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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Found Footage Friday: MONTERREY~! CARAS~! ARANDU~! HERODES~! VOLADOR~! BRAZOS~! SATANICO~! PIRATA~!

Cien Caras/Javier Cruz/Arandu vs Herodes/Volador/Angel Azteca (Monterrey 1991)

MD: I started writing about lucha here in 2014, primarily because I couldn't make sense of the DVDVR 80s set. For any number of reasons, I'm glad I did. Probably top on that list? I can just dive into a match like this and ride it like a wave. What an enjoyable twenty+ minutes here. I'm mostly familiar with Herodes from the 80s set and his Japan excursions, but here he was the beloved Chacho, basically babyface Norman the Lunatic dressing up in fun costumes, everything but a teddy bear. Basically, he was a couple of comedy spots away from being early 2010s Porky in CMLL, that role on a tecnico side. This was a little too heated for that, which is a good thing of course. Cien Caras was paried with him and the rudos swarmed from the get go, including tearing off his doctor's costume.

Things settled back down quickly into a really solid primera though. I'm confident in saying that Arandu is a lost rudo base. He was there for everything Angel Azteca and Volador had for him over two exchanges, could shut them down well with strikes, and almost always took a crazy handstand bump over the top to the floor. Plus he had the crazy hair and was just larger than life, at least in a provincial sort of way. He's come out as the real star of the Monterrey footage. Cruz had a good bit with Volador where he acted like a Cruiserweight Bully, jamming all of his stuff until he got monkeyflipped three times. And Caras and Herodes were fine with their shtick. They didn't do much but they didn't have to as the crowd was up for it.

The segunda had a lot of Caras directing traffic for a rudo beatdown, and he was good at that. Not Satanico level but still probably top tier. The real good stuff was in between the segunda and tercera where Arandu lawndarted Azteca into the chairs as people threw trash at him and Caras beat Herodes around the ringside area. The comeback was spirited but the match got thrown out due to constant triple teaming/brutality by the rudos shortly thereafter and things devolved to challenges. I get that lucha can be a lot of things, but I'm way more sympathetic to this form of it than any of the others.

Los Brazos vs Pirata Morgan/El Satanico/Justiciero (Monterrey 1991)

MD: This was much more of a house show Brazos match than I was expecting considering Morgan and Satanico were in there. I thought we'd be getting more of a crazy brawl but I really did enjoy this. The primary pairing was Porky and Morgan, and the sort of matches I was thinking of, you don't really get a primary pairing like that, just violent chaos. Here, the beatdown was pretty gnarly, with Morgan and co. cutting through Brazo and Oro before leaving Porky alone to get beat upon, but it was alway sa little funn too. For instance, at the end of the fall, they tossed Porky into the post on the outside and he bumped into the lap of someone in the first row. Great balance between violence and mirth.

The rudos took the first two falls here, but at the start of the primera and for most of the segunda until the finish, it really was the Brazos comedy hour. Morgan tried to avoid Porky early, but ended tossed around and squished off the apron. All of the rudos had very giving performances here (easier when you're winning two falls in a row I assume). Satanico was more of a secondary player but perfect as always when, for instance, he was getting his hand bitten by Porky on a devious handshake attempt. And everyone hit everything clean, of course. Great punches by both Morgan and El Brazo. Very fun rudo miscommunication down the stretch. Justiciero wasn't going to stand out as much in a match with both Morgan and Satanico but he was fine as a cog in the machine. I would have liked it if they ramped up the violence a bit and got bloody, sure but for the setting, this was entirely enjoyable for what it was.

Marlin/Sergio Romo Jr vs Marabunta/Enjambre (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Full disclosure here: I was sort of dreading the almost 27 minute length of this coming in relative to the matches above, but it was actually a lot of fun. Since I'm feeling nostalgic, one of the best things about getting into lucha when I did was that CMLL was livestreaming both Friday and Monday shows. The Monday shows were from Arena Coliseo and had their own feel, almost always with Rey Apocalipsis and Toro Bill, Jr. in a tag match on the undercard. They were always very entertaining for their role, and I got that same feeling from Marabunta and Enjambre (Hijo de Espectro) here. Early on Marlin was getting Marabunta into holds for their first exchange, and Enjambre kept coming in to interfere, until Marlin chased him off. Good pesky rudo stuff, sure, but he came back from deep in the crowd with someone's cowboy hat on. Just amazing.

There was a ton of stooging in the primera, as you'd expect. I never got much of a sense of Romo or Marlin here, except for that they were game and capable. The finish in the primera was a dropkick doomsday device that was set up very organically. It was a great beatdown though, tying Romo's leg up in a chair, lawn darting Marlin, smacking faces into the side of the ring, hanging people upside down and kicking them on the way down, just swarming bug brutality from Marabunta and Enjambre. They had a great tandem submission of a seated satan's knot combined with jarring knee shots to the back of the skull. We miss the very start of the comeback (just seconds really) but it's all heated with the revenge spots you'd want and building to a dive train. Marabunta and Enjambre were the sort of guys you'd want to see low on the card week in and week out.

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Found Footage Friday: MORE BRAZOS IN PANAMA~! IWRG RETRO~! EXTRA EL BRAZO~! BRAZO CIBERNETICO~! DR CEREBRO~! MR NIEBLA~!

El Brazo/Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro vs Gemelos Infernales/El Taur Panama

MD: Very fun to see the usual Panamanian rudos as the heroes here. And they gave you no doubt on who to root for. The Brazos ran out with bats and beat their opponents around the ring for a short primera. They kept it going with the usual nice strikes (Oro with big sweeping shots) and Porky ripped at Taur's mask. A little bit of miscommunication led to a pretty spirited comeback, including Porky getting bloodied up and Taur smashing him him from across the arena with a running chair shot. They ripped the sports uniforms off of the Brazos too. The ref was counting quick for the locals too and things advanced on to Brazos comedy into the tercera. Gemelos did their headbutt thing with Oro stooging all over the place. As always one of them was more the worker and the other was more into the theatrics. We didn't get the more advanced exchanges that the one Gemelo was capable of as things stayed pretty light. Taur stood tall against Porky including a big bear hug that popped the crowd. There was more fun miscommunication and another quick splash. You definitely got a lot of the Brazos act here, but you always kind of wish they led with the fun stuff and escalated to the bloody brawling as opposed to the other way around.

PAS: Man 2023 has been the year of new Brazos matches popping up. This was pretty great with the Brazos cleaning house with baseball bats, and Super Porky bleeding a ton. Top rope Porky splash is one of the most violent moves in wrestling history and he breaks it out here. Structure was a bit wonky like Matt mentioned, but it was still a total blast. Panamanian lucha forever!

