Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! COTA~! WAGNER~! SATANICO~! GARZA~! PANTERA~! CARAS~! FIERA~!

Bronco/Máscara Mágica/Pantera vs. Astro Rey Jr./Guerrero De La Muerte/Mocho Cota CMLL 2/23/96

MD: Roy's uploaded a bunch recently and we'll hit some of it. I'm not going to say no to new Mocho Cota, even 1996 Mocho Cota. He's a step slow, but what he does with that step is still great. He'll bump to the floor off a dropkick and then careen towards a little kid, halting at the last moment and menacing him with his missing fingers. What a guy. He also fed into rudo miscommunication as you'd imagine, so they kept things brisk, moving, and fun. According to Rob, this was a couple of weeks before Pantera jumped to AAA. He was matched up with Guerrero here early and looked good the whole way through, especially down the stretch where he got to stand tall at the end with the last pairing, post-dives, hit a great dive of his own, and then come back in to win the thing, which is honestly not a structure you usually see. He also drove the comeback, so he was certainly being featured. Mascara Magica was paired with Cota and they did ok, even if you got the sense that maybe he was still trying to figure it out a bit. You take Pantera and Cota out of this one and it wouldn't be as engaging (even if they did wildly different things) but as is, I enjoyed it.

Los Brazos vs. Negro Casas/Dr Wagner Jr./Rambo CMLL 3/15/96

MD: Apparently Brazo de Plata and Negro Casas really wanted to work with each other on this night, because they put on one hell of a show. Porky's fist was laser focused to Casas' face and it was great. Just the most brutal, mean-spirited, single-minded punches you'll see, no matter if Casas was standing, on the ground, in the ropes. And of course, Casas would just slide back into the ring at full speed only to get walloped again. They had an early exchange too where Casas did a reverse leg sweep and then Porky did the same in return. Great stuff. Porky had his shoulders bandaged and that made him a target overall. They primera had a great bit where the rudos, two at a time, tossed one Brazo after the next off the top rope. Then they tried Porky with all three and got squashed and pinned. Perfect comic build and timing. The segunda had them really hone in on Porky's shoulder, double teaming him and forcing hum to the floor. The remaining Brazos held their own for a bit, but Rambo pulled out an object and bloodied El Brazo and it became an inconclusive mauling. This was great while it lasted though.

ER: You go into this excited to see whatever happens between Super Porky and Negro Casas and then all of the Porky/Casas interactions turn out to be even better than you expected. The whole thing is great but everything that Porky and Casas do - especially to each other - is better than you expect and that means it's all time great. There is one especially great exchange between them that is like extravagant lucha morphing into shootstyle. No, this isn't UWFi, but damn when Porky gets swept and ankle picks Casas on his way down I flipped. Porky aimed carefully guided punches at Casas's face a dozen different times and Casas kept falling for them in bigger and bigger ways. Porky would knock Casas down and lean his weight on him and throw punches from half mount. It all builds to one of the most incredible ways to end a caida, when the rudos press slam El Brazo and Oro off the top turnbuckle. Two men handled them, but all hands were required on deck to press Porky. They all backed him into the corner and Porky started throwing potato shots at everyone, flat footed lefts and rights. Casas gets hit so square that he banana peels all the way to the opposite corner. When all three rudos finally get underneath Porky to slam him, they wind up crushed underneath. 

The segunda shows Porky as one of wrestling's great Targets. Rambo and Casas target his taped up shoulder. Injured Porky is one of my favorite salesmen in wrestling, his movements feel so suddenly real but delivered by the incomparable physique of Porky. He has one of the most sympathetic faces in wrestling (and here he doesn't even cry!) and the way he plops on his butt and kicks his legs while Negro and Rambo and stomping and kicking him is like a giant baby getting stomped out. 

Rambo is always great in matches like this. He's great during bumping for tecnicos (loved him hopping on his back across the ring after a Brazo de Oro quebradora) and then becomes the most violent rudo during the segunda. His wrapped fist shot to Oro was so good it held up in slo motion, and when he gigs El Brazo he really gets the blood flowing. Rambo knows several ways to open a cut, slamming Brazo's face into his boot in the corner as blood gets all over it, then starts kneeing him directly in the cut repeatedly. I wish the DQ had happened in the tercera so we got the full set of falls, but this was great stuff.   

Dos Caras/Héctor Garza/La Fiera vs. Bestia Salvaje/Dr Wagner Jr./Satánico CMLL 4/3/96

MD: The primera here was a super fun two minutes. First Caras and Fiera mowed through Bestia and Satanico with double teams, including a Hart Attack of sorts on Satanico. Then Wagner got the better of them with a flying double clothesline and Garza flew around for him before hitting a clutch roll up. From there, they did one of those multiman submissions where the third guy kneels on the shoulders of the person/people being stretched. You almost never see the tecnicos doing that and Garza paid for his hubris with Wagner pulling him off so he took a nasty bump into the ropes and then got posted, but the tecnicos still took the caida. 

The segunda started with in and out exchanges, with Wagner getting the best of Fiera and then everyone basing for Garza (who had to make frequent comebacks admittedly). They went around with it until Wagner ended up dangling from the ropes on a great bump/stooge spot, before the rudos finally took over. Wagner finished Garza off with both a superplex and a top rope splash, one after the other, doing it all himself (well, Satanico held Garza down at the end, not that it was needed). The beatdown that followed was short and nasty, with Satanico driving his foot into Garza's groin as the other rudos held him and chewing on his fingers. He meandered too close into the tecnico corner and they turned it around for some final exchanges, some rudo miscommunication, and then a triumphant tecnico victory including Wagner walking around forever with Caras on his shoulder holding an armbar before they finally rolled forward. As fun as you'd expect with guys this talented. 

ER: This had a great ramshackle feel to it. Tight rudo team who all had different ways of bumping cool in a large flat CMLL ring. It's a powerhouse rudo team with three workers who were all cool in different ways in 1996. Wagner got to show off his power, Bestia got to show off his speed and his grace while being built like Vincent Pastoricito, Satanico got to show off his cunning and sadistic leadership. But where they're at their best, is coming together to assault sweet young Héctor Garza. I don't know why Garza's magic didn't work in the United States. You watch his work in Mexico before his US run and his tecnico connection to crowds is so obvious, and it's just not there in WCW or WWF. His babyface presence and charisma mostly vanished on US TV. 

He was brought in to both WWF and WCW with plans on making him one of the pushed ones among his niche, but both bailed on him quickly. In WWF he was a two month foreign babyface firebrand, a busted experiment that stumbled so the later-that-year Taka Michinoku foreign babyface firebrand push. He was given the big solo in all the early WCW trios matches but never connected as even a top 5 luchador babyface with any WCW crowds. The charisma always instantly returned in Mexico and it's evident here. Any time the rudos focus on Garza the match becomes laser focused and Important. He is a tecnico muse to each rudo and inspires them to increased punishment. Satanico and Wagner seem like they take joy in assaulting Garza and I think Garza connects the way he does with Mexico crowds because some felt that sadistic joy and either felt he deserved it for being too pretty while other felt he was too pretty to deserve it. Wagner's top rope superplex and Superfly splash on on him was a real highlight, some real Welcome to the Big Leagues moment, and Garza in Mexico was still great at being the victim of those moments several years into his career. 

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Found Footage Friday: KACE~! CRAMMER~! LOS COWBOYS~! HAMADA~! BABE FACE~! INDOMITO~! M-PRO 8-MAN~!

Johnny Kace vs. George Crammer NWA Chicago 1961

MD: I was doing so well with the Monterrey footage too, but I just can't resist going for the matches that people are showing interest in with this old US footage. People were describing this as a Regal vs Finlay archetype and I can sort of see it but it almost comes off as a proto-UWF match in some ways. These are two guys that get very little discussion overall. We have maybe two or three other Kace matches, for instance. The 60s are just a black hole relatively, unfortunately. He was the NWA Midwest Heavyweight Champion here and the title was on the line. 

And this was just fifteen minutes of mean, dogged, pro wrestling. Kace charged right in to start with a top wristlock and worked the nastiest hammerlock you'd see. That was the thing with both wrestlers. They constantly worked every hold on both ends. That could mean constantly torquing a toehold or driving down and in with a hammerlock or trying to get some sort of leverage to escape only to have the opponent topple your bridge with a tiny movement. It was constant shifting, constant pressure, constant selling. Constant motion in a way that made the match feel competitive and ramped up the stakes and consequence for everything that happened.

There was always the sense that each wrestlers was one well placed punch away from a reversal. Kace controlled early but Crammer would take over with some gut punches and a hammerlock of his own. They'd work up to slugging one another and then back down into a hold and back up again. Kace was obviously a mean bastard with a mean mug and Crammer had the fans behind him through ruthlessly and mercilessly giving Kace everything he deserved, making him choke on a poetic taste of his own medicine. There was no semblance of shine/heat/comeback here, just constant pressure creating implicit storytelling. Crammer would eventually shift to the leg but Kace snuck out and hit a few backbreakers for the win. Even though he came off as entirely credible in victory, it still felt more like he survived the challenge by the skin of his teeth than anything else. That's how hard they were going at one another.

Gran Hamada/Silver King/El Texano vs. Dr. Wagner, Jr./Indomito/Babe Face CMLL 1991

MD: Good and heated.. The central pairing was Texano and Indomito. If you're not familiar with Indomito, he was a Black Power in UWA and a Payaso (Coco Amarillo) in AAA. In the middle he was dressed in a powder blue Zardoz type gear with poofy Ronnie Garvin hair. He had a boxing background but wasn't really going to compare to the punches Babe Face and Hamada (a secondary pairing) were throwing at each other. This started with a rudo ambush and he was good at directing traffic and keeping things laser focused on Texano, who I think, ended up bleeding. The tecnicos did an unusually good job at rushing the ring time and again to try to take back over, only to get beaten back. Usually it's all just beatings and churning until the actual comeback. My favorite bit in the primera was right at the end; Wagner and Babe Face were getting the submissions in the ring and Indomito just slammed Texano's head sideways into the board around the ring again and again and again. Truly the violence we need in this world.

