Found Footage Friday: 80s SPAIN~! PANTHER~! PSICOSIS~! REY~! FANTASTICS~! KIKUCHI~!

Santi Rico(c) vs. Manuel Acapulco 3/30/83

MD: Spanish wrestling! Don't get too excited. This looks like a one off and it is well, well past the glory years. As an overall presentation, it's fascinating though. This is on a variety show of sorts and likened to when they had someone run two days straight from one city to another or a stunt man on. Here it's the defense of a title. That said, they were ready to put their best foot forward and it was a celebration in its own way.

The centerpiece was not Mr. Ferraras, the president of the Castilian federation who was interviewed beforehand and presented  the belt/sash (a nice collection of flags upon it) to the world champion at the end. It wasn't the wrestlers, Santi Rico billed from Spain who had been active for a few years at least and Acapulco (Montezuma?) who was billed from Mexico. Apparently neither had 100 matches under his respective belt. More on them later. It wasn't even Quasimodo, our friend from the French footage, who was known in French as the Caribbean Cyclone, who was there to witness and talk about his school of 30 wrestlers he was training. 

The centerpiece, to me was Bobby Deglané, who even with my rough Spanish and YouTube's translate function, came off as an exceptional commentator, especially for someone who was never on national TV as such. He was a stalwart of the radio days however and was as poised and collected as one could be. He introduced all the rules (which part of the foot you could hit with, for instance, or the twenty count on the outside which was different than boxing) and explained all the techniques. They describe the realness of wrestling as half spot and half spectacle and he was quick to point out the damaging effects of shots to the head for instance. 

Some of the normative things were interesting. They called it American wrestling, Catch as Catch Can. The referee had a whistle for rope breaks. It was set up in six rounds of five minutes with a minute in between. There were ring girls to kiss cheeks and present trophies at the end as well as hold up the round numbers. They even said "Seconds out" at the start so there were elements of British wrestling as well as French (or vice versa depending on how things developed). The crowd was very into it despite being potentially unfamiliar.

And the wrestling was ok, spirited, high effort. It was rough around the edges based on what you'd expect, but that made sense given how quiet the scene was. I'd say that Acapulco looked the smoother of the two as one out of every three things Rico.went for didn't quite work. A lot of the holds did, headscissors, inner armbars, headlocks, mares, with all of the escapes. Rico had dropkicks and they varied. Acapulco leaned rudo as the match went on, throwing knees and rabbit punches and eventually headbutts that led to color (have to make things feel legitimate). This was not Cesca vs. Catanzaro. I'd say it wasn't even Flesh Gordon vs. Eliot Frederico but it was a pretty fascinating glimpse into a people trying to showcase and remember their lost tradition, a tradition that we've more or less accepted that we'll only ever be able to marginally touch.

Isamu Teranishi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Fantastics (Bobby Fulton/Tommy Rogers) AJPW 1/11/91

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HjFd7h3fKU

MD: We've missed a few matches from AJPW Classics but it's a bit tricky since some of what gets shown are matches we already had JIP where we just get the first 5 minutes. Maybe we still should go back for something like MVC vs. Jumbo/Taue but I never know. This, however, is, I think, new. And it's fun if flawed.

I struggle with this Fantastics run as they tend to do a lot of stuff and really eat up their opponents if possible. They got the memo and knew they had to look strong in order to be over in All Japan but it really doesn't make for great matches, especially when they're up against Footloose. Then you just get noise. This was better than that because they were able to dominate and Kikuchi's a lot of fun working from underneath. Lots of individual fun stuff whether it was Teranishi trying (and sometimes succeeding) to land on his feet against Rogers or the Fantastics hitting a bunch of double teams. 

Still, when Kikuchi was able to fire back or Teranishi able to stand strong, the Fantastics generally just shrugged it off. The worst of this was when Fulton missed an axe handle onto the guardrail from the apron. Pretty good spot, something you don't see every day. Didn't change the trajectory of the match a bit. Ah well. This isn't Can-Ams vs. Kikuchi, that's for sure. Still pretty fun for what it was though. Just what it was had a ceiling.

ER: I thought this was real tough, hard fought, with a feeling like it was going to turn unprofessional any moment. There were moments of miscommunication between Rogers and Teranishi, but it added to the vibes of Something Going Down. Really, it was probably just because everyone worked real stiff and kept fighting all match. Matt correctly notes some seemingly big spots that don't change the trajectory of the match, but I thought that just made everyone come off tough, wanting to fight. I like Asshole Bully Fantastics as their style is totally different. You still see those moments of babyface grace - look at how clean Tommy Rogers hits a sunset flip off the top - but there are more moments of these little guys throwing real shots. Rogers throws two hard back elbows at Kikuchi's eye when he seems surprised by a hammerlock reversal, so Kikuchi throws two elbow smashes at his eye. I love when Kikuchi is targeted with real abuse, like they all know he can take it and it gives them license to fill up their asshole meter. 

