2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Adonis v. Casas for the Hairs!!

Negro Casas v. Sam Adonis CMLL 1/1

PAS: Our week of Casas continues with the first entry in our 2018 Ongoing MOTY list. Casas representing Mexico goes into the temple of lucha and shaves the lucha avatar of our current toxic waste dump of a President. The triumph of lucha good over gringo evil is a good emotionally healthy way to start the new year. I wasn't in love with the super quick first two falls, although I thought Casas catching him early with a win was nice. Third fall was also shortish, although it had some really good moments. I loved how Casas sold getting whipped into the guardrail, he clutched his stomach the whole match like he at some really bad tamales. I also really enjoyed the finish, it was a nice bit of old rudo trickery, as he egged Adonis on to keep throwing his high kicks and suckered him into a Casita for the pin. I liked some Adonis stuff, but he does throw some questionable forearms and there were a couple of moments of real telegraphing. Still great to see Casas get a big win in a big main event.

ER: Phil watched this match the day before I did, and my what a difference in perspective a day makes. Going into this match knowing Casas breaks a rib or two, it's pretty obvious when the break happens, and pretty obvious how badly he's hurting at points after the break. Would I have been able to tell the difference between selling and injury had I not known? Impossible to say, that's the problem with talented wrestlers. A couple weeks ago I just thought Brian Kendrick sold the Go 2 Sleep better than anybody else, the way Tenryu sells an enziguiri. Turns out he just had his face broken by KENTA. So it gives the match an entirely different story from an entirely different perspective. Instead of an excellent selling performance, it's a freaking small triumph of human perseverance. King Fuckface looks shaky as hell going up top to end the segunda, and then just crushes Casas with a 450 splash (which I have not seen him use in CMLL), and Casas is immediately grabbing at his side. The rest of the match had so much more heft for me, knowing what Casas was going through. They could have easily cut to an improvised finish with the same result, but Casas went through with everything, even continuing to take bumps! You could see the pain on his face as he couldn't snap his kneelifts off as quickly as normal, and as he pushed Adonis away from him during pin attempts so Adonis' full weight wasn't on him. But then this lunatic goes and gets superplexed, takes a fireman's carry slam, a Michinoku driver, every one of those had to be sending hell through his body. The guy goes and hits another running Thesz press off the apron, making his rib break one in the tercera look just as good as his press in the primera. Adonis still has some issues but brings what he brings. He's the kind of guy you would slot around 400 if you were crazy enough to do a 500. But he's got a punchable mug and works enough shtick to rile up a crowd and allow for a big performance from a lucha hero. So yeah, what a difference a day makes, and the difference is Negro Casas.

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Lucha Worth Watching: As the Casas Turns

1. Negro Casas vs. Caristico (CMLL Puebla 1/16/17)

ER: Awesome little almost house show type performance from Casas, which also features an awesome Zacarias performance. Casas comes out ready to entertain as rudo, smacking Caristico around and soaking up the jeers. Casas stomps Caristico to the mat and Zacarias flies in with a fast low dropkick (that Caristico amusingly sells as much or more than Casas' kicks up to this point). Zacarias is really active through the entire match, choking Caristico in the corner with his boot, even flying into him with a tope! Caristico catches the tope, but it allows Casas to hit his Thesz press off the apron. Casas takes Caristico headscissors really nicely, sliding far across the ring and acting like they leave him totally disconcerted. We get an amusing take on the "which side can cheer loudest" spot, because Casas' facials put it over huge. He cannot believe that Caristico is getting bigger cheers than him, looking completely incredulous and convinced that the NEXT side will certainly cheer louder for him, getting angrier with each side's betrayal. Angry old Negro Casas looks somewhat like actor John Marley, and lucha needs more angry old John Marleys. Caristico is sorta lazy about setting up his trademark spots, but Casas keeps them feeling fresh, finding nice ways to get into position properly, and it makes for a nice satisfying low impact lucha match.

