El Deporte de las Mil Emociones: Welcome to 1990

Week 17: Welcome to 1990

EB: The year 1989 was an eventful one in Puerto Rican wrestling. A year that started with Carlos Colon vanquishing his rival Hercules Ayala and sending him packing from Puerto Rico, it included such moments as the return of Invader #1 to the ring, the arrival of Sadistic Steve Strong and his reign as Universal champion, the continued rise of TNT as a singles star, a hurricane hitting the island and postponing Aniversario, Carlos Colon being put on the shelf with a shoulder injury and making a comeback to regain the Universal title, the retirement of Invader #3, several notable names such as JYD, Jimmy Valiant, Kerry Von Erich and Ivan Koloff (among others) making appearances in the territory, and a final battle between Colon and Strong to determine who stayed on the island. It’s been a fun and learning experience for us, and I hope you’ve enjoyed and learned about Puerto Rican wrestling throughout our look at most of 1989. But time marches on and so does our journey, as the calendar now reads 1990.

The new year arrives with a new Universal champion in the form of one Leo Burke. The proclaimed master of the figure-four leglock had been able to defeat Carlos Colon thanks to weeks of repeated damage to Colon’s knee throughout their series of matches. The big blow came at La Gran Guerra where El Club Deportivo focused their post-match attack exclusively on Colon’s knee. This came to a head the next day in Mayaguez where, with the pain in his knee becoming unbearable, Carlos Colon was pinned while in the figure four leglock. While Chicky Starr celebrated that once again his stable had the Universal champion, all of the other singles titles remained in the hands of El Ejercito de la Justicia (despite the best effort of the rudos). Now, all attention is on the customary Three Kings Day show that signals the beginning of the new wrestling season. The main event is a rematch for the Universal title featuring Carlos Colon challenging new champion Leo Burke. Carlos had vowed on tv that he was working on making sure his knee got healthy in the three weeks between the season ender of 1989 and the January 6 Three Kings Day card. We also have several other title matches on the card, some stemming from issues that arose at the 1989 season ender. So let’s begin our journey through 1990 with the happenings from Three Kings day weekend.

Before getting to the Three Kings day weekend proper, let’s take a moment to recap who the champions are currently: Leo Burke (Universal), Invader #1 (Puerto Rico), TNT (Television), Miguel Perez Jr. (Caribbean) and Super Medico (World Junior). Our World tag champions are Mark & Chris Youngblood while the Caribbean tag champions are Los Mercenarios. Let’s look at where each of the other singles champions (besides Burke) are going into Three Kings Day (we’ll discuss the tag titles a bit later). 

Super Medico had been in a rivalry with Brett Sawyer over the World Junior title to end 1989 but had also faced a challenge from Chicky Starr on Thanksgiving Day as well as having a series of matches with Abudda Dein. Medico was in action on Three Kings Day, although we do not have the information on who his opponent was. But as the month of January advances, a new arrival to the territory will emerge as the next challenger to the World Junior title. We’ll discuss this in more detail soon.

TNT has been fending off several of Chicky Starr’s hired guns since Chicky was embarrassed by TNT at Aniversario. As 1989 closed, TNT was helping Carlos Colon against Leo Burke and had successfully defended the TV title against Sika. While we do not know who TNT faced on Three Kings Day, he is still being targeted by El Club Deportivo. 

Invader #1 had spent the latter half of 1989 feuding with several of El Profe’s men over the Puerto Rico title. But at the end of 1989, Invader was challenged by Manny Fernandez of El Club Deportivo. While Invader retained the title, the fallout from that match and from La Gran Guerra meant that they would have a rematch on January 6. One other detail that happened with Invader #1 during the holiday break was that, in a segment of El Deporte es la Solucion (a look at different sports hosted by Carlos Colon in an effort to promote and create interest for kids to try out and practice sports) Invader #1 was the guest and revealed that he was looking to form a new Invaders tag team in 1990. He also announced that his new partner would be his brother Maelo Huertas. We’ll follow this story as 1990 progresses. 

Miguel Perez Jr. had taken a bit of a break from full time tag action with Huracan Castillo and had successfully defended the Caribbean title against Gary Albright. He is set to defend the title once more on January 6 against the newest member of El Club Deportivo. 

Let’s now go to Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez in Bayamon for a rundown of what happened to kick off 1990. First, let’s take the opportunity to see what Gary Albright was up to in the new year. Although he was unsuccessful in capturing the Caribbean title, Albright continued to be dominant on tv. He is scheduled to face Ricky Santana on Three Kings Day. Ricky had to deal with Kokina to end 1989, let’s see how he fares against another larger opponent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E4dne9AGrs

As the match starts, Ricky signals that he wants the ref to toss Profe out. Ricky pumps up the crowd as referee El Vikingo talks with Profe and Albright. Gary starts motioning to the crowd to calm down and steps out of the ring with El Profe. Carlos on commentary once again talks about hoping to have managers banned from ringside (to which Chicky remarks ‘Dreaming doesn’t cost a thing, so Carlos can keep dreaming about that’). El Profe is staying at ringside as Albright gets back in the ring to begin the match. Santana continues to want Profe out of there but the ref tells him he can’t kick him out for no reason. They finally lock up and Albright gives a clean break when Santana is backed into the ropes. Another lockup sees Santana backed again into the ropes and this time Albright tries to hit a surprise blow on Santana on the break. Santana dodges and hits Albright with a chop.  Albright is admonished by the ref while Santana plays to the crowd. Carlos mentions that he likes Ricky’s strategy of going slow against the powerful Albright. A third lockup sees Santana backed into the ropes and Albright breaking with a shove. Santana responds with a shove of his own which angers Albright and he charges at Ricky. The charge is dodged however, and Albright falls through the middle ropes to the outside. Santana once again celebrates in the ring as Albright is frustrated on the outside and complains that his tights were pulled. Albright gets back in the ring as Santana goes after Profe, who apparently had started insulting Ricky. Profe runs away and Santana gets back in the ring (with Hugo commenting that Ricky getting distracted may not be ideal for him if he wants to beat Albright). Carlos says that Ricky has to ignore Profe if he wants to win, while Chicky says that it’s obvious Ricky doesn't want to wrestle against Albright and is looking for any excuse to not engage. 

Albright starts working over Santana’s arm as we go to a commercial break. We come back to Albright hitting punches on a dazed Santana, as Carlos on commentary is complaining about Profe distracting the referee to allow Albright to throw Santana over the top rope. Albright chokes Ricky with his boot, as Hugo says that it appears Ricky has not fully recovered from the blow he took when thrown over the top rope. Albright chokes Santana on the middle rope and then sends Santana into the ropes. Ricky counters with a sunset flip for a two count. An elbow knocks Ricky down and Albright staggers Ricky with a punch. Albright works the arm again with a hammerlock and tries to ram Santana into the corner. Ricky manages to duck down and Albright ends up hitting his shoulder on the top turnbuckle instead.  Ricky tries to start a comeback but an eyerake cuts him off. Albright hits a slam and goes to the top rope, but a splash attempt is countered by Santana’s knees. This may be the opening Ricky needs. The crowd cheers Sanatana on as both men try to get to their feet. Santana manages to stagger Albright with a flurry of punches and backs Gary into a corner. Santana hits s series of standing punches on the turnbuckle and sends Albright across the ring, following up with a clothesline. A kneelift knocks Albright down and Ricky drags Albright to the post. He slams Albright’s arm into the post  three times as the crowd comes alive. Back in the ring, Santana staggers Albright with a clothesline and slams him to the mat. Santana signals that he is going to the top turnbuckle and hits Albright with a top rope splash. It only gets two though. Ricky immediately goes back on offense and gets into a punch exchange with Albright. Santana staggers Albright again and whips him into the ropes. Albright counters and catches Santana off the ropes with the belly-to-belly suplex for the three count. 

MD: This was a great look at exactly where Albright was developmentally. It may not have been the skill that would serve him best in years to come, but he was learning how to stooge and stall here on top of being a monster. He seemed to enjoy bounding through the ropes on a missed assault or wiping out off the top rope. I wasn’t as convinced on his transitions or cut offs (clumsy eyerake or just grabbing an arm). And he could hit the belly-to-belly explosively but generally had to set it up with a whip off the ropes. So some of the transitions here were a little iffy but overall, it was solid. Santana really fit right in with his ability to almost constantly work towards the crowd. He had a massive fiery comeback after one of those wipeout leaps from the top from Albright, including three big whacks of an arm into the post (that weren’t exactly sold). He hit his own top rope splash but just didn’t have enough in the take to put a beast like Albright away. That Albright fully survived Santana’s comeback and just took over with the belly-to-belly didn’t make for the most compelling finish but it did put over Albright as being just that tough and dangerous which made sense if he was going into a program with Colon (or even a quick match set up by what we're watching next). If I’m not mistaken, Carlos and Chicky were on commentary here, which made for some entertaining back and forth about how managers should be banned.

EB: Albright’s belly-to-belly suplex is definitely being established as a move that can come at any moment and end the match. Besides his match with Ricky Santana to start the year, Albright also had an encounter on one of the tv programs with a prominent member of El Ejercito de la Justicia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlodJpa4IOU

Gary Albright is facing Armando Fernandez and the announcers right away mention that Fernandez is at a disadvantage both in size and power. This match is all Albright as he makes quick work of Armando. Within a minute Albright hits the belly-to-belly suplex and goes for the cover, but Albright decides to lift up Armando before the three count in order to continue dishing out more punishment.  A second belly-to-belly is hit and again Albright lifts Armando up at two. The ref starts making noise at both Abright and El Profe about Albright cutting off the count again but Albright ignores him and hits a third belly-to-belly suplex. Again, Albright lifts Armando up before the three. This causes Carlos Colon (in a suit) to get in the ring and to stop Albright’s abuse of his opponent. The ref calls for the bell and awards the match to Albright by dq due to Colon entering the ring and confronting Albright. As Carlos takes off his jacket, Albright jumps Carlos and gets some blows in, including a body slam. However, Carlos counters a throw into the ropes and hits a back bodydrop on Gary before chasing him out of the ring. Carlos and Albriight jaw at each other as Carlos takes off his shirt and it looks like this may be setting up a match between them. We know that there is no extended feud between them, so it’s likely a case of this setting up a match for later in the TV taping or a one-off at a house show.

MD: Pretty effective three minutes here. Albright looks like a monster against Fernandez, clubbing down on him immediately. He hits repeated belly-to-belly suplexes off the ropes but then picks Fernandez up at two. Albright is a guy who Watts or Verne would have picked up in a heartbeat five years earlier, but the world was different in 1989-90. This was more or less how he should have been presented. It drew out Colon who interjected. Albright ambushed him but Colon was able to run him off. We’ll see in the footage to come but I don’t think they foresaw a six month program between the two like what you had with Strong, so it made sense to leave the fans wanting more but not have Colon absolutely destroyed here. There’d been enough of that in 89. Albright still came off as a threat.