Rushing the ring did work at the start of the segunda and we got a nice bloody bit of revenge. Indomito's bleached blonde hair was made for it. Tercera settled down to exchanges and a lot of Silver King/Texano's usual double teams which were all ahead of their time and smooth and effective. Finish was novel. Instead of clearing the ring for the final pairing, Hamada had Babe Face in a submission in the corner. Indomito redirected a charging Texano into the ref and took advantage with a foul. Nice little twist on the theme to cap off a good one. I have nothing to say about Wagner here except for how striking it is how little he stands out for basically the first third of his career considering what he becomes later. He's in the right place at the right time doing the right thing mostly, but it's sure not ever interesting.

Jinsei Shinzaki/Gran Naniwa/Hideki Nishida/Kazuya Yuasa vs. Kintaro Kanemura/Dick Togo/Tomohiro Ishii/Macho Pump Michinoku Pro-Wrestling 8/14/02

MD: Tough fan cam angle for this one as we miss the early crowd brawling and then have the babyface corner right in the center of the shot for a lot of the rest but these characters are so larger than life you're never at a loss for what was going on. They spent the first six minutes or so (once they got back into the ring) beating up on Macho Pump. Nishida lit him up with chops. Naninwa stomped all over him. Shinzaki walked the ropes. As with these big M-Pro tags, the section maybe wore out its welcome a little but really, who doesn't want to see Macho Pump get mauled? The heels take over on Yuasa and Kanemura, unsurprisingly, stands out. We really haven't covered enough of his stuff on the site but it all seems so self-evident. Just a big scummy, scuzzy, agile, charismatic, guy who comes at things from unique angles and who isn't afraid to crash and burn. Things eventually break down to Kanemura vs Shinzaki before cycling into pairings and finally landing, after the ring gets cleared, on Naniwa vs Pump, with Pump hitting or trying to hit all of his Rock offense and Nanina always a half step ahead. Structurally this was probably the proper balance but I probably would have liked it a little more if they had cycled through pairings to start as opposed to just having the faces beat on Macho Pump. I felt like we didn't get enough Togo in this one, for instance. 

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Found Footage Friday: SANTO VS CASAS~! DEATON~! KABUKI~! TINIEBLAS~! WAGNER~! ABBY~! TAUE~! SMOTHERS~!

Hijo del Santo/Tinieblas Jr. vs. Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner Jr. WWO

MD: This is almost certainly Found and not New and there are a couple of probably new videos on the channel but I wanted to watch Santo vs Casas so that's what we're watching. This was 2/3 falls and went closer to 15 as there was a pre-taped interview with Tinieblas after the primera. That's the only Alushe appearance in case you're wondering. The main pairings were Wagner and Tinieblas and Casas and Santo. You would have gotten a much higher floor if things were reversed but a lower ceiling. That meant we got just a bit of plodding Tinieblas matwork and then a lot of Santo vs Casas and some ginger Tinieblas rope running and then more Santo vs Casas. Those exchanges were workmanlike and smooth, nothing out of the norm but the norm is very good and I appreciated them all the more for the contrast. When things broke down for the finish, Tinieblas was trying his best (and he did with the comeback in the tercera too) and he hit an absolutely massive splash off the top (and later a big dive).

The beatdown in the segunda was launched by a Casas foul as the ref was distracted and was solid, with mask pulling building pressure up for Santo to do his thing on the comeback. I liked how in the double leg rollback on Tinieblas to get him to tap, Casas was also flexing the wrist down. There's almost nothing better in wrestling than a heated Santo comeback, and it led a fun finishing stretch where Tinieblas had Casas in a hold, Wagner was working Tinieblas' mask, and Santo was (most efficiently) working Wagner's, all at once. Actual finish was Casas bumping himself into the ropes and falling on his face, with Santo slipping on the caballo lighting-fast. Beautiful stuff. This probably isn't top half for Santo vs Casas matches but just fun for them is pretty great for anyone else.

Abdullah the Butcher/Joel Deaton vs. Great Kabuki/Akira Taue AJPW 10/20/89

MD: As much as we love Taue around here, he was a bit of a late starter relative to his peers. You don't really see what he might become until later into 1990 when he was teaming with Jumbo against the superheavyweight foreigners and even then, you see it more with the feud with Kawada in early 91. Back here in 89, as I've noted before, it would have been far easier to bet on Shunji Takano as the next giant Japanese star. Even Tenryu and Hansen weren't able to pull that fire out of him; quite the opposite. He came out looking more timid when facing them, not less.

Deaton, on the other hand, was a pretty ideal opponent for him and this was probably the best I've ever seen him look in 89. He had size and presence and energy but came off like a poor man's Hansen for the most part. There was still value to that lower down the card or in main event six-mans and he matched up perfectly here with Taue, giving him someone worthwhile that he could still lean on. Kabuki might have taken over on offense, but Taue stood tall, hanging on to a hold through a chinbreaker or cutting him off when he attempted to make it to Abdullah. Whenever Abdullah did get in, however, he shut things down quickly. Even when Taue tried to interfere to help Kabuki, Abby, while not breaking the hold, blocked Taue's shot and took him out with a throat chop. He was able to get a few shots in on him towards the end, but all it took was one missed dropkick for Abby to be able to drop the elbow and end it. I'd call this a good missing link on Taue's road to what he'd become though.

ER: One of the joys of handheld All Japan wrestling is getting to hear two guys having some kind of conversation about Joel Deaton. Perhaps one fan asking who the tall American guy was and the another fan saying "Deaton" several times. I thought Joel Deaton looked great in this match. Deaton's All Japan run was real fortuitous, coming at the end of a long run as a Crockett territory job guy as one half of the Thunderfoots, and then suddenly getting a 5 year mostly full time run as an All Japan mid card gaijin. And  Joel Deaton, for a guy we've barely written about here, seems like a guy we should be seeking out and writing about more. I thought Deaton was much less a Stan Hansen clone and much more someone who Dustin Rhodes would be within a few years. It might sound hyperbolic to say that Joel Deaton was 1993 Dustin Rhodes - I've barely watched and written about Deaton - but watch him in this match and tell me otherwise. 

He's a big guy, standing over Taue before Taue was more lumbering, and he works quick. He's great at setting up offense and has a lot of cool offense of his own. But his bumping and set ups are the highlight: How he runs at Kabuki with a low cutting missed back elbow and clothesline before running even faster throat first into a Kabuki thrust. Kabuki's throat thrusts are one of my favorite wrestling strikes ever and Deaton leans into every one of them and whips his full head of hair back in ways that HHH could never sell. He takes a backdrop as high as Dustin, and if you thought he ran into Kabuki's hand earlier you should see how recklessly fast he runs into a thrust kick in the finishing stretch. Deaton ran into Kabuki's foot so fast and so painfully that it made me want to go through every single handheld Deaton match we have. I'm a Deaton Guy now. 

I watch much less early Taue than I do later Taue but he seemed like a different cool version of Taue already here. I loved when Deaton tried to jawbreaker his way out of a Taue chinlock but Taue just held on. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before and Taue has the lumbering smothering to pull it off. The way he locks in his standing sleeper after and quickly leans back into and over Deaton looked great, forcing his physics onto Deaton. Deaton really looks like he gets under Taue's skin when he rocks him with a huge knife edge while Taue is waiting on the apron, and Taue gets in two hard overhand chops to Deaton's neck before the ref can drag him out of the ring. Deaton is really like a hybrid Taue/Dustin, which is an incredible compliment, but damn when Deaton grabbed a slick ankle pick to keep Taue in the corner while tagging out, and later in the match Taue grabbed one of his own to do the same, I was in love with these two really tall guys taking advantage of the other's long legs. 

I thought everybody looked great, really. This show was taped for TV (and famously had three title changes on it) and these guys worked snug and stiff like they were on a big TV show and not just a Nagoya gymnasium. Kabuki's strikes are like if Great Muta's strikes actually looked good, and him assaulting Abby while Abby was trying to step through the ropes was a highlight of a match filled with them. Also, Abdullah hits his full body shoulderblocks so hard that I can feel them through the handheld from the back row of this gym. He runs over Kabuki so hard it was like every participant - outside of Abby - was fighting to see who could take the most brain-jarring back bump. I don't know if I like any wrestling more than I like All Japan handhelds. I'm not convinced there is such a thing as a bad All Japan handheld match. When we find them we need to destroy them, like Dead tapers shutting down circulation of a show where Jerry nodded off. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Rowdy Red MWA 1996

MD: Best as I can tell, this was a Hair vs. Reputation match where Smothers put his reputation up against Red's hair with a fifteen minute time limit. He had a second who went back to the locker room after the entrance though we'd see him at the end. I can't tell you a single thing about Red contextually, but he played the fired up local babyface pretty well here. Early on Smothers oscillated between going for a quick roll up and stalling, all building to Red getting a near fall on him with a small package of his own.

The heat was a lot of fun with Smothers really bullying Red. He took over by using the ref as a wedge in the corner to sneak in some shots and everything he did looked great. The best of it was maybe this jumping hook kick he did after some of his really nice jabs. When Red got hope spots with punches of his own, it didn't matter how they looked because of how Smothers was selling them. As they got close to the time limit, Smothers couldn't put him away, even after Red missed a legdrop off the top. Eventually, after two mule kick low blows by Red, Smothers' pal came out only to get accidentally clocked by Smothers, leading to a crowd-pleasing roll up win at the last second. Smothers, of course, proclaimed he'd never be coming back on the mic after the match. This probably had something of a low ceiling but it crashed into it at full speed.

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Found Footage Friday: ANGEL AZTECA~! MANO NEGRA~! PANTERITA~! MA 2000~! ARANDU~! GARGOLA~! WAGNER~! BLUE FISH~! ESCOBEDO~! MR. TERROR~!

Angel Azteca/Mano Negra/Panterita del Ring vs. Mascara Ano 2000/Arandu/Sultan Gargola CMLL 1992

MD: We've been covering these more or less chronological on when Roy posted them and I don't always check to see if they've been easily available before. I am, however, skipping Mascara Sagrada/Atlantis/Panterita del Ring vs Negro Casas/Jerry Estrada/MS-1 because it wasn't just available but available with better VQ previously. Ah well. This footage has been a lot of fun to go through overall. Monterrey had a pretty wild feel for most matches and this was no different.

