Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Hombre Araña! Celestial! Androide! Joe Panther!

Hombre Araña/El Celestial Vs El Androide/Joe Panther - 2 October 1988

MD: This was a little dumb but a lot of fun. With the exception of Celestial, everyone was way over the top. Spiderman was something else. You have to love it when someone really works the gimmick into almost every movement they make. His natural stance was a deep crouch. He had this bit where he'd catch a leg on a dropdown as if he was "webbing" his opponent or sort of a sliding leg trip. He had a bunch of crazy hand motions. Even the transition to comeback was him rolling out of a submission basically. Androide did not act like an android but he did have a fun little dance he did a bunch. And of course Joe Panther is quite the stooge, bumping and selling all over the ring.

When the rudos were in charge they had a lot of atomic elbows (sometimes backfiring due to rudo miscommunication). At one point, they absolutely clocked Celestial with a chair or Joe Panther would wrap a terrible towel around his fist and nail him with it. Celestial was much more of a striker here than I remember, far more than he was anything else. He had one great flurry. Panther had some good shots too including some really mean sounding ones in the corner. Ultimately after a fairly straightforward match (tecnico advantage in the primera, beatdown in the segunda, comeback in the tercera) this ended with Spidey locking in a sticky looking small package and with just a taste of post-match chaos, followed by character-driven poses. A little Spiderman goes a long way but I'd still like to see him against the Gemelos or Galvez.

GB: Let’s chalk this one up as a llittle bit of a palette cleanser before the next big match in our journey. In a bit of luck, we managed to have reassurance of our first ever “full” card and it’s certainly a treat to witness:

On paper you might find it more loaded than it is in actuality. Satanico isn’t the Satanico you know. Neither is Impacto. However, Atila Jr is the returning Exterminador (falling way down the card but a few months later), Nacho Vega is Mascara Negra who’s run interference and played second on quite a few occasions in the matches we’ve watched. Eager to see them duking it out. I’m always partial to Baron and Africano. However, the big one is certainly the returning Parka “brothers”, reigniting the feud with Sandokan. For now, we have the pleasant surprise that is Spiderman in Panama.

When I saw the card, I was eager to see Tahur in this environment but Panther is much the better choice for this type of match. As much as I’ve researched out Exterminador and guys like Sandokan and Galvez, I feel I have by far the biggest grasp on Panther. He’s the most travelled of the troupe and it shows in his ability to coexist in pretty much any setting with ease. While his forte is certainly a chain around his fist, he’s not shy to lean into comedy. Also, as we saw in the Solar tag in our first ever post, he’s also got a knack for bumping huge and showing ass. I’m leaving off the career deep-dive until we get to a match that focuses solely on him but he’s definitely a wrestler you can imagine running roughshod in Arena Mexico or doing pratfalls for someone in Monterrey.

This week was a bit of a mixed bag on my front. I spent hours upon hours sourcing newspaper clippings, posts and interviews trying to track down who Androide and Spiderman were only to finalise my post and realise I didn’t comprehend “Dominicana”. Perhaps the billing (and our Youtube friend) are wrong, as they called Joe Panther “Tahur”, and it really is who I believed them to be but, lo and behold, there are also “Androide” and “Hombre Araña” in the Dominican Republic! As there is in El Salvador, Guatemala and, and, and… let’s just say I threw in the towel this week.

I guess we can add “terrible Internet meme” to the growing list of things South/Central American wrestling did first. Panama’s Hombre Araña on the left and Guatemala’s on the right, meeting for the first time in around March/April 1988. The eagle-eyed reader will notice Guatemala went to bat for their iteration of Spiderman, coveting him in three world titles. The exceptionally eagle-eyed reader will notice the bottom-most title is, in fact, the Panamanian championship! Panama would rather crown another country’s Spidey over theirs. That’s gotta sting, right?

On a serious note, Fulvio Erick Echeverría Guevara, Guatemala’s Spiderman, was somewhat of a national treasure. While not quite at the level of Astro de Oro, he rose to prominence thanks to his quickness, nimble athleticism and karate style. Fulvio (Spiderman) would fight evil gimmick upon evil gimmick from the lurches of every childhood nightmare you could imagine. He was the idol of children around Guatemala and the “leader” of their own “Justice League”, which included his brother, Edgar under the guise of He Man, as well as a third named Silver Man (not a Silver Surfer crib but, in fact, a Santito ripoff!). One of  the biggest matches of his career, and one we are fortunate to have somewhat on tape, is when he took the mask of Panama Kid who wasn’t actually from Panama (now do you see the difficulty I have?). Long story short, no diss on Panama’s Spidey, Guatemala’s just did it much better.

The reason for mentioning Guatemala is that just months prior to this match, Panama’s Hombre Araña and Mexico’s Androide had crossed paths. Androide had just lost his mask and turned tecnico when Araña debuted in March 1988. It would be a first that a programme swapped out the wrestlers themselves for a similar billing. As we’ve learnt, Guatemala is the stop before Panama on the Mexican’s journey home. Why did Mexico’s Androide skip Panama this time in exchange for the Dominican? Also, why would Panama, a country not known for running any “out there” gimmicks, mysteriously create their own in 1988 only to get an import on one of the biggest cards of the year? It’s all very confusing and nobody I’ve asked has the answer. None of the historians even knew Hombre Araña existed when I asked! Again, no diss from Panama I’m sure. Likewise for Dominicana’s Androide with the sole instance of his existence outside of this match being an unreplied Facebook comment translated as “anyone remember Androide?”. I guess not.

For the most part, the Dominican Araña wrestled under a very different looking costume but the only video we have of him looks the part here. He also seems to have the same spring in his step. Well, as much as we can guage from the 5-second clip. Let’s just play ball and accept, at the very least, this is the Dominican Spiderman. Because it would be the “childhood dream came true” moment for him.

The story goes that in a small town in the Cibao Central of the Dominican Republic, where the stars of "Dominicana de Espectáculos" performed, a tall young man named Isidro managed to sneak into the improvised dressing room of the tecnicos, his idols. Once inside, he approached Jack Veneno and quickly told him: "I have always dreamed of being a professional wrestler, and I want you to help me achieve this dream. I am willing to work hard and show you what I am capable of in the ring." It is said that the champion was so impressed by the young man's chutzpah that he promised to help him. Weeks later, he was working in the company's gym, and within just a few months, he was given the opportunity of a lifetime to embody "El Hombre Araña", a character known for his incredible agility and ability to walk on the ropes.

Well, 35 years later, two men on opposite sides of the world to each other, one in America and the other in South Africa, are having some dumb fun thanks to him and his wrestling. Godspeed, Araña, whoever/wherever you may be.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/21 - 8/27 Part 1

AEW Collision 8/26/23

Orange Cassidy/Penta/Eddie Kingston vs. Kip Sabian/Butcher/Blade

MD: One of those random WAR like six mans that we get just a bit too rarely in AEW. It's good to have Eddie back between the injury and the excursion and the fans felt the same. Penta handled most of the shine (against Kip who reacted but didn't do anything novel like I'd expect, though at least Penelope got to take out Abrahantes on the glove catch) and Cassidy most of the FIP (after a very solid transition, with Kip goading Cassidy right into a Blade superkick, which IS what I'd expect). Penta and Abrahantes did most of the apron-working, including a freshly squeezed chant that was perfectly timed, with Eddie's only contribution being a memorable face made at Butcher. Butcher and Blade were pretty vocal in there with their 1966 Batman Goon muttering, like Butcher calling out a powerbomb that would never come and Blade shouting "Butcher and the Blade!" in a moment of beatdown on Cassidy.

It was a bit of a consolation prize for Kip and co. for not making the Wembley card. It was a longshot but Kip is local and original and worked hard to reinvent himself and Butcher and Blade are loyal, capable soldiers who pull off whatever's asked for them. The crowd was behind Cassidy when he worked from underneath, but they really wanted to see Eddie and he delivered, coming in hot, chopping everyone, and then starting the chain reaction of spots and linked finishers that set off the stretch. This ended with a sort of WWE dark match main event multi-man feel, with everyone getting their stuff in, but with an AEW twist, as all of that stuff ended up connected together. Eddie capped it all off by debuting a sliding elbow (obviously "a move he learned from Japan," which if a more present announcer was there, might have actually been noted). Fun stuff to open up a go home show and set up the post-match in-ring interview that followed.

Sting/CM Punk/Darby Allin/HOOK vs. Swerve Strickland/Jay White/Luchasaurus/Brian Cage

MD: Challenge here was to follow a fairly similar match. Well, not follow because it was taped first but you get the idea. This had plenty of time to breathe, with heat on both Punk and then HOOK. Theoretically it was all leading to White and Sting because that was teased early in the match but it only got there with a chop block cheapshot by White, probably a combo of making sure to protect Sting before the PPV and teasing something for the future. That'd be a great interaction somewhere down the line. White is a guy who is just always on. He tries to make the most out of every second he's on the camera and he's constantly active. It makes for a good pairing with hyperactive guys like Juice and Austin Gunn. The most interesting things here were Punk interfacing with Swerve's offense (he didn't take the headscissors well but did take the rolling suplex fine; when they were just posturing it was great) and to a lesser degree White (including the Sting tease that they really milked) and then HOOK having to work from underneath, especially against Luchasaurus and Cage. In the end, the fact they didn't pay off Sting and White was fine. He had his big moment against Luchasaurus and Punk and Joe was the ultimate focus, with Punk getting to make up for the flimsy GTS last week with a pretty solid one on Cage, and then to use the Kokina Clutch to end it setting up the perfectly timed Joe (who was a total pro on commentary) run in. Fun stuff with big star moments, but maybe a little slight relative to other Collision main events.

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Found Footage Friday: RYUMA GO~! BARR~! BRUISE~! HAMADA~! SCORPIOs~! ESTRADA~! ARANDU~! SUPER PUNK~! DIFUNTO~!

