Lucha. That's It.

Negro Navarro v El Engendro (NWG 2/16/03)
--Man I could see people who don't like lucha very much thinking nothing of this. First of all, it's almost entirely mat work, like, 99 decimal point %. Second, it's a little take-turn-ish, but if you're going to go your turn/my turn, I'd much rather it be used while exchanges some really sweet looking holds instead of 50 second periods of beat down, which none of this was. The ref was terrible with slow counts, too, but that's something even a lucha diehard would pick at. This is one fall for the Intercontinental Title and Navarro's the challenger, but he still manages to come across as the maestro of the two. Engendro held his own really, really well and they worked tremendous with the idea that "there's a hold for every counter and a counter for every hold," but Navarro would seem much less trouble when Enegndro had him working from the bottom. Some of the submissions were sublime; there just can't be a name for the cross-legged things Navarro pulls out here. I actually paused it to try to figure out which way who's leg was going where at times. One of the submissions had Navarro tie up Engendro's leg with his own and then pull his up upwards so they were both above the mat (terrible explanation but it was awesome). Looked hard as hell to hold and that was confirmed when Navarro himself had to drop him because he couldn't keep the weight up. There sure as shit aren't names for the counters whipped out. During another leglock thingy they both wind up sitting up and sort of trying to grasp each others hands while still having their legs all bundled. This was an ideal chess game, and you got the sense Engendro had to stay on the mat because Navarro had a counter for everything anyway and would have more freedom to wrench him when upright, but Navarro's clearly got him outclassed, so he pops up with lariats and stuff. THAT left him more open to attacks and got wrangle up in Navarro's rolling keylock move thing. He was the pawn getting destroyed by the knight either way, I guess. Really good match in a quiet year for lucha.

Negro Casas v Perro Aguayo Jr. (CMLL 9/25/04)
--Perro's cocky and attacks Negro and pulls his head up for the pin in the first fall, which becomes his stupid mistake when Negro flash-pins him with la magistral a minute later. Only one more fall after that, but it's mostly Perro booting Negro here and there. He uses the block thing that's a step in modern day CMLL, and sits Negro down in the stands, etc. Bunch of nothing, really.