New Footage Friday: CRUSHER TAKAHASHI!! SANTO! PANTHER! KASH! GUIDO!

El Hijo Del Santo/?/? vs. Blue Panther/Willy Cortez/?

PAS: No idea when or where this was from or who most of the guys in it are. The youtube site has a lot of Willy Cortez matches, so maybe it is run by him or his kids or something. Santo looks young and spry, so maybe sometime in the 90s? Although Santo looked young and spry when I saw him live last year, so who the fuck knows. The other luchadores in this match are pretty replacement level, but fine. Cortez and a guy in a yellow mask have a nice armdrag exchange and the third rudo had a nice tope. You are here to see Santo vs. Panther though, and they don't disappoint. I loved the early matwork, Santo refusing to give up the back and hanging onto the ride was so cool, and Panther is so smooth in between holds. I really dug the beatdown on Santo too, as it felt like it riled up the crowd, there was a point where it looked like people might rush the ring. Any chance to see legends like this must be taken, and there are some more cool looking matches on this channel for future weeks.

MD: To me, this is a definite find. We have some brilliant flashes of Santo and Panther working each other over the years, most especially outside of CMLL/AAA (Japan, UK, Monterrey), but here we have three great exchanges in a match that was otherwise pretty good. They're the third pairing in the primera and the matwork they do here is different than anything I've ever seen out of the pairing. It's much more amateur style, a lot of them riding one another or jockeying for position, building to lucha flourishes and throws and ending with an effective leap up to a 'rana. It was something you don't usually see in lucha, especially from guys as stylized as Panther and Santo. The second exchange was super-high end rope running, with Santo unleashing super athletic twists to his headscissors that weren't part of his usual repertoire, including a pretty amazing one out of a mare position. Then, in the segunda into the tercera, Panther just bullied him about. He served as the anchor for the rudos, the center of gravity that everyone came to as he held his opponents for shots and directed traffic. There was a sequence where he kept placing Santo's head over the top rope from one side of the ring to the other so that his partners could lay in kicks and clothesline his neck from the outside. In the tercera, it devolved into some really effective mask pulling, building to Santo drawing some rudo miscommunication and having a big comeback. I thought the finish was slightly unfocused as it veered off of the Panther vs Santo match-up at the very end but ultimately this showed us something new from a pairing for which one might have assumed we've seen everything there was to see.


Kid Kash vs. Little Guido HRT 3/12/13

MD: Kash had to come out there and get the heat for Sabu not showing up. He pinned it on Canadian border control and heeled on the crowd for it before calling out Fonzie to second him since he had nothing else to do. He followed that up with a bit of stalling and picking fights with the crowd to start. That let Guido be a bit more of a face, though this was definitely a 2013 post-modern smarmy crowd. They were more or less into his comebacks and even clapped along while he was in a hold (though with terrible, out of practice, rhythm). This went about ten if you include the stalling and was a prelim match to set up a triple threat for some sort of belt later on. The early feeling out process was really good as they went at it on the mat. Once they got going, Kash was a solid bully with harsh cutoffs even as Guido kept making organic opportunities for himself. I don't think they quite built to a moment of definitive comeback but everything was crisp and believable, including the miscommunication that led to the finish. Two skilled journeymen working what was unmistakably an indy match, but working it hard and entertaining and looking good in the process.

ER: This was on one of those odd shows where some Canadian fed flies in 9 or 10 old ECW guys to draw 300 people to an cultural community center, but instead of the workers attempting to badly recreate ECW atmosphere and ring carnage, they just work like good pro wrestlers. Now, Kash's stalling mic work was straight out of ECW, as I can't personally remember the last time I've heard someone call people "retarded" this many times in one minute. But he draws heat (though you see, this crowd is very smart, so they are in on the joke and there are dozens upon dozens of them that cannot wait to show off their own comedy chops), and stalls well. The scrambling matwork was aggressive and looked good, and both threw armdrags that looked like they were trying to dislocate shoulders. Their offense wasn't about big highspots, just crisp execution of some of their known tricks, with Guido's Sicilian Slice looking especially good, and Kash is expert at jumping into moves like that. This is the kind of match that stands out at the end of the night when you're driving home, solely because of execution, and you need guys like this on a show that also has Gary Wolfe.

