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.