Found Footage Friday: BOCK~! HEENAN~! SD MARK II~! CMLL 4 vs 3~! DUSTY~! DUSTIN~! CODY~!

Nick Bockwinkel/Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne/Super Destroyer Mark II AWA 10/3/80

MD: A recent find from a Wrestling Playlists disc buy. You know the deal. Follow along with the work. This was a blast. Perfect pro wrestling. Destroyer is Slaughter of course. Heenan and Bockwinkel make a big stink out of it to start. This was supposed to be a Loser-Wears-the-Weasel Suit match and they refuse to wrestle if that's the stip. Therefore, they will be heavily fined or suspended but the local promoter says that the match will still take place for the fans. 

Heenan is great here as you would imagine, but he spends a lot of this on the apron or getting cheapshots in with one big moment of comeuppance in the middle and another at the end. It's really all on Bockwinkel who stooges all over the place. Because he doesn't have a competent partner, he's even further behind the eightball and he absolutely wrestles that way, getting knocked around the ring, keeling over after shots, getting abused by both wrestlers. They have a few moments of heat where they're able to get over either by Gagne missing a dropkick or Bockwinkel getting Destroyer in the eyes and following up with a King of the Mountain but it's never for long. Gagne has a great hot tag in as he hits his dropkicks with the second into a nice upkick right onto a charging Bock. 

Finish is Heenan loading up his broken arm and nailing Destroyer from behind so Bockwinkel can pin him. Post-match he demands the weasel suit to put on Gagne because they won but the babyfaces get the better of them and slip it on him. Nice bit here as Destroyer goes to Bockwinkel who is all tangled in the corner and  forcibly shakes his hand before they leave. Post match, Bockwinkel gets the weasel suit off of Heenan and starts beating it up. Just a great bit of emotional vulnerability to send the fans home happy by someone who is usually so buttoned up. 

ER: What a perfect vibe. I think I need to go through a real AWA phase. The vibes don't get much better than this. Heenan and Bockwinkel are a perfect team, Greg Gagne is a guy who is way underrated and undervalued as a babyface, Slaughter is legitimately one of the hardest working big men of all time. The Peg never felt hotter. Everyone did everything I loved seeing them do in this match. Heel Bockwinkel is some incredible stuff. Heel Bockwinkel feels like Billy Robinson crossed with Ric Flair. Heenan is like Buddy Roberts crossed with Tully Blanchard. Everyone throws strikes here that are perfect for who they are. Heenan's 3/4 arm slot attacks with his cast looked like Gagne should have been left bruised. Heenan looked like he should have been scared of Slaughter and fought him accordingly. Bockwinkel looked like he really wanted to snap Greg's neck over the top rope. 

Heenan's Race bump was one of the most incredible versions of that spot. Heenan had this amazing knack for "holding on". Race would tumble dangerously to the floor on his. When I think of any great over the top bump it's always accompanied by "to the floor". But Heenan had this way of hanging onto bumps that made them feel even more dangerous than if he had let go and flown to the floor. It feels like he's body is being torn in multiple directions. I wonder how many weasel suits there were. He's the only wrestler in history to get pulled into a fur suit to rabid reaction for well over a decade. It's impossible to not love Bobby when he's losing his mind in his Where the Wild Things Are fur suit. The zipper always gets stuck, but this time we get to experience the joy of Nick Bockwinkel being flustered while he's trying to get Bobby out of the suit. We have that now. 

Gigante Silva/Atlantis/Tinieblas Jr. vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Violencia CMLL 09/05/00

MD: Another that Charles salvaged from old discs. I'm not sure I've ever heard of CMLL doing a 4-on-3 match like this but here we go. Pierroth and Silva were the captains and Pierroth had a ton of heat with the crowd,  especially the Arena Coliseo tecnico cheering section which was loud and rowdy and chanting for Mexico the whole way through. The rudos swarmed Atlantis to start staying on him and then Tinieblas pinballing them from one to the other. Once Tinieblas went out they did something I'm not sure I've ever seen before; they pulled Atlantis back in so that Silva couldn't come in. They were even cutting off the ring.

This all led to a huge tug of war spot, but with Atlantis' arms being what they were tugging on. All of the rudos and Atlantis went tumbling across the ring, heralding Silva's real entrance to the match. The rudos tried to swarm him but he managed to whip all of them across the ring in a 4 person Irish Whip. Then he hit a corner clothesline and let me tell you, if you told me that he had killed someone in the ring and not Khali, I would totally believe you with how brutal his shots looked. I don't know if the rudos just asked him to go full on or if he didn't know how not to but every strike was grisly.

The comedy kept coming as Atlantis and Tinieblas lured them into a bunch of rudo miscommunication (a lot of which was Markus, who had lost his mask by this point, crushing his own partners), before they built to endless Atlantis and Tinieblas big splashes on all four rudos, before Silva got to finish it off. This was about ten minutes of ringtime in one fall and definitely didn't wear out its welcome. Fun stuff.

Dusty Rhodes/Goldust/Cody Rhodes vs. Dudebusters (Trent Baretta/Curt Hawkins/Caylen Croft) FCW 7/9/10

MD: If the Vault isn't going to give us old Greensboro and Omni, something special like this, something one of a kind, is up there on what I'd want. This was Dusty's last match, teaming with his sons (one a face, one normally a heel), up against the hottest heel act FCW had to offer at the time in the Dudebusters. Baretta and Croft had their act and it was bolstered with Hawkins returning. At the time, I thought they'd all join Ryder (who had spent 2009 coming into his own on ECW) on the main roster to be his muscle and they could have gotten a good midcard (maybe IC title level) act out of all of it. It was not meant to be. 

I love the presentation here. It's one camera with a bunch of interface noise (like a 16 bit line and contrast or whatever and a little golfing guy icon). The Dudebusters come out with white Dusty Sucks Eggs t-shirts. Dusty and family come out to his WWF theme song, cowbell and all. Dustin is Goldust. Cody is Dashing (but no mustache or faceguard yet).