EB: The start of 1990 also saw a legend arrive in the territory as the newest member of Chicky Starr’s Club Deportivo. Harley Race, who had previously made appearances as the NWA World champion back in the early 80s and who had made a return appearance to CSP for Thanksgiving 89, is wrestling on the Three Kings Day show. His opponent is Miguel Perez Jr and the Caribbean title is on the line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0apiz2srPM

As the match introductions are made, Hugo, Carlos and Chicky on commentary mention that Miguelito has a very tough opponent in the legendary and former multi-time World champion Harley Race. Chicky (the one at ringside) mugs for the camera, looking very happy to have Harley Race in his stable. As the ref checks Harley for foreign objects and the combatants jaw at each other before the match starts, Hugo and Chicky talk about Harley’s success in both the NWA and WWF and how he’s looking to continue that success in Puerto Rico (and that Chicky is over the moon having Race in El Club Deportivo). Carlos puts over the talent in CSP and says it won’t be easy for Harley. The match starts and Miguelito manages to take control early on, keeping Race off balance with a crossbody off the ropes and blocking Race’s punches after a second lockup. Miguelito slams Harley and puts Race in a standing headlock.  Harley counters by sending Miguelito into the ropes and attempts to toss Perez over the top rope. Miguelito blocks the attempt but Race does it again and sends Perez flying over the top to the floor. Race goes after Miguelito and hits him with a punch to the head and then a sit down piledriver on the floor (although he didn’t get much force on it). Harley gets back in the ring as Perez tries to shake off the effects of the piledriver. The ref starts his count but Perez manages to get on the apron. Race cuts him off and guillotines Perez on the top rope. Harley kicks Miguelito off the apron and goes after him to the floor. Hugo on commentary starts asking Chicky just how he is able to get all this talent to come in under his management since it took Hugo a lot of work when he was manager to get people to come in. Chicky says that it’s because he’s intelligent. Race grabs Perez by the head to try to ram him into the post, but Miguelito counters and sends Harley head first into the ringpost. Now it’s Harley who is trying to shake off the effects of an attack. Miguelito goes on the offensive and punches and chops Race against the ring. Carlos on commentary segues into complaining about how, with all the talented wrestlers Chicky brings in, why does Chicky insist on interfering in the matches (it’s an argument that’s been going on for a few months on tv by this point and something Chicky continues to deny he does). At ringside, Perez continues to attack Race but a low blow by Harley stops Perez.  Race rams Miguelito into the ringside chairs and gets back in the ring. The camera shows Miguelito on the floor holding his arm as you can see some fans trying to help him back up. Perez gets back in the ring and gets hit with a clothesline as we go to a commercial break.

Back from commercial and the tide has turned, as Miguelito whips Harley into the corner and Race takes a bump over the top turnbuckle to the floor. Perez goes after Race on the outside and starts hitting several forearms to Race’s back as Chicky at ringside gets in the ring and protests to the referee that Race was thrown over the top rope (while ignoring Race had done that to Perez earlier). The ref tells Chicky to get out of the ring as Perez slams Race’s head into the ringsteps. Race stumbles away towards the ring announcer’s table and, when Miguelito gets close, grabs the Caribbean title belt and hits several blows to Miguelito’s midsection. Race puts the title back on the table and gets  back into the ring as Miguelito is down on one knee at ringside trying to recover. Race tries to suplex Perez back into the ring but Perez counters and ends up sending Race into the ropes for a roll up pin attempt. Race kicks out at two but Perez continues the attack with several punches to Harley’s head. Perez hits his powerslam finisher but Race kicks out at two! Miguelito looks frustrated as Chicky gloats on commentary. Perez tries a dropkick but Harley manages to swat him away. Miguelito holds his head as he slowly gets up, allowing Race to hook him in a fisherman suplex for the three count. Harley Race is the new Caribbean champion! 

MD: Like night and day going from Albright to Race. I have my issues with, let’s say, 1980 Race, but in 1990, in PR, against guys like Perez, it’s pretty cool just to see him and see the value he adds. He took one giant bump over the top that he really shouldn’t have taken, but in general, it was more about the little things, a cut off here, a facial expression there. He took over with a Chicky distraction and a pile driver on the floor. Perez was losing this one so he was out there to look strong. That meant coming back too soon from that pile driver and the belt shot later in the match. It was another match where the heel kicked out of a big move and hit his finisher with the interference coming earlier, which maybe isn’t the best way to do it. It made more sense with Albright than it did here, but I guess you also want to put over a guy you’re going to use as a title holder as being as legitimate as possible. Outside those two qualms I liked this a lot. And Chicky was funny on commentary as Hugo was griping that when he was a manager, he couldn’t get guys as easily as Chicky could.

EB: As mentioned earlier, Manny Fernandez was facing Invader #1 in a rematch for the Puerto Rico title. While we don’t have footage of the match, Manny was able to become the Puerto Rico champion. Let’s take a look at a tv match featuring Manny against a newcomer to CSP in Nick Ayala. More importantly, this video also has a clip of a match between Invader and Manny that is from after January 6.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l5bNcG9zQ0

Ayala surprises Manny to start, hitting several moves successfully. Manny is visibly taken aback by Ayala’s initial success but gains control using his veteran experience, first by reversing Ayala’s momentum off the ropes and then by faking a test of strength and kicking Ayala in the gut. Ayala tries to counter with punches to the midsection but Manny cuts Ayala off and from there just takes over. There’s a point where Ayala is on the mat while Chicky claps enthusiastically for Manny’s handiwork (and Chicky even gets a cheapshot in once done clapping). Manny slingshots Ayala into the bottom rope throat first and just continues on the attack, finishing Ayala off with his jumping rolling elbow smash.

Immediately after this, we get a short clip of Manny taking on Invader #1. It’s the finishing stretch of what may be the January 6 rematch (it looks like they’re in Mayaguez so this match may be from January 7). Invader is in the midst of a comeback on Manny, staggering Fernandez with chops and a clothesline into the corner. Invader tries to send Manny across the ring but Manny counters and sends Invader to the corner instead. Invader manages to stop himself from hitting the corner, but Manny comes charging in from behind. However, Invader uses the ropes to steady himself and leap over Manny’s charge. Invader ends up behind Manny and rolls him up for a pin attempt. However, Manny is able to shift the momentum before the three count and ends up on top with a roll up instead. Manny grabs the tights for leverage and pins Invader for the three count. Manny quickly leaves the ring as Invader for a moment looks like he thought he had gotten the pin before Manny countered, but the referee raises Manny’s hand as the winner as Invader looks on. The ref starts motioning for the title belt as the video ends.   

MD: Commentary seems to indicate this is Ayala’s debut but that doesn’t seem right. Manny gives him a bit to start (one back body drop) before clowning him for the rest of the match. Chicky is a constant presence, laughing, pointing, shrugging, whacking Ayala in the head. He doesn’t take away from Manny because Manny’s very good at taking up all of the air in the room in the first place. This was a straightforward showcase for the nefarious pairing.

EB: The Youngbloods and Los Mercenarios had a match for the World tag titles at the 1989 season ender that saw the Youngbloods retain the titles by disqualification when Los Mercenarios attacked them with the leather belts the Mercenarios were wearing. The resulting attack (where Chris was tied by the neck to the turnbuckle and Mark was repeatedly whipped by both Mercenarios) has led to a rematch occurring on Three Kings Day weekend. The World tag titles are on the line once more but in a tornado rules strap match. We don’t have the January 6 match but we do have the match from the following day in Mayaguez.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJWzmSOb6bI

We are in Mayaguez and the Youngbloods start off hot, going right after Los Mercenarios and whipping them with the leather straps. Los Mercenarios run to the safety of the outside as the Youngbloods stand tall in the ring to the crowd’s cheers. The ref tries to calm things down so that he can attach both teams to the straps. We end up with Mark tied to Morrow and Chris tied to Acevedo. This is tornado rules, so all four men are in the ring at the same time, but to win you have to touch all four corners first without interruption. Los Mercenarios have the strategy early on of attacking the Youngblood brother not attached to them from behind, allowing them to get the upper hand when the brothers try to come to each other’s aid. Los Mercenarios choke the Youngbloods in different corners of the ring for several moments, but Chris is able to break the choke and sends Acevedo into the ropes. Chris uses the strap to clothesline Acevedo down and attacks Morrow in order to break the choke on his brother. Chris whips Acevedo and starts choking him with the strap as Mark uses his strap to attack Morrow. After a moment, Morrow is able to get away from Mark long enough to attack Chris from behind. This allows Acevedo to gain the advantage on Chris while Mark continues attacking Morrow, first by using the strap to crotch Morrow and then by whipping Morrow with the strap. One more yank on the strap between Morrow’s legs causes him to flip over onto the mat. With Morrow down, Mark tees off on Acevedo in order to get him off his brother. The Youngbloods go on the attack but Morrow cuts off Mark with a low blow. Morrow starts touching the turnbuckles and gets to three before Mark stops him. Chris then starts touching the turnbuckles and hits three of the. However, the fourth one has Acevedo waiting for him and Acevedo knocks Chris down to stop the count. Acevedo starts touching the turnbuckles as we go to commercial break. 

Back from the break, and Chris sends Morrow to the outside of the ring. Mark (who is attached to Morrow) goes outside to continue the attack. Meanwhile, Chris focuses his attention on Acevedo, using the strap to whip him. Acevedo gets sent into the ropes and both Chris and Acevedo knock each other down with clotheslines. Morrow is on the outside whipping Mark with the strap as Acevedo gets up and starts touching the turnbuckles. Chris is following him though, and touches the turnbuckles after Acevedo (who is moving slowly). Acevedo hits the second turnbuckle with Chris quickly touching it as well from behind. Acevedo touches the third turnbuckle with Chris quickly touching it as well. Now it’s a matter of who gets the fourth turnbuckle. Chris hooks himself on the ropes to prevent Acevedo from reaching the last turnbuckle, which causes El Profe to jump on the ring apron and punch Chris in order to break his hold on the ropes. The referee sees this and goes after Profe and in doing so misses Acevedo crash into the fourth turnbuckle (which would have given Los Mercenarios the win). As Acevedo stands near the corner, Mark reaches out from the floor and trips up Acevedo, sending him to the mat. The ref turns around and sees Chris making a dash towards the fourth turnbuckle. The Youngbloods have won the match and retained the World tag titles. The crowd celebrates as El Profe complains to the ref. As the Youngbloods are hugging each other, Los Mercenarios and El Profe attack them from behind. Before too much damage is done, Super Medico and Ricky Santana run in to chase the rudos out of the ring. 

MD: This is a strap match and was one of the more interesting looking things on paper from the new footage. Unfortunately, there’s a commercial break in the middle so we only get about six minutes of it. I think Chris was with the Cuban Assassin and Mark was with Morrow. It’s basically all action with the necessity of close quarters created by the strap keeping things moving. It was touch the corner which feels weird in a tag match but they more or less made it work with the attempts bookended by brawling and whipping, including the comedy crotching on Morrow. Finish was clever as Chris followed behind Assassin only for Profe to intervene at the last second. That distracted the ref who missed Assassin touching the last corner, allowing Chris to dive for it. The fans loved it certainly.

EB: The Universal title rematch between Leo Burke and Carlos Colon ended with interference from Chicky Starr that allowed Burke to retain the Universal title. Due to this interference, Carlos was granted another match with Leo Burke. On TV, Carlos talked about having a surprise in store for Leo and Chicky in order to neutralize any potential interference from Chicky (something Chicky said would not make a difference). Let’s go to that rematch taking place in Manati to see what Colon’s surprise is. 

