ER: This is the kind of lucha match I will always seek out, working a style of lucha that I'm constantly afraid will wash away for good. I just love how these two move, love watching their dance. Give them 15 minutes, I'm good. I would be fine with these two just going through the motions as their lucha muscle memory alone is a treat. But this match is a little more than just their muscle memory. Panther really needles into Satanico in a few great moments, the best being Panther fighting for a drop toe hold and Satanico fighting to not go down, so Panther starts elbowing the back of Satanico's knee to get him to go down, then starts kicking at the back of his knees. Satanico showed his wonderful wily side, my favorite being a sequence with Panther coming off the ropes and Satanico setting out to kick him, but faking the kick to sucker Panther into a grapple, which Panther turns into a nice abdominal stretch. There's no bad blood or even strikes in this match, just a fine masterclass in lucha leg drags and old man grace. There aren't many things in wrestling I love more.
PAS: I started writing this review five years ago, and stopped for some reason. Interesting to rewatch this with 2021 eyes, as it really was the end of an era. Six years later this generation of maestros has passed out of real relevance. Satanico is 71 now, insane he was performing at this level into his 60s, Panther is 60 now, was a spry 55 during this match. They could still really go in 2015, and there were a bunch of nifty little tricks. Loved Panther ripping down on the arm and Satanico finding little ways to free himself. Satanico isn't as intricate but is still really smooth with all of his movement, like watching lake period Baryshnikov: He isn't going to jump as high, but will still awe you with his movement.
So I went into a hyped match expecting to be a party pooper, and came away liking a lot of it, far far more than I expected. I expected the end run to get a little too cute - and it did - but they did several neat little things that I wasn't expecting, and avoided a lot of the awful parade of nearfall trading that plagues most Arena Mexica singles match terceras. Loved the arm work by Kushida in the primera and segunda (even though nobody watching this expected that to play into the tercera), him grinding it with takedowns on the rampway, and especially him catching Volador in an armbar off a springboard somethingorother. I kept waiting for Volador to go for a handspring-showdown-wait for applause and he never did it, so thank you thank you Volador. He did a lot of nice little things I don't often see him doing, like keeping that arm limp and punching low on things that are supposed to miss. Early in the primera Kushida ducked under a strike during a rope run and Volador really cut low. He's usually more interested in doing his own rope running and not making it look like he's aiming to actually hit his opponent, so I was sold fairly early. He hits a killer dive in the segunda, and then catches a killer Kushida flip dive in the tercera. For awhile here Volador was good at doing things avoiding his arm, hitting a nice headscissors, that dive, his superkicks, but even when he did start using it I actually really liked all the backcrackers in this. The backcracker is a move that swept through lucha in the 2010s like crack through inner cities in the 80s, and here they actually effectively used the move for the first time....shoot, in 5 years? 8 years? Volador leaps onto Kushida's back, tries to pull him down into the move, Kushida struggles into the corner, Volador keeps pulling, being an annoying backpack, and eventually the weight is too much and Kushida gets pulled back into it, bouncing somewhere between 3 and 13 feet into the air. You never see struggle over a backcracker and it was really a tremendous spot. The end run was nice with a super satisfying majistral reversal and a this-should-be-the-ending-oh-good-it's-actually-the-ending reverse rana. No overkill, no 2.9 glut, great peaks, and we have a match that exceeds expectations. Huzzah!
