NJPW Wrestle Dynasty 1/5/25

 

Athena vs. Persephone vs. Willow Nightingale vs. Momo Watanabe 

ER: I'm kind of shocked by how good this was and how well they kept up a certain energy for 10+ minutes. But I also think a lot of it just might have been Athena. I think this was 10 minutes of waiting for what Athena was going to do next. She is pure lighting and can go go go. She leaps into everything at a doggish pace. She hits the mat and people hard. She gets thrown into a fast tope a minute in and I'm not sure it's the 4th coolest thing she did all match. I thought Persephone really shined in a match where they all got time to shine (and did). She had some big bumps and lands with good weight, real good babyface energy and a unique strength spot approach. Willow got the attention of a big crowd multiple times, and Watanabe was fine fourth wheel. But every great moment led to Athena making it greater. She worked into and out of sequences with everyone so well. She's like if Low Ki really loved Manami Toyota. It's electric. She chokeslams Persephone on the apron like a small Taue demon. When she hits the Eclipse on Willow it's like the finisher 2 Cold Scorpio was jealous he didn't invent. 

Willow makes the Eclipse even better by taking her straps down in power before turning into it. You know I am a big fan of Lawler strap lowering and lowering the straps before taking the final shot is arguably the best use of the straps. I love Willow. But Athena is as must watch in a match like this as prime Juvy. The opening 3 minutes was so hot and as well timed as the greatest 4 ways, and I didn't think the energy level could be maintained. Because of Athena, it was. She ran everything together and there were a lot of strong timing peaks from the other three. The finish was kind of silly, with Thekla not committing on interference enough for what should have been the finish and then Momo hitting Athena across the head with A FUCKING BASEBALL BAT as hard as she can, it comes off a bit ridiculous. Like your scoop suplex was cool, do a few of those and give your opponent something to actually sell. What's Athena supposed to do with a baseball bat shot to the head, work a brain damage angle for 10 months?  

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/SHO

ER: Man this was good. This was most likely Dustin's last ever match in Japan. Maybe not. I wouldn't bet against him. But this was the first match he'd wrestled in Japan since 2010. The thing is, Dustin was never a Japan guy. You'd never know it from watching this match. This was a great performance that connected with a crowd that was seated far away from him, in a way where they seemed familiar with him just because his wrestling style is That Good. He's a man with an improbably long and impressively durable high end career and he's wrestling his first match in the Tokyo Dome in 30 years. It's an amazing return. He shows out for it. 

Dustin working against these two guys is weird and fun. The size difference between he and SHO is insane and SHO sells it as such all match. Dustin is tireless when he needs to be and makes the most out of a total name grab bag random set of career opponents. Do a fucking shining wizard thing that looks awesome, fuck yeah! Dustin's hot tag where he just wastes both of them is the best. SHO is taking Dustin clotheslines aimed at the jaw they both get powerslams he can still somehow give in the same twisting form. SHO takes almost all of Dustin's shit and he takes it so well. Once he bounced across the ring for a 55 year old code red, Dustin obviously knew this guy knew the deal and knew the Man. 

I never got the hate for Sammy. I think he's pretty great. I like a kid who's not a bad kid but also a little shit. A nice guy who is capable of saying something pretty mean to your sister. He does moonsaults with wild abandon and takes the farthest back body drop bumps of anyone on any of these rosters. Does a Good Superkick still matter in 2025? I think it can. If it can, then Sammy has some of the consistently best. Not just in execution, but in placement within a match. He has this way of milking goodwill out of every indie spot that's ever been overused: superkicks, back crackers, cutters, but maintains the timing to make all of them feed well into a legend like Dustin's offense. Kanemaru's moonsault across Dustin's knees looked pretty bad, but I guess if you were in a fight with Dustin the smartest thing you could do is target his knees so let's give Kanemaru Body Part Specific Moonsault Credit here. He still gets docked for not holding up his end of the match with his shtick. Dustin rules. 

Lucha Gauntlet

ER: Good lucha highspot showcase except it kept getting interrupted by less talented New Japan guys who threw the rhythm off. Mascara Dorada and Hechicero were standouts. Hechicero doing his thing within a growing throng of competitors was cool every time he was the focus, but I especially liked him tying up Fujita in knots when they were the only two. Dorada kept finding new ways to deliver and take offense, always throwing in something extra. He kept finding a new way to flip for a kick, and the key to Dorada at his best is he has this way of adding an extra flip or twist but making it look like it wasn't mapped way out ahead of time. His tope into Soberano was awesome, and Soberano was the best at catching everyone's dives during the big dive train. After he hit a tornillo with a million twists, they had him out front and center saving everyone's bacon.   

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata

ER: This was an "Exhibition Match" but I am unclear on what was being exhibited. We know that Tanahashi has bad leg injuries and cannot move, but he has also had many other matches this year which were not just him exchanging chops with someone for 4 minutes before time expired. The one minute of collar and elbow lock up was much more engaging than the 4 minutes of chopping that followed. Meltzer went ***1/4 on this which might honestly be his most ridiculous rating ever. Calling a match 7 stars, we all know that's stupid, but he rated this higher than the Dustin tag and the women's 4 way, which were actual GOOD matches! Nobody could squint their eyes and even call this a match. It would be like giving Inoki ***1/4 for people lining up to take his bom-ba-ye slaps. What exactly was Meltzer rating here? What subtext am I missing that made it Good, Actually, that Tanahashi is incapable of throwing chops with any strength? 

Mercedes Mone vs. Mina Shirakawa

ER: I thought this was a really good Mina performance - one of her best long singles match showings I've seen - but I couldn't get into what Mercedes was doing. She had this weird way of silently emoting to the crowd, a PC thing that doesn't play at all in a gigantic dome. She would silently sell through her teeth as Mina was working over her leg, then sell her leg by doing a bunch of offense that required her to slam her knee into things. I don't think her teeth selling played in the large venue and I think she went to wordless crying faces too soon. Meanwhile, Mina was savagely going after her leg in ways she doesn't do in AEW. I loved all her knee breakers and the way she'd kick the inside of Mone's knee, slamming her knee into the mat and maneuvering into figure 4 leg locks (quicker than I thought she was capable of doing). Mone scrambling for the ropes was one of her only bits of selling I liked. Mina was working over Mone's knee not to soften her up for some submission, but to leave her prone for her impact DDTs, and I loved all of Mina's impact DDTs. But Mone was working this more like a "Things I Wanted To Do in the Tokyo Dome" so she was bridging up to hit the three amigos (feeling way out of place in this match) and then doing offense based entirely around fucking up her own knees: several different codebreaker/back crackers, a gutbuster, the meteora, just a total disconnect from the great match Mina was working. 

Brody King vs. David Finlay

ER: I don't know if I bought Finlay's offense against King, but I bought the way King took Finlay's offense and the way they made the most out of their misses. Finlay got sidestepped early on a charge into the guardrail, a great last second feint by King that sends Finlay into a gross full speed miss...but then Finlay hits that same flying body attack into King later in the match, delivered at the exact same speed and impacting King the way his body impacted the railing. I like that kind of commitment to not just a miss, but to show your delivery and execution is consistent and real. King is great at misses too, with a great miss very early on a charge into the corner. I love the specific way he hit the turnbuckle pad, like a dog who ran full speed into a sliding glass door. When this settled into Monster vs. Man it was at its best. Finlay's strikes look terrible so it made sense when King was knocking him around with his actual good elbow strikes, and Finlay does Staggered By Strikes selling better than I thought. The finish felt too abrupt for a match that had a good pace, but I kind of liked Finlay being unable to hit a sunset flip powerbomb out of the corner...only to just lift and hit a regular powerbomb right after. King made the Overkill look like a finish, dropping down fast face first into Finlay's knee. 

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Shota Umino 

ER: There aren't actually people out there who hype up Umino as some kind of good wrestler, right? I sure don't see that kind of praise, and I see no reason for that praise. This guy brings very little to the table. His strikes would not break through a spiderweb, and his selling is nonexistent. The first three minutes is just Claudio running him ribs first into the ringpost and a half dozen guardrails and I was looking forward to a match where Claudio beats the hell out of this man who could only exist in a post-Marufuji Japanese wrestling landscape. But this guy really has nothing once the actual moves are delivered. He is not bad at taking and selling a move itself, but once the moment has passed he is onto his bullshit. He fights this too often as Claudio's equal, but none of his offense makes him look equal to anyone. He is a less effective Kentaro Shiga, and lucky for him Claudio is good at taking all of his overly complicated DDTs. The one time Umino's damaged ribs came back into play was the only real compelling part of the match: Claudio's scorpion deathlock. This hold won me over the longer Claudio had it locked it. At first I thought it was for a pointless build to a bad Umino comeback, but the longer Claudio had it applied and the harder Umino fought for the ropes, the more I thought it could actually finish the match. The more I wanted it to finish the match, because I didn't want to see what kind of do-si-do reversal of a reversal nonsense Umino broke out for the home stretch. He made the ropes, he do-si-do'd, he somehow won without ever looking convincing in any way. 

