Found Footage Friday: GARZA~! DRAGON~! BLONDY~! CHICANA~! LOVER~! GUAJARDO

Blue Fish/El Sanguinario/Gato del Ring vs. Hector Garza/Ruben Juarez Jr./Franky CMLL 1992

MD: It's a real testament to the footage we've gotten over the last few months that it's been so long since I chipped away at Roy's Monterrey uploads, but here we are. This is a blurry, staticy undercard match with some local guys (like Blue Fish) and Garza as the star of the future very early into his tenure. And it was fun straightforward lucha trios action.

The rudos controlled as we came in, really laying a beating on Franky. The commentary noted how he was such a flyer that he even flew well when he was taking a back body drop. He flew well into the stands when they tossed him in and followed it up with a chair too. Nice mugging from the rudos, solid stuff. The comeback was spirited like you'd want with Garza looking great to the point where Franky couldn't quite keep up. He would throw a dropkick off the apron to the floor in an attempt to do so though.

Then the tercera had holds broken up with matter-of-fact hard shots. It worked well and built to a big Garza flip dive before Jaurez got the win. My favorite bit in it was Juarez not able to get a monkey flip going and Garza having to leap behind him to flip them both. Pretty novel spot. I like Garza from later in the decade fine even if I think his real strength was as a rudo stooge later on, but there was something dynamic and exciting about him all the way back here. 

Fabuloso Blondy/Rick Patterson/Sangre Chicana vs. Ultimo Dragon/Cesar/Apolo Dantes CMLL 1992

MD: This is one of those ones that we'd probably never really even look at otherwise. It has a big chunk missing due to static in the middle and a Mil Mascaras commercial between the segunda and tercera. But it also has Ultimo Dragon doing maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen him do, rearing back and hitting a Yoshiaki Fujiwara style headbutt onto Rick Patterson. 

That was during the tecnico comeback in the primera. They'd been literally pulling Apolo (listing says their father Alfonso, but I think it's Apolo) apart until the tecnicos rushed in. Blondy was post-hair match but he and Patterson made for two solid big lugs with Chicana to add the flair of violence. Post-static we come right back to Blondy clocking Apolo with a chair and the tercera was a beatdown exacerbated by the fact that Cesar had decided he wasn't going to get along with his brother and Dragon. Instead, after watching for a bit, and right when Dragon was making a comeback, he clocked him allowing the rudos to pin him. Post-match he tossed a chair right in Dragon's face and paraded around the ring. 

ER: I really liked all the tecnicos going after Rick Patterson's meaty hamstring. Cesar ends the primera grabbing him by the chin and throwing two swift kicks, Ultimo sweeps his leg out with one in the segunda, and Patterson is very entertaining selling them. He treats them lethally and it shuts him down every time. When Dantes hit his, Patterson didn't even retaliate, he just got up and limped exaggeratedly back to the apron. It's funny seeing Blondy and Patterson in there with the smaller Cesar and Dragon, and I think Apolo was really good at selling the chokes and clubs of Blondy, getting dragged around on his knees and choked with a cable on the apron. The Cesar turn on Dragon was angry enough (for reasons I do not understand) that I'd love to see a singles match that surely doesn't exist...yet. I wanted to see Dragon work BIG against the big men but that didn't happen. Matt is 100% right about his Fujiwara headbutt, though. I have watched hundreds of Ultimo Dragon matches and I have never seen him rear back and headbutt someone like that. Funny, in classic Dragon style, that this violent piece of offense came one minute in and nothing else he did matched that energy. 

Bronco/Latin Lover/Valente Fernandez vs. Sanguinario/Rene Guajardo Jr/Canadian Butcher CMLL 1992 

MD: Pretty complete match with a few interesting wrinkles. Pairings for the primera were Bronco and Guajardo, Lover and Sanguinario, and Fernandez and Butcher, but we got a lot of Fernandez and Guajardo throughout too. They were pretty perfectly matched up even in look and both were over. Pretty much everyone was over here. Even Butcher (Brett Como/Black Dragon/Ultimate Dragon) was over due to his very unique look (a mullet and a mohawk, but the mohawk was just one patch of hair gelled to stick up two feet like a unicorn horn) and a pretty astonishing 1992 Monterrey Shooting Star Press towards the end of the segunda.