Well, Matt tricked me. "This was from this weekend," he said. "I kind of need you to write it up. It's lucha worth watching though not for entirely good reasons (though there are a few)." Okay, I remembered him being slightly more positive about it. There doesn't actually seem to be any trickery after all. I likely just got flattered by someone saying they need something from me, and without listening to the rest of what they said I just went "SURE OKAY!!!" And then they began the match with 40 seconds of Malenko/Guerrero roll-ups. That's how they started things. I thought the sunset flip was going to get him, but then it didn't and I instantly thought that a guy flipping himself into a pin would also then pin him! But none of them pinned anybody. We moved on. And really this whole match was pointless. Both guys are talented. They both do impressive moves, they both execute them fantastically. But none of them mean anything whatsoever. This was some of the most egregious move trading I've ever seen. I can't see how there can be any sort of drama in a match like this. There has to be some sort of responsible hierarchy of moves. Some moves have to seem more damaging than others. This was just a collection of moves, none of which kept either man down for any period of time, and eventually one of them ended the match. Both guys took some dangerous slams, and things would always progress the same: Dangerous slam -> guy who took dangerous slam would stand up and catch the other guy in a dangerous slam. Neither guy showed any damage, so why would I care about pinfalls, or anything else? I guess by that point we're all just watching to see neat moves executed in a bubble. They may as well have done a super fast Spanish Fly, and then both stood up, bowed, and announced their next move. They were essentially performing motion capture moves for a video game, while wearing more flattering attire. Flamita did some very cool arm work, using a fun variety of arm crushing moves, my favorite being a great legdrop starting with him standing on Tiger's arm before delivering it (he also had Tiger slumped in the corner at one point, and did a running dropkick to just his arm). But Flamita couldn't have known that Xtreme Tiger has invincible arms! Tiger did some cool things too, loved his bombs away type move off the top onto Flamita's pelvis, and he broke out some cool leg work (his seated wishbone was killer). But, you may have guessed this, but Flamita has invincible legs! Flamita's phoenix splash has a great thud to it, and that's the move that ended the match. He set it up by being driven head first into the mat by Xtreme Tiger. Put all these moves in a logical order and make a 3 minute highlight video of it. It would be more enjoyable than what we got.
ER: Another awesome gem recorded by Black Terry Jr., this one is a kind of current dream match that has a kind of sickening level of violence. Terry and Barbaro don't hold back as they chop each other's chests raw, throw far too many shoot headbutts with both getting their heads busted open, and then applying fist to face. Terry matches always take on a new life after somebody starts to bleed. They work in some fun Barbaro trademark spots in ways I've never seen them, and I was howling when Barbaro rushed a slumped Terry in the buckles, Terry got boots up and Barbaro bumped it directly into doing his worm spot...and then Terry stops the worm by rushing out from the buckles and planting Barbaro with his great elbow drop. The brawling in this was tight, and it reached its peak when they brawled out to the floor (weird, a Terry match that gets great with floor brawling?), with Barbaro getting run into a support post super violently. Truly one of the great post bumps I've ever seen, and I've watched countless Lawler matches! There was also a perfect accidental moment, as Barbaro is beating the tar out of Terry and starts ripping Terry's shirt off and kicking at him, but Barbaro's foot gets tangled up in Terry's shirt while Terry is still wearing it, and Terry takes advantage of having his opponent stuck close to him and starts headbutting him. They even brawl on their knees, and this sounds like a weird thing to be the best at, but I think Terry is the best guy at making exasperated, tired, on the knees brawling look great. I even liked the ball shot finish, with Cavernario suckering in Terry with a fake leg injury leading to a boot to the balls, and then Terry paying him back with an uppercut to the balls. After the match Terry sells the ballshot more believably than most ball shots you've ever seen. Really evocative, and watching his selling immediately reminded me of every time I got hit in the balls so far in my life (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who can vividly recall every time that has happened). Really great match.
PAS: Holy hell what a war. Really felt like a lucha version of one of those peak Necro Butcher brawls. Terry is truly amazing, how in god's name can a man of his age work two violent wars like this and the Aero Boy apuestas match back to back? I loved the early matwork which was pretty slick, and Cavernario countering submission holds by biting Terry in the thigh makes perfect sense, that is totally what a Caveman training in ju-jitsu would do. After the matwork they get down to the violence with both guys just slamming their heads into each other Regal and Benoit style. The brawling in this was really frantic, big shots, thrown quickly from off angles. At one point Cavernario throws a forearm which almost knocks Terry off the screen. Ragged nasty stuff. Loved the finish too with ball shots feeling less like a cop out and more like the sensible way to end a battle like this.
