Aerostar vs. Taiji Ishimori vs. Drago vs. El Hijo del Fantasma, Impact Wrestling (5/10/2018)

Fireworks.

Despite that in real life, I do not get anything out of actual fireworks shows anymore and really haven’t since I was a teenager, I always have time for a good fireworks show in wrestling. Throw some sick dives and cool moves out of the air at me in a tight little package and more often than not, I am going to be pretty happy. It might not always be great in some bullshit star rating sort of a way, and this match does not quite achieve what the six man tag the week prior did, but it’s a lot of fun to watch three real exciting wrestlers show off their wares for a while.

Taiji Ishimori is also in this match.

Andrew Everett/DJZ/Dezmond Xavier vs. Aerostar/Drago/El Hijo del Fantasma, Impact Wrestling (5/3/2018)

People who need their wrestling to be smart or grounded or thoughtful every time out to enjoy something, avert your eyes. This is all bright lights, loud flashes, and incredibly cool combinations of both. One for the perverts.

It is a match packed full of incredibly cool and occasionally super inventive offense, carried off cleanly, and constructed in such a way that they get the most out of pretty much everything that they do. A lot of times, these matches can become really boring if I’ve seen some of the bits even like once or twice before, but this was rarely ever a match that I stopped paying attention too.

One could say more about it, talk in further detail about spectacular bumping, go in deeper depth on the construction of the thing and how they plugged a lot of the holes a match like this could have had, the strength of solid television editing, the precision of all six and how vital that total cohesion was to this working, all of that. However, like I didn’t exactly watch this match to see a display of grappling or some deep display of narrative excellence or deep wrestling psychology, I don’t think you clicked on this specific review for anything all that wordy either. Sometimes, a review ought to match the thing it’s for, and so I’ll leave it there. This was just a God damned blast.

Purely and simply, it whipped ass.

The best Lucha Underground match of 2018 so far.

***

Fenix vs. Aerostar vs. Drago, Lucha Underground 3×07 ~ “PAYBACK TIME” (10/19/2016)

This was to determine who enters AZTEC WARFARE III at number twenty, with the losers then also being barred from the match.

It is an absolute blast.

Drago wins with the DDT Destroyer on Aerostar, whatever, this is only like ten percent about the finish of the match, and way more about the body of the thing, and the body of the thing whips so much ass.

Ten minutes or so of some incredibly cool spots. That’s it. Sick dives and hard kicks and a bunch of real sick shit off the top rope. Fenix bleeds a little from the nose and white gear stained red is objectively perfect, even in small amounts. Mostly though, it’s just that when executed perfectly and placed in the right context (not over fifteen minutes usually), matches like these are virtually always a whole lot of fun.

Not all great matches are great for reasons that one can write a lot about.

Instinctively, I think that you, The Reader, knew that if this was going to be a great match, that it would be a great match for very specific reasons, and you were a thousand percent correct. It was and it was.

This match rocks so much because they let three absolute lunatics go wild, and then did things to elevate the match they could naturally create. That means the company either edited it down to a reasonable length (while also likely trimming a lot of stuff that maybe wasn’t 100% perfect looking), restricted them in the first place, or some combination of both. It’s a great match for some real obvious and stupid reasons, but there’s also a lesson in this that’s largely gone ignored ever since this show went off the air.

***

 

Bullet Club (AJ Styles/The Young Bucks) vs. Team AAA (Aero Star/Drago/Fenix), CHIKARA King of Trios 2015 Night Three (9/6/2015)

This was the final of the 2015 King of Trios tournament.

At the time, this was regarded as something of a disappointment, and so I had actually never seen it until right now (or, October 20th, 2015, for those reading in the future).

While I won’t go that far, it’s not hard to see why other people thought that. Combine the killer run that AJ and the Bucks had been on as a trio and as individual acts and pair it up against the Lucha Underground trio only a month after that landmark first season came to an end AND given the hype their recent PWG weekend had garnered. People seemed to expect some all time barnburner, but it’s 2015, and nobody on this level is going to go nuts in CHIKARA anymore. That’s kind of the trade off. You maybe only get this in CHIKARA, but you still get the sort of a house show effort that stars are going to put in on a 2015 CHIKARA show.

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad match though or that it’s not a good little match.

Not getting the hardest effort version of a thing doesn’t mean the thing you do get is inherently bad.

This is no epic, but it is just a fun little match with a nice story to tell.

I’ve always been someone very interested in house show or smaller show level performances from guys, mostly because of how revealing they are. Who gives a shit and who doesn’t, but also the ways in which that’s reflected in the match. While neither AJ or the Bucks are breaking out a lot of dives or things off the top, or doing much beyond a B level heel performance, that’s still really good. The Bucks bother less with the schtick now, stooge a lot, and AJ joins them in that. It’s a fun change of pace for the usually very serious AJ Styles at this point, stooging and playing a fool early on like he hasn’t in a while.

