Chilanga Mask Love Letters 2018

Difunto vs. Masada vs. Último Demonio vs. Wotan (Chilanga Mask, 5/20/18)

SG: Matches with eliminations give you a lot to talk about, but this is one fall to a finish. Luckily for us, it’s one of the most sheerly violent matches that I’ve ever seen. Wotan is fully unhinged even to start, cracking a giant beer bottle over Demonio’s head to some of the shriekiest of audience shrieks. Masada looks giant compared to him but is really out to give one of his most physically active performances since who knows when. Feels very much like him to not want to get shown up on the road, even if I appreciate his dickishness/desire to not do shit making him one of the few American deathmatch guys ever who wrestles with a genuine sense of hierarchy. The first half is mostly Difunto/Masada primarily pairing off in the ring with Demonio/Wotan in the crowd and eventually the merch table. 

Bless whoever had coffee mugs printed out because Wotan is ready to blast Demonio with a few, just insane. I think that he delivers about 200 headbutts in this match, all as nasty as what Black Terry did to him here a couple years before. Demonio’s refusal to not engage him in stand-and-strikes really pays off for the match in a rare occurrence because I can’t remember the last time that someone broke a mug over Ishii’s head. I’m less bothered by the deathmatch magic elves and some revealing camerawork than I could be because it adds to how grotesque it all is, because the action is already in the Bumfights territory. Like, what’s more desperate than Wotan sticking Demonio’s head with skewers that he’d already been stabbed with by Masada?

The best lucha brawls come off like real fights between broken men in bad neighborhoods, and no offense to whoever owns the Toyota dealership with which Coliseo Coacalco shares a lot, but that’s already the ennui of this shit, so why not go for the gusto? The final third breaks down, less in quality but more in depravity, as a chair table on the floor comes into play. Deathmatch magic elves and all. Masada nearly breaks Wotan’s neck with a Death Valley from the apron onto it and it just gets worse from there after two nasty powerbombs on the outside. 

Meanwhile Difunto has bled more than anyone and is barely making it into the review! His dueling beer bottle to the dome spot with Wotan goes as well as you’d expect. Finish is Demonio getting his revenge and knocking Wotan unconscious with a falling powerbomb from the top to the chair. Well, it’s sort of a finish, because Difunto & Masada then stage-dive in onto the two as the staff attend to Wotan. And then a fight breaks out in the crowd after a fan yells out that they should let Wotan die instead of getting him treatment. Impulso, there to carry his brother to the back, responded by kicking the shit out of someone who might not have been that fan. Also, Facade is here. Everyone should just know that. Sadly, he didn’t kick the shit out of a fan.

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Chilanga Mask Love Letters

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


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


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

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

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

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

26. Virus v. Avisman Chilanga Mask 4/12

PAS: Hey Avisman!! I used to love that dude back during the glory days of IWRG. He was always a guy who could work on the mat, and really developed into a great brawler, and then he disappeared (along with other awesome guys like Chico Che and Freelance) so IWRG could be all crappy fake Capos sons. This is Virus working a straight maestro style, focused on leg and arm locks and cool standing counters. Avisman is perfectly comfortable working this match, he has some very cool abdominal stretch variations, and looks perfectly comfortable countering arms and legs, great performance and I hope he shows up more. Virus is great at working this kind of match too, it is different then what he does in CMLL, and while I liked this a lot, I kind of wanted him to work more of his title match style so we could see Avisman stretch out a bit. This was a great painting, but I wanting to see them use more of their pallete.

ER: I really loved this, my favorite Virus performance of 2015, and Avisman is a cool guy to see him match up against. This could have easily devolved into heatless holds trading as there are hardly any strikes to speak of, but these two didn't let that come close to happening. These holds had meaning and Virus always looked like he was going for a finish, working over moves with actual substance. Avisman doesn't have the grace of other luchadors, which I thought really worked to the advantage of this kind of maestro style mat work. He would thud into the mat, land tailbone first on a double leg, his sunset flip and code red looked like actual scrambling pinfall attempts instead of large looping gestures. And the best thing he brought was, oddly, Avisman is a great screamer. His screaming helped Virus' holds as much as Virus being awesome helped is holds. Virus was so damn good at showing progression of holds, never ever making it look like he was just holding a guy static to fill time. You see Virus do a single leg, you can see 6+ different points of progression through it. You see him lock it in, you see him grab his own hand to tighten the hold, you see him grit his teeth which immediately gives the impression he's wrenching it in even more, you see him broaden his squat which bends the leg and back even more, and he does this stuff for every hold! This is about as far away as you can possibly get from Muta lying in a legbar for two minutes. And Avisman helps this move progression, as he yelps at all the right times, howls when an arm starts getting bent back, really made Virus sound like a sadistic dungeon master. Virus kept working different nasty bow and arrow variations, a standing abdominal stretch type one, one with him on his back, the classic knee into opponents back style, and he kept going back to that the entire match. So when Virus hit s his killer chopblock and locks it on again, it really felt like the finish. I loved Avisman's stiff unpolished counters to Virus' almost muscle memory skill, and this may have actually been my favorite of the last couple years of mat-based indy lucha.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Black Terry Boot Camp 6: Black Terry vs Rey Hechicero (11/23/2014)