Here, though, the focus wasn't on Panterita but on Angel Azteca and Arandu. Obviously one of the big advantages of this footage has been Panterita/Ephesto/Safari/HsN and really getting a better sense of him in this stage of his career as a local hero, but Arandu has quickly become a favorite too. In some ways he looked like Estrada's bulkier brother, the Gordy to his Buddy, but he loved to bump out of the ring just as much. Whereas most guys would fall to the floor on a dropkick or armdrag, he'd go absolutely sailing through the ropes. On the comeback in the segunda here, we don't see how it happened, but when we cut from the ring to the floor, we just see him sprawled over six chairs. Azteca held his own when it was time to chase Arandu around the ring or what not too and obviously, he's the guy who lawn darted him into the seats, even if we didn't see it.

Everyone else was fine here. Mascara Ano 2000 matched his partners well in green. I probably don't give Sultan Gargano's mask with the turban enough credit but he was perfectly solid from what we can see and a natural partner for Arandu and obviously well-practiced working Panterita. Mano Negra really was just there save for one spot in the tercera where he got to punch everyone enjoyably. Panterita had one great flip off the top into a pin to end the segunda too. Finish was fun with Arandu fouling only to drop to the ground selling himself and somehow conning the refs into letting the rudos win. Judging by the objects flying into the ring after the fact, the fans really hated it in the best way.  

Mongol Chino/Blue Fish/Rey Venus vs. Ausente/Luminoso/Chuy Escobedo CMLL 1991

MD: This was undercard stuff and I can't tell you much about the tecnico side past Escobedo. He looked pretty slick here in his exchanges and crazy as he missed a flip dive off the apron to the floor. What probably made this most interesting was how much of local rudo Blue Fish we got to see. No single move or spot stood out, but he was confident and assertive, always in the right place at the right time. Chino was a solid cheapshot artist and did a really nice plancha over the top. While things ended with Fish and Austene after everyone else cleared out with the dives, there was never a clear central story that I could pick up on. The rudos ambushed early, the tecnicos came back, and things went more even for the tercera, sure, but there wasn't one pairing that seemed to be at the center of everything. Amusingly, rudo-leaning ref Guerrero got wiped out into Chino on the outside and the two were at odds for the rest of the match, only making things easier for the tecnicos. This one wasn't essential but I have a better feel for Blue Fish now at least.

 

Super Punk/Platino/Asterisco vs. Dr. Wagner Jr/Alacran/Mr. Terror CMLL 1991

MD: Luchawiki is not a ton of help here. For Mr. Terror it basically tells us that he exists. For Alacran (the Scorpion), it basically says that he existed and was thought to be poor. The Asterisco noted is a Reynosa guy but the mask checks out. Despite what the on screen graphic says, "Latino" is "Platino," and he's got some great gear and robotic taunting. I'll be honest that I spent the whole match tracking Mr. Terror hoping he'd do something cool and it never quite happens. Really, the interesting thing here is that Asterisco eats a nasty toss into the chairs (something common for this footage, right?) at the end of the comeback in the segunda and gets taken to the back and it becomes 3 on 2 with the rudos having a deficit. They were booked to win too and I don't know if it's because Wagner's the biggest name or what, but they didn't switch it. So you get some fun stuff of Wagner and Terror fighting for their lives to try to keep as much advantage as possible with double teams and fouling and attacking people on the outside when they really should have been in heavy deficit. They definitely didn't come up with any narrative reason why the third guy wasn't turning the tide except for the ref occasionally holding him back. And then they won it after a dive and a caverneria by Terror. Post match, Super Punk blew off an interview because there was no way of talking to the match without looking like a chump.

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Found Footage Friday: FUNK~! SPIKE~! STEEN~! AXE~! WAGNER~! BABE FACE~! BLUE FISH~! DIFUNTO~! ROMO~! ESCOBEDO~!

Terry Funk/Spike Dudley vs. Kevin Steen/Jason Axe 5/17/13

MD: How much do we love Terry Funk around here? We love him so much that almost all of the matches that people posted to pay tribute (handhelds with Bock from Japan, chain matches and streetfights with Doug Gilbert ten years apart, etc.) were things we already had covered. Thankfully, this came down the pipe too. It's clipped with a few minutes of entrances and Terry talking at the end, but what we get is good. Spike looked great early on controlling Axe with chain wrestling. It was basic stuff, but snug and with purpose. Post-clipping it seemed like things broke down to a match inside the ring and one outside, with Steen and Funk brawling around ringside and Spike working from underneath in the ring. I wish we were able to catch more or it than we did including the transition, but what stands out most is the image of Funk and Steen careening towards a door in the back of the room and someone trying to film it all on his phone but unable to keep his focus because he has to throw his hand up in excitement and exhileration at the idea that these guys are brawling with such purpose and energy just a few feet away from him. That instinct to film everything just got shattered by the feeling of the moment and that's the magic of even a 69 year old Terry Funk for you. Finish was feel good like you'd expect. Axe survived an Acid Drop and really planted Spike through a table with a running DVD and Funk finally made it back to the ring, queuing things up for tandem spinning toe holds. What we got here was good, with Steen really reveling in the moment. I bet the whole thing would have been even better.

Sergio Romo Jr./Chuy Escobedo vs. Difunto/Principe Rebelde CMLL 1992

MD: Totally solid undercard lucha. Chuy and Principe Rebelde didn't do a ton for me but Romo and Difunto stood out. Difunto just checks a lot of the boxes for me, a stooging, basing, bruising rudo with a big personality, big selling, big reactions, and some impactful offense. He was matched with Romo. The primera was three exchanges (matwork, rope running, and then things breaking down) and I though the rope running especially stood out. Romo had this cool headstand into an armdrag I hadn't seen much. Escobedo and Principe were fine but they had less time and did less interesting things. It ended with a pretty funny bit where they had the ref pin the rudos and do the count.

They switched partners for the segunda but things quickly shifted to beatdown after an errant Difunto hug. Solid but not too over the top. The comeback almost went there with some crowd brawling but it never really boiled over. There was an absolutely amazing dive through the ropes into a body press by Romo where Difunto's head went cracking into the front row seats. Just a top notch dive. Romo didn't always look special, but he had an extra gear he could tap into occasionally. That's my early impression after a couple of matches at least. This was very much undercard lucha for the sake of lucha but all you need is one or two good hands to make that enjoyable and this was overall.

Dr Wagner Jr/Blue Fish/Babe Face vs. Milo Caballero/Centurion/Monarka CMLL 1992

MD: This was the usual mishmash of local guys and bigger names at various stages of their career that we've been getting. Wagner doesn't jump off the screen for a number of years to come but he was already in his late 20s here. It's still a good match situation for him to be in, I guess. Babe Face had been at it for almost twenty years but he's still a kind of refreshing guy to see in 92. Blue Fish was something of a local legend. He's got a fun mask with a big dolphin type fish on the side and in general was very good at being the right place at the right time and feeding into rudo miscommunication spots.

This had time and not a lot of urgency. It picked up a bit whenever Babe Face and Milo Caballero were in there together. I think the commentators even joked that they were made from the same physical mode, but they matched up well together both with exchanges and just throwing shots. Otherwise, I'd call it a professional match. The rudo beatdown in the segunda was laser-focused. Babe Face stooged here and there and kept things entertaining but for the most part, it was just workmanlike. I'd not mind seeing most of these guys in other matches, but I'd expect them to be in more supporting roles.

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Found Footage Friday: Monterrey Lucha: WAGNER~! ESPANTO~! SOLAR II~! DANTES~! PANTERITA~! JALISCO~! LENADOR~?!

Dr Wagner Jr/Halcon de Oro/Espanto Jr vs. Colosso/Potro/Solar II CMLL 1992

MD: Roy got a lot of uncovered lucha from Monterrey and we'll hit all of it in the weeks to come. Not cherrypicking these means coming in and seeing what there is to see and sometimes that means you get a match that's just sort of a match. That's what we have here. Rudo ambush to start as the tecnicos were getting into the ring one at a time. A short primera beatdown, a segunda beatdown into a comeback, and then some exchanges to start the tercera before the rudos shut things down. This was probably low on the card since we had a dive teased but no actual dive.

I don't know a lot about Colosso or Potro (the latter of which had a "colt" gimmick with a horse on his chest). During the tercera exchanges, Colosso got the most  shine with Espanto basing very well for him. I'd say out of everyone in this one, Espanto looked the best, directing traffic, relishing the beatdown, playing to his partners and the crowd. Said beatdown was very dependent on the ref not allowing the tecnicos to come in to help each other or punch. Wagner already had his flair in making just an elbow to the skull seem more important and took a fun bump out of the ring, but the nature of this was that no one got to show too much of anything.

 

Guerrero Negro/Hombre Bala/Angel Blanco Jr vs. Apolo Dantes/Panterita del Ring/Jalisco CMLL 1992

MD: This was more like it. It was built around Panterita (Sr, being Ephesto, I think) and Guerrero Negro, with all of the build and payoff you'd want. To be honest, the primera was just there. It was nice to get initial exchanges and everything had time but a lot of this was Dante and Angle Blanco Jr. and it was fine but didn't have a lot of build to it. The bit of we got of Hombre Bala sliding out of the ring over and over on bumps for Jalisco was more fun. Where things shined here, however, was in the beatdown. It was brutal and chaotic as you'd like, with Guerrero Negro battering Panterita around the ring and tossing him repeatedly into the seats and Angel Blanco picing up a row of chairs to crush Dantes with them before punching him in the head repeatly as he was stuck. Some great visuals there. The comeback had some of the revenge bits you'd like but they really got right to the finish after that, with some dives and a quick tandem pin clearing things for Guerrero and Panterito but having the tecnicos almost immediately cheat to win thereafter.

I like the little bits of character for the stadium, whether it be the commentators complaining about the fans letting their kids' near the ring, the rudos signing things for said kids before the match, the giant Panterita signs, or Dantes having his own cheerleaders (I think at least), not to mention the chaos of wrestlers tossed into chairs or having chairs tossed at them. It was a good atmosphere overall and this match certainly had more meat to it even if I wish a bit less time had been spent in the primera and a bit more in the tercera.


Tony Rodriguez/Lenador vs. Chuy Escobedo/Sergio Romo Jr CMLL 1992

MD: I had no idea what I was going to be getting with this one. Long story short, I got Lenador. What a wild rudo. He was a balding guy with hair ties in strange places who made absent-minded expressions while strutting around the ring. Plus he hit hard and had just whacking flying clotheslines and a storm zero sort of quick pile driver. So that's that guy. Escobedo was solid, still and calm waters that kept the match flowing. Romo tried more things with about a 70% hit rate and the rudos doing their best to bump it as high as possible.

