Found Footage Friday: TOGO~! SNOW MAN~! CENTURION NEGRO~! MONJE NEGRO JR~! MEIKO~! AMANO~!

Snow Man (Chad Collyer)/Fujin vs. Dick Togo/Hideki Nishida 6/4/01

MD: This was from a lucha themed show at Korakuen Hall called Lucha Aid, which may be something people know about (there was a music video for it back in 2011 that's long been scrubbed from the internet), but it doesn't seem to be on cagematch and the only thing I can find online is from the April 30 2001 Wrestling Globe newsletter. Long story short on this one, Togo spends most of the match on the apron and you spend most of the match wishing he was in the ring. When he is in there, he matches up well with Collyer, and in a brawling bit on the floor has amazing punches and takes an insane bump into a bunch of empty chairs. Collyer is actually a lot of fun as Snow Man, constantly saying his name and posing and playing a strongman gimmick. A good chunk of the match is Fujin vs Nishida though and while nothing is outright offensive except for Fujin's elbow smashes, it's not exactly super compelling either. Still, even a little Togo goes a hell of a long way.

Centurion Negro vs. Monje Negro Jr. 9/17/06

This is hair vs mask and we get the last two falls of it. Centurion Negro won the first which we don't have. This starts out with him in control but Monje Negro quickly takes over and just batters him around the arena, a lot of shots into chairs and the like with Centurion bleeding and Monje Negro going after the wound a bit. Centurion gets a good comeback moment but chooses to go after the ref instead which allows for a cheap roll up. Cheap is the term for Monje Negro actually. He took a lot of stylistically interesting shortcuts, including catching the ref's arm instead of kicking out or dropping to his knees to hit a back body drop instead of bending over. He also through a really great foul as Centurion was about to put him in an abdominal stretch type move. As the tercera went on, he bleed too and ultimately got his comeuppance after a ref bump. If you like guys slamming each other into chairs and walls as they go around an arena (and who wouldn't) this one had a lot to offer.

Meiko Satomura vs. Carlos Amano GAEA 1/17/99

MD: This had existed heavily clipped previously but this seems to be the first full look at it. Aggressive, heated, chippy. They really go at it, full of animosity. Satomura came in with a taped up arm and has to wrestle defensively to start. Amano is able to chip away at her because of it and eventually starts to work on the arm. The arm, however, is primarily a gateway to other offense and especially to other offensiveness as she's there to bully and humiliate Satomura with the help of her cronies. That causes Satomura to lose her cool and grab a chair outside, which at first backfires on her, but as she's able to absorb both offense and humiliation and as Amano goes to the clothesline well one too many times, she's able to duck a shot on the outside and fire back after Amano guts herself on the rail. It's a match full of cool exchanges, spots, and moments, but my favorite is probably when both of them are tied up in the corner, each having hold of a leg, wrenching a joint high over the ropes simultaneously, mutually assured devastation. A close second would be some No Future style flicking kicks out of nowhere that looked amazing. There's a decent amount of interference here, but the match is so engrossing that it doesn't make you mad at the layout but instead that Meiko isn't getting her revenge or triumph, which takes some effort considering how jaded we all are in 2022. The finishing stretch had Satomura take one or two potentially baffling turns, maybe sacrificing her own assured win because she really, really wanted to hit the death valley bomb but overall this was a lovely, furiously fought gift for the GAEA channel to give us.