The match video is split into two parts. 

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t-NXbGBOpE

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=382FcPLedqQ

The ring introductions are made as we see Leo Burke and Chicky Starr standing on one side of the ring, while Carlos Colon is standing with his trainer Barba Roja. Carlos has brought Barba Roja back to counter Chicky. We see Barba Roja and Chicky pointing and jawing at each other (you’ll remember that Chicky attacked Barba Roja at Aniversario before TNT intervened, which resulted in the spray can being discovered and the Universal title match being restarted). Burke and Chicky look like they want Barba Roja ejected from the ringside area but it’s not happening. The match is announced to have a 60 minute time limit. El Vikingo shows off the title belt as Chicky continues making aggressive gestures at Barba Roja, but Barba is not backing down. Chicky hides behind Burke when Barba Roja makes a move towards Chicky. The bell rings and both managers exit the ring, Barba Roja with a handshake for Carlos and Chicky with the customary pre match hug with Burke. Carlos immediately rushes towards Burke but Leo runs out of the ring and towards the direction of the locker room. For a moment, Carlos looks to give chase but decides to stay back in the ring. Barba Roja had quickly moved in case Chicky tried anything. Burke stops near the exit to the locker room but sees that Colon is not being baited by his tactic. Chicky has a strategy session with Leo as they head back to the ring area. Burke tries to set the pace in the ring but, after Carlos hits a roll up for a two count, once again bails to the outside. The commentators (Hector Moyano and Eliud Gonzalez) are talking about how Carlos has brought back his good luck charm in Barba Roja. Burke stalls in getting back in the ring (complaining about his tights being pulled) but eventually locks up again with Carlos. A clean break occurs once Carlos is backed into the corner, but Colon moves aggressively towards Burke and backs him down. Burke hits a kick and a punch, then sends Carlos into the ropes, but Colon counters with a sunset flip for a pin attempt. They are too close to the ropes and Burke breaks the pin attempt by grabbing the bottom ropes. Burke again bails to the outside to stop Colon’s momentum. Back in and Burke again bails outside after an inside cradle pin attempt by Colon.

This time when Burke gets back in the ring, he switches tactics and decides to beg off from Colon, which does not work. Colon takes over and starts working on Burke's arm. Chicky starts complaining but Barba Roja immediately moves toward  Chicky in order to make sure he doesn't cause a distraction. Carlos continues getting the better of Burke for the next couple of minutes, still working the arm despite Leo’s best attempt to break out of the arm wringer. Burke tries to throw Colon through the ropes to the outside to break the armbar, but in a surprising turn Colon holds on and takes Burke with him to the outside. Colon, still not letting go of Burke’s arm on the outside, gets back in the ring dragging Leo with him. Chicky continues to try to make a move throughout but Barba Roja is right there to block him from getting near the wrestlers. Burke finally breaks out of the armbar and sends Carlos into the ropes. Carlos dodges a blow and tries to counter with a roll up from behind, but Chicky is right there and grabs Burke’s arms to hold onto him and prevent Carlos from taking Burke down. This causes Carlos to fall backwards onto the mat and get the wind knocked out of him. Barba Roja rushes over and complains to the ref about what happened. This turns the tide in Burke’s favor, who starts attacking Carlos with several knee drops. A pin attempt only gets one for Burke. Leo hits several punches on Carlos (including a jab to the throat) and hits a neckbreaker for a two count. Leo uses a leverage throw to send Carlos to the outside near where Chicky is as we go to a commercial break. During the break, we get an interview with Chicky and a newcomer by the name of Eddie Watts. It appears that Eddie has been challenging Super Medico for the World Junior title and is looking to dethrone Medico in their next encounter. We’ll  follow up on this Medico vs Watts rivalry in a later installment.

Back to the match (continued in the second one of the links), Barba Roja runs over to ward off Chicky as Carlos tries to recover from being thrown to the floor. Burke goes to the outside of the ring and hits an inverted atomic drop on Colon. Chicky moves in to spit on Carlos but backs off when Barba Roja moves in as well. Burke rolls in momentarily to break the count and grabs Carlos to attempt what looks to be a piledriver. Carlos counters with a back bodydrop onto the floor. Carlos and Burke both reenter the ring but Leo is just a bit faster and gains the advantage. Burke hits several punches on a stunned Colon and starts getting confident. A second attempt at standing punches from the middle turnbuckle is countered by Colon hooking Leo in a bearhug hold and then hitting an inverted atomic drop. Carlos makes a comeback (including a cartwheel) and has Burke staggering. Both men knock each other down when colliding with a shoulder tackle off the ropes. Burke is up first and decides to go to the top turnbuckle, but he is too slow and Carlos catches him at the top. Burke is slammed off the top turnbuckle and Colon starts stomping on him, as the announcers make note that it looks like Burke is bleeding. Carlos is fired up and continues on the attack, including biting Burke in the face. Carlos gets a sleeper on Burke, who tries to roll out of it. Carlos maintains the hold on Burke, just as he did earlier with the arm wringer. Chicky, seeing Burke in trouble, gets up on the apron and starts climbing the ropes. Barba Roja sees this and jumps on the apron. Barba Roja shakes the top rope, causing Chicky to lose his balance and crotch himself on the top rope. It looks like Barba Roja has effectively neutralized Chicky and Carlos may yet regain the Universal title. Carlos slams Burke and attempts to put on the figure-four, but Burke counters with an inside cradle for two. Burke slams Carlos but Carlos grabs Leo's leg and trips him up (a move we have seen Burke do in previous matches). Carlos keeps a hold on Burke’s leg and a second attempt at the figure four by Carlos is successful. It looks like Carlos may have the match won.

However, as Burke struggles in the hold you can see that Chicky at ringside is motioning with his arms for someone to come out. It’s Manny Fernandez! Manny attacks Colon twice in an attempt to break the figure four but Carlos is not letting go of Burke. The ref tries to get Manny out of the ring, but Barba Roja comes in to try to stop Manny from continuing to interfere by applying a sleeper on Manny (after ducking a punch from Manny). This is countered by Manny ramming Barba Roja back first into the corner. Manny hits Carlos with another kneedrop and throws him over the top rope to the floor. The ref calls for the bell and the match is a disqualification win for Colon (meaning Burke retains the title). Manny goes over to Barba Roja and slams him to the mat. Carlos is out on the floor as Manny goes to the top and hits a kneedrop onto Barba Roja, the same kneedrop that severely injured Invader #3 and caused him to vomit up blood. Barba Roja is in bad shape and, before Mannty can attempt any more damage, we see Invader and TNT run in to chase Manny off. A concerned Carlos and the ringside physician also join the other tecnicos in the ring to check on Barba Roja. A camera cut shows Leo Burke hugging the Universal title belt as he’s leaving the ringside area. There’s no telling how bad Barba Roja is hurt.. 

MD: Pretty great stuff here, unfortunately split into two videos. Colon had Barba Roja to counter Chicky. Burke was exceptional here. Even just in the early going, he was so good at being in the right place at the right time, slinking in and out of the ring, going from stalling to feeding for kinetic spots, back to stalling after getting his comeuppance. Great, great transition as Chicky and Burke grabbed arms as Colon was trying to roll him back off the ropes, causing Carlitos to crack his head on the mat. He came back with a big inverted atomic drop to counter a ten punch in the corner, cartwheel and all, and they went towards an exciting finish where Carlos used the sleeper hold to soften Burke up (neither had gone to the legs yet). Chicky tried to interfere but Barba Roja shook the ropes to take him out. Burke had a great nearfall small package as Colon finally went for the figure four, but Colon got it on, only for Manny to intervene. Barba Roja tried to fend him off as he did Chicky but Manny was too much for him and drew the dq, saving Burke’s title. Post-match they really ratcheted up the heat by flattening Barba Roja. Definitely one of my favorite things we’ve seen so far in this project.
EB: We’re off to a hot start to 1990 as El Club Deportivo now has three of the five singles titles in the promotion. They also look to have seriously injured Barba Roja. If Colon was not happy about feeling cheated out of the Universal title, you can bet that the attack on Barba Roja is going to turn into him seeking revenge.

Next time on El Deporte de las Mil Emociones, the feud between the top tecnicos and El Club Deportivo escalates as we get shifts in our feud pairings. Also, we say goodbye to some of our fall and winter of 89 regulars as we get some roster turnover. And… is that Kwang???

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RIP Virgil: A Weekend With Vincent

For the last 2+ years I've spent every day writing a book painstakingly reviewing every single match that took place in 1997 WCW. One of many guys making this project worth continuing has been Vincent's work as the nWo's Enforcer, the man stationed to the front lines who doesn't actually realized he's the weakest link of the coolest gang. It's a great role made greater by everything that Vincent brings to it. Here are two classic nWo Vincent performances from a summer weekend of 1997 WCW TV. These are the first two WCW reviews I've posted publicly on Segunda Caida since starting the book, and it feels Correct that my first full preview of what my WCW book will be like is to honor Vincent. A Real Character. 

Each match is under 2 minutes and showcase Vincent's incredible charm. His ability to act cool without realizing he's not. I don't think anyone actually did it better. 

DDP vs. Vincent WCW Saturday Night 8/9/97

The story goes that Charles Wright was the guy in line to get Vincent's eventual spot in the nWo, but seeing the perfect way Vincent embodies his Lowest on the nWo Totem Pole Role, I really can't visualize what The Godfather's place would have been. Vincent's role was an important one. A wrestling stable of a certain size needs a clear weak gazelle, a man there to take bumps that the higher ups won't take and stare up at lights the higher ups will never see. Without Vincent, the nWo might be more formidable, but I'm not sure how it would work. Would Wright and Norton have teamed instead of Norton and Bagwell, and would Bagwell have in turn wound up as the nWo Vincent? I'm not sure if that's better, because Buff really thrives in Vicious & Delicious in ways that I don't think Kama The Extreme Fighting Machine would have. Vincent is too damn good at being exactly what he should be in the nWo and to the nWo that the other ways just don't make sense. Adding one guy to the bottom makes the whole group better. 

Who else in the nWo would have been pinned by DDP on a Saturday Night, taking 30 seconds of a 90 second match to even lock up, reacting visually to the boos of the crowd and even flinching at DDP's BANG? Vincent spends the match making a beeline for the ropes any time DDP locked in a slight advantage (which was every time contact was made), sticking his body through the ropes to make the ref back DDP up, DDP kicking him in the ass while Vincent's torso is halfway out of the ring and those tight Guess jeans are framing his perfect set inside the ring. When Vincent finally steps to DDP he walks right into an elbow smash and jabs, a big kick to the stomach. His knees are turned to a fine powder with DDP's pancake piledriver, a move I'm surprised more guys didn't just refuse to take. Vincent takes the Diamondcutter like he was writing a manual for 2009 Christian. Heaven needed a champion, and the nWo needed a Vincent. 

