JvK reviews pimped matches from late 90s-10s

[supremebve]

I don't think language has a huge amount to do with it because the example of Japanese wrestling is right there for a lot of us.

 

To me Japanese wrestling and US wrestling are really quite similar in terms of the working styles and if you look at the intertwined histories of wrestling in both countries, I think it's pretty clear to see that. Yes, some superficial differences in terms of emphais on faces and heels / real sports focus, but other than that I think they are really similar. Closer than US wrestling is to old British wrestling, for example (in terms of the working style).

 

World of Sport, I can imagine can be jarring for some. Being British myself and just clicking instantly with the feel and setting of the place certainly helps for me, but there the working style is pretty different. Not just the round system, but also in terms of the sorts of moves they do. There are a lot of head throws and slams that aren't really slams, and things like that. Not conventional wrestling moves like suplexes or piledrivers. The mat work they do is also a bit different, there is a bigger emphasis on the escape, and the sorts of sequences you see are quite a long way from your average Dory Funk Jr 70s match. But ... there is still enough cross over with the wrestling I know best for everything still to be recognisably "pro wrestling". Having terrific heels like Jim Breaks or Mick McManus about also helps. And you could say language is a factor there, because Kent Walton being such a stickler for the rules and fairness is an integral part of that package.

 

But Lucha has always felt to me like a whole different ball game. A lot of your standard wrestling logic is just ... different. I've often felt like even the laws of physics seem different in lucha. Like a back drop is more "floaty". Matwork feels ... different. So much of what happens feels exhibtion-y or like a gorified form of "showing off" -- more like dancing than having a fight. And these elements all coalesce to make it hard to get excited about, especially for a guy who was always pretty down on high flyers.

 

I mean, I was pretty HIGH on a lot of the 80s Lucha set stuff I watched but finding the will to pick up the next disc was very hard. Like, I did think MS-1 vs. Chicana was a 5-star match, but I didn't find it stayed with me much -- like Chad had that top 6, I think, in the "transcendent GOAT candidate" category, whereas I had it 33 as one of my lower ranked 5-star matches. When you are struggling to connect with something, it isn't easy to keep on going, it's like wading through treacle, and it doesn't take a lot to kill one's enthusiasm.

 

It feels like of all the styles, lucha has by far the highest entry barriers. One reason why I am keeping going with it is because somewhere in my head I'm thinking "well, if I can get into it, it will show that practically anyone can". Maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't. I'd prefer people not to shout at me while I'm in the process though.

 

It seems like lucha is one thing that people are unusually protective of and defensive about -- much much moreso than other things I've been extremely critical of (see 00s indy stuff) -- and perhaps one of the reasons for that is that historically it has struggled to get over with a lot of fans, and not that many are into it, so people prefer a narrative of positivity and praise around it. Contrast that with WWE where a lot of the narrative is negativity and criticism, it's alright to bash that because it's over with everyone. I dunno if that's the reason, but that's what I see. Another reason might be because I don't have a clue about lucha and might be saying stuff people have read a million times before. Whatever, but I am trying.

I also find it very hard to understand lucha, as a style it just doesn't seem to connect with me. Unlike you I'm a big fan of high flyers, the 90s New Japan Jr. division is right up there with the 90s All Japan heavyweight division in my view. I think my biggest problem with the style is that everything seems to lack impact. I think the key to good wrestling is selling, but in the lucha I've watched selling seems to take a back seat to offense. They other thing that stops me from connecting with lucha matches is the lack of emphasis on transitions. I'll be watching a match and one of the workers will be taking a beating and the next thing I know he is on offense. I'll have to rewind it to see what happened that turned the tide of the match, and sometimes it was nothing. After taking a beating for a while the other guy just hit a move and took over. Of all the wrestling I've watched over the years, lucha is the only style that I can't seem to understand. There are a few lucha matches I really like, but they are few and far between. I'm going to continue watching lucha from time to time, because I love wrestling, but I really have a hard time trying to connect with the matches.

