Found Footage Friday: GIANT GONZALEZ SPEAKS~! LAWLER'S FANS SHRIEK~! HURACAN RAMIREZ RETREATS~!

Huracan Ramirez/Huracan Ramirez Jr./Kung Fu vs. Bestia Salvaje/Indomito/Killer Arena Naucalpan 1/10/88

MD: A farewell match for Huracan Ramirez and the oldest footage of Arena Naucalpan we have. We come in with a media discussion of Ramirez, but quickly get to the match. This is handcam and as blurry as can be but we can tell who everyone is (the hardest being between Ramirez and Ramirez, Jr. but there are clear differences to their bodies). 

And footage like this is a gift. Who knew that we'd ever get it, right? Yes, it's a little hard to watch but we're pros and it's worth it every time. The Ramirez' did well on early exchanges and then Kung Fu got to play into some very fun rudo communication including some scrambling and tripping that felt novel and interesting. Everything took a turn once Killer was able to get his hands on him, however, all the way to hitting a tombstone on the floor in the midst of the chaos.

That wasn't quite the match ender that you'd think it'd be but it let the rudos really take over. Ramirez got a big moment of shine here where he stood tall against all of them and did well for a while, but it was down to Kung Fu recovering and coming back in with nunchucks to turn things around. That was basically the end of the match but not the end of the beating as Indomito, bloody face contrasting with blonde hair, took an absolute thrashing from Ramirez around ringside. The match was thrown out or the rudos won by DQ but it hardly mattered as the crowd burst in the ring to celebrate with Ramirez. It's clear how much this mattered to them and to the wrestlers and shaky cam or no, it's a joy to get to be a fly on the wall to history like this. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Doink the Clown Pro Wrestling Shenandoah 3/19/94

MD: Indie match between Lawler and a Doink that the internet thinks is Steve Keirn and I believe it. We get maybe the first two thirds of this, as clearly the person filming was running out of tape from capturing the entire Damian Demento match that preceded it. But what we get is pretty great. All minimalist shtick in front of a crowd that was made up of kids happy to chant Burger King for twenty minutes. Basically the best crowd you could get for a thing like this.

When Lawler finally did engage, he got clowned (literally) again and again. He'd miss a punch in the corner and get tagged. He'd miss a punch, duck Doink's punch, miss another punch, and get tagged. The building, timing, and payoff were all wonderful. Exactly what you'd want. Eventually he started to play hide the object, never actually using it but hiding it over and over as the ref checked the hand then the singlet again and again. Finally, Doink got fed up, took the ring bell, and put it under his own singlet and it was a beautiful piece of pro wrestling hilarity I'd never seen before. The match cuts out shortly thereafter but that was well worth the YouTube click.

ER: 15 minutes of 90s indy wrestling Metal Machine Music in the form of shrill children tirelessly screaming maniacally at Jerry Lawler. Lawler doesn't land any offense for those 15 minutes. He takes one great back body drop, and takes two punches. It's what he fills in the spaces between those moments of impact with that draw enough heat to keep waves of high pitched ambient sound ricocheting off the walls of a packed to the rafters gymnasium. Shenandoah is a town with less than 5,000 people and it looked and sounded like every resident was there. Lawler could have worked this match with anyone - no offense to Keirn - such were his powers in 1994. I love the way he throws his over-confident missed punches. The two he throws to miss here are a comic book version of Lawler's normal punch style, reared back and thrown straight as an arrow to exaggerate his full body lunge when fist finds no face. I wish we could have watched 15 full minutes of him pretending to have a weapon. I wish we could have had 15 full minutes of him selling his balls after Doink pulled the middle rope into them. I wish we could have seen the Johnny Gunn/Damien DeMento semi-main that used up the rest of our cameraman's battery. The ending is lost forever, but Lawler made small town ears ring on a Saturday night, same as it ever was. 

Mr. Perfect/Randy Savage vs. Mr. Hughes/Giant Gonzalez WWF Dark Match 8/17/93

ER: I've wanted to see this match for so long. There were not actually that many Giant Gonzalez matches in WWF. 60 matches across 1993, 85% of them happening on house shows or TV taping dark matches. We've seen all of the other possible Giant Gonzalez combinations, of which there are far too few. He was mostly married to Undertaker and Randy Savage on house shows during his run, kept him away from most of the roster, offering no opportunities for him to break out of his comfort zone. I would have loved to see what Bret could have done with him in a singles match, hell in half a dozen singles matches. I'm confident we would have gotten Giant's best matches, until we get the Lawler match footage from USWA. But there's a roster of people I'd love to see interacting with him. Let's see what Tito could have done, or Mr. Perfect. Let's turn him on other heels so we can see freak show dreams like Gonzalez vs. Yokozuna. No, we got mostly Undertaker or Savage, meaning there weren't any unique one off matches that could potentially show up on handhelds. 

This match is the most unique of the 60 Giant Gonzalez WWF matches. It's one of his only tag matches, and it's an intriguing on paper pairing. I'm a big fan of Mr. Hughes and his 60-something match WWF run. He and Gonzalez are a cool team of freakshow giants, and while the match itself isn't some kind of hidden gem, there are moments featured that we don't see ever again and I always love that. The Mr. Hughes/Mr. Perfect sections are genuinely good. Perfect was on a strong run in '93 and I love the way his body reacted to Hughes. There's a Hughes back elbow and big boot that Perfect sets up and leans into so well, his bumping style more reactive than athletic, and it's one of the things that made his later work so good. Hughes was a real physical specimen that should have been a bigger deal. His size and look are awesome, and he takes an incredible Jerry Estrada style back body drop during Perfect's comeback, leaping his knees into Perfect's shoulder so he's several feet higher in the air when Perfect flips him. It's an impressive visual and you can probably count on one hand the men that size who could have done the same. 

But, while it's not a very adventurous offensive performance from Gonzalez - he limits himself exclusively to some of his worst overhand clubbing shots to the back - it gives us what is our only glimpse of something different. This match gives us Giant Gonzalez: Vocal Showboat, a completely different look at the largest man in wrestling. I've never seen him more vocal during a match. He trash talks the crowd, trash talks his opponent - both in the ring and actively from the apron - and he shows personality that was lacking in his TV footage. The camera catches him doing something so funny, and it more than anything makes me wonder what might have been, had they kept him around and used him as a tag partner of other monsters. The moment comes when he tags out, as he makes eye contact with a ringside fan. As he's walking to grab the tag rope, he waves a large hand down over his airbrushed ab muscles, smirk on his face like he's displaying his body for some taken girl, confidently showing off his muscles that are just as fake as his airbrushed pubes. It's such an amusing piece of heel comedy, something we otherwise didn't see him attempt. That's why I find these matches so valuable. All it takes is one quick gesture, otherwise unseen, giving us a glimpse of a different past.   

MD: I watched this before reading Eric's comments (usually I get places before he does so I can't cheat off of him but this time he got there first), and was thinking to myself that I was going to have to come down real hard on Gonzalez' offense. Real hard. You don't want to compare him to Andre but you do have to sort of compare a giant to a giant and late era Andre was immobile but he made every shot seem credible, while you got the sense Gonzalez, who was more mobile, was just afraid to hurt the people he was in the ring with. His kicks barely extended. His shots were just so so soft, and that's ok on some level, but there was no way to sell them as anything but. He didn't have any idea how to use his size to inspire imagination. Thankfully, the one shot that did look great was the one that counted, towards the end when he caught Perfect coming off the ropes while on the outside, which distracted the ref and allowed Savage to get his illegal shot in to set up the finish. That one looked quite good.

BUT that said, I am totally aligned with Eric on the idea that trash talking Gonzalez is something special. With no commentary, you heard everything, and he'd just bellow in from off screen and you'd more or less make it out, would make it out enough, and that guy was alive and feeling the moment. It made me think that he probably did have some pretty entertaining house show performances towards the end, especially if you shut your eyes.

Otherwise, the moments that stood out to me were right at the start, Hughes taking Harvey's hand in a sort of sensitive gesture of friendship as the match started. And the crowd going up for Perfect and chanting for him and Hennig letting it sink in and basking. Otherwise, he and Savage really got almost nothing, a couple of chops at the start. Even when Perfect went through the legs for a tag, Savage got swept right under almost instantly. Interesting match along those lines, one that really protected the heels even in a loss, but that still gave the fans that moment of basking at the beginning and moment of triumph at the end.

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Found Footage Friday: 1989 CMLL

Full Show

Septiembre Negro/Bufalo Salvaje vs. Pegasso/Sombra Poblama

MD: We come in JIP here, just the finish, but it's a fun one. After a bit of measured rope running, Septiembre Negro takes a wild hefting bump over the top. Sombra Polbama hits a great driving heatbutt off the apron onto him as Pegasso (I think) locks in this cool dangling pulling armhold on Bufalo Salvaje to win it. 

Las Estrellas Blancos vs. Bestia Salvaje/Comando Ruso/Panico

MD: Estrellas aren't super familiar to me but they had a kid or a mini out with them to do tricks pre-match and signed a bunch of autographs. Rudos ambushed to start with one Estrella getting lawn darted into the post. I'm not used to seeing Bestia Salvaje so young and he was really moving around in there well. Start of the segunda had solid tandem rudo offense including pressing an Estrella back against the top rope for a shot off the top and holding him up in Hart Attack position for a bunch of offense. Panico followed it up with a slam onto the side of the ring, but while doing so, the tecnicos came back. Little bit weird timing there. They did a revenge posting on Comando Ruso and then held Panico's arms so they could kick him again and again with big setups. A crowd pleaser that he sold like a foul. Rudos took back over and did a stacking submission with Bestia posing on top. Finish actually had an Estrella come from behind and foul him there, drawing the DQ but a moral victory perhaps. I'm not sure I've ever seen that exact finish to a fall. I had fun with this even if I thought the timing of the comeback as dubious.

Pirata Morgan/Super Halcon/Hijo del Gladiador vs. Jaque Mate/El Egipico/Pierroth Jr.

MD: Rudo vs. rudo war here. Pirata's side ambushed to start though it didn't really pick up until the end of the primera where Gladiador was waistlock dropping people on the ground and Pierroth's mask had been mostly torn apart. Egipico had a pretty solid comeback where he just started to punch everyone. Nothing really sparked it but it was fiery enough all things considered. After the comeback things devolved into lots of formless brawling and mask ripping. I wouldn't say there was any sort of central thesis to it, just things ebbing and flowing as people engaged and withdrew, but when it all came back together, it really all came back together. They were able to isolate Pierroth 3-on-1 and gave him one of the nastiest beatings I've seen in ages, leaving him a bloody mess with a strewn mask barely clinging on to consciousness. It was a hell of a way to end the thing at least.

