Lucha Worth Watching: Demus! Robin! Dark Magic!

Demus vs. Robin RLL 6/1/19

ER: I love seeing Demus pop up in indy singles matches, pretty much regardless of opponent, so seeing him show up against I like is obviously going to be something I seek out. And this kept flirting with jumping up onto MOTY List level, but a couple things held it back. It was worked much more like a lightning match (and was a nice brisk 11 minutes) which means that it didn't have some of the drama, and a couple spots didn't quite hit flush, but these are two guys who will do a couple stupid cool things in a match. Demus is his amusing self: Early he takes his belt off so he can choke Robin with it, but the ref takes it away pretty quick. And I then laughed several times as we get the reveal that it was a load bearing belt, and Demus is pulling up his jeans for the rest of the match. I kept rooting for a spot where Demus asked for the belt back as long as he promised to not use it as a weapon. Robin takes plenty of big bumps on a hard mat, to the floor, and one I'll get to in a bit; he splatted several times missing flying moves into the ring (all his landings on Demus slams looked hard as hell, and his corkscrew moonsault bump landed with a splat), hits a great tope, and is generally a fun opponent to see Demus headbutt a ton (and Demus is going to headbutt you a ton). The absolute spot of the match - and what made me root hard to include this on a list - was crazy and unexpected. Robin sets Demus up on the entrance ramp and goes for a running somersault senton from in ring to out of ring. Demus moves and Robin crashes to the ramp...and then Demus spears him off the ramp, into the crowd and chairs below! Holy shit. I didn't think the rest of the match was tidy enough to make list (Robin gets up from the spear immediately back in control, and kinda whiffs on a tornillo to the floor, Demus drops Robin while attempting the muscle buster, etc.), but had one moment that I loved: Robin has Demus locked in a bow and arrow, and Demus breaks it by reaching behind his head to grab Robin's head, and forces Robin to headbutt the back of his own head. Things like that keep me coming back for more Demus. The double underhook piledriver is completely insane and really shouldn't be allowed in lucha, but who can contain Demus?


Dark Magic/Polvora/Kawato San vs. Black Panther/Blue Panther Jr./Rey Cometa CMLL 7/9/19

ER: I really liked the big energy in this midcard Tuesday Arena Mexico match. Occasionally that happens and it's always great. This was spirited as hell and at times felt like an ECW house show fancam brawl. We get crowd brawling during several points of the match, guys really giving the fans their monies worth by getting them right up close. This kept the crowd loud for the duration of the match and that always makes these things more exciting. Black Panther looks huge, and he hits a nice tope that slams Polvora hard into the barricade; Cometa as Tonto is growing on me and I'm starting to think he looks cool, and it's awesome to see Tonto hitting a nice tope con giro. Dark Magic comes off like a guy trained by Norman Smiley, hitting axe handles and straight kicks to the chest, taking a fun tumble over the barricade, leaping off the apron; what I'm saying is everybody here did something I liked. A bump, a hard shoulderblock, a swift mask rip, all throughout. Add in an engaging crowd brawl and this became one of those fun midcard gems that happen to shine brighter than usual without real reason to.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Spry Panther and All of the Ranas

Blue Panther, Valiente & Stuka Jr. vs. Terrible, Rey Bucanero & Vangellys (CMLL 2/9/16)

Tuesday night Arena Mexico main events aren't where I go when I'm expecting a bunch of fun primera matwork, but that's what ended up happening here! First Valiente and Terrible went at it. For guys I see wrestle a lot, I don't recall either guy ever going to the mat that often, so it was kind of a treat to see them work through things, roll through headlocks, pick legs, stuff that should be happening more but just doesn't. The real gold is Panther and Bucanero matching up and going on the mat right after, and that's really special. Panther is still one of my absolute favorite mat guys and I relish any time he gets even 30 seconds to got at it in a match. Here he gets to pull out all sorts of tricks and always impresses me with different weird takeovers and a seemingly endless supply of ways he can work himself out of a headscissors. Bucanero also surprised me as he's not a guy who's been super motivated that last several years, but you still get flashes and he still has basics to fall back on when he's not listlessly drifting into trios triple team tropes (TTTT, TM). Here Panther forces him to the mat and Rey is almost frustratingly game, frustrating as in "you were capable of this all along!?" Rey even harkens back to bump machine days by wrapping himself around a ring post. Stuka breaks out an awesome low angle version of his hands-by-his-side splash, firing more straight out as opposed to getting more height, we get some dives, and I just drift away envisioning a world where CMLL allows for more matwork. Sigh...

Hechicero, Ripper & Polvora vs. Dragon Lee, Mistico & Titan (CMLL 6/20/15)

It's tough to keep up with all the lucha with stalwarts like Cubsfan constantly uploading stuff, but I have stuff I save to watch later, stuff that sounds nice on paper, and some days I get to that stuff, and some days it's worth writing about. Whenever it's a Hechicero match I throw it in the "to watch" pile and hey look at that, Hechicero was awesome here. That's a fun rudo team and a flippy tecnico team, and that's a nice combo. Hechicero matched up a lot with Lee and Mistico, and he made Mistico look golden. So many rana variations were tossed out in this match and all three rudos were splatting all around the ring. Lee did his wild no hands high jump rana over the top, sending Polvora off the apron to the floor. Hechicero takes some big bumps on the floor, Ripper does his nice bump past the ringpost and then runs into a Lee backbreaker. Hechicero is awesome at taking armdrags and ranas, he really can navigate a long rotating armdrag sequence like a great minis base. Except he is a full size man! And then Hechicero goes and does graceful flying better than the fliers. I love his spin around on the ropes dropkick. Dragon Lee is quite the crazy bumper, but you knew this. Here he's still honing his into the crowd bumps, but he still does them, as well as take a big bump to the floor and on top of the barricade while getting bullied by Hech. Polvora is a guy who is always good in these kind of matches, but he's one of those guys who does not excel at one specific thing so he goes unnoticed. But Hechicero was the story here. The guy really brings out the best in flippers. And anybody, really. Because he's Hechicero.

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

31. Blue Panther, Rey Cometa & Angel de Oro v. Virus, Polvora & Dragon Rojo Jr. CMLL 9/11

ER: This is pretty much what you hope for when you watch a trios featuring non-feuding guys. There's nothing major at stake, just guys wanting to put their best foot forward. And you can always tell pretty quickly in non-stake trios if guys are going to be dogging it a bit or at least attempting to do something special. And right out of the gate Panther and Polvora look like they're really going for something. A spirited Panther is still one of my absolute favorite things in wrestling, and this match was a great BP performance. He and Polvora get a few minutes to tear things up and it's all good, cool float overs, Panther doing a great headstand out of a headscissors, just beautiful lucha matwork. That starts the match on a great note and the rest of the match is all smooth, quick work, everybody showing what they got. Oro isn't great but hits some big moonsaults including one from the middle turnbuckles to the floor. Cometa starts off a little glitchy but by the tercera he's rolling. Virus eats a big Oro dive in the primera.....but you know what you want from this match when looking at the lineup, and it delivers wonderfully. Right around the 22 minute mark Virus locks a nasty bow and arrow on Oro, really bending him back, and then Panther casually walks in pats Virus on the shoulder, and Virus just drops the submission while keeping his eyes on Panther the whole time. You start to get excited, and the crowd got that same kind of excited. Crowd started getting nice and electric when they saw BP/Virus about to happen. Up to this point they matched up for literally 4 seconds of the match, and suddenly it was like the dance floor cleared to make space for a showdown. And we got a killer little showdown with Virus clearly showing off and Panther looking impossibly smooth. I could watch these two roll and tumble and work in and out of sequences on an infinite loop. This all peaks with Virus getting plastered by a high speed Panther tope, crowd going nuts, Panther jumping up and down.....and then Panther hitting a second awesome tope. Virus pays him back by winning with a nasty looking sub that had BP yelping immediately. Match had a super quick pace, tons of spots, everybody working with something to prove, and that little slice of heaven that was BP/Virus. What more would you want?

