All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD: FUTEN War V. IWRG bloodbath

Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro/Chico Che v. El Hijo Del Diablo/Avisman/Gringo Loco IWRG 3/7/10

PAS: Black Terry Jr. HH are one of my favorite things in the history of wrestling, and this was one of my favorite examples of the art. His filming style is so great, especially for this kind of out of control bloody brawl. You get these great close ups of bloody faces, with each shot looking like it could be a pullout in one of those grittier non-Apter wrestling magazines I used to read at DeLauers newsstand in Downtown Oakland. The Gringo team dominates the first part of this match bloodying up all three luchadores. Nasty stuff including pulling out cacti and digging them into the open wounds. We get a great fired up technico comeback with Chico Che looking especially awesome. He had this one year or so run in IWRG where he was incredible, and then he disappeared. It was right up there with Hiroyuki Ito's U-Style run as one of the great short periods in wrestling history, he was like lucha John Cazale. Che has these super heavy right hands that look like he is putting all of his considerable weight behind each shot, he also ran through this incredible signature run of headscissors and armdrags, nothing I love more then fat luchadores who can fly. This was another awesome Terry performance as well. He is so emotive in brawls, he is amazing as the old broken down warrior who keeps fighting because that is all he knows.

 I can just see him retired on a ranch somewhere, and Dr. Cerebro showing up "we have some American's down here causing trouble", "I don't do that anymore Doc, I am done", "They are calling you out Terry, saying you don't have the guts to strap on the boots, I came down here looking for a legend, I guess an old story is all I found, I leave you be." "Wait Doc, you bastard, let me get my trunks."

ER: This is a flat out lucha classic, a true gift to the community from BTJr. His handheld work is majestic and makes this feel more out of control than it even was, and it was plenty out of control. To use an already sadly dated reference, the whole match felt like that amazing chaotic tracking shot from season 1 True Detective, just chaos and brutality lurking around every turn of the camera. When I hear people say they don't get lucha, or just don't like lucha, I have to assume they haven't seen matches like this. Bloody brawls are like the universal wrestling language and this had it all. The disrespectful foreigners, valiant hometown heroes, a fat guy, an old guy, and blood. If you take any 3/5 of those things and throw them into a match, I'm probably going to love it. My favorite in this was Dr. Cerebro. Chico Che brings the awesome fat guy moves, Black Terry brings the old man grit, but there's Cerebro having the best brawling segments, gluing all the transitions together. Every time the camera would pick up Cerebro brawling with Loco it looked like some of the best wrestling brawling you've seen. There was zero light between their shots, and they always mixed them up in cool ways; you wouldn't just see turn taking punches, you'd get punches and slaps and kicks all thrown at different angles at odd timing. PLUS, he gushed twice the blood as his partners. But Terry was great at rallying the troops and bringing every awesome thing he always brings to these matches. To think even just 6 years ago that he would still be having these wild brawls today would have sounded nuts. Chico Che was real unique, and this match was a great example of his peak. He really moved differently, didn't throw punches like anyone else I've seen, and had some great agility. His missile splashes were both painful and gorgeous; seeing him get launched off the top with his arms by his sides was an amazing visual. The rudos could have really coasted here and the match still would have come off pretty classic due to the strength of the tecnico side, but none of these rudoes coasted. Diablo came off like a lanky cheapshotting creep, Loco turned in an excellent brawling performance, and Avisman brought great execution to even the most basic things. The match didn't necessarily need them to be this great, but a great rudo performance in something like this just elevates it sky high, and we got three of them. A true gem for lucha and wrestling fans.

FUTEN Review

Verdict: 

PAS: I loved this match, bloody brawl lucha is one of my favorite things, and this a great example of it. However the FUTEN match may be one of the few matches I would give 5 stars to, it is pretty perfect and will be damn near impossible to beat.

ER: Sadly this match is a victim of our calendar endpoints. If we were doing half years, this would likely win for the first half of 2010, with FUTEN tag winning the second half. If we were doing March to March, this match would likely win March 2009-2010. But we use calendars and it drew just a brutal opponent. I could see this match eventually winning, if we revisit this in a few years. Who knows, Ikeda and Hashi could die of concussion related causes and we'd feel super bad watching them clunk their brains together in gross ways, and a straight up bloody war would make us feel better about vampiric selves. As it is, it's easily good enough to be #1, just drew a brutal opponent.