Found Footage Friday: WWE IN AUSTRALIA~! BABE FACE~! FANTASMA~! SUPER ASTRO~! SCORPIO~! SATANICO~! EMILIO~!

Super Astro/Fantasma vs. Babe Face/Scorpio WWA Olympic Auditorium 09/12/87

MD: This has been sitting in plain sight for a few years but was thankfully was brought to light by the Wrestling Playlists newsletter recently. It hits so many of the marks you'd want with four very talented wrestlers doing their thing in a slightly alien place for slightly alien promotion. Super Astro is this tightly contained ball of energy, a little shorter than his peers, a little stockier than you'd expect, but it's almost like there's a wick counting down on him and he's always ready to explode. It gives his roles and vaults and stylized tricks an extra bit of oomph. They're things that would be impressive regardless but with him it's all somehow supercharged, and Scorpio, bald and wide and spry took it all so well. He shoved Fantasma before the bell and Fantasma bounced back off the ropes and shoved him back, causing him to bump huge. That's just the sort of guy Scorpio was.

I wouldn't say this had a rudo ref so much as the rudo was holding the tecnicos to far higher standards. That meant they withheld tags in a way that you don't usually see in lucha (though the out of the ring rule was definitely in play) and it allowed the rudos to stay in charge in the primera. That built the pressure for the comeback, even through the end of the fall and a nice double takover onto Fantasma and subsequent submission. You can tell the pressure was up beacuse there was an upset Granny at ringside. 

It was interesting because they used the ref taking back/not allowing tags to build heat but the moment of comeback was wholly within the ring on a bit of rudo miscommunication. From there things went even with it looking like the tecnicos might get swept under again only to outquick and outslick the rudos, all building to Astro knocking Scorpio out and landing on him with a senton through the ropes to the floor. Brutal stuff and Scorpio either bladed or got bust open. Either way, he was a bloody mess. That was the equalizer as simultaneously Fantasma was doing a ridiculous submission in Tombstone position on Babe Face (who I have less to say about here but he was perfectly fine in his role).

The tercera was full of the sort of great exchanges you'd expect until Scorpio was able to go behind on Fantasma off the ropes, using his momentum to push him through the ropes and right into a waiting chairshot from Babe Face. From there it was an academic 2-on-1 with them picking up Astro repeatedly after having him beat. That sort of hubris didn't lead to comeuppance though as they finished him off after one of Babe Face's great off-center running sentons and a nasty legdrop from Scorpio. I'm sure this led to some phenomenal return match we don't have, but at least we have this.

ER: You show up for a match like this to see what Super Astro might do, but then you leave getting to see  stocky rudo toughness from Babe Face and Scorpio. Super Astro is must watch in any setting. You're always going to get something worth writing about. Imagine seeing this stocky little guy in LA doing a slingshot senton to the floor in 1987. It's great. But this is a match that makes you want to watch more Babe Face and Scorpio. Scorpio Sr.! I have not seen much Scorpio Sr. He is as ugly as his son in a completely different way, more hideous monster way. He also looks like the perfect wrestler. Wide, round, ugly, bald, cocky. He's got a fat buff guy or buff fat guy body squeezed into a red King Kong Bundy double strap that you wish could be pulled off as well in modern wrestling but everyone is shaped wrong. Babe Face, it turns out, also has a perfect pro wrestling physique. He is stocky and muscular and compact and powerful. He's Bill Dundee with 20 pounds of thick bulk. He is one of three of the smallest most powerful men, wrestling inside of the largest ring in wrestling history. You fill not believe how long it takes Super Astro to run ropes in this ring. It's incredible. 

We all love Super Astro and we love the way he is in a competition with himself to take higher back body drops. But this hits peaks whenever Babe Face or Scorpio are throwing punches and chops and headbutts. Babe Face headbutts Super Astro in the eye socket to force a tag out and I thought we were going to get a bloody mask hole Super Astro match. He is stocky rudo cocktease, pouncing Astro to the floor to interrupt a dive, cameras catching a great close up of Scorpio's mug before he overhand chops Astro out of his boots. Things build throughout to big Babe Face/Fantasma showdowns, until Babe Face fucking BRAINS Fantasma with an open folding chair to the top of the head while Fantasma was draped over the ropes. The announcers say something about Intrepidos Punks, so either they're describing these two stocky men of differing beauty, or they're advertising the late 80s movie of the same name and either way makes this great. Los Intrepidos Punks lay a fucking beating on Astro while Fantasma's corpse is under the ropes, slapping him back and forth, Babe Face hitting full weight sentons, kneeling on his chest and groin while Scorpio holds a legdrop like the most smug sideburn asshole.  