PAS: This was a solid slightly above average trios for most of the matches. The Panther v. Polvora stuff was really solid, and another example of how great Panther still is. It isn't like you are searching out Polvora matches, but he looks totally awesome matched up with Panther. The finish run with Panther stepping up and going after Virus was spectacular. I loved the idea of Panther tapping on Virus's shoulder and saying "let's move the kids out of the way and show the fans some lucha." Totally unexpected treat, the equivalent of putting on an old pair of pants and finding $20.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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MLJ: Cavernario vs Titan 6: Ángel de Oro, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Felino, Pólvora

Aired: 2015-01-04
Taped: 2015-01-04 @ Arena México
Ángel de Oro, Stuka Jr., Titán vs Bárbaro Cavernario, Felino, Pólvora

The next two matches have Angel de Oro, which is good since I don't have a great sense of him and I always like broading my luchador base. This one has Polvora and Stuka Jr. The next one has Negro Casas and Dragon Lee. I have to admit I'm looking forward to the next one more, even if I'm not exactly dreading this one. I'll be able to have a better sense of Oro after next match so I'll hold off judgment of him til then. For now, I find the wings on his crotch a little dubious. On the other hand, I love Felino and Cavernario dancing on the way in. Felino has his problems but I'll take him over Niebla for the most part.

The pairings for the primera were Stuka vs Cavernario, Felino vs Titan, and Oro vs Polvora. I thought Cavernario looked good against Stuka, making things a struggle and moving himself and his opponent around well. Titan had to feign annoyance and frustration at Felino's antics (probably wasn't very hard actual). Ultimately, he lost a cheer off, which is not uncommon for poor Titan. Insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Polvora played much more of a traditional rudo role in this and the fans booed him accordingly. My gut says that so many of CMLL's problems would be solved by turning Pesta Negra tecnico and Ingobernables full on rudo but who knows. Some of CMLL's problems seem to stem from the sheer fact that it exists in the first place.

Anyway, the primera turned the corner when the rudos tried to swarm, but it all felt a bit off. That's because instead of being a tidal shift, it just led into an Oro vs the world section and some tandem topes from Titan and Oro. This left Stuka to hit a fireman's carry drop onto Felino and his big splash. After the fall Cavernario tried to eat the camera, which was awesome.

In case I hadn't established this yet, Titan and Cavernario work well together. They did the fun back monkey flip spot. At some point in the last year, Cavernario developed a really nice superkick out of nowhere to cut off his opponents' athletic bs and he hit it here (and then recoiled at Felino's armpit so yeah). Titan (during his "vs the world" exchange) went for the Titanics on Polvora but turned it into a headscissors instead. Little switches like that make the world go round and make it a little less egregious. The crowd still booed him and that's starting to get painful though. Eventually Stuka and Felino picked up the speed with Stuka getting the best only to get swarmed by Cavernario and Polvora. Check out this flurry:

The beatdown led to the Polvora Bomb and the alley oop Cavernario dropkick to let the rudos take the segunda.

The tercera had some mask untying, good control of the tecnicos by the rudos, and some fun comedy with Oro doing a Three Stooges routine in the corner getting chopped. Stuka eventually reverses a double armdrag off the ropes and  ducks a double clothesline to allow tecnicos fight back. Everyone goes down one after the next and this leads to Titan majestically moonsaulting Felino from a springboard. I'm not a big high spot guy or dive guy. It's one of the least important parts of lucha to me, but I like Titan's huge moonsault. He usually works out ways to be clever about it or to set it up well (or to set up the decision on which way to go at least) and then he just gets a ton of hight from the apron out. Anyway, this had followed a Stuka roll up of Polvora and leads to Oro turning a roll up into his swinging suplex on Cavernario.

The fans boo the finish since they weren't really behind the tecnicos, but that's a shame because they deserved some acclaim here.

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CMLL Worth Watching 1/2/15, 1/4/15 & 1/9/15

1. Barbaro Cavernario, Felino & Polvora vs. Stuka Jr., Titan & Angel de Oro (1/4/15)

Another fun match from a card with a few fun matches. Felino really works best when separated from Niebla and his brother. He always ends up looking like an actual wrestler instead of spending the whole match honing his comedy chops. He must have lost a hair match at some point too as he's all buzzed (different kind of buzzed than when he teams with Niebla) although it would be amusing if he just showed up with a shaved head without cashing in. Barbaro gets a bunch of great runs in this, the guy really knows his way around a nice standing sequence. He also takes a nice reckless Cassandro bump to the floor leading to the other rudos also spilling out, and some big dives by the tecnicos. Titan had some supreme dorkiness during this as he comes off at times like he's working a parody of Chris Hero's old "indy athleticism" gimmick. Stuka is always a nut and it feels like he should get talked about way more. I am a sucker for his "hands at sides" dives. Match also featured an unintentionally humorous spot where Polvora was fighting with Titan, and Felino threw a chop block at Titan but didn't connect enough so Titan didn't know to sell the chop block. So basically we saw Felino fly into frame stage right, and then roll away stage left...while nobody else reacted.

2. Negro Casas vs. Mascara Dorada (1/2/15)

I always love when one my favorite old guys shows up in singles matches, against anybody really. If there's a Panther or Casas singles, I'll watch it no matter who the opponent is. And Dorada is a guy I really like so naturally I'd be excited for this match-up. And these two are really no strangers to each other in singles matches, as they've matched up several times over the last 5 years, often over this very title. And while this match is somewhat disappointing, that does not mean that it's not worth watching. It's disappointing in its formatting, which is almost always the reason a CMLL main event is disappointing. I can't recall the last time I thought a CMLL match would have been good if not for one man's performance, it's almost always due to lousy format. And it stinks to see Casas wedged into a format. Casas matches always excel because of his wonderful attention to details, and this match was too much boiled down to his moves and nearfalls that it didn't have as much room for character. There were still those terrific Casas moments here, such as him pumping his boots into Dorada's face on a moonsault attempt, then smiling giddily to the crowd over his shoulder as he scrambled for a pin; or him screaming to the heavens after getting beaten by the Casita for the second time in the match. But there just wasn't as many classic Casas moments as you'll find in his best work. But these two are both good, and formatting be damned there will be enough good moments that shine through, enough to make it better than most CMLL main event singles. Their standing go behinds had nice struggle, Dorada's dive was fast and hit high, Casas' press off the apron hit with such force that it sent him flipping wildly into the front row. Those kinds of things add up to a fun watch, and while it wasn't as great as it could have been there was still plenty to appreciate.

3. Kamaitachi vs. Dragon Lee (Lightning Match) (1/9/15)

Only 6 minutes, but played out like a really fun Lucha Underground style match. The opening strike exchange had elements of old Low-Ki stuff and was really fun when both guys knocked each other down with stereo roundhouse kicks. Kamaitachi always leans into things and Lee has a bunch of cool strikes that look great when guys lean into them. We also get one of Lee's trademark suicidal topes with his head plowing into the side of Kamaitachi's neck at high speed and both men sprawling out. There were a bunch of cool reversals in ring, Lee got dumped on his head by a clothesline, Kamaitachi got dumped on his head with a suplex. Crowd was not liking that Kamaitachi won while sneakily unmasking Lee.