Tommy Rogers bodyslams Kikuchi from the ring out to the damn floor, just slips out the back and throws him over the top on his back. It looked more like John Nord eliminating a job guy from a battle royal, not little power pack Tommy murdering a fellow junior. It looks nasty...but Bobby Fulton's full speed baseball slide dropkick as Kikuchi is recovering looked even worse. Fulton flew between the bottom and middle ropes and connected so flush that he bounced back clean. Now, I expected this to lead to a long heat section on Kikuchi, but there's that thing about everyone just coming off tough, because when they go outside to capitalize Kikuchi just fights them both off with elbows and a stiff clothesline. Bobby Fulton looked like a real killer here, even more than Rogers, and seemed to work a bit better with Teranishi. I was shocked by how fast old man (same age as me) Teranishi flipped onto his feet, and Fulton seemed surprised by it as well. Kikuchi's comeback was real choice, ducking a tandem clothesline and hooking Fulton's waist for a "surprise" German suplex that Rogers instantly dropped an elbow on. The finish was real sick too, with Fulton scooping up Kikuchi for a Samoan drop and flinging Rogers onto him with a cannonball. The Fantastics worked as bully heels in All Japan better than the similar sized State Patrol, and I bet there are many who have never seen them quite like this. 

Blue Panther/Cien Caras/Psicosis vs. Konnan/Rey Misterio Jr./Angel Azteca Promo Azteca 11/30/96

MD: Roy says this is new and even though it cuts out before the finish, that's over 20 minutes and when you look at who's in it, it's worth checking out. Blue Panther was paired with Konnan early and it was sort of fascinating what they did. I'm not saying it was always exactly what I wanted, but it was always interesting. Panther had all of his tricked out stuff and Konnan just sort of roughed his way through in a believable, competitive way. Psicosis or Caras would sneak in to get cheapshots whenever he had the advantage. Rey and Psicosis was old hat but the best damn hat you might want with how Psicosis would base for Rey and Caras and Azteca had some stalling and cheapshots around Azteca getting things in. That was the primera, ending with some rope running with Panther and Azteca and Konnan vs. the world before he set Rey up with a monkey flip right into a 'rana that was pretty damn spectacular.

Segunda has a brief but great Blue Panther vs. Rey exchange and Psicosis stooging beautifully as he was heading into the ropes when Rey was doing the 619 dive tease and he bumped on it. Psicosis also got jammed on a monkey flip in the ropes by Konnan and took a bump over the top after some great struggle. Caras overpowered Rey and the rudos took over. They kept the beat down going into the tercera (including Blue Panther just tearing at Konnan's eye) before Konnan mounted a big comeback against everyone and things picked up towards the finish as it all cuts off. Some very fun pairings and imaginative stuff here though. Tons of personality too.

ER: Any time 20+ minutes of prime footage turns up of these guys, it needs to be covered, and this is a fun as hell way to watch these guys, so many fun exchanges and individual performances. Any new Rey/Psicosis interactions are going to cause excitement, and the more Psicosis footage we get (there is a lot) the more obvious it is how much better he was before WCW. WCW really sanded all the edges off a tremendous all around rudo and boiled him down to being a base with a couple big bumps who wasn't really great at working 3 minute singles matches. Whenever I watch a lucha match from the same exact era he was working WCW, he's so much more of a character, so much more fully formed, so much more of a star. His stooging is an incredible part of his rudo character, one that was mostly boiled away when he became Rey's touring dance partner. Here it's alive and thriving. Tripping over the ropes and getting upset with the ref about it is a great Psicosis trademark that wouldn't have translated to American audiences but was perfect for Mexican audiences. He's able to work more violently here than he would in WCW, and him being more of a flagrant asshole gives greater weight to all of his big bumps. 

My favorite things about this were the Panther/Konnan matwork in the primera, and Cien Caras's increased involvement as the match went on. I don't think I've ever seen Panther hit the mat with Konnan and I thought it was awesome. I am someone who thinks Konnan is better than given credit for while acknowledging that many of the criticisms are fair. He doesn't look like someone who can keep up with Panther on the mat, but he doesn't need to. Panther doesn't need someone who can mirror his abilities on the mat, he is good at working with anyone's personality and ability. Konnan is no slouch, and I like the strength component he brings to mat reversals. Panther may catch him with slickness and technical ability but Konnan is able to use strength to adjust the hold around himself. There was a cool takedown where Panther went inside and used his body to force a single leg, working himself up to an armbar, and Konnan started escaping from it by getting one of Panther's legs in a scissor and forcing it one direction, then grabbing the leg nearest his head and pushing that another direction, so both wound up in this awesome tangle where Panther still had a sub but Konnan was forcing his limbs apart. 

If Psicosis was someone who dumbed his style down for American TV audiences, Cien Caras was a star whose character wouldn't have translated to American audiences at all. He is such a stud, but wouldn't be perceived as a stud to Americans, so all of the great stuff he does here wouldn't get over at all. This cool Mexican stud in his goatee, who keeps going for cheap shot attacks all match and bumping almost to avoid interaction. I loved the end of the segunda, where his boys started being pinned and he bumped himself over the top to the floor, eating shit in the process, running away from Konnan just to avoid being one of the guys taking the fall. But in the primera he also bumped around for Azteca and took a big charge over the top to the floor after missing him, setting up one big bump on offense to get over his big "own goal" bump later, meanwhile always running in and kicking an opponent hard to break up a pin. It's a shame we don't have the finish as I really wanted to see the payoff of Panther goes after Konnan's eye, but you don't need to watch this for its Great Match potential, just watch it to see some legends at various peaks, doing exchanges you haven't seen.