New Footage Friday: REY JR.! JUVENTUD! FINLAY! CASAS! SOLAR! PARKA! ATLANTIS! DANNY BOY!

Rey Misterio Jr/Solar/Volador vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Juventud Guerrera/La Parka AAA 10/30/93 - GREAT

MD: What a moment in time this was. Everyone knew what they had in each other here. The vets knew what they had in Rey and Juvi. So much of this match was set up around highlighting them or using them as foils. There are a ton of examples: Parka catching Rey and marching across the ring with him, then Volador catching Juvi. The replay of the leap up 'rana off the top from Rey to Juvi. Fuerza slapping Juvi than being proud when they had him hit the splash across the ring to win the segunda. Obviously, Volador getting down so Rey could jump off his back with his dive onto a Juvi that just ate floor. Rey was the most dynamic entity in the world, with Juvi a game partner who already had working the crowd down. Everyone else more than kept up too. Parka was a rudo but got the chants right from the start. Solar and Fuerza had a great exchange to start the match. The spot where Fuerza hiptossed Volador off the apron and into a perfectly catching Park on the floor was probably the spot of the match and maybe one of the spots of the year. It had a little too much set up but the impact was great. And the character work was just so crisp. Everyone was well-defined, and there was a mini novella within the match between Fuerza and Juvi (With Parka coming out to comfort Fuerza, despite him being in the wrong, and to get them back into it). It's amazing how much they fit into such a short period of time.

PAS: Our boy Roy Lucier is unearthing Lucha TV which hadn't been out there before and found an early Rey Jr. match and a super early Juventud match. That is an all-time great pair and it is so fun to watch them dance their dance. In addition we get Fuerza at peak Fuerza shtick, some cool Solar mat work, a couple of nifty Volador spots and dancing La Parka. I especially loved the Fuerza and Juvi interaction, it has always been one of my favorite parings, the physical comedy between the two is always so great and Fuerza is an all time pantomimer. We got a couple of big time cool spots and just a ton of enjoyable lucha.

ER: This is the kind of match you know you're going to watch the moment you see the lineup. Obviously you are going to watch a match with these six guys, no matter what year it took place. This is one of those lineups where you have no way of knowing which one of them will deliver the hottest performance of the match, just a constant battle of cool wrestlers. Volador was my favorite guy here, but it's a tough choice. I love how tight he throws monkey flips and headscissors, not leaving any kind of space, making it really look like he's the one controlling his opponents' momentum. His monkey flip on Fuerza was textbook, and he played around with a couple of Super Calo like rolling headscissors that look as impressive in 2020 as they did in '93. I really dug him taking a wild Fuerza hiptoss off the apron into Parka, his match climax tope was world class, and his back boost alley oop that tossed Rey into a killer plancha to the floor on Juvy was so damn good. La Parka is a tremendous base for everyone, a guy who could take complicated ranas as good as anyone. Fuerza is a total jerk who might have had the greatest ball kicks in all of Mexico (Satanico would be his primary competition), and he really split Volador's uprights here. Fuerza is such a good mask actor, and it's cool to see he had such in-ring chemistry with Juvy from this early on. I love them as a team and seeing as this is among the earliest matches I've seen with Juventud, it's cool to know that was a thing they had from go. This might not have gotten to the peaks it could have (considering the names involved), but there is zero chance anyone could watch this and have a bad time.

Atlantis/Shocker/Silver King vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Emilio Charles Jr./Negro Casas CMLL 12/29/95

MD: Just good lucha libre. The rudos were out wearing holiday crowns, one of which Shocker stole in the initial melee. They got the beatdown done in the primera, after some initial tecnico advantage and stalling. Talent level was through the roof here and it was almost all action once the segunda kicked in. The combo of Charles and Casas were made to stooge for tecnicos and Wagner based well (especially for Silver King). An underlying story here was Casas vs Shocker (setting up two singles matches in January), with Casas playing coward, especially whenever he got knocked out of the ring. He was always quick to run away and avoid a dive possibility. He also slowed down the tecnicos' comeback momentum by diving across the ring and out of the fray. The payoff here, wasn't a dive but instead the two of them being in the ring for the final moment where Shocker got the best of him. That was set up not by dives but by a chaotic series of wrestlers being pulled out of the ring to prevent the possibility of them, but it was still unique and exciting. The very best part of the match was the end of the segunda, most especially the sheer velocity that Casas soared into La Reinera. Those two Shocker vs Casas matches (1/19 and 1/26) are the only two singles matches between the two of them in the Match Finder, the second being a Welterweight title match. If they're not already out there, I hope they show up.

