This was a commission, this one coming from Ko-fi contributor Carlos O. You can be like them and pay me to write about all types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/match or thing or $10 for anything over an hour or something you only want me to see/write about because it sucks, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi.
This was a quarterfinal match in the Ruleta de la Muerte tournament, where the losers would advance to the finals, and in which the finals would be a mask vs. mask match.
In defense of the reader who paid for this, it ought to be noted that they paid for the entire tournament. I know I have some real sicko readers out there and, historically, people have paid money for me to write about some real bad stuff (no idea what enjoyment you get out of this, but hey, go for it). There’s a reason I’ve gone on record asking for double for anything someone knows is genuine punishment. Based on some of the other matches in this tournament I watched and really really liked, this is not that, by any means. I am choosing to believe that a nice man maybe got the sense I would like the finals and others (I do!) and went, “fuck it, why not pay for the whole thing?”, which given the extra $10-15 that came with that and probably bought me some beer or a pizza or something, I absolutely appreciate and encourage.
However, as I prefer to cover things on a match by match basis, it starts here.
Shape vs. Ultimo is not very good.
I doubt it ever would have been.
Both of these guys have had like a hot year or two in their careers, the first two seasons of Lucha Underground for Pentagon Jr. and 1996-7 for Ultimo Dragon, and they have milked the shit out of them ever since. You get it a little more with the old man, due to injuries and age, but this is like year twenty four or twenty five of him not being what he was and riding on the memory of that. Penta is much more of a guy who was in the exact right place at the exact right time, maybe the biggest beneficiary of Lucha Underground being taped and edited and written like that of anyone else, who has enough of a live presence and coolness to him to get at least another near ten years (and counting) off of that. Neither is what I would have called a great wrestler at their peak, so much as those who benefited from great systems and great opponents, and in 2022, god damn are those peaks over.
That isn’t to say this is a bad match.
I do not hate it.
However, they are very clearly just running through some stuff for a while here, with Penta holding back on a lot of the bigger stuff he can do against an older guy who probably can’t take a MADE IN JAPAN or big moves on the apron, before Ultimo wins with the Asai DDT. It feels not only rude to mock this or insult it, but also just as pointless. It is what it is, and if you expected anything beyond that, you simply do not live in reality.
I know from viewing experience that the tournament will get much much better than this, but a real dull start here from two wrestlers who really know how to coast.
HANDWERK 