Segunda Caida

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

#17: 2 Cold Scorpio




by Eric

Scorpio has somehow been under everybody's radar the last several years. I figured by working for the largest company in Japan throughout all of this decade would keep your name out there, but I've seen so many people talking about how they didn't realize Scorpio was still working and were stunned by his appearances in IWA-MS. Well, even those of us who have been keeping up with Scorpio were stunned by his '08 work. While ROH decided to bring in Jerry Lynn to mentor and teach DA BIZ to their workers, IWA-MS brought in 2 Cold Scorpio. While Lynn was no doubt teaching the youngsters all about the importance of 2.9 roll-up sequences and cool ways to leg drop guys as they lunge at you through the ropes, Scorpio was having great matches with everybody he faced and working different styles each match. He's an amazing flyer because he's a really big guy, and his flying moves have more impact than ANY other flyer I've ever seen. His moves are ridiculously accurate and always dead-on. His aim is insane. Whether he's hitting his somersault leg drop, 450, tumbleweed splash, moonsault, whatever, the move hits and it looks nasty. But he wasn't all about the flying this year. There were matches where he didn't hit one aerial move, and those were great, too! Mixing in some cool punch and kick combos, throwing the elbows and just jiving in general. Scorpio has spent the better part of this decade in NOAH getting headbutted, getting kicked, and getting elbowed, and then giving it all back, so the dude can work indy stiff without any problems. And he did it all without looking like a space pimp from the future.

Recommended 2008 Matches:

~vs. Eddie Kingston (IWA-MS, 3/1/08)
~vs. Mickie Knuckles (IWA-MS, 4/11/08)
~vs. Roderick Strong (IWA-MS, 5/2/08)
~vs. Sami Callihan (IWA-MS, 8/16/08)
~vs. Necro Butcher (IWA-MS, 8/17/08)
~vs. Sami Callihan (IWA-MS, 9/27/08)

Recommended Career Matches:

~vs. Chris Benoit (WCW SuperBrawl III, 2/21/93)
~w/ Marcus Bagwell vs. Steve Austin/Brian Pillman (WCW 5/93)
~vs. Barry Windham (WCW Clash of the Champions 23, 6/16/93)
~w/ Marcus Bagwell vs. Nasty Boys (WCW Halloween Havoc, 10/24/93)
~vs. Eddy Guerrero, ECW, 4/18/95)
~vs. Wild Pegasus (NJPW, 5/3/95)
~vs. Sabu (ECW Cyberslam '96, 2/17/96)
~vs. Shane Douglas (ECW Matter of Respect, 5/11/96)
vs. Chris Jericho vs. Pitbull #2 vs. Shane Douglas (ECW Heatwave '96, 7/15/96)
~Flash Funk vs. Owen Hart (WWE Raw, 2/17/97)
~vs. Naomichi Marufuji (NOAH1 4/15/01)
~w/ Vader vs. Jun Akiyama/Akitoshi Saito (NOAH 12/1/02)
~w/ Yoshinari Ogawa/Richard Slinger vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano/Takashi Sugiura (NOAH, 12/6/03)
~w/ Eddy Edwards/Mushiking Terry vs. Masao Inoue/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Mushiking Joker (NOAH, 9/18/05)
~vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (NOAH, 11/5/05)
~w/ Eddy Edwards vs. Akira Taue/Takuma Sano (NOAH, 4/24/06)

2009 Outlook:

It all depends on whether he chooses to work or not. So far I have not seen his name turn up on any shows, but I'm sure they're out there. IWA-MS cards in general look less appetizing this year, so they might not be bringing him in anymore. If he gets bookings he will continue to look awesome. If we don't get to see him, his odds of making a list are not good.

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IWRG 5/14/09

PAS: After a three week swine flu hiatus, IWRG makes it triumphant return.

http://www.youtube.com/user/r0b3rt0x3L14S

TKG: I feel sorry for the creators of Corridos Marranos as I imagine there is less demand for comic books with covers depicting voluptuous women being sexually ravaged by pigs. I’m sure the Corridos Marranos albulms have also been hurt. Everyone on this show feels a step off, like working off ring rust or something. One of the cameramen wears a facemask. Fantasma de La Opera wears one for cheap heat as well.

Halcon 2000 v. Radamantis

PAS: Since IWRG has shown up on youtube, this is the first time we have really gotten to see an IWRG opener. IWRG openers are always worked in this really basic way. They almost have to spend twice as much time on the mat as they do standing, and you won't be seeing any dives or 2004 US Indy finishers here.

TKG: They actually do tease a dive as Radamantis gets tossed out of ring twice. First time Halcon follows to the floor for ringside brawling; second time he gets up on second rope but doesn’t have his footing. He has repeated problems with hat second rope. Halcon 2000 isn’t a very engaging technico but really liked his hold onto the headlock amateur ride. Radamantis on the other hand is kind of a blast. Everyone in IWRG watches way too much Smackdown, and you get the sense that Radamantis is a Finlay fan..as he has nice European uppercuts, nasty elbow drop, and some neat fire man’s carry based throws. He also has a preposterous Zorackish alien mantis costume. I look forward to him hopefully moving up the card.