2014-11-23 @ Coliseo Coacalco, Coacalco, Estado de México (Chilanga Mask)
Black Terry vs Rey Hechicero

Great match. Kind of terrible finish. That was the verdict from Phil and Eric when they saw this match back in 2014 (It was #29 on the 2014 SC list). Let's get the finish out of the way first. After gritty matwork, brawling around the ring twice, chairshots and escalating big moves, a masked man ran to ringside, pulled Terry off of Hechicero in his moment of probable victory (after the super backcracker). In the scuffle that followed, Terry pulled his black mask off to reveal that it was Guerrero Maya Jr. Chaos ensued after that with everyone brawling with everyone else and Terry sneaking out a pin the midst of it.

In retrospect, I'm more okay with that finish than they were back in 2014. Nothing makes a bullshit finish at the end of a great war of a match better than knowing what it leads to. I'm not saying it was some sort of great angle, but it's way better for the guy under the black mask to be Black Terry's "son" than Brutus Beefcake, especially when we know that this all lead to that awesome 2015 Guerrero Maya, Sr. vs Guerrero Maya, Jr. match and Jr. being just an awesome rudo. I'm glad that if we were robbed of a finish here, at least it was due to something hugely functional.

As for the match itself, it was a perfect follow up to the way the October match finished. They started out by pushing each other and they didn't look back. These two pair off so well, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a better Hechicero opponent, including Caifan, who I might have given that honor to before. There's only three or four minutes of matwork but they slipped in escalation, starting simple, using leverage moves and escapes, and advancing into the spinning and twisting, finishing with strikes within a hold that led smoothly into the brawling, in and out of the ring.

It's funny. I watch a lot of lucha these days but I'm sure that the crowd, being a Mexican indy crowd, was much more used to seeing weapon shots than I am, watching mostly CMLL like I do. So when Hechicero introduced a chair, it felt really striking to me (Though it probably didn't to them). I bet that Terry throwing a box of bottles right at Hechicero's face was striking to everyone though. This was grisly, with maybe the best part (past the bottles and Terry's headbutts) being Hechicero doing a post assisted standing chinlock that was nasty and that people should really steal.

The underlying story for the middle section was Hechicero being younger and stronger and Terry having to dodge or to focus on Hechicero's back in order to regain or keep an advantage. It wasn't in your face storytelling, but it was definitely there and that's the sort of thing that gives the stiffness meaning and purpose and sets it apart from two guys just trying to kill themselves. This is another one worth hitting Black Terry, Jr. for. Both wrestlers are just so versatile. Just bear in mind the finish and afterwards go to youtube and watch the GM, Jr. vs GM, Sr. match to wash the taste out and remind yourself it was worth it in the end.

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Black Terry Boot Camp 5: Black Terry vs Hechicero (10/26/2014)

2014-10-26 @ Arena Solidaridad (ChilangaMask)
Rey Hechicero vs Black Terry

I can't watch every single match we have from 2009 at this point. I think I got a pretty good idea of him from the four that I did. I wanted to move on to something more recent against slightly more familiar opponents. This is a Black Terry, Jr. handheld but it's well worth investing a few dollars to watch. It might be my favorite Hechicero singles match ever.

They matched up very well, with Hechicero stretching himself in certain directions he doesn't usually have to. He has so much STUFF, in general, that he can rely on that and be fine. Here, though, the opening and the closing felt different for him, with almost everything else in the middle grittier than usual. The feeling out process had less of his usual cross and twist submissions. Instead there were a lot of smaller battles over a limb or knees or stepping down on a limb, or even a Backlundian lift out of an armbar, to switch between advantages. Hechicero made sure to time his clapping or taunting in between, which paid off later in the match when Terry had an advantage and did the same. Lots of character here.

