Wrestlemania Weekend Cherry Picking: CRASH

Brian Cage vs. Sami Callihan vs. Willie Mack

ER: This was fine, felt like a Lucha Underground dark match, a quick 10 minute pleaser that these three could probably have in their sleep. I think heel Callihan carrying a bat around with him is pretty effective, as when he tries to hit Mack in the face with it you buy it, because we've all see him hit someone in the face full force with a baseball bat. You want to get over a prop, you use it on a sap. "Don't worry honey, these guys don't want to hurt anybody, they just want to leave the bank with all of the money. Oh my god they shot a guard." Cage is fun throughout, I especially like a couple ways he no sells Callihan, like eating a chop and not blinking (while holding Mack in a Samoan drop) and earlier just running through a lariat. I don't think I've ever seen someone attempt a lariat only to have the other guy just sprint through it. Cage throws really heavy corner clotheslines, and I liked a spot where Mack was still in the corner, Cage went to clothesline Callihan who ducked, and Cage still clotheslined Mack. Still this felt rushed and everyone was coasting. They have more tricks in their bag than the average guy, so they can work an amusing coasting match, and it will still have things like Callihan throwing a stiff forearm shiver to Cage, hitting a nice sitout powerbomb, and a big vertical suplex spot, but coasting is coasting.

Rey Fenix vs. Flamita

ER: This goes just 5 minutes, which was likely annoying to those in attendance, but played as a fun WorldWide sprint to me. Fenix is really good for something like this, as his spots are always nice (big flip dive to start and followed up with this killer late rotation swanton in the ring) and Flamita hits a big moonsault to the floor. Flamita always finds Fenix works tight with kicks, and throws in neat little things that add to a sprint-y spotfest, like a great spit take while getting folded up by a Flamita superkick, or reaching out to grab Flamita's boot to try and stop Flamita from going up top. Those kind of things are great as typically you just get guys lying there waiting to get hit. Flamita works tighter strikes than a lot of flippers (I loved him kicking Fenix in the face when Fenix grabbed his boot), hits a mean 450, all fun stuff. This would be legendary if it happened on WCW Saturday Night, here it just gets complaints for going to short. Oh well.

LA Park/Damian 666/Psicosis vs. Garza Jr./Bestia 666/Mecha Wolf 450

PAS: Fun if sloppy rudo vs. rudo brawl. Match opens up with Rebellion Amarillo getting the upper hand on the LWO, including Psicosis taking a powerbomb into the crowd and through some chairs.  Lots of amusing shtick by both teams Garza Jr. has inherited his uncles hateful face and he does a lot of amusing begging off. Lots of nasty belt shots with PARK's big belt and we get a great fat boy Park tope and an awesome looking Mecha Wolf low missile tope. There was some real issues when guys were trying to apply moves, the LWO guys are pretty old and probably should have stuck to brawling, still it would be hard not to enjoy this.

ER: This was a bunch of fun, with fat old rudos (except Psicosis who looks exactly the same, the other two are clearly XXLWO at this point) going up against three young rudos of varying quality (I like Garza Jr. as a 0.6 Hector Garza, Wolf has some impressive spots, and Bestia usually leaves me cold). The big star of the match is clearly Park's belt, as it gets removed early and amusingly gets used by every member of the LWO to break up pinfalls. Park used it in the best way possible, to belt Garza as he's tearing off his tearaway pants. Bestia gets whipped in the face, Psicosis breaks up a pin from the apron, truly some excellent belt usage throughout. Park is a total megastar. I bet plenty of people in the crowd haven't gone out of their way to watch him since WCW, and he showed them what they've been missing. He completely engulfs Bestia on a huge dive, still somehow bumps big for a guy that size, and works a great spot where he gets frustrated and slaps the ref in the face. Psicosis is still Psicosis somehow, OPENING the match by getting powerbombed over the railing into a bunch of chairs, still crazy after 25+ years in the game. He still moves quick and fits in totally fine with the younger guys. I can't believe the LWO was literally 20 years ago. I think my buddy still has the t-shirt (though he's a poseur because he wasn't there the night the LWO party vignettes aired. Eddie always wins!).