IWRG Retro 1/20/23

Paramedico/Colt vs Tigre Metalico/Zonik 2000 IWRG 7/12/2001

MD: Short match in two falls, mainly due to Zonik's arm getting hurt (real or otherwise). Tigre Metalico is, in fact Metalico, and he looked good paried with Paramedico at the start. The second Colt and Zonik came in, however, Colt started bullying him. He was solid in that role. The arm went down early and a lot of the rest of the match was a two-on-one against Tigre. There was a bit of hope on the outside in the segunda but Zonik couldn't do with it, selling the arm as he was, and he tapped bringing it back to two-on-one and a definitive win for the rudos.

El Brazo/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro vs Brazo Cibernetico/Halcon Dorado/Mr. Niebla IWRG 1/17/99

MD: More of an angle than a match. You'd barely know Niebla was in this, for instance. It was all centered around the inner struggle of El Brazo on whether or not he'd punish his brother or even allow his brother to get punished. As angles go, it was a good one, with Brazo really writhing, Halcon Dorado trying to appeal to him and Brazo Cibernetico bleeding all over the place as Cerebro and Bombero got increasingly frustrated at Brazo as he'd fight the other tecnicos but not his brother. To Bombero's credit, he really threw himself around the ring with his dropkicks. He just had a way of tossing his whole body into his offense which really came through in the small bit we had here. Anyway, Brazo decides that blood is thicker than water and saves his bleeding brother, laying down for his opponents. That's when things really pick up though, as Los Oficiales run down to put a beating on the Brazos and Platino running out to make the save (which set up a trios title match the following week).

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Found Footage Friday: PARK IN PANAMA~! LAWLER~! CHRSTOPHER~! KING~! STARR~! PORKY~! GRUNDY~!

Principe Island vs. Sandokan Panama 1988/89

MD: Almost certainly, Principe Island is LA Park. He's got be around 23 here. Overall, this is a pretty impressive apuestas match to have in his "pre-history." He ambushed Sandokan to start and the primera was bloody and visceral. We lose about twenty seconds to static and when we come back, he's got Sandokan down and is biting the wound. That sums it up pretty well. He ends it with an impressive flurry of bounding back into the ring, over the ropes, and then hitting a flipping dive off the apron, before launching a back flipping kick in the ring for the pin. Occasionally some of his kicks look off and he's a half step behind on feeding for bits of the comeback, but overall he does very well here. That comeback is good despite that, by the way. Sandokan ducks punches and hits big ones of his own to the crowd's delight and then he's able to turn a jumping Principe knee into a back body drop. Pretty rousing stuff. 

Then they really go all out for the tercera, with both guys missing moves off the top rope (Principe missing a senton atomico) and hitting dives (Principe with a bit tope and Sandokan flying off the top to the floor). It's an exciting stretch at the end with a fight over who would hit a move off the top (Sandokan eventually gets a superplex) and a ref bump leading to Principe scoring a phantom submission. When he went to celebrate, Sandokan got behind him, holding him up in an electric chair position while on the second rope and dropping back for the win. You can never get a sense of how full these arenas are because so many people are out of their seats mobbing the ring side area. Post match, Principe seemed to make it through the various stages of grief as he walks around trying to not have his mask taken off by Sandokan. I'm not sure he ever quite gets to acceptance though, as he's still jawing on the mic with his mask off at the end. Not perfect, but a very good overall performance for young Park.

PAS: What a discovery! This is a bloody wild lucha apuestas with one of the all time greatest wild bloody lucha apuestas workers as a pup. The crowd was seemingly on the verge of a riot the whole time, and I thought we might get Park brawling with the fans when he spilled into them. Loved the early violent beatdown on Sandokan: Park busts a bottle over his head to start and grinds the pieces of glass into his head, cutting him badly. He also throws a classic Park chairshot where he let it go as he swung it so it careened awkwardly into Sadokan's head. Sadokan is a real discovery too. We have enough footage now to really get a sense of him as a top level local charismatic babyface brawler, kind of a Panamanian Colon, with some big dives and hard stiff punches mixed in. Matt mentioned a bit of awkwardness but I like my apuestas to be a bit raggedy. I thought this was completely awesome, one of the greatest unearthed pieces of footage we have found since this project started. 

ER: This was tremendous. An apuestas match that really felt like an apuestas, that universal wrestling language we've seen is that way because it works regardless of language or era. Not too long ago we knew collectively very little about the Panamanian lucha scene, and now we have this cool snapshot of local babyface legend Sandokan, who really does seem like Panama's Carlos Colon. At this point I'm going to need to see the Costa Rican Carlos Colon, and the El Salvadoran Carlos Colon, I'm sure there's someone similar in Honduras, and I'm going to need to see the LA Park matches with all of them. Panama is nowhere near Mexico City, so I have no clue how often Park was going down that way, who facilitated his trips there, nothing. I know how often I've driven from the Bay Area to Omaha, NE - the same distance from Mexico City to Panama - and that's zero times baby. Park is just showing up 1500 miles away making locals bleed and starting near riots. He bloodies up Sandokan and runs him mouth first down the apron into a ringpost, then gives him a real LA Park chairshot with an open metal folding chair. It's a real beating, with hard right hands and plenty of flash (I can't imagine cannonballs off the apron were anywhere near the norm in late 80s Panama) while also bashing Sandokan into the ring steps. 

He bumps huge for Sandokan's comebacks and knows exactly when to act cutthroat and when to get his ass beat. Sandokan has great babyface punches and Park's bumping takes over the rest. Park bumps like Jerry Estrada (or, like LA Park), taking essentially four straight backdrops, the 4th sending him flying head first flipping through the ropes to the concrete, goes up for a big spinning backbreaker, takes a nasty full extension stretched out bump into the ringpost, always managing to out-bump Sandokan x2. Sandokan misses a big top rope splash? Just look how high Principe is going to bounce on his missed flipping senton. The ramped up flying is cool, with Park's tope suicida and Sandokan's plancha leading to believable moments of each man barely beating the count, and there's a cool superplex where Park tried to drag Sandokan up to the top turnbuckle by his ears before getting thrown off. If you have to have some drama at the finish, I at least like how this was done. The referee gets knocked to the floor in a big bump, and Park gets the ref-less win after a back suplex. As he's celebrating on the turnbuckles, he eats a flat out crazy electric chair drop off the middle buckle, and the post-match unmasking and mic work sounds heated as hell. I'm going to need any and all unseen La Parka footage, and at this point I want to see more big Sandokan title matches. Model citizen, zero discipline. 

Brazo de Plata vs. Aaron Grundy (Mike Shaw) CMLL 12/15/92

MD: This is hair vs hair. It's 6 minutes, two per fall. It's a Porky hair match so we pretty much have to cover it at some point and it's ok, you know? I'm sure people knew what they were getting here: big guys crashing into each other over a short period of time. Grundy had the advantage to start and did beat Porky around the ring. He took a shot to the post on the outside but no color. He ate a clothesline (meaty enough) in the ring and a pretty woeful splash from Grundy. Porky's big comeback in the segunda (after a missed corner charge) was an unlikely slam and an iffy splash of his own. The tercera saw Grundy take back over with a pokey punch after a handshake lure-in, but he had the good manners to miss a splash off the second turnbuckle and this time Porky got some air on his splash. This was clipped so we just had the action and a few seconds of the haircut but you can't really say that these guys didn't do what they set out to do. And hey, Shaw had nice headbutts, an ok clothesline, some decent punches in there, even if he was no Tugboat on his big splash.