I liked Fantasma's aggressively pistoning 69 bearhug. 

Emilio Charles vs. Satanico [hair vs hair] CMLL 3/20/98? 

MD: Pretty unique hair match here though one that hits a lot of the right notes despite that and despite some goofiness. As best as I can tell, this is rudo vs. rudo though Charles is the clear crowd favorite. Satanico gets an early ambush and starts dismantling Charles like only he can. No one is better in the history of wrestling at orchestrating violence, including his own. The bump Charles takes into the third row, head over heels, is excellent. Charles starts to mount some comebacks (including one really nice Fujiwara armbar reversal out of a grounded abdominal stretch that's lucha loose but symbolically perfect) but the ref (who apparently he hit the week before?) seems to get in his way each time and Satanico finally gets the caida on a backslide with a fast count.

That causes Charles to start complaining to the commission. Rey Mendoza is out there and says that Charles has a stipulation in his contract that he can call for a change in ref so Babe Richard comes out to take over. Meanwhile, Charles is unloading on Satanico, including tossing him into the crowd. Satanico is able to sneak in a foul though and locks in the Satan's Knot. That seems like the end and the end to Charles' hair, but he gets lost in the moment and refuses to let go and the ref awards the caida to Charles. So it's a bit of an odd dynamic with the ref switch and Satanico basically winning the second fall only to have it overturned. It all gets paid off in the tercera with Charles getting a foul in of his own and everything building to another Satan's Knot only for Charles to fight his way out of it and lock in this great Gory Special (where he has to slowly bring his hands together) before dropping down with it into a pin. I wouldn't call this the most primal match or the quickest path between two points but these guys were so good and they made this work so well for what it was.

ER: The ugliest default babyface fighting dirty through getting punched in the forehead and thrown into the third row by the devil. Satan himself throwing short punches aimed to open up an ugly man's forehead and biting him. I love situations where Charles became the tecnico. He is good at working through tecnico stages of a three fall match, peaking the reactions in the tercera and getting bigger reactions with consecutive quebradoras while the crowd loudly hates Satanico for breaking holds with biting at men's thighs. The devil fights dirty when the devil's beautiful head of hair is at stake. Satanico is a great rudo because he also wrestlers through submissions like the tecnico, pulling each limb with celebratory swipes like he's an Olympic runner raising both arms through the finish line. It makes Charles' win, through a biased ref and the persistent devil himself, even more of an ugly man tecnico triumph. I thought the execution on Charles' tercera-winning Gory Special was so good for this specific match. A fought for Gary, Charles' hands clasped, drawing out the inescapable backslide. 

It didn't get as violent as I expected it would, for a match I knew nothing about. When you start with Satanico biting and punching at a cut you expect escalation and that violent escalation never comes. We also don't get the actual haircutting. Satanico knew that he looked like a totally different badass when he had his head shaved and I wanted to see what that looked like at 50.  

Batista/Chris Jericho/Chris Benoit vs. Triple H/Ric Flair/Edge WWE 4/8/05

MD: New Richard Land Handheld from Australia right after Wrestlemania 21. Some of those names should worry you for a 50 minute clip, maybe, but this is house show bullshit and that's the best bullshit there is. Plus it's about ten minutes of entrances and pre-match talking and ten minutes of them breaking down the ring. I thought I was going to be taking one for the team here but I had fun with this. The pre-match yapping was ridiculous with Triple H going on about how terrible Australia was and how in America they had an army that could kick their asses, the Salvation Army. Basically the most definitional Triple H stuff imaginable. Batista's retort was short and sweet (he had just won the title), and the crowd was hot for all of this really.