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CMLL Worth Watching 10/12/14, 12/26/14 & 1/4/15

1. Welterweight Cibernetico, feat. Rey Cometa, Fuego, Mascara Dorada, Negro Casas, Kamaitachi, Titan, Sangre Azteca, Triton, Delta, & Polvora (12/26/14)

When I first got into lucha it was ciberneticos and Rey/Psicosis matches that broke me in. And then once I discovered lucha brawling I lost interest in ciberneticos. When I started watching lucha I went in not understanding its complexities, went in assuming like it would be like a never-ending WCW Saturday Night spotfest. I didn't realize at the time what a low bar I was setting, and just how deeply I would come to accept lucha into my life. Ciberneticos just became a waste to me, as it was mostly guys rushing through spots with no sort of character, and fairly quickly I learned that lucha was much better as a character piece than as a spotfest. But obviously there can still be some tremendous spots and occasionally you still get a cibernetico such as this one with tons of fun stuff. Cometa and Fuego really shined in this one, with each hitting some nutso dives (gotta compete with the televised craziness of Lucha Underground after all), but Cometa here seemed more fired up than I've seen from him in over a year (that middle rope tornillo is so cool!) and had a nice snap to everything he did, Dorada took some major bumps, Fuego finally looked like the guy that people have been pimping him to me as, Sangre Azteca is dressed like Michael Jackson in The Wiz, and I *love* when Casas gets in a match like this with some younger guys and shows he can run circles around all of them. Casas in these kind of showcases brings out something else entirely in him, as everybody seems nervous about hitting their spots while he just seems like it isn't even a job to him, always smiling big and having a ball. Kamaitachi always misses stuff with gusto and I loved Casas grabbing ahold of him and dismantling his leg. Very fun, well worth the time.

2. Astral vs. Electrico (10/12/14)

Well hey these guys went out and had a nice little match! I can't recall the last minis singles match I really enjoyed but who cares because this was real good. Really I liked all of this, with the opening mat stuff being nice and snug, great headlock takeovers, nice Indian deathlock variations applied nice and quick, Electrico's caida-winning submission was a thing of beauty. The nutsy dives start in the second and we really get a couple of doozies, with an Astral bump around the ringpost leading to an Electrico dive out the corner, and later on we get a huge double springboard Astral tornillo. There was too much cool stuff in here to list it all, but these two really clicked something good.

3. Hechicero, Hombre Sin Nombre & Sagrado vs. Guerrero Maya Jr., Dragon Lee & The Panther (1/4/15) 

New year, and some new blood starts showing up on TV! Hombre sin Nombre is Hooligan this go 'round (not really sure the need to stop being Hooligan, but whatevs) and The Panther is the former Cachorro. Salgado works so much better as a rudo, it's not even funny. We've been putting up with this butthole's bad tecnico routine for a fucking decade now, watching him botch spots and have no clue where to be in the ring. Here he's a bully who makes it his match-long goal to target Lee and it's great. He doesn't even seem to care about winning, just wants to beat down Lee. Hechicero gets to run the joint in there and him matching up against Maya is a blast. Maya himself had a wonderful showing, culminating in him hitting an absolute bonkers flip dive through the ropes on Hechicero, hitting way high up on Hechicero's face/chest, bending him over the barrier and sending himself into the front row. Crowd really responds to Hechicero which is exciting. He has an effortless way about him, and always surprises me by doing things I don't expect out of sequences, like breaking out a springboard dropkick in the middle of a rope running spot. This whole match was tons of fun.

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MLJ: 2010: A Garza Odyssey 15: Héctor Garza & Pólvora vs Delta & Volador Jr. [Gran Alternativa, final]

2010-04-30 Arena México 5 of 6:

Héctor Garza & Pólvora vs Delta & Volador Jr. [Gran Alternativa, final]

http://youtu.be/YekpkZa-kbs?t=00h00m30s

http://youtu.be/zgNc0ag-eLQ

Have you ever watched a lot of lucha over a ten month period and decided that you were pretty much done with Volador, Jr? Yes? No? Somehow I imagine I'm not the only one. Don't get me wrong: there are things he's good at, that he was good at in 2010 and that he's still good at now. He hits stuff pretty well most of the time; he can take a beating well enough; he's got good timing on comebacks; really, a lot of the fundamentals work out pretty well with him. He just lacks that certain something. I'm going to call it charm, because I think that applies more than charisma. He hits his stuff but rarely inspires any emotion. Even when he's taking a beating my general feeling wavers from "oh that poor bastard," to "come on, punch him again!" which is about as far from effectively sympathetic babyface as you can get. I realized I probably have a lot of him in my future still since I plan on hanging around this time period, give or take a couple of years, but I rarely come into a match with him where I wouldn't rather have someone else, be it Sombra or Bucanero or what.

Anyway, this was the final of the tournament. Polvora is about to be featured on Fantasticmania so it doesn't hurt to look at him a little more. What surprised me the most about the match was how much they let Delta (who I generally find fun at the very least) pair up with Garza. Watching this match, you'd have less of a sense on who was the veteran and who the rookie than in a lot of the other matches, at least on the tecnico side. I'll be honest that the mostly matching gear didn't help in that regard.

Garza was full on rudo, embracing it and embellishing it, outright listed as it in the image, even if he came out with Hectorcito. Shocker (and Kemonito) were guest announcing, so that was fun, too. This match did feel like a big deal with all of that. They played to their strengths in the primera, with lots of back and forth and rope running and quick counters and interference to break up moves (including a top rope sunset flip to break up an inverted surfboard). Ultimately, Garza caught Delta off of a springboard with a powerbomb and Polvora dodged a similar attack by Volador to hit a sitdown chokeslam for the caida.

The rudos pressed the advantage in the segunda, with Garza heeling it up well. He hit the lift up kick on Delta (and it was so well timed and aimed that it looked like a foul) and then showed his back to draw in his opponent for Polvora to get him. After a few minutes of beatdown they ran a comeback, ending with tandem diving ranas. Unfortunately Delta missed his and if Garza wasn't so good at catching, it would have been a complete disaster of a spot. As it was, he sort of caught him midway down and did a half bodyscissors rana bump instead. Weirdly enough they gave it all another dip before the pin with Delta setting Polvora on the ropes for Volador to legdrop. It was well timed. I usually that sit up in the ropes spot but with someone else to set up it worked well. Good recovery after the mess of a dive.

The tercera was more of the same. The only really egregious spot was a sunset flip powerbomb from the top which took forever to set up and didn't even get paid off as they showed a bunch of bored fans instead of the bump. Garza continued the stooging, with some grade A shadowboxing after he took a shot and Delta got to hit a massive moonsault to clear things for the finish, which was a ref distraction to stop a pin, a ref bump to set up a foul, and that super facebuster by Polvora with Garza setting it up. Wholly rudo-ish and all well executed. Like I said, this felt like an important match and they could have moved both Delta and Polvora up the cards a bit after it if they had wanted to (I'm not sure if they did or not, though Polvora won the Welterweight title in 2012 and Delta was, at least, rookie of the year in 2010).

This was fun though hardly perfect. Most importantly though, that Garza turn was percolating and really about to come to fruition.