Los Infernales (MS-1/Satanico/Maskare) vs. Magico/Blue Demon Jr./Huracan Ramirez

MD: Another rudo ambush. They were leaning hard into it on this one. They said this was a super libre, I think. Satanico can direct rudo beatdown traffic better than anyone and that's what we had here. Just a constantly moving beatdown ending in a triple submission that stretched Blue Demon in every direction at once. Notable is that when they were doing the "stand on your opponent" triple submission bit earlier, they saw the tecnico coming to break it up and dismounted to stop him, which you never really see.

Tecnico comeback was driven by Magico (Who would soon become Mascara Sagrada or at least Hombre Sin Nombre? That probably helps date this?) but things would sort of go back and forth with bits of tecnico comeback interspersed with renewed rudo beatdown. All the rudos managed to stooge and take the babyfaces' stuff, Satanico being especially great at it, but soon after they took back over and were undoing the tecnicos masks all at once. It went like that until they had the rudos in some real danger and in response they swarmed, beating the crap out of Huracan Ramirez and drawing the DQ when they wouldn't stop. So not exactly satisfying but you can't fault the rudo talent here certainly.

ER: I don't think we specifically set out to write about Satanico on consecutive days but there sure are worse ways to run this website. Our streak of Consecutive Days to Start 2026 Writing About Satanico will almost surely end with this, but I love our look at first 76 year old Satanico and now 40 year old Satanico. There is no moment of this match where my eyes were not drawn to whatever Satanico was doing. As Matt says, he is very clearly the one running traffic for this entire match. Whenever he is not directly involved in the action, my brain was always saying "Where is Satanico? What is Satanico doing right now?" because whatever he was doing was almost always the thing most worth watching. He is the man directly Los Infernales while dictating the match's tone and energy. It's incredible. It's one thing that his actual ring work is a cut above everyone else (not an insult to anyone, for he is Satanico), it's that he is such a presence at all times. He is the smallest of Los Infernales, but anyone seeing Satanico for the first time would instantly be able to tell that he is In Charge. 

Sometimes, due to 1989 lost lucha video quality and the incredible matching gear/full heads of gorgeous hair on Los Infernales, it would be easy to forget that Masakre or MS-1 was currently in the ring wreaking havoc and not Satanico. But then, our boy would come into frame with that smile and that even better head of hair and the mood would just change. He took offense from tecnicos better (love his fold on Huracan's huracanrana), he stirred shit and stooged better (loved the way he threw up his hands in plea while his boys were being pinned in the segunda), and he was the one who would always enter with punches and devilish charm. My favorite actual moment of the match was MS-1's apron fist fight with Magico. I've seen a lot of bad looking apron fights, and they had such a dramatic battle with both rocking each other with punches to the face, chest and body, both using the ropes to hold themselves up, never just simple back and forth, excellent dramatic movement by MS-1. But this was a six man Satanico match, through and through.   

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Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! COTA~! WAGNER~! SATANICO~! GARZA~! PANTERA~! CARAS~! FIERA~!

Bronco/Máscara Mágica/Pantera vs. Astro Rey Jr./Guerrero De La Muerte/Mocho Cota CMLL 2/23/96

MD: Roy's uploaded a bunch recently and we'll hit some of it. I'm not going to say no to new Mocho Cota, even 1996 Mocho Cota. He's a step slow, but what he does with that step is still great. He'll bump to the floor off a dropkick and then careen towards a little kid, halting at the last moment and menacing him with his missing fingers. What a guy. He also fed into rudo miscommunication as you'd imagine, so they kept things brisk, moving, and fun. According to Rob, this was a couple of weeks before Pantera jumped to AAA. He was matched up with Guerrero here early and looked good the whole way through, especially down the stretch where he got to stand tall at the end with the last pairing, post-dives, hit a great dive of his own, and then come back in to win the thing, which is honestly not a structure you usually see. He also drove the comeback, so he was certainly being featured. Mascara Magica was paired with Cota and they did ok, even if you got the sense that maybe he was still trying to figure it out a bit. You take Pantera and Cota out of this one and it wouldn't be as engaging (even if they did wildly different things) but as is, I enjoyed it.

Los Brazos vs. Negro Casas/Dr Wagner Jr./Rambo CMLL 3/15/96

MD: Apparently Brazo de Plata and Negro Casas really wanted to work with each other on this night, because they put on one hell of a show. Porky's fist was laser focused to Casas' face and it was great. Just the most brutal, mean-spirited, single-minded punches you'll see, no matter if Casas was standing, on the ground, in the ropes. And of course, Casas would just slide back into the ring at full speed only to get walloped again. They had an early exchange too where Casas did a reverse leg sweep and then Porky did the same in return. Great stuff. Porky had his shoulders bandaged and that made him a target overall. They primera had a great bit where the rudos, two at a time, tossed one Brazo after the next off the top rope. Then they tried Porky with all three and got squashed and pinned. Perfect comic build and timing. The segunda had them really hone in on Porky's shoulder, double teaming him and forcing hum to the floor. The remaining Brazos held their own for a bit, but Rambo pulled out an object and bloodied El Brazo and it became an inconclusive mauling. This was great while it lasted though.

ER: You go into this excited to see whatever happens between Super Porky and Negro Casas and then all of the Porky/Casas interactions turn out to be even better than you expected. The whole thing is great but everything that Porky and Casas do - especially to each other - is better than you expect and that means it's all time great. There is one especially great exchange between them that is like extravagant lucha morphing into shootstyle. No, this isn't UWFi, but damn when Porky gets swept and ankle picks Casas on his way down I flipped. Porky aimed carefully guided punches at Casas's face a dozen different times and Casas kept falling for them in bigger and bigger ways. Porky would knock Casas down and lean his weight on him and throw punches from half mount. It all builds to one of the most incredible ways to end a caida, when the rudos press slam El Brazo and Oro off the top turnbuckle. Two men handled them, but all hands were required on deck to press Porky. They all backed him into the corner and Porky started throwing potato shots at everyone, flat footed lefts and rights. Casas gets hit so square that he banana peels all the way to the opposite corner. When all three rudos finally get underneath Porky to slam him, they wind up crushed underneath. 

The segunda shows Porky as one of wrestling's great Targets. Rambo and Casas target his taped up shoulder. Injured Porky is one of my favorite salesmen in wrestling, his movements feel so suddenly real but delivered by the incomparable physique of Porky. He has one of the most sympathetic faces in wrestling (and here he doesn't even cry!) and the way he plops on his butt and kicks his legs while Negro and Rambo and stomping and kicking him is like a giant baby getting stomped out. 

Rambo is always great in matches like this. He's great during bumping for tecnicos (loved him hopping on his back across the ring after a Brazo de Oro quebradora) and then becomes the most violent rudo during the segunda. His wrapped fist shot to Oro was so good it held up in slo motion, and when he gigs El Brazo he really gets the blood flowing. Rambo knows several ways to open a cut, slamming Brazo's face into his boot in the corner as blood gets all over it, then starts kneeing him directly in the cut repeatedly. I wish the DQ had happened in the tercera so we got the full set of falls, but this was great stuff.   

Dos Caras/Héctor Garza/La Fiera vs. Bestia Salvaje/Dr Wagner Jr./Satánico CMLL 4/3/96

MD: The primera here was a super fun two minutes. First Caras and Fiera mowed through Bestia and Satanico with double teams, including a Hart Attack of sorts on Satanico. Then Wagner got the better of them with a flying double clothesline and Garza flew around for him before hitting a clutch roll up. From there, they did one of those multiman submissions where the third guy kneels on the shoulders of the person/people being stretched. You almost never see the tecnicos doing that and Garza paid for his hubris with Wagner pulling him off so he took a nasty bump into the ropes and then got posted, but the tecnicos still took the caida. 

The segunda started with in and out exchanges, with Wagner getting the best of Fiera and then everyone basing for Garza (who had to make frequent comebacks admittedly). They went around with it until Wagner ended up dangling from the ropes on a great bump/stooge spot, before the rudos finally took over. Wagner finished Garza off with both a superplex and a top rope splash, one after the other, doing it all himself (well, Satanico held Garza down at the end, not that it was needed). The beatdown that followed was short and nasty, with Satanico driving his foot into Garza's groin as the other rudos held him and chewing on his fingers. He meandered too close into the tecnico corner and they turned it around for some final exchanges, some rudo miscommunication, and then a triumphant tecnico victory including Wagner walking around forever with Caras on his shoulder holding an armbar before they finally rolled forward. As fun as you'd expect with guys this talented. 

ER: This had a great ramshackle feel to it. Tight rudo team who all had different ways of bumping cool in a large flat CMLL ring. It's a powerhouse rudo team with three workers who were all cool in different ways in 1996. Wagner got to show off his power, Bestia got to show off his speed and his grace while being built like Vincent Pastoricito, Satanico got to show off his cunning and sadistic leadership. But where they're at their best, is coming together to assault sweet young Héctor Garza. I don't know why Garza's magic didn't work in the United States. You watch his work in Mexico before his US run and his tecnico connection to crowds is so obvious, and it's just not there in WCW or WWF. His babyface presence and charisma mostly vanished on US TV. 

He was brought in to both WWF and WCW with plans on making him one of the pushed ones among his niche, but both bailed on him quickly. In WWF he was a two month foreign babyface firebrand, a busted experiment that stumbled so the later-that-year Taka Michinoku foreign babyface firebrand push. He was given the big solo in all the early WCW trios matches but never connected as even a top 5 luchador babyface with any WCW crowds. The charisma always instantly returned in Mexico and it's evident here. Any time the rudos focus on Garza the match becomes laser focused and Important. He is a tecnico muse to each rudo and inspires them to increased punishment. Satanico and Wagner seem like they take joy in assaulting Garza and I think Garza connects the way he does with Mexico crowds because some felt that sadistic joy and either felt he deserved it for being too pretty while other felt he was too pretty to deserve it. Wagner's top rope superplex and Superfly splash on on him was a real highlight, some real Welcome to the Big Leagues moment, and Garza in Mexico was still great at being the victim of those moments several years into his career. 

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Found Footage Friday: CMLL at the Olympic 5/28/94

Thanks to the great Roy Lucier we got a CMLL HandHeld from 1994!


Magneto/Benny Carranza/Sombra de Plata vs Terror Chicano/Crazy Boy/Renegado Estrada

PAS: Undercard no name lucha is the most watchable kind of anonymous wrestling. I haven't heard of any of these guys and wasn't inspired to deep dive on any of them, but we had some nice armdrag exchanges, a couple of solid C+ dives and a guy in Kiss makeup who took some nice monkey flips. Absolutely nothing to complain about. 