The Giant vs. Vincent WCW Pro 8/10/97

This is incredible. This is the moment. And I fully understand why the cameras cut away from this moment, but whomever chose to  do what, it was incredible. Upon entering the ring Vincent attempts to "roll" in over the top. He doesn't attempt to enter the ring like Solar with any kind of beautiful arc, but more like a guy skinning the cat into the ring. Rolling over the top, casually. Smoothly. Except Vincent, upon holding the top rope and rolling in, clearly gets hung up between the middle and top ropes, and so the camera cuts away for several seconds. When they cut back Vincent is only just getting himself untangled from the ropes. This man rolled into the ring and got hung up in the ropes like they were made of fly paper, then stood up and walked to the center of the ring like a man who didn't just loudly shit his pants while stepping into a room where all eyes were on him, casually removing his sunglasses with the biggest smile on his face. 

I hold firm to my belief that Vincent knows exactly what character he is playing, knows his exact role on the entire roster hierarchy, and perfectly understands that he is the man who needs to act untouchably cool while also stepping on any possible rake in sight. For all we know, the camera cut was only unfortunate timing, and Vincent was actually intentionally lying across the middle rope, in the same way Jeff Jarrett lies across the ropes in the corner to taunt his opponent. But I choose to believe that Vincent was hung up in those ropes like he was caught in a tuna net, and that he 100% knew exactly what he was doing, and fully understood his role as a guy who thinks he's cool and has no actual idea that he is not, but would also do whatever it took to maintain his status as the least cool guy in the Cool Guy stable. 

Getting stuck in the ropes was only the beginning of Vincent's brilliant Zero Offense performance, as the cool guy getting into the ring in the least cool way possible then tries his damndest to stay physically away from The Giant. He avoids contact as long as possible and is scared the entire time he's in the ring, and it's all perfect. He at first acts like he's merely circling behind Mark Curtis while circling the Giant with good intentions, but then he Hey Buddy claps Curtis on the back the way a stranger would when he was about to force a man into doing an unexpected illegal favor. A man passes you on the street and gives you a head not and a shoulder clap, suddenly you find yourself as a human shield. As Vincent fully hides behind Mark Curtis in the corner, Curtis - a human shield who was in no real danger - looked like he had no idea Vincent would be holding him as a shield for so long, and looked to actually be trying to wriggle away so Vincent could take his medicine. And Vincent is that, a child trying to not take medicine. 

He takes comic flat back bumps when he gets thrown to his back and headbutted, gets kicked in the ass when stumbling away, dragged back into the ring as he was trying to frantically army crawl the floor on his stomach. His crossbody is caught, and Giant's backbreaker is among his most backbreaking, even though his insistence on keeping his hands balled into fists while clutching Vincent -  instead of gripping Vincent's back and balls with full increased pituitarily outstretched hands - shows he is a Giant who feels shame and is no wild giant at all. He has the restraint of modern man's guilt showing through those balled fists, and it is a tell that all of Universal Studios can read. Were they to meet an actual Forest Giant, they all know that beast would have no problem gripping them squarely by the ass and genitals for any reason, and now they all know The Giant is no beast, but simply a large man who has been sadly touched by mankind's insistence on feeling shame. Imagine The Giant asking someone which ear is "the gay ear". Sad. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/19 - 2/25

AEW Collision 2/24/24

Bryan Danielson vs Jun Akiyama

MD: One of the last couple of times I discussed Eddie Kingston, I waxed poetic on how I can write about him as if it was all real, that I barely even need to go into mechanics or subtext, because the text itself is so rich and immersive. I mentioned at the time the one other thing that popped off the top of my head as something I could do that with, Jumbo Tsuruta vs Genichiro Tenryu, especially towards the end of their rivalry in that vaunted year of 1989. By that point, the virus of violence that had infected All Japan Pro Wrestling with the arrival of Riki Choshu ("The Carrier"), and that had first infected Tenryu, was now lodged in the heart of Tsuruta. Tenryu admitted it, embraced it, used it to fuel a Revolution. Tsuruta, however, denied it, decried it, claimed himself to be an Olympian, a hero, a gentleman, an athlete, a paragon. Yet again and again, when his back was pushed against the wall, and no one could push him back or push his buttons quite as well as Tenryu, his true colors shone through.

That leads us to Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, and the year 2024. We are in the midst of Danielson's golden year, a year where he gets to wrestle Blue Panther at Arena Mexico, where he gets to wrestle Okada and Sabre, Jr. in Japan, where a round robin tournament was created just for him, and where every match feels special. He is pro wrestling's warrior monk, a man who reads three books at a time, who has absorbed all the wisdom to be found in pro wrestling and seeks for truth and meaning outside of it in a way so few of his peers can manage. He holds to the tenets of family, of hard work, of knowing one's self, of fighting through broken limbs and finding joy and humor in both the sacrosanct and the profane.

Is it his year though? Is it really? Within the same walls, the same promotion, the same world, even, is a man who has been living out his dreams, who has been meeting his heroes and finding himself their equal, who finally, after decades of toil, has found the value in his own worth and has turned it into strength and resolve. This is a man who bet on himself, who overcame his greatest rival, Danielson's teammate, and then ultimately his greatest monster, himself. The tournament was made for Danielson. Eddie Kingston won it. In winning it, he claimed a prize of his own making, a triple crown for a new era. He beat Claudio. He beat Moxley. He beat Danielson. And why did he beat Danielson? Because while Kingston bet on himself, Danielson bet not on Danielson, but against Kingston. He bet that Kingston would break under the pressure as he almost always had before. He lost that bet. Subsequently, he lost to Okada, was stretched by Hechicero, lost to Sabre. One's left to wonder, during this capstone year of Danielson's glory, if momentum, if fate itself, has shifted to his polar opposite, has shifted to Eddie Kingston.

And so, much as they had 35 years before with Tsuruta and Tenryu, underneath the pressure that Eddie Kingston represents, the cracks have begun to show in Bryan Danielson. They were there in the pre-match interview with Lexy, calling her out for not saying Akiyama was legendary (for Danielson is the authority on this; of course he is), declaring his respect for Akiyama but stating clearly and firmly that he was about to beat him in front of Kingston, and more than anything else, seething over Kingston's lack of professionalism, for Danielson holds himself and those around him to a impeccable standard.

Then came the match itself. Danielson cupped his ear to call to the crowd, playing to them more so than usual, as if he needed to ensure that Akiyama, despite being a legend, wouldn't be cheered over him. He broke clean with the first contact, but put his hands out and then up, making a big deal of it, showing everyone that he was the professional gentleman athlete. Twice in the match, including right before the finish, he started the Yes chants, something he almost never does now. He did it in the first Okada match but it was to help paste over the injury. This was entirely different. He threw Germans in a way that he wouldn't normally, and I half wonder if it wasn't to set up a fighting spirit moment of suplex trading with Akiyama, just to show he could. In years' past, almost none of this would be necessary, because Danielson had nothing to prove to anyone; he was wrestling this match like he needed to prove something to the crowd, to Kingston, to himself. And he did prove something, surviving the clash of knees, putting Akiyama down, even shaking his hand gracious like a professional. But then cracks became fissures. He looked to Eddie, rubbed it in with his middle finger, and when Akiyama took offense, Danielson backpedaled before turning a second shake into a unconscionable low blow.

This was a dream match of sorts, but one caught within certain limitations: time, scale, age. Moreover, it had to serve the moment, to serve a greater purpose, nominally as part of Danielson's golden year, but in truth, a key stop on the road to Revolution and two world views, two differing mentalities, two philosophies of pro wrestling and life clashing against one another. So while it may not have been a perfect match (and I could write another paragraph on Nigel valiantly cashing in his built up credibility for a very good cause during the commercial break, but it would be too much a digression), it perfectly served its purpose to be the straw that broke the camel's back and pushed Danielson over the edge.

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby/Orange vs. Gates of Agony

 

7. Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Toa Liona/Bishop Kaun AEW Dynamite 5/31

ER: Yeah, I'm pretty in the bag for Darby Allin matches and I can't see what can drag me out of the bag at this point. I was a huge Spike Dudley fan and that was without Spike running as fast and hard into his opponents as possible. Spike sprinted headlong into danger like few else, while Darby does exactly the same, somehow endures the punishment, then throws his own body as a weapon. He is weapon and he is a projectile and he has the ability to be thrown so hard that I can only watch captivated while not thinking of a day where his body while suddenly shatter into a million pieces. Darby Allin is a supernova who will explode into stardust while doing something stupid like getting pounced out of the air on a tope en reversa or being dropped back first onto the top turnbuckle. Nobody gets blown up like Darby, nobody offers as much of himself in recompense, nobody but Darby has issue taking as much punishment during his opponents' swarms as during his own triumphs. Imagine if Ricky Morton had also murdered himself during his end of match comebacks, or if Spike Dudley's matches had finished not with a cooperative bulldog but with him throwing his own body even more violently into his opponent than they had just been throwing him. 

I liked Bishop Kaun's match against Dustin a couple weeks before this, but I liked it because I thought it was Another Excellent Dustin Match where he bled a ton for no real reason on a B-show and thought Kaun could have been just as well have been 50 other guys on the roster. It was a Dustin match and Kaun was interchangeable. Here, with two smaller opponents, Kaun and Toa looked exactly like the monsters they're championed as. They leaned in for all of Darby's blows and because of the size difference, Darby got to hit them as hard as possible. Darby is fearless, and the sequences where he slaps Toa across the face and then pays for that for the next couple minutes is key to everything. Kaun whipping Darby into railings while Toa sprints around the ring to upend OC, running almost so hard that he nearly flies into the crowd himself; later you can see Darby running full speed back and forth into the corners to send all his weight into these beasts, and you can see the rag in their faces as they get suckered into running after him just as hard. I love moments like Darby using an Irish whip to knock Kaun off the apron, even though it slows him down enough to leave him prone for a nasty Toa hip attack. 

The timing of everything was  - and seemingly always is - so good when Darby is in there directing traffic with his adamantium skeleton. The way he smacks Toa around with back elbows and ducks a big swinging arm just in time for OC to hit the Orange Punch, allowing Darby to hit his cannonball tope which is now so expected that it's almost easy to forget how much of an all time great tope it is. I remember buying a lucha tape and seeing Black Warrior hit a tope so hard that it flipped him upside down on collision, making the tope read like a car crash with the physics causing the elements to fly off into their own trajectories. Darby's topes always look like a man was trying to sneak through a more-red-than-yellow light and getting t-boned, and Darby is the world's most durable Yugo. 

Also, as someone who used to not be amused in any way by Orange Cassidy, he is one of my favorite babyfaces now. I get excited to hear Starship, I give a thumbs up with my thumb barely extended, and I flipped out for how hard he crashed onto his tailbone while hitting Stun Dog, holding Toa in place for a code red. I am a full on OC Guy now. That said, he's even better when Darby is the one setting up the timing of the misdirections. Darby just makes everyone stronger. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: LA PARKA~! PIERROTH~! DOUGIE~! LAWLER~! RUFFY~! MOTO~!

