AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/28 - 8/3 (Part 2)

CMLL Viernes Espectacular 8/1/25

MJF vs Averno

MD: There is wrestling and then there is wrestling. And this, my friends, was wrestling. I smiled for about twenty minutes straight (past two moments of audibly mumbling "Cut him off, cut him off. Yes!" at the screen, which if you ever wondered how deeply I get into a match or how I deeply get into a match, probably sums things up more than I'd like to admit). This was about as joyful a 2025 pro wrestling experience as I've had. It was primal. It just worked. Look, I love a lot of modern wrestling, I do. I honestly do. But almost every match contains some form of personal compromise. "You have to do X because of Y (and Y is so often the crowd or the fear of the crowd's expectations)" even when it'd be better if you just didn't. But there's a magical place where you don't have to do X because Y doesn't exist, and that is the hallowed halls of Arena Mexico.

And that joy? That included the pre-match. Yes, it was cheap heat, but it was the most expensive cheap heat you could buy. Or the biggest value for cheap heat you could get? I'm not sure the metaphor is sticking. But what did stick was Jon Cruz. I liked Rocky well enough last time MJF was around, but then he was just trying to keep up. Cruz on the other hand was full on craven majordomo who took MJF saying he spoke multiple languages and translated it into saying MJF spoke twenty languages. My only regret is that we didn't get him translating Averno's stuff back to Max (it wasn't necessary) just to see what sort of ridiculous things he'd say in order to not anger MJF. And guess what? The crowd went from maybe not sure if they felt like supporting Averno on this night to absolutely getting behind him 110%. It worked. It worked big and that was on all three of them. Cheap heat? Sure, but look at what it bought them! (That metaphor was better). They popped huge when Averno threw that first fist and Max sold his jaw like it'd ended up in the fifth row.

The match that followed was beautifully minimalist. Max retreated. The crowd booed. Chills up your spine. Max got in a cheapshot trip. The crowd booed. Max got an eyepoke. The crowd booed. Max hit his swagger groin pushover (you know what I mean), and the crowd got absolutely irate. Averno started to come back at that and Max cut him off and pro wrestling is the best thing in the world, it really is. Max started in on the Irish Whips, basking in the effect of each one as Averno crumbled in the corner. 

But then Averno turned them around, Max backpedaled. He ate a dive. Back in the ring, Averno went to the top but Max kicked out the ropes (the crowd booed). He went up but Averno caught him and went for a Devil's Wings from the top. It turned into more of a pedigree bump and Averno's knee suffered along with Max's skull. Max took over, including with a nasty emotive half crab. Averno turned it in cross armbreaker (the crowd popped big). They made it back up. Max hit a truly lovely mule kick foul as he distracted the ref. Another half crab. A near instant tap, and past a few small wrinkles, that was the match. 

Averno is a rudo's rudo and him playing babyface has real early 00s Satanico vibes. I lamented when he left CMLL just as I was at my height of watching in 2014. He's someone who absolutely gets it, and here he was a great foil for Max. It's so obvious that MJF understands just what he has with the Arena Mexico crowd and with the wrestlers they put him up against. There's a purity to it and maybe I'm crazy, but I honestly think that purity can transfer back over the border if fans were just presented it without having to control for Y. But when it comes to this stuff, I guess I'm just a true believer. Can you blame me? It's hard to watch a match like this and not have faith in pro wrestling. Those boos are like nothing else in the world.

AEW Dynamite 7/30/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Toni Storm/Alex Windsor

MD: Nice purposeful tag match here, with a few interesting structural wrinkles actually. It started just how you'd like with Athena and Windsor chain wrestling. They had a very rough around the edges (in the best of ways) match on Collision that I was in transit for and couldn't cover but this was pretty smooth all things considered. It went right until Athena hit one of her super agile counters and celebrated with a big "Yay!" as she is want to do, which, of course, led to the tag to Toni and, after just enough shadowboxing to put the doubt of whether it might actually happen into the fans' heads, a roll and a tag to Billie. A lovely bit of heatseeking and dodging the champ. Big talk, big stalling, denying the fans their gratification just like a dangerous, delusional heel ought to do (and the whole way through this match, Athena was absolutely alive, reacting and acting and preening and getting shots in). 

Billie ended up outwrestled by the champ, who subsequently tangoed with Windsor right into a tandem kick in the corner. When Athena tried to intervene, she got scuffed up (for the first time) but immediately took a powder. Everything broke down from there, with Toni chasing Athena right into Billie's ambush and the heat starting on Windsor. Athena and Billie have been together for well over a year now (together being a fluid term) so it made sense that they'd have an advantage here. 

The back half of the match was built to the finish in a way that most matches aren't. Why? Because the finishing stretch was so abrupt in the sort of way tag matches could finish in decades past, right after the hot tag/immediate comeback. Toni was going to come in, quickly dispatch Billie with Mongolian Chops, and set her up in the corner for the hip attack and the Storm Zero. Athena picked up a blind tag along the way, however, and hit an O-Face for the win and to set up the title match at the PPV. Working backwards, that meant some of what would conventionally be in the finishing stretch actually happened before the hot tag. 

After some double teaming on Windsor, they knocked Toni off the apron setting up everything to break down and for her to come in and help Windsor into a momentum shift. The hot tag itself came only after Windsor had Athena down for a pin and Starkz hit her swanton to break it up. They both crawled to their respective corners after that. Because the emotional high point of the match was not Toni getting her hands on Athena but Athena sneaking out with the victory instead, they managed to sneak in some of the traditional comeback before the hot tag. I'm not sure it made for an overall "better" match, but it did serve what they were trying to accomplish (set up the PPV match) without shortchanging the crowd on action. Sometimes effective is more important than "great," and it was interesting how they got to that point here.

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Max Caster vs Rush

MD: Let's work through this together. The Caster Challenge is "Who Can Survive 5 Minutes with the Best Wrestler Alive?" so the general idea behind it is that they're supposed to make it through the time limit. The joke is that Caster is the one who has to survive and never does. It's a good joke. It's entertaining each and every week. Half a segment. Easy TV.

The initial purpose of the segment was Bowens redebuting with his new gimmick. It was used productively last week to show how the gimmick wasn't working and pushing forward whatever direction Bowens is actually going now. But here's Caster back out there. Along the way, the fans went from not chanting with him to chanting but then getting insulted for their efforts. Theoretically at some point, it all goes over the top and they start to get behind him and you've got a bulletproof lower-mid card babyface who can eat loses but still be over, right?

Anyway, fans chant, Caster makes a comment about Bowens (not helpful if Bowens is turning?) and insults the crowd, and out comes Rush, who had already won one of these. The goal here was to set up a post match beatdown on a sympathetic enough Caster so JetSpeed and Fox could make the save and set up a future six-man tag with LFI. 

But it was a bit of a weird way to get there. Caster ran away from Rush early, even mocking him by making little bull horns. At this point, he was booed. That worked right until he ran into Rush's fist. Then Rush destroyed him until Caster could get some distance and hit a dive. That got the fans behind him. Then Rush took back over and destroyed him again. That got the fans back behind Rush. This went on until the time limit expired as Rush was about to hit the Horns in the corner. Then people went from confused to vaguely happy for Caster. That wouldn't last as the beating followed and the save (people like JetSpeed, so that's good!). And then Caster raised his hand in the air from a prone position, which was equal parts defiant and annoying. 

There was the making of something really good in here, but it was either trying to be too many things at once or just thrown out there in a way that it wasn't trying to do enough, and it's a bad thing I'm not even sure what the answer was or what the long term direction for Caster could possibly be at this point. But I can't say I wasn't entertained because watching Rush destroy some poor schlub is always certainly entertaining. Just imagine if there was a little bit more focus and purpose driving this though?

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DEAN~!!! 2 Day 6: CIBERNETICO~!

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Torneo Cibernetico: Blue Panther/Hologram/Neon/Valiente/Virus vs Volador Jr./Averno/Euforia/Xelhua/Dr. Cerebro

MD: Dean could write about ciberneticos. His style was perfect, bombastic and over the top, throwing praise and emotion and tildes and wild metaphors. He could hone in on all the cool moments and somehow make them seem a hundred times cooler. I'm nowhere near as good at it, but yeah, this was awesome. If you saw this, you know that. I don't think I'm going to have a ton to add to just having lived it. 

I do have some thoughts though. First and foremost, this felt a little more produced than most I've seen, which isn't to say there isn't rhyme or reason for what happens in them. There is, but it all seems a little more honed in on the moment, unless there's a specific feud that it's furthering or leaning upon. When I say focused, there are a lot of things I could highlight. We had exchanges with Xelhua against both Blue Panther and Virus where he got to joust on the mat with them. There was a big elimination moment with Blue Panther and Dr. Cerebro in there. Blue Panther got to go up against the world with everyone stooging, feeding, basing for him. Euforia had his moment to shine as he walked like a giant swatting high flying tecnicos away. Valiente got to hit his fireplug tope. Hologram got to hit his that seemed send them flying halfway to the back. It all ended with Blue Panther and Hologram standing together against Volador and Averno and even then there was that great nearfall with the finishers used earlier used in tandom. 

