Matches #9 (2025 Indie Lucha Edition)

 Hey y'all, back with more matches! All of these are gonna be ones from lucha indie shows.

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Tonalli vs. Aero Boy (Rompiendo Madres 9/7/2025) - FUN

Tonalli is easily one of the best (if not the best) rudos on the scene and he's only 27! He's got a great mind for an indie luchador on the younger side; feels like he just gets it. Knows exactly when to knock his opponents down and knows when it's his turn to get his ass beat.

Aero Boy doesn't let up and makes the most of every chance he gets at Tonalli. Haven't seen much of him before, but I like him here. Shows a ton of urgency and makes it feel more like a struggle to overcome Tonalli. In today's day and age, it's harder for me to care about/want to root against a rudo as cool and talented as Tonalli, but Aero Boy does well at making me believe in what he's got going and his offense doesn't get as annoying as I expected it to.

Yeah, he's got better matches for sure, but I would definitely show this to anyone who likes Tonalli or thinks he'd be up their alley. Love him. He does a good job at grounding things, literally and figuratively.

Erick Ortiz vs. Enigma Extremo (Panther Promotions Arena Coliseo Reynosa 8/17/2025) - GOOD

I've seen only like one other Enigma Extremo match before and it was him tagging with the indie GOD Erick Ortiz back in Feburary of this year and I thought he was awesome in that. The easiest way to win me over on first watch is to do sick shit that's dangerous and he did that and then some in the tag. What a delightful surprise to see that these two did a singles against each other last month.

Starts off with some cool llaveo between the two before heading into more bump-freak territory. What's surprising is that Erick Ortiz isn't the one doing said bump-freak stuff, it's Enigma Extremo. I remember him doing some nuts stuff in that February tag but holyyy; I shrieked at some of the moves he took here.

Also while I have my complaints with matches that start off with grappling to fill time and then dropping it as soon as the match leaves the opening minutes, I am more lenient when it comes to llaveo because it feels more exhibition-like in nature already. Also while I wish they did more of it, I still thought the grappling was enjoyable.

Erick Ortiz is great. Enigma Extremo is starting to climb up my list of guys I should be paying more attention to.

Avisman vs. Feroz (Lucha Memes Coacalco Patrio 9/14/2025) - GREAT

Speaking of good llaveo, AVISMAN~! My current pick for wrestler of the year, there's nothing I can think of that this dude can't do. He's matwork looks magical, he can do the blood-soaked brawls, also has done more "exciting" stuff with some of his matches that are more all-around. I don't know how this is the first time I'm talking about him on here.

I've never heard of Feroz before but figured I'd give him a watch after seeing him get a match announced against Xelhua. I love Avisman and it's hard to have a bad match with him, so why not give this a watch?

This leans more into that aforementioned all-around type of Avisman match, but both of these guys are so good at everything they go for. Feroz can hang in there with Avisman's grappling, and they beat the hell out of each other on the outside for a bit in this match. Avisman is of course the tecnico in Coliseo Coacalco and the crowd's completely behind him. Feroz is a strong force standing in the way and fills the role pretty well. It especially shows in the latter portion where he's just destroying Avisman with the big moves, and Avisman just keeps fighting on. Finish is satisfying too.

Loved this match. Everyone should watch more Avisman and I think I'll be watching more of this Feroz dude in the future (excited now to see how that Xelhua match goes).

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I love indie lucha libre.

Thank you for reading my thoughts on these matches today; I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, that's alright too. Let me know if you have any thoughts, criticisms, ideas, or whatever in the comments or get in touch with me on my Twitter page.

Just Some Matches (Intro! Akarangers & The Little Things That I Love)

So, this is the first post to be published by me on here! I'll use this as a mini introduction to myself, although if you've made it here, you very likely already know a bit about me. After we get past that, I'll get to a couple random match reviews!

I'm Mike, although the alias that the person reading this is probably most familiar with is "mikeawesomemike" or some variation of that name. Started watching wrestling in the later 2000s when I was younger. This mostly came in the form of WWE, but sometimes my oldest brother would be watching TNA, so I'd take a peek at the shows when he did. I don't know exactly what made me stop watching, but I know I stopped a little bit after the Rusev v. Cena feud (which I remember liking at the time) ended. I would then start watching again around WWE Clash of Champions 2020 (I distinctly remember that being near the beginning of the Roman Tribal Chief stuff), but that didn't have to do with the return of my fandom. Around that time, a friend that was into wrestling had told me to watch Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi's G1 Climax match that had happened in New Japan, because it was their favorite match ever. I had never heard of Ibushi before, and Omega was someone that I knew of loosely because of the formation of AEW being so huge. 