Louie Spicolli/Chavo Guerrero Jr/Mando Guerrero vs Bobby Bradley/Lover Boy/Torn Negro

MD: This was fun but got cut off short, though in a believable way given the build. The primera had a really solid pairing between Mando and Lover Boy where they took it to the mat and Mando didn't eat him up completely as he had a tendency to do. Tornado Negro spent the entire fall goading Chavito, who chased him around the arena, including spurring a big brawl where Mando accidentally took out someone in the crowd. In general, Bradley looked like he belonged, stooging big early and then just killing Chavo between the segunda and tercera with a pile driver and huge chop. If I read the results right, this was Spicoli pulling double duty as Los Mercanarios had led things off and he was game here, showing off some power and flair. It all got cut short after Mando big comeback when Chavo lost his cool again and pulled off Tornado Negro's mask. Mando made sure to get some extra attention post match trading blows with Lover Boy on their knees. It made sense, it probably fit into the overall card, but as a standalone I would have liked a real finishing sequence.

Los Mercenarios vs Los Toritos/Chamaco Rebelde

PAS: Mercenarios are Tim Patterson, Bill Anderson and Louis Spicolli. They had some nice looking bullying offense, one of them won the first fall with a nasty top rope Bret Hart forearm, another one had a great fist drop. The Technicos didn't really hold up their end of the bargain, they were really were ground bound and their punches looked weak. I am into the Mercnarios, and need to track down them against better opposition. 

Piloto Suicida/Jalisco/Hijo de Solitario vs Panico/Super Boy/Capitan Oro

PAS: This was a really fun undercard lucha match with the massive standouts being Super Boy and Suicida who were regular So-Cal dance partners. Super Boy should really have been a big star, but outside of some cool MPRO matches and a random couple of WCW matches he was mostly just an underground king. Super Boy hits a killer fatboy Superfly splash to win the first fall, has a very cool rope running exchange with Suicida in the second, and catches a wild Suicida dive in the third. Everyone else were fine workman like luchadores, but you could really tell Super Boy and Suicida were special 

Los Brazos vs Mocho Cota/Emilio Charles Jr/Bestia Salvaje

PAS: Welcome to the WON Hall of Fame Los Brazos. This was a great example of what these guys brought to the table, especially the incandescent Super Porky. The first fall was this killer rudo team trying and failing to solve the Porky problem, at one point Porky is carrying two rudos in his arm with one on his back, and he ended the fall with a wild falling senton, like a kid jumping back first on his bunk bed, except the bunk bed was three rudos. The fake heart attack is a classic Porky spot, and the rudos got a ton of heat for not stopping their attack even when Porky was getting CPR. I love the Brazos so much and every new match is a little gift

MD: Great showcase Brazos match against one of the best stooge rudo sides of all time in front of an amazingly game crowd. I wouldn't say they leaned into the heat quite as much as they could have but they were roaring for everything the Brazos hit. As much as I love Cota and as great as it is to see him go up against Porky, the standouts were probably Bestia and Oro who were just zooming around the ring. It was just spot after spot all enhanced by the rudos' reactions and the crowd's buzzing. What heat there was came after Cota dropkicked Porky in the chest and they brought out the EMTs, with the rudos attacking them anyway. Porky's sell where he was just stumbling around ringside crashing into chairs was amazingly tasteless in the best way. Eventually, he decided it was time to finish, so he rushed back to the ring and they had their comeback and the finishing sequence, which included a huge Brazo dive. I think there are only a handful of matches with this specific rudo side on tape so one more is a great addition and they couldn't be more perfect opponents for the Brazos.

Vampiro/Ultimo Dragon/Rayo de Jalisco Jr vs Black Magic/Negro Casas/Mano Negra

MD: Fairly good, by the books match, with a lot of Casas vs Dragon, at the height of Dragon's flipping prowess and plenty of Vampiro being Vampiro and Rayo being Rayo, but admittedly to the hot crowd's delight. I'll say this about them. They knew what to do here to get over. Vampiro especially had a sense of what he wanted to do and Smiley was game to help him. None of it looked all that pretty but it overall worked. Rayo, on the other hand, could just bounce about and flail his arms as people bumped around him and the fans would go wild, so what are you going to do? To be fair, he did hit a tope on Mano Negra at the end, but I think I summed up the rest well. No, the appeal here was Casas and Dragon. Sometimes it was a little too smooth, those one counts where they're already on their feet moving to the next thing, but for the most part, their exchanges were lightning fast in the best way, with Dragon defying both basic anatomy and physics in some of his escapes. When the rudos took over in the segunda, I liked how they used the open space around the ring to the fullest, but overall it wasn't super memorable and the comeback was Rayo having enough and deciding to just come in and interfere which had to follow Porky recovering from a heart attack, so maybe they should have thought it through more. The arch on Dragon's German Suplex to finish Casas was beautiful though and Casas was especially engaged and entertaining for all of the post match foolishness.

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New Footage Friday: SANTO! TANK! BABA! JUMBO! DANDY! MOGUR! ICEBERG!

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Giant Baba AJPW 5/14/77

MD: This was the final of the 77 Champion Carnival and I'm pretty sure Baba came into it worn down from dealing with Abdullah. Jumbo sensed his moment, his big opportunity, and threw everything he had to win. For the first minute or two, unfortunately, that meant containing headlocks. I was sort of regretting this one showing up. I've been spending a lot of time with 88-89 Jumbo lately, and it's a little hard to go back. Once Baba really started to fight out of it, however, the match opened up. Jumbo was determined to give him zero openings, meeting him more than half way with forearms and pure athletic aggression. Instead of the usual momentum shifts, Baba got hope spots, but Jumbo would close the gap and take back over. Ultimately, it wasn't his moment, and it took one good move for Baba to get the win. A few years later, it would have taken two or three and the match would have been the better for it. (Of course, twenty years later it would have taken ten or fifteen and the match would have been the worse for it). Still, everyone in that crowd knew what they had just witnessed: Jumbo dominating even a weakened Baba. He may not have won the match but he took another step towards what he would soon after become.

ER: This was maybe the most I've ever seen Baba dominated in a match, and while I'm not big on Jumbo from this era, it's a cool sight to see. Jumbo goes after him and keeps muscling Baba down to the mat with headlocks and then yanking forward on his neck. Once Jumbo even did a Phillie Phanatic kind of trick where he tripped Baba, and Baba did this athletic roll backward over Jumbo and wound back up on his feet. You got this sense that Baba was kind of biding his time, and was going to come down on Jumbo twice as strong, and then when that time came there was this great buzz where the crowd realized that Baba was supposed to be coming back strong, and wasn't. Baba was being effectively outstruck and outmuscled by Jumbo and that sense of buzz and panic was really exciting. It was cool seeing Baba getting hope spots, to see him completely outgunned. It was the hierarchy at the time, but I wish we got a couple extra nearfalls at the end, let Jumbo kick out of a couple big boots or something huge. I loved Baba's spry big left boot here, and how he hung Jumbo out on his flying clothesline, but I'm picturing the crowd reaction had Jumbo gotten a shoulder up ONE last time, and I just love how great the AJPW hierarchy style worked for so long, how well trained the crowds were to recognize when someone was exceeding their usual standing. 

Kato Kung Lee/Hijo Del Santo/Mogur vs. Hijo Del Gladiador/Kung Fu/Supremo CMLL Late 80s

MD: We're obliged to watch any new Santo that comes down the pipe. This was clipped but in a sort of "good parts only" way. You still got the sense of what was happening (primera = rudo beatdown; segunda = tecnico come back; tercera = exchanges with tecnico advantage). Santo and Kung Fu were captains, and while he took the time to bully Kung Fu pretty soundly, including at least three times of just casually walking across the ring and whacking him in the skull, Santo was able to have exchanges with all the rudos. We didn't quite get enough of everyone else. For instance, the camera completely missed whatever Hijo del Gladiador used to win the segunda, we don't get much Mogur at all, and while they teased the usual Kung Fu vs Kato Kung Lee battle, it ended with the rudos taking a powder and eating the countout. What we got here was good and iconic but it just made you want the rest.

El Dandy/Gran Cochisse/Hijo Del Santo vs. Pirata Morgan/Blue Panther/Bestia Salvaje CMLL Late 80s

MD: Another clipped affair where you still get a lot of good stuff but probably not quite enough of it. We got a lot of Dandy, Cochisse, Panther, and a bit less Santo and Bestia here. Past catching a Dandy dive like a brick wall, I barely remember Pirata being in this. Cochisse was pretty game for an older guy and at least tried a bunch of stuff (the best of which was urging his body to pull off a 'rana out of a standing stretch), though he had Panther to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Dandy looked like the best guy in the world, with a beautiful comeback punch out of nowhere and a killer clothesline. Panther was good all around but it was particularly striking when they spent a good fifteen seconds highlighting him gnawing upon Dandy's hand on the outside. Not the sort of Panther you were expecting.

PAS: This was a pretty wild brawl from what we got, with a chance to see some all time greats. Santo is cool in this kind of chaos, you don't expect him to kick your ass, but he is always ready and willing. Assuming this is late 80s Dandy is going to deliver at an all world level. He hit a enziguiri with Bestia running off the ropes, which was as cool as I have ever seen that move hit. We also get the wild Dandy over the top rope floating tope, which was one of the great dives of the 20th century. This is all chopped up sadly, so you lose some of the subtle flavors, but it is great we got to see what we got to see. 

Tank/Iceberg vs. Azrael/Rainman NWA Wildside 10/30/04

MD: We don't watch a lot of death matches around here and even then, I probably see less than the other guys. The appeal is fairly obvious. Wrestling is all about helping the crowd suspend their disbelief, not necessarily to make them feel like what they're seeing is real, but to accept it in the moment as its own sustainable reality. A lot of things can help with that, logical storytelling, compelling selling, great looking offense. Presumably, however, nothing is as quick and easy as people really getting hurt and there's no proof of that quite like blood. It's like injecting that suspension of disbelief into the fans' veins instead of crafting a beautiful picture that makes them feel it naturally. The premise are that there are weapons on poles in each corner. The camera vantage point means that we see a lot of violence but not necessarily any close-ups of the result of said violence, which I'm more or less fine with. Early on, Rainman and Azrael were able to get the weapons first as they were smaller, more agile, and that allowed for the only equalizer possible against Tank and Iceberg, but it wasn't going to last. It's a lot of violence that all escalates to the last corner and the thumbtacks. They serve as a certain center of gravity pulling the last third of the match towards the center of the ring. There's a moment where the ref hurts his hand on one during a count which actually helps the overall atmosphere and feeling of danger. The finish is completely believable with a flaming boot doing half the work and a huge double team by the NWA Elite off the top and into the thumbtacks doing the rest. It's not the sort of thing I want to watch every week, but it definitely got the job done.

