And They Call Him Pirata Morgan...He's the Master of the Salmon Salts

Pirata Morgan & Brian Christopher vs. TAKA Michinoku & Aguila WWF 2/16/1998 - FUN

Hey, remember the Light Heavyweight division? Yeah, me neither, but it did give us the novelty of Pirata Morgan on WWF TV. According to Graham Cawthon's site, he had a pair of matches with them - this and an Aguila singles match from Shotgun Saturday Night that I'm a little curious about. This won't blow you away, and Morgan isn't even really featured that heavily in it, but when he is, he looks good. He rushes Aguila at the bell with a big clothesline, punches him hard in the dome, and then drops him with a tilt-a-whirl powerbomb to start things on a strong note. Aguila has a top rope hurricanrana that takes too long to set up and leaves Pirata standing around like a tool waiting for it, but he hits a nice corkscrew plancha onto both rudos right afterwords to make up for it. Christopher and TAKA get tagged in, and from there on out, it's mostly about them, with Pirata coming back in to lay some nice shots into TAKA before eating the comeback and the pin, and Aguila assisting in taking out Christopher. More of a neat aside than anything, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Pirata Morgan vs. Brazo de Oro EMLL 11/18/1989 - EPIC

In the super-secret DVDVR 80's Project forum, Phil said that this was "not really what you would expect from these two guys". And well, I kinda agree and disagree with that. On one hand, you see those two names in a singles match, you expect some serious violence to go down. On the other hand, this is a title match, and it's 1989, so lucha title matches are still being worked like lucha title matches. So, yeah, it's kinda not what you'd normally expect from them, but I don't really know what you should expect when you put these two guys against each other in a lucha title match setting. Ultimately, the beauty of the match is that it takes this "what happens when you put a pirate in the ring with a comedy relief guy and force them to have a fair fight?" concept and runs with it, with both guys playing it to perfection. Pirata offers a handshake to open the match, and Brazo is understandably leery, as it is Pirata. But it's also a title bout, so he may as well be sporting...but, his first instinct was right, and it's a trap for Pirata to sink in an armbar, and then a hammerlock. After watching him do it in a match from this year as a broken down old man, it's interesting to see young Pirata working stooge heel stuff, using (legal) trickery to take the advantage in this unusual setting and frequently scrambling out of the ring when Oro gets the upper hand. Oro looks good on the mat here, too, especially his Indian deathlock where he does the Eddy Guerrero shimmy to apply more pressure. Eventually, Pirata's blood gets angried up too much, and he says "fuck this polite shit" and blasts Oro in the teeth with a clothesline. But his attempt to follow up gets countered, and Oro grabs a nifty looking roll-up to win the first fall. Segunda caida takes us back to the mat for some more fun, before an Oro attempt and a monkey flip goes awry and Pirata falls back, dropping him face first on the top turnbuckle. Pirata forces a submission with a figure-four leglock, but initially refuses to break, and even after he does, he follows it with a big kneedrop onto Oro's leg, screwing it up even further. It should be noted that Oro's cornerman for this match is Shadito Cruz - patriarch of the entire Brazo clan - and he is trying to the best of his elderly abilities to get between his injured son and this mad dog of the seven seas, to little avail. Tercera caida has Pirata going right back to the leg, including locking on the figure-four again, but Oro guts it out and manages a comeback, even working over Pirata's leg and leaving both men hobbling around the ring. Unfortunately, he makes the critical error of doing a quebradora onto his injured knee. Both men are down, but Pirata comes to first, and takes the opportunity to sink in a cobra clutch for the win. Post-match, Oro puts the belt around Pirata's waist, and there's some legit handshaking, and that normally works in lucha title matches, but felt out of place given the tone of this one. Still, I can't complain about the body of the match at all. I know I painted a very specific picture of who Pirata Morgan was and what he did at the start of this project, but matches like this make me realize that there was more to him as a worker than even I give him credit for, and I want to see every Pirata title match after watching this.