Ruffy Silverstein vs. Mr Moto (Jiu Jitsu) NWA Chicago 1950s

MD: This was a judo jacket match where it was supposed to be no strikes, no pins, submission only, and with both wrestlers wearing judo jackets. Here they called it a Jiu Jitsu match and to make things more confusing, called Moto's illegal chops that drove a lot of the narrative of the match "judo". There were a number of gi assisted takedowns and submissions that were sort of interesting, but the match was really about things boiling over again and again as Moto took liberties, Silverstein fired back, and they built towards the end, to Silverstein hitting a couple of body slams. In that regard, the gimmick was more a means to an end, an environment to create contrast for them to do some more conventional things. There were a couple of interesting moments with the gis, but nothing more interesting than Silverstein going outside of them to lock in a cross-armbreaker. In general, not enough working joints or trying to get submissions as it always came back to the cheapshots and retaliation. Finish had Silverstein get a visual pin after the slams in a match where pins don't count and then Moto locking in a quasi-gi choke as the time limit wore off. Overall unsatisfying. My favorite bit at the end was when Davis called out a fan for just reading his newspaper during the match. 

Pierroth Jr. vs. La Parka Monterrey 7/16/00

MD: Park can be hit or miss in the 2000s for me, primarily because you get so much bullshit in his indy matches. Heel ref. Interference. Hamming about. When it hits though, it really hits, and here, I think it hit because the crowd wasn't as desensitized to it as they would be years later. That was combined with what makes it work as much as it does in the first place, Park's physical charisma, and, in this case, a very easy to understand and very clear and distinct injustice that was layered on top of the usual heel ref bullshit, a matter of seconds. La Bruja was supposed to be Pierroth's second. Parka was going to have another female to counter. She didn't show. In the pre-match when Parka was screwing around with La Bruja's gear to taunt her, and Wagner, Jr. came in with a weapon to whack Parka in the back, with the claim that he was Pierroth's second second. So they went right into a very uneven beatdown, with immediate mask ripping, subsequent blood, and Pierroth winning the first fall entirely one-sided with a power bomb.

It was the perfect alchemy of unfairness, blood, attitude, selling, animosity towards Pierroth and affection towards Parka and the fans were pissed. Early into the segunda, as the beatdown continued, the bottles started to fly. They went into a comeback (which stopped the bottles) where Parka had to work against basically four people, including the ref, only to get cut off by La Bruja crotching him on the top. He'd steal the fall by turning another powerbomb attempt into a 'rana but this second beatdown would continue, though maybe with a few less things thrown in thanks to the evening out of the falls. The tercera built to a ref bump and more overt interference until Parka's second finally ran out to turn the tide. That distracted the recovered ref, however, and led to Wagner coming in to set up a big foul kick while Pierroth held Parka. You can guess what happened next, though I'm not sure I've ever seen it executed with such gusto. Parka jumped straight up to dodge the kick. Pierroth got nailed instead and an elated crowd got to see a tecnico win and a title change. It was chaotic and messy and wild in the right ways, playing on heartstrings and building to big moments. 

ER: Remember when Monterey tapes started getting more widely circulated in the early 2000s, and we all realized all these great sounding on paper matches were all taking a back seat to some referee the entire match. I've watch so many La Parka matches over the last decade that even baseline shit entertains me in a big warm way. But seeing how incredibly a year 2000 baseline Big La Parka match played in Arena Coliseo Monterey made me nostalgic for buying $5 lucha tapes at Frank's and Sons. When all the bottles and trash starts flying in during the segunda? Forget it man, nothing beats that shit. I don't care how bad the ref's timing was or that he just flat out refused to take a La Parka headscissors, or maybe how long it took to get to certain places, once garbage starts hitting a ring it crosses over into Great Pro Wrestling. I wanted more stiffness from Park's eventual comeback but this crowd and this atmosphere meant that didn't matter. La Parka hitting a tope into Dr. Wagner, his second finally coming out and punching El Bruja around, and tons of fans rushing ringside to throw more water bottles when La Parka wins is some incredibly comfortable lucha to spend time in. All I need is thrown garbage, Pierroth's 60s western villain eyes and slacks, and a quarter of La Parka's face peeking out from behind his torn mask

Jerry Lawler vs. Doug Gilbert PWE Strawberry Slam 2018

MD: As minimalist as can be. You watch this and you see the breadth of what is possible with pro wrestling, or at least one far pole of it. It's vaudeville, Abbot and Costello, a constant build to the (very literal) punchline, again and again. It shouldn't work in the confines of wrestling, because you have to suspend disbelief and everything is so thoroughly telegraphed here but it does because of the wrestlers, their emotional connection to the crowd, and the expertise of their performance. The match starts with Gilbert pressing Lawler into the corner and punching him. It happens three times, with three corners, with gaps in between to let it resonate, with three great punches. After the third, he gloats and Lawler walks up, taps his shoulder and nails him with a punch of his own. It doesn't work without those punches looking as good as they do. It doesn't work without Gilbert being such a jerk about it. It doesn't work without Lawler being so matter-of-fact in retaliating, in letting the emotion build up until he unloads. It's not about what but instead about when and how. 

Eventually, Gilbert plays hide the object, with the audience getting to interject and be part of the show by calling it out and delaying its use and delaying its use until it has a certain payoff of its own, letting him take over. Things build into a Lawler comeback, a ref bump, a chain getting tossed in, and the eventual finish, with a last second foot on the rope and a roll up out of nowhere. Other than punches and a side headlock to set up the ref bump and the schoolboy for the finish, the only other "move" in the match is Lawler slamming Gilbert's head into the turnbuckle one time as part of his comeback. But they filled sixteen minutes (and without late-era Lawler's usual house mic work) and accomplished what they set out to do.

ER: When you see a modern 70 year old Jerry Lawler match with a near 20 minute YouTube file, you assume it's 10 minutes of Lawler on the mic and not a file full of punching and wandering. Matt called it vaudeville and it's exactly what it is. It's notable for being evidence of Dougie passing Lawler as a worker. It took several decades, but 50 year old Doug Gilbert is now a better worker than a 70 year old Lawler. Lawler is a fun old man with a huge belly who works like Mama Harper in that episode of Mama's Family where Mama has to wrestle Mt. Fuji and Matilda the Hun. Doug Gilbert now might have the best worked punch in pro wrestling. Lawler was throwing Looney Tunes punches while little kids jumped up and down with each one, Doug was throwing one off bombshells in every corner, and there's a woman sitting in the bleachers opposite hard cam who you think has to just be wearing short shorts with a camisole top but the full length of the video reveals that it's just a very short dress and we wonder if the man/tripod operating the hard cam was building this story reveal into out main story. I didn't know there was a Portland, TN. It's basically Kentucky, but 45 minutes north of Nashville. I grew up in a town with a population under 10,000, which is around 11,000 now. I attended the one wrestling show that ever happened there (in 2000) and saw Mike Modest, Christopher Daniels, Bison Smith, Moondog Moretti, and others with my dad and friends. It was the day after I turned 19. Portland, TN is about the same size as the town I grew up in and where my parents still live, and I obviously would have gone to this show had I lived there, and I would have loved to watch two old men do nothing but throw fake punches at each other's face and bodies.  

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: The Elite vs. Top Flight Fox

 

Kenny Omega/The Young Bucks vs. AR Fox/Dante & Darius Martin AEW Rampage 2/15 (Aired 2/17/23)

ER: On paper the idea of The Elite working a 10 minute long NBA on TNT match filled with amateur Harlem Globetrotter routines sounds fucking terrible. I mean just awful. They're wearing jerseys and yucking it up real chuffed with themselves, throwing the rock around. It sounds so fucking bad man. But I guess my brain is just wrecked on gas station Stay Hard pills because I enjoyed all of it and actually wish it had way more basketball spots. How were the basketball spots in this actually good? Everybody in the match handled a ball much better than I would have guessed and what should have played as Bad Chikara Shit played out as Good Chikara Shit: Jump balls leading to atomic drops or superkicks, Kenny catching a ball to the nuts running in to interfere, Nick getting a ball thrown at the bridge of his nose two different times! Who could have possibly guessed that everyone but AR Fox had Necro Butcher Throwing Chair precision with a basketball. 

Fox didn't really contribute to any of the good pass drill clown hijinks, but he at least spammed a hall dozen high hang time dives. AR Fox dives look impressive in air but make very light contact, so spamming them as a swarming attack instead of impact attack works better. They made the smart choice and made all of the basketball spots end with actual impact. The Comedy lead to The Violence. A basketball to the face hurts, and the ball was flying around the ring while guys were busy doing other spots. Darius Martin looks cool backflipping with a basketball. Really cool. Like the Phoenix Suns Gorilla cool. The Goon worked excellently as a violent hockey player gimmick because it's cool seeing big Bill Irwin checking guys into boards and going low on shoulderblocks. We've never gotten a Bill Laimbeer/Draymond Green violent basketball player gimmick. We're not there yet. The technology isn't ready. But the basketball spots in this match transcended Human Tornado dunking on a huracanrana and I was not expecting that. 

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW (in NJPW) Five Fingers of Death 2/12 - 2/18

Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr. NJPW 2/11/24

MD: Longer matches are not intrinsically better; most times the opposite is at play. There is the possibility for more complexity with more time however (which is exactly why the opposite is so often at play; there's a responsibility not just to have long equal more, though all too often, matches are not properly punished for failing to meet that responsibility). Which is a roundabout way of saying that there was a lot to keep track of here. Moreover, there were a lot of bits that could have multiple readings. Sabre's a guy who was praised early, too early in mind, when he was still a tribute act and hadn't put it all together, but that was years ago and he's connected dots more or less since then. It took me a while to catch up to him, though, and I'm still not as familiar as I could be. That means that there are certain things here that I am not as comfortable attributing as I might normally be. But we'll get to that in a moment.

The first ten minutes of this were the two of them throwing every hold they had at one another. In their last match, much like a big chunk of his 2023, Danielson wrestled reactively. He drew Sabre in, let Sabre take the initiative, and then countered. Here, there was none of that. He was aggressive, pushing forward with a fluid, lithe stance, and trying hold after hold after hold. Three possible readings there. The first is that he was the invading aggressor, as Sabre had been at WrestleDream, and acted accordingly. The second is that he knew how good Sabre was now and wasn't going to give him the chance to take the initiative. The third, and this is the one I like the best, is that he's still recovering from getting stretched and twisted by Hechicero and he came in with a chip on his shoulder. You can add in the fact Kingston so recently beat him and Sabre's taunts about how fragile he was (which, like the other two preceding elements, has a hint of truth to it). Maybe it's even a combination of all of the above, but those are a lot of strands to keep track of to explain a wrestler's actions and reactions in a 30+ minute match.  What I loved about this opening stretch is that neither felt confident with any of their holds in the face of the skill of their opponent. This quick shifting had a real lucha matwork feel to it despite the actual holds being done not being those typical for such a thing, either in choice or execution. You have to suspend your disbelief with those lucha opening stretches sometimes, have to just assume that the maestros know what will and won't work and the cost and price to holding an attempt too long. Here, though, it was tense and visceral; too much torque one way or the other would have led to a devastating opening.

That played out in practice at around the ten minute mark when Danielson was able to reverse Sabre into the ropes, leg first, and cause some real damage. It was a fluke but also a natural culmination to what had been happening and one that would change the course of the match. Basically, something had to give and something did. There was an immediate question of whether Danielson would use the damaged leg as a wedge to gain broader advantage or if he'd target it and he chose the latter. For the next few minutes, Sabre backpedaled and tried to stay above water. He was able to open things up with a couple of lightning fast escapes into neck twists (with the damaged leg), but it was always going to be a detriment. 