All of the early exchanges were fun. Benoit and Edge started. Benoit chopped Edge out of the corner. Edge went for a tag. Both Triple H and Flair dropped down to avoid it. Jericho came in and Batista and Benoit cheerlead the crowd in a Y2J chant. Flair came in, had a chop off with Jericho so the fans could chant woo and then walked into the babyface corner to eat a bunch of punches and take the first flop (of many) of the night. Jericho grabbed a sign and paraded around with it. Batista came in. Flair eyepoked him and chopped him. Batista no sold it. Flair begged off. Batista waggled his finger. Flair took his second back body drop. Triple H came in. The crowd went up for the idea of them going at it. Flair wooed at Batista from the corner repeatedly. Batista posed and the crowd went nuts. Triple H won on a shoulder block exchange and posed. They milked a test of strength for a while before doing it. Triple H kicked Batista, drove him down. Batista fought back up and clotheslined Triple H over the top and the crowd loved every second of all of this. Truly entertaining house show BS, what much, much more of wrestling should be and what a lot of the times it isn't in a world where these barely exist anymore.

Again, this had a ton of time and they worked double heat on it. Jericho was drawn into the heel corner and when he came back and made a hot tag, Benoit came in hot for a bit only to miss the diving headbutt. Eventually, Triple H had Benoit down in the corner but got distracted by Batista and leaped right into a foot, wherein he spent an entire minute (not a second less) standing there looking at the lights dazed before flopping. Only on a house show. I'm actually not sure that spot hit as well as it could have but points for committing to the bit certainly. That let Batista make it in finally, let everything break down, and let Edge eat the power bomb (thumbs down beforehand) to end the match. I don't know if I would have seen this same match around the loop but to see it one time was honestly a lot of fun. Just a totally different world that barely exists anymore. And we're talking 2005, not 1985 here.

ER: We've been doing - and Matt's been running entirely - Found Footage Friday for over a decade now. It's probably the most valuable thing we've done because it preserves at least 1-3 different takes on footage that none of us as fans had ever seen before. In many cases, we've written about matches that can get newly added into a Greatest Matches discussion, 40 years later. New narratives, new looks, new opportunities to have views changed. It's an incredible resource, constantly growing. This week alone we have a new apuestas match, new Babe Face...and now a new 30 minute match with SC stalwarts like HHH and Edge and Chris Benoit. 

People love our HHH writing, and this is the match for those people. This is an essential HHH match for HHH fans, because not only did all 30 minutes feel completely laid out by HHH, but all six men wrestle like HHH from different eras of his career. This is a match agented, produced, and then wrestled by six HHHs. Jericho wrestles like Terra Ryzing, Batista wrestles like HHH did when he came back gassed up after the quad tear, Benoit sells like HHH in a way that you know it won't lead anywhere, Flair is slowed down so he wrestles like HHH during that long era of bloated HHH aping Flair spots, Edge wrestles like the worst version of 1998 bad Opponents' Momentum offense HHH, and HHH wrestles like some unholy house show HHH amalgam that includes a long comedy spot that he doesn't know how to make resonate but he 100% would have gotten anyone else fired over.

This was a HHH match in every way, and it was good. There is so much wrestling I've never watched and so much wrestling I never will watch but I love Matt, and Matt got me to watch a 30 minute HHH/HHH/HHH vs. HHH/HHH/HHH in Australia, because HHH - with his meaty nose and heavy brow beadying his eyes - is like Bruno at MSG to Australians.  

Seeing Flair work the brunt of a long house show match was surprisingly fun. HHH could never connect his in-ring comedy to a crowd like this, and we get a literal example of that during what should have been the crowd noise peak. Flair's punches looked fantastic throughout, and even though he enters the match in control he's soon taking a back body drop and it leads to a fantastic Flair spot, where he rolls up in the babyface corner, eats a headbutt from Benoit and a punch from Batista, hops around like he's getting back into the fight, then flops. Flair takes another back body drop when Batista tags in, classically begging off before poking him in the eyes, but none of his chops have any affect and he's soon flopping and back dropping and leaving down the aisle. It's the kind of ass showing that HHH admires about Flair, but could never bring himself to actually look weak enough for the extended periods that make the stooging work, meaning it always came off like Stooging While Still in Control and never worked. After Benoit gets his hand smashed with a chair (nasty business smashing it against a ringpost) and gets cut off, the long heat segment builds to Benoit's hot tag, but the entire tag is iced out by HHH doing a full minute of Working On Material that sounds great on paper but gets no reaction live. 