Lots of escalation, too. Both into the more complex, twisty Hechicero offense (and a throw or two) and into more brawling. They started with the kneeling JYD headbutts, and went into more striking in general, interlaced with some big moves. And not everything hit smoothly as the match went on, but that fit the gritty feel. These were two guys trying to lock in painful and complex holds, or desperate moves to hurt their opponent. There was very little sense of collaborative dancing here. And it all led to a brutal, fitting, hugely compelling ending that I don't want to give away here (since, opposed to usual, people can't watch the match before reading my review as I'm not posting it).

Terry's really not lost much of a beat since 2009. If anything, his strikes seemed gnarlier, and he hit one piece of crazy offense that was nuttier than anything I'd seen him do in 2009. I think Hechicero appreciated having an opponent and a canvas he could do so much with. His versatility in general is just amazing. He's got the basic matwork, the throws, the contrived but credible submissions, brawling, and the flipping, twisting slingshot in. It's a joy to watch a match where all of that comes together to make a greater whole. This led to a second match which I'm looking forward to. This one was worth checking out though.

(Here's Eric/Phil's review of the match, which was #11 for their 2014 MOTY list. It's slightly more spoiler-y: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2014/11/2014-ongoing-match-of-year-list_4.html)

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MLJ: Chilanga Mask X-Mas in August 4: Caifan/Avisman vs Ultimo Guerrero/Hechicero

2015-08-16 @ Arena Naucalpan
Caifan/Avisman vs Ultimo Guerrero/Hechicero
Match starts 2:13:13

I'm really high on this match too. I don't think it's as good as the Virus/Cerebro match, but it's one of the most fun tag team matches I've seen in ages. Avisman brought it down a bit in general. Maybe he was more constrained in the Virus match I've seen him in previously, but he didn't look nearly as strong here as he did there. The other three were really on their game though. Indy Ultimo Guerrero is the second best Ultimo Guerrero (the first being Bandit King Apuestas Match Ultimo Guerrero).

I really liked how this was structured, and while a lot of the individual exchanges and spots and character stuff was good, that's what I'm going to focus on. I don't watch a lot of single-fall lucha, as a rule (not counting lightning matches/tournament lucha) but this match was very regimented in its different segments, and I thought that let it tell a very compelling story. Everything fit, even as if it would have been a three fall match. That could be what UG is used to, but it really showed you can let things breathe and have that sort of structure even in a one fall match and still have it seem natural.

Let me break it down. then. The match started with Guerrero vs Avisman with solid matwork. On another card, it might even stand out a bit, but here it was just solid. Guerrero showed more than he usually does in his home promotion, and Avisman was fine countering. They then moved onto Caifan and Hechicero, two guys who are so used to working with each other over the years, and it showed. High end stuff here, Hechicero wasn't playing heavy rudo, more of a cocky one, with good sportsmanship here. Lots of little leverage tricks building to trading suplexes and push ups, with Hechicero catching Caifan celebrating and Caifan coming back with one of the best headlock takeovers you'll see this year. Total one-upsmanship with moves traded, but it's early in the match that it really worked. So, two initial exchanges, one involving feeling out and the next involving one-upsmanship.

Finally, Caifan walked right over and smacked Guerrero on the apron and we had a funny moment of UG taking Hechicero's hand and coaxing him out so that he could get in and go after Caifan. They picked up the pace momentarily until UG sent Caifan out. He pulled Hechicero back in and they started doubleteaming, including a corner set up for the senton de la muerte. This is pretty much where a fall would come in a normal 2/3 falls match. Then we'd get the continued beatdown until the comeback, which is exactly what we do get. The rudos (and we'll keep calling Hechicero and Guerrero the rudos here even if it doesn't feel that clear cut) kept playing the numbers game. It wasn't all smooth and perfect but it was effective.

Unfortunately, the comeback spot wasn't so smooth with Caifan and Hechicero mistiming a lift up dodge in the corner. They recovered quickly into rudo miscommunication and a really strange double tope spot where Avisman took out Hechicero but Guerrero just moved out of the way letting Caifan wipe out. That led to some awkward chops back and forth, a reset into the ring, UG bumping out, Caifan following only to get tossed over the rail and the UG flying hip attack into the crowd. Fun stuff that let things switch over to Avisman vs Hechicero, with Avisman flying around a bit and getting the advantage. So to sum up again, we've got Feeling out, one-upsmanship, rudo beatdown, tecnico comeback, high flying tecnico shine.

Next is a reset to Caifan and UG and they start hitting bombs, including the goardbuster off the top, a great super bomb, and an armdrag off the top. All of these led to two counts and I would have liked them to have made use of the tag nature of the match and done some partner break-ups here instead of straight kick outs. That's my only real complaint though. After the bombs, we moved onto a lot of near-fall pin attempts by Avisman and Hechicero. We were into the finishing stretch now, the bombs starting that, and out of all the pins, Hechicero was able to lock in a rolling leg submission to take out Avisman. Caifan came in and he's worked this whole match very deliberately and just milked things in a good way. An exchange with Hechicero, worked just that way, led to a top rope rana and the pin. Guerrero came in for the final face off, which had a few near-falls, a big move or two, and ultimately, Caifan going for a desperate moonsault only to get knocked onto the top rope for the world's nastiest Guerrero Special.

