Found Footage Friday: EDDIE~! CHAVO~! MANDO~! REY~! FIERA~! ESPANTO~! NAVARRO~!

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero WWE 4/8/05

MD: 20 minutes or so, with Eddy bringing out a Make-A-Wish kid to begin and Carlito getting in his house show interaction with the two of them (and a bit of Torrie) at the end. So it's not the thirty minutes that the video suggests but it still gets a ton of time. Eddy and Rey were the tag champs together at this point so that made it feel even more special and timely for this week.

They use the time to really let things breathe, with Eddy attacking Rey's arm with a lot of different and varied holds. Maybe what I loved the most about this was how into it the crowd was based on the way they put over each bit of wrenching or cinching of a hold. Eddy would land a drop toe hold out of nowhere and the fans would "oooof" in unison. He'd do a headstand to tighten up a hammerlock and it'd lead to an "ooooh." You have to love that level of investment on even simple things. It is hard, sometimes, to go from 70s French wrestling where everything, a top wristlock or a hammerlock or a short armscissors would have a four minute elaborate series of escape attempts to 21st century wrestling where we have to live with one huge fly mare out of Rey instead of three attempts of it with Eddy hanging on, but that's a me thing, not a match thing.

When Rey really got going, he really got going, hitting from one direction and then the next and the next, all fluid, all with oomph, all believable. Eddy could do no wrong at this point. He cheated and the fans chanted his name, so while he was the aggressor and Rey had to work from underneath, it still felt like a babyface match, just with different tools used than usual used to achieve the same ends. That was a testament in itself. Having not seen it for a while, I love to see Eddy do the three amigos, because unlike all of the tribute spots now, there's no hesitation to milk the moment. He just bursts into the sequence. The finish was the old, tried and true, splash mountain into a 'rana, but it, like everything else in the match looked great and got over huge.

PAS: The dream is to find the bloody house show brawls these two had, but it is really cool to see them work a basically scientific face vs. face match, even with Eddie being a lovable cheat. Really simple effective wrestling with Rey taking a corner post bump and Eddie really showing every step in how to crank and damage an arm. Good point about the Three Amigos, he has a ton of explosion and force on the move, which is never really captured by the tribute spots. I love getting another chance to watch Eddie, what an electric and compelling performer he was

Eddie Guerrero/Chavo Guerrero/Gacela vs. La Fiera/Espanto Jr./Predator Juarez

MD: This is posted on the Juarez YouTube page and is about ten minutes but only a few of an actual match before mask pulling, post match fighting, and Chavo making challenges. Eddy had some really good strikes here though. That's my biggest takeaway. It's not something I usually think of when I think of pre-modern Eddy. In the short amount of footage we have here, he launched a spinning backfist, an awesome European uppercut that reached for the ceiling, and a really nice elbow smash, and then post-match took a bunch of shots well and sympathetically as he was tied up in the ropes. You catch him too early in his career and he often comes off as an afterthought. That wasn't at all the case here. Just given who was in this one, if we had more of it, or if there even was more of it, it'd probably have been good, but we come in on the chaotic violence and as chaotic violence goes, it's solid stuff.

Mando Guerrero vs. Negro Navarro

MD: The only record I see on Cagematch with these two is from 1981 in Los Angeles. It's possible. Navarro is certainly young with a full head of hair. There's a brief bit in English in between the Spanish commentary. Fact of the matter is that I don't know. What I do know is how well these two are matched up. Both have a certain amount of over the top theatricality in what they do. In his later career, Navarro would overlay that on top of the maestro style. Mando was more apt to roll around the ring and eat up opponents. Here, Navarro had control with bit offensive flourishes. He'd grab what I assume is Mando's cape and wrap it around his hand to beat him down. He'd bite. He'd pose. Mando would fight his way back, making sure to preen to the crowd for half a second before big shots. Navarro would cut him off. Just when I thought the 8 minutes of footage that we have would cut off without a finish, Mando snuck through the ref's legs for a roll up and a banana peel win. Whatever vintage it is, it's a good look at Navarro earlier in his career and a very apt pairing.