Found Footage Friday: UNDERCARD MONTERREY~! RAMBO~! SOLAR II~! GRAN HAMADA~! SKELETOR~! LUCHADORAS~!

Rambo/Engendro/Alacran vs. Huracan Jr/Solar II/Gran Hamada (Monterrey 1991)

MD: From the initial promo, I thought this might be a showcase for Huracan, Jr, billed as Ramirez' son but actually his nephew. He was more known as a UWA guy as were Rambo and Engendero, the latter of which was part of Los Desafiantes with Scorpio, Jr. and Shu. I wouldn't say Huracan got any more of the spotlight than Solar II or Hamada though. He was matched with Egendero but was the last pairing to get to go and while Egendero based well for him, they didn't get to do much. In that primera, Solar and Alacran matched up well, but what stood out the most, even with just a few shots, was how Rambo and Hamada were very natural opponents. Rambo just got it and Hamada wasn't afraid to throw a headbutt or a punch to send him sprawling and stooging.

They kept it moving and entertaining, with Alacran bumping from his own partners in the primera. Rambo took over with a fairly blatant foul in the segunda but they had crowd control well-managed and it was a solid beatdown ending with Engendero absolutely squashing Hamada with a somersault senton off the top. The comeback was driven by some rudo miscommunication on an elbow smash and they went into one of the usual high energy celebratory finishing stretches with a big dive by Solar and Hamada crushing Alacran with a belly to back. It only went twenty or so but it covered most of the bases.

Skeletor/Astro Negro vs. Angel del Espacio II/Johnny Curiel (Monterrey 1991)

MD: This was as undercard a match as you could get save for maybe the finish, a pair of dives that led to a count out (though being an undercard match, the escalation to dives was an acceptable finish for a tercera). That's not Angel del Espacio. It's Angel del Espacio II. That said, these guys were constantly moving and put a lot into this, placement on the card be damned. Skeletor (who may or may not have been Bronco - I'm leaning towards not) had the baggy MOTU mask and the big gestures to the crowd and bumped all over the place for armdrags and everything else. Astro Negro and Johnny Curiel were like mirror images of one another, journeymen who could still go through the motions. Angel del Espacio (II) kept coming during the beatdown, forcing the rudos to work and stay on him. This certainly didn't wear out its welcome. 16 minutes was the exact right amount of time for it.

India Azteca/Venus vs. Selene/Guerrera Purpura (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Of note here, Guerrera Purpura would become Lady Metal. This got really good as it went along. The rudas ambushed right from the get go and the tecnicas came back and because they cycled into some dubious exchanges, ruda miscommunication spots, and comedy (including that really fun spot where the tecnica slaps the mat as the rudas are on the outside, causing them to duck; then when their heads are down, she slaps both of them, making them think that they hit each other), I thought things would settle down into a pretty conventional match. That was not the case however. Instead, Guerrera Purpura got bled buckets after getting tossed into a row of chairs as part of a pretty brutal beatdown. After Guerrera Purpura recovered enough to storm the ring, the tecnicas would get their revenge through slamming their opponents into the posts, not a row of chairs. The finishing stretch had a bunch of fun bits until they brawled on the outside leading to a last second roll in by the tecnicas (Which much like the tercera dive count out finish from the last match just isn't something you see every day in lucha; oh and speaking of things you don't always see, make sure to catch the giant swing down the stretch).