Lucha Worth Watching: Metalico vs. Disturbio for HAIR! Crash Minis!

Metalico vs. Disturbio CMLL 5/4/19     3ra Caida

ER: Here's me, loving the career ending Virus match, talking to Phil and saying "When was the last time Metalico even worked a singles match!?" Well, it turns out he worked on earlier in the month AND it was also a stips match. It's quick and fun and worked stiff, two rudos going at it while Metalico is default tecnico. Disturbio sneak attacks him to draw a DQ, but sets himself up for an easy segunda win by ramming his knees into Metalico's face a bunch while he's still recovering from that sneak attack. The tercera is where all the action is, with Metalico unleashing two big topes and his Asai moonsault, and we get both men trying to distract the other before hitting cheapshots. Metalico's payback cheapshots were great, loved him getting Disturbio to take his eyes off the action before laying him out with a lariat, and the match ends with Disturbio almost hitting the ref and then getting punched right in the balls. We got a real stiff kneeling punch exchange with both guys comically recoiling before springing up and hitting harder and harder shots, and while this never quite felt like a high stakes apuestas, neither guy was holding back. Also, it's a fact that Disturbio's post haircut look is easily the best he's looked. Everybody wins!

Los Haraganes (Animal/Demencia/Silver Star) vs. Toto/Torito Negro/Xperia The Crash 5/4/19

ER: Real shame this only went 6 minutes or so, because this was a wild super libre match with tons of dives, tons of guys getting thrown into a packed crowd, and tons of stiff shots by our rudos, Los Haraganes (does that really directly translate to "The Lazy"? If so that's my favorite rudo team name ever). We start with a couple dives, including an unhinged flipping moonsault by Demencia, and from there we get a ton of chaos, guys getting launched 5 rows deep with hiptosses and taking out entire sections of chairs, honestly someone either gets thrown or lands in the crowd no less than 8 times in the 6 minute run time, and then come the chair shots. Everywhere you look someone is getting tossed through chairs, hit with hard chair shots, or choked with a chair. A kid gets shoved, more chaos. An important thing about Los Haraganes, is that all of them hit hard. Silver Star throws some forehead bruising punches from the mount, a guy who really makes all of his strikes count (and that's not something that really happens in these kind of spotfests). Animal hits a great dive, Xperia hits a cool climb up headscissors/rana on Demencia, Demencia takes a wild bump off the top when he tries - standing on the top rope - to BODYSLAM Torito, and we get another tornillo into the barricade for good measure. I could have gobbled up another 6 minutes of this, easily, but these guys get deservedly pelted with coin money after this ends (shout out to the kid standing at the entrance ramp launching coins as hard as he can from the back row).

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Lucha Worth Watching: Your 2017 CMLL Midcard

Virus/Disturbio/Okumura vs. Pegasso/Soberano Jr./Fuego (CMLL 2/3/17)

ER: We get more of 2017 tecnico superstar Soberano. He's really connecting with the Arena Mexico crowd, and it's always exciting when a crowd starts really reacting to a wrestler, the excitement in a worker's movements when he's getting loud reactions are palpable. Here he gets to show off a lot of flash, and also shows his bump freak side. The bump freak side is my favorite side of his, with him flying recklessly to the floor in the primera off a bull rush shoulderblock from Virus, taking an Okumura lariat on the side of his head, taking a hip toss from the ring to the rampway, and the bumps all lead to bigger reactions on his comebacks. Rudos really take a back seat to tecnicos here, with all three just trying (and succeeding) in drawing heat from the crowd verbally instead of just hogging all the offense. I mean, Virus is always going to look good, but here he hangs back, mostly keeping his offense to simple things (big shoulderblock, sharp elbow drop to the "lower abdomen", big lariat). The finish gets wild with Pegasso hitting a tornillo, Fuego hitting a missile dropkick followed immediately by a springboard missile dropkick, then pins Virus with a cool crucifix variation. Soberano clears the ring with a springboard rana, hits a smooth as hell tornillo off the top, and a moonsault off the middle onto a hanging Okumura wraps it up, crowd flipping their lid the whole time. Fun stuff.