ER: It would be easy to view this match as a disappointment, because I don't think it's possible to have a wholly fulfilling three falls hair vs. hair match that is less than 6 minutes of footage. Super Porky is one of my favorite big match workers and I was dying to see what he could do with Mike Shaw a mere four months before Friar Ferguson's debut/final match. This match just might be the final time that Mike Shaw ever looked like a normal human being. He's a big fat guy of course but his red singlet actually fits him, and he has a nice lush beard that covers up his goiter-like swollen bullfrog neck area. Losing his hair to Super Porky clearly made him go insane, and the man never had a normal head of hair, beard, or eyebrows past Christmas '92. So outside of the weirdness of seeing the last normal glimpse of Mike Shaw, you got a tremendous small scale Porky selling performance. 

I always talk about how Jerry Lawler is not only the greatest puncher in history, but he's the greatest punch salesman in history. He knows how to sell his own punches, and how to sell his opponent's punches better than anyone. Well, of all the praise I've heaped on Porky over the years, I don't think I've ever talked about how Porky is one of the great punch salesman in wrestling history. This match gets sincerely great when Grundy starts throwing punches directly at Porky's poor overworked heart. Grundy clearly starts targeting the ever sensitive heart of Brazo de Plata, and I love how Porky sold each one of the shots. He was in their recoiling from the blows, treating smaller shots like he was dealing with some rough heartburn (I now need to see a handheld where Porky chomps through a handful of Tums before spitting out a chalky mist after getting punched again), and as the punches get harder (and Grundy threw some awesome punches at our big boy's heart) Porky starts recoiling with his whole body, rubbing at his chest and desperately trying to create space before his ticker stops for good. Everything else in the match was rushed or a bit underwhelming - no matter how endlessly entertaining it is to see Mike Shaw throw a standing splash that is literally him just falling forward without leaving the ground an inch, his ugly missed splash off the middle at least had to have hurt his knees - but Porky getting his heart attacked was amazing. You can't ask much more from a 5 minute pro wrestling match than "an obese man tried to force his fat opponent into cardiac arrest". 

Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher vs. Derrick King/Dustin Starr LAW 8/29/04

MD: This was the main event of the Lethal Action Wrestling 2nd Anniversary show and it was basically the Lawler Family Comedy hour. Before the match got going, Christopher did both his whole dance routine and threw his beads and Lawler seemed like a proud father for how into the crowd was, even if he refused to take the imaginary shovel. It's a little sad to think this was after Christopher's national run was basically over. Lawler's comedy was pretty funny here. They ended up riding both of the heels like bulls; Lawler did a fun dropdown bit off rope running; and the best part was King pulling the strap down fighting out of the corner and Lawler patiently putting it back on before clocking him. 

In general, whenever King and Lawler were in there together it was at least great, but it was probably just fun the rest of the time. The finish was someone sneaking King a chain and him actually getting to pin Jerry so that's probably why Team Lawler took so much of this. The heels started some real control on Christopher and that was fine (even if Starr was probably a half step behind what he might have done a couple of years later) but it was a bit too little, too late to put any drama into this. Lawler rushed in after the hot tag and really crushed everyone though, immediately dropping the strap and hitting some of his better stunners. It's always nice to see Lawler and Christopher as an over babyface team together, but the way this was structured meant that this had a relatively low ceiling, even if it did have a fairly high floor.

ER: This is a match that takes its time getting to where it's going. It also keeps the whole crowd of children and adults wildly entertained with a match that at times felt like something put on for an elementary school. This was a full Brian Christopher Go Brian Go babyface match, started with a 10 minute comedy stretch before building to some punch throwing, and was a 20 minute match with Lawler/Christopher taking at least 90% of it. I didn't care for some of it, Brian Christopher is in for most of the match while Lawler just laughs at G-Rated Brian antics. But then there are some incredibly inspired sections where Lawler and Derrick King work the exact type of match I want to see. Everything Lawler and King do against each other is the exact reason you'd be watching this 25 minute match. You knew the punch exchanges would be good, but you wouldn't have been able to predict the tights game on display. 

Lawler is in flamingo hot pink trunks and singlet, with black pink and turquoise tights paint splatter tights. It's an incredible combo, and one you'd have never guessed he was sporting back in 2004. This is a 1991-1994 era tights and singlet combo. I mean that singlet is PINK. I don't associate bubblegum and splatter paint with the 2nd George W. Bush term. Lawler must have shared his notes with King, because King is wearing his own set of hot pink trunks and singlet with some colorful big stars on his tights. It's nothing at all like anything that was happening in 2004. But the punches in the corner are universal. Derrick King has the best punches in the match. Lawler finally throws some good ones but King's are supreme. King throws a fistdrop and excellent right hooks, and the match peaks when King takes his strap down only for Lawler to slide it back up like Bugs Bunny and deck him. It's perfect, and it almost makes you forget about Lawler dishing out middle fingers and the worst looking Stone Cold Stunners you've seen. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LA PARK

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! LA OLA BLANCA~! NEGRO CASAS~! COTA~! BRAZOS AGAIN ~! ULTIMO~! CASAS AGAIN~!

Los Brazos vs. Hijo Del Gladiador/Gran Markus Jr./Dr. Wagner Jr. CMLL 3/22/94

MD: Long title match, which meant a lot of it was wrestled clean. You'd still get Porky butt bumps or whatever, but they kept the shtick to the tercera for the most part. The wrestling was good too. Brazo de Oro and Gladiador had a great exchange in the segunda, for instance. Actually, Gladiador ate a bunch of arm-based control in the primera too. I always like Talisman matches when they pop up but his 90s work jumps out less for me. He was very good here though. The whole rudo side was. Markus brought the size and while Wagner wasn't fully developed yet, he still had that ability to pause and draw the crowd to him. Porky had a striking tope to end the primera and had the crowd more than a little behind him towards the end when they dropped the pageantry of title match lucha and let things devolve into fake heart attacks and what have you. Still, this was a pretty good showing all around and highlighted the Brazos' range.

PAS: I am a huge fan of the Porky heart attack spot, just an all time classic bit of pro-wrestling bullshit. This was an all timer version of that, with the rudos stomping him on the chest only to fall victim to a sneaky inside cradle. The crowd just exploded and leaped to their feet. There was lots of great stuff leading up to that too. Oro is a great technician and is tremendous at filling the early parts of the match leading up to the huge Porky moments. Brazos are so good at traditional trios wrestling, it isn't a style which we see much of anymore, and it is fun to see a new version of it pop up.