Super Punk/Kendo Star/Milo Caballero vs Sultan Gargola/Ulises/Difunto CMLL 1992

MD: I thought this would be uneventful since we only get ten minutes of in, but we come in during the segunda right at the comeback with Difunto's masked ripped to shreds by Super Punk (Luciferno?) and the tecnicos getting some serious justice on the rudos. Super Punk's mask had been ripped as well and between the segunda and tercera they continued to really go at it.This got a little silly with the tercera exchanges (though I ended up kind of wanting to see more Caballero and his unnecessary flipping) before settling down to Punk and Difunto smacking each other in the face again. The finish was great though. In the midst of the brawling, Difunto ended up on one of the refs. Super Punk tried to leap off the top on him and landed on the ref. That let Difunto get in a foul. Pretty creative stuff. Just at a glance, I don't think we get the undercard apuestas match that this hopefully led to. That's a shame. As for the match itself, who doesn't want to watch ten minutes of goofy chaos, right?

Gigante Warrior/Scorpio Jr y Sr vs Solomon Grundy/Gran Hamada/Centurion CMLL 1992

MD: Pretty out there attraction match. I think that Gigante Warrior is Butch Masters who I've spent a bit too much time with in late 90 AJPW. He'd been around a bit by this point and could contribute in a match like this, even if he'd never be your first choice. Scorpio, Sr. always comes off like the world's best possible Rey Mysterio, Sr. opponent in size, shape, and temperment, so take that as you will. Hamada is there to give this a weird WAR feel. Honestly, I almost had the vibe of one of those matches with Porky and Marco Corleone in them, just with less charisma. Hamada, even in 92, still had bursts of explosiveness and some solid strikes. Scorpio, Jr. could match up with anyone on the other side, which says something, I suppose. Centurion didn't exactly impress, however. Grundy was there to get hit by Warrior and splash people in the corner. I'm never not going to have at least some fun with a matchup like this, but your mileage, gentle reader, may vary.

Jerry Estrada/Arandu/Angel Blanco Jr vs Blue Demon Jr/Panterita del Ring/Transformer CMLL 1992

MD: Pretty straightforward match here. Up front, the biggest things to note are how well Estrada and Arandu fit together visually  and that Panterita continued to feel like a big deal locally. Demon did not impress for the most part, but I'm not surprised there. It did surprise me a little how he let Angel Blanco kind of eat him up on the mat (even with simple things) in their initial exchange and had to goad him back for another go around so that they could at least feign evenness before tagging out. Transformer is Super Kendo, I think, and he's got fun gear but didn't stand out a ton otherwise. Estrada's stooging and selling had the announcers proclaim he was out to get the Oscar for Best Actor. Arandu still wasn't afraid to bump out of the ring.

They went around a couple of times in the primera with Demon looking a little better on his second exchange with Angel Blanco. He did have his timing down on the punches on the outside at least. The beatdown in the segunda was solid but probably not long enough in the grand scheme of things and then the comeback and finishing stretch in the tercera was blink and you'd miss it though Demon did hit a tope to set up the finish at least. Nothing egregious but not super interesting either.

Bruise Brothers (Ron and Don Harris) vs Ryuma Go/Jesse Barr Orienal Pro-Wrestling 12/3/92

MD: As best as I can tell, they'd been feuding both in general and over the tag belts and otherwise off and on since July. This was the big blowoff, a Texas deathmatch in a cage, but one that otherwise followed tag rules for the most part, and Ryuma Go's last match in the promotion.

There was a lot going on here but most of it really worked for me. Bruise Brothers were more apt to break the rules and double team while the faces tended to wait for tags though there were a lot of transitions based around the partner having enough and intervening. The Texas Deathmatch rules allowed for any number of big impressive bombs from Ron and Don (assisted powerbomb, double suplex, Slaughter Cannon with a double axe-handle, top rope power slam, etc.) which would lead to the three count and then the drama of whether Go, or for a huge chunk of the match, Barr (who took the broader heat), would be able to beat the count. Mostly everything else would lead to a somehow still dramatic two count.

The Harris Brothers were good at imposing themselves and solid at clubbering even if they were never quite as wild as you'd want. Maybe they made up for it with the big power moves. Early on the cage was the equalizer for Go and Barr (that and Go's headbutts and Barr's fire) but between it and the Deathmatch rules, it never became quite the force I would have wanted. It wasn't a huge part of the beatdown on Barr for instance, just there as part of the connective tissue at times. That's not to say the beatdown and the instances of just barely making the count after some big bomb wasn't compelling, because it was (gushing blood or no; here it was no). I thought it was so well done that my biggest criticism of the match is that he recovered way too soon after the hot tag to set up the finishing stretch (wherein they did this neat belly to back/high angle side slam combo). It also ended on an Octopus Hold, and I get the idea that surrender is probably valid in a Texas Deathmatch but you want to see the count come into play at the end, just like you do the cage; that said, it was really novel to see it used as it was, to ramp up the drama during a face-in-peril segment of a tag match. I can't think of many other tag team Texas Deathmatches and I can say pretty safely that as a proof of concept, there's more there to mine.

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Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Idolo vs Exterminador 3: Idolo! Exterminador! Mascara contra Mascara

El Idolo vs Exterminador (mascara contra mascra) 17 July 1988

MD: Definitely a fitting finale to the feud, this had a lot of what you'd want from a high stakes apuestas match in front of a hot crowd with a national hero putting it all on the line. Exterminador has been something of a baffling case to both Graham and I since he comes off as extremely talented. He bumps all over the place, is full of energy and drive on offense, and jumps off the screen with character. He hits all the marks here from an early ambush to hiding the object to flying into turnbuckles and poles and tossing Idolo into chairs before gnawing at the mask and Idolo's skull.

This tended to be fairly back and forth throughout, especially once the object was no longer in play. There was that primera beatdown and a comeback where Idolo got to use funky martial arts chops on the outside as Exterminador spasmed all over the place, but most of the rest were just the two of them beating on one another and tearing at each other's mask. In the tercera, there were any number of dramatic submissions (with Idolo quick to power out) or pin attempts (some strong back and forths here). By the end, the masks were so undone and ragged that there was one spot where I half thought they'd end up wearing one another's mask.

Exterminador's mask was better set up to get bloody and there was one point where, after a posting, he ended up under the ring to help things along. All of it got the crowd into exactly the right mood and when Idolo hit his armtrap belly to belly and just held it there forever, for a pin, for long seconds after the pin, the crowd erupted with kids dancing in the aisles as the arena became a jubilant riot scene. Exterminador would lean into his defiance (for maybe it was a double pin?) and in the post match studio interview would set up his final match on the tour, but this was a nice trilogy to have under his belt and a triumphant return to the side of the angels for Idolo.

GB: What’s in a name? For Raul Torres it was both everything and nothing.

Despite coming from a wrestling family, Raul rather had his sights set on another one of Mexico’s exotic spectacles, bullfighting. The glamor of having an arena chocabloc full of fans staring only at you captured young Raul so he started his training in 1968 with the hopes of being Mexico’s next big icon. There was something to the young man that his trainer gravitated to. He had an unmatchable charisma and “flame” inside him - he had the hallmarks of a diamond in the rough. However, his trainer would tell him that bullfighting wasn’t able to release the spirit he possessed and he was destined for lucha libre. Raul ignored this and continued plying his craft in the bullring. Admittedly, he saw some success and would continue training in the sport for many years before those around him started piling on the injuries. Not wanting to be left in a wheelchair, Raul refocused his energy onto another sport that had got his uncle, Atila, great admiration and public attention - lucha libre.

A rookie in 1982, Raul was intent on making his own way in lucha, taking on his own gimmick as opposed to one that took legacy from his uncle. He was content in working lower on the card, absorbing the adulation of the crowd around him. He had to put in many nightly hours bullfighting so the gruel of wrestling wasn’t much for him. As the years passed and the gimmicks changed, Raul struck gold on his third gimmick - that of “Exterminador”. The qualities of a self-made, rough fighter fit his persona well and it seemd a character he could inflect all of his energy into. He would couple with León Negro and the duo would become a whirlwind of a hit in their local city, Mérida. The local promoter Fallo Solis was all too happy to book the two as it meant, week after week, more bums in seats than he had ever seen. Life was going well for Exterminador until León Negro quit wrestling to pursue a full-time career. The end of the duo certainly put the brakes on Exterminador’s success but he was still motivated to reach his destiny and continued fighting.

Not long after the split, a South American businessman took notice of Exterminador’s talent and offered him a fat cheque to wrestle around South America. Knowing this was his ticket out of Mérida, and likely path to superstardom when he came back to Mexico, Exterminador leapt at the opportunity. He traveled through countries such as Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, working his way up the card and fighting their local heroes. He was thousands of miles from home but he was honing his craft and playing to big crowds across a milieu of different match styles and succeeding at all of them, month after month, year after year. He had two major pit stops before returning to Mexico and the local fame he so desperately sought; namely Guatemala and Panama.

By 1985, he found himself in Guatemala. The homeland of the revered Rayo Chapin - the “real” blue legend they told the Mexican. By this time he was already a name some recognised. His debut created some hubbub. Perhaps a little shorter than some had imagined, Exterminador was every bit as ferocious as the legends that preceded him.  In no time, he was posing himself a threat to the masks of local Guatemalans and travelling foreigners much higher up the card back home.

Soon enough, as his bookings went, it was time for Exterminador to step up and face the local hero. After winning 50 masks, nobody really believed Rayo Chapin could be defeated. However, if there was ever one man, it was Exterminador. He laid out a challenge for Chapin’s Campeonato Centroamericano de Peso Medio (what a mouthful!) and made mincemeat of the champion. After three thrilling falls, the crowd was left stunned. Exterminador was the new champion. Maybe Chapin had finally met his match.

Rayo Chapin’s tag team partner, the Salvadorian Ciclon Cuscatelco, would seek revenge by offering his mask against Exterminador, which he would lose in two straight falls on December 15th 1985. This infuriated Rayo Chapin. The mask match was on. Rayo Chapin was not to be outclassed and laid it all on the line in a mask/career vs mask/title match set for the 29th of December 1985. One of the biggest matches of the 1980s was set. Yet it never happened.