Hechicero/Sagrado/Misterioso Jr. vs. The Panther/Guerrero Maya Jr./Blue Panther Jr. (CMLL 11/17/17)

ER: I really like this rudo team, they same to show up fairly regularly together and they all mesh nicely. They're good at being jerks and bullies, and they're good at allowing openings for any tecnicos that want to grab them. The rudo antics in this one are as good as expected, like The Panther sending Misterioso to the floor with a rana, so Misterioso responds angrily yanking Maya off the apron and then chucking Kemonito into the front row. Just as Stan Hansen turns a pinfall save into an opportunity to beat the hell out of the guy pinning his partner, I love and appreciate how Misterioso took out frustrations on the other team. We get some big bad triple teams too, like Hechicero doing his weird inverted monkey flip to Panther while Sagrado and Misterioso dish kicks on the way down. The tecnicos get some big dives and get to show some stones, like when Hechicero hits his cool moonsault to the floor, and he then gets jumped on the floor by the other two opponents. You don't normally see that from a tecnico team. Guerrero Maya peaks things with an insane tope con giro that sends him flying into the second row, The Panther keeps getting better, and these rudos know how to get an Arena Mexico reaction, and I love when these midcard acts go out of their way to get noticed on a nostalgia show.

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MLJ: 1000 words on King Jaguar & Lestat vs Disturbio & Policeman

2015-12-14 @ Arena Puebla
King Jaguar & Lestat vs Disturbio & Policeman

25:00 in

So a couple of people I know get together in an online chat room for the Monday Puebla and Friday Arena Mexico shows. It's never more than three or four people and everyone's generally distracted but it's still plenty of fun. It also makes certain things (like Porky matches) more enjoyable. A few of us were really enjoying this one on Monday night. In the end, it's probably just the circles I travel in. There are two types of people in this world, those who are going to go nuts for six minutes of rudos demolishing some poor bastard's leg, ending in a stretcher job, and those who will not. I travel in the circle where that's pretty awesome.

Jaguar lost his mask to Lestat back in July. They don't get along. Lestat also doesn't get along with the rudos. I have no idea why Disturbio is working the second match on Puebla. Policeman belongs there, sure, but in the best possible way. He's the world's best Rey Apocalipsis and Toro Bill, Jr. partner, and I think that if CHIKARA brought them in to King of Trios next year they'd be a smash hit. Physically, he's a pretty appropriate Disturbio partner too. Just from the get go, it looked like a triple stand off with Lestat and Jaguar pushing each other and Policeman in next to face off against both. Disturbio and Policeman were on the same page though, which was the story of the match.

The primera was serviceable. Jaguar is not exactly dynamic. He wasn't helped by the loss of his mask. Policeman and Lestat were pretty well matched up though, working in and out of holds competently. They did a nice little parallel spot where Policeman faked a test of strength only to go for a leg dive and then a minute or so later, Lestat doing the same thing. That time Disturbio broke up the subsequent submission, and Lestat was pissed at Jaguar for not stopping him, so it was both paralleled and functional in the grand scheme of the match. Disturbio and Policeman were doing over the top high five tags while Lestat seemed annoyed whenever Jaguar wanted him in the ring. They leaned into the animosity more for the fall's finish. Jaguar saved Lestat from a corner whip by flipping him up and onto the apron but then immediately punched him off. He turned around, hit a pick up/drop down on Disturbio and a leglock as Lestat recovered and dove in and over with a body press and rope run up moonsault on Disturbio. Totally functional, serviceable primera with a couple of clever moments.

They got right to it in the segunda. Jaguar got the better of Disturbio in a quick exchange, but then Disturbio drew him in with a handshake allowing Policeman to dropkick him from behind. They darted across the ring to take out Lestat and the leg mauling was on. Like I said, it was about six minutes and very focused Arn and Tully work or Power and Glory vs Rockers Summerslam '90 work. The latter's probably the better example considering where this ended up. None of it was flashy but I'll take focused over flashy anyday. They were unrelenting, stomping and kicking, one holding and one hitting. They pulled him to the post and slammed it and did a double sledge onto leg that was against the post, which was a nice touch. Disturbio put his foot on the back of the leg and stomped it. They draped it over the rope. Polceman came off the second ropes as Policeman held it with a double sledge and later put it over the guard rail on the ramp and just ground it to dust. At one point, Jaguar made it to Lestat but instead of tagging him, he just wiggled his fingers and kicked at him instead. That didn't work out so well though. With Jaguar incapacitated, they took Lestat out soundly, Policeman pinning him after a second rope splash. Then they dragged the carcass of Jaguar back in for a brutal single leg lock. After he submitted, Disturbio turned to hold the leg straight so that Policeman could put all of his weight upon it. Again, nothing groundbreaking, but still really gritty small stuff.

