IWRG
Arena Naucalpan (Naucalpan de Juarez, Mexico)
IWRG sure got the short end of the stick when they were handing out 2000-era WCW wrestlers down there in Mexico. AAA has Konan running things, got a couple of years of Jeff Jarrett and even a recent AJ Styles appearance. CMLL (and AAA for a little while as well) got Mark Jindrak, who has developed a nice niche as Marco Corleone. And IWRG got stuck with a fat bald guy in track pants who claims to be Vamprio. Luckily, we can verify that he is telling the truth – the shitty spinning kicks are a dead giveaway. Even if Vampiro hadn’t morphed into this shell of his former self, IWRG still would have gotten the short end of the stick. In any era, Vampiro is no Jeff Jarrett or Mark Jindrak.
There are worse wrestlers active today than Vamprio, but perhaps nobody worse who is getting an actual upper card push. For some inexplicable reason, IWRG has dusted off their Heavyweight title (a title that people who know far more than me about Lucha have confirmed has never meant much) and given Vampiro a rocket push towards it. He spends the first two falls of this match brawling on the outside (if sitting in a chair and getting punched while sucking wind can be considered “brawling”) and not looking good at it. He does most of his ring work in the third fall, which includes the previously mentioned poor spin kicks.
Of course, Vampiro was never very good in the ring so it doesn’t mean much to state that he is not good now. Vampiro was a wrestler that got over largely based on look, which makes his recent push all the more baffling. Gone are the dreadlocks, leather jackets, and face paint to be replaced by a bald head and a t-shirt/track pants combo. If Vampiro no longer looks like Vampiro, then what is the point?
The rest of those wrestlers are looked better, although Lizmark didn’t seem to want to do much. Hijo de Dos Caras worked the majority of the match for the tecnicos and worked hard, but he is still a little rough around the edges. The tecnicos pick up the win by taking falls two and three. This sets up Vampiro vs. Pirata Morgan with the winner going onto face Cien Caras Jr. for the Heavyweight Championship.
Lucha Trios| Avoid | Individual Performance (Vampiro)