Although he did do one thing well, and I couldn't believe it. HOW is Umino the guy who can throw good looking downward strike elbows to the head and neck?! Nobody makes those look good! Here's the lightest elbow striker on the card and he's lighting Claudio up while balancing on the ropes? What is the deal with this guy. 

Konosuke Takeshita vs. Tomohiro Ishii

ER: This was the match I was expecting them to have and was a good version of that match, which is a match that I don't much care for. There are a lot of parts of an Ishii match that won't make sense when applied to most other wrestlers, because he is going to take punishment until he cannot. So it annoys me when Takeshita acts shocked at Ishii absorbing punishment. When Takeshita hits the Raging Fire falcon arrow off the buckles and Ishii kicks out, he sits there on his but in disbelief for an entire 30 seconds (!), filming an extended Performance Center tryout reaction because the guy who absorbs punishment kicked out of something like 7 minutes into a match. I hate this shit. Like man if I know he's going to get up and start exchanging elbows then you should clearly know this man will kick out of things and get up to fire off some elbows. 

Ishii will take plenty of punishment and I only find that so entertaining in 2025. He's a nut, this is what he does. He will get dropped on the top of his head on a German suplex, Takeshita trying to compress any more vertebrae that haven't been compressed yet, and Ishii will take a big clothesline bump on the back of his head. As tired as I am of stand and trade showdown wrestling, I did actually like them holding waistbands and throwing their hardest shots of the match, and how Takeshita levels him with one of his hardest elbows after they let go of the waistbands. I hate how we seemingly have to sit through a lot of bad stand and trade to get to the part where "this time we really mean it" but they did a good job of making the shots mean something more down the stretch. Ishii's popped me with a frankensteiner that I through looked great, and was a nice payoff to Takeshita taking an eternity to set up a powerslam off the top rope. I bought into Ishii's lariats down the stretch. Takeshita threw some of his best strikes and Ishii built up to his biggest lariats, but even though the shots landed harder in the last half, I still never truly feel a sense of escalation as a lot of the selling is the same in the first few minutes as it is in the last few minutes. I guess we are supposed to be surprised that it is Still Going On but that sounds like a terrible way to structure a wrestling match. Can you still believe we're doing this shit? 

My favorite little moment was Ishii's lunging back elbow after absorbing lots of elbows and kicks in the corner. Takeshita held his chin afterward in a way that made it feel like an actual real moment, like he got popped and knew this was going to be the first of many. He recognized Ishii's fight, and Ishii made a single shot resonate more than a dozen Takeshita had just thrown. But the longer these things go the longer those shots all blend together. 

Young Bucks vs. Great-O-Khan/Jeff Cobb vs. Hiromu Takahashi/Tetsuya Naito

ER: Man I don't know. Maybe this would have been better if it were a simple tag match instead of this three way tag, because this three way tornado tag format stinks. Shoot maybe even with the three way format but guys actually waiting to tag in on the apron it would have worked, but this does not. Guys appear and disappear at will, and the longer guys disappear the more reminder that it's all about blatantly setting up a bunch of spots that never add up to much. There's plenty of superkick spamming, plenty of suplex spamming, plenty of dives that nobody seems to have any idea how to catch. There were plenty of spots that looked good. I like the way Cobb throws a German suplex, I liked when Matt was struggling in the tree of woe and all his strands of pearls were hanging in his face as he sputtered, and I thought the Bucks staying vocal throughout (including telling the ringside cameras they were going to go make love to their wives) brought something. But the disappearances were too frequent for chained spots that didn't land so hot, and the glue joining those spots was awful. Naito looks completely lost at times waiting for what to do next, and the only way he and Takahashi know how to interject into a spot is with bad kicks to the stomach. O-Khan was gone far too much to make an impression and the Bucks conveniently sold based on when they needed to be in position, with no regard to what move they were selling. That's the worst, and that's what kept happening all match. 

Jack Perry vs. Yota Tsuji

ER: One of those matches where nobody really looked good but one guy looked better, and it went longer than you'd want but only because it wasn't that good. They didn't do much wrong, besides not wrestling a compelling or good or watchable match. Perry has good DDTs and a couple better suplexes than you'd think but Tsuji is a real zero. What's the entry point with Tsuji? What is the draw? How does the Raymond Chandler's Carmen San Diego Zoo Suit entrance gear tie into a guy who is so on the nose The Worst Influences of Edge that he even has a Spear finisher and makes spooky faces? Perry was good at cutting off several Tsuji charges/spears, catching one in a well timed DDT and stopping another with a sly kick. I like Perry as a heel more than I did as a babyface and I think he's closer to being a good wrestler now. His personality is much more natural. I would have probably liked Edge more if he tried doing a Spanish Fly in 2002. After Perry takes the spear for the loss, he exits the arena holding a hot water bottle to his tummy and maybe Perry is actually a good wrestler. 

Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd

ER: I typically do not connect with big match Kenny Omega, and I don't believe I have ever connected with a single thing that Gabe Kidd has done, but I think I loved this. This was a 12 match show and I'm not sure there was a match I was looking forward to less. Well, I knew the Yota Tsuji match would be worse, but I knew this would be twice as long and I knew the show was already five hours long. I mentally wrote this one off, and yet I found myself hooked from the start. Kenny works this like he actually cannot stand Kidd, which is something I never get from Omega matches. I always get "he is trying to have an EPIC match with X" but I never get "he is extremely annoyed by this guy and wants to hurt him" and that makes me enjoy this Kenny Omega match so much more than his usual 6+ star affairs. I also think it's fantastic that Omega is hellbent on not adjusting his ring style to account for his exploding insides and deteriorating body so now his biggest matches have this extra layer of deep pain and human stupidity that finally adds Consequence to his work. 

He bounces Kidd's body on the apron and ringside like he has no regard for his safety, bouncing him off the ropes to the floor, a snap dragon on the floor, and a big powerbomb onto a table in the announcer's area. It's one thing for him to have little regard for his opponent's body, but it's key to his character (and his character is clearly just himself) that he also has little regard for his own body. I got actually invested into him being unable to stop himself from flinging his body into dives and stupid bumps all match while his innards are screaming and his legs and hips cry out for some goddamn mercy. That disregard for self and opponent only gets cooler when disgusting suplexes into edges of chairs turn into unprotected chairshots in the year 2025. Real 1999 Chairshots taking place at a Tokyo Dome show so sparsely attended that the reactions may as well have been piped in. Kidd takes the nastiest chairshot after braining Omega with a couple. He felt that fucking swing bad too, because he sure gets his hands up quick when Omega comes swinging again. 

Drilla Moloney and Clark Connors unexpectedly added to this match without ever getting involved. Kidd's crew of ringside fuck boys yelling around the ring made the side of an idiot getting destroyed even better, and it seemingly made Omega wreck Kidd even harder with suplexes. There's just no good way to take a snap dragon off the top rope. Kidd's knees get smashed straight into the mat and that might be even more disgusting than the neck damage. 

The early shift to Kidd is great, culminating in Kidd kicking out of a double underhook piledriver, with Omega pulling back on that leg the same way he does when he knows he's getting a 3 count, comes off more obnoxious than "first in a series of moves that shouldn't be kicked out of" and I loved the juxtaposition of him kicking out of a dangerous looking piledriver that should have finished most matches, into making Omega scream with an abdominal stretch. Gabe Kidd slips out of a One Winged Angel into a Desperation Abdominal Stretch, elbow dug deep into Omega's inflamed intestines, and it is one of the all time best uses for an abdominal stretch in wrestling history. Kidd going into Payback Mode ruled. His knee to Omega's guts landed harder than Omega's V-Triggers and contributed led to a future where Omega has a few feet of intestine being removed. Not satisfied with damaging Omega's insides, he always wants him concussed. He spikes Kenny on his head with a short piledriver, and when Omega reverses a powerbomb with a rana, Kidd does not accept that reversal and just drops to his knees with a ganso bomb. There's not attempted lift into a convoluted spot, he just drops Kenny onto the back of his head. I'm laughing my ass off about it when Kidd piledrives him again. 

But if Omega can keep his guts in his body he isn't going to be slowed by head trauma. He has been through fights that Gabe Kidd hasn't yet imagined, and before long he is kneeing this man in the face repeatedly. A double middle fingers spot is something that comes off hack in 2025, but Gabe Kidd possesses the exact correct dumb guy energy to make a last gasp double bird from the knees feel exactly like something he would do when he's about to lose a fight. Kenny grabbing those middle fingers like handlebars to drive the final V-Trigger home was the best. Kidd played the best version of his character and I don't think any of this felt like Great Match mode, it felt like dangerous escalation with great big match selling. Maybe the match didn't need to be a half hour, but I thought it was a rare case where the extra time made the match better. They didn't use the extra time on more kickouts from bigger moves, it was almost always spent letting in pain. The way they sold the big move punishment and exhaustion made it all resonate, made it feel real. Kenny wrestles like a guy who is in pain and Kidd wrestles like a guy too dumb to stop taking damage. Ospreay wouldn't have the guts to sell offense as long as Omega and Kidd did, and that made me feel their story.  