There were a few rough patches, but everything felt like it was exactly where it should have been and to me, that made for a really fun match. It was just an example of what honed, meticulous lucha can be, the developed form executed by luchadores who do interesting things within it. Very fun match. Caifan is a guy who I think probably deserves more than what he has and I'd watch a Hechicero/Guerrero team any day. Fourth good match on a stacked show. I envy the people who were there live for it.

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MLJ: Chilanga Mask X-Mas in August 3: Guerrero Maya, Sr. vs Guerrero Maya, Jr.

2015-08-16
Guerrero Maya, Sr. vs Guerrero Maya, Jr.
Starts at 1:46:08

Let's get the confusing bit out of the way first. Despite what Wikipedia will tell you, GM, Jr. is not Black Terry's kid. Earlier in his career, however, he feuded with him as Multifacético and I suppose Terry took a liking to him (or money, you know, one or the other, maybe both), and introduced him as Guerrero Maya, Jr. That's worked out pretty well for the guy. Or maybe he's just a nice guy and Atlantis took a liking to him too? Who knows.

This was really good, bordering on great, because even though they aren't father and son, they wrestled the match like they were. It had a very personal animosity that ran through it in a way that a lot of bloody matches can't quite reach, an undertone that was cased in pride. In fact, were it not for a few flubs that stood out more than normal flubs and one or two really questionable layout decisions, it might be one of my favorite matches of the year. It doesn't quite hit that level, but I think it's still worth looking at.

On a show with pretty spectacular matwork, the opening stretch stood out for being different. There wasn't really anything showy in what they did, but it was intense. Jr. was wrestling like he had a chip on his shoulder, and Sr. responded in kind, wrenching limbs like he was trying to hurt his opponent, not maneuver him. There was a lot of wrenching and more fevered reversals. Jr. would get a leglock on and just punch at the knee. When he lost the hold, they ended up reset, head to head, staring. There'd be headbutts and chops here, and then a transition into Jr. taking over.

He managed this just by being more aggressive, going to kicks and mask ripping first. This is where we have some of the flubs. He tossed Sr. into the corner but had to delay and then awkwardly run in a different direction as he didn't bounce back out for the facebuster. At point he seemed, if not lost, then surprised by the direction Sr. ended up moving. It wasn't played as an old man being stubborn and struggling so much as just a momentary confusion and misfire. Other than that, though, the beat down was very gripping and brutal. They hit the floor, and then Jr. tossed Sr. over the rail into the crowd. He slammed him into a wall, used a trash can as a weapon, and tossed him into a chair. By this point, Sr.'s mask was a bloody mess and Jr. leaned into it, biting the wound in a way that you couldn't even imagine if you're just familiar with his bright and shiny throwback tecnico CMLL work.

The transition and comeback were absolutely effective and paid off the build. Jr. had celebrated with some jerks in the front row and was certainly taking his time with Sr. That led to a big moment as, when he went for a senton in the ring, Sr. got his feet up in a nasty looking spot. He started to rip Jr.'s mask but, in a moment that felt fairly unique to the match and to the "relationship" between the two, Jr. ran, delaying the comeback's gratification. It really did led to a moment that felt like a father chasing his errant kid who knew he was in big trouble, about to give him an old fashioned beating. When Sr. caught him, that's exactly what happened. He ripped at the mask, including putting his feet on Jr.'s shoulders and yanking, dragged him around by it, and got revenge spots, tossing him over the rail into the crowd and using the chairs as weapons. I like how well protected the chair shots were. They were plenty effective without guys having to kill themselves. By the point Jr. made it back to the ring, he was a bloody mess too, and this comeback segment ended with Sr. just crushing him in the corner.

That's when things got goofy. They segwayed into some armdraggy sequence with the sole goal of getting Sr. out of the ring so Jr. could hit a tope on him, equalizing the selling so that they could head towards the finish. The back half of that is okay. That's how these matches work. The front half was frustrating though. After ten minutes of bloody, personal, beatings, the last thing I want to see is some collaborative, do-si-do partner spinning. There were plenty of more organic ways to get Sr. out of the ring that would have fit not just the match, but the specific point in the match a lot better. It brought things down in my mind because it took me out of the match.

