QEPD Super Porky

Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro/El Brazo vs. Solomon Grundy/Chavo Guerrero/Popitekus CMLL 4/8/90

ER: It doesn't get more portly than this in lucha, and this match was filled with a ton of belly busting. The big draw here is Porky/Grundy and it delivers in every way you'd want it to. In a match with no dives we still wind up with a ton of big boy gold. Outside of a few nice armdrags we don't really get any Popitekus (but with his gorgeous hair he looks like the fattest possible Ramone), but we get a lot of Porky picking on Grundy, building to a huge sumo war between them to end the tercera. Grundy dwarfs Porky but Porky throws harder fists, throws an uppercut into Grundy's neckbeard, and then bumps him to the floor with a belly bump. There are a LOT of belly bumps in this match, and they're all great. 

I love Grundy's slow bumps to the floor, feels and looks like a glacier falling into the Antarctic. He falls to the floor, Porky hits a lariat off the apron (felt like it was supposed to be a plancha but Grundy moved), and then Porky splatted him with his running belly bounce. Later Grundy takes the absolute slowest Harley Race bump, and I love it. The match is filled with entertaining misdirection, a lot of Porky accidentally hitting splashes and avalanches on his bros and then blaming them for it. Porky even shoves Grundy backwards onto his brothers! There are some classic moments, like Porky being knocked from the apron onto Oro's shoulders, who dumps him butt first onto a front row fan! I also loved the big build to Grundy hitting an avalanche on all three Brazos, with Porky doing a hilarious bump where he runs most of the way across the ring before just taking a normal back bump. The final sumo showdown between Porky and Grundy was fantastic, with Brazo shoving a ref in between them to get Los Brazos DQd, the ref getting a full stretcher job post-match to sell the Porky/Grundy loose meat sandwich. This match might have the most belly bumps I have ever seen, so of course it comes with the highest possible recommendation. 

MD: Great build here as they really milked a potential Porky vs Grundy encounter all the way to the tecera, with a couple of false starts along the way. The first was best as they teased it only to have the other Brazos rush in, kicking off the transitional beatdown. It wasn't just all Porky either as Grundy showed some decent physical charisma in his bumping and in building the anticipation. And of course, yes, he'd eat Porky's clothesline to knock him out, catch Porky's clothesline off the apron and get crushed against the barricade for good measure. The funniest bit of this one was when Porky ended up in some guy's lap in the first row. That shows protecting people with control of your body right there. This ended with one of the most satisfying bits of ref flattening you'll encounter. It was hardly definitive but I doubt anyone cared about that given the effort they made to stretcher him out.

JR: I don’t know if this is a personal failing or an issue with the narrative overall but I feel like far fewer words have been written about rudo Brazo de Plata, so I’m glad we can touch on it here. I think it’s instructive for how gifted a performer Porky truly was. He has great timing and great cut offs and when he does his normal spots minus the flourishes that made them so well loved otherwise, they stand out as tremendously impactful. He is a performer that can use his body in so many ways, or rather, can use his body in one way but change enough about it to make it feel so different. As he rushes forward, with good but rarely seen punches and headbutts and body checks, Super Porky feels inevitable.

Of course, as the match goes on, specifically in the third fall, we get to see the rudo comedy that one would expect from Porky, where he is essentially the incompetent henchman deployed by his slightly more competent brothers. Nothing here is exclamatory per say, or groundbreaking, but at the same time there is value in being able to play the hits and do so without any major faults. This match is fine, more of a Brazos exhibition than anything to talk about on behalf of their opponents, but at the same time it is nice to see Porky show off different shades and viewpoints rather than the standard fare we talk about most often.

