Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Introduction/Statement of Purpose

MD: If you could go back to this time in 2021 and tell me that we could watch footage from the late 80s that would be a mix of Mexico and Puerto Rico with crowds that lived and died for what they were watching, with a number of local heroes and villains that could brawl, stooge, fly, and take it to the mat, and that would let us see brand new matches with the Brazos, LA Park, Solar, Misterioso and others? Sounds pretty good right? That’s Panama and we’re lucky enough to end the French Catch footage project during a moment in time where a new match is being posted every week.

We’ve covered a good amount so far during New/Found Footage Friday, starting by just jumping in and trying to make sense of it and then, as we got our bearings, focusing more on the matches with familiar faces that we couldn’t deny. That said, we’ve only covered around half of what’s been posted so far, with new matches posted almost every week (and promised to last quite a while to come by the uploader) and a few other veins that we’ve uncovered.

While we could keep looking at a match here or a match there during FFF, the footage itself deserves a more focused and centralized approach. Much like what we saw in France, this is an entire culture of wrestling that has never been examined by dirtwriters, tape-traders, message boards. There’s no 80s Best of Panama set. Before the footage started to drip out, I’d maybe seen one match, maybe, and was certainly unaware of Sandokan or El Idolo, the Gemelos Infernales or Gigante Takaki. Yet, they’ve always been there bleeding and brawling and posturing in front of near-riotous crowds. And now we have a chance to learn about them one match at a time, often not knowing what we’ll get each week, not knowing what familiar figures from Mexico may drop in, and not knowing what Panamanian talents will stand out as amazing.

All good stuff then, but I’m especially excited about delving into this footage since I won’t be doing it alone. I’ve got with me someone who is super knowledgeable with the sort of unique and thoughtful opinions we love here at SC, who’s just as interested as I am in the footage, and who has been going behind the drops and researching Panamanian lucha. So with no further hesitation, let me turn things over to Graham to introduce himself and talk a bit about the territory as a whole.

GB: Wow, thanks for the glowing praise, Matt! It’s really an honor to be part of this with someone I’ve held in such high-esteem over the years and on a blog I’ve cherished for even longer.

I guess an introduction might be in order. I think some viewers here may know me as “Rah” around several wrestling forums and (less so) on Twitter as @Rowdy_Rahddy, the occasional uploader of lucha libre and other novelty matches. I’ve also left the occasional reply here over the decade I’ve been a lurking fan of Segunda Caida. Despite being a few years into my own, Matt’s “lucha journey” really resonated with me and kept me reading, again and again, through each post. He has helped shape a lot of my own thoughts on wrestling and inspired me to look at things in entirely new ways so I do feel as if I have some awfully big shoes to fill here; not only in terms of providing something useful to this project but almost as a “protégé” to Matt. Equally, Phil’s “digging in the crates” approach to wrestling is pretty much the reason I’m here. I’ve traversed some deep rabbit holes in order to find something both unique and awesome to bring to a wider audience. Suffice to say, nothing really grabbed me as Panama has. Here’s hoping it does the same to you, too!

Focusing on the footage, Espectáculos Promociones Panama is the namesake of the promotion in which most of our footage will most likely come from (with the majority airing in the programme Llaves y Costalazos). The matches appear to be randomly chosen by the uploader, with the odd fulfilled request from commenters. Even though there’s an element of randomness to it, our matches seemingly all appear to be within the 1986-1989 frame so far. How deep the library goes I’m not sure. I had offered to buy the tapes from the uploader over a year ago but that transaction fell through. Suffice to say, the claim is “a large quantity” of “unpublished and thought to be lost” material. Through another avenue, I have also received around 25 matches completely unlisted, no names and no dates, for me to somehow work through but more on that niggle later.

It’s quite unfortunate that we seem to be in the tail-end of lucha libre’s stranglehold over Panama with regard to the footage. We can see it in some of the matches where the stands look quite deserted but, assuringly, the fans are as rabid as ever in their support, despite their smaller numbers. That said, Sandokan would still continue proving himself a box-office sensation, but it seemed the popularity of the sport found its heydays between the 1960s and early 1980s.

Speaking of him, while not quite the historical icon that El Santo was, El Sandokan quickly became a national hero. He would go on to sell out arenas and break attendance records for sporting events across the country (most notably in apuesta matches alongside Mexico’s Anibal). No small feat for a country that produced one of the best boxers of all time in Roberto Durán!

With all this said, there are some caveats that come with my research. Firstly, and, perhaps, a little less importantly to you, Spanish is my fourth language so I do miss some nuance to the articles or social media posts that I’ve scoured through. For myself, this is quite daunting as Matt and I are (seemingly) the first commentators in the Anglosphere to tackle Panamanian lucha.The onus is quite heavily on me to represent this newfound niche as best I can and that’s what I promise to do. Secondly, and most frustratingly, Panamanian lucha appears to be quite monolithic. By sheer luck I’ve put some dates to things but I have cards in the 1970s that are, top to bottom, indistinguishable from those two decades later. What we know, we know and what we don’t, we won’t, basically. On the plus side, we will have some (very) familiar favourites along with us for the ride, I guess?

MD: Given the flow of footage, we'll probably end up doing one match a week starting next week. We might go back to some that we've already covered for NFF/FFF if Graham has done research and has insight on it. We're delving into a historical territory that hasn't had a lot of coverage in English. Hopefully people follow along and have fun with us on this journey too.