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Wrestlemania Weekend Thursday Wrestlecon Supershow and Axcess Cherry Picking

Wrestlecon Supershow

Joey Janela vs. Penta el 0M

ER: I was curious what Janela could do here, since Penta is just beyond dullsville at this point. Penta is just about the most boring and uninspired guy these days when it comes to getting his shit in, completely disregarding any offense he has taken and just running through his sequences. I really liked him in the first season of LU and I can’t think of anyone whose stock has fallen farther in that time, while still maintaining a rabid fanbase. Janela looked good, hitting a bunch of nice full extension superkicks at well timed parts of the match, hitting a big superplex, a great dive down the stretch, and making Penta’s sometimes dodgy offense look good. Penta has terrible slingblades, but Janela made them work, really got good bounce off the backtracker, and the Penelope interference was used really well. I liked her yanking Penta’s foot to set up a superplex, and the finish with Janela leaping off the ropes into a superkick, and then Penelope doing the same, dodging one, and getting leveled by another was some fun BS. Penta is super predictable the whole match, but Janela mixed a couple things up and paced out a nice performance

ER: So Jerry Lawler threw a fireball that hit Joey Ryan in the tip of the dick, which is just fantastic. The execution was fantastic, the build up was great, and Ryan sold it for ages, as he should have. This was a comedy spot that paid off.

Jeff Cobb vs. Tomohiro Ishii

PAS: I am not the biggest fan of your Ishii slugfests, he always kind of comes off as third rate Takeshi Ishikawa, with out the selling or diversity to really take it to the next level. Still big dudes pounding on each other is a genre of match I am going to dig, and Cobb's power stuff is really fun. Wasn't a huge fan of the early endless elbow exchange, but this got pretty great by the end. Loved when Ishii got pissed off and started countering the elbow smashes by leaning in and headbutting Cobb's arm, nasty stuff and a cool variation of a fighting spirit spot. Cobb also had some out of control throws, he has such explosion with his hips and he chucks Ishii like a longshoreman throwing a bag of coffee. Couple of great headbutts too, with both guys reckless throwing their head at their opponent.

ER: That elbow exchange was interminable, but happily they got it out of the way really early in the match, instead of doing that thing where a match is peaking and we have to stop thing for some standing exchange. But we got that out of the way and then the match was able to do what it was supposed to do, which is to be a human recreation of BattleBots. Cobb brought maybe his meanest match ever, and dropped stuff like the standing shooting star, and instead focused on all of the big throws. It was appropriate to bring out the triple Germans on the weekend that Kurt Angle returns to the WWE big stage, and I don't know if Angle's ever looked as great as Cobb's here. The bridge was an impressive touch, and he mixes them up by even suplexing Ishii into the buckles. This was a long match with a lot of heavy lifting, and I was really impressed with Cobb's gas tank. He does a cool captured arm and leg suplex into a bridge, and at one point I actually yelled ROLLING OLYMPIC HELL when he grabbed Ishii in a head and arm choke. Cobb becoming a proxy Tamon Honda would be great for us. Ishii is just a total masochist, not leaving a match satisfied until his vertebrae are properly compressed. He lands a bunch of stiff arm lariats into Cobb's lungs, and I was really losing it when he pushed Cobb back across the ring by headbutting Cobb's strikes, just backing him up with his cinder block head, and Cobb had a bunch of great "Who the hell is this guy!?" faces. Cobb hits my favorite spot of the match by leaping head first into Ishii with a spectacular torpedo headbutt, and this match was one of the greatest versions of two large beer kegs becoming sentient and hurling themselves into each other that I've seen. This could have been bogged down by no selling suplexes and throw trading, but I loved how they ramped everything up, and loved how Ishii outlasted Cobb and won with a vertical suplex (you know, followed by a couple of brutal headbutts).

Rey Horus/Rey Fenix vs. Flamita/Bandido

PAS: I could imagine this was a blast to watch live, but it felt a little like a car with a gas pedal stuck on mash. Everything was worked at the same pace, it never felt like it had a chance to breath for me. Fenix was super impressive, in a match filled with freaky athletes, everything he did had an extra burst of speed and an extra pop of height. There was some crazy flipping on the ropes where he got knocked down bounced up and still hit a springboard, the balance was bonkers. I also really loved Horus's out of control surprise tope con hilo through the ropes, dives are so much cooler when they are out of nowhere like that. I hadn't seen much Bandido and he didn't do a ton for me, seems like he was setting up his signature counters too much, felt like a Dragon's Gate guy to me which is not a compliment.