PAS: Really cool to see some handheld Wildside show up, especially a gruesome brawl like this. Iceberg and Tank are such formidable babyfaces, that you almost need to come armed with implements of horror to have any chance at all. Every time I see Iceberg I am amazed at the agility he had for such an enormous man, he was really on the level of Vader or Jerry Blackwell. He takes a psychotic assisted powerbomb here, and hits one of the most devastating sit out spinebusters I have ever seen, it look like it powdered Rainman's spinal cord. We got a lot of gross stabbing and carving, and some fun stuff with thumbtacks which weren't completely played out by 2004. The flaming kick to the face was one of the cooler looking fire spots I have seen in a while and the finish had the violence and chaos you want from Cornelia GA. 

ER: I could watch Tank and Iceberg do anything. These two would have been a legendary team from another era, and watching them is always just a crushing reminder of the big fat man dearth we're dealing with now. At a certain point WWF just stopped seeking out fat guys, and fat guys stopped seeking out wrestling. There should be a steady pipeline of football guys who weren't good enough for the NFL, who are now also rapidly gaining size due to no longer having two a days in their life. How does NXT not have 7 of those guys? At some point the wrestling world changed and it unfairly passed over two real talents. Iceberg and Tank were the kind of guys who you could tell would have been great workers no matter their size, and I'm so happy they were big fat guys. They're two of the better bleeders of the 2000s, and throw right hands with their entire body, two guys who threw hands like they had never seen any wrestling past the territory days. You take their bleeding, and their big right hands, and insert them into any 1985 territory, and you have a big time drawing heel. I don't think you even need the death match portion of this for it to work, but Tank and Iceberg are great at integrating weapons. The thumbtack bumps all looked sick, loved that seated spinebuster right into the tacks, and Tank's STO followed by picking tack shrapnel out of his wrist was awesome. Tank eats a flaming kick, and that might be one of my favorite ever Wildside spots, just a killer moment that would have have me leaping out of my chair live. 

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New Footage Friday: LOS TALIBANES!! NICHO!! SANTO!! SATANICO!! HASHIMOTO!! OHARA!!

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Michiyoshi Ohara / Shinya Hashimoto/Masahiro Chono vs. Kengo Kimura/Tatsutoshi Goto NJPW 11/24/93

PAS: Japanese wrestling gang fights are some of my favorite types of wrestling matches and this was a great example. These are technically two matches, but basically one big fight with the pajama clad Heisei Ishingun guys hurling chairs and brawling with New Japan trainees while guys fight in the ring. Hashimoto is awesome in these kind of matches, he is prowling around the ring like a Rottweiler on a chain waiting to go fuck someone up. Goto was really great in this too, walking through Chono's kicks, and then KO Chono with a nasty suplex and staring down Hash while pinning him. Then of course post match all hell breaks loose again, and we get another rumble. I can imagine this stuff would have been incredible to watch live, and is pretty great to watch on a blurry handheld too.

MD: We've had our share of handhelds from this era of NJPW and the Heisei Ishingun stuff is all pretty glorious chaos. You can put yourself in the mindset of being in that crowd, living your life, toiling through the drudgery of your day, and then getting to bathe in this wild abandon at night. We have two matches here with the Fujinami one having been out there; I can't any sign of the tag being previously available. They all stream together like some sort of ECW bedlam, though, so we grouped them. As such, you can't really rate something like this like you would a normal match. What stuck with me afterwards was the swarm of purple gis, Chono getting tossed outside and chaos ensuing, Hashimoto getting held back by the ref, and the litany of kicks to the face, with the crowd fully lost in the turbulence of all of it.

ER: Ohara is already a noted New Footage Friday shit disturber, as last year we checked out a handheld from about a week after this that saw Hashimoto and Ohara going at it on a house show. Ohara's purple gi boys clashed big with Hashimoto's black jumpsuit young boys, and this match was an earlier iteration of Ohara's purple gi gang causing trouble. Hashimoto waging war on Heisei Ishingun is guaranteed Segunda Caida content, a guy who really conveys "man representing his side in war" better than most other legends. I really loved Ohara and Goto throughout this. Ohara is a guy with big strikes and imposing body language, big suplexes, and Goto works as kind of a less dominant version of Ohara. There is always some kind of commotion happening on the floor before, during, and after these two matches, constant pull aparts and chases down aisleways; and while I didn't find it as high end or as intense as some of the other gi guy brawls, the atmosphere for those is still always special.

El Hijo del Santo/Atlantis/Lizmark/Mr. Niebla/Ultraman Jr. vs El Satanico/Pirata Morgan/Black Warrior/Rey Bucanero/Arkangel de la Muerte CMLL Japan 9/24/98

PAS: This is a boatload of the greatest luchadores ever (along with awesome journeymen like Ultraman and Arkangel) given a lot of time to work a cool cibernetico. Like most ciberneticos we open with 8 or 9 really cool individual exchanges, Arkangel and Niebla do a bit of stooges comedy, Santo and Rey Buccanaro do a fast rope running exchange topped off with a great plancha, Black Warrior breaks out his all time great tope. Eventually the rudos take over and we get Atlantis and Lizmark outmatched and having to take on a bunch of rudos. We get some great Satanico vs. Lizmark sections which is an all time great feud we don't have a ton of footage on. The cibernetico format leads to a little more spottiness then an all time great lucha match, but this gets a ton of time to breath and it always great to see more of these guys.

MD: Apparently, we only had this in part before, but it's such an amazing array of talent, and structured pretty perfectly. There's some heated Morgan/Satanico frustration before and after (and it gets violent with collateral damage after) but it doesn't really impact the match itself. Early on, Niebla is so dynamic, Bucanero so daring and experimental (to the point that even when it doesn't work you give him full marks for effort), and Ultraman and Arkangel with unique connections to this particular crowd, and the action is all good. Eventually it settles down to 5-on-3, and since you have Santo, Lizmark, and Atlantis as the three surviving tecnicos, it feels like the most iconic thing imaginable. While you sort of wish Santo made it to the end instead, Atlantis' star power and presence was unmistakable here.

Bestia Salvaje/Emilio Charles Jr/Scorpio Jr vs Nicho/Damian 666/Halloween Tijuana 3/16/02

PAS: This match was a wager match with the captains hair being on the line. I am not sure if La Familia de Tijuana were technically rudos at this point in TJ, but this was worked like a rudo vs. rudo brawl with the Los Talibanes being super rudos (we are talking about 6 months after 9/11 here). 2002 Nicho was an all time bump freak, and he takes one of his signature ringpost tackle bumps and a crazy flip dive. Bestia was losing his hair here and was wrestling like it, he does this super cool almost cannonball style tope and spend much of the match covered in blood exchanging nasty slaps with Halloween. There is a little ref bump and interference shenanigans, this is Tijuana, but it is mostly six grizzly brawlers pounding on each other, which is exactly what you hoped this matchup would be.

MD: This was by the books, but with a thousand flourishes. Crotch-chopping, local hero Nicho isn't my favorite career version of Psicosis, but they were so over, so engaged, worked hard, and carried themselves with such star power. The primera was all rudo beatdown, the segunda had the comeback, the tercera was the back and forth, the dives, the finish, and that structure gave the swagger and violence and attitude meaning and depth.

ER: I would have been completely into this match had it been nothing but Bestia Salvaje throwing perfect dramatic back row right hands to Nicho and Halloween. I've been to see Tijuana lucha live several times, the atmosphere and arena are the best, and had I been there that night (I was there for dates right before and not far after this) I would have been jumping up and down watching Bestia 80% of the time. Luckily our camera man had that same level of interest, and nobody could have possibly disagreed. Bestia was a total force here, just slapping people around the entire match. His overhand chops and big shots to the face were making consistent loud contact the entire match, with Halloween especially taking the brunt of his attacks. We even built to a mammoth Bestia tope where he crashes full speed head-and-shoulder first into Halloween, just an absolute bleeding legend. I'm surprised Matt doesn't rate local hero era Nicho, as I'm a big fan of that era. Maybe because I saw him live? I don't think so, because every TJ handheld we have of him during this era shows a man not slowing down and working as hard as ever in front of hot crowds but no cameras. I've seen him take some of his wildest bumps on TJ shows, and you've probably seen Nicho take some bumps before. Here he gets insane distance on his ringpost bump, flying out so far past the post that I assumed he was doing an insane tope. Nope, just Nicho bumping like a lunatic. Scorpio and Charles were really good goons for Bestia's star power asskicking, Scorpio always there with a boot to break up a nearfall and Charles dropping elbows and doing silly buckled knee selling on clotheslines, Scorpio bleeding quality amounts of blood while threatening ringside fans who throw drinks on him. The nearfall sequence between Bestia and Halloween in the tercera was really high end, fast cradles and quick reversals that lead to several believable close pins, including Charles and Scorpio yanking the ref out at the perfect time of a sure pin. I'm not sure why we haven't dove in and reviewed all of these early 2000s TJ handhelds, as this really feels like the hottest era for that territory. 

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New Footage Friday: Andre, Heel Tito, Funk, Baron, Hara, Jericho, Bestia Salvaje

Terry Funk/Ashura Hara vs. Baron Von Raschke/Killer Karl Krupp AJPW 12/12/81

ER: This was an okay tag made up of some doppelgangers. Hara seems like he's trying to look like Funk with their matching trunks and matching curls, Baron and Krupp look like relatives, and they have an okayish match that the crowd was rabid for the whole way through. Baron is always so weird to me, as he's a legit athlete who rarely moves with any kind of athleticism, and this is cool because it's one of the very few times he ever was up against Terry. Seeing a stumbly goose stepper going up against Terry's stumbly punch drunk style brings some joy, and there's a fun haymaker blowout that ends with both of them comically flopping to the mat. There were plenty of clawholds, Krupp throws some nice knees, Krupp takes a big bump over the top to the floor (where we see a ringside area with no guardrails, which is intriguing), Terry hits a nice piledriver as the major highspot of the match, and again the fans are into it the whole time, rabidly. But I've seen tons of Funk matches against dodgy opponents that I enjoyed more than this.