HHH leaps off the middle buckle into Benoit's up-stretched boot and stands there on his feet, selling and swaying, for exactly one minute. You can picture Larry Sweeney doing this spot and burning the house down, knowing the exact moment to grind an entire match to a halt for one self-aggrandizing spot, and how much HHH would fucking BURY anyone else who did that spot, regardless of how well it got over. To see HHH pull out a 2006 Chikara spot on a house show and get no reaction for it is the wrestling equivalent to a gay bashing Republican getting caught in a rest stop bathroom, all secret unfulfilled urges and embarrassing missteps. It's as clear as day that HHH would brand anyone else who tried this much of a comedy overreach a mark who isn't serious about the business that he's devoted his life to. Six different HHHs in one match, and the real HHH is the one desperate to show his chops as a comedy worker that didn't understand punchlines

Great match. The kind of match you can put on after a Gene Snitsky/Shelton Benjamin title match.

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Found Footage Friday: VILLANOS~! UNIVERSO~! PIRATA~! PANTHER~! ESPECTRO~! MANDO~! MARKUS~!

Villano IV/Villano IV/Milo Caballero vs. Universo 2000/Hijo del Gladiador/Babe Face Monterrey 1991

MD: The sort of lucha trios that hits just right for the most part. Villano IV was paired with Babe Face who was happy to stooge all over the place, feigning getting hit by low blows and making faces. Villano V was matched with Universo who was heatseeing (punching the post and getting DDT'd for instance). Both pairings were heated and seemed to have issues. Gladiador and Milo were more or less along for the ride.

Lots of feeding (more than basing) in the primera with an exciting escalation. When the rudos took over there was a nice bit of Villano V grabbing fans' hands on the outside after he took a beating. The comeback moment was just Milo recovering and attacking from behind but the Villanos more than made up for that. V got some great punches in on the floor on Universo while IV doled out justice on Babe Face. They rushed to pinfalls in the tercera but then had the Villanos make an illegal switch despite the fact they were the tecnicos here. The rudos complained but it was too little too late. Fun stuff but it almost would have been served better as a straight tag.

Pirata Morgan/Mascara Sagrada/Kato Kung Lee II vs. Indomito/Blue Panther/Espectro, Jr. Monterrey end 91/early 92

MD: The big appeal to this one was that the rudos had recently turned on Morgan and now he was with the tecnicos. It was straightforward overall with more exchanges than heat even with Morgan's turn but it was all pretty masterful so you don't mind. Primera pairings were Panther/KKL, Indomito/Morgan, Espectro/Sagrada. Lots of Panther matwork. He worked a short arm scissors/gotch lift sequence with you don't see every day in Lucha. At the start ot the second round of exchanges (rope running) he knocked KKL out of the ring immediately before eating an arm drag on his way back in and that was funny for the matter-of-factness of it. Equally funny was watching Morgan work staright tecnico including some flashy things like a Mule Kick out of nowhere. Espectro  and Sagrada didn't go as long but the had the most tricked out stuff overall.

Rudos took the primera with a beautiful Panther northern lights out of nowhere. That led into a fairly simple beatdown, simple because it didn't last long. The second they cycled to Morgan, he started firing back and tecnicos won quickly. Likewise, the third fall was quick, full of crowd pleasing tandem stuff (including an estrella with KKL using a victory roll into the center instead of a 'rana. So fun stuff but I wanted to see Morgan really go on the offense and that wasn't what this one was about.

Mando Guerrero/Centurion Negro/Monarca vs. Corsario Negro/Gran Markus Jr./Azteca de Oro Monterey 1991?

MD: This, on the other hand, was all heat. The issue was between Centurion Negro and Corsario Negro (the latter of which had no mask anymore). Corsario dodged him well enough during the primera (which was full of posturing), even if it meant that his team was at a bit of a disadvantage. In the segunda, they went all in on Centurion's mask, tearing it apart. The commentators were trying to get any glimpse they could, noting definitively that he did not have a mustache. The comeback in the tercera was because they were focusing too much on the mask allowing Mando and Monarca to come in and even the odds.

