2017 MOTY Countdown: #16 Tigre Rojo vs. Barbaro I

I watch a lot of obscure lucha on youtube, but I do not watch ALL of the obscure lucha on youtube. However, I will watch pretty much any apuesta match that I come across and that is how I found this match. I vaguely remembered the name Tigre Rojo, and I am guessing this is the same guy that used to wrestle on Arena Puebla undercards 10 years ago. While I am not sure I even watched a Tigre Rojo match, his name stuck with me cuz what the hell is a red tiger?

Anyway, without really knowing who these two were this match sucked me in right away. The crowd is immediately behind Tigre Rojo, so I may as well join them. The match itself, if viewed in a vacuum, is an above average apuestas match, but the crowd is going absolutely insane for every move and every hold. I know that including crowd response is not a popular idea in reviewing and rating matches, but at a fundamental level the whole point of pro wrestling is getting the crowd invested in what is happening in front of them and I cannot ignore when it is done this well.

The hot crowd is not the only appeal of this match, though. I am a sucker for the "old guy leaving it all in the ring one last time" sort of match. The problem is that this sort of match is often done when the old guy involved does not have anything to actually leave in the ring, so when there are actually good dives and well done moves, as is the case here, I find this sort of match to be an absolute blast. Both guys know this may be the last time they get to have a match, especially a match at the top of the card, and neither one wants to go out on a loss. Great, dramatic action and, again, the crowd eats up every minute of it, making this match one of the best I have seen this year.