Two or three key times, one when they were in mutual legbars and then later for a couple of standups, Sabre leaned hard into strike, even slap, exchanges. Again, there are a couple of readings. It might have just been the usual fighting spirit or animosity coming to play. To me, though, it felt like Sabre knew how vulnerable his leg was and chose to tantalize Danielson with an offer he couldn't refuse, the chance to throw fists, hands, and feet with Sabre instead of keeping his offense laser focused on the leg. Sabre couldn't stand to Danielson's superior striking but it was worth sacrificing his looks and his skull to keep his knee for a few more minutes. It was a choice that might have won him the match over all.

Which leads to one last decision down the stretch. During one last such exchange, Danielson, perhaps understanding and adapting to what I just suggested Sabre was doing, slipped in a backslide attempt off of a Sabre strike. Sabre landed on his feet but tweaked his leg momentarily and Danielson hit the knee. He didn't go for the cover. Despite Sabre getting in a couple of nice bombs down the stretch, Danielson had been winning on points and very likely could have scored a pinfall here. Instead he got up to hit another and it ultimately cost him the match. My guess here is that Danielson wanted the submission instead (or at least a knock out) but didn't think he could quite get it yet, even after one knee, given how the match had gone so far. It was that same instinct from the beginning of the match that caused them to release holds after a couple of seconds; he had so much respect for Sabre and so much confidence in his own ability to hit that second knee and put him away once and for all in the manner of his choosing, that he left a less satisfying win on the table. 

The thing is, I can't be sure. This is unknowable in 2024. We're better off for that. Wrestling is absolutely a creative medium and while some people's idea of creativity is stacking more upon more to create a cool effect, I love that a match like this lays itself open to multiple satisfactory interpretations. If Danielson meant to do X1 in minute Y1, that has an implication for the reading of him doing X2 in minute Y2. Wrestling is broad and can be so many things, but usually it's direct and in your face. Explicit storytelling in wrestling tends to go but one way and implicit storytelling, even when it can be worked out and pieced together, usually follows the paths of least resistance (such as Hierarchy or Hansen). Here the text was rich enough and executed with such skill that there are multiple possibilities. That, as much as anything else, makes this match exceptional.

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: Dark Order vs. Blackpool Combat Club

 

6. Stu Grayson/Evil Uno/Hangman Page vs. Jon Moxley/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta AEW Dynamite 3/15

ER: AEW is often at its best when it hits the level of a 4th match of the night trios from the middle of a 2003 NOAH show, and that's what this felt like to me. Everything hummed and flowed like the best NOAH trios, and almost everyone hit like they were wrestling in a NOAH trios. Evil Uno works like an old fat All Japan undercarder who's having a big night anyway, so it only makes this even better. He's like old ass Mighty Inoue or Mitsuo Momota breaking out of old man comedy and coming alive and showing everyone that he's still the guy they might have seen on a 1979 IWE show. But the big story of this very cool match is Stu Grayson. 

Stu Grayson is a guy who I haven't had an active thought about at any point of my pro wrestling fandom. It's a name I relearn every time I see a Stu Grayson match and then it just as quickly drifts away, just out of reach. Like a night's dream you're trying to recollect, the more you attempt to recall the name Stu Grayson, the farther away you feel from catching it. Except Stu Grayson exists beyond that plane of waking life, as you never once get the urge to actually recall your memory of That Time You Watched A Stu Grayson Match Because You Were Home On A Wednesday. How many Stu Grayson matches could I have actually watched. Half a dozen? A full dozen? I am no longer a religious weekly watcher of TV wrestling, while also being a person who constantly watches wrestling, including a lot of AEW and WWE. I am a pro wrestling Hardcore Viewer while simultaneously being the elusive Casual Fan that has been lusted after demographically for literal decades. And that is the reason why I have probably seen eight Stu Grayson matches. Without remembering any Stu Grayson matches. Maybe those matches were all actually John Silver or Raymond Row matches. 

But in this match, this Stu Grayson Match, I found his excellent babyface energy captivating. He really started connecting with me when he took a cool fast bump through the ropes to the floor, and the BCC did a sick group piledriver on the floor as The Thing to kick off their big heat on him. I thought the Combat Club were awesome at making quick tags so that every member could inflict their own personal constant damage, tagging in to suplex and hit and kick and uppercut Grayson. The heat was all really well done and the action was seamless, giving Grayson time to credibly sell while also believably not leaving him spaces for a comeback. When he did make a one move comeback - with a huge running knee straight into Moxley's mouth - it was a huge hot tag moment. A well built and well timed hot tag is always a thing to be celebrated, but I loved how they used the hot tag as the means to build up to another run towards the finish, not as the actual run to the finish itself. Uno had a big senton atomico and all of the quick hit car crash action perfectly cleared the ring for Moxley and Page...which was just a way to quickly settle things down into the run towards the real finish, as Yuta took out Hangman with the ring bell. 

Despite being an early-AEW supporter of Evil Uno - one of the guys who consistently made the What Worked side of that first year or so of AEW Workrate Reports - I wouldn't ever call myself a Dark Order Guy. And yet here I was, completely losing it thinking that Uno and Grayson could plausibly pin Jon Moxley. Their entire finish run, from Grayson's flip dive over the ringpost, to all of their chained together offense and double teams, all made me actually think - and be excited for -  Uno and Grayson were actually taking out Jon Moxley. The Fatality nearfall was huge, and Yuta's best moments of the match were him saving Mox from that finish and then running over to pull Uno off the apron to stop the tag and ice the momentum. Stu Grayson makes the great looking finish look like an even greater finish. It's cool seeing him hit 450s and big ranas and dives with real distance, but I love how he Athletically Eats Shit taking Claudio's pop up uppercut. This was NOAH trios perfection, and if I manage to forget about Stu Grayson again in a couple days, it is likely merely the signs of my advanced brain rot and not anything that is the fault of Stu Grayson's ability.  

2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: SERDAN~! AQUILES~! VERNE~! MCCLARITY~! VILLANOS~! TEXANO~! SIGNO~! NAVARRO~!

Michel Serdan vs Aquiles Brazil 9/13/87

MD: We've covered two other matches from Brazil and they've both been tremendous. This was no different. If someone is just sitting on a bunch of Michel Serdan matches, please come forward with them. We'll watch them all. This was billed as his retirement match, one last fight in a cage against Aquiles to prove the better man once and for all. Aquiles cut a fun quick promo before the match saying he wanted Serdan to be calm because he was scared to face him. Serdan had a more celebratory one where he got to thank the fans. This was escape rules with rounds of all things. The cage was flush to the ring, so much so that there were no turnbuckle pads.

That came into play immediately as Serdan ran Aquiles right into the corner a couple of times to open him up. He was already bleeding when he ran him into the cage. He had wild sweeping strikes meant for the last row. I wouldn't call them conventional or even tight but they were very effective and dramatic, like he was riding the music of the roaring crowd. The round breaks served as potential transitions, but even more so were attempts out of the cage. That's when Aquiles got to first take over on Serdan, who had beaten him enough that he was satisfied and went to leave but was immediately pulled down. He quickly got color too though not quite as much as Aquiles (though he had the bald head to help it go a little further). From there they went back and forth, utilizing either escape attempts or round breaks as a way to fire back at one another, just repeatedly slamming fists into heads from every angle.

What a finish too. Aquiles managed to knock Serdan away and started to climb and you wondered, just for a moment, if he might get away. Serdan was there though, grabbing at his feet and it wasn't hard to see the rest of this playing out with Aquiles thrust back into the ring and Serdan rising victorious. However, the entire heel locker room rushed forth and pulled Aquiles over the top. The celebration that followed was one of the most jubilant ever in the history of heel triumphs. Though he was completely undeserving, Aquiles rushed back and forth, surrounded by the heels, arms in the air, as Serdan recovered, dejected, in the ring. I have no idea how they avoided a riot here; it was well-warranted. There's very little quite as beautiful in all of pro wrestling as a heel drawing heat with such exuberance and verve. I'm sure he got his comeuppance at some point but this is a world we only get a glimpse into so who knows what it was or when. I would have paid to see it though, that's for sure. 

Verne Gagne vs Roy McClairity NWA Chicago 8/6/54

MD: We had the first fall of this previously, but not the whole thing. It's a long 2/3 falls match, with a substantial first fall. Verne is Verne, dynamic, explosive, made for TV, carrying within him this bounding energy. You can see it in the way he moves. There was a promise of action in his matches, though, of course, it's the 50s, so that action never crosses a threshold from sublime to absurd in a way that more "action-driven" wrestlers from Race to Rocco to Angle to their modern counterparts can't claim.

A lot of the match was centered around McClaritiy trying to find an answer to the challenge of Verne, working hard to ground him and keep him in long holds, most especially a fairly complex grapevined leg stretcher. It meant that when Verne got an upper hand once again, he was more aggressive and frustrated than usual, looping in some chippy extracurricular bits of damage; for instance, in a toehold, he might slam the knee into the mat in a way that he might not have otherwise. It turned the crowd against him a little, or at least turned them more towards McClairity.

They were working the holds so hard and with so much spirit that without Verne's baldspot, it'd be hard to tell the two of them apart at times. The finish of each fall came down to battle over sleeper type moves, first Verne's straight on sleeper and then McClairity's cobra clutch. In the third fall, with neither able to get it on, McClarity went to the well with a side headlock one too often and Verne hit a 1954 belly to back suplex out of it (one that everyone seemed surprised by) to score the win. Between the underlying story of McClarity trying to contain Verne and Verne getting frustrated by it and just how hard they were working each hold, this felt a lot shorter than it was and remained enjoyable the whole way through.

Kato Kung Lee/Texano/Villanos IV y V vs Indomito/Signo/Tigre Blanco/Negro Navarro CMLL 1991

MD: Look, I love that we have all of these Monterrey matches. I've found something worth watching in 90% of them and some of them are legitimately great. We've got to see regionally pushed talents like Panterita and Arandu and more from the greats like Casas. But man, it can be so frustrating in the way lucha can so often be to see great builds to an apuestas match and then not even know if the thing ever happened, let alone having footage of it. The build to Indomito vs Texano was really good and this was another piece of that vexing puzzle.

They paired up for the primera, with Signo vs Villano (I think V; telling apart Villanos is my personal lucha weakness) really standing out as being smooth. Just a lot of fun talent here so it was nice to see them have their exchanges. The tecnicos took it and kept control into the segunda, though Indomito was dodging Texano for the most part, as well he should. Kato Kung Lee got to take advantage of sheer numbers involved in an atomicos match and did his usual shtick, just with more people to higher effect. Immediately thereafter the rudos had enough and swarmed. At times it was hard for Indomito to take center stage just because Navarro and Signo were there but once they got going, he honed in well enough on Texano and bloodied him. The comeback in the tercera was heated and focused on Texano rushing the ringing and getting his revenge. He hit a pile driver on the outside and back in the ring which was jarring especially because they weren't sold like death. Things built to a final exchange where Texano came in too hot and Indomito was able to get his feet up on the ropes for a cheap pin. Again, just a nice balance of blood and revenge and comeuppance denied. All building to a match that's not listed on luchawiki at least. Ah well. Lucha is a challenging mistress.

