So, it's the first day of 2017, and as usual I've done a piss-poor job of following the modern lucha scene as it happens. But in this day and age of YouTube playlists, there's no excuse to not get caught up.

I'm going to start with the Black Terry vs. Aeroboy apuesta match, which is where I left off last time.

Black Terry vs. Aeroboy (mask vs. hair, 6/10/16)

This was a nice, scuzzy apuesta match. I liked how they started fighting before Aeroboy had taken his jacket off just like in the good old days of yore. They ambled about a bit in the beginning despite Aeroboy hitting a nice looking tope; but as soon as both men were bleeding and Terry had his shirt off, it was another masterclass in how to have an indie apuesta match. Terry's forte is usually character work and brawling outside the ring. This was mostly worked between the ropes, and for an apuesta match, really only had a minimum of violence. What made it work was the stiffness.

These days when you watch a lucha indie match, you can choose from all sorts of different angles. It's almost like watching the special features on a DVD. I watched this match from three different angles, and it was the handheld footage that added the most. A complain complaint with lucha is that it's not worked stiffly enough, but when it's shot from ringside, you can really hear them lay their shots in. Terry's always been good at working offense exchanges with young professionals like Aeroboy, and he's able to draw on years of experience in laying out a bout; but it was the stiffness, and laying those shots in, that made this seem like an apuesta match and not some regular bout.

The submission work was also excellent. Terry, in particular, had a couple of pearlers. Both men sold them like death, and in the handheld footage you could hear them scream as soon as a submission was applied. Aeroboy only had one hold that he went to, but Terry was a maestro on the mat.

Stiffness, submissions, some well-worked offense exchanges; these were the ingredients of an apuesta match as honest as the blood that was shed. Blow-for-blow, it was everything it should be with a wager on the line. While I was watching this, I saw the highlights of the Wofan match, which looked amazing. I desperately need to see that match as it looks like a prime example of a Terry masterpiece, but Wofan is a different worker to Aeroboy. I thought Terry did an excellent job here of working to his opponent's strengths and adapting to what they're good at and how they prefer to work. What we're witnessing now feels like Terry Funks' 90s run in ECW and other indies and the work Funk did in that era with younger workers. Yep, Black Terry is fast becoming the Terry Funk of Mexico.