MD: This never quite got to where I wanted it, but it was interesting for a few reasons. First, I love watching Funk, maybe the best seller ever, sell one of the coolest visual tools in 70s-80s wrestling in the claw. It makes me want to see a whole bunch of Funk vs Spoiler and Funk vs Mulligan matches that probably happened and we just don't have. Second, him stooging against the Baron is one of those match-ups I never realized I wanted. Funk would have fit in very well in mid-80s AWA. Third, Krupp is a guy I've always sort of written off but between the knees and the hip toss bumping, he was pretty spry here. Any new Funk performance is worth watching. Any unique Funk match-up is worth watching. I'm glad there's just more to discover.

Andre The Giant/Chavo Guerrero/Tito Santana vs. Willem Ruska/Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu NJPW 5/16/80

ER: I was drawn to this by the allure of Heel Tito - something I have never seen - but this was much more Heel By Default Tito in the background of a superstar Andre show. We got one little stretch of Tito acting as an honorary Guerrero brother helping Chavo take apart Riki's leg, but Tito really is the 5th or 6th banana of this one. Really, everybody was the 5th or 6th banana, because Andre was all kinds of bananas. Andre is fast and aggressive and takes a ton of risks, and an Andre who will run at you and throw his entire body towards you is downright horrifying. Look at the enthusiasm as he misses a big splash...but then outdoes himself by climbing up the turnbuckles from the apron, all the way up and over to the middle buckle, to miss another splash. Did he really almost slip and fall off the turnbuckles backwards to the floor!? Did he add that in the same way a tightrope walker does a couple of slips just for show? Or did a gigantic man almost plunge to the floor with no parachute? Check out Andre setting up being trapped in the ropes, and look how far into the ring he was when he threw himself backwards full speed to get caught. He is 40% of the way into the ring, takes a couple of dropkicks, and flies backward so fast that I fully expected the ropes to completely snap. Imagine the trust he must have had in that ring crew! And my god look at that Rockette kick that he flat out stuck when attacked in the ropes! He sticks that leg as high as I've seen him and it just gets buried. Our tecnicos acted like cavemen to Andre's wooly mammoth, taking cover when he stormed around the ring and jumping on him all at once the second he showed any weakness, although the Fujinami double leg takedown to start was spectacular. I loved Chavo attacking Riki's knee, the spot where he pole vaulted with his leg and seemed to float was my favorite non-Andre spot of the match. But here's Andre with his cheat code, the ability to end the match whenever he wants, deciding enough is enough, throws a lifeless Chavo into the ring from the floor, wasting Fujinami with an spine rearranging atomic drop and treating Ruska like a child's backpack. I think I only want to write about Andre the Giant.

MD: So, as you guys must know by now, a lot of the footage we've watched over the last year is because people have navigated Japanese ebay successfully. This was on a NJPW 1980 TV set and if you want to see more, go head over to PWO and find my pal PeteF3. We'll get to some of that stuff eventually (like some cool Spoiler matches and maybe the best look at Keith Hart being really good we've ever had), but not for a bit, so don't wait for us. The version I was working off of didn't transfer well, thus the four parts and audio problems, but the disc itself is better. I'm just not all that great at transferring things. You get the gist of everything here though (we miss one Chavo leap into the ring move that I wish we had) and hey, it just gives you kids a sense of what tape trading was like thirty years ago, right? This is something that everyone needs to see though.

Yes, there's an appeal to heel Tito, the legwork towards the end (which was really cool from all three foreigners), him eating the fall as Andre's drawn away with Hansen, the quick tags with Chavo, some of his feeding, the flying forearm that was more of a sledge, but this gets dwarfed by the amazing Andre performance. The first chunk of the match is pure Andre as Fezzik, or maybe the world's best Colossal Connection Andre performance. He gets swarmed and shrugs people off. He demands people get down off the top rope instead of jumping at him. One touch is death, but he's able to move so much better. This is heel Andre, in a tag setting, with partners he cherishes (which was always part of Heenan family Andre), but with him fully dynamic. As the match goes on, though, he's just all over the place. He misses two splashes, one off the second rope. He hits two suplexes, the biggest suplexes in history. There's a pile driver! Throughout this, the other team is bouncing off of him and trying everything they can. I love Ruska constantly badgering Andre and then running away from him as he gets furious and charges in like this was some sort of old cartoon. This is all Andre, right down to the finish where he chucks Chavo (who just ate a dive) back into the ring and lets Ruska bounce off of him from the apron, ensuring the count out by being a one-man wall. Even with the slight technical issues, there's nothing in the world I'd rather watch than stuff like this.

PAS: This was the uncut Fentanyl Andre, one of the purest examples of what makes him an all time great. He was both totally out of control and totally in control. The spot where he almost falls off the top rope (where he would kill several members of audience I imagine) only to steady himself, only to empty pool smash into the mat, fucking perfection. I also dug how much he seemed to be into his role as the monstrous Guerrero that Gory kept in the basement. There is a great spot where he is giving double fives to his partners, and Choshu comes over and dropkicks him. Andre turns around with such fury "MOTHERFUCKER I WAS DAPPING UP MY HOMIES, I AM GOING TO FUCK YOU UP." Loved the heels losing the fall because of Hansen only for Andre to clean out the faces and tie it up. Even as the show was going off the air, he was celebrating with Chavo and Tito by carrying them around the ring. What a fucking legend.

Chris Jericho/Crazy Boy/Falcon de Oro vs. Bestia Salvaje/Poison/Principe Joel Compton Lucha 3/1/96

MD: There was a lot to like here. When I come into these things (we'll say a lucha match in an alien setting, only being familiar with half the guys) I tend to look for a few things, first and foremost, the framework for how to watch a match: how are the opening pairings? Where are the momentum shifts? Are the transitions interesting? How much effort do they put into the beatdown? Do they sufficiently ramp up expectations for the comeback? How's the moment of comeback? Where do they go from there? What's the finish? Specifics like the quality of matwork or whether or not there's a central rivalry in the match or coordinated tandem offense and crowd control in the beatdown or if there's an interesting dive train or what sort of crowd or wrestler-to-wrestler interaction are in there? All of that then fits in.

This hit a lot of those marks. The opening exchanges up to the tecnico primera win were all good. Great energy from the tecnicos. This was really good use of 96 Jericho: fiery, enthusiastic, throwing himself into everything, getting triple teamed and trying to fight back, game enough in his exchanges. I was honestly amazed that Falcon de Oro was able to hit something of the stuff that he did given his body type. The transition in the segunda was great, as it played up the Jericho vs Bestia central story and had the rudos act particularly despicable. That helped ramp up pressure for the eventual comeback, which was spirited, with fun dives and a nice bit of satisfaction snatched away as Jericho couldn't get his revenge. Presumably that set up another match, though with the really fun late run in, who knows?

PAS: This was house show HH trios match which hit all of the expected beats, but had enough cool wrinkles and great performances to push it up a level. Bestia is one of the greatest all time swarming heels, kind of like a lucha Buzz Sawyer. He really pushes the pace when he is in there with Jericho, and Jericho is game and willing to go there with him. All of your So-Cal regulars looked really good too, with Falcon De Oro being a really fun Super Astro style tubby flyer. They clearly all worked with each other a bunch and their primera caida exchanges were all super crisp. Principe Joel is Bestia's brother and he was very much in the spirit of the family, working just a little stiffer then you might expect. He apparently had (or has?) a wrestling school in Colorado, and I am guessing trained a bunch of local luchadores here in Denver (Luchawiki is the best). I liked the finish with the rudos going overboard until Misterioso (maybe, not super familiar with the booking of mid 90s Compton lucha) runs in and we get a nifty post match.

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New Footage Friday: Funks, Invaders, Bestia, Dandy, Eddie, JBL

Terry/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Invaders WWC 12/9/86

MD: This is a find. Our Man in Puerto Rico tells me that that it was from a Clasicos segment that aired round 04-05 with a date of 12/9/86. The match itself is simple and straightforward, much more of a Southern Tag than a wild brawl like you'd expect from a Terry Funk Puerto Rico match. I love how much mileage they get just out of the headlock in the first third, with lots of babyface masked confusion switches and the heels getting flustered and Terry, especially stooging all over the place.

The heat has some more object-assisted choking (a theme this week), this time with Terry's wrist tape and the Funks getting some revenge for all the clowning of the first third. Invader 1 remains one of the greatest sellers of all time. The comeback was earned with him hitting a shot off the ropes like only he can but then having to dodge an elbow smash by Terry (who clocks Dory). The finish was brief but hot and I'm only disappointed we couldn't see the action on the outside with Invader 1 chasing after Terry.

ER: This was amusing, but kind of reverse of what you want. On paper you hope for white Invader masks turned red (why else would you be wearing a white mask!?) and we don't get a plasma match, we get more of a headlock match with some occasional fun Terry shtick. Terry has super short curly hair and his cop 'stache, but the bulk of this is Dory headlocks and Invader headlocks, and the tough part of Terry being such a fun hot tag is Dory is not usually an interesting guy to build to a Terry hot tag. You'd rather have Terry stumbling and swinging wildly to build to a some Dory hot tag forearms, but you get Dory headlocking his way into Terry throwing some punches and taking a couple loopy bumps. Terry is always going to be an amusing apron guy, there's always gold in them thar hills, but seeing him throw a nice punch from the apron isn't quite what I wanted here. A polite professional match, and professionally polite is never what you want or expect from 80s Puerto Rico OR Terry.

PAS: Terry Funk is such a master performer that any chance to fill in the holes in the tapestry is going to be well worth it. This is a minor performance, but a fun one. We did get a lot of Dory, and while we got a fun uppercut battle, Dory is going to be a bit dry. Invaders work a bunch of switches and double teams around a headlock early in the match, isolating Dory, and I am just disappointed I didn't get to see Terry react to getting hoodwinked like that. It got a little buzzy at the finish but more of a time capsule then a great match.

El Dandy vs. Bestia Salvaje CMLL 9/30/92

ER: This is another gem provided to us by premier wrestling YouTube champion Roy Lucier, a guy who makes this feature feel like we need to be doing it more than once a week just to catch up. It never quite struck me until we saw Dominic Garrini live 3 times in one day, but blurry YouTube video early 90s Bestia Salvaje is a spitting image of Dominic Garrini. I bet Garrini could grow his hair out a bit into Bestia's cool curly mullet shag. And if that Funks tag wasn't what we wanted, this match is exactly what we wanted (though we were kind of expecting some blood). I think it was a title match, but it was worked more like a stips brawl, but it didn't have the blood of a stips brawl. It was a fusion that worked and built to a scorching tercera. Bestia lived up to his gimmick name throughout, and I dug his hard kicks in the primera (ending with a two kick combo to Dandy's inner thighs), and viciousness in the segunda that backfires and ends with Dandy violently locking him into a brutal figure four stumpuller pin. You could feel a big tercera was on its way and yes that happened. Dandy takes a super fast and crazy bump into the third row, Salvaje hits a nice dive that sends Dandy back into seats, Bestia even comes running at Dandy with a ripped of row of hardass metal chairs and  - while we're used to Park taking something stupid like that - Dandy gets the hell out of Dodge once he sees 17 edges of sharp metal flying towards him, and that was a great visual. These two are pros and their exchanges were the kind of airtight gracefully violent lucha that plays so well to us.