Bronco danced about and Guajardo had some great, great punches, the sort of punches that make you want to ask around and say "Hey, do we know as a community that Rene Guajardo, Jr. had some great punches?" because I don't remember people ever talking about that. A lot of the story here however, was making Lover look good. This was shortly after the gimmick's debut and the match went out of its way to make him look strong. Certainly whenever he was in, women screamed, and there was one point in between caidas where he was getting beaten on the floor that two stepped forward to protect him. He ultimately had the comeback (or at least set it off) and was the last man standing after Bronco wiped out on a brutal missed dive where Butcher just walked away and they pinned Fernandez. It was ultimately three-on-one at that point but he got his share of near-falls before Sanguario finally got the better of roll up reversals. Fernandez still felt like the star of the moment but there was a torch passing element here. 

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Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! LOVE MACHINE~ BEYER~! LUBICH~!

Dick Beyer vs. Bronco Lubich NWA Upstate 1962

MD: Just watching them get introduced, I half wondered if this really was Beyer. We couldn't get close enough to see the nose and the frame from a distance seemed a bit off even for the youngest Beyer I would have seen, but no, within the first few seconds, he gets Lubich in a full nelson and repeatedly slams his head in the top rope and that was enough to convince me. I'd continued to be convinced as the match went on. He wrestled with incredible confidence and presence and ingenuity and imagination. That's Dick Beyer.

He was given the Destroyer gimmick this year so this was towards the end of him wrestling unmasked. Lubich was longer in the tooth and may have even been more managerial. They mention a birthday cake at the start (a birthday cake angle in 1962!) and Poffo (presumably Angelo) as allied with Lubich but hard to say exactly what was going on there. If it's documented somewhere I'd love to hear about it. This was all about Beyer having his way with Lubich though, with Bronco finding ways to get some shots in at the margins. For instance, Beyer dropped him into the leg nelson (with quickfire legwhacks) but right on the rope break, Bronco was on him. Or Beyer got him with an airplane spin but when he went for the second, Lubich grabbed the rope and landed on him. Or after a Giant Swing, Lubich rolled out and was able to ambush Beyer and drive his head into the side of the ring.

Lubich was credibly tough but Beyer looked like the best wrestler in the world and kept on him, finally beating him with a rolling bodyscissors sort of deal and a dropkick. Just a great look at Beyer in 62 right before he'd become the Destroyer.

ER: I wonder if there were any Sell The Arm fans in 1962 Buffalo who were upset at the ways Lubich never paid much mind to Dick Beyer standing and stomping and dropping knees onto his arm and shoulder. Some smart guy in Buffalo rolling his eyes after Dick Beyer gets run the length of the ring apron and flies off into the ringpost, because Bronco was in the ring holding up both arms instead of rubbing his shoulder. Maybe that man existed, because if Dick Beyer was moving like this in 1962 Buffalo then I'd believe anything. Beyer was so far ahead of his time and moved like no other American wrestler, so quick and crafty while built like a spark plug, an acrobat with thump. I love the desperate little ways Lubich tries to stop the onslaught, with his only chance briefly shifting his weight by grabbing for the ropes. If he wasn't a manager, it was a great "wrestling like a manager" performance against one of the coolest to do it. 

Los Brazos vs. Jaque Mate/Dusty Wolfe/The Viking Monterrey 1992

MD: I have no idea who the Viking is. I know it's our job to figure this stuff out for you but no idea. Past one fun staggering bump into the corner off a Porky headbutt, we don't really care about him anyway. Dusty Wolfe is doing his best Jimmy Jack Funk impression with a silly mask but we don't really care about him either in this one. We're laser focused on El Brazo and Jaque Mate, because right from the get go, Mate opens Brazo up and never, ever looks back.

Brazo spends a chunk of this out on the floor bleeding buckets. They seem almost reluctant to put the camera on him before he towels off which is something I'm not sure I've ever really seen in lucha from this era. That's how much blood we're talking about. And while Mate's happy to beatdown the other Brazos with his compatriots, he makes sure to come back out to do more damage. At one point he goes for a chairshot and a fan puts a chair up to try to block it. They even play music to try to rouse the Brazos.

Eventually, Viking tosses El Brazo back in and he goes wild, crashing across the ring, rubbing his own blood on his fist to use it as a weapon, tearing at Mate's mask and then opening him up on the outside. It's a great Brazos comeback but ends abruptly with a Mate foul that the refs miss and the rudos taking it. Great bloody mayhem here.

