas, and Australian Suicide flipping out post-match as he and Daga beat the absolute shit out of each other. I have no idea what happened but it was a couple seconds away from the post match of an Onita vs. karate guy match. For whatever reason that start rapidly and violently teeing off on each other, in a way that immediately screamed "we are actually punching each other's faces". They get split up and Daga has a brutal cut under his eye that's gushing blood. Holy shit. But yeah you want Aerostar and Pain. Pain is a classic rudo base, working almost like a larger version of a great mini base like Demus 3:16. He does really vicious power offense and then hangs in for the ride on some of Aerostar's nuttier armdrags. These two clearly know each other and bring out some magic. The Aerostar tope is an easy contender for spot of the year, as he plows through Pirata completely vertical and then flips into the 4th row. AAA does the opposite of AAAing the shot, as they get a couple great shots of the tope and show it several times in all its glorious detail. This was too much fun.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Catching Up on 2014 AAA

Angelico, Zumbi & Australian Suicide vs. Los Infierno Rockers, AAA 2/21/14

I saw this match getting pimped as a really fun spotfest. Well I like a good spotfest as much as the next guy, so I was game. I wasn't too familiar with all the participants, some (Angelico) because I'd seen them before and disliked them, others because I don't watch AAA nearly as often as I watch CMLL, so they're just underexposed to my eyeballs. And after this I can't see myself going too far out of my way to watch any of these guys. Spotfests can be goofy and cooperative and nonsensical. I have no problem with that. But the cooperation throughout this was just shoddy, obvious, and poorly executed. At bare minimum a spotfest should be well executed, but this match was full of poor connection and an overabundance of spots where the giver seemed to get the worse end of a move than the taker. Angelico and Zumbi are mostly horrible. Zumbi is the best wrestler I've ever seen at incorporating capoeira dance into his wrestling. However, that is a thing that absolutely no fucking person has ever wanted, ever. "That chef was really great at integrating dogshit into that meal." "That ska Radiohead cover band was really great!""That was the best Ozu movie centered entirely around boner jokes!"  Nobody likes capoeira, and that same amount of people want capoeira in their wrestling. If you like moves that look like they don't hurt, AND take an eternity to set up while doing goofy handstands, then look no further than Zumbi. Angelico wrestles like the worst possible Kofi Kingston. All of the poorly utilized athleticism, all of the pillowy soft offense, but with more lousy kick combos than you ever wanted! Australian Suicide had a better blend of crazy highspots with minimal set-up, but even then it was more "jeez at least this guy isn't Angelico or Zumbi". He did hit a wild shooting star to the floor, so that was neat. Infierno Rockers were fine at catching all of the stupid stuff the tecnicos threw out, but not very keen about smoothly getting into position for the catching. As in, all of the fliers got caught and didn't die, but all of the Rockers were really bad about just standing still waiting to catch, never making it look like they were doing anything other than waiting around to take offense. It's hard to casually look blindsided when your opponents do an intricate Step Up 2 the Streets routine before hitting a spin kick, but the Rockers seemed more poor than average. There was a lunatic moment where one of them (I…don't know which one, I'm sorry) "hits" a crazy fast flip tope that soared right over the head of his opponent. Bad catch, out of control dive, pure nuts. So of course he was back in the ring doing moves a moment later. This match did have some dives I liked (Zumbi hit a mammoth crossbody off the top to the floor) and some okay sequences, but man was a lot of this bad and poorly planned out. Not a great start to my 2014 AAA fling.

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