You'd probably get some of that in any other such match but I don't think you'd get all of it. This was a match that knew its audience and catered to it, while still delighting the crowd at the same time. A bunch of things stuck with me: some kid in the crowd calling Euforia "big boy" when he was getting rocked. Virus working so amazingly hard and taking huge bumps considering his age. What an absolute legend. He's my guy. Panther hitting the flip dive off the apron not once but twice. How great Averno's finish still looks. That it's a joy to see Blue Panther and Dr. Cerebro work in their masks (though most of us are so much more used to seeing Cerebro NOT in the mask). Seeing not just Neon and Xelhua in with these guys but also Cerebro and Hologram. Just seeing Panther tough it out and fight through the end of the match. 

So yeah, the only way to tackle a match like this is by listing all the great stuff. I could have probably gone another two paragraphs with just that and then another on top talking about Danielson but, since I'm not Dean, let me say instead that it's really something to be experienced yourself. Go check it out on YouTube if you haven't already. 

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MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 26: La Sombra vs Averno [2011 CMLL Universal, final]

2011-09-16 @ Arena México
La Sombra vs Averno [CMLL Universal, final]

I'm mainly coming into these blind, picking matches that seem significant or noteworthy or just plain good. This wasn't something that jumped out at me. I think it almost has to be a CMLL MOTYC for 2011 though, and looking back at discussion from the time, people seem to agree. It was a really great main event title match, one that doesn't face many of the pitfalls that such matches in CMLL tend to have.

I'm not going to go through the entire tournament here, but Sombra went over Angel De Oro and Diamante, both of which were interesting because they were tecnico vs tecnico, and Rey Bucanero as well, which wasn't as interesting as it was mainly to set up a big apuestas cage hair match with Felino and others for the Anniversary. I don't have in front of me who Averno went over but it's a bit less novel than Liger, so I didn't feel the need to look into it.

It's easy to take Averno for granted. He was Mistico's arch rival in a lot of ways and I love his stuff against Satanico, though that's more of a guilty pleasure. Going back through this stuff, he's felt very interchangeable with Mephisto for a number of years. He had lost his mask just a few months before this, though (not against Mistico, as that ship had sailed), and I think it revitalized him. For one thing, he had a great look without the mask, and great facial expressions, and he really was able to use them to the fullest now. Also, he had a theme which was almost orchestral and bubbly, in a techno way and it was a great bit of dissonance. I'd love to hear Kevin Sullivan come out to something like this, or something.

And he worked this match very fun, too. In the first two falls, he wasn't just working it straight, as title matches are often worked, bu the was working like a tecnico, as if he was trying to out Sombra Sombra. Volador was at ringside as his second and they had switched shirts, which added to the surreality of this. It was sort of like Lucifer's hubris, that he was not content to defeat Sombra as a rudo. He had to outdo him at how own game. It kept backfiring on him however, though he was able to recover in the primera and catch him off a springboard with a power bomb. It cost him in the segunda, as after he did a needless tecnico backflip, Sombra was able to catch him with his Brilliante Bomb (the roll up into a suplex). It's worth noting here just how thoroughly the crowd was into Sombra. He felt like a star here, even more so than he would a few years later in the start of the Ingobernables creation where Rush consistently came off as a bigger deal.

The tercera was exactly what you'd expect, a lot of bombs, near falls. The selling felt absolutely deserved considering the fact they let the first two falls go a little longer (cumulatively) than usual. It started with a bang, with the flip to apron rana (and thanks to Cubs for giffing it years ago):

and just kept going from there. I'm not going to go play by play on it, but it was good, building and building until a top rope Devil Wings attempt where it seemed like Averno lost Sombra, causing him to end up crotched on the top. They handled it like total pros though, both of them, and especially Tirantes as the ref, who played it up as if he might DQ Averno and end a great match on a wrong note. They recovered, however, and cycled back into things organically, without making it seem like they were trying to redo a spot.

Great match, way better than I was expecting coming in. Check it out. On this night, Sombra was undisputedly a star, one that had come a very far way.

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MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 18: Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra, Máscara Dorada vs Averno, Mephisto, Negro Casas

2011-01-28 @ Arena México
Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra, Máscara Dorada vs Averno, Mephisto, Negro Casas

0:40 in

I'm kicking myself a little for skipping over the La Aguila singles match from a little before the Dragon Rojo one, as Cubsfan says it's good, and he'd know. He also said it, with the Rojo match, was a sign that Sombra was finally putting it all together, which has been my sense too, going through this. Again, the problem is that there don't seem to be a ton of great looking stuff in 2011, so I'm going to have to pick a bit wildly.

This is a trios match with a few guys I like. For anyone here just for Sombra, Fantasma is the current King Cuerno in Lucha Underground. He's great as a rudo. He was really good as a tecnico here too. I was high on Averno when I started watching CMLL in 2014 because he was a rudo being a rudo which felt a little rare in the midst of the Negro Casas vs Rush/Shocker feud. The big disappointment in these matches is that the Mascara Dorada of 2011 was not the Mascara Dorada of 2016.

It's a fun match but nothing standout. It's got an initial ambush/beatdown by the rudos and I haven't seen one in a little bit so I enjoyed that. The best part of the first two falls were easily the mascots.

Kemonito looking bemused as his guys are getting beaten on:

Zacarias (Maybe before he was even called that) doing some nasty legwork on Dorada:

And this amazing Zacarias splash and antics in the segunda:

It was your standard beatdown with mask ripping, triple kicks, isolating of the tecnicos valiantly fighting back and all that. The biggest spot was Fantasma eating a double armdrag over the top.

which was especially cool because it actually set up the comeback in a way you almost never see. Tecnicos come back hundreds and hundreds of times with this bounce back of the ropes into a full nelson leading to rudo miscommunication, but here it actually made sense as it was Averno and Mephisto trying the double arm drag over the top once again. Stuff like that makes me way too happy. There's nothing sadder than someone whose day can be made by seeing Flair hit a validating top rope move or Tully hitting a double axe handle  from the second rope on a prone opponent without eating a foot in the face,

Of course, the CMLL Cameras missed the comeback almost entirely since they though it was a good time to go to the crowd. So it goes. Oh, speaking of that, I think, despite saying in the introduction and the graphic confirming it, that Negro Casas was the rudo captain, it was actually Averno. The sequence of falls seemed to indicate that. Not a big deal but it had me confused for a second.

If the mascot antics were the reason to watch the primera and segunda (though, to warn you, Zacarias never gets his comeuppance! The injustice), the tercera was carried by a lot of really good action. All of the tecnicos got to hit their spots. The dives were good even if some of the in ring tandem tecnico offense was a little off. Negro Casas got to be Negro Casas against multiple opponents, including this sequence:

and a great tease of an escape from Fantasma's German before he finally gets flattened. Sombra even hit his insane back flip dive, this time without three people standing around forever to catch him. It ended with a mask rip DQ and more rudo beatdown, which was still not as infuriating as Kemonito never getting his hands on Zacarias. Fun, if disposable, trios match,

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Hector Garza vs Averno

2008-03-07 @ Arena México
Héctor Garza vs Averno

This was a recent upload. It's directly on the path to Garza vs Perro, Jr., and that's a trajectory I've been avoiding. It's probably silly too, but that's one of those path that you can only experience once and that I never would be able to again, so I'm really just waiting until I've seen a lot more Perros del Mal stuff and when I feel like I've seen enough other stuff. It's sentimental on my part but there you go. I'm lucky in that I've gotten to experience a lot of lucha that people lived through when they were younger the first time recently. That'll just be another one, eventually.

I am looking at this though, because it's a Garza singles match against an opponent I haven't seen him wrestle much. It was a really functional match and one that had a lot of rudo dominance. The former is one of my favorite things when it comes to thinking about wrestling and the latter is one of my favorite things in lucha, so this down my alley.

First, the functional bit. The match had two purposes. The first was to set up the Mistico/Garza vs Averno/Mephisto (c) tag title match over the next week. The second was to further build the hair match vs Perro, Jr, which, as they told us repeatedly, was two weeks away. Garza was losing that one, and CMLL's way, in such cases, is to build up the loser in the weeks before, both to put the outcome in question and to protect him through the loss. In this case, that meant beating Averno (and moreover, beating Averno/Mephisto for the titles). It also meant thwarting Perro, Jr's attempt to sway the match.