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MLJ: 2010: A Garza Odyssey 12: Gran Alternativa 2010 - Quarter and Semi-Finals

Taped 04/16/2010 @ Arena México ***Arena Mexico 53rd Anniversary***
Gran Alternativa 2010

Tournament Lucha; I was going to skip this but if i am looking at Garza's year it's important for two reasons. 1) He won the tournament. 2) He chose to team with a rudo and really acted like one. That the matches here weren't bad helps, though. I've not seen one of these before, I don't think (Cavernario and Niebla won in 2014). The idea is that it's veterans paired with rookies. Say what you will about CMLL's tournaments but they do have some interesting ones, in theory, ever year. I'd kind of love to see a tag tournament with a WWE wrestler teaming with a NXT wrestler, for instance. Garza had won the tournament before, on the other side of things, way back in 1994 with Negro Casas. Here he teamed with Polvora, which again, was notable since he hadn't turned yet and Polvora was a rudo. He was claiming in interviews at this point that he was still a tecnico, just that he was having some miscommunication with his partners.

It's notable that his quarterfinal match was against Mascara and Sensei. As always, CMLL really got the most out of that idea (note: sarcasm) by running it in the first round instead of building to it later on. The finals end up being against Delta and Volador, Jr. and maybe there was some very important story reason for that, but even putting Garza against his partner that he was about to turn on in the weeks to come in the last match of Block A would have meant something. I've never seen a wrestling company so good at minimizing impact. Regardless, we don't have that match, but Garza and Polvora won.

Here's what we do have.

Héctor Garza & Pólvora vs Blue Panther & Rey Cometa

1:44 in

Tournament lucha tends to be all action and no meaning and I'm not saying that wasn't the case here but the action was good. This started with Cometa hitting a crazy spinning dive and didn't really look back. Garza was pure on rudo beating Panther down on the outside, helping Polovra beat on Cometa on the inside and breaking out the move of 2010 that he could now use as a rudo, sending his opponent off the rope, tossing them up as high as can be and then nailing a kick on the way down. Past the sheer awesomeness of that move, the big takaway from the match for me was Blue Panther's fire. He seemed more than five years younger than he is now and I think some of it was the fact that the porra tecnica was there in force with a big banner and drumming away. They're more or less gone now and it's a shame because they added a lot, a real earnestness and excitement to the proceedings.

As I said, here they helped fuel Panther's fire. He rushed into the ring and forced Garza out with a headscissors takedown, following it up with a tope as Garza humorously punched the air on the outside. Cometa would rana back in, eat a clothesline and eventually get Polvora out but Garza snuck in and dropkicked him in the back of the skull with a cheapshot before he could hit another dive. He was full on rudo here, dancing after the shot. Garza went up to the top, but Cometa tried to stop him, only to get superbombed for his attempt. A moment later Polvora came off the top with a splash and they double pinned Cometa.

Panther rushed back in and matched up with Garza again, and I have to admit that Hector seemed like he was having a blast as a rudo, marching around cockily with Panther's arm right to the point where Panther took advantage and turned it into a Fujiwara arm bar for the tap out. Garza rolled out, selling the arm and Panther quickly locked the same hold on Polvora. Garza, on the outside, helped get him to the ropes though. Panther complained to the ref and got small packaged in the midst of the distraction. Garza celebrated with Polvora, still selling the arm. Definitely good for what it was and Garza was already shining as a rudo.

Héctor Garza & Pólvora vs Diamante & La Sombra

4:07 in

Diamante and Sombra had matching gear for this, so it was a little bit hard to tell them apart. They had gone through the fairly logical pairing of Cancerbero and Mephisto and Atlantis and Inquisidor(no idea who that is; wiki says former mini who's won the bodybuilding tournament a couple of times) to get to the semis. This began with Garza kissing girls on the way down like he was a tecnico but quickly hitting that toss up kick on Diamante, followed by dancing and laughing and mocking Sombra in the corner by making a cross on him before chopping him.

The tecnicos came back and hit some hugely impressive moonsaults (a top rope to the outside one by Diamante and a top rope Asai version by Sombra) before getting swept under. First, Diamante missed a 450 and was pinned by both opponents. Then Sombra, who kept fighting back strong against Garza and Polvora, was ultimately defeated by the numbers game. He had the advantage multiple times but would get hit by a cheapshot (including two kicks to the back) at a key moment. Finally, Garza lifted him onto Polvora's shoulders, while the latter was sitting on the top turnbuckle, and one super facebuster later, the rudo and de facto rudo picked up the win.

I don't think this was quite as strong as the first match but it was a little flashier and so far as tournament lucha goes, was enjoyable enough to watch. It definitely has me ready for Garza to fully embrace his rudo leanings; post match here he was interviewed and said, once again, that he was a tecnico and it was all just a big misunderstanding.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 7/27/14

Alright looks like we're back into a regular rhythm as these matches were all from the 6/22 Coliseo show.



1. Lightning Match: Blue Panther vs. Ephesto

Well damn this was great. This is like something that would pop up on some cell phone shot indy show, not on an actual TV show. We get 9 minutes of a purely grappling/mat based match that really illustrates how junk most lightning matches are. Most of them are just guys going in to show off their trademark highspots, and here two guys totaling over 100 years of age go in and show what can be done with the unica caida quick match format. It's an extra cool display knowing that Ephesto wanted to be like Blue Panther when he started, and here there are trading hold for hold. The first three minutes are just cool standing exchanges with some neat stuff you haven't seen, and once they take it to cool pendulum armdrags and mat stuff I was beyond hooked. There are some old man moments but they don't detract as they seem more real because hey these guys are old. Sometimes you're gonna end up in awkward positions on the mat. Panther playing possum on the mat before rolling through into a half crab was beautiful. Again this kind of thing showing up on TV, knowing that somewhere a couple of cool old guys are working a no bump grappling match while the cameras are rolling and not just because some flea market ring was too hard to bump on, but because it was a cool match to work is really special. [**This match ended up landing at #51 on our MOTY list, and I used this very same identical review as my review in THAT write-up! Hopefully you find more of value in the rest of this electronic post. If not, tell me that I'm cheating you by re-using 45% of the content from a prior post and you demand more original content. Then I'd likely feel bad and sorta guilty, and probably do something nice. Phil, however, would go tell you to kick rocks.]



2. Okumura, Puma & Kamaitachi vs. Stuka Jr., Guerrero Maya Jr. & Delta

Well damn this was really good too! The primera was especially great. The rest of the match had plenty of nice moments but that primera was awesome. It was well on its way to making the MOTY list before finishing merely nice, instead of keeping up that pace. Primera we got all sorts of cool fast match ups, my favorite being the Puma/Stuka mat stuff, but Kamaitachi (first time I've seen him) had cool scrambly mat stuff as well and Puma looked really great. As the match goes on we break down into more 3 on 1 rudo stuff which isn't always interesting, but the tecnico comebacks were always spirited. Maya hits another crazy dive because that's his thing, Kamaitachi feels like this year's Namajague (oh where have you gone Namajague?!) as he bumps all around and looks like he's having a ball working in front of a Mexican audience. All of this was really fun.