ER: This was great, a full match that took its time to build to actual real drama. Los Brazos and this version of the Menudo-like Nueva Ola Blanca had really great chemistry. Every single pairing in this match had rockstar moments. Ola Blanca shifted really well between generous rudo bases making Los Brazos look like aces, to vicious bullies who could swarm and dismantle. Brazos are an easy team to showcase and they all have enough material to fill long singles matches and they're smart about fitting their material into trios work. They're incredible. Oro has some really fast reversal and mirror exchanges, but with strong physics and use of speed. They peak the primera with the likely spot of the match, a huge Porky tope that knocks Markus to the back of Coliseo. Imagine the bravery it takes to stand firm in the face of a 1994 Super Porky tope. I love the years long Brazos/Markus feud, it's nothing but big boy classics, so anytime you get more of that story it's pure joy. This was some of El Brazo's finest work, flawless turnbuckle running armdrags and a great European style headscissors, aggressive baseball slide going after Wagner on the floor and some really fast exchanges. He could really go but for understandable reasons doesn't get the same hype as his brothers. There were also some really big bumps on a pretty unforgiving mat. Porky missed a big back splash at one point and it looked like he just did a full force senton to a sidewalk. I thought the heart attack stuff was some incredible pro wrestling, real drama that got the crowd deeply invested. 

Porky got to show off why he's such a mega star, showing off his athleticism in a long match, throwing out cartwheels and splashes and bumps, even showing off his amateur skills with a big delayed Angle Slam. He took some great theatrical bumps, like a fat guy doing a Bill Dundee impression (has Beau James been doing Bill Dundee doing Super Porky this whole time?). Porky took a passionate, sympathetic beatdown that seemed to go on forever, fan support growing as he kept making his sweet little helpless faces. Ola Blanca really put the boots to Porky, and he's holding his heart the entire time, clutching his chest and breathing heavy and hardly noticing the beating. Porky connects like few tecnicos in history, and I love a good match stoppage. It felt really chaotic as the refs call for an actual time out, and the rudos seem real incredulous about time outs suddenly being allowed in wrestling. People crowd around Porky and it adds to the stress of the moment, as the cameras can't get a clear shot of him on the apron being tended to by the doctor. When he insists on continuing and wins with a small package, it's a huge moment. I've seen plenty of mask matches end with less enthusiastic crowd reactions. Men and women alike are on their feet jumping up and down, Porky a slightly shorter Bruno. Off the charts charisma. I love this man. 

Negro Casas vs. Mocha Cota CMLL 3/25/94

MD: Obviously Casas and Cota are two of the most charismatic, interesting, compelling wrestlers ever. Their hair match in fall 94 is just okay due to the one-fall format and the fact that Casas gives Cota the whole thing. This obviously lacks the stakes down the stretch that the hair match has, but it feels superior in a lot of ways. Cota ambushes to start and gets an early pin. Casas comes back with the world's best foul kick out of the corner. It's right in front of the ref but it's so fast and so brazen that the ref has no idea what to even do with it. Casas, trickster god that he is, makes him doubt his own eyes. A fun beating commences, with Casas opening Cota up with a shot to the audience seats. Casas has some fun stuff here, dancing around before he lays in a great punch and taking Cota's hair as they're standing on the apron and just pulling him down face first all the way to the floor. When we get a clear shot of Cota bleeding it's great but the hair, so amazing for apuestas bets, does obscure it at times. They start to really lay it in during the tercera, with Cota getting the better of the scrapping and he parallel opens up Casas on the seats as well. Even without the stakes, Casas sells it like they've been through a war, first out on the floor and then back in the ring, barely beating the 3-count by limply grabbing the rope again and again. They build to a comeback and another foul for the finish but it all fits given who was in there. In some ways, I think this slipping out even made the subsequent hair match better since it provides that bloody bridge that the feud had been previously missing.

PAS: I thought this was awesome, it just built and built and then had just a super violent finish. I loved the nasty fireman's carry throw giving Cota the first fall. Casas's foul to take control in the second fall was about as great as I have ever seen that done, right to the nuts, in the spilt second when the ref turned his head. It is weird to say that a kick to the balls demonstrates how great a wrestler is, but that kick to the balls demonstrated how great Casas was more than any highspot or bit of mat slickness could. Then when it gets violent, it gets super violent. Both guys bleed, Cota smashes Casas' head into the hard Arena Mexico stairs like he was trying to open a piñata that was misbehaving. It isn't a climax of a match, but is about as incredible a middle chapter as you could expect.

ER: These two are magic together. What performers! Casas and Cota are two of the most expressive wrestlers in history and they're great at both being hams without either outworking the other. They kick things (really hard) into gear in the segunda when Casas overcomes a hot Cota primera by kicking him right in the balls as swiftly as I've ever scene someone kick a pair of balls. He sneaks that ball kick in on Cota in the one split second the ref looked away, and it was a real piece of art, like a shoplifter or pickpocket in a French new wave film. Then he gaslights everyone about the ball kick and beats the shit out of Cota. Casas's punches in the segunda were big swinging joyous shots, theatrical with a flashy follow through. Casas had this way of wrestling like a brute, just grabbing guys by the hair (of which Cota had an ample supply) and throwing their face into the mat; but his movements are so beautiful that it's like watching violent Marcel Marceau. His kicks to a kneeling and reeling Cota stung but also played big to back row Arena Mexico, his whole body is doing something.

He hits a stomp from the apron right to Cota's bleeding forehead and it's like he's striking up a big number in The Music Man. Negro Casas at his charismatic peak is a real rush, a real complete performer who knew the exact kind of lucha drama Mexico City wanted to see. He plays this crowd as confidently as any wrestler I've seen, like Flair in the Carolinas. These two know how to fight, and they have a truly great fight while fully recumbent, Cota leaning in with a seated headbutt as Casas throw killer punches to Cota's ear and neck. They really punched it out and it built to Cota beating his ass on the floor, kicking him around ringside and slamming Casas's face into seats. Casas starts bleeding maybe 1/2 as much as Cota, and feigns going into shock at the sight of his own bloody nose. A rudo doing shifty eyed panic at the sight of their own blood is an incredible rudo shtick that someone should steal, even if they wouldn't have the right level of camp as Casas. 

I love when Casas acts like a giant brat, when he's just kicking at Cota to shove him out of the ring, like a teenager throwing a tantrum when her mom bought the wrong prom dress. Casas is throwing these stiff kicks to Cota's torso with this bitchy face, and it's incredible. It all builds to a big punch out, everything thrown in rhythm but out of time, Casas mixing in chops with leg kicks while trying to weather short, perfectly targeted lefts and rights on the chin from Cota. It's a great punch out to finish a fight. This made my night. 

Los Brazos vs. Los Mercenarios CMLL 7/9/94

MD: About as straightforward of a Brazos match as you can get, but still everything the fans wanted, save for maybe a more elaborate and definitive finishing stretch. The crowd wanted nothing more in the world than to see Porky in the ring and to get to cheer and chant for him. The primera had a few comedy spots and ended with one of the biggest Porky splashes off the top I've ever seen, on all three rudos. The segunda was a fairly straightforward beatdown. There was a little bit of blood and not a lot of motion, but with a crowd this hot, you didn't need to do much but stand Porky in the middle of the ring and dropkick him off the top repeatedly. I really liked the double clothesline Hart Attack that Los Mercanarios used since you don't see that sort of thing too often, even in lucha trios. The comeback was straightforward and heated and led to some trios spots before everything broke down on the outside and the match was thrown out. There were most match promos and the Brazos standing strong but it probably could have used a few more elaborate comedy spots either upfront or at the end. Otherwise, it was a definite crowd pleaser.

ER: Oh to be in the crowd for a Los Brazos match. I love when we get Brazos US footage, you really get to see how far Porky's local celebrity status extends. He was a marquee name on this show, a name this crowd all knew in advance, the man getting the chants all through the match. I don't know who any of Los Mercenarios are, but they worked really well within Los Brazos style. They all knew their sequences and knew when to play into the comedy, but always worked the comedy seriously. I loved a spot where one of them was trying to Irish whip Porky and Porky kept holding onto the top rope; the Mercenary was really yanking on Porky's arm to drag him away from the rope, and sincerity makes the humor work its best. In the hot tercera brawl, the shorter stocky Mercenary really beat Porky's ass in the entrance aisle, throwing heavy right hands to knock him down and then rains down with some more. Los Mercenarios try a pretty dangerous missile dropkick while one is holding Porky prone, but he gets scared or something and fucks up the first attempt, and it's kind of a miracle he didn't Gronda his leg. They do it again, he commits to the dropkick, they're a good team. Super Porky hits one of the most spectacular highspots in Brazos history when he hits his big splash at the end of the primera. I hope the Alvarados bought that middle Mercenario extra tortas because that man got absolutely crushed by one of Porky's all time splashes. They give us a lot of momentum shifts, more than I was expecting, and it elevates the match. The action was strong and would shift in believable ways, and by the end I really bought into the fight. But god, imagine hitting a splash like that and the only reason it was documented was because of some guy sitting in the loge seats at Grand Olympic. 

Negro Casas vs. Ultimo Dragon CMLL 7/9/94

MD: I absolutely loved this Casas performance. It might be one of my favorites ever and that's saying something. He and Dragon start it on the mat as they properly should, with Dragon ultimately getting the advantage, with some lightning-quick, explosive twists down onto the leg. Casas eventually has enough and takes advantage of the ref sleeping by launching a clunky foul kick. From there, he doesn't look back, absolutely conducting the crowd to shush and play along. He's all but sweating charisma and personality as he interacts with the ref and with them. Then, after he takes the first fall, he launches a second foul for absolutely no reason, just because he could, and goes even further over the top. Anyone with enough charisma could take this act a decent distance because the crowd is so great, but it's Casas' ability to go and his physicality and emotiveness that makes it all overflow. 

I swear that Dragon's comeback is almost solely due to Casas basking in the interaction he's having with the crowd and getting distracted. But what makes it work, what turns it from a hit into a home run is how he walks right into Dragon's German Suplex and goes over for it so well. He follows it up not by taking ten more moves but instead by using the period between falls to walk out on the absolutely elated crowd. Once he comes back, though, he and Dragon have a great, high-spot laden finishing stretch, with Dragon playing possum with his knee so he can dropkick Casas to the floor, and ultimately getting the best of him in a clear, clean, and hugely entertaining way in the end. Dragon looked really good too throughout most of this, but Casas came off like the biggest, best star in the world here.

PAS: Dragon has a rep as a great worker, which is really undeserved. What he can be is a great passenger, and Casas is a master driver. So with these two matches as examples, was Negro Casas the best wrestler in the world in 1994? What a fucking king he is in this, just conducting the crowd and making every Dragon moment mean so much. 94 Dragon had some stuff, but it is what Casas can do with that stuff that made it special. Imagine how good 1994 Negro Casas vs. 2021 Ninja Mack would have been, or 1994 Casas vs. 2003 Amazing Red (I imagine both those matches would be pretty great right now, Casas is still incredible).  

ER: I've been watching Dragon a lot against lesser opponents lately, and it's a real treat to see him against someone like Casas. Dragon is a guy who is going to match the personality of his opponent, so if his opponent is an iceman with dead eyes you're going to have a heatless move exchange with no consistent story. You put Dragon in with someone like Casas and magically, Dragon has a big personality. In the match up above we got to see Casas sneak in one of the all time great low blows in wrestling history, and here he works two other great spots around low blows, one of which might be just as great. He again plays the game of kick Ultimo low when the ref is distracted, but this time my favorite work was in his foul faking. Fouling and fake fouling was something I really loved when I started getting into lucha, and it's mostly absent in modern lucha. The theatricality around a guy getting hit in the nuts or fervently pretending like you did get hit in the nuts was always wildly entertaining to me, and that's probably because there were real artists like Casas and Satanico who knew how to hit balls and how to pretend their balls were hurt. 

When Casas goes down from a phantom shot the Grand Olympic crowd really turns on him, and the ref knows exactly how to play it, acting like he's going to give Casas the segunda before Ultimo appeals to the crowd and the crowd all stands waving their fingers at Casas. Casas gets up to protest and Ultimo points out that Negro's balls no longer hurt, and Casas does this note perfect "oh yeahhhhhh my balls!" and begins selling them again. I love how Casas looks at the Mexican fans afterward like "man you're gonna support some goof in a mask instead of one of your boys? Come on. We gotta hold ourselves up." The nearfall stretch in the tercera is strong, we get a big Ultimo dive past the ringpost, a Casas powerbomb that feels like it might be it, a snug Ultimo hurricanrana, Casas threatening to walk out, all of it great. Negro Casas getting into it with the LA fans and managing to walk into Ultimo's traps is just hugely entertaining pro wrestling. 

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

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


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

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

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

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

Los Mercenarios vs Los Toritos/Chamaco Rebelde

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I Miss Super Porky

Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro vs. Gran Hamada/Perro Aguayo UWA 3/10/91

ER: What a great tag, the kind of match where you'd consider yourself lucky if you got to see a variation of it live, and a real tour de force Porky performance. The fans are way into everything Porky brings, and he keeps surprising them. Before the match even starts he does a hilarious pratfall to the floor, falling flat on his face just getting from the ring to the apron. The fans eat it up and want only more Porky, and they get it. This starts nice and ramps up the entire match, and gives us a full feeling match in 11 minutes. There's some simple almost US style matwork from Oro and Aguayo to start, and I like how that played into the gradual ramping up of the match. The 11 minutes felt so complete because of the way they kept building speed throughout and kept working to bigger and bigger things. Hamada got to flash his speed and work blazing fast exchanges with both Brazos, the kind of speed that still stands out as special 30 years later when the foundation modern style of wrestling is based around speed, and his huracanrana roll up still stands as the best of all time. But, that pre-match faceplant pratfall set things in stone, and this was always going to be Porky's match. He gets into slap fights, does muscle pose downs with Perro, hits an awesome big boy tope, hits his crushing Porky splash, and does all the little things like whipping over fast on armdrags and showing his always shocking agility. This match feels like the kind of thing that should have lead to Porky being one of the most popular foreigners in Japan for the next decade, and I'm sure that Hamada recognized that. I imagine Porky wanted to remain in Mexico for good reasons (such as several young children at home), but I love thinking of this alternate timeline where Porky spends his 90s working a bunch of M-Pro and Toryumon tours. 

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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: RED! NECRO! BRAZOS! DAMIEN WAYNE! VOLADOR!

Volador/Misterioso/Lizmark Jr. vs. Los Brazos Early 90s? 

PAS: The Brazos are one of the most purely entertaining acts in wrestling history, so finding a new Brazos match is mitzvah. Lizmark Jr. was a guy whose spirit was truly crushed by WCW but he was really feeling himself here, flipping around, kipping up and hitting cool armdrags. Of course the focus of the match was on Super Porky doing his thing, we get a long section where he keeps accidentally smushing his brothers, causing him to cry and hug the tecnicos. In the tercera he turns on his new friends and unleashes the power of fat landing one of the most splattering top rope splashes in a long career of splattering. Cool opening section, some fun comedy spots and a big finish, exactly what you want to main event a lucha house show. 

MD: This one is well worth watching for some great work and even greater antics. Tecnicos take the first chunk which leads to miscommunication and a great tree falling spot with Porky, who citing the subsequent ill-treatment by his brothers, switches sides. We've all seen this sort of thing before, but it's not every day you can see it with the Brazos and see them commit so thoroughly to the gag. You keep expecting Porky to turn back and he eventually does but not until they've milked every bit of it that they could. Around all of this are three spry tecnicos and rudos that will gladly base and feed for them, including a memorable Volador dive.

ER: There are few wrestlers in history I love more than Super Porky, and watching him spend 20 minutes doing his specific thing is always going to be the best kind of panacea for me. This has some of his best gags, played to their fullest, in front of a crowd who adored his gags. Not only do we get to see him take several slick armdrags from Volador, we move past that into his great misdirections. Los Brazos keep trying to hold Lizmark prone while accidentally hitting each other, leading to Lizmark ducking a Brazo sunset flip attempt, and a hilarious long pause before the punchline. Brazo is "forced" to sunset flip Porky, and Oro misses Lizmark and chops Porky...and Porky just stares at him. Everybody knows the spot is for Porky to butt splash Brazo, and here's Porky just standing, looking at his brother, seconds disconnected from the actual momentum of the spot...before Porky finally, purposefully, plops down onto Brazo's chest. His brothers smack him around and Porky openly weeps, drawing the biggest cheers of the night as the crowd rallied behind him. 

We get a great pratfall bump where Porky steps to the apron and Oro lifts the middle rope on him, sending Porky to the floor with a wild banana peel bump. I couldn't get enough of Porky working with the tecnicos to get back at his brothers, flopping to his back to give up the primera, getting all possible mileage out of the tecnico turn before eventually rejoining his family. Give me more and more of Porky doing silly poses while getting "YAY/BOO" cheers back and forth from the crowd. It all ends when Porky smacks Misterioso in the face, and he ends the segunda with an all time great top rope splash, getting Oro to help him balance, then standing on the top triumphantly before doing a full squat...and just flattening Volador. Who can not love this man? Who couldn't get excited for Los Brazos? 

Necro Butcher vs. Amazing Red PWS 3/5/11

PAS: Match I had no idea ever happened, which is a real battle of aughts era indy legends a bit past their prime. Necro is at his most acclaimed as a walking heavy bag who takes enormous ass kickings, but he is also pretty great on top, and mauls Red around the arena for most of the match. Much like his obvious predecessor Rey Mysterio Jr., Red is an unexpectedly stiff worker, and fires back with some pretty sharp kicks, including some down right Sanoish solebutts right to Necro's bourbon and Percoset laden belly. He also absolutely savages Necro's bare feet and ankles with chair shots. We get a nifty finish run with Red getting some plausible near falls before falling to a perfectly executed jumping Tiger Driver (Necro's move execution was always an underrated part of his overall excellence). What a treat to run across this match on youtube, delivered on it's promise for sure. 

MD: We lose a little bit in the front here, but you still get the general idea. Necro lays in a beating around the ringside area in the expected walk, pound, and toss style. Red's hope strikes are super credible, which was half on Necro leaning into them, but every time he creates some distance it just knocks Necro back into another chair he can use. Eventually, after a horrific running crotch into the pole that would haunt Red for the rest of the match, it ends up back in the ring and that means no more chairs for a bit. That gives Red a fighting chance though he's still half a step behind due to the groin injury. He works on Necro's ankle, more as a way to keep him down than as a direct path to victory, including using a chair of his own, but the amount of high risk moves he needs to utilize (while always a little slow due to the grade A selling) means he's bound to get caught. Pretty much the sprint you'd want it to be.

JR: I think my feelings on Necro Butcher are pretty well established at this point, but one thing that I haven’t really written about is that he is a tremendous “on paper” guy. Think about basically any wrestler you can that is remotely competent, and putting them in a singles match against Necro is at least a perverse curiosity. Throughout this I couldn’t help but think about how wonderful it would’ve been to see Necro having a walk and brawl against Rey Mysterio, stumbling drunkenly into the 619, grabbing his toothless mouth and bleeding face after Rey clobbers him in the face with his knee brace. I guess I was sort of hoping I’d get something similar here, although that probably isn’t fair because Red and Rey are two different workers. What we got here was a relatively interesting match, albeit one that I think has issues that bother me specifically. I think, in a perfect world, we would have had a longer control section from Necro once they got back in the ring, as I think Red taking control almost immediately didn’t give the crowd an opportunity to get invested. I wish that Red’s control segment was a little more dynamic; it almost felt as though he was trying to work heel here and slow Necro down and not bounce around, which I found confusing, especially considering the finish was a pretty overt monster heel finish from Necro. Perhaps I’m being too hard on this. When I saw the names and the match time of under 9 minutes, I thought I was going to see something like the Demus/Iron Kid match from a few years ago, especially once I saw the opening portions were a crowd brawl. Instead we got a perfectly fine midcard match and I can’t help but think there was something better that could’ve happened here.

ER: JR brings up Necro as an on paper guy, which was precisely the criteria that made Necro one of my literal three favorite guys in wrestling for a really long time. When you ask yourself "Whose matches would you watch, regardless of opponent" it's a good way at getting to the heart of what wrestlers are truly your favorites. For a large portion of the 2000s the only wrestlers who fit that criteria for me were Finlay and Necro Butcher. It's a pretty accurate litmus test. There are plenty of wrestlers who I love (Super Dragon, Low Ki) who have matches against wrestlers I decidedly do not love (Davey Richards, Joey Ryan) that I have never watched. But I would watch Necro Butcher or Finlay against Davey Richards, because every possible opponent gives me the opportunity to see what Finlay or Necro would have done with a total negative factor. Play the game yourself, you might learn a thing about your personal preferences that you never realized. 