[Sean Liska]

Let's not act like lucha isn't tougher to get into. Big lucha shows happen right across our border, we used to get multiple hours on national cable every week. And it's never had the following in the hardcore fan community that puro has. People were more willing to drive to Japanese supermarkets to watch 3-week old puro in the 90's than to just watch Galavision. It's never had any real traction here outside of when Dave went crazy for AAA in the mid-90's and kind of with the Mistico peak.

 

I say that as a big fan. But it's not like people who struggle with it just aren't trying hard enough. It's tough.

[JerryvonKramer]

Are the grandma attending an Arena Mexico show and a Kerry Von Erich fangirl really that different? Wrestling is simple. Lucha submissions aren't any less goofy than WOS cartwheels. Dandy vs Pirata Morgan and Lawler vs Dundee use the same ideas. Ditto Casas/Santo (title match version) and Flair/Steamboat.

I'm sure there have been plenty of matches without crowd heat you've enjoyed greatly. Don't see how that would be a problem in high end lucha really.

Right but this argument is the exact opposite one from leaving all my preconceived notions about wrestling at the door. Here you are saying "hey it's not so different from the wrestling you know". I'm a little confused by the progression of these posts.

[JerryvonKramer]

[might be an idea to split all this Lucha talk off into its own thread, because it will be buried here in my reviews and likewise the reviews themselves will be buried by this discussion, which I think has been intersting]

[fxnj]

Is JvK really a guy who doesn't get lucha, or is it just the modern CMLL and AAA he doesn't get? The fact that he considers MS-1/Sangre Chicana a ***** match yet can't can't get into more recent matches and can point out specific things about them that he doesn't like tells me it's a problem with the promotional style than something to do with cultural bias like other posters have implied. As I said, there is so much more shit there it doesn't make sense to limit yourself to just the big promotions that have a very vision for how they want their guys working. It's like watching Attitude Era WWE and thinking American wrestling is all about crowd brawling and overbooking.

[Bierschwale]

Just... just watch Hechicero-Lucero.

[JerryvonKramer]

Does remind me that I will get to the time-stamp thing on Dandy vs. Azteca for OJ.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't think language has a huge amount to do with it because the example of Japanese wrestling is right there for a lot of us.

 

To me Japanese wrestling and US wrestling are really quite similar in terms of the working styles and if you look at the intertwined histories of wrestling in both countries, I think it's pretty clear to see that. Yes, some superficial differences in terms of emphais on faces and heels / real sports focus, but other than that I think they are really similar. Closer than US wrestling is to old British wrestling, for example (in terms of the working style).

 

World of Sport, I can imagine can be jarring for some. Being British myself and just clicking instantly with the feel and setting of the place certainly helps for me, but there the working style is pretty different. Not just the round system, but also in terms of the sorts of moves they do. There are a lot of head throws and slams that aren't really slams, and things like that. Not conventional wrestling moves like suplexes or piledrivers. The mat work they do is also a bit different, there is a bigger emphasis on the escape, and the sorts of sequences you see are quite a long way from your average Dory Funk Jr 70s match. But ... there is still enough cross over with the wrestling I know best for everything still to be recognisably "pro wrestling". Having terrific heels like Jim Breaks or Mick McManus about also helps. And you could say language is a factor there, because Kent Walton being such a stickler for the rules and fairness is an integral part of that package.

 

But Lucha has always felt to me like a whole different ball game. A lot of your standard wrestling logic is just ... different. I've often felt like even the laws of physics seem different in lucha. Like a back drop is more "floaty". Matwork feels ... different. So much of what happens feels exhibtion-y or like a gorified form of "showing off" -- more like dancing than having a fight. And these elements all coalesce to make it hard to get excited about, especially for a guy who was always pretty down on high flyers.

