Segunda Caida Fundraiser

Less than two weeks ago a massive fire destroyed the town of Middletown, CA not even 40 miles away from my own house. 76,000 acres burned, the entire town destroyed, 1900 buildings gone, including hundreds of homes. They're completely gone, devastated. The area has tons of livestock and many residents had to evacuate so quickly that they were forced to just open their gates and hope their animals escaped to safety. Late yesterday President Obama officially declared the fire a major disaster. Some of the stories I've heard are just terrible. This is arguably the closest proximity I've been in my life to a major disaster.

One of the people who lost their home is my co-worker Jan. This house has been in her family for 80 years. This home meant everything to her. She had told me before that she would do everything in her power to hold onto that home. And as if mocking her, something far beyond her power completely erased that home. When news of the fire first started to spread I immediately thought of Jan, if she was okay, if her family was safe, if all of her pigs and other animals were safe. I found out two days later that while everybody (including animals) had evacuated to safety, everything else was gone. Jan is so, so kind. This is the woman who will bring me homemade plum jam, or homemade croutons, and then also talk about Tarantino movies or Breaking Bad. She is always pleasant - something you don't always get in a large office - and I cannot imagine the devastation she has gone through and is still going through, and will be going through for years. A lifetime of her memories gone, with zero time to grab any of them.

I began thinking of services that I could offer, things I could sell so that I can give her money to give her even a miniscule part of her life back. But I don't have many special skills. I'm a governmental accountant, which will help none of you unless you happen to own your own city and need me to reconcile your Fixed Assets. But, I do write about professional wrestling. Perhaps too much. I've written more words about Mark Starr and Bobby Blaze than many of you have time to read about Mark Starr and Bobby Blaze. But I love watching and writing about wrestling, and some of you love reading it.

So I ask you - IF YOU CAN - please donate some money to my coworker and friend Jan. One of her daughters has made a GoFundMe page which I linked to below.

Jan's Go Fund Me Page

Now, what's in this for you? Well, if any of you donate ANYTHING to help Jan get back on her feet, not only will I match your contributions, but I will write about anything you want to see written about on these very electronic pages of Segunda Caida. GoFundMe accepts donations as little as $1. I do not care how much you donate. If you donate a dollar, I'll put up my dollar and write wholeheartedly whatever you would like to see written. If you donate $50, I will match that and write some more.

For purposes of soliciting the most possible donations, I won't even limit the selection to pro wrestling. You want me to write about my top 10 albums of 2015? Sure. You want me to rank my favorite Robert Forster performances top to bottom? Sure. You want financial advice? Sure. You want to hear about the time in 5th grade I laughed so hard that I peed my pants, and before anybody saw what happened I soaked my entire person with water from the sink and then claimed the sink went haywire and soaked me, just to cover up the terrible secret of my peed pants? Sure, I'll write about that (although.....yeah I guess there isn't much more to that story).

You can be as boring as you want with your requests ("Here's a match. Watch it and write about it." "Watch this PPV and talk about it." "Do podcasts more often.") or you can really micromanage what I write about and turn this into a whole Lars Von Trier/Jorgen Leth 5 Obstructions type deal ("Watch this Fit Finlay match but only say true, negative things about it." "Watch this Edge match and only say honest, nice things about it." "Analyze how many white No Fear shirts are worn by the average WCW mid 90s WorldWide crowd.") I figure it's your money, you might as well have some say in what you're reading. I will probably even be able to talk Phil into writing about something if you really don't like what my writing brings to the table. 

So please, donate. You don't have to tell me how much you donated if you don't want to (for purposes of me matching your contribution I would LIKE to know, but really I'd just be happy if you donated anything so I don't really care). You can leave your name anonymously (both on Segunda Caida and on the GoFundMe page) if that's more comfortable for you. I figure you donate, then leave a comment on THIS POST saying "Hey I donated $$, rank your favorite Lawler punches."  

I appreciate anything you guys can spare. I love you, tender readers. It gives me great joy to be able to contribute in some way to this strange niche passion that we all share, for professional wrestling.

Thank You,

Eric Ritz

Read more!

MLJ: Misterioso/Volador 2: Huracán Sevilla, Misterioso, Volador I vs Fuerza Guerrera, Kung Fu, MS-1

1992-01-03 @ Arena Coliseo
Huracán Sevilla, Misterioso, Volador I vs Fuerza Guerrera, Kung Fu, MS-1

Once again, the idea behind this one is to look at the Misterioso/Volador team and the big matches of their eventual feud. So far though, though it wasn't my intention, I'm stumbling behind the look at Emilio Charles I took a few weeks ago. That turned into a look at the Misterioso vs Fuerza Guerrera title match and this and the match following, through no real planning on my part, will be a look at the aftermath of that.

Sevilla worked as Ramirez II before this and as DARTH VADER before that:

I really don't know a lot about him. Kung Fu had turned rudo at some point and worked a grumpy nunchucks gimmick here. The match started with the ref running around trying to find his hidden weapons. MS-1 had just lost a hair match to Maskare (which sounds fun but I don't think we have it).

Anyway, the rudos took right over here due to all the hullabaloo over the nunchuk search. There was a distraction. They took advantage. General pairings here were Volador and MS-1, Kung Fu and Sevilla, and, of course, Fuerza and Misterioso. The ambush created a numbers advantage for the rudos and they cycled the tecnicos in for the primera. Misterioso, especially, seemed like he knew how to get the crowd behind him and to look strong, but whenever he started to fight back he was double or triple teamed. Kung Fu's stilted leg drop was ridiculous. I'm not even going to gif it.

I will gif this though. It's Fuerza being a total dick to Sevilla and yanking him around by his hair:

Also, this sell of a corner shot by Sevilla:

All in all, it was a good beatdown. They kept things moving and the rudos were just unrelenting. It was a little unfocused, but that seemed to add to the feel of it, not subtract. It felt like grumpy violence for the sake of it.

The rudos took the primera and left the tecnicos convalescing on the outside. After a bit of miscommunication, however, we'd get a pretty spirited comeback that almost immediately moved into tecnicos vs the world. It began well, however, with MS-1 stooging it up in preparation for a faceoff with Sevilla:

and Fuerza falling out of the ring in retreat for no reason:

and ended amazingly with this awesome monkey-flip-your-own-partner-into-a-sunset-flip spot. It's a cool enough spot that you figure that they had to use it fairly often. Look at Fuerza sell the shot on the top too:

So that evened up the caidas. The tercera was a lot of what you'd expect, very paint but numbers, but executed well. I'm not going to say that trios matches from 91/92 just feel more "right" than what we get today but there's some element of comfort in them, which is a funny notion for me since I'd never seen any of this stuff before two years ago. This was heated with a solid beatdown, some good tecnico shine, some fun spots and moments, and a great post-match brawl. What else can you ask for in a random trios match from twenty five years ago?

Read more!