PAS: This was quality by the numbers lucha, full of guys who are amazingly talented. Casas and Shocker is a fun match up, and I really want to see those singles matches Matt mentioned. I loved how fast Shocker put him in an Atlantida (which is weird with Atlantis right there) and their back and forths were done with such speed and precision. Shocker is part of that lost generation of late 90s luchadors who never lived up to their potential (Black Warrior, Niebla, Lizmark Jr.) but at his best he was electric to watch, and being matched up with a GOAT like Casas is going to be something. I liked the minor key stuff between Wagner and King too, those guys have been working each other since they were toddlers and you can really tell. Nothing that will be remembered a week later, but man was the day by day quality of this stuff incredible.

ER: Just like that AAA 1993 tag up above, this is a match that I'm going to want to watch just seeing the on paper lineup. I love Wagner and Silver King on opposite sides, I've always loved Negro Casas and Shocker matching up in trios, and I love Emilio Charles stooging around Arena Mexico. Wagner had a bunch of funny walk shtick to sell Silver King kicks, Casas and Shocker had the quick sequences I wanted, and I love Charles' opportunistic rudo. This is the kind of high floor match that comes from having nothing but pros in there. Watching these guys all do their thing while not taking a ton of risks is really fun, because you're dealing with some all timer charisma. Negro Casas moves with such snap, watching him throw a hard kick or take a big flipping bump is so precise and so clean, it really makes Shocker look like a star. It's cool seeing Shocker as the smallest guy in a trios. he looked like Shockercito looks now, and moves as quick as him. This was obviously going to be a win, a classic lucha trios to warm the evening.


Fit Finlay vs. Danny Boy Collins ASW 6/1/12 - EPIC

PAS: The Finlay indy run was such a treat, and it is awesome that another match from that run has popped up (Finlay vs. Dave Taylor in an Irish Street Fight is the coolest looking on paper missing match). This was high end Finlay, and worked pretty interestingly. Collins was working a lot like mid 2000s Finlay, landing cheap shots on the break, using the ring as a weapon, working really stiff. Of course Finlay working as a traditional Finlay opponent is pretty perfect and of course delivered as nasty as he got it. Parts of this felt like Regal vs. Finlay which is about as big a compliment as I can give a match.

MD: This one was a bit of a mindtrip. I can see why you'd have Finlay be the face during this run, and obviously the kids were very familiar and into him in that role as shown by the way they celebrated with him at the end, but this was not what I expected on paper, especially for a nostalgia show of sorts. They called upon Collins to play the bad guy and he did with enthusiasm. I thought they could have been a bit more consistent with the rules; it felt a little like lucha on when the ref made Finlay break things relative to Collins, but that was a minor issue in the grand scheme. The best part of Finlay as a face, of course, is that he works just as mean as he would as a heel, and when it was his turn to give back, he was just as stiff as you'd like.

ER: Collins has been showing up fairly frequently on our New Footage Fridays, which makes sense as he's a guy who essentially wrestles like Fit Finlay. This was practically Finlay vs. Finlay, which is the exact kind of match that will be written about by us. This whole thing was a clinic on hard loud bumps and perfect execution on moves that have been kind of washed over. After seeing Collins and Finlay each throw a couple of gorgeous snapmares, the kind where you have a firm grip around your opponent's neck and jaw and give them a throw while you're leading with their head, you realize just how perfunctory most snapmares are in modern wrestling. The snapmare is treated as an afterthought, a thing to do to get from point A to point B, except point B is typically a lousy thigh slap. Here they treat the snapmare as an actual piece of offense, the way it should when you're throwing a man by the neck, and the follow up cravats and chinlocks were highlights on their own. I love how hard they would lean into Irish whips, the loud PONG when Finlay bumped into the ringpost, and Collin's dropping a knee to Finlay's temple that looked so good that I thought "damn Finlay should steal that kneedrop". Finlay's standing Bombs Away is a treat, and it's a constant joy running throughout a match where you can tell they are treating each piece of offense as important. Finlay is going to sell a short uppercut to his bridge as well as he is going to sell being thrown face first onto a table, and when you treat your offense with this kind of respect it just makes everything come off as important. This was a real gem from a months long tour that saw several Finlay gems. And it might be time for us to break Danny Boy Collins reviews away from NFF and into a regular series.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LA PARK

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Fire Fundraiser: All Star Wrestling UK 3/10/14 Review

This was a show review requested by Davey C! He said I could review as much or as little as I liked, but the show was like 75 total minutes, so a full match review didn't seem like such a crazy idea.


