Segunda Caida Watches the Troops

It's Memorial Day, I'm a government employee so you KNOW I'm not working today. So far all I've done is eat a banana, watch Price is Right and an episode of Wonder Woman that had Harris Yulin as a movie producer and Debra Winger making one of her few appearances as Wonder Girl. Watched the Giants beat the Brewers. Ate some eggs with coffee. Phil told me that he was making a pipe cleaner diorama to honor the troops, I figured I would watch a couple things with wrestling's most popular Sergeant. I challenge you to think of a more popular Sgt. in wrestling. It can't be done.

Craig Pittman vs. Aleksandr Karelin, 1989 FILA Wrestling World Championships

Karelin had just won his first gold medal a year prior, and here he was 22 years old, going up against a 30 year old Pittman. Karelin looks like a machine manufactured to separate heads from bodies. We get a couple good minutes of grappling with the smaller Pittman showing impressive speed and not getting completely bullied around by Karelin. Things are actually pretty even for awhile, but before long Pittman gets tossed onto his stomach and Karelin latches on. Pittman tries his damndest to just sandbag his body, practically clawing at the mat while Karelin begins to deadlift him. Karelin has him held up in the air for several seconds before taking him up and over, and then immediately grabs him again - this time in a gutwrench -  and dumps Pittman straight up and over onto his head and shoulder. Karelin wins. Pittman stays down for a loooooong time.

Here is another video where Pittman claims to have "unofficially" beaten Karelin in a later match that took place in Sweden, you know, due to them only giving him only 1 point after THROWING Karelin. It's a shame no video or record or any other witnesses of that match exist. Also, Karelin was 6'8" apparently. Also not found on YouTube: video of Pittman plowing prime Phoebe Cates, video of Pittman intimidating a police officer into not giving him a speeding ticket, and evidence of Pittman ghostwriting much of Fleetwood Mac's Rumors.

Ric Flair vs. Craig Pittman, WCW Saturday Night 3/23/96

I thought this match was awesome, and a lot of things happened in it that were just perfect within the context of their characters. A lot of Flair's signature bumps made more sense opposite Pittman's offense, and a Pittman no sell made tons of sense when you think of who he was. So, let me explain. Match starts cool with Pittman grabbing a knuckle lock and Flair selling it as if Pittman were breaking his hand. My hands hurt just watching them. Pittman has really impressive throwing strength, and so whenever Flair would Irish whip him into the ropes Pittman would easily reverse it and send Flair flying. There was none of this ridiculous "Shane MacMahon out-grapples Kurt Angle" business. Every time Flair tried to throw him, it would backfire, because of course it would! This was one of the only times I've seen Flair's over the turnbuckles flipping bump to the apron make sense, as Pittman whips him so hard into the corner that it actually looked like something that would cause you to flip over the buckles. Flair is also completely powerless against Pittman so regularly has to go for eyepokes, which makes sense as something that would immediately stop the Pitbull. 

Flair takes a couple big bumps here, first with the turnbuckle bump and later when Pittman grabs him and does a deadlift suplex, ending with Flair getting crumpled up and landing on his side. Gross. Right before that Flair had given Pittman a back suplex of his own that got immediately no sold by Pittman, but it makes sense within the context of Pittman's character. I mean, this guy got up after Karelin slammed him into the mat! Of course he's going to get up after taking a suplex from Flair! Finish looks great and also logical, with Flair taking another nasty whip into the corner, and Pittman charging in with his flying shoulderblock. Flair moves and Pittman takes a cool horizontal chest first torpedo bump into the top turnbuckle, like Mike Modest's old Ray Stevens bump into the buckles, and then Flair rolls him up for the win. Both guys characters and styles meshed real nice here. This was easily one of the best Pittman matches. Also of note, this was the peak foxiness of Woman. Post match she takes all the focus off Flair's promo by just staring at the camera, even while Ric is taunting Macho Man by screaming about shagging Elizabeth. Just could not stop staring at Woman.

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MLJ: Cavernario vs Titan 4: Titán © vs Cavernario for the Mexican National Welterweight Championship (2014)

Aired: 2014-08-02
Taped: 2014-07-29 @ Arena México
Titán © vs Cavernario for the Mexican National Welterweight Championship

This match received a lot of praise last year and it deserved it. It ranked fairly highly on year end polls and what not. I liked it a lot, but it had some flaws, and I think that it received a bit too much credit for the spot and bump heavy tercera when it was the segunda that really shined.