MD: This is billed a title match, and I'm pretty sure it is, but it's definitely an odd one, especially for 92. By the time we come in, I assume they've already done the initial matwork, because we're deep into Bestia Salvaje drawing heat, beating Dandy on the ropes, choking him, biting him. I don't think this is a heel ref scenario but he's certainly hapless early on, preventing Dandy from using rudo tactics (like, you know, punching) in his first attempt at a comeback and missing about sixteen fouls from Bestia. I really liked the end of the primera, which had Bestia go out to jaw at a fan who threw something at him, allowing Dandy to come back with some great punches on the outside, only to get fouled back in the ring as the ref was still focused on the fan.

The segunda had a chain, choking and Dandy's biggest comeback of the match, whereas he got it and turned the tables on Bestia. The tercera had some more heat, another comeback by Dandy, including some great use of the side of the ring, just a hint of crazy brawling on the floor, and your dives and a finish out of nowhere.

Bestia drew a ton of heat with his cheating in a title match (I'm pretty sure that was what was going on here) and Dandy was sympathetic as ever, but the comebacks were a bit too sputtering and not quite triumphant enough to make this work as well as it should have. It was fine to use the ref actively and inactively to delay and defer it in the primera, but I think the comeback in the segunda should have been a bit more definitive. If you're going to lean into heat on a title match, make sure the payoff works out too. Still a good find though.

PAS: The graphic of this match said Super Libre, and I think it was that not a title match. Matt mentioned missing the matwork, but I think we got the match bell to bell and they didn't have any matwork, just started throwing. Dandy was such a multi tool player, he could brawl like an all time brawler, work the mat like a maestro and mix in suplexes and puro influenced stuff like the upcoming generation of guys who started watching tapes. Here we get the big time brawling, standing nose to nose against a hellacious asskicker like Bestia, the throws with a couple of big time spinebusters and a bit of technical wizardry with his pin combo. I liked the chain stuff, which is a old school wrestling trope you don't see much of in lucha, and the third fall was appropriately manic. If that chair hurl landed this would have amped up to an all timer level, it was a bit below that but a great unearthing by our boy Roy.

JBL vs. Eddie Guerrero WWF 6/3/04

ER: This was from a WWF Italy tour when Italy was the hottest wrestling market in the world, and my god does it deliver as any Eddie/JBL match we've seen thus far. It gets a lot of time, going past 25 minutes and building steadily. The headlock exchange at the beginning could have been rough, coming right after a good long look at Dory's headlocks, but instead Eddie and JBL show how damn awesome a long headlock sequence can be. Eddie especially throws a few perfect uppercut punches in a headlock, one of those things that is worth the price of admission alone. The important thing is we always built to something big out of the headlocks, as each guy's big moves were nicely executed and hit hard. JBL threw some of his best elbows (sometimes he could straighten his arm out a bit much to take away the "point of elbow" visual, here he threw heavy landing/tightly tucked elbowdrops, really among his best ever) and his lariat was really throat crushing. Eddie's stuff looked so good, I really miss seeing this guy, he was my favorite wrestler in the world when he passed and performances like this are part of it. Seeing him get caught on a crossbody but shifting it into a DDT, done with their movements, reads like such a big and special spot (as it should). The finish is even the kind of house show finish you would dream of if you were taking your kid to a show, as we get some big heel bumps (heel Kurt Angle was at ringside the whole time in a wheelchair and cast, Luther Reigns was pushing him), especially liked Luther Reigns taking a big backwards bump off the apron. But then all the biggest babyfaces at the time run out to hit big moves, so you have triumphant, Cena and Mysterio spots and a big RVD frog splash, the kind of extended moment that sent every kid and adult home incredibly happy. This was an awesome feud at the time and I don't think they ever had a poor match, now we see what they do off camera in Europe and it's clear we need to see every singles and tag from this era with these two on opposite sides.

MD: The 00s wrestling boom in Italy is one of my favorite things I know absolutely nothing about. Actually, I know Rikishi was big in Italy. That's the one thing I know. This was a WWE tour. I missed a lot of the Eddy vs JBL feud in real time (though I've gone back and seen the big matches) since I was abroad for the first half of the year. I love that this show had not just Chavo Jr. and Sr. vs Nunzio and Spike but that the Chavos won the match. Typical WWE killjoy booking. I wish we had that match too.

Anyway, this was a really good house show match (which last week established that we tend to enjoy) sandwiched by enjoyable WWE house show BS with Angle and Luther Reigns and a bunch of babyfaces. Eddy's lie, cheat, steal shtick meant that he could fill a shine with a ton of ritualistic entertaining nonsense. JBL made a great straight man for it too. Here it was all based out of a headlock with JBL trying to pull the hair to get out and Eddy osscilating between palm strikes and punches depending on the ref's position.

They laid the rest of this out smartly, with a lot of paralleled sequences and repetition of spots (for instance, a lot of the heat was JBL choking Eddy with his wrist tape. Eddy hit a belly to back to get free and started choking JBL who then hit a belly to back of his own ending that sequence and letting them move on to the next chapter; likewise, they smartly used multiple fall-away slams or attempts as a transition or to tease one, with the third attempt being turned into a DDT that helped to set up the finish). This had about three levels of feel-good finish and almost certainly made up for poor Nunzio losing earlier.

PAS: God do I love Eddie Guerrero. he is a guy who had a relatively short career for an all time great (15 years basically 1990-2005, consider how long Santo or Casas wrestled at a high level) so every new Eddie match is a mitzvah. He is especially great to watch in the house show format. He is such an electric performer and can really take the house show shortcuts and tropes and make them shine. Great JBL performance too, as he was great at flipping that switch between a stooge and a killer. He is a foil for Eddies stuff, but when he turns it on, he just crushed him with elbow drops, hurled him with throws and severed his head with a lariat. Loved the finish with every babyface in the back taking out every heel in the back, although RVD ending a show with a big frogsplash is pretty insulting on a show headlined by Eddie Guerrero.

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Santo and Casas Keep Themselves Depleting Their Spiritual Wealth

El Hijo Del Santo/Bestia Salvaje vs. Super Astro/Negro Casas CMLL Japan 2/1997 - EPIC

PAS: Fukenmania on youtube has been uploading a ton of previously unseen CMLL Japan matches, and this is the crown jewel. Rudo Santo is so much fun to watch. His character is naturally arrogant, he is the son of a saint after all, and I loved how he weaves that arrogance into the match. He is perfectly willing to show off his technical skills, but if he gets one upped or challenged he turns vicious and starts stomping heads. I loved how he just viciously and contemptuously chucks Astro face first into the mat after submitting him with the Caballo. We get some great unusual matchups, I am not sure how many times Super Astro and Santo wrestled each other but it would have to be in single digits, and they have some pretty graceful exchanges and then it gets unfriendly.  Casas versus Bestia is really great too there are both such nasty brawlers and they just throw hands with speed and viciousness. I love the way Bestia throws a clothesline, he just clubs someone right in the side of their neck.  So happy this showed up.

MD: This was an amazing find, just a great hybrid of lucha-in-Japan spots and pure, visceral hatred from four great luchadors. I'm not sure what Lucha Fiesta 97 was but they wrestle this match in Korakuen Hall like it was a huge deal, putting as much effort into this as something you'd see on a huge CMLL show in Arena Mexico. While it still had that flair that you get from high end lucha touring in Japan, everything still had extra oomph to it, extra meanness. Casas' clotheslines were huge. I loved his rapid fire elbows to the skull (instead of a ten punch) in the corner. Super Astro was killing people left and right, tossing them into chairs, crowning them with chairs, putting more into a springboard twisting senton or just the leap back headbutt than I've ever seen out of him before, just crushing people with his tope. I've rarely seen Santo so mean either, putting in an extra stomp whenever he could. The sheer swagger he had in locking in the Caballo was just rudo perfection. The Casas vs Santo stuff was even better than you'd expect, given the setting, just dripping with hatred and the spirit of competition. Maybe it wasn't as big as in some matches due to the setting, but the actual work was exceptional and gritty as hell. Even early on, they worked stuff you've seen a hundred times just a bit sharper and rougher, be it Santo's cross-legged headscissors or just an extended front facelock exchange. It wasn't just the two of them either. All four made things look gritty and mean that you just take for granted as light and airy (like that back headbutt from Super Astro that usually looks downright dainty). The dive train was nuts. There were so many little throw away spots and bumps that almost got lost in the intensity of this. They almost killed Casas on a double back body drop for instance. The selling was there (including some heat on Casas; the crowd started even but learned very quickly to boo Santo), with them making use of the tag format to break up pins/holds. There were moments where it meandered but I didn't care because it was meandering with them all trying to beat each other to a pulp. All that and the pure novelty of rudo Santito falling for Super Astro's fakeout antics (early on, before escalation, right at the spot of the match where it belonged). Incredible find.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SANTO VS. CASAS

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MLJ: 8/1/1997 Torneo Cibernetico

1997-08-01 @ Arena México

Torneo Cibernetico

There was a moment where I thought we were looking at a MOTYC here. Then, after a major detour, there was yet another moment where I thought the match could still pull it out. Ultimately it didn't but it's still well worth watching. In some ways it's late 90s CMLL at its best.

First of all, look at the talent involved. For tecnicos, you had Negro Casas, Felino, Ultimo Dragon, Shocker, and Fiera. For Rudos, it was Hijo del Santo, Scorpio, Jr., Bestia Salvaje, Dr. Wagner, Jr., and Satanico. Shocker and Wagner weren't fully developed yet (though they had years under their respective belts). Fiera wasn't what he had once been. Dragon has some definite flaws as an all-around wrestler, but ciberneticos were made to smooth out all of those things.

More importantly, there were two major feuds here, and there would be, in the subsequent weeks following this, two major apuestas matches, the Fiera vs Bestia Salvaje one a couple of weeks before the Anniversary show and then the long-overdue Casas vs Santo match at the Anniversary itself. That brought the heat and the structure of payoff, with Salvaje dodging Fiera until the very end (mainly using Scorpio as a shield), and with Wagner and Santo targeting Casas. It's what's so often lacking in modern cibeneticos. They're all action and usually worth watching, but they're rarely grounded with any sort of substance to them.