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El Deporte de las Mil Emociones: Goodbye 1989

Week 16: Goodbye 1989

EB: We’ve reached the season ending weekend for CSP and thus we’re at the end of our 1989 journey. But before getting to the last big card of the year, we want to take a moment to showcase some odds and ends we’ve uncovered from this last part of 1989.  While maybe not of huge importance, they do provide a bit more of the feel and context to how certain wrestlers continued to be presented and emphasized on tv. So let’s take a short detour into some of these odds and ends. 

One of the wrestlers scheduled for the season ending weekend is Ricky Santana. This is our first chronological look at Santana but not his first time in Puerto Rico. Ricky first showed up in CSP at the end of July 1988 and had a nine month run that saw him win the Puerto Rico title twice in 1988 and have a two and a half months reign as World Junior champion at the beginning of 1989. Santana is back for the last weekend of the year and is scheduled to be in action. His originally scheduled opponent was supposed to be Harley Race but Ricky would end up facing a different opponent instead. Let’s take a look at Ricky against Sandy Love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTFjkYaAaTI

We’re in Vega Alta for this match and I’m digging the white suspenders Sandy has got on. This match is basically a quick showcase to reestablish Santana. It’s a pretty standard tv match with Santana showing off some of his wrestling acumen against a larger opponent. Love hits a monkey flip on Santana, but a second attempt gets countered with a knee and from there it’s academic. Ricky hits a top rope splash for the win and is looking to make a good showing to close out the year.

MD: This is an enhancement match but Love got to do some things. He hit a bodyslam and posed so Santana could hit one of his own, that sort of thing. He looked like he could have been a fine Exotico partner to get beat up mercilessly by the Youngbloods. Not the bleached blonde gimmick you’d expect. Almost more as if he wanted to catch the Steve Strong lightning. I spent too many words talking about him already. Santana had an interesting overhead Belly to Belly where he started it from a Northern Lights and just let the head slip out. He finished it with a top rope splash caught by a nice camera angle.

EB: Los Mercenarios and Castillo and Perez have had a feud stemming from Aniversario 89. While we’ve been able to see some highlights involving singles matches between members of both teams and even tag matches where Castillo has faced Los Mercenarios with a different tag partner, we haven’t been able to see matches featuring both teams against each other. For now it looks like it will remain that way. Still, we do have another encounter in this rivalry, with Miguelito Perez taking on Mercenario #1 in singles action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sZPGeCMixI

Mercenario #1 has El Profe with him while it looks like Miguelito does not have anyone with him at ringside. The ref checks both men before the match and it starts with Perez and Acevedo circling each other before locking up. Perez sets up for a punch with Acevedo coming off the ropes, but Acevedo grabs the ropes to stop his momentum and bails to the outside. El Profe complains to the ref as Mercenario #1 slowly gets back in the ring. Another lockup sees Acevedo back Perez up against the ropes and Acevedo gets some blows in before sending Perez into the ropes. Miguelito ducks a clothesline and counters with a series of dropkicks and slams. Acevedo once again rolls outside. El Profe yells at the referee as Acevedo slowly gets back in the ring again and complains that his tights were pulled on the slams. We go to a commercial break and come back with Acevedo in a side headlock. He tries to get Perez off him by sending Perez off the ropes but Miguelito lets go and holds onto Acevedo’s beard to reapply the hold while the ref is distracted by a complaining Profe. The sequence is repeated and Miguelito this time grabs onto Acevedo’s hair to reapply the headlock. This time it is the tecnicos who are fighting fire with fire with regards to some of the more wily tactics. Acevedo manages to break the hold by yanking Perez down by his hair, but Acevedo misses an elbow drop and Perez regains control. Acevedo begs off and leaves the ring once again to regroup. Acevedo briefly manages to get some hits in but Miguelito once again counters and hits some slams. This has not been Acevedo’s match. Perez puts Acevedo in an abdominal stretch which prompts Mercenario #2 to run out from the locker room in an attempt to interfere. However, as the camera cuts to Mercenario #2 we see that Huracan Castillo has also run out and has cut off Morrow with a back body drop on the arena floor. Castillo chases Morrow around the ring as Acevedo is able to counter the abdominal stretch. However, Morrow ends up being chased into the ring by Castillo, which causes the referee to be distracted by getting Morrow out of the ring as Acevedo tries to slam Perez. In this confusion, Castillo nails Acevedo with a punch which causes Perez to land on top of Acevedo and score the pin. Perez quickly leaves the ring to celebrate as Profe complains to the referee.

MD: Five minute crowd-pleaser here. Assassin is all stalling and stooging. Perez gets a shot in or a quick slam and Assassin is right back out. Assassin gets a hold on and it’s almost immediately countered. After the commercial break, there’s a Perez headlock where the ref gets distracted by Profe allowing him to comedically pull the beard. It’s that sort of match. They keep it up for a few minutes with everyone watching happy at each instance of comeuppance until Morrow and Castillo brawl to the ring. In the chaos, Castillo gets a shot in making Perez fall onto of Assassin for the win. No heat at all here but the match was short enough (and the Mercenarios the champs I think) so it was fine for what it was.

EB: Since we haven’t really been able to review much of Castillo and Perez as a team in this last part of 1989 due to what’s available footage wise, let’s take the opportunity to go back briefly to the summer of 1989 and see Castillo and Perez in action as a team. Their opponents are the then World tag team champions of Rip Rogers and Abudda Dein.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIyrJ55EeSY

This match is joined in progress and is from shortly after Castillo and Perez lost their hair against the Battens. This match is a case of the Caribbean tag champions challenging for the World tag titles, something we will see happen once more at the year end show. Perez is coming off the ropes but is knocked down by clothesline from Dein. A pinfall attempt is broken up by Castillo. Perez is taken to the rudos corner and is worked over by Rogers and Dein. Most of the match segment we have is Rogers and Dein working over Perez in an attempt to get the win. Carlos Colon on commentary mentions that the tecnicos need to watch out for Dein’s loaded boot and Rip’s DDT.  Rogers throws Perez out of the ring and goads Castillo inside, which allows Dein to attack Perez on the outside. Castillo goes to help Perez get back in the ring but Rogers maintains the advantage. Dein and Rogers continue to work over Perez for a few minutes but Perez and Rip knock heads on an off the rope collision. This allows Miguelito to tag in Castillo, who comes in and attacks both Rogers and Dein. Rip rakes the eyes to stop Castillo’s attack. However, rudo miscommunication results in Dein clotheslining Rogers when Castillo gets out of the way. All four men are now in the ring and squaring off. The match ends when two pinfall attempts occur at the same time, Castillo pinning Rogers and Dein pinning Perez. The ref makes a three count and awards the match to Castillo and Perez since Castillo and Rip were the legal men.

MD: We have the last seven minutes of this, which is a lot of heat on Perez and then the hot tag and the finish. It’s nice to see Rip again. Dein is billed from Palestine which was an interesting choice all things considered. In 91, he’d shift that to being from Iraq for what it’s worth. We can date this from the lack of hair on Perez’ head. This was good in building the anticipation for the tag. When it came, Castillo came in hot but had his eyes worked over by an object and he had to duck a double team to stay in it. Strong finish as Dein pinned Perez as Castillo rolled up Rip, but Rip was the legal man.

EB: One other person we really haven’t seen much of is Brett Sawyer. Despite being around for the monthly big shows in the last part of 1989, we haven’t really seen him in the footage we have available. Sawyer’s has had a series of matches with Super Medico for the WWC World Junior title which appears to be heading towards a final encounter to end the year (they are scheduled in the card lineup we have for December 16, although we can’t confirm if Sawyer did appear). Brett Sawyer won’t really be around for much longer as we head into 1990 (I guess that’s a spoiler as to who remains World Junior champion heading into the new year), so let’s take a look at him once more in action before we close the book on 1989. This time Sawyer is in tag action facing Los Mercenarios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWyAc7bGUY0

Sawyer’s partner for this tag encounter is Armandito Salgado.  Brett starts off for the tecnico team against Mercenario #2. This match has the dynamic of the veteran Sawyer being able to outsmart the rudos while the more inexperienced wrestler in Armandito falls victim to Los Mercenarios and their chicanery. The commentary team makes note that Sawyer moves very well for someone who looks somewhat bulky. Once Sawyer tags Salgado in, it's pretty much all Mercenarios, with the win coming off their usual double DDT behind the ref’s back. Los Mercenarios will challenge the Youngbloods once more for the World tag titles at the season ending weekend.

MD: The commentators outright called Cuban Assassin “Fidel Castro” so that’s fun. Sawyer got all the shine. Salgado took all the heat. There wasn’t a comeback as Brett tried to come in to complain about double teaming and let them hit the double DDT on Salgado. Overall, I’d say the Mercenarios act works better than it should on paper.

EB: Another wrestler scheduled for the year end shows and challenging for the top singles title is Leo Burke. He’s had a series of matches against Carlos Colon and, despite being unsuccessful in winning the Universal title, Burke has been able to hold his own and even damage Colon’s knee in the process. Examples of this include Burke holding onto the figure four for as long as possible in the non-title match we reviewed in our last post and repeated focused attacks during their title matches that went to a draw. This is something Chicky would start bringing up on tv in the lead up to the final weekend of shows (‘we saw you being helped by the ringside doctor to the back after the 60 minute draw, you’re hiding how bad your knee is’). Carlos would downplay all this, saying that his knee was fine. Before ending the year let’s have one more look at Leo Burke in tv action, this time against the masked La Sombra from parts unknown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjL75frzZ2E

Burke (as usual during this run so far) is accompanied by Chicky and we get the now customary pre match hug (to the crowd’s jeers). There’s still the push on commentary to make sure to highlight Burke’s mastery of the figure four leglock and it’s apparent now why that has been the case from the start. He has been on an eventual collision course with Carlos Colon. They’re set to face each other during the last weekend of shows for 1989 (they are scheduled for Dec. 16 in Bayamon and Dec. 17 in Mayaguez) with the Universal title on the line. Sombra starts off hot against Burke but misses a dropkick after an offensive flurry that allows Burke to gain control. Leo gets to show off his skills, both technique wise and in psychological gamesmanship, as Burke works over Sombra’s leg and eventually Sombra falls victim to the figure four. As we have seen many times already, Burke keeps the hold on after the bell before eventually breaking. Burke is ready to once again face Carlos Colon.

MD: No belt for Burke yet, which helps date this I guess. He had such an easy way of moving around the ring, confident and natural. Sombra was just a guy with a white mask but he had pretty good fire. Burke shut him down early and unleashed a full body assault, with strikes, a gutwrench suplex, knee drops, before using the shin breaker to open him up for the figure four. In and out in four minutes and very efficient.
EB: One more person we want to check on before heading towards our last shows of 1989 is Gary Albright. Since La Batalla Final on Thanksgiving Day, Albright  has dropped the Albright Lock challenge and was unsuccessful in a series of matches against Invader #1. Still, Gary has continued to be featured on tv and has switched to finishing opponents off with the belly to belly suplex. Here he is in action against Estrella Roja.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y3pdf0khhY

This is a short match  with Albright just steamrolling Estrella Roja. This match does provide a clear look at how Albright’s now being presented by the promotion, with a  focus on his power and his new finisher. The refocus is so far showing successful results for Albright in his tv matches, and he is scheduled to challenge Miguelito Perez for the Caribbean title during the final weekend.