1. Andy Simmons vs. JD Bryant

Bryant starts the match doing a Daniel Bryan Yes! chant to get the crowd going. I assume that was the 2014 equivalent to doing a Stunner on a 1999 indie show. I had never seen either of these two before, and by the end of the match I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more. Simmons especially is a real good hand, knowing how to work slight heel to get the crowd into Bryant, working him over with real simple but real well executed things like low cut clotheslines, kicks to the stomach with no light showing, nice open hand strikes, knees to the stomach that land, drop downs that actually look like he's trying to trip up Bryant. Simmons' style seems like it could easily adapt to having a good 10 minute match with anybody. Bryant for his part is a good underdog babyface. He also throws some nice open hand strikes (including two great southpaw strikes at the beginning), takes a nice flipping spill to the floor, throws a nice dropkick and admirably sells his arm (Simmons had been working it over with a couple great kneedrops). Match ends quick without much build, but it was still satisfying. Real good start to this show.

2. David Finlay Jr. vs. Danny Boy Collins

Collins has been showing up on UK cards for seemingly a few decades now, and I love him getting on the stick before the match to tell Finlay that he's going to pay him back for every single cut, bruise and stitch he got at the hands of his father. And this match was awesome, yet threatened to be ruined by a pointless fast timekeeper time limit draw. We'll start with the good, get to the stupid, and wrap it up with a smile: I loved the match, and would have loved it more on mute. Collins is a monster in this, very much like Finlay Sr. lacing into a rookie for 10+ minutes. Everything Collins does looks great, from his strikes to his matwork to his transitions. Every little move means something, and he never rests on his laurels. A choke in the ropes looked as dangerous as any submission, and his submissions looked brutal. There were no resting chinlocks here, mister. Everything Collins locked on looked like it was strangling the life out of young Finlay. Every backbreaker looked nasty. Every arm wringer and hammerlock looked like it was stretching all of the ligaments. Collins racks up a couple quick warnings, dropping Finlay with a nasty hotshot and tossing him to the floor in dastardly fashion. Finlay gets some momentary comebacks (with Collins taking a super high backdrop during one of them) but always loses it quick due to Collins' smarts. Now the stupid kicks in: At the 12 minute mark we get a "15 minute" announcement, which means we all know this is going the full 20. 30 seconds later we get a "3 minute warning", and if there was any doubt this was going time limit, now that the clock is on 4x everybody watching realizes it. What's sad, is the home stretch was real fun. Finlay got fired up and started going crazy with nearfalls, and Collins was awesome at putting over these nearfalls and getting into position to be rolled up; running chest first hard into the buckles to get a believable 2.9, and Finlay was great at making these pinfalls look like they could actually hold a man down. But the timekeeper suddenly going into 4x mode just sucked me right out of what should have been a very exciting home stretch. We end up with a 14 minute match going the full "20 minute time limit" and I just can't help but wonder why they didn't just do a 15 minute time limit? Everybody watching this knows how to count, and everybody has an idea of how long one minute is. It's insulting and incredibly dated to expect people to fall for this kind of time clock idiocy. Collins was so damn good at making all of Finlay's potential pins mean something, and the idiot fed was trying their hardest to make nobody expect a finish. Just took the legs right out of it. BUT that is not the fault of the two men, and regardless of timeclock idiocy they had an awesome match. Shame though.

3. Dean Allmark vs. Thunder

Short (7 minutes) but solid match with Thunder as the judiciously bumping big man and Allmark as the quick little bumblebee. Allmark's dodges and feints were nice, rolling out of the way, believably sliding through the legs, and Thunder was smart about when to bump and when not to. A couple dropkicks don't take him down but one close to the ropes sends him over the top. That's just smart attention to physics. Allmark's solid dodging skills made it satisfying when Thunder would catch him with a clothesline, and we got some more smart spots of Allmark using Thunder's size against him, like catching a charging Thunder with boots before nailing a quick superkick to put him down, then a quick moonsault. Finish was well done with Allmark going back to the top, Thunder a standing duck, so he shoves the ref into the ropes which then crotches Allmark, opening him up for a superplex. With more time these two could likely have a real good match.