Rayo Chapin was a no-show for the event and Exterminador seized the opportunity. He claimed the local legend was scared of him and took his bags and ran. “¡Qué te parece! Ese Rayo Chapin es un cobarde con suerte” (“What do you know! That Rayo Chapin is a lucky coward!") said Exterminador with a chuckle in an interview. He’d go on to say that Chapin knew he would be defeated and couldn’t bare the embarrassment. In actuality, Rayo Chapin had a double-booking in Panama (coincidentally!) at the time and chose to honor that instead. Of course that issue couldn’t be communicated with fans and instead the reasoning was left that promotions had to cease to allow focus on the concurrently running “Juegos Centroamericanos de la Paz” (a regional athletics competition). As Exterminador had violently beaten up Rayo Chapin mere days before, in a Christmas Day angle, the fans never bought this so they had grown to believe the words Exterminador was espousing about their hero -  “lo que no se imagina es que yo, El Exterminador, volveré por su máscara y ni Dios ni nadie podrá salvarlo de ser exterminado“ (“what he doesn't imagine is that I, The Exterminator, will come back for his mask, and neither God nor anyone will save him from being exterminated”)

Luckily, Exterminador was juggling multiple feuds at the time and the local promoter saw opportunity with the young upstart Astro de Oro who was being regailed as the “find of the year” and a newcomer many promoters felt could be the next Rayo Chapin or El Arriero de San Juan.

Exterminador’s feud with Astro de Oro had started quite early on in 1985, in February to be precise, when they’d encounter one another in a triangular mask/mask/hair match with Diablo Rojo. Exterminador laid out Rojo and then set his sights on Oro, who he pinned to take the match, leaving Oro/Rojo to duel it out. Much like his win over Rayo Chapin, the crowd was stunned. Before this match, nobody had pinned Astro de Oro. Yet Exterminador had. Defiantly. Astro de Oro, a blue-eyed tecnico would resort to the dirty “martinete” to retain, sensing danger to his streak..

A streak that would last mere months when Exterminador took it for himself. Astro would wager his mask against one of Exterminador’s two titles where he would finally get his win back on the 4th of November 1985. The fans rejoiced, the beast had been momentarily slain. Could he be the one to take the mask, they thought?

On the 2nd of March 1986, the fans would get their answer in a match billed as the “fight of the year”. While Astro de Oro had been undefeated, a mask match was new ground for him. The only apuesta he had won by this point was against Diablo Rojo and that was due to Exterminador’s doing. He was at a monumental disadvantage in the eyes of the fans, but they held hope as the two fighters were 1-1 in singles competition. It was champion against champion, mask against mask.

After a violent three falls, Astro de Oro emerged victorious, gripping the mask of the fallen Mexican, as the crowds pushed him to the heavens. Their David had slain Goliath. In that moment, the biggest name in Guatemalan history was born.

Exterminador would wrestle at least a few more months into 1986 before packing his bags, this time as a tecnico and compadre to Astro de Oro. I’m not sure what happened in the two years between Guatemala and Panama but his earthquakes had rippled back into Mexico and a magazine had an entire two pages dedicated to his triumph abroad and that he was a surefire star for either EMLL or UWA whenever he chose to return. I do know that he had travelled to Venezuela and Puerto Rico during his stint so it might have been here. I also know that he suffered a clavicle injury around this time and, perhaps, that delayed him heading to Panama for the feud we’ve been covering here. Whatever the case, he was equally responsible for a huge cultural moment in Panamanian wrestling (Idolo’s turn, second and final match vs Sandokan) and his mask was a massive boon to Idolo’s already impressive list of accolades.

From here, Exterminador returned to Mexico. He was destined to be a star, and newspapers talked him up as such, but something didn’t sit quite right. He wasn’t used to wrestling unmasked and felt it too awkward to capture his character. Fate would see him injure his knee within weeks of his return to Mexico, cutting off his momentum.

In part because he yearned for a mask, his brother offered him the Atila Jr name for when he finally made his in-ring return. Raul didn’t quite feel so comfortable forging on in a legacy he never built but they signed the papers and registered his licence. This would be his downfal, despite all the print chalking him up as this massive future star.

Promoters loved him but were apprehensive about booking him. The Atila name carried enough weight that just his mask put him in the upper part of the card. However, local promoters felt they didn’t have a star big enough to offer against him and he hadn’t yet made a splash locally to justify a chance at the big leagues. Thus, Atila Jr found himself floundering. All the years, blood, sweat and tears he had shed were for nought. He’d return to Guatemala in the 1990s and his feud against Verdugo(?) did gangbusters but fans were a little confused by the name as they had their own Atila (and Atila Jr). It seems to this day people get the two Atila Jrs confused.

In hindsight we can argue Exterminador/Atila/Raul’s Mexican career was a massive fumble. We cannot predict “what ifs” but there’s enough evidence to suggest he’d have more likely swum than sunk on the big, Mexican stage if he had kept to his guns in forging his own path. This painful lesson would be passed to his son, Doberman, who he ensured would not carry on a “family legacy” but rather go by their own merits.    

After four heart attacks, Raul is now unofficially retired from wrestling. Still a fan of lucha libre, he visits local arenas to witness the weekend’s fights. However, it’s only the “old guard” that recognise him from the ring. Fans will jeer and chant alongside him, not knowing the importance of the man they’re sitting by. One of the greatest unsung heroes of Latin America would see his fame dwindle into obscurity.

What’s in a name?

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/14 - 8/20

AEW Collision 8/19/23

Darby Allin vs. Christian

MD: I can think of very few matches that I want to see more in AEW than this. The thing is, I want to see it four or five times. That's when Christian's skillset really comes into play. You saw a chunk of it here, of course, because they had a lot of time to fill. I prefer him as a babyface to a heel, but with the right babyface, with the right stuff, you get the same sort of effect. He's an absolute savant at spot placement, one of the best TV workers ever when it comes to that. As a heel, a lot of his arsenal is left on the table and it becomes more of a matter of collaboratively working his opponent's stuff in, but that worked well enough here considering Darby's signature spots are perfectly suited to working from underneath.

I scrapped a paragraph here about chemical changes in wrestling (incentives for wrestlers and spots as ends as opposed to means). No one wants to read me go on about all of that again. Focusing on the match itself however, I thought this struck a great balance between spots and the connective tissue. A twelve minute match can still have time to breathe if it's worked a certain way. A lot of times, barring the commercial breaks, AEW matches are distinctly not worked that way. This had twice the time and really leaned into it. That meant that Christian really leaned on Darby, really doubled down on little character bits and personality highlights, be it hiding behind Luchasaurus to cut off a moment of hope or the bit with luring Darby in towards the belt. Past that, I don't actually have a lot to say here. This was just what I wanted it to be. I just need more of it, not within the match itself, but within a series of matches. There are still places for this to go. Darby is a guy who makes everyone's offense look great and Christian is someone whose offense I really do want to look as good as possible. I wanted Darby to use the Last Supper against Cage last week, but now that he's won with a couple of different roll ups, I'm fine with him continuing to press in that direction. He's on a parallel path to Cassidy now, both of them up against the world and surviving by the skin of their teeth. People say that Page or Kingston are the main character of AEW, but this year it's been Darby and OC. And yes, I want to see Christian vs. Cassidy just as bad, and then six more matches between them. Maybe we get them before it's all said and done.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bradshaw & Savio Vega FIGHT

Bradshaw vs. Savio Vega WWF Shotgun 4/4/98

ER: Shotgun Saturday Night didn't air in my area in 1998/1999, and I've never gone back and watched most of it. It's never been uploaded to the Network and surely won't ever land on Peacock, so we have to rely on whatever guy in the Tri-state area recorded these shows at his mom's house and kept the tapes when he moved out. It feels like there are a bunch of potential gems on Shotgun that I've never heard about, and here's one of them. I'm sure others have talked about this match, but never in my company. Nobody was talking up Bradshaw in 1998, choosing to write him off as a lesser Stan Hansen clone instead of being excited that we were still getting Stan Hansen clones on American television. Do you know how incredible someone who wrestles exactly like 1998 Bradshaw would look on 2023 wrestling television? We didn't know how good we had it, and that applies almost equally to Savio Vega, who brawled as intensely here as he would in his best Puerto Rico stuff. Conversely, I'm not sure there are many Bradshaw performances - including the JBL run - you can point to where he looked better. 

Nobody told me that guys were beating the shit out of each other on Shotgun, but Bradshaw and Vega beat the shit out of each other and look like they hate each other while doing it. There was hate on display on fucking Shotgun Saturday Night? You rarely see punch exchanges this good on WWF TV, or any wrestling TV. They have a stand and trade section that is like Eddie Kingston/Chris Hero level. Bradshaw kicks Savio in the face a few times and lands every stomach kick like he really wants to kick him in the gut. Vega throws hands and chops and bumps around into perfect positioning to feed Bradshaw's assaults. I love how Bradshaw kept going for the Clothesline From Hell and threw every one of them like he intended to connect, and how he started going hard after Vega's arm to possibly slow down the return fire. His arm work is really nasty, throwing Savio by the arm and really yanking on it, peaking the attack when he starts throwing stiff punches at Vega's bursa joint. At one point Savio gets sick of Bradshaw's shit and just grabs him by the throat to back him into the turnbuckles. I love when a guy manages to throw a stiff spinning heel kick. The finish was great too, with Vega hitting the turnbuckles hard on his worked over shoulder and it flares up bad enough that it finally leaves him a sitting duck to be sent to Hell. This was a real fucking fight. 

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Found Footage Friday: DUSTIN~! INOUE~! STEEL~! BATES~! CASAS~! MARKUS~! ESPANTO~! RAMBO~! PANTERITA~! ARANDU~! SHEIK~! SULTAN~!

MD: So long as Roy keeps posting new lucha, we're going to take a look at it so nothing slips through the cracks. That is the service we provide. It's just going to take a while. Don't worry. We've been at this for five+ years. We'll get to, let's say, the Jumbo vs Billy Robinson hour-long match that just showed up unclipped for the first time ever. Eventually. Thankfully I don't have to cover the Lawler vs. Dundee 2011 match that Bryan Turner just uploaded since Phil and Tom were actually there. Still, we'll slip in some other things when we can. 

