[1996-07-09-CMLL] La Fiera vs Kahoz

[Matt D]

Edit of my Segunda Caida review. Someone check this out (it's currently on youtube) and tell me if I'm way off in the comparison or not.

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This was a poor man's Sangre Chicana vs MS-1. That said, even a poor man's Sangre Chicana vs MS-1 is still a rich man's match.

I'm not entirely sure what the backstory was here. Kahoz had lost his mask to Shocker in 1995 (which seems very early for Shocker to pick up that sort of a win even if it was December and after he won the Gran Alternativa). I'm sure everyone knows that Kahoz was a gimmick that Pena himself had used but had given to Astro Rey in the 80s. I hadn't known that until now. Anyway, it doesn't look like there was a ton of build to this. It really doesn't matter.

This followed the beautifully minimalist Chicana vs MS-1 format, though here Fiera was a full tecnico. That meant that Kahoz took over early, spent long minutes beating Fiera to a pulp, bloodying him all around the ring and the ringside area. This was where Fiera shined, selling broadly, bleeding huge, drawing a ton of sympathy. There was little attempt to fight back but that just build up the pressure for the eventual comeback all the more. Kahoz ended the fall with three pick-up/drop downs in a row (which I'm not sure I've ever actually seen. He could have finished him but kept picking him up; more on that later), and a stepover submission. As a primera, it was just as good as MS-1 vs Chicana, I think, a bloody, brutal beating.

The segunda and tercera were still solid, even at times transcendent, but there just wasn't quite enough there to match the very best bloody one-sided brawls. In the moment, like with all Fiera tecnico performances, I kept waiting for the trademark spin-kick to signal the comeback. As a single move, it's not quite as good as Chicana's punch, but it's more stylized, flashier even if less visceral. He hit it early in the segunda, but not until countering a caught kick into an vicious enziguri. From there it was a short but utterly triumphant revenge beating, capped off with a picture perfect frog splash. The tercera was more of the same, awesome punches, blood and selling, a spot-on kick to the back of the head to send Kahoz to the floor followed by exactly the tope the match needed, all capping with a finish that called back to Kahoz arrogantly picking Fiera back up in the primera.

Like I said, if you like MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana, you'll probably like this too. Even though it's not as good, that's still as good a company as a hair match can be in.

[cad]

I've never found a way to accept how Fiera changed after returning to the tecnico side in '93. He spent 1992 fouling and chainwhipping the good guys, and then all of a sudden that violent side just disappeared. You'd think he could at least put the fear of death in his old rudo buddies when making his comebacks against them, but it didn't really happen that way. This is decisively NOT a match that challenges that perception of him, but what it does do is show how effective his approach to working tecnico could be.

 

He spent most of the first two falls selling. Some of it was a bit hammy, like when he tried to jog it off and collapsed, but it was clear that Fiera was in serious trouble so in the end it worked. Well, that in conjunction with the blood. When you spill so much blood that you're wiping it out of your eyes between falls, that goes a long way towards making it look like it's going to be a hell of a time trying to survive. Kahoz has always been one of my picks for most generic wrestler--and that's with his mask, here he didn't even have that--but he really gave it to Fiera here. He started off a bit methodical and got more vicious the longer the match went on and the closer Fiera came to the end. He even got some good sneers in on the ringside fans. Maybe losing the mask actually helped. Having one of the great bumpers taking his stuff made it all the better.

 

There was a typically CMLL-ish bit of controversy when, after Fiera tied the match with his spinkick and his still beautiful frogsplash, he collapsed in the corner and the doctor came over to see if the bloodloss was too much for him to be able to continue. Kahoz was ready to jump right back on him, but the referee held him back while the doctor inspected the cut, and in the end the doc just wiped the blood off and gave them the okay to keep going. If I were Kahoz I'd have thrown a fit over that, and sure enough in short order he was busted open too. Things were going great, with Fiera getting him right in the head with a tope and Kahoz bumping big off it, but not long after that came the finish. I really think that's what kept this from being a genuinely great match. It was a bit too soon, so it didn't feel like they'd really given all they had to give, but more than that it was just a terrible finish. Picking the guy up at two and then immediately getting pinned is always awful. I'm sure it was clever the first time someone did it, but every time since then it's just been a face saving copout. But most of all I just can't buy Fiera needing mercy to beat a guy like Kahoz. Fiera was a better wrestler, plain and simple. Hell, go back four years and he'd have pinned the man with one foot. Even with the beating, the selling, and the blood, Kahoz actually winning could never happen. There's no way Fiera had to steal one like that. Kahoz did dick all after this, so it's not like he needed the protecting, and he even had an out with the way the doctor handled things between falls.

 

This was still a hell of a job by both guys. Fiera's one of my favorites, but I'd never have thought he could have a match this good this late in his career against an opponent the caliber of Kahoz. And they did all this at Arena Coliseo, not exactly known for its brutal wager matches by this point in time. I seriously can't think of a better Arena Coliseo apuestas match, although I'm sure I'm forgetting something.