They made it back in the ring and traded some falls and moves on the way to the finish. I'm not 100% sure what they were going for with it. There was a slight ref bump, which was followed by a Jr. Cheapshot kick. It wasn't a foul, though, not anywhere close to being a foul, and I think that's what it was supposed to be due to the ref distraction and the fact that Sr., once he recovered, followed up immediately with a low blow, which the ref did see. Given the way the match had shaped up, that would have made a lot of sense if Jr. had either fouled with his kick or attempted to do so and was blocked. As it was, I didn't think it entirely worked as a finish.

This had some forgivable miscommunication early on and some far less forgivable rough patches towards the end, but everything else was great as they really captured the personal feel of the match and Maya, Jr. showed versatility I hadn't expected out of him. Another match on this stacked card well Worth seeing.

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MLJ: Chilanga Mask X-Mas in August 2: Trauma II vs Blue Panther

2015-08-16 @ Arena Naucalpan
Trauma II vs Blue Panther

Starts at 1:28:22

We've been lucky over the last few years to have all of the BT Jr. captured lucha. The Traumas have been a big part of the footage and it's on me and my watching habits that I just haven't seen more of them. They're Negro Navarro's kids, as I'm sure most people reading this know. I just haven't gotten around to seeing a ton of them as of yet. I will rectify that at some point. They have a lot of stuff with their dad out there, and I'm seeing a trios right now of Cerebro/Traumas vs Virus/Tiger/Puma that I need to watch, etc. There's a lot out there.

Short answer on this one is that it would have come off better if it didn't have to follow Virus vs Cerebro, but the finish here was better. I think the match itself, wasn't, and a lot of that was in the matwork. It's not that what they did was bad. It absolutely wasn't. I'm just not sure it compared. They were going for high level, complex stuff, and it fell into the sorts of traps that the Virus match avoided: there were moments where limbs were given over too freely, or even for no discernible reason. There were times where Trauma would lock in a hold and I didn't really have a great sense what he was going for or how it'd work. Sometimes it just looked like a mess of limbs. There were times where Trauma especially fumbled a bit going for a hold or that Panther would lack a bit of zing in snapping one on; these are the sort of things I'd have forgiven if I hadn't just seen Virus vs Cerebro, I think.

That's not to say there weren't flashes of brilliance, both little and big. I liked how Trauma went for the same move that ended the Virus match, that sort of lifting scorpion deathlock but it was too early into the match and he couldn't hook it. There was a great moment early on where Panther was trying to step on the back of Trauma's leg to get out of a hold by shifting the leverage, but it didn't work so he shot a quick chop there to do it. Just a tiny detail that really stood out. There was a great Tapitia war, including Trauma ALMOST hooking one in using a method I'd never seen before. Some of his holds and escapes were really good and they definitely had the crowd. I just thought the match had more than its share of dubious moments too.

As I said, I did like the finish better. At first, I had gotten worried since they made some distance and did a dive, much like the other match. I thought they were going to do exactly the same thing for a moment. Instead they stretched out a few signature holds to really amp up the drama with Panther ultimately winning the match by sticking to his own move instead of trying to steal Trauma's (after Trauma showed something of a lack of maturity by doing the opposite). It was a good match but I think it paled to what Virus and Cerebro accomplished just a few minutes previous.

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MLJ: Chilanga Mask X-Mas in August 1: Virus vs Dr. Cerebro

2015-8-16 @ Arena Naucalpan
Virus vs Dr. Cerebro

(match starts at 27:20)

Negro Casas is my favorite active luchador. To me, the most exciting are Cavernario and Rush. The best, though? It has to be Virus. He's amazing at everything he tries to do, seasoned and experienced but dynamic as well. He's hugely versatile, able to perpetrate a brutal rudo beatdown, have a fast-paced lightning match, or most especially hit the mat with meaningful, logical matwork full of twists and turns you've never seen. Part of that range is necessary considering the main CMLL audiences only have so much patience for long and complex mat seqeuences. That's why it's great we get to see him on the indies where he can really stretch out (and stretch people) too.

Sunday, August 23, was an exciting day for pro wrestling and it had absolutely nothing to do with a WWE PPV booked by someone doing an impression of CMLL's drunk and apathetic booking monkeys. It's because Chilanga Mask graciously posted the entirety of their Arena Naucalpan show from August 16. Usually with a lucha indy show, you have one or two matches that look good on paper and a bunch of noise. This has FOUR. I'm going to go through them in order and check in afterwards. Knowing Phil and Eric they'll probably chime in at some point as well.