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ricochet

ER: I loved Ricochet for the first 30 seconds, and thought he was good enough for the next 20 minutes as an overwhelmed guy whose offense keeps getting lighter and lighter in the face of an unflappable champ who hits much harder. But those first 30 seconds, man. It's always great when a heel jumps somebody at the bell. When I think of a heel team rushing some babyfaces, it's almost always with punches and clubbing arms, almost always as just another way to get into the action. No different than a collar and elbow start. When it's used to debilitate an opponent, it can approach brilliance. Think Tenryu blindsiding Giant Baba with a suicide dive into Giant Baba in the 1989 Tag League. Ricochet doesn't have debilitating weapons, but he uses speed and heel flying to throw Sabre off and I loved it. A heel ambushing their opponent with a suicide dive, springboard dropkick, Sasuke Special, and springboard 450 splash before they can get their ring jacket off, is fantastic. A hot 30 second Jersey All Pro match-finishing stretch as a heel ambush.  

I don't think he kept up that attitude or energy or idea execution the rest of the match, but I also don't think it mattered because him flying into Sabre's buzzsaw was entertaining because he couldn't keep it up. The first 30 seconds worked so well because it could only work for so long. While Sabre's full body European uppercuts to take control felt plan in comparison, that was something that could be kept up for 20 minutes. Sabre hits hard early and keeps it up all match long, and once he started hitting Ricochet I don't think anything else Ricochet hit had the same immediacy. Like he ran and ran until he got a wake up call and then lightened up, hoping it would make Sabre lighten up. Sabre's shots all look dangerous, but Ricochet is still hanging onto a light springboard clothesline, chops that hit lighter the longer the match goes, arms that barely club back. His combos are also too slow, and there are almost a half dozen times where he leaves Sabre waving in the breeze like an idiot so he can do another spin. Had the story of the match actually been "Sabre endures punishment and Ricochet slows the more punishment Sabre takes" then this could have been incredible. Sometimes I think they were working that story, and those were the best parts. Other times I think Ricochet's offense just didn't work because it didn't work, and it would have been hit that way regardless. I didn't buy Ricochet as a worthy Sabre challenger, but I liked when the match was structured around not buying Ricochet as a Sabre challenger. 

Sabre's dedication to believing that being the IWGP Champ means hitting hard and trying to get guys to hit hard is what made this good, and Ricochet did well at not understanding that this was not a battle he was going to overcome and Sabre was not going to be moved off that hill. Sabre was good at reacting to a lot of Ricochet's stuff that didn't belong in the match and turning it into something painful. Sabre catching an Asai moonsault with a cravat feels like something Chris Hero had to have done in Chikara at least once. It's fun, and then everything else is very mean. Ricochet's rolling vertical suplexes going from the ring to the apron to the floor was a lot of painful bumps for a dumb spot. Sabre's selling is almost enough to make it work, especially the way he got up at 18 but lost his balance and slipped back into the guardrail before making it in. Ricochet calls him a motherfucker and Sabre laughs at the idea. I'm a motherfucker? Ricochet, a man who doesn't slap very hard, is dumb enough to challenge a guy who can slap very hard to a kneeling slap fight. It only takes two exchanges for him to get to his feet. Sabre even tells him, "You're back in Japan now, mate." Is this match about how Ricochet has Dragons Gate Mindset and isn't catching on that Sabre fancies himself as submission wrestling Scott Norton? I like that. 

So, there can't be any complaints against Sabre's submissions anymore, correct? I always felt they were hilariously wrong, but if those opinions persist anywhere they only look more wrong now. His execution is fast and it always looks extremely painful. The way he bent back Ricochet's legs for a bridged figure 4 variation, the limb wrenching llave he pretzeled him into, the neck snapping ankle cranks he kept doing. Every strike and every twist looked painful and every sub he trapped Ricochet in looked potentially match finishing. The problem might have been that everything Sabre did looked so effective, that very little Ricochet did looked as effective. Ricochet's worked punches to drop Sabre at the end of the match were good worked punches...but the spot in question didn't call for well-worked punches, they were supposed to be KO shots that each dropped Sabre to his knees. I love a good worked punch, but they don't "work" when they're the only worked looking strikes in a match, and now they are supposed to be dropping the champ. Ricochet's mid-match slow down does set up the finish nicely, as he throws his sliding clothesline so slow that Sabre just snatches his arm out of the air and maneuvers him disgustingly into a modified Rings of Saturn. I kept going back and forth on this. I liked Ricochet, and I liked the story of his bullshit not standing up to Sabre's strong style...but the match story was inconsistent because sometimes his bullshit would stand up to Sabre and then a minute later it would be clear that his bullshit was supposedly equal to Sabre...

 

Well, the opening women's match was so good that I got lured into watching and writing about an entire show from a fed I don't love...and while there were some more rewards there was also way more stuff I didn't like. The Omega/Kidd match was great, the women's match was great, Mina was great in her match, the luchadors showed out in their gauntlet, the Dustin tag was incredibly fun, and most of the people I dislike wrestled expectedly bad. Two great matches on a 5 hour card isn't much of a success rate, but I'm glad I took the time to watch them. 

2025 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Recent CMLL, Recent Kurisu

Hechicero/Negro Casas/Mephisto vs. Soberano Jr./Hijo de LA Park/Flyer  CMLL 8/24/18

ER: You ever see a match with sloppy execution and some flubbed sequences, but think that's it's good fun despite its flaws? That would be this kind of match right here. A few of the guys didn't have their best night; Flyer worked like a young guy wrestling the top stars for the first time, really hesitant for some reason, Casas having to really telegraph and lead and RE-lead him through some spots. I've enjoyed Flyer, but this wasn't quite his night. There were plenty of misses here, but the energy kept the crowd way into it and played well. Casas got to work with all three young tecnicos throughout and he looked like he was having a ball. Flyer looked like a real choad trading push kicks to the jaw with him, and the fans were getting way more into rudo Casas as he kicked face and mule kicked his way gleefully around the ring, fouhgt on the apron with Parkito, and took a nice crazy DDT from Park right on his head. Hechicero had one of his best performances of the year, and while the match wasn't quite working, well nobody ever told Hech that. He took big flying moves from everyone, took big bumps to the floor (watch him get flung through the ropes and sprawl out on the floor), dropped a cool elbowdrop from the apron to Park draped over the barricade, and covers nicely for some out of position whoopsies: Late in the match he goes to hit his fast middle rope springboard dropkick, only to find Soberano not in the middle of the ring to get kicked, but waiting in the corner. Hechcero lands on his feet off the springboard and hitting the ground running his does a 360 and perfectly hits his mark to strike Soberano in the corner. All the tecnicos got to fly, and Soberano broke out his big tornillo (one in ring and one to the floor), Park hit a big moonsault, Soberano hit his handspring flipping rana to the floor only to get caught and swung hard into the barricade by Mephisot (Mephisto, who was decked spectacularly out in Villano pink/purple), so as I said the heart and energy was clearly full in this one. This thing threatened to fall apart but never did, it just kept chugging ahead with the aspirations of having a classic.

Rush/Cavernario/Bestia del Ring vs. Volador Jr./Matt Taven/Caristico  CMLL 9/7/18

ER: This was a good, fun-sized snack best enjoyed stoned in the dark in the movie theater. It's that fun-sized pack of Reese's Pieces I grab and throw in my pocket on my way out the door to catch a last minute flick. By the time I'm sitting there an hour into the film, those Pieces are little crunchy manna from heaven. The match is about 6 minutes long, is disposable and forgettable like tiny portion-sized candy, but enjoyed to the fullest in its moment. Rush is in full asshole mode, and we peak with Rush high kicking Matt Taven in the balls in full view of every human in Arena Mexico. To describe Matt Taven's look would be to describe a man who looks like he deserves to have his balls kicked in. We get flash highlights: The rudos kicking around a soccer ball head, Volador flying fast over the barricade, Volador hitting a big flip dive, a stiff lariat from Bestia, big splash from Cavernario, a stiff frog splash from Taven to end it; it was a short hot match. The match went 7 minutes, and had plenty of worthwhile fun in 7 minutes. It definitely made me want to see the hair match.

Masanobu Kurisu/Okumura/Felino vs. Solar/Mano Negra/Villano IV Lucha Expo 9/15/18

PAS: I have no idea how Kurisu ends up working a lucha expo at a museum in 2018, but god bless the guy with the handheld which lets me watch it. We get a bunch of the Kurisu greatest hits, he blasts people with that headbutt right to the side of the head, sick body shots and some nasty chair shots. I really enjoyed the Villano IV vs. Kurisu sections that feels like the great bloody apuestas match which never happened. There was also a moment where Solar gets smacked by Kurisu and remembers he is a tough fucker who had a MMA fight in his 50s and starts wailing away. Solar tried a couple of things he could do in his late 50s, but not in his early 60s and nobody was really taking bumps, but it fuck it, its 2018, its Kurisu, its lucha libre, god is great.

