Felino

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Matt D]

Incredibly agile when he was young. Incredibly gross now that he's old.

[ohtani's jacket]

Had a couple of good years in the late 90s, but kind of overrated in retrospect. Recently when I watch him it seems like he's trying too hard to be charismatic.

[cad]

Probably my biggest gainer in the last six years. If you'd asked me last time, I'd have said that Felino was all flash, or the Jan Brady of the Casas family, or a worker who knew no subtlety but only big bombs, or the architect of a disappointing series of matches against Hijo del Santo, or a guy who tried his hardest to look fast while wrestling methodically, or a dumbass furry, or the man who sent Ciclon Ramirez's career into a swandive, something along those lines. It's not like I've been entirely disabused of these opinions since then. When you think of the defining Felino moment, it's gotta be the 1997 cibernetico when he eliminates five men in a row to win. Even there they'd done something similar back in 1989, with Angel Azteca and a two on one deficit, which worked about as well. It just required a bit of elegance to make it seem like a superhuman comeback, rather than a genuinely superhuman effort that needed some thought in order to seem vaguely realistic. Felino always preferred to turn his matches all the way up to ten though.

Between 2016 and now someone uploaded Felino vs Santo from Monterrey to Youtube, and I thought, okay, maybe that feud wasn't a waste. And Felino vs Dr. Cerebro showed up, another excellent title match. What really did it for me was when his match with Mascara Magica appeared. That one ran four falls and thirty five minutes, a tough proposition under any circumstances and especially with an opponent wrestling the first big match of his career. Felino more or less lost three of those falls, but instead of sulking or trying to save face he guided MM through the ups and downs of a title match, putting the young tecnico in position to show off the things that he did well and making him look like the better man throughout. That's one of the hardest things to do in wrestling, to have the skill and dramatic presence to work a captivating technical match, and after I got that Felino was capable of it, I went into his matches with a little more respect for his ability. And instead of looking for hammy acting I looked for things that impressed me, and once I started to look for them I began to find them. Now I have Felino as a dark horse candidate for the best worker in 1996 CMLL, and I'm more interested in him than in his older brother for the back half of the '90s. Does this make him one of the 100 best wrestlers ever? I don't know. He's the best wrestler ever to pantomime kicking kitty litter over a beaten opponent.

Matches:
Felino, Halcon Negro and Arkangel vs Los Rebeldes de Jalisco (rudos vs rudos with a fired up comeback from Felino)
Felino vs Mascara Magica (this is his magnum opus, IMO)
Felino, Scorpio Jr. and Black Warrior vs Fiera, Dandy and Negro Casas (you get to see Felino's sense of humor and rudo nastiness)
Felino vs El Hijo del Santo (1998)
Felino vs Dr. Cerebro (not actually online as far as I know)

[Reel]

I don't see myself ever being a Felino voter, but:

a) I think his post-prime has been much better than one would expect. I thought he had a pretty good last year in the absolute vacuum of interest that was CMLL

and

b) if you're a 'on their best night' person, which I think is a bad way to make a list but to each their own, the cibernetico is a very high peak.