At the same time, it was important to protect Averno in this loss (especially as he'd be losing the following the week, tinder to the fire of building to a big house for Perro vs Garza). That leads to the second bit, the heat, the rudo dominance. Averno took most of the first two thirds of the match. That included getting an early advantage, pulling Garza up a couple of times when he was almost definitely out, and regaining the advantage almost immediately after Garza came back and took the first fall (which he did with a ton of mask pulling and a really beautiful inside-out second rope moonsault):

Averno came out with a new mask between falls, took right back over, and kept the advantage for much of the rest of the match. Garza came back though, and one ref bump later, fended off Perro, Jr.'s attack, finally hitting a picture perfect corkscrew moonsault for the win. This was good, but more than that, it was functional, and I love matches that are functional over a number of goals, with certain restrictions. This was a great roadmark on the journey to the hair match, and has me all the more excited for when I finally break down and watch it.

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MLJ: Satanico vs La Familia de Tijuana 3: Averno, Mephisto, Satánico VS Damián 666, Halloween, Psicosis

2002-10-04 @ Arena México
Averno, Mephisto, Satánico VS Damián 666, Halloween, Psicosis I

This was a week after the title change and it was the second match on a Friday night card, which is nuts to me. It was stilted and short, yes, didn't really have a finish and was more of an angle, but it was still heated. After this was Felino, Negro Casas, Virus vs Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Juventud Guerrera, which apparently didn't make TV, which is a god damn travesty, then an atomicos match with Los Hermanos Dinamita, which did make TV, so there's no justice. The main event was Silva and Vampiro vs Dantes, Wagner, Jr., and Bucanero. Was Vampiro actually over in 2002?

Anyway, I guess I'm glad we have this match. It's super heated. They start with a backstage talk with Satanico getting the troops ready for war and revenge. I love that he can pull this off in a track suit. Only Satanico.

I really quite liked La Familia's entrance. They came out to Oye Como Va (which is stuck in my head now but at least it's not Tarzan Boy's theme). They had the belts. Damian had a singapore cane (more on that later). Halloween had changed his look to match Psicosis more. Psicosis wore his mask out to the ring. Los Infernales' entrance was sort of hilarious in comparison. Satanico rushed the ring. Averno and Mephisto took their time since they had the girls with them. That led to Satanico getting swarmed.

As I said, this was more of an angle than a match, so they got right to it. There was a brief but effective beatdown. La Familia had very solid, if a bit "indy" offense (things like the Hardy Boyz' poetry in motion and tandem legdrops with one to the groin, which is a weird thing for Damian to be doing). Satanico had one of his big comeback moments of rushing the ring and fighting everyone, but he was cut off by a nice Damian headbutt. That let Averno and Mephstio charge the ring. La Familia, being the despicable scoundrels they were, meant to have no part of that. With a quick low blow to set it up, Halloween drilled Mephisto with the cane drawing the DQ, even as the announcer shouted that this wasn't baseball practice! They nailed Averno too, but Satanico made it back in and ducked it while launching a kick, sending the cane into his hands. He went to town and then started to just destroy Halloween's leg with it.

Halloween did the stretcher job (and I swear the announcer was saying pinata over and over) and it was suddenly two on three. That went about as well as you'd expect for Damian and Psicosis. Satanico directed traffic like only he could. Nicho and Damian tried to fight back but the odds were just too far stacked against them. It did lead to a great moment of Damian being defiant and bragging:

Ultimately, Damian had enough, got a quick foul in on Satanico and lived to fight another day. Nice heated match/angle/match that built well to a hair match.

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MLJ: Satanico vs La Familia de Tijuana 2: Damián 666, Halloween, Psicosis I vs Averno, Mephisto, Satánico © [MEX TRIOS]

2002-09-27 @ Arena México

So once the suspension lifted (I think there was a suspension), La Familia challenged for the trios titles. This was just good booking as Los Infernales wanted revenge on them but had to put up their titles to get it. It had a BS ending but it wasn't a feud ender, so it absolutely worked to build up heat for both the next trios match and the hair match. We rarely see Rudos vs Rudos title matches, and this one, while relatively brief and certainly not scientific, was a lot of fun.

Los Infernales had the belts coming in. They had defeated Olimpico, Safari, and Mr. Niebla over a year before. Satanico was de facto babyface here, with La Familia as the invaders and Los Infernales as the bad guys the crowd loved to hate, "their villains." This was all pretty simple (though with La Familia's quasi-indy offense and Mephisto power move layered in) and primal.

Satanico and Damian started with Satanico getting an early advantage off hip tosses. Damian forced some distance with a push and went off to the ramp to sell the arm. La Familia huddled, came up with a game plan, and Damian came back in. A couple of hip tosses later, they swarmed, thus executing the plan. The beat down was on with some great clubbering and their hardy boyz double leg drop to take the primera.

The segunda kept it going, including this brilliant tossing of Averno into the corner:

a Halloween spear, three corner clotheslines. Satanico was great here. He was so good at fighting back in the midst of getting warmed/beat down. I half wonder if Ultimo Guerrero (who always makes sure he looks strong) didn't learn it from him. Ultimately, he ducked a Nicho corner charge (and boy did he go flying) and the come back was on:

It was intense and satisfying, with double teaming, Satanico playing to the crowd, this crazy sunset flip powerbomb to the outside by Mephisto, a triple power bomb (done twice as they lifted Nicho up again after the first) and this triumphant pin:

The Tercera quickly went back to something more even (after a GdI body splash that is), with a Satanico vs Damian punch off, a bunch of cut offs, some chopfests and rope running, tandem power bombs (with feet-on-ropes near falls), Satanico awesomely holding the rope down to force La Famila to go tumbling through on a rope-run which led to these dives:

With the other four out of the way, it became Damian and Satanico, back in the ring, to finish things up. Satanico locked in the Satan's knot but there was no ref. Damian snuck in a low blow. The ref finally made it in, and La Familia stole the titles.

Very satisfying match which left everyone wanting more. For some reason these guys worked really well together.

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno B-11: Infierno en el Ring [Cage]

2001-09-28 @ Arena México (68th Annivesario)
Nuevo Nuevo Infernales (Satanico, Averno, Mephisto) vs Nuevo Infernales (Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero, Tarzan Boy, Mascara Magica) [Cage]

http://youtu.be/qUj_ZEHXxvE

http://youtu.be/8yMbWjFPTr0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eS4qtO1pPE

This one's obviously not on the comp since it's not a straight up tag match but it's such a key moment in the feud, really the blow off in a lot of ways, that I'm glad we have it online, albeit with slightly poor VQ. This was it, the battle over the name, with everyone's masks and hair on the line on the biggest stage of the year.

I don't know if this was a one match show because I don't have enough context but the match second to the top was an atomicos [Wagner, Fuerza, Juventud, and Universo vs Black Tiger III(Silver King), Lizmark, Jr., Casas, and Villano IV] which has a couple of interesting names but doesn't seem a huge draw to me. There was a Mexican Trios title match as well but everything seemed stacked for the main event. I don't see an easy to find attendance number for this so I have no idea how it drew, but my guess is "pretty well."

A few brief notes on Magica Mascara here, since he's the one who's going to end up losing this thing. He's the second guy to have the gimmick. The first, obviously, was Eddy, and him unmasking willingly on TV to claim his birthright was a coming of age for him. You'd think that would make the gimmick radioactive, but whatever. The guy playing it here was Talisman's kid, which you think would have been a good gimmick for him but he lost THAT mask relatively early in his career. He was in GdI to cover for Tarzan Boy when he was injured and he doesn't all that much longer in the stable after this match. He did keep using the name Magica Mascara, which was sort of ballsy on some level, given, you know, the lack of a mask. I have no idea if they promoted he was Talisman's son while wearing the mask.

So, this isn't your standard lucha cage match. I've only seen a few, mind you, but the general idea is that the "escape rules" actually mean something since those who don't make it out end up fighting for their life (well, their mask or hair, but those things MEAN something). One thing I stress again and again, even if not necessarily in these words, is that understanding lucha isn't about understanding the rules (that the last two in the ring have a one fall apuesta match or that they can only leave after X amount of minutes when the whistle blows, or that you only have to straddle the cage to get out, not get all the way to the floor) but the narrative elements, the stories being told, the way they tell them. Understanding wrestling isn't about knowing what a pile driver is called, but what a pile driver means in the context of the match. That to me, is the biggest mistake for people who introduce lucha to others.

So you have the extreme desire to escape here, but it's also combined with both the blood feud element of Infernales vs Infernales and the fact they're fighting over the name. It's not every man for himself. It's a four-on-three war and that gives it all a bit more substance than the average cage match. A little more focus too which was good because the VQ is kind of rough and there's a lot of chaos in the ring. They have a habit of switching camera angles at the worst times, too. Sometimes I'll get Mephisto and Averno confused, and I had to double back three times to figure out how Ultimo Guerrero got out at the end for instance.

That said, it was a really well put together cage match. By its nature, there couldn't just be guys brawling about. Maybe if it was 3 vs 3 they could have done that but this had to be more structured and the match lived and died not on its violence but on its transitions, on the momentum flows. I've seen tons of standard trios that were put together with less care and thought than this, despite its chaotic nature.