3. Rey Escorpion, Dragon Rojo Jr. & Polvora vs. Maximo, Super Porky & Volador Jr.

This one was not as good. It was not very good in general. It's disappointing to remember the fire Escorpion temporarily lit under Porky last year, and then see him here. I've been a long time Porky defender but god is he just mostly horrible now. You occasionally see flashes here and there, but so much of what he does looks so bad and just drags a match down. At one point he gets tossed into the ropes to get kicked by all three rudos, and he wasn't even able to bump backwards into the ropes. Instead he hilariously took the kicks, turned around and walked towards the ropes, then took waaaaay to long to step through the ropes and kind of sit on the apron. It would have been a hilarious comedy spot if it was intentional, and didn't instead look like somebody's grandfather needing to find a place to sit down at the supermarket because he got dizzy. Escorpion didn't bring any of that fire towards Porky, and maybe it's because it wouldn't get returned, who knows. At one point Porky at least hit a crossbody off the apron so he tried something. Maximo looked good here and hit a wild dive, but this whole thing was a dud.

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 8/2/14

These matches were from the 7/18 Arena Mexico show.

1. Stuka Jr., Atlantis & Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. Rey Escorpion, Ultimo Guerrero & Polvora

Fun match with an asskicking performance from Escorpion and nice contributions for the others. Escorpion went after Rojo right from the beginning and didn't let up the whole match. He was really punching Rojo in the dome, as Escorpion can do, and didn't let up so that it looked like they would eventually work a hair vs. mask match. Even between falls Escorpion would follow him to the floor and club him. Stuka always breaks out impressive stuff. I love his torpedo splash, and he throws a nice flip dive. He also manned up for a beating here, taking a big back bump to the floor off a baseball slide. Nothing revolutionary happened here, but it was all fun while it lasted. Seriously wonder if they're setting up an Escorpion/Rojo feud though.

2. Negro Casas & Shocker vs. Rush & La Sombra for the CMLL Tag Titles

I was not a fan of their tag title match a few weeks before this, but this I liked. I thought that match lacked intensity and drama. Seeing this match shows everything that previous match lacked. These four were at each other's throats the whole match, and both teams actually felt like teams. A key part of what made this match so great was the team work. Not the double teams, but each person saving their partner at key moments throughout the whole match. Saves are a great way to build drama and cut down on silly kickouts, and I loved all the saves in this. Sombra has really come into his own under his rudo persona. It added an edge his character needed and just didn't have as a faceless flier. Now he's a smug shrugging prick who gets bailed out by his even tougher buddy and opportunistically dishes out violence of his own. His running knees to Shocker were brutal, but he has no problem giving back (watch him fly ass over elbow over the barrier off a clothesline). Shocker breaks out his fat guy tope, and some other cool stuff like his abdominal stretch slam (which sends Sombra right onto his head). Casas looked on fire too, having some fun scrambly matwork with Sombra, locking in one of the snuggest STFs onto Rush that you'll ever see, kicking Sombra's chest in while he's tangled in the ropes. This match builds off stuff from their previous tag match, and I especially loved Casas setting Rush up for the Thesz press and Sombra saving him out of nowhere by clotheslining Casas right in the shins. Awesome, heated match.

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 6/28/14

All these matches were from the 6/13 Arena Mexico show.

1. Euforia, Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero vs. Maximo, Atlantis & Super Porky

Fairly short match, also fairly by the numbers. Maximo is one of the more underrated guys in wrestling today (at least I think he is? I really like Maximo but I don't see him getting talked about tons, but maybe I only go to like two web pages. Also I say "web pages"), and Porky at this point is on his last legs, so I'm looking forward to some day when Maximo isn't automatically in Porky matches. I've been seeing Porky matches for so damn long that it's funny all of the things that I overlook that would seem bizarre in anybody else's match. Watching Porky stand wide-legged and walk his hands up until he's upright just seems normal now. Porky can still surprise me in matches, as right in the middle of his schtick he'll occasionally pop someone, or do a neat little bit of selling (which makes up for most of time in Porky's matches where he doesn't really sell, he just kind of focuses on breathing). Euforia runs into him a bunch and makes him look good. Atlantis and UG always match up well, but their feud will truly be the Moonlighting of lucha as they'll eventually get it on for reals and my mom won't care about them anymore (who am I kidding that shit will get over).

2. Blue Panther, Guerrero Maya Jr. & Delta vs. Rey Escorpion, Dragon Rojo Jr. & Polvora

Another short match, this one ending is straight falls. Nobody had much time to make too big of an impression here, though Panther hits a nice tope and Guerrero Maya (so glad he is back on TV more!) hits an awesome flipping tope. The rest of this is too sped through. Fast falls, big silly indy move finishers instead of matwork. Meh.

3. CMLL Tag Title Match: Rush & La Mascara vs. Negro Casas & Shocker

Well this was the big tag title change, for the belts Rush and Mascara have held for 8 months, and I could not imagine a less dramatic title change. The match was fine, I suppose, but there just wasn't much to it. Rush and Mascara have spent many months cheating and beating the snot out of these two, and here they just work a straight tag match, one of the falls ends with Rush getting DQ'd for Mascara pulling the ref out, there's no struggle, no dramatic tide turns, nothing. Things happened, eventually Casas and Shocker won the tag titles. I know titles in lucha really don't mean a whole lot, but damn was this bland. In the segunda Shocker did the exact same sequence he did in the trios last week, catch Rush, twist his arm, hit a stunner, Mascara goes for a dropkick, hits Rush instead, etc. But it looked way better in the trios. Shocker looked tired but still hit a big tubby tope and Casas hit a massive running balls to the face off the apron. But nothing about this even hinted at this being an important match. Very disappointing.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 6/1/14

These matches were all from the 5/18 Arena Mexico show. I wish they would go back to showing Coliseo shows, but for whatever reason it looks like they've run a couple Sunday Arena Mexico shows. Still these LATV shows are nice as the Sunday afternoon matches always get way more time to breathe than the Friday night ones. We get more matwork and guys don't seem to rush to get all their stuff in nearly as much.

Virus, Tiger & Polvora vs. Black Panther, Triton & Stigma

Just what I was saying about more mat stuff, and the primera here features long Tiger/Triton segments and most excitedly a Virus/Black Panther mat off. Triton's stuff is kind flashy and substance free on the mat, but Tiger is really good and had some leg picks and always finds cool ways to tie up guys at the ankles and wrists. Virus vs. Panther was awesome as both can go and the work looks super cool. I'm glad Panther has gotten so much mat time in his first real year, and even more glad that Virus has gotten tons more mat time as the year has gone on. He was in some more spotty trios at the start of the year but he's had a lot more mat focus the last month plus. Stigma is a guy who I don't think I've ever seen pop up on TV before. Pretty sure he's a Puebla guy but not sure how long he's been on the main roster. He hits a killer slingshot rana to the floor so he has my attention. Stigma in general seems to be in the role of hitting unsuspecting rudos with ranas on the floor, as later he surprises Virus with one off the apron. Stigma hits a pretty wild Valiente springboard moonsault to the floor, but really as long as Virus is in the fed nobody else should be doing that. His is too fast and too pretty. Panther's stuff with Tiger and Virus is the (predictable) highlight of this. Virus is an awesome guy to watch against rookies as he seems like he takes pride in working circles around them, but it never looks like he's showing them up or trying to make them look like trash. It looks like they hang with him, but aren't quite there yet. This didn't quite hit next level, but you knew with some of the guys involved it would be worth it, and it was.