PAS: Infernales explode!! Satanico in his late 60s and looks as good here as any footage we have of him. Guerrero continues his fun indy run, he still wrestles most of his CMLL matches exactly the same, but when he works indies he mixes it up a bit. Loved how smooth Satanico is on the mat, it is more basic then the tricked out stuff Navarro or Virus does but the execution is stellar. I also loved the out of ring brawling, Satanico still throws a hell of a punch. Finish was a bit goofus, and this was a bit short, but so awesome to see Satanico still rocking it out in his twilight years.
ER: Satanico is the same age as my father. Several years ago my father finally bought a riding lawn mower because he was sick of physically pushing his regular mower. And here's Satanico, looking limber as can be on the mat against a 45 yr old youngster. I really liked the mat game here, nothing was super flashy, but nothing looked rehearsed and still showed the old man could go. There was some amusing silly stuff, like Ultimo's weird crucifix surfboard, but Ultimo on these indy shows is awesome. He always breaks out little tricks he doesn't do at Arena Mexico. The last year of Ultimo indy matches has probably given us more Ultimo matwork than we've seen in his last decade in CMLL. And it's clear he's a guy who should be incorporating more matwork, because he wears it well. But I liked the pace this advanced, and I loved I spilling to the floor with Satanico dodging out of the way as Ultimo ends up doing his flying hip attack to a fan. Reminded me of when I was second row at an indy lucha show headlined by LA Park vs. Shocker, and two fans in front of me hightailed it out of the way right as Super Boy and his massive body crashed through their plastic chairs and onto my leg. It was awesome. Back in and Ultimo really headhunts Satanico on a lariat, and I actually liked the finish. Satanico was the maestro of the faulta when I first started watching lucha, seems like every week he was ending a fall of his trios matches with a nasty ball kick, so here we get a nice Cats in the Cradle moment with Ultimo kicking him in the balls to drop him, and Satanico returning the favor from his knees, then both guys lying there holding their balls for a few minutes.
ER: This is the Hechicero we got a lot of in 2014, and haven't seen as often in 2015. He breaks out all of his tricks and damn does this guy have some awesome tricks. He was so damn on point during this and while I love Rush's Arena Mexico antics, it was super satisfying to see him just going move for move and strike for strike and bump for bump with a guy. They brawl to the floor and smash into chairs, Rey takes a mean sternum-first bump into a post, do a nice tour of the ringside seats with both guys taking hard falls into chairs. Hechicero does a cool Fuerza bump dropkick and follows it up with a huge tope, then does an awesome Mysterio belly slide splash. Crowd is flipping out for Hechicero the whole match and it's pretty easy to see why. His roll up combos, his sick springboard dropkick, the big bumps, his slick grapevine submission, the guy unleashed is one of the most fun workers ever. Rush has mean strikes, nasty dropkicks, more than holds his own in holds and exchanges, and I love big stars still working big in smaller buildings. Still not sure how Rush's finisher is legal, but it definitely looks like a finisher. Awesome match, and the only reported time that these two have crossed paths in singles action. I wrote up a trios match from November where they were on opposite sides, but that still isn't online anywhere (to my knowledge). There really aren't any Dream Matches these days, but this was a modern one for me. Thank you cell phones.
PAS: This was super intense, Rush is in full crazy brawler mode, and this is worked at an intense frantic pace. Really felt like watching a Perro Aguyao Sr. match from the 80's with crazier spots. Hechicero felt every bit as big a star as Rush who is one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Really an example about how wasted Hechicero is as an mid-card trios match guy. I love Arkangel De La Muerte, I don't think Arkangel could have this match. Rush could have easily floated by in this match on shtick and charisma, instead he is going after it like he is fighting for his hair in an Arena Mexico Anniversary match. Such great stuff, and I am so glad we got to check it out.
2015-07-25 @ Arena San Juan Pantitlan, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, Estado de México
Satanico vs Blue Panther
Let's lead with this: Satanico is 55 (EDIT: Wiki says 55, commenter and lucha wiki says 65. Latter is probably correct. Dude's old and awesome. We'll just go with that). Blue Panther is 54. Both of them have been wrestling since the 70s. They've been in bloody wars. They've put huge strains on their bodies. Also, neither of them have access to the fountain of youth that Negro Casas has. To ask anyone that age, that realistically broken down, to carry fifteen minutes of a match in front of an indy crowd in 2015 would be an unfair task. Blue Panther and El Satanico aren't just anyone though. They're two of the best that ever were.