ER: I would wager we've never seen any lucha Kurisu, though we can probably assume that the term "lucharisu" clearly came about due to a portmanteau of Lucha Kurisu. I assume every smaller worker from All Japan or New Japan during that era had at least one Mexico tour, and obviously Kurisu's was historic. This was almost exactly what you would expect, although I didn't expect Kurisu to be wearing baggy denim Dockers shorts and a large weight belt. He looked like an old dad doing yardwork on the weekends. He threw headbutts like Kurisu and choked out people with his boot like Kurisu and got a chair involved like Kurisu, so we can confirm that early 70s Kurisu is still Kurisu. I don't think I've ever witnessed Solar wielding a chair before, so Kurisu is responsible for that. He's a bad influence. Kurisu hits guys in the back with a chair, they all get to hit him, we have fun. The tecnicos all seemed to be in really good shape considering their ages, and we got some fun quick exchanges with V4 and Felino, and even though Solar bailed on something a bit complicated on the ropes, he also ran and booted Okumura hard in the stomach, a stomach kick that looks better than most today. This never really gets past a certain level, but maintains its fun and weird pace throughout, and still maintains it's status as "most unexpected thing to catch my attention on a Monday".

PAS: Did a luchablog search on Kurisu, there are a handful of matches between 1979-81(Including a Gran Hamada title match, and a tag with Scorpio Sr. against Brazos Oro and Plata) and then nothing until 2018. Someone said "Remember that guy from 1979, that we haven't seen in 37 years? Does anyone have a contact number?"

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Dinamitas vs. Young Fliers

49. Cuatrero/Forastero/Sanson vs. Soberano Jr./Mistico/Angel de Oro CMLL 5/18

ER: Dinamitas getting to go all out against a team of fliers dying to impress has been a really fun match type the past year. Dinamitas are all such great fast bumpers, really know how to whip themselves out of and around the ring on ranas and armdrags, and are also great classic lucha brawlers; not theatrical, but very believable as asskickers. I love Forastero's deadlift tilt a whirl backbreaker, and their springboard elbowdrop is one of my favorite finishers of the past several years, and they broke out all kinds of new crazy with Cuatrero catching a rana and spinning around a couple times before hitting a powerbomb, and Forastero hitting a wild springboard dropkick to a seated Soberano. There rudo offense is super athletic but explosive. But I always look forward to them for their bumping. I love how these guys fall. And the fliers all dial it way up and by the tercera we got some fantastic spots. Soberano sometimes comes off as a bit much, but I like that he seems like he's out there just thinking up things he wants to try, just crazy ideas that might end with him falling on his face. But when he's on we get intricate multi jump huracanranas, gorgeous Fosbury Flop dive, a tornillo into the ring, and a physics defying handless tornillo over the top. That tornillo was just insane, looking like he wouldn't clear the ropes and instinctively lifts his body at the right time. Mistico doesn't want to be outdone and he throws in a nice flip dive and then blows that effort away with a huge flip dive running from the rampway and running up and over the turnbuckles. A hot lucha crowd is a wonderful thing, and the crowd was getting to fever pitch levels as these guys kept building the match hotter and hotter. Great fun.

PAS: This reminded me of the really great run of IWRG Oficiales matches a while back. This wasn't at that level because none of these technicos are Freelance or Suicide Segura level dudes, but the Nuevo Dinamitas are a great classic rudo team. The group of kids in this match are just up to try crazy shit, and lots of it would have gone very badly if not for a solid group of rudos keeping it together. I believe that Soberano will get really good, he really has moments of off the charts craziness, but then will hit something off or awkward. Once he works off the yips I think he will be a real treat to watch. I imagine having him really pair off the the Dinamitas will help that development. I haven't seen much of Mistico 2 before, but he had some really impressive moments. I was never a big Mistico 1 fan, maybe I will debut the Slate pitch claiming M2 as the superior Mistico like the people who like the Monkees more than the Beatles.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: March CMLL

Negro Casas/Barbaro Cavenario/Mr. Niebla vs. Soberano Jr./Marco Corleone/Valiente  CMLL 3/13/18

ER: Damn, you guys. Casas comes back from an injury and he's tan as hell and mean as hell. Every Casas comeback match I've watched has seen him as a total asskicker, he's been far more aggressive, working really differently than just a few months ago. And all the rudos got the same message: Be total assholes. Niebla runs around the ring punching face, Barbaro is landing stiff splashes and kicking guys in the guts, Casas is picking guys off left and right (what's with that weird leg swipe takedown he ran in and did to Soberano?). This was a rudo team to be reckoned with. But the tecnicos took their beatdown in stride and integrated perfectly. Corleone has had a fun year getting beaten down. We've dealt with superman Marco for quite awhile, but I much prefer take a beating/big comeback Marco. Casas and the boys slap around everyone, lighting up chests all over Arena Mexico, and the tecnicosall get big moments: Soberano flies off the entrance ramp, Corleone comes sprinting back into the ring, Valiente hits his big moonsault to the floor (and really this guy crashes harder and faster on dives than almost anybody). It all comes down to Casas and Soberano, with Casas reversing an Irish whip by just kicking Soberano in the shins, fighting over a Casita...and then Cavernario just runs in and punts Soberano in the balls. I mean right in the balls. Casas had him held prone, he was distracted fighting off Casas, and he just took a furry boot right to the balls. Heck yes to all of this match.

Drone vs. Blue Panther Jr.  CMLL 3/23/18

ER: This was a fun take on the typical lightning match formula, a little grittier and a little messier. They didn't go after a lot of smooth lucha sequences, or, they did and that's not what they ended up with. I liked the jagged edges. A Drone headlock takeover that has some stopped momentum, making it look more like he's yanking Panther over by the neck, or a messy rolling figure 4 by Panther, with his ankle kind of slipping out so he has to roughly yank it back into the sub, or them fighting around the ring for an armbar, Drone rolling through and keeping his arm secure while Panther holds onto it and tries to drag him to the mat like a rottweiler. Drone uses some fancy footwork to chase Panther on a dive, running and sliding around the ring before hitting a dive past the ringpost. Panther later roughs him up on the floor, including giving him a press slam onto the barricade. Panther is bigger and there were some fun spots around him catching Drone and slamming him, Drone takes a big bump off a lariat on the apron, that kind of thing. It was a tougher match than I went in expecting, and I like that.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Cavernario vs. Soberano

22. Cavernario vs. Soberano Jr. CMLL 3/27

ER: This was a great big-time modern lucha singles match, with a super strong sadistic rudo and a tecnico who gets more sympathetic the longer the beating goes. Cavernario's beating goes from before the bell on into the tercera. I'm not a major Soberano fan but at a certain point in this match I just wanted him to fight back and beat Cavernario's ass. Cavernario jumps him, swings him violently a bunch into the barricade, hits his big full force Vader bomb, punches him in the neck, and then at the segunda he starts slowly dismantling him piece by piece and soaks in the boos between each moment. He roughs Soberano up, rips up his tights, kicks at him, undoes his mask, and then finally just yanks it right off. Cavernario is a snarling mad man with spit hanging off his face, no bumps turned into The Worm here, this is a savage caveman. Soberano finally makes his big comeback in the tercera, weakened but determined, and did a series of big spots while Cavernario was excellent at making them feel like big spots. Soberano is in the zone and hits a big plancha to the floor, his big dive off the entrance (with a great theatrical stumbling stair climb to get there), really snaps off a pretty flying rana off the top, even gets fired up enough to do a big flipping dropkick on the hard floor (which Cavenario pays respect to by taking a massive flip bump on his shoulder). The "moonsault into boots" spot has been pretty overdone in CMLL ever since Mistico started using it near 15 years ago, but here they work it in wonderfully, with Cavernario catching face on boots when attempting another Vader bomb. Working something into an established spot seems like an obvious smart turn, but it doesn't always happen. We get a great false finish with Cavernario locking in an especially painful looking Cavernaria, but it's close to the ropes, and as Soberano desperately flings his arm out to grab the bottom rope you get the sense that he wouldn't have been able to survive in this hold for any length of time. But Serano hits the big flipping piledriver (because those are totally fine now) and the fans absolutely ERUPT when Soberano gets the win. It really felt like a star making turn, fans were clearly ready to get behind this guy, and it's pretty awesome that this felt like two under 25s being treated as stars.