ER: What a world. Exhausted on a Friday night, I throw this on and am taken away to another world where somebody's 1992 Monterrey tape survived and we get a perfect color distorted tracking lined masterpiece that may as well have been from another dimension. This is a bloody match even within the annals of bloody lucha matches, with Brazo's entire face and torso covered in blood maybe two minutes in, and a long primera beatdown where Porky and Oro also get busted open. It's an all time bizarre rudo team as Jaque Mate recruits two real American goobers - longtime WWF job guy Dusty/Dale Wolfe and another guy doing a truly great job Bad Brody impression - and they all punch the shit out of Los Brazos. I actually liked The Viking as a poor man's Sylvester Terkay, and I thought Wolfe did a real good job punching and scraping away at Porky. Wolfe's punches to bust Porky open were on point and he kept doing a bunch of cool things to work over a cut, like scraping his boot eyelets across Porky's face. 

But yes, the real show is the brutal beating El Brazo takes at the hands of Mate, and the way the crowd physically rallied behind a man completely covered in blood. Men in white dominant polo shirts are coming to Brazo's aid as he's trying to catch his breath and maintain his balance, and then things get surreal when they start playing music mid-match. With the hazy video and choppy tracking, it feels like another channel is bleeding over into ours. Brazo is bleeding out and suddenly an angelic choir is playing over the top of it and it elevates everything to high art. Porky and Oro were great at taking secondary beatings throughout, knowing their brother was the show but not content with hanging back and out of the way. Porky was still in there taking backdrops and getting worked over by both Americans. The Brazos comeback in the Segunda, with a primera dragged out long enough to build that anticipation, was shockingly brief and even more shockingly ended in a Brazos loss. We never get the full satisfaction of Wolfe or Viking getting busted open, even if we get Porky and Oro throwing headbutts that look like they should open cuts. As we eagerly await these American goons getting squashed in various ways by Porky, Jaque knees Brazo in the balls for an undignified loss, music still playing, his brothers confused. Now we need another 30+ year old Monterrey tape to surface that has Los Brazos' bloody revanche.   

Love Machine/Apolo Dantes/La Fiera vs. Negro Casas/Hijo del Solitario/Stuka Monterrey 

MD: Stuka was a replacement for Black Magic. Everyone else was fine in this one, but this was the Casas vs Love Machine show. Two dynamic, imaginative wrestlers, who knew how to mug and make the most of things. You always see something new with both of them and they were matched up here. We start with Casas beating down Love Machine with a table, including jumping on it repeatedly from the apron with it on top of him. Later on, Love Machine gets some great revenge, taking Casas's head and driving it down into the ground from the apron before chasing him into the crowd. And then towards the end, we get the spot that closes the circle, with Love Machine basically punching the table towards Casas. It's just a joy to watch these guys do their thing. Completely iconic stuff.

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Found Footage Friday: Monterrey Lucha: WAGNER~! ESPANTO~! SOLAR II~! DANTES~! PANTERITA~! JALISCO~! LENADOR~?!

Dr Wagner Jr/Halcon de Oro/Espanto Jr vs. Colosso/Potro/Solar II CMLL 1992

MD: Roy got a lot of uncovered lucha from Monterrey and we'll hit all of it in the weeks to come. Not cherrypicking these means coming in and seeing what there is to see and sometimes that means you get a match that's just sort of a match. That's what we have here. Rudo ambush to start as the tecnicos were getting into the ring one at a time. A short primera beatdown, a segunda beatdown into a comeback, and then some exchanges to start the tercera before the rudos shut things down. This was probably low on the card since we had a dive teased but no actual dive.

I don't know a lot about Colosso or Potro (the latter of which had a "colt" gimmick with a horse on his chest). During the tercera exchanges, Colosso got the most  shine with Espanto basing very well for him. I'd say out of everyone in this one, Espanto looked the best, directing traffic, relishing the beatdown, playing to his partners and the crowd. Said beatdown was very dependent on the ref not allowing the tecnicos to come in to help each other or punch. Wagner already had his flair in making just an elbow to the skull seem more important and took a fun bump out of the ring, but the nature of this was that no one got to show too much of anything.