MD: Just a quick mauling with a delayed vertical suplex and the belly to belly for the win. Having seen some 87 Hacksaw Higgins in New Japan recently, I kind of wish we had a run with him in PR instead. He would have been an awesome Invader opponent. This, however, is exactly the match that Albright should be having on TV at this point. There’s just not much to say about it.
With our side trip through some final odds and ends of 1989 completed, let’s now look at the December 16 season ending house show. One of the scheduled matches was a singles match featuring Harley Race vs Ricky Santana, however there was a change in opponent for Santana. Ricky is now facing a wrestler making his debut in Puerto Rico, one Kokina Maximus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsOZ1bV3u7A

There is a size difference between the two opponents, something that Hector Moyano and Carlos Colon remark upon in their commentary. This is Kokina’s first appearance in CSP and he’s also scheduled to take part in La Gran Guerra later that night (you can see the cage and two ring setup in the background at certain points throughout the match). Colon mentions that the strategy when you are outweighed by your opponent is to try to use your opponent’s size difference to leverage them down somehow and then go on the attack (it’s tougher for them to get up once down). Santana is not backing down from Kokina but despite some offensive flurries is not able to knock Kokina down. Kokina surprisingly shows off some wrestling combined with head-based offense, such as putting Santana in an armbar and then proceeding to headbutt Santana’s hand while keeping the hold on. Sanatan manages to fire off a few blows, but Kokina sidesteps a dropkick and starts working on Santana’s neck and throat area. On commentary Carlos Colon and Moyano are talking about the pedigree and history of Samoan wrestlers, and how Kokina is young and has great potential. Kokina throws Santana out of the ring and makes a gesture to the crowd. Santana tries to get back in the ring a few times, but Kokina knocks him back to the floor. Kokina works again over the carotid area with a nervehold for a while, but eventually makes the mistake of missing a diving headbutt. Santana tries to take advantage by hitting several punches that have Kokina off balance. Ricky finally knocks Kokina down with a dropkick. Ricky tries to send Kokina into the ropes but Kokina counters. Santana dodges a clothesline but Kokina catches him on the rebound with a Samoan drop. A splash makes it a formality and Kokina gets the win.

MD: I’m not entirely sure where Santana’s been for a chunk of 89. He had a NWA run in the middle of the year but it doesn’t seem lengthy. My memories of Yokozuna have him debuting in the WWF in or around December 92, so him showing up three years earlier to cause trouble here feels thematically similar. He had the timing down already and Santana did well fighting from underneath. This might have been his debut in the region and I imagine they followed it up with some more one-sided squashes on TV.

EB: There were also quite a few title matches scheduled for the year end show. A WWC World Junior title match between Super Medico and Brett Sawyer resulted in Medico retaining his title. Invader #1 and Manny Fernandez squared off for Invader’s Puerto Rico title, a match where Invader was able to retain the title but the issue with Manny was not settled. TNT faced Sika in a successful TV title defense. Carlos Colon and Leo Burke are scheduled for a Universal title match with a 90 minute time limit (since two weeks prior they had a 60 minute draw). We’ll talk about this match and the follow up shortly.

There were also two more title matches that took place on December 16, both for which we have footage available. Let’s first look at Gary Albright challenging Miguelito Perez for the Caribbean title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dImg0dCWd3Y

The match video has some issues near the end but we get most of the match between Perez and Castillo without notable video issues. This is from a Campeones airing so we have Hugo, Carlos and Chicky on commentary. Both men lock up and jockey for the advantage. The crowd starts getting on Profe’s case, which Miguelito eggs on. This causes Albright to go outside and cover Profe’s ears so he can’t hear the jeers. Albright asks the crowd to keep it down and gets back in the ring. Both men lock up, but there's a stalemate that’s broken by a Perez dropkick that sends Albright back outside. Miguelito is in control throughout the first minutes, but Albright eventually counters into an armlock and works on Miguelito’s arm. This is the story of the middle portion of the match, with Albright continuing to work on Miguelito’s arm by applying pressure on the mat (something that’s highlighted on commentary as being part of Albright’s amateur experience). Albright throws Miguelito outside, where he continues to attack the arm by throwing Perez into the lighting rig. Back in the ring, Albright makes the mistake of missing a splash from the middle turnbuckle, which gives Perez the opening to start a comeback. Miguelito plays to the crowd as the video gets wonky here. Perez hits a series of punches and a clothesline to knock Albright down. Miguelito sends Albright into the ropes and hits a powerslam, but Albright breaks the pinfall count by putting his leg on the rope. Perez starts punching Albright again but Gary hits a leverage throw that sends Miguelito tumbling through the ropes to the outside. Albright knocks Perez off the apron twice, but on the third attempt Miguelito counters with a sunset flip for two. An inside cradle appears to get the three count just as the video cuts off (there’s a glitch in the video but Hugo mentions three about the count and you can hear the outro music start playing right at the end which is usually played when the match segment is done). Perez has retained the Caribbean title.

MD: We get at least most of this (I’m not sure of the finish) and the video gets choppy towards the end. Again, it starts with some stalling and stooging from the heel and as much as I love that stuff in general and can even appreciate the Studd-ian dissonance of it being done by a guy who is huge, I’m not sure that it was right for Albright. When he does take over, it feels like a call back to Strong vs Colon, as he just tears apart Perez’s arm with a hammerlock, into the corner, down on the mat, and best of all, on the outside into the metal constructs that they use for (I think) lighting? Perez comes back after Albright misses a splash but he’s definitely fighting from underneath with roll-ups and the sort. I think he wins with a small package but that’s the end of the footage so it’s hard to tell.

EB: And as mentioned before, the Caribbean tag champions Los Mercenarios get a rematch from Thanksgiving against the World tag champions Mark and Chris Youngblood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J8xVSjLsaw

This is a rematch from the Thanksgiving Day show. The Youngbloods control the first part of the match with some quick tags (or switches in some cases), keeping Morrow on the mat. Acevedo comes in at one point with a slam but Morrow misses an elbow drop and the Youngbloods continue to work on Morrow’s arm. Morrow is able to make the tag to Acevedo while in an armbar and Acevedo takes control against Mark. A quick tag brings Morrow back in for a blow from the top. Morrow throws Mark over the top rope when the ref’s back is turned. Chris helps Mark back in but Los Mercenarios control the middle portion of the match with a sleeperhold on Mark. Chris comes off the top rope to hit Acevedo and break the sleeper but as the ref admonishes Chris, Los Mercenarios switch out and Morrow goes back to the sleeperhold. Morrow goes up top and hits splash for a two count. Acevedo is tagged in and goes for a senton off the top that misses. Mark tries to get to his corner but is cut off by Acevedo, however they end up knocking their heads off a rope rebound. Morrow jumps off the top rope to stop Mark from making the tag (and that was some distance Morrow went). Morrow hits a suplex for two. Morrow keeps Mark on the mat as Mark tries to fire himself up. Mark avoids a double clothesline and counters with a double clothesline of his own on both Mercenarios. Mark finally tags Chris in and Chris cleans house on both Mercenarios. All four men are now in with the Youngbloods getting the upper hand and even going for stereo pin attempts on Acevedo and Morrow. The Youngbloods continue on the attack and at one point dropkick Morrow out of the ring. As the Youngbloods focus on Acevedo, Morrow runs back into the ring holding the belt he had been wearing in his hands. He proceeds to wrap it around Chris Youngblodd’s throat from behind. Morrow hits a belt assisted neckbreaker on Chris. Morrow backs Chris into the rudo corner and ties him with the belt to the turnbuckle. Chris is unable to move as he’s tied by the neck. Mark tries to help his brother but Acevedo comes in with his belt that he had taken off and Los Mercenarios proceed to attack Mark as Chris can’t do anything but watch from the corner. The Youngbloods win by disqualification but Mark is whipped with the belt by both Mercenarios. Eventually, Super Medico and Miguelito Perez hit the ring to chase off Los Mercenarios (this is not shown but is mentioned by Hugo at the end of the video).

MD: This was a pretty straightforward and therefore totally solid match with a super hot finish/post-match. They controlled on Morrow, primarily on his arm for a while to start, a basic shine but one where Morrow was happy to stooge and feed. Heat had its share of chinlocks and nerveholds but also an illegal toss over the top rope behind the ref’s back and Morrow hitting his top rope splash with Assassin missing a flip off the top. Chris came in hot and it looked like the Youngbloods were sure to win but Morrow went out and came back with a strap to draw the DQ. The post-match was brutal, just a tight choking in the corner and a whipping on top of that. The fans really could never know what to expect. There was as much of a chance that the Youngbloods would win the titles at the end of that match or that Profe would help Los Mercenarios retain and they’d move on, or, you just might get the heat on a blood feud turned up. That’s one of the fun things about the territory.

EB: We don’t know the end result of the Universal title match in terms of whether it had a clear winner or if it went to a draw, but we do know that Carlos Colon remained Universal champion after the match. But there are two more things we need to explain before finishing up with 1989. The first is that the main event for the December 16 show was a La Gran Guerra match. If you missed the explanation of what La Gran Guerra is, here it is again. It is a match where two rings are enclosed inside a steel cage structure (including a roof) where two teams face off with the objective of handcuffing all of the opposing team’s members to the cage walls (there are several handcuffs placed around the walls of the structure). All team members start inside the cage at the same time and the winning team is given the opportunity to uncuff any team members that had been taken out of action in order to receive their prize for winning: 5 uninterrupted minutes where they can attack the still handcuffed losing team at their leisure. This will be the fifth La Gran Guerra to take place with El Ejercito de la Justicia and El Club Deportivo tied with two wins apiece. The tecnico team consists of all champions with Carlos Colon, Invader #1, TNT and Mark & Chris Youngblood representing El Ejercito de la Justicia. For El Club Deportivo it will be Leo Burke, Manny Fernandez, Sika, Kokina Maximus and Chicky Starr. We don't have the match footage but we do have the following video snippet (it’s the first 50 seconds of the video that is relevant).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHlt0iddO1c

This video is of a match we’ve already covered but what’s important is the intro to the video that features highlights from the December 16 show. We get some scenes of the Youngbloods vs Mercenarios and Invader #1 vs Manny Fernandez matches. More importantly, we get two brief clips that show how 1989 ended for Carlos Colon. The first clip is from La Gran Guerra,  where we see Leo Burke putting Carlos Colon in the figure four leglock as the rest of the rudos move to run interference. This is immediately followed by a clip from the December 17 Universal title match between Colon and Burke. Here we see that Carlos, after weeks of having his knee constantly attacked, is too hurt to fight out of the hold, succumbs to the pain in his injured knee and gets counted down while in the figure four leglock. Thus we have a new Universal champion to close out the year in Leo Burke. Chicky Starr has once again gained control of the Universal title as we close out 1989.

Next time on El Deporte de las Mil Emociones, we have reached 1990. There is a new Universal champion in Leo Burke but you can bet El Ejercito de la Justicia is looking to win it back as soon as possible. What twists and turns await us in 1990? What new and/or returning faces may we see? Our journey through 1990 begins.

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