2. Negro Casas/Barbaro Cavenario/Felino vs. Sam Adonis/Rush/Pierroth (CMLL 10/6/17)

ER: This is a fast, dirty match with a super hot Arena Mexico crowd, and I'll take a hot crowd over crisp ringwork any day of the week. Adonis and his doofus crew go after Casas and the rudos run the boards, are good at keeping Barbaro and Felino at bay, and commence all the double team strikes on Casas. Adonis has his shitty trump tights, Pierroth doesn't bother taking his shirt off, and Rush always seems to work stiffest with Casas. This match does nothing big, but the crowd eats it up, responding huge from bell to bell (errr whistle to whistle?). Casas is getting held prone over the apron by Rush as Adonis chops him violently, and Barbaro runs over and punches him in the ear to gigantic cheers. It really needs to be made into a side by side gif with Richard Spencer getting punched in the ear. Pierroth and Rush jam up Barbaro with stiff chops, and Casas tries locking on a triangle from the apron on Adonis. Adonis' best feature might be his Nicolas Cage crazy eyes, a nutty feature like that really enhances his mad beatings, so it looks even better when he's chopping and stomping Casas into the corner. Rush is a real jerk (you heard it here first), and at one point he goes to do his stiff corner dropkick on a slouched Casas, stops short...and just punts Casas right in the nose with his boot toe. Casas' feebly grabbing at his face made me want Casas to wreck these fools even more. Adonis does a big mafia kick to Casas while Rush and his daddy hold Casas' arms, but Casas hits a mean dropkick to Rush's knee to get a quick Casita! We get some decent brawling around the floor, guys get thrown into the metal announcer kiosk, Felino spiritedly leaps in to beat up Pierroth and save his bro. Felino later gets backdropped into a plancha on the floor, and Barbaro hits a boss tope from the apron past the turnbuckles. We finally get an Adonis/Casas solo showdown in the ring, and in a great moment Casas catches a kick, flips Adonis over and brings the front of Adoni's thigh down over his knee. Adonis shoves him into the ropes and punts balls for the DQ, and I officially want to see this punk lose his Nazi haircut and tiny ponytail.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Panther v. Adonis Cabellera contra Cabellera

41. Blue Panther v. Sam Adonis CMLL 8/4

PAS: This a hair v. hair match between an all time lucha legend and a gringo with an American flag with Trumps face embroidered on it. This had all the heat you would expect from that pairing. This is probably Panther's last big CMLL main event, and he really puts in a great performance, including taking a nutty missed tope bump to the floor. Adonis gets a ton of heat, although the Trump flag is doing a lot of the work. This had a enough cool moments in the third fall to put it on the list, including an awesome Fujiwara armbar on the ramp, and Adonis draping Panther with the Trump flag and frog splashing him. Still Tirantes dropped his pants and pooped on portions of this, nothing I hate more then a heel ref, and he spent a lot of this match heat sucking, this match didn't need him to work, and watching a Trump supporter triumph over good with the help of undue collusion was a little close to home for me.

ER: Man, what the fuck with all the Tirantes? He's been in CMLL for awhile now and I don't remember him pulling his specific brand of bullshit...but I guess I hadn't had the privilege of seeing big match Tirantes. Every single thing about him was a total distraction, and I have zero clue why they thought they needed his gleeful pissing on this match. CMLL didn't draw their biggest crowd of the year because of Tirantes. The people came to see Panther whip Adonis' ass, and CMLL felt it would be best to regularly impede that whipping. You have a motherfucker who looks like Richard Spencer with Milo's shitty hair, wearing gloriously garish tights and waving a shitty trump flag on one side, and on the other side you have maybe the most sympathetic tecnico on the roster. But you know, we better jam this to the hilt with ref antics.

That the match was effective as it was is a true testament to Blue Panther: Great Wrestler, because Tirantes literally interjected himself into every one of Panther's great moments. First two falls are inconsequential (although right out of the gate we get BP pummeling Adonis, only for Tirantes to catch his hand on a punch. Good grief.), but the tercera brings the flames. The crowd is going bonkers by the time Panther nails Adonis with a tope, and then another one. Tirantes "inadvertantly" gets in the way of a third, and when Panther finally gets a clear runway he ends up taking a flip bump through the ropes to the floor, right on his tailbone. I wish Adonis had played more of a coward and used more cheapshots and hiding behind Tirantes, as he still came off pretty strong. But Panther was so nuts and his facials were so good that nobody in the match was going to hold this down. By the time they brawl to the ramp I was dying, and Panther's sympathetic facials while taking kicks to the jaw were great. Adonis ramps up the sympathy by bodyslamming nastily on the ramp, really splatting him. When Panther catches him in the Fujiwara it was a real markout moment. The big splash onto the draped-in-trump Panther was big, and Panther's kickout was grand. No way he's going out like that. At least Tirantes took a decent bump into the ropes to set up the end, but dammit Panther needs to take on Tirantes in a career vs. career match. CMLL needs to book The Panther vs. Adonis, mask vs. hair as a main, or BP/Panther vs. Adonis/proxy, with BP's career and Panther's mask on the line, and Adonis' hair and Tirantes' career (proxy wrestling for Tirantes) on the other line. Do it!