So, let's talk about the transitions. The story for the first part of the match was going to be the numbers game. I'm not sure why Satanico agreed to a four-on-three match with such high stakes, but it made his group the favorites for the Annivesario crowd. It also meant that GdI got off to an early advantage after just a bit of brawling. They hit a double kick on Satanico, the double choke drop on Averno and then a triple dropkick on Mephisto after a huge facebuster. Then we get transition #1. All of them tried to climb out at once, but it wasn't time yet so the explosions went off and they all fell off the cage. This let the Infernales take over, and they were awesome in this, outnumbered but using their momentary advantage to pick off GdI with shoulder blocks and nasty chops, really just stalking them. Then, they tried to climb out and got blown up as well. Everyone ended up on the ground (and Satanico laid in these great headbutts from that position, but that's neither here nor there).

Finally, the whistle went off so that's the end to the explosions. I'll admit I bought GdI's attempt to get out more than Los Infernales' attempt since they'd just seen what had happened to their opponents when they tried but it was the heat of the moment and that whistle might be easy to miss. The numbers game came back into play pretty quickly, and GdI took back over. This lasted for a minute or two before Tarzan Boy used it to basically kick and stomp his way over everyone's heads in the corner and get out. Thus came into play the endless problem of tag team cage matches with escape rules. By leaving, he theoretically "scored a point" for his team as now they only had to get three guys out instead of four, but he also sacrificed the numerical advantage for them. Since this match had additional stakes, it also had additional nuances. He left to protect his hair, and while he tried to encourage his partners on, the name was on the line too and they were more than a little furious at him. In fact, in the fit of them arguing from both sides of the cage, Los Infernales were able to recover and attack from behind, leading to another transition. GdI shrugged off headlocks into a triple charge, taking the momentum back but almost immediately thereafter, they did the alley oop body splash spot, with Rey landing on Mephisto but then immediately climbing over.

Now it was three on two and for the first time in the match, Los Infernales (very much due to how successful their opponents had been) had the numbers advantage. Ultimo Guerrero and Mascara Magica, realizing it, immediately rushed to get out of the cage but they were caught and pounded upon for a few minutes until UG was able to duck a double dropkick as Satanico was holding him, thus shifting the momentum again as GdI fought like hell against the odds. This was pretty brutal with heads going into cage, a tree of woe being utilized, and the senton de la muerte in the corner on Averno. When they tried to climb up and out, however, everyone ended on top of each other and Mephisto was the one to ultimately make it out.

That made it two on two and GdI immediately tried to swing the odds in their favor by rushing to the attack and tying Averno's mask to the top rope. Satanico took a bit of a beating but then came back in another momentum shift, with the crowd hugely behind him, hitting a slew of hangman's noose clotheslines and starting the process to untie Averno, who really played it up when he did get free. Satanico was really great here, punching and headbutting away. More than that, though, his character work was really solid. He had the most invested in the Infernales name and there was something almost fatherly in how he protected Averno, first by untying him but then, after he and Ultimo Guerrero hit big tandem moves (UG with a chokeslam on Averno and Satanico with a goardbuster on Magica), he let Ultimo Guerrero escape (this is where I had camera angle issues) but instead of escaping himself, rushed back in to make sure that Magica didn't make it out. He kept Magica contained so that Averno could make it out, leaving him in there vulnerable to losing his hair but in control of the fate of the Infernales name.

The match that followed was short but heated. Magica belonged in this match as much as Averno or Mephisto certainly. There was a real sense of stakes to this. Everything felt big and important and it was very much rudo vs rudo with Magica trying to win with his feet on the ropes multiple times. In the end, though, Satanico locked in the Satan's Knot, criss-crossing the arms and leaning forward to make a pin out of it, and he won the match, the name, and Mascara Magica's mask. He was elated. The fans were elated. The woman (his wife?) that he gave the mask to ultimately was elated. Magica removed his mask and stormed out of the ring, but tried to put on a strong face afterwards. It was a satisfying end to the feud and while gimmicky and lacking in blood, felt big enough to be the feud ender.

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno B-7 and A-8: Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Satanico and Averno

Hey! So I almost covered a match I had already covered, which would be a great way to start the second year, right? Thankfully, I didn't, but I am still going to post a link to it here because it lets people watch one of these matches, in sequence, even though it's not on the comp.

Here's the link where the match is posted. I looked at this way back last August. It's blurry but still fun. I only remembered I'd seen it once they ripped up Averno's mask. So that's B-7.

And here's some additional viewing.

As promised, this is Rencor Latino (who I looked at briefly on Monday) turned into Averno and it's just as awesome as you'd expect with magic lightning and everything.

So next up is A-8. Watching lucha from an honest to goodness comp is great. The only problem is that I can't always figure out dates. Friday's match, which is Satanico and Shocker vs GdI from Monterrey is pretty easy since there's only one of those on Cubsfan's match finder. The pairing of Averno and Satanico vs GdI happened a lot though and this match had an inconclusive ending.

I think this could be From 7-26, in Arena Isabel, Cuernavaca, Morelos. It could also be from 8-03, but then that would be after the next match on the set. Really, it's amazing our information is as good as it is for most of this when you think about it. It's in that gap period after we have easy online access to Wrestling Observers but before Cubsfan had started the modern version of his blog. There were other resources once upon the time but the internet ate them up.

This is fun and heated and it gives a very good look (with the match I wrote up before) of the feud at the time. They must have been having fun matches week in and week out. Let's get some notes out of the way to start. Instead of Tecnicos/Rudos they listed U.Guerrero and Satanico on the screen to note who had what falls. Poor Rey Bucanero. Averno had this weird mask that I think was supposed to be half of Rey's old mask and half of Ultimo Guerrero's but I have no real idea. Mascara Magica was outside. Or so we were led to believe. When Tarzan Boy was injured earlier in the year, he rounded out the team. His look was really out of place for GdI. Mephisto was on the outside with his arm in a sling. This is presumably for the titles.

What I saw in both this and the other Averno/Satanico vs GdI match was that Rey and UG were presented as having the superior teamwork and generally used that to isolate their opponents and keep control. Here, they took over by Rey doing one of the things he does best, being a total chickenshit heel. Rey kept interfering anytime that Satanico or Averno had an advantage on UG and Satanico would charge after him. The second or third time this happened, he had the ref get between them and layed in a cheapshot on Satanico, crushing him on the post. They kept the pressure on, did the double lift up/sit down choke slam, the armflips and the foot chokes on Averno followed by the double crab on Satanico.

In between falls, we got to see Averno and Satanico, in a flashback, tearing the Infernales colors off of Rey and UG to help set this up. I wish we had more of it alone, more of the trios and some of the big matches (for instance the Juicio Final 2001 match of Satanico/Shocker/Black Warrior vs UG, Rey, and Tarzan Boy), because it all seems great.

Anyway, the segunda was brief, with a quick double clothesline into one another and everything breaking down ending with Rey missing a corner charge and sailing over the top rope so as to eata dive by Averno. This let Satanico hit a backslide (which was one of his favorite things to do in this period) on UG as the other two were counted out.

The tercera was pretty interesting, actually, in that after some good action (though with varying execution), it ended with a surprise and some contention. First Mascara Magica interfered, allowing for GdI to double pin Satanico. Then they ran that spot where Rey gets rolled up during the double facebuster as UG had already turned around to gloat. It's not a bad spot but I'd worry that they overused it now that I've seen it twice. Once it became Averno vs UG, it really broke down, with Mascara Magica interfering again and Satanico brazenly coming in while UG had Averno up in a Muscle Buster position (which I'd never seen him do before) to foul UG. One ref counted it anyway. The other DQed them. There was pandemonium.

And then, right at the end, Mascara Magica pulled his mask and shirt off to reveal that he was a returned Tarzan Boy, which did feel like a big moment, especially for one involving Tarzan Boy. In a bubble, this was a lot of fun, but it would have definitely resonated more if I was watching this feud in greater detail.

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MLJ: Year One Finale: Virus Spotlight 1: Rencor Latino, Último Guerrero, Virus vs Angel Azteca, Ninja De Fuego, Oriental

1998-06-19 @ Arena México
Rencor Latino, Último Guerrero, Virus vs Angel Azteca, Ninja De Fuego, Oriental

So, I've been doing this for a year. Three posts a week for an entire year. Over 150 matches watched and written up. It's a minor miracle I stayed on schedule for that long, but I did, and apparently we've done great as a site, so I'm happy for what I've made it through, for the lucha I've watched, and for what I've learned. I know I still have a lot left to learn and a lot left to see. Quick thanks and then I'll get on with it. Eric, Phil. Thanks for letting me be here. I know I spent a few weeks writing about Marco Corleone to begin. Your patience was kind. Thanks to CubsFan for the match database. That thing is a godsend. I can't even imagine doing this in the form I have otherwise. Thanks to everyone else who posts matches, certainly. Thanks to Kris, whose work is incredibly useful, to Mark, who would help me with anything he could, to Fredo who converted that comp for me, to OJ, who navigates his own journey for everyone to read, and for anyone who actually took the time to read or comment, even and especially if it was just to point out how wrong i was about something. We don't get many, so it's appreciated.

