Lucha Worth Watching: Mask Matches and Family Feuds 10/12/15 & 11/8/15

Mascara contra Mascara: Molotov vs. Lestat, CMLL (10/12/15)

Two guys I don't watch that much, having a mask match. Lestat has been king of the mask match this year in Puebla, taking a mask just a couple months prior from King Jaguar. That's right. THEE King Jaguar. He's a Puebla undercarder, and Molotov is a CMLL undercarder who doesn't make TV that often but has shown improvement in the last few years. Lestat is clearly a Jeff Hardy obsessive, who potentially knows a guy who knows a guy who wants to push him to mask match glory. The match itself was poorly structured, but both men were clearly working hard. Lestat is kind of a slow motion Blitzkrieg, but worked in several fun swanton variations: a couple big ones from the top rope, a big one climbing the ropes, and tossed out a couple asai moonsault variations. The structure was all wack as we had several moments where a guy would take a big move, but then that guy would be on his feet first to deliver the next big move. It got kind of ridiculous after awhile. Lestat hits a big moonsault to the floor, landing on his feet, yet Molotov recovers faster and gets back in the ring to deliver a dive of his own. There were several moments like that. We also got a hilarious moment where Lestat yanked off Molotov's mask (Molotov had ripped at Lestat's in the primera), and Tirantes went to DQ him, and Lestat started begging and begging and getting on his knees apologizing to not be DQ'd (Molotov had won the primera so this would have meant Lestat's mask). It's a strange sight to see a tecnico doing something illegal and then begging the referee to not punish him. Who could get behind that kind of weenie?! When I was in 2nd grade, Mrs. Setterlund had a "punishment board" that was a physical three tier system of punishment. There were three levels: 1. Warning, 2. Lose a Recess, 3. Principal's Office. She had clothespins with all of our names written on them, and if you did something to warrant it, your clothespin would get moved from the "Not a Horrible Child" portion, down to the "On Warning" section, and so on. Since I was a constant chatterer, I would regularly see my clothespin moved into section 1 and 2, but never section 3. It usually took a LOT to get a visit to the principal's office. But one day I must have been particularly restless and got my clothespin moved down to dreaded section 3. And then I proceeded to run across the classroom and tearfully BEG to not have my pin moved to section 3. It was pathetic. I begged and pleaded and made promises as my mind rushed with all sorts of terrible things that would happen if my mom found out I had been sent to the principal's office. And eventually, Mrs. Setterlund relented, and I avoided further punishment, while I assume losing the respect of every single person of every age who witnessed it. And that was Lestat. Lestat was 2nd grade me. Crowds didn't want to root for 2nd grade me.

Also funny, is the longer the match went on, the more I felt like the lucha smoothness was hurting things. As in, both guys were trained a certain way. There was a certain slickness to their movements, that smoother lucha style. And I kept thinking that if this were worked in some garage but a couple of bad body guys in jean shorts, it would feel like a gritty war with tons of crazy spots and violent thud bumps. Not that Arena Puebla is a classy place, but it's an established professional arena, and the violence doesn't translate as well when done by guys in wide leg neon vinyl pants. I honestly think you can take this exact same match, hold it in a parking lot before a Raiders game, and have it between Shane Stevens and Shane "Gator" Stephens and suddenly I'd say "Man who the hell are these lunatics!?" But alas, it was not between two Shanes, and it had none of the drama of your good mask matches. Still, a man who you might not have known, lost his mask. This seems at least somewhat notable.

Dinastia Navarro vs. Dinastia Panther, All Elite 11/8/15

Alternate, more complete, but not as pretty fancam

Yay internet! I love family affair lucha matches, there's always a little added element of pride and the crowd gets buzzing for that familia atmosphere. It's structure is exactly what you expect, and it's goooood. Tons of matwork and grappling trade-offs in the primera, very short segunda with Navarros getting their submissions back, and a tercera that peaks with a beautiful dive and the two maestros squaring off. The mat stuff is predictably wonderful. Trauma I ends the segunda with his nasty indian deathlock into a violent twisting crescendo. Panther Jr. ends the primera by muscling Navarro to the ground and wrenching in a Fujiwara. BP and Trauma II go at it like men and the grappling is excellent. They both throw in little touches of professionalism, like BP slyly moving his leg away from Trauma's grasp moments before Trauma even blindly grabs back at the leg. Both lock on and slither out of nice indian deathlock variations but it doesn't feel exhibition-y, while it does feel nice and show-offy, seeing who can bust out freakier stuff. Trauma II is an absolute beast throughout this, being the only one who really laces into anybody with strikes, and BP Jr. pays him back at one point with an awesome ropewalk dropkick 3/4 of the way across the ring. Awesome spot. The Panther hits a super fast bullet tope to clear the ring, and we get the BP/Navarro showdown where they break out fun reversals and the gorgeous somewhat slower gracefulness of two masters comes into play. Navarro appeared slightly wooden in this and looked to have trouble bumping to the floor earlier, but it was clear he was saving his gas for Panther and I thank him for it. It wouldn't have taken much more for me to bump this up closer to MOTY list, just felt like it needed a couple more runs. Of the two videos linked, the top one is gorgeously clear, but has "down time" edited out. You get most of the action, but it's choppy. The second video is the whole thing, but shot from farther away, and the first 6 minutes are shaky and partially blocked by the referee. The first one you get a much greater sense of how hard Trauma II's shots are landing, and obviously all the mat transitions and work itself is so much clearer. The second video is a nice companion, as you get more crowd noise (and it appears to be filmed from a pro-Dinastia Navarro section) so you get a good gauge of how the crowd starts pro Navarro and by the end shifts to cheering both teams. I also includes what happens between the 2da and 3ra, which is mainly The Panther nicely selling the brutal T1 submission that took him out of the fall. For me, it made things mean a LOT more important to see Panther getting tended to, walking off his injury and gutting things through. Watch it, and thank the internet.

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

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

25:00 in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday Night Digging in the Crates

We take a trip down to Puebla to see a bunch of great under-pimped locals, including our favorite lost but not forgotten chubster.



Toro Bill Sr., Toro Bill Jr. & Policeman vs. Asturiano, Lestat & Centella de Oro CMLL 2/2/09

ER: Man do I love this match. This match is only 5 years old but at times feels like it could be 20 years old or 5 years into the future (where people will still be whining about hoverboard technology). Obviously the immediate standout is Toro Bill Sr., who works and looks like fat Satanico. His brawling is nice but you came for the bumps and Bill delivers the bumps. Aside from just an insane bump to the floor, he takes armdrags more gracefully than most luchadors half his size. Centella de Oro seems like a cool regional Freelance type, though with less flying. His arm drags are gorgeous. Lestat has some cool offenense, Toro Bill Jr. hits an out of control fat guy trainee dive, Policeman works like a cool Dinamitas throwback worker. What makes this match so great is that these are six local guys you had never heard of before, being given an opening slot on a CMLL show, and just completely making the most of it. Maybe an opening match shot on a Monday night Puebla show doesn't sound like a big deal, but nobody told these guys if it wasn't. This felt like their M-Pro Barely Legal showcase, and it delivered. Now 5 years removed, Toro Bill Sr. stopped showing up a year after this match, TBJ shows up sporadically (as recently as last year in CMLL for a few matches), Policeman, Lestat, and Centella de Oro haven't made tape in a few years, and Asturiano still gets pretty regular work in CMLL. So they had their shot, delivered, and things don't always work out. But this match will always exist and will always rule.

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