Cody is set to start but Dusty tags in and I absolutely love how the Dudebusters sell for the idea of him, scattering and leaping up to the top rope just because he entered the ring. Obviously the crowd is going to go nuts at the idea of Dusty driving them nuts. They're selling not a punch or a kick but an idea and an ideal and a larger than life presence. That's beautiful pro wrestling and we see so little of it in 2024. Cody felt a little looser than usual in this setting and Dustin was having a blast, including playing off a Dudebusters deal where the kept kissing his cheek by moving so they ended up kissing each other. This was the first time that Cody and Dustin teamed that we know of and they had some fun tandem stuff (like a catapult bounce back onto the knees/second rope move combo). In general, Dustin was moving great in there and looked like a million bucks.

Eventually the Dudebusters used a distraction to take over on Cody and we got the first of a double heat. They controlled the ring well. The hot tag to Dustin wasn't so hot but that's because the real one was going to be to Dusty later. They took back on him with another bit of distraction (they were good at that). It all built to the true hot tag to Dusty, the place exploding, and Dusty hitting a couple of things before picking up the win. As celebratory and reverent as it should have been but a better match than it needed to be because they let the Dudebusters take so much of it.

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Found Footage Friday: SANTO~! PARK~! MIL~! GARZA~! DAMIAN~! AGUILA~! CEREBRO~! FELINO~! SILVER KING~! FUERZA~!

IWRG Retro 28 IWRG Retro 3/8/2001

Halieen/Ryo Saito vs. Siky Ozama/Bestia Rubia

MD: Undercard lucha made fun more for the visuals of Halieen and Bestia Rubia clashing than anything else. Halieen is a little green man gimmick, like nothing I've ever seen, just really leaning into the notion, including some sort of weird Power Rangers collar. Bestia Rubia has a wolfman mask, but it'd be as if Bowie did Thriller instead of Jackson and turned into a Wolfman at the end, or if they made the Ron Perlman Beauty and the Beast ten years earlier and it was the people making Buck Rogers that did. They need to make more masks like these.

Saito and Ozama are fine and do simple straightforward stuff well enough. Saito has fire. Ozama's a bit of a jerk. But you spend the whole match waiting for the wolfman and the alien to get back in there and see lucha sequences you've seen a thousand times, but never from a wolfman and an alien. Pretty solid finishing stretch (this was 1 fall and went around 16 minutes) with the teams trading falls and trying for Last Rites style pin attempts. This was more of a novelty than anything else but you can't imagine these guys didn't get over just on their looks alone.

Hijo del Santo/Dr. Cerebro/Felino vs. Silver King/Fuerza Guerrera/Cirujano

MD: Star-studded, talent-packed trios here. Rudos ambush to start. At some point, Cerebro really gets opened up. I wouldn't say any rudo particularly stands out here. Fuerza's going to sneak in low blows as you will. Cirujano brings a bit more heft. Silver King looked sharp even post-prime (he had a very smooth figure-four in the primera, for instance). Things picked up in the segunda as Santo ran right through Fuerza for an initial comeback. I loved Cerebro's selling here as he was fumbling about punch drunk even in the midst of the comeback. The tecnicos got swept under again and Santo had to mount a second comeback before Felino was able to hit a moonsault on Silver King to set up Santo's big tope off the top and the caballo on Fuerza.

The tercera was short gave us a little bit of the pairings we had missed in the primera but was primarily cycling through until the big finish. Santo hit an absolutely mammoth tope suicida onto Silver King, just a head-crashing, head-crushing impact. It was so good that they reshowed it in super slow motion so that the action missed the finish (Cerebro getting a submission on Cirujano). I don't usually say that something's worth just seeing for the dive, and this has other things going for it too, of course, but people should see the dive.

Hijo del Santo/Mil Mascaras/LA Park vs. Hector Garza/Damian 666/Mr. Aguila Monterrey 2/3/07

MD: Very odd one on paper. Perros del Mal vs. three of the biggest stars ever, in 07 Monterrey. It's a night show and you can see their breath. Park's in blue. Mascaras has a matching bengal body suit and mask. We come in at the start of the segunda after what seems to have been a Perros beatdown. Garza immediately crashes and burns in the corner allowing Santo to pull his pants down and send him to the floor. Chaos ensues. Park is the guy to watch here, hitting a jumping body slam off the apron onto Damien, putting him through a table. Then he hits a suplex on Aguila on the floor splitting a plastic table. Finally he hits a huge dive through the ropes. Meanwhile, Mascaras hits a couple of ginger atomic drops and things and Santo more or less does his "vs the world" routine against everyone. The finish of the fall is Damien creating motion for Mascaras and ending up in an abdominal stretch.

The tercera starts with almost seven minutes of shtick, and it's Hector Garza shtick, and LA Park shtick, and your mileage is going to vary on this, but for me, it goes real far. It all hit. Garza gets funnier and funnier as the decade goes on but even in 07, he had a lot of the act down. They run a minute or two of Park trying to pull his tights down and Damien saving him until Garza accidentally kicks Damien and Damien pulls Garza's tights down and it's unapologetically hilarious. Then they get the ref in on the act with him doing dual spots with Park and the commentary say he looks like "a crazy panda from Chapultepec" and for a spotlight match like this, it absolutely works. Things broke down pretty quickly after that with Mascaras pinning Aguila and Park clowning Damien before Garza, a cooler lid in hand, chose to attack Park instead of Santo. Santo got it from him and threatened but Park turned around and thought Santo had gotten him and attacked Santo who was quickly pinned before Park laid down for Garza as well. It was a little silly, but Garza was the perfect guy to be in the middle of all this and I'm sure it set up something great (or didn't, because Monterrey). What a show. 

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New Footage Friday: CHOCOBALL! ISHIKAWA! SANTO! PANTHER! FUERZA! RUDGE!

Terry Rudge vs. Pete Collins 7/27/90

MD: This takes a little bit to get going but it's once it gets moving, it's Rudge being Rudge, just an all time jerk. The ring announcer introduces him as having moved there but liking absolutely no one. The first chunk of the match is just an armbar where he uses gut shots and hairpulls to keep it. Collins will sell the arm fairly well for the rest of the match. The back half has Rudge being absolutely terrible to Collins, including a perfect king of the mountain where he amazingly kicked the rope upwards to choke him on the way in, multiple whips into the corner, sitting down in the other corner so he couldn't get whipped himself, and the usual clubbering and stomping (drawing public warnings) that you'd expect. The finish is smart as he draws a second public warning with the stomps to soften the arm up just enough to lock in a submission win, but then he gets himself disqualified by refusing to break it. Collins gets a few valiant moments and a win on paper while Rudge loses no heat at all and has the fans jeering him all the way.