At that point, Centurion laid a pretty colossal beating on Corsario. The refs wanted to just award it to the tecnicos but they didn't want to stop. Nothing wildly over the top, just stomps and stomps and more stomps but they were pretty brutal ones. Eventually that let the other rudos come in and even the odds and they fairly quickly got a banana peel win. Post-match they had to do everything they could to keep Centurion and Corsario away from each other. If this led to an apuestas match, I would have bought a ticket for it. I think we might have five or six minutes of a JIP match actually. I should look at that.

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Found Footage Friday: KACE~! CRAMMER~! LOS COWBOYS~! HAMADA~! BABE FACE~! INDOMITO~! M-PRO 8-MAN~!

Johnny Kace vs. George Crammer NWA Chicago 1961

MD: I was doing so well with the Monterrey footage too, but I just can't resist going for the matches that people are showing interest in with this old US footage. People were describing this as a Regal vs Finlay archetype and I can sort of see it but it almost comes off as a proto-UWF match in some ways. These are two guys that get very little discussion overall. We have maybe two or three other Kace matches, for instance. The 60s are just a black hole relatively, unfortunately. He was the NWA Midwest Heavyweight Champion here and the title was on the line. 

And this was just fifteen minutes of mean, dogged, pro wrestling. Kace charged right in to start with a top wristlock and worked the nastiest hammerlock you'd see. That was the thing with both wrestlers. They constantly worked every hold on both ends. That could mean constantly torquing a toehold or driving down and in with a hammerlock or trying to get some sort of leverage to escape only to have the opponent topple your bridge with a tiny movement. It was constant shifting, constant pressure, constant selling. Constant motion in a way that made the match feel competitive and ramped up the stakes and consequence for everything that happened.

There was always the sense that each wrestlers was one well placed punch away from a reversal. Kace controlled early but Crammer would take over with some gut punches and a hammerlock of his own. They'd work up to slugging one another and then back down into a hold and back up again. Kace was obviously a mean bastard with a mean mug and Crammer had the fans behind him through ruthlessly and mercilessly giving Kace everything he deserved, making him choke on a poetic taste of his own medicine. There was no semblance of shine/heat/comeback here, just constant pressure creating implicit storytelling. Crammer would eventually shift to the leg but Kace snuck out and hit a few backbreakers for the win. Even though he came off as entirely credible in victory, it still felt more like he survived the challenge by the skin of his teeth than anything else. That's how hard they were going at one another.

Gran Hamada/Silver King/El Texano vs. Dr. Wagner, Jr./Indomito/Babe Face CMLL 1991

MD: Good and heated.. The central pairing was Texano and Indomito. If you're not familiar with Indomito, he was a Black Power in UWA and a Payaso (Coco Amarillo) in AAA. In the middle he was dressed in a powder blue Zardoz type gear with poofy Ronnie Garvin hair. He had a boxing background but wasn't really going to compare to the punches Babe Face and Hamada (a secondary pairing) were throwing at each other. This started with a rudo ambush and he was good at directing traffic and keeping things laser focused on Texano, who I think, ended up bleeding. The tecnicos did an unusually good job at rushing the ring time and again to try to take back over, only to get beaten back. Usually it's all just beatings and churning until the actual comeback. My favorite bit in the primera was right at the end; Wagner and Babe Face were getting the submissions in the ring and Indomito just slammed Texano's head sideways into the board around the ring again and again and again. Truly the violence we need in this world.

Rushing the ring did work at the start of the segunda and we got a nice bloody bit of revenge. Indomito's bleached blonde hair was made for it. Tercera settled down to exchanges and a lot of Silver King/Texano's usual double teams which were all ahead of their time and smooth and effective. Finish was novel. Instead of clearing the ring for the final pairing, Hamada had Babe Face in a submission in the corner. Indomito redirected a charging Texano into the ref and took advantage with a foul. Nice little twist on the theme to cap off a good one. I have nothing to say about Wagner here except for how striking it is how little he stands out for basically the first third of his career considering what he becomes later. He's in the right place at the right time doing the right thing mostly, but it's sure not ever interesting.