WWE Axcess

Kassius Ohno vs. Keith Lee

PAS: Cool idea to run these short indy style matches at Axcess, hopefully more fancams show up. Hero is a guy I kind of forgot about, I don't watch a ton of NXT and he got memory holed a bit, but his is still fucking great. He may be the best leg slap striker in wrestling history, I know it is a lot of smoke and mirrors, but he really looks like he is murdering people with those shots. Lee seemed a bit cowed by a WWE stage, as his charisma was a bit muted, although he is still an impressive athletic marvel. I loved Hero taunting him only to get smashed with a pounce and firemans carry powerslam.

ER: Rachel and I saw a great show in SF last night, Soccer Mommy headlining with Oakland's extraordinary Madeline Kenney opening for her (and debuting some wildly great new stuff, check them both out on bandcamp), and between sets we watched this match on YouTube. I think Phil is totally on the money calling Hero the best thigh slap striker in wrestling. People make fun of that skill mostly because it's something we see done so much so badly, but Hero throws so many great strikes with well hidden slaps that it feels like a cool old theatrical art. Tajiri would be the other candidate, and I think it's a cool skill to learn so well. Lee was a bit more restrained than I was expecting, but Ohno sure helped Lee look great. It was crazy how high Ohno got on a slam and how far he flew off the Pounce. Lee leans into a bunch of high kicks and comes up with some cool surprises of his own, really liked a couple tornado back elbows he caught Ohno with. Shout out to whomever captured this and didn't get caught recording front row, super fun little match. 

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Underground Season 2 Episode 25: Ultima Lucha Dos - Part II

1. Daga vs. Sinestro de la Muerte vs. Mariposa vs. Marty the Moth Martinez vs. Sexy Star vs. Killshot vs. Night Claw

ER: I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, and that's with Sexy Star just Sexy Starring all over the place (I mean, she *literally* had to have her hand held through portions of this). Typically these Gift of the Gods multimans have been total messes, as matches with odd numbers tend to be. But this match had a flat out terrific performance from Marty the Moth that just transcended the whole thing. I also thought this was Daga's best performance in LU, they got Sinestro out of there quick, and for a guy I've (deservedly) dumped on, Killshot probably had his best moments too. I really wasn't impressed with Night Claw. His mask was dorky as hell, and his move set up was interminable. He and Daga just slowly climbing opposite sides of a turnbuckle without even pretending to show animosity to one another was just embarrassing. At least they had the good sense to show Kobra Moon licking her chops at Daga during part of the set up. But yeah, Night Claw didn't move the needle for me. No, this match was all about The Moth. Everybody else could have totally stunk (and there was plenty of stink) and this still would have been pretty great just because of The Moth. This guy did it all during the match, kept his stories straight with Sexy Star and Killshot and Melissa Santos, taunting and leering at all three of them when applicable. He bumped around huge and made everybody look like a killer, the best being his great bump to the floor and into the barricade, and that absolutely BRUTAL bump in the Temple steps. I rewound that a few times. He bumped hard into them, the way someone usually bumps into the WWE ring steps, except THOSE steps actually move, these steps likely just provided Moth with a arthritic rotator cuff the rest of his life. So he falls all around, makes his arm look all hyperextended while in a terrible armbar, adds personality that nobody else bothers with (everybody else just relies on Striker to fill in their intentions and emotions, Moth actually knows how to convey them), and essentially you have a one man show. But it was an awesome show.

MD: Glad to see I'm on the same page with Eric. I came out of this match just wanting to see Marty bump and stooge and interact with people. I think, currently, the most exciting match Lucha Underground can put on for me is Marty vs Rey. That said, there were frustrations here that didn't just have to do with Sexy Star's execution (and that WAS a problem. I'm not an execution guy in the least, but when it's the central story of the match, it has to hold up. You can't be seeing the strings and there were points, like with her Fujiwara Armbar, where I was). I'm also on board with Marty being the only one fully committing himself. At one point after eating a dive, Nightclaw's idea of selling was to adjust his wristbands in the least subtle way possible. I wish Mariposa leaned into her character a little more too. I think she had in previous matches but whereas this created opportunities for Marty, it may have made it harder with everyone else, having to hit their spots. And there was just too much collaboration (especially with Daga and Nightclaw but not just).