PAS: This was really great, maybe the best Cavernario performance ever, I love the lucha match set up of one guy being totally dominant, and Cavernario was vicious here. He demolishes Sobrano in the first fall, crotching him on the barricade, and using him as a club to try to knock down the barricade (totally appropriate for a Caveman, it is something I could imagine Bam Bam doing to Barney Rubble). He gets a countout win in the primera, and then tosses away the Segunda by ripping up Sobrano's mask and pants and getting DQed. Sobrano hits all of his big highspots perfectly in the third fall for the comeback and I totally loved the near fall on the Cavernaria. It felt like Cavernario felt the match slipping away and was going to rip Sobrano's head off to avoid losing. I did feel like Cavernario kind of shoehorned in his worm comedy spot in the third fall when he didn't need it, but otherwise this match was complaint free.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Casas vs. Soberano

32. Negro Casas vs. Soberano Jr. CMLL 4/13

ER: Casas is back and it seems like his new goal is to just break out any offense he can think of and go speed for speed with youngsters. We get tons of Casas maestro submissions, I love how he goes after a leg and stretches hammies, and it looks cool on Soberano's long legs. Casas is equally adept and bumping appropriately for offense, I love how he takes an armdrag, and I liked how he escaped and hot stepped out of the way of Soberano grabbing for an ankle pick, but then didn't notice the legsweep that knocked him on his butt. We've seen a lot of work on the apron in recent years, but I think Casas is the best at making apron stuff seem epic. The whole shot looked really great: Lucha being filmed in HD, the expanse of Arena Mexico growing behind the two competitors, shot from low on the ground making it seem like they were having a scaffold match; Casas is great at milking these moments, leaning way back and hitting his straight kicks, working tiny moments of drama, and eventually planting Soberano with a DDT (which Soberano takes vertically and sticks there frozen in time). To add insult, Casas bends Soberano's arm over the corner of the apron. We get a nice nearfall section with Casas getting more and more exasperated while not being able to put the kid away. Everything about Soberano's surfboard hold was great, with Casas doing all sorts of great things, like gripping his arms close to his body to keep them from Soberano, to reaching quickly for the ropes but snapping them back to keep them from being swiped, to fighting mightily when they do get swiped, to then paddling his arms in the air to try to swing his momentum over. I wish we would have gotten an actual finish, but the fans did seem genuinely excited when they realized Soberano went the distance, and we got a nice false finish with just a couple seconds to go, when Casas gets a high tight roll up after Soberano had missed a cannonball and dropped on his head. I'm not sure what it would take for me to not love a 10 minute slice of singles match Casas.

PAS: Casas is a really amazing TV worker, I can just imagine how great Casas would have been in 90s WCW working random dudes on Saturday Night for six minutes. Soberano is about Super Calo level talented, but Casas can find enough fun things to do with him to make an entertaining match. I really enjoyed all of the apron stuff, and Soberano's bump on the DDT was totally goofus and uncalled for. Time limit draws are always a bit deflating, but it does nicely set up the revanche match, which I am excited to check out.


2018 MOTY MSATER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Tiffany! Niebla!

Tiffany/Dalys/La Metalica vs. Princesa Sugehit/La Jarochita/Maligna (CMLL 1/2/18)

ER: I've seen a lot of lucha, and a lot of uninspired lucha. And sadly a lot of luchadora matches are the same damn matches, every year, same spots, run through like they've done them a thousand times (and they have). But occasionally you get some actual fire and intensity, and Tiffany brings both of those here. I love Tiffany. She's always been one of my favorite luchadoras, and now she's a little older, a little bigger (and considering the portions and constant snacking that her husband Kraneo is throwing down, you'd have to be Karen Carpenter to not snack more than normal) and meaner than ever. I'm going to need a Total Luchadoras show with Kraneo and Tiffany just dicking around doing errands with Mije and their corgi (they own a corgi because it makes for good TV). But Tiffany is a total badass all throughout this match, really targeting Sugehit. They have a cool standing maestra sequence with Tiffany twisting her around and working little standing exchanges, fast armdrags, there's a cool feeling of oneupmanship you don't always see in ladies trios, and you know it's real when Tiffany dishes a nasty stomp to the back of Sugehit's head. Maligna is pretty new and Jarochita is someone I've seen many times and rarely remember what she does in a match, so this relied on a fine tecnica performance from Sugehit and Dalys being a savage with the other gals. Dalys is scary at this point, looking manlier and manlier and meaner and meaner, and seeing Sugehit eventually come back against her was great (even if the match ended with Sugehit getting smashed hard into the barricade). The rudas rough up all the tecnicas and I loved all of them hitting increasingly stiff sentons and always putting the boots to them. But Tiffany was what made this whole thing awesome, really looking like the best luchadora on the roster. I want Tiffany, Dalys, and Reina Isis as a trio of mean girl thugs.

Mr. Niebla/Felino/Sagrado vs. Stuka Jr./Soberano Jr./Guerrero Maya Jr. (CMLL 1/2/18)

ER: Alright guys, who tricked Niebla into giving a damn again? This is beyond a coincidence at this point, the guy is clearly working as if he has something to prove. I love when this kind of thing happens, when a guy becomes wildly resurgent. Niebla was just a ball of energy in this match, not just waiting on the apron to hit a couple of spots, but really aggressively making himself a part of the match, getting involved in as many moments as possible, really making the match. Early on when things don't go Sagrado's way Niebla is already in the ring smacking people with his big lefts, and his presence kinda dominates the match from there. He throws big bombs all match, eats a big dive from Stuka (I always love big Stuka dives), hits a fat senton, and then throws in a couple great bumps: He breaks out his backwards fall through the ropes to the floor that I LOVE (and the camera almost misses) and later goes for a kick on the apron and misses, taking a big comical back bump. I don't know what the hell started inspiring this guy to show up, but I love it. The odds of getting an inspired Niebla AND Felino in the same match has to be about the same as winning your office Super Bowl squares after drawing 2 and 8, but it happens here. I love when Felino ramps it up against flippers, he always throws in fast rope running (love the showoff move of bouncing off the bottom rope) and works stiff, it's a beautiful thing. The tecnicos bring their share, with Stuka always have nice rope sequences and dives, Soberano breaking out his big Fosbury Flop (and really coming into his own as a tecnicos star these last several months), and Maya hitting a big dive in the tercera. This was a blast and probably didn't look like that on paper. It's amazing what happens when guys actually show up.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Your 2017 CMLL Midcard

Virus/Disturbio/Okumura vs. Pegasso/Soberano Jr./Fuego (CMLL 2/3/17)

ER: We get more of 2017 tecnico superstar Soberano. He's really connecting with the Arena Mexico crowd, and it's always exciting when a crowd starts really reacting to a wrestler, the excitement in a worker's movements when he's getting loud reactions are palpable. Here he gets to show off a lot of flash, and also shows his bump freak side. The bump freak side is my favorite side of his, with him flying recklessly to the floor in the primera off a bull rush shoulderblock from Virus, taking an Okumura lariat on the side of his head, taking a hip toss from the ring to the rampway, and the bumps all lead to bigger reactions on his comebacks. Rudos really take a back seat to tecnicos here, with all three just trying (and succeeding) in drawing heat from the crowd verbally instead of just hogging all the offense. I mean, Virus is always going to look good, but here he hangs back, mostly keeping his offense to simple things (big shoulderblock, sharp elbow drop to the "lower abdomen", big lariat). The finish gets wild with Pegasso hitting a tornillo, Fuego hitting a missile dropkick followed immediately by a springboard missile dropkick, then pins Virus with a cool crucifix variation. Soberano clears the ring with a springboard rana, hits a smooth as hell tornillo off the top, and a moonsault off the middle onto a hanging Okumura wraps it up, crowd flipping their lid the whole time. Fun stuff.

Hechicero/Sagrado/Misterioso Jr. vs. The Panther/Guerrero Maya Jr./Blue Panther Jr. (CMLL 11/17/17)

ER: I really like this rudo team, they same to show up fairly regularly together and they all mesh nicely. They're good at being jerks and bullies, and they're good at allowing openings for any tecnicos that want to grab them. The rudo antics in this one are as good as expected, like The Panther sending Misterioso to the floor with a rana, so Misterioso responds angrily yanking Maya off the apron and then chucking Kemonito into the front row. Just as Stan Hansen turns a pinfall save into an opportunity to beat the hell out of the guy pinning his partner, I love and appreciate how Misterioso took out frustrations on the other team. We get some big bad triple teams too, like Hechicero doing his weird inverted monkey flip to Panther while Sagrado and Misterioso dish kicks on the way down. The tecnicos get some big dives and get to show some stones, like when Hechicero hits his cool moonsault to the floor, and he then gets jumped on the floor by the other two opponents. You don't normally see that from a tecnico team. Guerrero Maya peaks things with an insane tope con giro that sends him flying into the second row, The Panther keeps getting better, and these rudos know how to get an Arena Mexico reaction, and I love when these midcard acts go out of their way to get noticed on a nostalgia show.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Soberano Jr. + Bonus Negro Casas

1. Soberano Jr./Guerrero Maya Jr./Fuego vs. Felino/Ephesto/Luciferno (CMLL 8/8/17)

ER: Hot Arena Mexico trios where Soberano comes off like a star and Felino has one of those matches where it's suddenly 1997 again. You never know when Felino is going to have one of those memory lapses and slip back into actual awesome worker, but it happens a couple times a year and it's always awesome when it does. Felino was rudo extraordinaire here, showing off by working super fast armdrag sequences with Soberano, showing him up by doing fancier forward rolls, handsprings and rope running tricks, then turning mean and dropkicking him low, stomping him out with his buddies, and sticking him with a powerbomb off the turnbuckles. I have no idea what motivates Felino at this point, but when he shows up, he still shows up. Fuego and Maya hang back more but still get nice moments, Fuego ends the segunda with a trippy little roll up, Maya hits a fast and accurate tope, but the fans are going ape for the Soberano/Felino interactions. Tercera is when Soberano breaks out, flinging Luciferno with a cool slingshot armdrag on the ramp, hitting his Fosbury Flop on Felino. This whole thing is kept simple and everybody works quick. You get smooth work from the tecnicos and classic rudo misdirection worked at actual non-lazy speed, and the fans love it all. I love a hot lucha crowd more than most things in wrestling, and this was a crowd pleaser.