The tercera was short and sweet, functional again, leading to whatever will come next. They pulled Jaguar out, locking his leg in one of the fixed chairs in the audience, and pounded on it some more. That was the end for him, as the stretcher came shortly thereafter. Policeman and Disturbio started back on Lestat, beating him down until Espirtu Maligno came out in all of his goofy glory for the save, setting up, presumably a Lestat/Espirtu Maligno vs Policeman/Disturbio tag, now that Lestat no longer has to look past an old grudge to find a partner to fight them with? Or something. I thought that the nebulous nature of the bad blood and the finish contrasted well with the really focused legwork. Was it a little scattered narratively in that the sympathy was generated by the work on Jaguar, and Lestat's refusal to help him was part of that but the key moment in the end was Lestat being saved by Espirtu Maligno? Sure. At the same time, though, it all felt character driven. There was no moment in the match where someone did something that felt off. Lestat's pride and frustration was obvious. Jaguar made stupid, angry mistakes in hitting his own partner and refusing to work with him, despite how difficult he was being, and that cost him in the end. Disturbio and Policeman were just vultures preying upon the dissention and hacking away at Jaguar's leg.

So yeah, no Space Flying Tiger Drops if you like that sort of thing and no visceral comebacks if you're like me and like that sort of thing, but this was a functional little match with a pretty brutal, very focused segunda.

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MLJ: July 2015 Matches Week: Negro Casas/Esfinge/Guerrero Maya, Jr. vs Virus/Disturbio/Boby Zavala

Taped 2015/7/24 @ Arena Mexico
Negro Casas/Esfinge/Guerrero Maya, Jr. vs Virus/Disturbio/Boby Zavala

I wanted to take a little break from my fair, impartial, and critically beloved look at Volador in 2015 to check out a few other things from July. This was the Busca trios match. I looked at the one from last year not that long ago. Generally, due to Negro Casas and Virus' involvement, if you're going to watch one match from these things, this is the one to go with.

I think everyone agrees that the field this year was terribly lackluster. If you're someone who wants kinetic action and big dives, then things were particularly weak. They tended to work a more subdued sort of match with more (often meandering) matwork. Canelo Casas and Blue Panther, Jr. stunk up their share of matches. The guys who can fly big like Flyer tended to move gingerly and without confidence. The judging bordered from embarrassing (Hijo del Gladiador's reactions explains so much about CMLL's booking) to hilariously embarrassing (Blue Panther, Sr. refusing to judge Blue Panther, Jr.) to just hilarious (Porky giving everyone 10s). Add in the shadiness of Esfinge advancing and the specter of last year's highly enjoyable field and it's really just depressing. You'll notice that Segunda Caida didn't cover it to any great degree.

But hey, this match has Casas and Virus and I'll watch any match with Casas and Virus, so here we go. If you remember, last year's trio match was smart with its pairings, starting with the maestros (and Hechicero) separated so that there were three solid exchanges to begin things. It also had the weirdness of Cachorro on the rudo side. Here, the split is very clean. Casas, super over with the Arena Mexico crowd, would play babyface (if not tecnico) and Virus, Disturbio, and Zavala would naturally play rudo.

This year they started with Disturbio vs Esfinge, which was tolerable. I know Esfinge has gotten criticized for the nepotism but he's seasoned enough to do the little things here. Disturbio probably has the best facial reactions in CMLL right now. I'm trying to think who would be better an coming up blank. He's just such a goon. Anyway, the matwork here was perfectly okay. They led into what I'd consider the main rivalry of the match, and it was a surprising one, the sort that really didn't exist in last year's more heralded match, Casas vs Zavala. They were paired up numerous times throughout the match. If anyone was the breakout star of the Busca this year, it was Boby, and Casas bent over backwards to highlight him here. They were presented as very even in strike exchanges and in Casas just respecting him as an opponent worth his time. Virus was paired with Maya and tat was fine, if brief, leading to a pace picking up for the primera's finish. It looked like it was going to be the tecnicos ascendant with Esfinge hitting a dive and Casas locking in the Casita on Zavala, but Esfinge wiped out and Zavala blocked the Casita to hit a power bomb. I watched this back a few times, and I'm pretty certain that Zavala shook the ropes to make Esfinge wipe out. If so, that was really clever and it's not something you see all the time. The camera just didn't catch it well. It was a good primera which set the tone for the match.

