Black Terry Wired me Awake, And Hit me With a Hand of Broken Nails

Black Terry/Villano 3 v. Blue Panther/Shu El Guerrero Late 2004-EPIC

This is the first gem that Black Terry Jr. dropped on us. 30+ minutes of the most beautiful grappling every recorded on videotape. This is a tiny grimey looking arena in who knows where, which is kind of the best place to watch lucha libre. Unlike some of these kind of maestro matches, we got to see a bunch of all four possible matches. It is hard to pick one but I might lean slightly towards Blue Panther v. Black Terry, Panther is known as the greatest lucha mat wrestler of the last 25 years, and this might be his best work. He and Terry do some incredibly tight and intricate leg lock work, with all kind of interesting and nasty twists. The opening Villano v. Panther was tremendous stuff as well. I was loving all of the SHU as well, he is a guy with a really limited tape history, but man is he great, he uses his bulk and power more then most maestros, and it is super impressive whenever anyone is able to lock a hold on such a beast. The Star is one of my favorite lucha spots, and this is greatest Star I ever seen, I completely lost my shit when it got reversed, it was the mat wrestling version of the first time you saw Steve Williams backdrop driver, or the Sasuke Special.

Black Terry/Trauma II/Veneno v Angelico/Bushi/Freelance IWRG 12/20/09-FUN

TKG: We are going to be writing lots and lots about IWRG at this point and I’d like to stop writing about the poor wrestling of Angelico. Yes his South African diamonds has bought him an inexplicable main event push. But I figure those same South African diamonds have paid for Black Terry Jr’s digital video camera. So I’ll take the bad with the good. It totally makes up for it. And I guess there are other things that I could write about in this match besides Angelico. Black Terrry almost lobotomized himself catching a dive, almost impaling his brain on an exposed post. I could write about how awesome Trauma II has gotten, how good his submissions looked in first fall (especially liked the Mr Mexico finisher spun into a leglock) and how he really seems to be stepping up the selling in submissions or how amazing his brawling has become. But instead I’ve got to talk about Angelico. There have been a bunch of people who have criticized Angelico for how awful his stuff looks. And I think that is all besides the point. I mean Malcolm Gladwell is an idiot. The Beatles success had nothing to do with how many hours they spent playing together in Hamburg. Revolver is their sixth album and Harrison recognized that he was a mediocre guitarist so he got Mccartney to play the solo on Harrison’s Taxman, and that solo mainly works for Mccartney’s unsteady wavering playing. There are lots of dumb oversimplisitc explanations for the Beatles success that make more sense than hours of practice; the military draft removing older male peers and their ability to exert social pressure telling their younger peers to stop listening to such wussy stuff, yadda yadda. All that said, practice does increases skills and does make for better performance. Angelico is getting lots and lots of experience and his stuff will look less awkward and more polished. He will probably have enough skill to look good when he leaves Mexico to become the top ethnic babyface in the Orania Wrestling Fed. But beyond Angelico's bad execution and goofy stuff is the fact that he seems completely uninterested in working a lucha match. I mean you almost get the sense that he's a guy who'se calling his sections. On some level I'm always impressed with Veneno's handling of Angelico. Veneno is not a guy who I think of highly, but he knows how to work Angelico or Ricky Cruzz. Veneno is a guy who can keep a Spanish speeking non luchador usefully occupied. And you get the sense that if you edited out everything but the Veneno-Angelico sections you'd have a fine Maryland Championship Wrestling main event. The best possible Corporal Punishment v Julio Dinero main event ever. I get the sense that Veneno v Bandido Jr in ECWA would be a really good ECWA match. But not interested in an ECWA main event when I'm watching IWRG. I'm watching a lucha match don't foul it up. In this trios match Angelico is working Trauma II, and Trauma II is one of the most improved promising guys in lucha, and Angelico manages to turn a Trauma II primera caida section into a Arik Cannon v Alex Shelley comedy segment where I kept on waiting for Bryce Rensburg to draw a hopscotch board on the mat and have both guys throw a rock and jump to the appropriate number before putting on submissions. Yes Angelico's execution has gotten better but he still wants to be in an Arik Cannon match and here turns Trauma II into Shelley. I mean I was just getting used to Angelico fouling up main events (with guys who know better), but now he’s going to foul up the workrate semi-mains (with developing young talent)?

PAS: There was enough good in this match to mitigate the Angelico. Black Terry and Freelance have feuded in the past, with limited footage available. You get a nice section opening between the two here, and you can just imagine how excellent their title and hair matches must have been. Bushi also continues to be perfectly adequate. I think that Trauma II is one of the few guys who can do something with Angelico, I am with Tom on how their standing wrist lock exchanges looked. At one point Dave Taylor ran some camps for indy workers and guys like Chris Hero, C.M. Punk and Colt Cabana came back with British spots in their movesets. Then other indy dudes like Arik Cannon watched Chris Hero tapes and stole those spots, Angelico looks like he watched Arik Cannon tapes and tried to emulate him The actual mat work between the two however felt much more like a 1st Generation copy, he was doing Negro Navarro stuff he actually learned from Negro Navarro.

Black Terry/Avisman/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro/Gringo Loco/Hijo del Pantera/Las Traumas I y II v. Alan Extreme/Dinamic Black/Eros/Guizmo/Hijo del Signo/Imperial/Maldito Jr./Samoth IWRG 2/4/10-GREAT

PAS: This was young guns v. IWRG regulars and was a bunch of fun. Had surprisingly few botched spots for a match with so many green guys in it. Black Terry starts it out with Hijo Del Signo and they rip it up on the mat. Terry was so great in both his mat and later brawling sections, he had so much fire and energy. Bombero Infernal was back with a vengeance here, he had this real reckless energy about him, he seemed totally out of control on all of his bumps, almost felt Jerry Estradaish, he started the dive train with an insane looking tope where he almost went vertical. Imperial and Dinamic Black were the stand outs on the youngsters team, both guys flipped and spun around, and broke out big time dives too. I am starting to really dig all of Dinamic Blacks crazy springboards, he really has tremendous balance, and if he can smooth out the other parts of his game, he could really be special. Gringo Loco looked off here, he may still be suffering from KOing himself on Sunday. They had some dissension between him and Black Terry and I hope his head is right for their cage hair match.

TKG: This was a blast. I want to 100% back Phil on Bombero Infernal. This is a match filled with nutty rookie highflyers bumping around trying to get noticed. Still the nuttiest highflyer may have been Bombero Infernal. There was no sense of batting order. Truama I didn’t come into the match till long after other guys on his team had been in 2/3 times. When Trauma I did come in he was super impressive, eliminating Imperial, Maldito Jr and Dinamic Black (with an Argentine Backbreaker into over the knee backbreaker that every indy “powerhouse” wrestler should steal), and also had a fun section with Hijo Del Signo. Signo is working as a “Nueva Estrella” so maybe he should be considered in out monthly NKOTB votes, and he really impressed. He was booked really strong, getting two pins and being the last guy in for his team. The advantage of being booked strong is that you look strong. Disadvantage is that type of booking can really expose a rookie. Signo didn’t look exposed. He had multiple fun sections with Terry, Trauma I, Bombero Infernal, and Dr Cerebro. Signo just comes off really comfortable in the ring and eats brawling stuff really well. Every time he matches up with someone they will knock him for a loop and he is a guy who has multiple ways of splaying himself while resisting getting knocked for a loop.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY