New Footage Friday: Satanico! Perro! Lawler! Fishman! Ringo! Taue! Air Paris! V3! Dr. Death!

Perro Aguayo/Fishman/Satanico vs. Villano III/El Jalisco/Ringo Mendoza CMLL 1983?

PAS: My god is this a whirlwind. We have six tremendous lucha brawlers just ripping into each other, and it keeps building and building. Cubsfan guessed this match was 1983, which makes this some of the earliest Satanico footage we have, and my god is he brilliant, he throws these multiple punch combos with such preciseness and force, it is like watching Sugar Ray Robinson footage. It is a great contrast to the more unhinged and wild brawling of Perro, Perro and Ringo Mendoza are mostly paired up in this match, they had two apuestas matches in the 70s which must have been classics, because this felt like an all time rivalry, by the end of the match they are both covered in blood on their knees just whirling shots at each other.  Don't know much about Jalisco, but he takes a bump to the floor in the match where it looks like he tears his ACL, but gets back into to fight more, so it must have just been a great sell. Villano 3 spends most of the match in an incredible boxing war with Satanico, and I loved his little dances before unloading shots. The match ends with a low blow, but there are six minutes or so of post match brawling where it gets so intense that it feels like the crowd is going to rush the ring. The point of this project is look at all kinds of footage, a lot of time we unearth fun curiosities, this however was a stone cold classic.

MD: This felt evolutionary. I wouldn't necessarily call it revolutionary, as you get the sense these guys were having matches this good all the time. Part of why I love wrestling is the structure, the patterns, the ritual, and that exists nowhere as much as in lucha. There are things you just don't see a lot of, whether you're watching a match from 86, 96, or 06. One of these are two distinct rudo beatdown segments. You just don't see it much. This had that, with the beatdown that opens the match an all timer. All three rudos absolutely shined, with Perro's boots the 1983 equivalent of Suplex City, with Fishman's punches more memorable than anything else he's done in any other match I've seen him in, and Satanico just holding court as the true king of wrestling villainy. Throughout this Ringo is sympathetic working from underneath and Villano III is tough as nails as the guy wanting to get in and save his partner.

When I say evolutionary, though, it's because not everything has been calcified yet. You still get the sense of reasons behind things we've always just taken for granted. For the first comeback, It's Villano III in there and it's a bunch of the classic rudo miscommunication that they've been doing for decades and that you can imagine in your mind just with those two words alone, but there's an element of danger and desperation that I've never seen. It's not just a given. There's still a chance that the rudos are going to win out with the numbers game and Villano III will get pulled back under. It eventually becomes ritual but here it, the element of lucha which however enjoyable has the least amount of actual struggle, felt just a bit more believable than usual. That was a testament to the rudos, to the tecnicos, to the viciousness of the beatdown, and yes, to the punctuation of Ringo just unleashing on Perro after the momentum shifts.

Even the stuff that feels a bit more out of place in a war like this, like the Estrella-rana combo after the second comeback in the tercera, works because of how battered Perro and Ringo were by that point and the way they sell their exhaustion as they move towards each other in the center of the star. Everything builds towards the end-of-match fouls and they feel less like a means to an end but meaningful ends in and of themselves.

ER: Matt and Phil covered this one before I had a chance (my family's Christmas is today due to sister working on Christmas, so I'm holed up in my parents' bathroom typing about pro wrestling to avoid their mockery), but I watched this last night before bed and my god is this era lucha as heated as any Mid South brawl you've seen. There's a vocal contingent that says they don't get lucha, but what is not to understand about a match like this? This is 20 minutes of fists flying and men taking dangerously fast bumps to the floor, before running back in to send more fists. Satanico is in his early 30s here, has his hair styled like Richard Dawson, takes at least 6 lightning fast bumps to the floor, and has the exact same hunched posture as 70 year old Satanico has. But here's Perro Aguayo also throwing fists and flying to the floor, and here's a luchador - Jalisco - I don't really know, taking a mammoth bump to the floor with a knee sell so convincing that someone could say "oh yeah this is the match where Jalisco blew out his knee and never was the same again" and I'd say "sure makes sense"; This is the greatest Fishman performance I've seen (the way he would square up and fire shots to the gut and collarbones!), the greatest Ringo Mendoza performance I've seen (I don't think I've ever seen such a majestic fired up tecnico performance from him, the perfect combination of tecnico intensity and peak athleticism), Villano III wrestles like Villano III, and the whole thing just washes over you in a perfect bath of dickhead relentless rudos and walking tall tecnicos. The striking is so tight, and yet so passionate that it probably didn't need to be as tight as it was, the message still would have shone through. Perro and Ringo go at it like dogs and leave bleeding, Satanico would fly to the floor and fly back in just as fast to gun for Villano's head, the crowd keeps surging closer and closer to the ring, the whole thing is just gorgeous. This is lucha perfection, the kind of match worked in a universal language with flair that only lucha can provide.