Brazo De Plata/Negro Casas/TAKA Michinoku vs. El Hijo Del Gladiador/Gran Markus Jr./Satanico CMLL 5/30/97

MD: Fun trios. This was sort of a sweet spot where Porky was still imposing, to the point where he was, of course, funny, but could make someone like Hijo de Gladiador beg off when he was taking liberties. Within a decade, that would be over and he'd be there just for laughs. Great laughs, certainly, but here he could serve more roles within a match. He could also make like Shawn Michaels posing in the ropes while his partners were in the ring, so it was a balance. And when it was time for him to come in, the fans buzzed in a way that they didn't for Casas or Satanico, for instance. The end of the primera was fun stuff with Casas hitting one big DDT only to get jammed on the second, setting up Porky to come in and accidentally knock him onto Markus only to teeter him back to a sitting and pinning position and then squashing Hijo de Gladiador on a sunset flip attempt. They got the pin while shaking hands like gentlemen. Not much else to say here except for that TAKA (more Taka here than TAKA) was paired well with Satanico both in the primera and in the closing exchange. Satanico was pretty giving against him and looked as great as always; his big interaction with Porky was slapping him in the corner only to get crushed by a series of headbutts out of it as the crowd popped big. The final tecnico comeback was picture perfect Porky use too, as Hijo del Gladiador was trapped behind him in the corner so every time he got whacked by Satanico and Markus he was crushing HdG. Not only does that never get old, but here it was effective and pro wrestling believable in switching the momentum for that final time.

ER: Wow. I actually had no idea a match existed that had Satanico tearing it up on the mat against Taka Michinoku (I trust we do NOT have their singles match a couple weeks after this?), and it's only one of several very fun things happening here. Porky is really treated as the biggest name in the match, and he worked the match as someone who relished the role. This was always building to a big Porky/Markus chubby boys showdown, but all the pairings here worked really well. Gladiador and Casas gave us some quick exchanges before Satanico and Taka came in and outquicked them, and I loved all the rudos scrambling away from Porky whenever he came in. Gladiador hit a questionable strike on Casas and Porky runs in and just plasters him into the corner. We get a lot of classic Porky comedy mixed in with actual strong ringwork, so we get him bumping his butt into Gladiador's face when getting punched in the corner, but we also get an amazing sequence where Satanico starts punching and slapping Porky over and over in the corner. and I'm expecting Porky to start his crying routine. Instead, he had enough and charges out of the corner with a half dozen wicked headbutts that backs Satanico all the way across the ring. Porky hits a big dive into Markus (Markus had landed two very stiff punches earlier during Irish whip exchanges and I couldn't wait for Porky to flatten him) and Taka finishes things with his nice missile dropkick to Satanico's chest, then plants Satanico with the Michinoku Driver. Loved the vibe throughout this whole match, great mix of classic lucha and comedy and stiff strikes. 

JR: I must confess that I haven’t watched a ton of this 90s lucha since the pandemic, and returning to it here is like putting on an old pair of comfortable shoes. Seeing prime Casas and Satanico and remembering the things they did every night was so gratifying. It made me love wrestling for a moment.

But Porky! A revelation every time. People talk about Tajiri being a silent film star with his body language, but I see Porky do sequences here, with a stylized hip attack and a rope running sequence and I can’t help but think of Charlie Chaplin films, in which he is toeing the line between genius and accident. Porky does that here; getting kicked in the gut, but the momentum causes his ass to hit someone in the face, or flattening his own partner so hard that he bounces back up into a cover of his own.

Really, this is sort of the platonic use of porky in a match like this. Casas does the heavy lifting and holds everything together long enough for Taka to shine and change the pace and for Porky to have a few huge moments, including a tremendous plancha. This isn’t what I’d call an all time Porky match or anything, but I think it’s the blueprint of one.

Brazo De Plata/Brazo De Oro/Brazo Cibernetico vs. Villano 3/4/5 Acapulco 11/20/04

PAS: I think I have probably called 15 different lucha cage matches "the only good lucha cage match", but I am doing it again. Here is the only good lucha cage match and it is great one. You can put together any combination of wrestling's Hatfields and McCoys and they are going to try to murder each other, and this was an awesome combo. Nothing funny about Porky here, he was looking to put Villanos in the ground, and there was some big chop and punch exchanges and a fair amount of spilt blood. I liked the finish with V5 and Oro left in the cage only for V3 to break a bottle through the cage on Oro's head so his brother could escape. I am not sure how we didn't review this match when it arrived on the internet, but it is another chapter in this endless family feud. 

MD: Nothing is bad in a bubble. Lucha cage matches tend to be bad because they're a bunch of singles guys stuck together, a few of them maybe with programs or build, but with the primary goal of escaping in the midst of the chaos so that they're not one of the last two in there. Team vs team cage matches probably work better because there's much more hesitation for wrestlers to just scramble out at the first opportunity; to be doing so would be to leave their partners in danger. More so, there's generally a more visceral feud as was the case here. Finally, you have to factor in how hard it is for Porky to get up and out of the cage by this point, so they really had to do some damage to the Villanos to allow for that. Put that all together and you had a recipe for a good lucha cage match. 

I loved how this was filmed. You weren't going to see all the action but then that was impossible given the sight constraints and the size of some of the wrestlers and how thoroughly they were intent on beating and bloodying one another. Instead, it almost felt like you were on one of those rail rides at an amusement park, except for instead of the figurative horrors of It's a Small World, you were able to look left or right and see the real horror of a bloody Porky getting battered in the corner or Platino scrapping hard in a fist fight. It was less on the big memorable spots and more on the steady violence then, at least until the ring started to clear a bit. Thankfully, it all led to the most memorable moment of all, when Villano III smashed a beer bottle into the cage as Oro was trying to climb out, shattering it against the cage and sending glass right into Oro's face. Brilliant, unsafe spot, that was only lessened a little by the fact the Brazos weren't immediately on top of him to get vengeance.

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New Footage Friday: Brazos 25th Anniversary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXMKL-Iy2Yk&feature=youtu.be

Escorpion Dorado Jr./Corazon De Dragon vs. Super Halcon Jr./Bestial

MD: It's been a while since I've seen undercard lucha, especially undercard indy lucha from 2001. Not a ton to say here. One-fall opening match. They didn't do anything big and most of what registered was carried by Bestial and Halcon's rudo antics. The crowd was into it, but more into booing them than cheering the tecnicos. Some things looked good. Some things looked sluggish. The only build to the finish was Halcon launching a cheapshot after a handshake and as a match, it probably could have used a bit more of a beatdown after that.


Super Nono/Super Kepler vs. Enrique Vertiz/El Cazador

MD: Ñoño had a big kid gimmick. He was definitely young but maybe not as young as luchawiki would have us believe (though hey, maybe). I thought he had the act down pretty well and the kids were into it to the point where they were chanting for him and not against the rudos. Cazador was a bit more into the match than Vertiz who was mostly bemused by everything (completely no-selling an outside-the-ring wedgie for instance). Kepler did not look smooth including some of the weirder stilted armdrags you'll see. If you had gotten the rudos from the first match and let them work with Ñoño, you might have had something here.


Pirata Morgan Jr. vs. Dash

MD: This was the first of a bunch of Luchas 2000 vs XLAW matches. Anyway, the first two minutes were pretty good. Morgan hit a Dropkick followed by a tope right to start and then had a string of fairly nice looking offense (press up facebuster, somersault senton, etc.). It got rougher after that. Dash looked like he was wrestling underwater and just seemed to lack the strength to get Morgan up at times (which could have been on Morgan too, I guess, though he showed plenty of effort elsewhere, like his flip bump on a clothesline). They were definitely not on the same page with some of the spots and holds. The run-in at the end was at least high energy.


Brazo De Platino/Super Brazo vs. El Pietir/Dolar

MD: Pretty satisfying mauling at times. Brazos were full on rudo but beloved, to the point that when they try to take a powder up the stairs, the fans inspire them to come back. Some perfectly fine 405 Live stuff combined with handshake goofing. Platino's clap slaps/punches were fun but would probably get old quick. Dolar had a presence and really ran into the corner on one whip late in the match. Perfectly acceptable fat indy guy. Platino and Super Brazo could do this stuff in their sleep but it's still a good, charismatic act.

MD: There was a bit with Gringo Loco and some young luchador where they did a lot in a short period of time and Gringo got clowned which was effective but not really much to write about. It felt like if they'd done a big indy show in 1998 Calgary and gave Teddy Hart a showcase or something.


El Brazo Jr./Brazo De Oro Jr./Brazo De Plata Jr. vs. Crazy Boy/Mike Segura/Genesis

MD: Totally different vibe to the show once we hit this point. The entrances are more elaborate. There's more of a buzz. The Brazos are out with football gear and ski masks to start, with weapons to bear. The XLaw guys cut a promo and then the violence begins. Amusingly, they cut away from a lawn dart iconoclasm onto a chair in the middle of the ring to focus on some floor brawling. That set the tone pretty well. They kept things moving here with a lot of creative weapon usage that didn't have overly elaborate set ups (except for the chair assisted moonsault in the dive train but that you can forgive, and the final table spot but at least that had a soundtrack). As with a lot of this show so far, especially with the XLAW vs Luchas 2000 stuff, the rudo/tecnico dynamic was a bit off. The crowd was behind the Brazos but the XLAW guys got the big comeback/momentum shift off the Brazos going to the well once too often with a whip into a chair in the corner. The crowd got behind them during the mauling that followed though. Like with any of this stuff, the craziest bump isn't always the most spectacular looking one. Crazy Boy took a clothesline over the top and hit a chair on the apron on the way out which just felt nuts. The one-on-one exchanges towards the end maybe went on a little too long and broke the tone of what had come before but there was nothing innately wrong with them. The wrestling was all good. It just felt out of place. By that point the genie had been long out of the bottle and they couldn't just go back to order after all the chaos; maybe if they had fall breaks, I guess. It was all very 2001 post-ECW Emulation with unprotected chair shots and violence on women so inconsequential that the camera didn't even follow it and some worked shoot stuff post-match (I guess?), but that can be good for you in small doses now and again.

PAS: This was fun without actually being particularly good. They wandered around and smashed each other with things, and sometimes the finish ended up being worth the set up, and sometimes it wasn't. The stuff that resembled traditional lucha brawling was the best, I really liked the bleeding and the dive train, and the ECW prop stuff didn't work as well. Segura is the biggest pro on the XLAW team, and his lucha stuff looked the best, Jr. Brazo's were fun, although it probably made sense for their careers to ditch the Jr. gimmicks and go with what they did.

Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/Brazo De Platino vs. Villano III/IV/V

PAS: I love the idea of Hatfield vs. McCoys wrestling family feuds, Armstrongs vs. Fullers is really the only other one I can really remember which spanned generations like the Villanos and the Brazos. Imagine my glee when my boy Rob lets me know about a previously unseen Villanos vs. Brazos match. This is exactly what you want, expect and love about a match between these two families. Lots of blood pooling in forehead scars, great looking wild brawling, a couple of Super Porky miscommunication spots and all six guys looking like the dazed survivors of a tour bus crash. Porky is just iconic, I loved how he worked in the splash-his-partners comedy spots into non-comedic violent spots in a brawl, and the highlights of the match where him just standing and trading hard shots with Villano 3. A worthy addition to this iconic rivalry.

MD: This was shaping up to be a great, hate-filled, bloody brawl, and certainly there's a big history of those between these families but I'm not sure that was the right move to follow the last match, especially after the ceremony. I think this would have worked better if they started with more shtick and then built to the violence. There was plenty of room to transition that way. That's the problem with watching these things in context sometimes. That said, it was a really good brawl until the finish when La Dinastia Alvarado came in to battle in full force. Porky's physical timing was amazing as always. At the end of the first fall, he was masterful at trying to portray an attempt at stopping himself from jumping off the second rope after the Villanos switched up who he was going to land on. Too often guys in that situation would just jump. I was really into where it was heading with Villano III directing traffic but then everyone rushed the ring and that was that.

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New Footage Friday: Boatload of Brazos, Fujiwara, Maeda, Exoticos

MD: When WWE gives you Kane vs. Leviathan, you go forth and find other things. In this case, that would be unearthed Brazos, unearthed exoticos, and unearthed Fujiwara. I think we've done pretty well for ourselves.

PAS: Boy talk about the importance of lowered expectations, we went from "wow the networks is dropping 20 awesome matches a week including multiple unseen 70s and 80s house show matches!!" To "well they are going to only drop one a week, but it is still completely unseen and legendary!" To "suck on a Kane match which has already been on YouTube for a decade." Well fuck them, if you give us lemons we will make Fujiwara and Brazo flavored lemonade.

ER: Fujiwara and Brazo flavored lemonade would just taste like drinking frosting and lard out of an ashtray.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs. Akira Maeda/Nobuhiko Takada NJPW 3/7/86


MD: Despite Phil's best efforts, I still have some blind spots that I shouldn't have for someone who writes here. While I've seen my share of Fujiwara, I haven't seen as much Maeda and Takada as you'd think. My biggest takeaway here, other than it's great that this was unearthed, was the electricity in the air whenever Fujiwara was in. While Maeda and Takada working with Kido was fine, with them smartly moving from one hold to the next, there was a certain spryness and even manic energy when Fujiwara was in there. Everything felt more visceral. Maeda might toss a kick at Kido, but Fujiwara was going to catch that kick and smack his face off. There's a difference between working a half crab spot and pummeling someone with high/low combos in the corner. Both are fine but I'm going remember the latter more than the former tomorrow. Then you have the angles that Fujiwara comes at you. He had this great double leg takedown with his own legs, for instance, or the precision leg stab that set up the finish. I thought he looked brilliant here.

PAS: After reviewing so much awesome Fujiwara over the years, I am so happy there is still more out there to watch. Fujiwara is pure pleasure in this match, the only guy in this who wasn't content to work a house show match. He works over Maeda he strafes him with body shots in the corner , it really reminded me of Piper in the Valentine match which opened this project up, then he catches his kick and drops with with a huge overhand slap, we are fighting motherfucker. The finish is an all timer Fujiwara finish too, with a brutal quick knee kick dropping Takada and then slapping on a brutal knee bar for the tap. That low kick was such a great fast KO move, totally unexpected and brutal. There was a bit of meandering from the other three which kept this being from a true epic match, but still getting more classic Fujiwara at his peak is such a gift.

Sergio el Hermoso/El Bello Greco vs. Naoki Sano/Hirokazu Hata NJPW 2/8/89

MD: I'm so glad this showed up. I'm pretty certain the only time I've ever seen Sergio and Bello Greco before was in that amazing Ola Lila vs Space Cadets match from 84. Their act was so good and we've got so little of them online. This is a great handheld match because you get such a sense of the ambient noise of the crowd. They're laughing at every spot and they're right to do so. Bello Greco is a bruiser exotico base, there for everything Sano and Hata do (and they do some fairly complex rope running and armdrag sequences). He's there to stooge, bump, catch, and clobber and he does it all very well, underpinned by the exotico character. Sergio, on the other hand, is 110% over the top and he's brilliant and dynamic in the role. He has a reaction for everything and it hit every single time. He gets more out of leaping over a dropped down opponent than anyone I've ever seen. Someone could loop a gif of him going back and forth with dropdowns and it'd be its own blend of wrestling perfection. The crowd cracked up every time he pranced over even after they'd seen it six or seven times. Just watching what he does with his hands on routine spots is fascinating. Sano shined here, working as fluidly as possible with the exoticos, and Hata was fine. This had some heat towards the middle and then ended hot enough, though I get the sense this was placed fairly low on the card and they held back a bit on spots and dives. They didn't need them. The crowd was more than happy to cheer for Sergio and Bello Greco as they were recovering post-match and you can't blame them in the least.

PAS: This was a blast, what a perfect match to have low on a card. The exoticos are total pro performers, with the Brazos match this was a great week for classic lucha comedy. I imagine Sergio and Bello were performing their greatest hits, but this is the one of the few times we have seen them do Freebird and it is pretty spectacular. Sergio looks like a superstar, he feels right on the level of Cassandro, Pimpinela and Adrian Street, comes off like a guy who will leap right off a Pride float and whoop a homophobes ass and go right back to dancing to Nikki Minaj. I was also super impressed with Sano, what an all time adjustable wrestler, he is just as comfortable working exotico comedy spots and fast rope running as he was ripping Liger's mask and working hard shootstyle with Ken Shamrock, is their nothing that guy couldn't do, I would have loved to see him work as Sumo Sam in Memphis throwing salt with Tojo Yamamoto.

Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo vs. Robin Hood/Brazo De Platino/Kendo UWF 3/8/94

MD: The Brazos act is timeless. How do I know? Because their antics here with Kendo at the start of the match, stalling, playing with the crowd who loved to chant the tecnicos' names, pretending to leave, crashing into each other, falling off the apron? They did all of that stuff back in 1990 in a match that we have against Kendo/Asai/Hamada. It was still entertaining here. The crowd still loved it here. The only difference was that the super soakers they came out with probably didn't exist back in 90. My favorite moment in all of this was the lucha ring announcer announcing that five minutes had passed despite the fact that they hadn't even locked up yet given all of the comedy posturing, and the crowd popping for the announcement. Obviously they're all used to working with each other and obviously they've done this hundreds of times, but it's still striking how wild and adaptive the physical movements are. That's the joy of the Brazos. It's like they're riding this wave of comedic wrestling, their sheer girth carrying them along with unstoppable inertia. If the crowd reacts in a way that they couldn't possibly expect (though so often it's the crowd reacting to their expert priming), they just get swept along with it, some how twisting the physical comedy to make it work like the most natural thing in the world. Robin Hood and Platino were, unsurprisingly, fitting cogs in the machine and Kendo was just a blur of color and motion and charisma. His connection with this specific crowd over a span of a few years is way too under the radar.

PAS: Kendo crashes an Alvarado family BBQ and we get a nifty trios title match in Japan. Rob Bihari has been on an absolute uploading tear lately, and I am not sure what counts as an unearthed gem, but he told me he "found this on a random disc" and handheld UWF Hamada Rob found on a random disc seems gemmy enough for me. This is a trios match which really ticks all of pleasure centers. We get some classic Brazos shtick at the beginning, including a great spot where Super Porky accidentally bumps his head on the ring post and starts crying, we get some great rope running exchanges (which is something Kendo excels at), a cool dive train, a Star and a pretty great finishing run. Platino is the ultimate little brother at the end of the match, he actually kicks out of the Porky top rope splash, which feels almost blasphemous in a a way an irritating little brother wouldn't follow the rules in a game of tag, Porky then hits him with a standing senton for another two count and then absolutely flattens him with a top rope Togo senton where he landed flush, just powdering Platino's ribs. It is exactly the kind of unnecessary escalation you might do to a little brother who keeps kicking out of your Hogan legdrops when you are play wrestling on your parents bed.

ER: A bunch of Brazos and a chubby veteran Kendo (trying to get into Brazo shape) match up in Japan, and everyone in the crowd somehow understands the jokes better than I do. Bullshit is the universal wrestling language. We now have a great sample of Rip Rogers getting a Japanese crowd eating from his hand before his matches even start, and here we get a bunch of chubby guys shooting Super Soakers, leading to other chubby guys shooting water gun bows and arrows (did they bring those on the flight, or did they find them while in Japan and think "we need to work in some pre-match water gun spots"), and a bunch of clapping and chanting and pratfalls. Watch the Rip Rogers, clapping and pratfalls work. We get some good pratfalls during the match too, my favorite being Oro (or Brazo? It's tough to tell sometimes in this) slingshotting into the ring but just doing a back bump, not rolling through. That's a good gag. 

This is a great era of Porky, as the thick muscular athletic young man from a few years prior is gone, that metabolism took off and didn't even leave a note, but he's still only 30 so still has athleticism. By 1994 he would reach the size he'd basically be for the rest of his career, but hadn't lost much of the agility. Porky has some great moments here, I giggled at him selling Robin enziguiris as if he had lost a contact (I also assume that he didn't bother selling kicks to the back of his head because under that sick as hell mullet he's rocking some equally impressive hot dog neck, so attacking the back of Porky's neck is akin to headbutting a Samoan), and I really liked Platino in this. He's the baby of the group and he acted like a total pro, and I can't even begin to describe what happened between he and Porky as well as Phil did. But we get an awesome dive train (none as wild as Robin Hood's nutty dive earlier that sent him rolling into the crowd), with a great rolling dive off the apron from Oro (or Brazo?) and a killer hands free lawn dart from Kendo, and of course we build to a mammoth Porky dive as our payoff. 

Imagine how steel nerved Porky was. He was always the most athletic of the group, and the fatter he got the more of an attraction he became to their trios team. So before, he was the muscular stocky guy who took big bumps and did big dives, but as he got fatter the desire from the crowd to see him continue diving just kept increasing the fatter he got. So every single match he's placed into the clean-up role, the guy who always has to deliver the coup de grace, always has to do his dive after the crowd has already seen several dives, knows that if he fucks up his dive then the most eyes will be on him. BUT, that's the beauty of the clutch performance of Porky, in that he knows he can deliver the gorgeous fat guy dive, but everybody in the matches also knows that he has the best comic chops to salvage the moment if he does somehow fuck up his dive. 

The finish is fantastic, with Platino deciding to show Japan just how ironclad his sternum is, starting by attempting a sunset flip on Porky that ends with a fat butt sit, then eats a big splash, a senton, and a freaking high hang time top rope senton that made me cover my eyes. My eyes were expecting to see Platino's intestines shoot out his ass, and we are all winners because they did not. Phil completely nailed what Platino was doing here, made me think back to poor David Lochmann in high school, who always sandbagged everyone when we were acting like wrestlers during P.E. Dave refused to roll with a Texas Cloverleaf I was trying to apply, just staying on his back as I tried to turn him. So, Dave ate a few kicks to the back and then got treated to a Cloverleaf way more painful than the one I would have applied had he followed the script. Platino knew what this was.

Leviathan vs. Kane OVW Christmas Chaos 1/31/01

ER: The match that I have been waiting nearly half my lifetime to see! This hidden gems project has been a total flop thus far, but now that they are filling up that ring with 640 pounds of primo steroid era grade A prime things are starting to look up. Could I have seen this match before this moment? Well, sure, if I wanted to sit through a 5 second Dailymotion ad and watch it in slightly worse quality. I'm not going to dig out and watch my VHS copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey that I taped off PBS in the 90s, I'm watching my blu ray. Thus, I'm not watching one match between two guys I don't really like from a Christmas show that was being held 5 weeks after Christmas. Imagine how devastated you would be if Christmas came and went, and you had to wait another 5 weeks to get your presents? Well, WWE knew that fans had been waiting near 18 years to see this Battle of the Titans on their Network screens, and they unleashed this Secret Santa Surprise with a fireplace warmed holiday grin on their faces. Two larger than life pro wrestling and film mega stars at their most gassed, with film quality that looks somehow worse than the batch of early 80s handhelds we just got. This match is going to be like the sound that a giant side of beef makes falling out of a truck. Cornette calls these two "Mastodons of the Mat" who "move like junior heavyweights" which is like an over the top positive lie you tell a friend who you just witnessed shitting the bed at an open mic.

And if your friend had this match you would definitely tell them some over the top positive lie right after you witnessed it. Leviathan was newish, Kane was bad, but this was a decent poor man's Van Hammer vs. Chase Tatum. If this were on the Pro with at least one mullet and no belly button tattoos, I'd probably call it a win. I appreciated that they took a lot of risks on their punches. Both were throwing big hooking right handed haymakers, which are tough to land consistently, and when they miss they look like fake grade school punches. But when they hit, they look good, and Leviathan threw a few to Kane's cheek and one to the head that I thought looked real good, and Kane threw two rights to Leviathan's jaw that looked good, and looked better than Kane's easier to land short uppercuts. Leviathan took nice bumps on chokeslams, hit a nice and sudden spear and a big hang time spinebuster. Both men threw some horrendous clotheslines. Leviathan had one knocking Kane to the floor that was so so gentle, and Kane's "flying" clothesline is one of the worst signature spots in wrestling history. Kane's flying clotheslines always look bad, but the two in this match are some of his very worst. One is so gentle that Leviathan doesn't really know just when to bump it, and both men kind of tumble softly to the mat like two roughhousing friends falling in the backyard. I bet one of them was making "brassssshhhhhhhhh" sound effects while landing. I really hope we get Van Hammer vs. Chase Tatum next Thursday.

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