Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Kendo! Tahur!

Kendo vs El Tahur 5/30/87

MD: Graham will have a better sense of the details, but this felt like a titles match to me, seconds and all, but I see no sign of titles. It was worked more or less how you’d expect something like that to be worked, though. They led off with holds, with Tahur’s stuff simple and solid, satisfyingly so. Kendo was a lot lighter and looser but here it worked. That might have come down to a confidence that smoothed things over or just how well Tahur was selling it (much more than Kendo was selling Tahur’s far grinder holds, actually). Tahur had enough and escalated into bombs, and they were big ones, a thudding press up pancake, an outright over the shoulder rocket launcher facebuster through a power bomb motion, and a huge back body drop, before picking up the submission.

He kept on Kendo in the segunda, and you kept waiting for a big comeback moment (the heartblood of all lucha) that never really came. It was more of a gradual reversal of holds until both men were on solid footing once again and Kendo was able to do all of his shtick, bounding, dancing, keeping Tahur off balance and ultimately rolling him up. I would have liked something more primal but the crowd was into this. The tercera had Tahur take back over after a lure-in handshake and the two of them cycle into a finishing stretch with dropkicks and submission attempts and ultimately the dives, with Kendo’s going fine and Tahur absolutely wiping out on the hard, hard concrete to bring this to a close. Tahur may have lacked an over the top charisma, but he sold and emoted well, was credible on the mat, had bombs, including one or two that was before his time, and wasn’t afraid to kill himself on the finish.

GB: We’re a couple weeks later now and, completely coincidentally, 36 years to the date since this match took place.

Quick confession, I got things wrong in the Barón post that this was the culmination of the feud between Kendo and el Tahur. I hadn’t found anything detailing otherwise until I came across a post from luchador Kuman Chu that this feud spanned out the year. However, Matt definitely got things right in his assumption that this is a title match. Tahur is walking in as the champion and we get a brief moment as the referee holds up the title as more eye grabbing things happen around him. Bad blood had definitely begun heating up in the feud between Kendo and El Tahur but this match was designed to delay that feud a little bit. Whet the appetite of the fans, as you will. Much like the Bunny/Barón match, this match was signed in front of the lucha commission, a rare occurrence for a title match at this point and something that hadn’t happened in quite a number of years. As such, that signing came with extremely strict parameters in terms of offence. Matt had wished things were more primal, and I concur, but this match was designed as its opposite. Both competitors had agreed to wrestle a straight, technical match where the only offence allowed were forearms and instep kicks.

Even though this match might have built better with things less restrictive, you still get the sense of escalation in how Tahur has to escape to his well of punches and stomps when things aren’t going his way. For instance, the tercera opens up with Tahur kicking out Kendo’s knee and walloping him with a punch as he reels in shock. I had wished the referee had played up the rules slightly more to get over this fact but that’s not a qualm we can really lay on Kendo/Tahur. As for the finish, I’m not sure how this match ends but it appears to be from a feigned injury that Tahur suffers on the last dive before the video cuts out. It’s a cheap finish, of course, but it did play into the booking leading up to this.

After arriving in Panama, Kendo had shaken off the idea of betting his mask against el Tahur but he had no choice if he wanted to win Tahur’s championship. The last time out, in 1979, Tahur had taken Kendo’s Campeon de las Americas title and, so, Kendo was looking for revenge. Tahur laid out an ultimatum. If Kendo lost, Tahur would get his mask match. If Kendo won, Tahur would give up a title match to the foreigner. This led to a violent, bloody contest in San Miguelito where Tahur would ultimately lose - not for lack of trying on his manager’s behalf, though: 

The no-finish to our match gave Don Medina a way out to book both stipulations and propel the feud a good few more months, much to the fans content. Seven months later on the 11th of December 1987, Kendo would go on to unmask el Tahur as Rodolfo Linares Escartin, 19 years a luchador.

Tahur, as a kid, would sneak into the gyms and peep through the windows to watch the most famous luchadores of the time training. After being caught one night, he boldly claimed that “one day, you’ll see me in that ring!”. He was right, of course. While not quite reaching the heights of Chamaco Castro or the violence of Sergio Gálvez, el Tahur would go on to have quite an illustrious career as a rudo, spanning multiple decades.

In 1968 working for the promotion El Herrante de Colombia, El Tahur began his career as “La Rata”, donning a black mask with the image of a rat stitched into its right side. For whatever reason, he wasn’t happy with his look and quickly changed out to the gambler gimmick he would come to be known for. The rat now replaced by three playing cards offering stark contrast in colour to the still black mask Tahur fashioned. He now looked the part of a badass and it helped jumpstart his career.