El Hijo Del Santo/Shaka vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera PWC 5/9/96

MD: Fairly odd presentation here with Japanese announcers who were cracking up left and right. I have no idea who Shaka was but we got too much of him in this match. Everyone else was great. Panther basing for Shaka made some of his stuff look pretty good especially in the early goings, and later on he was absolutely amazing and visceral in tearing the mask off with his teeth. He also hit a really great odd-angled elbow drop, but it's probably an afterthought relative to everything else in the match. Santo and Fuerza matched up perfectly. They did an exchange I loved where Santo went up huge for a Fuerza press-up pancake and then when Fuerza tried it again, snatched his head in midair for a tossing reversal. Things fell apart somewhat once Fuerza and Santo left the match though and the last couple of minutes felt rough to me. We'll take whatever we can get with three out of these four guys though.

PAS: Shaka definitely had the feel of a money mark who paid to fly in Santo and the rudos to work with him, kind of like a less talented Mike Quakenbush. He had a moment or two, but obviously we are here to see the legends. We didn't get much Santo vs. Panther, but the Santo vs. Fuerza stuff was great, with Fuerza being one of the all time legendary bases against one of the all time offensive luchadors. It was beautiful to watch. Loved all of the dives and exchanges, and I didn't even begrudge Shaka for getting the win. 

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Chocoball Mukai Fuyuki-Gun 12/5/03

PAS: Mukai is a pornstar who decided to become a pro wrestler, I didn't really remember him in the ring much, but it turns out at least for one match he was Daisuke Ikeda. Ishikawa is guy who will take a big beating to get a match over, but I didn't expect the comedy porn star to be unloading full force punches to his temples and mouth. Ishikawa ends up working really from the bottom here, but of course, is one of the great from the bottom wrestlers of all time, countering Mukai's german's with an armbar, looking for any opening to lock in a hold or throw a suplex. By the end of this match it really felt like a classic Battlarts or FUTEN style war, something I was totally not expecting when this popped up.

MD: Pretty valiant performance from Mukai here as he fought against the inevitability of Ishikawa. He got lucky early by catching a kick (after really scrambling his limbs to try to evade Ishikawa to start) and kept pressing whatever advantage he could. That included some pretty brutal shots. It looked like Ishikawa was going to take back over at various points but Mukai just hung on. His biggest problem was when he took the big swings he absolutely needed to in order to try to win, whether off the top or with a spinning backfist. Maybe most telling was when he hit three brutal Germans in a row but Ishikawa just grinded through it and locked in a hold. It was really just a matter of time in the end.

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New Footage Friday: CMLL Juicio Final 12/2/95

Parts of this show have flickered on and off on the internet over the years, but we get the three big matches all in one place so we can write about them!

El Dandy/La Fiera vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera 

PAS: My dream version of this match has Panther and Dandy getting a long chance to work the mat, and then building to a climax. This wasn't that, much more a traditional rudo vs. technico brawl, with the rudos bloodying Dandy and the technicos making fiery comebacks. These are four all-timers, so that kind of traditional lucha brawl is going to be elevated when it's El Dandy throwing the big shots. Pretty intense match from the start, so we don't get much shtick from Fuerza, although there is a great moment of him celebrating a spin kick, only to get enzigiried while he is raising his hands in glory. Fiera hits his beautiful over the top tope, Panther and Fuerza get their mask ripped and we end up in a technico triumph. Very enjoyable stuff, although maybe not the classic it looks like on paper.

MD:  This was technically for the Mexican National Tag Team Titles and was supposed to be Juvi with his dad but they had a falling out and it became this instead. No one's going to complain about Panther being in there. After some immediate, still wearing ring jackets, tecnico fire, this got to the beatdown quickly with Fiera accidentally hitting the spin kick on Dandy and then getting reversed right into Panther's feet in a great spot. Dandy bled shortly thereafter with a shot into the post. Panther went right to biting the wound to set the mood (with Fuerza being Fuerza and fouling Fiera simultaneously, also setting the mood). They had some fun tandem offense, like an elevated faceplant and working together to toss Dandy off the top by his hair. The mid-90s Panther who hangs out with Fuerza and bites a guy in the head and poses and stooges freely (the big transition was Dandy ducking a shot and Panther running into Fiera's foot on the outside and selling it like he got his jaw dislocated) is one of my favorite versions of the guy; what range, right? The tecnico revenge had everything you'd want: the image of bloody Dandy standing over Panther and ripping his mask, Dandy's punches, Fiera's spin kick, one guy setting the other up for offense including a huge Dandy smack on the side of the ring, people fouling Fuerza, etc. before rolling into some really fun match up moments and spots for the finish.


El Hijo Del Santo vs. Negro Casas -EPIC

PAS: This has to be in contention for the best in-ring series in wrestling history, so when I get to see a new one it is a mitzvah. We get an entire first fall of matwork and it is brilliant stuff, lots of twisting and reversing leglocks and armlock, they do a really cool section based on a top wristlock, Santo has his signature headscissors counter and wins the first fall with a facebuster into a sick armlock for the tap. Absolutely top tier mat work, two perfect grapplers at the top of their game. Casas works the neck in the segunda with a pair of nasty neckbreakers and a seated torture rack for the win. Third fall remained in the ring, remained primarily a grappling battle, there was a ton of little cool moments, things that Negro Casas brings to a wrestling match. There is a point where Santo tries to snap mare Casas, 999 of a 1000 times that is a throw away transition move, but here Casas uses a wide base to block the snap mare twice before Santo is able to power him over. So cool, and an example of the high end brilliance of both guys. This was a less complete match then some of their other super classics, this was all scientific and wrestling based, this is one of the only Santo matches I can remember seeing with out any of his signature dives, and we never got into the violence that both guys can bring, but the tune they did play was perfect. 

