taped 2014-08-01 @ Arena México
(even by the standards of recent posts, there are a lot of gifs in this one. Slower computers beware.)
Marcela & Princesa Sugehit vs La Seductora & Princesa Blanca, mask/hair: [GREAT] Totally delivered, best match in the feud, leaps and bounds better than anything up to this point. Everything was sharp, everyone went all out, the match came off as giant deal and the fans believed it to be one. They did this with no dive which connected (in CMLL!) and no smoke and mirrors to hide behind. They just had a great fight. This week in Sugehit shows she can totally work as a técnica when she’s an undersized/underdog brawler, kicking back against the odds and sneaking in the odd cradle. This wasn’t as much a Marcela match as her title matches usually are, but she brought her firey comebacks and the crowd was legitimately shocked when she was beat in the third fall. La Seductora had the best match of her life by a great margin, coming off as threatening and dangerous for the first time I’ve ever seen. (She has a better big match performance than Oro Junior.) Princesa Blanca wrestled this match as if her last, which makes all the sense on multiple levels, and still stayed in character the whole way. She’s going to be missed so much, but at least she went out the way she lived – spinning around and dropping people for a powerbomb. Marcela and Sugehit hugged and cried a little bit after the win and it felt totally earned – they won, they survived.
The only thing wrong here might have been the editing. There were quite a few spots shown in the show ending video package – including pretty much everyone getting in a dive and Blanca giving Sugehit a spinning crucifix drop –they must’ve still cut out two to five minutes. This does not appear to be a good match which was fixed in editing, but a much better match edited down.
La Sombra © vs Volador Jr. for the NWA World Welterweight Championship: [Good] Both guys worked hard and the crowd is much more accepting of this match now that they’ve switched to (the crowd’s) preferred roles, but any report about this being a different style match than their previous ones wasn’t correct. Sombra complained a lot more and Mascara got in a distraction spot, that’s about it. It seems like they’re not even just doing the same spots, but the same series of spots in the same order (the handspring double kick comes at the same place every match, though it usually looks better than this.) Sombra plays his personality well and it’s helped Volador come off as a much stronger técnico, and there wasn’t as many two count rest periods in this one. There really wasn’t much at all to the first couple falls, and the first part of the third fall felt like twelve minutes badly edited into six. (It calms down after the break.) If you’re going to see ever Sombra/Voldaor match ever, there’s nothing with this, but you’ve also pretty much seen it.
Atlantis, Dragón Rojo Jr., Máscara Dorada vs Rey Escorpión, Shocker, Último Guerrero: [OK/GOOD] In which we find out if Shocker is a good base for Mascara Dorada. Mascara Dorada actually uses a submission hold and gets into a chop fight, so there’s your answer. Mascara Dorada evading a slow quickly tired man was no contest. Heavy feuding match, with Dragon Rojo basically wrestling unmasked for a big chunk of the second fall, but the focus still on Ultimo Guerrero and Atlantis being mean to each other. They tried to make it heated, but it wasn’t really at the level of the other matches. They did show the contract signing skit.
Rush vs Negro Casas for the hair: [EXCELLENT] A perfect conclusion to the feud, as Rush decides to stop playing around and just destroy an old man. Rush convinces Negro Casas to brawl and Negro Casas has absolutely has no chance in a brawl against Rush. Rush knows it and Negro knows it too but can’t get himself to believe it, so Rush tricks him into losing exchange after exchange. It’s only when Negro finally starts using holds near that he’s finally able to assert some control of the match, and Rush suckers him into another chop fight as soon as he can. This is not a match of big near falls and it’s not about moves – we’ve come a long way since CMLL was posting lists of moves Rush can do – this is a legalized beatdown. Rush didn’t want to eek out a win with a clever move, he wanted to break Negro Casas and Negro Casas is looking very broken as he gets his head shaved. Even the finish works for this. Rush did not foul at the end of the match because he needed it to win, he fouled Negro to leave him utterly humiliated (and maybe because they didn’t want to do the Rush Driver.) This was as total complete victory as you will ever see in a major match. There’s no professional wrestler more professional than Negro Casas.