Euforia, Niebla Roja & Gran Guerrero vs. Rey Cometa, Marco Corleone & Titan

Interesting that Marco's left hand is treated as more of a normal punch now. I'm not sure when that change happened. It used to be a spot that rudos would run from or get KO'd by, now here he hits three straight on Gran Guerrero just to back him into a corner. I love Gran Guerrero's baseball slide dropkick that sends dudes crashing and burning off the apron, and Cometa gets into position for it better than anybody else I've seen. He actually looked like he was struggling to get away from the apron while being held in place, unlike most guys who clearly lie still bracing themselves for impact. And Cometa goes flying into the ring barrier and it looks great. Titan seems to always overshoot guys on his flip dives. I'm not sure if this is the catcher or small sample bias or what, but it seems like every flip dive sees him glance off the rudos' shoulder and splat face first into the barricade. It could be Roja is a bad catcher. But Cometa's always seem to hit flush. The Cometa/Euforia stuff in this was a blast. Euforia hits a sweet floppy armdrag and Euforia responds by knocking his fillings loose with a clothesline. Poor placement though as right afterwards Cometa hits a silly handspring headscissors. Niebla Roja wins me over by merely stepping out of the way of Titan's handstand headscissors. He just walks around it and still gets caught by a rana, but this is growth people. And gee whiz Cometa almost dies horrifically taking a flapjack slam off the top rope. He initially came down a little head heavy but luckily landed more on his chest/stomach. It looked nasty as is, but could have been fatal.

Rush, La Sombra & La Mascara vs. Mascara Dorada, Valiente & Volador Jr.

Damn I cannot recall the last time I saw such a one-sided beatdown in lucha. This match was allll Rush's team for the first 10 minutes, until the tecnicos got about 30 seconds before Rush did a combo ball punch/schoolboy to win the whole thing. Seriously there was just no hope for the good guys in this one. It was 10 minutes of Rush and Sombra standing on dudes throats while Mascara tossed off superkicks to unsuspecting victims. Rush and Sombra were dickhead extraordinaires in this, jut beating down all the tecnicos from the word go and never letting up. At one point Sombra throws like 8 straight awesome knees in the corner and it's strange watching a match with no comeback in sight for the good guys. At one point you felt the comeback bubbling, and Rush just cuts everything off and you can just kinda feel all hope slowly draining out of things, like in Bad Lietenant when things start horribly for Harvey Keitel and the whole film just gets worse for him.

Lucha libre as Abel Ferrara urban crime cinema everybody! According to the judges I just got a triple word score for "Worst Possible Simile"! Thanks for reading, everybody!

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 5/10/14

These matches all took place at the 4/25 Arena Mexico show.

Mistico, Titan & Volador Jr. vs. Puma, Dragon Rojo Jr. & Polvora

Wow, this match actually felt like it got a lot of time, with each fall getting plenty of time to stretch things out…but it doesn't really add up to much of anything. The guys that usually look good, looked good. But there was no real cohesion to anything being done. No real consequences to anything, and the dynamic shifts in team control were erratic and messy. It was worked more like an every-man-for-himself scramble match, with some guys rushing to get their shit in and it just ending eventually. Individually, Mistico looked real good, hitting some beautiful ranas and dives, and also taking a monster bump over the barrier into the crowd. Between Mistico II, Dragon Lee II and Rush, I'd be hard-pressed thinking of another family making more of an impression in wrestling right now. Dragon Rojo is a guy I have a hard time pinning down, as sometimes he's an excellent base (here making all of Titan's stuff look great) but then does really obnoxious stuff like catch a big flip dive, and then sit right up to adjust his mask and run his fingers through his hair, making sure it's tossed back over his shoulders the right way, before going back to selling the dive. Puma has been a favorite of SC this year, and he looks good here when allowed to, but most of the time he's matched with Volador who is one of the more selfish tecnicos. Puma has to settle for playing handshake matador with him, only really getting to shine later in the match when paired briefly with Mistico. I like the opening mat scramble with Titan and Rojo. It wasn't like Panther or Arkangel matwork, it was more flippy and showy, but it worked for them. So yeah, disappointing overall given the long time, with a couple nice moments.




Rush, La Mascara & La Sombra vs. Negro Casas, Shocker & Mr. Niebla

Yeah buddy, this is what I'm talking about. I'll admit to not fully understanding the reasoning behind the rudo/tecnico designations in these match-ups. Rush's team is the tecnico side, but spends zero seconds working as tecnicos; Casas' side is billed as the rudos but they all get jumped the moment they pop their heads out of the entranceway and milk the crowd for sympathy the rest of the way. So I will admit my ignorance as to how all of this is being booked, mainly because I love all the ring work and personalities involved. Maybe there is a cultural reason why these young sculpted tecnicos are acting like dickheads, maybe there's another reason why the old and/or chubby rudos are so good at drawing sympathy. Maybe it was just an error by the graphics team, and they billed one side as rudos and one side as tecnicos. Look, I don't know. I won't claim to understand it, but I'll continue to enjoy Rush stomping and head butting his way through Arena Mexico. La Sombra doesn't really move my needle much as a tecnico, but I'm really digging his rudo side. He's a perfect complement to Rush, with both men attacking Casas and Shocker on the ramps and Sombra acting as a kind of weasely Rush lackey the whole match, always running to save him by kicking Rush or Shocker in the back (seriously, always attacking from behind like a total dick). Sombra and Mascara both hold Shocker by the arms and Rush gets to do all the great puffed-chest tough guy "hold him for me, boys!" mannerisms while kicking and thrust headbutting Shocker. All the "tecnicos" also do their off balance stomps to all the "rudos", with them gleefully stomping with both feet and falling all over, not caring. Rush has his great stomps in the corner, Sombra now has his brutal running double knees. Casas is one of my favorite rudos of all time, but matches like this always remind me he's one of my favorite tecnicos of all time as well. His comebacks and triumphs are always great and no one really connects with Arena Mexico in that way like he does. Shocker and Niebla soak it up as well, with Niebla slapping everybody in sight, Shocker looking dashing in his new crewcut, and the crowd just loving to get behind the "old" guys. Really good match, fun continuation of the feud.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 4/27/14

These matches were from the 4/13 Arena Coliseo show.

Princesa Blanca, Princesa Sugheit & La Seductora vs. Marcela, Silueta & Lady Afrodita

Boy Lady Afrodita is not one who pops up very often. I'm not sure I understand the gimmick name as her ring gear is best described as a mother who kept her figure and is on her way to yoga class. When your name is Afrodita and you're the most conservatively dressed worker in the match, there are things you should reconsider. Possibly a name change to Lady Good for Her, or Lady Getting Back Out There. This match was plenty fun though, with Marcela landing double knees to various ovaries and did a cool apron dive, Seductora and Silueta doing some cool armdrags, Blanca and Sugheit are total bitches. This is all good. Primera was really good and the last two falls were too short, but still good stuff.

Euforia, Ultimo Guerrero & Comandante Pierroth vs. La Mascara, Titan & Diamante Azul

This was about as by the book as you can imagine. It ended when it ended, and before that stuff happened as it happened. Guys alternated between looking good, and looking not good. The tercera especially was sloppy, with really lazy rope running featuring guys just kind of moving past each other and going through lazy motions of getting into position. Pierroth looked good in the first in a cool Dinamitas kind of way, and he looked like a muscle headed lunk by the end of this. Titan was a bright spot as he broke out some cool ranas, nice running boots, and even the old Tiger Mask II feint which I always like. But this was very skippable.

Rey Escorpion, Dragon Rojo Jr. & Polvora vs. Valiente, Maximo & Marco Corleone

This match was super listless too. Without list. The first two falls went by with just a whisper. Stuff happened. I don't even remember seeing Valiente until the tercera. He's a pretty easy guy to see, too. The tercera does start with a bang, with Escorpion fishhooking Maximo while punching him knuckles first to the forehead. So that's awesome and reminded me of the great end of 2013 Porky clan vs. Escorpion feud. The rest of the fall doesn't really live up to that opening moment, even though the rudos beating down Maximo was fun. Meh.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report 4/6/14

These matches were from the 3/23 Arena Coliseo show.