Negro Casas/Gran Markus Jr/Angel Blanco Jr vs. Tigre Canadiense/Jalisco/America CMLL 1992

MD: Really fun rudo side here. They started with the beatdown so that was a good thing. Just constant motion and violence. They'd put someone in the ropes and nail him and switch to the next guy doing it, so ona nd so forth. Casas was a ball of energy. We're talking DDTs on the ground and bursting across the ring and then pointing and laughing to the crowd. Every Negro Casas match you see him do something interesting or unique; a different pose or interaction with the ref or sell. Here at the end of the primera, instead of the standard lift and drop (like a spinebuster slam) that is typical in lucha to set up a submission he spun around once or twice with it, just to add some flair to it. I've never seen him do it before and I'll probably never see him do it again but that's Casas for you. He also had a great with America at the end of the segunda where he drew him in after his exchange with Angel Blanco, just completely disrupting the structure and then took an awesome bump over the top rope after they rolled around the ring. Then on the finish in the tercera, he turned a Saito Suplex into a German for the hell of it (again, something I've neve seen him do before). That's our Negro Casas.

Markus and Angel Blanco were pretty natural partners, a mini Ola Blanca and all of these guys worked well together. Markus always had big meaty shots and he based well for Jalisco in their one exchange. The Angel Blanco vs Jalisco exchange wasn't as strong. Tigre Canadiense did silly walks across the ring and had a punchable face. He was a fine foil for Casas but then who wasn't? America hit an awesome dive over Jalisco to set up the finish in the tercera, but I don't have a ton to say about any of the tecnicos really. Fun match that didn't wear out its welcome though.

Tigre Canadiense/Monarka/Colosso vs. Rambo/Espanto Jr./Corsario Negro CMLL 1992

MD: This one had me a little more worried. All you really need to know about it though is that it was the Rambo show. He was all over this and in a pretty good way. I don't think it had much more to offer though. In the primera, he was naturally paired with Colosso and his camo pants. This was a great one-time act as Rambo kept going for nerve holds and Colosso just flexed his way out of them. Then Colosso put one of his own and Rambo sold it in a panic, before shifting to a bearhug; somehow this ended with the more-or-less rudo ref in a bearhug, hilarity ensuing. I wouldn't want this act ever week but it was a good one time thing.

The transition to rudo beatdown in the segunda was great, with Rambo getting accidentally hefted over the top by his own partner. They start to tease the break up but finally swarm and hug. He had pretty solid chops and a running powerslam and then stooged all over during the comeback. Our Canadian tiger friend continued to dance funny, throw dropkicks, and be punchable. His pre-match interview was one minute away from him saying "totally tubular." Otherwise, these guys were fine. I wanted to see more out of Corsario Negro; he was tubby and I kept expecting him to do something cool because of it but nope, nothing. This was a one man Rambo show.

Panterita del Ring/Ciclon Ramirez/Aguila Solitaria vs. Arandu/Gran Sheik/Sultan Gargola CMLL 1992

MD: Panterita is obviously Safari/Epheso, and a helpful youtube commenter is saying that Ramirez was also Pegaso and Tiburon, the Sultan was Pancho Zapata, Jr, the Sheik was Ari el Gato Romero. So hopefully that helps someone. I wasn't too sure what to expect here and the primera didn't help. Everyone was fairly competent during the initial exchanges, even if Sheik (who did a lot of the work) didn't have a look to match his partners. Arandu looked especially good (surprisingly good?) in there against both Panterita and Ramirez.

It really opened up with the rudo beatdown though. The central story here was Arandu vs Panterita and they did a great job portraying hatred and violence. Arandu smashed Panterita into the seats again and again and Panterita came back not once but twice with fiery punches and revenge shots. Arandu wasn't afraid in the least to bump over the top all the way out of the ring. They were heating up an apueastas match that I think we get later on and from the opening cageyness of Arandu all the way to Panterita's flip dive to the floor to set up the finish, they made me want to see it. Ramirez had a belt and felt like a bigger deal overall but Panterita really gave off the vibe of a local hero in this one.

Ace Steel/Dustin Rhodes vs. Masao Inoue/Jason Bates WLW 9/25/04

MD: For some reason they gave us the hype promos for the show as inserts. This at least tells me that Steel and Bates used to be partners and that Dustin was stepping in for Trevor, which let Ace Steel do a Dusty impression. After some feeling out between Bates and Steel, Dustin tags in. There's a bit early on with him paired with Bates where he takes a punch in the corner. I have literally no idea how good or bad the punch was because Dustin's selling was so great. He leaned into it and then dropped immediately in the corner. Then he comes back and hits a beautiful shot of his own and it was twenty seconds of absolutely ideal pro wrestling. Slightly more dubious was Steel deciding to do the flip, flop, and fly, with some iffy punches while Dustin watching on the apron, but he was a good enough sport to come in for tandem figure-fours with Ace. Say what you will about the guy but always did come off as slightly deranged.

The crowd was full of not just the one guy who kept shouting for Ace to "go crazy" but a bunch of kids too, and they ate up the southern tag structure of Dustin rushing in to try to help his partner and Bates/Inoue taking advantage of it. It wasn't a big crowd but it was a buzzing one. Inoue wrestled this like he was Masa Saito or something, with big slams and eye rakes and double clotheslines (well, the eye rake I'd expect out of him). He ate a pretty comedic heel miscommunication version of the Shattered Dreams on the finish, but both he and Dustin were supporting players for whatever was going on with Bates and Steel. While I think they got pretty good mileage out of Dustin, and while it was surreal to see Inoue there at all, I'm not sure they got all that much out of his presence in the match.

ER: I am just in love with NOAH sending Masao Inoue as their representative for Harley Race's 5th anniversary show. This was a crowd made up of 80% children and one man who with all sincerity yelled "Get Crazy, Ace!" at least a dozen times, in a way where he wasn't seeking attention for himself, he just really wanted to see Ace Steel get crazy. This is an enthusiastic crowd at a family wrestling show on a Saturday night, who like heels to tell them to shut up in the kind of way where you can tell he really isn't the kind of guy who would tell a bunch of children to SU. There is no need to send Misawa or Kobashi. This is a show where you send the 27th man on your hierarchy out to and give him a two week American vacation. Masao Inoue is exactly the same person as Jun Akiyama would have been to Eldon, MO, and nobody in attendance was upset that they didn't get Takayama, the way 12 year old me was upset when I went to a Giants fan day in 1993 hoping to meet Barry Bonds and Will Clark and Rod Beck but instead wound up with indifferent pictures of me with Steve Scarsone and JR Phillips. 

The ring announcer has never heard a single word of Japanese in his life. He has never heard or said the name Masao Inoue before and proceeds to announce him as "Muhsoaaa Hagaoooooooowaaaa", somewhere between Adele Vazeem and covering your mouth with your hand so the parking attendant at your job somehow won't notice that you wiped your mouth every time you mumbled his guessed name. Inoue comes out in full Minoru Suzuki head towel and makes his wrist tape eye rubs and eye rakes the focal point of his Missouri offense.

I really need to go through my spindles of NOAH dvds to see if I have Jason Bates/Akitoshi Saito or Ace Steel/Haruka Eigen. 

Inoue does fun theatrical hopping body slams, with a little leg kicked out at the end, like a Leprechaun doing a slam in a musical. He also big times a lot of Dustin's strikes, not moving his head at all on 80% of Dustin's punches. I'm no lip reader, and I'm certainly no mind reader, but Dustin Rhodes privately questions on the apron whether or not Kishin Kawabata would have been this casually unprofessional. This match pioneers the idiotic "needlessly long inset promo over the actual action" and peaks the genre by playing Dustin's promo over his entire hot tag, 8 minutes after everyone else's inset promo had ended. He delivers his promo in a harsh whisper as if he recorded it in a public restroom and didn't want anyone else to know he was cutting a wrestling promo in the last stall. Jason Bates eating a Dustin drop toehold face first into Inoue's balls and getting high cradled by Dustin is an EXCELLENT finish to an event that sent dozens of kids home happy, laughing at the name Bull Schmitt one more time before their mothers tell them "I said no MORE." 

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Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Idolo vs Exterminador 2: Idolo! Exterminador! A Chain Between Them!

Idolo vs Exterminador (Chain Match) - July 1988

MD: A Chain match! At some point I'll stop gushing on this, but the fact that we have a three match series on tape from 88 with an iconic turn, a bloody chain match, and the mask match is just amazing to me. I feel like even with Mexico we don't have a ton of situations where we have a three match feud that ends with a mask match from the late 80s. It's not like we have a ton of 1980s chain matches from Mexico either.

So it's always great to see a gimmick match as part of a big feud from another culture. It's funny here especially as you get halfway through before realizing that either pinfalls or four corner touching work to win. That's a testament to the first ten minutes being as close-combat and gritty as possible. They spend the first five minutes doing nothing but choking each other with the chain and jockeying for positioning in believable and interesting ways. Then the next five minutes are more focused on hammering one another due to the fact neither can get away, more choking, and mask ripping and biting. It's only after that where they start trying to touch corners and continuously pull one another down.

By this point, they're bloody and battered and there's a sense of wild desperation to things. Idolo was fresh off his rudo stint and still willing to get down and dirty, absolutely meeting Exterminador where he was fighting. When they realize that neither party can get an advantage by pulling the other, they fight to the outside, and here, even though the scene is obscured by arena placement, it's a combination of nasty whips into hard surfaces, errant chairshots both from the person doing the beating and the one trying to protect himself, and this awesome little video slip where Idolo just disappears off the screen as Exterminador pulls him down. That gives him the advantage he needs and he's able to get Idolo back in and after a clutch fireman's carry and some confusion on which corner he needed to touch, he takes the match to heat him up as much as could possibly be before the mask match.

I loved the escalation of this, starting from a point of strangling one another, moving to punching and mask ripping, then to winning, then to trying to put one another away as violently as possible. It makes so much sense, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a chain match quite like this. The crowd was a steady buzz during the close combat stuff but they went up for the corner reaching and became the usual near mob scene when they hit the floor or brawled after the match. Certainly, this was a way to build excitement for a mask match!

