The Last Time Virus Couldn't Buy Some Shit He Can't Remember, the Last Time He Fucked the World He Might've Bust a Sinner

Damiancito El Guerrero v Cicloncito Ramirez (CMLL, 1/7/97) - EPIC

Still tremendous. I think watching this for the first time a decade ago, the freshness of it and the fact more people hadn't cottoned on to its greatness probably played a part in how thoroughly I was blown away by it. I guess lucha is still the most niche of niche in terms of what internet wrestling fans are talking about, but by 2019 we've had the 90s yearbooks and the 80s lucha set and the footage explosion of those godly YouTubers putting up shit we never knew existed. Even if there's far less lucha-driven discussion online than New Japan or NXT or maybe even modern joshi, there's certainly more of a spotlight on it now than there was fifteen years ago. In 2009 I think I'd only ever seen this brought up by OJ on his PWO blog. Nobody had comp'd it and Virus was still a couple years away from that 2011 renaissance making everyone want to go back and watch everything he ever did. Watching it then was notable for me not just because it was an awesome wrestling match, but because it shaped a lot of what I would come to look for in lucha title matches going forward. I still find myself judging matches against it to this day, and by now I'm pretty well settled on what my own idea of great wrestling is. Some of the matwork is still absolutely world class. Fluid, scrappy, graceful, a little of everything. It's one thing pulling out a bunch of gorgeous reversals but it's the struggle and fight over holds that really push it over the top. There are a few times were they'll do something I've never seen before - like Damiancito reversing a wishbone into a camel clutch - and then they'll punctuate the ground exchanges with bursts of rope running and armdrags or springboards. It felt like all through the match they were establishing Cicloncito as the superior flier and that it would be his route to victory. The best example of that came at the end of the primera when he hit a spectacular springboard rana where he leapt backwards over Damiancito's head. They kept that theme running into the segunda and there was one extended sequence that had about seven awesome moments strung together. Plus the finish to the fall was one of those preposterous submissions that reminds you you're watching a fucking lucha title match. If we're holding this to the same standard as the true all-time classics - and I am - then I guess the two big dives in the tercera never carried quite as much weight as they should've, maybe because they moved past them a bit quickly, but the dives themselves were humongous and Ramirez really lived up to the name with that bullet tope. I never expected to come out of this again thinking it's the best match ever, and that's about how it went, but it absolutely held up like I hoped it would and I'd still easily call it a MOTD-level bout. It's only fair given the post-match celebration.


Complete & Accurate Virus