Phil Schneider, Eric Ritz, Matt D, Sebastian, and other friends write about pro wrestling. Follow us @segundacaida
Monday, January 25, 2016
MLJ: Fantasticamania: Hechicero & Virus vs Dragon Lee & Jay White
2016-01-17 @ Kochi Sunpia CHRES, Kochi, Japan
Hechicero & Virus vs Dragon Lee & Jay White
We've gotten crazy snow where I am, and it's been 110% toddler time for me the last few days. Thankfully, I've been able to sneak in just a bit of lucha, even if I'm behind on the things I was planning to watch. I have every intention on braving the most dreaded of disappointing lucha libre, CMLL Tournaments, because I Want to get back to Sombra, and the 2010 Universal Tournament where he ended up in the finals with Liger seems like a fun choice. I may regret it.
For now, though, this is up on russian youtube (Alfredo's tweeted out the links, I think, but feel free to go to rutube and search for "hechicero"), and it was a lot of fun. It's obviously one of the best rudo pairings CMLL Could possibly put together up against the most dynamic tecnico of the last year. White is a perfectly acceptable foreign young lion. Virus and Hechicero have to position guys around far clunkier than him all of the time, so this was going to be good no matter what, really.
What was the most fun, however, was the presentation. It was in front of prety small looking crowd and everyone wanted to make a splash. Virus was slapping hands. He and Hechicero made some great poses for the cameras. Hech really stood out with his character playing. He had a mask over his normal one like Mil Mascaras and locked in a bunch of his normal rolling submissions and the conjuro. The "wizardry" he was doing to befuddle White with his hands, refusing to lock up and casting a spell repeatedly, then either gaining advantage with a quick legdive or armlock. He's started to do this a little more in CMLL, but this was 300% over the top and I loved it. He's had better matches but this was probably my favorite performance of his in a long time. He was desperately trying to impress and thus came off like not just a star, but an extremely unique star.
This was one fall and they worked it with a bit of primera feeling out (between Lee and Virus and White and Hechicero), going through the pairings a couple of times with the usual escalation, and then went into the cutoffs and spots of a tercera finishing stretch. It was very cool to see three of everyone's favorites take their act on the road though. I'd love to see Virus and Hechicero as a more regular team over the rest of the year.
MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 10: Delta, Dragon Lee II, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Kamaitachi, Puma, Virus
2015-02-08 @ Arena México
Delta, Dragon Lee II, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Kamaitachi, Puma, Virus
I've tried to avoid the Kamaitachi feud because it's been covered well elsewhere, but this has Virus in it, so I'll do a brief shot here. I think by now it's obvious that spotty wrestling isn't my favorite wrestling, in and of itself, but when someone is good enough to make those spots matter and resonate, as opposed to just rushing to the next one to get the oohs and the ahhs out of the crowd, then I love it as much as anything in wrestling. It's marrying excitement and drama with logic and meaning and big monents that makes lucha amazing, and I think, even so early into his career, Dragon Lee is well along the path of getting that. Working so much with Virus probably helped, but for his experience level, he's come a long way.
Then you have a wrestler like Delta, who has 1-2 really fantastic dives, can garner some level of sympathy in getting beaten down, and can be led in early matwork or exchanges, but ultimately doesn't seem to be able to put it all together. He was fairly well exposed during this year's Busca and it was frustrating because his big spots are so good. Guerrero Maya, Jr., on the other hand, is someone who I think we only see part of what he can do in the CMLL setting. I was very impressed with his quasi-rudo work against his father earlier this year on the indies. I could see him as the person NJPW selects to go over there for a year as he's as capable to manage a Mil Mascaras impression as anyone on the roster under the age of 50.
This was another fun trios, feeling like one of the older style tecnico spotlights until about midway through the match and ending in a way that kept the momentum going for the Kamaitachi/Dragon Lee apuestas match which was about a month and a half away. Virus was paired with Delta, Puma with GM, Jr., and Kamaitachi with Dragon Lee. The primera had relatively brief exchanges that escalated in speed. Delta did a good job hanging (or being strung along) with Virus. They rushed to the spots here, with Kamaitachi flying in.
and a really nice flip dive by Delta:
It ended with GM, Jr. cinching his head crusher on Puma and the double stomp on Kamaitachi. The crowd (which was surprisingly rowdy; I think there was a give away or something that night) booed the tecnicos going over.
The segunda was more of the same, a tecnico showcase, right up until the point that Dragon Lee showed some hubris. You can't keep the mandate of heaven if you're a tecnico who goes to mask ripping first in a match. The second he started on Kamaitachi's mask, the rudos ran in and made short work of things, including a nasty Virus vertebreaker.
The tercera continued the beatdown, including Virus being all sorts of great, doing some tandem spots with Puma as if he was Tiger and having a really fun moment of winding up with one hand and smacking GM, Jr. with the other. The late match comeback really felt like the tecnicos just being too much and the rudos not able to beat them up fast enough, which was effective.
I usually try to gif things other than the dives, but GM, jr.'s dive on Puma to set up the finish was just too good:
That helped clear the ring for Kamaitachi and Dragon Lee and the subsequent foul and mask pull right in front of the ref. Effective. Just another fun trios. It's great to be able to pick and choose and keep up with CMLL when they're putting out matches like this (nothing groundbreaking but so easy to watch) just about every week.
I finally made it into 2015, so from here on in, with the Dragon Lee spotlight, consider this sort of a secondary look at his year. Keep in mind, I'm only looking at matches where he's up against either Casas or Virus. The way I see it, everyone else has the Kamaitachi stuff covered. This is all additional evidence one way or another. Plus, Virus and Casas are my two current favorite guys in CMLL, so it's win-win. Anyway, this is kind of like comfort food to me. I don't know if I have a lot more to say about CMLL trios in general, but I can delve into specific performances.
Here, the rudo team was just so much fun. I like Puma and Tiger, but I especially like them when Virus is there to ground their tendencies a bit and to direct traffic. This had a ton of time in the primera, or at least it felt that way. Some of that was a testament to Virus, and to Pegasso, who he was paired with, keeping up with him. This was in front of an absurdly hot crowd. Looking back, there might have been some sort of corporate give away of tickets or someting. Some sort of promotion. I have no idea what they're chanting or who they're rooting for but they were into this thing from the get go.