GB: As Matt mentions, it’s rather special to have pretty much the entire feud here on tape, for quite a number of different reasons. I believe there might be a singles match lost along the way but the big strokes are all here for us to enjoy.

For all intents and purposes, this is the only on-tape look into Idolo’s signature booking against foreigners. We have a spattering of mask matches lying around, but nothing is presented in full as it is here. His calling card all began with Steve Clements in May 1970 when Idolo would challenge Clements for the NWA European title (the title Idolo kept for a few years and “unofficially” unified with the NWA World Middleweight title in his match against Guajardo). As a way to spice up the rivalry, and to play into Idolo’s more “rudoistic” nature, the promoter of the time (Manuel Jose Hurtado) set up a succession of gimmick matches that Idolo would need to survive before he was awarded a title shot. The debut was simple and pretty straightforward by how we know Panama to go - a tag match where things break down and the feuding pair take umbrage to each other. Next, Idolo would face Clements in an “unsanctioned” no referee, no rules match to prove he had the chops to hold an NWA title. While “Sin arbitraro” isn’t all that uncommon a match-type in Panama, it was already a high-stakes affair, the final pitstop before a mask match, so the addition of a follow-up singles match was new to the Panamanian audience. In order to ramp up the violence, Don Hurtado would introduce a four-corners “chain match” that saw Idolo take the win and the right to challenge Clements for his title, pitting his mask against the Brit’s championship. Idolo was already a fan favourite at this point so it wouldn’t really cement any legacy, however, this title win kept Idolo’s momentum going and allowed a sure-fire recipe for booking success for promoters bringing in foreign talent to take on the local champion.

While it may have taken us a few go-rounds to get into understanding Idolo’s appeal, it wasn’t quite the slow burn for fans in Panama. They took to him like hot cakes. But what were/are we missing? Well, as Samy de la Guardia described Idolo, he had what few others fighters had, he had "ángel” (a Spanish term of endearment for someone with special charm) and that charisma was what the fans latched on to. Although he might have had money behind him, Idolo had quite a humble background to his character. He was an all-star athlete and Olympic wrestler introduced to wrestling via his good friend, Shazán. While he would get his formal training through La Amenaza (the man he substituted for in his professional debut) at the Gimnasio del Colegio Javier, Idolo loved training with Shazán at the latter’s Academia de Lucha Libre which was nothing more than a basement room across the road from the local ice cream parlor.

Idolo was tough and unafraid and it was this pluckiness that would catapult him into the annals of Panamanian lucha libre after a hard-fought victory in July 1965, simply three years into his career. Colombia’s Furia Roja had been running rampant throughout the territory and was leaving Panama’s prized tecnicos in fear of his challenges. None of them dared to stand up to his mask challenge, and, as much as fans willed on their supposed heroes, these wrestlers continued showing their yellow spines. That was until Idolo answered the call turning tecnico in the process after a career as a rudo’s rudo, not quite in the vein of a bloodthirsty Gálvez, but rather in the “skillful strength” of Chamaco Castro. When Idolo prized off Roja’s mask, thousands of fans roared his name. This was when Idolo as “leyenda viviente” (living legend) was born.

There would be a slight recapture of that moment in the Exterminador feud as Sandokan willed Idolo to fight alongside the tecnicos once more - for the glory of Panama if for nothing else. Just prior to their tag match we covered last week, Sandokan faced off in the last of only two singles matches between him and Idolo. While we could deride the decision of leaving a huge money match on the table in a hair/mask match, both singles matches had their reasons. The first came after Sandokan dropped his mask and didn’t need to be as protected. He was tasked to give the rub to Idolo as the true “champion” of Panama in a hard fought match that went to four falls (1st Sandokan, 2nd double-pin, 3rd and 4th Idolo). Their second encounter in May(?) 1988 was to lay the ground for Idolo’s turn. It might be easier to imagine the two as Goku (Sandokan) and a more misguided than evil Vegeta (Idolo) at this point, with Goku egging on Vegeta to “do the right thing” in fighting the lurking evil together (Parka/Exterminador). Of course, Idolo does, as we saw him embrace Sandokan in the tag match lead-in. In the eyes of the fans, it was all she wrote for Exterminador (who’s importance in ushering in a South American boom we’ll cover next week).  

So, as we finally “get” Idolo, that issue is more on us and how we are voyeurs of this world, devoid of the cultural impact it had on those around it. It’s pretty difficult to convey just how much Idolo and Sandokan meant to Panama’s pop culture. Many children feared hearing their parents scream “Not even Sandokan will save you from this beating” after they had done something wrong. Idolo was on billboards and busses across the country for years after his death. While it seemed the media wanted to shun wrestling in favor of boxing, its fans never forgot their roots.

After a long fight against cancer, Idolo passed away on the 4th of August 2009. Over 500 hundred fans flocked to the cathedral to witness just a glimpse of his coffin as it passed by in the funeral procession. Wrestlers old and young carried him to the el Jardín de Paz where he was laid to rest with his iconic black and orange mask.

So, no matter what Matt and I might think, these two men were real-life superheroes to an entire generation. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/7 - 8/13

AEW Rampage 8/11/23

Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage

MD: There are two times when I want to see Cage, when he's up against someone ridiculously over the top like Willie Mack and the match will be so dumb that it's enjoyable and when he's up against someone small who is going to bump all over the ring for him. This was as much the latter as you could possibly get. Contrast makes the world go round. We are most easily defined by what we are not. The most straightforward stories involve two opposing forces. And no one is going to make a behemoth look better than Darby Allin. Some of the bumps in this were just gnarly. I thought he was going to helicopter to the top of the arena on the F10. He had a way of overbouncing on the outside-in suplex and a power bomb. That one topple off the top rope had him landing like an accordion. It's Darby and he has Gates of Agony, Christian, the Swerve/Fox coffin match, and Luchasaurus all ahead of him over the next few weeks, so we're probably not going to remember any specific bump here, but the overall picture is ever memorable.

I thought Cage had solid presence throughout. He was a little more methodological than usual, a little less cute, full of trash talk and posing when the time was right for it (like during the commercial break). Darby snuck in some hope here and there and got squashed for his trouble (with Nana being the deciding, disrupting factor in the stretch). While Darby made all of Cage's stuff look absolutely deadly, some of Darby's stuff seemed a bit off and weirdly labored against Cage. You'd expect a guy so big and strong to be able to hold for it better maybe? I would have liked a slightly more elaborate finish with a couple of Darby roll-ups leading to the Last Supper, but a single one causing the banana peel probably did protect Cage a little more. I'm just not sure he needs it given what Darby has a head of him. Still, what a bumping exhibition by Darby here.  

AEW Collision 8/12/23

House of Black vs. CMFTR

MD: When you write about AEW week in and week out, you end up talking a lot about the commercial breaks. When you write a lot about Collision main events that tend to go closer to 30 than 20, you end up writing a lot about multiple commercial breaks and how they structure the time. Here, they had two to deal with, which, as you can imagine with a team as monstrous and dominant as the House of Black, probably meant some sort of double heat. That's how AEW manages most commercial breaks. They end with some sort of bang and then do heat in the Picture in Picture. Here, it wasn't quite so simple. They finished the shine/initial pairings/exchanges teasing Punk vs. Malakai Black, with the crowd absolutely buzzing for it before settling into CM Punk chants that were drowned out by boos. That tease culminated with both in the cross-legged seated position and everything threatening to break down. The commercial break started with brawling on the outside (CMFTR gaining the advantage) and the challengers getting too cutesy; this time it was Cash who did the Hogan pose, to more boos than cheers even in North Carolina, and a pretty pedestrian transition moment of Black getting a reversal in on Dax in the corner. 

When they came back, we had Punk's comeback and another bit of connective tissue of CMFTR dominance that took them to the second commercial break, where Julia utilized a distraction (albeit a bit mistimed) to let Black knock Punk off the top so that Brody could crush him in the corner. That led into the commercial break and the real section of heat for the match. In truth, despite going thirty minutes, this whole thing was a tease for stories they're not going to tell right now. Joe caused the finish to set up All In, FTR are moving on to Wembley and the Bucks, who knows what's going on with House of Black yet (but some consistency with the House Rules might be nice?). But they can go back in a month or two to Black vs. Punk or FTR vs. Brody/Buddy or even Punk vs. Brody, because he was absolutely protected during the early going. That's a testament to all of these guys, that they could put together a match so long and really just leave everyone wanting more and more.

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. Ishii

 

Eddie Kingston vs. Tomohiro Ishii NJPW 7/26/23

ER: Eddie Kingston is in the G1 and that means we finally get to see Eddie Kingston and his litany of constantly progressing injuries take on the World's Oldest 47 Year Old Man. Ishii has the shoulder hunch and neckless profile of Perc Angle and the sprint speed of a 60 year old retired NBA Center and Eddie Kingston wrestles this match with one hand constantly holding an injured body part like it was the only thing keeping his body together. It's a match where both guys start out slow and injured and get progressively slower and more injured in each subsequent minute. It's 15 minutes of Kingston working a nearly immobile man who has shrunk 3 inches in 4 years and it is entirely made by Kingston's constant selling and staggering. When he starts with a front suplex and follows up with a double stomp, his back pain flares up like a factory worker who will never be able to retire, and the match becomes a war over who can hit harder without moving their feet at all, and who can best adjust their timing to accommodate an increasingly slow-moving opponent. 