This match was incredibly entertaining, tons of great stuff that was over way too quick, and just like Phil I had no clue these two ever crossed paths. Necro throws Red into the crowd and bodyslams him back over the guardrail, buries him under chairs, deals with mouthy NY kids, takes a thrown chair right on the top of his head, the kind of tour around the venue you expect from any Necro match. The real gold happens in ring, as Red lands so many awesome shots to make the size gap vanish. Red has really great kicks, great solebutts to the bellybutton that Necro expertly and accurately sells like a guy who ate poisonous berries he found while camping. All of Red's stomps to Necro's feet and malleolus were looked super painful, and the chokeslam into a gorgeous tiger driver (while palming Red's face for the pin) was a great finish. I'm so happy this match happened, even happier that it is now online for all. 

Damien Wayne vs. Lance Erickson NWA Mountain State 6/4/12

PAS: Lance Erickson is nicknamed the Canadian Lion and has maple leaf tights, and based on his pre-match interview must come from Charleston or Wheeling Manitoba. He must be working some sort of PY Chu Hi or Krusher Kruschev gimmick where he renounced his Mountain State roots to join an evil group of Canucks. This is what you hope a dog collar match between bad ass southern wrestlers will look like. Damien Wayne is a DVDVR favorite from way back and has great looking punches and chops and a killer top rope elbow (which he wraps in a chain). He opens up Erickson early with a chain shot, with Erickson really cut deep as the blood starts to look like Merlot. Wayne bleeds too, which looks great on his bald head and they crack each other with hard chain assisted punches and chain chokes. They didn't bother with the touch the turnbuckles gimmick which is a much better way to do this kind of fight. 

MD: I think we've seen so many dog collar and strap matches with the four corners stip that it's refreshing to see one without it. They use the chain well, with Wayne opening Erikson up early (after a failed ambush to begin) with it, a real gusher. The crowd seems a little split here (I get the sense that Erikson was more of a regular that they loved to dislike) and it means that while the violence is ok, the heat isn't necessarily there, even after Erikson takes over on a missed chain punch in the corner and subsequent hanging and opens up Wayne as well. It makes things more back and forth than something with a real tangible comeback. They work in some moves as opposed to just chain shots but it all works because there's always the chain they land on the chain. I really like the finish where Wayne had taken out his ribs on his first top rope elbow attempt and figured out to wrap it around the elbow for the second one. Could have used Erikson leaning on him a bit more but all of Wayne's stuff was good and you can't fault Erikson's gusher here. It sounded like the match ended up this way because they couldn't get a cage going for logistical reasons (maybe they didn't have one, maybe a commission, who knows) and I think I would have been pretty satisfied with what I got if I was in that crowd.

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New Footage Friday: TANK! SE7EN! WAR GAMES! CORINO! TEDDY HART! BRAZO DE PLATA! CASAS! HEADHUNTERS!!

Brazo de Plata/El Dandy/Negro Casas vs. Head Hunter I/Head Hunter II/Mocho Cota CMLL 8/12/94

ER: This was one of those matches I knew I was going to write up the second I saw the listing. How could I not watch a match with the Headhunters opposite Super Porky? Oh sure I guess it also had Negro Casas, El Dandy, and some guy named Mocho Cota (who we definitely don't dive into every new match we come across), but this was always going to be about some legendary fatness for me. I wanted to see bodies smoosh together, and smooshing was what I got. Porky was a beast in this, really putting some strain on his shoulder by hitting at least a dozen western lariats on both Headhunters. My shoulder was killing me just watching him run his arm into these unmoving human boulders. I loved how relentless Porky was throughout, just running into these beasts with lariats, spectacularly sending them over the top to the floor a couple of times. I loved all the build up to the Headhunters getting knocked to the floor, with Porky getting bigger and bigger heads of steam, Casas helping him on one of them, and then a big triumphant moment in the tercera where he not only finally bodyslammed a Headhunter (something he tried a couple times in the primera to no avail), hit a big backdrop (I wish I knew the difference between Headhunter A and B, because the bigger one was taking some real huge bumps here), smashed one over the top to the floor with a lariat by himself, then leveled him with a tope en reversa off the apron. Porky even had the most impactful big splash of the match, which I was not expecting considering how much larger the Headhunters are.

Casas and Cota mostly stuck to each other, cheapshotting each other the whole time, Cota taking his spectacular quick exits to the floor (one of the finest wrestlers ever at quickly bumping from the ring to the floor) and culminating with Casas faking a nut shot while the skinny furball flips out in protest. The Headhunters were awesome, twin towers who made it count every time they left their feet. They built to back bumps well, letting Porky and Dandy knock them down with lariats, but always needing 4 or 5 to finally do the job. I loved their Doomsday Device to win the primera, a heavy ass clothesline/crossbody that looked like it flattened Dandy. We got an incredible spot where a Headhunter went up to the top for a ring punishing splash, but Casas started shaking the ropes until the Headhunter took this amazing bump onto the ropes, down to the apron and thudding on the floor below. I wish he hadn't just appeared on the apron again 20 seconds later, because the bump looked like something that would have taken him out of action the rest of the match. But whatever, this was everything I wanted, some of my all time favorite luchadors and some all time favorite fatsos. Of course you want to see this.

MD: What a line-up! I love the Cota vs Casas feud even if the final match doesn't quite live up to what you want it to be. True of the greatest characters in lucha history, maybe wrestling history. This has them with quite the cast of supporting players. Porky! Dandy! The Headhunters. All four lucha mainstays 100% know how to maximize who and what they are and who and what they have in the Headhunters. I love how Dandy and Casas use Porky a a weapon. It's so fun seeing them as partners in general. I love how Porky builds recoil into all of his spots against the Headhunters. There's such vile intent and attitude in everything Cota does. All of the press slams and power moves here by Porky and the Headhunters really hit too, including those surrounding the finishes, especially that in the tercera where everyone's so distracted by the big spot, including the refs and the cameramen that Casas is able to fake a foul and lie his way to victory. They still had a number of weeks to milk before the apuestas match here and this was a great way to do it.

PAS: Total murderers row of entertaining guys. Headhunters were really at their insane peak in 1994, and break out some crazy agile stuff for two blobs. One of the Headhunters climbs to the top and gets shaken off and takes a crazy bump on the top rope and to the floor, and they hit this incredible powerbomb top rope STO combo which should be stolen by every big guy tag team. Porky is so much fun against other big guys, he has to be the biggest chubster on the block and has a bunch of fun ways to attempt, fail and succeed to reign supreme. I loved his apron dive, it looked like the kind of thing an 8 year old kid would try on his bed. Cota is a scheming cretin and he and Casas are always magic together.

