On Brand Segunda Caida: El Mosco in WWF

"El Mosco"/Abismo Negro/Histeria vs. Los Cadetes del Espacio (Discovery/Super Nova/Venum) WWF Raw 3/24/97

ER: This was plenty fun, with Abismo Negro looking like the guy of this group who could cross over. He got arguably the biggest reaction of the match when he powerbombed the hell out of Super Nova. Abismo also bumped upside down off the ropes and took a great bump around the ringpost. He did incredible little things that nobody else was doing in these matches, like actually acting like he was trying to stop the tecnicos from flying. He's the guy on the apron leaping futilely after Venum as Venum launches himself with a top rope quebrada to the floor. Venum also could have broken out with American fans. He was really fearless at this point, crazy with his body (like doing a springboard flip to the floor and landing on his feet), his a couple inventive headscissors, got some noise. Histeria was the bumper of the group, really flying hard backwards off moves, looking like a small Buzz Sawyer. He took this huge flying bump through the ropes to the floor, tumbling hard to the entrance ramp, and then ate a big tope con giro from Discovery.

There was only one problem with this match: It didn't actually have El Mosco. The onscreen graphic says El Mosco when the Galaxy Rudos make their way out, but it is Maniaco. Vince even calls him Maniaco, so this was merely a screen graphic error that has then been circulated incorrectly around match lists for 20 years. A fun match, but our search for WWF El Mosco is starting weird.

El Mosco/Abismo Negro/Histeria/Maniaco vs. Discovery/Super Nova/Venum/Ludxor WWF Shotgun   4/5/97

ER: Ah, there he is! And this has to be the frontrunner for best match of the AAA/WWF failed/aborted/misguided showcase of talent. Perhaps most notably, in an 8 man battle between The Space Cadets and the Rudos of the Galaxy, JR calls 6 of the 8 by the correct name (he mixes up Abismo Negro and El Mosco, which is a higher percentage of success than I was expecting). Brian Pillman also wonders if these men were perhaps smuggling strawberries in their butt across the border, but JR at least attempted to learn names and call the action seriously. This felt like the kind of spotfest that could have actually caught on and gotten great reactions in front of WWF audiences, if WWF cared about what kind of reaction it got. This was a breathless spotfest with good pairings, short (6 minutes or so) and to the point, that the crowd was already reacting to by the time it was done. Most of this crowd likely viewed this as Max Moon x4 vs. Max Moon x4, but the wrestlers went for it and I thought succeeded. The best pairing was El Mosco and Venum, with Mosco bumping all over for slick ranas and headscissors, then catching a huge Venum dive to the floor. Venum's flying looked really great and the two of them went insanely fast through all of it, and the fans didn't know what to expect from the moment Venum hit a dragon rana. I assume most in attendance had never seen anything like that before. Mosco even took the big belly flop slide on the floor, and slid so far that he flew PAST the padded mats and onto the entrance way. Venum also does nice extra hard bumping, running chest first into the buckles as if he was really trying to show WWF he had done his homework on their top stars. Abismo and Discovery were fun as hell, with Discovery hitting a big tope con giro and Abismo later getting clowned by Nova into missing a tope con giro, crashing but first onto the floor (Abismo can later be seen working out his cheeks while walking ringside). Maniaco almost lawndarts himself taking a Jerry bump (that he thankfully does last minute fully rotate on), and wraps himself around the ringpost in an awesome way, splatting on the ring steps on his way down, then eating a huge flying headbutt from Nova after propelling him up the buckles. The Rudos were basing like crazy during this whole thing, pushing the Cadets to a super fast pace, and the Cadets met that pace. Fans were quiet when Maniaco and Nova started, but 5 minutes in they were into it. This was nothing but slick ranas, cool armdrags, big dives, great bumps, big powerbombs, all of it cool. These guys easily could have been a special attraction on house shows, Raw openers, whenever; and it's a shame we never got to see WHO would have been the breakouts from the AAA group, just because none of them were ever given any time to breakout.