I've enjoyed this far more than I thought I would and part of that is definitely the community. Not a lot of English speaking people cover lucha, not compared to WWE or TNA or Japan. It could have been a closed shop in a lot of way but everyone has been helpful to me and I feel fortunate for that.

Alright, enough of that. If I make it another year or to three hundred posts, then I can linger a bit more. I'm sure I forgot people here but it's not like I won an award or anything. So, I'm turning the Monday spotlight onto Virus. This is in part because he just lost his title so I'm expecting the flood of awesome singles matches to dry up a bit. The plan is to watch a couple of his early matches in the gimmick from 1998 and the focus solely on singles matches and title defenses.

So he had started out as a mini (he's as tall as I am, pretty much, full disclosure), wrestling with the gimmick of Bird Boy and then a mini version for Pirata Morgan and Damien el Guerrero. According to Wiki, he got his break in CMLL (after being in UWA, including winning their Featherweight championship), when AAA was created, as all the minis had gone with Pena. He was the the mini-estrella champion for CMLL, won an elimination match to let him work with larger wrestlers in 97, and then got the boost full time with the gimmick change to Virus in 98. I got all of that from wiki so it's not like I'm doing great research or anything, but if you didn't ever look at his page, there you go.

For most of 98, into 99, he was paired up against Oriental. Virus had won the vacant Mexican National Lightweight title and Oriental had the DF version. Oriental had a pretty interesting career, travelling to Japan a lot, picking up the language, and being a go-between for the Mexican companies because of it, going through CMLL, AAA, and even being an Invasor deeper into 2010 than I got on my first pass through.

On the tecnico side, there was Angel Azteca and a Ninja de Fuego, who is probably better known as Super Kendo or Kendo Star and had a good ninja-look but sort of came off as a low rent Octagon, though from this match I can't say he WAS one. It was just sort of how it felt. The rudo side had the youngest Ultimo Guerrero I think I've ever seen and Rencor Latino who in my GdI watching is just about to become Averno. More on him on Wednesday. It made for a fairly interesting match though as there were a lot of key players fairly early in their careers.

This was the second match on a five match Friday card with a main event of Black Magic, Cien Caras, and Steel vs Rayo de Jalisco, Jr., Tineblas, Jr., and Vampiro. I'd love for us to have more Mexican Smiley online and I wouldn't mind doing a project on Steel (Val Venis) either but there aren't a lot of those matches online. The point is that it was a second match with a bunch of young talent with all the good and ill that comes from that. They were occasionally unfocused but also exciting and I actually think they got away with more than a second match on the card might today.

The primera was a solid feeling out/shine. It had some goofiness. UG tossed himself off of a pin once but for the most part, he kept up with Angel Azteca and what he lost in polish he compensated with in increased agility. Virus looked great already, with some crisp matwork and holds and more agility than he has now. The tecnicos held the advantage for most of the fall and won it after a couple of dives back in off the ropes and Azteca getting a paralleled double arm lock on Virus (who had done the same move to him earlier in the fall). I'm not one to post crazy spots for the sake of it, but this Oriental rana was pretty crazy:

The segunda started with a reset of sorts, with the tecnicos keeping the advantage. One of my favorite bits here was how UG decided to barely sell certain things. He's basically been trying to make himself look strong (though not afraid to clown) his entire career. It's something that's made him stand out over the years even if it doesn't always make for the smartest matches. This was fairly back and forth until the rudos managed to get a slight advantage on the number game. then they killed Oriental dead with this thing:

which set things up for them to take the fall. There were some crazy spots here but they were used as punctuation to the story they were telling which is always appreciated.

Tercera was an extended beatdown with the rudos really digging in on the numerical advantage as one of the tecnicos was always hurt. Virus was especially good at sliding in out of nowhere to catch a tecnico from behind after he entered the ring. Finally Oriental ducked a clothesline and things broke down as the tecnicos fought back. Everyone here had something to prove and it showed as the finishing stretch was pretty focused and heated for a second match on the card. It ended with the usual dives and a nice little exchange between Oriental and Virus, where it was obvious they knew each other well. Virus finally caught him in a rana counter powerbomb and locked in this great submission for the win:

I liked this quite a bit, especially when Virus was in the ring. He definitely had it over 15 years ago and I wish we had more of these trios, throw away or not, to take a look at, not to mention more of his feud with Oriental. I have every reason to believe the singles matches were good. We do have one other trios and I'll take a look at that next time.

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MLJ: Sin Salida 2010 Part 3: Máscara Dorada, Místico, Mr. Águila DQ Averno, Negro Casas, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]

Taped 2010-06-06

Máscara Dorada, Místico, Mr. Águila DQ Averno, Negro Casas, Volador Jr. [Relevos Increíbles]

So, one of my previous 2010 interludes was the Mistico rudo turn. It didn't work out, mainly because they refused to commit to it. He was too over as a tecnico for it to last for long, I guess, and while it was obvious he was having fun with it, either it didn't make business sense or it was chipping into merchandise money or something, because after a few months they reversed course. This was the culmination of that.

Prior to the match, Averno offered Mistico a half-and-half mask and he refused. Alternatively, when Volador came out, he tore off his hood and was wearing an Averno styled mask. Thus, the rudo double turn. And I'll be honest, this might have been the best I've ever seen Volador. I get that it's probably easier to be an ass kicking rudo but this was just a good performance. 

It had next to nothing to do with the Invasores theme though. Aguila (one of the leaders of the group) was there, but for most of the match he was a non-factor. Moreover, Casas was a non-factor too. That's my biggest issue with him in general. I've seen a bunch of trios during this period and his tecnico run in the few years before where he's just sort of there in matches. I couldn't imagine that with 2013-2015 Casas, who's always so front and center and larger than life. Here, though, he's at least functional. It was his job for most of the match to keep Dorada and Aguila constrained so that Averno and Volador could maul Mistico. There were a few times where he seemed annoyed by his partners' lack of wanting to actually win the match as they were so focused on beating on Mistico. I've really seen very little Dorada so far, but he was fine here. He certainly had a lightning grace to him and the Japanese (this was from Japanese tv, btw, so the video quality is great) loved his big dive at the end.

This was a straight out ambush after the mask reveal and while we seem to see that almost every match these days, it was somewhat rarer during the matches I've been watching for the year, though and that made it feel fresh and quite fitting. It set the mood for the match which was a long beatdown into the segunda, a quick comeback where they delay the payoff to Volador vs Mistico, and then a reset for the exchange-filled tercera where Mistico got his hands on Averno but not really Volador. 

Averno and Volador worked well together. They thrashed Mistico's mask, taunted the crowd's chanting for him, were quick to cut off any attempt he had at a comeback, and had some good tandem offense like a press into a gutbuster, a goardbuster onto the ropes to set up Volador's top rope legdrop, and this super fun charge into the post:

The comeback was brief but fun. I really liked the way the tecnicos took the segunda with a bit of offense so synchronized that it's one of the prettiest things I've seen in lucha. I don't think they did it on purpose but it ended up looking great:

The tercera was a lot of what you'd expect. They did a good job keeping Volador away from Mistico for the most part, since this was the start of a new chapter of the story even if it was on a big show. Dorada hit his amazing dive (one of a few in the match, including a big Mistico stage dive in the primera). Casas made more contribution to the match than I gave him credit for including, mocking Aguila as if he was drunk and having this fun spin kick exchange followed by stooging: 

Finally, Volador and Mistico got to do their thing, which wasn't really all that freshened up by the role reversal. He ducked out instead of eating the Mistica though, and Averno got to eat it instead. Volador, instead, tried to throw his mask at Mistico, but Tirantes caught him and DQed the rudos to end the match. 

Just looking at the match finder, it seems like he's still a tecnico for two more months before he fully turned, so I have no idea what that would be about. Barring bad booking that might have come from this, the match and the turn were both quite effective and fun.

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MLJ: 2010: Mistico Interlude 3: Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles

 Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles 2010
taped 2010-01-22 @ Arena Mexico

As best as I can tell, this parejas increibles tournament was on the same night as the Garza /Ultimo Guerrero title match, so I'm going in circles, but at least I know where I am. It was also the first of the yearly tournaments. This is definitely one of those cases where I wish I knew Spanish better because Rey Bucanero was a guest on commentary and not only would I have wanted to known how the usual announcers reacted to what was going on but he'd be interesting too, having just had matches with Mistico.

