CMLL en la ARENA PUEBLA 6/1/09 Siki Osama, Espíritu Maligno VS Iron, Blue Center

Espíritu Maligno and Siki Osama! I like both these guys, so I got a kick out of this.

The first caida had a real old school feel to it. Blue Center is such a classical thinker. He may not have the athleticism of a Lizmark or Solar, but he thinks like a technico and has all the right ideas. There were a lot of neat exchanges in the first fall and they were nicely spaced; the way lucha used to be before it lost its sense of fun and adventure.

Espíritu Maligno continues to be the incarnation of Espectro Jr and his ilk and Siki Osama is probably my favourite big man at the moment. I adore everything about him from his gimmick and ring attire to the way he works. I was impressed with his matwork here. For a big guy, I thought he did a superb job of leading from the top.

The rest of the match wasn't that crash hot, but my boys won. For some reason, I've been on a Jack Kirby kick lately, and I dunno if it's because of all the primary colours, but the Puebla locals have a real Kirby feel to them. Lucha libre isn't really a style, and it's wrong to say there's only one way of doing it; but the more it looks like a Jack Kirby splash page, the more I dig it.

IWRG 6/4/09 Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro VS Trauma I, Trauma II, Zatura

I dug the Traumas' hoodies here, as well as the Cerebros' matching tights. They also posed in their masks, which was pretty cool.

This was another vaguely interesting IWRG trios. It started off with some stalling from Cerebro Negro, before a mat sequence where he really put the brakes on Zatura. That's something we haven't seen for a while and was somewhat refreshing. Trauma II and the Doc followed that up with some submission grappling. It wasn't the prettiest of matwork, but they managed to stay on the mat and keep the breaks to a minimum.

Next up were Terry and Trauma I, which presented an interesting mismatch. Terry took over in the maestro role and it was a return to the more pain inducing holds of recent months. Trauma I, who's being made out as bruiser, caught Terry in a leg lock and there was a fantastic reaction shot from Dr. Cerebro. The move spelled trouble and sure enough the technicos took the first fall.

Terry spent the rest of the match looking to get even and he did something of a number on the Trauma's arm. Trauma basically fought with one arm the rest of the way and was almost too consistent with his selling. I'm not sure if he tweaked something, but he hasn't been a noted seller to date. Cerebro Negro, on the other hand, did appear to tweak his neck from a Trauma II hold. He was attended to by the ring doctor while guys stood around brawling, and the match pretty much lost its shape, which must be the upteenth time I've written that about an IWRG trios.

Anyway, the upshot of all this to-ing and fro-ing was some miscommunication between the technicos and Zatura copped an earful afterwards. I'm starting to lose track of all the beefs in IWRG and God knows if any of them will ever be resolved. If the Trauma arm mangling was an angle, I'm assuming the return of Poppa Bear can't be too far off, but the tag against the Guerreras was on the show after this, so stay tuned kiddies!