MLJ Palette Cleanser: Jose Lothario vs Black Gordman

1984-1-13 @ Houston, TX
Black Gordman vs Jose Lothario (nwaclassics.com)

I'm calling this fair game. As best as I can tell (and I could be wrong), Lothario worked Arena Mexico in the 50s, as Gran Lothario, including being the guy who Medico Asesino beat for the National Heavyweight Championship. Gordman had been around years before but was hanging around in Mexico shortly before this as a version of Bestia Roja, losing his mask to Solitario. Of course, Lothario was a Texas mainstay, one of the real stars of the state for decades. Gordman was huge in California, especially teamed with Great Goliath. We don't have a ton of footage of either guy, I don't think, which is one reason why this was so cool.

With Lothario, the sheer amount of footage is one of the best things that have come out of the NWA Classics service. We're seeing him both in the 70s (like the Mascaras tag vs the Funks) and in the 80s (including his feuds with Landell and the Guerrero) and he's stood out far more than I expected. To most fans he's either that vaguely unknown guy who was carted out by Michaels in the 90s and demolished by Sid, or someone with a terrible reputation due to Gary Hart's book. From what I've seen so far, he was pretty great. It helps that he was super over in Houston, but he backed it up with a sort of Memphis minimalism, taking damage and firing back at key moments, charging up the hope spots for the eventual pay off the comeback and then, generally, a pretty severe beating of the heel he's facing to the crowd's delight.

That was certainly the case here, and this was even more Memphis than most. Gordman rushed in right at the beginning, attacking Lothario while he was still on the apron and slamming him into the post both with Lothario on the apron and on the floor. He played king of the mount for a minute until Jose could punch his way back in, infuriated, but took back control with a hidden chain-assisted punch to the gut. Lothario sold it big and the crowd was incensed. From there, they worked it forward, with Jose coming back but the punch equalizing over about two-three exchanges in total, with Gordman less and less able to make it work, until Lothario was able to get the chain; the place absolutely exploded but after one shot, Gordman went flying out delaying and prolonging the satisfaction of it all.

By this point, really just five or six minutes into the match, both wrestlers had bladed but it didn't feel like overkill at all. Due to the sheer focus of the match, everything felt warranted and it took the crowd on a short rocket ride. They finished up by brawling on the floor and back inside, both wrestlers shoving the referee away to lead to the DQ. Gordman retreated again, coming back with a chair but Lothario is just too much. Finally, the ref, acknowledging that he'd thrown the match out, stepped out of the way. Gordman, though, decided to head for the hills thus deferring any sort of real resolution to the next match which I'm pretty sure was a Mexican Death match.

Great functional, heated wrestling. Phil put it as worth about $2.50 of the $8.99 monthly price and that sounds about right to me.

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