El Mosco vs. Super Nova WWF Raw 3/31/97

ER: This was a pretty good representative for the whole AAA in WWF experiment as a whole: Two guys - who honestly may as well not have been given names - thrown into the ring with no kind of hype, killing themselves to little reaction, while Vince talks to Sunny, and Sunny grinds on Hugo Savinovich during the most dangerous highspot of the match, assuring that nobody calls it. There is also a running thread of powerbombs getting a bigger crowd reaction than any other highspot the AAA luchadors do. It's as if planchas and tornillos confuse them, but a guy getting splatted with a big powerbomb is a universally accepted thud. Vince calls two spots that were supposed to miss (including a big sky twister press from Super Nova) as if they were blown spots, and seemingly nobody in the arena notices when Super Nova hits a crazy tope con giro into El Mosco, while Mosco is *seated* on the entrance ramp. Nova covered a lot of distance, the visual looked incredible...but admittedly, Sunny's black dress *was* impossibly tight.

El Mosco/El Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku/Scott Taylor WWF Shotgun 11/8/97

ER: So the AAA showcase experience was long over, but they brought Mosco back for a one-off, a way to pad their burgeoning LightHeavyweight division before they also lost interest in that a few months later. I don't think I've ever seen this match, and it rules. It starts with Mosco leading Scott Taylor through some cruiser offense that felt very atypical for Taylor. Taylor broke out a headscissors and a big cannonball off the apron, then hit a missile dropkick and landed on his feet like he was Bruce Lee out here with early 90s Brian Pillman hair. Mosco would get to shine a bit later, but early on it was all about leading Taylor through fun and passable lucha sequences. The real money was in the Taka/Pantera exchanges, and they cruelly cut who knows how much out of our time with them for commercial purposes. The second Pantera tagged in he hit a gorgeous rolling armdrag on Taka, rolling smoothly right over his back and sending Taka to the floor. Pantera does his dope rolling headscissors to the apron, that sends Taka crashing hard to the floor (a move they'd get to do on PPV a couple months later, which is a crazy PPV singles match we got, in retrospect), and then Pantera just obliterates Taka with a tope, running from the apron and diving past the ringpost. The lunatic even did it through the ring corner where the steps were, the worst of the four corners to try that lunacy. Mosco and Pantera control segment was nice, from the simple things like a picture perfect tandem drop toehold on Taylor, to a cool as hell springboard flipping legdrop from Mosco. The ending is pretty simple, as obviously we know Taka is winning all of these matches, and at a certain point they kinda rush into go home mode and Take just starts dropping Mosco with kicks, a nice brainbuster, and the Michinoku driver. So a simple way to wrap things up, but the whole match was filled with gold, the types of things nobody else was doing on WWF TV at the time. Mosco looked great in all of his WWF appearances, but there was clearly nothing he could have actually done in the ring to get hired. The fact we got a dozen or two Pantera matches in WWF was an actual lucha miracle.

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Santo Baby, Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight

ER: One of the finest luchadors in history came back from retirement a couple years ago and began working matches again (many with his son, which is what likely made him start working again), but I hardly saw anybody writing about the matches. It felt like it was treated as a non-event, as opposed to an exciting event that we now have more footage of a legend who never deteriorated. I decided to run through several of the matches from his most recent active year on file and see what we seemingly collectively missed.


El Hijo Del Santo/Rey Mysterio Jr./Discovery vs. Dr. Cerebro/Super Crazy/Yakuza LLT 9/17/17

ER: This was plenty fun, but when a match has 2 of the 10 biggest lucha legends of all time in it, you hope for a bit more. The rudo control segments were a little underwhelming, and Yakuza kinda stinks and looks like he's mailing it in the whole match (or maybe that's just his operating speed; I assume if you're across the ring from Santo, Mysterio, and the top local lucha tecnico that you would be going your hardest). The early pairings are fun with the tecnicos all getting to show off their arsenal of armdrags and headscissors, but the rudo beatdown after gets a little tedious. We have two short and chubby refs in the ring, one indifferent and one a rudo. I know if I were in the crowd watching a match with Santo, Mysterio, Cerebro (in the states, so wearing his all time great mask), Crazy, I'd personally be interested in some spots where a referee is front and center. It's arguably the worst trope in any style of wrestling. But the home stretch is a solid burst of lightning, with Crazy taking a great bump to the floor off a Mysterio headscissors, Santo hitting his rolling senton off the top (and weirdly barely getting a reaction for a dive onto Cerebro that sends both of them to the guardrail), Yakuza takes a lazy bump to the floor but Discovery hits a nice flip dive onto him (which Yakuza doesn't really catch, moreso lets Discovery bounce off him onto the floor), and then the crowd of course explodes for the 619. Santo was super engaging throughout, really active from the apron, not going through any motions (I thought it was cool when his guys were on offense that Santo was always watching the loose members of the rudo side). But out of all the available 2017 Santo this one was the on paper champ, and didn't really live up to that billing.