 

Guerrero Negro/Hombre Bala/Angel Blanco Jr vs. Apolo Dantes/Panterita del Ring/Jalisco CMLL 1992

MD: This was more like it. It was built around Panterita (Sr, being Ephesto, I think) and Guerrero Negro, with all of the build and payoff you'd want. To be honest, the primera was just there. It was nice to get initial exchanges and everything had time but a lot of this was Dante and Angle Blanco Jr. and it was fine but didn't have a lot of build to it. The bit of we got of Hombre Bala sliding out of the ring over and over on bumps for Jalisco was more fun. Where things shined here, however, was in the beatdown. It was brutal and chaotic as you'd like, with Guerrero Negro battering Panterita around the ring and tossing him repeatedly into the seats and Angel Blanco picing up a row of chairs to crush Dantes with them before punching him in the head repeatly as he was stuck. Some great visuals there. The comeback had some of the revenge bits you'd like but they really got right to the finish after that, with some dives and a quick tandem pin clearing things for Guerrero and Panterito but having the tecnicos almost immediately cheat to win thereafter.

I like the little bits of character for the stadium, whether it be the commentators complaining about the fans letting their kids' near the ring, the rudos signing things for said kids before the match, the giant Panterita signs, or Dantes having his own cheerleaders (I think at least), not to mention the chaos of wrestlers tossed into chairs or having chairs tossed at them. It was a good atmosphere overall and this match certainly had more meat to it even if I wish a bit less time had been spent in the primera and a bit more in the tercera.


Tony Rodriguez/Lenador vs. Chuy Escobedo/Sergio Romo Jr CMLL 1992

MD: I had no idea what I was going to be getting with this one. Long story short, I got Lenador. What a wild rudo. He was a balding guy with hair ties in strange places who made absent-minded expressions while strutting around the ring. Plus he hit hard and had just whacking flying clotheslines and a storm zero sort of quick pile driver. So that's that guy. Escobedo was solid, still and calm waters that kept the match flowing. Romo tried more things with about a 70% hit rate and the rudos doing their best to bump it as high as possible.

They were pretty compelling in general, between the surreality of whatever Lenador was up to and Rodriguez bumping through the ropes or darting up into the third row or begging off to lure a tecnico in (which led to the announcers complaining that the tecnicos never learned). I can't say this ever felt like it had tremendous stakes (the heat wasn't that hot and the comebacks weren't that exciting) but it kept moving and had a pretty iconic lowcard rudo side. These felt like the sort of El Batallon de la Muerte style local rudos that no one necessarily bought their ticket for but that entertained the crowd each and every week during the first match. Hopefully more Lenador shows up because I want to see more of that guy.

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New Footage Friday: CMLL Handheld 11/25/95

Migra I/Migra II vs. Mexican Blanco/Súper Diablo (Erin O'Grady/Spike Dudley)

MD: I almost skipped this but I'm glad I didn't. It was a very fun opener. Blanco and Diablo were pretty creative and the Migras were solid bullies who weren't afraid to give and stooge. Very emotive and into what was happening. This followed southern tag structure more than you'd expect and the Migras looked like a million bucks in the heat. There were some wild and effective but very unfortunate acrobatics (the sort that land you on your own head) by the babyfaces but ultimately this was all pretty satisfying stuff for an opener.

PAS: I am guessing this was an all APW match. Diablo was listed on the file as Erin O'Grady (Crash Holly) and I am guessing Blanco was Matt Hyson (Spike Dudley). I assume La Migra was a pair of APW guys too (maybe Mike Modest and Maxx Justice). These guys all worked really well together, with Holly and Spike bumping like you would expect those guys to do, flying super high on monkey flips and eating shit on clotheslines. There were a bunch of dives which looked totally reckless in an awesome way, lots of flips which looked seconds away from killing both the guy who took it and the guy who dove. I really liked the German suplex which finished the match, fun stuff from some green guys who would go on to do things.

ER: Phil is right, this is definitely Modest and Justice as La Migra, a gimmick that has somehow sustained itself in northern and southern California indies. Modest and Justice were the first ones doing the gimmick, and after they stopped using it someone else would use it. even Brian Cage was a member of La Migra at one point in the 2010s. I'm not 100% certain that Matt Hyson is the non Erin O'Grady here, but my only other guess would be Chris Cole (I don't think Hyson ever had the muscle the non O'Grady had, and the offense didn't seem like Hyson's from this era). And this match is really great. This ranks among the best APW stuff I've seen, and I've seen more of it than most. Modest was so polished just a few years in, he really was a natural. But Maxx Justice/Mike Diamond also should have gone places and did bigger things. He was a legitimately intimidating dude with a great angry face, tall, with a big upper body (his day job was throwing luggage around for an airline, which feels like a great workingman's job that a 60s/70s regional babyface like The Crusher would have). But he takes moves really well from flyers. He caught dives and saved a huge rana from the top rope to the floor, and had this great base moment where he cut extremely low on a lariat before catching O'Grady. O'Grady had some crazy stuff, a guy who really did deserve to make it. He gets alleyooped into a dragon rana, hits a great tope, tope con hilo, that rana to the floor, all really big stuff for this era, and he also took two big bumps off the apron skidding across the floor. Hyson/Cole/whomever had some wild stuff too, great somersault senton off the apron and from the middle buckle to the floor, and hits a nice tandem dive with O'Grady. La Migra actually felt like a dangerous gimmick to be working in Los Angeles, feels like a thing that could have got Modest jumped. This match really showed the level of talent in mid 90s bay area indies,  incredible to get talents like this all at once, when you looked at what other American indies looked like in 95/96.