MD: Straight title match between the two. Casas escalated things with an elbow drop out of nowhere and some strikes in the segunda to answer the end of the first fall but otherwise, this was relatively clean. Unsurprisingly, it was really good too. I loved all of the little bits of maneuvering for leg grapevines and reversals in the primera. Casas whipped these double arm flips throughout, one leading to the tercera's finish but another setting up a cool little reverse monkey flip early on. One of the best truths in wrestling is that you'll almost always see something new in a Casas match. Here, for me, it was him using his knee jammed hard into Santo's back to escape the bridging cross-footed (Mascaras) headscissors. Santo's seated arm driver into a armbar ended the primera and it's such an underrated move. You always kind of forget he has it until he uses it. They turned up the speed for the tercera and I could have maybe used one or two more near-falls, but the Casita not ending things was a shocking enough moment to make up for it. Post-match there were challenges, but nothing would come of that for another couple of years.


Bestia Salvaje vs. Satanico vs. Hector Garza

MD: We come in with Bestia taking a huge bump into the post. It's a matter of time after that, with Satanico beating him around the ring until he got a little bit of hope but missed a somersault senton and got tied up in the Knot. Garza vs Satanico was a nice little preview of the singles apuestas match to come. Satanico was sure to get all of his advantages off of Garza missing moves due to youthful exuberance. There was a nice hope spot int here where Garza kicked him out of the ring on a Knot attempt and then hit a dive, but he kept missing his follow-ups The third or fourth time Satanico ducks a move, he faked the foul as well and the place comes unglued as it the ref fell for it. Bestia vs Garza gives Hector a surprise nearfall to start, but he's quickly fouled leading to an extended bloody high stakes beatdown. Bestia bleeds even better on the comeback, with some scrapping preceding Garza getting in all of his big dives. This fell apart just a little towards the end with Garza looking hesitant or lost at times, but the crowd went up for the finish and ultimately the match did its job. Garza came out of it with a big win and looking like he had a shot to defeat Satanico two weeks later and save his hair, but maybe not a very big one. If nothing else, Bestia got a well deserved payday.

PAS: The Satanico parts of this match are nice little aperitifs for a bloody banquet of a main event. It was worked as a sprint, and a great one. Both guys are opened up and you would expect and this was a showcase for Bestia's world beating offense. He hits a tope which was more like a flying lariat to the floor and a senton splash which was Togoesque. Garze seems a bit green at this point, but had some really big moments of his own including his corkscrew plancha and a quebrada which totally brained Bestia. Maybe could have used a couple more minutes to milk drama a bit, but this was a heck of a showdown, and a great chance to see two under appreciated greats get a big showcase moment. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE RIVALS 

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New Footage Friday: SCHMIDT! YUKON ERIC! FUERZA! CRUZ! PANTHER! CARAS!

Hans Schmidt vs. Yukon Eric Chicago 9/25/53

MD: Great to see new Chicago footage and to see it in full color from 1953 is particularly nuts. I wouldn't say the color added a ton to the action itself (as that has to be a word used carefully here) but I do think it let you see the crowd reactions more vividly, and at times your eyes were going to wander in this match. Schmidt's excellent. Everything looks credible and precise. His holds are perfectly cinched. His shots are mean. His hairpulling is just matter-of-fact and inevitable. He doesn't miss a beat. Eric had size and charisma but not a whole lot else. The long first fall was primarily him controlling with basic holds as Schmidt sold and worked his way out. The finishing bearhug was excellent though, as Schmidt desperately pulled at the hair and threw in shots to escape but ultimately couldn't. The end of the second fall was really strong as well, with a series of backbreakers, each one a bit harder for Eric to kick out of (he tossed Schmidt onto the ref with the first). Then the third was abrupt and full of all the action with Schmidt flying around the ring with crazy dropkicks. It's obvious how good Schmidt was here, but this was probably not the opponent you want to see him against. And hey, if anyone has $50K lying around, we can probably get all of the remaining Chicago footage converted.

Fuerza Guerrera/Talisman/Al Rojo Vivo vs. Hombre Bala/Javier Cruz/Aguila Solitaria Pista Arena Revolution 1986

MD: Pretty complete and enjoyable trios. Fuerza looked like an all-timer here with struggle-filled matwork with Cruz in the primera including some neckbreaker style spots where both guys went over. He had a moment in the faster segunda where he threw an early missed kick just for the hell of it on a rope running exchange before getting armdragged and sliding across the ring and out. It's the sum of little things like that which just brings such an atmosphere to a match like this. He also hit a crazy back suplex in the segunda. I don't know how much footage we have of Rojo Vivo (don't think much, if any) but he had a good Mocho Cota But Red sort of look and stooged pretty well; not quite as much as you'd like, but pretty well. He strung a bunch of arm takeovers together and then did the Ingobernables invisible punt, which I don't think I've seen in the 80s before. I like 80s Talisman (more so than 90s Hijo del Gladiator at least) and his shots looked good and he based well, especially for Cruz's tricked out armdrags in the segunda. In the tercera, they took out Cruz and put on a pretty solid beating on the other two leading to Cruz finally recovering and a big comeback. My favorite bit there was Fuerza preventing his partner Talisman from rolling out of the ring because he didn't want to get back in there, and then Talisman returning the favor on him when he tried to roll out. I'm not sure I'd ever seen that before either. Just another sign that this was probably the week to week baseline for this stuff and it's a crime we don't have more of it.

Blue Panther vs. Dos Caras 9/25/04 AWS

MD: Pretty ballsy match as they work holds for ten minutes straight in front of a crowd shouting for curb stomps and what have you. It's good though, with them working in and out smoothly and smartly, for the most part chaining from one thing to the next, and it worked more as a maestros match than with any tecnico/rudo leanings. Early on, I don't think the crowd knew what to think of it, but by the eight minute mark, or so, as they've escalated into more complex holds and escapes, they get a big, earnest ovation and it's the sort of thing that can't help but put a smile on your face. There's real appreciation there from the crowd and not just some jaded sense of wanting to seem smart. They move on with even more advanced stuff at that point, before picking up the pace in the last minute. Unfortunately, the first two bits of the latter don't really hit and it's the sort of thing that could lose a crowd and, given their preconceptions of lucha, probably made it all seem a little anti-climactic after ten minutes of great matwork. I'm just glad we got to see those ten minutes though.

PAS: I remember getting this match on tape when it happened, but it is cool to see it show up online. This was well before we had tons of Maestro stuff on Youtube, so this was a real shock to the system. Both guys are so skilled and still retained a lot of athleticism at this point and I loved all of the different ways that they attacked holds. The Tapitia sections were especially cool, as was all of Panther's arm work. Caras is a master, but Panther hits a slightly higher level, not sure if more then 10 wrestlers ever had the kind of smoothness and precision on their holds that he had, especially Panther in his 40s rather then his 60s.

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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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Mas Niebla

ER: The passing of Niebla has really made me want to go back and seek out Mr. Niebla matches that I either haven't seen at all, or haven't seen in 20 years. I first started watching lucha 20 years ago after happening across it on Galavision, with Niebla being one of the early standouts to my "Never seen lucha outside of WCW" eyes. I'll be doing several posts documenting Niebla's high end 1999-2000, a cool run spanning an entire millennium.


Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas/Shocker vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Black Warrior/Scorpio Jr. CMLL 7/9/99

ER: This was a big fun sprawling mess, a big Blue Panther rudo performance, a match that saw guys always running around on the floor without having tons of big high spots. We got a big Niebla tope con giro in the tercera, but this match was built with charisma and sustained to the DQ finish. Panther was constantly stomping at Casas and looks like he aims to dislocate three of his limbs at once in the primera. And I loved the contrast with Santo and Casas separating Scorpio from the pack in the segunda while Niebla keeps on eye on the helpless Panther and Warrior. The crazy spot we build to is Casas holding Scorpio prone on the floor, with Santo getting overhyped and crazily thinking it would be a good idea to fly into them with a tope. Scorpio breaks free and moves, but it doesn't matter as Santo's leg catches the middle rope and he hits the ground hard. I think the plan was for Scorpio to move and Santo to send Casas into the seats, but this worked even more effectively, and gave us the visual of Santo leaving on a stretcher. Santo feels like a guy crazy enough to work a badly blown painful spot into his matches, so it could have been part of it, but either way it was a hot start to this feud.

Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Pierroth Jr./Shocker/Ricky Santana CMLL 7/16/99

ER: Picks up where the last one left off, with a completely new set of rudos. Niebla/Santo/Casas are a  tremendous tecnico team that just ooze constant charisma, they make every rudo team come off like real dicks. And it helps that Pierroth kicks all kinds of ass and brawls with Santo all around the building. Everyone knows brawling Santo is the best Santo, and this was no different as he gets punched and choked up the ramp by Pierroth, but hits his in ring headbutt and perfect dive past the ringpost to the floor. Shocker is playing such an aloof douche the whole match, fake Niebla causing a constant Who Me? ruckus. Pierroth looks like a crazed uncle as this whole thing brings apart, taking his belt off and threatening everyone. I miss these crazed CMLL DQ ending trios that actually built to bigger matches. You'd think that would be easy to do.

Mr. Niebla vs. Shocker CMLL 7/30/99

ER: This is more angle than match, but sets up and finalizes the Niebla/Niebla mask match and gets there in unprofessional fashion. Niebla sends Shocker into the 3rd row with a tope to start things, and most of the rest of the match is these two grappling and dragging each other around ringside. Shocker starts working Niebla's leg early and soon is literally dragging him by that leg all around the big Arena Mexico ring. The in ring action is fun and played out more like a same era New Japan juniors match (which was a trait I remember about 99-02 Shocker matches), with Shocker hitting a great sitout powerbomb and Niebla hitting a couple of cool suplexes, and we get a genuinely very good kneeling slap exchange (Niebla's final shot gets rightly played as a near KO). But soon the fake Niebla is out, and he and Shocker just nuke Niebla's leg into the entrance ramp. They bash his leg into the edge of the rampway, slamming the front of his thigh right above the knee, with fake Niebla jumping on his hammies, and both delivering a wishbone in the ring. They sign the contract in the ring right after the DQ, and I appreciate this kind of cut right to the chase.

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Mr. Niebla: Descanse en Paz

Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Black Warrior/Blue Panther CMLL 11/13/98

PAS: We reviewed an all time great trios match with a lot of the same guys from April of 98, and while this wasn't as good as that, it was still a total blast to watch. Really fun to see Santo and Casas as a tag team, especially so soon after their feud, and they really break out some fun combos here including an awesome flip rana by Santo off of a Casas Romero special. Fuerza vs. Casas was the highlight, with both guys breaking out a ton of full speed tricks and treats. Niebla was mostly matched up with fellow lost generation star Black Warrior, and they really had great chemistry. Warrior breaks out one of his incredible bullet topes which sends Niebla into the third row, where he barreled into what looked like a pre-teen girl. Just another example of how undeniable 1998 CMLL trios were.

ER: This was indeed a noticeable step down from that absolute classic 6 months prior, and Niebla may have been the guy least focused on the entire match. This is a Fuerza/Casas show, a match that essentially made me set out to watch some Niebla and 10 minutes in made me think I should just devote the next couple months to writing up exclusively 1998 Fuerza. Fuerza really appears to HATE Casas as he unleashes match long punishment on Casas's face and balls, the two punching and chopping each other through all three falls, Fuerza sticking him with a nasty inverted atomic drop, later tying him in the ropes and running into him with a straight boot to the jaw. Santo and Casas snap off gorgeous headscissors opposite Panther, Fuerza hits a gorgeous reverse powerbomb on Santo (Santo glides through moves so gracefully that it looks like Fuerza is lifting an empty plastic bag to slam), Black Warrior does indeed send Niebla crashing into a surly 11 year old girl with his trademark tope, and the whole thing felt like the kind of match where you could throw these same 6 together and routinely get something special.

Mr. Niebla vs. Mr Niebla CMLL 8/20/99

PAS: This was a weird situation where a guy had started wrestling in IWRG as Mr. Niebla, and eventually came to CMLL when the original Mr. Niebla was injured. OG Niebla attacked the imposter and it led to a mascara contra mascara match. This was fun stuff, it was one fall and either short or clipped, but what we got was good. There was a lot of pre match shenanigans with Dr. Wagner Jr. leading to IWRG Niebla getting the jump on CMLL Niebla and ripping his mask and bloodying him. CMLL Nieblas get the advantage back but misses a flip dive and lands hard on concrete. We moved pretty quickly into the closing run then, with some big near falls. I really liked how hard both guys were working to end the match or survive, really pressing on pins, and squirming out of holds. Niebla finally locks on the Nieblina to end the match, and IWRG Niebla would end up having a fun run as Mr. Mexico in CMLL.

