Virus

[bennyowens]

I've been watching some more of his work as a mini since the watch party, having not seen any before, and its absolutely adding to his case. 

Where do people generally rank him among the best minis of all time? Masacarita Sagrada is the only obvious one I can think of being better than him from my limited viewing 

[Grimmas]

27 minutes ago, bennyowens said:

I've been watching some more of his work as a mini since the watch party, having not seen any before, and its absolutely adding to his case. 

Where do people generally rank him among the best minis of all time? Masacarita Sagrada is the only obvious one I can think of being better than him from my limited viewing 

Mascarita Doraga (El Torito) is the greatest imo.

[KB8]

Virus was my number 36 in 2016, but I think by 2021 he makes it into the top 30. Part of that is because he's had some stuff since the last poll that has been great, but also because I plan on going back to watch some of the period between 1997, where he had one of the best title matches ever and one of the best trios match ever, and 2011, where he burst back onto the scene with the Guerrero Maya Jr. match and made us all sit up and take notice. He might be my favourite mat worker in lucha history and we have footage of him working ridiculously fast, state-of-the-art ground exchanges with guys like Cicloncito Ramirez as well as slowed down maestro exchanges with Black Terry and Negro Navarro, and pretty much anything else in between. Obviously he has a laundry list of awesome title matches, often against guys who have never had as good a match against anybody else in their lives, but he's also a consistently awesome trios worker and someone over the last 10 years that I'll watch in any setting. I don't knock him for not having a grizzly brawl with blood-drinking and guys hitting reckless topes into the sixth row. He's never been in a position to do that so it's hard to ding someone for it. If he DID have a bunch of matches like that (and I guess there's time for it yet; he's still only a sprightly 52 years of age) then maybe he'd be a top 15 candidate rather than a top 30 candidate...but it is what it is (I'm also not trying to create a strawman here, because I don't think people are actively criticising him or knocking him down the list specifically because he has no wild hair matches). That said, the Fly Star match from 2019 is excellent and in the middle of it we get as close a look at bloody apuesta match Virus as we've probably ever gotten, and I can only surmise based on that portion of that one match that Virus would have been an amazing old school apuestas worker. So top 30 minimum, maybe top 20. Bailiff, take him away.

 

VIRUS YOU SHOULD WATCH:

v Cicloncito Ramirez (CMLL, 1/7/97)

w/El Fierito & Pierrothito v Cicloncito Ramirez, Mascarita Magica & Bracito de Oro (CMLL, 10/3/97)

v Ricky Marvin (CMLL, 12/12/00)

v Guerrero Maya Jr. (CMLL, 6/7/11)

v Blue Panther (CMLL, 5/12/13)

v Guerrero Maya Jr. (CMLL, 10/6/13)

w/Hechicero & Cachorro v Negro Casas, Barbaro Cavernario & Dragon Lee (CMLL, 5/23/14)

v Dragon Lee (CMLL, 4/5/15)

v Metalico (CMLL, 5/31/19)

v Fly Star (Lucha Memes, 6/29/19)

[Matt D]

We have five years to delve into Virus' 00s, especially that 00-10 period that I think is underexamined in general. I put it through the match finder and found that there was actually a hair match he had in 07 vs Tony Rivera that made tape and it's actually online thanks to Cubs. I bet most people haven't seen it, so here it is:

Spoiler

 

I hadn't seen it so I gave it a quick look. I think it bodes well for 07 Virus in general, but it also makes it an absolute shame that we don't have more meaningful singles matches from this period:

This isn't the 23 minutes that the video indicates as there are a bunch of bits hyping up Del Rio included, but past the start of the segunda and tercera, you don't get the sense it was clipped too much. It's good. I think it's especially a good Virus performance. The primera goes way too quickly with an immediate missed dive by Rivera (a pretty nasty one at that, made even worse by the insult to injury of a Kemonito pratfall graphic announcing that it's the primera) overlaid upon it. They accomplish a lot in a minute or two after that, with Virus foreshadowing his facebuster with a failed attempt before hitting it a few moves later so he can lock in a submission. I liked the segunda as it felt fairly unique. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I haven't seen quite enough mid-card singles matches in 06. The idea was that Rivera would keep kicking Virus off when he tried to put on a submission (or get a roll up) and the disruption of momentum felt like hope spots in a way you rarely get in lucha. It also felt like desperation which, because they weren't exactly bringing the hate, helped create a more proper apuestas feel. Virus' punches looked really good both here and in the tercera, which is not something I usually think about with him. There was also a fairly spectacular spot where he caught Rivera when he was flying in with a lightning-fast whipping arm drag. Throughout, Rivera was definitely game but he wasn't the most graceful guy in the world, even if I thought Virus based well for him, especially on the two dives that did hit. The tercera could have gone another rotation or two (and again we might have missed a bit with the clipping) but the nearfalls were exciting. Virus had an awesome little spot where he hit an armdrag by stepping up from the floor to the apron and then lost the advantage shortly thereafter by gloating too much about it in the ring. The finish had the necessary oomph but also a crystal clear mechanical precision by Virus as he shifted one movement into the next. Overall, you'd want this to bring just a bit more hate given the stakes but it had more weight to it than a title match would have, and it's a really good look at a bridging sort of Virus where had had more athleticism than he'd bring in the 10s but still had the making of a maestro.

[cad]

I watched a lot of Virus over the past couple of months. One of the most important matches of his career that hasn't been listed here is the February 1996 match where he won the minis title from Mascarita Magica. He'd been good before that, pretty much from the moment he debuted on TV, but it was in the Psicosis high energy mold of rudo. When they decided to trust him with a belt, it seemed to open the door for him to start laying out entire matches to showcase his technical ability and basically start wrestling like Virus. He wasn't yet a fully formed or actualized worker for that legendary 1997 run, but he was like a young Michael Jordan or Roberto Duran in that he could dominate at such an early stage in his career because of how athletically gifted he was and how quickly he grasped the game. That led to a graduation from the mini division, which he probably viewed as a major personal triumph but changed him from the main man in all his matches to a small fish in a big pond. For the next ten years Virus chugged along and worked hard and occasionally got a showcase match thrown his way. His big outings didn't get a bunch of time, and the most interesting thing about this period was that he wrestled tecnico for a few years. I actually think that his understated personality and the way that he defines himself through his skill play better as a tecnico, even if I understand why they've never tried that again. Anyway, for some reason, with Virus kicking around in his early forties, they decided to give him his own trio and another big spotlight title run. Now, the Cancerberos are nonexistent in Virus canon (if you do a search on this site for "cancerberos" you get two efed posts and three posts by me, and I'm telling you right now I don't know any more about them than you do). That championship reign, though, is just as big a part of his legacy as his 1997, maybe even bigger. He was no longer wrestling peers or contemporaries, but this to me represented Virus as a final product, still a top worker physically and now with much stronger ideas about how to take the audience on a roller coaster ride with a title match. It wasn't the end of him, either. He has produced some excellent work since then and still may have more to come.

Virus has been a good worker for thirty years (TV debut in August 1992) at minimum. He tries hard even away from Arena Mexico, and that consistency plus the sheer number of great matches is a killer combination maybe unmatched. For me, the one knock on him is that he has a small personality for a worker of his stature. It's not that he doesn't have charisma. He does, but it's the kind that's based on his ability and the fans' knowledge of what he's done, kind of like Atlantis. But he also isn't really the type to totally take over a 3v3, where the crowd is focusing about him even when he isn't really doing anything. In fact I don't know of a single superheated 3v3 Virus match. I'd put him in the Espanto Jr./Dr. Cerebro family of workers, supremely gifted rudos who aren't very loud characters, but he has a better resume than either of them (Panther is comparable too, but I just think Virus was more talented). Atlantis is a tecnico who has similar strengths, but I think Virus played a greater role in shaping his matches than Atlantis did. He barely made the top hundred in 2016. I don't think I'd rate him number one, but I think that's closer to being correct than a ranking of ninety-nine.

Other Virus matches:
Piratita Morgan II and Felinito vs Cicloncito Ramirez and Ultimo Dragoncito (his best match from his young days)
Damiancito el Guerrero vs Mascarita Magica (a major turning point in his career IMO)
Virus vs Fuego (one of the best defenses from his 2011-15 title reign)
Virus vs Dr. Cerebro (Virus in a genuine maestro match against a similarly skilled worker)

[KB8]

I watched the February '96 match with Mascarita Magica towards the end of last year and it really is excellent. I wouldn't put it quite on the level of Damiancito/Cicloncito the following year, but it wasn't a million miles off it either. I also don't think I've seen that particular Fuego match so that's cool as well. 

I'll still likely have him around my top 20.