 

I mean, I was pretty HIGH on a lot of the 80s Lucha set stuff I watched but finding the will to pick up the next disc was very hard. Like, I did think MS-1 vs. Chicana was a 5-star match, but I didn't find it stayed with me much -- like Chad had that top 6, I think, in the "transcendent GOAT candidate" category, whereas I had it 33 as one of my lower ranked 5-star matches. When you are struggling to connect with something, it isn't easy to keep on going, it's like wading through treacle, and it doesn't take a lot to kill one's enthusiasm.

 

It feels like of all the styles, lucha has by far the highest entry barriers. One reason why I am keeping going with it is because somewhere in my head I'm thinking "well, if I can get into it, it will show that practically anyone can". Maybe I'll get there, maybe I won't. I'd prefer people not to shout at me while I'm in the process though.

 

It seems like lucha is one thing that people are unusually protective of and defensive about -- much much moreso than other things I've been extremely critical of (see 00s indy stuff) -- and perhaps one of the reasons for that is that historically it has struggled to get over with a lot of fans, and not that many are into it, so people prefer a narrative of positivity and praise around it. Contrast that with WWE where a lot of the narrative is negativity and criticism, it's alright to bash that because it's over with everyone. I dunno if that's the reason, but that's what I see. Another reason might be because I don't have a clue about lucha and might be saying stuff people have read a million times before. Whatever, but I am trying.

 

The language barrier becomes a factor when you're trying to work out what the hell is going on between Casas and his brother Felino in 1993 or what the Santo turn is all about. It's also a huge factor in trying to work out why two guys are feuding in a style where much of the footage is missing. Admittedly, it may not matter as much if you're watching a match here or there, and some of the biggest lucha fans are fluent in Spanish, but surely a massive chunk of psychology is understanding what's going on.

 

I agree that Japanese and US wrestling share similarities, but that's not much of a surprise. Attempts to introduce pro-wrestling to Japan failed before the McArthur occupation, and therefore it was a naturally adopted piece of "Americana" much like baseball or even jazz.

 

World of Sport is just as exhibition-y as lucha. If anything I'd say there are more similarities between WoS and lucha than WoS and American wrestling. Your gateway into WoS has been strong heel characters, but you can't seem to get your head around the fact that lucha is full of outstanding rudo workers. How are Breaks or McManus any better than Satanico, MS-1, Pirata Morgan, Emilio Charles Jr, Fuerza Guerrera, etc.? How can you argue that lucha is different from WoS when the dressing and undressing of holds in WoS is nothing like any other style of wrestling and the comedy acts routinely break the "third wall", so to speak?

 

I realise you don't like high flyers, but rudos don't fly. Casas doesn't fly. Wagner doesn't fly. Nobody's suggesting you watch lucha where there's an abundance of high flying. They're suggesting you seek out stuff that's similar to the Mocho Cota you enjoyed. You keep making out that guys like Cota are the exception to the rule when it comes to lucha, but they're not. Personally, I find it odd that you've watched so few WoS matches yet have a positive attitude toward it and watched more lucha bouts but take the stance that it's inaccessible.

 

IMO, if lucha has a high entry barrier it's because there's no-one to tell people want to watch. Japanese wrestling has been pimped for so long that people can tell you want you need to watch, but lucha fandom is still in its infancy. It's growing, but it's nothing like jdw laying out the 90s All Japan matches we should watch. Hell, if the DVDVR guys hadn't reviewed some of Alfredo's 1990 tapes, lucha fandom would probably be stuck in the dark ages.

 

People are always defensive of the things they like. There's nothing special about lucha in that regard. When I first came online, people were defensive of the WWF. When I first got into Japanese wrestling, people were defensive of it. They used to call people "elitists" if they preferred Japanese wrestling over American wrestling. Joshi fans had to defend their genre of choice. Spotfest fans were always on the defensive. On and on it goes. If I've been defensive in this thread it's because I don't think your criticisms are fair. I don't think watching a cibernetico and making out like you're constantly flummoxed by the rules is fair when you can easily researching what's going on, and I can't understand how you're unable to recognise repeated aspects of the form in trios matches, title bouts and wager matches when you can easily do so in other forms of wrestling. But at the end of the day nobody's saying you have to like lucha. There's no point making a fuss out of it.