2. Negro Casas/Barbaro Cavenario/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Rush/Valiente/Mistico (CMLL 8/8/17)

ER: You know Casas wasn't going to get shown up by his brother on a hot Arena Mexico card! All of La Peste Negra were busting butt tonight, with Felino turning in his performance of the year, Niebla turning in his most spirited performance I've seen from him this year in the next match, and then Casas turning in a typical great Casas act in the main. The teams are all weird because Rush is on the tecnicos but and Casas is on the rudos, but the stuff between them is gold, peaking with Casas throwing tons of stiff kicks in the corner on Rush. Not long after Rush gets Casas prone in the corner, stops short on the dropkick, waits for Casas to peak out from his fingers, then pops him in the cheek with the toe of his boot. What a jerk. Valiente takes some big spills and works the match essentially nude (his tiny trunks are like awful early 80s bodybuilder Kevin Sullivan levels of yuck), UG acts as a great base for Mistico, Barbaro turns in a wonderfully hammy performance, and the best part of his ham is when it turns suddenly violent, like in the tercera where he catches a Casas Thesz press off the apron and powerbombs him into the ringpost. I don't know what got into the crowd tonight, not sure if a hot crowd made the workers all kick it up a notch, or the hot workers got the crowd going bananas, but this was one of those Arena Mexico night where everything clicked.

3. Barbaro Cavernario vs. Soberano Jr. (CMLL 8/25/17)

ER: Two wild and crazy guys pulling out all the stops in a 10 minute lightning match? Yes, please. The first 6 minutes of this are a total Barbaro mugging, setting the tone right out the gates as he bullies Soberano around the ring with his chin. There's something awkwardly intimidating about him just jamming chin into jawbone and shoving a guy around the ring with it. But Barbaro is totally coconuts and hits this flat out amazing tornillo through the ropes, I mean just a crazy spot for a bulky guy to do. Soberano takes a mammoth back body drop on the floor and the beating continues, with Barbaro hitting some double stomps and a big reverse springboard splash. Even Zacarias hits a 619 (a 55?). Soberano comes back when Barbaro misses a splash on the rampway, and Soberano superkicks him down the ramp (with a big spit take from Barbaro). Soberano - as you might expect - hits a bonkers tornillo off the top of the entrance way, does one of his effortless double springboard ranas back in the ring, and follows that up with a gorgeous Fosbury flop dive to the floor. Crazy. We get some nice nearfalls and reversals: another tornillo crossbody from Soberano; a vicious package vertical suplex by Barbaro that whips Soberano into the mat; a long, uncomfortable slow zoom shot of Zacarias plaintively looking at the action; a super dangerous looking crucifix bomb gets reversed into a rana by Soberano, and then reversed convincingly into a nice roll up nearfall by Barbaro. Sadly the finish features a vintage Tirantes fuck up (seriously get this guy the hell out of CMLL), as Barbaro goes to dropkick Soberano off the top and gets stuck with a powerbomb, which Barbaro clearly kicks out of. Tirantes calls it the finish, even though the two continue with the actual finish. Ugly stuff, all because of one doofus. But this was the best lightning match in a year or so, and not just for the nutso spots. Barbaro was gluing things together nicely and not just moving from spot to spot. Every pin saw him lay a hard fist or forearm across Soberano's jaw, he moved him into position with big strikes and kicks to the back of the head. This wasn't just guys putting on an exhibition, this stuff had meat.

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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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Lucha Worth Watching: 2017 Leyenda de Plata Cibernetico

2017 Leyenda de Plata Cibernetico CMLL 10/13

ER: Ciberneticos were definitely more of my thing when I first started watching lucha in the late 90s, but that would also line up with WCW cruisers being my favorite style of wrestling at that time. Now ciberneticos usually still leave me hungry, unfulfillingly set up spotfests with sudden pinfalls. But I am not made of stone, and sometimes there's a collection of moves too tasty to not force a smile or an oooooohhhh. This started simple and exploded once Guerrero Maya flew at Barbaro with a tope and also flew recklessly into the first row. Full Eric attention achieved. We get a Virus/Casas sequence which is always a thrill, two masters delivering a greatest hits collection. Later we see Virus get his brains stomped to the mat by Dragon Lee. Casas tries to outbump the youngsters by getting thrown fast ass over elbow over the top to the floor. We get a concurrent somersault plancha, Asai moonsault, somersault plancha. Forastero works as if he were a darkside Soberano Jr. and it works better than Soberano Jr. being Soberano Jr. Casas has more charisma and gets louder reactions than anybody in the match, getting the fans rabid just for not locking up right away with Barbaro after pinning Titan. Lee is a dangerously fearless bumper and always wanting to please, so we get him doing a nutty rana from the ring to the floor on Titan, bumping a Virus lariat on his head, dumping himself on his head for Caristico, taking a nutso spinning powerbomb from Sanson. Mephisto is wearing a fantastic gimp outfit that makes him look like a beefy extra from the movie Cruising. I think I saw him in the background set at a bar called The Toolbox. Soberano does a nasty seated tombstone to Barbaro and I guess we just don't give a fuck about the sacred death danger of the martinete anymore.

Mistico and Caristico have the most palatable teacher/student showdown because instead of flipping and rope running they just rip masks. Mistico ripped Caristico's mask like a lifetime solid citizen who finally experienced how fucking good it felt to steal an extra newspaper from the machine. The final 5 contains 4 of my least favorite guys in the entire 16 man match, meaning Sanson is my old hope. Volador also seems rudo by default which is his best side, and he bumps fast to the floor which is better from a rudo. Soberano takes stupid modern era lucha moves real stupid on the back of his head, taking things like fast code reds or reverse ranas - dangerous looking moves that can be botched - in a cartoony rollercoaster manner, rolling off his head and then freeze framing for a second before completing the bump. I want him pinned. Sanson catches Volador on a motherfucking flip dive to the floor, doesn't let him touch the ground, and then powerbombs him SIDEWAYS into the front of the ring barrier. Sanson may have passed Cuatrero on the "baddest ass Dinamita" after this match. This is a cibernetico, so by Mexican law it was required to have one confusingly dogshit double elimination, but at minimum it was done because Sanson pinned Caristico while also suplexing Soberano. Everybody's shoulders looked down. And then Sanson is immediately pinned because they wanted to give me the last final showdown I would have picked out of all 16 participants. But that's life. Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: All of the Arena Mexico Dives

Cuatrero/Forastero/Sanson v. Soberano Jr./Rey Cometa/The Panther CMLL 8/4

ER: Good grief, you guys. This was on the same show as the Blue Panther/Sam Adonis hair match, and this was likely a bigger crowd than most of these men have ever performed in front of. And they fucking went for it. This was different than most Dinamitas matches, and while I like their out and out rudo tactic matches better, they also do spotfest really well. Soberano and Cometa are game to do some big spots, and so we got a match absolutely filled with wild spots. This probably had more dives and springboards than any match I've seen in a year. Soberano is really responding well to moving up the card, and he is coconuts here, like he wants to be CMLL's Aerostar. He hits a couple big dives and does a springboard into the ring by jumping about 8 times, from the rampway to the middle rope to the top rope to the inner middle rope, just Chinese acrobat stuff. Forastero is the standout Dinamita here, going toe to toe with Cometa and even showing off his own fancy flip ability. Amusing moment when Cometa is doing typical CMLL tecnico rope run handspring backflips, and at the end of the showing off Forastero does one of his own...only for Cometa to hit him with a big headscissors to get him out of the ring, and then hits another one to the floor. The crowd is piping hot and loud, everybody feeds off it, we get a springboard tornillo by Cometa, Soberano hits an absurd tornillo of his own, the tecnicos dive off the top of the entrance steps, Forastero flies into the front row from a tope, it's wall to wall insanity. It seems like on a big show you either get guys holding back so as not to outshine the main, or you get an atmosphere of enthusiasm where guys feel validated by their choice of profession. This felt like the latter.