Crusher Takahashi vs Shota 7/21/13

MD: I was (and to be honest still am) completely unfamiliar with these two, but this is the most watchable thing you'll come across this week. Takahashi is a big Japanese journeyman who has a penchant to do tortuous things that you wouldn't expect a guy his size to do, all with an extra bit of oomph due to his mass. When he bridges back in the deathlock, or even stretches the leg over, the whole ring shakes. He has this methodological matter-of-fact way of moving but then explodes around the ring, like with the rolling toehold that set up the finish. Shota, on the other time, is spry and fiery, but also the most consistently over the top seller I've ever seen. At least in this match. He's constantly making noise, constantly wagging a limb or walking something off. It makes me wonder how much of the oomph was Takahashi landing stuff and how much of it was Shota selling during and after the fact. Which is actually how the best wrestling is supposed to work. Given his opponent and the size differential, it never feels like too much selling. He's still staggering around in his comeback but that sets up the finish. Honestly, he came off as a more vulnerable Randy Savage. Like a plucky babyface underdog Randy Savage, as his entirety of his offense were punches (including in the corner), a double axe handle off the top, a neckbreaker, and the misguided top rope elbow drop which tweaked his hurt leg and let Takahashi recover. I almost don't want to see more of him because I can see how the act might get old, but in this one twelve minute match, it was great.

SR: Crusher Takahashi, baby. He's a worker who has basically been doing a southern wrestling tribute working Japanese scum indies since the 90s. I've kind of enjoyed him then as a decent enough guy who could throw a nice punch, but at some point he turned into a genuinely good worker, and this was his showcase match. I am likely to enjoy any fat aging wrestler who throws a great punch (which Takahashi does here), and he did some really great southern scientific type matwork here, which he makes look great. That kind of western style matwork doesn't get much praise as US guys just kind of stopped doing cool matwork at some point in the early 80s, but he was working those toe holds like he was about to dislocate his opponents knee. He also had this really great bridging indian deathlock, and his punch/knee combo in the corner looked like it loosened a few teeth. I didn't get much from Shota during the opening portions here, but I actually liked how he punched his way back to offense, and his selling off the leg as he kept slowly destroying himself was really cool. Really good little match which made me want to go back and check out the rest of Takahashi's maestro back catalogue.

PAS: There is a guy working like Bobby Jaggers in Puro indies? Why isn't this guy headlining New Japan? Loved this, such an anachronistic match for the 2010, all heavy elbow drops and Indian deathlocks. Takahashi has a hard right hand, some punishing looking Alabama mat work and sells well for Shota. Shota was kind of working this like Brett Wayne Sawyer, selling big, hitting some basic highflying moves and losing to a figure four when he can't keep his shoulders off the mat. What a weird wonderful little match.

ER: This is the kind of Japanese wrestler that people need to be recommending to me. I hadn't heard of either of these guys, but Shota is dressed like a pre PG-13 Jamie Dundee and Crusher has hairier thighs than Dutch Mantell, so we get a little bit of Memphis in a small Japanese club. I understand Matt's hesitation to see another Crusher match, worried that the act might get old, but I think the thing that gives this style legs (super hairy legs) is that neither guy plays this for a gag. THAT would make the returns diminishing, but I see nothing in their movements that show they are working this style for any other reason than southern style is the best. Shota as undercard Randy Savage is an accurate descriptor. Mid 90s Savage formula saw him eat a beating for the first 80% of a match then just come back with a quick bodyslam and flying elbow. Shota eats the beating in the first half, makes the comeback, but still loses. Crusher works him over with great matwork, the kind that feels like Ricky Morton working holds rather than the more perfunctory New Japan matwork, working hard Indian deathlocks and floating over to control the arm. There's no wink. This isn't a Japanese Tik Tok teen doing phonetic Bill Engvall routines, this is a hairy Japanese man with a belly working punches and joint based matwork. Shota's left hands are better than his right hands, though I liked the grinding glancing elbows he threw with his right, while Crusher has several great worked punches. Crusher had a nice headlock punch and a straight right hand, and Shota's best punches might have been whenever he threw a couple body shots to comeback. This bridging deathlock finish looked really painful, and I liked how it was set up by a Shota elbowdrop that actually hit (but also caused him to land on his worked over knee). We definitely need to dig deeper into Crusher's catalogue. It would be foolish of us not to.