[Matt D]

Alright, I have a lot to say, and some of this I've been meaning to get put down somewhere for a while.

 

I had a hard time with lucha. I had enjoyed the process of the AWA 80s set so much that I wanted to get right on board with lucha even though I was extremely unfamiliar with it, and I struggled through the first few discs on the set. By the time I hit disc 5, I started to feel like I had a little sense of what I was watching, enough so that I wanted to spin off and start writing things up for Segunda Caida. The #1 rule I had, however, was not to just jump to the best stuff. Why watch the best stuff before you have an understanding of what you're watching? When you do that, you don't have an accurate baseline, or your baseline becomes MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana. I wanted to watch a number of different situations from a number of different years, and I tried to avoid singles matches until I understood more of what built up to them.

 

And Parv, I did exactly what you'd do in this situation. I watched matches, I took notes, and I started to look for patterns. In doing so, I figured out some things about at least the CMLL style of lucha. (And even then I admit that I lose some context with my language gaps, but you can learn a lot, in general, from how the matches are worked).

 

Let's start with this. Here's what you don't need to know about lucha.

 

In trios matches, there are captains.

To win a fall, either the captain has to get pinned/submitted or the other two members of the team have to.

If someone is knocked out of the ring or dives out, a partner can replace him.

Babyfaces are tecnicos. Heels are Rudos. It's not exactly a 1 to 1 correlation.

A backbreaker is called a quebradora.

A tope con giro is some sort of flippy spinny dive thing.

The first fall is the primera. The second fall is the segunda. The third fall is the tercera.

 

That's what someone does not need to know about lucha. Why? Because you know that stuff already and it doesn't really matter all that much. Mike Tenay told us all that years ago as if it was all that mattered. It's not important on a real narrative level and you know it anyway.

 

Here's what you need to know about trios matches.

 

Trios matches have a point. Almost everything done in a trios match has a purpose. Almost every trios match has an internal narrative, some central theme that it's pushing forward. Usually that's a feud between two wrestlers, though CMLL's booking or lack there of means not always. Sometimes they're the captains, sometimes they're not. All of the wrestlers are generally paired up against each other in the beginning, though those pairings can shift. The match will almost always end with a refocusing towards the key pairing.

 

That's what late match dives are for, by the way. Dives, in trios terceras, are generally to clear the ring and set up the last exchange between the key players, to put the exclamation point on the match. The dives aren't the end. They're a means to the end. This actually inverts the standard southern tag formula which usually ends with a hot tag and everyone in the ring as things break down. Then in the unfocused chaos, either the babyfaces triumph or the heels do something underhanded to win. Lucha trios matches are generally the opposite of that with things becoming refocused after a fairly chaotic tercera.

 

That brings things back to structure. This style is about build and payoff. The tercera, as I just mentioned, is about a build to the dives and that last exchange. In a lot of ways, the rest of the match is the build to the tercera. There are only a few ways these matches are generally structured and once you understand these patterns, understanding lucha becomes a lot easier.

 

A ) The tecnicos and the rudos start out the match in a feeling out process with pairings, matwork, and fast exchanges. The tecnicos have a general advantage. Eventually, the rudos have enough and opportunistically swarm the ring starting the beatdown. Or the tecnicos can win the first fall and that swarming starts in the segunda.

 

Or

 

B )The rudos ambush the tecnicos from the get go and immediately start the beatdown.

 

That's pretty much it. The beatdown is your heat and works one of two ways. Either A ) all of the rudos are in the ring at once and they churn through the tecnicos using a numbers game, with the tecnicos cycling in. Rarely do you have it so that the tecnicos are shown to be all recovered at once. They won't be waiting on the apron but instead they'll convalesce on the floor (Volador had a match this last weekend where he was hanging out on the apron for way too long during his partner getting beat down 2 on 1 and it drove me nuts because you never see it). The more over tecnicos will know to fight back a bit but ultimately keep getting overwhelmed. Or B ) after taking the advantage, one rudo stays in the ring for the most part, beating on one tecnico. So long as this happens, they can play more face-in-peril style. The rudos will cycle in and occasionally, after a long beating, a tecnico might roll out and another will take the heat.