Here there was plenty of that, on top of a lot of fun pairings. Satanico looked great as a base for Felino. Dragon was at his explosive best. Santo and Casas differentiated their feud with that of Salvaje and Fiera by actively going at it. Fiera, on the other hand, seemed amused by Salvaje's stooging cowardice:

Great action and quality workers buoyed by two storylines is more than you can ask for from any CMLL cibernetico. Unfortunately, it veered too far into the realm of story progression. Just before the commercial break, Wagner dropped Casas with a brutal sit-out martinete. He and Santo continued on him in the corner and then as he was being brought to the back as Felino and Dragon tried to provide interference. It was super heated but both took a number of the best wrestlers out of the match and caused a distraction where we didn't see the action in the ring for a few minutes. Casas continued to sell it on the ramp but with Felino's help, he fought back enough where he was able to appeal to the crowd and make it to the back on his own power.

Even then, I thought everything would work out because we'd have a string of falls followed by some assuredly heated Salvaje and Fiera exchanges. They both had it in them after all. We did get the former, but the latter was a non-starter. They went at it a bit before an inadvertant ref bump ended the match. Fiera wanted things to continue and Salvaje, having tasted blood and also knowing that he had a DQ loss if things stood as they were wasn't playing chicken anymore, but they only got a few shots in before the ref separated them again. Deferring gratification is part of what makes lucha tick but in this case I wish they had been allowed to go at it a bit more first.

So this wasn't an all-time classic but it is a solid cross-section of what CMLL had to offer going into the Anniversary show. If nothing else, you'll get to see a deranged Lucky Charms commercial if you watch it (I'm sure Phil will love this gif being on the site):

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1999 Match of the Year

El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas v. Scorpio Jr./Bestia Salvaje CMLL 3/19/99

PAS: This is one of the last great bloody Arena Mexico apuestas matches. Scorpio and Bestia are a pair of awesome grizzled ugly rudos who come out smoking. They totally bum rush Santo and Casas slam them into the seats and the barricade and bloody them up. Santo is one of wrestlings great bleeders, but it is rarer to see Casas leaking like this. Total one sided violent domination by the rudos in the first fall. The tide turn is awesome Santo is getting double teamed, and as the rudos whip him into the ropes, Casas grabs his torso, throwing off the timing and allowing Santo to hit them with a double clothesline and take control. Technicos take over and get revenge cutting up both rudos. Third fall is a classic with lots of crazy dives, near falls and gritty violence. All four guys are amazing, but man alive is Casas on another level here, he is one of the most expressive wrestlers in history, just watching his face is such a pleasure. Pain, discouragement, glee, anger it is all there, just a maestro.

ER: Wonderful lucha tag match with two legends versus two goons. Bestia Salvaje has a face that lucha masks were invented for, Scorpio the same but had the sense to wear a mask. Bestia and Casas both have their 1989 Lou Reed hair on the line, Santo and Scorpio have their masks up. I have actually attended a Santo mask match live, versus Super Parka in 2003 almost 13 years ago to this date. I talked to tons of fans around us and asked them who they thought was leaving with their mask, and none of them thought Parka had a chance. Several of them all said their wives even asked why they were even attending, as even they knew that Santito was keeping his mask. One guy said he told his wife, "I know he's going to win. But I want to see HOW he wins." Another, in explaining to me what a big deal Santito was, told me, "You have HHH. We have Santo." Yes, that response sounded as awful in 2003 as it does now, but that was the perception at the time, at least to this one man in Tijuana. And another man was my hero, as he basically got me to believe in Santa Claus. He said, "I know Santo is going to win. But you never know. Parka could change his mind in the ring and something might happen." Holy shit. Masks on the line. What if Super Parka pulled a fast one?? It couldn't happen, right? It didn't. But damn if I didn't hang on every 2 count. What if Parka held him down on a cradle and the ref didn't know what to do?? It added a layer of drama that I felt from the 2nd row. And somehow that one guy made me a sucker for lucha stips matches for life, no matter how seemingly in the bag they are.

A few of the little and big moments I loved: 1) Santo's comeback kneelifts were the best. Bestia took each one as if it were caving in his sternum, and most of them looked like they were doing just that. The kneelift is a Santo staple, but often it's a move done on the run, more back slap than knee to chest, slowing down an opponent to set up something bigger. Here he's landing them like he's prime Anderson Silva. 2) The end of the segunda was such a tremendous Bestia emotional performance. He cheated, he uppercut low on Casas and got caught. But he baaaaarely got caught, and he knew he barely got caught. There was no appeal to the ref, no appeal to the crowd, just a man slumped in the corner knowing he was *this* close to getting Casas out of the way, and here he was coming to terms that things are evened up on paper and the momentum may be shifting. 3) That misguided tope was one of the best ever, not just for how it hit, but for what it meant and for how it played on our collective expectations. Casas grabbed and held onto Scorpio on the floor while Santo dispatched of Bestia, and then I'm thinking "jeez Casas has been just holding Scorpio still for quite awhile..." and then Santo does his beautiful tope...and Scorpio moves, sending Santo into Casas and Casas into the front row. And it's a beautiful moment as Bestia and Scorpio had been looking drained just before this, not just physically tired but they looked like the spirit was getting drained out of their bodies by their imminent defeat. And once Santo crashed into Casas their body language just changed. They knew this was their last chance and they jumped on it. It didn't last long. But in that moment you couldn't have asked for more from them. Great stuff all around.


ONGOING ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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MLJ: Emilio Charles Spotlight 2 w/bonus Casas vs Cota: Corazon De Leon, La Fiera, Negro Casas vs Bestia Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr., Mocho Cota

1994-04-08 @ Arena México
Corazon De Leon, La Fiera, Negro Casas vs Bestia Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr., Mocho Cota


1993 - CMLL - Tag Match by Y2JFans

I missed this one on my way through 1994 Mocho Cota. What's cool about the match is that it's an intersect between the Fiera/Charles feud and the Cota/Casas feud. Yes, we have young, green Jericho to bring everything down a bit, but Salvaje can hold up his end so that's not a huge deal. This was the following week from the Fiera vs Charles singles match and fills in the gap between that and the hair match. For Casas and Cota it's during the period where Casas had temporarily shifted tecnico before stumbling back towards rudoness and their eventual hair match in the fall.

This is as bloody and heated as it had to be to set up what they were trying to set up. It was a bit of a mess too, but a forgivable one. The rudos took over immediately with the logical pairings. It was really a great beat down, although once or twice Jericho stumbled in when he shouldn't have. Thankfully, part of the joy of rudo beatdowns is that if someone seems unsure of what to do, they'll probably get the crap beat out of them in short order. In this case, Salvaje was more than happy to missile dropkick Jericho in the face. Meanwhile, Cota was focused on stomping Casas' leg for about five minutes in the corner, which was more effective than it sounds. I think by this point Casas and Fiera were both bleeding. Ultimately, Charles pinned Fiera after one of those super high back body drop bumps that Fiera takes. And Cota put an exclamation point on the fall by slamming Casas' leg into the ring apron's wooden enclosure.

The comeback didn't quite live up to the beatdown. By the end, it was good, but it was a bumpy road to get there. Fiera, as mentioned before, is really good at building up an earned comeback. The spin kick (here on Cota) was a pretty useful weapon for that, since he could hit it out of nowhere, but it left him vulnerable to attack in at trios match. As he was getting attacked by Salvaje and Charles, Casas grabbed Cota's legs and posted him from the inside out, groin first. So far, so good. It was a great moment, but then they sort of stumble back into a reset and the rudos swarm again before Fiera hist a back brain kick out of nowhere and the tecnicos finally rush forth to really take over. Sometimes I like that little fold to make things harder for the good guys to really establish control and get revenge, but here it just seemed confused. That's not to say there weren't some fun moments like Casas and Jericho missing a couple of double clotheslines on Salvaje, looking annoyed at one another as Salvaje gloated and then double dropkicking him in the face. Also, Casas hit his no-rope bounce springboard back elbow on Cota and that's just an amazing spot and one of those moments where you remember that Younger Casas definitely could do things that Older, still awesome, Casas just can't.

The tercera, which was a reset, some rope running, and a lot of pin break ups as guys cycled in and out also had a few moments like that, most especially, Casas SAILING across the ring with a dropkick out of nowhere. The momentum he had behind it was nuts. I think of the best dropkicks I've seen in my life, like the one that ended Santana/Martel vs High Flyers and they're all usually ones that get high elevation but are basically static with a guy running into it face first. This was like a corner drop kick in its momentum (and we all know that Casas can do those) but in the middle of the ring. Things ended with Fiera taking his over the top back body drop bump and Jericho getting lifted up and kicked over the top. This left Casas outnumbered and quickly disposed of so they could shift the focus back to Fiera vs Charles. The rudos held Fiera. Charles punched him repeatedly. The ref called for a DQ and they heated things up for the hair match.

The VQ on this isn't great. It's on Dailymotion. Without the Hair Match, you're going to end up ultimately unsatisfied, and in general, it doesn't quite reach the level that you'd hope it would coming in, but this is heated with some great individual spots and probably worth watching if you've got twenty minutes to kill.

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno B-14: Bestia Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr., Último Guerrero b Black Warrior, Satánico, Shocker

2001-05-04 @ Arena México
Bestia Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr., Último Guerrero b Black Warrior, Satánico, Shocker

One of the trickiest parts of doing some of these projects of old matches is that people keep posting things. So far as problems go, this is one that I'm glad to have. I meant to take a week to go through a few more matches on my GdI comp before moving back to something more modern but then I spotted a newly posted singles match between Ultimo Guerrero and Satanico. That reminded me that I really hadn't looked for anything BUT matches with both UG and Rey Bucanero in them, and I should broaded my search just to see what was there. This, from the week before, is what I found, so I'm doubling back to do this one and the singles match, and then I'll figure out something related for Friday.

The Shocker/Satanico alliance is a little weird to me, but it was definitely a thing around here and had been for most of the year. It made sense. They were on the verge of debuting Averno but Satanico needed someone to team with against GdI after they turned on him and Shocker carried at least part of the crowd, even as a rudo. They were certainly in the "babyface" role here, with Warrior relatively non-descript but effective enough as a guy in a mask who wasn't going to turn the crowd.