Averno/Mistico vs Ephesto/Euforia

3:07 in

I'm assuming that Euforia was already a junior member of GdI but for tournament lucha I'm not going to do the legwork to figure it out. Averno and Ephesto were stablemates (I think). It's interesting that they had to field a rudo/rudo team. I'm only looking at Mistico's matches here, but Maximo and Niebla were teamed too and that sounds pretty fun.

Mistico and Averno came out with matching gear, which meant Mistico had Averno's colors and the horns on his mask. Averno's mask had some of Mistico's elements in it. This came as a pretty big surprise to the crowd as they'd been feuding forever. Mistico was still slapping the crowds hands though and he worked pretty straightforward as a tecnico here. He did his usual stuff with Euforia, flips, headscissors, armdrags in, back and forth. Averno and Ephesto worked together well and I imagine they were having fun with it. It ended with a pause in the action and handshake attempts by Ephesto and Euforia. Averno screwed Ephesto with a kick and the devil's wings. Mistico dodged the cheapshot and locked on La Mistica and that was the win.

Post match Averno and Mistico were pumped but there was nothing too suspicious. There was some mild booing though.

Averno/Mistico vs Volador, Jr./Terrible

Here's the turn. I think the earlier match set it up very well actually, because there was just enough weirdness in the Averno/Mistico team to make people wonder, to make them uncomfortable. It set the tone for this.

Terrible was a stablemate of Averno too. More importantly, Mistico and Volador, with Sombra, were a trios called the Super Sky Team at this point. They had certain parts of their act honed together and that shined through early. They moved in tandem to hit their respective opponents with two big dives. Shortly thereafter Volador would hit a Spanish fly on Averno to pin him and then Mistico would take advantage of a distraction to knock Terrible into Volador and roll him up.

This left Volador and Mistico and they immediately bounced off the ropes and did tandem backflips. Instead of setting up a long back and forth, Mistico speared Volador and started punching him and working over the mask. He started taunting the crowd now, going full on rudo. Voladar fought back and did some mask pulling of his own. They had a pretty heated chop fest and bounced off the ropes again. This time Volador first stumbled and then was full on tripped by Averno. Mistico was tripped by Terrible a moment later which allowed Volador to go for La Mistica, but Mistico blocked it and fouled him huge for the win.

I could have done without the Terrible trip which sort of muddied the waters but in general this was a pretty dramatic and effective turn. The fact it came almost immediately after they did some tandem movements was visually striking. Post match, they pounded on Volador some more and everyone yelled at each other on the mic. Notably, Mistico ended it by tossing beer on Volador.

Averno/Mistico vs Atlantis/Mascara Dorada

4:48 in

This was the semi-finals and Atlantis was sporting his white tecnico mask. Mistico had taken off his shirt during the post-match of the quarter-final so the only way to tell Averno from him easily was the body type; Averno was a little bulkier. Atlantis was sort of a sentimental favorite here, almost by default.

There was more mask-ripping and heeling by Mistico but the real story of the match was just how well and thoroughly Averno and Mistico worked together. My favorite moment was when they both faked a dive and did the Mistico pray-pose together to huge boos. Ultimately, Atlantis made his comeback and Dorada hit a really nice dive to take Mistico out. One Atlantida later and this branch of the tournament was over.

I think they probably should have put Averno and Mistico over in the entire tournament if they wanted to really get over the turn but what they did do over the night was pretty effective. It was all tournament lucha, short, flashy, not all that deep, but the overarching story of the turn was quite well played out in and out of the ring. The crowd was hugely into it, especially after the foul.

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MLJ: 2010: A Garza Odyssey 3: Blue Panther, Héctor Garza, Shocker b Averno, Mephisto, Terrible

Taped 2010-02-05 @ Arena México
Blue Panther, Héctor Garza, Shocker b Averno, Mephisto, Terrible

39s in

4:45 in

2:38 in

One reason I decided to go with Garza is that he just seemed to be in the middle of a lot of things in 2010, both as a tecnico and later as a rudo. There are a lot of matches before he turns, so I'm not sure if I'll skip ahead here and there or what. If 2010 is like 2006 at all, I'll have a better sense of the year as I go. For now, though, I get to look at matches like this, which, on paper, are a lot of fun.

The rudo team is pretty straightforward. You can probably watch a lot of Averno, Mephisto, Terrible matches from this period. I like Averno, though I like him more without the mask because that's how I first saw him and he had a great look without it, very good at emoting and being a straight up rudo, the heir to Satanico. He still has it here. I hadn't realized that Terrible had been kicking around CMLL since 2002. Wikipedia also tells me that his nickname is the Czar of Evil. That's almost enough to make me regret not moving forward right into the Rush vs Terrible mini project I wanted to do. Ah well.

The tecnico side is great. Blue Panther lost his mask around a year and a half before this. I was still sort of dreading seeing lazy tecnico Shocker as opposed to the fairly inspired version we've gotten in 2014 but he didn't quite seem there yet. He hadn't really put on the weight. Garza was a pretty good fit with these two, sort of a natural partner to Shocker with Panther there to provide the contrast.

This was a fairly standard A-B-A match, with the beatdown either cut or just non-existent. A match structured thusly will going to come off as more of a tenico showcase than something with more substance, but that can be enjoyable if done well. This had the talent to pull it off.

The primera had Blue Panther kicking out matwork to start, which is always a good thing. Averno kept up well enough. Garza was pretty entertaining working the crowd on the apron. Eventually, Panther tied him up like a pretzel and they shifted to Terrible vs Garza. This, of course, began with Garza taking off his shirt and getting nailed from behind and ended with Garza using a hairpull to get back at Terrible, knocking him out, and then deciding to hit a huge moonsault to the outside on him instead of wrestling Averno who had come in. The remaining tecnicos did a bit of fancy footwork around the rudos, redirecting them around the ring until they could lock them up into submissions for the caida.

The segunda was quick and ended abruptly with the match's transition. There were some solid moments like Terrible bumping out and over in the corner and Averno getting frustrated at Shocker and deciding to leave. Ultimately, the rudos rushed Shocker, ut he got the better of them until they were able to catch him in a double hiptoss into a Terrible power bomb and then a Styles Clash for the pin. After this was where I sort of suspect there was some clipping because the rudos only stayed on top for a minute or so, and they even showed us footage from the break where the rudos tossed Kemonito through the ropes to the tecnicos. Eventually, the tecnicos hit a bunch of roll ups to come back and then that rare occurrence, the triple tandem dives, with Garza hitting a plancha over the top and the other two nailing topes suicidas, followed by a triple roll up for two. A few more dives later (including a neat flipping tope through the ropes by Shocker), we ended up with Averno (the captain) vs Garza. Garza eventually knocked him down and did his twisting moonsault for a dubious three (Averno got his arm up to boos).

This was rapid fire for the most part and the sort of fun you get out of a tecnico-dominant match with solid character work from all parties. While it would have been nice to have more of a beatdown to add some emotional stake, if I'm going to end up with twenty more matches like this, I definitely won't complain too much.

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MLJ: Los Guerreros Flashback: Satanico & Averno vs Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero

2001-06-19
Satanico & Averno vs Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero

The last match was fun to see Rey and UG so young. This on was just flat out fun. There's no real way to get any sense of Averno here, but it's in the very same month that he started with the gimmick. In fact, we start out with one of the things I've wanted to see the most,a  Satanico vignette with him in the flames introducing his new protege (Mephisto I think, with Averno in the background). Satanico is the best. On some level he's even better when you realize he started as a Dr. No gimmick and morphed into the world's coolest Kevin Sullivan.

Anyway, this was in the midst of Averno and Mephisto challenging the newly independent GdI for their titles and coming up short. This was not a title match though. It was, however, a really great little brawl. That goes back to Satanico's versatility. More than that, though, it also had a really fun story, unlike anything I've seen yet in lucha, answering one of my long-percolating questions: What happens when someone loses their mask in the first fall? It's such a great little facet of lucha: if the mask gets pulled off in the midst of the match, it leads to a DQ for whoever did it. There are a lot of different narrative things that can be done with that. They use it to create clever finishes where a sneaky luchador will do it himself (as seen by UG in the Nuevo Infernales match) or have it happen accidentally, or on purpose due to rage or general dickishness. It's a great way to save face and prolong a feud, which is helpful given the weekly shows and the neverending nature of most of these pairings.

Here, there was a lot of rage and dickishness. Both sides were rudos and they were in the midst of an unholy gang war with each other, a very personal one. Averno had debuted earlier in the month with the character, but the GdI had to look strong too. I do think that almost every match has some goal it's trying to achieve, some way to justify the money spent by the crowd and entice it to draw more. That leads to limitations and opportunities. Lucha's no different than anything else that way, though, when you don't see these things in context, it sometimes makes it harder to figure out.