 

These matches are about broad momentum shifts. They are about the mandate of heaven shifting. So whether the rudos started the beatdown in the primera or the segunda, generally in the subsequent fall, the tecnicos will come back. This is usually due to the rudos going to a well once too often, getting too cocky, or through basic miscommunication. Often times, it'll be through one tecnico dodging or reversing a move in the ring and the other two flying in, or brawling on the outside, and will often involve a revenge spot, whether that is a posting or mask ripping or whatever, some quick shine, and then a tying up of the falls (unless the tecnicos were already ahead, in which case move on to the next paragraph).

 

This usually leads to a reset where everyone pairs off again, one at a time. This involves a lot of quick, logical cut offs, a chance for everyone to show off their offense, and usually some more tecnico shine as they fight against the odds. All of that builds back to the dives and then to the finish, usually between the two luchadores most focused, and with some ending that will bridge to whatever (usually similar) match they are running the next week, and occasionally to an eventual singles match.

 

That's not every trios match, but if you come in with that framework, that model, as a tool for understanding what you're seeing, to see how it fits and how it matches and what the variation is, then it's much harder to get lost.

 

You can do the same thing with wager matches or title matches.

[JerryvonKramer]

Thanks Matt, tremendously helpful post!

[ohtani's jacket]

One thing I'll add to Matt's post is that the falls generally overlap. If the tecnicos win they opening fall, they'll generally dominate the opening minutes of the second fall until the rudos make their comeback, and vice versa. Since most matches are 2/3 falls, the wrestlers can lengthen or shorten the falls to create different sorts of rhythms. Generally speaking, the traditional format is a decent length opening fall, a short return fall, and a lengthy back and forward deciding fall, but workers can play around with the form. Occasionally, there will be an opening fall that looks for all money like it's a "rudo fall" but they pull a twist and have the tecnicos win. There's also a huge difference between a brawling trios, a comedy trios and a technical one, as you can probably imagine. Trios matches are almost never great for their own sake. They're almost always appetizers for a future match whether it's a short program or some far off meeting. The best trios have an issue between workers w/ the partners playing a supporting role and working mini subplots that contrast/compliment the main thread. 95% of all trios matches are perfunctory. I would dearly love for there to be a laundry list of great trios matches, but in reality there's been a handful of great ones and a bunch of really good pre-apuesta match build up. If you stacked up the best All Japan six mans along CMLL from say 1990 to 1992, you'd be hard pressed to find too many CMLL matches that compare to the best Jumbo vs. Misawa bouts (if any, really), but you would find a bunch of awesome lead in matches to some pretty great title and wager matches. That's a big point of departure, I think, because trios matches aren't really great for the sake of being great.

[JerryvonKramer]

One thing I've noticed in the 2/3 falls singles matches is that the first fall can come very suddenly after 10 minutes or so, and then the second fall is often directly after it, like 2 minutes instant reply to even up 1-1. And the third fall is longer.

 

Could just be sampling bias, but I've seen a fair few matches now that conform to that general patternover the past year or so. This isn't actually all that different from 2/3 falls in 70s All Japan or your standard Harley Race title defense (it's almost always 1-0, 1-1, 2-1), it just that that second fall is much more truncated and sudden in the Lucha.

[ohtani's jacket]

You can usually tell when the finish to the first fall is coming. It they've been on the mat they'll stand up and start working the ropes or whipping each other into the turnbuckle. If they've gone through two rounds of exchanges in a trios match (changing partners the second time) then the fall is neigh, and if's a brawling match then the beatdown reaches a natural crescendo. The second fall is often a short retaliatory fall before the all important third fall, but there are different degrees to how well that's done.