Again, the get go was Virus and Pegasso, with Virus looking like the best wrestler in the world, working an inside armlock from a standing position with Pegasso flipping and twisting and hitting to get out and Virus just hanging on. Yes, he was controlling the flow of this and moving Pegasso around, but I thought it wasn't entirely apparent. It certainly wasn't even from a presentation point of view. By having Pegasso continue to fight, even as Virus remained in control, it made both of them look good.
The other pairings were pretty good too. Tiger was with Esfinge and they picked up the pace a bit. The real strength of that pairing was Tiger's personality, complaining about his mask whenever he lost an exchange. Puma and Dragon Lee brought a ton of energy to the match from the second they stepped in to face off. All good stuff. The fall ended with things breaking down and Virus and Dragon Lee going at it (after holding off from that the entire primera). Virus would catch Lee off the ropes, reversing the second slidekick of the match with his legs into a submission. Very novel spot:
Puma and Tiger are always a blast to watch. The beatdown continued into the segunda, and just watch Puma's dickishness with teasing Pegasso's corner with the tag:
They're the spottiest guys in CMLL but since things follow the usual structure, it adds instead of distracts from the procedeeings. When you add in other players like Dragon Lee and Virus, you end up with fairly elaborate spots:
Anyway, this churned a bit, with a few false moments of comeback. Eventually, the tecnicos were just too much. The rudos could withstand one attempt, but eventually they fell behind and lost the momentum, leading to flip dives by Esfinge and Pegasso on Puma and Tiger and the first real Dragon Lee/Virus exchange of the match. Thanks to some clever positioning knocking Virus off the corner, they actually made the dangling double stomp look pretty natural, which is always a plus.
The tercera was pretty much what you'd expect. Tiger and Puma acted sufficiently rudo, teasing handshakes and trolling the crowd to get heat. Pegasso and Esfinge hit their stuff. They cycled guys in and out. Dragon Lee and Virus faced off again, with Lee getting the clear visual victory, hitting his dive. The tecnicos lost the war, though, as Puma and Tiger were able to get Esfinge and Pegasso down, setting up the flip splash on both and a double pin. Too many talented wrestlers here for this not to be fun and enjoyable, even if it was low stakes.
MLJ: Puebla Hotshot: Negro Casas, Barbaro Cavernario, Kamaitachi vs Dragon Lee, Maximo, Blue Panther
2015-9-28 @ Arena Puebla
Negro Casas, Barbaro Cavernario, Kamaitachi vs Dragon Lee, Maximo, Blue Panther
1:15:00 in
I'm messing up my schedule for the next couple of weeks (again) in order to hotshot this. It was from the Monday Puebla show this week and I was higher on it than most of the comments I saw live, comments that I'll get to and that I think were fair and don't even disagree with. Two hundred-plus matches into this project, I've learned some things about myself and my own proclivities, however, and this is a good match to look at for the sake of generalities.
First and foremost, the match was a disappointment. Of course it was. On paper, this is one of the best trios matches that CMLL can put on right now. Unfortunately, it was put on with no real stakes, no major program to build to (though maybe they'll run Casas vs Maximo again?), in front of a really sparse crowd, and on a stilted 2 hour show. They played around with the pairings so that other than a far too brief opening exchange (more on that in a moment) we didn't really get Blue Panther vs Negro Casas, and there wasn't the sort of spotfest destruction we've come to expect from Kamaitachi vs Dragon Lee. There wasn't even a lot of standout character moments between Cavernario and Maximo (though there was a promising moment between Cavernario and Kamaitachi). It was a match that, in another setting, should have been spectacular. That said, for a match without much of a primera and with a rushed I do think it was very solid and I want to talk about why I feel that way.
I'm very forgiving on CMLL trios matches in general. I think that has to do with what I look for in wrestling. A lot of people want brilliant matwork or lightning fast sequence in a primera or spectacular dives and spots in a tercera, and I like that stuff too, but it's a means to an end for me, not the end in and of itself. I'm into this for the build up and the pay off. That can come in a number of forms in these trios matches. It can be in the primera as an escalating series of mat exchanges or rope-running sequences leading to the tecnicos gaining advantage and picking up the fall. Alternative, the pressure could start building that way leading to an underhanded rudo swarm. It can be in the segunda, with a beatdown stemming from either the start of the match or the end of the primera and culminating with a big tecnico comeback. Or, it can be in the tercera, with the whole match building to a specific pairing, the dives clearing the ring of the tertiary luchadores so that the match can end on its real focus.
That's the part of the journey I love, and the best matches give us multiple iterations. That's something I've noticed watching 90s footage relative to now. They'd often give us a really complete primera (for isntance one with escalating tecnico shine), a really complete segunda (with a long beatdown), and then a comeback into a really complete tercera, with a lot of action, a lot of cuts off, and a finishing stretch which highlighted an ongoing feud and paid off the emotion of the entire match.
Rarely now do matches get room to breathe in all of those ways. Personally, if a match is only going to breathe in one, however, I want it to be the beatdown. I think this speaks to my background in wrestling. I love southern tag matches. I love that heat building and building, with hope spots and cut offs, with false tags and ref distraction and cheating heels and overzealous babyfaces. Lucha is generally broader than that, with its own tropes more focused on widescale momentum shifts, but wrestling is wrestling and there are more commonalities than differences.
I thought this match had a good beatdown, one that got enough time and led to a solid comeback (though not an ideal one). I don't love how they went into it. Casas and Panther had really just started to show their maestro wares when the rudos swarmed. That can work, even so early in a match, but it has to be the right situation. I think Ingobernables' title matches are a good situation, for instance, because they're spitting in the face of title match tradition when they do it. Here, it felt more due to time constraints, or because in 2015, for most trios matches, something has to give. You just can't have a complete primera, complete segunda, and complete tercera. I suppose the card has to have variety and this was only second from the top.
No matter how they got into it, it was a good beatdown. Casas, Cavernario, and Kamaitachi are great at keeping things moving and engaging. There was even a little cut-off-the-ring face in peril section on Panther, who's someone skilled enough to pull that off. It took me a long time to really figure out the tendency for these, but so long as there's just one rudo in the ring, they can play to a hot tag instead of just cycling tecnicos in and out. It's a subtle difference but it works. Usually it lasts for a few minutes focusing on one tecnico and sort of provides the best of both worlds. Once he's sufficiently beaten down without having made the tag, they cycle him out and start the double teaming in more force since they have the numbers game. That's exactly what they did here and I think it was effective and compelling, even if there weren't a lot of big spots or moments.
I can't say I liked the comeback quite as much, but some of that was down to familiarity. I made two real comments while watching this (and it's nice that CMLL on Youtube or Claro lets a number of us watch this at once. It adds to the sense of community), the first being that they really needed to let the beatdown go for a while (and they did) and the second being that I really didn't want the comeback to be centered around Maximo's butt stop spot (where a rudo runs into his ass as he runs up to the second rope). It's fine once and a while but Maximo goes to that well far too often. Well, that's what they did. I think it made the crowd happy, that, the Dragon Lee dive that followed, and the tercera which was heavily focused on Maximo's spots, but there were a number of more interesting ways they could have gone with it.
And that's the most damning thing about the match. It could have been more interesting. It should have been more interesting. Still, I'm glad I watched it and I'm glad I watched it live. There's something primal about the ebb and flow, the build up and the payoff, the beatdown and the comeback that really draws me to trios matches, even the disposable ones. There's something broad and mythic about it, and even a match that doesn't live up to its promise can tap into that just by the nature of its structure. Plus, while this was paint-by-numbers, it was some of the best paint CMLL has to offer and numbers that almost always come through.
More set up to the Lightweight title match the following week. Valiente and Fuego are both guys who I think shine most in trios matches where they can play a role. I'd rather see Mephisto in a trios match than in a singles match too, certainly. I actually don't have a great sense of Ephesto. Let me go take a look at wiki:
I like that his first persona was based on Blue Panther having trained him. Geez. He's 50? How old is Mephisto? Mephisto is 46. Ok then. Anyway, Ephesto debuted in 1982 according to this. That's nuts. Blue Panther's only a few years older than him anyway. Ah, he was Safari. I don't think I actually knew that. I mean, I did but I forgot at some point. Then he followed the Lucifierno path of being Hombre Sin Nombre for a while before CMLL let the fans come up with a new name for him (being after Hephaestus). That sounds like CMLL. As an aside, I miss Averno, especially given how little Rey Escporion had been used before the Guerrero feud started. They need more rudos who are really rudo and not cool heels or whatever.
On to the match: on paper, I think this should have been good. Some solid flyers/spot guys with personality on the tecnico side, competent beatdown rudos who can eat offense and were anchored by Virus on the other side, a title program shaping up for the following week. Etc. For the most part, I'd say it delivered for what it was trying to do.
Pairings to begin were Mephisto and Valiente, Fuego and Ephesto, and Dragon Lee and Virus (they didn't delay that too much). Lots of methodological and competent matwork to begin. I think it was a conscious pacing decision as the build was for Dragon Lee vs Virus. Once they got to it, the pace picked up and the crowd got into things, only for a Mephisto cheapshot from the outside to cut things off right when it was getting exciting. They did a good job of taking the fight out of Lee here, but the swarm on the tecnicos was a bit too delayed. Usually that happens right on time and we don't get a half minute of them looking like idiots on the apron. Here we did. I kind of like how Ephesto just uses a shoulder-breaker, by the way. It's refreshing, especially in a match with the frigging Valiente Driver.
The beatdown flowed into the segunda. There was a moment early on where Mephisto seemed to be going into business for himself on Dragon Lee's mask and Virus made sure to come over and join in to keep the focus where it should have been. This was a fun diversion of a beatdown because it played more into a traditional FIP. The tecnicos ended up back on the apron and they kept one rudo in at a time for the most part. They even played some southern tag tricks with the tecnicos being held back by the ref which allowed illegal changes by the rudos. So long as there aren't three rudos in the ring, I think this does work in lucha. Usually it doesn't pay off well and after a few minutes of it they just let the tecnico out of the ring anyway, but here that didn't happen. Instead, Dragon Lee did his usual handspring off the ropes/heel miscommunication comeback and the tecnicos ran in. Lee hit his big dive here but then Fuego slid out of the ring for no reason in the world except for to have Ephesto hit a dive on him and set up Valiente beating Mephisto. Blatantly bad wrestling there, but it was just a blip in the stream, really.
The tercera was mainly a reset, lots of action, and then a focus on Virus vs Dragon Lee. It's a great pairing, surely less dynamic than Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi but with enough familiarity by this point that they were able to switch up things (kicks, for instance), and in some ways I like it more as there's more of a contrast. Fuego and Valiented played their roles well, including Fuego dancing about and Valiente hitting the fireplug tope. Virus locked in this awesome submission on Fuego:
and said tope took out Mephisto to leave things as Virus vs Dragon Lee. Lee was challenging the following week, so he had to take the win here, and he did after a pretty good exchange: check out this roll-up counter spot for instance,
Anyway, this was good stuff with just a few iffy moments and I'm looking forward to seeing the title match.
MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 6: Hombre sin Nombre, Sangre Azteca, Virus vs Ángel de Oro, Dragon Lee, Stuka Jr
Taped 2014-11-25 @ Arena México
Hombre sin Nombre, Sangre Azteca, Virus vs Ángel de Oro, Dragon Lee, Stuka Jr
To sum up: in the midst of the newest Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi match being heralded as the CMLL match of the year, I'm off to the side watching Lee vs Virus from last fall instead. If we want to be positive towards me, then we can go with the fact that a lot of people are watching the former match due to the hype and I'm giving them a jumping on point to watch more Dragon Lee. We'll just go with that.
So this is the run up to Lee challenging Virus two weeks later for the Lightweight championship, which means this week's worth of matches will be a little more focused than this mini project has been up until now. (It's been an overglorified excuse for me to watch Casas or Virus matches). For those unfamiliar, Sangre Azteca is the world's most single-minded wrestler, his entire offense centered around groin shots. Hombre sin Nombre is the former Hooligan and current Luciferno. He looked really good here.
The primera was basic and solid. Pairings, slight tecnico advantage for the first two and then an outright rudo swarm during the third. interestingly, they put Stuka and Virus together (with Oro and HSN and Sangre and Lee), which might have been misdirection as the match would ultimately culminate with Dragon Lee vs Virus. It could have just been to keep things interesting. Nothing really stood out. Virus is awesome. We know that. He's as good as anyone at moving his opponent around and making sure that the opening matwork seems competitive and not collaborative. Stuka was fine. The match had a decent amount of time and they let the opening two exchanges breathe, but not to the detriment of the match. It ramped things up to set up the swarm after Lee came in and got an immediate advantage on the roperunning vs Azteca. Even so, the tecnicos held on, with Oro diving in with a plancha only to get his mask yanked by Virus from the outside in a nice, little spot. That set up the corner groin crush by Azteca and the fall.
The segunda was primarily a beat down, but a solid one. Virus and HSN looked good here, with nice intensity and variation of offense. Azteca kicked people in the groin and then danced around. So it goes.