On first watch, I thought Averno looked pretty weak for a character who was so newly developed. He got overpowered early on when Rey put his cape over his head, allowing for the GdI to hold an advantage and the primera ended with a flurry of their teamwork followed by them tearing his mask off entire. They were DQed for the fall but not the match and he rushed to the back. This allowed for a fairly massive beating of Satanico until Averno found another mask and made it back. It was sort of a tecnico moment, if not for the fact that they almost immediately tore off UG's mask which DQed them for the segunda, and then followed that with a just as brutal beating of Rey. I have to admit that while GdI looked pretty smooth together here, Averno had a few moments of awkwardness. Eventually, of course, UG ran back in with a new mask, but Satanico, crafty as ever, was ready, meeting him with a kick and taking a firm advantage.

Satanico and Averno keeping control of the match and cutting off the paralleled comeback led directly to the finish and the escalation of their feuding. With UG deposited out of the ring, they were able to lock on a fun double-pin on the beaten down Rey. Then, as they overpowered Guerrero and were about to lock on that double pin and win the match, Mascara Magica came out to distract them with a chair. Thus distracted, UG pinned Averno with Rey holding him down. Satanico was tripped from the outside shortly thereafter and locked in a submission to give GdI the win, stolen from the jaws of defeat. This unevenness in the numbers game led in nicely to the debut of Mephisto and the continuation of the feud. Fun little brawl with the masks being used to create a nice bit of cleverness. Rey and Ultimo Guerrero still felt like equals here so it's striking how things had changed so significantly by 2006.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 9: Averno, Mephisto, Último Guerrero b Damián 666, Misterioso II, Mr. Águila

Aired 2006-06-17
Taped 2006-06-11 @ Arena Coliseo
Averno, Mephisto, Último Guerrero vs Damián 666, Misterioso II, Mr. Águila

I've been actively avoiding Los Perros del Mal in 2006. For one thing, I get the feeling that we have a lot of them available, which means that I could double back and do another sweep of the year at some later point. Some of what I look at is dictated by availability. It also just seemed sort of tangential to what I was doing. There are some rudos vs rudos matches with Los Guerreros but they seemed to mainly be feuding with the same tecnicos. I do have a fairly long gap in June of 2006 when it comes to Los Guerreros though, so I figured what the heck. If this match just had Tarzan Boy or Olimpico, I probably would have skipped it, but since it's Ultimo, I took a look. He was teaming with Averno and Mephisto, which is fun too, since I just saw them teaming with Rey in the match that his turn started in.

I really don't know the rudos well at all. Damian I've seen from a couple of tags with Halloween and some from WCW. I love the idea that when he was given the gimmick, he was working as Ultraman (II). That's really nice dissonance. Mr. Aguila I know from the WWF run and Misterioso Jr. I don't think I've seen much at all. Wikipedia says his nickname is El Rey del Yogurt, which is one of those things I could probably waste too much time trying to figure out googling, so we're just going to put it out there and move on.

I need to get something out of the way before we talk about the actual ringwork. I will chalk this up to a production issue but there is something seriously wrong with the world when they call Ultimo, Averno, and Mephisto the tecnicos in the match.

So in general, it was fun to see UG working against a few different luchadors and teamed with some others. Averno, as best as I can tell, didn't really get pushed up the card until after Perrito left, which is when they switched Perros del Mal's role over to Hijos de Averno. I really do think he's somehow less special with the mask, and that's something you don't say about too many wrestlers. I'm not saying that UG's side work like tecnicos here, but they do play to the crowd. That's not too surprising with UG considering he always had pockets of fans. Standing out the most were things like how the Perros knocked him into said pocket during the end of the the beatdown in the segunda and Averno signaling to the crowd before his big dive in the tecera.

To be honest, the Perros didn't stand out all that much to me, which might have been the nature of the match as much as anything else. This definitely wasn't a match full of crisp exchanges and paired off opponents. It was worked sort of rudos vs rudos with a decent amount of chaos, but maybe without the sort of violence I had come to anticipate from that. The Perros ambushed their opponents before they could all make it out and took the first fall, right on until UG got to fight out of a corner in the segunda. Then his side had the advantage until Aguila slipped through the cracks and they pushed towards the dive and the finish of UG pinning Damian after a power bomb reversal off the top. It was almost worked like each side had their own tecnico style comeback which was kind of neat but given how unfocused the chaos ultimately was, wasn't enough to take the match over the top.

I think Misterioso had a cool look and Aguila seemed like the sort of guy that someone could get a lot out of due to his physical charisma. I thought his flippy evasions of Averno and Mephisto to set up the comeback in the tercera were impressive. Damian was gritty and had good presence. He hit a sliding-on-his-belly splash out of the ring on Ultimo during that first beat down. UG later got revenge by tossing him out of the ring face first that same way. Averno and Mephisto worked well with UG, including setting up a big flip powerbomb on Misterioso and all three of them doing corner attacks ending with UG's seated senton. You could probably have slotted them in with most other rudos at this point to make a serviceable trios side.

This was probably one of the more skippable matches I've seen in this, but I will probably hit one or two of the big Guerreros vs Perros trios later on in the year. I know there's a title match or two and those might be more interesting.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 7: Dos Caras Jr., Heavy Metal, Negro Casas vs Averno, Mephisto, Rey Bucanero

Aired 52MX: 2006-05-27
Taped 2006-05-21 @ Arena Coliseo
Dos Caras Jr., Heavy Metal, Negro Casas vs Averno, Mephisto, Rey Bucanero

One of my basic rules of this project was that I really wanted there to be at least two of Los Guerreros in a match for me to look at it. This is an exception as much for what we don't have as what we do. It was the first part of Rey's turn which is going to be the focus of the next series of matches, so even though he's teamed with Averno and Mephisto and not his usual partners, the fact that we have this and not the later parts of the turn made it worth a look. That I got to see more Metal/Casas and masked Averno, which I haven't seen much of, didn't hurt.

So this was basically a lighter style match that told the story of Rey aligning with the tecnicos over his partners. I think it was an interesting way to do it since Averno and Mephisto weren't the Guerreros, and in fact, if he was in there with his usual partners, he probably wouldn't have been swayed by the tecnicos and the crowd, even if he might have had longer-seated frustrations. It let them draw it out and probably provided some real anticipation of what would happen the following week.

Averno and Mephisto surprised me a bit here. I was expecting something a bit more nefarious from them. I've liked what i had seen in 2013-2014 of Averno without the mask. He seemed like a rudo's rudo and very much the heir to Satanico, in personality and temperment and maybe on some level skill. Here, he and Mephisto were about as goony as they come, between getting in a muscle pose off with Dos Caras and snatching a fallen Heavy Metal away so they could pin him instead of letting Rey hit his back somersault senton. They didn't exactly come across as fearsome. That said, they took all of the tecnico offense quite well and they were believable as obnoxious jerk rudos even if they weren't exactly fire and brimstone.

The tecnicos were there to be fairly flashy and inspire Rey and they served that role competently. Heavy Metal stood out as the real inspirational force, with a solid little opening mat exchange with Rey, a tit for tat: his initial advantage was broken up by Mephisto, frustrating Rey. When Rey managed to do the same back to him, he went for a handshake that was almost taken. Later on, after his rudo partners had further annoyed him Rey and Metal had two other good exchanges, the first ending with the payoff of that handshake and the second with a plancha that took them out of the way for the finish. Both Metal and Caras had nice looking two-on-one exchanges with Averno and Mephisto.

Caras and Casas were pretty much there to goof around. Caras had his pose-off with Averno, but he also ended his two-on-one sequence by flipping Rey up of the ropes to dropkick his partners, after which, he made sure to applaud for Rey. This led to Averno and Mephisto tossing Rey out and, thus distracted, walking into a couple of big moves to lose the first caida. In between falls they tried to do the Guerreros huddle with Rey only to have him walk away and turn right into Caras' own huddle. Late in the match Casas, who was cheerleading the crowd in a Bucanero chant, got the better of Averno in the corner and after stomping him all over, made sure to high five Rey on the other side of the ring before hitting the corner dropkick. Funny stuff.

All of this was definitely goofy but certainly entertaining, and it paid off in the third fall where Rey insisted on wrestling like a tecnico, much to the dismay and ultimate defeat of his partners. Rey did have a fairly natural charisma and the crowd seemed to want this turn, save for the Guerreros fans who didn't seem to know what to make it of it. It's a shame we don't have the match from the next week online because I'd love to see how this played out when he was put in a situation with his usual stable once again. We have plenty of the aftermath of that, though, and that's what I'll be looking at shortly.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 5/11/14

These matches were from the 4/27 Arena Mexico show, billed as the Arena Mexico 58th Anniversary, and also Kids Day! Traditionally I know that there have been a lot of fun matches on Kids Day, so hopefully that's true here. Anniversary show and a Kids Day show, should equal something worthwhile.