[Childs]

Does it ever bother you guys that the trios structure can feel so pre-ordained that the struggle over the primera and segunda feels minimized or even non-existent? I found that was something I accepted over time but that hung me up in my early attempts to grasp the rhythm of lucha. I felt like no one was trying to win the match until the tercera.

 

Of course, we could criticize many (even most?) wrestlers in many styles for paying scant attention to the early parts of matches.

[Matt D]

Emotionally, I often lean towards getting the beatdown started early. I understand that the matwork and the early exchanges are the whole appeal to many people and much of where the mastery is, but for me much of the appeal of lucha is the visceral moment of the comeback, and the raising of tension to make that moment sing. That's kind of what I meant about Sangre Chicana vs MS-1 being a bit of a skeleton key. Almost every lucha trios has that to some degree, but the balance is different, and I much prefer matches where the meat is in the beatdown. That's true with most of us here and Southern Tags too though, I think.

 

I know I took flack for loving all of the early Ingobernables trios last year where they ambushed and started with a beatdown week after week while everyone was going nuts over the Busca spotfests instead.

[JerryvonKramer]

Emotionally, I often lean towards getting the beatdown started early.

Pretty interesting given your Stan Hansen criticisms, Matt.

[Matt D]

The Hansen criticism is not because I want a ten minute shine. I will elaborate in a little while.

[Matt D]

Alright, let's give this a go.

 

Context matters. In fact, the exact criticism I have for Hansen is something I praise Eadie for in 1988, where the babyface inmates were running the crappy match asylum. Even then, while he really made said babyfaces work for anything they could get during the shine, it was still very much a shine and when it was time to give on the comeback, he gave in a huge way. Hansen never gave so much as other people were able to increasingly take from him (in an environment where some more giving would have been lovely in general) and I think the give and take is important in wrestling.

 

With lucha, it's the ebb and flow. Tension or pressure is how I like to describe it (as I did above), where I like the gauge to build and build until the crowd and the viewer is ready to explode. You can use the Jake metaphor but it's not quite the same. Instead of teasing and teasing a comeback and cutting off, it's more like an increasingly loud hum, where the amount of violence (in total) constantly ticks up and the rudos get more arrogant and dickish, more rudo you could say, and that leads to glorious and often poetic, if temporary, comeuppance, when that mandate of heaven DOES shift and the tecnicos come back.

 

Someone tell me if any of that makes sense.

[dawho5]

Great run of posts here! I'm going to have to remember where this is before I jump into the lucha set. Thank you for doing this Matt.

[ohtani's jacket]

Does it ever bother you guys that the trios structure can feel so pre-ordained that the struggle over the primera and segunda feels minimized or even non-existent? I found that was something I accepted over time but that hung me up in my early attempts to grasp the rhythm of lucha. I felt like no one was trying to win the match until the tercera.

 

Of course, we could criticize many (even most?) wrestlers in many styles for paying scant attention to the early parts of matches.

 

I think trios wrestling can be boring a lot of the time and part of that is the predictability of the opening falls. But I think when you get used to lucha, the primera caida is like chapter 1 or the first quarter of a game. It sets the tone for how the rest of the match will go. I agree with Matt that it's probably better when the rudos win the primera and the tecnicos are forced to make a comeback in the next caida, but on the whole I'd say any problems there are have more to do with uninspired work than the structures themselves. Oftentimes when the caidas are the same length, or the segunda is long, the rhythm seems out of step. For new fans, I think the partners flooding the ring and getting pinned or submitted in succession is far more disconcerting because that's hugely choreographed and doesn't make a lot of sense compared to the wrestling we're used to. All I can say about that is you have to accept it for what it is and appreciate the times when it's well done, which it can be if the workers are in sync.

[jdw]

The review of Santito vs Rey makes my head hurt.

[JerryvonKramer]

The review of Santito vs Rey makes my head hurt.

Care to elaborate?

