FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: BABA vs. RUSHER~! BRET vs. SID~! PANTHER~! CASAS~! UG~! ATLANTIS~!

 
Giant Baba/Hiroshi Wajima vs. Goro Tsurumi/Rusher Kimura AJPW 3/27/88

MD: Classics drop from a while ago but no one else is going to cover this stuff at length. It was a lot of fun too. Tsurumi got in Wajima's face early and they honestly really went at it. I don't know if Wajima was just a bit further along in his development by this point or if Tsurumi brought the best out of him but they were slugging. Eventually Rusher got in and Wajima walked him to the corner and the crowd went nuts at the idea of Baba and Rusher (even in 88) facing off. Baba was so slick and self-aware too. He just dropped on his back and picked an ankle. Then he did the headlock > hammerlock > go behind and dropped on his back and did it again. Awesome stuff. After that, Rusher didn't break clean and just blistered him.That just pissed Baba off and he soon blocked a chop, hit the head chop, and was on the mat choking the life out of Rusher.

It wasn't until later on, a few exchanges and tags later (and after he hit the Bulldog on Wajima), that Rusher was finally able to chip away at him and knock him down. Baba mounted a big comeback though, turning a whip around into a neckbreaker drop. Tsurumi tried his luck and got headbutted for his trouble, and then Rusher made saves for him until Wajima was finally able to put him away. I had a lot of fun with it certainly. 

ER: We've been working our way through the entirety of All Japan's 3/27/88 show the last several months, like we're reviewing one song at a time from a Grateful Dead Hampton Coliseum show. We reviewed Big Bubba vs. Shunji Takano last month, we reviewed Isao Takagi vs. Tom Magee and Tommy Rich/Austin Idol vs. Great Kabuki/Tiger Mask II around Thanksgiving. Maybe we'll do Masa Fuchi vs. George Skaaland this summer. 

This is most exciting to me because it's Baba and Rusher Kimura on opposite sides of a tag. I've seen so many Baba/Rusher tags, so many visions of brotherhood, two men who always showed how much they cared for each other during their tags. Once they started teaming they never stopped. Rusher was always on Baba's side during their old man trios, so 1988 would be the last era to see any kind of Baba/Rusher interaction opposite each other. They love each other and don't want to hurt each other, and Rusher shows this by wearing a Giant Baba shirt to the ring!!! The looks they exchanged all match made this so special, and every look and exchange between them is special. On top of this dynamic, you have Goro Tsurumi shit talking Wajima during the ring intros, firing up Wajima to such temperature that he attacked Goro before Baba had even been announced. You could see faces of fans disappointed they wouldn't get to use their Baba-colored streamers. 

Rusher being the one to throw chops at Baba was inevitable, loud open slaps that Baba sold by folding cross-armed at the waist after finally blocking one and chopping Rusher. Baba vs. Rusher was more about gamesmanship, Goro vs. Wajima was hubris and irritability. Goro distracts the ref before mule kicking Wajima in the balls, pulling an inside cradle that Baba breaks up with a disdainful shoving boot from the apron, a real "knock it off, goofball" demeanor. When Rusher breaks up a pin by lightly pulling on Baba's leg, Baba rolls to his back and just looks at Rusher like his boyfriend just playfully pretended to trip over him while he was doing yoga. Wajima palms Goro's face and face slams him to the mat, and when Rusher comes in to save him, he turns right around and leaps through the ropes to the floor when he sees Baba is in position to stop him. I love them. I love what they had. 

Sycho Sid vs. Bret Hart [Cage] WWF MSG 3/16/97

MD: Great Sid bit coming out as he was startled by his own pyro, not afraid of it, but looking like he might lash out at it. Say what you will about thigh slapping, but Bret was the best damn strike stomper that ever struck. He stomped on his punches. He stomped on his kicks. He stomped on his headbutts. There's a sort of purity to it, a beauty, that wrestling can be this too, and it would not just be accepted, but seen as an immersive ideal. Almost instantly, it means that Sid's shots, though bigger arcs, don't feel quite as punchy because he's not stomping on every shot, just some. And of course, when Bret gets whipped into the corner (even back first), he's somehow able to hit in a way that makes the post crash into the cage to make a satisfying noise. Someone could write even more about the SOUND of Bret matches. But it's notable in passing for a paragraph here.

What Sid did do amazingly, however, was frame his action. At one point, after pulling Bret off the cage after he'd been trying to climb out, Sid lifted him up like he'd hit a fall away slam or backbreaker. He looked to the left abruptly, then to the right, these little stilted motions that brought you into the moment by taking you out of it. Then he ran Bret into the cage. He was so big and so strong he didn't have to do anything like that, but that's what made him not just a giant but a star. 

Finish of this was clever enough (if still bullshit like most escape the cage matches that involve the door). Bret had the Sharpshooter on, but that doesn't get him the win in a WWF escape the cage match. Sid was still able to get up and cut him off while climbing, but Sid sold the leg well when he tried to climb. That let Bret hit the huge superplex but Sid, despite being unable to climb, was able to crawl out the door just before Bret could drop.

ER: Cool blue bars MSG cage match just a week before WrestleMania, with something of note happening at all times. Bret gently stumbles during his entrance in a way you can tell really pissed him off, throwing off his entire walk to the ring. He tried to slap hands with a security guard and then ran into a guard on the other side of the aisle, completely rattled. Sid, meanwhile, is in control. Wet as hell, fist bumping everyone, entrance theme perfection. He reacts to his own pyro not like someone startled, but like someone who wasn't expecting pyro and had also never seen pyro before. Mystified, not rattled; curious, but upset. Sid wrestles like Cool Iron Mike Sharpe. Their movement and offense is identical. Body Glove elbow sleeve instead of forearm cast. The more you watch both the more undeniable it becomes. Their offense is thrown the exact same way. Sharpe was Vocal Sid with brown curls, Sid is wide eyed stoic Sharpe with blond curls.  

I've talked before about the audio on these Vault releases, and it really is like seeing wrestling from this era presented in a totally new way. Not having to mic down the crowd to hear any announcers is a marvel in itself, getting to hear individual fans through a full match, hearing how loud and heavy Sid is breathing after they did the first stretch of climbing, how LOUD the turnbuckles sound the three different times Bret gets run into them (two back first, the third his classic chest first), how the ring barely moves but explodes in sound when Bret is pressed off or Sid is superplexed. All the new revelations in sound leap out the entire match. When we wrote about a Goldust/Shawn Michaels ladder match last year, the sound of the ring was so incredible that it added to every bump and strike they did, and that was just as magnified here. A lot of this was arm strikes, Bret throwing his worked punches and Sid throwing his Iron Mike Sharpe arm swings. After Sid's first escape attempt, while Bret is fighting with him on the top rope, Bret's punches to Sid's body look outstanding. As Matt said, Bret is a stomper, a striker totally unseen in modern wrestling, but there's no stomping up top. 

After the match, after the big superplex, after Bret's sharpshooter failed and Sid was still able to crawl to the door that Bret must have forgot about (that stupid psychology wrinkle in every single WWF escape the cage match), there's an immaculate bridge and tunnel girl with her hair done up, trying to take a picture of Bret. He walks right past her on the aisle, and she reaches out to touch his shoulder. As he passes her and her hand makes full contact with him, all she can do in the aftermath is stare at her hand, no expression on her face. In her first physical brush with fame, she got to experience how oiled up and slimy pro wrestlers are, and her brain had no idea how to process this new information. 

Ultimo Guerrero/Atlantis vs. Negro Casas/Blue Panther CMLL 12/4/07 (?)

MD: This was a title match, worked like a title match, and it was refreshing to see in 2026. Primera had Casas vs Guerrero and they did fine, but the pairing of Blue Panther vs Atlantis was just great. Atlantis looked like a million bucks and some of that was on him and some of it was on Panther. Things built to everything breaking down and the tecnicos (Casas/Panther) won with simultaneous submissions (Scorpion by Casas, and a sort of Navarro inverted leglock by Panther). Segunda opened up when Panther went for it again on Guerrero only to get cut off. UG hit the senton de la muerte in the corner on both at once and after tossing them around a bit, Guerrero and Atlantis locked on a tandem submission on both at once (a sort of camel clutch on one while tied to the other and into an Octopus) that looked like a lot of fun.

Tercera had all the bombs you'd expect. There was a slight sense that the refs weren't allowing Casas to punch them because it was a title match and they were the tecnicos but once things went to the floor Casas unloaded. There was another great comeback moment where Guerrero missed in the corner and did his big knee bump over. Panther hit a tope on Atlantis while Casas hit his seated senton off the apron. Then he went and rubbed the head of some kid at ringside with a poncho, which is pure Casas. They followed it with nearfalls (including tandem power bombs) until GdA locked in tandem Atlantidas for the win. They celebrated big afterwards and it did feel like a big deal. Very good tag title match.

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D3AN~!!! Day 1: MAESTROS~!

DEAN~!!! 3 9/6/25

Blue Panther/Virus/Pantera vs Hechicero/Dr. Cerebro/Xelhua

This exceeded every expectation.

Don't look at me that way. I'm a true believer. These are my guys. This was the match I was looking forward to the most, the one that kept getting better with every announcement. 

(I would have loved to see what Angelico could have done with these guys but now that I've seen it, I wouldn't change it for the world).

But just look at the numbers here. The tecnico side has a combined age of 181, with an average of  60.33333. And I love maestros matches, I do. It was a joy whenever any of those old man FLLM Masters title matches showed up with Negro Navarro or Solar or Blue Panther or Satanico or whoever. And yes, of course, Blue Panther is having a blowaway year. And it's not like he and Cerebro aren't empowered by wearing the mask again and there was Hechicero with his relative size to base, and Xelhua has all the youth and energy and flash you could want in a scientific wrestler. 

BUT STILL...

Even with those FLLM matches, you had a certain expectation when it came to pace and style. They'd build to a few more impactful spots, would pepper them in when it mattered the most. You might even get one dive which again, they would make the absolute most out of, but that's not why you were watching. You were watching to see the technique and the struggle and the effort, the personality and the interaction. The way they worked the crowd, the way they worked each other.

