There were no rookie mistakes or butterflies in the stomach (just one butterfly mask) when the tournament’s two most experienced competitors, 21-year veteran Princesa Sugehit and 17-year veteran Mercedes Martinez, squared off. With the Mae Young Classic being, perhaps, the final opportunity for either woman to make a splash on a platform of this scale, neither warhorse was going down without a fight, and neither showed an ounce of trepidation.
The feeling-out process was cut short once Martinez rocked the luchadora — who was dressed in Wonder Woman-inspired ring gear — with strikes. Martinez, who cites WWE Hall of Famer Eddie Guerrero as one of her inspirations, broke out a Three Amigos-like combination of two suplexes and a rope-hang spinning neckbreaker for a near fall.
Sugehit scored back with a tornado DDT, but the gritty, no-nonsense Martinez stopped Sugehit in her tracks with a big kick before trapping her in a fisherman buster to claim the fall. Martinez now looks ahead to the challenge of Abbey Laith in the Quarterfinals.