Found Footage Friday: LYONS~! SCHMIDT~! SUPER ASTRO~! SUPER BOY~! OGAWA~! SAWADA~! FUJITA~!

Billy Red Lyons vs. Hans Schmidt 11/13/59

MD: Schmidt was announced here as a replacement for Dick the Bruiser. We don't have a ton of Lyons footage in his prime and he was quite young here, on the way up. Davis says this was his biggest challenge yet. He was quick though, which seemed to light a fire under Schmidt too. By the five minute mark or so, they were both on their knees slugging it out with each other. Lyons held his own for fifteen minutes or so, but ended up counted out when an over-excited admirer wouldn't let go of him on the outside. Pretty clever count out spot that let Schmidt win while making Lyons look like he really had a shot.

Super Astro/Principe Joel/Jalisco vs. Super Boy/Fobia/Mano Negra Compton Lucha 6/5/95

MD: The primary pairing here was Super Astro vs Mano Negra and while Negra was high energy both in stalling and in his exchanges, the few glimpses of Super Astro vs Super Boy that we got made me wish that was the primary pairing instead. Jalisco stood out too as he had a certan swagger, even posture I would say, that made him stand out. He would take out all of the rudos with the same move and then the ref too for good measure. Super Boy had a great dive at the end (with Jalisco following up with a sort of elbow dropping dive) to set things up for Mano Negra vs Super Astro again. At that point, however, Joel turned heel and it ended as a pretty big rudo beatdown that probably built to some bigger match later on. The turn didn't really take away from the match as it felt like it came right at the end.

PAS: Very fun lucha trios filled with talented professional luchadores. The extra juice was getting to see bits of Super Astro and Super Boy two of the most electric exciting luchadores of all time. I love a fat highflyer and both of these guys were perfect example of melding chub and athleticism. Super Boy hits a crazy flipping senton to end a fall, and Astro is twinkle toed as ever. Finish was a bit of a dog's breakfast, but the stuff preceding it was a blast

Naoya Ogawa/Atsushi Sawada vs. Kazuyuki Fujita/Kendo Kashin IGF 4/11/15

MD: 8 minutes here and it's all action. The Fujita vs Sawada exchanges are great, just that right mix of intensity and flair and headbutts. Sawada really brings the energy whether it's his initial takedown or just scooting around the ring out of the way when Fujita gets the advantage. We don't get a ton of Kashin and Ogawa here, but the contributions are worthwhile, with Kashin trying to kill Sawada on the outside with some cloth around the neck and Ogawa giving in to Sawada's desire to get STO'd by his own partner so that he can hit a ridiculous and serene tandem DDT. I'd happily watch a 10 match Sawada vs Fujita series if such a thing existed.

PAS: This kind of hardhitting quasi-shoot puro stuff is right up my alley.  Fujita is such a rock headed dim bruiser and it is great to watch him bully Sawada and have Sawada fire back. Loved the flurry of strikes in the corner by Sawada, one of the advantages of wrestling Fujita is that you can hit him as hard as you can and it won't faze him a bit. Kashin and Ogawa are smaller players in this match, but Ogawa has such a great arrogant bruiser vibe, that he works great in this match as a foil. Taunting and bullying his partner until he had enough and just disposed of him. 

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New Footage Friday: French Catch, Super Boy, Rollerball,

Le Marquis/Black Shadow vs. Marcello Motta/Angelito French Catch 5/28/85

MD: All I want to talk about is the Marquis and his valet. Obviously, there was some old writ that somehow survived the Terror and Paris Commune that he was able to brandish showing that old landed gentry, of which he was one of the last, are lawfully allowed to utilize their valets in matches without any repercussion. This was some of the most acceptable and enjoyable constant cheating I've ever seen. They made an effort of distracting the ref a bit, including Motta being angry enough to hurt his own partner, but what made this sing was the total immersion. Every single time the Marquis entered or left the ring, the valet held the ropes. Every time the babyfaces got near the corner, he cheated. Every time the Marquis took a shot, he was there to dust him off. Occasionally the random mascot mocked him. It all led perfectly to the big dropkick spot that allowed enough space for the final pin. As for the work itself, it was good though maybe a notch down from some of the earlier French wrestling we've seen (though that still puts it pretty high). I liked all of the nasty side-mares. Angelito was pretty unique in look and movement but it all felt a little loose from him. I suppose the Marquis' act could get old if we had dozens of matches of his, but as this is pretty much all we have, it's gold in my book.

ER: These kind of matches are pure undistilled joy, and I always find myself loving the surroundings as much as the joyful ring work. Every shot of the crowd brings a smile to my face, and also makes me a little sad that this type of crowd is mostly gone. This looked like a crowd of families seeing a Saturday afternoon matinee. There were older couples and elderly couples, mothers there laughing with their children, a grumpy teen who was probably dragged there by a parent and was fighting the good times, and of course a giant blue furry mascot who apparently was just sitting in the crowd. He occasionally smacks Marquis' personal butler and the crowd appears to treat him like they would any other attendee. Everybody is in a sweater or an overcoat, and this seems like a crowd who would eat simple and deliciously prepared peasant food for dinner one night, which then gets turned into a stew the next night with wine, and in the meantime they're going to have a laugh while watching the acrobatic stylings of Angelito. And that's what I did! Angelito and Marquis were highly entertaining, with Marquis almost exclusively being a base for Angelito's breathtaking monkey flips, while being regularly toweled off by his butler. He and Angelito were quite a pair, and I did not get sick of those monkey flips, the way he would approach his opponent normally, then kick his body into the air so that he was nearly vertically upside down, before pendulum whipping downward to catch his feet on Marquis' or Shadow's thighs. They were amazing. He also had some cool counters, my favorite being Marquis catching him in a press slam, and Angelito immediately kicking his leg down to kick off Le Marquis' chest, landing on his feet and uppercutting him as punishment. I loved how Marquis' butler stood on the apron the entire match, and how that built to a big moment of Angelito drilling him with a picture perfect dropkick to knock him off (it should have been a bigger moment, but the butler oddly just sold it as if he had slipped off the apron and was getting back up to save face, not a guy who just had his sternum collapsed by a hard kick). This never veers into overt violence or intensity, it keeps its pace and is pretty to look at, and I am continually fascinated at these glimpses into the wrestling cultures of our worldwide friends.

PAS: I really enjoyed this although it lacked some of the mindblowing otherworldliness of some of the other French Catch. This was pretty formula wrestling match with a fun formula attack. Angeltio and the Marquis are a fun matched pair. With Angelito whipping off cool takedowns and monkey flips and the Marquies bringing his valet and a quality amount of horseshit to everything he does. I could have totally seen this turn into a six-man tag with the Mascot joining the babyface team. This French stuff is such a treat and we clearly need to find a Frenchman to invade the archives and get us more!!

Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones All Star Wrestling 8/20/88

MD: Very cool that we got promos at the start of this, though Jones put Robert Gibson's lazy eye to shame. Rocco's hyperactive offensive bursts reminds me of the young Piper we've seen lately and now I lamented that there was never a scenario where those two could have teamed. This was really high end stuff, but it was almost too much so. They'd wrestled so many times that everything was a counter of a counter of a counter. The crowd was on board because they were familiar with them and it never felt choreographed; in a situation like that, I usually go for it. Here though, it was so metatextual, so over the top in the familiarity that some of the basic and primal stuff didn't entirely make it along for the ride. You ended up getting the blood and the DQ at the end but I felt like Jones had more reason to be angry a decade before. Here, familiarity seemed to breed contempt, not the hatred they needed to make the finish work. That's a nitpick but I still couldn't shake the feeling.

PAS: This didn't have the athleticism of the earlier matches, these guys both clearly had more wear on the tires. This had way more shortcuts then the WOS sport stuff we have from the 70s and 80s and I enjoyed the difference. Rocco tossing water into Jones eyes, removing the turnbuckle pad and Rocco bleeding by the end. Even the finish with the ref getting tossed around separates this from other stuff we have seen. It does feel a little more like two guys irritated with each other, then two guys who hated each other, and this kind of a brawl needed a bit more anger. I did love Jones wasting Rocco with the baseball slide dropkick, which is the moment it felt furious.

Rey Misterio Sr./Ultraman/Piloto Suicida vs Mercurio/Fobia/Super Boy FLL 2/15/95

MD: I came late in life to lucha libre, so obviously, I wasn't tapped into this vein like those who were part of the community twenty years (or more) ago. This, to me, feels like much more of a counter-culture scene than ECW. Maybe that's just hindsight but ECW was just a stylized, dirtied up version of what we always knew. This was something else entirely. At the base of it is just good lucha libre: majestic and valiant and scummy and tricked out, larger than life. They hit their spots cleanly and clearly. The primera exchanges were crisp and engaging. The segunda beatdown did a great job with crowd control, feeling organic instead of forced. There wasn't that moment of climax of a comeback. A lot of it happened between the segunda and tercera with a chairshot on the outside, but the finishing stretch hit all the marks, with a Estrella/Rana combo actually finishing the match instead of being a nearfall, which I'm not sure I've ever actually seen. Ultraman was quizzically over (he might not have been the guy I expected the crowd to go for the most) and he played into it well. How great must it have been to be a local during this period, right? The rest of the country was watching the Dungeon of Doom and Million Dollar Corporation and you got this.

PAS: Superboy is this total 90s cult figure, he would show up every year or so in Michinoku Pro as this short really fat incredibly graceful highflyer. He worked the WCW Lucha pilot which never went anywhere and then kind of faded away. So cool to see him in his So-Cal lucha home. The moment where he was working these incredible primera caida armdrag sequences with Rey Sr. were a true highlight. The opening sections off this were pretty great with all six guys getting a chance to shine. I thought the Segunda and Terecera lacked some of the Primera's focus, it was pretty aimless brawling leading into the Estralla finish of the third fall. The promise of that first fall never really delivered. That is a very lucha libre thing though, you will sometimes get this awesome individual fall in an otherwise pedestrian match, and those glimpses of brilliance are well worth it.

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