As they’ve spent all weekend demonstrating, the three luchadors once again have a much more interesting and effective match when faced with this contrast. The Bullet Club team is better than any other at repeatedly stifling them, leaping on each new entry into the match as they come on, but having to do more and more each time to stop them. Eventually, they can’t. The kicker is then that, for the first time in the tournament, it’s not immediately over within a minute or two of Team AAA finally getting free and loose and going wild. It’s not a perfect match, but it is picture perfect tournament wrestling, building up something for three matches and then giving the biggest challenge yet in the finals.

The final third or so is pretty awesome, if not out of this world great. You don’t get EVERYTHING, but there’s still a lot, and almost all of it is very very fun. Some unfortunate slip ups do happen, but they’re all covered up especially well, typically by an all-time master at hiding the mistakes of faster junior heavyweights in AJ Styles. The Bullet Club team succeeds in the ways they always do, but they’re always cut off before the second or third thing in a row. The key is what it always is, and that’s splitting the Bucks apart in crucial moments. The luchador contingent is able to do that, and after doing their crowding spots to Nick Jackson, Fenix uses the rope walk springboard 450 Splash to win.

If not all that it could be, still a more coherent and thus better match than virtually every other time that Fenix and the Bucks met. Having never expected anything going in, it’s a match that did more for me than I would have imagined.

three boy

Nightmare Warriors (Hallowicked/Frightmare/Silver Ant) vs. Team AAA (Aero Star/Drago/Fenix), CHIKARA King of Trios 2015 Night Two (9/5/2015)

This was a quarterfinal match in the 2015 King of Trios tournament.

Hallowicked and Frightmare EVIL (the moral state, not the wrestler) now, and they’ve dragged poor Silver Ant slowly down with them after they’ve been forced to team together for some reason. It’s CHIKARA bullshit. I don’t actually know. I lost track around 2012ish and zombie CHIKARA rarely offers anywhere near the quality of wrestling that inspired me to watch in spite of all of the goofy comic book nonsense that I don’t love, so I’m not even going to pretend to know.

That’s not the point though.

Once again, the Lucha Underground team shines far more in CHIKARA than in any other U.S. independent environment. Things get a little dance fighty with Frightmare, but Hallowicked and Silver Ant are both phenomenal bases for all of the wilder impulses that the outside stars come up with. Beyond that, Silver Ant especially shines when the match asks them to try and contain the heroes, as every single thing he does looks tremendous and always fits into the perfect place in the match. Hallowicked isn’t quite that, and sadly is a guy who seems to go as CHIKARA goes (great from 2005-2013ish, more average after that). That isn’t to say he’s bad here, but there’s a real kind of baseline feeling to everything he does, especially compared to everything he’s proven able of in the past. All very basic, which is less offensive here than in a title match, both because the match calls for it and because Silver Ant is so great at leading the match for their side.

For the second time in as many days, the point is made that the crazier flying feels much more uproarious when there’s a sense of victory to it happening in the first place. The stuff Drago, Aero Star, and Fenix can do will always be phenomenal but when they have to fight to get it off against bigger guys who want very much for the match not to devolve into a fireworks show, the match devolving into a fireworks show in and of itself feels like a victory, instead of having something that begins like that and never wavers in tone or pace for the next ten or twenty minutes or whatever. Styles make fights, and the success of a match like this compared to the matches had by the LU contingent elsewhere on the independents is proof of that.

The CHIKARA guys are once again at a near total loss when they begin to get bombed out from the sky above. Silver Ant gets hit by an Aero Star outside-in middle rope vault over the top into a splash, followed by Fenix’s gorgeous rope walk springboard 450 Splash, and that’s that.

Another super fun outing from the Temple exiles in CHIKARA, clearly at home in a place just as evil.

***

Team AAA (Aero Star/Drago/Fenix) vs. The Gentlemans Club (Chuck Taylor/Drew Gulak/Swamp Monster), CHIKARA King of Trios 2015 Night One (9/4/2015)

This was a 1st Round match in the 2015 King of Trios tournament.

While mode of the plaudits for the immediate independent run of the Lucha Underground contingent went to the tag team match the week prior in PWG, I find this to be a far more interesting and enjoyable experience.