The second match on the card was Virus vs Dr. Cerebro. Cerebro is someone I feel like we heard about more in the last decade than we do in this one. He's also someone I want to go back and see more of after seeing this match. The short verdict here was that this had absolutely amazing matwork that was layered and nuanced and never felt gratuitous but that I wish the ramp up to the finish had a bit more meat. That could have been a side effect of being second on a very stacked card however.

I'm not going to mention too many specifics because I want people to see and enjoy this on their own, but I think it was the use of leverage that I enjoyed the most. Both luchadores constantly were using their feet to jockey for position, to press down upon a knee to bring his opponent, or to move a leg just out of place to break a hold. Or maybe it was the snappiness. One complaint about maestro-style matches (and that means different things to different people) is that they're often done at half the speed that the people wrestling were once able to hit. Maybe it's because these two are in their forties and not fifties but there was a real zing to things. Both of them utilized quick wraparounds with their legs that were just lightning fast.

Maybe it was just the little things. I loved how Virus would go back to the front facelock anytime he needed a breather or to just contain Cerebro for a moment before going to the next move. Then there were the resets. The first one was something of an even exchange out of a knucklelock. The next time, Virus immediately twisted the arm instead of going in equal, and then the one after that had Cerebro returning the favor. They cycled from one hold to a next, grabbing open limbs, trying and failing holds before they were able to get their positioning just right, and selling emotively both while in holds and while executing them.

There was a sense of escalation and increasing competitiveness and emotion, and things picked up at the end with whips, move attempts, and and a tope before they went home, but the match needed another few minutes in the end there (relative to something like the Avisman vs Virus I watched a few weeks ago, even if the matwork here was superior to that), and I think was a victim, in part, of its card placement. Ultimately, though, it's something everyone should see because what they were able to give us was just that good.

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There's Snow in His Hair and Black Terry Helped Put it There

Black Terry v. Psycho Kid Chilanga Mask 4/12/15 - GREAT

Old guy laying an asswhipping on a young punk is one of my favorite wrestling things, Black Terry is pretty damn great as Lucha Tenryu, taking a green lucha garbage worker and beating him him into a fun match. I'll give Psycho Kid some credit here (despite his sub IWA Deep South Carnage Cup name) he has a nice tope, a really nice lariat and doesn't look completely lost on the mat. You can do something with a nice tope and a nice lariat, and the willingness to have Terry beat your ass. This also really benefits from Juniors camera work, as we get to see some great close up shots of clunking headbutts, Terry also breaks out a fishook lungblower, which is an amazing reinvention of a stale spot, the equivalent of sprinkling a little water on a baguette and tossing it in the oven.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Black Terry Never Got Rich But to Save his Soul

Black Terry v. Aero Boy Chilanga Mask 4/27/14 -EPIC

PAS: Pretty slept on 2014 match, including something we are pretty late on. Chilanga Mask was my favorite promotion to watch in 2014, the booking isn't always great, but you have to love any fed that gives Black Terry this long to work a singles match. Aero Boy is an indy guy who has been mostly working garbage feds but he is a game guy who is willing to work this kind of varied match. This really reminds of the 2008 Multifacitico series, with Terry taking a young guy with a couple of things and crafting a classic. Pretty insane he can still do this 7 years later, he is truly ageless. Opens with some pretty great mat wrestling, not showy but a bunch of cool moments, including Terry using a roll up a a submission. Match transitions into brawling with Terry taking some nasty bumps into chairs which is nuts for a dude this old, Aero Boy was probably wishing for light tubes getting hit by those Terry headbutts. We then go into a pretty dramatic finishing run, with Terry breaking out his flying lungblower, and Aero Boy doing a cool fight for a cross armbreaker. Some of the finishing stuff wasn't super easy to see because of the handheld, but that is really my only beef with this match.

ER: This was my least favorite of the 2014 Terry Chilanga Mask matches, admittedly because there were plenty of things that just weren't visible. Now these are the nature of some handhelds so I understand, but I can't very well rate what I can't see. It does make me wonder if Black Terry Jr. was the guy with the camera getting all the best angles of the mat stuff and the crowd brawl. But Phil is right that Terry is ageless and I think he's still the best brawler in current wrestling. I have never seen Aero Boy before but he holds his end up here. He took a wild bump into the crowd, and ramped up the brawl in response to Terry. I loved when Terry when for the JYD kneeling headbutts, Aero responded with a nasty one of his own. I dug Terry doing the arm breaker that we've seen Pentagon Jr. using lately (10 months after Terry breaks it out here) although some of the mat stuff was impossible to judge due to the camera angle. Unrelated to the match but am I the only one who thought it was weird that the ringside photographer was wearing a Señor Frogs shirt? That feels like wearing Mardi Gras beads in the summer, or wearing a Belize It Or Not shirt in South America (I did that. In my 20s. It had beads on it.).

