Select Match Reviews: Lucha Titles Are Only Important When They Are Needed to Be

Match from IWRG Cinco Luchas en Jaula 01/01:
1.IWRG Mexico Title, Ladder Cage Vacancy: Toxin vs Dragon Bane vs Lunatik Extreme vs Puma de Oro vs Relampago vs Puma de Oro **1/4


Thoughts:

Do I hate myself? Maybe, because watching a lucha cage match tends to equate to torture. That said, I wanted to see this one. The championship on the line here was meant to be crowned last Summer in a tournament I covered here, but an injury fucked the finals. 

I've heard nothing about the championship since that day until now.

Here it is again, and instead of getting the potentially great match we were promised we'd get when Metaleon healed up, we were given a cage cluster. Neither finalist is even in this match.

Now, while cage matches in lucha libre tend to be questionable more often than not, even more questionable is the purpose of championships south of the border.

IWRG tends to use them frequently as ways to give an eventual apuesta loser a major win before the big fail. 

Note that this show's main event saw the IWRG Intercontinental Middleweight belt and a briefcase on the line in a six-man cage match. The belt was vacated when the champ, Imposible, changed into Fuerza Guerrera Next Generation. He was involved in the match, at least, but failed which led to a rivalry I've been watching. The briefcase's purpose wasn't explained. The whole card was Lockdown style in general.

I only mention all of that to explain that, while I like IWRG, they are still fucking crazy at times.

So, this six-man ladder/cage match hybrid starts at this point in the video above. The ladder was introduced after five minutes. Trauma II pulled it down almost immediately after and then it became clear that to win you needed to pull it down AND escape. 

You'd think as innovative as some of these guys are, and many luchadors are in general, they'd have figured out how to make a gimmick like this work. And, to their credit, they came close. But there was just too much going on and it felt too much like one of those shitty TNA gimmicks like the King of the Mountain match or the reverse battle royal thing.

Not even all the participants here knew the rules for fucks sake.

Save for a few nice spots, this was only worth seeing if you truly have to see such a strange match type in action.

Skip it.