To start off, every single member of the Gentleman’s Club is better than Pentagon Jr., and that helps. Primarily though, it’s that styles make fights and it’s now more impressive for the masked men to pull off a similar level of stunt show against a team that doesn’t do that. Gulak and Taylor are both tremendous foils and decent bases, and then obviously Swamp Monster is the greatest wrestler alive. It’s not exactly a match filled with struggle, but there is some battle over the AAA team getting to do all of their most extravagant offense and drown the Gentleman’s Club, while Our Heroes both badly want them not to and are wholly incapable of stopping the boat from taking on water forever.

It’s not much, it’s minimally great if great all, but it’s also the sort of match that ages beautifully when compared to the more ambitious efforts. Lower aiming, but it means that there’s almost no moment here that feels out of place or that hurts the match, while still hitting most of the same highs.

There’s a lesson here.

(Obviously, that lesson is that the Swamp Monster is the greatest luchador of all time, and could have saved Lucha Underground had they set later seasons around the Swamp Monster and not Sexy Star, John Morrison, and Jack Swagger.)

***

Aero Star/Fenix vs. Pentagon Jr./Drago, PWG Battle of Los Angeles 2015 Stage Two (8/29/2015)

Much like the Ospreay/Andrews match the night before, it’s the sort of wrestling that doesn’t age all that well.

A match based around cool tricks that loses the majority of its value after years of seeing the same tricks repeated over and over. Many of those matches are worse than this and a few are better, but that’s less praise for this match than it is scorn for the body of work that the Lucha Brothers have collected since this match (especially compared to their solo work). It’s the sort of wrestling that holds up really only if there remains an efficiency, neatness, and seamless nature when the novelty is removed, and unfortunately this is an overlong and sloppy match with visible seams all over the place.

Above all, a great commentary on why Lucha Underground matches were edited and presented the way they were, and on why the best work from many Lucha Underground wrestlers came in such an environment.

 

Aerostar/Drago/Fenix vs. Son of Havoc/Ivelisse/Angelico, Lucha Underground 1×22 ~ “MASK VS. MASK” (4/8/2015)

This was a trios title tournament match.

It’s one of a few ultimate showcases of Lucha Underground and all that it was able to do.

First of all, the booking.

This is a match with two teams that have issues with each other. The Mexican superteam’s infighting is confined to Drago and Aerostar alone, near the end of their Best of Five Series. Fenix tries to get them on the same page throughout the match, briefly succeeding, before inevitably failing to do so.

The other case of major dysfunction here is perhaps the greatest thing Lucha Underground ever managed to accomplish. The ultimate testament to Lucha Underground that they threw this Son of Havoc, Angelico, & Ivelisse trio together as part of a failing love triangle storyline with three people who as individuals, were midcarders at best and that it worked out as well as it did. They never stop arguing with each other throughout the match, rarely tag each other intentionally if at all, and never once seem like a real team. Each of them wants to do the coolest thing and always wants to be in the ring, trying to break out. However, there’s something weirdly charming about the whole thing, this combination of a classic sports movie team of oddballs story combined with some screwball love triangle story that’s resolved through violence. It’s not exactly THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, but what is?

Throughout the match, both stories are impressively furthered through the match, each without stepping on the toes of the other. The superteam is able to get moving first before the rivalry rears its head into public sight, and when it does, the oddball competitiveness of Lucha Underground’s Bad News Bears allows them to suddenly have a real chance, and it’s weirdly exciting? I never imagined myself cheering for M-Dogg 20, Angelico, and Ivelisse, but here we are. Who am I to question it? (: the Lucha Underground story). Most charming of all is the end, where Ivelisse tries to screw the team by leaving, only for Aerostar and Drago to self destruct once again, allowing Son of Havoc to win in spite of his own team.

This is usually where I say this is a lovely piece of classic wrestling booking, but it isn’t. It’s not. It’s something pretty new, at least pulled off as well as this does in a match this great, and that’s even more exciting.

To the second point, it’s just a god damned BLAST.

That’s maybe the most impressive thing here, that they pulled off the balancing act as well as they did. Not only balancing the two different storylines in a way that almost never works as well as it does here, but managing to do all of that and still deliver an absolute banger like this. A hundred cool things and fifty even cooler ones. It’s especially miraculous because one team in this match is not exactly lighting the world on fire. There’s a reason Angelico has been hot dogshit everywhere else he’s gone before and since Lucha Underground, and that’s like 40% booking and 60% the magic of television editing. You can say the same for everyone in this match, with only Fenix even being arguable. It’s a magic thing they do here, in this match, and in general.

It shouldn’t work, but it does. It really really really works, even if it 100% sounds like bullshit to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

The sort of match that could only ever work in Lucha Underground.

***1/4

Aerostar vs. Drago, Lucha Underground 1×19 ~ “GRAVE CONSEQUENCES” (3/18/2015)

hell yeah dude

***