The transition was a nice spot where Lee, having been beat upon by Virus slid out of the ring, sending Virus right into Oro's trap, followed by your usual heel miscommunication with tecnicos diving in, Oro's rocking submission and Stuka hitting bombs away. Notably they had Virus back-peddle from Lee during the actual moment of the fall, setting up the tercera.
The tercera was your usual reset and pairings. The crowd was surprisingly pumped for Lee vs Virus. Lee isn't quite as good as brother Rush in getting the crowd pumped up but I do think he's learned from him because he's better than a lot of the CMLL roster. Anyway, this was about what you'd expect: a lot of quick action, with some tecnico vs the world sequences and rudo cutoffs to delay the dives. When they finally came, it allowed the ring cleared for Virus vs Lee once more. I don't think the final encounter ultimately lived up to the build for it within the match, as Lee especially looked a little rough on the finish. For a first match out of three, it was fine, though, and it was obvious that Lee was getting a little better every week.
MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 5: Dragon Lee, Pegasso, Rey Cometa vs Kamaitachi, Okumura, Virus
Aired: 2014-11-29
Taped: 2014-11-21 @ Arena México
Dragon Lee, Pegasso, Rey Cometa vs Kamaitachi, Okumura, Virus
Well, on paper, this looked to be a really fun match, and sort of the reason why I decided to go about this the way I did. I could have just done Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi, but I think that's gotten enough play and frankly, I just wanted excuses to watch Casas and Virus matches while feeling DL out. I like the sides here a lot. Cometa and Pegasso aren't necessarily wrestlers I'd want to watch a lot of singles matches with but part of the joy of trios is that people play their roles and you don't necessarily need to be strong in all aspects or well-rounded in all aspects to contribute to a match.
The rudo side was a lot of fun. I just don't give Okumura enough credit. He's been in Mexico forever and works the style very well. He's more solid than dynamic but if I had to choose between solid but not dynamic or dynamic but not solid, I'd take the former anyday. He makes a good mentor for younger Japanese talent, though he did kick out a rudo quebadora in the segunda here which was very offputting. Just saying.
Structure-wise, this was just a fun trios match. A primera of feeling out with the tecnicos finessing a win, a segunda of matching up that led to the rudos catching the tecnicos, and then a tercera with just a little bit of heat before a comeback and the finishing barrage. I like matches with more heat, generally, but this was a showcase and that's certainly as fun as any sort of lucha.
I won't run through all of it, but there were little things I liked up and down. Cometa and Virus had a nice exchange, including Cometa trying to do a headscissors takedown from a grounded position and Virus just shrugging him off.
Aberrations in normal spots are hugely important to me because they add an air of logic to the proceedings. Sometimes, things that always work, shouldn't work. The finish was cute. The rudos had tripped the tecnicos from the outside and they paralleled it with Pegasso doing it to Virus which set up a Cometa roll up.
Dragon Lee and Kamaitachi were obviously paired up and I think this was relatively early in their feuding. It showed. They were spirited and exciting but pretty thoroughly sloppy. I've seen enough of their recent work to know that they've tightened things up. Here they get an A for effort and the out of control feel of some of their spots actually does convey a sense of immediacy but it's not like that was the intent. Even still by November, 2014, it was really a world of difference when Lee is up against someone who can contain and guide him like Casas or Virus.
My favorite spot of the tercera was Cometa going for a dive and Kamaitachi holding the ropes open from the outside so he'd fall through. I love stuff like that. Anyway, the finishing stretch was just as exciting as you'd expect and the match is probably worth watching just for it. I so, so much prefer when Lee uses the spider suplex as a finish instead of the double stomp. Just a good, fun trios. And very gif-worthy too:
Well, this is match that Dragon Lee and Virus just happen to be in. Most Trios matches have some sort of singles focus, some issue. Sometimes there are multiple issues. Sometimes the issue really is one faction and another. A lot of times, though, like I said, a single focus. In those matches, the other wrestlers play their roles. Sometimes, they get to shine; sometimes they shine too much. Sometimes, like in this match, I wish they had a chance to shine some more.
The issue here is Metalico vs Oro, Jr. I've seen Metalico as a tecnico; he was rudo here (more on that in a second). I've never seen Oro, Jr. but he comes from a big wrestling family. He was 21 or so here, I think. Both he and Metalico had just been in the Busca cibernetico a month or so before, but neither had made it far. That's where the issue came from. Oro had apparently hurt Metlicao on a dive and after coming back, Metalico teamed with him but had fell to some miscommunication and he had gone rudo over it.
I don't remember a whole lot about Metalico as a tecnico. He's been wrestling for twenty some-odd years so the experience level difference between the two is severe. This was, as far as I can tell, his first time as a rudo though and he relished in the role. Maybe it was because he was hanging out with Skandalo but he was opportunistic, gloating, and downright scummy as a rudo here. He seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit.
He had plenty of time to enjoy himself too. The first 2/3 of the match was a beatdown. Oro had charged up the ramp as Metalico came out and got himself clocked for his trouble. The rudos didn't look back. Once they got Oro into the ring, they knocked the other tecnicos off the apron and started on him. It was one move after the next with a lot of stomping, kicking, and mask-ripping in between. Oro did a pretty good job as a sympathetic face in peril, actually. Given the nature of trios matches with far more cycling in and out of the participants, you rarely get to see a tecnico just sell for so long in that role. The rudos looked good in the beatdown too, but there was, maybe, as always, a bit too much Skandalo groin based offense; here he seemed to get everyone involved, focusing more on the set ups. The best of that was him putting Oro in Shattered Dreams position so Metalico could come flying in with a knee. Shortly thereafter, they tossed Oro out and obliterated the other tecnicos for a minute or two, ending with a Virus submission on Dragon Lee and a Curtain Call by Metalico on Oro. Between falls, Oro ended up with a new mask since his was so tattered by the violence.
Two fun moments from the beatdown (now having gone into the segunda). One: This match had no commentary so we could hear the fans better than usual. One guy, and only one guy, was chanting Virus and Skandalo pumped his arm along with it from the apron which was amusing. Shortly thereafter, Metalico walked around the apron to stomp on Dragon Lee and actually tripped over him, which popped the crowd. He followed up on this with either feigned or actual fury and it fit into the character he was playing well.