MD: The bigger problem was something we'll see up and down the finale. My impression from interviews I've read is that they see season 2 and 3 as one bit mega-season and it showed. There was far more of a sense of finality in the first Ultima Lucha. There was less of that in this, especially since we'd already seen Gift of the Gods once this (shorter) season. It had felt like the whole back half of Season 1 was leading up to it. Here we had Cobra Moon lingering but then not even advancing and no resolution with Killshot and Marty. Worse than that was the fact we'd already seen the resolution of this particular Sexy Star arc. She'd fought back, finally, against her opressors, and then she won the big match against Mariposa. That they were crashing up against each other again felt like an afterthought or a retread. It didn't feel like a culmination. Despite that, the fans were sure behind her, so you have to give them that, I suppose. This just wasn't clean in a narrative sense to me, and that, more than anything else, tends to be Lucha Underground's biggest strength. Without that, the entire enterprise is on shaky ground.

ER: My god these cop show segments. I don't even know what to say anymore. Could Castro have given a worse read? How many takes was this? Will someone ever stand up and take credit for this storyline?

2. Death Match: King Cuerno vs. Mil Muertes

ER: Yeah this was awesome. As it started I actually thought it was going to be Mil just steamrolling Cuerno, and that would kind of make sense considering how Cuerno has been treated this season. He really hasn't been booked as a guy who should be able to hang with Muertes. All season he's been booked as the least important man in 6 man tags, and losing almost all of his singles matches. So when Muertes came out and just plowed through him the first few minutes I thought "yep this seems right" and figured I would just sit back and enjoy Cuerno getting knocked upside down by lariats and tossed through stacks of chairs. But then Cuerno hits his awesome tope and a big crossbody off the railing and suddenly Cuerno is punching Muertes in the face all the way up the Temple steps, and Muertes goes face first through a window. Cuerno tumbles all the way back down the Temple steps and man we've got a fight. I loved Cuerno shoving Catrina outs of the way, which sets off a wild mama bear instinct in Muertes, with him violently plastering Cuerno through all of the tables that had been set up earlier. Out of control brawls seem to be LU's specialty, and this was a good one.

MD: I liked Cuerno vs Muertes, but what it really showed me was how much I'd like Muertes vs Hijo del Fantasma, who I always thought was a really good traditional tecnico. He is someone I wish was still in CMLL. Guerrero Maya, Jr. sort of plays that role there now (and he's a tremendous rudo too when given the chance), but Fantasma could do it at the top of the card. Most of his big comebacks felt more tecnico-driven, and I just think the two of them could have an amazing match within those roles. Here, with things as they were, it was harder to care about the comeback as much, both for myself and the crowd, and that was a shame because it was all gritty and visceral. There were some great visuals, like Muertes dragging Cuerno out for the TKO on the floor (even if the wrestling physics of that were off), the window no-sell and the spear to save Catrina. If nothing else, they introduced the idea of the crowbar as a death-weapon, which is always a good thing to have. This just felt inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, a main event of a pre-show, and Muertes deserves better than that.

ER: And then we can't close a show without some high end police drama. Oooooooo their informant got MURDERED by Dario! Oh no! How will they solve it in the ring!? I hate it.

MD: The biggest sin on the cop stuff (having seen the start of season 3) is that any consequence to it was undone so quickly. That was another frustration with Season 2. They should have run longer with Catrina being in charge of the temple and the differences of atmosphere involved. This stuff is a lot easier to swallow if it matters in the grand scheme of things.


COMPLETE LUCHA UNDERGROUND EPISODE GUIDE

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Lucha Worth Watching: Kushida vs. Volador AND Flamita vs. Xtreme Tiger!?

Kushida vs. Volador Jr. (CMLL 7/8/16)

So I went into a hyped match expecting to be a party pooper, and came away liking a lot of it, far far more than I expected. I expected the end run to get a little too cute - and it did - but they did several neat little things that I wasn't expecting, and avoided a lot of the awful parade of nearfall trading that plagues most Arena Mexica singles match terceras. Loved the arm work by Kushida in the primera and segunda (even though nobody watching this expected that to play into the tercera), him grinding it with takedowns on the rampway, and especially him catching Volador in an armbar off a springboard somethingorother. I kept waiting for Volador to go for a handspring-showdown-wait for applause and he never did it, so thank you thank you Volador. He did a lot of nice little things I don't often see him doing, like keeping that arm limp and punching low on things that are supposed to miss. Early in the primera Kushida ducked under a strike during a rope run and Volador really cut low. He's usually more interested in doing his own rope running and not making it look like he's aiming to actually hit his opponent, so I was sold fairly early. He hits a killer dive in the segunda, and then catches a killer Kushida flip dive in the tercera. For awhile here Volador was good at doing things avoiding his arm, hitting a nice headscissors, that dive, his superkicks, but even when he did start using it I actually really liked all the backcrackers in this. The backcracker is a move that swept through lucha in the 2010s like crack through inner cities in the 80s, and here they actually effectively used the move for the first time....shoot, in 5 years? 8 years? Volador leaps onto Kushida's back, tries to pull him down into the move, Kushida struggles into the corner, Volador keeps pulling, being an annoying backpack, and eventually the weight is too much and Kushida gets pulled back into it, bouncing somewhere between 3 and 13 feet into the air. You never see struggle over a backcracker and it was really a tremendous spot. The end run was nice with a super satisfying majistral reversal and a this-should-be-the-ending-oh-good-it's-actually-the-ending reverse rana. No overkill, no 2.9 glut, great peaks, and we have a match that exceeds expectations. Huzzah!

