Found Footage Friday: DUSTIN~! INOUE~! STEEL~! BATES~! CASAS~! MARKUS~! ESPANTO~! RAMBO~! PANTERITA~! ARANDU~! SHEIK~! SULTAN~!

MD: So long as Roy keeps posting new lucha, we're going to take a look at it so nothing slips through the cracks. That is the service we provide. It's just going to take a while. Don't worry. We've been at this for five+ years. We'll get to, let's say, the Jumbo vs Billy Robinson hour-long match that just showed up unclipped for the first time ever. Eventually. Thankfully I don't have to cover the Lawler vs. Dundee 2011 match that Bryan Turner just uploaded since Phil and Tom were actually there. Still, we'll slip in some other things when we can. 

Negro Casas/Gran Markus Jr/Angel Blanco Jr vs. Tigre Canadiense/Jalisco/America CMLL 1992

MD: Really fun rudo side here. They started with the beatdown so that was a good thing. Just constant motion and violence. They'd put someone in the ropes and nail him and switch to the next guy doing it, so ona nd so forth. Casas was a ball of energy. We're talking DDTs on the ground and bursting across the ring and then pointing and laughing to the crowd. Every Negro Casas match you see him do something interesting or unique; a different pose or interaction with the ref or sell. Here at the end of the primera, instead of the standard lift and drop (like a spinebuster slam) that is typical in lucha to set up a submission he spun around once or twice with it, just to add some flair to it. I've never seen him do it before and I'll probably never see him do it again but that's Casas for you. He also had a great with America at the end of the segunda where he drew him in after his exchange with Angel Blanco, just completely disrupting the structure and then took an awesome bump over the top rope after they rolled around the ring. Then on the finish in the tercera, he turned a Saito Suplex into a German for the hell of it (again, something I've neve seen him do before). That's our Negro Casas.

Markus and Angel Blanco were pretty natural partners, a mini Ola Blanca and all of these guys worked well together. Markus always had big meaty shots and he based well for Jalisco in their one exchange. The Angel Blanco vs Jalisco exchange wasn't as strong. Tigre Canadiense did silly walks across the ring and had a punchable face. He was a fine foil for Casas but then who wasn't? America hit an awesome dive over Jalisco to set up the finish in the tercera, but I don't have a ton to say about any of the tecnicos really. Fun match that didn't wear out its welcome though.

Tigre Canadiense/Monarka/Colosso vs. Rambo/Espanto Jr./Corsario Negro CMLL 1992

MD: This one had me a little more worried. All you really need to know about it though is that it was the Rambo show. He was all over this and in a pretty good way. I don't think it had much more to offer though. In the primera, he was naturally paired with Colosso and his camo pants. This was a great one-time act as Rambo kept going for nerve holds and Colosso just flexed his way out of them. Then Colosso put one of his own and Rambo sold it in a panic, before shifting to a bearhug; somehow this ended with the more-or-less rudo ref in a bearhug, hilarity ensuing. I wouldn't want this act ever week but it was a good one time thing.

The transition to rudo beatdown in the segunda was great, with Rambo getting accidentally hefted over the top by his own partner. They start to tease the break up but finally swarm and hug. He had pretty solid chops and a running powerslam and then stooged all over during the comeback. Our Canadian tiger friend continued to dance funny, throw dropkicks, and be punchable. His pre-match interview was one minute away from him saying "totally tubular." Otherwise, these guys were fine. I wanted to see more out of Corsario Negro; he was tubby and I kept expecting him to do something cool because of it but nope, nothing. This was a one man Rambo show.

Panterita del Ring/Ciclon Ramirez/Aguila Solitaria vs. Arandu/Gran Sheik/Sultan Gargola CMLL 1992

MD: Panterita is obviously Safari/Epheso, and a helpful youtube commenter is saying that Ramirez was also Pegaso and Tiburon, the Sultan was Pancho Zapata, Jr, the Sheik was Ari el Gato Romero. So hopefully that helps someone. I wasn't too sure what to expect here and the primera didn't help. Everyone was fairly competent during the initial exchanges, even if Sheik (who did a lot of the work) didn't have a look to match his partners. Arandu looked especially good (surprisingly good?) in there against both Panterita and Ramirez.

It really opened up with the rudo beatdown though. The central story here was Arandu vs Panterita and they did a great job portraying hatred and violence. Arandu smashed Panterita into the seats again and again and Panterita came back not once but twice with fiery punches and revenge shots. Arandu wasn't afraid in the least to bump over the top all the way out of the ring. They were heating up an apueastas match that I think we get later on and from the opening cageyness of Arandu all the way to Panterita's flip dive to the floor to set up the finish, they made me want to see it. Ramirez had a belt and felt like a bigger deal overall but Panterita really gave off the vibe of a local hero in this one.

Ace Steel/Dustin Rhodes vs. Masao Inoue/Jason Bates WLW 9/25/04

MD: For some reason they gave us the hype promos for the show as inserts. This at least tells me that Steel and Bates used to be partners and that Dustin was stepping in for Trevor, which let Ace Steel do a Dusty impression. After some feeling out between Bates and Steel, Dustin tags in. There's a bit early on with him paired with Bates where he takes a punch in the corner. I have literally no idea how good or bad the punch was because Dustin's selling was so great. He leaned into it and then dropped immediately in the corner. Then he comes back and hits a beautiful shot of his own and it was twenty seconds of absolutely ideal pro wrestling. Slightly more dubious was Steel deciding to do the flip, flop, and fly, with some iffy punches while Dustin watching on the apron, but he was a good enough sport to come in for tandem figure-fours with Ace. Say what you will about the guy but always did come off as slightly deranged.

The crowd was full of not just the one guy who kept shouting for Ace to "go crazy" but a bunch of kids too, and they ate up the southern tag structure of Dustin rushing in to try to help his partner and Bates/Inoue taking advantage of it. It wasn't a big crowd but it was a buzzing one. Inoue wrestled this like he was Masa Saito or something, with big slams and eye rakes and double clotheslines (well, the eye rake I'd expect out of him). He ate a pretty comedic heel miscommunication version of the Shattered Dreams on the finish, but both he and Dustin were supporting players for whatever was going on with Bates and Steel. While I think they got pretty good mileage out of Dustin, and while it was surreal to see Inoue there at all, I'm not sure they got all that much out of his presence in the match.

ER: I am just in love with NOAH sending Masao Inoue as their representative for Harley Race's 5th anniversary show. This was a crowd made up of 80% children and one man who with all sincerity yelled "Get Crazy, Ace!" at least a dozen times, in a way where he wasn't seeking attention for himself, he just really wanted to see Ace Steel get crazy. This is an enthusiastic crowd at a family wrestling show on a Saturday night, who like heels to tell them to shut up in the kind of way where you can tell he really isn't the kind of guy who would tell a bunch of children to SU. There is no need to send Misawa or Kobashi. This is a show where you send the 27th man on your hierarchy out to and give him a two week American vacation. Masao Inoue is exactly the same person as Jun Akiyama would have been to Eldon, MO, and nobody in attendance was upset that they didn't get Takayama, the way 12 year old me was upset when I went to a Giants fan day in 1993 hoping to meet Barry Bonds and Will Clark and Rod Beck but instead wound up with indifferent pictures of me with Steve Scarsone and JR Phillips. 

The ring announcer has never heard a single word of Japanese in his life. He has never heard or said the name Masao Inoue before and proceeds to announce him as "Muhsoaaa Hagaoooooooowaaaa", somewhere between Adele Vazeem and covering your mouth with your hand so the parking attendant at your job somehow won't notice that you wiped your mouth every time you mumbled his guessed name. Inoue comes out in full Minoru Suzuki head towel and makes his wrist tape eye rubs and eye rakes the focal point of his Missouri offense.

I really need to go through my spindles of NOAH dvds to see if I have Jason Bates/Akitoshi Saito or Ace Steel/Haruka Eigen. 

Inoue does fun theatrical hopping body slams, with a little leg kicked out at the end, like a Leprechaun doing a slam in a musical. He also big times a lot of Dustin's strikes, not moving his head at all on 80% of Dustin's punches. I'm no lip reader, and I'm certainly no mind reader, but Dustin Rhodes privately questions on the apron whether or not Kishin Kawabata would have been this casually unprofessional. This match pioneers the idiotic "needlessly long inset promo over the actual action" and peaks the genre by playing Dustin's promo over his entire hot tag, 8 minutes after everyone else's inset promo had ended. He delivers his promo in a harsh whisper as if he recorded it in a public restroom and didn't want anyone else to know he was cutting a wrestling promo in the last stall. Jason Bates eating a Dustin drop toehold face first into Inoue's balls and getting high cradled by Dustin is an EXCELLENT finish to an event that sent dozens of kids home happy, laughing at the name Bull Schmitt one more time before their mothers tell them "I said no MORE." 

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New Footage Friday: JOE MALENKO~! INOUE! TAJIRI! CICLON! MOGUR! STYLES! CROSS!

Joe Malenko vs. Mighty Inoue AJPW 1/25/89

MD: We're just starting to see the dividends with this new run of Classics. Previously we just had the last few minutes of this title change and while it was good, it, and other Malenko and Inoue matches from 89, always had me wanting to see the full thing. It didn't disappoint. Both wrestlers were extremely good at chaining one hold or opportunity into another while dealing and adapting with engaged struggle from their opponent. Early on that was Malenko with the arm (including an 89 Crossface), and later, Inoue with the leg. Shortly thereafter, they'd end up tied up a few times, an even match. Malenko had the bridges and the bombs and was so good at chaining a move out of a suplex. Inoue had the somersault senton and even creeping towards 40 could still absolutely go. This had the usual block-and-counter laden finish you'd get on these late 80s AJPW Jr. matches and while it was a finish partially set up to protect Malenko, it still felt like a big moment for Inoue and the fans reacted accordingly.

PAS: Loved this, a real chance to watch Joe Malenko ball out. I loved the opening with him leaping over Inoue's leg sweep attempts like he was doing the Kid and Play dance, and finishing it off with a scissors kick takedown. Lots of nasty counter wrestling on the mat, including Inoue putting on a sick Indian death lock, and some really cool looking arm locks by Malenko. I thought the roll up finish worked good with the way the match was going, Inoue showing he had a little funk to his game as well. 

ER: I thought this was fantastic, an awesome juniors match with matwork more interesting than anything you'd ever see in a New Japan juniors match. My only complaint with the match at all is that they felt the need to break away from the matwork. This was a 15 minute match, and the first 13 are up there with the coolest Muga clinics I've seen. Joe Malenko really is one of the all time mat guys, doing almost minimalist Bob Backlund type holds only wrenched in and played small and tough rather than long. Malenko isn't really about quick movement, and his style is so engaging that it doesn't really need it. You can see every step of his holds, and he builds through each of his holds in snug ways that are easy to follow and make simple holds look agonizing. Malenko is not without flash, as he begins the match doing little MPro hops to avoid Inoue's legsweeps while locked at the arms, and after hopping over a few he spins into a killer leg-scissors takedown. Malenko's bridging neck work is always impressive, made both guys look tough watching them go through slow motion Cirque du Soleil poses. 

Malenko cranks in a couple of nasty cravats across Inoue's face, locking his hands under Inoue's armpit and behind his back, and all of his holds look grinding and painful. Inoue's return fire looks good, especially when he butterflies Malenko's legs on a standing deathlock, he works Malenko's arm in some simple but painful looking ways. Malenko refuses to go into Expected Juniors Matwork, doesn't do kip ups out of knucklelocks, doesn't do monkey flips when you'd expect them, and his knucklelock takeovers look like expert judo throws rather than part of a rolling exchange. And I wish they would have stuck to that. It made for a great 13 minutes. Joe Malenko is much cooler on the mat than he is running ropes, and there were a couple things that didn't look quite right once they were on their feet. But we also got a tight fisherman's suplex from Joe, a slick reversal into a German suplex, Inoue's none-better somersault senton, and a great flash pin title win out of an Inoue rolling cradle reversal. Inoue's reversal was really strong, and the 13 minutes of bridging matwork by both men really established how good they were at forcing each other into bridged holds, you get the real sense that Malenko really couldn't have escaped the pin. Great match, with several things that modern acolytes of this mat style could learn from. 

Tajiri/Ciclon Ramirez/Fantasik vs. Halcon Negro/Mogur/Guerrero de la Muerte CMLL 12/23/95

MD: Tajiri had a few month excursion to CMLL when he was about a year into his career and there's not a ton to see of it, so this was a fun thing to pop up. He had a nice, long opening exchange with Guerrero de la Muerte (Toxico) and they were fine, basic but smooth. Late in the tercera he hit some solid kicks and had a nice tope. This was pretty standard fare otherwise, though lacking a central underlying storyline. Mogur stood out out with some good dropkicks and a great knee in the corner, plus leaning hard into the missile dropkick which led to the tecnicos taking the primera. The beatdown wasn't very memorable, with the comeback spurred by the rudos all mounting and posing Tajiri. Fantastik seemed to be straining to his his offense at times but disappeared from the match at the end with a pretty spectacular slingshot swanton bomb to the floor. It ended with a pretty unsatisfying foul which wasn't built and didn't seem to be leading anywhere.

PAS: Fantastik is this super cool luchador with a hairy chest who basically spent his entire career in Japan. I don't remember him working CMLL at all, and here he was with his Big Japan buddy Tajiri. There is a more well know match later in this tour where things break down between Tajiri and Mogur and they start stiffing each other, but there isn't anything like that here. I enjoyed the opening Tajiri and Muerte mat work the best, real chance to see how skilled Tajiri was as a kiddo. And that Fantastik swanton to the floor is one of my favorite high spots ever, what height and extension he got on that. It might have even been better than Super Astro's. 

ER: Matt mentions that this is pretty standard lucha fare, and he's right, but it's also really exciting watching just standard lucha fare from guys from this era. I've seen a stupid amount of standard lucha from the last decade of the CMLL roster, so a different era of roster going through their routines can be a real sweet panacea. It's cool seeing Tajiri and Fantastik in the CMLL mix, to see Tajiri do a pretty good job of understanding basic lucha caida structure. He's tasked with being the first mat exchange of the match, he comes in at the end of the segunda with a high spinning heel kick, and then lands a nice dive on Mogur at the climax of the tercera. Fantastik had the wild spot of the match, with a gorgeous slingshot swanton off Halcon Negro, perfectly lined up down an aisle. I really liked Negro here, a great theatrical bumper, and if that slingshot swanton wasn't in the match I think my favorite moment would have been Negro getting bumped to the floor, sliding out after a headscissors and landing on one leg, then hopping on one leg to slow his momentum until landing in the front row. He looked like a Looney Tunes character who skidded to a stop before running off a cliff. Ciclon Ramirez was a super graceful tecnico, great height on headscissors and bumps, and Mogur is a classic rudo in the vein of Mocho Cota or Satanico, all short right hands and nice traffic direction. This was probably a typical Saturday night for all of these guys, but it played with the right amount of freshness for me. 

AJ Styles vs. Jason Cross NWA Wildside 8/15/01

MD: This had a few things going for it. First and foremost, they were working it as an evil mirror image sort of match (or more accurately, as Cross stealing Styles' act), so there were a bunch of parallel spots that were effective and creative and well-executed, but also that meant something because there was an underlying story driving them. It wasn't an exact tit-for-tat, but was defined enough you couldn't miss it. Cross would hit one sort of tricked out arm drag, Styles would return with another. At one point, Styles hit a huge over the shoulders alley-oop on Cross that caused him to hit his head on the screen above the ring. Cross returned the favor later with one onto the top turnbuckle snake-eyes fashion. Late in the match, they both hit top rope splashes. That sort of thing. The second thing would be the theater itself. It let Cross hit a crazy dive of the stage, less crazy for the twists and turns and more so for the damage he would have done to himself if Styles didn't catch him well (he did), and they followed it up with brawling on the floor, with a green tinted, security footage looking sort of night-vision effect, and Styles spectacularly hitting a wall step-up standing moonsault. For the most part, everyone's stuff looked good. There were a couple of physics defying moments from Styles, like a bump off of a top rope 'rana that took me out of it. I thought Cross' strikes looked really good and it's too bad we didn't see more of them. They didn't wear out their welcome here by any means and that helps to justify the your move, my move nature a little (as does the mirror image underlying story), but if they shuffled things around a bit and had Cross lean on him a bit more towards the end, it would have made Styles get the moral win, before the "1988 WWF Manager on the apron so let me chase him around the ring" screwy finish, mean more. Still, this was very good for what it was and what it was trying to be.

PAS: Cross was working a Mike Davis as Dusty Rhodes version of AJ Styles here, which was a fun gimmick. The athleticism in this match was pretty off the charts, both guys had tremendous snap and execution on all of their big spots. This would have been pretty mind-blowing at the time, I mean we were just starting to see Low-Ki,  Red  et al do this kind of thing in the Northeast, and this was at or even above that level. The Cross dive off of the stage, the Styles wall walk moonsault and spiked headscissors, totally wild shit even now. I did think this was aiming to be an all time lost classic until they returned to the ring where they lost the string a bit. I don't think we needed that chase around the manager spot, and a fast ref count felt like one too many booking things for a match which didn't need any of them. Let Cross win clean or have Styles win clean, the match was good enough that no one would have been hurt by it. Cross is one of those weird wrestling casualties, no reason he should have been lost to history. He was like a taller AJ Styles and should have at least had a ROH/TNA career.  

ER: This is an era of indy wrestling that will always have the warmest place in my heart, as it was right when I was really getting into wrestling message boards and was the peak of my tape trading. This match had all of the things I loved about getting tapes in the mail, with a perfect wrestling venue for starters. This was in an old (?) movie theater, with the ring up on the stage and all the crowds seated below watching the show. I'm always interested in seeing how guys perform while having less sides of the ring to play to. This set-up has them essentially playing to one side of the ring, which brings unique perspective and focus to some of their exchanges. 2001 was fertile for getting a random selection of indy tapes in the mail and being surprised at so many styles happening all over the country. This was inventive as anything else from 2001, and Cross wasn't that far behind Styles as a talent at this point. Bobby Quance is a guy who gets brought up as a "what should have been" guy with under 100 matches, but Cross's stuff ages even better for a guy with a similar career. Cross is great at taking offense, and I love the heel gimmick of aping a popular face's wrestling style so well that is gets under the babyface's skin. Cross is great at being that smug and backing it up in ring. Cross hits an insane corkscrew plancha off the movie theater stage, and takes all of Styles' craziest 2001 offense, like the spike jump up headscissors and a Styles Clash off the top rope. Styles has been doing this level of great match for over 20 years now, and seeing how many indy guys are working for major promotions now, 2001 Cross is more polished than most of them. He was slightly too late for WCW, and for some reason didn't catch on in TNA after getting semi-regular shots. You always hate to see a cool talent fall through the cracks. 

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Back About Eighteen and Twenty Five Black Terry left Naucalpan Very Much Alive

Guerrero Maya/Guerrero Del Futuro/Damien El Guerrero v. Atlantico/Ciclon Ramirez/Zumbido CMLL 9/13/96 - SKIPPABLE
I am still waiting to find the quality Los Guerreros match. Like most midcard CMLL matches of the 90's this had some individual moments of cool shit. We got a fun exchange between Guerrero Maya and Ciclon Ramirez, and Zumbido hit a cool corner tope. Still the last two falls were really short, and there were a couple of really awkward blown spots. Also I think the opening exchange between Damien El Guerrero and Alantico was actively bad. Plus this is another Ciclon Ramirez match without a Ciclon Ramirez tope. NO SIR!!

Black Terry v. Cerebro Negro IWRG 11/22/07 - EPIC

Tremendous match which is a better finish away from being the MOTY for 2007, and is the best Black Terry singles match I have seen. This is a violent hair match which is one of the best things in professional wrestling. This truly felt like a war, there were multiple moments where both guys forgot about lucha and just wailed away at each other with blows. Terry unloads one of the better overhand slaps I can remember, but Cerebro Negro is right there firing back with everything he had, especially landing some nasty coconut headbutts. There is a great moment where the camera pans to a little kid in the audience who is simultaneously horrified and engrossed by the carnage. Both of the first two falls ended on great counters Cerebro Negro counters a shoulder block with a beautiful Pain Game DDT, and Terry just demolishes Cerebro with a backcracker counter to a back tope. It's IWRG I am pretty desensitized to backcrackers but I nearly jumped out of my seat. I also loved Terry tearing apart Negro's pants to get at his knee, it had an almost cinematic quality of desperation, it felt like the end of a Peckinpaugh film. Finish was kind of bullshit, with Fantasma De La Opera running in and chair shotting both guys, total buzzkill to something that was building to one of the great lucha libre apuesta matches of all time.

Black Terry/Cerebro Negro/Dr. Cerebro v. Pantera/Suicida/Zatura IWRG 1/7/10 - GREAT

PAS: Cerebro looked pretty great really nice looking overhand slaps, and an reckless tope. This was just super solid lucha libre, a little shorter then a normally IWRG trios, so we only got one longish mat exchange (Terry v. Sucida and it was pretty sweet) and it was mostly slick armdrags by agile technicos and bumping and stooging by great rudos. Amusing finish with Cerebro grabbing Pantera's leg and causing him to low blow the ref. Nothing which will stand out by the end of year, but if we keep getting twice weekly stuff like this 2010 will be ok.

TKG: Without the hair dye and gel, Cerebro Negro looks like a really scummy Bruno Campos gone to seed. This was laid out really similarly to the fourth match on Sunday’s card: instead of establishing everyone's character by having everyone pair up for a mat section in the first fall you just have one pairing work a mat section and then move directly into first fall brawling. Here you had Black Terry and Suicida pair up for some mat work which led to Dr Cerebro and Pantera doing some first fall toe to toe brawling and Zatura and Cerebro Negro pairing for first fall fast exchanges. It’s a format that I imagine will play well to the Jr Piratas or Oficiales strengths (keeping a match moving). It doesn’t really play to Terribles Cerebros (character work) but it made for a fun match that kept moving at a nice clip.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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