They were pretty compelling in general, between the surreality of whatever Lenador was up to and Rodriguez bumping through the ropes or darting up into the third row or begging off to lure a tecnico in (which led to the announcers complaining that the tecnicos never learned). I can't say this ever felt like it had tremendous stakes (the heat wasn't that hot and the comebacks weren't that exciting) but it kept moving and had a pretty iconic lowcard rudo side. These felt like the sort of El Batallon de la Muerte style local rudos that no one necessarily bought their ticket for but that entertained the crowd each and every week during the first match. Hopefully more Lenador shows up because I want to see more of that guy.

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Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! LA OLA BLANCA~! NEGRO CASAS~! COTA~! BRAZOS AGAIN ~! ULTIMO~! CASAS AGAIN~!

Los Brazos vs. Hijo Del Gladiador/Gran Markus Jr./Dr. Wagner Jr. CMLL 3/22/94

MD: Long title match, which meant a lot of it was wrestled clean. You'd still get Porky butt bumps or whatever, but they kept the shtick to the tercera for the most part. The wrestling was good too. Brazo de Oro and Gladiador had a great exchange in the segunda, for instance. Actually, Gladiador ate a bunch of arm-based control in the primera too. I always like Talisman matches when they pop up but his 90s work jumps out less for me. He was very good here though. The whole rudo side was. Markus brought the size and while Wagner wasn't fully developed yet, he still had that ability to pause and draw the crowd to him. Porky had a striking tope to end the primera and had the crowd more than a little behind him towards the end when they dropped the pageantry of title match lucha and let things devolve into fake heart attacks and what have you. Still, this was a pretty good showing all around and highlighted the Brazos' range.

PAS: I am a huge fan of the Porky heart attack spot, just an all time classic bit of pro-wrestling bullshit. This was an all timer version of that, with the rudos stomping him on the chest only to fall victim to a sneaky inside cradle. The crowd just exploded and leaped to their feet. There was lots of great stuff leading up to that too. Oro is a great technician and is tremendous at filling the early parts of the match leading up to the huge Porky moments. Brazos are so good at traditional trios wrestling, it isn't a style which we see much of anymore, and it is fun to see a new version of it pop up.

ER: This was great, a full match that took its time to build to actual real drama. Los Brazos and this version of the Menudo-like Nueva Ola Blanca had really great chemistry. Every single pairing in this match had rockstar moments. Ola Blanca shifted really well between generous rudo bases making Los Brazos look like aces, to vicious bullies who could swarm and dismantle. Brazos are an easy team to showcase and they all have enough material to fill long singles matches and they're smart about fitting their material into trios work. They're incredible. Oro has some really fast reversal and mirror exchanges, but with strong physics and use of speed. They peak the primera with the likely spot of the match, a huge Porky tope that knocks Markus to the back of Coliseo. Imagine the bravery it takes to stand firm in the face of a 1994 Super Porky tope. I love the years long Brazos/Markus feud, it's nothing but big boy classics, so anytime you get more of that story it's pure joy. This was some of El Brazo's finest work, flawless turnbuckle running armdrags and a great European style headscissors, aggressive baseball slide going after Wagner on the floor and some really fast exchanges. He could really go but for understandable reasons doesn't get the same hype as his brothers. There were also some really big bumps on a pretty unforgiving mat. Porky missed a big back splash at one point and it looked like he just did a full force senton to a sidewalk. I thought the heart attack stuff was some incredible pro wrestling, real drama that got the crowd deeply invested. 

Porky got to show off why he's such a mega star, showing off his athleticism in a long match, throwing out cartwheels and splashes and bumps, even showing off his amateur skills with a big delayed Angle Slam. He took some great theatrical bumps, like a fat guy doing a Bill Dundee impression (has Beau James been doing Bill Dundee doing Super Porky this whole time?). Porky took a passionate, sympathetic beatdown that seemed to go on forever, fan support growing as he kept making his sweet little helpless faces. Ola Blanca really put the boots to Porky, and he's holding his heart the entire time, clutching his chest and breathing heavy and hardly noticing the beating. Porky connects like few tecnicos in history, and I love a good match stoppage. It felt really chaotic as the refs call for an actual time out, and the rudos seem real incredulous about time outs suddenly being allowed in wrestling. People crowd around Porky and it adds to the stress of the moment, as the cameras can't get a clear shot of him on the apron being tended to by the doctor. When he insists on continuing and wins with a small package, it's a huge moment. I've seen plenty of mask matches end with less enthusiastic crowd reactions. Men and women alike are on their feet jumping up and down, Porky a slightly shorter Bruno. Off the charts charisma. I love this man. 

Negro Casas vs. Mocha Cota CMLL 3/25/94

MD: Obviously Casas and Cota are two of the most charismatic, interesting, compelling wrestlers ever. Their hair match in fall 94 is just okay due to the one-fall format and the fact that Casas gives Cota the whole thing. This obviously lacks the stakes down the stretch that the hair match has, but it feels superior in a lot of ways. Cota ambushes to start and gets an early pin. Casas comes back with the world's best foul kick out of the corner. It's right in front of the ref but it's so fast and so brazen that the ref has no idea what to even do with it. Casas, trickster god that he is, makes him doubt his own eyes. A fun beating commences, with Casas opening Cota up with a shot to the audience seats. Casas has some fun stuff here, dancing around before he lays in a great punch and taking Cota's hair as they're standing on the apron and just pulling him down face first all the way to the floor. When we get a clear shot of Cota bleeding it's great but the hair, so amazing for apuestas bets, does obscure it at times. They start to really lay it in during the tercera, with Cota getting the better of the scrapping and he parallel opens up Casas on the seats as well. Even without the stakes, Casas sells it like they've been through a war, first out on the floor and then back in the ring, barely beating the 3-count by limply grabbing the rope again and again. They build to a comeback and another foul for the finish but it all fits given who was in there. In some ways, I think this slipping out even made the subsequent hair match better since it provides that bloody bridge that the feud had been previously missing.

PAS: I thought this was awesome, it just built and built and then had just a super violent finish. I loved the nasty fireman's carry throw giving Cota the first fall. Casas's foul to take control in the second fall was about as great as I have ever seen that done, right to the nuts, in the spilt second when the ref turned his head. It is weird to say that a kick to the balls demonstrates how great a wrestler is, but that kick to the balls demonstrated how great Casas was more than any highspot or bit of mat slickness could. Then when it gets violent, it gets super violent. Both guys bleed, Cota smashes Casas' head into the hard Arena Mexico stairs like he was trying to open a piñata that was misbehaving. It isn't a climax of a match, but is about as incredible a middle chapter as you could expect.

ER: These two are magic together. What performers! Casas and Cota are two of the most expressive wrestlers in history and they're great at both being hams without either outworking the other. They kick things (really hard) into gear in the segunda when Casas overcomes a hot Cota primera by kicking him right in the balls as swiftly as I've ever scene someone kick a pair of balls. He sneaks that ball kick in on Cota in the one split second the ref looked away, and it was a real piece of art, like a shoplifter or pickpocket in a French new wave film. Then he gaslights everyone about the ball kick and beats the shit out of Cota. Casas's punches in the segunda were big swinging joyous shots, theatrical with a flashy follow through. Casas had this way of wrestling like a brute, just grabbing guys by the hair (of which Cota had an ample supply) and throwing their face into the mat; but his movements are so beautiful that it's like watching violent Marcel Marceau. His kicks to a kneeling and reeling Cota stung but also played big to back row Arena Mexico, his whole body is doing something.

He hits a stomp from the apron right to Cota's bleeding forehead and it's like he's striking up a big number in The Music Man. Negro Casas at his charismatic peak is a real rush, a real complete performer who knew the exact kind of lucha drama Mexico City wanted to see. He plays this crowd as confidently as any wrestler I've seen, like Flair in the Carolinas. These two know how to fight, and they have a truly great fight while fully recumbent, Cota leaning in with a seated headbutt as Casas throw killer punches to Cota's ear and neck. They really punched it out and it built to Cota beating his ass on the floor, kicking him around ringside and slamming Casas's face into seats. Casas starts bleeding maybe 1/2 as much as Cota, and feigns going into shock at the sight of his own bloody nose. A rudo doing shifty eyed panic at the sight of their own blood is an incredible rudo shtick that someone should steal, even if they wouldn't have the right level of camp as Casas. 

I love when Casas acts like a giant brat, when he's just kicking at Cota to shove him out of the ring, like a teenager throwing a tantrum when her mom bought the wrong prom dress. Casas is throwing these stiff kicks to Cota's torso with this bitchy face, and it's incredible. It all builds to a big punch out, everything thrown in rhythm but out of time, Casas mixing in chops with leg kicks while trying to weather short, perfectly targeted lefts and rights on the chin from Cota. It's a great punch out to finish a fight. This made my night. 

Los Brazos vs. Los Mercenarios CMLL 7/9/94

MD: About as straightforward of a Brazos match as you can get, but still everything the fans wanted, save for maybe a more elaborate and definitive finishing stretch. The crowd wanted nothing more in the world than to see Porky in the ring and to get to cheer and chant for him. The primera had a few comedy spots and ended with one of the biggest Porky splashes off the top I've ever seen, on all three rudos. The segunda was a fairly straightforward beatdown. There was a little bit of blood and not a lot of motion, but with a crowd this hot, you didn't need to do much but stand Porky in the middle of the ring and dropkick him off the top repeatedly. I really liked the double clothesline Hart Attack that Los Mercanarios used since you don't see that sort of thing too often, even in lucha trios. The comeback was straightforward and heated and led to some trios spots before everything broke down on the outside and the match was thrown out. There were most match promos and the Brazos standing strong but it probably could have used a few more elaborate comedy spots either upfront or at the end. Otherwise, it was a definite crowd pleaser.