Los Brazos vs. Apolo Dantés/Pirata Morgan/Satánico

MD: This was just the second match on the card. The fans were familiar here and knew what they wanted and what they were getting, which was heaping amounts of Porky. The Primera had a bit of feeling out and one rudo swarm tease (the Brazos rushed in) before the rudos went cheap on a handshake and took over for real with triple teams. The segunda was a long bit of FIP heat, cutting off the ring, before the Brazos had enough and rushed forth. I'm not sure I'd have been as okay with that with normal tecnicos (as it defies logic more than having a thematic beatdown on one wrestler after another) but there's such a chaotic element to the Brazos that it worked. Most of the match was in the tercera, with Oro fighting off everyone and Porky doing a lot of comedy before they launched the dives. Satanico hit a nestea plunge off the apron on the far side of the ring which I don't think I've ever seen him do and somehow adds to his legend. They were chanting for Porky to dive well before it was his turn. The finish was fun as it was one of those everyone gets pinned out of a multi-man submission spots that never actually works and did here. I always appreciate that. The fans appreciated all of this and money was tossed in post match. There was literally no way this was going to be bad given who was in there.

PAS: Brazos are maybe the greatest formula wrestlers of all time. Nothing is more enjoyable then watching them do their match, you don't need any extra juice, the rudos really just have to show up. This match however had two first ballot hall of fame rudos and Dantes who was a king in the 90s. So not only to we get awesome Brazos stuff, but there is so true class to play off of. Satanico is a great Super Porky opponent, very comfortable with playing along, but also willing to get really nasty when it is desired. That Cactus elbow off of the apron was a true Holy Shit moment. We get some big time Pirata bumps too, and Dantes hits a great looking Superfly splash. Porky is of course a joy, he was at both peak fat and near peak agility at this point, and he hits his top rope dive so hard he nearly bounces out of the ring, he also reverses a double wrist lock by springboarding off the top rope into a flip, mind bending stuff from a guy who looks like Homer in the Simpson episode he got Obese to get on disability.


Silver King/Vampiro vs. The Headhunters

MD: This cuts off midway through the segunda, so all we really get is a mauling by the Head Hunters. Really, though, that's all we needed. They were tremendously effective at what they did. Not much more to say here except for that the crowd really wanted to get behind the tecnicos and that Silver King was one of the top guys in the world at working the apron and milking a moment at this point.

Atlantis/Héctor Garza/Pantera vs. Eddy Guerrero/Emilio Charles Jr/Felino

MD: I really liked this. Captains are Atlantis and Charles, and they set the tone immediately by having Charles get a cheapshot in on Atlantis during the announcements. After a brief exchange early where Atlantis gets the advantage, he dodges him for much of the rest of the match (though runs all the way around the ring into a quebradora as the tecnicos take the primera). The other main pairings are Felino and Pantera which works out quite well and Eddy and Garza which starts off a bit slow but on the second and third time through gets great. Late Garza is one of my favorite wrestlers period, so sometimes I don't give Early Garza enough credit, probably, but the point of comparison is always Eddy. I have no idea why the latter is here as he'd been working WCW for a few months now, but I'm not complaining. Once he really unleashes the rudo fury on him (after Felino sneaks in a foul on Pantera to turn the tide in the segunda), the beating is primal. Guerrero refuses to pin him after a nasty, wild powerbomb and then superplexes him and has Felino hold him down for the frog splash. Between falls, he slaps him and hits the brainbuster and locks in a STF for good measure. The comeback is a little all over the place, with Atlantis fighting to get his mask back on and just whipping Charles (who cries foul) around the ring, but Garza sliding all the way from one side of the screen, through the ring, to the other to get revenge on Eddy is great stuff. I could have used another minute or two of comeback, but Pantera gets to creatively upstage Felino, Atlantis gets the decisive win with the Atlantida on Charles, and post match, Eddy perfectly catches Garza on his signature dive. Post match, after the other rudos had left, Eddy wants a shake and Hector gives him one and it felt a little like a passing of the torch even if the real points of comparison would come years later. Always something to see here and it was always something worth seeing.