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Silver King vs. Alberto el Patron MDA 10/1/17

ER: You might have guessed, but this would have been much better had it been a singles with either of those two opposite Santo, as this had too many moments of three guys in the ring where one guy is just in the way. The money match here is Santo/King, and it's not really that Patron is bad, more that the match would have worked far better as a singles and he's clearly the odd man out. Silver King works the match as a kind of upsetter, like LA Park or Rush, first guy to go looking for weapons, first guy to go for ball shots, just trying to cause chaos. He also lands stiff and takes big bumps, so I'm all for it. Santo works all of his majestic spots off these two, hitting a headscissor and flipping armdrag on King, vaulting off King to hit a dropkick on Patron, and late in the match hitting his rolling senton into tope past the ringpost. Is there a man with a crazier "signature spot" that he's executing into his 50s? Santo is great when a match turns into a brawl, as he has awesome shots and takes Lawleresque bumps into furniture and metal. He even moves a lot like Lawler as he bumps, so seeing Silver King throw him hard into a chair is gonna look great. King comes out with a couple full containers of empty beer bottles and bounces one off Santo, a mere foot away from a man holding his infant. King smacks Santo around with a bottle, then jabs the ref with it, and later blasts Patron with a serving tray.  Finish felt like a good brawl finish, with King bringing in a super heavy looking container of empties (and if it wasn't actually heavy, let's credit Silver King with his John Cena-like ability to make things appear heavier than they are) and looks like he's about to crush Santo's head with it, but Patron throws beer in his face to allow Santo to lock on la caballo. This was very clipped, although I don't think we missed anything, and probably just helped with flow. The performance of Santo and King certainly made me excited for the following tag.

El Hijo Del Santo/Garza Jr. vs. Silver King/Silver King Jr. Auditorio Municipal 11/17/17

ER: This starts out feeling like it's going to be really good, until the back half of this gets plunged into the murky waters of the worst lucha tropes. This started fine, with Santo squaring off against King Jr. and working through some Santo-y mat spots, and then King Sr. and Garza squared off with Garza doing a lot of mincy movements and teasing all the ladies by showing skin, a flash of an ab here and a flash of a left buttock there, all culminating in him missing a big avalanche to get hung up butt up on the top rope, allowing Silver King to expose full butt. The squeals mean it's working. Garza does fully seem all the way into Buddy Landel no kneepads work, but shtick works fine when used properly. There's a FANTASTIC spot where King Jr. gets a cheap shot in on Santo, and King Sr. cheapshots King Jr. to tell him to knock off the cheapshots. Brilliantly timed. Santo comes in and rips off a bunch of classics, big flying headbutt off the top, some victory rolls, big flipping armdrag, a couple nice alley oop headscissors, stuff that looked like good Santo. This didn't appear to be that big of a gymnasium crowd, but Santo is clearly still a guy who busts ass no matter the crowd. And then everything goes to absolute hell in the tercera. The referee turns on Santo for some stupid ass lucha reason and starts putting the boots to him with the Kings. Then Garza also turns on Santo but keeps avoiding taking bumps so he's just a guy who turned and then ran around the ring taunting all match. If I was Silver King Jr. and was paid less than Garza for this match, I'd be pissed. Garza worked this match the way a guy would work if he had found out just before the match that he wouldn't be paid. But then even though Garza turns on Santo, King Jr. still treats him as an enemy and keeps trying to attack him. Maybe King Jr. really *was* pissed about Buddy Garza goofing off the whole match. It was just really weird that Garza wasn't trying to harm the King Family, and was trying to lie down for pins, but King Jr. kept going after him like they were in a fight. None of this made any sense. Santo does still manage to hit his rolling senton and tope past the ringpost into King Jr., but we get nothing but fast count cheating, Santo eating a huge kick to the balls for the finish, and just a final 10 minutes that nobody could possibly be happy with. The one saving grace in the last 10 minutes was Santo still breaking out big spots when allowed, and him finally slapping both Garza and the ref. The fans responded to Santo finally snapping as a big deal, and the ref took a great floppy oversell off Santo's punch. But damn, guys, knock off the horseplop.

El Hijo Del Santo/Santo Jr./Hijo de Black Silver vs. La Mascara/Bandido/Black Silver Jr. LLA 11/19/17

ER: This was nice condensed fun in a neat outdoor soccer field venue. Mascara works as a decent rudo stooge throughout, Bandido is a rudo with excellent fringe on his tights so I am beholden by law to give him positive marks, and apparently the sons of Black Silver are having a row. Black Silver Jr. appears to be the better of the brothers (and sadly passed away in a car accident a few months after this match), and we get more of a look at Santo Jr. Santo Jr. is not that good, but he can blend into a trios well enough and hits a nice dive off the top to the floor late in the match. But you have to sit through sloppy headscissors to get there. He bumps well enough and it's kind of weird because sometimes he tries to almost mimic his father's movement. He can't pull off the execution, but he sometimes moves like him and it's kind of weird. Santo obviously looked like a star here, with a big rana and high knees and slick headscissors, brawling through the crowd with Mascara, and hitting his rolling senton/tope combo. Seriously, Hogan has severe hip pain from doing the legdrop too long, Santo's still out here diving onto soccer fields. Match was a nice crowd pleaser.

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And I Can't Leave the Ground/Can't Find a Place to Put Cassandro Down

Cassandro & Discovery vs. Skayde & X-Fly, 3/26/16 - FUN

This was a tough one to pin down. Because the whole match has guys that are just hard to pin down. X-Fly is the biggest sticking point as he is simultaneously a lazy slug, and a guy who does little things that a lot of luchadors don't do. He's a super tub now and on fancam he looks like 10 years post retirement Chigusa Nagayo. And when he wants to tub around the room, he really tubs around the room. Sometimes he takes forever to do stuff. He'll just go wandering off during a match, literally just slowly walking around the building. He'll grab a table, start to walk back, get tired, have somebody else walk with the table. Some sequences he would do so sluggishly, go so absently through the motions, that he would look like a guy who wanted to sorta kinda get a feel for the ring and do a practice walk through his match before fans filed into the building. Except the fans were in the building and it was the actual match. And then X-Fly would turn around and start a spirited strike exchange, lacing into Cassandro and doing weird little things, like when he smacked him downward across the bridge of his nose, as Moe would do to Curly. And he had moments of getting out right in the middle of the crowd, taking pratfall bumps into them, making in jokes with random fans, really most of the time X-Fly feels like a guy working a Memphis studio match. And then he still manages to hit a tubby swanton and you're like "maybe X-Fly is actually the best..." but then he wanders off to find a table for 4 minutes and you snap back to reality. Skayde was also somewhat lazier than I've seen him. He has a more pronounced belly now, but don't we all. Usually things with Skayde are more fluid, and while things he did still looked good, there were so many moments of standing around, or just walking into position for something. Lazy. Too lazy.

Discovery was a pleasant...ahem...discovery in this one, as he tried gamely to go along with everything and make it work. His two head first rolling bumps into rows of chairs were highlights, but he also tried mixing it up gamely with Skayde and X-Fly, doing some nice armdrag sequences with Skayde in particular. Our man of the hour looked as great as he ever does. Cassandro looks to be in as good a shape as he was in when we saw the most of him, in 2007-2008. He's lean and mean and brings a passion and intensity that the match was otherwise lacking. Him flying recklessly into X-Fly into the corner to unload punches, hitting his gorgeous dive with a flip at the end (which Sasha Banks accidentally stole @ Wrestlemania, only difference is Cassandro does this on purpose), doing a Finlay roll on Skayde onto a table, selling a shock X-Fly smooch; the match needed his person and the fans treated him like a superstar. He and Skayde work some nice armdrags down the stretch, and his missile dropkick still lands with more impact than anybody's. It would have been nice to see X-Fly and Skayde actually show up for a whole match, but I can't ever complain about new Cassandro footage popping up.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE CASSANDRO

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