ER: Oh to be in the crowd for a Los Brazos match. I love when we get Brazos US footage, you really get to see how far Porky's local celebrity status extends. He was a marquee name on this show, a name this crowd all knew in advance, the man getting the chants all through the match. I don't know who any of Los Mercenarios are, but they worked really well within Los Brazos style. They all knew their sequences and knew when to play into the comedy, but always worked the comedy seriously. I loved a spot where one of them was trying to Irish whip Porky and Porky kept holding onto the top rope; the Mercenary was really yanking on Porky's arm to drag him away from the rope, and sincerity makes the humor work its best. In the hot tercera brawl, the shorter stocky Mercenary really beat Porky's ass in the entrance aisle, throwing heavy right hands to knock him down and then rains down with some more. Los Mercenarios try a pretty dangerous missile dropkick while one is holding Porky prone, but he gets scared or something and fucks up the first attempt, and it's kind of a miracle he didn't Gronda his leg. They do it again, he commits to the dropkick, they're a good team. Super Porky hits one of the most spectacular highspots in Brazos history when he hits his big splash at the end of the primera. I hope the Alvarados bought that middle Mercenario extra tortas because that man got absolutely crushed by one of Porky's all time splashes. They give us a lot of momentum shifts, more than I was expecting, and it elevates the match. The action was strong and would shift in believable ways, and by the end I really bought into the fight. But god, imagine hitting a splash like that and the only reason it was documented was because of some guy sitting in the loge seats at Grand Olympic. 

Negro Casas vs. Ultimo Dragon CMLL 7/9/94

MD: I absolutely loved this Casas performance. It might be one of my favorites ever and that's saying something. He and Dragon start it on the mat as they properly should, with Dragon ultimately getting the advantage, with some lightning-quick, explosive twists down onto the leg. Casas eventually has enough and takes advantage of the ref sleeping by launching a clunky foul kick. From there, he doesn't look back, absolutely conducting the crowd to shush and play along. He's all but sweating charisma and personality as he interacts with the ref and with them. Then, after he takes the first fall, he launches a second foul for absolutely no reason, just because he could, and goes even further over the top. Anyone with enough charisma could take this act a decent distance because the crowd is so great, but it's Casas' ability to go and his physicality and emotiveness that makes it all overflow. 

I swear that Dragon's comeback is almost solely due to Casas basking in the interaction he's having with the crowd and getting distracted. But what makes it work, what turns it from a hit into a home run is how he walks right into Dragon's German Suplex and goes over for it so well. He follows it up not by taking ten more moves but instead by using the period between falls to walk out on the absolutely elated crowd. Once he comes back, though, he and Dragon have a great, high-spot laden finishing stretch, with Dragon playing possum with his knee so he can dropkick Casas to the floor, and ultimately getting the best of him in a clear, clean, and hugely entertaining way in the end. Dragon looked really good too throughout most of this, but Casas came off like the biggest, best star in the world here.

PAS: Dragon has a rep as a great worker, which is really undeserved. What he can be is a great passenger, and Casas is a master driver. So with these two matches as examples, was Negro Casas the best wrestler in the world in 1994? What a fucking king he is in this, just conducting the crowd and making every Dragon moment mean so much. 94 Dragon had some stuff, but it is what Casas can do with that stuff that made it special. Imagine how good 1994 Negro Casas vs. 2021 Ninja Mack would have been, or 1994 Casas vs. 2003 Amazing Red (I imagine both those matches would be pretty great right now, Casas is still incredible).  

ER: I've been watching Dragon a lot against lesser opponents lately, and it's a real treat to see him against someone like Casas. Dragon is a guy who is going to match the personality of his opponent, so if his opponent is an iceman with dead eyes you're going to have a heatless move exchange with no consistent story. You put Dragon in with someone like Casas and magically, Dragon has a big personality. In the match up above we got to see Casas sneak in one of the all time great low blows in wrestling history, and here he works two other great spots around low blows, one of which might be just as great. He again plays the game of kick Ultimo low when the ref is distracted, but this time my favorite work was in his foul faking. Fouling and fake fouling was something I really loved when I started getting into lucha, and it's mostly absent in modern lucha. The theatricality around a guy getting hit in the nuts or fervently pretending like you did get hit in the nuts was always wildly entertaining to me, and that's probably because there were real artists like Casas and Satanico who knew how to hit balls and how to pretend their balls were hurt. 

When Casas goes down from a phantom shot the Grand Olympic crowd really turns on him, and the ref knows exactly how to play it, acting like he's going to give Casas the segunda before Ultimo appeals to the crowd and the crowd all stands waving their fingers at Casas. Casas gets up to protest and Ultimo points out that Negro's balls no longer hurt, and Casas does this note perfect "oh yeahhhhhh my balls!" and begins selling them again. I love how Casas looks at the Mexican fans afterward like "man you're gonna support some goof in a mask instead of one of your boys? Come on. We gotta hold ourselves up." The nearfall stretch in the tercera is strong, we get a big Ultimo dive past the ringpost, a Casas powerbomb that feels like it might be it, a snug Ultimo hurricanrana, Casas threatening to walk out, all of it great. Negro Casas getting into it with the LA fans and managing to walk into Ultimo's traps is just hugely entertaining pro wrestling. 

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Andre & Bam Bam Go to UWA

Andre the Giant/Bam Bam Bigelow/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Villano III/Fishman/Canek UWA 4/24/92 - FUN

ER: 40 matches-to-go-Andre wrestling in Mexico must have been some wild stuff to see. Look at how many kids are in the crowd of this UWA show, all getting to see a tecnico team made up of three of the biggest luchador idols of modern lucha history, and on the rudo side you get to see the two - presumably - largest men you had ever seen in your life (with the Headhunters in the next match!). Andre looked like a burnt out 500 lb. Eric Bogosian, but there's so much life when he's in the middle of acting out a story. Here he is, taking a month long Mexico vacation while working a handful of UWA shows, getting real joy out of working comedy spots in Arena Neza. Obviously he stays on the apron for much of this, but he's the best apron worker of all time so that always leads to moments. Here Wagner and Fishman tied up and - as soon as Fishman backed Wagner into the corner - Andre casually chopped Fishman in the back to swing the advantage, like an uncle reaching out to get your nose. Andre smacks Fishman, smiles at Bigelow, then kind of shrugs at the ref. Seeing Andre explaining away cheapshots to a Mexican referee is the closest we ever get to Hiding a Weapon Andre and it's wonderful. He plays that act through the primera, culminating in a spot where he sneaks in a no look cheapshot on Fishman but hits Wagner instead, with Wagner as a rudo selling the chop 4x as much as tecnico Fishman. Andre makes these great apologetic faces to Wagner and explains what he was going for, and it's the best. 

Andre gets into the ring to end the primera, taking out Canek with a couple of lariats, then choking Villano III. The top Mexican stars being smaller than guys Andre typically fought only made him look like more of a giant, able to palm Canek's entire head and drag Villano III around by the neck like a sack of laundry. Andre is setting Villano on the turnbuckles by the neck when Fishman has this tremendous moment of dumb tecnico hubris, decided the best way to stop this giant was by hitting a sunset flip. And so, while Andre chokes Villano III, while Bigelow hits a nice somersault senton on Canek, Fishman climbs to the top rope just to clear Andre on the sunset flip, rolls down Andre's back, and immediately pulls Andre down onto his chest. Andre was huge in 1992, looking bigger this month than in his matches a month prior, and Fishman thought he could just tumble right through. 

The rudos work Canek over more in the segunda, and there's a great moment where he hits the triumphant bodyslam on Bigelow, but the bodyslam proves to me more symbolic than actually damaging, and he causes himself more pain than he causes Bigelow. Andre sets up a few spots where he holds Canek from the apron while Bigelow hits an avalanche, and he does a really nasty full nelson around the top ring rope. Andre was really great at being the stunned giant, letting out a bark when Canek catches him in the stomach and getting knocked into the ropes from a Canek spinning heel kick. Andre's weak stomach was an awesome late career add, a weakness he would use to transition to the big opponent comeback, and he was good enough at selling his stomach that there was always a sense of danger that Andre was about to violently ruin a singlet. In a great twist, Andre gets knocked into and trapped in the ropes, but Bigelow uses the distraction to hit a glorious uppercut between Canek's legs, then grapevines Canek's leg and trapped it, selling like Canek kicked him (Bigelow) so hard in the taint that his foot got stuck. Rudos win straight falls, and I really didn't talk about how much of a blast Bigelow was having. This was the only couple month stretch he ever worked in Mexico, and he knew exactly what to do and looked like he loved doing it. He had a couple smiles during this match that made it look like he was on vacation, and seeing him there makes it pretty easy to imagine this 400 pound fireball gringo as the biggest thing in lucha. 

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New Footage Friday: YAMAMOTO!! ISHIKAWA!! CASAS!! DANDY!! SHOCKER!! GARZA!! FELINO!!

Negro Casas vs. Shocker CMLL 1/27/96

MD: Relatively short match to get Shocker over and set up future matches between them. As such, however, it was pretty effective. Shocker occasionally looked a little aimless when he had to carry the offense over multiple moves. About two-thirds of the time, he was aggressive as he should have been though, especially at the start when he took it to Casas before he even got his jacket off and in the post-match. This didn't have enough Casas control, but what we got was pretty brutal with running stomps and a moment of mask pulling on the second rope that ended with Casas stomping on his head before jumping over him and stomping again. While the end of the primera was just ok, they did a great bit of rope running to give Shocker the win in two falls. No one can run into a hold like the Reinera quite like Casas. It got the job done.

PAS: This was a sprint which had some great little Casas moments, an awesome Shocker tope which knocked Casas basically to the locker room, and a cool quick submission to the end the segunda. Casas was awesome as always, but Shocker seemed a little lost sometimes. He kept trying to go to the top rope, only to decide to hit Casas some more before finally knocking him to the floor to hit the tope, felt like he lost the script a bit. Nothing mindblowing for sure, but any new Casas is welcome Casas.

ER: I'm with Phil that Shocker felt a little lost throughout this one, but I love seeing young fast Shocker and I love seeing any era of Casas. Leather jacket Casas is particularly special, and I always  love how he acts like a dirtbag but will also immediately appeal to the ref for help. Shocker's tope was really fantastic (this is a guy who has an all time great tope, just watch any Shocker match from '96-'99) and the rest of the joy was all from smaller Casas strikes. I love the energy Casas uses to run into a stomp, the theatricality of his movements reminds me of the way Bill Dundee kind of slides into his right hands, rushing up on an opponent and swinging in with a punch. Casas kicks and stomps Shocker around the ring, rips at his mask, and really makes Shocker's reinera look like pro wrestling art. 