Anyway, I was actually really digging the match at this point. I like opening technical exchanges as much as the next guy and I think for a while CMLL was really overdoing the ambush/beatdown start for matches (and this match might have been from around that time actually), but there is a good emotional hook to it, especially when there's an actual issue and even more so when there's one tecnico getting beat on. That said, the comeback has to live up to it and I don't think this one did. Oro got beat up some more but eventually got free enough to run out of the ring. Virus gave chase (and why I'm not sure since usually they'd just let another tecnico come in), ran into an apron rana from Dragon Lee, and the comeback was on. Oro was able to get some revenge, even starting to undo Metalico's mask while his partners ran interference, but it wasn't all that heated.
It needed to be more heated too, especially because Metalico was going to squirm away with the victory. He utilized a ref distraction (due to Virus) and tossed his mask at Oro. The ref saw it and the rudos took the win. Dragon Lee didn't really show me much here, but I think I'm going to go and watch the Oro vs Metalico apuestas match that this was building to. I was intrigued enough for that. This is already going to be a 20+ match project. What's one more completely unrelated match right?
One thing that was important to me when I started this project was that I didn't just rush to a bunch of "great" matches, apuestas and title matches and bloody, legendary ones from anniversary shows and famous spotfests and whatever else. A year and a half ago, I just didn't have the background to fully appreciate them, but more than that, I think it's just a bad way to learn. You have no point of reference, no map point. You see a tall building before you but you have no idea how tall it is or how many other buildings are around you and you definitely have no idea why or how it became so tall. I wanted to understand the tropes and narratives and norms before jumping into the deep end.
Instead, I've looked at things in sequence, or tried to at least, given the spottiness of older lucha footage. We're lucky to have as much online now as we do. You learn a lot more about a luchador by watching what he does week in and week out than you do by just looking at the great matches, especially when he's up against a great opponent.
What this means, however, is that sometimes I end up watching bad matches. I don't plan on it. Usually, if I'm looking at some luchador, there's a good reason, some buzz or interest in him. I'm not shooting to look at middling or low-level talent to see what they do wrong and break that down. Even, in this specific case, when I'm looking at someone who has a lot of buzz but that's inexperienced and prone to error like Dragon Lee, I stacked the deck so that I'd only be looking at matches with Negro Casas or Virus in them.
This match was pretty bad. It needed more Virus. It needed a different structure, and that's not to say that the structure it had was innately bad. It was just wrong for the wrestlers in the match. I actually thought it was pretty good. They started with exchanges, teased an interference-driven beatdown, did a mini comeback so the tecnicos could take the primera, reset for more exchanges to start the segunda, finally had the rudos sort of finesse their way on top and start a beat down and take the segunda. The beat down continued into the tercera where they stumbled into a comeback, hit the dives, and finished it off with a Virus vs Sagrado pairing.
On paper, that's not too bad. It's tecnico heavy at the beginning, and pretty fitting for a second match on a Tuesday Arena Mexico card where they wouldn't want to ramp the heat up too much (it's fitting to note that the announcers were mainly talking about upcoming events like this was a Nitro undercard match). Some luchadores could pull it off too. Just not these guys.
The opening exchanges weren't great. They paired Skandalo with Dragon Lee which meant everything was in slow motion. Starman was paired with Okumura and this was fine. We didn't even really get Sagrado vs Virus though as Virus had tried to break up a submission and everything broke down from there. I will say that Dragon Lee's Spider Suplex that finished the caida looked great and I hope he uses that more than the double stomp in the corner.
The segunda was mostly exchanges and a few high spots. Even then, we didn't get Virus vs Sagrado until the end and that was just for a moment. It was all tecnico heavy which was the wrong move for these specific tecnicos. Dragon Lee, at one point, went for a rana on the outside and powerbombed himself. I'm not one to post flubs usually but this was pretty amusing.
By the time the heat finally came it was long overdue, overly goofy, and just not enough. I haven't seek Skandalo for a while so I forgot. He basically has one use in the world: groin-based offense during a beatdown. At least we got to see Sagrado sell like this:
and this heartfelt moment of Dragon Lee being confused why Virus was being so mean to him:
Poor kid.
Anyway, they rode this out into the tercera, and the comeback, if you could even call it that, came for no real reason. I guess maybe Skandalo went for one too many complicated groin based trios attack and it took too long to set up so even though they hit it, the other tecnicos were too recovered? Or something. It wasn't very narratively satisfying. They hit some dives. They took it home. Virus turned a roll up by Sagrado into a great submission and it left me wishing we had about 40% more of him in this match. Dragon Lee sure didn't show me much here, except for making me appreciate Titan more.
I enjoyed looking at some Titan matches and I thought it made sense to fill in my knowledge gap on Dragon Lee, who is probably the wrestler with the most buzz out of CMLL this year so far. I've seen very little and certainly not enough to make an argument so I thought I'd do this the way I usually do: I'd pick a couple of matches to build to and then watch everything I could related to it, even if they weren't matches directly in a build. The two logical choices are Lee's recent victory over Virus for the CMLL World Lightweight Championship and his defeat to Negro Casas in the 2015 Leyenda de Plata. Looking at any time in the last year when he encountered one or the other leads to quite a few matches but maybe he's worth the attention. I could have gone with the Kamaitachi feud instead but that's a lot less interesting to me than him up against two maestros that I really enjoy.
This trios was one of the most talked about matches of 2014. It ranked #17 here on SC, and #16 on Voices of Wrestling. OJ was cooler on it but he was the only one. It was the highlight match of last year's Busca and in that regard is a fairly topical one to start with. I'm pretty sure that most people reading this have seen it so I'm not going to go too deep. I will say that it had a very clear structure, with the initial pairings in the primera leading to a picking up of the pace and a finish, some real (and surprising) heat in the segunda and a comeback to even the falls, and then both sides going all out in the tercera.
I'll talk about what I liked a lot first. This was the mentors + final four showcase trios. Cachorro was moved from Casas' side to Virus' side, as Casas had 3 to Virus' 1 at this point. This was striking since Virus' side was the one that was going to play rudo in the match. I don't think they wanted to move Cavernario over, even though that would have made more sense as Cavernario and Casas were (already I think? developing?) stablemates and it made some sense to move Cachorro given the Panther family's rivalry with Casas. That meant that, when things turned to heat and triple team beatdowns in the segunda, Cavernario ended up playing babyface. Cachorro ended up playing rudo. I thought both of them were fun in their roles, with Cachorro being initially hesitant but eventually dickish (with just one thing I really didn't like). Cavernario was a revelation, though. I've seen him in matches against other rudos, but not any where he really had to play the good guy. As good as he is as a rudo, he has the potential to be the best "hot tag" in wrestling with the way he throws himself into his offensive flurries. I especially loved him tossing Zacarias up and down after they won the segunda. That they worked a much more traditional match than they could have meant that it had heat and meaning and resonance so that when the bombs started coming in the tercera, there was some emotional weight behind it all. Wrestling doesn't need that to be great but it sure as hell helps.