They show it here too. As I break these matches down, I know that sometimes I fill in connective tissue that isn't there, that wasn't intended by the wrestlers, that no one else would see but me. When the opportunity arises in matches to do so, when it's obvious to me, I sort of latch on to it. When it's not, I don't. In this way I generally try to give matches the benefit of the doubt based on the selling and the comebacks, the emotion portrayed by the wrestlers. It's just how I watch things. I can't not make those connections. It doesn't matter if they were intended or not. It just matters if there's enough within the match for them to exist. If there are enough dots to connect, then connecting them is a worthwhile exercise.
This was not a match with many high spots. It wasn't a match with big momentum shifts. It was a lot of tight countering and a consistent battle for armdrags. It was a match where Satanico went, time and again, for the Fujiwara Arm Bar, being Panther's go-to move, as a way to ground him, control him, and insult him. It was a match where Panther could only start to get a real handle in it after Satanico started to try to go for bigger holds, after he moved away from the arm bar and towards his Satan's Knot. It was a match that built to Panther finally locking in his own armbar and then getting frustrated with the referee when that didn't quickly end the match. It was a match where one lapse, one distraction, spelled the difference between victory and defeat.
How much of that was actually there and how much did I make up? I have no idea, but the point is that, despite so little in the way of highspots or big moments, the match was so full of counters and bits of gamemanship and character, that there is a ton to try to connect. Were one of these two up against a younger wrestler, it'd be easy to marvel how they move that wrestler around, in and out of position, and thus create the illusion of struggle. Here, there was no illusion necessary. Every hold was based on leverage, on gaining a limb, a half turn, a bit of positioning. It's a joy to watch both styles of matwork; in a lot of ways, it's more exciting to watch the former since that's more kinetic and more obvious in its talent. This, though, is ultimately more rewarding due it its grit and persistence.
There was a level of pageantry to the match too. They came out with their masks. I'm not sure I've ever seen Satanico's mask before except for in some old, old pictures. It was a burst of nostalgia, even for someone so new to this, to see Panther in his. During early matwork, the crowd chanted "This is lucha" or some sort of equivalent, and maybe that was a bit much. After an exchange that sent Panther sliding to the outside, Satanico did a victory lap and basked in the attention. When they reset, it was with a handshake, and even one without a cheapshot. Money was thrown in after the match.
I'm not saying every 2015 Satanico match is a winner, even when he's up against an opponent as skilled as Panther, but this was smart and crisp and good. Everything felt like it meant something due to the struggle, due to the specific well that Satanico drew from, due to the emotion that Panther brought to the table in response. They went just as high with their spots as they needed to, battling over those arm drags, which all had a level of oomph to them. In a genre that's full of dives and quick sequence, less really can be more so long as the skill and the emotion and the meaning is still there, and they were able to tap into it, at least on this night.
05/30/2015 @ Arena San Juan Pantitlan, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
Cara Lucha 1st Anniversary Show
Rush vs Hechicero
We'll round out the week with a couple of Black Terry Jr's taped matches. These were shared with me by my old friend Mark (Odessa Steps Magazine), who just launched the Winter Palace podcast https://winterpalacepodcast.squarespace.com/, which is worth checking out for a couple of reasons. I really love the 3-4 hour retrospective podcasts that are out there on the history of wrestling but this usually clocks in at under an hour, so it's much more easily digestible, and it generally runs the gamut of interests, between wrestling, soccer, hockey, comics, etc in a pretty swift digest form with good guests (Jeff Marek and Mike Sempervive to talk about Dusty for instance). I've shown up at the end for five minutes or so (no one wants to hear more of me, trust me; no one even wants to hear me that much, not even my wife and kids). Ideally, I'll be talking about some of these indy matches on the show at some point, thus the point of sharing, but I wanted to write up a couple this week.