Jinsei Shinzaki/Gran Naniwa/Hideki Nishida/Kazuya Yuasa vs. Kintaro Kanemura/Dick Togo/Tomohiro Ishii/Macho Pump Michinoku Pro-Wrestling 8/14/02

MD: Tough fan cam angle for this one as we miss the early crowd brawling and then have the babyface corner right in the center of the shot for a lot of the rest but these characters are so larger than life you're never at a loss for what was going on. They spent the first six minutes or so (once they got back into the ring) beating up on Macho Pump. Nishida lit him up with chops. Naninwa stomped all over him. Shinzaki walked the ropes. As with these big M-Pro tags, the section maybe wore out its welcome a little but really, who doesn't want to see Macho Pump get mauled? The heels take over on Yuasa and Kanemura, unsurprisingly, stands out. We really haven't covered enough of his stuff on the site but it all seems so self-evident. Just a big scummy, scuzzy, agile, charismatic, guy who comes at things from unique angles and who isn't afraid to crash and burn. Things eventually break down to Kanemura vs Shinzaki before cycling into pairings and finally landing, after the ring gets cleared, on Naniwa vs Pump, with Pump hitting or trying to hit all of his Rock offense and Nanina always a half step ahead. Structurally this was probably the proper balance but I probably would have liked it a little more if they had cycled through pairings to start as opposed to just having the faces beat on Macho Pump. I felt like we didn't get enough Togo in this one, for instance. 

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Found Footage Friday: ANGEL BLANCO~! HOMBRE BALA~! BABE FACE~! CENTURION NEGRO~! SOLAR~! MR. TERROR~! SIGNO~! KAHOZ~!

Angel Blanco Jr./Babe Face/Hombre Bala vs. Milo Caballero/Monarka/Centurion Negro CMLL 1991

MD: Pretty straightforward trios with a very fun ending. The rudo side wasn't flashy but they were solid, with Angel Blanco stooging, Bala bumping, and Babe Face, being heftier than one would generally think of him, throwing nasty headbutts and swipes more so than taking offense in any sort of fun way. We've seen Milo and Babe Face match up before and they were still more than willing to take each other's shots. Centurion and Bala probably had the best exchange in the primera, though everyone looked pretty good on the second set when they picked up the pace. There was chaos at the end of the primera and the start of the segunda with things breaking down.

The beatdown was ok, nothing too exciting, but the comeback was hot and the finishing stretch hotter. They really worked over Centurion's mask to start the tercera and right when they almost had it off, the tecnicos fired back big. This lead to revenge mask ripping on Angel Blanco and a great spot down the stretch where Centurion Negro and Angel Blanco switched masks. That played into the finish as the rudos fell to miscommunication and confusion, allowing the tecnicos to hit synchronized sunset flips for the win. Pretty professional and polished stuff all around until the big comeback and wild finish. 

Solar/Astrerico/Megatron vs. El Signo/Mr Terror/Azteca de Oro CMLL 1991

MD: Going through this footage is really lucha comfort food for me. The structures had stabilized from a few years earlier so things build to an actual finish and not just the celebratory and comedy-laden tercera you'd often get in 80s lucha. I'm not sure if that's regional or time-based here. It means we get very standard trios: two sets of exchanges in the primera leading to things breaking down, some chaos and then a rudo beatdown in the segunda, and a comeback and finishing stretch in the tercera. Exactly how these things play out has variation, as does the centerpiece, but it's time-tested, tried and true, and familiar. There's a comforting ritual to it which is why the crowds came back again and again and why I can watch match after match of it even if sometimes it's hard to write about en masse.

Here, the centerpiece was the battle between Solar I and Signo, and that was a nice change. Solar came off as a complete star, drawing eyes to him, unquestionably at the center of the match. It started with him trying to draw Signo in by patting him on the cheek patronizingly. It ended (after the rudos stole a win on a banana peel) with Solar calling him out for a mask vs hair match, waving money that had been thrown his way in Signo's face. In the primera, they delayed their exchange, as Signo only teased coming in from the get go. Megatron and Terror and Asterico and Azteca were fine, though I'll admit having a hard time telling the tecnicos apart given the VQ and that Mr. Terror in the second match in a row doesn't live up to his name (though I loved how he sold Solar's quebradoras in the comeback).

