MLJ: Sin Salida 2010 Part 4: Brazo de Plata, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Strong Man vs Gigante Bernard, Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000

Taped 2010-06-06
Brazo de Plata, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Strong Man vs Gigante Bernard, Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdoazb_porky-rayo-strongman-vs-bernard-m20_latino


Sin Salida 2010 had been a pretty good show so far. Sure, the booking was a mess but the minis match was fun, and the two lower card matches with Los Invasores had the same sort of energy that their matches over the last month had and then the Revelos Increibles match was heated and effective.

Then we had this. It was definitely a nostalgia fest. Los Hermanos Dinomita and Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. were moving less smoothly than Porky in there at times. They had a few dives and I could have sworn the slow motion replay was on. Then to balance them you had Bernard and Strongman. I don't get how anyone thought this would be a good idea.

Rayo came out with a hat and a UWA title. Universo and Mascara Ano wore their masks to the ring. The rudos took an early advantage, mainly due to Bernard being such a force but their tandem offense wasn't exactly dynamite. There was a lackluster double lift snake eyes in the corner. Really, their best move for most of this match was to toss people into Albert's foot, after which point, he'd do his overhead X with thumbs down pose. It was kind of fun the first time but it got old.

Basically, the match had two things going for it. First, Bernard did well. He was doing little things like driving his forearm into Porky's face on a pin, and he did match up well with Strongman. By the time the comeback came around in the tercera he was playing into some of Porky's spots and selling and hamming it up big. The second thing was that Strongman is a pretty effective tool for rudos to run into. I was wondering how they were going to kill something like nine minutes for the tercera (the peril of watching match online is that you know how long is left in it at almost any point) and 2-3 minutes can be taken up by Strongman top wristlock strength spots and shoulder tackles or what not.

Another minute or two was taken up by Albert doing some really brutal armwork onto Strongman in order to take him out of the match. I could have watched another five or six minutes of that, really. It made me want to track down some more Bernard in Japan. Anyway, the whole point of it was to distract the refs with the carnage of him finding a foreign object to smash the arm (which he then failed to find?) so that Universo could hit a pile driver on Rayo.

In all the lucha matches I've seen over the last year, well over two or three hundred, I think this is the first time I actually saw a pile driver executed (and not, for instance, Rush's double underhook pile driver). For this. By Universo, on Rayo. The upside to this is that Universo and Rayo were sticking around for a bit at least. They even had a WWA title match main event at Puebla at the end of the month, so it's not like it was a total waste, but the fans, who were otherwise into this, didn't seem all that upset by it certainly.

Anyway, this was a match and I kind of wish it hadn't been.

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MLJ: A Garza Odyssey 19: Gigante Bernard, Shocker, Strong Man vs Héctor Garza, Terrible, Texano, Jr.

2010-05-28 @ Arena México
Gigante Bernard, Shocker, Strong Man vs Héctor Garza, Terrible, Texano, Jr.

1:30 in

http://youtu.be/gdI8S2N2HPw

http://youtu.be/ozq_PIup4QM

The Garza train rolls on. Yes, this had more Strongman, but it also had Garza teaming with Terrible and Texano, Jr, which is just a killer rudo trio. Texano and Terrible really had a great act and I'm glad that I have a bit more time with the three of them now. I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going next or even how long I'll stay in 2010. I thought about ending at Sin Salida since I'm just about there but I might make it all the way to the Anniversary show, because that'd let me see some of La Peste Negro vs Los Invasores and Olimpico (who I am still high on from the 06 GdI stuff I saw) lose his mask. Moving on, I'm going to be headed to either the Casas vs Mistico feud or more likely the Terrible vs Rush feud. We'll see though.

This was sort of a double spectacle since it had a visiting Giant Bernard who had been pushed with bottom of the screen graphics earlier on. I know they had sent Sombra to New Japan around this time and obviously Tanahashi had just been in to win (and then lose) the trios titles. Bernard was going to be a rudo for the rest of the tour but for some reason he was on the tecnico side here. I get the impression that they pretty much ignored the Invasores stuff on the Friday night show too. CMLL politics and booking are, once again, beyond me.

This was Texano, Terrible, and Garza getting to play full on cowardly and dastardly rudos against the sheer force that was Strongman and Bernard. Shocker was there and maybe he had a terrible 2012 and 2013 but I really haven't seen lazy Shocker yet. I've seen overly pandering Shocker, sure, but he's been energetic and dynamic throughout. For what it's worth Garza's still shrugging about his turn and slapping fans' hands. He can't help himself. He's just bad by nature.

Ideally they would have run this with Shocker playing FIP and maybe even Strongman showing some signs of vulnerability in order to get Bernard over big. That's not really what happened. There weren't a ton of moments in the two caidas this went where the tecnicos were in trouble. Early on Shocker got to shine only to fall prey to Garza being nefarious, but it didn't last.

As I said, part of the story of the match was this: Texano and Terrible (and Garza) were used to Strongman; they knew how to deal with him. They were able to triple team and temporarily get the better of him, but Bernard was an unknown quantity. I don't think Strongman really played into that well, but Bernard did. Little things like a double noggin knocker that you don't see a lot in trios matches made him feel like a force in total control despite the fact he was double or triple teamed. He even got to walk over and kiss Commandante knocking her off the apron. The primera ended with both he and Strongman hitting Vader bombs in opposite corners. Then, as Garza went to break up the pins, Shocker hit the ropes, causing Garza to drop down in a pretty hilarious fit of begging.

There was about a minute of heat in the segunda. Commandate distracted the larger tecnicos on the outside, allowing for Garza to kick Shocker in the skull and for the rudos to swarm him. They did the double hiptoss in the double bomb. But Bernard found his way back and the expression Garza had when he realized it was golden.

It all came to a head shortly thereafter, with Shocker hitting a dive, Strongman locking in his torture rack, and Garza, when he tried to break it all up again, jumping right into Bernard's double choke bomb.

Certainly a good showcase for Bernard, but really that had more to do with the rudos being very good at what they did than the tecnicos getting out of the way to let him shine.

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