SLL's All-Request Last Friday Night, Phaze Three

Wow, I genuinely was not expecting the Frank Zappa joke to play to it's conclusion. Hopefully, you'll find these were worth waiting for.

Virus vs. Guerrero Maya Jr. (CMLL, 6/7/2011)
Requested by Wrestling_KO Mike

The list of guys who have been as consistently great as Virus or greater over the last couple of years can probably be counted on one hand (Black Terry, Navarro, Rey, Danielson, Ishikawa...yep, that's one hand). Guerrero Maya Jr.? Well, the only thing I know is that he's the son of Guerrero Maya, AKA the aforementioned wrestling God Black Terry. He also was the original Multifacetico, and had a neat match with his dad a few years back. What he's been doing lately, I don't know. But all I need to know is that he's in there with Virus, and I feel we're in good hands, as well we should, because this match rocks. Earlier this year, I dropped by Daniel the Katakana Man's forum to talk about the WKO 100. Daniel is a guy who hasn't been exposed to a lot of lucha (I think) and seems to have a slight aversion to the stuff, but I promised him that if I found some 2011 lucha that I thought might have some crossover appeal, I'd let him know. Well, this match seems to have inadvertently taken dead aim at the lucha neophytes. As much as I don't believe in the need for "lucha eyes", I do realize most people can't be thrown cold into Navarro vs. Solar and be expected to get it immediately. I mean, that kind of match is as alien as E.T. landing in your backyard. You have to be eased into that shit (though once you are, you will look down your nose at everyone else who doesn't get it, but I digress). But this seems like it has real potential as a lucha gateway drug. There is a ton of matwork here, and while it isn't as technically elaborate as your IWRG maestro stuff, the execution is really tight, and I think that makes up for it, and it can hook people who might otherwise be turned off by elaborate lucha matwork. And it's not like the matwork here is dumbed down or anything. It's done in a way that I think would be more accessible to the lucha novice, but it's still very rewarding for long-time fans like myself. We also get some really nifty highspots mixed in, including an awesome Maya tope and a Virus slingshot somersault senton to the floor which has to rank high on the "Dives of the Year" list so far. Top it all off with a luchafied 90's All Japan finishing stretch (Maya busts out what could be called an Air Raid Crash onto his knee...if Go Shiozaki started using that tomorrow, I would not be surprised to see it), and you have a real winner of a match. I don't think I need to sell anyone on Virus. Maya more than proved his worth here, looking great on the mat, in the air, and eating all of Virus' offense really well. I was a little bugged by the reffing here, which surprised me, as I tend to be pretty tolerant of idiosyncratic lucha referees. The super-slo-mo counting felt wrong, and there is one spot where Maya has Virus in a rana-style pin, and they are literally bouncing across the mat while the ref counts. Virus is actually forcing his entire body off of the mat and across the ring in order to get Maya off of him, but the ref thinks his shoulders never leave the mat? Phil and Mike are talking about this as a legit, high-end MOTYC. I am not quite so gung ho about this. It didn't really hit me as strongly as the Terry/Navarro vs. Apache/Mortal stuff, this year's Navarro/Solar match, Panther/Casas, Miz/Morrison, Miz/Lawler, Lawler/Linder vs. Dundee/McCarver, Moxley/Jacobs, the Cena/Punk matches, Ki/Callihan, Cerebro/Comando, and a bunch of other stuff, but it was still a blast and something I would highly recommend to everyone.

Franz Schlederer vs. Gil Breihöder Cabanas (CWA I'm guessing?, 8/12/1986)
Requested by Jetlag

Well, it's German, and it's the 80's, and CWA was a German promotion in the 80's. It seems like a safe enough guess. I don't really have a lot of context for this match, which makes reviewing it a little difficult, so I have to try my best to pick things up as I go along. The one thing I know for sure from poking around this guy's YouTube channel is that Schlederer is the babyface who looks like a lankier Magnum T.A., and Cabanas is the Marc Rocco-looking heel. I also conclude that while it's a safe guess to say this is the CWA, it's not a lock. I mean, I've seen a fairly limited amount of CWA in my time. I'm no expert. There are knockouts, and the ref is carding wrestlers. There seems to be a round break at the end of the second of the three videos this spans, but that's the only one shown. On the other hand, there is some degree of clipping going on. I'm not sure how much, but let's be honest: I have very little idea of what is going on. The filming appears at first glance appears to be fancam footage. But over time, we get shots from multiple angles, and even some crowd shots peppered in. The editing isn't frequent or professional enough to suggest this is pro-shot (keep an ear out for the bit where the audio is suddenly replaced by what sounds like a German commercial break, and the video cutting out altogether at one point followed by brief, flashing blue screen accompanied by some weird sci-fi sound effect). All in all, I feel like the picture I'm getting of this match is a strange and incomplete one.