Solar and Signo were really good together, nice heated matwork that boiled over into throwing hands. I liked Azteca's use of his size and past Terror seeming a bit off once or twice, everyone did their part, but Solar and Signo really stood out as being "bigger" than the match and leveraged that as a strength; it made things seem all the more important when either were in and let you believe in a comeback that was just Solar walking over to break up a hold because he had enough. Like with so much lucha, the frustrating thing is simply not having an apuestas match between the two coming out of this. 

Solar/Milo Caballero/Chuy Escobero vs. Zeus/Kahoz/Mr Terror CMLL 1991

MD: This is billed as Asterisco (including in the on screen graphic) but it's Chuy. It gets a lot of time but the last five+ minutes are all post match interviews based around the finish. As always, I beeline to Mr. Terror to see if there's anything there to go along with the black mask and amazing name and there's not much. They traded partners during the multiple exchanges of the primera and he only looked worth watching basing for Chuy. He did that pretty well though. His big move in the segunda was a series of clotheslines which felt very out of place. Ah well. Solar and Kahoz were fun when they were in there and Caballero looked solid. Chuy had the most energy, especially crashing up against Zeus.

Once things broke down at the end of the primera, they broke down for most of the rest of the match. Kahoz was a guy who'd try some interesting and different things, like eating a cross body from Escobero while running across the ring to tease a dive or the great spot where he'd chucked out of the ring between Zeus' legs (which were on the apron) and ends up running into the post on the outside with him on his shoulders. His deal where he runs into the turnbuckles wasn't as good. What was great was the tecnicos continuously moving the turnbuckle pad so the heels ate steel. Very funny bit. The finish was equally funny as Solar's mask got messed with and he was so angry he started hitting quebradoras on everyone, including Chuy and a ref, which led to the rudos taking the win and all of the tecnicos asking about Solar's big mistake (he apologized for his blind fury). Disjointed but fun overall even if Mr. Terror just isn't living up to his name. Chuy was an improvement over Asterisco, who's fine but doesn't have Chuy's energy.

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Found Footage Friday: FUNK~! SPIKE~! STEEN~! AXE~! WAGNER~! BABE FACE~! BLUE FISH~! DIFUNTO~! ROMO~! ESCOBEDO~!

Terry Funk/Spike Dudley vs. Kevin Steen/Jason Axe 5/17/13

MD: How much do we love Terry Funk around here? We love him so much that almost all of the matches that people posted to pay tribute (handhelds with Bock from Japan, chain matches and streetfights with Doug Gilbert ten years apart, etc.) were things we already had covered. Thankfully, this came down the pipe too. It's clipped with a few minutes of entrances and Terry talking at the end, but what we get is good. Spike looked great early on controlling Axe with chain wrestling. It was basic stuff, but snug and with purpose. Post-clipping it seemed like things broke down to a match inside the ring and one outside, with Steen and Funk brawling around ringside and Spike working from underneath in the ring. I wish we were able to catch more or it than we did including the transition, but what stands out most is the image of Funk and Steen careening towards a door in the back of the room and someone trying to film it all on his phone but unable to keep his focus because he has to throw his hand up in excitement and exhileration at the idea that these guys are brawling with such purpose and energy just a few feet away from him. That instinct to film everything just got shattered by the feeling of the moment and that's the magic of even a 69 year old Terry Funk for you. Finish was feel good like you'd expect. Axe survived an Acid Drop and really planted Spike through a table with a running DVD and Funk finally made it back to the ring, queuing things up for tandem spinning toe holds. What we got here was good, with Steen really reveling in the moment. I bet the whole thing would have been even better.

Sergio Romo Jr./Chuy Escobedo vs. Difunto/Principe Rebelde CMLL 1992

MD: Totally solid undercard lucha. Chuy and Principe Rebelde didn't do a ton for me but Romo and Difunto stood out. Difunto just checks a lot of the boxes for me, a stooging, basing, bruising rudo with a big personality, big selling, big reactions, and some impactful offense. He was matched with Romo. The primera was three exchanges (matwork, rope running, and then things breaking down) and I though the rope running especially stood out. Romo had this cool headstand into an armdrag I hadn't seen much. Escobedo and Principe were fine but they had less time and did less interesting things. It ended with a pretty funny bit where they had the ref pin the rudos and do the count.