I thought the primera's opening exchanges were smartly worked. They paired the quite green Dragon Lee (more on that later) with Virus and Cachorro with Casas. Hechicero was a ringer in this, of course, and he ended up with Cavernario. The maestros led their opponents through the wringer. Their opponents performed admirably considering. There were some good early dives and Hechicero took a Hamrick bump (more on that later too). The beatdown could have gone an extra minute or two in the segunda but ultimately it was fine and when the comeback came, it was good enough that you just didn't care. The tercera was just pure excitement with some crazy bumps and dives and sequence that happened so quickly and in such quick succession that it was a huge treat. It's very understandable why people went nuts over this match.
Now, on to what I didn't like. The biggest complaint I've seen (and it's never that big) was that Dragon Lee botched some things. I think his last exchange in the finish was not so great and his code red-reversed into a powerbomb that ended the primera wasn't either. That's fine though, perfectly fine. The guy was only training for what, a year at this point? He was so young and so green. I don't think he was some sort of "best in the world" candidate like some people were claiming after the Busca, but he made a few minor missteps in a hugely complicated match. Who cares? Even a match like this is about more than just execution, much of which was good throughout the match. More important to me by far was that he held his own with Virus in the primera, albeit at a slightly slower pace than someone else might have gone in his place. What impressed me, more than the matwork, was showing a ton of intensity in a stare off at the end of their exchange. You can't teach that.
There were a couple of bits of repetition I didn't like much. Cachorro did a very admirable job as a rudo. I really enjoy Blue Panther as a rude in his earlier work so I wouldn't mind if Cachorro/The Panther ended up veering that way at some point too. He was spirited in the beatdown and played along with his partners. That said, there were two moments in the tercera where he stopped everything and tried to get the crowd riled in that Rush vs Negro Casas way (first vs Dragon Lee and second vs Cavernario). I thought the first was good but the second was diminishing returns and overkill. It happened many minutes later and the first had ended with the crazy arm drag bump over the top. They weren't really going to top that so maybe he shouldn't have tried for the riling again. The match also had two Hamrick bumps through the ropes, which felt like one too many. I get that it was the tercera that everyone loved, but I could have really lived with a couple less minutes of that and a couple more in the beatdown in the segunda just to build up the tension for the comeback. I think that would would have worked better for me.
So this was really fun, had a lot of good stuff, and personally, I thought it was a huge accomplishment, given the age and inexperience of some of the guys in the ring. I'm not sure I'm as high on it as a lot of the people who watched it though and I feel much quicker to qualify it as "great for what it was."
Nice little women's match, the kind we don't normally get to see. It was billed as a lightning match but really wasn't worked like one, other than it being una caida. We get a nice 10 minutes match with a bunch of cool arm and leg work and some big flashy spots. They both have a couple cool armbar roll throughs and there was an especially good sequence with Zeuxis locking on an armbar and sort of rolling it through into a Yes Lock as Silueta was about to get to the ropes. We even get a Frye/Shamrock dueling knee bar section. Zeuxis throws a bunch of stiff kicks during this and does a great running double knee attack in the corner, Silueta does some nice ranas, and this was all fun. Although is it just me or do most women wrestlers run the ropes really awkwardly? It seems like every time they had to run ropes or run into the turnbuckles it was like their bodies were just not designed to do so. I've noticed this before with others and all the movements just look completely foreign.
So…I think I kinda like Thunder. He's a big lug and I'll probably get sick of him at some point, but right now I dig what he brings to matches. He seems very mobile which already sets him apart from past large white guys that CMLL has brought in. I like his power offense based around catching guys mid-flying move and then just tossing them. He's got a really great fallaway slam and some nice strikes. I like how he mixed up his corner shots with kicks, nice punches, and then ends it with a Zidane headbutt. This was probably the best Shocker has looked in a match this year. The Rush series was good, but more about a young punk taking advantage of an out of shape older guy. Shocker was a jerk in this and looked more fired up than any non-Rush match I've seen him in lately. Not only did he break out some nasty strikes, including a couple stiff punches and a rough stomp to the face, but he did a cool fat guy senton, and even took the straps down to mockingly flex his chubbiness to the crowd. Dorada is a guy I like a lot, probably more than most, as I like the way he incorporates his athleticism into matches, always taking super high bumps on backdrops, and doing cool things that most workers can't do. Here he does his awesome high jump rana, sprinting from the ramp over the ropes and into the ring. This was short and sweet, real good mix of stuff.
Well this was crazy! Going a little over 6 minutes, this would have been a legendary WorldWide match. Both guys get to show off wild offense, both guys take big bumps, both guys were very likely sore on Saturday. We get a run of Kamaitachi doing running horizontal dropkicks (the kind where you fling your legs straight out and land in a back bump), first a normal one in the ring, then one leaping from the rampway over the ropes into the ring (which Lee runs stupidly/awesomely chin first right into, flipping him asshole over elbow), then one running from the apron to the floor. Awesome. Then Lee does a crazy one of his own to the floor and I'm fully invested at this point. Both guys really fly into the other's offense with gusto, with Kamaitachi launching himself off a German and getting his chest caved in while hung up on the turnbuckle and taking a Lee double stomp off the top. The finish is great as they have a really cool strike exchange, with both men throwing stiff shots and mixing up the timing of them, cutting each other off, all building to Lee hitting one of the more insane suplexes that I've seen, kind of like a Musclebuster but dropped more like a Northern Lights. It certainly looked like Kamaitachi will end up an inch or two shorter. Go watch this. In 6 easy minutes it will bring joy to your day.
This was from the Halloween show which was probably the most batshit atmosphere of any show this year. The crowd was hot, and the mood was freaking weird as most of the guys on the show were wearing skeleton body and face paint, even the referees were all decked out like skeletons, and all the CMLL chicas were painted up like sugar skulls while the arena was filled with overworking smoke machines and eerie red lights. Truly unique atmosphere for everything. I got a huge kick out of all the girls rhythmically dancing in their calavera get-ups. I thought the whole show was lifted up by the presentation, and this match especially was really fun. Both guys really pulled out all the stops to try and one up the other. This felt like something that could have really been classic if there was blood allowed. I enjoyed it as it, but the environment was just begging for blood. Both guys worked plenty stiff and there were some nice nearfalls, really dig UG planting Rush with a mean Liger bomb. The week before Rush planted UG with a brutal ballshot and I wish that would have been played up more here, but UG did sorta get revenge by winning with his own tiny ballshot.