I tend to get frustrated with how six-man (and more) matches work in AEW, dependent on who you have in there. There are lots of ways to run them. I love the big 80s NJPW elimination tags where there's no room for escape if you get too close to the ropes. I grew up on Survivor Series matches which would be the only time each year to see so many personalities interact with one another. 

On paper, I understand the concept of a lucha trios style match allowing for quick action, for people to cycle in and out and keep the spots endlessly flowing. The problem is that the US wrestlers who focus on that element the most when they get to play by those rules are the same ones who generally do so much of that in the first place. It just takes away the need for them to structure a match at all and just gives them every excuse to "do stuff" without thought or meaning. 

Here, though, where there were obvious physical limitations, it worked perfectly. Instead of being more compounding more, creating noise, it allowed the action to continue and for the rigors of time to be overcome by spreading the load across all six wrestlers.

The other side of the equation in my frustration over "lucha styled" US matches is that they drop all of the other trappings, the ones that give the action purpose and form. Here, most were there. There were initial pairings (Pantera vs Cerebro, Panther vs Xelhua, Virus vs Hechicero). They made full use of the 2/3 falls format. In the primera caida, the pairings were given time so that they could work the mat. In the segunda caida, they escalated to rope running with a second round of pairings. Then the tercera caida had tricked out submissions broken up one after the next. In each caida, everything broke down building to the finish. The only thing it was missing was a clear rudo control and tecnico comeback but in a match that was, in many ways, an exhibition and showcase, that was fine, especially since the rudos took the primera, creating some inherent pressure anyway.

With the structure clear and the action steady, the details were allowed to shine, and what great details we got here. The initial pairings were a blast, with Pantera doing his headstands, with Xelhua and Panther leaning into attitude and trading similar holds, and with Hechicero's size allowing Virus (blue tecnico facepaint brandished) to hit some of his more stylized agility moves from years gone by. Everything built to Hechicero once again basing, this time for a flying Blue Panther 'rana (He'd hit another dive to set up the finish in the tercera too. What a guy). This cleared the ring for Xelhua to tie up Virus for the win. 

I loved Xelhua's swagger here. Cerebro, Hechicero, and Xelhua were a team spanning three decades of under the radar technical rudo wizards, and the youngest of the lot was full of bluster and attitude, making sure everyone knew he fit right in. Meanwhile, you had Pantera constantly clapping up the crowd and Blue Panther flexing his newly obtained rights to the "Yes" chant, keeping everyone engaged and focused and ensuring all of this was not just technically amazing but rooted in character as well. 

It carried through all the way to the tercera. I loved the cycling through. You watch that in old lucha and sometimes they'd just grab an arm or something, but here the wrestlers were going out of their way to make every hold as interesting as possible and then to wind the crowd up before breaking it up, all the way to Hechicero's last contortion for the finish.

I have no idea what inspired these guys on this night. I don't know what they were feeling. I don't know what butterflies might have been in Xelhua's stomach, or even Cerebro or Panther's, but they were given the room to stretch and express themselves and present some of the most genuine, creative, dynamic lucha libre in front of a game crowd, and they ran with faster and farther than I could have imagined. 

Whether or not they fully realized how much it would matter, they created something beautiful for my friends, in the memory of my friend, something that hit so many of the marks that I love about lucha, in front of a crowd, in a venue, and on a stage where this sort of a portrait has so rarely been allowed to be painted so genuinely before.  

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2025 Blue Panther Double Feature: Hechicero! Ultimo Guerrero!

MD: We've been sitting on this Panther vs Hechicero review since January. But now past Panther vs Ultimo Guerrero, we figured we'd drop them both together. Keep in mind I wrote the following 7 months ago though. Eric’s review is new though.

Blue Panther vs. Hechicero CMLL 1/10/25

MD: What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, we were just off of the RUSH vs. Negro Casas feud. Casas and Blue Panther were just around 55 (Casas half a year older than Panther). It seemed fairly clear that while Panther was still enjoyable in the occasional trios or maestro match, and, of course, when paired up against Casas himself, he was simply outpaced by his archrival.

It made sense. Panther was always charismatic in his own way and there was a sort of seasoned toughness and mastery to him even after he lost his mask. Casas had spent a career without one, however, and he was an absolutely singular talent when it came to expressiveness, body language, actions and reactions. Just by winding up the crowd, he could accomplish more than wrestlers thirty years younger than him who could do the most complex and amazing spots.

Yet here we are at the start of 2025, and it is Blue Panther, at the age of 64, who towers like some sort of wizened warrior king. To call his mask (allowed to him for this one night by the commission) a fountain of youth would be doing an injustice to his own daring and pluck, to Hechicero's ability to create motion and base, but maybe most of all, to the virtue of showing one's age. At times Blue Panther moved amazingly well, but it was those moments where the cracks showed, where he struggled to get from Point A to Point B that truly gave meaning to his efforts.

They were incredibly self-aware throughout. In the primera, Panther was put in a position to escape again and again, including a memorable headstand escape to headscissors. While he was able to showcase those escapes, he was working from underneath given Hechicero's superior youth and strength and his own technical mastery, and he got caught in the Conjuro. He evened things up in the segunda after a slick leap back body press. They were smart with these callbacks. In the tercera, Panther would finally get caught doing that one too many times. On the other hand, a rana that he attempted that got him caught early in the tercera (So that Hechicero could really take over) paid off later on.

Hechicero did control the first half of the tercera after catching Panther with a power bomb. Whereas he might bump through the ropes to set up a dive, he rolled Panther out and draped him over the guardrail instead, controlling and creating an illusion of motion (not that there wasn't a lot from Panther anyway, but every little bit helped). Panther's big comeback, getting the crowd going, standing tall, firing back, was as special as anything in the match and as special as anything we've seen this year so far. 

He followed it up with a dive that didn't quite work but they covered so well, with Hechicero taking over until he let Panther sweep him off the apron so they could get back on track. And anyway, there's no point in remembering that dive considering the two or three other impressive ones Panther hit and Hechicero caught. As noted, a match like this is just a little more impressive for holding together despite the cracks than something that would be plastic and perfect instead. 

And this was impressive from beginning to end, a notch on the belt not just of both wrestlers, but on the power of lucha libre and wrestling itself. Some of it was daring and athleticism and training. So much of it was the carefully crafted illusion of all those things and more. What is magic if not exactly that?

ER: I don't know where Blue Panther found the Fountain of Youth but he found it sometime at the end of 2024 and it's been something. I'm not going to say Panther has looked washed the last several years, he's just looked appropriately His Age. Great performances were more rare. We'd get a showoff spot in a trios, or a fun five minute lightning match, maybe one big singles match a year where he'd step up. Based on his work the last 5 (10?) years, Panther's 2025 has come out of nowhere. Going further, following the first two falls, the tercera also came out of nowhere. The primera and segunda felt like a Hechicero match, which makes sense. How would a 64 year old man show up any bigger in the tercera after a couple cool spots in their first two falls? Had you watched Panther's headstand escapes out of a floatover headscissors in the primera, or his gorgeous floating cannonball in the segunda, suspended in contact with Hechicero's upper torso until they crashed, you would not be expecting him to go insane in the tercera. But that's what happened. 

Hechicero looked like a monster picking on an old man, and Arena Mexico treated him as such. Every trademark Hechicero punishment was altered to be more punishing. He got several rotations on his trapped arm backbreaker and loved the heat he would draw whenever he slugged the legend. When Panther finds back at the end of the segunda, it feels like a last gasp, not necessarily the jumping off point into our special tercera.  Panther looks improbably lithe running up the turnbuckles into a crossbody, submitting Hechicero with a hold that looked like a Stu Hart Dungeon stretch punctuated and tightened by rolling. It felt like a triumph, and I guess I should never underestimate the power of a crowd behind a sympathetic old man, because again, this tercera could not have been anticipated. 

Everything jumps up to the next level in the tercera. Panther is thrown into a tree of woe and headscissors his way out of it, gets placed up top and loudly chopped. The crowd reacts as loud to Hechicero's chop as they do to anything he does all match. When Panther tries to leap off with a headscissors it is blocked, and it feels like a genuine stalemate that pushed things to a crazier place. The headscissors is fought for, the powerbomb is fought for, and when Hechicero's powerbomb wins out it feels more like a concession from Hechicero than winning a battle. A stalemate. Hechicero dropping him felt more like a man realizing he was fighting someone with more juice than he realized. And so, he dials up his inner asshole. 

Hechicero hits a leaping elbow off the apron, kicks Panther in the head several times, then starts punching him in the side of the head. All it does is fire Panther up, and the more fired up Panther gets, the louder Arena Mexico gets. Panther builds to a tope that almost kills him. His head catches on the ropes, he goes down almost head first, and it's one of those fragile moments that makes me love old man wrestlers more than any other kind of wrestler. There is built in sympathy because their bodies do not work the same, even in those moments where their youth has been tapped into, and in moments like these we are collectively reminded that they - and we - are all closer to death. As Blue Panther is making me think about death, he is unafraid, and hits a plancha off the buckles that lands like an anchor, building to a crazy leaping huracanrana off the apron. Panther either trusts Hechicero with his life, or has put aside has already come to terms with his God. 

When Panther tries running up the buckles for another crossbody, repeating what won him the segunda, Hechicero knows exactly what's coming and catches him with a big uranage, drops elbows on him, but takes too long attempting a moonsault. Panther rushes over on his knees for a pin attempt, seeing his shot, viewing the pin as a better chance at victory than locking in a sub, and manages to do so in a way that feels more capitalizing than desperate. His crossbody off the buckles that hit, was caught, but his leaping huracanrana off the buckles that was caught, now hits. Panther has Hechicero crossed up by his tenacity, and just as we seemed shocked at what Panther is suddenly capable of, that counts even more for Hechicero. They fight to the entrance ramp where Panther whips Hechicero into the tall staircase, and Panther hits a plancha off those stairs about 10 steps up, letting the crowd reaction grow with each step he takes, Arena Mexico urging him higher...wait but not that high! 

Hechicero is fighting for his life to keep this spirit down, going to his surefire basics and doing them twice, two running knees that should surely end this all. But his slower submission application almost gets him caught by a tight Panther cradle, and that's when he finally has to get dirty. To stop this from happening again, he removes Panther's mask in one quick swipe as part of his next submission attempt, a sleight of hand to throw the legend for just a brief second, a surprise for the man who has spent 20 minutes surprising everyone, which is all he needs to complete the application and bridge through for a high leveraged pin. With his performance at DEAN~! and the Ultimo Guerrero match still to come, even after witnessing all of this, nobody could have predicted Panther's continued 2025 rise.  

Blue Panther vs. Ultimo Guerrero CMLL 8/8/25

MD: The last thing I want to do is downplay the clips. I'm sure most of you saw them. Meltzer went nuts for them even. In this match, Panther did multiple dives of various sorts, be it a flip off the apron, lunging 'ranas, a trust fall from the stage, the over the post bound, and then the top rope electric chair twisting 'rana. Yes, on some of them he had help, be it from his son or Guerrero, but it was an insane stunt show by a man almost 65 years old. And while that's not what I want to talk about here (and if you know me, you know that's not what I want to talk about), the sheer abandon Panther showed in making this match work was remarkable. 

What I want to talk about, however, is how they made it matter. Some of it was going to matter anyway. It would matter by its own nature. You do a dive and it matters, because there's an element of the real to it. There's an element of the daring. There's an element of the spectacular. You do a dive as an old man and it's going to matter even more because all of those things (save maybe for the spectacular) are compounded by an even further element of real, and realness is one of the most powerful forces in pro wrestling.

But it's not the most powerful. Artifice done well will always be more powerful than the real, and when the real that is manifested (be it a resounding chop, a hold with proper technique, or a bump that you can feel from the last row) is framed by the perfect invoking of artifice, that's when wrestling hits the very best. 

And these two are masters of artifice. This was for the MLW Openweight Belt, and they had the pre-match photo. Usually that goes without a hitch, a last remnant of the 80s lucha title match, something held to a higher standard when it came to rules and behavior. Here though, it became a tug of war, with Guerrero the aggressor, hoarding his own belt and his moment to shine. All that got him was a trip to the mat and a bump onto his rear end. He rose enraged and leaped at Panther, ambushing him and tearing off his mask. Because Panther's mask is a ceremonial allowance, Guerrero was able to get all of the heat of the action with none of the penalty, the only time in a CMLL ring where that would be possible. It set the tone perfectly. Every trick in the book underpinned by real and actual substance. Every bump and move underpinned by all of those tricks.

In the Hechicero review, I had suggested that it was the mask that hid Panther's age and gave him some sort of primordial strength, serving as a fountain of youth in its own way. In this match, he more than proved me wrong. 

Still, what sticks with me now a week later and what will stick with me months down the line was that way that they framed every move, the way that they appealed to the crowd. If Panther was going to do a dive, he was going to go out of his way to let every person in that audience (and there were many) know that he was about to do it. He built up their anticipation, churned them into a furor, and then paid it off to their delight. When Guerrero turned things around on him, he did so as theatrically as possible. It wasn't enough to hit a suplex. It wasn't even enough to hit a suplex on the floor. He had to dump Panther back over the guardrail and suplex him back over that. 

And of course, when Panther came back, he made sure to channel the most powerful crowd interaction of the last fifteen years, fingers up in the air to combat Guerrero's roof-raising, Danielson's Yes Chant in full force.

There's always an element of ritual to watching an Ultimo Guerrero match. Ten years ago, I likened it to going to church on a Sunday (just on a Friday night), some of the same spots (and here there was the power bomb counter off the top), but in this match, it was Panther who was guiding the congregation. 

There was escalation and build and sense to all of it too. When Panther tried an early comeback, ref Edgar held the arm to stop a punch in the corner, because while Guerrero could get away with it, in a title match, the tecnico is to be held to a higher standard. Instead of being a hindrance and distraction, Panther used it as a way to build pressure, first for when he finally got shots on Guerrero in the corner later (once again pulled off but here not a hope spot cut off) and then finally when he mounted the turnbuckle defiantly, no... triumphantly, so that the fans could count along with him.

In the end, tasting glory as he did, feeling power that defied age and world-weariness, he flew just a bit too close to the sun. He dove one too many times, a relatively simple back cross body off the ropes. Guerrero rolled through it and won the day, retaining his title. But both men celebrated after the fact, because together they won far more than a simple match.

ER: He wore blue velvet, my god. Would you look at this beautiful man in the most perfect mask in lucha history. Believe it or not, I went into this match without seeing a single highlight. Every single crazy thing that Panther did was unexpected and every single thing got a bigger reaction from me. When I saw Sleepaway Camp for the first time a decade or so ago, I didn't know anything about it. None of my friends did, either, so the reaction by the end of the movie was a room full of humans jumping off their seats screaming. I don't know if I reached the point of screaming during this match, but Blue Panther's Continued Youth Revival did inspire me to shout at my TV no less than five times. Blue Panther was aged for a decade but now he is ageless, but he is ageless in a way that shows his age. His selling, to me, means more than ever, and his selling is better than it's ever been. 

He has this comedic babyface energy that people respond to, and it's amplified by his kind old man visage. Look at him quietly shaking out the cobwebs whenever Guerrero would kick him in the side of the head. He's doing like Milton Berle double takes within a pro wrestling selling framework. Panther's humanity is beautiful. Watching him get kicked around is like seeing somebody fight Mel Brooks. He draws sympathy in ways that would have been impossible 15+ years ago, but his selling didn't just naturally improve because he got old man sympathy, he works to connect with the crowd in ways he never used to. It's in the eyes, it's in his stumble steps, it's in the way he slowly fires up his arms. The selling alone would help him connect with these crowds to huge reaction...but the sudden moveset insanity puts it all over the top. 

Panther's clotheslines and ability to fire up a crowd makes him come off like wrestling's most powerful Rusher Kimura. His cannonball off the apron has surpassed and outlived Negro Casas's Thesz Press as the greatest crazy fired up old man crazy peak. But remember when Panther spent most of his career not doing headscissors and huracanranas and now does crazier huracanranas than ever? Is it the ultimate testament to Ultimo Guerrero's accolades as a lucha base that a 64 year old man trusts him to catch the most highflying he's done in his long career? Blue Panther's leaping huracanrana is my favorite spot of 2025. It's like if Terry Funk had added a moonsault in the 90s but if his moonsault was as great as 2 Cold Scorpio's. I gasp as Panther's head scrapes 1" over the mat, then yelled when his head does the same thing swinging over concrete. I don't think I ever anticipated Blue Panther evolving into a crazy old man Terry Funk persona, but doing it with the old man sympathies combined with youthful adventurousness. Seeing all of Panther's flying is surreal, even more surreal than seeing Panther and Guerrero do a tug of war with a fucking MLW title. A plancha over the ringpost? You've got to be kidding me. I can barely take watching this man take these risks, and I honestly don't know how he does it. 

I don't remember the last time I saw a spot as triumphant as Blue Panther punching Guerrero on the turnbuckles, letting each punch sink in, crowd screaming along, before climbing onto the shoulders of Ultimo. The camera angle made their entire fall happen in slow motion, like Butch and Sundance, Panther being held steady and ready to ride an entire man down. You can see them start to slowly tip forward and know it's the point of no return...but this whole match felt like the point of no return. Blue Panther has committed to this. He's committed to wrestling, he's committed to putting on the craziest performance at an outdoor Arizona shopping center, he's committed to innovating and finding new ways to connect at a point where nobody would blame him for coasting. I love the guy, and I've never loved him more than I do in 2025. 

2025 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: 80s SPAIN~! PANTHER~! PSICOSIS~! REY~! FANTASTICS~! KIKUCHI~!

Santi Rico(c) vs. Manuel Acapulco 3/30/83

MD: Spanish wrestling! Don't get too excited. This looks like a one off and it is well, well past the glory years. As an overall presentation, it's fascinating though. This is on a variety show of sorts and likened to when they had someone run two days straight from one city to another or a stunt man on. Here it's the defense of a title. That said, they were ready to put their best foot forward and it was a celebration in its own way.

The centerpiece was not Mr. Ferraras, the president of the Castilian federation who was interviewed beforehand and presented  the belt/sash (a nice collection of flags upon it) to the world champion at the end. It wasn't the wrestlers, Santi Rico billed from Spain who had been active for a few years at least and Acapulco (Montezuma?) who was billed from Mexico. Apparently neither had 100 matches under his respective belt. More on them later. It wasn't even Quasimodo, our friend from the French footage, who was known in French as the Caribbean Cyclone, who was there to witness and talk about his school of 30 wrestlers he was training. 

The centerpiece, to me was Bobby Deglané, who even with my rough Spanish and YouTube's translate function, came off as an exceptional commentator, especially for someone who was never on national TV as such. He was a stalwart of the radio days however and was as poised and collected as one could be. He introduced all the rules (which part of the foot you could hit with, for instance, or the twenty count on the outside which was different than boxing) and explained all the techniques. They describe the realness of wrestling as half spot and half spectacle and he was quick to point out the damaging effects of shots to the head for instance. 

Some of the normative things were interesting. They called it American wrestling, Catch as Catch Can. The referee had a whistle for rope breaks. It was set up in six rounds of five minutes with a minute in between. There were ring girls to kiss cheeks and present trophies at the end as well as hold up the round numbers. They even said "Seconds out" at the start so there were elements of British wrestling as well as French (or vice versa depending on how things developed). The crowd was very into it despite being potentially unfamiliar.

And the wrestling was ok, spirited, high effort. It was rough around the edges based on what you'd expect, but that made sense given how quiet the scene was. I'd say that Acapulco looked the smoother of the two as one out of every three things Rico.went for didn't quite work. A lot of the holds did, headscissors, inner armbars, headlocks, mares, with all of the escapes. Rico had dropkicks and they varied. Acapulco leaned rudo as the match went on, throwing knees and rabbit punches and eventually headbutts that led to color (have to make things feel legitimate). This was not Cesca vs. Catanzaro. I'd say it wasn't even Flesh Gordon vs. Eliot Frederico but it was a pretty fascinating glimpse into a people trying to showcase and remember their lost tradition, a tradition that we've more or less accepted that we'll only ever be able to marginally touch.

Isamu Teranishi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Fantastics (Bobby Fulton/Tommy Rogers) AJPW 1/11/91

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HjFd7h3fKU

MD: We've missed a few matches from AJPW Classics but it's a bit tricky since some of what gets shown are matches we already had JIP where we just get the first 5 minutes. Maybe we still should go back for something like MVC vs. Jumbo/Taue but I never know. This, however, is, I think, new. And it's fun if flawed.

I struggle with this Fantastics run as they tend to do a lot of stuff and really eat up their opponents if possible. They got the memo and knew they had to look strong in order to be over in All Japan but it really doesn't make for great matches, especially when they're up against Footloose. Then you just get noise. This was better than that because they were able to dominate and Kikuchi's a lot of fun working from underneath. Lots of individual fun stuff whether it was Teranishi trying (and sometimes succeeding) to land on his feet against Rogers or the Fantastics hitting a bunch of double teams. 

Still, when Kikuchi was able to fire back or Teranishi able to stand strong, the Fantastics generally just shrugged it off. The worst of this was when Fulton missed an axe handle onto the guardrail from the apron. Pretty good spot, something you don't see every day. Didn't change the trajectory of the match a bit. Ah well. This isn't Can-Ams vs. Kikuchi, that's for sure. Still pretty fun for what it was though. Just what it was had a ceiling.

ER: I thought this was real tough, hard fought, with a feeling like it was going to turn unprofessional any moment. There were moments of miscommunication between Rogers and Teranishi, but it added to the vibes of Something Going Down. Really, it was probably just because everyone worked real stiff and kept fighting all match. Matt correctly notes some seemingly big spots that don't change the trajectory of the match, but I thought that just made everyone come off tough, wanting to fight. I like Asshole Bully Fantastics as their style is totally different. You still see those moments of babyface grace - look at how clean Tommy Rogers hits a sunset flip off the top - but there are more moments of these little guys throwing real shots. Rogers throws two hard back elbows at Kikuchi's eye when he seems surprised by a hammerlock reversal, so Kikuchi throws two elbow smashes at his eye. I love when Kikuchi is targeted with real abuse, like they all know he can take it and it gives them license to fill up their asshole meter. 

Tommy Rogers bodyslams Kikuchi from the ring out to the damn floor, just slips out the back and throws him over the top on his back. It looked more like John Nord eliminating a job guy from a battle royal, not little power pack Tommy murdering a fellow junior. It looks nasty...but Bobby Fulton's full speed baseball slide dropkick as Kikuchi is recovering looked even worse. Fulton flew between the bottom and middle ropes and connected so flush that he bounced back clean. Now, I expected this to lead to a long heat section on Kikuchi, but there's that thing about everyone just coming off tough, because when they go outside to capitalize Kikuchi just fights them both off with elbows and a stiff clothesline. Bobby Fulton looked like a real killer here, even more than Rogers, and seemed to work a bit better with Teranishi. I was shocked by how fast old man (same age as me) Teranishi flipped onto his feet, and Fulton seemed surprised by it as well. Kikuchi's comeback was real choice, ducking a tandem clothesline and hooking Fulton's waist for a "surprise" German suplex that Rogers instantly dropped an elbow on. The finish was real sick too, with Fulton scooping up Kikuchi for a Samoan drop and flinging Rogers onto him with a cannonball. The Fantastics worked as bully heels in All Japan better than the similar sized State Patrol, and I bet there are many who have never seen them quite like this. 

Blue Panther/Cien Caras/Psicosis vs. Konnan/Rey Misterio Jr./Angel Azteca Promo Azteca 11/30/96

MD: Roy says this is new and even though it cuts out before the finish, that's over 20 minutes and when you look at who's in it, it's worth checking out. Blue Panther was paired with Konnan early and it was sort of fascinating what they did. I'm not saying it was always exactly what I wanted, but it was always interesting. Panther had all of his tricked out stuff and Konnan just sort of roughed his way through in a believable, competitive way. Psicosis or Caras would sneak in to get cheapshots whenever he had the advantage. Rey and Psicosis was old hat but the best damn hat you might want with how Psicosis would base for Rey and Caras and Azteca had some stalling and cheapshots around Azteca getting things in. That was the primera, ending with some rope running with Panther and Azteca and Konnan vs. the world before he set Rey up with a monkey flip right into a 'rana that was pretty damn spectacular.

Segunda has a brief but great Blue Panther vs. Rey exchange and Psicosis stooging beautifully as he was heading into the ropes when Rey was doing the 619 dive tease and he bumped on it. Psicosis also got jammed on a monkey flip in the ropes by Konnan and took a bump over the top after some great struggle. Caras overpowered Rey and the rudos took over. They kept the beat down going into the tercera (including Blue Panther just tearing at Konnan's eye) before Konnan mounted a big comeback against everyone and things picked up towards the finish as it all cuts off. Some very fun pairings and imaginative stuff here though. Tons of personality too.

ER: Any time 20+ minutes of prime footage turns up of these guys, it needs to be covered, and this is a fun as hell way to watch these guys, so many fun exchanges and individual performances. Any new Rey/Psicosis interactions are going to cause excitement, and the more Psicosis footage we get (there is a lot) the more obvious it is how much better he was before WCW. WCW really sanded all the edges off a tremendous all around rudo and boiled him down to being a base with a couple big bumps who wasn't really great at working 3 minute singles matches. Whenever I watch a lucha match from the same exact era he was working WCW, he's so much more of a character, so much more fully formed, so much more of a star. His stooging is an incredible part of his rudo character, one that was mostly boiled away when he became Rey's touring dance partner. Here it's alive and thriving. Tripping over the ropes and getting upset with the ref about it is a great Psicosis trademark that wouldn't have translated to American audiences but was perfect for Mexican audiences. He's able to work more violently here than he would in WCW, and him being more of a flagrant asshole gives greater weight to all of his big bumps. 

My favorite things about this were the Panther/Konnan matwork in the primera, and Cien Caras's increased involvement as the match went on. I don't think I've ever seen Panther hit the mat with Konnan and I thought it was awesome. I am someone who thinks Konnan is better than given credit for while acknowledging that many of the criticisms are fair. He doesn't look like someone who can keep up with Panther on the mat, but he doesn't need to. Panther doesn't need someone who can mirror his abilities on the mat, he is good at working with anyone's personality and ability. Konnan is no slouch, and I like the strength component he brings to mat reversals. Panther may catch him with slickness and technical ability but Konnan is able to use strength to adjust the hold around himself. There was a cool takedown where Panther went inside and used his body to force a single leg, working himself up to an armbar, and Konnan started escaping from it by getting one of Panther's legs in a scissor and forcing it one direction, then grabbing the leg nearest his head and pushing that another direction, so both wound up in this awesome tangle where Panther still had a sub but Konnan was forcing his limbs apart. 

If Psicosis was someone who dumbed his style down for American TV audiences, Cien Caras was a star whose character wouldn't have translated to American audiences at all. He is such a stud, but wouldn't be perceived as a stud to Americans, so all of the great stuff he does here wouldn't get over at all. This cool Mexican stud in his goatee, who keeps going for cheap shot attacks all match and bumping almost to avoid interaction. I loved the end of the segunda, where his boys started being pinned and he bumped himself over the top to the floor, eating shit in the process, running away from Konnan just to avoid being one of the guys taking the fall. But in the primera he also bumped around for Azteca and took a big charge over the top to the floor after missing him, setting up one big bump on offense to get over his big "own goal" bump later, meanwhile always running in and kicking an opponent hard to break up a pin. It's a shame we don't have the finish as I really wanted to see the payoff of Panther goes after Konnan's eye, but you don't need to watch this for its Great Match potential, just watch it to see some legends at various peaks, doing exchanges you haven't seen. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/23 - 6/29

ROH Global Wars Mexico 6/26/25 (taped 6/18/25)

Lee Moriarty vs Blue Panther

MD: Wrestling is not about making the impossible possible. It's about making the incredible plausible, and on paper everything about this match was incredible. Blue Panther is 64 years old. He's 64 years old with a lifetime of bumps (rolling or otherwise) onto hard mats and hitting and taking dives. He's all that and he's still all this and along with Lee Moriarty, he created such a match. I'm sorry, but that is incredible. 

How then did it happen? Wrestling is the art of using illusion to create emotion, with reality utilized sparingly to underpin it all. For the first third of this match, reality was technique. The illusion? That was Moriarty creating motion as Panther controlled the center and (at first) Moriarty's arm along with it. The arm was barred so tightly, so precisely, hands in the right places, balance perfectly held, Panther presenting himself immaculately, that Moriarty had the perfect base to push off against as he expressed the painful consequence of the hold and tried again and again to escape. 

When he finally did, they opened things up, while still grounding it all in the technique you would expect from a Pure Champion and a true maestro. Moriarty edged a leg in between Panther's own to lock in a cravat. Now it was Panther's turn to sell, his arm flailing with each cinch of the hold. Not for long though as he was able to go behind into a full nelson. Moriarty lifted his own leg up, interlacing his fingers underneath it to give him leverage to break the hold. Then it was a leg pried in between Panther's once more to lock in an abdominal stretch. The game of chess continued as Panther pried off fingers, shot two elbows into Moriarty's leg, and tripped him. Moriarty flowed straight into his next gambit, pressing off against Panther's waist to propel him back up and then up and over Panther's shoulder with a spectacular takeover. 

Technique is well and good, but it's the means and not an end unto itself. With that countermove, Moriarty began to stretch not just his skill but his bluster and swagger as well. Here it was over the top clapping for itself. After a slick pinfall attempt a minute later, it was a gloat to Panther that he almost got him. And then, feigning sportsmanship, he offered a handshake and threw in a bonus kick for good measure. As he took over the Infantry, seconding him, gloated as well, and once he got Panther out, he cemented his control with two explosive topes.

Illusion was underpinned by technique. The different flavor of reality that would come, Moriarty's dives and subsequent superplex, helped serve his heeling, his arrogance, his borderline villainy, as Panther took a stiff upper lip and forced himself to survive. The dives are never the point. The superplex is not the point. They're tools carefully used to help support the underlying emotion. In this case, it was Panther's legendary prowess against the upstart invader. Panther survived through the Border City Stretch, ducked a shot coming in and fired back, and then, with one mighty burst of energy, hyped up the crowed (making the most of the moment) and hit a dive off the ramp. 

Even then, Moriarty had youth on his side, all else equal, and he mounted one last offensive. All else was not equal, however, for Panther had the home arena advantage and, even more important, the advantage of inner discipline, of age and wisdom, turning a seeming weakness into a strength. Moriarty got cocky one last time and Panther dropped him into an armbar for a quick tap. After would come the pageantry and chaos of an assault, a rescue, a celebration, but none of those thing were as impressive to me as the beautiful mix of illusion (down to the mask which hides Panther's age) and reality, both technique and impact that allowed this unlikely match to capture imagination as it did. That's pro wrestling though. It crosses eras and borders, a universal falsehood that reveals inner truths.

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DEAN~!!! 2 Day 6: CIBERNETICO~!

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Torneo Cibernetico: Blue Panther/Hologram/Neon/Valiente/Virus vs Volador Jr./Averno/Euforia/Xelhua/Dr. Cerebro

MD: Dean could write about ciberneticos. His style was perfect, bombastic and over the top, throwing praise and emotion and tildes and wild metaphors. He could hone in on all the cool moments and somehow make them seem a hundred times cooler. I'm nowhere near as good at it, but yeah, this was awesome. If you saw this, you know that. I don't think I'm going to have a ton to add to just having lived it. 

I do have some thoughts though. First and foremost, this felt a little more produced than most I've seen, which isn't to say there isn't rhyme or reason for what happens in them. There is, but it all seems a little more honed in on the moment, unless there's a specific feud that it's furthering or leaning upon. When I say focused, there are a lot of things I could highlight. We had exchanges with Xelhua against both Blue Panther and Virus where he got to joust on the mat with them. There was a big elimination moment with Blue Panther and Dr. Cerebro in there. Blue Panther got to go up against the world with everyone stooging, feeding, basing for him. Euforia had his moment to shine as he walked like a giant swatting high flying tecnicos away. Valiente got to hit his fireplug tope. Hologram got to hit his that seemed send them flying halfway to the back. It all ended with Blue Panther and Hologram standing together against Volador and Averno and even then there was that great nearfall with the finishers used earlier used in tandom. 

You'd probably get some of that in any other such match but I don't think you'd get all of it. This was a match that knew its audience and catered to it, while still delighting the crowd at the same time. A bunch of things stuck with me: some kid in the crowd calling Euforia "big boy" when he was getting rocked. Virus working so amazingly hard and taking huge bumps considering his age. What an absolute legend. He's my guy. Panther hitting the flip dive off the apron not once but twice. How great Averno's finish still looks. That it's a joy to see Blue Panther and Dr. Cerebro work in their masks (though most of us are so much more used to seeing Cerebro NOT in the mask). Seeing not just Neon and Xelhua in with these guys but also Cerebro and Hologram. Just seeing Panther tough it out and fight through the end of the match. 

So yeah, the only way to tackle a match like this is by listing all the great stuff. I could have probably gone another two paragraphs with just that and then another on top talking about Danielson but, since I'm not Dean, let me say instead that it's really something to be experienced yourself. Go check it out on YouTube if you haven't already. 

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Found Footage Friday: DEAN~! 2 Special!!

In honor of DEAN 2~! tonight. Here are some found footage gems from DEAN 2~! stalwarts

Torneo Cibernetico: Felino/Mega/Rambo/Super Mega/Ultimo Vampiro vs. Blue Panther/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro/Negro Navarro/Scorpio Jr. (Torneo Cibernetico) IWRG 2/15/01

MD: Once this got going it was a lot of fun. You never expect too much out of the battle royale seeding part at the start and there wasn't a lot to see here either, save for everyone piling on Ultimo Vampiro in the corner at the end. The sheer talent in the match was such that once you got into the pairings, there was always someone amazing in the ring. Even though they were eliminated relatively early, Navarro and Cerebro got to stand out during those first few minutes, Navarro with his tricked out holds and understanding of how to project himself as a star and Cerebro by creating a lot of motion, taking a lot of stuff and contorting at least one person in unholy ways. Unfortunately, we only had one brief moment of Panther and Cerebro going at it, with Cerebro sitting up out of a Panther Tapatia.

They teased Mega vs Super Mega which the crowd wanted to see but if it happened, we didn't get to see it. There was a general excitement for rudo vs rudo pairings though. In general, I could have used a little more of both Dandy and Panther, but they both looked good in what they did do. Rambo got to shine with two rapid fire eliminations, first with this great double top arm wrench that someone should really steal and then with a seated campana. He fell almost immediately thereafter to a clever enough Scorpio foul only to get revenge at the end by sneaking one on him from the apron to let Panther win it. So fun stuff all around even if we only got the tiniest appetizer of Cerebro vs Panther.

PAS: This was fun rather then truly exceptional. We have some all timers on both sides, and we get glimpses of what made them great. A taste of Navarro, an appetizer of Cerebro, a sip of Dandy. Panther and Cerebro are the reasons we wrote up this match, and I did dig the little bit we got from them, 24 years later I am expecting more of a dish tonight. I really need to dig into this 01 IWRG Bihari is putting up, because I suspect their are some really hidden bangers (Panther vs. Felino on this show is closer to what we want) This wasn't one of them, but still well worth checking out.  

ER: Rob Bihari uploaded this lost gem not long after we announced the DEAN~! 2 Cibernetico, when I publicly said that we have no actual footage of Dr. Cerebro mixing it up with Blue Panther. The opportunity to prove me wrong led to us finally getting this Cibernetico out there for public consumption. When we found out who CMLL was letting us use for DEAN~! 2 we all immediately salivated at the idea of Cerebro getting minutes with Blue Panther and Virus, two compatriots that Cerebro hardly has any (taped) ring time against. There's an incredibly fun Cerebro/Virus singles from a decade ago (that Matt wrote up when he was just getting into lucha, which is funny to think in retrospect that it's only been a decade since Matt dove into lucha libre) and this Cibernetico that featured both Cerebro and Panther that was not in circulation. Once I publicly proclaimed that we had never seen Cerebro and Panther in the ring together, Rob swooped in minutes later proclaiming that we actually DO have that match in circulation now. Ask and ye shall receive, and we received a real gift. 

The DEAN~! 2 Cibernetico was one of the best Ciberneticos I have seen, and when I watched this match the morning of DEAN~! 2 my mind was in another place. I was somewhere else and watching this in a hotel room and pacing around my room until we left to go see the event space that morning and meet the crew. This match was on, and I was in theory watching it, but I knew I wanted to see it again. In the heat of the insanity that was the DEAN~! 2 live experience, every person backstage was buzzing during and after the Cibernetico. Blue Panther - at 64 - had one of the great performances of his life, young upstart Virus looked as good as ever, and really all 10 guys overdelivered in ways I don't think anyone expected. The DEAN~! 2 Cibernetico was, for me, the best case scenario for a match that looked like dynamite on paper. We got several to book several names that we never dreamed we'd have access to a year ago, and put them in a match with pairings we were dying to see. Then, it actually happened, and I was moved by how hard these men worked at our weird, exciting, outdoor Arizona mall show near a fountain display, lit by the neon signs of Universal Citywalk chain and axe throwing barcades. Nothing is going to compare to my memory of seeing this Cibernetico. Losing my mind with Phil, my good friend Will who I was meeting in person for the first time, wrestlers from DEAN~! and wrestlers who weren't on the show at all, is never going to be beat. Bryan Danielson coming out after your Cibernetico to give one of the greatest promos of his life, somehow convincing hundreds of people in the life affirming power of pro wrestling. 

I stated to at least a dozen people (probably more) over the rest of the night/weekend/next week, that I had watched a newly unearthed early 2000s IWRG Cibernetico and OUR Cibernetico, the one we all got to share, was better. I remember El Dandy suddenly being a top 25 guy on a DVDVR 500 and it made me want to get as much IWRG as possible. Trading for Negro Navarro matches, buying the Dr. Cerebro/El Hijo del Santo mask vs. mask match - and so many other shows - for $5 at Franks and Son Collectibles in some City of Industry warehouse whenever my friends and I would drive down to see wrestling. A 21 year old who now had opinions on Bombero Infernal and Rambo. Had this Cibernetico been available on VHS on any of the trips we made to Franks and Son lucha shows, I obviously would have bought it. Blue Panther, Cerebro, Dandy, Navarro, Felino, all guys I was buying tapes specifically to see. But I had never seen this match until Rob uploaded it, and it had the misfortune of being watched on the same day I witnessed live the most special Cibernetico of my life. 

So the competition was going to be stiff. The mindset was different, my brain was operating on other matters, I am no longer in a hotel room after binging on a breakfast buffet with the DEAN~! crew since we wouldn't be eating again for another 12-16 hours. Now, we're a couple weeks removed from DEAN~! 2, I've finally floated back to earth, I was finally ready, I can finally admit...this is a really great Cibernetico. I still don't think it's better than the one on DEAN~! but I don't think that matters because as with all Ciberneticos, this had things that no other one had. Maybe the only knock against this one is that it never felt like it built to a fever pitch and didn't have as much ongoing story threads, but at the same time it's filled with guys who I could watch wrestle in 2nd gear for hours. That is not to say that anyone dogged it, it just never built to any big bumps and dives, and I think that's incredibly cool in a different way. 

Also, all of these legendary names enter the ring collectively to Survivor's Burning Heart, which feels more like something you'd see at the beginning of a 90s Germany catch tournament show when everyone on that card has to come out and stand in the ring like an idiot. I don't think these Cibernetico teams were chosen based on their allegiances to Communism or Capitalism, but maybe this match is aligned deeper than I realized. 

I think everyone here had some legit moments. My favorites? Cerebro, Panther, Navarro, Bombero Infernal, Rambo. Maybe Rambo. I love Rambo. I love luchadors who move like Rambo. He looks like a poor kid in faded camouflage pajamas, just looking like total shit in there, but then he and Dandy are rolling and he dives into Dandy's leg with a takedown and Dandy is selling for him with that spirited 2001 energy he had and it's everything I want in lucha. Rambo's huracanrana roll up on Navarro is such a great surprise, smoother than even Dr. Cerebro's. Nobody bumps to the floor over the bottom rope like Rambo anymore. The old man luchador style of getting to the floor has been phasing out for a long time, and Rambo's exits are smooth and graceful and faster than you'd expect. "Faster than you'd expect" is one of the joys of older lucha statesmen. He hits two great butt butts into Dandy and the man shouldn't be this damn good with gear that bad. He's 15 years past losing his mask here and he's hitting his double wristlock and butt attacks like a 30 year old. 

The guys I fully expected to be standouts - Cerebro, Navarro, Panther, Dandy - were, and had a half dozen sequences each that any fan of theirs would want to see. Negro Navarro started the whole thing super hot with Super Mega, with the kind of llave and rolling I could watch for an entire match. Navarro had this drop toehold that seemed to work in reverse, body going one way, legs tripping Mega the other way, bending space and time for what could have been a simple single leg trip. Navarro has a snapmare strong enough that it could have been a piece of actual offense, and he kept gravitating to teaming with Panther to target Dandy in cool ways. Cerebro was incredibly vicious, a totally different approach than he's worked the last 15-20 years. He was real aggressive and rudo stiff. In the battle royal he was always running into frame swinging hard horizontal rights. He had great shtick to accompany mat bumps that were harder than everyone else's. His short run against Blue Panther was great fun, with a Cerebro huracanrana roll up and excellent Panther surfboard with awesome power. He also got all his limbs tied up by Bombero, who was holding the ropes so blatantly while laughing like a supervillain that nobody got in his way. Panther's crucifix on Dandy was maybe the most vicious submission of the entire affair, with Panther bending him back forceful, not smoothly, while Dandy screamed and crab walked slowly to a bottom rope.

Watch this Cibernetico. It's great. It's got as many special moments as the best Ciberneticos. They're all unique snowflakes. Can any nation truly stand alone? Maybe we'll answer David Bickler's question on DEAN~! 3. 

Rhyno vs. Low-Ki PWS 6/7/14 - GREAT

PAS: This was kind of a compact TV match, about seven minutes, pretty stiff, just a nice piece of business. Ki hits a couple of nasty kicks on Rhino a guy that square must seem like a perfect heavy bag for him. They each get a kick out of their big move, Ki liquifies his insides with a Warrior's Way for a two, and Ki gets a kick out of the Gore. Match ended with a bit of an awkward roll up, which kind of felt like two guys who couldn't agree on a finish. Give it another big move or two and it would really sing. 

JR: I'll always have a soft spot for Rhyno. I remember being right at the age where I could read magazines when he was coming up in ECW and finding out he had done time and being both mystified and terrified. I remember going to those Hardcore Homecoming shows less than 10 years later, and him working heel, cutting promos about how he was slumming it for a night before going back to TNA, and the guy behind me trying to get a "Bound for Glory" chant going.

What can be said about Low Ki that hasn't already been said? A captivating worker, an inscrutable person. If you hate Low Ki, you are anti-labor.

I had no idea what to make of most of this. I thought it funny that Rhyno is always notable for making his stuff look great while working pretty light, while Low Ki is notable for...the opposite of that. Here, I think they kind of don't know what to do with one another. In someways, it's a match between two guys who are good at working from underneath but primarily want to find ways to control pace, and I don't think either of them really found a way to get in a groove. I thought at the beginning, Rhyno was going to work kind of like a Stan Hansen brawl on the outside with Ki doing a Tommy Rich impression, and then when they didn't do that, I thought Ki would find a way to stick and move around the bigger man, but neither thing happens. Instead, we kind of get a house show match with a finish that feels like more generous on behalf of Rhyno, which I suppose is to be expected.

MD: I loved the look of this one, shot from underneath with those big windows up top. The crowd was more behind Rhino though he tried to turn them. Ki didn't care about them one way or the other. He just did his thing, full steam ahead. Rhino treated him like an absolute equal, like they were the exact same size. There was a small feeling early on that if Rhino just caught him that'd be enough, but it didn't last. He recoiled from Ki's chops. He focused on the back because size alone wouldn't cut it; it would open the door but it wouldn't even contain Ki, let alone defeat him. That led to a fairly long bearhug in a fairly short match but you didn't mind it much. I didn't mind the finish either, where Rhino kicked out of Warrior's Way and Ki kicked out of the Gore before Rhino got rolled up with a lumpy sunset flip as he went for the second one. I would have just liked those kickouts to register a little more emotionally. No one was expecting Ki to kick out but once he did, life just moved on. It's less the shocked face I'm looking for so much as the resolve that one gore simply wasn't enough and he had no choice but to charge back in, even though he was unknowingly charging towards defeat. I never got that feeling and to me that would have put the match just enough over the top.

ER: It looks like I'm the unexpected high voter on this match. It was everything I wanted out of a Ki/Rhino match and more. This was in the back half of a *13 Match Show*, some kind of damned spiritual successor to vintage post-midnight USA Pro shows of a decade prior, and it gets harder to harder to stand out in any way on a show like that. Well these too stood out. Low Ki hit Rhino hard enough multiple times to actually move him. I bet Rhino hasn't felt many chops harder than Ki's, and I know he felt that kick to the thigh later. I have now stood next to Rhino and realize that he is the same height as me, while being probably twice my width. He is a large freezer garage filled with 36 count packs of soft drinks but Low Ki's palm thrusts to the chest looked like something that actually would have tipped that fridge over. 

Rhino is one of out more uniquely shaped men and I love him working a bearhug down to one knee after press slamming Ki onto the buckles. Low Ki has excellent selling and this unmatched ability to recoil on bumps like no other wrestler has (maybe Lio Rush?), selling something huge like a bump to the apron or something less like a headbutt to the stomach or creating activity in a bear hugs. It makes him an ideal opponent for a man of any size, but a big couch of a man like Rhino can make him pinball and rebound in the best ways. And, as Rhino is the size of a couch, Low Ki treats him like me doing Macho Man elbowdrops onto my parent's couch, fucking up that couch with a Warriors Way, just messing up this living room set of a man.

Ki took the Gore so well that it makes the move feel new all over again. It was a great Gore anyway, and would have been great no matter who was taking it. What I loved most about it was how Rhino did not do his typical set up out of the corner but instead used it as a much cooler 180 surprise. He shot past Low Ki with a clothesline and turned on a dime to stop him cold as Ki was rebounding off the ropes. It looked fucking awesome and I don't remember seeing him use it as a momentum stopper. Rhino is always the one supplying the momentum behind it. I wasn't expecting Low Ki to kick out of that surprise Gore and I wasn't expecting Rhino to kick out of the Warriors Way so both popped me good. And I loved the finish, with Ki leaping over a  Gore that Rhino had set up at a charging distance, showing that Rhino should have kept trying to surprise the ninja and not give him any of time to quick react counter. When Low Ki is given actual time to react to an attack, he has too many ways to use that time against his opponent, and Rhino paid for that error. 

Mad Dog Connelly vs. Jordan Blade PPW 9/25/22

PAS: This was Connelly's first dog collar match, and outside of the Demus match I think it is my favorite. These were two staples of the PPW UWFI rules division, and this had the pace of a one round MMA brawl with a chain. All gas, no breaks stuff with both wrestlers trying to decapitate each other with huge chain shots from the break. I loved how nasty all of the wrestling moves felt with the chain in the mix, everything felt like it could go wrong and someone could land temple first on steel. The whole thing felt like a finishing run, sometimes you want to sip, sometimes you want to shoot straight whiskey. 

MD: There's such a Hansen-ian bent to Connelly and especially his chain matches. It's all implicit storytelling, the path of least resistance. They're not building a castle in the sky. They're not loading Chekhov's Gun. They're hitting you with a shotgun blast to the face. There's a cold hard logic to eternal forward motion. The train's coming. Either you can stop it or not.

And at times, Blade could. Connelly went for a choke with it almost from the get go and that put him at a disadvantage that allowed for a German Suplex. Less could be done when he hit the floor and simply pulled. That said, it wasn't until the chain came loose and the ref halted proceedings that he was finally able to start choking Blade with it, striking mercilessly by surprise. That was the opening for the gutwrenches, three in a row, with the chain dangerously dangling between them enhancing the image of each impact.

Blade was skilled, strong, and tenacious though and had an honest shot at it, but wrapping the chain around Connelly's face to further mangle him wasn't the way to go. Thus equipped, loaded, primed, he burst forth, that aforementioned shotgun blast in the form of a headbutt (because I can load Chekhov's Gun in this review, even if he won't). Maybe one last hopeful Blade Rear Naked Choke followed, but it was too little too late, for Connelly was able to roll through and end it with the selfsame sense of brutality that he tried to begin it with. There's no out-hating the Mad Dog in a dog collar match. The chain knows who it serves.

ER: I'm not sure this even goes 5 minutes and it clearly didn't need to go longer than that. I saw this match for the first time in 2024. Phil showed it to me in our motel room the night before the first DEAN~! show. I was sitting up in the bed that we would be sharing - there was some mistake because the in-over-his-head motel manager messed something up with our reservations, giving us a small room with one bed and Tom K the literal largest hotel room I have ever been in - and Phil was seated at the motel desk, laptop on desk. We were both exhausted after a very long travel day. I had a red eye flight and had hung out with friends in Philly all day, so I had not actually slept in over 36 hours. But we were both excited about the show the next day, and Phil asked if I had ever seen Mad Dog vs. Jordan Blade. I had not. 

Now we are in a post-DEAN~! 2 world and I saw more than one person disappointed that Mad Dog vs. Adam Priest "only" went 7 minutes, but I am of the mindset that Mad Dog Collar matches don't need to go that long at all. This is a wild man, unleashed, and most humans aren't going to be able to take a "normal" main event's worth of time enduring a chain beating and chain choking. This match against Blade is a complete match in its 5 minutes. There's no way to stop Mad Dog, only briefly slow him down, and I thought it was great how Blade didn't wrestle a bad match, she just got overwhelmed and couldn't find a way back in. It doesn't diminish her, doesn't mean her strategy was bad, she just got beat by a maniac. She tried to stop the boulder from rolling down the hill but those arms get tired real quick and before long you realize you can't even step aside, that boulder is going straight over the top of you. 

Hard to believe this was Mad Dog's first collar match and he already had full mastery of the chain. I lost my mind when Blade wrapped the chain all around his face and it only made Mad Dog want to use his face as a weapon. It was a good idea but she couldn't have predicted how Mad Dog would have reacted to having a face full of chain. If you've already taken balled up chained up fists to the head and barely weathered those, you just can't prepare for a chain wrapped maniac's face. I love how Mad Dog's violence does not just revolve around the chain. The chain is a weapon he will use but also a tool he will use to facilitate violence, in the same way the Gracie's used their gi to advance to the real violence. He knows how to use the chain to cut angles and change distance, but it is not his only method to bring violence. One of the more violent things in a match made of violence happened on the floor, when Mad Dog just charged into Blade's face with a back elbow. No chain needed, while the threat of the chain loomed always.

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Found Footage Friday: MIL~! GORDMAN~! KOLOFF VS KOLOFF~! GRINGOS LOCOS~! PANTHER~!

Mil Mascaras vs. Black Gordman (Mexican Death Match) Los Angeles 80s

MD: This is from Richard Land's last upload as well. We'll probably have at least one more week of the German footage after this, but we might break it up so we can focus on some things that aren't behind paywalls (even if it's worth paying). I'd never seen it or seen it listed anywhere. Gordman is listed as a 13 time Americas tag champion and winner of the 1974 Battle Royal which makes him feel like a bigger deal than he usually does when he pops up elsewhere in the early 80s. This is a Mexican Death match. The ref can't stop it. There must be a winner after a pin and a ten count.

They go back and forth for the most part, with the transitions generally based around low blows. Mil's stuff looks really good here, including some really solid jabs I don't associate him with, plus a nice bodyslam into a suplex type move, and just keeping the crowd up by slamming Gordman's head into things. Gordman eventually brings a chair in, misses, and gets clocked by Mil. Mil goes one step further and nails who we think to be Pete Collins (the guy who created the Monster in an infamous shlock gimmick that I can't find much about). Collins bleeds big off of the errant shot, putting it over well by staring off in fury as the blood runs down his face (refusing to wipe it off). After Mil and Gordman gnaw on each other a bit, Collins slips Gordman a chain. Mil gets it, clocks Gordman for the pin, clocks Collins while the count is going, and the fans go up as high as they can get for it all. Pretty classic, iconic stuff.

ER: My dad used to mention Black Gordman as a guy he used to see at the Cow Palace when he was a young man, and I remember reading a Meltzer bio about him and Great Goliath probably two decades ago, about how unassuming a star Gordman was. I haven't seen much footage of him (because we didn't have much Los Angeles or San Francisco) and while I know this is late in his career, I do love how unassuming he is. He is a man of my size but shorter, has next to no offense, no real look, and yet clearly knows exactly what to do opposite Mil Mascaras's bright glowing star. Mascaras looks so cool here, like when Eddie came back somehow leaner than ever while also being more muscular than ever. Laugh all you want about the sucked in stomach but what the fuck do you know about Johnny Weissmuller? Gordman had this athletically unathletic way of taking Mil's offense, like how he would get rammed into a turnbuckle differently than anyone I've ever seen, not recoiling at all, just splatting his face into it like the victim of a pie gag. But then when it's finally time to separate from the buckles he takes this beautiful bouncing rolling backward bump and comedic pratfall. The man has no offense and when it's finally time for him to take over, the zeal he puts into biting Mil's fingers is hilarious. A wrestler who finally has their chance to take control who chooses to just bite is a concept that no longer exists in wrestling, in the same way that it would be impossible for a guy who looked like Gordman to be a star. Mil's chain wrapped fistdrop is a cool ass way to earn a 10 count, dropped right into the button of Gordman's jaw. 

Ivan Koloff vs. Nikita Koloff (Chain Match) Peach State Wrestling 10/90

MD: Obviously another great vein of footage comes from the work done by Ben/goc/KrisP/ArmstrongAlley, whatever you want to call him. We rarely focus on the stuff he puts together and organizes because it's more episodic territory work and we tend to hone in on single matches with FFF. This is definitely a single match from a recent batch of Peach State he's been putting together. It's more found than new but it's gotten very little attention over the years.

Yes, this is a touch the corners chain match with most of the blood and guts coming post match as a Sheik and his minion come out to attack (heel) Ivan so (face) Nikita can make the save and they can presumably set up tag matches to come. That said, these two absolutely know how to work one of these to the fullest. That means they go for the corners (and get three) after each knockdown, generally leading to an almost immediate transition and repeating the formula, but there's also escalation in the offense.

That means things start out with punches and kicks, and they slowly work in the chain for punches and whip shots and comedic crotchings, before building to Nikita hitting quasi sickles with it wrapped around his arm. Very effective pacing overall. Finish has the ref take an errant shot and Ivan winning even though he missed a corner before everything breaks down post-match. The save is pretty endearing overall though and while I would prefer a big mauling and a big comeback as opposed to the constant stop-start of going for the corners, they were so good at these matches that they made things feel fairly dramatic nonetheless.

 

Eddy Guerrero/Love Machine Art Barr vs. Blue Panther/El Magnate Monterrey 1993

MD: I don't know if this is the best match we've gotten out of this channel, but it feels almost like the most surprising. You figure you're not going to get another Gringos Locos match and here we are. The alignments were weird here as we were post mask match and Eddy and Barr were definitely going in very hot at times but the ref was stopping them at other times and Panther and Magnate were technically rudos. Barr cut an impassioned pro Monterrey speech at the end as well. But on some level it didn't matter because animosity is animosity and this had a ton of it. That meant lots of Barr going after Panther's match and Eddy running interference. It meant a comeback where they were beating Barr into the seats. It meant a wild dive or two. And maybe most of all, it meant an absolutely crazy finish where Barr went for a Martinete playing on the apuestas match and Panther snuck in an upside-down foul. Great finish. This was better to just take in and enjoy because who knows if anything else quite like it will pop up.

ER: 1997 Eddie goes harder than almost any wrestler I've loved; a blow away great year where he returns from an injury fully formed into the most charismatic heel in wrestling. It was incredible. And you see him here in '93 and he looks good, the movement and impact are getting there. But he's nowhere near 1997 Eddie just like that Eddie was nowhere near 2003 Eddie. And you see Art Barr in 1993 and you see him bringing 1997 Eddie energy with this wild eyed flipped lid intensity that gives an edge to him as a tecnico. Tecnico Eddie never had any edge. Heel Eddie was a more polished and higher end of Art Barr's Gringo Loco rudo. Eddie was more athletic and had better comedic timing and better ring timing and had more impressive body control. As brilliant as it is - and 1997 Eddie really, really is - it's a juiced up version of 1993 Art Barr. Art Barr had this intensity as a tecnico that can only be pulled off naturally. Every part of Barr going after Panther was constantly ramped up, punches building to harder punches to dramatically unlacing a mask to being whipped into a violent tope. Panther ends this with a full armed shot to Love Machine's balls to stop a martinete, a surprise new note in a truly great feud. 

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Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! LOD~! DANDY~! SILVER KING~! SHU~! PANTHER~! SUPER PARKA~!

IWRG Retro 7/27/00

El Dandy/Silver King/Black Dragon vs. Shu el Guerrero/Mosco de la Merced/Hijo del Diablo

MD: VQ is tough with a lot of freezing but you can tell what's going on and the talent is so much here that you want to see it through. No real signature pairings here. I'd say that this was driven by the talent, energy, and star power on the tecnico side and structured accordingly. That meant in the primera, each tecnico got a chance to lean into rudo miscommunication and entertainingly fight them all off at once. There are things you'd note, like Silver King sliding across the ring or Dandy's punch or Black Dragon's crave dive at the end of the caida, but it was all good.

Rudos took over in the segunda after they teased pairings and they did the bit where they flip their opponents over and toss them into a kick in the corner. This could have probably used a couple more minutes, for once they hit the tecera, it was a quick reset and into in and out submissions and break-ups and really overall chaos with things breaking down. Finish had Dragon roll forward into a tapitia which you don't see often and Dandy hitting a jumping DDT for the win. Rudos did their job but this really was the tecnicos show, and even with the freezing, it was a good show.

ER: It's a shame this has so many freezes and bits of missing action because everything we get is really great. Everybody got their own moments to cook and I love a trios like this where everyone tries to take over the show the longer it goes. Mosco de la Merced and Hijo del Diablo were the real standouts to me but every brought something big. Silver King is so good at pushing pace and guys like Mosco and Diablo rise to that pace and it makes their bumps even crazier. The Segunda opening with King and Diablo really cooked, Diablo early on looking like the one guy in the match who was going to hang back and let everyone else handle things, building to him stooging and bumping as big as anyone. Mosco took at least four big bumps and worked comedy into half of them, including a great bit where he kept removing pieces of clothing while ramping up for a one on one confrontation, whipping his shirt and bandana into the crowd and firing up by almost removing his pants. Black Dragon is a guy who I literally only remember because of his incredible tope over/past the ringpost into the corner, which he hits beautifully here after pulling off a super smooth rana. His tope is one of the great lucha topes in history, one of those spots like Super Calo's slingshot senton that makes a luchador's career seem bigger than it really was. Shu el Guerrero is a total tank of a luchador, or dream build Valiente, but Mosco and Diablo handle all the toughest basing and catches. Shu's best bit of basing is sliding across the entire ring for a frankly breathtaking Dandy headscissors, Dandy getting full glorious extension and not tucking early, really making it look like he flung Shu 10 feet with his ankles and leverage. It would have been great to have the full uncut action (and crowd noise, and the actual screen presentation instead of the annoying TV screen aesthetic) but there's no denying the action we did see. 

Blue Panther vs. Super Parka

MD: WWA Title match. Parka's the champ. It's worked like a title match with just a bit of the dancing/histrionics from Parka, which he tends to pay for whenever he does. I liked the primera a lot. Nothing too tricked out but they kept close body contact for a lot of it in a way you don't always see in lucha matwork. It was all up tight and combative. Parka had advantage for a lot of it working over the arm. When they got moving towards the end of the caida, you had no idea who would get the ultimate advantage but Parka took it with a snap 'rana. 

Segunda was super short, but Panther won it with the old French Catch standard waistlock into a leg nelson (no roll). Not something you see every day, even from him. Then the tercera had all the bells and whistles and drama. Parka took out Panther's leg early and worked it over. Panther sold big on his comeback attempts. There was another 'rana for a nearfall and a long Cavernaria. Parka hit this amazing tope sending both of them over the barricade. Then Panther went for a submission and then pinned themselves. Only a couple of spotty moments VQ wise with the freezing, thankfully, as this was a very good title match to be unearthed. 

CM Punk/Doug Delicious vs. Legion of Doom WWE 5/13/03

MD: As WWE Vault stuff goes, this is better than something we already had, worse than if they had given it to us in full, and especially worse than giving us Omni shows or something. But it has its novelty and we should cover it, clipped as it is. Punk explaining that he had been on the banned list for doing a hammerlock DDT the night before gives his performance here color. Obviously, just in general facing the Road Warriors in this setting, he's going to do everything he could to stand out and bump and feed and stooge for them.

Since he was in hot water, however, he really went above and beyond, on from the get go. The fans absolutely loved seeing the LOD as a surprise and popped huge for them as Punk covered his head in shock in the ring. They cut out a lot of the stuff with Delicious and only give us Punk but I don't really mind that too much. He screamed as he went over for Animal's power slam and went sailing for the belly-to-belly throw. Hawk was totally on too, hitting his shoulder first post-bump to the floor. He even ate a Punk snap suplex. This isn't the first or hundredth thing I would have wanted, especially not clipped, but I was still smiling despite myself as I watched it, so I'll certainly take this sort of thing over nothing. 

ER: I was not actually expecting this to be really good but I have a feeling the full uncut match was actually quite good. I'm a big fan of 1998 LOD even though history says they were totally washed. Well, they were pretty washed, but Washed Legends is one of my favorite kinds of wrestler. 1998 Hawk was a particular favorite of mine. He wasn't lifting much anymore so he wasn't working as a power wrestler, so he just leaned into being a puncher with a couple of surprising big bumps. Hawk was a great puncher and a guy with great bumps, so it really felt like a super vulnerable version of the Road Warrior Hawk, boiled down to his most basics; still dangerous, now beatable. I loved it. It's a shame they were stuck feuding with DOA for most of the year during their final real run. I have a feeling that some good Hawk stuff was cut from this tag in cutting the Doug Delicious work, and that's a shame. I don't know much about Doug Delicious so maybe they were right to cut most of his work out of this, but I sure stood at attention when he lit Hawk the hell up with chops on the floor. I cannot imagine someone chopping either Road Warrior the way Doug was chopping Hawk in 1986 but this is 2003. That's the kind of things that makes vulnerable legends so compelling. They're on the way down and now fucking Doug Delicious is doing things that would have gotten greater men killed. 

Punk was great in this, reminded me again of why I liked him so much during this era. He bumped huge for everything the LOD did and even sold their entrance music. He fed really well for them both and I was pretty shocked at the amount of offense he got. The snap suplex on Hawk was a real surprise, but I liked how he worked the match as a guy who really belonged in the ring with the Road Warriors and not just a stooge who just lied on the mat in between moves. He set up Hawk's ringpost bump perfectly, moving out of the way at the last second so it made it look like an actual miss and not a set up bump, and Hawk spills past the apron to the floor as well as any of those times a missed western lariat sent Stan Hansen tumbling to the floor. I thought Animal looked good here too, taking on the bulk of the match (well, at least the way the match was edited) and I thought his movement looked strong. That leaping elbowdrop was fire and they each seemed real pumped at the crowd's loud reaction and chanting for them. WWE always hated the idea of bringing back older legends to work undercards but I wish we had years of All Japan old men matches on the undercards of house shows, it would have been incredible. They only viewed people on what they could potentially add to the top of the card but any time they brought back an older name and just plopped them in the third match it worked perfectly. I needed more runs like the Tatanka or, well, Road Warrior Animal mid-2000s Smackdown run. 

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AEW/CMLL Five Fingers of Death 4/1 - 4/7 Part 1: Danielson vs Panther

Bryan Danielson vs Blue Panther CMLL 4/5/24

MD: It's been a bit of an emotional few days over here. And there's something fitting during these few days and something that feels somehow forbidden about watching this match, of all matches, while Night 1 of Mania is going on. I don't say that to be daring or provocative or rebellious. I'm way too old for any of that. There was a time in my life that I said I was celebrating Humphrey Bogart's birthday on Christmas or going food shopping during the Superbowl and I was an annoying little shit and I'm too old for that. But at the end of the day, there is nothing more limiting than Vince McMahon's idea of what pro wrestling can and should be. I get that some of those binds are starting to fray and good. But this match? This was something so wildly different. It was an entirely different reality, a different religion, a different path, like every amazing possibility converging into one golden moment. 

We've seen Danielson vs Nagata and Danielson vs Akiyama over the last few months. We've seen Danielson vs Hechicero. We even saw the atomicos last week. None of that prepared us for this. This was the ultimate promise of any of those things fulfilled, what they might have been if they were actual dream matches instead of just cogs in the machine and stops on the road. But that said, were you to picture Danielson vs a 62 year old Blue Panther in Arena Mexico and were I to tell you that it would be as good as you could hope for in a scenario where no hair (or beard) was on the line (and there would be only one fall and no blood), well then this is still not what you would have expected. There is a really clear mental image we could all conjure of a dream match between the Danielson we've seen for the last few years, for the last ten years, for the last fifteen years, and even the very best that a re-masked Blue Panther might offer today. That wasn't this. 

Whatever this was, it was more wild and more spectacular than anything we would have imagined. Recently I've watched a decent amount of early career Danielson in ECCW in Canada. He was young, raw, but he played this charming over the top villain there, someone who pushed towards stereotypes, a cartoony pastiche of an American invader pro wrestler, someone loving every moment of that role. That's what he reminded me of here, just tempered by twenty+ years of growth and wisdom and experience. It felt like what Dragon Generalissimo Danielson might have felt like in Hustle. But then, at the same time, it was underpinned with him doing things that he almost never does. The matwork was full of stuff that reminded me more of French Catch (the headspin, the up and over into a cross armbreaker, for instance) than a lot of lucha. 

And then there was the milking of moments, the expressiveness. Oh, and Panther, maybe not the Blue Panther that you read about in the Observer in the 90s, but the Blue Panther who was always there and was overlooked because the sheet writers of the time valued so many of the wrong things that he did well anyway; I'm talking about the Blue Panther who was a stooging (often comedic) rudo in AAA trios matches, the one who contorted himself into an emotionally charged national hero against Love Machine, the one who had exhibition matches in England against Hijo del Santo in the early 00s, the one who as an old man (but not this old), was able to ham it up with Negro Casas like they were Matthau and Lemmon. This guy understands the power of building to a moment. Obviously so does Danielson. I've just never seen Danielson get the opportunity in front of a crowd like this to have a match where he could build to EVERY moment. He was tapping into something elemental, something primal, the most theatrical pro wrestling imaginable. And all the while, every single thing that he was building to felt monumental: each struggle to sit up out of a hold, every celebration after he managed to do so. From awe to cackling glee to begrudging respect to the absolute fury of underhanded, desperate stomps, he was alive, able to channel it all while never letting it seem fabricated or ridiculous. It felt true and real and vibrant and visceral. When he reversed the Nudo into a LeBell Lock attempt, it didn't feel like a spot; it felt like the culmination of a journey, a scenario that he had his entire life to prepare for. Meanwhile, Panther was riding the same sort of wave. When he struggled to get up around the twenty minute mark, showing age and fatigue, visibly sucking air, it was absolutely everything when he was, nonetheless, able to catch Danielson's foot and take him down, just like it was everything when Danielson jammed the hold and responded with those aforementioned vile stomps.

What a match. What an impossible, unlikely dream. What a way to make that dream reality through creativity and imagination and daring. Danielson could have played it safe. He could have played the hits, leaned into nostalgia. Instead he saw this as an opportunity not to play pretend, but instead to tap into all of the possibilities that Arena Mexico offered; he stretched himself in new directions and pulled a very willing, very aware, fully understanding Panther, not to mention a rowdy, appreciative crowd, along for the ride. And what makes it more amazing is that this is the same Bryan Danielson who just came off the Eddie Kingston match, the same Danielson who just had an outstanding babyface performance in the Righteous/Archer trios. Within the span of the month he was able to be all of these things in all of these places, serve all these purposes, play all of these roles. What a week to love professional wrestling. What a week to be alive.

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