2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Niebla v. Caifan

27. Caifan v. Mr. Niebla Lucha Memes 11/20

PAS: Talk about an out of nowhere gem! Niebla has spent the last 20 or so years, drunk and fat and coasting on comedy spots, Caifan comes out as says "fuck that we are spilling blood" and we get a great grimey Arena Naculpan bloody brawl. Caifan rips Niebla's mask and cuts him, smashing him with chairs, a case of beer and some great knuckle punches to the wound. At one point he even uses Niebla's blood as face paint. Niebla gets a great comeback, opening up Caifan with a chair shot and a box, and even hits a great fat boy tope. I also loved Niebla using his Pesta Negra dance moves and loogie spot as a Dusty style dancing babyface comeback.  Loved every second of this, and on paper this would have totally been a skipper.

ER: I think the last Niebla match I actually wrote up and recommended was from early 2016, and that was a 4 minute tournament lucha match. Now, it was a really fun tournament lucha match that I think would be a legendary WCW WorldWide match, but that's still a rough recent track record. And here, suddenly many of the things that make Niebla FF material in 2017 work to his benefit. He's not hammy, he's fat and vulnerable, and Caifan jumps on him and acts like a total prick for the first half of this. He jumps Niebla at the bell and violently rips his mask, and a violent mask rip always looks great and makes me cringe. My neck can ache if I hold a phone awkwardly or sleep weird, so picturing my head and body being yanked around by something I'm wearing on my face, and not just wearing but using my neck and arm muscles to try to keep it on my face, just makes me hurt. Caifan has his hands taped up with white tape, so you know you're gonna see Niebla bleed, and he bleeds, and Caifan continues beating on him, bashing him with those hard Naucalpan chairs, braining him with a wood crate holding empty beer bottles (with a great glass clank as it hits Niebla's head), and back in the ring Niebla gets his head smashed through an empty wood crate. Caifan is a royal jerk dragging Niebla around, painting with his blood, and for the first time in ages (ever?) I found myself really really rooting for a Niebla comeback. And it was a good old fat man comeback. He pops Caifan with his big swinging left, lures him into dropkicking the ref, lures him into wrapping himself around the ringpost, and then follows up with a great middle aged fat guy dive that sends Caifan into the front row near a guy holding a baby. We get a great bloody standoff in the ring with Caifan making these bloody tear facials, all that early match confidence gone. And, miracle of miracles, for the first time ever I totally loved Niebla's hip wiggling loogie spitting comeback, treated here like Lawler dropping the strap or Popeye downing a can of spinach. What a total surprise, what a total treat. Shock gem of the year.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST