Espectáculos Promociones Panama: The Best Panama Match Yet? Parka! Sandokan! Celestial! Emperador! Idolo! Cirujano! Blood! Chaos!

Sandokan/Celestial/Emperador vs. Principe Island/Cirujano de la Muerte/Idolo

MD: Sometimes I'm cautious on these, because I'm just one voice, but in talking this one over with Graham, my initial thought was that this could have easily landed in the top 20 of the best of the 80s DVDVR Lucha set (you know, if anyone had voted on that). And that's probably too conservative. It's really, really good. If you guys have been on the fence on watching these, well, obviously we think it's all been a worthwhile exercise, but this is especially one to watch. This is a classic, no doubt about it.

Structurally, it's as straightforward as can be until the end. Exchanges, tecnico advantage, rudo beatdown, big comeback, finish. But it hits on all of the marks. Sandokan is such an ace and such a star. It's unquestionable here and he really overachieves even compared to what we've seen him in so far and my personal expectations for him. He's not just a slugger with a couple of big spots (though he IS a slugger with a couple of big spots), but he's on for the entire match. He kicks out multiple variations on armdrags and handsprings and one-against-two bits that I wasn't expecting at all. Everything looks smooth. Most things feel competitive. Even when he's obviously getting some assistance from the rudos, it still looks like he's switching his positioning about and working for it. During the primera exchanges everyone looked good except for maybe Idolo. His stuff was just a bit looser and he barely even eseemed to try in his first one with Emperador. He's supposed to be even a bigger star than Sandokan but we just haven't seen it in the footage yet. Meanwhile, Principe (being LA Park, of course) was flying all over the place and Cirujano was basing big for Celestial and others. Everything built to a raucious stretch of tecnico advantage including a huge wheelbarrow suplex by Sandokan.

The beatdown followed in the segunda, with Idolo getting an advantage in the ropes. They paired off with each rudo using different styles of offense. Idolo had big pro wrestling flourishes, slamming a head into the turnbuckle or leaping feet first onto shoulders in the corner. Cirujano just clubbere down and leaned on people. And Principe was a whirlwind of violence, much of which we miss as he was demolishing Sandokan on the ground. They closed this out with some stretches and a missile dropkick by Principe.

In between falls, Principe clobbered Sandokan with a chair and started to inhale his blood to spit it up into the air, which is about the most glorious and horrific rudo stylings imaginable. To say that Park understood this stuff from a relatively young age would be an understatement. He dove fully into getting as much visceral and visual heat as he possibly could. The match had started with trash strewn everywhere and it made for the perfect setting for this mauling.

Which, of course, led to a spirited comeback, Sandokan firing back and really working for it on the floor, with the crowd ebbing and flowing around him in excitement. We couldn't see everything but we could feel it all, and what we saw (with it seeming like Sandokan was clocking Principe with a shoe) was all great. Just when it seemed like the rudos were going to get their bloody comeuppance, Cirujano and Idolo snatched away Emperador and Celestial's masks and they had to scurry to the back, leaving an momentarily ascendant Sandokan to fight alone, to get the start of a visual submission on Principe, but to ultimately get swept under, absolutely clobbered by what looked to be a plastic drink holder. While I wish we could have more easily followed the action on the floor, if only because Park had a tendency to do outrageous things and take wild bumps, this had absolutely everything I would want from a match like this. The Principe Island vs Sandokan feud is such a lost classic.

GB: I honestly think Matt is underplaying just how great this match is. When he shot the idea to me that this could potentially make the top 20 of the DVDVR 80s Lucha set I said he was underrating things. This is easily the best match we’ve had so far and definitely something to go out of your way to see. An absolute whirlwind of a performance between Sandokan and Parka, who is a fresh 22 years old here. Over on the GWE Discord, this match actually prompted a little discussion that La Parka might actually need to be investigated further as a top 20 GWE case because he has all of these little pockets of matches throughout his career where he really looks like an all-timer. From this, in mid 1988, to the Villano IV match last year, we have 34 years of Parka being an absolute beast of an asskicker (though, albeit, he’s more the acrobatic chickenshit getting his ass steamrolled in Panama but you get the gist!).

Those firmly in his camp will protest that he’s more than just the “dancing skeleton” most mainstream fans know him as. I agree. However, there’s an element to that which makes Parka’s case ever the more compelling. He’s one of the very few wrestlers that can blend comedic wrestling and psychopathic brawling without the one smudging the other. In fact, he might just be the all-time greatest at it. Case in point, he sees his ass on a big tumble to the floor about 9 minutes in here. Fans swarm around him, he’s disoriented and lost so he plays into the moment. He hobbles to the wrong corner, where Sandokan is lying in wait like a shark smelling blood. He gestures his arms into the air with a groaned “dammit!” before a fan has to escort him back to the right side. This all goes on in the background of the match while Idolo and Celestial are trading moves in the ring. One of the biggest legends in Panamanian history, and a 22-year old Parka is stealing the audience’s gaze away from him. Unreal. It was this “IT factor” that helped Parka change a nothing 2-week stay in Panama to a 2-month major programme.

Looking at the history, the Parka in Panama matches are seemingly all across the board so it makes things a little difficult to recap and piece together (I’ll get to a potential stopgap later). It’s also promoted by Junior Mina’s Arena Panamá Mexico so there isn’t much out there.  However, what is crystal clear is that this is Parka’s debut match in Panama and we’re blessed to have gotten it as it kicked off one of the best feuds we’ve never heard of.

From interviews and matching up cards, Parka lost his mask to Sandokan a week before Father’s Day in 1988 at the Neco. That squares up with the 11th June date listed on the (very much incomplete) Sandokan Luchawiki profile. The next week, however, forces me to realise I had the Galvez/Solar feud down to the wrong year. Solar was in Panama in 1986 but feuding with Castro. The Galvez feud kicked off on the 17th of June 1988, the Friday after Parka lost his mask. Interestingly, Solar returned to Panama on the 17th in a tag at Neco opposite the team of Sergio Galvez and Blue Panther. The relation to the Park? Well, the Park/Sandokan feud would intertwine with the Galvez/Solar feud at this point with the tecnicos (Solar/Sandokan) having to stave off the violence of hell’s rudos (Galvez/Parka), a violence that Solar lamented would be him “encountering death”.

Despite losing it, Parka would still don his mask to interviews as a protest to the decision. He also carried with him a tape of the ending to the mask match in which he claims a conspiracy took place. It was all jingoistic bias on the part of the referee, who he says made a calculated, perhaps premeditated, “mistake” to allow Sandokan to win. Much protesting and epithets to Sandokan’s race later, Parka would remove his mask as he was doing so graciously as a “gentleman” that respected the traditions of lucha libre (and not because he agreed with the loss). Sandokan, Parka espoused, had tapped to his hold. All of Panama could see it, and their ruptured hostility was proof enough. The whole of Arena Panama could see it, except the one man that needed to most - Carlos Linares, the referee.

I’m unsure how much time had passed before the title matches against Super Parka and Sandokan but Parka now was scalped. I haven’t seen flyers nor articles to corroborate, but it appears that Super Parka took La Parka’s hair at some point in Panama. Weirdly, La Parka was billed as the older brother of Super Parka (his legitimate uncle). It’s one of the weirder tropes of Panama where names/gimmicks are sacred above logic, and once one gimmick has been debuted everything must follow suit. Much like Gemelos Infernales (Hell’s Twins) being a trio.

To my strained eyes, it appears that Parka’s hair is a smidge more grown out in the title match against Sandokan than it is against Super Parka. Again, this I’ll get to later. By this point, Super Parka is a tecnico, and can be seen as Sandokan’s second in some of the encounters. For Parka, he would be seconded by El Idolo and Nacho Vega in the mask match (the latter known to us already as Mascara Negra) and Exterminador as well as Emperador in others. The latter would be the one to demask Super Parka in Panama a few weeks earlier. Another quirk of Panama would tie in with the Parkas - that being how forgiving fans were of wrestlers. In the Emperador feud, Super Parka was the clear heat-seaker. So much so he was once physically attacked by fans on his way to the ring during the build to the Emperador mask match. This led to the lucha commission forcing action and having the national guard accompany wrestlers to the ring at each show. Yet, here, against Parka, Super Parka was the tecnico. The crowd favourite. A Mexican proudly waving the flag of Panama, claiming them as gracious hosts. In reality, a “turn” only took a handshake after the loss of their mask or hair. An acceptance that they weren’t the better wrestler that day and a thanking of the fans for coming out in support of the fight. A mask/hair loss was Panama’s reset button. That’s all Super Parka needed as his get out of jail (hospital) free card to curry favour with the locals. Note La Parka’s antagonisms and vitriol when he loses his mask against Sandokan. It directly flew in the face of what was expected of him. He was an out of control brat and he played that up perfectly. Ricardo Pitti would label La Parka as “volatile” and “excessively energetic”. The absolute perfect foil to the fiery babyface Sandokan.

As for the title in question, Parka is the current title holder of the UWA Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship and Panama’s Middleweight Championship (the title he brings to the ring). The UWA title was never officially recognised by the UWA but it was seen as a title of significant value in Guatemala (given legitimacy by local legend Astro de Oro being the first challenger and then first to capture the title in 1987). Parka beat Astro de Oro for the title on July 24th 1988. A month after Sandokan took La Parka’s mask. As mentioned, Parka was fully expected to be a Guatemala staple at this point, having finished off his short visit to Panama. However, he got over so quickly as a heel that he found himself oscillating between fighting Sandokan in Panama and Astro de Oro in Guatemala - the two biggest legends of South America at the time.

It’s here that I can potentially offer a little bit of a quickfix to the gaps in our Parka in Panama programme. Select Mexican wrestlers would travel around South America honing their craft and finding themselves in quite familiar programmes wherever they went (notably so with Parka). Thus, I’m going to outline the feud with Astro de Oro in Guatemala. What lines up lines up, what differs differs but it’s all hopefully, at worst, a look into very young Parka’s start and, at best, a glimpse into the bigger picture of the feud in Panama.

The feud began with Parka coming into Guatemala as the cocky upstart, bludgeoning an unexpecting Astro de Oro and Arriero de San Juan into pieces in his debut on the 10th of July 1988. He was accompanied by Verdugo, who had a massive chip on his shoulder after his then teammate, Arriero, turned tecnico on him. Despite the heat between Arriero and Verdugo, it was Parka that took things a step beyond by cutting up Astro and leaving him a bloody mess on the mat. Parka’s win, and performance, had him splashed across national newspapers. As quickly as he got over in Panama, Parka was a massive exclamation point in Guatemala now. He had, thus, quickly earned himself a title shot against Astro de Oro (which would play out after a bloody mano a mano “wager” shortly after the tag debut). This wager was a relatively stakeless match (in other words no titles or masks on the line) but was about betting their pride, a “put up or shut up” if you will. Astro de Oro had never been defeated in this match and, yet, Parka beat him. This, in theory, plays sister to the Sandokan/Parka singles Matt has already covered with the only caveat being the roles are reversed (Sandokan absolutely destroys Parka and not the other way around).

As the record books show, Astro de Oro lost their title match. Again making Parka the first luchador to do so. Much the same in Panama with Sandokan, the pride of Guatemala had been made a fool by the punk, La Parka. Parka, greedy for more, offered an all-in with Astro. If Astro ever wanted to see the title again, he would have to bet his mask (and permanent retirement) against it. Astro, who already had his tail between his legs seeing no other choice, agreed. While Parka dropped his mask to Sandokan before the title match, I believe the stipulation for the Sandokan/Parka title match was of a similar nature.

In opposite to Panama (though to the sentiments of the DQs), the referee in the mask match here was firmly in Parka’s back pocket. Parka blindsided Astro in the corridors of the arena on his way to the ring, incessantly beating him with a chain until he burst open with blood. As Astro attempted to make his comeback by grabbing the chain from Parka, referee César Rivas confiscated the weapon. While Rivas was distracted, Parka faked a foul which had disqualified Astro, leaving him a fall behind. The fight would continue, as both men bathed in blood by this point. Parka tried multiple times to escape but he, and his mask, would fall to a merciless, rope-aided piledriver by Astro - much like he would to a merciless rope-aided electric chair from Sandokan. Adolfo Tapia Ibarra, the Island prince, the assassin, the skeleton of death, had lost his mask but he had found himself. And so the whirlwind of violence we’ve come to love was unleashed.

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Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Silver King! Mascara Negra! Sergio Galvez! Cirujano de le Muerte!

Silver King/Máscara Negra vs Sergio Gálvez/El Cirujano de la Muerte 5/15/87?

MD: This one had a lot going for it and a couple of things working against it. Galvez was, of course, an absolute bastard in all of the best ways. There is a category of scuzzy heel wrestlers from the annals of time that would make amazing terrible uncles to any kid. Mocha Cota is one, Chris Colt another, Bobby Bass a third, and so on and so forth. Inca Peruano was that guy on the French set. Sergio Galvez is here. He can stooge and beg off, can get in a slugfest, can base and feed, but he’s at his very best when he’s swarming an opponent, as he does with Silver King towards the end of the segunda, just forcing him out of the ring and following with a hundred mean shots. The good Cirujano is of the line of thematic Médico Asesino descendants, with white gear. He reminded me of Gran Markus, Jr. as much as anything. He hit hard enough, big hefty shots, but I have some, shall we say, concerns about his overall basing.

That made the primera a little dodgy. Silver King (who still had his mask and boundless energy) tried a few things like walking the ropes and none of it went quite as well as you’d have hoped. It came off as two guys who maybe knew what they were doing, but hadn’t drilled together? Mascara Negra worked with him a little better. I liked this guy a lot. He had a real sense of rhythm and a unique style, able to throw some interesting kicks but also hit a bound up leaping ‘rana off the turnbuckles (taken a bit askew by Cirujano). And when he was up against Galvez? Very quick to hit an awesome straight punch to the gut and follow it by tossing him around by the beard. He impressed.

You can’t fault the structure here, dubious basing aside. The tecnicos one-upped the rudos early, living through Galvez stalling and refusing to get in with Silver King at first, with the fall ending with a big quebradora and tiling slam by Silver King. He looked best there and with the work against both rudos at once that started the segunda. The rudos took over quickly thereafter, however, though the tecnicos got some hope, including Silver King handspringing into the ropes a little too exuberantly. It all led to the rudos playing the numbers game and Galvez’ swarming of Silver King and a really great caballo where the partner stood behind and yanked the poor victim’s arms back. I’d never seen that particular tandem submission variation before. The tercera kept the beatdown going, with Galvez ripping Silver King’s mask. It led to a rousing comeback, but one that quickly spiraled through Cirujano’s interference and the ref getting distracted, allowing for a Galvez low blow. Obviously this led to something more and we, and the fans, were left unsatisfied by the comeback on this night. You have to appreciate how well they ramped up the pressure for it though.

GB: It’s always a good day when we get to watch Sergio Gálvez, especially versus a foreign talent. There’s something more primal, almost xenophobic, in the way that he wrestles if his opponent isn’t Panamanian. With his trusty choice of plunder, he made sure that the only warmth foreigners felt on their way into Panama was the blood coagulating on their skin.

Silver King would be no exception here in what I presume to be his debut into Panama. I’m not entirely confident on the date but it does go somewhat according to how King described things in the sitdown interview alongside el Barón. Silver King was the clear fan favourite here, despite this being his first outing. He was most certainly coasting off his father’s coattails but you can’t really blame him for that. Papa Wagner was a beloved star across South America and saw numerous successes in apuestas wherever he went with his most notable feud culminating in him retiring the Guatemalan legend José Azzari in September 1976.

It’s interesting, then, that Silver King would make his first mark out in Panama, considering his father was less than a year removed from still taking names in Guatemala. Either way, Wagner was a household name and a surefire way to get yourself a nice little booking fee as his kid. Despite playing second fiddle to the bigger names in Anibal and Rene Guajardo, Dr Wagner Sr was a formidable opponent whose fight and technical skill won over the people of Panama throughout the 1970s, most especially in the Panama/Mexico tag tournament in mid to late 1977. His partner, Septiembre Negro would go on to much bigger things (and much bigger losses!) but the people of Panama still fondly post about their memories of the triumphing Dr Wagner.

It was undeniable thus. Wherever he went, Silver King had big shoes to fill and he couldn’t let a bully like Gálvez get the better of him. Perhaps a little too quick off the mark, Silver King would take this match as a personal insult to him and an attack on his pride. Though, as for the reasoning behind the feud, I’m unsure what Gálvez had against the young Silver King here. King’s father beating up Gálvez’ partner (Panther) a decade earlier would be a little too much detail even for Don Medina to book out so I’ll just point to exhibit A above that Sergio Gálvez is simply a psychopathic human being. Where this feud goes, well, we’ll find out if things get posted again. There’s rumour of a mask/hair match but that’s all I’ve found it to be so far. Rumour.

As for Silver King’s escapades throughout Latin America, he, along with Texano, would finally travel to Guatemala at the turn of the next decade. Considering how formidable his father was, Guatemala would see fit to not have the next lineage run rampant, too. With their hopes laid on the backs of two very unlikely allies in Astro de Oro and Skeletor, Los Cowboys would drop their WWA world tag titles to the Guatemalan heroes after a hard fought match on the 12th of December 1991.

Embarrassed by a “fluke”, Texano and Silver King anted up their hairs in exchange for a title shot, again losing to the would-be duo of Skeletor and Astro de Oro. The latter would go on to successfully defend against, in order, Los Villanos IV & V, Tony Arce y Vulcano, El Signo y El Negro Navarro, Scorpio Sr & Jr and Los Crazzy Boys I y II before losing the titles to La Ola Blanca; Doctor Wagner Jr and Rayo Láser (who substituted for an injured Angel Blanco Jr).

Speaking of mystery men in white, the El Cirujano de La Muerte gimmick is dime-a-dozen so you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s someone else. It most certainly could have been anyone under a mask here. Well, almost anyone. It definitely isn’t *that* El Cirujano de La Muerte from Guatemala, he’s too big a national star to be stuck in low-card matches working Mascara Negra whose better days were a decade earlier. Though, if it was, there’s an almost ironic twist to Matt comparing them to Gran Markus, considering he was expelled from Guatemala for “unpatriotic” comments about their people. I guess the Guatemalan government never got the memo that wrestling was fake. People give Tony a lot of grief for watching Punk nuke his money out the window but imagine the horror as a promoter after flying in someone from Mexico, giving them a mic, and watching them go scorched earth for heat only for the programme to be cut before it could ever begin.

In all seriousness, our Cirujano here is, in fact, Dominican so it’s almost surprising that there isn’t a note of them in the Dominican Republic groups I frequent. I assume they underwent a gimmick change or two along the way, with this pitstop to Panama falling into otherwise obscurity.

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Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! CENA~! MYSTERIOS~! REIGNS~! USOS~! PANAMANIAN APUESTAS~! MICHAELS~! WELL DUNN~!

Cirujano de la Muerte vs. Emperador Panamanian Lucha 1988

MD: I'm not sure if anyone else is keeping up with the vein of Panamanian lucha we've gotten over the last year but we'll be sure to revisit it now and again. This was a mask match that dropped recently and it was bloody, heated, minimalist, and at times a little odd in ways that's right down our alley. Cirujano de la Muerte, being the Surgeon of Death, had the traditional medicinal wrestler white mask look. He reminded me of the Assassin or Dream Machine in some ways. He had pretty solid strikes that came from interesting angles and once he ripped the mask and really got going on Emperador, used an object to high effect. He also had a way of stooging on his bumps and strutting around the ring like a chicken to get maximum heat. I'm a fan. Emperador, in his eventual comeback after getting bloodied up, had a novel sort of running, jumping hammer shot, but otherwise, his strikes weren't as good. Still, he ripped at the mask and worked a wound and the crowd went nuts when he got the objects and started to get revenge and made the surgeon's white gear red. It was short lived though, as Cirujano smashed a bottle over his head and went back on him as they moved towards a finish, an out of nowhere 'rana.  There were a copy of spots in this, coming occasionally at slightly odd angles like Cirujano's strikes did, but for the most part this was straightforward woundwork the whole way through. Post-match continued the antics as Cirujano got what was coming to him. A match like this isn't for everyone, but to us, it's timeless and effective and beautiful. Now if Emperador just had slightly better punches.

ER: It's always a joy to find stuff like this. We have some full territory documentation of several 1988 territories, and then you get something from Panama that looks comparable to other stuff from that era while also looking somehow influenced by nothing. You can't really tell who they learned on, and it reveals a lot about how a lot of this is just knowing when to hit your beats and pace the momentum. Both throw their signature strike in a way you haven't seen anyone quite replicate, Cirujano throwing a hooking jumping right hand, and Emperador throwing a variation on the Baba chop. Nobody else throws a Baba chop, nobody else has quite the same hopping headbutt delivery as Carlos Colon, nobody throws a punch like the Crusher; these two have their own strikes, that might not be as good as those others', but they are different and I always like that. Cirujano had an all time great dance taunt. It was part chicken dance, part merengue, just a flawless combination. It's like Paul Lynde doing Jagger. If Jeff Jarrett had learned this dance taunt instead of just aping the Fargo strut, he would have been the biggest heel in Memphis. Emperador has some fantastic stumble selling, rolling and bouncing into and off of the ropes, like a standing Red Bastien gag, theatrical but really great body movement. There's mask ripping, a fucking bottle of chianti used as a weapon, a real good crowd brawl that sends people running (including a great dad running off with a little boy under each arm), and a mirthful unmasking. Love it.  

Tracy Smothers/Chris Michaels vs. Well Dunn Brandenburg, KY 2000s

MD: Some of my favorite wrestlers are the ones that are always on, always in the moment, always engaged. Terry Funk, Negro Casas, Nick Bockwinkel, Eddy Guerrero 97-on, Eddie Kingston. There are those guys and then there's 2000s Tracy Smothers, the guy who breaks the meter. There's not a moment of this match, including the period before and after it starts, that he's not engaging, engaging with his partner, with his opponents, with the ref, with the crowd, with the ring announcer, with his valet, with the laws of physics. He engages so thoroughly, so constantly, so dynamically, that he invokes wrestling to one of its highest possible degree, he engages with a reality of his own making and forces us to watch. That's a bit different than drawing us all into a shared reality where we toss away, for a time our suspension of disbelief, but it's certainly fun to watch nonetheless. 

I'm not sure if the crowd believed any more than usual on this night, but they certainly felt something, and he didn't give them a second to catch their breath long enough to think about any of it. He was constantly and consistently jawing with the fans (almost causing one guy to charge the ring simply because Smothers called him old repeatedly), trying to trick the ref with phantom clap tags, frustrating the crowd by trying to start a babyface clap when he was clearly a heel, bumping off of his opponent's offense and taking an extra bump just for the hell of it, hugging Michaels when something went his way, taking a powder after feeding like a champ when they didn't, from the first moment he walked out, to the finish where he got his comeuppance after using an object, to the post match promo putting over their next appearance at the next show and getting his heat back almost instantaneously by teasing the crowd that there was more to come. Michaels and Well Dunn played their parts, but you could have sent him out alone with a mic or with a broomstick to wrestle and he would have move hearts and fried brains just as soundly.

ER: This was pure heaven. Tracy Smothers has an act that makes me laugh at things I've seen him do a couple dozen times, playing some of the oldest hits in wrestling and always playing them with passion. Tracy is the angry southern Iron Mike Sharpe, and I'd hope you know that is a high compliment of an excellent character. Mike Sharpe did some of these routines in opening matches in the Northeast for a good decade, and Tracy takes it and ups the anger and violence and death threats. It's beautiful. This is Tracy stooging, stalling, and aggressively pointing fingers at every person in attendance. He gets into it with an old man, threatens to punch an "old hag" in the face, threatens kids, anything but actually lock up. This is a match where Tracy does more fake tag hand claps than I think I've ever seen in a match. Tracy Smothers holds a good crowd in a small rundown Kentucky building in the palm of his hand for 15 minutes, and I don't think he did any offense other than a handful of well timed (and loaded) punches. 

I like Well Dunn a lot, and I like Chris Michaels, but this could have been Tracy with literally any three wrestlers on the planet and been the exact same show. A team like Well Dunn is almost wasted in a role like this, because this was a role any green babyface team could have pulled off. Tracy was the ultimate in-ring safety net in a match like this. There is a lot of Not Wrestling and it is all Very Entertaining Wrestling. Tracy takes a couple of big bumps, one on a noggin knocker on the apron, others just bumping for punches, one just because he didn't realize Steve Doll was behind him. The match built to a great Rex King hot tag where he lays out Smothers and Michaels with consecutive hard clotheslines, and does his awesome hooking heel kick in the corner. Tracy's valet distracts King and Smothers blasts him with a loaded fist, then does the most hilarious and ridiculous pin, sitting down on King's chest and flexing his biceps, leaving himself wide open for King to steal the win. The post-match is great, with Smothers and Michaels blindsiding Well Dunn with a great loaded fist (Smothers) and an excellent superkick (Michaels, far and away the biggest piece of offense in the match), then some classic Smothers mic work. When Smothers ends the night saying "I got a major surprise for you on the 8th. Somebody's gonna DIE!" you know that's the good stuff. 

John Cena/Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Roman Reigns/Usos WWE 8/1/21

MD: This was just last year, but it's found footage to us. It's a little amazing how conservative this was structurally, very Tito Santana, more so than you'd expect out of a Strike Force tag even. Rey started, teased Cena coming in but ate a cheapshot. That meant he had to handle things himself and when it came time to tag, he tagged Dominik. They hit a double team, but Dom got stuffed by the Usos pretty quickly and then played face-in-peril for most of the rest of the match.

Reigns came in sparingly, but I really liked how the first hope spot, where Dominik tried to fire back on him, was less about him potentially getting the tag and more about him daring to show defiance. There was a real sense of hierarchy there that almost never plays so well in WWE. As the beating continued, he got his reps in against the Usos, with some subsequent hope spots better than others (the one where he kicked them both over the top from a prone position was pretty dubious). Meanwhile, Cena and Rey worked the corner as well as you'd expect. Cena wasn't going to be in for more than a couple of minutes, but he was still having a blast out there. After the hot tag, Cena played the hits, though there was a pretty inexplicable ref bump that didn't feed into anything. I wouldn't call the structure of the match lazy so much as it was distilled and set up to hype the crowd as much as possible to see the attraction. It was still a little weird when you think about it, because in a babyface Andre trios, for instance, he'd do more in the first third and wouldn't be saved all for the end.

ER: I really liked this, and I think it's another piece of evidence that Dominik is an underrated worker. He's not ever going to be his father, but that's a dumb statement because no other wrestler is his father. This whole match settled down pretty quickly into a 12 minute Dominik vs. The Usos match, and I thought Dominik was just as good as the face in peril as the Usos were at bumping for him and preventing his tags. I liked how Dominik stood up to Roman on the apron, and how that got him an immediate headbutt that lead to his next 12 minutes of trouble. Everyone in the match had main event house show timing down perfectly, with Dominik really good at getting *this* close to Cena's reaching hand before an Uso would get him back to the corner, or a great moment late in the match where both Usos gets bumped to the floor and Dominik begins his slow crawl to his corner. Roman was great on the apron as his cockiness turned to frustration and his frustration turned to panic, yelling at both Usos to get up off the floor to stop the tag. Jey eventually ran in and dropkicked Cena and dragged Dominik by the leg back to their corner. 

It's all house show timing, but the timing needs to be there or it just feels rote. I don't think this ever felt rote, I think they teased it along really well and the crowd just wanted to see Cena the longer Dominik took a beating. When Dominik did finally make the tag it was explosive, making me feel a nostalgia for Cena that I didn't realize I had. I didn't actually know Cena worked any house shows last year, just thought he worked Roman at Summerslam. Seeing he worked 15 matches - all house shows and dark matches save Summerslam - was a surprise, and after years of hearing every male in the building loudly boo him, I loved hearing everyone cheering for him like they were little kids. 

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