That said, it's also a really good one. I don't totally understand the circumstances behind the match, the rules, how much I'm being shown, or even how the match ends (it really feels like a coin toss between a time-limit draw and Schlederer getting DQ'd). But I do know what I like, and I like this. Cabanas is rudo-riffic, yelling at the crowd, pasting Schlederer with forearms and kicks, and cheating like crazy. Then Schlederer comes back with this great offensive run, popping Cabanas with these half-forearms/half-European uppercuts, some groovy uppercuts including one where he actually drags Cabanas backwards, and what I'm inclined to describe as an inverted powerslam bomb (basically, envision the powerslam Samoa Joe did to Necro Butcher, but with Necro's back facing Joe's body). That's the initial feeling out section of the match, and yeah, I could bitch about them throwing out too much, too soon, but they keep delivering at a pretty steady pace throughout this thing. Cabanas takes control and mauls Schlederer with hard forearms, punches, kicks, and stomps, all while constantly choking him and gouging at his eyes. Schlederer fights back, and not only does he look like a lanky Magnum T.A., he kinda works like one, too, all fired-up, pissed off brawling, and not taking shit from anyone who gets in the way. That includes the ref, who's armed with a whistle and isn't afraid to use it. He gets in Schlederer's grill a little too much while he's standing on Cabanas' throat, and Schlederer pushes him back a little. This leads to Schlederer getting shown the yellow card, which would be totally understandable had it not been for Cabanas' rampant cheating in full view of the ref for the entire match up to this point. But don't worry, there's a method to the madness that we'll see soon enough. Well, at least I saw it. Anyway, Schlederer doesn't let this keep him down, as he chucks Cabanas to the outside and pounds on him with forearms before they end up back in the ring and work a really fun not-quite-jujigatame segment (you know, it's the one they always did in the 80's where your feet are pushing against the guy's body like you're trying to pull his arm clean off of his torso) before the one clear round ends (I guess). When we come back, there's a funny test of strength bit. Cabanas is great stooging here when Schlederer overpowers. Schlederer powers Cabanas' hands to the mat and stomps on them, but when Cabanas locks up again and powers Schlederer's hands to the mat, Schlederer pulls them away when Cabanas tries to stomp them and floors him with a dropkick to the face. Cabanas works his way back via extensive cheating, but when Schlederer tries to turn the tables by gouging Cabanas' eyes, he gets another yellow card from the ref, despite Cabanas having done the exact same thing moments earlier (and throughout much of the rest of the match for that matter) to the referee's disinterest. At this point, I can only conclude we're dealing with a heel ref, and apparently Schlederer does, too, giving the ref a public warning of his own when he rips the cards out of his hands and chucks them out of the ring. Schlederer resumes chucking Cabanas around - and occasionally out of - the ring, culminating in an awesome spot where he ties Cabanas up in the ropes and then dives head-first into him with an in-ring tope. The match ends immediately after that, and as mentioned it's not clear how (the ref was clearly trying to untie Cabanas when Schlederer charged him, and Schlederer backed him into the corner when he tried to lecture him afterwords, but I don't know that I actually saw a DQ signalled...any German speaking readers who could help me out with this one?). This wasn't quite as big of a revelation as the last time someone on Segunda Caida watched an old match from continental Europe between two guys no one had ever heard of, but it was still awesome. It was a really intense brawl. If I had to guess, I'd think these two were feuding with each other at the time. Not only was it really heated, but I don't think there was a single pin attempt in the whole thing. Both guys were going for a knockout, though considering how many times each guy pulled the other one up when they were down, they were really just trying to punish one another, and I can always get behind that. Also, as a guy who is really down on modern German wrestling crowds, I wanted to note how much I liked the atmosphere for this match. It appears to be held in a tent at a carnival, with rides visible through the entrance in the background, and a lot of people seated at tables eating and drinking beer, and they were all really hot in the organic way that I like my wrestling crowds to be, rather than the nauseating way wXw crowds tend to be. Granted, this was a crowd of families and working class schmoes, which tends to help, but maybe it would help if you sat the wXw fans down and put something in their mouths.