Volador/Rush and Stigma/Virus

CMLL 2015/09/25

Volador Jr. vs. Rush

At the end of the day, this was an angle more than it was a match, but it was a damn fine angle. You’ll totally struggle to find a better dickbag asskicker than Roooosh, he’s a terrific brawler and it’s never boring with him on offense. Also Volador’s always been willing to bump around to make others look good, so there you go. Primera was all about Rush, but he still lost, as Volador caught him off guard for a roll-up win. Segunda was more back-and-forth, with Volador doing his stage plancha and Rush getting a nasty cut on his shoulder. Just as the match was really heating up, Sombra, Mascara and Marco interfered for a DQ and 2-0 for Volador. Some might be upset because of that, but this is still the early phase of the feud, as all signs point to a hair vs. hair match, so all things considered, I’m happy. Good shit!

***3/4

CMLL 2015/09/26

Stigma vs. Virus

Wow, another Virus instant classic, and it came out of nowhere, because this is from a Sabado Retro show, and CMLL doesn’t air those. Thankfully, the good sir TKD117 recorded this doozy clash and shared it with us. Not to mention he had a ringside seat, so he caught all the action, and needless to say – it’s excellent. This match was divided into three acts: one and two were tons of nifty scientific/chain wrestling, good old llaves contra llaves with pure struggle for control, it wasn’t as matcore as Cerebro/Virus, but it was still captivating for some other reasons, mainly due to its sheer simplicity and sense of clear progression from Stigma.

Both “rounds” ended in a stand-off with Stigma standing tall and proud of himself for not being outclassed by Pequeno Maestro, and with Virus smirking in disbelief and probably thinking “oh yeah? let’s see if you can brawl!”, because Virus totally changed his gameplan after that, as he unleashed some nasty smackdown on poor Stigma, all the gnarly chops, rope-running hits and tosses looked painful and beautiful at the same time. It’s been awhile since Virus beat the shit out of someone that way and that hard, Stigma must’ve struck the major nerve during the first half to piss him off like that.

Basically, it was a fantastic piece of character work and storytelling, so subtle yet so enlightening, felt like Matthew Weiner wrote it. To cap it off, Stigma’s hard-earned comeback during the third stage was seriously great, and the way Virus managed to lock him up once and for all was even better. All hail this amazing encounter!

****3/4