New Footage Friday: Santo! Rey Jr.! Villiano 4! Scorpio Jr.! Shamu!

WWA 9/2/91

Rey Mysterio Jr. /??? vs Shamu/Peligro Mortal 

MD: This had a nice bit of pomp to start as Rey Sr gives his nephew (though not billed that way) the Rey Jr mantle. The rudos here worked ok as bases. Everything was fine, but unsurprisingly, Rey's the guy you can't take your eyes off of. Not everything was smooth but even the things that weren't smooth still worked. He might have to bounce twice on the ropes before launching himself off, but there's still such agility and talent to the fact he even could get that second bounce that it somehow added to it instead of taking away from it. Somehow that seemed as impressive as the things he hit clearly, cleanly, and brilliantly.

PAS: This was a mini's match, and it is crazy how much more agile and wild Rey was then other mini's. The rudos were nice bases for all of Rey's spots, I think the thing that stood out the most wasn't the spots themselves but how much more height and speed Rey would get on typical spots. A springboard headscissors isn't that rare, but Rey just floats in the air like a flying squirrel before he hit anything. 

ER: I gotta write about a new Shamu match, I love that guy. He's the Tijuana undercarder my friends and I always got most excited for any time we did a wrestling road trip down south (except for my friend Jason who pretended he liked Xstasis). He was the best base on a lot of the shows we saw and when your gimmick is also that you're a fat guy whale then of course I will love you. This was probably the earliest Shamu I've seen and he takes the same great fast bumps to the floor and can catch ranas and armdrags better than anyone in the match. Peligro Mortal isn't bad himself, and Rey is spectacular. I don't think you would have predicted he would take over the world and become one of the biggest stars of all time, but he is the guy in the opening match that people talk about after the show. He really soars on his springboard offense, and at one point Shamu bumps him into the ropes to create space and Rey flies back into the ropes  like Shamu was an explosion. 

Los Mercenarios vs Rey Misterio/Kiss/Halcon 78 

 

MD: Pretty fun midcard trios match here. Mercenarios were Bill Anderson, a young Louie Spicolli, and some guy under a mask, who was pretty definitely not Tim Patterson, who had the gimmick off and on in the years prior. Anderson and Spiecolli worked well together (though I kind of wish Anderson worked up to his size a little more), but it was the masked guy who really stood out. He was a crazy bump machine and pinballed all over the ring and the floor for all of the tecnicos. He made Kiss, who I'm not particularly familiar with, look like a million bucks in their exchange. This was all-around enjoyable with sufficient chaos in the tercera that the handheld cam had no idea what to focus on.

Villano IV vs Scorpio Jr. 

MD: This was a solid title match. Scorpio was maybe half a step behind in the opening matwork but that was the only thing he felt behind on. When the pace picked up, his quick dropkicks were great. When he was in control, he had presence. His submissions in the tercera were all good. Villano was more or less flawless throughout. Even though the crowd was definitely behind him, I could have used a slightly better transition in the segunda. He just sort of fell out of an abdominal stretch (that Scorpio was cheating on) and then took over. The crowd deserved something better there. They got a pretty good tercera though with a lot of drama.

PAS: I thought this was pretty great. We don't have many (if any) long Villano IV singles matches and this was a treat. I thought the early matwork was really cool, including a long section working in and out of a calf stretch. I actually liked the second fall fine, with Villano IV hitting this really nasty short knee drop, and Scorpio doing sort of a Oklahoma stampede with a spinebuster. Final fall had a heavy V4 tope and a great looking reversal of superplex where Scorpio looked like he was going to get sheer dropped on the top of his head, before he reversed it into a pin. V4 clearly was holding a belt of some kind, and I want to see all of those defenses. 

Hijo del Santo/Hijo de Solitario vs Kahoz/Fishman

MD: Unfortunately, we only get the first two falls before the tape cuts off. Not a ton to say with just that. Solitario held up his end so what we got were good. I always look for a Fishman performance that'll make him stand out to me and I rarely get it but I thought he asserted himself well here. He's never comes off as particular quick or agile but there was a real heft and weight to all of his offense here as he leaned on the tecnicos. That I appreciated at least.

[The video got taken down very quickly due to WWE complaints about Rey footage. We will find some way to get the footage uploaded. As you can see, it got pulled before either Phil or Eric could watch any of it.]