The Failure of Rey Misterio Jr vs. Juventud Guerrera

It’s boring. That feels like it shouldn’t be the takeaway from two wrestlers that would be known for touring their spectacular high flying in places like ECW, then bringing that to a more national stage in the states through the WCW cruiserweight division, but they really let each other down in this setting.

To their credit, some of it isn’t their fault. The literal cage here is limiting in more ways than one. Not only does it prevent any action from spilling to the floor where we might get some crazy dives, but a close look shows that cage wall is flush to the ropes, meaning that the wrestlers don’t even have access to the apron. This means there’s practically no free space beyond the ropes to work with, and takes away a lot of potential springboards for these two to hit their offense.

They try to compensate for this by keeping some steel chairs in the mix for the match. The chairs allow Rey in particular to spring about to hit some aerial offense, and they’re used as weapons throughout too. Quite funnily, as Colette already pointed out, Rey hits a Tommy Dreamer/Raven chair shot to Juventud up against the ropes. It’s hilarious to see Rey even do the same pose, but it’s an unpleasant enough intrusion on the match’s momentum to see Rey fumbling about trying to secure Juvi to the ropes. Not helped at all by Rey crashing and burning right off the cage wall after, forcing Juvi to go right back into control in an attempt to save things after the botch. Outside of that though, it’s mostly about tossing a chair at someone climbing the cage wall to intercept an escape attempt.

Structure-wise, this is fairly straightforward. Most of the early match acts as a Juvi control segment after an early shine from Rey. They do well to stick to the shape of this before going into the trading false finishes towards the end, but there’s nothing to interesting happening in these segments to make them worthwhile. There’s almost no rope running which means none of the smooth rhythms forming that one wants from this kind of lucha, and alternatively no one involved is nearly gritty or well-equipped enough to have anything approaching a compelling brawl either.

Instead, they’re stuck in this awful middle space where they can’t have the match they’re best at, but they also can’t have the best possible version of the match they’re in.

That’s not to say there’s nothing of value here. For those attempting cage matches with escape rules, it’s worth noting just how much physicality they put behind the escape attempts. There’s such a sense of struggle behind the interceptions. These two don’t just politely tap each other on the back to cease a climb. Instead, they cling to the wall, trying to drag themselves up as their opponents forcefully pull at their limbs. It’s not instant, just an honest to God struggle to stay in the fight.

The moments leading up to the finish work real well too. I love them scrambling over each other in the corner of the cage, it’s a great visual and the real highlight of the match for me. Rey even nails some real great headbutts up on the top of the cage as they’re jockeying for position. Wonderful little tease too of Juvi almost being knocked out and falling off—which would have led to him winning.

Unfortunately, even this gets spoiled in the end by interference from Damien 666 at ringside. He shakes the cage walls which causes both wrestlers to crotch themselves on the steel before tumbling down to the floor knocked out for a double loss. It’s a deflating end to an already bland match overall.

I, too, would rather be lying down after watching that.

Rating: **1/4