And so I watched the match, and it was unlike anything I'd really seen before. I was fascinated by not only that match, but the entire world of wrestling I had been missing out on outside of the WWE. And so, I began to watch more and more puro, which became more and more lucha, and then a little bit of everything else around the world. So by now, I feel I've been watching wrestling for a long portion of my life. Not as long as some of the fans that I'm inspired by (such as SegundaCaida, reverseviperhold, and Matt D, who's influences will hopefully be very prevalent on this blog) but I want to get there eventually.

"Introduction" aside, I feel it's only right to get to some match reviewing! These matches are somewhat randomly chosen, but I also felt that my thoughts on them might give some more insight on how I think about pro wrestling and the kind of stuff that I like and dislike.

Takashi Sasaki & GENTARO vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Tomohiro Ishii (WEW 9/14/2002) - GREAT

Ah, what a place to start. While I'm sure I've watched matches from here before, I know little to nothing about WEW. If this match is the one thing I'll remember the company for though, then what a way to leave an impression.

Ishii, the most popular name here today, of course, but this was a much less experienced Ishii than the one most know now. I'd personally argue that there's things that I like more about this version of him more than his New Japan era. Firstly, he walks into the ring looking like Dick Togo. This is the second biggest compliment one could receive. Then, it actually feels like he wrestles like Dick Togo. This is the biggest compliment one could receive.

Maybe it's just me being blinded by his look, but it really does feel like Ishii does a good job at filling that chickenshit bastard role against the Akarangers' "pure" babyface energy. I think that also might be me being blinded by my love for Takashi Sasaki and (especially) GENTARO though.

GENTARO is another wrestler that has had very different styles throughout his career. My first introduction to him was his incredible match against Kenichiro Arai for Mutoha. While he is amazing both in that match and this one, they are for completely different reasons. In the Mutoha match, he displays so much struggle through what he goes through himself as well as the pain he inflicts on Arai. (Anyways, enough of that match; that'll be for another time.) Yet GENTARO here, in the best, most cartoonish way possible, makes his entrance late while Takashi Sasaki is getting jumped, proceeds to take a moment to take his glasses off before running towards the ring, just to still get bested on the ramp by Ikuto Hidaka. Fantastic start.

I've said this before, but I don't want my "reviews" to turn into just play-by-plays of what goes down in the match and that is especially the case for this one, because I think you, yes YOU, should go watch this right now.

I actually want to go back though to what I mentioned earlier about Ishii (and by proxy, Ikuto Hidaka) being the chickenshit heels in this one compared Sasaki and GENTARO. Ishii and Hidaka hit hard, to no one's surprise. But what's very noticeable is how GENTARO takes that offense. He is stooging HARD here. Comically BOUNCING around the ring whenever he gets hit. And yet, that's the perfect way to garner sympathy for yourself against guys like these. Despite how "ridiculous" it might seem, it genuinely really makes you feel sorry for him. Despite how different the selling is from the Arai match, it is still the selling that makes you feel in this match!

I know I've spoken about him the least here, but Sasaki is also sick here: He does his great tag spots with GENTARO, has an exciting comeback, and generally is just cool! Not much else to say about him in this match unfortunately, but that doesn't necessarily mean he did bad.

Finally, the match reaches it's conclusion with a DQ finish right when Ishii and Hidaka are about to lose the upper hand to the Akarangers. It hurts, but in the intended way. I'm mad that the match ends there and GENTARO doesn't get a chance to win it himself, but it was also the exact point that the match should've ended at so it didn't overstay it's welcome. Pretty neat match.

Xelhua & Valiente Jr. vs. Guerrero Maya Jr. & El Hijo de Stuka Jr. (CMLL 5/3/2025) - GOOD

Firstly, what a past year Xelhua's had, am I right? Easily the most promising young guy in CMLL in my opinion, has been in a program with the fantastic Guerrero Maya Jr., and is even more exciting with the opportunities he has in Lucha Memes. His ongoing feud with the aforementioned Guerrero Maya Jr. is definetely the biggest thread going into this match, but I feel this match is still able to stand on it's own merits as well.

The little things are what matter most in this match, and Guerrero Maya Jr. shows that the most. From the creative mind that decides to go for an elbow drop to the groin, to the way he performs each specific move, even to his shocked and distraught reactions to seeing the athletic feats of Valiente Jr. right before his eyes, he is shows so much character and personality without going too far and being "over-expressive". It might just seem like regular behavior to most viewers and that's fine! But damn does it mean a lot to me.

I especially enjoyed how quick the first fall changed momentum, with Xelhua only making one mistake that caused Maya Jr. and HD Stuka Jr. to get the opening they needed to claim the fall. Makes the other falls a lot more suspenseful and gives the feeling that any counter could realistically cause the match to end.

The finish fell flat for me, I can't lie. But that isn't to take much away from the rest of the match that was really really good.

Hope whoever got this far enjoyed! I wasn't really sure how to go about most of this originally, but I feel proud of how this came out! Let me know anything I could've done better, what you liked, what you didn't like, and generally any thoughts on my writing or the matches themselves!