Kingston hits a lot harder, welting up Ishii's chest, but Ishii has a much lower center of gravity due to his compressed spinal cord and that allows him to brick wall Kingston on shoulderblocks and take him over with German suplexes. Kingston's selling just kept getting better the longer the match went (which is kind of Eddie's whole thing), and while I loved him stumbling into the ropes and leaning into them for support, I also loved smaller things like how he pulled himself up to his knees by latching onto Ishii's ergonomic Proflex back support belt. Kingston's back means he can't get much spin behind his spinning backfist, so he just makes up for that by hitting his standing backfist as hard as ever, and when he hit two of them in succession I thought that was the end of Ishii. Ishii hasn't had a neck in years, which has only served to make his head more like a battering ram, and when he smashed Eddie with a headbutt and then dove horizontally into him with a second, I thought that was the end of King. Kingston kept losing steam on his shots, hitting something weak and then willing himself to hit a bit harder just out of self-disgust, whereas Ishii realizes he has no steam on his strikes so just hopes to get close enough to drop Eddie on his head. The brainbuster Ishii uses to finish off Kingston was a classic Murdoch brainbuster, the only difference being fueled by cortisone shots and pills rather than Coors Banquet. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: TSURUTA-GUN~! VS~! SUPER~! GENERATION~! ARMY~! BARR~! DANDY~! PANTHER~! CHARLES~! ESTRADA~! RAYO~! HERMANOS DINOMITA~!

Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue/Masa Fuchi vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi NJPW 3/3/91 

MD: Oops, this one's on me guys, sorry. There was a big dump of handhelds that came into the community back in 2018 and it was a lot to parse through. Over the years, we've covered a lot here, and I'd had reached out to all the usual tape trading subjects from years past to see what was really new (albeit with little interest from them who have all moved on) but sometimes something I thought had already been out there actually wasn't. And this wasn't. So, as best as I can tell, it's going to be a brand new Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi match that almost none of you (if not absolutely none of you) have ever seen. And it holds up with some of the best stuff of this period, quite frankly.

The whole thing is good but it probably peaks in the first couple of minutes. The match starts with Kobashi and Fuchi on the mat for a minute, including Kobashi's rolling cradle. Kawada comes in. They'd heated up Kawada and Taue pretty fierce in January and it was still going strong here, so Taue wants in (and Jumbo wants him in), Kawada immediately tags back to Kobashi like a true heatseeker and Taue sneaks in a cheap shot onto Kawada on the apron the first chance he gets. The crowd has come to like Taue by this point but there are no good guys here, just pure animosity, as shown by Kawada rolling back in, ignoring the fact that Kobashi and starting a massive early-match brawl with Taue that everyone has to break up. It's a hell of a way to start a match.

After that it settles down into the beats you'd expect: more Taue vs. Kawada, Misawa eating a beatdown and coming back with the forearm, Kobashi with the superman house afire hot tag until Jumbo shuts him down, both sides getting and advantage and comebacks as the cycle through the pairings, until they finally isolate Kobashi and crush him on an outside table (or in this case, on a chair that they put on a table). The heat on Kobashi is great after they start on the leg, with a Jumbo elevated half cab, a Fuchi STF, and a Taue Scorpion Deathlock, the fans chanting "Kobashi" the whole time. When he's finally able to get a hot tag of his own, there's this cool bit of stuttering alternating structure where they start on Taue only to cycle back to Kobashi (after a rocket launcher off the top to the floor) only for Fuchi to clip his leg out illegally back in the ring, only to do another comeback and cycle back to Taue. This all leads to the sort of high octane, extended finishing stretch you'd expect, including, maybe, the first time they do the combo Jumbo/Taue belly to back/top rope driving clothesline. Put simply, if this is something you like, and this feud is as universally liked as anything I can think of, there's a hell of a lot to like here.

ER: I was saving this one for my Saturday morning. Waking up, making some coffee, settling down to watch an unseen All Japan trios classic, and baby it was everything. This was an untaped Korakuen main event smack dab in the middle of a tour and these guys go so hard that any reasonable person would think this was an end of tour big show main. Everybody goes hard in this and the dynamics are incredible. 1991 Jumbo was my favorite Jumbo, Kawada and Taue fucking hate each other and are at each other's throats the whole match, Misawa was incredibly fast and aggressive and already knew how to carry himself as a superstar, every single person still had a vendetta against Kobashi's knees, it's all incredible. There isn't a single lull in the action at any point, it's all go go go with quick tags and constant oneupmanship. 

The way Tsuruta-Gun went after Kobashi's knees it's a damn miracle the man made it nearly a decade before the knee surgeries started piling up. They're all real dickheads about it, but the best is when Fuchi runs in with a dropkick right to the knee pit...or was it when Jumbo buckled it with a mule kick to the ACL...or was it when Jumbo was holding Kobashi damn vertically in a single leg crab? A real Dickhead's Choice. Taue threw some of the hardest clotheslines of his career, really shutting down some bullshit, and I flipped my lid when he leveled Misawa with a tope suicida after Misawa had leapt off the apron with an elbow into Jumbo's jaw. I don't think I've ever seen Kobashi get thrown with a Rocket Launcher to the floor, just one other thing that's nuts to see on an untaped house show. It's cool that Misawa was a better kicker than Kawada in 1991. Kawada had the same kick routine here that he would continue to hone and improve as the decade went on, but the variety and impact of Misawa's kicks made this look like his peak attack level, setting everything up with kicks and then sealing the deal with elbows. Jumbo's kitchen sink knees looked organ-rearranging, and he threw Misawa with a bodyslam that looked and sounded so painful that all 2,100 people in Korakuen made the exact same pinched face "oooooooooof" reaction. Six legends bringing real emotion and high energy and hate-filled stiffness for 30 minutes in my favorite wrestling style of all time? It's all I wanted. 

Love Machine/El Dandy/Panterita del Ring vs. Blue Panther/Emilio Charles Jr./Jerry Estrada CMLL  5/3/92?

MD: Some great stuff in here even though it was a twenty minute video that went more like fifteen instead of the thirty that went twenty-two and gave us the pairings that I really wanted. Obviously it was a perfect rudo side. My experience with Panther and Love Machine is more the mask match and what followed elsewhere, so it surprised me that Barr was more over with the crowd. The announcers noted that the dynamic had been different in Mexico City for the mask match and tried to explain it.

This had an ambush/comeback/beatdown/comeback sort of structure which was fitting a lot into the time and it never quite settled down. We got glimpses of great things though, Panther running from a fiery Love Machine, Dandy's awesome, awesome cracking punch and the not equal but still great and very different thudding punches of Charles and Estrada. When Barr finally got his hands on Panther, he was really able to tear into him (and tear off the mask). Estrada hit the usual ridiculous dive into the crowd. The ref was the same one we've been seeing who was very hard on the tecnicos and missed the cheating. Charles and Panterita really only got to pair up after the dives and that looked fine, with Charles faking a foul (he'd previously done one of his own). Post match, when Panterita was beside himself at the unfair loss, Estrada walked right over and yanked his mask off hilariously. I wish it had a little more to it but you can't fault any of the action here.

ER: I love that this was the standard for a throwaway weekly trios match in 1992. This adds a new layer to the Blue Panther/Love Machine feud and I don't think I've ever heard a weekly crowd respond so positively to Love Machine before this. Blue Panther as a cheapshot artist who can also wrench you on the mat was probably my favorite era of Panther (even those I do love old man tecnico Panther) but it was eye opening seeing how big the tecnico reactions were any time Love Machine started to wail on Panther, culminating in a tremendous tope suicida that flattens a few people in the front row. Dandy and Estrada worked magic any time they crossed paths, but somehow Panther and Love Machine outpunched them here. I wish we could have seen more Panterita Del Ring. The man worked differently as Safari and then evolved into Ephesto, but as Panterita he could really cut loose and we only got a little taste of that here, as he was the clear 6th banana of the match, and Estrada's perfect unmasking of him after the match only made that status more concrete. This was the perfect kind of unearthed lucha match to just devour like junk food. 

Rayo de Jalisco Jr/Mascara Sagrada/Black Magic vs. Los Hermanos Dinamita (Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000, Universo 2000) CMLL 5/17/92

MD: A weird moment in time as a chunk of these guys were main eventing the AAA debut show right around (maybe even two days before) this match. This immediately followed a tribute to Rene Guajuardo, who, among all of his other accolades had trained and promoted in this area, and had just passed away. The match itself made me wish for the tecnicos from the last match.

When they got to the beatdown in the segunda and the tercera comeback that followed, it was pretty good. You can count on the Dinamitas to beat people around the ring and Cien Caras to be a charismatic ass about it. That played into the comeback as well where Rayo could play the other half of that song well enough. The primera exchanges and the crowd-pleasing spots in the end to led up to the foul on Rayo and the DQ, though? Not so great. Again, you can count on the rudos here to get some good shots in (like Cien Caras' hopping knee to the gut) and there was one fairly decent Mascara Ano 2000 and Mascara Sagrada exchange. Black Magic looked best on the tecnico side, charging into things and asserting himself. This late in the game and after all of the animosity of the beatdown and coemback, I wasn't really feeling the multiple headlocks/la estrella/flip-flop submissions like I might have otherwise. Maybe it really was time for the change that was coming. Maybe it was just that some of these guys were focused on the next thing.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/31 - 8/6

AEW Collision 8/5/23

CM Punk (c?) vs Ricky Starks

MD: This had a ton of time to breathe and it's probably the best I've ever seen Starks look. Just the right combination of energy, attitude, and a chip on his shoulder; he looked like a star. They built off of the last match with bits like holding the ropes open, and played right into a very split crowd reacting to two tweeners. The entire feeling out process (worked like a title match opening) was buoyed by the loud and consistent dueling chants, highlighted by both guys getting to do each other's taunts. The first commercial break had Punk in control doing the Hogan shtick and playing with the crowd. The second commercial break had Starks in control and Punk working from underneath with hope spots and comebacks and a crowd that was more inclined to just chant for Punk.

Steamboat added tiny bits of specialness without overshadowing what was going on. That included coming out to his WCW theme, reacting to Starks' armdrags, calling Starks out when he held the ropes on a sunset flip, and then playing into the finish, which maybe could have had Steamboat roll in just a little quicker, but ultimately he was moving swiftly and it worked for me. And then the post-match segment, paralleling what happened fifteen years ago, cemented the Starks heel turn in the most memorable way.

At his best, Starks carries himself like an Attitude Era star, like someone who could hold his own in a TV main event in 1999 right in the thick of it. There's no one else on AEW TV that works like that and what he needs to pull it off is to be able to turn the volume up as high as possible and wrestle with endless confidence. If he believes, the crowd believes and it feels like a big deal. He felt like he belonged in there with Punk on this night and because of that, the crowd bought into stakes that are dubious at best.