At least in the circles I travel, this was one of the more exciting match-ups on paper this year. Save for some of the craziest fliers, Hechicero is one of the most fun luchadores in the world to watch. He straddles the line between contrived but dynamic indy offense and engrossing matwork with interesting holds. He'll even fly a bit and he's got a ton of attitude. There's something for everyone with him and it's never boring. I think sometimes he's a victim of excess and I think he does well in CMLL where he's constrained from his worst tendencies due to the nature of the structured matches. That doesn't mean it's not fun to watch him unload on the indies sometimes. Rush is, of course, Rush, and his intensity and charisma are always a blast to watch, whether he's in his natural habitat or not.
That said, I had some doubts about this match. Hechicero was working technico (de facto or otherwise) and that's not my favorite role for him given his body type and the way his athleticism leans. Rush may not always be entirely inclined to work his hardest in certain settings. Moreover, from the clips I saw, there didn't look to be a lot of coherence, which is a bigger issue for me than it is for some others. Thankfully, that was just the nature of the highlight reel and there was a surprising amount of meat and heat in this for a match that didn't go all that long.
That's not to say that it didn't break down into an extended back and forth, sort of like the last fall of a title match, after a reset, but there were moments of real heat. Moreover, Hechicero, while physically better as a rudo, is very good at being a local hero of sorts, and that played out here. It's easy to get behind any opponent of Rush and Hech is excellent at playing to the crowd and channeling their adoration. I think this was especially true in the finishing stretch when he was defiant in taking the best Rush to the point of forcing him to kick out his super finisher, which is something he only actually does a few times a year.
Past that, this had most of the big spots you'd expect, Hechicero's sliding splash to the floor and his twisting plancha, a belly to belly reversal off the top followed by a senton, a bunch of awesome kicks and dropkicks, and a few great submissions. If the initial heat got three or four more minutes before they switched it up, it would have went over the top. As it was, it was better than I was expecting coming in (though maybe not as good as I might have hoped when it was announced.). I'd call it a solid match with a fun setting. Hopefully they get a chance to go at it again, either here or on a bigger stage. It's worth checking out if you have a few bucks to dispose of.
PAS: Awesome match, probably the best Dinanista Navarro trios since the Terry/Cerebro series. Ultimo Guerrero continues to be a revelation in these Maestro style matches, the opening section has Guerrero and T2 just tearing it up on the mat, violent looking and explosive some of the better lucha submission stuff I have seen in recent years. The brief exchanges between Navarro and Hechicero were as great as ever and Magnifico was fine in his fill in role. Still this was focused on Trauma 2 v. Ultimo, that was a match I had never thought about before, but it is high on my dream match scale now, finish run had those two getting a little violent with each other and it was pretty boss. First BTJR. gem of 2015.
ER: Damn, Ultimo Guerrero right!? I've not been as down on career UG as Phil, historically. When I got into lucha in the late 90s (first match I saw was some Virus vs. Oriental singles match when we first got cable TV and discovered we had Galavision) and UG was one of the guys I really loved. Then as I watched more lucha and time went by his mid 2000s style eventually became the style of lucha I avoided. Guys like Cien Caras that I used to hate when I began watching lucha were now the guys I actively looked forward to. I just grew apart from his style. But over the last couple years I've started appreciating what he brings again, now that I didn't have to see him in any blown up singles epics and just saw him in trios, bumping big and controlling action. But I don't think any fan of UG's could have predicted the few standout performances he's thrown out over the last calendar year. He's been so good in these matches that it almost makes you hate him for not ALWAYS looking this way. Now naturally it just lends more credence to the thinking that fine luchadors don't begin until 40, and these kind of performances are certainly getting me excited for age 50 UG. I liked Trauma playing the role of shit stirrer here, always running in and breaking up pins in dickish ways, slapping Hechicero in the head or kicking a guy in the back. Loved the Hechicero/Navarro segments and loved all of Navarro's quirky leg drags, felt like something I'd see in World of Sport. I wish they paced the falls more evenly as the last two were much quicker but the work in all of them was good.