Pirata Morgan, Verdugo, & Hombre Bala vs. Fabuloso Blondy, Brazo de Plata, & El Brazo EMLL 12/1/1989 - GREAT

Bucaneros vs. Brazos is an unqualified good in professional wrestling. Oro worked another match on the card, so we get the odd sight of Ken Timbs working as de facto babyface in Mexico. This is a lot more what you would expect from a Pirata vs. Brazo match, as the Bucaneros jump the Brazos plus Blondy at the bell and just beat the shit out of them for the entire first fall. It is kind of amusing to see the crowd rallying behind the Brazos when they're the focus of the beatdown, only to swing to the Bucaneros' side when they set their sights on Timbs. Then the technicos make their comeback in the second fall, and Timbs flips the switch from Georgia heel to Georgia babyface, which is really cool to see. He has some great brawling exchanges with Pirata throughout this match, but I thought they especially stood out here. Fall open with Timbs taking a great posting by Pirata (which he blades off of...only one guy in the match bleeds, oddly, but at least it's the one blonde guy), before slugging it out with Pirata later and closing the fall by sending Pirata into the post (which he also eats really well) while the Brazos take out Verdugo and Bala. Third fall is really fun back-and-forth stuff. The final exchange between Pirata and Timbs is great. Pirata misdirects Timbs with the left hand to pop him in the mouth with the right and throws him into the corner, but Timbs charges out with a great-looking Hart Attack-style clothesline. He spends too much time celebrating, though, and Pirata cracks him from behind with an ezuigiri before locking on the figure-four for the win. I don't know if this will make the 80's Lucha set. Phil wasn't crazy about it, and thought that Timbs made a poor substitute for Oro. He's certainly not Brazo de Oro's equal, but I thought he worked really well here, and the fact that Pirata Morgan vs. Fabuloso Blondy is a match-up that we're probably not going to see a whole lot of is too bad, because they were great against each other in this.

Pirata Morgan, Hombre Bala, & Bestia Salvaje vs. Solomon Grundy, Mogur, & Cachorro Mendoza EMLL 5/?/1993 - FUN

I remember during the making of the Texas set, when I watched a great Grundy/Fantastics vs. Tatum/Victory/Real Thing match, and was stunned at the realization that I had become a legitimate Solomon Grundy fan. I mean, he is not one of the all-time greats or anything, and his body of work won't blow you away, but he is the kind of wrestling oddity that you - the smart fan on the internet - don't necessarily expect to like, and who doesn't have the best of reputations, so when you watch his matches and see that he was actually a capable big man who sold well, had simple but solid offense, had lots of fun hillbilly shtick, and generally was entertaining more often than not, you kinda get behind the guy. So I was intrigued by the prospect of Grundy as a Pirata dance partner, and for the most part, they didn't let me down. Fun bit before the whistle with Grundy backing Pirata down in between signing autographs and holding babies, but the second the intros are done, Morgan blindsides him and starts laying waste to him, Pirata style. The tecnicos eat the opening beatdown from the Bucaneros plus Bestia really well before Grundy rallies the team (including a big avalanche to all three rudos and even teasing a dive at one point) and leads them to take the first fall. Second fall is a bit more orderly, but still really good. We get a great Pirata/Grundy exchange. It starts off with Pirata punching Grundy in the face - as most good things in wrestling do - but it is more about Pirata being a great stooge for Grundy's fun babyface act. He runs the ropes, but Grundy drops down, and catches him on the rebound with a savage butt-butt (Grundy's post-butt-butt jig was like a 0.7 or 0.8 Andre). Then Grundy runs the ropes, and Pirata drops down, only for Grundy to stop short and drop a big elbow on him. He drops another, and Pirata sells them both with the Wilhelm Scream, and the second one also has him pop up from the impact afterwords and stumble backwards through the ropes and straight to the floor, which is probably the most painful-looking comedy bump I've ever seen. Still, he makes his comeback, sending Grundy out of the ring and keeping him occupied while Bala and Bestia take out Mendoza. Third fall starts out kinda hot with the technicos firing back, but it's maybe three minutes long, the pacing is uneven (the other falls were six-seven minutes apiece, but they kept things lively throughout), and the finish feels slightly abrupt and pretty anti-climactic. It's frustrating. There was a lot of good brawling and shtick in this match, but it really fell flat at the end. Two GREAT falls and one SKIPPABLE fall feels like it should round up to GREAT, but I'm a big structure guy, and fumbling the tercera caida is a pretty big problem for me, so I'm dropping it down to FUN.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE PIRATA MORGAN