We'll Meet Again Terry, Don't Know Where, Don't Know When, But We'll Meet Again Some Sunny Day

Black Terry vs. Mr. Condor vs. Pirata Morgan Zona 23 8/11/19 - GREAT

PAS: Terry in the junkyard is really special. This wasn't close to singles Mr. Condor match a couple years later (but honestly what in wrestling history ever was), but it was three awesome old men beating the shit out of each other in a rain storm and a junkyard. Lots of great punch exchanges, including an awesome one between Pirata and Terry, with Terry peppering him with jabs, and Pirata countering with a huge hook. Condor also nukes Pirata with a bottle. I think with a finish this might have touched EPIC territory, but instead it had a long meandering run in finish with Ovitt maybe? Some fat dudes who couldn't match the energy of the senior citizens they were beating up. Still this was sick.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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This Sweet Thought Will Cheer Terry While Dying, We Will Miss Him When He's Gone

Black Terry vs. Multifacetico IWRG 4/17/08 - EPIC

PAS: Out of this world great match. There is something special about Terry in his house Arena Naucalpan, throwing left hooks, smashing people into beer coolers and spilling blood. I loved how he just tortured Multifacetico early, breaking his back by twisting his body in the rope, cracking him with perfcet punches, and then cutting him off mid air with a backcracker for the pin. Exactly what you want from that rudo beatdown fall. Loved the comeback he fed Multifacitico in the second fall and it all leads to a dramatic third fall with lots of blood. Terry has so many different great notes he could play, but this kind of dramatic fist fight is his best.

JR: They keep advertising their myspace page here: zona de combate. Can you imagine how great Terry would have been in mid 00s CZW?

There is a lot to like here. In the first fall, Terry works at such a deliberate pace, almost the closest we get to a WWE heel from this era. He doesn't preen, but the structure of the fall is so similar to something you might see on TV from Orton or someone else in the states just a few years later.

From there, we get Terry in a style that feels more familiar. The match quickens, and I think would come across significantly better if the camera had lingered on Multifacetico from ringside. The closer we got to him the more compelled I felt to root for him, but the hard cam here does him no favors.

The third fall is good, falling into some of the apuestas rhythms that I find so comfortable. Terry works holds that feel consequential and Multi finds flashes that make it seem as though he is in the fight. The seconds add very little here, muddying the waters in ways that lucha gets away with more often than other styles, but the finishing stretch feels mostly earned and suitably triumphant.

In a way, I like this match as an example of a match that feels taped together by Terry. There's nothing particularly exclamatory from him but I can't help but feel it would be decidedly worse with someone else taking his place. I don't mean for that to sound backhanded, quite the opposite. A Terry performance that for him seems so rote is inherently valuable, inherently above replacement.

Matt reviewed this match here

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Oh Bury Terry Not on the Lone Praire

Black Terry/Pantera vs. Negro Navarro/Pirata Morgan IWRG 7/23/11 - GREAT

PAS: Compact 13 minute match which kind of felt like an awesome first fall, where we never got the second and third. Match opens with 5 minutes of Navarro and Terry grappling which was delightful and an obvious highlight. Pantera hits a cool tope from the apron through the ringpost, and there are some cool eliminations. Pirata had a moment or two, but this was worth watching for that uncut raw Terry vs. Navarro.

 
MD: It's a joy to watch Terry and Navarro do their thing for a few minutes. They're wrestling's odd couple. Navarro makes everything look theatrical, able to somehow make a straight line look stylized and curved. Meanwhile, Terry's entirely business-like, poised and practical, able to make something infinitely complex seem simple and professional. Navarro is eternally bombastic and will take you on the scenic route pointing out every landmark true and fabricated along the way and Terry somehow finds a shortcut to wherever he's going, getting there two minutes early yet still leaving you completely satisfied by the quality of company. When you put them together, they play perfectly with one another's strengths, the contrast driving the entire endeavor and leaving you not wanting to look away.

Morgan was fun here too, pulling out a few things that, while maybe not contributing to a greater whole would be memorable: an abrupt contorting cradle when he first got in there, the rare double rotation Casita for one elimination and then a rolling sort of Anaconda Vice that felt just as rare for the second. And then Pantera added just a bit of flash and motion (not too much) with a few high spots. As Phil noted, this ultimately felt like a really good primera, never boiling over, never leading to heat and comeback, but as exhibitions go, any one that'll start with a few minutes of Navarro vs Terry like this is well worth watching.

JR:   This match is mostly an exhibition, although there are certainly worse people to have that sort of match than Terry and Navarro. There are fun holds and some good exchanges that might look too cooperative in the hands of lesser performers. Pirata Morgan hits a slingshot senton that I can only describe as a non-ironic version of the slow motion one Chuck Taylor used to do in Chikara.

After the opening portion, when Terry and Navarro tag out, there is a brief moment that will stick with me as Pantera struggles with Pirata Morgan. I found myself thinking, as I watched this, of Cubs' wonderful obituary from today. In it he talks about the truly beautiful outpouring of support for Terry and how beloved he was as a trainer and teacher. Terry was observant of new trends and styles and was willing to teach things that were not to his taste if he thought it would help his students succeed. Close to the corner, Terry crouches down and talks to his partner, giving what I can only assume are instructions. My relationship with Terry has always been purely critical, of course. I've never seen him train or eaten at his table or heard him tell stories. I've only watched him perform. Perhaps this was a performance as well, but in that moment I saw Black Terry not as a wrestler, but as someone that cared and wanted to help his partner sincerely. I saw the type of trainer he might be, offering quiet but serious suggestion.
When I picture Terry, I think I'll always picture a man brawling, grunting. I'll picture effort and sweat. Tonight, I am glad that I can briefly picture something else that makes me feel closer to the whole of him.

TKG: This is pretty much a one fall sprint with Terry and Navarro doing their ras de lona work, Pantera getting in his big dives and a small tease of Pirata v Terry.

At turn of century when both AAA and EMLL where both stripping out first fall technical exchanges…the indies fully leaned into them, highlighting the work of the older maestros keeping the style vital and alive.

I really popped when after the initial submission exchanges, Terry started the technical leverage throw section with a big monkey flip and Navarro answered with an impressive nasty suplex.
As maestro’s got older we’d see fewer big suplexes. Your Hechicero generation of technical wizards really don’t do suplexes as part of technical display. That moving from leverage submission holds into leverage arm drags still happens but the subs into suplexes is something we see less and less and I miss.

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Terry's Calling, Terry's Crying, Some Are Born Some Are Dying

Black Terry vs. Arez Lucha Memes 11/1/20 - GREAT

PAS: This was worked sort of like Arez was excited to work a Black Terry dream match, the way someone might work 2 Cold Scorpio on a Mania week show. They ran through all of the cool things Terry brings to a match, starting with Terry doing the Maestro catch and release submissions, where Arez would shoot in and get tied up with something cool, Terry would let him go, only to tie him up again. Then it spills to the floor and we get a great Terry punch out, with Arez hitting him harder then you would expect someone this old to get hit, and Terry firing back with great looking jabs and rights. Then there is a nifty finishing run with a great looking top rope back cracker. Everything looked great, it felt a bit exhibition-y which keeps it from EPIC, but Terry exhibitions are pretty great exhibitions. 

ER: I thought this was a really smartly worked almost meta Hero match, with Arez acting almost awed as Black Terry showed him close up magic llave as a crash course fantasy camp, until Arez gets tired of the maestro shit and starts kicking him. Es es unable llave, clap, nothing up my sleeves, veteran psych out. I thought Terry's snares were pretty incredible. There was no slowly applied submissions, this was all slick ankle pick sleight of hand knot tying as good as he was doing 15 years ago. It's pretty amazing really. People love his maestro submission artistry, enough that there's a loudly protesting chinga tu madre whistle over Arez's ropes course escape, protesting The New Ways. 

The fighting escalation in Black Terry Coacalco matches always manages to catch me off guard, always manages to surprise me with some of the violence. Arez can land some really forceful kicks to the stomach and Terry was taking some real shots to the torso. There was a great spot where Arez knew it was his turn to take his medicine and Terry went off with body kicks as crisp as Regal working Dave Taylor. Terry takes a backcracker down the home stretch that literally bounces him off Arez's knees, and all it does is make him want to drive his own knees into Arez. Jumping off the middle buckle to drag a man down onto your knees is crazy behavior for a man in his late 60s. In other words, a Black Terry Coacalco match. 

TKG: I really like the way this match is structured, it is almost like a backwards veteran Ric Flair underestimating upstart young Sam Houston. Arez as upstart youth puts on the first submission and makes a big production out of announcing ‘Now , that is a hold’ and then Terry just dominates on ground, putting Arez in holds at will as Arez super sells getting worked over. Eventually Arez can’t take any more and throws the first cheap shot strike only to find that Terry again can go on floor, with Arez getting in bits of desperate flurries. This isn’t an even match at all . This is about long sections of Terry control and desperate young Arez dealing with the beast.

There is a spot where Terry sidesteps a leg takedown to set up a submission that I watched multiple times. And favorite moment from the brawling was when he’s beating up Arez in chair but won’t allow the chair to tip over. Grabs Arez’ foot and goes , no I’m hitting you some more.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Black Terry May Simply Be a Single Drop of Rain

I was looking through the C+A Black Terry and realized the last match on the list was the incredible Mr. Condor match in 2021, so I wanted to check in and see what he has been up to in the last couple of years as he moves into his 70s

Black Terry vs. Arandu Dark Sun Wrestling 5/30/22 - GREAT

PAS: This was a maestro match between Terry and long time Monterey rudo Arandu, and hit all of the points you would expect in a match like this. Opening with matwork, moving into some chair shots and some nasty punch exchanges. It was a solid performance by a pair of pros who know exactly how to deliver the hits to an audience. Terry took some bumps and threw some good looking rights and lefts. It didn't really have the moments to elevate it to the next level, more of a solid B, then an A+, but it definitely showed Terry still has some juice. 

Black Terry vs. Vinny Massaro Lucha Memes 9/18/22 - GREAT

I remember digging Vinny in the early 2000s in APW, as a guy with some nice suplex. He fell off my radar for decades, but came back as a guy who is working a bunch in California indies in dream match scenarios. He is a fun guy to get the chance to travel to Mexico, and I dug this as a pair of trainers from very different worlds matching up. Massaro has nice open hand shots and the best parts of the match were the pair of these guys throwing at each other, and Massaro looked solid on the mat, and I liked his Fujiwara finish. There were a couple of moments near the end where they were slightly on the wrong page, and it was an opening round tourney match, so they never really pushed it to the next level, still a fun WAR booking match.

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Found Footage Friday: BLACK TERRY~! CEREBROS~! CUBAN ASSASSIN~! GRINGOS~! KANEMOTO~!

Koji Kanemoto vs. Cuban Assassin 11/4/95

MD: We rarely get to highlight what our old pal over at Armstrong Alley posts because it's usually in full episode form, but this absolutely stands out. Kanemoto was in the States for WCW syndi tapings to hype up Starrcade. Both he and Assassin were working these at the start of November but I have no idea where this is or how the booking came to be. There's some of what you'd expect here, Assassin going on the mic pre-match and calling everyone American Dogs and saying that he shook Kanemoto's hand because he wasn't an American Dog or just everyone getting to see Kanemoto do the Tiger Mask headlock to drop toe-hold spot or even the bs double count out finish where Assassin's valet stopped Koji from getting back into the ring. 

But in between all of that stuff, they were really going. Assassin asserted himself in the best ways, just powering Kanemoto over with a shoot-looking belly-to-belly and then dropping headbutts off the turnbuckles. He was more than happy to throw some standing ones too. Kanemoto, in return, would just chop him in the face or throw wild spinning kicks. This was in the old Tampa Sportatorium and these two did not feel at all out of place with whoever might have been destroying some poor jobber for Eddie Graham's amusement. Even in front of this mysterious indy crowd, even when they didn't have to, they came to work.

ER: When we heard a new Kanemoto American indy match had surfaced, America collectively held their breath while we waited to see which of the Jerry Flynn matches it would be. The singles match draw? The tag with Nishimura against Flynn and Dudley Dudley? Has American finally been given the Kanemoto/Dudley Dudley exchanges we've We still don't have the Flynn matches, but this is a fun one in its place. What this match has, that I can almost certainly guarantee the Flynn matches do not have, is a referee wearing a broad shouldered glittering tasseled blouse like he was the ringleader for an off-strip Las Vegas big cat show. Talk all you want about David Manning or Red Shoes trying to steal attention away from the wrestlers, I love a referee wearing the most garish shirt in Florida while working as an otherwise completely normal match. I also love the one commentator who, several times, insists that Ricky Santana is a much better wrestler than David Sierra, refusing to drop the argument after the other commentator said Sierra was the best Cuban wrestler he knew. 

But Cuban Assassin Sierra really did look great here. If a wrestler in 2023 wrestled the way Sierra did here, he'd be one of my current favorites. He was great at taking Kanemoto's strikes and had a lot of nice offense that he wasn't really allowed to do in his WCW role. Give me his short elbowdrop across the throat or his kneedrop springing off the bottom rope or his diving headbutts off the middle buckle and middle rope. Sierra will throw a baseball slide dropkick to set up a missed baseball slide that leads to him getting his ass beat around ringside, taking a nice posting in the process. He throws a powerbomb like Onita and takes a backdrop like a fat guy. 

I didn't really fall in love with Kanemoto until 2001/2002, but here he was a fun junior being held back by his choice in ring gear. If I took a shot every time he adjusted his obnoxious sash belt while he was supposed to be selling, I wouldn't have made it to the end of the match. He felt like a guy working worse versions of Tiger Mask and Muta spots - losing contact during the TM fast spinning drop toehold, overshooting and barely making contact on a moonsault - but looked far better just throwing kicks or elbows, or kneeling on Sierra's head while holding a single leg crab. Just because 1995 Kanemoto isn't as good as 1995 Cuban Assassin doesn't make this any less of a fun oddity, and now we know that David Sierra once hit a piledriver on Koji Kanemoto.

IWRG Retro 17 12/30/23

Miss Gaviota/Dinamic Black vs. Hammer/Eterno 1/22/11

MD: IWRG started doing the Retros a couple of weeks ago and we just figured it out. We'll catch up on the ones we missed later. Hammer here is Danny Casas. The match was best when he and Gaviota, being a very solid exotico, were in there together. They had the better, more competitive matwork, with Dinamic Black and Eterno half a step slower and more going through the motions. I didn't mind Black as a second banana rudo buddy here though. He just had less opportunity to do things as Gaviota got bigger reactions and took bigger, nastier bumps (including off hair throws). It went 3 falls with the rudos taking the first and Eterno getting to show off his big moves (Styles Clash and cross legged fireman's carry driver) in the latter two. Solid undercard stuff with a range of talent and experience overall, but it's the next match that's going to be the draw.

Terribles Cerebros (Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro) vs. Gringos VIP (Hijo Del Diablo/Avisman/Bombero Infernal) 1/22/11 - GREAT

MD: This hit just right. Primera was blink and you'd miss it but you'd miss a hell of a stage dive from Dr. Cerebro. Segunda had some control from Terry and co, fancy while keeping the gang warfare feel, until he edged too close to the wrong corner and got swarmed. That led to a massive beatdown full of Diablo honing in on his wound. The ref called the fall with Terry getting held and kicked over and over again. The tercera had escalating Gringos VIP beatdown, swarming and then having fun with some whips, and then allowing each guy on the other side to valiantly try to come back before stomping him down. They teased a few false comebacks there before Bombero and Avisman missed charges into the corners and ate dives by the Cerebros to set up Diablo and Terry and the savvy finish. I would have enjoyed a bit more coldhearted, bloody revenge from Terry, but a slick win is a revenge of its own, I suppose. Past that, this was pretty much what I wanted it to be.

PAS: This is always a great matchup. The peak of this feud was the year before, with Gringo Loco in the Bombero spot, but Bombero is always welcome. I just love when Black Terry gets into the crowd. He is such a force of nature, throwing chops and headbutts against Avisman to start the match and set up the Cerebro dive. Terry starts the match with a bandage on his head, and that obviously gets ripped off and he starts dripping. We get some brisk brawling lucha after that, and a fun finish. It isn't top level transcendent Terry, but an example of the great stuff he was doing week in and week out. 

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Found Footage Friday: CASAS~! CHARLES~! SIGNO~! DANDY~! HAMADA~! AZTECA~! TERRY~! FELICIANO~! SILVER KING~! BATMAN~?!

Batman/Chuy Escobedo/Ausente vs. Halcon de Oro/Mongol Chino/Astro Negro (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Some great names in the next couple of matches, but we have to see what we have here first. Astro Negro looks like a guy who never had a chance at recovering from losing his mask. Apparently he lost it to Mongol Chino so he's a forgiving sort. He is a mask maker of some renown ("El Pony") too. It's possible that Batman is a young Mr. Niebla but I couldn't say one way or the other (he had the swagger at least). The central story of the match was Batman vs Halcon de Oro.

I do have to admit that watching these six a month, it's nice to see the structure change up a bit. This was about Halcon dodging Batman. They cycled through Chuy vs Astro Negro (which was fine if slight) and Ausente vs Mongol Chino (nice and flowing; Ausente looked pretty good throughout) before teasing that third pairing between the prime combatants. Halcon took a powder, however, and upon reentering the ring, staged an ambush and started the beatdown. I haven't seen that sort of disruptiveness in a primera in a bit with these matches.

I'm not going to say that these were the smoothest guys we've seen in the Monterrey footage, but the segunda and tercera had the sort of wild abandon that's found in the best of these matches. The segunda started with a comeback and a lot of quick exchanges. Here we finally got a taste of Batman vs Halcon and they worked well together but it was just a taste, as Halcon got run off to the back to draw a count out. The tercera had a pretty brutal second beat down and an even more brutal comeback, wrought with mask ripping, before they cycled through submissions and break-ups and went for the ring-clearing dives: Chuy got all caught up on the ropes in a dive so that was brutal in its own way. Still, that left Batman and Halcon and from there it was a clear, crisp and direct tecnico triumph. The talent wasn't a high as it could be here, but the effort was admirable.

Negro Casas/Emilio Charles Jr/El Signo vs. El Dandy/Gran Hamada/Angel Azteca (Monterrey 1991)

MD: We lose some of the beginning, I think (my guess is an initial Signo vs Hamada pairing). We lose a lot of the tercera. It's still 22 minutes of these guys being absolutely amazing. The level of talent, commitment, trust, confidence is just off the charts. You have matches that follow a certain structure, that might be one dimension or two dimensional, moving this way or that on an axis or two. With these guys, there's a new dimension added. At any point they can deviate from what seemed to be going on in the match, take a side journey, but never, ever lose the true north of where they need to return to and their destination for that point of the match.

Look at the primera. We come in on Dandy and Casas doing their thing, sweeping movements, counters and counters to counters, all building to Casas putting his head down and getting kicked backwards and the two brawling out of the ring. Then it's Azteca and Charles, with tighter holds full of struggle. It breaks down after that, with the rudos having an advantage on Dandy, only for him to flip the switch and make a rolling hot tag. That allows Hamada to come in and crush everyone with headbutts. That entire mini beatdown segment was a deviation and they managed it flawlessly before heading back to where they would have been going without it. It adds drama and a sense of organic believability in the match. So much of lucha is ritual and meeting expectations, but these guys were good enough to switch partners and weave in whole bits without ever losing the plot or confusing the crowd. It could be something as simple as a Hamada/Signo strike exchange or Casas rope running with Hamada, eating an enzuigiri and stumbling right into Dandy's fist.

With lesser talents, the match would leave the ground, devolve into chaos or endless spots, and would never come back. These guys, though, could take moon leaps and always move in the right direction and land and sprint before leaping off again. There's talent and then there's mastery and people like Casas, Dandy, and Charles are in that rare, rare group of the latter.

Jose Luis Feliciano/Black Terry/Mr Terror vs. Silver King/Asterisco/Centurion Negro (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Great to see two thirds of the Temerarios here, but man is Mr. Terror ever not Shu El Guerrero. Moreover, the focus on this match was Terror vs Asterisco. There were pros and cons to that. I'm not going to say Terror brought nothing to the table. There was some mask ripping, some decent enough battering during beatdowns (though Feliciano and Terry were kind of edging him out to get shots in), and he took an entirely admirable bump on a back body drop on the floor to set up the finish to the primera, but his big move tends to be a clothesline (in a match where Silver King's was way better) and there's not much else there.

The flip side is that we got to see Terry and Feliciano go up against Centurion Negro and Silver King for a lot of this and all of that was great. Terry started with Centurion with all of the little movements and earnest openings you'd want from lucha matwork. Feliciano and Silver King brought the motion and all of them hit hard when it was time to do so. This one had too much heat on the ref too. That wasn't uncommon for the Monterrey footage but here it played too much into the finish and the ref got his comeuppance instead of Terror. Usually when watching a match with a singular focus like this, you come off annoyed that the apuestas match either never happened or we don't have it. I could probably live without seeing Asterisco vs Mr. Terror mano a mano though.

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Found Footage Friday: Lucha Calm before the Lucha Storm: ECLIPSE~! FLASH~! ARQUEROS~! TEMERARIOS~! TERRY~! SKAYDE~! AND FRIENDS~!

Flash I vs. Eclipse 1990s Arena Coliseo Guadalajara

MD: We're sitting on Roy's recent uploads but I'd like to get a better sense of the big picture on them before we figure out how to tackle them. In the meantime, Rob found some things looking around and they're worth covering.

This, for instance, is a lost mask match and they really threw themselves into it given that it was just one fall. Flash had recently gone rudo, as best as I can tell, and he took it to Eclipse immediately, tearing the mask and ripping at his face. Eclipse came back fairly early into a solid beatdown with a quebradora and the rest of the match was pretty hot with finishes. The struggle on holds was particularly good since there was no room for error. They weren't giving one another much of anything. If Eclipse hesitated for a moment, Flash would fight his way away. Flash had an overall advantage due to a rudo ref (Mario), looking the other way for Flash's second to interfere and slow-counting.

Eclipse probably won on points. He was able to lock in more holds, to target Flash's leg a bit, and whenever Flash had an advantage, he found a way to come back. He had a spectacular springboard moonsault into the ring that was stymied by the worst slow count of the match. The finish was controversial as Flash caught Eclipse with an electric chair back off the top and an immediate double underhook submission but Eclipse claimed not to have tapped out. These were two guys who knew they had the spotlight and leaned hard into it.

Los Arqueros (Danny Boy/Lasser/Robin Hood) vs. Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu El Guerrero) Mexican National Trios Titles UWA 1/21/90

MD: Once upon a time, I tried to get the Shu el Guerrero vs Robin Hood mask match. I failed. But Rob found this and we're glad for it.It has no sound, has some clips, and is pretty grainy (and yeah, I'm not always the best at telling Danny Boy and Lasser apart), but it's a lot of fun.

Primera had very strong pairings, a lot of competitive matwork with clever escapes. I wouldn't say that was quite the same with Shu and Robin Hood. They were still competitive but there was more oomph and less flash to it all. The refs sure liked to raise their hands after every exchange, but in my head canon, Shu won the fall for his side by dropkicking Robin Hood into submission. The segunda sped things up which benefitted the tecnicos. Picture perfect placement in basing by Los Temerarios helped though. They went back to the mat with different pairings for a lengthy tercera. Lots of really tricked out high drama stuff before everything broke down for the tandem moves, dives, and and exciting sides evening finish that brought it back to Shu and Robin Hood. They hit big stuff and leaped from high places on one another before a clutch pin out of nowhere (a clutch clutch) to end it. Just a very complete, very straightforward title match worked more or less clean but with clear animosity. Still, it'd be nice to see that mask match.

PAS: So cool that lucha like this keeps showing up. This is a classic trios match from 33 years ago which gives us a long chance to look at some cool wrestlers who we don't have a ton of footage of. Shu feels like a guy who might have a Navarro/Panther reputation if we had more available. He is built like a mailbox and is great at basing and putting on cool submissions. Robin Hood is another member of the Alvarado family (Brazos) and they have awesome wrestlers on ever branch of that family tree. This feels like the first match of series and I really want to see the next match which probably got chippier, still amazing that we got a chance to watch this.

Skayde/Vortize/Aztlan/Kanon vs. Black Terry/Dragon Celestial/Emperador Azteca/Fulgor I IWRG 2/26/14

MD: We have so much lucha ahead of us in the weeks to come, but a match like this reminds me so crisply and so clearly why I love it so much. It's structured in such a serene way. The primera has the initial exchanges: matwork, gamesmanship, the individual characters clashing against one another, building to a big moment of action. It gave us a tease of the captains (Terry and Skayde) against each other but just that. It gave us a little bit of animosity but never boiled over.

Then the segunda went from measured exchanges to quicker (and different) pairings, rope running, flowing action, still with clear resets. We actually get one dive at the end, again a tease for the tercera, and an abrupt finish. Then in the tercera, there are meaningful punctuated moments that are broken up as wrestlers flow into the match one after the other, all building to finding some way to get to Skayde vs Black Terry. They have a pointed exchange but even that's just a tease as it leads to the final dives to clear the ring for a finish that pushes things off for matches to come. So this match could exist in a format that was standard but with specifics that met the moment and the wrestlers therein. It's not even my favorite form of lucha, which is much more focused on beatdowns and revenge after that beautiful, built to, reacted to moment of comeback. But it's still wonderful and still has so much of the anticipation and payoff and aristry.

As for specific pairings, I really liked Aztlan and Dragon Celestial in the primera and Skayde and Dragon in the segunda. I'd love to see more of that second match up. There was a nice bit of chippiness throughout, especially when Terry was in there, but for Emperador Azteca and Kanon too. I'm not sure I had a sense of the overall direction of the feud but, this type of lucha is so universal that you can jump in and enjoy yourself.

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Found Footage Friday: BABY MISAWA~! ONITA~! SATO~! INOUE~! TENTA~! KABUKI~! JIVE TONES~! CADETES~! MISIONEROS~!

Mitsuharu Misawa/Atsushi Onita vs. Mighty Inoue/Akio Sato AJPW 12/08/82

MD: This is, I think, the earliest Misawa match on record that was identified in a handheld cache from a couple of years back and that's now online due to our new friend in Japan. We have some Goto vs early Kawada matches that we'll hopefully take a look at in the next couple of weeks too. A lot of this was putting Misawa through his paces with the basic spots you'd expect from someone in the system at his age. There was one point where he seemed a little lost on a whip and there were some things he did, like a big backflip off the top that you couldn't quite attach to the wrestler he'd someday be. In general, it was a good showing for his experience level, generally competent. Onita had that electricity that made you think that 82 Randy Savage vs 82 Atushi Onita would be the most interesting match in the world. He drew the eye with everything he did because it stood out so much to everyone around him. And it's not like Sato and Inoue were slouches. These two had as good a finishing combo as you'd see in 82, with Inoue's fireman's carry gutbuster, two flipping sentons, and Sato's wind up hook kick. 

ER: This was mostly simple juniors stuff, a lot of armdrags, some grounded headlocks, and some movements that seem destined only to ruin knees. You see Onita leaping off the top rope to the floor and landing on his feet, just to back off Inoue, and you think about how his knees were pure bone dust less than two years later. Inoue and Sato work over Misawa's knee (Sato had a really nasty grapevine kneedrop that did not prevent Misawa from backflipping off the top rope late in the match) and has a cool backbreaker. Misawa gets to show some spunk with a hard back suplex that gets paid back shortly after. I loved how the match built to a wild Inoue/Onita exchange, with Inoue hitting his high cross block and then FLYINF over the top to the floor after missing the immediate follow up, giving Onita the opening to fly into him with a great tope. The Misawa/Inoue stuff was nice and spirited, with Misawa missing a cool leaping crossbody off the top and getting his insides rearranged with a gutbuster and two fat flipping sentons. Misawa was only 20 years old here, but you could really see how high his floor was just from his young boy work. 

The Jive Tones (Pez Whatley/Tiger Conway Jr.) vs. John Tenta/Great Kabuki AJPW 9/2/89

MD: Jive Tones were generally supporting Abdullah (who was building up to his big, heavily promoted singles match with Baba) on this tour. We get them in some six mans but it's nice to see a straight tag match with them doing their thing. Tenta was winding down on his way to the WWF, having not been utilized all that much in 89. Kabuki, of course, would jump between lower card matches like this and being a second or third guy in Jumbo vs. Tenryu main event trios matches. Maybe that's why it was so enjoyable to see him goof and stooge about with Conway and Whatley here. There was a beautiful exchange where Conway escaped a headlock by dancing this way and that and Kabuki answered by mocking his little dance. The crowd was definitely into the act, popping for each bit of oscillation or jiving that Conway or Whatley pulled out. You never quite got the sense that they were going to win, between the hierarchy of it all and Tenta's sheer size, but they definitely irritated their opponents along the way. That made the post match dancing and strutting around the ring of Tenta and Kabuki all the sweeter after their victory.

ER: Matt really has a strong grasp on the kind of matches that will lure me into writing late on a Friday night. I didn't know the Jive Tones worked an All Japan tour, let alone in a featured tag match, so I was going to be here for this. You see, it's the way Conway shimmies Whatley's white jacket down his arms and shoulders, really taking his time, wiggling his partner free. He will continue wiggling his way through the match, but building to some surprising stiffness and a cool story. I would have enjoyed this if they had kept the early match vibes, like Kabuki barreling out of control doing rope running with Conway, leading to him eating an armdrag and dropkick, or how Tenta swung super low on a clothesline and then caught Whatley's high crossbody, only to go down in a heap from Conway's Thesz press. 

I thought this would settle down pretty quickly into Tenta and Kabuki dominating, and the fun twist in the match comes when Conway gets manhandled into the wrong corner. This is clearly where he was about to take a long beating, and instead, wins a punch out with Kabuki that turns into a nice heat segment on Kabuki, even giving us a Conway butt butt off the ropes. One of Tenta's best traits as a wrestler is how good he is at looking Actually Mad in the ring. He has great body language and is good at selling, but he's so good here at looking genuinely pissed off at Whatley's antics, coming off like someone who was upset that the Jive Tones weren't treating Professional Wrestling with enough Respect. It's so cool seeing such a big dude get knocked around by Conway and Whatley, and my favorite part of the match was this excellent last second pinfall save by Conway, flying into frame with a stage dive that Charles Peterson should have captured in black and white. Kabuki barely gets the win with an inside cradle as Tenta is getting smashed into the ringpost on the floor. Negative points to the cameraman for not giving us more of Tenta and Kabuki's celebratory in-ring strutting. 

Solar/Súper Astro/Ultraman vs. Black Terry/El Signo/Negro Navarro Primer Festival De Lucha Libre Regia 3/21/10

PAS: Always cool to see a new match from Navarro and Terry when they were in their mid 50s and smack in their prime. Terry was the greatest brawler in the world in 2010, but this was more of a Navarro vs. Solar style llave exhibition, which was fun but not revelatory. Everyone kind of hit their beats here, pretty heavily matched up, so we didn't see much of Navarro or Solar doing their things with the other guys in the match. We did get a nice Super Astro tope and some flips from him, and I liked how they teased the traditional Solar vs. Navarro double pin finish, only to switch it up and have Solar win by submission. 

MD: This felt like these guys playing the classics, especially with the initial exchanges, but they're classics for a reason and even though we shouldn't have been surprised by it, because we have Solar vs Navarro even a number of years later, it's absolutely impressive on paper. It was a lot of fun seeing Super Astro use Signo's sheer size as an absolutely literal base to use to bound around the ring. Navarro and Solar had a lot of time and they used it to the fullest with one interesting tricked out hold after the next, holds that almost no one else in the world could make plausible but them. Things opened up a little on the second or third set of exchanges and that let Black Terry unleash some of the shots you'd expect out of him from this time and it gave things some variety, but they snapped back to old form shortly thereafter. Past the action itself, my favorite bit of this was the audio of someone explaining to their kid who each tecnico was based on the color of their gear. It was matter-of-fact and wholesome, spreading the love of these guys across generations.

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Found Footage Friday: ARQUEROS DEL ESPACIO~! LOS TEMERARIOS~! TENRYU~! HANSEN~! FOOTLOOSE~! PANAMANIAN LUCHA RIOTS~!

Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu el Guerrero) vs. Arqueros del Espacio (Lasser/Danny Boy/El Arquero) UWA 1989 - GREAT

MD: Half an hour of pure action and motion here. Just one killer exchange after the next building to a tercera of multi-man spots and dives before honing in on an exciting finish. El Arquero is Robin Hood, generally considered to be a B-Team Alvarado, but this match is a great example how that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with how great his brothers are. He was spectacular here, including a step up moonsault press and an amazing contribution to the dive train. The VQ was a little rough, with a blue tint, so it was hard at times to tell Danny Boy and Lasser apart but they both more then held up their own so it hardly mattered. You could tell Feliciano and Terry apart on the rudo side but they based and kept up on all the exchanges equally well, each outdoing the last with every opportunity. The match started with a very good mat based Shu/Arquero exchange and basically didn't let up for twenty minutes and two caidas until things ultimately escalated even further. There wasn't really a beatdown or a comeback so the momentum shifts were slight and the finishes somewhat sudden but you definitely couldn't fault the action here.

PAS: Outside of a bit of a wonky finish, this is at the level of any classic trios we have on tape. Loved to get a chance to really see Shu El Guerrero do his thing. What a slick mat wrestler, he is so good at using Amateur style takedowns and level shifts. Robin Hood feels like a guy who if we had more footage of would have the rep of the rest of his family. He's so fast, so elegant in his movements, just a treasure of a wrestler to watch. Our boy Terry isn't a focus of this match, but looks like a great business like rudo in his ability to stooge, bump and base. I wish things didn't fall apart at the end, because before that this looked like an all time classic, and while I love unearthing cool oddities, finding an all-timer is really special.

ER: I'm a few days late to the party but was excited to check this one out. It delivered. It's 1989, but between the ref's untucked shirt and the video angle, it feels like a weird modern indy lucha. The main giveaway that it's 1989 is that no wrestler would be caught dead shirt-cocking it the way the Space Archers do. The matwork is modern as hell and showed hardly any light. When you're talking the Carlton Celebrity Room, the quality of your night depends on the luchador. You know, Jose Luis Feliciano, ya got no complaints. Feliciano was so quick, with Terry not too far behind him, both basing impressively for Danny Boy/Lasser. I'm not sure which one of them it was (if you're wondering, Shu has the mask with the white plume, Arquero is Robin Hood and has the bandit mask, Terry is the shortest Temerario), but let's say Lasser had two of the slickest armdrags I've seen, Robin Hood hits one of the sweetest moonsault presses (making contact while perfectly vertical and them landing on his feet like Kerri Strug) and a dive that was just as nice. If you're looking for the Terry highlights, my favorite bit with him was at the very beginning of the tercera. It's not the Black Terry you're used to seeing brawl through gravel, but it's great classic luchador Terry, a treat seeing him work airtight fast exchanges. 

Stan Hansen/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Samson Fuyuki AJPW 7/16/89

MD: Just to put this into context, it's just five days after Hansen and Tenryu win the tag titles, on a Brody memorial show. In 89, we see Tenryu against both Fuyuki and Kawada in singles matches, but this tag is new to us. A person might expect all of them to go easy on one another since they were stablemates in Revolution, but that person simply wouldn't know the first thing about Genichiro Tenryu. This was a war, with Hansen and Tenryu working to teach Footloose a lesson and Kawada and Fuyuki fighting to prove a point, sure, but also for their very lives. They did best when they were able to work as a unit, and they shined most individually when Tenryu pushed them to far and they furiously fired back, Kawada with kicks and Fuyuki by punching Tenryu repeatedly in the face. More often than not though, they ended up on the ground having the meanest boots from Hansen and Tenryu crashing into their back or ribs. 

Hansen created emotional opportunity better than any wrestler ever and an Irish whip reversal never looked as real as when Fuyuki managed to reverse Hansen and throw his entire body into him with a back elbow so he could make a tag. Likewise, Kawada hit a front missile dropkick, which rarely looks great because it always just pushes his opponent into his own corner, into Tenryu who leaned into it and not away from it. All four of these guys leaned into everything, except for that tragic moment after Footloose had gotten Hansen on the ropes through staying on him two-on-one where Kawada went for a dive and crashed and burned as Hansen moved. There was a lot of that here, with Footloose knowing they had to take higher risks to stay in it and Hansen or Tenryu simply being able to move, including the finish where Tenryu got a clever cradle out of nowhere after a dodge. It was a clever finish but maybe a slightly anti-climactic one after the violence that preceded it.

ER: I really loved what Matt said about this match, and I love AJPW matches that have all of these little story elements going on that you can really get into, all of these little hierarchy moments where you know when Kawada or Fuyuki are really punching above their weight and the crowd is half getting excited to see how they might test Hansen/Tenryu, and half getting excited to see how Hansen and Tenryu are going to punish their insolence. But I also love AJPW matches like this where you can pay no kind of attention to the stories or relationships and just sit back at 1 AM on a Friday night and have a ball watching all these guys beat the hell out of each other. I love how hard Footloose came out of the gates, fearlessly going for the kill on Tenryu knowing that the punishment will be threefold. I couldn't believe how hard Kawada was throwing lariats in this match, what a murderer. When you are in a match with Stan Hansen and you are the one throwing lariats that make me flinch away from the screen, you are a murderer. I love how Footloose really felt like they were throwing the kitchen sink at the champs, how a lot of their strikes were thrown at odd angles and not just "proper kick exchange" form. It felt like Footloose were just wildly throwing all of their limbs at the larger champs and praying something would land significantly enough for them to capitalize. 

When Hansen tagged in and started going after Fuyuki's arm and shoulder (just to be a dickhead), it's so perfect that Footloose pay all of that back when Hansen misses a charge shoulder first into the corner. Hansen's lariat never even comes into play, but Footloose were so good at capitalizing and changing gears that it was easy to see them somehow getting an upset. The whole thing is wall to wall nasty kicks to the back, Kawada's wild missed running plancha, Hansen's great bump where he builds up a head of steam and crashes headlong between the ropes to the floor, and Footloose throwing their bodies as hard as possible at the champs. I thought the finish really worked, as not only did Tenryu's inside cradle look impossibly snug with no way of escaping, but I loved the visual of Tenryu having to "resort" to just using weight and leverage to win the match. Tenryu was getting beat worse than he expected, and instead of staying in and fighting fire with fire, he saw a quick way out and took advantage of it. I don't know if the finish would have worked as well in other Tenryu/Hansen title defenses, but I thought it worked perfectly here as the champs won but showed how vulnerable they might actually be, a vulnerability that was non-existent 20 minutes earlier. 

Sandoken vs. Rocky Star Panama 1980s

MD: More Panamanian lucha. The primera didn't waste any time. After a bit of jockeying for position, Rocky Star hit three dropkicks, moved Sandoken right into a butterfly suplex flawlessly and then press slamed him and locked in a bow and arrow for the win. The segunda was even more abrupt. Rocky Star pushed the advantage with some shoulder tackles, but ran right into a fairly nasty submission all within a minute. So in that regard, this felt almost like modern CMLL. They had a long tercera and they did a lot. Rocky Star just had a lot of stuff in general. Neckbreakers, goardbusters, drop down No Future style kicks. Sandoken's comeback was big but could have been even bigger, and led to the dives. I loved the finish. Rocky Star made a grab between the legs with the ref trying to talk to Sandoken. In doing so, he made it so Sandoken's leg fouled the ref. That gave him an opening for a foul of his own and the win. The fans, as you can imagine, were not pleased and the last five minutes of this clip are people walking around with chairs over their head threateningly. At first I gave it the benefit of the doubt as there was a lot of potential energy but very little kinetic energy and figured that maybe they were just packing the place up for the night, but nope, it all turned south by the end and became a well-deserved riot scene. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Mr. Condor, Black Terry, a Junkyard, and a New #1

1. Mr. Condor vs. Black Terry ZONA 23 12/5

PAS: I don't even know what to say about this match. Black Terry is 69 years old, Mr. Condor is - in comparison - a youthful 64, this is a fucking junkyard somewhere in Mexico, and dear god is this one of the wildest fist fights I have ever seen in pro wrestling. These two just absolutely unload on each other with incredible looking rights and lefts, slam each other into the sides of cars, break beer bottles and stab each other with them. The pace of this is incredible. I mean guys this old shouldn't even be able to walk slowly on a treadmill, much less fight at this intensity for this long, especially while spraying blood out their heads. At one point Condor breaks a fucking pane of car safety glass on Terry's head! There are punch exchanges in this match which are as good as any punch exchanges in wrestling history. The finish is slightly unsatisfying but doesn't do much to mitigate the hellstorm which preceded it. Eric and I just did an hour plus podcast on how much we loved Eddie Marlin vs. Tommy Gilbert and old man punchouts and then THIS fucking drops. Just watch it. It is unbelievably great.

MD: I made a mistake in the first seconds of this. Mr. Condor had come down in full regalia that made him look like a younger man. I thought Terry might do the same, so I looked away and took care of something else for a moment. Alerted by the crisp yet moist sound of bone hitting flesh without hesitation or remorse, I glanced back at the screen. In doing so, I immediately realized that I needed to jump back fifteen seconds to watch Terry, and the violence he draped himself with as casually as his red Flash shirt, arrived fists-first. I should have known better. I didn't make that mistake again. For the rest of the match, I didn't look away.

This was about the sights and the sounds and the sensation. Sometimes, looking away wasn't my choice. They occasionally cut wide to the crowd, showing us this outside venue, adorned with a burnt out remnant of a car, raucous, chanting people huddled all around, and clouds of dirt bursting up through the air and into the ring. It was during one of those wide shots where we heard the breaking of glass and the gasps that had followed. Mr. Condor had escalated the situation by breaking a bottle, which we saw very clearly as we returned the action, the action, in this case, being the rending of Black Terry's flesh. Condor followed it up by placing Terry's head upon a chair and bringing another down upon it. As Terry was battered, dust came flying upwards, as if an almost 70 year old rug had been smashed against a wall for the first time in decades.

Terry would come back, winning a strike exchange which was exactly what you might expect it to be: two old, hard men standing their ground with no recoil, no give, not moving an inch as you could see their skin compress from the impact. As Terry got the better of it, Condor reached for another bottle, smashing it. You could feel the immediately changed mood through the screen and on the faces of Terry and all of those around him. Terry found a bottle of his own and it became detente, a necessary deescalation to prevent mutually assured destruction. Bottles discarded, they finally moved back into the ring; destruction would come anyway, at the hands of Condor, his constant need to escalate, and a giant glass plate. By this point, there was blood everywhere, coming off of not just foreheads but shoulders and backs as well.

Terry would win the one exchange in the match that truly mattered, picking up and dropping Condor to set up a submission, but the ravages of a lifetime of this slowed him down and neither could claim an advantage on the hold that would follow. Terry would recover first though, would manage to drop back into a pin, but just as with the leglock he had attempted, no human that had been through what he had, not even the toughest, most reliant 69 year old man alive, could be expected to hold the bridge. All four shoulders ended up on the mat. All four shoulders were counted out together. In the end, nothing was proven between these two men. There was no resolution. But does that mean that nothing mattered? For fifteen minutes, these two withered, gnarled legends showed that they had more life within them still than men half their age. If that doesn't matter then what does?

JR: This match made me think about eye contact in wrestling. Generally, there are two moments that stand out in terms of eye contact, and both are things that I could do with less of. The first is when it is done in order to start or continue some overly choreographed spot, both wrestlers lock eyes and then begin something they discussed backstage at great lengths, like a silent countdown. The second is the mid match staredown, which has now become such an emotional short cut that it tends to lower the stakes rather than heighten them.
 
But here, I think about eye contact in a new way. The majority of this match is two men punching each other in the jaw and in the chest and in the face. And throughout, Mr. Condor stares at Black Terry, looking at him with hate in his heart. The camera is so close. You see him do it. You see which punches hurt, which punches rock him, which punches he braces for. And during each one, he stares at Black Terry. It is riveting in a way that is totally unique.

And again, what can be said about Black Terry that hasn’t already been said here? I feel like we said it earlier in the year with the Marvin match, and I think there is chance, at least upon first watch, that this match is just flat out better. I think that the more Terry I watch from the past few years, the more I think he is the greatest sound maker in wrestling history. He is like Jim Breaks, in that you can listen to a Black Terry match and it elicits a feeling. Of course, Breaks used this gift to make whine and cry and give a crowd someone to hate and laugh at in equal parts. Terry’s grunts and sighs and yells and vocalizations are the edge of suffering. Terry breathing hard and loud while you hear his fist hit bone again and again is like the camera whirr at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It makes you queasy with your eyes closed, and if you dare to open them, you see only violence.

There is nothing else like this match this year. It’s the first match I watched and immediately texted people about. It’s something else.

ER: Sometimes there's a match. Sometimes there's a match that's the most anticipated match all month in the group chat, the one. multiple people spent 4 weeks wondering whether that day would be the day that this match would appear in full, wondering if we would get a Christmas bonus drop, reassuring each other that we *usually* get full Zona 23 shows.

Sometimes there's a match. Sometimes there's a match that so perfectly defines a connection formed by two friends over the past 20 years, that Phil Schneider calls me at 9 AM - at least 105 minutes earlier than I have ever fielded a call from Phil Schneider in my life - the day that match finally drops. Sometimes there's a match that makes you answer the phone at 9 AM with total concern, immediately wondering why your friend - who has never called you before the morning fog has broken before in your history together - is calling you on a weekday while you're getting ready for work. Sometimes there's a match that feels so noteworthy that it prompts a phone call reunion between two great friends who met because of pro wrestling, but haven't talked on the phone in at least 5 years. 

Sometimes there's a match. Sometimes there's a match where two AARP eligible men, one who looks like the toughest possible Richie Aprile and one who looks like the coolest most violent Glenn Greenwald, have a fistfight with punch exchanges that you could sincerely, soberly argue are the greatest punch exchanges of any wrestling match in history. Sometimes there's a match where a man who lost his mask to Rey Misterio Jr. 30 years ago throws at minimum 12 different right hands in a dirt lot junkyard that are as fine as any right hand thrown by Lawler, Eaton, or Murdoch. Sometimes there's a match where two grandfathers each drip so much blood out of there heads that it makes you wonder how high the percentage of men this age have lost this much blood and not been on an ambulance within 5 minutes. Sometimes there's a match so stiff, so gleefully violent, a match that's more than its punches; a match where the chairshots are just as painful, where the punches hit so hard that you swear you can see facial swelling minutes in, where you genuinely don't know how far they will take this blood feud and it makes you actually shift in your seat with unblinking eyes wanting to know. 

This is that match. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Chilanga Mask Love Letters

Hello, I'm Siobhan Gear. I cohost the Wrestling Is Gross podcast with my friend Bucky Barnett, which both Eric and Phil have guested on multiple times. I'd love to get the box set of Segunda Caida contributors on the show-- truly, I can't wait to Skype TomK through a payphone. I love pro wrestling and good pro wrestling criticism, first reading Death Valley Driver just over seventeen years ago (in the unlikely event that any of you have forgotten that time is an awful bitch). It's an honor to write for Segunda Caida.


Chilanga Mask has largely gone dormant after Dhani Ledesma started promoting under the Lucha Memes name but its anniversary shows have kept the energy alive with some truly brutal main events and apuestas. This year gave us two shows and three enticing matches that keep up the running rivalries over the last four-five years, so I thought that a look back at some of them was much deserved.


Black Terry vs. Makabre vs. Mr. Maldito vs. The Platino vs. Solar vs. Trauma I vs. Trauma II Chilanga Mask 4/23/17

SG: Billed as a ruleta de la muerte but worked as a reverse cibernético where the last two left fight it out for their hair/mask. This is a really perfect example of an indie lucha match lineup giving you all that you could want: old legends slumming it, fat guys, scummy guys, two sets of brothers, and the guys you least know stealing the show. And most of these guys fit in multiple categories! Action starts before we even hit the ring with Makabre jumping Trauma II from behind the curtain and then we’re off to the races as all seven participants loosely pair off and start hitting stiff chops and chair shots. Trauma I threatens to carve up sweet old Solar with a broken beer bottle before the maestro fends him off with some adorable granny-ass chairshots. There’s nowhere in the world where crowd brawling comes off better than Coliseo Coacalco so everything stays hot early. 

Solar & Terry are the first two who save themselves after the match progresses to staying in the ring because yeah, they’re really old, leading into an extended stretch of Maldito/Platino (aka the phenomenally named “Las Torres Gemelas de la Maldad”, the Twin Towers of Evil) and the Traumas working a tag match with Makabre in to stir shit and look like he has scurvy. Great almost-nearfall with T2 saving T1 after a true Vadersault by Mr. Maldito only for Platino to punish T2 & Makabre with a wild tope con giro and Maldito to pick up the crushed scraps of Trauma I and save himself. Los Torres have spent almost all of their career in Baja feds which is, off of the basis of this match, indefensible on the part of DF promoters. Enough time passes for T1 to recover and get a lo negro del negro on the buzzarding Platino to not seem egregious but only just enough. Trauma II has begun to pour like a fountain as we get down to the nitty gritty. Platino gets a big fat miss on a dive to the dirt that should have ripped a nipple off and it’s all downhill for him from there, though he does valiantly fight out of two negro del negros before a few brutal kicks to the mush and a headscissors armbar put him down. No shame in losing your mask after this performance.

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Lucha Memes 4th Anniversary 4/25/21

Tony Donati vs. Shocko

ER: Tony Donati is a really fun opening match guy. He's like if Scott Putski ever got good, or Cheetah Master ever worked heel. He works like a late 90s Chicago indy heel but with a lucha base, takes ranas nicely and throws hard strikes, stiff chops, a couple nice headbutts, big hard clothesline. The landings on his vertical and front suplex looked hard on the Coacalco ring, and his middle buckle splash landed harder for the same reason. If a guy looks like a scummy version of a late 90s WCW job guy, I'm going to take notice. Shocko took a beating well, hits a decent middle buckle moonsault, does his end of a rana well, a good guy for Donati to work his great expressive moveset against. The finish looked great, with Donati really Psicosising himself on a Shocko top rope Frankensteiner like it was 1995. Nice and definitive, making sure the greatest hits stay great. 

Perro de Guerra Jr. vs. Baby Extreme

ER: Arena Coacalco is always reliable at delivering younger guys having "here's everything I can do" matches. I'm pretty sure I've never seen either guy before and they already both showed tons of moments of being polished beyond their years. This was worked like a modern version of a classic lucha maestros match, which is a match that has seemed to be fading away as the maestro luchadors age out. Seeing guys work this primera style makes me more hopeful for lucha and that always feels good. They really built through some cool leg submissions and attacks throughout the primera, with Extreme having a cool rolling takedown and both working smoothly into maestro leg grapevines and deathlocks and bow & arrows. They didn't look like amateurs copying what they had seen, they looked like seasoned pros working through sick spinning toehold submissions. Guerra wins the primera with a running Atlantida, and it capped off a super cool round of lucha. 

The segunda and tercera got really crazy, with blood and a bit too much excess, but a ton of punishment. You all associate Coacalco with punishment, and these two knew how to live up to the legendary tin roof. They really up the crazy and turn this into a wild moves match, with several far ranging bullet topes and nasty spills. Extreme hits increasingly more cruel Death Valley drivers, running Guerra into the turnbuckles, then at extremely high speed through rows of chairs, and later back in the ring through a thick pallet for the finish. The spots get more impressive and they do hit peak indy dumb brain when Guerra hit an incredible tope into a flipping piledriver, and it kept Baby Extreme on the ground for maybe all of two seconds (and then does a kind of stupid Spanish Fly). 

And yet, I somehow didn't care? They both get busted open, Guerra gets great rivers of blood down his face, Extreme gets a cheese grater ran across his, and they integrate these weapon well because they're surrounded by sick bumps. The suplexes to the hard mat look just as disgusting as the suplex through the pallet and chairs, Extreme delivering a vertebrae smashing over the shoulder piledriver looked incredibly dangerous, and Extreme's fast body crunching Death Valley driver is a totally believable way to get a 10 count stoppage. This had excess, but these two went for it and whenever guys go for it at Coacalco, magic happens. 

PAS: I liked individual parts of this, but I didn't think they coalesced into a complete match. The running DVD into the chairs was sick shit, but it wasn't really sold as much, similar to the llave sections early, individually cool moves, but kind of one after the other. This felt like the lucha equivalent of one of those IWA-MS tryout matches in 2004 where guys try ever move they saw on tape to try to pop Ian in the back. Lots of blood, lots of huge dives and bumps, would make a hell of youtube video with metal music, but as a whole match it was basically that. 

Makabre vs. Toxin

ER: Another fun probably too long but oh well Coacalco match, where perhaps both guys do too much but it's always fun. Makabre is an under the radar Guadalajara legend, a very solid pro in his late 40s. And I thought the earliest parts of this were really great, before it turned into a more junkyard skewers match. Makabre works like a luchador Brian Kendrick or even Chris Hamrick. He ripped at Toxin's mask, worked stiff leg submissions, exchanged heavy hands, and flew with a beautiful tope. Both guys are willing to bump in painful ways around Coacalco, eat shots with a wooden crate, get gouged and stabbed and busted open, and that's all fine. But I really liked them working more traditional lucha, and thought they were more interesting doing that than what the match devolved into. Both got good reactions from the very full arena, so I'm not going to take that away from them. Makabre could be a cool Apolo Dantes type and I don't think he needs the garbage to do that, just keep taking sky high backdrop bumps. This was another "Coacalco Guys go all out" match and as a rule, those rule, so even the lesser ones like this have that nice high floor. 

Drako/Corsario Negro Jr. vs. Kastigador/Vengador

ER: This went nearly 20 minutes and really could have been a sick 12 minute tag. This match more than most Coacalco matches just did not need the superfluous weapons stuff. Drako and Corsario Negro are both really good, hard hitting rudos (well, they were treated as tecnicos by this crowd, but they are clearly the rudo team) and the parts of the match where Drako was throwing great punches and lariats, Negro was throwing hard lariats, and both were just crunching the fliers with doubles teams were WAY more interesting than the boring ass stakes getting pounded into their heads. The wrestling looked way more vicious than the weapons, and I must wanted more of Drako working as pudgy Halloween. I had already been thinking he was pudgy Halloween, and then he goes and slides on his belly out of the ring to squish Kastigador. Everyone bleeds, and pudgy guys bleeding is one of the best thing in lucha, and some of the rudo double teams are truly sicko shit. Drako has no qualms lifting both tecnicos into the air and dropping them in disgusting ways over Negro's knee. I really love how Corsario catches dives like it's a game of chicken. He doesn't even use his hands! He literally takes dives with his arms at his sides, like he knows exactly where to be to slow someone's momentum. It's risky as hell but Vengador survived both of his dives so it merely looks cool. Vengador hit a tope con giro and a huge moonsault to the floor, and seeing Negro not even bracing to catch a moonsault was just incredibly cool. Vengador's moonsault looked great, but seeing Negro stand straight and shrug it perfectly off his shoulder, followed by a great kip up from Vengador, very cool shit. Both rudos take suplexes in the dirt, match devolves into some silly flipping piledriver nonsense, but all worth seeing for Drako and Negro. 

Jimmy vs. Aramis

ER: Not good. Did Jimmy get hurt in Japan or something? Because for such a young guy he turns in a very lazy and slow performance here. Dragons Gate has a ton of rope running so maybe when he's not in DG he does the opposite and moves incredibly slow through sequences and locks on a couple of go nowhere chinlocks within the first 5 minutes of a 10 minute match. The guy looks bored to be there, and it doesn't matter how many cool handsprings and rope feints Aramis does, if one guy is bored then it will almost always be a boring match. His lack of effort is almost offensive. I've never seen someone put so little strength into spots. At one point he catches a rana and is supposed to powerbomb Aramis into the corner, but Aramis has to lift himself up just to be powerbombed! There are several of those spots where one guy hits a big move, there's a kickout, and then both lie on the mat for 20 seconds. Just brutally boring stuff, and in between Aramis is trying his damndest to spark something but cannot motivate Jimmy. The dance rehearsal kick exchanges were so bad, real slow motion stuff, that it doesn't matter when something occasionally looks good. We also get a silly finish with Aramis accidentally superkicking the ref, just bad all around. Easily the worst match on the show. 

Latigo vs. Tromba

ER: This was at its best when they didn't get too cute, with some genuinely great stuff mixed in with some less interesting thigh slap missed kicks. I actually liked a lot of the rehearsed chair spots as they always found interesting twists to throw in, not just repeating Tanaka/Balls spots from 20+ years ago. Tromba used his chair like he's in Master of the Flying Guillotine, using the open back to hook Latigo by the ankles a couple times, wraps it around his neck and runs him into the ringpost, then keeps it around his neck to drag him through the dirt. Not sure what chamber of Shaolin a man with a folding chair would be, but I dig it. They do some nice fighting right in front of the front row Coacalco mutants, exchanging some nasty headbutts that makes one woman stare frozen in horror, hand to hairline. I liked Latigo running Tromba into a ringpost and sliding in on the apron with a kick, then hits a crossbody off the apron to a seated Tromba. Tromba gets nice impact on his middle rope frog splash, both clearly have nice chemistry with each other, and we get a fun little match out of it. 

Toro Bill Jr./Rey Apocalipsis vs. Avisman/Judas el Traidor

PAS: Really great old fashioned Coacalco brawl. Bill and Apocalipsis are Puebla guys who came in to beat on the pair of Naucalpan veterans. Traidor looks great with the bald head and salt and pepper goatee. I loved how Avisman and Traidor just fling their body into the rudos while they are sitting in the crowd. They hit each other with dirty garbage on the floor, Avisman bleeds a bunch, and Puebla team hit very cool submissions to get the win. This match got a bunch of juice from the Arena, so cool to watch guys brawl in outdoor filth and really go for it.

Black Terry vs. Ricky Marvin - EPIC

PAS: When Black Terry was having his incredible early 2010s run, it was this incredible swan song on an amazing career, here was a guy who was in his early 60s who was the best brawler in the world. Now it is nearly a decade later and Terry is 68 years old and this is as good as the IWRG trios matches or his Wotan brawl. Marvin has been tremendous over the last couple of years and is a hell of a foil for the Terry dirt floor war. Marvin jumps Terry early, opening him with a post shot, and really stiffing him with punches and kicks, giving him a spin kick right in the heart! Terry is older than Giant Baba, and this is like Kawada hitting Baba as hard as he hit Misawa. Terry fights back with great looking punches of his own, but is really only able to take control when he cuts off a Marvin tope by obliterating him with a wooden crate. We then get some really great back and forth bloody punching, before Marvin distracts the ref and obliterates Terry with a guitar shot. Incredible stuff, easily the best brawl in the world in several years (maybe Wagner vs. Demon, but arguably since Terry vs. Wotan). Terry continues his improbable AARP run, and Marvin proves what a legend he has become.

JR: I feel as though I’ve been beating the drum for Ricky Marvin’s brilliant second act about as long and as hard as anyone, and aside from the Keyra match, this might be his standout performance. Really, this whole weekend is a showcase for Marvin, who is both a specialist and an incredibly versatile performer. On night one, he wrestles Villano 3 Jr. and does a credible impression of Daniel Bryan’s mid aughts indie work, and then follows it up with a truly harrowing brawl.

I don’t even really know where to start with this match. It’s one of those matches that flows wonderfully and organically to the point where transitions are hard to spot. Large portions of it remind me of the fight scene from Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac, where two men just run in to one another over and over and get progressively dirtier and more tired. It has a visceral quality that is wholly unique.

This quality makes the moments that do feel like more standard pro wrestling stand out as noteworthy. The missed dive, which marks the first true change in the match, is something that seems obvious even as it happens but manages to feel “real”, as though Marvin really has no other choice but to try and dive, even when everyone in the world aside from him will know it will fail. Of course he will be hit by a weapon he introduced. He will be hoisted by his own petard. That's irrelevant. It's something he must do.

In some way, this is more of an experience than a match. Both Marvin and Terry are loud performers, grunting and panting and shuffling around in ways that almost force you to watch them at all times. Once he starts bleeding, Terry looks dead on his feet, going purely on instinct and that instinct is enough to still beat almost anyone. Marvin looks perturbed throughout, the pissed off look of someone whose head hurts in a way that is truly unhealthy. He moves as though he wants this to be over because if it continues he likely will be hurt in ways he can’t come back from. It’s two unstoppable forces bouncing off one another and falling into a cloud of dust and blood. It’s incredible.

ER: What an incredible fight. Just when you expect Black Terry to fade off and become and actual old man, the King of Coacalco manages to reign supreme. This is a classic Terry brawl, with a major difference. In some of the greatest Terry brawls he can come off as the real punisher, the way Satanico is often left old, bloody, and grinning over his opponents. Black Terry is savage enough that old man sympathy doesn't always play into his matches, as he is often the one causing the worst violence. I'm not sure he's had someone try to bruise up his body the way Ricky Marvin does here. Marvin looks like a man who is casually trying to retire Black Terry, whose eyes keep getting wider the longer the match goes and the longer Black Terry is still fighting back. 

It's great seeing the love Terry gets from the crowd during his entrance, and that love is present but changed later when he is getting dirty on the Arena (yard?) floor, taking punches to the eye and kicks that seem to be aiming for individual internal organs. Marvin is a total casual killer, hitting super hard and utilizing a Finlay approach to using his surroundings. This match was filled with sick violence, but the "small" violence played as mean as the big violent spots. My favorite part of the match might have been when Marvin was forcing Terry's head into a ringpost, interlocking his fingers to get a better grip on Terry's head as he looked to change the shape of Terry's skull. But we also get so many up close magic displays of hard punches, stiff elbows, loud slaps, and all of the sounds of the strikes and the men are amplified in the environment. Both are really great at selling the punishment of their strikes, elevating the strike exchange far beyond the played out strike exchanges we've grown accustomed to this decade. There seem to be stakes in their fighting, you keep waiting for Black Terry to get dropped by the younger fighter who is hitting harder, and yet he keeps finding his way back in. 

Marvin diving headlong through a wooden crate (that he brought out, naturally) and essentially landing head and knees first in the Coacalco dirt is Terry smelling all of the blood in the water, and when he picks up one of the splintered stakes from that crate you get the sense that there are too many parts of Marvin's body that Terry could have started slicing. All of the brawling on the floor is fantastic, and since the crate worked so well for Marvin, he also introduces a guitar. I loved all of their fighting around who would be taking the guitar shot, who would wrestle away and use this heavy guitar, and Marvin winds up really braining Terry with a shot. My initial impression that Marvin was aiming to retire Terry in this match is only backed up by that guitar shot. This delivered beyond what could have been reasonably expected, an exciting on paper match up that kept surprising in the most painful ways. The rain pouring down during the climax of a fight, potentially putting an old man out of commission, gave them their Coacalco Blade Runner moment. 

Iron Kid vs. Demus

PAS: By the time they start this match it is pouring rain and Demus jumps Iron Kid and starts jabbing him with a bottle and fork while folks are setting up the ring. They brawl in the wet dirt (it wasn't mud yet, but getting there) with Kid getting a bit of advantage when he throws a beer in Demus's face. They finally get into the cage and they both smash each other through wooden boxes. Demus teases leaving the cage a couple of times, and they do some stuff where he beats up the ref. Kid is a bit along for the ride, although he does do a cage dive, which is really crazy seeing how wet everything is and how slapdash the cage was Demus is a force though, what a seedy little psycho. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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He Called My Name and My Heart Stood Still, When He Said Black Terry Do My Will

Black Terry/Satanico vs. Silver Star/Garringo LLUE/ERLL 9/6/20 - GREAT

ER: Nothing like a match with mostly 70 year old men, in a building where 95% of the people aren't wearing any kind of mask (It's a lucha show! How are there not more people wearing even lucha masks!?). Satanico and Terry might be the oldest tag team I've ever seen, and it's pretty amazing what they are still capable of doing. Satanico has looked basically the exact same for 25 years now, and he still comes off super spry on the mat. I wasn't expecting him to take so many bumps, but he and Terry both bumped big for armdrags and hiptosses. Satanico took armdrag bumps as fast as he did when he was 50, only slow down came getting back to his feet, but luckily when you work with other senior citizens you can count on your opponent being slower to his feet too. 

Black Terry has certainly slowed down, doesn't look like he can run very well, and yet he still bumps hard and hits harder. His overhand chops and short elbows still sing, and at one point he lit up Silver Star in the corner with a mix of chops, body shots, and elbows. Satanico did a lot of super cool little things, like chop blocking Silver Star while Star was holding Terry in a stretch, and a cool as hell moment with Garringo: Satanico went to throw Garringo by the arm, Garringo held the ropes to break Satanico's hold, then Garringo hit a nice rolling armdrag. The crowd would have likely been fine with them just going through some rote spots, they guys didn't need to add interesting wrinkles to move set up, but that's what makes someone like Satanico a legend. Everyone got their limbs stretched here, beyond where their limbs should naturally be able to stretch at this age, and Terry taking a huge bump off a middle rope armdrag looked painful as hell. I also liked Garringo's sunset flips, he got more height on the jumps than I expected and made them look surprisingly fluid. This whole thing was a much more full, energetic match than I was expecting, and I love how these old dudes can still surprise.

PAS: I have no idea who Garringo is but he looked like a peer of Satanico and Terry and I am sure has been having cool matches for 40 years. Terry looked a little washed her when it came to running the ropes, pretty crazy he had an MOTY a year later, but his mat stuff looked good. Satanico was a badass as usual, that guy is truly ageless, I loved the bump he took into the ropes whiplashing his neck against the top rope to set up a pin. All of the brawling looked good, and for the most part this looked like lucha by guys in their 40s or 50s not 60s and 70s. 

Black Terry/Negro Navarro vs. Mr. Jack/El Gallego Lucha Strong 9/12/20 - FUN

PAS: Both Terry and Navarro are in their 60s (Terry is 68!) and I think we are getting to the point where they can't bring it full force every night. The early sections between Navarro and Gallego had a nice maestro exchange, but the brawling was a bit dull. Mr. Jack is the guy in here who was out of place, and he didn't bring much to the table. I am going to watch Navarro and Terry until they are done, and I imagine there are still some gems to come, but this wasn't it. 

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New Footage Friday: GUERREROS! PANTERA! APACHE! CASAS! FIERA! PIERROTH!

Los Guerreros Del Futuro (Damian El Guerrero/Guerrero del Futuro/Guerrero Maya) vs El Pantera/Filoso/Triton 9/7/93 - FUN

PAS:Solid workman like trios match and a chance to see Black Terry under a mask work this style. Pantera add the flash to the match with a bunch of flips and ranas. Terry(Maya) threw some big overhand chops and clotheslines. Felt more like a time filler then a standout match, but a pleasant way to fill some time.

MD: Perfectly fine trios here, from the Back to the Future music at the start to a motion-heavy finish. As Pantera pops up in this footage, I consistently like what I see. He had the best primera exchange with Futuro, though it also had the most time too. They started with a fun little head-to-head shoving match and moved onto solid matwork with good bridges from Pantera. He also had a nice moonsault press and unique step up wheel kick during the comeback. We didn't get much Maya (Black Terry) there, which was a shame. Really, past a few hard shots, his biggest contribution to the match was being in the right place for the stooging spots later on. The beatdown was fairly subdued, as they kept one rudo in the ring for most of it and kept things in their corner. The match never really exploded but it always kept moving.



El Mestizo/Gran Apache vs Escudero Rojo/Reyes Veloz 9/7/93

MD: It feels good to watch something with stakes and emotions and a hot crowd. This had a lot going for it, three heel control segments (which means three comebacks), Apache putting it all out there, his punches, an exciting, high-stakes finishing stretch, blood and guts. I really liked the end of the primera. The rudos had ambushed at the start and it looked like they were going to get the nod on a double stretch, but Apache came in with a dropkick on both guys. He then laid out one with an awesome punch and teased a dive outside only to turn it into a moonsault back into the ring as Mestizo hit a flip dive off the apron. The second beatdown came after an errant Apache punch which fed into the end of the segunda where once they got the rudos held for the shots, they just didn't stop and get DQed. One nitpick here is that I would have liked some color on the rudos here to help justify the weight of the DQ. Apache and Mesitzo bled (and got their wounds worked over) but the rudos never did. The tercera ended up as a one-on-one fairly quickly and had some pretty exciting post-dive countout teases and near falls, before the finish, where after a couple of missed leaps off the top, Apache had to chase his opponent down before hanging on and dropping him with a German. This is pretty much what you can reasonably hope for when a lost mid-card apuestas match shows up.


PAS: I think the work in this match was pretty basic, although the drama of the hair stipulation and the blood really brought the entire presentation up a big notch. I agree the technicos getting DQ'ed in the segunda was a little weird, this is an apuestas match, the ref has to give them a bit of rope. The third fall was an extended Apache vs. Rojo singles match, which had some real drama to it, interesting to see Apache here, as he really would go on to great things, he wasn't exactly a youngster but this is definitely some of the earliest footage we have of him.

Chamaco Valaguez/Faraón Jr/Oro vs Arkángel de la Muerte/Cachorro Salvaje/Drako 9/10/93

MD: Drako was some mysterious and short-lived North American in the gimmick. We're not sure who. I don't have an answer after watching this but I thought he had solid presence and size with a fairly potent knee shot. They built up a mystique of him going at it with Faraon, Jr. too with some pretty engaging pre-match theatrics. Guys eat falls in CMLL due to the 2/3 structure and he did fall to a German in the segunda but got his heat back (I guess) by getting DQed by wrenching Faraon's head on the top rope in the tercera. It was pretty unfulfilling. Oro was pretty over and had good energy. I liked how big a jerk Cachorro was. Arkangel hit an amazing sit out Rock Bottom to help end the segunda. Drako seemed competent enough that they could have run further with the gimmick. Maybe someday we'll know the story there.

Atlantis/La Fiera/Pierroth Jr vs Black Magic/Mano Negra/Negro Casas 9/10/93


MD: Fantastic stuff. This was building to the Anniversary show, where both Fiera and Casas and Mano Negra and Atlantis would have apuestas matches. They billed Casas, Magic, and Mano Negra as La Ola Negra, which I hadn't heard before. They do tag a handful of times between 92 and 94. This constantly entertaining with the fans very much into it. Fiera is such a perfect Casas opponent, gritty and tough, but with so many different kicks, all of which look good and Casas is so good at dodging one only to eat the next, that sort of thing. Atlantis and Mano Negra brought plenty of hate too, all the way to the mask ripping at the end. The beatdowns were glorious, the comebacks were earned and heated. There was an awesome bit where they picked up Fiera and drove him head first into the first row chairs before tossing Atlantis into the crowd and post match Fiera got revenge on Casas by doing the same. Pierroth and Magic were ok as bit players but this was really about the other four and made me want to go back and watch the 93 Anniversary show again.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Black Terry Wove a Red Cloak So Regal to See

Black Terry vs. Chico Che IWRG 1/29/12 - GREAT

PAS: It's odd that this match escaped me for so long, it's hair match featuring two of my all time favorite wrestlers, during one of my favorite wrestling vintages early 2010s IWRG. How didn't I see it in 2012? How has it been on Powerbomb for two years? How did I review the set up match and not the apuestas? Well I am watching it now, and while booking kept this from being a super high end Black Terry match, it was still pretty awesome stuff.

Chico Che is full rudo in this match, which isn't a role I have seen him in before. He doesn't do his awesome rope running sequence and focuses more on chops and punches, but he has great looking chops and punches so it works good. We get a bunch of gruesome cinema verite close ups of bloody bruised faces getting punched and headbutted. There is an amazing BTJr. shot of both guys smashing their foreheads against each other, while blood sprays off. There was a lot of interference by the seconds (I want to say Dynamic Black and Commando Negro, but I admit my ability to ID IWRG guys from a decade ago has wained), and the third fall was basically all interference and a pretty mistimed ref bump, if they had kept it a gore fest brawl it would have been an easy epic, but I think the set up match is the better of the two. Still this is Chico Che and Black Terry in an Black Terry Jr. filmed HH, so incredibly worth watching.


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Lucha Libre Real 1/26/19

Lucha TV is putting up full lucha indy shows every week, and I want to start at least cherry picking the fun stuff from those shows. This week it is this Lucha Libre Real show with some fun looking stuff.

Demus vs. Robin

Demus is pretty much a must watch at this point. He is maybe the best brawler in the world right now and we get a fun tour of the bleachers with Robin, where he tosses him into chairs, smacks him with a ladies purse, and hits him with a giant metal pipe. There are some moments of fun in ring stuff too, Robin has a nice tope, and Demus hits his great muscle buster. Robin didn't bring a ton from his side, and hopefully we will get tons of these great Demus performances, and to make the list we need some cooler stuff from the B Side.

Black Terry/Pirata Morgan vs. Fresero Jr./Mr. Iguana

Brutal mauling, with Pirata and Terry in the role of twin Abby's bloodying up these two young guys in gruesome ways. Pirata is especially grotesque, painting Iguana's body with his own blood, and smothering him with his hand. Terry is really great at brawling as we all know, and he gets some big time exchanges with both Fresero and Iguana when they get moments of hope. I dug Iguana getting press slammed by his partner into his opponents. Probably too much of a squash to be a real MOTY list candidate, but it was a spectacle for sure.

Juventud Guerrera/Mr. Aguila vs. Los Traumas

Traumas are totally aggro in this, with Juventud talking some trash on the mic and T1 just slapping him right in the teeth. Lots of really hard shots by the Traumas on team Monday Night Wars, Aguila still has some agility and Juvi still has some charisma although they aren't what they were certainly (meanwhile Rey is ageless). Match has some real moments but kind of peters out with a double count out and a post match invasion angle and Aguila turning on Juvi and Vangellys, Grako, and Gangster Jr. running in for a pretty lame invasion angle


Everything I watch was pretty fun, with nothing hitting list. Still I am looking forward to digging into more of this stuff and mining gems

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Maestros in Monterrey

77. Black Terry/Negro Navarro v. Satanico/Blue Panther ERLL 3/19

PAS: Classic Maestros wrestling with a pair of UWA legends facing off against a pair of CMLL all timers. This goes almost 20 minutes, and is one fall so they really get a chance to stretch out and show their stuff.  We get a great long Terry v. Satanico mat battle, including some cool leg stretch attempts by Satanico. Then we get an even better, even longer Panther v. Navarro section, which is mostly worked on their feet as they exchange cool variations and counters out of standing wrist locks. Finish is the mat equivalent of a highspot train with one guy putting on a submission on his opponent only to be broken up by his partner putting on a submission. Navarro here breaks out a crazy leglock which should have been an all time legendary submission finisher, but he just throws out on a whim. The standup and rope running sections didn't look as smooth (Panther is the baby in this match at 57), but the grappling is still amazing. Really liked the finish too, with Satanico and Terry eliminating themselves on a double pin, we get some more Panther v. Navarro, they actually tease the double pin again (which is the finish for 75% of these Maestro matches) only to have Panther catch Navarro with a Fujiwara armbar.


ER: I remember seeing this match was happening but didn't actually know that it made tape, so that's a nice surprise. It's filmed with a weird lens so it makes it feel like you're watching a bunch of old legends through the peephole of your front door, but I'll deal. This was nice and spirited and better than I was expecting, and I just love watching all these men doing their thing. I absolutely loved Panther in this, and his segments with Navarro were probably my favorite maestro moments of 2017. Their standing exchanges and rolling were really cool and felt fresh, filled with things that should be stolen by guys half their age. I always think their slightly slowed down bodies work better for these kind of moments, that slower, older lucha grace adds a little heft to armdrags and roll throughs. Panther had tons of cool smooth moves, loved when he rolled through a wristlock, then sprang backwards to grab Navarro's wrist and throw him, it looked like a trippy breaking move. Later when Panther is opposite Terry, Terry has a brief timing flub, and instead of awkwardly regrouping Panther just rushes him and starts choking him. Thinking on the fly and covering for your dance partner has to be incredibly difficult to do, and it's a real skill to immediately know what to cover for. Satanico and Terry fighting over ankles was great, Satanico takes a great tumble to the floor late in the match, and once I saw Navarro bridge Panther into a pin I totally bought the false finish. I'm glad we got the definitive Panther tapping him finish instead. Panther deserved the win with such a great performance.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Flesh and Blood Needs Flesh and Blood and Black Terry is the One That I Need

Black Terry vs. Chico Che IWRG 1/22/12 - EPIC

PAS: There are few things in wrestling I love more then a Arena Naucalpan punch out, and Black Terry is the Mozart of the bar fight. This is like something out of Oldboy, with both guys saturated with blood pounding on each other. Che has these great meaty punches, his hands look like hams and tries to put them through Terry's head in this match. Terry has one of his great old gunslinger moments in this match, where takes over on Che, and as Che is begging off Terry wipes his blood on his hand and shows it to Chico, "This is what you did, now here is what I am going to do" and unloads with chairs, and fists until Che is swimming in his own blood. Near the end of the match Che unloads his trademark rope running sequence, but Terry just sidesteps the backwards headbutt and kicks him square in the head. So many great cinematic BT Jr. filmed moments, post Che's tope we get a close up of both guys drenched in gore, smashing their heads into each other like old half dead rams. Worth a Powerbomb.tv subscription just for this classic.

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