Flamita vs. Xtreme Tiger (CaraLucha 8/20/16)

Well, Matt tricked me. "This was from this weekend," he said. "I kind of need you to write it up. It's lucha worth watching though not for entirely good reasons (though there are a few)." Okay, I remembered him being slightly more positive about it. There doesn't actually seem to be any trickery after all. I likely just got flattered by someone saying they need something from me, and without listening to the rest of what they said I just went "SURE OKAY!!!" And then they began the match with 40 seconds of Malenko/Guerrero roll-ups. That's how they started things. I thought the sunset flip was going to get him, but then it didn't and I instantly thought that a guy flipping himself into a pin would also then pin him! But none of them pinned anybody. We moved on. And really this whole match was pointless. Both guys are talented. They both do impressive moves, they both execute them fantastically. But none of them mean anything whatsoever. This was some of the most egregious move trading I've ever seen. I can't see how there can be any sort of drama in a match like this. There has to be some sort of responsible hierarchy of moves. Some moves have to seem more damaging than others. This was just a collection of moves, none of which kept either man down for any period of time, and eventually one of them ended the match. Both guys took some dangerous slams, and things would always progress the same: Dangerous slam -> guy who took dangerous slam would stand up and catch the other guy in a dangerous slam. Neither guy showed any damage, so why would I care about pinfalls, or anything else? I guess by that point we're all just watching to see neat moves executed in a bubble. They may as well have done a super fast Spanish Fly, and then both stood up, bowed, and announced their next move. They were essentially performing motion capture moves for a video game, while wearing more flattering attire. Flamita did some very cool arm work, using a fun variety of arm crushing moves, my favorite being a great legdrop starting with him standing on Tiger's arm before delivering it (he also had Tiger slumped in the corner at one point, and did a running dropkick to just his arm). But Flamita couldn't have known that Xtreme Tiger has invincible arms! Tiger did some cool things too, loved his bombs away type move off the top onto Flamita's pelvis, and he broke out some cool leg work (his seated wishbone was killer). But, you may have guessed this, but Flamita has invincible legs! Flamita's phoenix splash has a great thud to it, and that's the move that ended the match. He set it up by being driven head first into the mat by Xtreme Tiger. Put all these moves in a logical order and make a 3 minute highlight video of it. It would be more enjoyable than what we got.

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Catching Up On 2013 AAA

Gran Apache, Lucky Boy and Nino de Ebano vs. Atomic Boy, Flamita, and Jinzo, 4/13/13

I don't know much about anybody in this match not named Apache, although I thought (and was correct) that I've seen Atomic Boy before as a mini. The others are either Apache, Navarro, or Arkangel trainees. These kinds of spotfests aren't for everybody, but if they have minimal botches and don't act like wrestling is super serious business I'm kind of a sucker for them.

This one is a real hoot and everybody in it gets a chance to do their thing. Lucky Boy and Nino de Ebano take some big bumps and bust out a couple dangerous dives (one does a springboard swanton and barely rotates before landing). Jinzo looks like a throwback Pena young boy but works like a pretty convincing bully. They all get to do all sorts of goofy 5 man submissions, which is when the awesome glue of the match - Gran Apache - does everything you want him to do: punch slap and kick pretty boys and skinny masked weenies. All the spots were fun  but all of them were capped off great by an old man interrupting them to slap them senseless. From kicking Jinzo in the temple with the toe of his boot, to his great running punch in the corner, to watching all the goofy submissions, mugging to the crowd before smacking everybody in said goofy submissions, and then even bleeding, Apache was the (not at all shocking) star in this. Real fun way to kill 15 minutes.

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