Dark Angel, Goya Kong & Estrellita vs. Princesa Blanca, Princesa Sugheit & Zeuxis

Really awesome women's match. I haven't seen Blanca in awhile and she's slimmed down a bunch and looked great in the ring. She was really great at fast turnaround rope segments, did smart little rudo apron work like grab or kick at girls if they got too close to their corner. Dark Angel looked really great here too with all sorts of cool roll ups and fast work. Estrellita had one of her best showings in a while, and I absolutely loved her float-over backslide to win the tercera. That thing looked snug as hell and there was no way Blanca could have kicked out. Zeuxis here showed more energy than I'm used to seeing from her. Kong is super over and has fun big girl offense and charisma. I mean this was just a great lady trios, best one I've seen in ages. Everybody had their boots on, the crowd was fueling them, everything just clicked.

Reaper, Olimpico & Felino vs. Valiente, Super Porky & La Sombra

Same thing as the previous match, in that everybody had their boots on so the match seemed so much tighter than standard matches with some of these guys. Olimpico appears to be working a Keegan Michael Key gimmick now, and he looked awesome. Stooging all over, bumping big, all his sequences looked tight. Valiente also threw out one of his best performances in awhile, looking like a total star with giant dives, slick ranas, fast ringwork and great body charisma. Porky is practically immobile at this point but can still work fun sequences. I liked his punch exchange with Olimpico, and him holding his arms out for the ref to pick him up after sitting on Reaper is either the saddest thing or the most endearing thing. He was just holding out his short little arms towards the ref, in the same way a child will ask their father to pick them up because they're tired of walking (I wonder if Porky also pretends to be asleep in the car so his dad will carry him inside after a long car trip!).

Rey Escorpion, Averno & Polvora vs. Maximo, Diamante Azul & Marco Corleone

This was also a match that was on the show. It was also happening at that critical time where I had just enough booze in me where several minutes can go by and leave me with zero memory of those minutes. It was fun seeing Azul in Coliseo, as he couldn't just rely on doing his cool rampway flip dive. Corleone has been working a little too gingerly lately. His body presses land super soft. Maximo has been on fire lately, breaking out some smooth and fast sequences like he's Virus or something. Plus good lord I want that LEGO Maximo shirt. I wear size M. Come on people. The back of it says he the master of sex or something!

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 3/22/14

These matches were from the 3/7 Arena Mexico show and is part of the Parejas Increible tournament, where a rudo and a tecnico team up, one keeps the apartment messy and one's a neat freak, but they end up learning a lot about the other, they learn to live, they learn to love. They learn how to be a man.

Reaper & Mistico vs. Titan & Felino

Zacharias is sitting creepily in the background this whole match, on the entranceway steps. A creepy child-sized man in a bird mask sitting on steps like he's being punished seems like something you'd find by opening the wrong door at the Overlook Hotel. For the most part tournament lucha is the worst lucha. But I always kind of dig the PI tourney as you get some unique tecnico/tecnico and rude/rudo match ups. So while you still get mostly short una caida matches you get to see something a little different. That being said this doesn't linger too long or give much of a sense of any one guy. Boy sometimes Felino really busts ass and then turns around one second later and looks like the laziest guy in lucha. Reaper started out the year as a crazy bump freak and now it's been a couple of months since I've seen him take wild bumps.

Rey Cometa & Polvora vs. Rey Escorpion & Maximo

Tournament lucha! This is pretty nothing although Maximo gets some good moments. Within the last 24 hours I've now seen Porky, Goya and Maximo all do the exact same leap off the apron. Cat's in the cradle and all. Cometa does his springboard tornillo and catches Escorpions knees on the floor. Ouch.

Valiente & Vangellys vs. Ultimo Guerrero & La Sombra

See this had a couple cool match-ups, with UG pairing off with Vangellys and Valiente pairing with Sombra, so it was kind of a trip seeing them trade sequences. But we get basically nothing. No substance. Valiente takes UG's top rope reverse suplex nicely, really skidding across the mat. But this was short and blew.

Averno & Volador Jr. vs. Ephesto & La Mascara

Damn this was the Ephesto show right here! That guy is so damn good and he really needs to be on TV more. Here he did his killer ram's head tope and all his tricked out armdrags with him whiplashing all over the ropes. This is lucha. There needs to be more tricked out armdrags in lucha. Where have all the tricked out armdrags gone!?!? Me loving Ephesto so much ensures that his team takes the loss.

Reaper & Mistico vs. Rey Escorpion & Maximo

Mistico hits the epic rana off the top to the floor that Escorpion takes like a freak. He also takes a mean one back inside. Maximo is one of the only guys in this tourney that is actually embracing the concept, as he goes rudo on Mistico and starts trying to unmask him. He also hits his awesome tope, so Maximo is the current one-minute match tourney MVP.

Averno & Volador Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero & La Sombra

UG kinda works tecnico and it's weird seeing him hit dives onto guys on the floor. Never really been his style. Sombra's wheelbarrow suplex looks cool. Two longtime rudos like UG and Averno going toe to toe feels like something that should get time. Naturally this gets not much time.

Rey Escorpion & Maximo vs. Ultimo Guerrero & La Sombra

The Pasion de Maximo almost blows it for their team, as he plants an accidental beso on Escorpion. They win confusingly anyway, with Escorpion planting Sombra with a double underhook piledriver (I thought those things were illegal...). Pretty underwhelming way to finish off an expectedly underwhelming episode.

Ahhhhh tournament lucha.

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Watch This Lucha!

Rey Escorpion/Dragon Rojo Jr./Polvora vs. Super Porky/Stuka Jr./Maximo, 10/4/13

Phil left me a voice mail at work telling me that this trios match was 10 minutes long, and there weren't many better uses of 10 minutes than this. He was right. I've been a fan of Porky since I watched lucha and probably overrate most of his 2000s stuff because of my Brazos fandom and my overall love of fatties in wrestling (this blog could probably be called "Fatties in Wrestling" and 60% of the posts would fit with the title). Porky's been involved in good stuff over the last decade, but this was easily the best work he's done since the March 2003 miracle 8 man which saw him and Gran Markus Jr. clearly winning some sort of bet by showing everybody backstage that they could still outshine everybody (with Porky running all over the place and even hitting that weird leg flip/arm drag thing that guys Juventud size usually hit, and Markus hitting an unreal unassisted rana).

This match starts off with Escorpion (who's quietly turned the corner from really good to excellent worker over the last year) ambushing Porky, grabbing Porky's crotch-wiping towel and wrapping it around Porky's head and throat, then throwing nasty potato shots through the towel. It looked like something Vic Mackey would do to force a confession while also trying to prevent visible bruising. The beating continues to almost uncomfortable levels with Escorpion dishing out nasty punches to the face and body, biting him, and then when Porky finally drops Escorpion starts dealing some furious knees to Porky's head, all while Porky's head is trapped between ring barrier and knee. With his build and height and mustache it looked like a criminal finally caught up to Hercule Poirot and dealt him some street justice.