Goleador/Jack v Misteco Jr/Avisman

TKG: This is odd. After talking smack about Jack, I enjoyed his mat section and after talking smack about Avisman I really enjoyed all his stand up rope running exchanges (and big dive). Goleador is an awkwardly crowbaring mobile heavyweight. It’s hard to tell who is a heavyweight in the ring opposite your normal tiny IWRG regulars, but I think Goleador is around Arlequin's size. My impression is for awkward mobile heavyweights he is a lot greener than Arlequin. Either Avsiman decides to sell like Goleador is constantly fucking him up or Goleador constantly awkwardly fucks Avisman up, including twisting his ankle wrong on a Romero special.

PAS: This is the most I have enjoyed Jack, this is the first time he has looked like a poor man's La Parka instead of a poor man's La Parka Jr.. Goleador is weird, he shows a bunch of agility during parts of the match, and in other parts he looks completely awkward and clumsy. You figure either a guy is a good athlete or he isn't. Avisman had one nice submission and a nice dive, but no one was really up to working the mat with him.


Fantasma de La Opera/ Capitan Muerte/Cerebro Negro v Miss Gaviota, Diva Salvaje, and Sexy Gladis

TKG: I’ve seen Miss Gaviota before but never seen the other two exoticos. Diva Salvaje is an amusing tranny trainwreck. He’s just a hot mess; big ole queen in an unflattering outfit that makes him look even fatter, can’t get his perm right, just can’t get himself together. Other trannys model themselves on Garbo, Cher, Tyra Banks, Hayley Mills, etc…Diva Salvaje is aiming for Abyss’ unattractive sister. It’s an amusing look. This match is clipped to shit and ends after the first fall so I never get any sense of Sexy Gladis. Well the sense I get, is “hey they clipped everything with him out of this”. Captain Muerte takes a bunch of amusing bumps trying to leap to break up rope walking and the Salvaje/Fantasma interactions are amusing but this is clipped to pieces. Miss Gaviota is stretchered after taking Fantasma’s nasty DDT variation and the heels do mic work talking about how they’re not here for kisses but to break people, etc.

PAS: I live off of 17th St. in Dupont Circle here in Washington DC, they have drag races every year right in front of my building, and I have never seen a drag queen look as busted as Diva Salvaje, not even after a full on heels wearing sprint. Fantasma de La Opera coming out with a flu mask to block both the Swine Flu and the Exotico kiss is an awesome heel spot, and Diva Salvaje ripping it off to give him a grim tongue kiss was funny. I also loved the badass heels stretchering the Exoticos, although it didn't appear to go anywhere next week. IWRG booking doesn't seem to ever build.

Officiales v Chico Che, Zakura, Freelance

TKG:Didn’t Chico Che have more of a bowl haircut at one point. His hair is thinning fast. This was a pretty classically constructed match designed to set up either a singles match with the technico captain (Zakura) or another trio with the technico captain’s normal trio (Zakura’s normal trio being him and the Traumas, with this Chico Che/ Freelance/ Zakura being more of an ad hoc team). I’ve seen matches with Chico Che as captain.and matches with Freelance as captain. Both guys can pull that role off well. And both are a blast as secondary guys here. The problem is Zakura really isn’t a guy who is capable of working captain at this point ( I don’t know if he’ll ever be ready). Zakura is fine as secondary guy with dives but can't pull this thing off at all. He just looked like shit in the captain role and it hurt the match. This match had a bunch of neat dives and good performances from the Officiales, Freelance and Chico Che but it needed someone else to play captain.

PAS: Zatura has a real AAA feel to him, as he is a guy with some really pretty spots, but everything in between those spots looks bad. That is fine when he has a secondary role in a match, but his flaws are really exaserbated when he is the focus. I really enjoyed Chico Che in this, as he is one of the better technicos in these midcard trios match. This did have some really sweet individual stuff, Freelances rana into the stands was especially awesome, but not a great match. I think they really need another quality mid card technico in this fed, Freelance rules, and I like Chico Che, but they need to bring back Mickie Segura.

Fuerza Guerrera,Juventud Guerrera, Dr Cerebro v Negro Navarro, Trauma 1, Trauma II

TKG: “Black is black and I want my baby back. It’s grey, it’s grey since she went away.” I want to say the story with Los Bravos was that after one of their members committed suicide, the label forced them to tour with a replacement member wearing a lone ranger mask so as to hide the suicide. As you can imagine the combination of instant celebrity, suicide and on stage masked hiding of the suicide fucked with everyone’s mind. It’s possible I’m confusing them with another Spanish garage rock type band, but I think that’s them. I don’t know what happened to Pirata, Juve at times looked really off and at other times had hints of being the worlds best Andy Barrow (guy more concerned with heat and eating stuff then anything else)I hope he gets his shit together. Dr Cerebro looked spectacular, all his mat work was nasty, his brawling was great and he can eat a tope like nobodies business. The post match DDT on the trashcan was also nasty and Black Terry confronting Fuerza is an awesome development. "Bad is bad, it makes me sad. It's Time. It's time. Time that I found piece of mind."

PAS: Juvi looked really athletically off here, which is weird as you figure he would still be able to hit his spots. Hey looked more physically shot then guys twice his age. I did enjoy him as a totally obnoxious heel, sort of Bobby Heenanish. Like his new gimmick is "guy you want to see Jack Evans Thai knee in the face." Navarro was awesome as usual, kind of directing traffic and sending his kids after Juvi. For a guy who is primarily known as a Maestro mat worker, Navarro may be one of the best brawlers in the world, his section against Dr. Cerebro was great, I love his little short headbutt, it feels like the kind of thing you would uncork in a bar fight. After watching Cerebro and Navarro work the mat and brawl I really want a singles match.

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