El Dandy/Hector Garza/Lizmark vs. Dr Wagner Jr/Emilio Charles Jr/Felino CMLL 1/27/96

MD: Really good trios here. The underlying hatred was between Charles and Dandy, but Wagner and Dandy were the captains, which is actually a very elegant way to keep them apart until later in the match and one that you don't see all that often. Dandy actually worked in and out of headlocks in the primera (paired with Wagner in a lengthy and very good exchange) which is not something you see a ton in random trios matches either. In fact, we got so much Dandy that none of the other pairings really stood out, including the beautiful bridging butterfly suplex he took the primera with. In general, I thought Garza looked good here. He might be the best wrestler in history for people to beat on because of how he was packaged and presented himself both as a tecnico and a rudo. Here he had a fiery comeback too to set up the finishing pairings. When Emilio and Dandy really got going in the tecera it was the usual magic between them. Good stuff all around.

PAS: This was really nifty. We got a long primera caida, with Dandy and Wagner given a long time to stretch out and work mat exchanges with each other. That isn't a matchup I remember seeing very much of, so it was neat to see it get so much time. Sleazebag heel Hector Garza is always going to be the Garza closest to my heart, but he was quite good as a fired up babyface here. He really gets after Wagner in the third fall, ripping his mask and really working intensely. I also loved how Dandy and Charles kept going after each other with Charles constantly running in to to stomp guys and Dandy finally cutting him off with that great Dandy right hand. Felino and Lizmark had smaller roles in the match, but it is always worth seeing Felino's trademark speed in action.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Yujiro Yamamoto 10/28/18

PAS: Yamamoto was the best of the late 00s BattlArts young guys, and he seemingly vanished when BattlArts folded, but he clearly kept working in tiny Japanese indies which don't make tape or Cagematch. I found his YouTube page and he is apparently running a fed called BAP (Battle and Arts Promotion) and this might be from that fed (hopefully we will be getting their DVDs soon). This was as good as it was 10 years before, with both guys landing super slick mat counters and Yamamoto especially throwing some heat. He hits a great body kick which rearranges Ishikawa's internal organs and lands a big knee to the jaw. After some nasty forearm and headbutt exchanges, Yamamoto makes the mistake of dragging Ishikawa to the ground and unsurprisingly the trap was set and Ishikawa was able to get a leglock for the tap. Great stuff. Yamamoto is still really good, and Ishikawa is ageless. 

MD: Great ambience here with a high angle camera shot. It's tricky to see some of the nuance in the holds maybe but you always have a clear view. I wonder about 2018 Yamamoto starting this with a slap. He's a little old for that but they pay it off later with some of the strike exchanges. Yamamoto spends a lot of the match subtly selling his leg, and is excellent at launching his kicks and knees from a position of weakness. Lots of position jockeying as the match rotated with strikes and selling. What you'd expect and a lot of what you'd want out of these two in 2018.

ER: This had a nice low key kind of exhibition feeling to it, and exhibition Ishikawa is someone who I think is still really engaging. Yamamoto's slap at the bell felt like it came from a different match than the one they wound up working. Someone slaps a guy when the ref is running down the rules (with a big shocked reaction from the ref) and I expect someone to make a murder attempt. The match that happened felt a little too good natured, but good natured from guys with these strikes is not something I'd want to be in the middle of. Yamamoto hits a nice kick that knocks Ishikawa off balance into the ropes, and maybe I'm starting to like the idea of Yamamoto slapping Ishikawa to try to get him to do something stupid. I liked the clear high angle view of our camera, but it does feel like we needed more of a ringside angle to see what was happening with the matwork. Ishikawa is someone who does a lot of cool work within a kneebar or single leg struggle, and I really couldn't get a strong feel of that. But Yamamoto's channel will definitely be something to watch, as any weird gymnasium shoot style that exists will need to be documented. 

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New Footage Friday: REY JR.! JUVENTUD! FINLAY! CASAS! SOLAR! PARKA! ATLANTIS! DANNY BOY!

Rey Misterio Jr/Solar/Volador vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Juventud Guerrera/La Parka AAA 10/30/93 - GREAT

MD: What a moment in time this was. Everyone knew what they had in each other here. The vets knew what they had in Rey and Juvi. So much of this match was set up around highlighting them or using them as foils. There are a ton of examples: Parka catching Rey and marching across the ring with him, then Volador catching Juvi. The replay of the leap up 'rana off the top from Rey to Juvi. Fuerza slapping Juvi than being proud when they had him hit the splash across the ring to win the segunda. Obviously, Volador getting down so Rey could jump off his back with his dive onto a Juvi that just ate floor. Rey was the most dynamic entity in the world, with Juvi a game partner who already had working the crowd down. Everyone else more than kept up too. Parka was a rudo but got the chants right from the start. Solar and Fuerza had a great exchange to start the match. The spot where Fuerza hiptossed Volador off the apron and into a perfectly catching Park on the floor was probably the spot of the match and maybe one of the spots of the year. It had a little too much set up but the impact was great. And the character work was just so crisp. Everyone was well-defined, and there was a mini novella within the match between Fuerza and Juvi (With Parka coming out to comfort Fuerza, despite him being in the wrong, and to get them back into it). It's amazing how much they fit into such a short period of time.

PAS: Our boy Roy Lucier is unearthing Lucha TV which hadn't been out there before and found an early Rey Jr. match and a super early Juventud match. That is an all-time great pair and it is so fun to watch them dance their dance. In addition we get Fuerza at peak Fuerza shtick, some cool Solar mat work, a couple of nifty Volador spots and dancing La Parka. I especially loved the Fuerza and Juvi interaction, it has always been one of my favorite parings, the physical comedy between the two is always so great and Fuerza is an all time pantomimer. We got a couple of big time cool spots and just a ton of enjoyable lucha.

ER: This is the kind of match you know you're going to watch the moment you see the lineup. Obviously you are going to watch a match with these six guys, no matter what year it took place. This is one of those lineups where you have no way of knowing which one of them will deliver the hottest performance of the match, just a constant battle of cool wrestlers. Volador was my favorite guy here, but it's a tough choice. I love how tight he throws monkey flips and headscissors, not leaving any kind of space, making it really look like he's the one controlling his opponents' momentum. His monkey flip on Fuerza was textbook, and he played around with a couple of Super Calo like rolling headscissors that look as impressive in 2020 as they did in '93. I really dug him taking a wild Fuerza hiptoss off the apron into Parka, his match climax tope was world class, and his back boost alley oop that tossed Rey into a killer plancha to the floor on Juvy was so damn good. La Parka is a tremendous base for everyone, a guy who could take complicated ranas as good as anyone. Fuerza is a total jerk who might have had the greatest ball kicks in all of Mexico (Satanico would be his primary competition), and he really split Volador's uprights here. Fuerza is such a good mask actor, and it's cool to see he had such in-ring chemistry with Juvy from this early on. I love them as a team and seeing as this is among the earliest matches I've seen with Juventud, it's cool to know that was a thing they had from go. This might not have gotten to the peaks it could have (considering the names involved), but there is zero chance anyone could watch this and have a bad time.

Atlantis/Shocker/Silver King vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Emilio Charles Jr./Negro Casas CMLL 12/29/95

MD: Just good lucha libre. The rudos were out wearing holiday crowns, one of which Shocker stole in the initial melee. They got the beatdown done in the primera, after some initial tecnico advantage and stalling. Talent level was through the roof here and it was almost all action once the segunda kicked in. The combo of Charles and Casas were made to stooge for tecnicos and Wagner based well (especially for Silver King). An underlying story here was Casas vs Shocker (setting up two singles matches in January), with Casas playing coward, especially whenever he got knocked out of the ring. He was always quick to run away and avoid a dive possibility. He also slowed down the tecnicos' comeback momentum by diving across the ring and out of the fray. The payoff here, wasn't a dive but instead the two of them being in the ring for the final moment where Shocker got the best of him. That was set up not by dives but by a chaotic series of wrestlers being pulled out of the ring to prevent the possibility of them, but it was still unique and exciting. The very best part of the match was the end of the segunda, most especially the sheer velocity that Casas soared into La Reinera. Those two Shocker vs Casas matches (1/19 and 1/26) are the only two singles matches between the two of them in the Match Finder, the second being a Welterweight title match. If they're not already out there, I hope they show up.

PAS: This was quality by the numbers lucha, full of guys who are amazingly talented. Casas and Shocker is a fun match up, and I really want to see those singles matches Matt mentioned. I loved how fast Shocker put him in an Atlantida (which is weird with Atlantis right there) and their back and forths were done with such speed and precision. Shocker is part of that lost generation of late 90s luchadors who never lived up to their potential (Black Warrior, Niebla, Lizmark Jr.) but at his best he was electric to watch, and being matched up with a GOAT like Casas is going to be something. I liked the minor key stuff between Wagner and King too, those guys have been working each other since they were toddlers and you can really tell. Nothing that will be remembered a week later, but man was the day by day quality of this stuff incredible.

ER: Just like that AAA 1993 tag up above, this is a match that I'm going to want to watch just seeing the on paper lineup. I love Wagner and Silver King on opposite sides, I've always loved Negro Casas and Shocker matching up in trios, and I love Emilio Charles stooging around Arena Mexico. Wagner had a bunch of funny walk shtick to sell Silver King kicks, Casas and Shocker had the quick sequences I wanted, and I love Charles' opportunistic rudo. This is the kind of high floor match that comes from having nothing but pros in there. Watching these guys all do their thing while not taking a ton of risks is really fun, because you're dealing with some all timer charisma. Negro Casas moves with such snap, watching him throw a hard kick or take a big flipping bump is so precise and so clean, it really makes Shocker look like a star. It's cool seeing Shocker as the smallest guy in a trios. he looked like Shockercito looks now, and moves as quick as him. This was obviously going to be a win, a classic lucha trios to warm the evening.


Fit Finlay vs. Danny Boy Collins ASW 6/1/12 - EPIC

PAS: The Finlay indy run was such a treat, and it is awesome that another match from that run has popped up (Finlay vs. Dave Taylor in an Irish Street Fight is the coolest looking on paper missing match). This was high end Finlay, and worked pretty interestingly. Collins was working a lot like mid 2000s Finlay, landing cheap shots on the break, using the ring as a weapon, working really stiff. Of course Finlay working as a traditional Finlay opponent is pretty perfect and of course delivered as nasty as he got it. Parts of this felt like Regal vs. Finlay which is about as big a compliment as I can give a match.

