Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Idolo vs Exterminador 1: Idolo! Exterminador! Sandkan! Emperador!

Idolo/Exterminador vs Sandokan/Emperador (June 1988)

MD: I have to admit that I've spent a couple of months just wondering what the big deal with Idolo was. You can read from Graham's history posts that he was up there with Sandokan, if not definitively above him, as the top start of the territory, but we've been seeing a bunch of lukewarm rudo performances where he's outshined by the people he's teaming with again and again. He did carry himself like a star and like someone important, and the fans reacted accordingly, but there was a spark missing. Thankfully, we have a place to try to find it here with the Exterminador feud and this is a great start. This began with me more or less reaffirming my priors albeit with a glint of hope and ended with me starting to see the light (even if it might simply be the light at the end of the tunnel of Idolo's rudo run).

Right from the get go, Exterminador stands out more than Idolo. He brings a kid into the ring before the bell, flips in and out of the ring on tags, has some very fun chain wrestling with Sandokan, takes an atomic drop by spasming through the ropes and all over the floor. Just a lot of charismatic body language as he bumps, feeds, stooges, and batters Sandokan around the ring. Idolo honestly looks pretty good here in shorter exchanges despite it all, with a clear smoothness and familiarity with both Emperador and Sandokan, but he can't help but be overshadowed by a guy wrestling for the back row like Exterminador is.

That's especially true once the story of the match kick in and we begin to get the rudo miscommunication spots. They have to hit each other at least eight times and each one seems to matter more than the last. By the middle of the segunda, Exterminador has gone from being apologetic to begging off (which led to a funny moment of him hugging the ref and cheapshotting Sandokan) to trying to prove himself by taking all the offense, to trying to steal shots from Idolo as he got way out of hand. It boils over with an absolutely amazing turn as Sandokan comes back and someone starts interfering for Exterminador and everything begins to break down with the rudos coming to blows and Idolo, with the cheerleading and help from Sandokan and Emperador, starts mauling Exterminador around the ring and ringside area as the fans begin to mob in excitement.

When watching this, I had no idea how long Idolo had been a rudo, but it's obvious he had once been a beloved hero and there's building pressure during this post-match chaos as Sandokan and Emperador have their hands raise and continue to throw Exerminador back into the ring as they egg Idolo on. Throughout it Idolo has stopped caring about them and is solely focused on Exterminador building the suspense more and more until, after clearing the ring once and for all, Idolo and Sandokan embrace and the already wild crowd goes ever more so. I've mentioned before but sometimes with this old footage from a culture not at all our own, this stuff that has never been spoken about in our circles, that isn't part of some "canon" we all know like, for instance, Santito turning rudo, well, it can feel like sneaking into someone else's family gathering. Sometimes you get the sense that this isn't for you, that you don't belong, but here, it's impossible not to feel the elation of the crowd and the excitement of the moment and to share in the universality of pro wrestling at its most emotional. This was a huge, important, iconic moment and we're so fortunate that we've gotten to share in it, just as we're fortnuate that there's a chain match and a mask match to come.

GB: Exterminador would grace Panama roughly the same time as La Parka, with Parka obviously squaring off with Sandokan and Exterminador being the Mexican for Idolo to beat. By all accounts, this is either one or two weeks after the Sandokan/Parka mask match placing it toward the tail end of June 1988. It’s a relatively brief feud, culminating on July 17, but it saw its fair share of violence and hostility. The main matches (this tag, a chain match, and the apuesta) we are lucky to have on tape and will write them up in the coming three weeks.

As Matt eloquently put it, this was a huge cultural moment for Panamanian wrestling. Their hero, El Idolo, would turn tecnico after I believe his final run as a rudo during his peak. Cards on the table, this post was to be a recap of what led up to this moment. The plan was to recap a few questions, most especially: “Why had Idolo turned rudo to begin with?”  “How long had he been rudo?” and “What caused the return to the tecnico side?”  Unfortunately, the trail ran cold on me and I’ve seemingly exhausted every possible avenue. In terms of information, El Idolo is possibly the most written-about wrestlers out of Panama. So much so, in fact, that he has his own website covering his career. Yet, the information is more fanciful. Nothing quite detailed enough to glean.

Panama is an incredibly proud yet protective territory. I've mentioned it before but there's a very insular network going on where even local fans are gatekept in a sense. I do believe a lot of it is due to bad experiences with foreign writers who seemingly used Panama for their own gains, whatever that may be. Sammy de la Guardia has referenced some previous writers as "pirates of history" and Don Medina has taken great exception to what he believes are frauds in wrestling journalism. Those guilty are big names; ones that, if you're a follower of lucha, will have definitely heard of and might have read. It's daunting in that sense as I'm just one man, writing on a blog for the first time. I don't have credentials or authenticity to my name. These posts are my portfolio of evidence to that end. My hopeful key to getting to the fabled historian I keep hearing of but never encountering. All in the bid to share as much as I can of the beauty that is Panamanian lucha. Thus, dear reader, we will need to hold off on the big turn for this week in hopes that I can cast my net wider to those in the know.

Look, if this feud was as simple as just Idolo and Exterminador, I'd feel a bit better in connecting dots that may not be there. After all, Exterminador was just a statistic. Another notch on Idolo's belt. Number 31 of 78 (40 masks, 38 hairs). And although I have a small sense of the background and believe it similar to Idolo’s first tecnico turn (which took place during his feud with Furia Roja where he would take the Colombian’s mask in July 1965), it would be wrong of me to offer my guess work here. Not on something so important such as the reunion of Sandokan and El Idolo.

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

Cirujano de la Muerte vs. Emperador Panamanian Lucha 1988

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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