Steve Corino vs. Teddy Hart PWX 9/13/06

MD: The sort of match that launched a hundred indies. I'm pretty sure this was the PXW debut show, and it's certainly the feud they tried to carry forward. That, and the facts that Jack Victory and Ruckus were both out as seconds and that the original ref was chummy with Corino, meant you were going to end up with a lot of BS and no clean finish. What we got was good, and even some of the BS worked towards the narrative, a step up over what a lot of people would offered. There had been heated promos setting all of this up so they were ready to go from the bell. Hart pushed Corino. Corino slapped Hart. Hart bled from the mouth and shot bloody mist at Corino which was an insane visual. There was a visceral sense that despite that, Corino had goaded Hart off his game early on (though even pissed, he'd still do a backflip for no reason because that's how Teddy Hart expressed his emotions). He hit an amazing corner clothesline/punch and a dropkick through the ropes, but the latter didn't quite slam Corino into the guardrail and he was able to capitalize by pulling Hart off the apron. What followed was some high quality bullying control work and cut offs by Corino, right up until a too early ref bump. The BS that followed had a few too many moments of everyone waiting around for a dive but otherwise served quite effectively as Hart's transition into a comeback. After that came a bunch of pulling out of refs and a dubious submission (to a seated crossface style cobra clutch which is one of those things someone should steal), before Hart threw a temper tantrum and they set up more matches to come. The violence, blood, dives, and clever bits of structure in the midst of it all, probably led this to be pretty satisfying to the people watching, despite the BS surrounding it. And they were able to plug the website for the real result. Obviously, that only got PXW so far, but hey, this accomplished what it set out to do. 

PAS: I thought this was excellent. I really enjoy Teddy Hart spectacles (too bad he seems to be a monstrous person), and this had all of the horseshit and weirdness you would expect from Teddy at his Teddiest. The opening slap by Corino was super nasty and I assume the mouth full of blood was a work somehow, but damn was that whole section nasty. There were definitely moments that felt uncooperative, both guys were throwing back elbows like they were trying to crack cheekbones. I also loved Corino pulling out the fork and stabbing Hart with it, obvious shades of the Homicide feud and this may be the only time I have ever wanted a match to be a three-way dance. I could have done without the 500th iteration of the Montreal Screwjob in the finish, but this was a great start to what should have been a wild feud, if this fed didn't go under.

Team UNWA (Adam Jacobs/Tank/Adam Roberts/Will Owens) vs The Devil's Rejects (Shaun Tempers/Patrick Bentley/Se7en/Rufus Black) UNWA 12/11/10 - GREAT

PAS: Yet another Devil's Reject's War Games shows up on the internet. This one isn't tip top tier Reject's War Games, but these matches have super high floors. Tank is normally a Reject, but was on the face team for this match and just hits the ring stabbing everyone. I really liked his couple of big man face off's with Rufus Black and Se7en and he really added some flavor to a face team which was otherwise a bit samey. The big spots weren't as big as they are in other War Games matches, but I am here for the asskicking and stabbing and we had that in spades.  

MD: Phil and Eric have seen a few more indy War Games than I have, but it's really hard to get it too wrong. Heels get the advantage. Babyfaces start off strong and fiery. Then it alternates with logical transitions until it breaks into the big spots at the end. That's exactly what happens here and mostly everything worked how it was supposed to. I had questioned why Tank wasn't batting cleanup for the faces, but The fans were totally into Owens who did exactly what he ought to. The heels were able take over with weapons as much as anything else, which worked for me. There was good use of the cage right at the beginning (and the only other big spot being a Canadian Destroyer once the heels got the first advantage which honestly felt more like an insult than anything else) and then it didn't really come back into play until the end when people leaped off of it. The big dive was really to clear the center of the ring for the finish, which is a great use of it. Then the post match was everything you want from an indy, just a triumph that respected the stipulation instead of trying to screw the fans and milk out more. Good stuff.

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Lucha Worth Watching: More 1999 Mr. Niebla!

Mr. Niebla/Brazo de Plata/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Apolo Dantes/Shocker CMLL 9/10/99

ER: This is mostly a big rudo mugging to set up next week's tag, and it works. The entire primera is the rudos stomping down the tecnicos, ending when Dantes gave Porky a headlock takeover and kept choking him (while the others stomped him) until Porky started holding his chest and shaking. I love matches where Porky works in a heart attack spot. Babe Richard can't do much for Porky until the stretcher arrives, so all he does is pull Porky's waistband away from his belly. "Give this man some space, his pants are too tight!" The rudos kick at Porky to roll him out of the ring, and he lands hard on his side. Shocker was great here, breaking out big things like a double springboard elbowdrop, big missile dropkicks, and avoiding Niebla like the plague. The second Niebla would gain any bit of ground Shocker would hightail it out of the ring. V3 was the real thug of the beatdown, walking into frame and punching the nearest tecnico, yanking at Atlantis's mask, and holding guys for Shocker to hit with missile dropkicks. I loved how V3 would hang in to the last second, bumping himself for the dropkick instead of letting Niebla go a split second early. When the tecnicos make their big comeback  (nearly 75% of the way into the match, which had been completely rudo dominated up until then) it's really fun, with Atlantis/V3 pairing off and Niebla finally getting Shocker. Niebla hits a really nice moonsault off the top to the floor on him, and Atlantis/V3 give us a nice sneak preview of their huge mask match just a half year away, with V3 barely kicking out of a smooth rana and eventually getting caught in la Atlantida.

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Shocker CMLL 9/17/99

ER: Great, bloody tag match, the kind where the tecnicos win by default when the refs stop the damn match due to the tecnicos getting their asses beaten too violently. This is a super libre tag, and the Atlantis/Niebla team certainly bleed enough to make it so. Niebla is sporting killer all red gear that I don't think I've ever seen, and after this massacre it's clear that he should have debuted all white gear instead. This is a real mean Shocker performance. He is right on Niebla and gives him a helluva battering, at one point punching him several times right in the ear before Niebla could get back in the ring, always running at him with boots (including his great running full extension high kick), always beating at Niebla with pure scorn. Niebla makes a nice brief comeback, ducking a tandem clothesline and coming backing with a well timed tope en reversa, and a tope that knocks Shocker into the seats. But this was about the rudos being out for all of the blood, and both Niebla and Niebla give us a couple of great lucha bloodlettings. At one point Niebla is hung upside down in the corner and the rudos just use Atlantis as a battering ram, running from the opposite side of the ring, over and over, with Niebla and Atlantis only given mercy when a ref takes the Atlantis battering ram and the thing gets thrown out. After the match Shocker beats Niebla to the floor, booting right in the head several times. Shocker looked like a real monster here, total rudo asshole. It was the kind of beating you might see in a violent apuestas match, not the kind of beating to set up an apuestas match, and that's fine by me.

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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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