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Panther v. Adonis

35. Blue Panther v. Sam Adonis CMLL 7/21

ER: Last week Panther worked as Dusty Rhodes, and here he's back as a kind of vulnerable Hogan or a better late career Pedro Morales. Panther is one of the more sympathetic wrestlers in the world, with a very expressive face and pained eyes, great pleading looks to the crowd, still able to bump enough to put over offense and make it look painful. His comebacks always inspire the crowd more than almost any CMLL wrestler. Here Adonis jumps him before the bell, Panther comes back and rips off his Love Machine mask. Adonis comes back, kicks Panther in the face, slams him a bunch on the rampway (with Panther kicking his legs and holding his back in pain), then gets out his beyond shitty trump American flag. You can hear the boos and screams even through Arena Mexico's notoriously low mics. Adonis swinging his shitty flag only to get hit in the back of the head by a Panther tope is a top 2017 wrestling moment. Adonis throws maybe the nastiest chops in CMLL and that only adds to his dickishness, and Panther makes him pay for those chops by throwing a couple downward punches right at the bridge of his nose. Adonis his a flip dive, Panther gets riled up and clotheslines him into the front row, Panther throws nasty punches as both men fall into people on the front row, commissioners start holding them apart in the front row while elbows come close to hitting fans. We get a really great "hold me back!" segment with dudes in suits holding both men on separate parts of the ringside floor and both men looking like they genuinely want to break away. Panther gets the mic and puts down Adonis' trash American president, Adonis gets a mic and calls someone a puta (leading to his mic getting cut), and eventually Panther does break away and jump him. This was super simple but super effective. Panther is a great rep for Mexico, Adonis is really coming into his own as a loudmouth American, and I'm really excited for the hair match.

PAS: I don't know if I am sold on Adonis as a wrestler, but take a legend like Panther and put him against a shit talking American with a Trump flag in Arena Mexico it is going to be great. I can't tell you how much I loved the moment where Adonis is swinging the Trump flag only to have Panther fly in like Robert Mueller and crush him with a tope. Panther gets beat down but still he persisted. Finish with both guys trying to murder each other in the crowd is great, Adonis is a nut for that, he is begging for some one to knife him. Very excited for the hair match, Panther is the hero we need in 2017.

2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: CMLL as Late 80s NWA

Blue Panther/Soberano Jr./Diamante Azul vs. Sam Adonis/Negro Casas/Dragon Rojo Jr. (CMLL 7/14/17)

ER: Well this starts with some great chaos. Sam Adonis is packing on the pounds and he's wearing a Love Machine mask and going right after Panther. He hits a big boot on the floor and then punches BP in the back of the head, fishhooks him, and eventually shoves Tirantes for the DQ. A commissioner gets in Adonis' face to remove the mask that's not his identity, and this commissioner with his ponytail, working goatee and nice fitting suit is a classic "guy I would not make eye contact with". Adonis throws meaty chops and I love Panther going after him and clotheslining him into the crowd. Rojo Jr. hits a nasty double stomp off the top, and Azul press slams his own boy into Casas/Rojo, and this match is a lot more gritty than I expected. Casas and Soberano have a nice standoff, with Casas putting over Soberano's power by getting shoved hard into and through the ropes, and Casas pays him back with a hard shoulderblock. Azul grabs a snug headlock on Casas, drags Casas from the apron into the ring with that headlock, absorbs a bunch of shoulderblocks...and I kinda REALLY like Azul working as babyface Luger. Press slams, flexing, no selling heel strikes, he's kind of good at it. Azul is working as babyface Luger and Panther is working as Dusty and it's pretty great. Adonis is good at forcing the fight momentum into Tirantes, to distract BP, and I like Adonis' hooking punches to Panther's neck. Then we get Azul/Soberano's Fabulous Flying Azul's tumbling routine, with Soberano getting monkey flipped to the floor, and it's pretty great. This was a real simple but real effective trios. If I had known ahead of time that Casas would be the least involved member of this match, I would not have expected it to be this fun. I really want some more Adonis/Panther feud and more of 1990 babyface Azul.

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