With Trapped in the Cagematch, Kim Wong combs through the highest-rated matches according to Cagematch’s voters in preparation for the annual FSM 50 and the year-end Match of the Year extravaganza.
El Barbaro Cavernario vs. Hechicero
New Japan Pro Wrestling Presents CMLL Fantastica Mania 2025 Night 8
February 28, 2025
Cagematch ranking as of 10/23/25: 243
Sometimes, you just want to visit the fireworks factory.
Calm down, Milhouse, and lay off the airhorn.
Unfortunately for Hechicero and us, Korakeun Hall does not allow open flames, even controlled ones, so Hechicero is denied his goblet of fire for his entrance. Also unfortunately for Hechicero, the fans in attendance at Korakuen Hall, and us, someone in the audience has an airhorn.
Part of Fantastica Mania’s appeal is to see how Japanese fans react to lucha libre, but an understated part is to see if luchadores would wrestle differently in front of the Japanese audience. While Barbaro and Hechicero aren’t the high flyers like Mascara Dorada or Neon, they can still be pretty flashy. Here, Barbaro and Hechicero played it closer to puroresu’s rhythms, evoking the lucharesu style of Dragongate (and, because I was a fan of American independent wrestling in the 2000s, Chikara). The strikes seemed just a little harder and a little louder than we’ve seen from them in other matches.
Hechicero was no less impressive in this setting, which is not surprising given what we’ve seen in his matches against non-luchadores like Bryan Danielson, Zack Sabre Jr., Lio Rush, and Claudio Castagnoli. Barbaro wasn’t going to explore the depths of llave with Hechicero, so he mostly served as a base for Hechicero’s spinning into submission holds and other trickery. When Barbaro struck, it was spectacular, like this springboard splash to Hechicero.
At least the use of the air horn to celebrate how cool that looked was appropriate.
Hechicero wisely used the NJPW trainees working around the ring as a human shield from further diving offense from Barbaro and scuttled away to celebrate, but he couldn’t hide from Barbaro’s ferocity for long.
Hechicero recovered and countered with…whatever this was to raise the stakes.
Barbaro ripped the breaks off of the match completely and let it fly with this splash to Hechicero from the top turnbuckle. The picture doesn’t actually show how far away Hechicero was from the corner that Barbaro used.
Barbaro was the first to his feet, and he paid Hechicero back for an earlier assault with a ring corner cushion by attacking Hechicero with the timekeeper’s chair. Hechicero and Barbaro ascended the ringside steps, and Hechicero taught Barbaro a lesson about the structural integrity of Japanese tables at wrestling shows by suplexing him on to (but importantly not through) the timekeeper’s table. The table did not escape unscathed.
A slap exchange in the middle of the ring after all of that explosive action outside the ring seemed almost quaint, but Hechicero and Barbaro wrapped it up quickly when Hechicero locked Barbaro into an arm submission. The more Barbaro tried to fight it, the deeper Hechicero was able to hook into Barbaro’s arm, and it’s over when Hechicero trapped Barbaro’s head between his legs and wrenched back on Barbaro’s arm.
That was a lot of excitement crammed into less than 16 minutes, and the match’s reputation as one of the year’s best is well deserved. On its own merit, it’s outstanding. Its Cagematch rating as of this writing shows that it will be underrated if not forgotten in the long term because it is just an exhibition and doesn’t have any ties into any melodramatic stories. Sometimes, however, you just want to get to the fireworks factory already.
The match and the show can be seen on New Japan World.
Next time: Hechicero’s 2025 joins his 2024 as a standout year in his career, and one of his most prominent foils has been Bandido. (I can testify on behalf of their rocking match at ROH Death Before Dishonor 2025, which I saw in person.) Let’s investigate Bandido’s case for the award for Most Outstanding Wrestler of 2025 by focusing on his match against Mascara Dorada from June.