Mr. Niebla vs. Abismo Negro AAA 2/15/08

PAS: This was part of the Niebla vs. Abismo feud over the leadership of the Vipers, and was a Bull Terrier match (aka Dog Collar). I liked Niebla attacking Negro at the bell and blooding him up, and trying to win the match before he even put on the collar. This was in the six sided ring days of AAA, and having to hit all six turnbuckles drags out that portion of the match even more then in normally does. The parts of this that were brawling were really nifty, but when it devolved into a game of tag, it got less interesting. Still fun to see Niebla in a different setting.

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New Footage Friday: ALL EDDIE!! ALL THE TIME!!

Eddy Guerrero vs. Jushin Liger NJPW 12/9/92

MD: I'm not a huge proponent of one or two spots/elements making a match must-see. That said, this match has those one or two elements. First, there's Liger's leg selling. It's such a great balance of him allowing Eddy to stay in control and peppering in comebacks. It colors his decisions whether to dive or not to dive. It forces a post-offense hesitation that lets Eddy take back over. Even when Liger's hitting stuff cleanly, it doesn't feel dropped, just pushed past and there's always a cost, down to when he's leaving the ring after the (stolen) win. When Liger finally hits the dive late-match it feels like a huge deal, but it's also not something he can capitalize on.

The second big thing is the Eddy crowd dive. It was amazing and everyone should see it. There's nothing else to say about that really.

They had a match earlier in the year and it was far less of a complete Eddy performance and much more of a novelty minor Liger match. This is something people should go out of their way for.

PAS: I thought this was really fun, it reminded me of the Eddie vs. Ultimo Dragon WCW house show match I saw back in 97. Built slowly but really solidly with some early mat work, including some nasty leg work by Eddie, where he just cranked every hold. It built to some bigger spots, including a great Tapita by Liger and a huge springboard plancha into the crowd by Eddie which was a monster highspot in 1992. I loved the finish, Eddie just spikes Liger with one of the better superplexes I can remember seeing, it almost felt like a superplex version of the Dynamite Kid snap suplex, and the when he goes for a top rope back suplex Liger twists, lands on top, and gets the flash victory. Eddie comes out looking like a killer, and Liger is protected, great bit of business.

ER: These two hand at least a dozen singles matches together, with only one happening before this one, and that is very exciting. It has the 90s NJ juniors match structure, with matwork dominating the first half and leading to a big rope running exchange leading to some unexpectedly larger things. I say unexpectedly only because this was a house show, and they broke out some pretty big stuff for a house show, no doubt a long running habit of both men. The mat stuff was fun and engaging, both going after legs but Eddy getting the advantage and I thought they had some cool stuff. We all kind of know at this point that NJ junior matwork is more about filling time and establishing control, and they did a good job at that. I liked Eddy rolling Liger into tough pins, crucifixes and grapevined leg pins, forcing Liger's shoulder down (and then calling that back later in the match when he tried it again on a weaker opponent), wrenching Liger's knee (with Liger taking time to stretch it and pay it some lip service when Eddy was on the floor), and we finally opened things up nicely with two killer Liger armdrags, rolling off Eddy's back with a gorgeous Tim Horner style armdrag and whipping Eddy over with a Japanese armdrag, then just blasting him with a hard southpaw lariat. Great sequence. Eddy is one of the greatest armdrag takers of all time, a guy who whips over so fast and compact (and later shows off his  amazing variation where he slides out of the ring under the bottom rope and slams into the guardrail off a similar move, a bump he takes arguably the best of anyone ever). 

They drop some really big things here, suplexes, big exchanges, and the excitement really builds as it feels like the match perfectly ramps up. Nothing really feels out of place, each thing feels bigger than the last, each attack feels like it's advancing everything. We get a dive apiece from each guy, and they are both absolute doozies: Liger hits a crossbody off the top to the floor with Eddy literally standing 80% across the ring. I was looking at how far away Eddy was standing as Liger was climbing to the top, and assumed Liger was just going up there to taunt him, as there was NO way he was going to be able to ever touch Eddy...and I was wrong. That man FLEW. Eddy's dive was spectacular, hitting a springboard off the top and into the crowd, totally nuts to be doing on a show that nobody (except one secret man) was taping. The finish is satisfying, with Eddy setting up a beastly back suplex from the top only to see Liger shift his weight and land hard on Eddy on the way down. This was two absolute legends doing nothing but adding to their legacy. We live in blessed wrestling times. (Also I'm convinced that Phil brings up seeing that Eddie/Ultimo house show match more often than Al Bundy brought up his 4 touchdown game, so I'll just say that this reminded me of when I saw Eddie vs. Rey at a house show in 2005)

Black Tiger/Dean Malenko vs. El Samurai/Shinjiro Otani NJPW 9/24/93

MD: I'm pretty sure this one hasn't been out there. Even if it was, it's well worth watching, even in a sea of classic NJ Juniors matches. I love how mean and focused Eddy and Dean are here. Eddy is pretty much fully developed as mid 90s heel Eddy (which isn't as developed as 97 heel Eddy or 2000s heel Eddy but is still a great thing). Dean's not quite grown out of being a human being yet. There's a charm to the iceman thing, but this unfinished middle ground makes for better, more engaging matches. He actually acknowledged that there's a crowd out there a few times. I really liked the ebb and flow of this. There were constant stomps to break up pins and submissions instead of kickouts. Whenever Samurai and Otani started to fight back, they got double teamed or cut off. Anytime Eddy and Dean focus in on a limb, it's really dynamic and beautiful, just a constant machine gun assault to keep control of the match. It ends up just building and building until the chaos of the blind tag finish.

Sometimes I overcomplicate things, but there are a few easy crutches that can make wrestling narratives immediately better. Otani absolutely gets the value of paralleled spots. The crowd pops big every time he does immediately what he just got hit with, whether it be the heel twist on the face or following up a missed Dean falling headbutt with one of his own.

PAS: This was a great performance by Eddie and Dean, they look like they could have been a classic heel team if they had a longer run together. Just a master class of working heat on Otani, great cut offs, cool double teams and some real great timed comebacks. Loved Eddie jumping Samurai on the apron to keep Otani from making the tag. Malenko had some really smooth takedowns and roll ups and Eddie was really lining up some cool cheapshots. Unfortunately we get some real HH issues and we miss some big spots near the end, although what we saw had some nice near falls, and a great looking spinning DDT by Eddie.