4. Oliver Grey vs. Justin Starr

Well I like how this started but things kind of fell apart halfway through, and we ended with just a sputter. Grey is not a guy I had seen on NXT (I...really need to catch up on NXT) but I liked him throughout this. The match started as good as the others on this card, with an engaging feeling out process and stiff shoulderblocks. Both guys really thudded into each other and I was expecting some good things. But Starr ended up being a kind of bland heel, really just kind of looking at the crowd with his arms out as his one way of getting heat. The longer the match went on the more clunky he was at getting into position for stuff, the finish run being the worst of it. We had a superkick set up by that awful teeter totter spot that HHH insists on shoehorning into every match, and Starr somehow made the bump look even sillier than HHH, just bunny hopping right into the buckle ever so daintily. Then he landed too close to the ropes after the superkick and had to shimmy a few feet away to get pinned. The really was the tale of two matches as when it was worked like a simple black trunks young boys match it worked nicely, and once they moved into bigger things it fell apart. Still wouldn't mind seeing more of Grey.

5. Jushin Liger vs. Robbie Dynamite

Well hey this was awesome. This might be the best I've seen Liger in a singles match in....shoot I can't remember the last time I saw Liger this engaged in a singles match. Something even feels different during the opening matwork as it's a lot less perfunctory than your usual match opening NJPWish stuff, with Dynamite wrenching in some armholds and Liger rotating through to an awesome grounded octopus hold. There's real struggle and scramble getting to the ropes and Dynamite was bringing out some good stuff in Liger. Dynamite fed into all of Liger's best stuff, and didn't ease up his own offense at all. He took a couple real nice bumps to the floor (especially dug a missed plancha crash and burn) and the way he flew chin first into a shotei. Liger hit a heavy somersault senton off the apron, ate knees on a frog splash, a nice rana off the top, planted Dynamite with a brainbuster. But it didn't feel like a Liger greatest hits, it felt like him integrating his known moveset to take down a liveblood challenger. Dynamite was really great throughout, providing a great base for Liger and then doing cool power moves like lifting Liger into a deadlift vertical suplex turned falcon arrow. This was just a real satisfying match with a quality build and finish. Both looked good and Dynamite is a guy I'd love to see more.


What a fun little show! Only one match I really didn't care for and even that seems like something that could be fixed. But everything had some worth to a degree, several guys I had never seen before looked incredibly polished, and now I want to see every Danny Boy Collins thing ever. That fine old man didn't miss a single step and looked like an absolute beast. I love old man Collins. He was my easy standout. But this was a fine fine show, and I'm glad Allmark seems to be regularly posting stuff from this fed. I want more.

Good request, Davey! I'm glad I was made to watch it :)


***I'm probably sounding like a skipping record at this point but I'm still trying to raise money for my friend and coworker whose home burned down, completely disappearing every single one of her possessions. The donations have slowed but no matter, I still have plenty of neat requests to fulfill and WILL be continuing to fulfill them! I'm matching EVERY contribution and will continue writing above and beyond for those who donate. You donate $1? That's awesome. Whatever you can do. This means SO MUCH to me and you all are making me so happy***

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Why Doesn't The King Come On Back From Way Out West

Jerry "The King" Lawler v. Mad Man Pondo 3/22/08 -FUN

Totally insane on paper match up (not only is it Lawler v. Pondo, but Lawler is seconded by Baby Doll for some reason) which underwhelms a bit in actuality. Pondo is playing  stooging heel, bumping big complaining about closed fists, having his goofus seconds interfere a bunch, eating a stunner, it takes away from the seriousness of the match when it gets violent. It is surreal to see Jerry Lawler staple gun a dollar bill to someones head or get stapled in the nuts, but Lawler is an all time legendary brawler, and it would have been way better to watch him and Pondo rip into each other, instead of something this corny and over the top

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

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Dick Togo has Two Bitches Going Down Like the Two Towers

Dick Togo vs. James Mason ASW 8/2/11 - GREAT

Pretty cool that Togo's wrestling encore is working European shows in front of enthusiastic little kids. James Mason is this amazing wrestler who showed up a couple of times in the beginning of the decade, worked one TNA PPV match and fell off the radar. He has been all over youtube lately, and he feels like one of the best wrestlers in the world. He is as slick on the mat as Johnny Saint or Johnny Kidd, but still athletic enough to move around the ring and take big bumps. Togo is working as a foreign evil heel, taunting the fans, talking trash, cheap shotting Mason. Mason is great as a babyface using guile and slickness. Early stuff is very cool with Mason working over Togo's wrist. Togo keeps it pretty simple, nothing flashy, but really plays the crowd well. There are a couple of moments where they speed it up, and Mason really hangs athletically with Togo which isn't easy to do. Not really the kind of match which ends up EPIC, but man did I enjoy this, lets hope we get some more Togo Euro footage, I am not ready to say goodbye.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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