Negro Casas, Barbaro Cavernario & Mr. Niebla vs. Maximo, Titan & Super Porky

Fun but inconsequential match. I've been one of the longer term Porky supporters, but at this point it sure seems like he mostly gets in the way as opposed to adding much. A lot of his trios feature long segments focusing on him and it can really drag things. I'm thinking his tecnico work with Escorpion may have been his late career peak. Maximo had a real shining performance here, working in his schtick (along with a bunch of rarely busted out schtick such as fainting into Niebla's arms when Niebla charged him). Maximo got to work some cool arm drag reversal segments with Casas, and Casas isn't a guy I've seen Maximo work very long segments with so that was cool. We've all seen what Cavernario can do now that the Busca is over, so it was kind of a bummer to watch him play 3rd fiddle in his team here. I much rather would have seen him tearing it up with Titan and Maximo (which we did get a little bit of, with him catching a nice Titan rana off the apron on the floor) but instead we got some assbiting comedy spots as if it was a midget match at the county fair. Of course we also got Casas performing violent CPR on Kemonito, so the comedy wasn't a total wash. Casas pounding on Kemonito's chest and listening for a heartbeat, combined with Maximo's performance among other things kept this worthwhile.



Reyes Del Aire, w/ Puma, Tiger, Ephesto, Averno, Mephisto, Niebla Roja, Valiente, Stuka Jr., Rey Cometa, Guerrero Maya Jr., Triton & Delta

Nice seeing Maya back on TV, feels like it's been a few months. He and Mephisto get a fun sequence together, fun armdrags and some brief quirky mat stuff. Valiente/Ephesto is the burliest possible match up this match can give me, and they deliver immediately. Ephesto levels Valiente with a sweet flying back elbow, Valiente does the fastest Fuerza bump to the floor and immediately gets smashed by an Ephesto tope. More please. Tiger is really great at occupying himself while Cometa flips all around him, missing moves and making it really look like Cometa is one step ahead of him, and he makes Cometa look like a star by bumping his slick rana on the floor. The dives start coming fast, with Cometa hitting his awesome tornillo on Puma, but then Maya completely obliterating Roja with a flip dive. He just plastered him into the barricade, hitting him horizontally and with insane speed. One of the most awesome dives I can recall. Just Roja taking a cannonball to the chest. Triton starts going off, springing all over the ropes like a spider monkey, ending with him hitting a wild moonsault to the floor. Things slow down a bit and we get a couple too soon eliminations, with Triton, Maya and Ephesto getting the boot. Maya especially I was hoping would go long. Cometa runs face first into a Puma superkick that folds him right in half (it's fine, since Cometa just hits his own seconds later. d'oh.), but the Puma submits him much to my surprise. I assumed Cometa would be around at the end. And Valiente punishes Puma for the elimination by hitting a stout man tope. God the dives in the match have been incredible. Poor Tiger hardly gets to shine in this, and then gets eliminated by Delta, having to do that old stupid Scoot Andrews/Billy Kidman "I'm draped over the middle rope killing time while you jump off onto me" that I thought people had retired by now. He makes poor Averno go through the exact same fucking thing minutes later. It's a cool double foot stomp, but man do the poor rudos look dorky seated on the middle rope waiting to be leapt on. Retire this move set up!!! Puma and Valiente find neat ways to give each other weird chest breakers, that kind of defy all believable physics if you think about them for more than a second (so just don't do that and enjoy Puma taking Valiente's knees to his chin). Valiente Especial is still spectacular and it's a wonder he hasn't died doing this yet. That's a lot of man crashing upside down into other men at very high speeds. Mephisto and Stuka are weird finalists. Not Stuka really, but Mephisto is maybe the last rudo in this match I wanted to see work the extended finale. They work okay together, but really would have liked to see Puma or Tiger be the final rudo since those guys have really come on strong this year. It would have been nice to see them get some extended time. Still this was almost a half hour of awesome dives and cool moves, probably what a lot of us originally thought lucha was going to be like whenever it was that we all started watching lucha (personally, when I started watching lucha in 1998 I assumed it would be a lot like the luchador matches on WCW Saturday Night. I assume I wasn't the only one who thought that way). This is well worth going out of your way to watch. Tons of fun.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 4/20/14

These matches were from the 4/6 Anniversario show at Arena Coliseo. I got higher than normal hopes for this one as I know guys historically have pulled out all the stops on big Anniversary shows, so I'm hoping for some better than average stuff here. I'm watching the show with my buddy Charlie who is always fun to watch wrestling with, as he loves it enough so that when I visit him he requests I pick out cool wrestling for us to watch…but at the same time he would never and has never watched any wrestling on his own (past the age of 12). It's always great watching wrestling with Rachel or somebody like Charlie, as they are watching this stuff with completely different eyes and always make some fresh-faced observations from a perspective that I wouldn't consider. It makes me appreciate things in a whole different way.

Averno, Ephesto  & Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. Mistico II, Valiente & La Sombra

This was really fun, not so much flat out great as past Anniversario spotfests have been, but really fun nonetheless. The tecnicos all got to do tons of spectacular stuff, with Valiente especially shining by hitting a crazy fast tope and a somehow even faster Valiente Special. It is probably the craziest spot in wrestling, two crazy fast springboards into a no-look moonsault. He did it so fast here my brain could hardly process it, meaning I can't imagine actually willing my body to do it. Sombra and Mistico each do a couple big flip dives, Averno catches a bunch of Mistico ranas, Sombra breaks out some cool tilt-a-whirl floppy armdrags. So, a bunch of fun stuff, but not quite bumping up to that next level.

Mr. Niebla vs. Atlantis

First two falls were way too short, but the tercera was worked a little bit more like a longer lightning match. It was funny as Atlantis took so much of the match that it turned Niebla tecnico, as after seeing Atlantis control so much the fans spontaneously starts a Niebla chant! Niebla is great at catching onto that and using it to hulk up. Atlantis can kinda hold back in trios and blend into the background, so it was nice seeing him forced to break out enough offense for a singles match. Few guys do roll-ups and old school lucha ranas as graceful as Atlantis, so it's always a treat to see. Niebla takes a big bump to the floor and mans up to catch a big Atlantis tope. Niebla also works some fun comedy in at appropriate times, such as doing the most blatant ropes hold on a rolling reverse cradle (picture Andre stuck in the ropes with both arms draped over, and that was Niebla holding the ropes while pinning Atlantis with his legs). Not much drama in this as Atlantis wins the first with a roll up, Niebla wins the segunda after a splash after Atlantis misses a dropkick, and then even with all the fans newly behind Niebla in the tercera, he doesn't really even get any sort of pitfalls. It just eventually ends up with Atlantis winning, as everybody assumed he would.

Minis Cage Match up next, loser unmasks!! I don't think I've really seen a very good multi-man lucha cage match, as escape rules matches don't usually do too much for me. Mini matches are usually made spectacular by their crazy spots and awesome rudo bases, but a cage takes away all spots to the floor, and escape rules make doing top rope spots psychologically stupid, as the guy should just climb over the top.

Pierrothito vs. Pequeno Olimpico vs. Fantasy vs. Stukita vs. Ultimo Dragoncito vs. Electrico vs. Astral vs. Acero vs. Pequeno Halcon vs. Pequeno Nitro

Yeah this match was pretty much what I was afraid of. Ten people crammed into a cage, more worried about climbing over the cage than doing cool stuff. I'm sure some have to exist out there, but is there such a thing as a good multi-man lucha cage match? I'm thinking 6 combatants or higher. I have no doubts there could be a good singles cage match, or even a tag team. But at 6+ people I'm asking you, tell me the good lucha cage matches. I'll watch those motherfuckers right here. So we had a long series of assorted guys jumping up to turnbuckles, only to be pulled off of those same turnbuckles. Moreover, we had a series of assorted guys jumping up to turnbuckles, only to evade capture, climb to the top of the cage, flex muscles in celebration at the top of the cage, and then escape. Escape rules do not leave much room for highspots, unless the psychology is all out of whack (he wanted to hit a gigantic move off the top sooooo badly that it overrode his desire to escape!!), and there are not many here. Stukita tries to fit some stuff in, and in cramped quarters is somewhat successful. I applaud his effort. Pierrothito is a standout at working with the match constraints, as he is one of the only ones who manages to show some sort of personality while working escapes and battle royal-type bullshit. It comes down to Pequeno Halcon and Astral. They work some pretty decent submission exchanges, in that both guys were able to get across the consequences of tapping out. Astral wins, Halcon unmasks. He looks like many Mexican men you have known in your life. He was my pick to lose from the beginning, as he had a) the most boring mask, and b) the least interesting look and gimmick. I don't think losing the Pequeno Halcon identity will make any difference over his long term career. I may not know the whole story, but I'm failing to see the Halcon identity being a huge boon to his career. Are there many Halcon fans out there still? People going "I used to watch Super Halcon. This man is dressed much like him, but smaller. He looks somewhat like a smaller Halcon."

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