I think the really exciting stuff here was Casas' face in peril during the segunda. That said, I wasn't quite as high on it as some people, if only because I wish it went a little longer. The nature of lucha trios matches is that you don't get extended face in peril segments. You get a side-in-peril, yes, but they tend to keep things moving and the importance of a "tag" instead of a momentum shift is minimized. It's a little like focused limbwork. It's rare enough that when you do see it, it really stands out. Here they cut off the ring for a few minutes (maybe even less than that) and kept Casas from tagging. Virus was especially great here. It sort of led to nothing when Disturbio came in and just launched Casas into his own corner, but I'm more than willing to give the match the benefit of the doubt and say that it was inexperience that caused it. Disturbio's such a goon. The comeback led to an awesome Virus vs Casas exchange and then Maya getting the pin on Virus after his skullbreaker over the knee. I liked how they let Zavala pin Casas in the primera and Maya pin Virus in the segunda. It's almost like they knew what they were doing.

The tercera was all action with Casas looking like the best guy in the world between how crisp he was hitting things, the emotion he was inspiring form the fans through his selling, and his timing in repeatedly grabbing the ropes on pins. More than that, though, he made Zavala feel like a big deal. He didn't have to, and there are so many other wrestlers at his level, even put into a mentor role, that wouldn't. We've seen that already from Casas this year vs Dragon Lee and others but Zavala feels a little lower on the card (and also a rudo) and it just really stood out. I was expecting them to go back to Virus vs Casas to finish things up but it was Zavala vs Casas and it made perfect sense within the confines of the match and didn't feel forced at all. Yes, Casas won the match for his side with the Casita on him but Zavala came out looking even better than he did coming in. It wasn't nearly as special a match as last year's maestro trios but it's still probably the highlight of the tournament this year and just more proof of how amazing Negro Casas is.

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2015 En Busca De Idolo Qualifying Cibernetico

Not as excited about this years lineups as I was last year, but I figure I will cover it again, and see if anyone breaks out. Like last year, I am going to rate everything either Must See, Spare Moment and Don't Bother

Blue Panther Jr./Boby Zavala/Canelo Casas/Delta/Disturbio/Esfinge/Flyer/Guerrero Maya Jr. v. Akuma/Cancerbero/Gallo/Joker/Pegasso/Raziel/Sagrado/Stigma-Spare Moment

This was less lunatic then last years qualifier, it had less awkward blown stuff (really the only awful thing was Maya Jr. blowing a dive, which is weird because he is the most experienced guy here), but also less holy shit moments. I liked Joker's brawling, and Cancerbero is always good, they were the two stand outs for the non-qualifiers. Flyer looks like he will take the Star. Jr./Dragon Lee role of young guy embracing hot death, will be interesting to see if he has anymore to show. Casas, Maya and Panther Jr. have the genetics and Maya has been pretty good for a long time, although he did look off here. Hard to get much of a sense of anything in a match like this, but I am going to remain optimistic.

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2013 Lucha Roundup

Polvora v. Titan CMLL 1/1

Not really my kind of lucha, as this was pretty much just young guys throwing out all of there spots. Still this was a singles match which got some time, and some of the spots were pretty crazy. All the second caida stuff around the ramp was nuts, as was Titan's tope to Polvora's back. CMLL is going have this kind of match and this isn't a bad version of it.

Leono/Tigre Blanco v. Bobby Zavala/Disturbio CMLL 1/1

I liked this a bunch, four guys given a shot to have a hair match in Arena Mexico and they left it all on the mat. Really liked the rudos they were both really aggressive, bumped huge and eat all of the technicos offense. Liked Zavala's chops a bunch, he threw them in a different way, big dives and some real drama with out overkill like the title match. Would like to see all of these guys get more chances

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