Porky's sympathy is great here as usually when he's on the mat his teammates need to lift him back to his feet due to his fatness. Here when he reached out his arms to be lifted up his face looked like it was because he was unsure whether or not he could stay standing. The other four guys are all in their as background noise but all serve their roles well. Maximo continues being his underrated self and the dive he hits at the end to take out Rojo was beautiful. Polvora's high speed Cassandro bump to take himself out was lunacy. And it all built to Escorpion being left alone in the ring for a very pissed off Porky, who immediately starts dealing the nastiest left hands he's thrown in years, punching Escorpion silly until he just plants him with a belly to belly (I don't remember the last time I even remember him throwing a suplex) for the win. But it doesn't stop there as Porky exacts revenge by punching a prone-on-the-mat Escorpion over and over to the face and throat, having to be pulled off by teammates, and then kicking him in the ribs while Escorpion is still down.

This was short, got over all the story it needed to, and I cannot wait to see all the follow-up matches.

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CMLL on Fox Deportes Workrate Report, 2/10/13

Yay! I was hoping since it wasn't shown on Galavision that the Reyes del Aire would be shown on Fox Deportes, and they have not let me down! And it looks like no other matches will be shown on this episode so this should be a rock solid 35+ minutes of awesome, with likely zero minutes of awesome provided by Sagrado.



1.  Rey Cometa vs. Averno vs. Namajague vs. Felino vs. Stuka Jr. vs. La Sombra vs. La Mascara vs. Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. Euforia vs. Delta vs. Titan vs. Mr. Aguila vs. Hijo del Fantasma vs. Polvora vs. Tiger vs. Sagrado

I've been super high on Namajague after his killer performance in a recent trios, so was hoping for more out of him in this match and lo if he does not take a lunatic bump over the rail within the first 10 seconds of this match. Again, the Namajague bandwagon line forms to the left. First 5 minutes are pretty crazy with some assorted dives (Sagrado hits a nice bullet tope that Averno eats, big flip dive by Aguila, Rey Cometa hits a missile dropkick and then a gorgeous tornillo), but then Namajague comes in and steals things again by taking a wild out of control bump to the floor after getting crossed up by Stuka, and then gets bent in half into the rail on a Stuka dive. Mascara has the Brazos throwback gear and it looks incredible. Booking crew knows I'm watching as Sagrado gets eliminated early after clumsily running through some spots.

Rudos team is awesome as Fantasma hits a nice moonsault to the floor, and then they all jump him. Namajague is SUWA as he jaws with fans, pushes Stuka into Baby Richard and then kicks Stuka right in the balls. Felino is awesome as Namajague's cheerleader at ringside. Namajague is in for like 5 straight minutes and he kinda gets dumped directly on his head by Cometa. He goes all limp and Cometa seems totally oblivious as started picking him up by his head and then Nama is a total lunatic as he keeps kicking out of shit even though it seems like his head may not be connected to his spinal column any longer. What the hell is wrong with this guy!?

A few of the guys I like most are gone at this point but Titan is emerging as being pretty awesome as he flies into kicks and dishes swift kicks of his own that remind me of Black Terry. Euforia has also quietly become a very nice rudo base. He's never a guy that I think about but he really holds these kind of matches together. Although in the same match Averno is right there eating all the dives and taking head scissors off the apron to the floor, so Euforia is a pretty easy guy to overlook.

And the last part of the match is really just Averno doing his best to get in the way of La Sombra's unlikely offense, which Sombra always seems to doing kind of selfishly. He'll bump Averno to the floor mid-ring, and then immediately start to set up his "over the ring post" moonsault to the floor before Averno has even gotten up. So it makes Averno look like a total goon who has to get up and just happens to move 16 feet over to catch it. It's pretty hard to do that stuff convincingly.

This match was plenty fun but there's always that sense just a couple minutes into these things that Sombra is going to win no matter what, and that takes most of the drama out of them.

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2013 Lucha Roundup

Polvora v. Titan CMLL 1/1

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

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

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

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CMLL on Galavision Workrate Report, 12/3/11

Virus/Polvora/Euforia vs. Metro/Dragon Lee/Fuego:

I really really liked this. I kinda assumed it was just gonna be a throwaway, some tossed off third match on a Friday night Arena Mexico show, but everybody in here got a chance to shine. Some did OK, and others really shone. Metro looked GREAT here, and the whole match was practically structured like a Metro showcase. Metro looked absolutely killer in this, whether he was getting punched in the neck repeatedly by Virus (and man can Virus throw a bunch of great punches to the neck), bumping wildly to the floor, hitting his boss somersault senton into the corner, doing a rad sliding single leg takedown, cool little standing spin kick ro Euforia on the apron, just everything. I was thinking of listing him as one of my "Most Underrated" in my WON ballot, but this whole match was pretty much "Hey, check out this here Metro guy", and Gala chose to air this instead of the Blue Panther/Negro trios and the Tiffany lightning match, so I guess he's a known commodity. Crowd was going nuts by the 3rd fall of this, mainly helped by the rudos going into beatdown overdrive in the 2nd. All the standard rudo beatdown greatest hits, just played twice as fast with no room for breathing. Euforia stood out more than usual, too, holding things together when Virus was on the apron. Dragon Lee got to hit a spectacular springboard shooting star press in the 3rd, Virus got to be Virus, etc. Basically, if you're fans of any of these guys, you would enjoy this match.



Ultimo Guerrero/Rey Escorpion/Dragon Rojo Jr. vs. Atlantis/Jushin Liger/Delta:

This was one of those hyper-rushed CMLL main events that don't really do much good for anybody. Nobody really looked bad (although Escorpion had too many noticeable moments of standing around, adjusting his wrist tape, waiting to get into position), but these "3 falls in 8 minutes" matches are just pointless. It's all messed up right from the beginning, when the tecnicos attack the rudos on the stairs to start...and then the rudos just instantly beat their asses. That looks bad. Not only do the tecnicos cheat, but then it immediately gets turned on them. Ultimo tore it up in his limited time here, and I'm convinced nobody bumps better to the floor than he does. Rojo hits his cool inside-out dropkick to the apron, super rushed pinfalls happen. I guess I just don't see the point.

There were a couple matches from this taping that didn't make the Galavision airing that looked intriguing to me, so I figure I'll link them below and mention if they're worth checking out or not.



Tiffany vs. Estrellita lightning match:

Match is pretty much worth watching for Tiffany's amazing entrance gear, as she has a collared cape and tiara and catsuit and looks like the evil queen from Snow White mixed with Catwoman. Super awesome. Match was fun for the 8 minutes it lasted, with Tiffany being a great bumper for lady offense, and then controlling with great dickish things like chops to the boobs. Match ended odd with Estrellita going for an ill-advised springboard tornillo suicida, which totally misses the mark and causes her to go *splat* on the floor. Count out, stretcher job, Tiffany wins. I don't remember Estrellita trying something like that. Maybe there's a good reason why...



Negro Casas/Felino/Mr. Niebla vs. Blue Panther/La Sombra/Shocker:

Odd that this whole episode was pushing Panther/Felino hair vs. hair match, yet they choose to show some throwaway Liger match instead of a match featuring Felino and Casas headbutting and kicking Panther in the head. Match itself is fun and plenty hate-filled, would have made a much better use of time than that lousy main event we ended up getting instead. Casas and Felino took it to Panther in the first 2 falls, with Panther kinda snapping at the end of the 2nd and wrenching in the Fujiwara armbar HARD on Casas, then locking an ankle lock on Felino in the 3rd (with him biting Felino's feet). Sombra looked really good, too, showing a lot of personality. His superkick to the back of Zacharias' (you KNOW I spelled that one wrong) dome was great. Also loved Niebla walking around punching guys at will. Plenty of fun stuff here. No clue why it wasn't shown on TV when it dealt directly with the match they were hyping.

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