[1998-04-21-CMLL] Felino vs Karloff Lagarde Jr

[Jetlag]

Man, 1998 was truely the year of GOOD MATWORK. Felino is an ultra talented dude who gets overlooked because he is mainly in the ring with overshadowing all time greats, but once you stop ogling the Hijo del Santos and Negro Casases around him and focus on him you notice he is a top notch wrestler of his own. Felino was just a beast on the mat here. A CMLL title match is bound to be technical and have some matwork, but I didn't expect him to grind Karloff down like he did here. Working full mount and nasty half nelsons. I guess with a guy like Karloff Lagarde Jr. you can't really do the same complex and beautiful sequences you normally would, so Felino decided to just do a bunch of real grappling with minimum cooperation required. Karloff seemingly accidentally catches a cool leglock and does the neat thing where he steps on Felino's foot, so for a moment I thought the dude may be talented, but then he started goofing around and not knowing what to do when Felino went to par terre and expected him to work some amateur moves of his own. It almost seemed like a bit of a rib to expose the poor geek, and the finishes to the 2^nd and 3^rd fall weren't anything that gets the blood pumping. Still Felino was up there with the Mile Zrnos and Mariko Yoshidas as far as kickass matworkers of 1998 go. I wonder what was being said after the match.

[alexoblivion]

For those interested in this match, I would recommend comparing it to their trios match from March 6th to see what a motivated Felino could do with Lagarde. Nothing earth shattering, but Felino is much more giving in it and goes out of his way to establish Lagarde as a threat who is capable of grounding him at will.