Part of the problem is diminishing returns. The modern CMLL title structure has an even primera with someone getting a slight advantage in the matwork, the pace getting picked up in response and then a flash pin, a very brief segunda with usually another flash pin (or submission) to even the falls, and then a very long, selling-heavy tercera with lots of near falls, submissions, and the dives. It means that even a spot-filled tercera, while admirable and exciting, doesn't stand out as much as it could otherwise. This match had a good version of one, with some crazy spots and pretty good selling that wasn't just senseless laying around. Cavernario and Titan worked very well together by this point and when there were slight physical miscommunications, they added to the match because it just made things seem more genuine somehow. A lot of times, instead of things being super smooth, it felt like the wrestlers were jockeying for position.

What really made the match work, however, was the segunda. I've seen enough title matches, both current and older to understand how they work. They're cleaner, generally, there's less heat and more sportsmanship. There's an art to them, and that leads to more subtle matches. Well, Cavernario is a freaking Wrestling Caveman, and it's not his goal in life to be subtle. It's his goal to beat the crap out of people with fury and chaos in his heart. That was the segunda and it added emotion and stake and meaning to the match. Without it, the tercera would have been just another spotfest.

Primera did what it had to do. Titan does the little things fairly well on the mat, peppering in punches or utilizing the hair. He is a good package in that regard, since he can be flashy but also bring enough to the table when it comes to substance. That's my sense of him so far. He tries to work the crowd a bit too but they're not really buying what he's selling. This was set up as you'd expect, just with the volume turned up a bit. Matwork, picking up the pace, and ending with a big split legged Asai moonsault to the outside. I really like when they do this spot because Cavenario always tries to charge in first and has to get kicked a few times to create the distance. He makes Titan earn it. The fall ended with Titan flying too much too early and getting caught with a powerbomb followed by the Vader Bomb off the ropes.

That started an outright beatdown that was the segunda. There was no quick recovery pin to even things up here. Cavernario did what he does, moving around the ring, working the crowd, picking his spots, methodologically tearing Titan apart, including a bit of mask ripping. He had an awesome stomp in the corner, a really deep STF, repeated clubbering and paintbrushing, this great arm trap suplex. Titan sold all of it really well and that increased the tension and built up the anticipation for the comeback. A title match doesn't need that necessarily, but if it has it, especially when combined with the better part of other title matches, you can get something pretty special. I'm not sure if this match completely made it there, but it definitely came close.

Eventually, Cavernario got cocky, putting Titan up on the top rope and setting up a rolling leap of some sort. Obviously, this backfired and Titan spent a minute using his own body as a weapon, leaping from any direction he could, before hitting the split-legged moonsault in the ring for the fall.

As I said, other people have focused a lot on the tercera. I won't say much. It was what you'd expect, spot-filled and exciting. I really liked that the crazy over the top to the apron DDT didn't actually connect to the apron this time. It worked more as a takedown than something that should have ended the match. It was followed shortly thereafter by Cavernario's death splash to the floor. Maybe they did these two moves a little bit early into the fall, but I think it was important to sort of justify Cavernario's selling being on the same level as Titan's for the nearfalls to come and it did the job. I'm not going to run through everything else. It's far better to see these submissions and nearfalls and big spots than for me to write them, but it was all well done with some of it being clever call backs and some moves you don't usually see. The finish was a Cavernaria block followed by the Titanics.

I really hate Titanics. I've made a gif or two of it, but the idea is that Titan does a flip to surprise his opponent and a backflip from a handstand to catch his head so he can sort of short victory roll him. I actually think it's a very solid way to end a primera or a comeback segunda in a throwaway trios match. Not every one he's in, but now and again it's a move he can surprise an opponent with. I don't think that Titan should be ending the tercera of a title match that had been an absolute war with a goofy handstand. Wrestling is symbolic but some symbols are more appropriate than others.

That aside, they got a huge score for excitement and effort. I think Titan won over the crowd. It was a war but the escalation was paced well and the near-falls were believable. These guys were young. I think Titan was 23 at the time and Cavernario was 20. So to put on a match like this was a huge feather in the cap of both guys. It has me looking forward, in a big way, to getting to watch their recent match. Also, good on CMLL for giving them the time in the segunda. That makes all the difference in the world and it's one of the thousand things I wish the promotion would realize when it comes to these matches.

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