Sort of by the numbers for a title match, but then it's these two in 1990 so by the numbers is still very watchable. I thought Emilio was really fun here as he slowly lost his grip on proceedings. He didn't dominate the first caida as such, but he won it decisively in the end and you could tell he smelled blood by the way he celebrated. Then he let Azteca back into the game in the segunda - or Azteca fought his way back into it - and by the tercera he was beginning to unravel. In the primera he was willing to take a step back and regroup, where losing an exchange wasn't so critical and a mistake unlikely to be the difference between winning and losing. In the tercera, with the match on a knife edge, you could see him getting desperate. For a rudo like Emilio that meant pleading with the ref', adamant that Azteca had fouled him while everyone else in the arena saw it for what it was. A rudo starting out clean and confident before slipping into his true nature over the course of a match is a play we've seen a million times, but it's a timeless sort of theater and Emilio does it as well as anyone. More than a wonderful pro-wrestler, that man was a thespian. For Azteca, most of what he was doing early in the year kind of feels like a warm-up for the Dandy feud. It's not like he's treading water, but if you've seen the Dandy stuff then it's hard not to compare everything else to it. And not a ton compares (of course I'm hyped to check out the June match again for the first time in a decade).
Pierroth Jr. v Mogur (CMLL, 1/12/90)
This struck me as more of a fully-formed title match, though I'm not really sure how to quantify that. I guess it felt like everything carried more weight, like the impact of what they were doing was greater. Or something or other. It took me a minute to get into the primera but once I did I wasn't looking back. I've never thought of Pierroth as a mat worker. It's not that I'd have called him a bad one, it's just not the first thing that comes to mind if you bring up Pierroth. He was impressive in this, though. The mat work wasn't especially slick and it certainly wasn't tricked out, but it was rough and every time someone grabbed an arm it looked super tight. Mogur's arm wringers were brutal and Pierroth took a handful of bumps straight onto his shoulder. It was a fall that had plenty of time to build and they used that time wisely. The tercera followed suit and they upped the drama appropriately, with Mogur's dive looking sloppy and desperate and an awesome fight over a tapatia. I also loved Pierroth's low blow in the segunda. A good shot to the balls will go a long way with me and this was subtle enough that you probably missed it in real time, but on replay it was clear as day. I've always loved Pierroth and this was a side of him we didn't get to see too often. The title match, I mean. The low blow was nothing new.
1990 CMLL Project
This struck me as more of a fully-formed title match, though I'm not really sure how to quantify that. I guess it felt like everything carried more weight, like the impact of what they were doing was greater. Or something or other. It took me a minute to get into the primera but once I did I wasn't looking back. I've never thought of Pierroth as a mat worker. It's not that I'd have called him a bad one, it's just not the first thing that comes to mind if you bring up Pierroth. He was impressive in this, though. The mat work wasn't especially slick and it certainly wasn't tricked out, but it was rough and every time someone grabbed an arm it looked super tight. Mogur's arm wringers were brutal and Pierroth took a handful of bumps straight onto his shoulder. It was a fall that had plenty of time to build and they used that time wisely. The tercera followed suit and they upped the drama appropriately, with Mogur's dive looking sloppy and desperate and an awesome fight over a tapatia. I also loved Pierroth's low blow in the segunda. A good shot to the balls will go a long way with me and this was subtle enough that you probably missed it in real time, but on replay it was clear as day. I've always loved Pierroth and this was a side of him we didn't get to see too often. The title match, I mean. The low blow was nothing new.
1990 CMLL Project
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