El Dandy vs Negro Navarro (IWRG - 11/18/01)
Mar 14, 2023 8:41:54 GMT -5
Post by KB8 on Mar 14, 2023 8:41:54 GMT -5
I thought for sure I nominated this a few years ago but I can't find a thread, so maybe I'm fulla shit. Either way I better do it now because I re-watched it last night and I'm definitely voting for it.
Man what a beautiful wrestling match. Beautiful is not a word I tend to use a lot when talking about wrestling, I guess because wrestling is not typically a thing I would describe as beautiful in the general sense. I don't really want beauty from my wrestling either. I want ugly and grotty and mean and disgusting. Mostly, anyway. But I guess wrestling can be beautiful as well and nothing in wrestling is as beautiful as the lucha libre and sometimes a little beauty is good for the soul. Probably. This was 27 minutes all told, and other than about 30 seconds at the end of the tercera it's basically all matwork. These are two of my favourite mat workers ever so obviously I'm going to love it. Navarro might be the king of maestro matwork but Dandy is right up there as a lucha grappler. I don't know if I'd say he's underrated because at this point in wrestling discourse I'm not sure anybody is underrated in any capacity, but he doesn't always get mentioned among the best of them and I really think he belongs in the discussion. There was so much good stuff here, especially in that primera. They spent about two minutes fighting over a figure-four, rolling and twisting for leverage, Navarro trying to grab Dandy's arm and apply a wristlock to force openings elsewhere. When it ends in a stalemate Navarro shifts instead towards trying to pin Dandy, and by the end of that Dandy is almost bridging fully on his neck, practically vertical, while Navarro tries to force his shoulders to the mat. The segunda was extensive by lucha title match second fall standards and they keep everything rolling into the tercera, which was exceptional. Was it a bit too exhibitiony at times? If you don't actively like lucha matwork then maybe, but even then it never felt like they slipped into that hold-release-hold back and forth that you'd get with IWRG later in the decade (which coincidentally Navarro might also be the king of). They never sacrificed the struggle for the beauty and at no point did I feel like they were just feeding holds.
Man what a beautiful wrestling match. Beautiful is not a word I tend to use a lot when talking about wrestling, I guess because wrestling is not typically a thing I would describe as beautiful in the general sense. I don't really want beauty from my wrestling either. I want ugly and grotty and mean and disgusting. Mostly, anyway. But I guess wrestling can be beautiful as well and nothing in wrestling is as beautiful as the lucha libre and sometimes a little beauty is good for the soul. Probably. This was 27 minutes all told, and other than about 30 seconds at the end of the tercera it's basically all matwork. These are two of my favourite mat workers ever so obviously I'm going to love it. Navarro might be the king of maestro matwork but Dandy is right up there as a lucha grappler. I don't know if I'd say he's underrated because at this point in wrestling discourse I'm not sure anybody is underrated in any capacity, but he doesn't always get mentioned among the best of them and I really think he belongs in the discussion. There was so much good stuff here, especially in that primera. They spent about two minutes fighting over a figure-four, rolling and twisting for leverage, Navarro trying to grab Dandy's arm and apply a wristlock to force openings elsewhere. When it ends in a stalemate Navarro shifts instead towards trying to pin Dandy, and by the end of that Dandy is almost bridging fully on his neck, practically vertical, while Navarro tries to force his shoulders to the mat. The segunda was extensive by lucha title match second fall standards and they keep everything rolling into the tercera, which was exceptional. Was it a bit too exhibitiony at times? If you don't actively like lucha matwork then maybe, but even then it never felt like they slipped into that hold-release-hold back and forth that you'd get with IWRG later in the decade (which coincidentally Navarro might also be the king of). They never sacrificed the struggle for the beauty and at no point did I feel like they were just feeding holds.
