Found Footage Friday: BLACK TERRY~! CEREBROS~! CUBAN ASSASSIN~! GRINGOS~! KANEMOTO~!

Koji Kanemoto vs. Cuban Assassin 11/4/95

MD: We rarely get to highlight what our old pal over at Armstrong Alley posts because it's usually in full episode form, but this absolutely stands out. Kanemoto was in the States for WCW syndi tapings to hype up Starrcade. Both he and Assassin were working these at the start of November but I have no idea where this is or how the booking came to be. There's some of what you'd expect here, Assassin going on the mic pre-match and calling everyone American Dogs and saying that he shook Kanemoto's hand because he wasn't an American Dog or just everyone getting to see Kanemoto do the Tiger Mask headlock to drop toe-hold spot or even the bs double count out finish where Assassin's valet stopped Koji from getting back into the ring. 

But in between all of that stuff, they were really going. Assassin asserted himself in the best ways, just powering Kanemoto over with a shoot-looking belly-to-belly and then dropping headbutts off the turnbuckles. He was more than happy to throw some standing ones too. Kanemoto, in return, would just chop him in the face or throw wild spinning kicks. This was in the old Tampa Sportatorium and these two did not feel at all out of place with whoever might have been destroying some poor jobber for Eddie Graham's amusement. Even in front of this mysterious indy crowd, even when they didn't have to, they came to work.

ER: When we heard a new Kanemoto American indy match had surfaced, America collectively held their breath while we waited to see which of the Jerry Flynn matches it would be. The singles match draw? The tag with Nishimura against Flynn and Dudley Dudley? Has American finally been given the Kanemoto/Dudley Dudley exchanges we've We still don't have the Flynn matches, but this is a fun one in its place. What this match has, that I can almost certainly guarantee the Flynn matches do not have, is a referee wearing a broad shouldered glittering tasseled blouse like he was the ringleader for an off-strip Las Vegas big cat show. Talk all you want about David Manning or Red Shoes trying to steal attention away from the wrestlers, I love a referee wearing the most garish shirt in Florida while working as an otherwise completely normal match. I also love the one commentator who, several times, insists that Ricky Santana is a much better wrestler than David Sierra, refusing to drop the argument after the other commentator said Sierra was the best Cuban wrestler he knew. 

But Cuban Assassin Sierra really did look great here. If a wrestler in 2023 wrestled the way Sierra did here, he'd be one of my current favorites. He was great at taking Kanemoto's strikes and had a lot of nice offense that he wasn't really allowed to do in his WCW role. Give me his short elbowdrop across the throat or his kneedrop springing off the bottom rope or his diving headbutts off the middle buckle and middle rope. Sierra will throw a baseball slide dropkick to set up a missed baseball slide that leads to him getting his ass beat around ringside, taking a nice posting in the process. He throws a powerbomb like Onita and takes a backdrop like a fat guy. 

I didn't really fall in love with Kanemoto until 2001/2002, but here he was a fun junior being held back by his choice in ring gear. If I took a shot every time he adjusted his obnoxious sash belt while he was supposed to be selling, I wouldn't have made it to the end of the match. He felt like a guy working worse versions of Tiger Mask and Muta spots - losing contact during the TM fast spinning drop toehold, overshooting and barely making contact on a moonsault - but looked far better just throwing kicks or elbows, or kneeling on Sierra's head while holding a single leg crab. Just because 1995 Kanemoto isn't as good as 1995 Cuban Assassin doesn't make this any less of a fun oddity, and now we know that David Sierra once hit a piledriver on Koji Kanemoto.

IWRG Retro 17 12/30/23

Miss Gaviota/Dinamic Black vs. Hammer/Eterno 1/22/11

MD: IWRG started doing the Retros a couple of weeks ago and we just figured it out. We'll catch up on the ones we missed later. Hammer here is Danny Casas. The match was best when he and Gaviota, being a very solid exotico, were in there together. They had the better, more competitive matwork, with Dinamic Black and Eterno half a step slower and more going through the motions. I didn't mind Black as a second banana rudo buddy here though. He just had less opportunity to do things as Gaviota got bigger reactions and took bigger, nastier bumps (including off hair throws). It went 3 falls with the rudos taking the first and Eterno getting to show off his big moves (Styles Clash and cross legged fireman's carry driver) in the latter two. Solid undercard stuff with a range of talent and experience overall, but it's the next match that's going to be the draw.

Terribles Cerebros (Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro) vs. Gringos VIP (Hijo Del Diablo/Avisman/Bombero Infernal) 1/22/11 - GREAT

MD: This hit just right. Primera was blink and you'd miss it but you'd miss a hell of a stage dive from Dr. Cerebro. Segunda had some control from Terry and co, fancy while keeping the gang warfare feel, until he edged too close to the wrong corner and got swarmed. That led to a massive beatdown full of Diablo honing in on his wound. The ref called the fall with Terry getting held and kicked over and over again. The tercera had escalating Gringos VIP beatdown, swarming and then having fun with some whips, and then allowing each guy on the other side to valiantly try to come back before stomping him down. They teased a few false comebacks there before Bombero and Avisman missed charges into the corners and ate dives by the Cerebros to set up Diablo and Terry and the savvy finish. I would have enjoyed a bit more coldhearted, bloody revenge from Terry, but a slick win is a revenge of its own, I suppose. Past that, this was pretty much what I wanted it to be.