Charles was very good at what he does. He had great punches and was very solid at rudo control segments, just in being in the right place at the right time and laying in suitable punishment. He was also skilled at stooging and eating offense when the time came. Salvaje seemed like he was maybe a step behind from a few years before but this wasn't the sort of match where he had to eat a lot of quick tecnico offense so it was fine.

These matches are well worth watching for the heat and for the hatred between Ultimo Guerrero and Satanico. CMLL got a year or so out of it and it was a year that didn't feel bloated or inflated, from what I can tell. They probably could have gotten two years out of it. This started violent and ended violent and in some ways was the most "Memphis" CMLL match I can remember seeing.

Guerrero and Satanico went right at it to start the primera. Satanico had rushed the ring and that led to a 3 on 1 for a minute before Shocker came out to even the odds. This was a brief but hard hitting couple of minutes, with brawling around the ring. It ended with Shocker snapping the Reinera on Charles and Salvaje getting hung up dangling in the ropes and legdropped by Black Warrior. It seemed a bit early for that spot back in 2001, but they didn't make it feel contrived at all. It's something that works so much better when there are partners to set it up than in singles matches.

There weren't even breaks between caidas here. The brawling just kept on going, with UG's team getting the advantage by playing the numbers, mainly. Charles drove Black Warrior out and then it was three on two for long enough to shift the momentum and start a very solid beat down with Guerrero biting Satanico, Charles ripping at Warrior's mask, a senton de la muerte on Shocker, a double pancake on Black Warrior, and submissions on Warrior and then Satanico (the latter by UG) following this triple dropkick on Warrior:

Again, the violence continued through the caida shift, with the refs trying to break it up. Then, out of nowhere, they start tossing around an illegal object and use it behind the ref's back, passing it aroudn to avoid detection. I've never seen this before in CMLL (though it could be a staple of either Charles or Salvaje as it'd fit them, sort of). It eventually ended up in what seemed to be a pocket of Guerrero's. Despite taht, Satanico's team came back, with Shocker sticking Salvaje's foot in a chair to trap him. Satanico had one of his great babyface flurries (after putting his straps down, all Memphis-y) with two hart attack clotheslines and some real mask tearing. UG pulled out the object though and nailed him with it for the pin, passing it to Charles after the match in order to keep the ref from seeing it.

I could watch Satanico and Guerrero beat the crap out of eachother over another twenty matches and it's too bad we don't have more. We do have their singles match though, and I'll get to that next.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 2/12/93

WE DECLARE WAR

ER: This is a handheld, and I can't think of a much nerdier way to spend a Saturday morning than watching a camcorder-documented recording of a small Japanese wrestling promotion from 20 years ago.

PAS: People have been going nuts over New Japan slugfests lately, but Ishii v. Shibata would be the third stiffest match on an average WAR show, so we are bringing back WAR Wednesdays!!

1. Yuji Yasuroka vs. Bestia Salvaje

ER: This match is joined in progress so we only get 3 minutes or so, but even in 3 minutes of matwork, a lightning fast majistral and a big dive you could tell how amazing Salvaje was in the 90s.

PAS: This would have been a fine CMLL tourney lucha match, but hard to get much of a sense of a 2 minute finish

2. Yoshiro Ito vs. Koki Kitihara

ER: This is also joined in progress and then we also get the back of an Asian man's head in the way of the camera for the first couple minutes. He was in the way of all the punches, and then moved in time for the chinlock sequence. Good gag, dude. But we still get a few awesome minutes of no-cooperation suplexes and hard kicks to the face and chest. Felt like something if we got even 7 minutes of it uninterrupted, could have been a lost 90s gem.

PAS: I am not sure about a gem, as Ito has never shown me much, but Kitihara is perfectly willing and able to face kick and clothesline and I enjoyed it.

3. Chavo Guerrero/Masao Orihara vs. Kodo Fuyuki/Nobukazu Hirai

ER: Fuyuki and Hirai beat the piss out of Orihara which is what you wanted out of this because Fuyuki and Hirai can dish a beating and Orihara can die. But then it grows into something much more and gets GREAT. Once Chavo tags in Hirai starts bumping all around and we get all sorts of great sequences with Orihara tagging in and getting beaten up in between trying death defying stupid moves to the floor. Orihara is obviously a bump machine but also has really great offense, dishing out a brutal clothesline and piledriver and a mad senton. Hirai dishes out the chubby frankensteiner and holy shit this gets goooooood. I really liked the team of Fuyuki and Hirai (Fuyuki especially is really awesome in this, as even though he was a part of some awesome Footloose tags a few years earlier I really love tubby Fuyuki the best), and Chavo works stiffer here than I recall him working in any of the 80s sets (though not a shocking thing to see happen in WAR). The dead lift suplex that Chavo ends the match with would impress Karelin.

PAS: Yeah this was totally badass. Total treat to see Chavo do his thing, he was still really agile and impressive at this later part of his career, the finish run was pretty intricate and fast and he worked it perfectly, in between wandering in and slapping dudes in the mouth. Orihara takes some nutty bumps and unloads quite a bit, Hirai hit all of his stuff which he doesn't always do, and fat pissed off Fuyuki was great. I loved him running in to break up a pin and just smashing Orihara's head into the mat like he was trying to break a coconut. Very good match

4. El Samurai vs. Ultimo Dragon

ER: This right here would have been the reason I bought this show if it were 1998. Now I'm far more interested in watching the barrel chested guys punch each other in the neck. This ends up going full 30 minute draw and it's pretty damn good and more proof that Samurai was the most underrated junior of the 90s. The opening matwork is really engaging as they trade submissions and reverse holds in cool ways. It never really felt like they were just filling time. Samurai goes full on dick city and Garvin stomps every inch of Ultimo's arm, then wraps him up in all sorts of triangle variations that probably seemed pretty far out 20 years ago (and still look cool today). Dragon eventually don't give no damn about it, but you all expected that so oh well. Ultimo still does some cool and unexpected things, like muay thai knees from the clinch and a sweet dive past the turnbuckles, so I can't hate too much. Crowd goes nuts for the home stretch, and this didn't feel anywhere close to its 30+ minute run time. FAR exceeded my expectations.

PAS: Yeah I was dreading watching these guys go 30, but this was pretty good. It reminded me of the really great Eddie v. Dragon WCW houseshow match I saw back in the day. All the matwork early looked good, and they had some fine midrange stuff too. I thought the end run was pretty great as both guys showed a ton of desperation trying to get the win.  You don't normally see juniors go this long, but they filled the time.

5. Takashi Ishikawa vs. Curtis Iaukea Jr.

ER: Dull match format is dull as Iaukea controls with chinlocks and stomps, before Ishikawa takes it home by getting all his fun old sumo man offense in, with cool falling clotheslines and uppercuts. There may be a good match here if you switch up some move order and control segments. This wasn't it. I hate 50/50 move trading matches, but one guy taking his 50 up front, when the other guy takes his 50 on home is pretty pointless.

PAS: Some OK Ishikawa stuff, but this was a waste of that awesome dude

6. Ashura Hara vs. Masashi Aoyagi

ER: This was really cool and was probably the match I was most looking forward to on paper. Aoyagi brings an "invader" vibe to a pro wrestling ring and the fans are amped for him as he kicks at guys wearing WAR track suits. Hara comes out to Van Hagar and the fans are down. And then we get 10 awesome minutes of a karate guy kicking Hara around the ring while Hara worked in comebacks. Hara worked this match as a cool fusion of Fujiwara and Tenryu, really taking a beating and selling like Fujiwara, just trying to avoid kicks and stumbling all around before launching back with headbutts. But then carried himself like Tenryu, throwing nice clotheslines and attempting to bully Aoyagi. Aoyagi showed tons of charisma and the fans were way into him, throwing a chair at Hara and launching all sorts of kicks and strikes at him. He built up to an awesome spot where he tore off his gi, a really cool strap lowering spot...but then followed it up with backing away from Hara. Huh. Needed some work on his timing there. I like the gi tearing in theory, then. Aoyagi was good at showing shortcomings in his style, as he would go for big kicks and miss, which would always allow Hara to get back in the game. Ending felt like it needed one more big move, but overall this delivered big.

PAS: This is a match which on paper could go one of two ways, it could be a lumpy violent enjoyable potato fest, or it could reach that next level of transcendent brutality which makes WAR, WAR. This was closer to the first then the second. I love the awkward recklessness of Aoyagi's style, every kick doesn't land clean, but when it does it lands with an explosion. I did also think this ended a bit abruptly, it didn't need an endless finish run, but a couple more exchanges might have pushed it.

7. Genichiro Tenryu/John Tenta vs. Great Kabuki/Haku

ER: Hashimoto shows up at ringside before the match and the fans go apeshit as Tenta holds Tenryu back. They desire Hash's amazing brand of asskicking. This is a 17 minute match that almost seems too short. I would have loved this as a 30 minute draw. You really get a sense of how massive Tenta is when he matches up against Haku and just towers over him. Tenta works a little too soft at first for WAR but soon realizes where he's at and dishes some great elbow drops and knee lifts. Haku and Kabuki more than make up for any early softness by dishing a fierce beating to Tenryu. Kabuki's short left uppercut is a thing of beauty and Tenryu sells every shot to his ear and/or throat great (there is an above average chance that Tenryu was just getting hit in the ear and/or throat). Haku busts out some neat stuff too, just unleashing an insane slap/chop attack on Tenryu at one point, just flying at him with both arms before dealing a great sit out powerbomb. Kinda looked like he may have been pissed at Tenryu for kicking him with the toe of his boot one too many times. Kabuki and Haku make an awesome team of two asskickers, hardly ever using moves, just being vicious ear/nose/throat specialists. Tenryu's comebacks are the best, throwing some of the hardest chops I have EVER seen him throw. The last 5 minutes are just incredibly great with Kabuki decimating Tenryu's ear some more, Tenta tagging in and beating down some dudes (GREAT spot included Tenta setting up the Earthquake splash and the crowd going nuts, but then Kabuki hitting him with the mist after Tenta runs the ropes). This was all awesome stuff and pretty much exactly what you'd want.

PAS: I loved this match, this was that next level shit the previous match didn't get to. Haku is a really hit and miss guy during his career, you get flashes of the psychotic ass kicker you want him to be, but sometimes that guy isn't there. He is the distillation of all your hopes and dreams here, and Haku and  Tenryu just tear into each other and it is glorious. Kabuki is great too, I love his little uppercuts and Tenryu sells them like he had a roll of dimes in his hand. Finish run got really exciting and I loved the Kabuki mist counter of the Earthquake splash, felt like something which would have been a legendary spot if 1989 Muta worked 1990 Earthquake at a Summerslam.

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