Mascara Ano Dos Mil vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr.

MD: Phil's already covered the Casas vs Santo match elsewhere, so this is our de facto main event. Lucky us. Look, it's been a while since I've willingly watched a Rayo match, especially a singles match, but the flip side of that is that it's been so long that maybe I'd be happily surprised? I love how if you go to the official ELP youtube page and find "Touch and Go" almost all of the first comments are in Spanish and about the Dinamitas. This is, obviously, a completely bullshit title match. Instead of matwork in the primera, there's lots of competent Mascara Ano stalling and a bunch of dancing foolishness by Rayo. There are basically two holds, one to stooge Mascara so he can go out and stall again, and one to finish it. The segunda is even less substantial, just a couple quebradoras, a couple of whips, and a missed top rope move by Rayo. My favorite spot in all of this was probably Rayo hitting two bouncing grounding headbutts and then comedically missing the third. My other favorite bit was him accidentally diving on the wrong person twice. We didn't even get Mascara punching him a bunch. This was not good lucha and I was not happily surprised.

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Lucha Worth Watching: More 1999 Mr. Niebla!

Mr. Niebla/Brazo de Plata/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Apolo Dantes/Shocker CMLL 9/10/99

ER: This is mostly a big rudo mugging to set up next week's tag, and it works. The entire primera is the rudos stomping down the tecnicos, ending when Dantes gave Porky a headlock takeover and kept choking him (while the others stomped him) until Porky started holding his chest and shaking. I love matches where Porky works in a heart attack spot. Babe Richard can't do much for Porky until the stretcher arrives, so all he does is pull Porky's waistband away from his belly. "Give this man some space, his pants are too tight!" The rudos kick at Porky to roll him out of the ring, and he lands hard on his side. Shocker was great here, breaking out big things like a double springboard elbowdrop, big missile dropkicks, and avoiding Niebla like the plague. The second Niebla would gain any bit of ground Shocker would hightail it out of the ring. V3 was the real thug of the beatdown, walking into frame and punching the nearest tecnico, yanking at Atlantis's mask, and holding guys for Shocker to hit with missile dropkicks. I loved how V3 would hang in to the last second, bumping himself for the dropkick instead of letting Niebla go a split second early. When the tecnicos make their big comeback  (nearly 75% of the way into the match, which had been completely rudo dominated up until then) it's really fun, with Atlantis/V3 pairing off and Niebla finally getting Shocker. Niebla hits a really nice moonsault off the top to the floor on him, and Atlantis/V3 give us a nice sneak preview of their huge mask match just a half year away, with V3 barely kicking out of a smooth rana and eventually getting caught in la Atlantida.

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Shocker CMLL 9/17/99

ER: Great, bloody tag match, the kind where the tecnicos win by default when the refs stop the damn match due to the tecnicos getting their asses beaten too violently. This is a super libre tag, and the Atlantis/Niebla team certainly bleed enough to make it so. Niebla is sporting killer all red gear that I don't think I've ever seen, and after this massacre it's clear that he should have debuted all white gear instead. This is a real mean Shocker performance. He is right on Niebla and gives him a helluva battering, at one point punching him several times right in the ear before Niebla could get back in the ring, always running at him with boots (including his great running full extension high kick), always beating at Niebla with pure scorn. Niebla makes a nice brief comeback, ducking a tandem clothesline and coming backing with a well timed tope en reversa, and a tope that knocks Shocker into the seats. But this was about the rudos being out for all of the blood, and both Niebla and Niebla give us a couple of great lucha bloodlettings. At one point Niebla is hung upside down in the corner and the rudos just use Atlantis as a battering ram, running from the opposite side of the ring, over and over, with Niebla and Atlantis only given mercy when a ref takes the Atlantis battering ram and the thing gets thrown out. After the match Shocker beats Niebla to the floor, booting right in the head several times. Shocker looked like a real monster here, total rudo asshole. It was the kind of beating you might see in a violent apuestas match, not the kind of beating to set up an apuestas match, and that's fine by me.