PAS: Yeah this was total popcorn wrestling, but exactly the kind of thing you want from a match like this. I think there will be Nuevo Dinamitas matches I liked better this year, as they are fun when they slow it down and this was all action, there performance in this reminded me of the heyday of the Oficiales in IWRG, just excellent timing, huge bumping and cool double and triple teams. There was probably one or two dives too many, as they were really going for maximalism. Soberanos spin dives are beautiful looking, and he probably should have just done one big one so it is remembered. This was by far the most impressed I have been by him, as he really felt special, I also loved the Panther, sometime you want spins, and sometime you just want a bullet tope which lands like a punch in the mouth.


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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Lucha Worth Watching: CMLL 6/16/17

1. Rush/Kraneo/Pierroth vs. Terrible/Vangellys/Shocker (CMLL 6/16/17)

ER: Not a great match, but one I was looking forward to and one that delivered what I wanted it to. Vangellys attacked Pierroth with some great bat shots last week and here's the payback, hopefully building to a hair match. The rudo team is a great pairing, one that's been fairly regular in 2017. They all complement each other really well in this kind of bullshit brawl. It's the kind of match Pierroth excels in, it brings out the best asshole qualities in Rush, and Kraneo...well, Kraneo is just always awesome. I really like all the Rush familia ringside brawl stuff, it's great junkfood, guys getting slammed into the announcer corral, guys getting thrown into barriers, balls are almost kicked, big chops are thrown, anabolics are flowing through Los Toros Blancos, complex carbohydrates are flowing through Kraneo, Shocker is wearing headgear to clamp down on his constant snacking, Terrible throws a beautiful left hand, the rudos juggle an imaginary soccer ball around with Kraneo getting extra ball handling time, Pierroth splats Vangellys with a great senton, balls actually get kicked, it's all great fun.

2. Dragon Lee vs. Barbaro Cavernario (CMLL 6/16/17)

ER: A different kind of junkfood, rewarding in different ways, annoying in different ways. I have little interest in the newer trend of luchadors working faux New Japan style. I hate seeing brainless emotionless forearm exchanges when lucha standing exchanges usually have so much passion and eye contact with the crowd. But these guys are crazy and we get a suitably crazy lightning match. Lee hits a couple nice dives including a bullet tope that just glues Cavernario to the barricade, and Cavernario hits a flat out gorgeous dive from the apron past the turnbuckles. I lose a lot of interest once we go into the "look what moves we can do that are dangerous but don't hurt that much because we can still do a lot of moves afterward" portion, but the blockbuster DDT is pretty damn notable just because it turns Lee into a literal exclamation point. These guys both work matches that have more meat to them, this was 9 minutes of expected flash between two guys who could sleepwalk through some exciting spots. They know how to work some exciting spots, and exciting spots was what we gots. They just tend to excite me more when they mean something.

3. Ultimo Guerrero/Sanson vs. Caristico/Soberano Jr. (CMLL 6/16/17)

ER: A fitting finale to the Gran Alternativa tourney, and a nice job by CMLL for actually pushing a new guy who has made some strides. Soberano Jr. has been kicking around for awhile, and was showing promise as early as 2014, and he's obviously been busting his butt in 2017. I flipped my lid for his Dick Fosbury dive to the floor, that takes some stones and looked gorgeous, and he has a great step up headscissors. I think Sanson worked expertly as a Caristico base, catching a dozen armdrags and headscissors that all looked fluid, and the flip dive catch was pillow soft. Caristico himself appeared to be working harder than I've seen him, maybe since his return, bumping big on UG's baseball slide dropkick, tossing out his largest assortment of ranas and headscissors (his slingshot one to the floor still the best) and also hanging in there to take UG's hip attack that sends him sprawling down an aisle. Sanson and Soberano got a chance to shine and outside of a hinky Soberano lariat I thought they looked good. I hope Sanson still stays with Cuatrero/Forastero, but this was a nice bigger match foray for him, overall very satisfying.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Fresh Casas Match-Ups! Tournament Lucha?

1. Negro Casas/Canelo Casas vs. Valiente/Astral (CMLL 6/9/17)

ER: Leave it to Casas to make a 1st round tournament lucha match something approaching meaningful. It's 5 minutes but plenty enjoyable, with Valiente breaking out weird World of Sport matwork that he doesn't normally break out, and Astral getting a big chance to shine against normal sized people, while Casas has a long showdown with the former/current mini. This is the first time Casas and Astral have ever had reason to be in the same match, and fresh match-ups/new allegiances are the one saving grace of tournament lucha. Casas hypes it up all match and make it feel like a huge deal that he's going toe to toe with this kid who's half his age. He stooges around for him, keeps pace, and gives Astral moments to shine. Astral makes the most of it, hits a wild double jump tornillo, Casas set him up to look like a big deal and he did. Canelo isn't great but he spends his segments dedicated to being a rudo instead of shoehorning highspots, and I appreciate that. Tournament lucha should be a little more like this.

2. Negro Casas/Canelo Casas vs. Caristico/Soberano Jr. (CMLL 6/9/17)

ER: Another fresh Casas match, as Soberano has been lingering in the undercard for a few years, prior to his 2017 push up the cards. At his best he's shown to be a bump freak with some cool movement, at his worst he's a bad Volador clone. But he's never squared off with Casas (they were in a decent Cibernetico in 2014), and that's obviously the money combo here. Casas is great throughout, and I loved his stiff body/timberrrr selling of Caristico's superkick, loved his stiff forearms and lariat on Soberano (and Soberano lands some nice kicks to the chest later). Casas brought interesting character to strike exchanges, we build to a fun moment of Casas snapping off a nice 57 yr. old rana, but Soberano cartwheels out of it and hits his nice long-legged version. The home stretch was really wonderful: Soberano finding multiple ways out of La Casita, with Casas getting more and more desperate as he became more obsessed with beating him. Casas starts with a simple drop toehold to lead to La Casita, but Soberano yanks his arm out, so Casas dropkicks his knee to get him back into position but Soberano shoves him away, back off the ropes and Casas dropkicks him to the knee again, but Soberano rolls through to his own pin! Generous performance from Casas here, truly the theme of the day.

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Matt & Eric, Two Men Discussing Virus, Separately

2017-03-25 @ Arena Coliseo San Ramón, Puebla, Puebla
Virus vs. Prayer

MD: This dropped a few days ago even though it's from a Lucha Memes show back in March. I couldn't tell you the first thing about Prayer, but Virus was, of course, my #10 on the GWE poll last year, which felt crazy at the time and still feels crazy, but was very much a testament to the power of footage (we've got him almost weekly for the last many years, even if he's just in low card trios). I'll say this: after watching this match, I feel all the more validated with the placement.

We're lucky to have as many maestros matches as we do. In those, what they do is so logical and so intricate and so interesting and (probably most importantly) so full of struggle and commitment, that we forgive the half speed nature of so many of them. We see it as part of the fight, that locking a hold on to someone as expert as Blue Panther or Negro Navarro just takes that much more pressure and effort. It takes longer. In some ways, it's a testament that they can go that much more slowly but still make none of it seem collaborative, like playing a song very slowly and thus having to perfect each and every belabored note. 

This was not that at all. For the first two thirds of the match, they were primarily on the mat. There was struggle. There were intricate leverage moves. There were counters and escapes. It was done at far faster pace, was utterly believable, and didn't miss a beat. They were able to portray that same level of mastery but turned up about three gears. So much of this was Virus. You watch him and you wonder just how he sees the world, if time slows down and he can extrapolate out the ways limbs might twist and contort like an sculptor envisioning a masterpiece or a chess champion looking forward six moves. Prayer kept up well enough; he had to do his part, for Virus just manipulating him wouldn't have allowed for this level of speed or sharpness. Ultimately, though, this was a showcase for El Pequeño Gran Maestro, and since he no longer gets as many singles matches in CMLL as he did a few years ago, it's one we're lucky to have.

A few words about the escalation in the match, too. When they went to spots towards the end of the match, none of them were too excessive. None of them needed to be. Staying on the mat (even while increasing the level of peril) meant that a springboard low dropkick could mean as much as a headdrop or a giant dive. It created believable near-falls when that might not work at all with a less disciplined match. Just the testament of someone who really understands how to imbue meaning into his craft. 

I'm glad Virus is still getting opportunities to have matches like this, even if only on the indies, and I'm glad this dropped, even if it dropped a few months after the fact. Check it out.

