[1997-03-04-CMLL] Atlantis vs Black Warrior

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This wasn't as transcendent as my favorite lucha title matches, but I still found plenty here to enjoy and thought this was excellent nonetheless. Atlantis's repeated return to the cross armbreaker was excellent, and all the nifty legwork and pin attempts in the third fall was pretty cool. The last few minutes of nearfall attempts brought some much needed drama to a match that had some great exchanges, but didn't really have many strong momentum shifts to go with it before that. Something is keeping this from being a great match and it's hard to place my finger on, but I'd still say this is highly worth watching and really good. 1990 El Dandy may have permanently spoiled me on matches like this, to a point where there's no return.

[Childs]

I'm not even sure this was a good match. It bored the shit out of me, and I generally like lucha title matches. Their timing was really poor at various points, with one guy standing around waiting for the other to hit his move. That surprised me, because I think of Atlantis as an unusually smooth worker.

[soup23]

Sort of reminded me of Chigusa vs. Ozaki in that something was just missing from this being a great match. I also thought like in that match that Atlantis was way better than black Warrior in this match. The third caida especially had some interesting work on the legs and the finish was satisfying. Fun watch.

[Kevin Ridge]

I liked the opening opening exchanges but the first fall came too fast. We get a super close up of some young girl ringside picking her nose. That was hilarious. Couldn’t hold my full attention as match went on though.

[Robert S]

The ref here counts pin-attempts much more like a US or Japanese ref than the usual Lucha refs do and therefore (I guess) I was pretty into the final fall here.

[PeteF3]

This was pretty good, but the opening two falls were kind of meandering. Some beautiful mat wrestling to be found, but none of it seemed to mean anything or go anywhere. Where this picks up is with Black Warrior putting on a nifty leg submission to win the second fall. He goes back to the legs a few times in the third fall, which finally gives some meaning to the matwork, and we get some hot near-falls before Atlantis takes a risk and pays for it, allowing Warrior to clamp on a nudo for the submission and title. There were still some really awkward spots that Chad pointed out--not once, but twice Atlantis vaulted up on the turnbuckle for no reason than to set up Warrior's spot. I don't know whose fault it was, but it looked bad and looked even worse when they did it a second time. Warrior had some pretty takedowns at some points and looked clumsy in others. This is a good match, but you'll find better lucha title matches elsewhere.

[Zenjo]

It was inescapable that Atlantis was a much better wrestler than his opponent. Both in actual ability and how they worked this. He comfortably took the primera and 2-0 looked like a genuine possibility. Black/Orange Warrior just managed to hold on and came back into it with a nifty counter that damaged the leg. In a really clever piece of match psychology it was this leg injury that was the catalyst for the eventual upset. The underdog had a lucky break and thus won in a logical manner.

 

Now on the downside Black Warrior was only midcard ability by CMLL standards of the time. Plus the action almost ground to a standstill at the start of the tercera. But the ending was most satisfying, and that counts for a lot.

[Matt D]

This popped online earlier tonight. It's a very interesting match because so much DIDN'T work smoothly. I wholeheartedly believe that it was due to a skill gap but it made everything seem very gritty and full of struggle to me. I don't know if the match earned it but, to me, it certainly had it. I wish Warrior was able to take a longer stretch, especially after the assault on the leg to start the tercera. I don't know. I don't get any sense you guys saw the same grittiness i saw, some of which might have been real life frustration from Atlantis. Anyone else want to take a look?

[cad]

I didn't feel like there was any part where Atlantis looked legitimately upset. I thought that for the first two falls they were going for the idea of Warrior frustrating Atlantis by constantly breaking up the action by grabbing the ropes or going to the outside, and then in the third there were some spots where they were sort of groping around trying to find where to go next. Warrior seemed to have an off night, but it's not like the guy was way beneath Atlantis' level.

 

I agree that this was a match that was more interesting than good or bad. Atlantis doesn't lose many one on one matches from this era, and it was interesting seeing him as the veteran in the match, too. They were really putting Warrior over strong around this time.