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WWF UK Rampage 93

 

I really like how Rampage 93 is filmed. It looks and sounds like an incredibly well produced handheld, capturing a neat up-close house show vibe. It's 12,000 loud people in Sheffield and the crowd and ring are mic'd like you were there live. It's a real house show card too, with tag guys split into singles and a 10 minute Brooklyn Brawler match. 

1. Fatu vs. Brian Knobbs

ER: Nasties were so over that Knobbs was able to go around the ring milking NASTY chants for two straight minutes without anyone losing interest. Knobbs was like a big fat sloppy Hogan to this crowd, and he is a pretty great fat sloppy Hogan. I love how Brian Knobbs runs the ropes like fat guy. Not a fat guy wrestler, just a fat guy. He runs the ropes like an overweight principal who gets in the ring at a school fundraiser to do a completely ill-advised spot. If your principal ran the ropes like Knobbs, you'd think he was just being fun dorky Mr. Wilson. But Brian Knobbs is like the school's weird janitor getting in the ring and running the ropes like a fat lunatic, and kids fucking love it. 

2. Doink vs. Kamala 

ER: Doink keeps wrestling Kamala to the mat and it's so damn cool. Nobody ever rushes in and grabs Kamala in a single leg and then start working half grapevine armbars on him. Doink is working Iowa shooter holds on Kamala and I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do that. Kamala falls in ways he doesn't usually fall, because nobody ever thought to work like Lou Thesz against Kamala. Doink runs into Kamala's comebacks really well, and there was a big time Kamala moment where he got sick of the armbars and just started swinging wildly on Doink as Doink scrambled to the corner. Kamala pinning Doink the wrong way took up too much of the runtime. 

3. Mr. Perfect vs. Samu

ER: Samu is so damn good during their opening rope running. He sticks every piece of Perfect's precise timing. He's the one doing the close call dropdown and leapfrog, and he's hitting them all while also working as careening out of control chubby guy. When they do more rope running he does another dropdown, then shuts it down with a cool clothesline. When Perfect gets thrown over the top to the floor, he REALLY gets thrown over the top to the floor. Perfect goes face first into the ring steps like he's trying to lose an eye. All of Samu's strikes look really powerful and Perfect bumps painfully for them, not doing big athletic bumps. His bumps to the floor were all really fast and I thought they had real complementary body language during their strike exchanges. Good rhythm. Perfect's inside cradle is a really great nearfall, but I do think they rushed to the finish. Needed a bit more build to the Perfect Plex. The whole match felt like a nice slow stiff build and then the finish was just bim bam boom. Bump to the floor, missed splash, Perfect Plex. This was all still really good, one of the best WWF singles matches of the year, but a finish that felt like part of the same match would have made it even better. 

4. Bob Backlund vs. Damien Demento

Why does it feel like I've seen half a dozen Demento/Backlund matches? Were these two just at the perfect corresponding place on the heel/face totem pole alignment, working low stakes face/heel back and forth, and there just happened to be some guy who followed WWF on tour to make sure and document several different Demento/Backlund matches with his camcorder? This is an official release obviously, but it feels like I've seen several Damien Demento/Bob Backlund matches and I'm just not sure how that's possible. They don't really have chemistry but they don't not have chemistry, they just fill about 7 minutes and it's fine, and some part of me has spent my life watching dozens of Bob Backlund/Damien Demento matches that were filmed by a Bad Dad, or perhaps the Greatest Dad. Demento took a big Berzerker bump to the floor and Backlund made a lot of great Popeye Whoa-Whoa-Whoa noises so maybe this was actually fucking great. 

5. Typhoon vs. Brooklyn Brawler

ER: What does it mean to the people of Sheffield, England, to see a man dubbed The Brooklyn Brawler? Had tales of the Brawler's Brooklyn Brawls made their way to South Yorkshire? Was Enzo Castellari's 1990: The Bronx Warriors been an underground UK hit, leading to a rising knowledge among UK teens of the various Five Borough Fighting Styles? Regardless, the people of Sheffield were treated to a real active Brawler performance, one that will no doubt be one of the great showcases of the best of his 1993, where he keeps running away from and running into Typhoon. He is great at getting leveled by Typhoon and building suspense by avoiding getting leveled, but things really jump a level when Typhoon finally misses an elbow and Brawler starts stomping his way through a really fun match. 

Brawler stomps away at Typhoon's head, stomps him right between the legs, stands on his throat, bites at his face, and stands on top of his back while Typhoon is draped over the bottom rope, surfing on him while pulling back the top rope reigns like Chris Elliot riding Melora Walters out to sea in Cabin Boy. He chokes and rakes at the eyes of a prostrate Typhoon, shouting out an amusing "Come on, that's a count!" while Typhoon's shoulders are down during the choke. This is among the longest Brawler control segments I've seen and I thought it was cool how he kept kicked at Typhoon's leg and really dominating this, keeping the big man down. When you knowingly go into a Typhoon match against Brooklyn Brawler, I don't think any of us would have expected it to be a mostly dominant Brawler performance with a quick and definitive Typhoon comeback victory right at the end. When Typhoon takes over, it is for good, and it is great. Brawler, who had been doing so well, makes the mistake of whipping Typhoon into the corner. Typhoon reverses that whip and follows Brawler in with a killer avalanche, then pulls Brawler by the arm directly into a perfect powerslam. I don't anticipate a better 1993 Steve Lombardi match from this one, but this is surely among his best matches of the 90s. 

6. Shawn Michaels vs. Crush

ER: I loved this. Anybody who ever got mad at me online for making fun of how terrible Shawn Michaels was during most of his last decade, should at least acknowledge how in the bag I am for 1993 Shawn Michaels. My 2000s and beyond criticisms come from a place of sadness, not glee. 1993 Shawn Michaels was a high speed John Tatum with better execution. He could push a pace without dropping the story at any point, was great at big momentum shifts, and knew how to work every size opponent instead of just mostly working the same match regardless. He was incredibly active but in ways nobody else was, flopping and stooging and bumping unnecessarily big, a great heel to get over the power of his opponent while looking like a joke, without ever looking like a joke. 

Crush and Michaels seemingly always had great chemistry as opponents. They have two big singles matches after this one in 1993: Their great King of the Ring Qualifier which is one of the great unheralded 5 minute matches, and their bloated but overall good IC Title match at King of the Ring, and there's a 1991 singles match on some Coliseum video or foreign Superstars airing. I wish we had more Rockers/Demolition matches or any of the 1993 Crush/Michaels house show matches to paint a fuller picture, but all the evidence we have paints them as natural opponents. 

This is the better version of the King of the Ring qualifier, as it had a much longer Crush control sequence before the great Crush ringpost bump, and more Michaels offense after his takeover. It's great. Michaels gets his ass beat in a non-stop sprint, getting pie-faced and pinballed across the ring, enough so that Heenan has to start bemoaning a Michaels title loss, and it's hilarious. 

"Can you imagine the embarrassment? 'Where did you lose your Intercontinental Title? In Sheffield?!' How could you ever live that down?"

Crush has a great way of catching a high speed Michaels in a bearhug - which Michaels escapes by throwing punches at his eye - and I love how he's able to go on bursts of matching Michaels for speed, then ends a quick moving exchange with something huge and forceful like a big backbreaker. There's an incredible press slam section where Crush walks Michaels around in full extension press for half a minute, walking him toward several sides of the ring and offering him up to the front row. When they saw how great Crush was at walking Michaels around the ring in a press slam, they really should have set up a Bam Bam/Spike Dudley spot with crowd plants, it would have played in Michaels highlight videos for the next 25 years. We'll settle for Michaels getting clotheslined over the top to the floor in the way that only 1993 Shawn Michaels was getting clotheslined to the floor. 

His comeback after a match-long beating is convincing, working smart spots to control a big man, like driving his knee into Crush's kidneys and then shoving him face first into the ringpost. Who remembered how great Crush was at taking ringpost bumps? Every one that he's taken in his Michaels matches has been Lawler-level great. The finish of this one is a less satisfying "Michaels just leaves" fuck finish than the KOTR Qualifier double count out, but I was really getting into the way Michaels was wearing Crush down after the ringpost bump. He just keeps coming off the ropes with axe handles until Crush gets dropped to all fours, then he comes off the ropes with an elbowdrop to the back of his neck. With an actual finish, this becomes one of the 10 best WWF matches of 1993 WWF. 

7. Lex Luger vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan 

ER: Jim Duggan was such a megastar in 1993 that he was able to drape himself in the American flag and lead the Sheffield Arena in loud USA chants. This was just a couple months after Duggan was the first person to knock Yokozuna off his feet, a moment I loved but wouldn't have thought that it would have a huge impact across the pond. Yokozuna had done an in-ring promo before this match and lingered at ringside the whole match, and when Luger's entrance music hit he was announced as "The NarCISSus" Lex Luger. Like the flower, not like the Greek myth. But they are merely afterthoughts, because the place comes unglued when Duggan's music hits. This is a 12,000 strong crowd and Duggan is wearing his USA singlet and USA kneepads, and gets the entire crowd to chant USA. Can you even entertain the IDEA of a foreign crowd chanting USA at a WWE show any time during the past 20 years?? You'd think this was in Alabama, not Yorkshire. USA chants. Loud. What a different time. Luger might as well have not even been in the ring. 

Luger works this as a stooge for Duggan, bumping around for Duggan's running clotheslines and playing into spots like trying to smash Duggan's head into the turnbuckles, only to have it reversed. Duggan was treated like Hogan and it was like I was watching this match from some weird alternate timeline. 1993 Duggan's appeal to live crowds was undeniable. 1993 Luger is a far better wrestler than Duggan, but Duggan would have drawn a far bigger number than Luger with a PPV match against Yokozuna. These two work the loosest match I've seen in 1993 WWF, leaning out of every clothesline and every strike, and it didn't matter an ounce. This was a Rick Reuschel/Mark Buehrle soft contact battle and it completely worked for the live crowd. Yokozuna sits down on Duggan's chest out on the floor and rolls him back in the ring, and there's a great show closing segment when Mr. Perfect runs out to start beating on Luger before Duggan can be pinned. As loud as the crowd was for Duggan, they react to Perfect as if he was the biggest name on the show (which was true, so that checks out). The main thing this match accomplished was making me genuinely want to see a Luger/Yoko vs. Duggan/Perfect tag match, which is a match they set up perfectly here and then never mentioned it again. All they did was run Luger/Perfect and Yoko/Duggan singles matches the rest of the tour. It's wild how many interesting workrate and fan service matches they left on the table during this era. 