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Black Terry Will Lead Your Round Town Like a Scalded Hound

Black Terry v. Trauma 2 Chilanga Mask 1/11/15 -GREAT

Fun start to the 2015 Black Terry Jr. lucha HH trove. This was more like a nifty matchup in an opening caida trios match, then a complete singles match, but both of these guys are great and it is awesome to watch them try to twist each others legs off. Both guys do these cool things where they step on each others ankles to set up leg locks. We get some nasty chops after the mat section, although the finish section left a bit to be desired. I would have really liked a second a third fall where they really went after each other.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

26. Rey Hechicero v. Black Terry Chilanga Mask 11/23

PAS: Man I love the Hechicero indy tour, he is so versatile and this is the kind of grimey brawl he isn't going to have a chance to do in CMLL. We have some very wrenching and aggressive mat work to start the match before all hell breaks loose. There is some great around the ring brawling including Terry chucking a case of beer bottles at Hechicero's head and Hechicero responding by throwing chairs around and tossing Terry roughly into fans. We also got some of Terry's vicious headbutts which as long as FUTEN is MIA are the nastiest in wrestling. Kind of a goofus ending as Guerrero Maya Jr. runs in wearing a ski mask and attacks Terry before accidentally chairshotting Hechicero. After all of the violence that kind of banana peel finish is weak sauce. Still well worth throwing Black Terry Jr. a couple of bucks to check out

ER: This match kept dragging me in and by the end felt like a real war with both guys trying anything to put the other down…and then it was like Godard decided to end Breathless with a fart joke (and not even a good fart joke). Great match/bad finish is maybe the most consistently frustrating things in pro wrestling. Imagine how we would have felt if Black Terry Jr.'s battery had died around the 15 minute mark. It would be the same way we felt about all those JIP New Japan matches in the 90s. What treasures could possibly be contained in the first several minutes of these juniors classics!? Yeah, we later all found out that it was just guys lying around in legbars for those several minutes. It was better not to know. Well, here we know so we may as well just focus on the positive because the positives are REALLY great. The work here was awesome. Hechicero is the best wrestler in the world in 2014. I waffled between him and Ambrose but this recent handheld run has really showcased Hechicero's versatility. He can work main event style, he can brawl, he can go on the mat, he finds neat new ways to do his signature stuff, and he always brings unexpected things to matches. The match was fun before the crowd brawling. I loved Hechicero actually being the first person in wrestling history to make a freaking ROLLING CRADLE look awesome. Match was kind worth the money just for that alone, taking a simple hooked leg and cradled neck pinfall, then using his .7 Backlund strength to hold the pin, roll through and try again. It looked great. Then we roll to the floor and they do an amusing tour through the front row. It really felt like they were two close-up magicians and letting all the people in the front in on their trade, which involved punching and head butting each other. Things get amazing when Terry throws a freaking box of empty beer bottles at Hechicero's head, and Hechicero flings Terry into fans, using a couple guys as support to prop Terry up to nail him with shoulders to the gut. Hechicero also slings chairs with the accuracy of Necro Butcher, with an incredible visual of Terry falling between folding chairs while trying to shield himself from those flying at him. All in all, this match was awesome…right up until the moment that it wasn't. Just pretend that battery ran out.


2014 MASTER LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

33. Dragon Lee/Stuka Jr./Star Jr. v. Belial/Extreme Tiger/Impulso Chilanga Mask 11/23

PAS: Another Black Terry Jr. banger. Go email him and Paypal him a couple of bucks. This was CMLL v. Independents and was kind of worked like a Puroresu interpromotional match. Starts out with everyone brawling in the crowd reckless chucking chairs at each other, has some million mile an hour stuff in the ring including a bunch of bonkers dives by the Indy guys, and then goes back to wild brawling. Finish was a double pin which felt incidental, as they barely paused wailing on each other. Just a total blast, really exceeded my expectations.

ER: This kind of match is where Black Terry Jr. really shines. Over half the match takes place outside with guys flying all over the place, and he's right in the middle of the action, taking in a couple guys brawling through the crowd to his right, then whipping around to see a guy fly through chairs over to his left. The bulk of the match felt like that awesome long tracking shot scene on True Detective. For a guy I've never seen before I really loved Impulso in this. I thought he stood out as a real star. Took high bumps for all the CMLL guys, flew around like Freelance in the ring, took a crazy flipping head first tumble through a sea of chairs on the floor. This whole match took place in what looked like a backyard, fenced in by different sized panels of corrugated aluminum. And this match felt wild enough to justify being held in a dirt yard fenced off with scrap aluminum. Dives into the crowd, brawling through people, guys covered in dirt. This was all awesome.

