Into the Modern CMLL: Barbaro Cavernario!

Mascara Dorada v Barbaro Cavernario (CMLL, 1/19/24)

This started with about two minutes of grappling, so more than nearly anything else I've seen from a modern CMLL title match. Actually grappling might be generous, it was mostly on the feet, but it was good and there's an art to that standing hold-trading as well. This was a really fun Barbaro Cavernario performance. It's been ages since I've even watched him and he couldn't decide if he wanted to behave himself or turn into a mask-ripping wildman, so in the end we got a bit of both. His energy was through the roof and he was throwing some major bombs, real caveman shit including the most caveman move of all according to the textbooks, that being a bullet tope through the corner buckles in the primera. He had everything in hand in that first fall, then he crashed and missed and Dorada took the fall with his SSP, a lesson hard learned for our man Barbaro: these young guys can flip a script in no time. Dorada is a mere sprout at this stage and maybe needed to be led through parts of this, his hesitancy obvious now and then, but Cavernario was pretty well up to it. Again though, when Dorada has the chance to do some spectacular shit he'll deliver and some of this felt like an insanely athletic young guy just coming out and riffing during the dunk contest. The Mac McClung of CMLL, some would say. He could string together some highlight reel offence to swing the tide, and he even played into Cavernario's hands at one point by uncorking an overhand chop that would've made Hashimoto wince. They had a ton of ideas in the tercera and things maybe got a touch bloated, but I also never found myself actively hoping that the next nearfall would be the last so maybe that's something? They fought on the top turnbuckles and slapped each other so hard Dorada's torn mask nearly flew off, then Cavernario eats BUCKETS of shit on an apron brainbuster that I thought was reserved only for the seventh match from the top on an AEW PPV. Eventually Cavernario says fuck it and rips Dorada's mask off and I wouldn't be 100% truthful if I said I didn't feel a wee bit robbed after however long this lasted. Either the caveman slays his prey or the acrobat ties the caveman in knots. Even if I liked the premise of it fine, a non-finish is sort of a letdown at the end of it all. Then again, maybe I'd have done the same in Cavernario's fur-lined shoes.