Found Footage Friday: PANTERITA~! ANIBAL~! ARANDU~! TIGRE BLANCO~! DILUVIO NEGRO~! LENADOR~!

Zeus/Diluvio Negro vs. Sergio Romo/Johnny Curiel CMLL 1991

MD: Zeus is probably Ray Richard here. He'd lose the mask against Transformer the following year. So not the original. Curiel is new to me but he came of as an older journeyman tecnico. So much of this match was rudo miscommunications and he was great at being the straight man for that. I don't think I've ever heard a word in the lexicon for that role, he's almost "basing" for the antics, but he did a great job at it, just like Diluvio and Zeus did a great job of stumbling over one another.

Opening exchanges were good, with Zeus and Curiel putting a real sense of competitiveness and struggle to it while Romo and Diluvio were natural (and almost certainly well-rehearsed) rivals, quick and slick with stare downs (and a brief strike exchange in the tercera). They peppered in the comedy in all three falls and the beatdown only took up a bit of the segunda. I did like Zeus' segunda-ending submission though, which was in a sort of Air Raid Crash position. It was a good balance for an opening match, with a lot of the fat trimmed. They got right to it in the tercera with the tecnicos storming the ring to start the comeback right from the get go before cycling into the submission trading in the finish. Certainly a better twenty minutes than it would have been twenty-five or thirty.

 

Anibal/Panterita del Ring vs. Arandu/Tigre Blanco CMLL 1991

MD: Anibal was in the midst of a comeback here; he'd lose his mask in a big match the following year. He was relatively broken down but knew what to do to get big responses. He was primarily matched up with Tigre Blanco who was up there in age as well. It felt like another bit of rub for Panterita and Arandu, who felt more or less at the peak of their 'local star' power. Arandu came off like across between Estrada and Barbaro Cavernario here, big bumps to the floor, flailing limbs, wild shots and temperament, a surprising amount of superkicks. He and Panterita created the motion, both against one another and for their older opponents.

This had its share of rudo miscommunication too (and that's where Anibal shined the most, in setting it up) but with more purpose than sheer entertainment. Arandu and Tigre Blanco came to blows multiple times, all building towards a moment at the end of the match where Arandu had worked on Panterita's mask and it accidentally came off with a labored pick up slam on Arandu. That led to the DQ and gave the tecnicos the win and everyone, the commentators most of all, were very excited to see things boil over and have the rudos come to blows. I don't think we get what this led to, which is a shame, but it was fairly effective in the moment.

Trueno/Ausente vs. Lenador/Diluvio Negro CMLL 1991

MD: I can't pin down exactly who this Trueno was. He might have been Mascaras' godson, from the timing, but he had a pretty unique black frayed mask and look fitting the "thunder" gimmick that doesn't seem the same. He did have some interesting offense down the stretch though. Ausente is a pretty run of the mill tecnico, competent enough but not dynamic: he runs into the post headfirst well and has a fun leg-hooked surfboard submission. Lenador we'd seen once before and he is a fun stooge. The VQ meant that we missed some of the antics admittedly.

What stood out the most here were some of the exact same rudo miscommunication spots between this match and the last. They did the bit where the got the rudos to sunset flip one another and more strikingly, the bit where both stumble to the floor and a tecnico slides between them on the apron and slaps both on the back, causing them to start fighting in confusion. Diluvio Negro was the common thread (and he was smooth and sharp here too) but I wonder if it was just the zeitgeist at the spot; we'd seen that with French footage too. Sometimes spots just catch on and get overused. Some of this stuff I hadn't seen too much before or after but it's in both of these. As things didn't boil over for the rudos (they actually went over after an exciting tercera), it didn't have quite the same oomph, even with Lenador being over the top. So maybe less novelty for rudos fighting rudos but a looser, more chaotic match overall.