ER: I thought this was mostly awesome, with only an obnoxious juniors tag habit and some unfortunate handheld issues holding it back a bit. Eddy and Dean were absolute damn machines. Otani and Samurai may as well have been up against Stan Hansen and Vader. Dean and Eddy just eat them for lunch, spending much of the match cutting off the ring and absolutely eating Otani for lunch. Seriously it felt like Samurai was in this match a total of maybe 2 minutes. Dean looked fantastic here, breaking out some cool things that he abandoned not long after (that headscissors out of a knucklelock looked like something Hijo del Santo would break out, and Dean hit it just as gracefully as Santito would have). Eddy and Dean both throw several suplexes on Otani, Dean hitting an early and mean jackhammer, Eddy interrupting and Otani spinkick to rudely drop him with a German, and there are tons of rude things throughout by these two, really in everything they do. 

Eddy scrapes his boots across Otani's face, Dean drops him with a gnarly backbreaker that sends Otani recoiling onto his head. Otani would get flashes and comebacks, all delivered explosively. His pescado to the floor was incredible, landing was major impact and smashing Eddy into the guardrail, and the late match moment where he finally hits the spinkick and the scrapes his boot across Eddy's face was an awesome moment. My gripe is that when Otani finally makes the triumphant tag to Samurai, Samurai is in the match barely 1 minute before tagging back out, and Otani had been eating a beating for literally the entire match. Otani had been desperate to tag out for 10 minutes, getting blocked at every turn by Dean and Eddy, then Samurai misses one headbutt and Otani is totally fine to get back in. I hate that. Sadly the end stretch sees a real jerk of a fan stand up directly in front of our heroic cameraman *just* as Otani is about to hit a surely spectacular springboard attack. Doesn't this asshole know a bunch of white people were going to be writing about this match 25 years later? What a POS. I hate those fans who have no forward thinking whatsoever. What about the bloggers, dickhead?

This whole thing ruled, stupid miracle Otani comeback aside. These guys are 4 all time faves of mine, and this was an all time performance from Dean and Eddy. Would have liked to see more Samurai, but thought he had nice moments saving his boy from certain doom. You like these 4 guys - I mean obviously you do - and you will no doubt love all of this.

Eddy Guerrero/Fuerza Guerrera/Jerry Estrada vs. Blue Panther/El Mexicano/Mascara Sagrada AAA 11/13/93

ER: This one really starts as a fairly genial house show style trios, before pivoting suddenly to some wild floor brawling and then turning into a messy (in a good way) assault on the tecnicos. There is no matwork, but we get a lot of time and they clearly knew what the fans wanted to see. I never realized there was so much lucha tecnico offense that revolved around grabbing a rudo's head and just kind of throwing it to the ground, but a ton of the tecnicos' early offense is just that! Estrada is a great stooge, and while he doesn't break out much of his trademark crippling bump style, he knows how to do a goofy duck walk after getting hit, or mugging to the crowd to give his opponent an opening, and any time he gets yanked to the mat by his hair it looks spectacular (as he is the most tasseled wrestler in history). Eddy is part stooge/part lightning fast superworker, taking a fantastic delayed sell faceplant one moment, and then moments later breaking out one of the greatest looking fallaway slams you've seen (the kind where he turns it into an almost physics breaking bridging throw) and working faster than anyone in the match. Fuerza is the smallest man in the match, but he also reads as the total don, the guy who can stroll in and immediately shut down a tecnico, doing not much more throughout the match other than throw great punches and use his mere presence to intimidate. Mascara breaks out his fun "ear boxing" headscissors, Panther breaks out a couple quick headscissors of his own, the whole thing is a very fun house show lucha trios.

And then Panther reveals himself to be a rudo agent, Eddy runs Mexicano the length of the ring and launches him into the crowd (and what a great looking bump into the blackness from Mexicano), and this whole thing becomes Mexicano and Sagrada outnumbered and fighting for their life. Panther spends the rest of the match on the apron selling a phantom leg or ball pain, always about to tag in and help but just never being able to do so, due to his pain. Panther is hilarious in the ways he blocks Mascara and Mexicano from doing anything, my favorite moments include Panther casually grabbing Sagrada's leg when Sagrada is on the top rope, or Sagrada landing a punch and then Panther grabbing his arm to hold Sagrado prone for some shots, all while Panther is mildly scolding him and then appearing to tell Tirantes "he was using a closed fist, you don't want to win by cheating with a closed fist!" Panther is a wonderfully aloof rudo, and it makes the fans even more rabid for any peppered in comebacks the two remaining tecnicos get. Mexicano has several moments where he shines during this two man advantage, really firing up people and throwing nice punch combos, even getting his guardrail revenge back on Eddy. It's all obviously too much for them to handle, but this played out much more interestingly than most other snake in the grass lucha matches I've seen, and it unexpectedly made me want to see Mexicano singles against all the rudos.

MD: This was just constant good stuff. The level of talent here was incredible and while it played out fairly traditionally (exchanges with escalation for a tecnico win, rudos swarm to take the segunda, goozling until the comeback until the weirdness at the end) everything was so fun and full of personality and skill that you can't help but love it if you love lucha.

The initial pairings were great and crowd seemed to just ignite the second Fuerza got in there. And they never really slowed down after that. It was just a constant buzz. Eddy, by this point, was so good at looping in little flourishes like pointing to his head after dodging one move so he could walk right into another (and subsequently flopping). Everything he did seemed to have an interesting little twist. The rudo side here was wildly expressive. You've surely seen Fuerza do the handshake/hug/cheapshot deal a thousand times and it's still as good as the first time you ever saw it. Between the dancing and playing to the crowd, bumping over the rail and coming back with a chair, Mexicano could match. Sagrada kept the quebradas coming at least. It almost felt like the tecnicos were basing for the rudos antics, if that makes any sense.

Panther was in the midst of a turn and that was probably more of a distraction than a plus in how it played into the finish, though the post-match was fun. There were a few spots that didn't quite work out and the tercera meandered a bit maybe in part due to a fight in the crowd, but everything generally flowed well despite all that and you just couldn't argue with the level of talent and charisma that was in the ring.

