Man Hechicero might be the best wrestler in the world right now. I thought this was another terrific match, in some of the same ways their first match was terrific but also different enough that it stands on its own. This was also like 20 minutes shorter which, look, I tip my hat to you for having a 37-minute-long wrestling match in 2025 that held my attention the whole time but you don't need to do that on the regular if you don't feel like it. Don't do anything stupid on my account, mate. Anyhow it started with more nice matwork and I liked the fight over the surfboard, how they both tried to use ankle control using their own leg to maneuver the other's and turn them onto their front. It led to a stalemate trading holds, which in turn led to a stalemate from trading pin attempts, and that led to a third stalemate after some rope-running exchanges. Perhaps after one match there is nothing left for these two to learn about the other. You can learn a lot in 37 minutes, apparently. You could boil about eight eggs in 37 minutes, one at a time. Or maybe Bandido just underestimated Hechicero's ability to SOAR because the big fella's dive to take over was absolutely spectacular. This was far too graceful for such a bulky individual and he cleared the ropes like a man half his size might. That was also a cool role reversal from their first match when it was Bandido who took the early advantage with a tope. Hechicero is ultra aggressive working from above, smashing shut the ring barricade on Bandido's arm in one of the nastier versions of that I've seen in ages. The arm work for the next few minutes is really good and Bandido sells it all well in the moment, hanging it by his side like those hammerlocks around the ring ropes have pulled it out the socket. I liked him trying to hit the press slam before immediately realising it's a nonsense of an idea. Hechicero tries to legdrop Bandido across the barricade and his bump when Bandido moves is ludicrous. This was all hamstrings and then he splats the back of his head on the floor. Bandido hits a shooting star press off the apron, then follows up with a press slam with full arm extension and a 450 where he uses his arms to generate momentum and we're thinking oh okay that was a nice bit of selling for a minute there but I guess he's fine now. At that point I figured they were done with the arm stuff and that was that. Bandido sold it like it was completely useless and when that happens midway through a match I tend to be skeptical that they can be consistent with it the rest of the way. He went too big too soon. There's too much stuff to be run through and hit cleanly in today's world of excess - GLUTTONY, you might say - for me to think someone would wrestle half a match with only one arm. How are you supposed to hit those suplexes or do those springboards and such? So I made peace with it and they did a bit of stuff around Hechicero having a bad knee, which made sense because I could certainly buy him struggling to walk after that missed legdrop. It prevents him from capitalising on the Conjuro and he hurt himself almost as much as he hurt Bandido with the high knee in the corner. Then Hechicero went back to the arm by trying to snap every ligament in Bandido's shoulder, and fair play to our man Bandido because this time he does work the rest of the match with one arm. The medic comes out to check on him, they really play up the idea that he might not be able to continue, and there was not one second of the finishing run where you forgot that Bandido was operating with only one good arm. Hechicero was a dog going after a bone, hammerlocking the arm with his feet and falling back to yank it at a repulsive angle. Bandido hitting the one-armed GTS thing looked awesome and this genuinely might be the only time I've seen a reverse rana where the guy taking it only used one arm to stop himself landing on his own neck. He couldn't hit his elaborate German suplex finisher thing so in the end he had to improvise with a roll-up, and even then he used his legs and one good arm to keep it held. Would the arm injury have worked even better if they'd kept it a focal point the whole time? I mean probably, yeah. It was inconsistent, sure. Seeing someone go from being maimed one minute to moving about fine the next will always be jarring. Immersion-breaking and all that. When they stopped bothering with it to begin with I never would've expected them to go back to it. But for the last part of the match Bandido sold that arm about as well as I've seen in a long time. If I never knew any better - and really I don't, let's be frank - I'd have said he'd dislocated the thing for real. Bandido as the world's best 2020s Rick Martel is a cool and unexpected twist and I'm absolutely here for it.
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