1. Terrible, Vangellys & Rey Bucanero vs. Rey Cometa, Angel de Oro & Titan (7/20/14)
Well hey this was good! Motivated Terrible is a great thing, especially when he's blindsiding floppers. Here he's after Titan and it's glorious. In one of my favorite wrestling spots of the year Titan tags in, slingshots over the ropes and begins hand springing his way across the ring and finishes doing a dorky bow and arrow mime, and Terrible just runs over and throws a brutal left hook, flooring Titan. Awesome spot. This match is full of rudos dropkicking tecnicos right in the middle of dangerous looking moves. Oro and Cometa both do moonsaults at different points and get kicked in the stomach right in the middle of them, which if you think about the physics basically stops their momentum and dumps them on their heads. Vangellys dropkicking Cometa during an Asai moonsault was an especially nasty moment. Bucanero doesn't always show up but he was game here, and aside from throwing shots at the floppers (oh god including powerbombing Cometa right into the freaking ring post) he also took a hilarious bump off a Cometa rana from the apron, making sure to somersault his way towards a couple bosomy ladies in the front row, and then recovering whilst draped over their laps. But this match was the Terrible show, and when he's on he's on. Here he took a bunch of bumps from big springboard offense, and then dished it right back including ending the Segunda by catching a springboard rana into an brutal powerbomb. Awesome stuff in this.
2. Rush, Maximo & Marco Corleone vs. Mr. Niebla, Euforia & Niebla Roja (7/20/14)
What an odd match. I actually had to check the date to make sure LATV wasn't just showing an old match, but no this match actually happened in 2014. What was so weird was everybody worked it as if it were 2012. Rush was working tecnico with Maximo and Corleone as if he hadn't been a total dickbag the entire last year (although the onscreen graphics kept referring to them as rudos). But it wasn't just Rush, as Niebla was also doing little things he hasn't done since 2012, most notably not dressing like a total asshole and just wearing his old Niebla gear, not doing a stupid spit spot, Zacharias was getting involved in the match (and really he's just been sitting at ringside for the last 1-2 years), Niebla also broke out his fun face first apron bump that I haven't seen him do in a couple years, and also the Harley Race "feet caught on bottom ropes" headfirst bump to the floor. This time the Race bump had a fun twist as while he was hung up in the ropes Zacharias was tossed onto him sending both of them crashing to the floor. Euforia seems to match up really well with Marco's big left hands, and he ran into a few great ones here. Maximo also had a spry performance, tossing out some cool armdrag variations and working some nice sequences with Niebla. And there Rush is the whole match, working a weird turn back the clock gimmick. This whole match was seriously bizarre.
Fun straight falls match with more of Metalico taking out all of his life's aggressions on Oro Jr. Oro bumps even bigger in this one than their showdown the week before. Even before the match starts Oro is waiting in the aisle for Metalico, which immediately backfires as Metalico sidesteps him, hits a great kneelift, and then tosses Oro into the ring post. Oro takes a really awesome Lawler style bump into the post. Oro takes another big beating from all the rudos here, with Metalico being the standout again as the vicious asskicker. The segunda sees the big tecnico comeback with all of them hitting big dives, Lee getting a big flip dive and a nice rana off the apron, and Oro about to exact his revenge when Metalico unmasks himself and gets the DQ win. I'm really liking this feud as it's really done a great job of making two guys stand out who I have never really giving second thoughts to. The fact I'm looking forward to more Metalico and Oro Jr. stuff really says something.
Last week we got 6/8/14 show, no we magically jump back in time to the 2/2/14 Arena Coliseo show…but then the third match (with Blue Panther) is from the 2/9 Coliseo show. So you'd think they're just showcasing the best matches from Coliseo shows until they catch up to current…but that can't be because they showed a Hijo del Signo showcase match. No "best of" would actually include a Hijo del Signo match. I don't know what they're doing here.
1. Lightning Match: Dragon Lee II vs. Hijo del Signo
Hey, you guys. Hijo del Signo isn't good. He's really bad. This match gets tons of time (for a lightning match) and almost all of it is just totally misspent. Signo is just laughably awful on the mat. He works really slow but looks completely clueless most of the time. Here he did a slow motion kick while Lee was on the mat, the whole thing looked like he was just practicing sequences and moves before fans arrived at the arena. His positioning is worse than anybody in CMLL, like he had no clue where he was in the ring at any given time. He hit a nice dive, so there's that. Lee took a crazy apron bump off a clothesline, getting dumped on his head to the floor. Lee is good for one nice stupid bump per match. Signo wins with this ugly squatting figure 4. This guy does not have the goods.
2. Negro Casas, Puma & Tiger vs. Atlantis, Guerrero Maya Jr. & Delta
Really fun revanche, an immediate next week follow up to a match that made our MOTY list. This one has less bullshit than that one, but that means it also has less personality. This was still really good though. Same set up with the younger guys getting the bulk of the match to build to all the Casas/Atlantis moments. Casas is a great ringleader of the rudos and as I've said before I like how Puma and Tiger actually work as rudos, as opposed to most luchadors who just work the same no matter what the pre-match designation is. Maya's through-the-ropes flip dive is one of my favorite lucha spots, and Delta always throws in his spectacular flip dive off the ring post. Casas gets to mug and bump and his rudo bumping is always a real treat. It's a mixture of nasty spills and fun pratfalls. The nasty spill here was going down on the apron as if he was shot, putting over an Atlantis elbow. Really good match that I think just narrowly misses the MOTY cut.
3. Blue Panther, Valiente & La Mascara vs. Terrible, Gran Guerrero & Rey Bucanero
Another really fun match. Panther and GG matched up a bunch throughout this and this may have been the best I've seen GG look. He took some big bumps (including the big Jerry bump with a less graceful spill to the floor than UG usually takes, meaning this looked up more painful), and his mat stuff with Panther to start everything was good, and a fresh match up. He also took a nasty posting in the tercera. Bucanero looked more spirited than normal, although man I hate his lazy as hell standing clothesline. It has no force whatsoever and guys bumping for it always look silly. Valiente hits a massive dive that just blast Bucanero into the aisle, Terrible punches Mascara in the ear a couple times, and this just had a real good flow. Good long trios, everybody got to shine, but again I especially loved the Panther/GG showdowns. Good week of wrestling (Signo be damned).
