[2000-01-11-CMLL] Emilio Charles Jr & Lizmark & Tinieblas Jr vs Bestia Salvaje & Scorpio Jr & Shocker

[soup23]

An old school tecnico team here. First fall follows suit with the rudos dominating. Shocker was a big deal around this time with his Guapo gimmick becoming a thing. Scorpio and Bestia are good seconds to have as they display the viciousness needed to succeed. Old guys mount a comeback and the crowd fires up some more. Emilio is the main foil for Shocker and it is a trip to see this scuzzy guy get cheered. Lizmark and Bestia have a good exchange on the outside with some nice chops from Lizmark. Second fall begins and the rudos are getting ridiculed pretty loudly by the crowd. Tinieblas has some size on him and displays some decent agility in the fall here with a leapfrog. Bestia gets caught giving a foul to Lizmark and that is that. Shocker is someone that had never impressed me and this didn't change things here as him and Emilio weren't able to have the real heated exchange needed to make the match successful overall. **1/4

[Grimmas]

Don't have much to add on top of what Chad said. A pretty average trios match here. **

[Loss]

Yeah, this was pretty average, but as someone whose lucha experience has largely been a Greatest Hits experience, I'm glad I'm seeing some week-to-week stuff like this as we go through this project. It's giving me a better idea of the bigger picture and allowing me to have a clearer picture of what a normal match looks like without having to dive into every single match from every single show. There's nothing wrong with this match, it's just not particularly memorable. Maybe that's a compliment -- if every match is memorable, then no match really is. For whatever it's worth, the fans are far more into this match than they were the technically superior match on 1/1.

[Tim Evans]

This was before the peak of Los Guapos so not much was going on in it. It's really weird seeing Emilio as a tecnico. I guess the big feud was Emilo vs Shocker that went on for a while during the Guapo days. Bestia is not as good as he was but is still decent. Tienblas just towers over everyone and looked the best out of the tecnicos. Not much to say about the match as it was just a normal semi main lucha match around the time. Not bad but not good either.

[AstroBoy]

Not too familiar with these teams. Shocker's charisma helps highlight a nice beating from the rudos in the first fall. Big comeback seemingly built around making Lizmark look fantastic. Tinieblas had some pretty bad offense in this but a nice ending as Bestia gets caught performing a low blow. This was fine as I look at every lucha match right now as a foundation in my overall understanding and appreciation of the style.

[KB8]

This was fairly but-the-numbers, but a by-the-numbers lucha trios is something I can sit through pretty easily and I guess I liked it a bit more than others have. I would've liked to see more of the Shocker/Emilio pairing since I'm assuming they were feuding at the time, but Shocker brought plenty of energy and I'll never not get a kick out of seeing full caveman Emilio punch someone in the mouth. Salvaje looked pretty broken down at points - the slingshot bump was kinda rough - but he has serious asshole charisma so people will always pop for the parts where he's getting knocked around (and at one point he took a nasty flat back bump out on the floor, so you can't really blame him for struggling with the slingshot). Tinieblas was just drilling guys with those Invader #1 style thrusts to the throat and Scorpio Jr. really leaned into one of them like a madman. Things like the Satanico/Tarzan Boy feud and everything Villano III/Atlantis-related rightfully get most of the press, but I'm glad we got a taste of what was going on down the card a bit, even if it was sort of forgettable on the whole.

[ohtani's jacket]

This was a perfectly fine trios match. I can understand being disappointed with it if you were expecting something special but oftentimes trios matches are more about the workers than the matches themselves. Here I was interested in seeing how Emilio would captain a tecnico team, how effective Scorpio Jr. could remain without a mask, and what, if anything, Lizmark could bring to a match in the year 2000. I expected it to be fairly one-sided, but they gave Lizmark the opportunity to shine here, which I was happy about. I liked Emilio's look here as well. He'd moved away from the Remy-inspired Hunter look to something a bit more suave.

[Moonsault Marvin]

This was an average trios match with meandering brawling. Tinieblas was one tall guy. Some power moves instead of dropkicks and flying body presses would have suited him better. Shocker stood out as having heel charisma.

[Sean Liska]

Standrad first fall rudo beatdown to start. Change from normal CMLL format – technicos make a comeback in the first fall, then rudos get back offense, then back to technicos. Good brawing at the end of the first fall, Salvaje takes a hard bump on the Arena Coliseo floor, he’s a gamer. Charles bringing fired up tecnico offense in the second fall, that’s new to me, I haven’t seen this era before. Really fun second fall with a bunch of cool sequenes. I’m looking forward to seeing more from this rudo team and Charles as a tecnico.

[Chess Knight]

Everyone seemed to be working pretty hard to keep the action coming without much of a break (other than the crowd taunting). Lizmark was 49 here and I guess he's one of THOSE "you're this mobile still, huh?" luchadores. I need to deep-dive on that guy. The tecnico comeback on the first fall was actually more violent than the rudo beat down; they were chucking the rudos into the ring posts and Lizmark even pulled Salvaje down onto the concrete. Felt kind of weird that they even did that in the first fall instead of leaving it for the second but hey I'm ok with it. Enjoyable match that I might have given like ****1/4 to if I watched it when i was new to lucha. As of now I thought it was perfectly all right. Maybe especially considering I haven't watched a match like this in a fairly long time.