New Footage Friday: SATANICO! GARZA! SASUKE! SHINZAKI! NANIWA! ORIHARA! TOGO! BURNETT!

El Satanico vs. Hector Garza CMLL 12/8/95

MD: A lost match building up their big apuestas showdown. It's amazing how much they accomplished with relatively little time here. Satanico was just a master at maximizing every moment, in part by being so thoroughly committed to who and what he was. He fed and stalled immediately, letting Garza shine right from the get go, only to wrench his arm off the top when Garza went up too soon. From there, he opened him up on the outside and goozled him upside-down in the ropes so that the camera and the crowd could all get a good look at it. He then got overconfident allowing Garza to fight back from the outside, including biting. The tercera was fairly even but Garza got the big moment with a huge Finlay-esque whack against the apron. He also scored an escape from a Satan's Knot attempt and avoided a low blow, before Satanico deftly faked the foul for the finish. The goal here was to make Garza look tenacious and fiery while still making it seem like he was in legitimate danger for the apuestas match, all without giving away too much, and it definitely hit those marks.

PAS: This was great shit, a new Satanico singles match is about as great as it gets, and this was a killer Satanico match and a fun Garza performance. Primera Caida was a really fun minute or so, with Garza going up top a little fast, Satanico sidestepping him and putting on a fucking Kimura like he was Demian Maia or something. We get a little juice from Garza and a ton from Satanico, dropping plasma all over the ring. The fake low blow by Satanico was such a great finish. I have never seen anyone fake a low blow when his opponent slides through his legs like that, fun addition. I haven't seen the apuestas in a long time (maybe since 95) and now I really want to check it out again. 

ER: This was some simple, super effective stuff, with really the only highspot coming from a Garza missile dropkick. The rest of this was choking with boots and slamming faces into mats, and knowing it sets up an apuestas match makes it even more effective. I love the story of Garza going for some flash early and Satanico seeing it a mile away, leading to a couple of caidas of punishment. Satanico is such a violent presence that he can get a ton of mileage out of just jamming a guy's face into a turnbuckle or ring apron and then holding it there. Satanico is also so great at bumping for Garza, letting his legs go all rag doll and flop over themselves every time he hit the mat. Garza's big comeback face busters could have looked like junk, but here's Satanico whipping his face into the mat, getting his face nice and bloody while Garza bites at him. I loved how we started with Garza trying more complicated offense and getting his ass kicked for it, so when he comes back it's just him slamming Satanico's face into surfaces. And that's really all you need when you have an all time great like Satanico taking it. The finish was really inspired, loved Satanico going for a low kick but Garza seeing it and scooting back on his heels a bit, then Satanico's faked foul selling when Garza slides through his legs was an Oscar worthy performance of Man Gets Hit With Football. Brilliant.  

The Great Sasuke/Jinsei Shinzaki/Gran Naniwa vs. Dick Togo/Masao Orihara/Macho Pump MPRO 4/1/03 - GREAT

MD: Good mix of wrestlers here. I would have wanted a little more Togo, but you always do, really. What we got of him was great. I loved how competitive the opening exchanges were, with no wrestler hitting much of anything that they wanted to. The best of this Togo him blocking Shinzaki's rope walk strike, but it was all a pretty good opening. The beatdown kept things moving even if it wasn't very memorable. The finishing stretch was fun even if they shouldn't have had Samurai kick out of the double splash when someone else could have broken it up. We've seen a couple of surprisingly fun Macho Pump performances in these and this was no different, as really everyone did their part here.

PAS: Cool example of a MPRO house show from a relatively unexplored period of the promotion. Really enjoy the heel team, great bases for the fancy stuff, and we even got a Macho Pump tope. I don't remember seeing a bunch of Togo versus Shinzaki stuff before and they had some really good exchanges. I thought the the double frog splash probably should have ended it, but I am never going to hate seeing a Sasuke swanton. 

Jason Patrick vs. Malcom Sunshine vs. JM vs. Jimmy Saint vs. Future Mike Daniels vs. Aiden Hollows vs. Aaron Heights EPW 3/27/09

PAS: I asked SC favorite Chase Burnett to send us some stupid shit in honor of his return to Beyond this weekend, and he sent us this scramble match. I had only ever heard of Burnett (wrestling as Jason Patrick), Malcom Sunshine (only because I had seen and reviewed another Burnett match from this era) and Denver Colorado who was managing Saint (current Beyond Promoter). This was a Royal Rumble style scramble match with a new wrestler entering ever minute (which didn't really matter, match started with Sunshine and Patrick, and ended with them, and no one got eliminated until everyone was in). The standouts, were Patrick of course who had some crazy takedowns, a couple of big bumps, and even a moonsault double stomp. Sunshine who was bigger then everyone else and did a bunch of fun throws including powerbombing JM into a wall, and cruicifix bombing Hollows over the top rope. Jimmy Saint was great too, he was all old school execution, great looking fist drop and knee drop, and awesome spinebuster, I also liked how he teased a dive, only to hop off the apron and stiff everyone with chops. Finish came down to Sunshine and Patrick and they probably did a bit too much, although I enjoyed the bombs.

MD: I'm pretty consistent in what I like and what I want, probably to a fault, but when I see a 2000s Scramble Match listed, I know what boxes it's supposed to check. When I was 20 or so, I went to ROH Scramble Madness. I can, at times, put my mind back to that place. You're looking for spots, cool moves, bumps, the sort of stuff that you'll be talking about on the car ride home with about as much depth as the Chris Farley Show. I'd say on that level, this pretty much delivered. Burnett (who had to be pretty young at this point) was wrestling as Jason Patrick here and the throughline, as people came and went, was him and Malcolm Sunshine being in it. Sunshine's not a guy I'm familiar with but he had the sort of basing size you'd want in a match like this, serving as a wall that couldn't be chipped down and as a spoiler to cut people off. 

The fact they had peopled billed from Boston, New York, and LA made the promotion seem a bit more worldly and broad, even if it probably wasn't anyone you'd recognize. If it was ten years prior, they'd be the sorts of names I'd be looking for in the bottom hundred of the DVDVR 500 before going to an indy show. I liked Saint's act and could see him being the Franchise style heel headliner for a local indy, no problem. JM probably had the most of those "moves to be talked about in the car." I was promised Burnett bumps and got a few, including a great DDT bump/sell on the floor and a dive (and there were plenty of dives and a decent amount of standing around waiting for them) that looked gnarly as it wasn't caught quite right. The finishing stretch with Sunshine and Burnett went a little long after the match they'd already been a part of but was overall solid, doing a good job of establishing Burnett as an upstart heel that you have to give something to due to his talent and tenacity even if you're going to be ultimately disappointed by him in the end. For an indy at this level, a match like this accomplished a bunch of thing s and did more good than not.