What else might I call it?

Also

Soberano talking about Ángel outside of the ring: "he's fine I guess 🥱"

Via rudos sin porra @ instagram

Please keep in mind that I consider myself really fond of Soberano, so this isn't me hating on him lmao

The good: Simply put, it was master class on presentation and crowd control. Having your challenger walk down wearing your champion's own colors (after having declared he's here to steal his spot) and with his own spin on his theme? Amazing. Having Euphoria as Soberano's second and joining in to help Soberano when both Soberano and Místico were out of the ring? Lovely. The crowd fucking hated Soberano during the match (except for his fangirls, of course lol), it was as close to a perfect reaction to a rudo you can get.

The bad: Místico is just now just too old for the kind of feud they're setting up with Soberano, and Soberano is not technically proficient enough to cover for him - the match had several moments where it slowed down to a crawl because they had to set up Místico's moves, and you can tell Soberano had to really slow down some of his own to sell the loss. This was simply not a match I walked out of believing that Místico won because he was the better man.

The really bad: I hated the ending promo with Soberano recognizing Místico as the better fighter. Soberano has spent the last month and a half calling half the CMLL roster old, fat and washed up, and him saying Místico was the better wrestler and putting the belt on him essentially deflated all the tension. I personally have no desire to see the eventual rematch based on this alone, specially as this is the first time I can recall Soberano breaking character this badly since turning rudo... did the company tell him to turn it down a notch? Was he overcome by emotion (since he's actually a really cool dude irl)? Who knows.

I still think the best outcome of all of this would be for Soberano to eventually retire Místico in a couple of years, set him up as CMLL's icon and set up a feud with Místico's successor (Máscara Dorada???) but... idk anymore. I want that for the unhinged rudo fashion icon I love, not for the Soberano I saw last night.

(Sign reads: "Angel de Oro, Soberano Jr, pose together please!")