Virus/Sagrado/Skandalo v. Soberano Jr./Triton/Esfinge (CMLL 3/28/17)

ER: Virus has to be the king of noteworthy performances in throwaway undercard matches. This falls apart a bit in the segunda/tercera, and Skandalo kind of stumbles around and gets in the way through much of this, Sagrado is really quite good as a rudo so I enjoyed all of his moments (his rudo offense is really great, especially that sunset flip counter, a double stomp into a few elbowdrops, hell yes)...but this was all about Virus. The Virus/Esfinge mat stuff that opens the match is really cool, subtly flashy, all of it compelling; but him picking on Soberano is the money of the match, as they work some fast sequences that end with Virus hitting a stiff shoulderblock that sends Soberano bumping backwards and upside down to the floor, then we cut to Sagrado clotheslining Esfinge's shins out from him on the apron, and then back across the ring to catch Virus hitting the mother of all baseball slide dropkicks on a just-waking-up-on-the-floor Soberano. We get another fun Virus/Soberano segment in the tercera, but it's a shame the rest of the match couldn't hold up the level of the primera. But a match with a floor of "So how good is Virus, right?" is still something with value.

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Lucha Azteca Workrate Report 7/12/14

These matches were all from the 6/27/14 Arena Mexico show.

En Busca de un Idolo Cibernetico:

1. Negro Casas, Barbaro Cavernario, Dragon Lee, Cachorro & Soberano Jr. vs. Virus, Rey Hechicero, Guerrero Negro Jr., Star Jr. & Super Halcon Jr.

Ciberneticos tend to be fun exhibitions during the initial pairings, and then kinda pointless once they run through the inevitable string of six eliminations in 4 minutes. Out of the early pairings Cavernario/Star Jr. was really fun with really fast work, with Star breaking out really cool armdrags. Hechicero always finds neat new ways to bump to the floor. Cachorro hits the dive of the match, almost beheading Star over the barrier. Soberano hits a crazy tornillo, Casas hits a violent Thesz press off the apron onto Virus, even Halcon hits a nice flip dive. Hechicero was such a big deal in the tourney that I wish he was given more to do here. He gets to hit a great Fuerza bump and takes a nutso slingshot rana from Cachorro, but I wanted more. Seeing Hechicero work Casas was just a brutal tease as it just showed how desperately the upper card needs this guy in there regularly. Dragon Lee makes Guerrero Negro look like a monster, wiping out onto the side of his head on a clothesline. Virus lets Dragon Lee kick him a bunch, and Lee is a guy with some nice looking kicks. I had seen that Phil wrote this up when it happened, and I am stunned that he didn't comment on Cavernario and Hechicero BOTH pulling down their straps when they squared off. Hechicero also does his weird inverted monkey flip to sort of hotshot Cavernario. And then they have to have a double pinfall elimination, because of the stupid awful Torneo Cibernetico charter of 2005, which states "Henceforth all Ciberneticos must have a stupid fucking double pinfall elimination where both men have their shoulders down in a move that otherwise would never be counted as a pinfall, but for dogshit lazy reasons will be counted as a double pinfall in this instance because fuck you." We get a long Casas/Virus showdown to end it which is really fun. Also made me think how odd it is that these two have been around forever, but this was probably the most I've ever seen the two of them match up. Which is sad. I liked this match a lot more than Phil, I thought it was much better than the other ciberneticos over the last few years.

2. Rush, Ultimo Guerrero & La Sombra vs. Atlantis, Shocker & Mr. Niebla

Super fun match that delivered even more than I expected. Sombra really came off like a star here. Really great 1st fall rudo beatdown, with Niebla getting kicked off the rampway into the crowd, Sombra running around giving big boots to everybody, Rush caving in Niebla with his corner dropkick. Big intensity. Tecnicos get quick revenge in the segunda, and the tercera is really hot. Niebla gets to slap Rush around, hitting him with his big slap on the floor, and then back in the ring when Rush covers his face Niebla just sweeps his legs out. Sombra leans way into Shocker's stuff, and they have a good strike exchange with Sombra throwing his awesome left/right elbows. UG obviously rips Atlantis' mask, and Niebla and Shocker awesomely cheat to win, with Niebla pinning Rush with his feet on the ropes. Sombra unmasks himself but Shocker don't care and just pins him, with the ref not noticing. Fun match.

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En Busca de Un Idolo - Cibernetico

6/27

Cachorro/Cavernario/Dragon Lee/Soberano Jr./Negro Casas v. Virus/Hechicero/Star Jr./Guerrero Negro Jr./Super Halcon Jr. - Spare Moment

Pretty flat disappointing match for all the promise it had on paper. Often the best part of Ciberneticos is your first set of exchanges, but we had bad match ups here, your mat section was Cachorro trying to do something interesting with Negro Jr., Virus was stuck with Soberano Jr., Casas was saddled with Halcon, we did get Lee v. Hechicero but that was the fastest of the match ups and was basically just a set up for a dive. For a tourney with some jaw dropping spots, this didn't really have any memorable dives or bumps. Virus looked good and the final run with him agains Lee and Casas was really fun, but overall kind of bummer. Hopefully when Cavernario gets his title shot that will be good.

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En Busca de un Idolo -Week 7

5/13

Cavernario v. Guerrero Negro Jr.- Must See

This was more of brawl then most of these matches and a fun change of pace. Negro Jr. doesn't look particularly good in his brawling, punches are subpar, kicks don't land great, but he does bump OK, and Cavernario absolutely flies around the ring. The finish is what pushes this into Must See territory. Cavernario hits a crazy suplex to the floor and follows it up with his awesome superfly to the floor. Great performance by him, and adds him to the short list of guys who had a good match with Negro.

Dragon Lee v. Super Halcon Jr. - Don't Bother

Match was a mess, first real trainwreck of the tourney. Most things both guys tried were awkward looking or semi blown, and the cool things in the match weren't enough to outweigh that. The last minute was especially bad looking, with Lee trying to hook in his bridged suplex and dropping Halcon before fully landing it. This is the kind of thing you are bound to have with young kids, so I don't mind a strikeout or two, but that is what this was.

5/16

Cachorro v. Super Halcon Jr. -Spare Moment

The boys come out throwing huge bombs, within the first three minutes, we have a Cachorro bullet tope, a Cachorro running powerbomb on the floor, and a Halcon running death valley bomb into the ring boards. I appreciate the balls outetness of the whole thing, but that much front loaded is bound to lead to a slightly underwhelming finish run. Halcon Jr. also breaks out a Virus/Super Astro somesault senton to the prone Cachorro, and a throw into the turnbuckles, before getting caught in a flash Fujiwara. I do love how Cachorro has made that a kill shot move, always adds a bit of unpredictability.

Cavernario v. Soberano Jr. - Spare Moment

Fun match with Cavernario going full rudo and ripping up Soberano's mask and throwing him around. Soberano had some awkward moments, not hitting his stuff as cleanly as he had in other matches. I did love the finish with Soberano taking a nasty bump on missed top before getting splatted by the superfly to the floor. Another great Cavernario carry job, he seems to be really good at putting together compelling finishes.

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En Busca de la Idolo - Week 6

5/6

Super Halcon Jr. v. Hechicero- Must See

Another great Hechicero rudo performance, Halcon still breaks out his tired stuff, but Hechicero broke out enough different twists to make in interesting. I really liked all of his early matwork, and a pair of fun Harley Raceish bumps. He gets dropkicked in the back on the apron and faceplants, and does a backwards sell of a tope sliding over the ring barrier into the crowd. Finish was dope too, as Hechicero does a spinning cobra clutch into a slam and camel clutch. Halcon is still dirt dull, but I am enjoying the Hechicero against scrubs matches as a much as a Hechicero against good dudes.

Star Jr. v. Cavernario - Spare Moment

This was on the cusp of must see, although there was a bit of awkwardness on a couple of moves and I would have liked to see Cavernario do a bit more. This was a Star Jr. showcase, as Cavernario was mostly bumping for him. Cavernario is a good rudo base, and he takes a crazy bump off of a headscissors to the floor. I also love his crazy person headbutts. Star Jr. has some fancy stuff, and with a little polishing I can see him being a guy really worth watching in a couple of years.

5/9

Star Jr. v. Soberano Jr.- Spare Moment

Really fun in a Beyond Wrestling kind of way. Just a couple of kids throwing out every crazy spot they know in 7 minutes. In between spot execution left a little to be desired, but it is hard to hate watching crazy shit. Star Jr. breaks out his headscissors into the floor and his top rope springboard tornillo, and the Soberano Jr. actually one ups him with this crazy move where he drapes Star Jr. over the ring barrier and full speed topes into his back (which has to lead to neck surgery if he makes that a regular spot). Would like to see this guys mix these spots into a trios with luchadores who kind provide some structure, but there are way worse ways to spend a bit of time.

Cachorro v. Hechicero - Spare Moment

They tried something a little different in this match, as it was much more about counters and submissions then dives and throws (although we did get a great Cachorro tope). They didn't execute everything they tried perfectly, and sometimes this looked a little dosey doey, although I appreciated them trying to mix it up. I loved the finish as Cachorro countered a tilt a whirl into a nasty armbar that looked like it dislocated Hechicero's arm. Looking forward to the rematch.

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