MD: This one was a bit of a mindtrip. I can see why you'd have Finlay be the face during this run, and obviously the kids were very familiar and into him in that role as shown by the way they celebrated with him at the end, but this was not what I expected on paper, especially for a nostalgia show of sorts. They called upon Collins to play the bad guy and he did with enthusiasm. I thought they could have been a bit more consistent with the rules; it felt a little like lucha on when the ref made Finlay break things relative to Collins, but that was a minor issue in the grand scheme. The best part of Finlay as a face, of course, is that he works just as mean as he would as a heel, and when it was his turn to give back, he was just as stiff as you'd like.

ER: Collins has been showing up fairly frequently on our New Footage Fridays, which makes sense as he's a guy who essentially wrestles like Fit Finlay. This was practically Finlay vs. Finlay, which is the exact kind of match that will be written about by us. This whole thing was a clinic on hard loud bumps and perfect execution on moves that have been kind of washed over. After seeing Collins and Finlay each throw a couple of gorgeous snapmares, the kind where you have a firm grip around your opponent's neck and jaw and give them a throw while you're leading with their head, you realize just how perfunctory most snapmares are in modern wrestling. The snapmare is treated as an afterthought, a thing to do to get from point A to point B, except point B is typically a lousy thigh slap. Here they treat the snapmare as an actual piece of offense, the way it should when you're throwing a man by the neck, and the follow up cravats and chinlocks were highlights on their own. I love how hard they would lean into Irish whips, the loud PONG when Finlay bumped into the ringpost, and Collin's dropping a knee to Finlay's temple that looked so good that I thought "damn Finlay should steal that kneedrop". Finlay's standing Bombs Away is a treat, and it's a constant joy running throughout a match where you can tell they are treating each piece of offense as important. Finlay is going to sell a short uppercut to his bridge as well as he is going to sell being thrown face first onto a table, and when you treat your offense with this kind of respect it just makes everything come off as important. This was a real gem from a months long tour that saw several Finlay gems. And it might be time for us to break Danny Boy Collins reviews away from NFF and into a regular series.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LA PARK

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New Footage Friday: CRYBABY BOB!! SANTO! SUPER PARKA! ! DUSTY! PEDRO! FUJINAMI! INOKI!

Crybaby Bob Corby vs. Sheik Lawrence of Arabia NWA-Los Angeles 2/19/51

MD: Eight minutes of pure entertainment. Corby's definitely my kind of heel: always on, totally committed, and able to be both dangerous and credible with his offense and a complete coward when he loses advantage. He was lightning quick when taking offense, like how he was ready for Lawrence's initial somersault, but then he was just as quick to try to dive behind the ref when the tide turned. And the fans responded accordingly. A group of female fans in the front row throwing jelly beans at a heel because he tried to pull the tights to get a pin is the most 1950s Americana thing possible and a fun counterpoint to all the French Catch we've been seeing lately.

PAS: This was a blast. Corby was a really fun over the top bad guy. I could almost see him as an oafish bank robber in a Keystone Cops short. The fact that he enraged the mothers in the crowd so much that they were chucking jelly beans at him, just incredible stuff. He controlled much of the match with his antics and hard shots, but I liked the little glimpses of Sheik Lawrence we got as well. He seemed really agile, and his Argentinian Backbreaker into a airplane spin into a backslide was a nifty bit of business, someone should jack that finisher.

ER: Loved this look at the LA wrestling scene from a time where my grandpa would have been watching. Crybaby Bob Corby is getting reactions from women in the crowd from the second his name is announced, and it's cool to see a Sheik gimmick as a handsome soft cheeked babyface (as if the next 70 years of wrestling weren't about to happen). This of course is the infamous TE Lawrence, whose pro wrestling career would be made into a real crowd pleaser of a film just a decade later. Lawrence had this fun spinny pirouette bumps off of Crybaby Bob's cheapshot punches, spinning into the mat like he was in a Looney Tunes short. Bob threw several rabbit punches into the back of the Sheik's head, then would run crying and cowering to the ref any time Sheik mounted any kind of comeback. Crybaby had several early variations on Eddie Guerrero's running on his knees to hug his partner at the waist, always trying to get the ref in between he and Lawrence. The ref was a former boxer from the 30s, Cecil Payne. He was billed as 5'5" in his boxing days but he towers over these two like Sterling Hayden, so either those numbers are wrong or Bob and Sheik are 5'2 with good posture. The women of all ages kept getting more loud and upset at Bob's cowardice, and I absolutely adore stuff like that in old pro wrestling. Phil accurately described the awesomeness of Sheik's finish run; some small but strong guy like Lorcan or Gulak could pull that off convincingly and make it work in a match.


Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dusty Rhodes/Pedro Morales NJPW 10/26/79

PAS: Fun opportunity to see two of the most iconic babyfaces in wrestling history work cheap shot heel, and they are pretty great at it. Dusty has such an iconic vibe, and it is cool that we get to see him apply that vibe to evil rather than to good. Match moves along at a nice pace and then really kicks into gear near the end, with Fujinami hitting an awesome bullet tope which sent Pedro flying into chairs. I wonder how many topes Morales took during his career? It can't be a ton, but he took it like a seasoned luchador.

MD: This was a lot of fun. There are only so many heel Dusty matches in existence and while it's a little different when he's a foreigner, he was so good in the role. I don't know if many other heel Pedro matches exist (do any?), and while the first couple of minutes of him being on the wrong end of Fujinami's headlock (which was a strange place for him to be considering he was the one working the shine for most of his career) wasn't exactly dynamic, he seemed to enjoy himself once they started to heel it up. Dusty was great at playing chickenshit and then seizing upon weakness when he saw it. When they did take over, it was by cutting off the ring, making quick tags, frequent double teams, illegal and legal, and goozling there opponent. Once Fujinami made the first hot tag to Inoki, they were just relentless, with the ref admonishing one while the other cheated away and then vice versa. The fans were hugely into this, just a constant buzz, and every time it went to the floor, the beatdown became electric. It had an almost lucha feel with the momentum shifts mattering more than the tags (even rolling hot ones) and with Dusty fouling Inoki from behind once it was obvious he'd taken control to end the first fall. For every cool thing, like Pedro's double stomp or Dusty working over Inoki's stomach through the ropes from the floor, there were certain things that looked iffy like Pedro not making it on a whip or Dusty's hilarious pile driver on the floor, but some of that was counterbalanced by the fact Dusty was doing a pile driver on the floor to get heat, you know? Good look at some legends and a rare look at two of them playing roles that they sparsely played by 79.

ER: I've seen very little heel Dusty, and I'm sure I've never seen any heel Pedro, and I'm pretty sure I'm in love. With the crowd rapturously behind Inoki and an impossibly fired up babyface performance from Fujinami, it was a perfect canvas for two super charismatic babyfaces to show off their heel side. Heel Pedro is a real revelation for me. I've seen enough hot comeback dropkick Pedro, but I've never seen "kick someone directly in the ear" Pedro. Morales was such a thug in this match, it was nuts! He was landing shots on Inoki like Inoki was some young lion, and Dusty was this super cocky opportunist sneaking shots where he could. I loved the spot where Pedro was holding Inoki in a full nelson and trying to let Dusty get in close for a cheap shot, but Inoki keeps kicking his legs out at Dusty, fighting every piece of dirty work. Everything on the floor was really electric, and the Fujinami tope is a real all timer. You can see him building up that head of steam and just letting loose, looked like he flew 12 feet. Matt is right about the outside brawling having a real lucha feel, and that tope just rubber stamped it. I'd love to see how rabid an Arena Mexico crowd would get for a match like this.


El Hijo Del Santo/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Blue Demon Jr./Super Parka Lucha Libre Reynosa 2/2/08

MD: This was quite the spectacle. A couple of clips but nothing too worrisome. Lots of posturing post match after Wagner turns on Santo, but if you're going to have posturing peppered with post match brawling (and even a dive) these are two good guys to do it. Some overachieving here (Super Parka looked really spry for 2008) and the underachieving you'd expect (Blue Demon's offense looked really good; his bumping and selling less so). The star power carried this though. By 2008, Wagner was a victim of his own charisma and he'd ham it up to an extreme extent but that's what the crowd wanted. The crowd brawling when the rudos took over in the segunda looked good but we were missing a chunk of it due to the camera angles. It devolved first to mask pulling and then to lots of miscommunication between partners, including Santo hitting the somersault senton (pre-dive) on Wagner by accident. That led into the finish and the post-match posturing. Worth watching but something like this is just too weighed down by the sheer mass of its combatants to settle on being great.

PAS: There is no wrestler in history that enjoy watching go through his formula as much as I enjoy watching Santo. He pretty much just breaks out his greatest hits during the wrestling portion of this. match, and man do I love those hits, three great dives, his spinning headscissors, just awesome to watch. Pretty bizarre that Wagner and Demon would go on to have the MOTY 11 years after this match, as their exchanges weren't much here. Super Parka brought some brawling and bumping to the table, and the post match was cool. I didn't really buy the turn, they really should have had Santo hitting Wagner lead to the finish or something, because he just shrugs it off and does some two count exchanges before deciding he was pissed off and attacking Santo. I would be excited to see the singles match this sets up, hopefully that is sitting around somewhere too.

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Lucha Worth Watching: 1999 Mr. Niebla

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis/Lizmark Sr. vs. Villano III/Shocker/Mr. Mexico CMLL 8/27/99

ER: I loved this one. This was 9 minutes at most, a full 3 falls, and had so much crammed into it that it felt like they went 20. The rudo team was firing on all cylinders, with Shocker looking like the best wrestler in the world here. This match alone would have amped me up for the Shocker/Niebla mask match, as you had Niebla as this valiant tecnico who at one point glides through the ropes to the floor to go after a baddie, while Shocker does nothing but kick ass. I said we have a bunch of great happenings coming one after the other, everybody here getting their chance to shine. Niebla is a great tecnico, filled with energy, tons of charisma and big movements; Atlantis is right there with him for excitement, and we got a tremendous sneak preview of Atlantis/Villano III with Villano battering him with a quick punch combo; Shocker hits among the best corner clothesline I've seen, running hard into every single tecnico like he was Stan Hansen, and brings out a punch combo of his own; Mr. Mexico has a fun crazy guy energy and does these two really weird blatant prat fall bumps, doing these big swan dives without stumbling or anything. There aren't any dives, and the caidas end all very simply, and the meat of the caidas focused on violent strikes and rudos doing heavy sentons instead of flashy offense. The finish sees the tecnicos locking in la estrella, with Niebla aiming to rana Shocker into the middle of it...except Shocker powerbombs the shit out of Niebla, right into Lizmark at an awful angle. This was a damn efficient use of 9 minutes, total greatest hits collection.


Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Shocker/Mr. Mexico CMLL 9/3/99

ER: Sadly the segunda is clipped out of this one (which had all of the rudo revenge to complement the primera's tecnico rampage), but it's still a primo lineup. This is merely a snack, quick DQ and highspot matches to build to bigger things, but these are all guys I love seeing work in quick environments. Mr. Mexico is a great expressive bumper, Wagner is a true rudo, and Shocker is this great sneak attack artist. That's an awesome combo for a rudo team. Shocker kind of uses Mexico as his human shield, and with his fast bumps and bug eyed expressions Mr. Mexico is a fantastic human shield, meanwhile Shocker is the one cheering it on from the floor and coming in with kicks to the back of the head of downed tecnicos. The tecnicos whip through some great spots, a fantastic quebrada from Niebla, a big Niebla somersault senton off the apron that the camera mostly misses, Santo coming off the top with a cool Hart Attack lariat. Wagner and Santo felt like the big main event elephant in the room, as they went at it the whole time. Wagner dropped Santo early with a big powerslam, and peppers in stiff kicks wherever he can, and the finish run between the two is really cool: Santo goes for the camel clutch and Wagner stands up with Santo on his back, running him backwards into the turnbuckles to loosen him, then plants him with the Wagner driver for the DQ. I loved Negro Casas leaping in and covering Santo's body from further attack, before even thinking about breaking up a pin. Casas understands those personal details and it's the kind of thing that elevates a match like this.

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New Footage Friday: FUCK ITS! SUPER DRAGON! NEGRO CASAS! EL DANDY! SILVER KING! FAMILIA DE TIJUANA! EMILIO CHARLES JR.!

Felino/Emilio Charles Jr./Dr. Wagner Jr./Negro Casas vs. Pantera/Silver King/El Dandy/El Texano CMLL 12/16/95

PAS: This was an elimination 8 man tag with eight all time great wrestlers going out there are just flowing for 30+ minutes. We open with Negro Casas and El Dandy ripping it up on the mat and just go from there. Matches like these are always going to be more about the rhythm then any real story, although I did dig it coming down the Wagner boys. Fun Wagner performance as he was just planting people with powerbombs, and of course Dandy and Casas were both tremendous. As I have said a million times Casas is the master of minutia, little reactions or sells or execution on moves, everything matters and counts, and it is fun to watch him flit in and out of a match with so many other all timers.

MD: It's a 4x4 Cibernetico with some of the best talents of the era. What's not to like? According to the old WON I looked at, this was billed as "for La Copa de altra rendimiento which basically means the Cup of high-class submissions," and Dave was baffled at the pinfall finish. Anyway, it was interesting how this flowed. You didn't get a lot of clear pairings with defined beginnings and endings but instead transitions between one wrestler and the next. Of the pairings we did get, Silver King vs. Negro Casas stood out. I always love the little trip spots they work into their exchanges. Very few dives but lots of great exchanges and big moves. Maybe Casas kicked out of one or two more things than he ought of, especially when there were still enough guys around to allow for interference, but that's a small issue, as was the botch on the Felino elimination. Wagner came out of this looking like a big deal. And yeah, while it's cliché for us to say it, Dandy's punches were sure great.

ER: I love having a collection of these types of matches, the kind of match I can throw on in the background if a friend or two are over and everyone in the room gets their own level of enjoyment out of it based on their individual concentration level. The person concentrating the most gets the benefit of seeing small sequences or individual movements, but someone dicking around on their phone will still look up and see Silver King stomping the hell out of Emilio Charles' knee or Dandy getting Casas out of the way with a breathless magistral. They'll see fast moves done by men they don't know who have large perms. It's worked at such a pace that it's perfectly entertaining for every level of involvement. I thought the major standout here was Texano, looking like the stiffest and most aggressive guy in a match filled with stiff strikes and fast aggressive sequences. Everyone was lighting up everyone, like Emilio Charles throwing skeleton rattling corner clotheslines or Wagner crushing Pantera with a sitout powerbomb. Casas is the perfect kind of glue for a match like this, and Dandy comes off so plucky and punchy. I get why Dandy didn't translate to southern American wrestling crowds, but seeing him in his wheelhouse and basking in his enthusiasm is infectious. He looks like the coolest version of Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born. The first three minutes of this match are just Dandy and Casas tearing through brisk mat sequences and really its all you need. This is the kind of thing you can play through a couple times and notice new stuff each pass.

Super Dragon/Rising Son/Pantera vs. Damian 666/Halloween/Nicho El Millonario Rev Pro 11/30/02 - GREAT

PAS: This was Super Dragon really clearly excited to work a Familia de Tijuana match. Most of Dragon's career was fitting people into his formula, so it was fun to watch him fit into a formula. We get some early lucha comedy, some pratfalls, an awesome somersault rana through the post by Dragon and a killer finish. Really enjoyed Rising Son in this as he was ripping off high difficultly ranas with true pros there available to base for him. The kind of match which must have sent the crowd home on a real lucha high.

MD: Whatever I was doing in the early 00s, it wasn't watching RevPro. I guess I was focused on the East coast scene? I have no idea. That made this pretty fresh for me. The biggest problem was that La Familia de Tijuana was just too over as cool heels, getting more cheers by far, to the point where I was sort of embarrassed for Pantera at one point. They didn't adapt the match for the crowd. That said, everyone seemed to be having fun, especially Damien who was goofing a bit more than usual. They did a lot of groin based offense accordingly. Nicho based beautifully but there's nothing new with that. Super Dragon was in there less than Rising Son but his flipping tope out through the corner to set up the finish was breathtaking. The timing of the dives at the end felt a little off to maximize the moment, but I doubt anyone in that crowd cared.

Nasty Russ vs. T-Money vs. Jay Donaldson vs. Samson Walker NWF 8/15/15

PAS: This was a four-way cage match with our boys the Jollyville Fuck-Its against each other along with two other Kentucky area indy guys. It was a spotfest cage match and the Jollyville boys are guys with huge spots, and Donaldson and Walker were right there. Walker is a big guy, even bigger than T-Money and he does some chucking around including catapulting Donaldson into an ace crusher. We don't get a Nasty Russ cannonball, but we do get a crazy moonsault off the cage into Walker's feet, and several nasty cage bumps including one where he goes forehead first into a steel post. Finish was absolutely psychotic and one of greatest cage finishes I have ever seen. Total blast and a great look at some Segunda Caida favorites earlier in their careers.

MD: If you're going to have four guys in a cage, fatal four-way style, this is a pretty good way to do it. This gave everyone time to shine. When guys had to lay around, it was generally warranted. The characters were well-defined. Walker was comedic yet powerful and explosive. Donaldson had the hype man, the step-up kicks, the attitude, and the opportunism. Russ carried himself like a champ, tenacious, with fighting spirit and an easy charisma, and T-Money was an unquestionable force. The setting felt like an indy lucha match that just happens in a public square, which added to the ambiance. The big spots were sufficiently big (killing your own knees by landing on a moonsault from the top is insane and the finishing stretch worked really well). The gaga at the end (Walker faking an injury in a cage match to get the door open; Donaldson dismantling the ring, a unique use of a wrench to say the least, with the ref going above and beyond to cover for how long it was taking, the friends having victory and the belt between them at the end) was fun, even if you don't usually want gaga in a cage match. You definitely felt the stakes throughout, which is what you want in a match like this.

ER: This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to watch on my lunch break today. A loose cage with four guys willing to die, with a finish so doomed that if I hadn't seen these guys wrestle at a later date I would have just assumed that this did actually end with two of the guys dying. Russ and T-Money have seen a lot of praise from Segunda Caida. Those Boys from Jollyville are really the two that got us into AIW proper, and they're the team that has probably most often been referenced by us as a dream match tag opponent over the past couple years. I loved seeing the ways they acted as a team here, and even more excited for the gigantic moment where they were not together. I am not familiar with Samson or Donaldson, but came away especially impressed with Samson. As Phil said, he's almost like an even bigger version of T-Money, and had insane pop up strength. He shot Donaldson so far into the air a couple times that his body cleared the top of the cage, once for a super high backdrop and once for a fantastic looking cutter; but he also hoisted T-Money up for a sit up powerbomb like it was absolutely nothing at all, jerking him up sky high before bringing him down. I also loved how Samson basically stopped the match with an injury, waited until everyone was otherwise occupied, then dove for the cage door to attempt escape. That feels like Chris Hamrick Cage Match 101 and I love it. Donaldson had one dodgy strike exchange, but did a lot of things I liked. At one point he broke up a move by hitting an enziguiri right into Samson's armpit (intentionally targeted) and hit another enziguiri that really landed. He also ripped apart the ring ropes and strangled Russ with the rope, beating him with a wrench and buckle. Russ always flew into action with his awesome big punch, everyone took big bumps (Russ moonsault into feet was wild), and the finish was spectacular.

Everything about the finish was great, with T-Money about to escape but getting lured back in when Donaldson threatened to brain Russ with a chair. Money gets back in and just destroys Donaldson with a Pounce, sending him flying sideways into the cage. As Money is about to exit, Russ grabs his ankle, and we get a great bit of friendship when Money looks down and says "come on man". He already saved Russ from getting his face rearranged by a chair, and now the guy won't even let him win? Well, he certainly solves that problem, picking Russ up in a bearhug and running him straight through the cage door, sending both crashing to the grass in brutal fashion. T-Money looked like he went straight down, Russ crashed and burned underneath. Money had to leap, holding Russ, over the top rope and through a cage door, so both of their trajectories were beyond fucked. I can't think of many match finishes more spectacular than this one. I would have lost my mind live, then calmed myself down to make sure I didn't witness a death, then lost my mind again.

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