CMLL
Arena Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico)
Hair vs. Hair
This was an awesome hair match with both Rush and Shocker bringing tons of intensity and violence to the table.
I love Rush’s angry lockups to start things off. How he jumps into the lockup gets over the stakes of the match and rivalry right away without coming off like it is forced. Rush is always intense and stiff but he really ramps it up an extra notch here. He jumps and stomps on Shocker with complete abandon to the point of cutting up Shocker around his left eye. The corner dropkick was delivered with his usual intensity and just everything he did was appropriately and justifiably violent. Shocker doesn’t always wrestle with the same level of stiffness and anger that Rush does, but he stepped up here as well with some stiff clotheslines and other offerings. Most of all, he took a heck of a beating.
The mirror endings to the first two falls were great, as was Shocker opening up the second fall by trying to steal straight falls with the same move that won him the first. The dueling topes near the start of the match looked great with Shocker maybe even one-upping Rush in that regard.
Wrestling is all about context and while a German suplex on the ramp might have my eye-rolling in a different match, the one Shocker delivers here worked perfectly given the style they were working and what was at stake. I think my favorite part of the match was the immediate aftermath of the ramp suplex. Shocker sits up with this half-glazed over, half “yea, I just did that” look in his eyes. When he stands up you can see the cut below the eye and how one side of his singlet is ripped. If Rush driving his boots into Shocker’s head with no regard for his well-being didn’t give you the message, than that scene surely drove home the point that this match was a war.
The near fall section was good. The back-and-forth big move finales that populate big singles CMLL matches these days work much better with the hard-hitting style Shocker and Rush wrestled as opposed to – for example – the big high flying move style that a La Sombra and Volador Jr. work. Rush’s senton is great and if it weren’t for his corner dropkick, it would be my favorite move of his.
This was wrestled like you feel a hair match should be wrestled and the execution was pretty darn good to boot. An excellent match all the way around.
Diagnostics
Hair vs. Hair | Must Watch | Quality & Hype