Akira Taue vs. Dr. Death Steve Williams AJPW 6/4/91

PAS: Thumping heavyweight wrestling which is exactly what you want from this match up. Really great Willams performance, he just puts so much pop on everything he does in this match. He does this great sliding dropkick where he just sticks both feet into Taue's ribs and send him flying to the floor, and then works an abdominal stretch by pounding on those ribs. There is a minor key AJPW finish section with some really nasty falling lariats by Taue and a fun near fall where Taue grabbed the rope on the Stampede and got a two count, only to fall to a big stampede for a three. The older I get the less I care about smoothness and both of these guys are rough as sandpaper.

MD: This was a Doc showcase, from the fans chanting along to his music at the beginning to him powering Taue around the ring with the second Oklahoma Stampede attempt (not counting the posting on the floor) that was the finish. Doc felt like a proto-Brock here, just full of energy and explosiveness. Taue was there to take everything, get in position, and bump around for Williams. When he fired back, it was memorable, be it the hundred-hand slap across the ring or the back brain kicks. The finishing stretch was each trading bursts of momentum before Williams won out. The whole thing was an absolute clash of the titans. Size in and of itself doesn't matter any more than speed but the way that these two went at it made it feel larger than life.

ER: I pushed a little extra for this one as Taue is a guy who is weirdly under-represented on Segunda Caida, and that's something that should change. Taue vs. Doc was almost always a once a year singles match, and this is the first time it happened (and the only time it didn't happen as part of the Champion Carnival). So they met up nearly every year after this in the Carnival, including the well known '96 CC Final, so it was a fairly rare match up and one that always happened as some part of big tournament...except for here. It's their only singles match without some kind of stakes, and that's pretty cool. The two shouldn't blend well, and maybe they kind of don't, and that's what makes it fun. Taue's clunkiness is part of his charm and makes his moments of athleticism that much more exciting, and it's fun seeing him take offense because he moves like the only two "How to Move and Stand" models in his life were Giant Baba and Bob Backlund. Seriously, watch when Taue takes a punch or stays standing on a shoulderblock, his butt out/fist cocked stance is pure Backlund, the way he takes suplexes is like Backlund...just a perfect Frankenstein monster of Giant Bob-uh.

I liked how Taue used his falling clothesline a lot here, spamming it as a guaranteed takedown on Doc, as it was a way to actually swing things back to Taue's favor while also still making it feel like he was working underneath the full match. Taue does a lot of simple things here to play into Doc's crazy strength, like just grabbing the best kind of chinlock (tight arm choke while pressing his weight down into Doc's back and shoulders, and also holding tight onto a side headlock. Doc is not someone you want to put in a side headlock, but Taue locking in a snug one actually adds some meaning to Taue eating a back suplex, making it feel like his actual offense was reversed (as opposed to the moments where someone with zero business headlocking Doc was merely doing it for the spot). Doc had some cool punishing slams, and surprised me with a great baseball slide dropkick that sent Taue sprawling to the floor. Taue sprawls better than most wrestlers, there's always at least one limb sticking up in a way that it shouldn't be. Taue reads as a hard guy to lift (another secret about the greatness of Taue), so when Doc press slams out of a pin and Taue goes flying, it comes off like an even greater version of that spot. Doc Stampeding Taue into the ringpost is only more gold, and the nearfall that comes from Taue holding the ropes on a Stampede, falling on top of Doc with a crossbody, fully convinced me it was the finish. Two guys who infrequently met in singles matches, meeting for the first time, just made me want to go back through their half dozen CC matches.


