La Sombra/Volador Jr. vs. Averno/Mephisto, CMLL World Tag Team Championship, 1/16/09

No good!

Where do you start a match? Do you start from dives or do you start from the ground up?

If you ask this layman, you either start from the mat, or from rudo brawling, and you hold off on your dives until the time is right. But the only building blocks these guys have are their dives and tricked out moves, so they go to them early.

Stuff happens... It just happens. None of these guys time their moves to get a proper response. It shouldn't be this easy for a rudo to counter a hold or a technico to do a dive. It makes the whole thing look choreographed, because the only rhythm is the rhythm of them performing a move. "Less is more" is lost on these workers, along with a lot of other basic skills. But I don't just blame the workers. The crowd don't give a fuck about the falls either. They'll toot their horns no matter what. Once they cottoned on to the fact they were part of the show, the caidas became less important than the cheering sections. They don't give a shit what happens so long as their favourite side wins.

The biggest problem, however, (and I'm gonna go to town here), is how insipid Averno and Mephisto are. There was an injury in this match that basically left Volador Jr. two-on-one, and you know what happens in the end, right? So this is the part of the match where the rudos are supposed to slow things down, because that's what rudos do. They don't play the high stakes moves game, they beat people up and later on they pay for it. But not our demonic little friends. They do the same bullshit they'd do with Volador if Sombra were still on the apron. Honestly, if you can't beat a guy up while his partner is laid out, what the fuck are you a rudo for?

Forget about the great rudos of the past, journeymen rudos would've worked this better. Ephesto did a better job than this back in December. The moment that summed it up for me was when they were backing Volador Jr. into the corner and the idiot was playing to the crowd. Watch this! It's my turn to do a move!

I should've prefaced this by saying that I hate tag title matches more than anything else in CMLL, and I haven't enjoyed one since the Mistico/Casas vs. Averno/Mephisto one back in 2006, which had shifts in momentum through three falls, but you can't tell me that this was as dramatic as it could've been. There were some good ideas in the finish, but, like the rest of the match, they didn't build to it. You got a sense of how Mephisto's downfall came about, but if they'd just pause for half a second we could take it all in.

If this were a script, you'd say it needed a re-write. They've gotta weight things more, time those cut-offs and comebacks and earn momentum. And for God's sake, rudos have to hurt people. Ask yourself this -- would it have been better if Sombra had broke his arm off a missed dive or because the rudo broke it for him? Then ask yourself, why is CMLL so soft?