El Tahur would go on to take a few masks and hairs over the years, most notably to us that of Kato Kung Lee in 1980. As difficult as it is to believe, it was said that the match lasted a few hours to reach its culmination but, groggy from exhaustion, El Tahur came out on top.

Interestingly, while he had faced many Mexicans in his time, and even became a great friend to Negro Casas (who had even taken Tahur to Mexico and paid for his arm surgery), we never got to see Tahur outside his homeland.

Sadly, el Tahur passed on the 10th of May 2012, still fondly remembered by promoters, fellow wrestlers and fans.

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Found Footage Friday: MORE BRAZOS IN PANAMA~! IWRG RETRO~! EXTRA EL BRAZO~! BRAZO CIBERNETICO~! DR CEREBRO~! MR NIEBLA~!

El Brazo/Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro vs Gemelos Infernales/El Taur Panama

MD: Very fun to see the usual Panamanian rudos as the heroes here. And they gave you no doubt on who to root for. The Brazos ran out with bats and beat their opponents around the ring for a short primera. They kept it going with the usual nice strikes (Oro with big sweeping shots) and Porky ripped at Taur's mask. A little bit of miscommunication led to a pretty spirited comeback, including Porky getting bloodied up and Taur smashing him him from across the arena with a running chair shot. They ripped the sports uniforms off of the Brazos too. The ref was counting quick for the locals too and things advanced on to Brazos comedy into the tercera. Gemelos did their headbutt thing with Oro stooging all over the place. As always one of them was more the worker and the other was more into the theatrics. We didn't get the more advanced exchanges that the one Gemelo was capable of as things stayed pretty light. Taur stood tall against Porky including a big bear hug that popped the crowd. There was more fun miscommunication and another quick splash. You definitely got a lot of the Brazos act here, but you always kind of wish they led with the fun stuff and escalated to the bloody brawling as opposed to the other way around.

PAS: Man 2023 has been the year of new Brazos matches popping up. This was pretty great with the Brazos cleaning house with baseball bats, and Super Porky bleeding a ton. Top rope Porky splash is one of the most violent moves in wrestling history and he breaks it out here. Structure was a bit wonky like Matt mentioned, but it was still a total blast. Panamanian lucha forever!

IWRG Retro 1/20/23

Paramedico/Colt vs Tigre Metalico/Zonik 2000 IWRG 7/12/2001

MD: Short match in two falls, mainly due to Zonik's arm getting hurt (real or otherwise). Tigre Metalico is, in fact Metalico, and he looked good paried with Paramedico at the start. The second Colt and Zonik came in, however, Colt started bullying him. He was solid in that role. The arm went down early and a lot of the rest of the match was a two-on-one against Tigre. There was a bit of hope on the outside in the segunda but Zonik couldn't do with it, selling the arm as he was, and he tapped bringing it back to two-on-one and a definitive win for the rudos.

El Brazo/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro vs Brazo Cibernetico/Halcon Dorado/Mr. Niebla IWRG 1/17/99

MD: More of an angle than a match. You'd barely know Niebla was in this, for instance. It was all centered around the inner struggle of El Brazo on whether or not he'd punish his brother or even allow his brother to get punished. As angles go, it was a good one, with Brazo really writhing, Halcon Dorado trying to appeal to him and Brazo Cibernetico bleeding all over the place as Cerebro and Bombero got increasingly frustrated at Brazo as he'd fight the other tecnicos but not his brother. To Bombero's credit, he really threw himself around the ring with his dropkicks. He just had a way of tossing his whole body into his offense which really came through in the small bit we had here. Anyway, Brazo decides that blood is thicker than water and saves his bleeding brother, laying down for his opponents. That's when things really pick up though, as Los Oficiales run down to put a beating on the Brazos and Platino running out to make the save (which set up a trios title match the following week).

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New Footage Friday: Panamanian Lucha!!