They switched partners for the segunda but things quickly shifted to beatdown after an errant Difunto hug. Solid but not too over the top. The comeback almost went there with some crowd brawling but it never really boiled over. There was an absolutely amazing dive through the ropes into a body press by Romo where Difunto's head went cracking into the front row seats. Just a top notch dive. Romo didn't always look special, but he had an extra gear he could tap into occasionally. That's my early impression after a couple of matches at least. This was very much undercard lucha for the sake of lucha but all you need is one or two good hands to make that enjoyable and this was overall.

Dr Wagner Jr/Blue Fish/Babe Face vs. Milo Caballero/Centurion/Monarka CMLL 1992

MD: This was the usual mishmash of local guys and bigger names at various stages of their career that we've been getting. Wagner doesn't jump off the screen for a number of years to come but he was already in his late 20s here. It's still a good match situation for him to be in, I guess. Babe Face had been at it for almost twenty years but he's still a kind of refreshing guy to see in 92. Blue Fish was something of a local legend. He's got a fun mask with a big dolphin type fish on the side and in general was very good at being the right place at the right time and feeding into rudo miscommunication spots.

This had time and not a lot of urgency. It picked up a bit whenever Babe Face and Milo Caballero were in there together. I think the commentators even joked that they were made from the same physical mode, but they matched up well together both with exchanges and just throwing shots. Otherwise, I'd call it a professional match. The rudo beatdown in the segunda was laser-focused. Babe Face stooged here and there and kept things entertaining but for the most part, it was just workmanlike. I'd not mind seeing most of these guys in other matches, but I'd expect them to be in more supporting roles.

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MLJ: Babe Face, Negro Casas, Rambo b Villano I, Villano IV, Villano V

1992-03-06 @ Arena Neza
Babe Face, Negro Casas, Rambo b Villano I, Villano IV, Villano V

I was in a Villanos mood still, and looking through the various things decadas80s90s2000 has posted over the years and found this. There's a lot of stuff on there which isn't easy to search for on youtube or catalog. I found a number of things I want to get to at some point. This may not have been the best choice. It was fun disposable lucha, but I wanted to see some more 92 Casas in a match that isn't one of his hyped ones.

This was something of a trainwreck with lots of feeding and lots of bumps, lots of ducked moves and lots of counters. There was some shine at the beginning and some heat in the middle but it was really just a constant flow of action. I'd say that the entire rudo side delivered in one way or another here, though Babe Face the least. He had to be getting up there in age by this point and it showed. That said, he had some great comedic sells and at least an attempt of a few bumps. He was just a half step behind everyone else. Rambo, on the other hand, was a blast. I need to see more of him. He was an amazing cheerleader on the outside and his offense is just so offbeat and novel. It's not that it's well executed or brilliant or anything, but he just has a way of using his body as a weapon that fits his scummy, over the top character perfectly. I need to see more of him. He came off like the perfect Mocho Cota partner here.

Casas was above and beyond. One thing that amazes me, absolutely amazes me, is that you can watch a random Negro Casas trios and you will, maybe seven or eight times out of ten, see him do something you've never seen him do before. It almost always fits. It almost always makes sense. It almost always adds to the match. It never seems forced or contrived. It just seems like Casas wanted to do something different that night, to try inflicting pain a different way or to react differently. I'm not sure I've ever seen another wrestler like that. Here, he took the monkey flip bump to the floor, which I'm sure he must have done other times in this era. However, he also did a fun comedy spot where Rambo fell straight backwards, like a tree-falling senton, trying to break up a pin, and the Villano moved. Casas got his knees up to save himself and Rambo sold it like he was shot in the back by his own man. He also did a double corner clothesline (tried a corner clothesline on a Villano in the corner who got his arm up), which is one of those sort of no-brainer spots you've just never seen before. He added so much energy and excitement and motion and character to the match.

I had no context here, but it didn't matter. I'm glad to watch great rudos clowning and bumping and bullying for super tecnicos and it's always great to see near-prime Casas. He could do almost everything he does now in adding meaning and purpose and character to a match but he could do all the more athletically back then.

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