My Lucha Journey: Valiente Interlude 1: Valiente vs. Virus

- Aired: May 2, 2009
- Taped: April 3, 2009, Arena México
Valiente vs. Virus, mano a mano, lightning match






I'm taking a brief break from Rush vs Shocker, since I realize I've spent a lot of time on it so early in the game. Recently, I saw that Valiente was ranked fairly highly on the WKO 100 for last year, and while that's not a board I post on much, a lot of people whose opinions I value do post there. I may not agree with them all the time, but I definitely will listen to what they say. Here they said that Valiente had a better last year than Luke Harper or Maximo and I wanted to go find the evidence of that. Obviously, it'd make sense to go back and watch more of his 2013 then, but when you've seen as little as I have, sometimes you have to get some grounding and cast a wider net.

I wanted a singles match and one of the first one that popped up was vs Virus from 2009. I hadn't even known that Valiente was around back then (which prompted me to actually look at his wiki: The guy's been wrestling off and on since the 90s; I am reminded of my lucha ignorance every day, doing this). This helped me to kill two birds with one stone, because I wanted to see more Virus as well. Lightning matches don't highlight many of my favorite aspects of lucha, such as the selling and character work, but they are also around ten minutes which is nice if you're in a rush and as with any wrestling match, I think you can learn a lot from them as part of a greater whole.

I learned plenty here. For the most part, if you asked me, back in 2009 when i knew absolutely nothing save for what WCW had taught me, what I thought good lucha might look like, this is pretty much what I'd describe. It's top end of my own personal ignorance scale of years ago, basically. Lots of action. Crazy acrobatics and dives and throws. Some zany moves at the end. The only thing it was missing was some early complex matwork. That said, it really was exciting. Valiente's agility, for his body type which is more Jim Neidhart than Rey Misterio Jr., was awe-inspiring. He can still do some of this now, but maybe not to this degree. There was one vault to the top rope that was so smooth I could barely believe it and then it was followed by a leaping, springboard armdrag catch over the top to the floor that might be the most spectacular thing I've seen any wrestling match I've seen this year. He followed it up almost immediately with a running double jump moonsault which had dangerously crazy height on it.. Virus held his own with this stuff too, with rope climbing, flipping armdrags on the inside, a Hamrick dive to the floor (which is something I've actually seen Valiente do once or twice this year), and a very pretty curving-around-the-ringpost 'rana on the outside. It all came back together with Virus kicking out some complex submissions and pin attempts and Valiente countering by the skin of his teeth until he hit his ridiculous falling tombstone facecracker thing for a quick pin.

So, past the fact that both guys can manage huge feats of daring and have some tremendous timing and execution, and, of course the fact that you sort of get what you pay for, time-investment wise, when you watch a lightning match, what else did I learn? There were flashes of story and character work in the match. Virus got his first big advantage with this great chop block to the leg, even if it didn't go anywhere. It's sort of a building block that could have absolutely gone somewhere in a different match and I'm sure has. Valiente did a good job of pumping up the crowd before some of his big moves. Both guys at least tried to sell during the back half of the match, even if it was in a super-compressed way. The finishing sequence was also strong with a very solid sense of struggle on the holds and pin attempts. One thought I have coming out of this is that dives might be more effective in trios matches than singles matches. Usually in trios, they're done to bring things home towards a finish or a transition, or to get the two captains in the ring alone. In a singles match, especially a lightning match, a dive might be a huge moment, but there's just not the time, narratively or literal, for them to really make it mean anything.

Valiente has some amazing physical tools and even a few years older and maybe half a step slower, if he is able to utilize those successfully in a more grounded, story-driven match, then I can see why he might rate so high. Virus on the other hand, I've seen in such matches, so I'm all the more impressed with him that he was able to keep up in something like this. I have a lot more of both luchadors to see, though.