Obscure Lucha: I Can Hear Sweat Trickling Down Your Cheek, Your Heartbeat Sound Like Sasquatch Feet

LILL 2014/9/16

FLLM Masters Championship: Solar vs. Negro Navarro ©

These two maestro veterans are having a huge ass series of what are supposed to be highly critically acclaimed matches, all over Mexico (and something in the US even), but this is actually the first time for me to watch them in a singles match. If this was a textbook example of what their rivalry looks like, than thank you, but no thank you, I’ll pass because I don’t feel like I’m missing much. The match was 18 minutes long and it was just a too cooperative exhibition of scientific holds and “scientific holds”. Let me clear the air here, the sense of exhibition is a matter of respect in lucha and it happens quite often, but these two came across as some rookies and kept doing it until the very end of the match, in these types of matches there is usually a turning point where luchadors stop screwing around and just begin fucking each other up. Well, that did not occur here, at all. Two snowflakes for few cool looking holds, and that’s it.

**

XMW 2014/3/30

Pentagon Jr. vs. Arez

Slightly, just slightly weaker than their 6/21 sequel from the same indie league, this was a total dance of death that eats little babies. Arez is an indie hack with a T-shirt that says “Mexican Strong Style”, so of course I had so much fun watching him get obliterated by the brutal barbarian Pentagon. Considering this was their first match, it’s kind of odd Arez got way more offense here than

****1/4

Chilanga Mask 2014/10/25

Black Terry & Hechicero vs. Negro Navarro & Trauma II

Good match, but unfortunately, not as good as the paper might suggest. First we got nine minutes of Hechicero/Navarro and it wasn’t anything special really, just a solid exhibition, then we got five minutes of Terry/Trauma exhibition which was better and fiercer. At around 14 minute mark all hell broke loose and everyone started throwing nasty shots, but it didn’t last long enough to achieve anything meaningful to the rhythm or the story of the match. After that we got another Terry/Trauma session that was great, but the match didn’t end on a high note, Navarro and Hechicero just didn’t click, Hechicero had to hold back a lot because Navarro didn’t show any interest in adjusting his style even for a little bit.

***1/4

Chilanga Mask 2014/10/26

Black Terry vs. Hechicero

Now this was more like it, a nasty, gnarly and gritty lucha with tight matwork and rough smacks, great match between these two BITW contenders. One crucial thing about the matwork here, it was way better than what we saw in Hechicero/Navarro sessions from the day earlier, instead of technique exhibition here we got pure WAR, good old grueling and punishing ground based lucha that crossed over to surly brawling in a tremendous fashion. The finish was so well done and because of BTJr’s awesome handheld you could feel every nasty shot and sell. Also, due to the finish it seems a rematch is inevitable, fuck yes.

****1/2