ONGOING MOTY LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

11. Rey Hechicero v. Black Terry Chilanga Mask 10/26

PAS: Total dream match which totally delivers. Hechicero has been having the best year match quality wise of anyone in wrestling, while Terry has been a little AWOL when it comes to great stuff available to watch. So happy our man Black Terry Jr. had his video camera ready to capture this match. We start out with some really great chain wrestling. Terry has been mostly a brawler in his late career resurgence, but he can still really rip it up maestro style on the mat, and when he gets a chance he seems right on the level of guys like Panther, Solar and Navarro. Hechicero is definitely the younger guy (respectively, he has been wrestling since 2001) in lucha most comfortable working a long mat section and he does some very cool stuff, including some nasty rolling leglocks. I also liked how the mat work was more intense and violent then a lot of maestro mat work, this was less of a showcase of technique then a matwork fight. When the match broke down into an actual fight it was awesome. I loved the finish with them brawling into the crowd and Hechicero taking a nasty little bump into folding chairs, they both get their legs stuck and just wail on each other Necro Butcher bar fight style. This was when you really appreciate BTJr.'s cinematography as we are really close up as both guys unload potato shots on each other. So much fun and right up there with the best things anywhere this year

ER: Man this was fun (who could have ever guessed with those two involved?) and made me want to see more Black Terry as he looks as good as ever. The first half of this is all on the mat, and it's some of the most grueling matwork I've seen. Instead of two guys flashily reversing and exchanging holds, both guys looked like they were using all their strength to lock on holds and actually hold them there. My legs started knotting up just watching Hechicero try to pop Terry's head off with a tightly flexed headscissors, and damn does Terry find an amazing way out of it. So Hechicero has a headscissors locked in, with his legs over Terry's shoulders, and Terry lifts his own legs up to grapevine one of Hechicero's legs and begin twisting it. Awesome way out of a sub. The matwork really felt like an exhausting test of wills, really seemed liked something that would gas you out after a few minutes. And that's when the asskicking starts. I think Terry might be the best brawler currently in wrestling. He has so many nasty little short shots, short punches, mean kicks to the knee, the best knee lifts possible, fast and accurate headbutts. He will really just beat a guy around the ring. Hechicero is a great guy to beat around a ring, too, as he always finds fantastic ways to fall into things and get into position for things. Ending is truly unique as the brawl onto the floor and into the crowd and both get their legs wedged into the wooden auditorium chairs. Those things are like Chinese death traps and both guys beat the hell out of each other while stuck, like two animals stuck in a trap fighting and panicking. Crazy stuff.


2014 MASTER LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

19. Rey Hechicero/Black Terry v. Negro Navarro/Trauma 2 Chilanga Mask 10/25

ER: Boy if that doesn't look like a dream combo on paper, right? And thankfully it still looks like a dream match up after watching it. Match goes 22 minutes, and literally the first 8 is Navarro/Hechicero matwork. Both guys work some cool reverse figure four spots, really wrenching each other's legs. At one point Hechicero is leaning hard on Navarro's leg and in a sort of optical illusion Navarro's leg looks like it's bending due to leverage. Then Trauma 2 and Terry get in there and do even nastier stuff, with Trauma breaking out some cool rolling grapevine leg locks and Terry breaking out more cool figure 4 variations, and Trauma puts over the matwork better than anybody in this. Then the violence ramps up and we have an "I hit you, you hit me" section that would put any NJ main event to shame, with all 4 getting involved and beating each other with some of the hardest shots I've seen. BattlArts has a school in Canada now and for a moment it felt like they were expanding south of the border. Terry looked incredible here, throwing mean shots, a great kneelift to Trauma's head and some big time headbutts. Crowd is crazy hot for Hechicero in this and I like how it plays into the finish, with him showing off and Navarro snapping on a submission.

PAS: I really liked all of the leglock work between Hechicero and Navarro in the opening section, it felt a little like a Imanari MMA fight with both guys trying to find a way to pick an ankle without giving up their leg for a counter. I liked the Terry v. Trauma stuff a ton as well, although it was more of an appetizer to the main dish of Hechicero v. Navarro. We only get a tiny bit of Navarro v. Terry although it was an awesome violent straight right by Navarro which I think split Terry's lip, I really wish we had one of their singles matches on tape. Loved the the finish too, with Navarro doing a slick gator roll into a guillotine choke, shows how Navarro can do nasty matwork in addition to beautiful matwork.


2014 MASTER LIST

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