[Goodear]

I feel like I've spent a great deal of time trying to enjoy CMLL/AAA in vain despite not enjoying the process with a few exceptions (Rush, Negro Casas, I've enjoyed Pentagon Jr. in indy matches). I've tried a lot of the hyped performers (Blue Panther, Satanico, El Dandy) and still cannot get into it. I don't want to throw up my hands and say its just not for me because it feels like surrendering to the consensus that people that don't like the style just don't get it. I feel like I understand it. I just don't like it.

 

 

Everything feels so generic and rote from a structure perspective that it loses any sense of urgency or importance. The fact that Matt is able to accurately describe 95% of trios matches is not a good thing because it illustrates such a rigidness to the form. That the characters in CMLL/AAA all feel the need to jam themselves into the same formula is a weakness that hurts their characters. The wrestling caveman shouldn't be working the same heat segments as the wrestling evil wizard. But the structure is so rigid that it reduces them to component parts. To take the dance metaphor in a different direction, CMLL/AAA feels like a series of waltzes all taking the same exact steps as opposed to freshening it up with a rumba or fox trot. I don't know dancing.

 

Rudos tend to work the same heel tricks like swarming, mask ripping, biting or faking low blows. It takes away their uniqueness that there isn't really a change of pace like having a Stan Hansen to work heel underneath a Ric Flair in a different fashion. They are too wrapped up in the CMLL/AAA lucha box. Technicos are almost entirely reactive and have even less personality than the generic bad guys. They wait around to have bad things happen to them and come off impotent in the face of cheating or cheating referees.

 

The momentum shifts feel arbitrary. I'm going to punch you back ala Jerry Lawler works when you have the fire Jerry does. When you have the nuance that Jerry does telling you that he's just about of had enough of this. Then then strap comes down and off we go. I don't feel this from the faces in CMLL/AAA the vast majority of the time.

[El-P]

Everything feels so generic and rote from a structure perspective that it loses any sense of urgency or importance. (…) That the characters in CMLL/AAA all feel the need to jam themselves into the same formula is a weakness that hurts their characters. The wrestling caveman shouldn't be working the same heat segments as the wrestling evil wizard. But the structure is so rigid that it reduces them to component parts. (…)

 

Rudos tend to work the same heel tricks like swarming, mask ripping, biting or faking low blows. It takes away their uniqueness that there isn't really a change of pace like having a Stan Hansen to work heel underneath a Ric Flair in a different fashion. They are too wrapped up in the CMLL/AAA lucha box. Technicos are almost entirely reactive and have even less personality than the generic bad guys. They wait around to have bad things happen to them and come off impotent in the face of cheating or cheating referees.

 

The momentum shifts feel arbitrary.

 

A lot of this describes pretty accurately how I felt when I tried to watch lucha trios match. The arbitrary momentum shifting, the drab pacing, the rigid samey structure, the generic feel. The way the announcer speak never helped either. I always got a lot more out of single mathes whenever I tried lucha (for the last GWE poll for instance), maybe because it's worked in a way that is closer to US style, I dunno. But yeah, those trios matches, never got it. That will forever be the one part of pro-wrestling I never got into (european style I have no problem with).

[ohtani's jacket]

There are different ways to work a trios match. The reason they're generic is because they're repetitive. The vast majority of lucha matches are trios matches and therefore your mileage varies just as it does with every other style. The majority of all wrestling is boring, disappointing and generic. As fans we're looking for the moments of greatness and lucha is no different. Great lucha exists. It may exist in lesser quantity than your favourite style, but it exists. Goodear says lucha gets painted into the same box and then says it should be similar to Lawler pulling the strap down, which as far as I can tell is painting it into a box. The idea that no tecnico has ever given a fired up performance is strange to me just as the argument that Satanico is no different from Wagner or Emilio or Fuerza or Casas. There is a general concept of rudoism in lucha, but those workers were their own men. The idea of there being wrestling cavemen or wizards is odd to me. I don't think we're meant to take the gimmicks that literally. How the hell is a wizard meant to wrestle if that's the case?