PAS: This is always a great matchup. The peak of this feud was the year before, with Gringo Loco in the Bombero spot, but Bombero is always welcome. I just love when Black Terry gets into the crowd. He is such a force of nature, throwing chops and headbutts against Avisman to start the match and set up the Cerebro dive. Terry starts the match with a bandage on his head, and that obviously gets ripped off and he starts dripping. We get some brisk brawling lucha after that, and a fun finish. It isn't top level transcendent Terry, but an example of the great stuff he was doing week in and week out. 

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Rifling Through the Trash: The Unfinished Segunda Caida

We here at Segunda Caida all watch a lot of wrestling. We also start a lot of projects. More projects than we can ever possibly finish. We start watching something, write about it, don't finish writing about it, and there it sits. We have about 80 unfinished drafts dating back 4 years. Some of them may get finished some day (IWA-MS show reviews, WAR show reviews), others are kind of pointless to ever finish (old CMLL TV write-ups, reviews of WWE Superstars episodes). Still these write ups all took at least SOME time out of our schedules, and it's only fair that we get SOME use out of them.

Snippets from Eric reviewing an APW show from 3 years ago:

1. OMEGA (w/ DARKNESS!), from Santa Maria, CA (my buddy Sean was from there and he went through a long gothy thing too when he was OMEGA's age, so maybe something is in the water there. Sean says Santa Maria is famous for their tri-tip, and Food & Wine magazine says their wineries have "demonstrated strong progress", and Ozzie Smith lives there! Santa Maria! Check it out!) vs. KIMO starts us off this week. KIMO I've seen live a couple times working an indy wrestler wearing kickpads gimmick. He has a good look but I hasn't really stuck out too much to me the times I've seen him. Let's see if that changes here. Kimo does a whole bunch of emotionless sequences to start, powerslam, STO, really looks like he's counting in his head to keep his time. 12&3 slam 12&3 knee. Jazz, tap, modern, indy wrestling, it can all basically be the same. OMEGA has some decent kicks, Kimo wins with a guillotine DDT deal. Kimo is basically Ricky Romero, but with less randomly generated moves.

2. Levi Shapiro vs. Shane "Wild" West. Never seen West before, but this is indy wrestling and it's good to see a guy named Shane. Every card needs a Shane, as signed by everybody in the American Indy Pro Wrestling Charter of 1999. "A Shane on every card, kickpads on every junior, and a Play of the Day finisher at least twice per card." West actually looks alright, throws a nice dropkick and gets good snap on a leg lariat. Shapiro is decent playing controlling vet, working stiffer than I've seen him work before. The finish is a spot I cannot fucking stand, with West hitting a crossbody and Shapiro rolling through for the pin. The problem is, the roll through NEVER happens with the momentum of the crossbody. It always looks like a guy taking a full crossbody, then just pinning the guy immediately after having just taken a crossbody, If someone can alert me to an instance of this spot actually looking like what it's supposed to be, as opposed to a guy getting crossbodied, then just flipping over and pinning the guy without using the momentum of the roll through, I'd appreciate it. Because the crossbody within kayfabe at this point is just a pointless move, as half the time a guy can take it and just pin you immediately after taking it. I also hate when that happens with ranas off the top. Guy takes a rana, but is supposed to roll through into a sunset flip type move without taking damage. But what always happens is a guy takes a full rana off the top, hits the mat hard, then rolls through. So....

~APW Classics: El Chupacabra vs. Dave Dutra, previously aired on 10/30/10. Let's travel back in time when things were just simpler, way back in October of last year. Acts from yesteryear like Rihanna, Katy Perry, Ke$ha were burning up the charts, The Social Network was making us laugh AND think at the box office, and Americans everywhere were mourning the death of President Gerald R. Ford, 12 years after the fact. Match was JIP, had a decent chop exchange, Chupacabra hit some nice kicks, and it had some nice move reversals. Dutra hits a nice sliding knee and then a neato rolling Northern Lights Suplex. They do some things, Dutra catches a rana and throws him overhead in a reverse powerbomb, meh punch exchange, one guy does a move, the next guy does one, both run the ropes pretty quick, match ends around 7 minutes later. Both guys looked good without having a very good match, if that makes sense. emotion-free moves exhibit, which is what it is and they're enjoyable for what they are.

TomK snippet from a 4 year old IWRG show:

Comando Negro, Hijo Del Signo, Eterno v Daga, Eragon, Freelance

TKG: Again this is another Freelance showcase, and you want to watch this for the second fall where rudos make the mistake of throwing Freelance into the ropes through the third fall of Freelance nuttyness. This is my first time seeing the Comandantes de la Muerte and amusing team with Eterno being amusingly shticky, Comando working more bruising and Hijo Del Signo being technical rudo. Eterno and Daga are guys who’ve paired up in Coacola since at least 2008 (you can watch 7 minute and a half clips of their hair match from 16Nov08 at http://www.youtube.com/user/neotexanomx ). Neither of them are particularly comfortable with the IWRG style yet and they are essentially kept away from working each other in the ring (outside of their elaborate finishers). Eragon walks Eterno through opening technical exchanges and Comando Negro does the deed for Daga, leading to Hijo Del Signo v Freelance fast armdrag and throws section. Hijo Del Signo and Eragon have been paired for so long that it is nice to see them seperated. Eterno sells rudo but is pretty loose and not really clear on when to release his stuff. Daga has similar problems although he feels like a guy who got into wrestling by watching Rob Eckos v Josh Daniels matches, so he seems to care about crispness although not quite pulling it off. But it ends up almost feeling like match build here. Like a Steamboat v Flair match where you start with looser chops and build to first stiff one; here you go from the really loose Eragon v Eterno feeling out technical stuff to the tighter Comando Negro ones to the Hijo Del Singo v Freelance throws/armdrags. I don't think it was intentional but it worked.

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