El Celestial vs. El Taur

MD: 80s Panamanian lucha that popped up. This is one fall. It's announced as a super libre match and more or less plays out like one. The rudos and tecnicos come out of different sides of the gym. There are kids everywhere and they announce that the police will escort them away if they don't get away from the ring. This match is sponsored by a coffee shop apparently. They have a little thing they do to start where they put the back of each other's hand out up against each other before throwing the first strikes, sort of like a handshake. They work some fun spots to start, including a nice legtrap takedown by Celestial, but it really opens up when Celestial wipes out big on a dive and Taur starts to take over on him with shots to the post, mask ripping, and biting, and clubbering, including with some knuckle dusters. Celestial's got the wobbly, arms dangling, full body selling down. The crowd goes up for him when he finally starts to fire back, even if it's broken up a bit by him going after Taur's second. Eventually, the tide really turns with a big back body drop, Celestial getting the object and Taur getting opened up with extended revenge biting and some really big shots that Taur sells like death. After some back and forth, Celestial misses a senton off the second rope and Taur moves him up top to power slam him off the ropes for a pretty good finish. So, point being, there was more familiar here for a first look at Panamanian lucha than alien and the end result was actually pretty good and occasionally hard hitting, with some big bumps, some spectacle, some BS, and some blood.

PAS: This was a fun look at a scene we don't know anything about. I love the look of the Panamanian basketball gym with a wild crowd. The point Karate set up with the touched hands was cool too. This had a local lucha feel to it, neither of these guys had amazing athleticism or execution, but they were willing to hit hard and bleed and that covers a lot of sins. Taur's finishing almost jackhammer thing was cool too. Nothing that blows your mind, but feels like a main even which would be a great time out on the town.

Gemelos Infernales 1 y 2 vs. Gavilán de oro y La Cobra

MD: This was something. It was definitely imaginative. Some things familiar and some things not. They had a lot of stuff. That's what I'm trying to say. Body 'ranas, slingshot suplexes, all sorts of headbutts, a double pick up where they dropped a tecnico out of the ring, a kneeling bulldog, an armdrag out of a slingshot attempt. These French Catch style powerbomb flips. So many assisted butt drops where one guy would hold the other in position. Occasionally they'd do a more polished sequence and when they did, it looked good, but it was just as likely that they'd get up and go down off the top a couple of times before missing a flipping senton or something. I mean, they looked pretty good in there, they did, but occasionally, I'm not quite sure what they were going for. It was all pretty wild, from the rudo mauling before the match to the kids all running around as things spilled out to the floor towards the end. Overall, Gemelos Infernales I and II seemed to have a pretty solid rudo act, even if it's one that painted outside the lines we're used to at times.

Puma y Lobo Negro vs. Estrella Blanca y Antorcha II

MD: This went about ten minutes before getting kind of weird. It was more straightforward than the other tag at least. The rudos beat down. The tecnicos came back with slick moves. There was a unique bit at the beginning where one tecnico seemed to try to armdrag the other to give him more momentum and some of the reactions to body blocks were a little off, but in general it was what I was used to. Then towards the stretch, Estralla Blanca launched a bizarre step over into a neckbreaking cutter thing, followed up by this falling backwackwards headclap thing I've never seen only to eat a low blow. The finish had a pretty cool off the ropes German by Puma. I think what I've learned from this is that I'd be happy to watch more random decades old Panamanian tags. Pre-match, they begged the parents to stop their kids' insanity of swarming the ring. Post-match the rudos got a tiny trophy and gloated about it.

Chamaco Castro vs. Tiburon Negro

MD: This one had more of a Puerto Rico vibe to me. Castro was a Welterweight champ and Tiburon had a fun mask with sharks on either side where the mouths of the sharks were the eyeholes. The first few minutes were fairly well structured with Castro coming out with a blackjack in a towel and causing a lot of damage with that until Tiburon contained him and worked over the arm til he could get it, but as the match went on, more weapons kept getting introduced, that white knuckle duster, these crowd control sticks that the people guarding the ring used (?) and who knows what else. It all became fairly formless as they punished one another on the way to a ten minute draw. The post match where they just teed off on one another with punches was fun though.

Gemelo Infernal III vs., El Barón

MD: I can't say I'm entirely sure what to make of this one. These guys were smaller and went faster, to the point of that fine patina of sloppiness where you're not sure if something is a counter or just completely and wildly off. Baron had a mask with some Fantasma trappings and was the tecnico. Gemelo Infernal III came off as the lesser, younger brother Gemelo Infernal. Some of the specific takeovers were fairly tricked out and Gemelo Infernal III took some crazy bumps over the top, including one where he flipped over after hitting the floor to almost take two bumps. Gemelo Infernal II ends up interfering to cause the DQ and El Chino (another guy with a blue mask) comes in to show us that Gemelo Infernal II has pretty good headbutts, even though we can't quite say the same for III. This definitely had more spots, even if they weren't exactly pretty, and the post match brawl was short but wild with kids running around everywhere.

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