These matches were all from the 6/27/14 Arena Mexico show.
En Busca de un Idolo Cibernetico:
1. Negro Casas, Barbaro Cavernario, Dragon Lee, Cachorro & Soberano Jr. vs. Virus, Rey Hechicero, Guerrero Negro Jr., Star Jr. & Super Halcon Jr.
Ciberneticos tend to be fun exhibitions during the initial pairings, and then kinda pointless once they run through the inevitable string of six eliminations in 4 minutes. Out of the early pairings Cavernario/Star Jr. was really fun with really fast work, with Star breaking out really cool armdrags. Hechicero always finds neat new ways to bump to the floor. Cachorro hits the dive of the match, almost beheading Star over the barrier. Soberano hits a crazy tornillo, Casas hits a violent Thesz press off the apron onto Virus, even Halcon hits a nice flip dive. Hechicero was such a big deal in the tourney that I wish he was given more to do here. He gets to hit a great Fuerza bump and takes a nutso slingshot rana from Cachorro, but I wanted more. Seeing Hechicero work Casas was just a brutal tease as it just showed how desperately the upper card needs this guy in there regularly. Dragon Lee makes Guerrero Negro look like a monster, wiping out onto the side of his head on a clothesline. Virus lets Dragon Lee kick him a bunch, and Lee is a guy with some nice looking kicks. I had seen that Phil wrote this up when it happened, and I am stunned that he didn't comment on Cavernario and Hechicero BOTH pulling down their straps when they squared off. Hechicero also does his weird inverted monkey flip to sort of hotshot Cavernario. And then they have to have a double pinfall elimination, because of the stupid awful Torneo Cibernetico charter of 2005, which states "Henceforth all Ciberneticos must have a stupid fucking double pinfall elimination where both men have their shoulders down in a move that otherwise would never be counted as a pinfall, but for dogshit lazy reasons will be counted as a double pinfall in this instance because fuck you." We get a long Casas/Virus showdown to end it which is really fun. Also made me think how odd it is that these two have been around forever, but this was probably the most I've ever seen the two of them match up. Which is sad. I liked this match a lot more than Phil, I thought it was much better than the other ciberneticos over the last few years.
2. Rush, Ultimo Guerrero & La Sombra vs. Atlantis, Shocker & Mr. Niebla
Super fun match that delivered even more than I expected. Sombra really came off like a star here. Really great 1st fall rudo beatdown, with Niebla getting kicked off the rampway into the crowd, Sombra running around giving big boots to everybody, Rush caving in Niebla with his corner dropkick. Big intensity. Tecnicos get quick revenge in the segunda, and the tercera is really hot. Niebla gets to slap Rush around, hitting him with his big slap on the floor, and then back in the ring when Rush covers his face Niebla just sweeps his legs out. Sombra leans way into Shocker's stuff, and they have a good strike exchange with Sombra throwing his awesome left/right elbows. UG obviously rips Atlantis' mask, and Niebla and Shocker awesomely cheat to win, with Niebla pinning Rush with his feet on the ropes. Sombra unmasks himself but Shocker don't care and just pins him, with the ref not noticing. Fun match.
PAS: Total blast, another great match from the year of the six man tag. These are the top four finisher in the Busca de Un Idolo tourney matched up with the two maestro coaches. It is pretty fun to watch Casas and Virus mix it up in the go-go style. It is pretty crazy to watch a 46 year old guy like Virus to fly over the top rope into a senton, or a 54 year old guy like Casas fling himself off the ring apron into a Thez Press. Lee Jr. is the least of the young guys but he isn't afraid to do some crazy shit. He took an armdrag over the top rope full speed to the ground, and then he gets smushed by a Cachorro bullet tope. Your other three Busca guys all looked great too, I especially liked the energy Cavernario brings every time he comes into the ring, and how Hechicero has been heeling it up lately. Finish was a bit underwhelming considering the craziness that came before, which is the only thing that keeps this from the tippy top tier.
ER: Well this is my slam dunk favorite trios of the year (well…Mexican trios). Crazy spots and super tight ringwork, and Virus/Casas matching up with a bunch of guys you've never seen them match up against. Casas and Virus are guys who look good in every match, but here you can tell they bust ass more than normal to show these youngsters (well…Hechicero could be 40 for all I know, dude kind of came out of nowhere a couple years ago…). Casas and Virus both break out stuff they don't normally do. Casas threw some all time nasty knees and you could tell he was working go go go instead of his more usual "Arena Mexico showman" style. This was about one-upping newbies. Virus goes batty and breaks out a somersault senton to the floor and some of his best matwork of the year. Cachorro has really impressive ring awareness, and that's not a trait I ever think to compliment a guy on. He just seems really great at getting into position for things, knowing where he's at in the ring, and making his positioning play well into the match. Navigating ropes and moving into and out of sequences with other workers are things we kind of take for granted, but he seems to have a much better grasp on it than most. Hechicero is in the conversation for best wrestler in the world right now, all of his stuff looks fantastic and he makes simple sequences look so refreshing and good that it blows the lid off the genie's bottle and kinda makes me realize how much fucking standing around there is in most lucha matches; Standing around and clumsily forcing guys into position for middling offense. These teams don't go out for any silly lucha stuff you're just kind of immune to at this point (like how often to you see a rudo just put their hands on a tecnico's shoulders and just walk them into position. Here, you stand right in this spot). Hechicero does cool little things you don't see other guys do, and he does them in a way that doesn't scream "HEY! Check out this moooooove innovation!" His Fuerza bump was worked into the match because it fit, not because it was a "gotta get my kewl spot in!" His sidewalk slam/powerbomb reversal on Dragon Lee's Code Red looked natural and spur of the moment, and his slick little roll through tapatia into face planting his opponent was really cool and didn't look like he and his opponent were both concentrating on hitting this cool new move. He works fast, he works tight, he doesn't dog it when he's not the focal point, he takes and receives, he strings together chains nicely, just everything. The guy always makes me notice and appreciate something new in every match. I'm also incredibly amused that the nutbar hiptoss over the top to the floor is now replacing the backcracker as the move de rigueur in lucha. In the last week I've now seen Dragon Lee and Arkangel do it, and not long before that Charles Lucero. Are the notoriously firm Mexican rings so hard that guys are now voluntarily taking stupid bumps to the floor instead? Anyway, go watch this. I had a big smile on my face the whole damn time.