Go out of your way to watch this for the great Samu/Perfect and Michaels/Crush matches, and a total surprise in Brooklyn Brawler/Typhoon. 

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Found Footage Friday: Monterrey Lucha: WAGNER~! ESPANTO~! SOLAR II~! DANTES~! PANTERITA~! JALISCO~! LENADOR~?!

Dr Wagner Jr/Halcon de Oro/Espanto Jr vs. Colosso/Potro/Solar II CMLL 1992

MD: Roy got a lot of uncovered lucha from Monterrey and we'll hit all of it in the weeks to come. Not cherrypicking these means coming in and seeing what there is to see and sometimes that means you get a match that's just sort of a match. That's what we have here. Rudo ambush to start as the tecnicos were getting into the ring one at a time. A short primera beatdown, a segunda beatdown into a comeback, and then some exchanges to start the tercera before the rudos shut things down. This was probably low on the card since we had a dive teased but no actual dive.

I don't know a lot about Colosso or Potro (the latter of which had a "colt" gimmick with a horse on his chest). During the tercera exchanges, Colosso got the most  shine with Espanto basing very well for him. I'd say out of everyone in this one, Espanto looked the best, directing traffic, relishing the beatdown, playing to his partners and the crowd. Said beatdown was very dependent on the ref not allowing the tecnicos to come in to help each other or punch. Wagner already had his flair in making just an elbow to the skull seem more important and took a fun bump out of the ring, but the nature of this was that no one got to show too much of anything.

 

Guerrero Negro/Hombre Bala/Angel Blanco Jr vs. Apolo Dantes/Panterita del Ring/Jalisco CMLL 1992

MD: This was more like it. It was built around Panterita (Sr, being Ephesto, I think) and Guerrero Negro, with all of the build and payoff you'd want. To be honest, the primera was just there. It was nice to get initial exchanges and everything had time but a lot of this was Dante and Angle Blanco Jr. and it was fine but didn't have a lot of build to it. The bit of we got of Hombre Bala sliding out of the ring over and over on bumps for Jalisco was more fun. Where things shined here, however, was in the beatdown. It was brutal and chaotic as you'd like, with Guerrero Negro battering Panterita around the ring and tossing him repeatedly into the seats and Angel Blanco picing up a row of chairs to crush Dantes with them before punching him in the head repeatly as he was stuck. Some great visuals there. The comeback had some of the revenge bits you'd like but they really got right to the finish after that, with some dives and a quick tandem pin clearing things for Guerrero and Panterito but having the tecnicos almost immediately cheat to win thereafter.

I like the little bits of character for the stadium, whether it be the commentators complaining about the fans letting their kids' near the ring, the rudos signing things for said kids before the match, the giant Panterita signs, or Dantes having his own cheerleaders (I think at least), not to mention the chaos of wrestlers tossed into chairs or having chairs tossed at them. It was a good atmosphere overall and this match certainly had more meat to it even if I wish a bit less time had been spent in the primera and a bit more in the tercera.


Tony Rodriguez/Lenador vs. Chuy Escobedo/Sergio Romo Jr CMLL 1992

MD: I had no idea what I was going to be getting with this one. Long story short, I got Lenador. What a wild rudo. He was a balding guy with hair ties in strange places who made absent-minded expressions while strutting around the ring. Plus he hit hard and had just whacking flying clotheslines and a storm zero sort of quick pile driver. So that's that guy. Escobedo was solid, still and calm waters that kept the match flowing. Romo tried more things with about a 70% hit rate and the rudos doing their best to bump it as high as possible.

They were pretty compelling in general, between the surreality of whatever Lenador was up to and Rodriguez bumping through the ropes or darting up into the third row or begging off to lure a tecnico in (which led to the announcers complaining that the tecnicos never learned). I can't say this ever felt like it had tremendous stakes (the heat wasn't that hot and the comebacks weren't that exciting) but it kept moving and had a pretty iconic lowcard rudo side. These felt like the sort of El Batallon de la Muerte style local rudos that no one necessarily bought their ticket for but that entertained the crowd each and every week during the first match. Hopefully more Lenador shows up because I want to see more of that guy.

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Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Idolo vs Exterminador 1: Idolo! Exterminador! Sandkan! Emperador!

Idolo/Exterminador vs Sandokan/Emperador (June 1988)

MD: I have to admit that I've spent a couple of months just wondering what the big deal with Idolo was. You can read from Graham's history posts that he was up there with Sandokan, if not definitively above him, as the top start of the territory, but we've been seeing a bunch of lukewarm rudo performances where he's outshined by the people he's teaming with again and again. He did carry himself like a star and like someone important, and the fans reacted accordingly, but there was a spark missing. Thankfully, we have a place to try to find it here with the Exterminador feud and this is a great start. This began with me more or less reaffirming my priors albeit with a glint of hope and ended with me starting to see the light (even if it might simply be the light at the end of the tunnel of Idolo's rudo run).

Right from the get go, Exterminador stands out more than Idolo. He brings a kid into the ring before the bell, flips in and out of the ring on tags, has some very fun chain wrestling with Sandokan, takes an atomic drop by spasming through the ropes and all over the floor. Just a lot of charismatic body language as he bumps, feeds, stooges, and batters Sandokan around the ring. Idolo honestly looks pretty good here in shorter exchanges despite it all, with a clear smoothness and familiarity with both Emperador and Sandokan, but he can't help but be overshadowed by a guy wrestling for the back row like Exterminador is.

That's especially true once the story of the match kick in and we begin to get the rudo miscommunication spots. They have to hit each other at least eight times and each one seems to matter more than the last. By the middle of the segunda, Exterminador has gone from being apologetic to begging off (which led to a funny moment of him hugging the ref and cheapshotting Sandokan) to trying to prove himself by taking all the offense, to trying to steal shots from Idolo as he got way out of hand. It boils over with an absolutely amazing turn as Sandokan comes back and someone starts interfering for Exterminador and everything begins to break down with the rudos coming to blows and Idolo, with the cheerleading and help from Sandokan and Emperador, starts mauling Exterminador around the ring and ringside area as the fans begin to mob in excitement.

When watching this, I had no idea how long Idolo had been a rudo, but it's obvious he had once been a beloved hero and there's building pressure during this post-match chaos as Sandokan and Emperador have their hands raise and continue to throw Exerminador back into the ring as they egg Idolo on. Throughout it Idolo has stopped caring about them and is solely focused on Exterminador building the suspense more and more until, after clearing the ring once and for all, Idolo and Sandokan embrace and the already wild crowd goes ever more so. I've mentioned before but sometimes with this old footage from a culture not at all our own, this stuff that has never been spoken about in our circles, that isn't part of some "canon" we all know like, for instance, Santito turning rudo, well, it can feel like sneaking into someone else's family gathering. Sometimes you get the sense that this isn't for you, that you don't belong, but here, it's impossible not to feel the elation of the crowd and the excitement of the moment and to share in the universality of pro wrestling at its most emotional. This was a huge, important, iconic moment and we're so fortunate that we've gotten to share in it, just as we're fortnuate that there's a chain match and a mask match to come.

GB: Exterminador would grace Panama roughly the same time as La Parka, with Parka obviously squaring off with Sandokan and Exterminador being the Mexican for Idolo to beat. By all accounts, this is either one or two weeks after the Sandokan/Parka mask match placing it toward the tail end of June 1988. It’s a relatively brief feud, culminating on July 17, but it saw its fair share of violence and hostility. The main matches (this tag, a chain match, and the apuesta) we are lucky to have on tape and will write them up in the coming three weeks.

As Matt eloquently put it, this was a huge cultural moment for Panamanian wrestling. Their hero, El Idolo, would turn tecnico after I believe his final run as a rudo during his peak. Cards on the table, this post was to be a recap of what led up to this moment. The plan was to recap a few questions, most especially: “Why had Idolo turned rudo to begin with?”  “How long had he been rudo?” and “What caused the return to the tecnico side?”  Unfortunately, the trail ran cold on me and I’ve seemingly exhausted every possible avenue. In terms of information, El Idolo is possibly the most written-about wrestlers out of Panama. So much so, in fact, that he has his own website covering his career. Yet, the information is more fanciful. Nothing quite detailed enough to glean.

Panama is an incredibly proud yet protective territory. I've mentioned it before but there's a very insular network going on where even local fans are gatekept in a sense. I do believe a lot of it is due to bad experiences with foreign writers who seemingly used Panama for their own gains, whatever that may be. Sammy de la Guardia has referenced some previous writers as "pirates of history" and Don Medina has taken great exception to what he believes are frauds in wrestling journalism. Those guilty are big names; ones that, if you're a follower of lucha, will have definitely heard of and might have read. It's daunting in that sense as I'm just one man, writing on a blog for the first time. I don't have credentials or authenticity to my name. These posts are my portfolio of evidence to that end. My hopeful key to getting to the fabled historian I keep hearing of but never encountering. All in the bid to share as much as I can of the beauty that is Panamanian lucha. Thus, dear reader, we will need to hold off on the big turn for this week in hopes that I can cast my net wider to those in the know.

Look, if this feud was as simple as just Idolo and Exterminador, I'd feel a bit better in connecting dots that may not be there. After all, Exterminador was just a statistic. Another notch on Idolo's belt. Number 31 of 78 (40 masks, 38 hairs). And although I have a small sense of the background and believe it similar to Idolo’s first tecnico turn (which took place during his feud with Furia Roja where he would take the Colombian’s mask in July 1965), it would be wrong of me to offer my guess work here. Not on something so important such as the reunion of Sandokan and El Idolo.

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