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno Bonus: Emilio Charles Jr., Rey Bucanero, Satánico vs Apolo Dantés, Black Warrior, Dr. Wagner Jr. [CMLL TRIOS, torneo, final]

1997-03-21 @ Arena México
Emilio Charles Jr., Rey Bucanero, Satánico vs Apolo Dantés, Black Warrior, Dr. Wagner Jr. [CMLL TRIOS, torneo, final]

I wanted one more match to ride out the week and it was between this and Satanico vs Mascara Magica. That was before Magica went heel with GdI though so it didn't seem to fit as much. Also, it wasn't as compelling and if I'm going to do Satanico apuestas matches, there are much better ones to choose.

This, on the other hand, looked interesting on paper. It's the youngest I've ever seen Bucanero (21 here), and also the only time I've seen him with his mask (he lost it to Shocker two years later). This was a one-fall final to the CMLL Trios Tournament which took place after Garza jumped to AAA (He'd been teaming with La Fiera and Dos Caras which is a pretty weird team for 1997). Satanico, Charles, and Bucanero had gone through Shinobi, Tsubuasa and Ultraman, Jr, and Atlantis, Lizmark, and Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. to get here. Interesting that they'd finish it with a rudos vs rudos pairing.

A word on Bucanero before we start. I think, in the grand scheme of things, it's tempting to call him an underachiever in his career, especially compared to his contemporaries like Shocker and Ultimo Guerrero, and I certainly went through his tecnico turn and how disappointing that was. This was almost twenty years ago though, and in the crazy non-booked world of CMLL, he's still relevant, even as late as just a few months ago. I don't think he was always the most talented wrestler, and that's true here, in 2001, in 2006, and today, but I do think he's matured into a very skilled one. I love that match with Mistico in 2010, for instance, and that's all on him being a skilled, canny, experienced rudo, and he can still put on performances like that today.

Again, this was just one caida, so they ran through the pairings, Satanico and Wagner, Charles and Dantes, and Bucanero, and Warrior, and then picked up the pace to take things home. I really need to see more Charles. He's good in everything I've seen him in so far. I like Dantes as a sort of opportunistic rudo in the two matches I've seen with him. Warrior was young here and he's generally fine but often I lose track of him in trios matches. It's always surreal to me to see Wagner so colorless, both literally and in his actions; I'm used to him being this larger than life superhero, hamming it up in both the best and the worst ways.

Even subdued, he was a lot of fun paired with Satanico to start things off. They had a few minutes of solid matwork with the highlight probably being Satanico kicking out the Mil Mascaras/Hijo del Santo prone cross-legged headscissors takeovers, which was more than a little surreal to see, being the world's most tecnico hold. The best part was at the end however, when following a top wristlock war, they went head to head like rams:

The other pairings went quickly. Dantes played to the crowd (just as Satanico had introduced some tecnico offense given the situation). He and Charles did a bunch of reversals and some equal matwork. Bucanero and Warrior were there for rope running and arm drags and what not. It was fine but not really memorable. Then they started to switch things up with escalating action and neither side having an advantage. It felt a bit like elements of a primera that led right into elements of a finishing stretch tercera.

It closed out with a couple of big dives. First Satanico hit an awesome senton from the apron on Wagner:

Then Charles hit a tope suicida which actually caused the crowd to move in preparation. Usually they just stand there like deer in headlights:

That cleared things out for Bucanero vs Warrior. After eating an electric chair drop on a victory roll reversal, Rey hit a powerbomb reversal of a 'rana out of nowhere and picked up the win for his team. Fun little tournament final with some good and unique stuff given the cleaner title-match rudos vs rudos pairing.

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno B-1: Dos Caras Sr., Mil Mascaras, Solar I b Apolo Dantés, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero

2000-02-08 @ Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Dos Caras Sr., Mil Mascaras, Solar I vs Apolo Dantés, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero

7:43 in

Well, now I've done it. I spent money on Lucha. This is especially ridiculous because there's still a near-infinite amount of stuff for me to watch online. Keep in mind, I haven't even touched AAA except for some of the big 90s trios. I haven't seen an episode of Lucha Underground yet. I have the Casas vs Mistico and Rush vs Terrible feuds ahead of me. I still have more 2010 ahead of me. This is all stuff where we have dozens of matches for easily available. There's new 90s stuff popping up on youtube almost every day and it's all awesome.

