Segunda Caida: MLJ: Dragon Lee vs Virus/Casas 7: Dragon Lee, Fuego, Valiente vs Ephesto, Mephisto, Virus

Aired: 2014-12-06
Taped 2014-12-02 @ Arena México
Dragon Lee, Fuego, Valiente vs Ephesto, Mephisto, Virus

More set up to the Lightweight title match the following week. Valiente and Fuego are both guys who I think shine most in trios matches where they can play a role. I'd rather see Mephisto in a trios match than in a singles match too, certainly. I actually don't have a great sense of Ephesto. Let me go take a look at wiki:

I like that his first persona was based on Blue Panther having trained him. Geez. He's 50? How old is Mephisto? Mephisto is 46. Ok then. Anyway, Ephesto debuted in 1982 according to this. That's nuts. Blue Panther's only a few years older than him anyway. Ah, he was Safari. I don't think I actually knew that. I mean, I did but I forgot at some point. Then he followed the Lucifierno path of being Hombre Sin Nombre for a while before CMLL let the fans come up with a new name for him (being after Hephaestus). That sounds like CMLL. As an aside, I miss Averno, especially given how little Rey Escporion had been used before the Guerrero feud started. They need more rudos who are really rudo and not cool heels or whatever.

On to the match: on paper, I think this should have been good. Some solid flyers/spot guys with personality on the tecnico side, competent beatdown rudos who can eat offense and were anchored by Virus on the other side, a title program shaping up for the following week. Etc. For the most part, I'd say it delivered for what it was trying to do.

Pairings to begin were Mephisto and Valiente, Fuego and Ephesto, and Dragon Lee and Virus (they didn't delay that too much). Lots of methodological and competent matwork to begin. I think it was a conscious pacing decision as the build was for Dragon Lee vs Virus. Once they got to it, the pace picked up and the crowd got into things, only for a Mephisto cheapshot from the outside to cut things off right when it was getting exciting. They did a good job of taking the fight out of Lee here, but the swarm on the tecnicos was a bit too delayed. Usually that happens right on time and we don't get a half minute of them looking like idiots on the apron. Here we did. I kind of like how Ephesto just uses a shoulder-breaker, by the way. It's refreshing, especially in a match with the frigging Valiente Driver.

The beatdown flowed into the segunda. There was a moment early on where Mephisto seemed to be going into business for himself on Dragon Lee's mask and Virus made sure to come over and join in to keep the focus where it should have been. This was a fun diversion of a beatdown because it played more into a traditional FIP. The tecnicos ended up back on the apron and they kept one rudo in at a time for the most part. They even played some southern tag tricks with the tecnicos being held back by the ref which allowed illegal changes by the rudos. So long as there aren't three rudos in the ring, I think this does work in lucha. Usually it doesn't pay off well and after a few minutes of it they just let the tecnico out of the ring anyway, but here that didn't happen. Instead, Dragon Lee did his usual handspring off the ropes/heel miscommunication comeback and the tecnicos ran in. Lee hit his big dive here but then Fuego slid out of the ring for no reason in the world except for to have Ephesto hit a dive on him and set up Valiente beating Mephisto. Blatantly bad wrestling there, but it was just a blip in the stream, really.

The tercera was mainly a reset, lots of action, and then a focus on Virus vs Dragon Lee. It's a great pairing, surely less dynamic than Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi but with enough familiarity by this point that they were able to switch up things (kicks, for instance), and in some ways I like it more as there's more of a contrast. Fuego and Valiented played their roles well, including Fuego dancing about and Valiente hitting the fireplug tope. Virus locked in this awesome submission on Fuego:

and said tope took out Mephisto to leave things as Virus vs Dragon Lee. Lee was challenging the following week, so he had to take the win here, and he did after a pretty good exchange: check out this roll-up counter spot for instance,