Jerry Lawler vs. Air Paris NAWA 4/18/03

PAS: Really simple, really pleasurable Lawler indy tour match. Weird heel/face structure with Lawler doing sort of heelish mic work at the beginning (insulting a big Air Paris faction in the crowd) but Paris and his manager Bert Prentice working heel in the match. Paris was a highspot guy in NWA Wildside (and in his one WCW match) but was working Memphis heel here, he had a great greasy haired laser tag attendant look, and threw some really great looking punches. Lots of complaining about pulling hair and other fun horseshit. At one point Prentice holds Lawler while Paris wraps a chain around his hand, and instead of Paris accidentally hitting Prentice, the interference actually works!! We did have a Lawler Stone Cold Stunner, which is my least favorite Lawler thing ever (outside of the young girls of course), but otherwise this was spot on.

ER: We've gone through and watched a ton of Lawler indy matches from the 2000s, and this is just more of that same fun Lawler formula. Lawler can have this match in his sleep, so a capable opponent will always lift things, and Paris was a fun jerk here. He was bigger than his WCW appearances a couple years prior (when it looked like he and Styles were actually about to be a pushed new TV team...in the very last week of WCW), and he's dressed like an undercover cop at a rave, so it's fitting when he's complaining about hair pulls and tights pulls to eventually justify his own cheating. Lawler is always capable of surprising me, in mixing up his formula and catering it to specific crowds and opponents; here he surprised me by absolutely leveling Paris with a standing clothesline out of a blocked hiptoss attempt. Lawler is not someone I think about when I think about guys with a good short arm clothesline, but it shouldn't shock me that he uncorked a beauty. Lawler punches Paris around the ring, with Paris eventually coming back by punching Lawler in the back of his head. It's also no surprise when guys tend to "punch up" when facing Lawler. I recently watched a Lawler/Aldo Montoya match where it looked like Montoya was trying to break Lawler's jaw, and here Paris throws several knuckle shots right at Lawler's eyebrow. We get Paris choking Lawler with a chain behind the ref's back, and I'm always going to love a chain in a Lawler match. Lawler knows how to work around a chain, whether it's his chain or responding to someone else's chain. We build to both guys eating backdrops, Lawler punching Prentice off the apron (with Prentice taking an impressive bump for a guy cosplaying as the Mayor of Flavor Town), a strap removal spot where Lawler request Paris stop advancing on him, and then we really do get the chain spot to beat all chain spots. Phil mentioned it, but the whole spot is drawn out the exact way you've seen it countless times: Prentice gets on the apron and holds Lawler prone, Paris theatrically wraps the chain around his fist, gives his fist a big kiss, rears back...and just punches Lawler in the head. Prentice hops off the apron. I made an audible "HUH?" type sound. This is like when Matt saw a match where someone hit an axe handle off the middle buckle to a downed opponent, a true in the wild rarity.

MD: Air Paris is always going to be the unfortunate answer to a trivia question, but he put on a good show here. Lawler's opening mic act was ten years out of date (even for this crowd) and Prentice's act half-hearted and probably fifteen. None of that was a certainty because Lawler as of a few years ago could still spend the first ten minutes of a twenty minute recorded match on the mic and you wouldn't mind it at all, but here it was all too homophobia driven and the fans only seemed partially into it.

Paris did have his own cheering section which he used well as a prop throughout the match. There was nothing 'air' about him here, instead playing up the mic work insinuating that if he beat Lawler, he'd get a shot at the following Raw. He was the upstart jerk, playing up every won exchange or bodyslam as if he won the lottery (through skill, not luck). He kept the volume up high and presented himself as an entertaining foil for Lawler. The strap-dropping felt particular satisfying even after only a few minutes of it. Pure formula, but so long as you lean into it, it almost always works and they leaned into it here.