But the heart wants what it wants and I wanted to watch old Guerreros del Infierno. One of the first things I latched onto when doing this (all the way back in June), were Los Guerreros del Atlantida and the painfully disappointing tecnico turn for Rey Bucanero. A lot of the reason why that was painful was because of the palatable history between Ultimo Guerrero and Rey Bucanero. It was always sort of striking to me, looking back, that GdI were so highly touted in the WON Tag Team Awards in the early 00s, if only because lucha isn't an area that usually does very well in those awards. I figured that since there was smoke, there had to be some fire.

Thankfully, Fredo had a comp. It's not as thorough as what I usually like (as it was a VHS comp that he retrofitted for me - Thanks!) but it has a lot of their prime era tag matches. It has fifteen matches, four of which were vs Negro Casas/El Hijo del Santo, and most of which aren't online. Now, I know most of the time, we find you guys matches that you can actually watch, so I don't want to just go through the comp itself (even though it is fairly inexpensive and I'll be able to tell you whether or not I wholeheartedly recommend it by the end). What i'll do is intersperse chronologically the comp with matches that are online. So GdI Spotlight A will be comp matches and GdI Spotlight B will be matches I can find online, which will usually be trios matches as the comp is solely tag matches. I'll keep the numbering going though, just to make things confusing, so the next match will be #2 whether it's from the A column or B column.

First up is a B match and this one was a sick amount of fun. It was the main event of a Korakuen Hall show and it had the lucha in Japan tecnico super team of Mil Mascaras, Dos Caras, and Solar I. I have little use for Mascaras but he's so over in Japan and in a trios, his worst match-slugging tendencies can be hidden a bit, especially when he has guys like Caras and Solar to do the heavy lifting for him and relatively young guys (all in their late 20s/early 30s) to eat his stuff and make him look good. Dantes is the son of Alfonso Dantes who was all over the DVDVR 80s set. He was bald after having lost a hair match to Porky in late November in arena Mexico (and hey, that match is online and I want to watch it now).

This was one fall and it was really focused on tecnico shine. It was a lot of fun though. I think that the rudos were game, given the great atmosphere, and the people that they were in the ring against, to really do their best and Solar and Caras brought a ton to the table. Mil gave the most on his way to the ring. He screwed up his bound over the top, admitted it, clowned with the crowd, and then did it again with a giant raise of his hands.

The opening matwork was very solid, with Rey letting himself get moved around by Solar. There was a bit that was a little overly choreographed, but that was counterbalanced by how organic everything else felt. One thing I noticed about UG here was that he's more agile than mid 00s Ultimo. Even so, he relied on his strength as a way to counter Caras' finesse, using a slam after getting out leveraged. Both guys were able to kip up at the end of their exchange though. Mil just did his stuff with Dantes, not showing any ass, and being glad to just do the headscissors flips from the ground because that's what the crowd wanted.

This first bit culminated with Mil hitting the flying headbutt, and then doing double ones with Caras to Bucanero and UG, followed by a Caras tope to the outside. After this they started doing tecnico vs the world comedy bits, including this really great exchange of monkey flips where Solar and Caras tossed GdI around the ring, out of the ring, and around the outside. The match is worth seeing for that, really. It was great action right up to the point where Mil out-muscled both Dantes and UG on a top wristlock spot (which was followed by ducking clotheslines, clotheslining people and tossing about atomic drops).

The rudos got a bit of heat, finally, as Caras came in and got triple teamed, including a really great triple wheelbarrow facebuster which felt effectively and jarringly out of place considering the tecnicos, then the GdI special body splash on Solar. Even Mil has to take some offense, though he fought back for far longer than the other two before succumbing to the triple team. This bit ended with another really funny spot revolving around arm wrenches, just classic lucha comedy.

From here, the match rolled into more tecnico shine, with rapid fire four-man star submissions, just hugely entertaining stuff, with the last pair doing various things (a bear hug, an inverted surfboard, etc), a dive train where everyone got to hit their dives, including a surprising UG Asai Moonsault, and the tecnicos going over with a double submission in the corner and Mil hitting a flying body press over them onto GdI and pinning them both.

There wasn't much substance or heat to this, but it was hugely entertaining for what it was between the atmosphere, the contrast of old vs young, and masters (and Mil is absolutely a master, knowing exactly what he's doing at all times, even if I don't always agree with it) really plying their craft with willing opponents. It wasn't a GdI showcase, but it did show that by 2000 they did belong in the ring with legendary characters.

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