PAS: Eddie/Estrada and Fuerza are such a dope rudos trio, and I like all the technicos too. Before it succumbed to heel red stuff and turns, there was some really sweet exchanges. Mexicano looked great, not a guy I had searched out before, but man this makes you want to see what hidden Halcon 78 is floating around. Eddie has such explosive execution which makes him stand out even amongst a group as talented as this. Match was there to get heat on the rudos with the crowd and cement the Panther turn, and it does all that business effectively. I would have rather just seen a clean trios, but they certainly riled up the crowd and solidly executed all of the angle stuff.

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RIP Silver King, Part 3

Silver King/Dr. Wagner Jr./Fuerza Guerrera/Pierroth Jr. vs. La Parka/Super Parka/Emilio Charles Jr./Antifaz Del Norte Monterrey 7/9/00    Pt. 2    Pt. 3

ER: This was during the era of getting excited to buy Monterrey tapes based upon on paper match-ups, and then getting the tape and realizing a significant portion of the match was going to be devoted to the two referees. And this had that! And maybe it's just the mood I was in while watching this, but I didn't mind it. You still had 8 absolutely fantastic in the year 2000 luchadors (yes Pierroth obviously ruled, all Pierroths do; Antifaz was a guy I don't think about in 2019 who I really liked during this era). You get King and Wagner as stooging brothers, a great sequence with Pierroth and Park holding each other up by their shirts as they slap each other silly (Pierroth especially is so fun here, really milking that holding onto Park's shirt was the only thing keeping him standing), Emilio Charles is always fun as a fired up babyface away from Arena Mexico, and Antifaz shows that he was good back then and that I wasn't crazy. The whole primera is the rudo team (both teams look like on paper rudo teams, but when in doubt just assume the one with Fuerza is it and you'll almost always be correct) beating down the tecnicos, hitting them with garbage and brawling around the ring. Segunda is the comeuppance and ref involvement, with the tecnicos dragging a section of connected arena seats into the ring and sending King and Pierroth into them, then getting all 4 rudos seated while kicking over the seats. The ref spots are actually fairly funny and executed well, with Parka getting beaten down by the four rudos in a huddle, and then swapping the ref for himself without the rudos noticing. If you're going to work some kind of a Bugs Bunny spot, Park seems like one of the few that would be able to make it work. We do get a great Park dive, a nice splingshot splash by Super Parka, mean spots like SP getting rammed balls first into the ringpost and then getting Emilio Charles' head tossed into his groin, and seemingly the entire tercera is made up of ballshots. This whole thing was spirited and felt like everyone having a great time on a house show, which will almost always be my thing.

Black Tiger III/Atlantis/Vampiro vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Universo 2000/Mascara Ano 2000 CMLL 6/15/01

ER: This is really fun as we get two brothers colliding, the criminally underrated early 2000s Dinamitas tearing it up, Atlantis getting stretchered out after taking a Wagner Driver, Atlantis reminding me of what a damn athlete he still was in 2001, and...Vampiro. 83% is something I would be cool with on my report cards, so I should be cool with it in my lucha trios. A lot of this feels like the Dinamitas show and while Universo wasn't the captain here he was certainly the primary shit disturber. Dinamitas were great bullies and I could watch a match of them just putting boots to guys like Atlantis. They always get it paid back, and I dug Universo falling on front row regulars to draw sympathy (god I hate that stupid ring barricade they've had this decade), and Mascara takes a wildly fast bump to the floor off Atlantis' tumbleweed. Wagner outdoes them both and makes Vampiro appear to be not a load: Vampiro throws Wagner merely towards the crowd, and Wagner goes off and tope con hilos himself into the second row, turning one poor individual into the most expected base of the day. They should've signed that guy, it was a great catch. King-as-Tiger hits his big caida ending rapid moonsaults and we get two different sequences of Tiger/Wagner, both working some playful spots off rope running, with a great moment of Tiger headbutting Wagner when he goes for a leapfrog. I only remember seeing the brothers in CMLL on opposite sides a couple times during this era, and this was a fun look at that.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Fuerza vs. Demus

6. Fuerza Guerrera vs. Demus 3:16 Innova Aztec Power 2/4

PAS: Demus deciding he wanted to leave CMLL to have filthy brawls in warehouses can't be good for his overall life, but it has made mine better. This is a nasty brawl with both guys spurting blood. It is falls count anywhere, while I don't remember any actual pin attempts there is a lot of brawling around this dirty floor with open cuts. There are some real grim visuals like Fuerza biting Demus's bloody head while try to close his nostrils and smother him. The lucha exchanges were a little clunky, which isn't surprising consider how old Fuerza is, but he wasn't afraid to fly into chairs and bleed a bunch. Sleazy lucha indy wrestling at it's best.

ER: Jeez what a grimy little brawl. It's in a dank warehouse, it's dark so there are a couple bright lights focusing on the brawl (which makes it look like footage from a night raid on an episode of COPS), they bleed a bunch, and they attack each other's balls seemingly constantly, and a large batch of pork rinds gets wasted as a delicious weapon. Fuerza is officially a senior citizen, no need for him to be bleeding in a dirty warehouse while being assaulted by a bridge troll. But once the brawl around the warehouse starts it's impossible to look away. Demus beats him all around the arena, at one point literally grabbing Fuerza by the taint to keep him from getting away. I'm not making that up. Fuerza is walking away and Demus casually reaches up and under and just...holds him, and holds him longer than necessary. They punch each other into some really nasty tumbles through chairs, Demus gets thrown into a fan and practically armdrags him, they both knock a 10 year old down, Fuerza gets his mask ripped and pays Demus back by HOLDING HIS NOSTRILS SHUT while biting and ripping at his forehead. I have never seen that, Fuerza is a freaking monster. The stuff in ring never threatens to compare with the awesome violence that happened all around the ring, but it's good stuff, with Demus crushing him with his cannonball, and especially when the straps come down and Fuerza belts Demus, sending him down hard to the mat. The match finishing crab was sunk in deep and looked like something that should finish a match.


2018 MOST MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Fuerza, Still Doing It; Y Tu, Wotan?

Fuerza Guerrera vs. Octagon (Liga Elite 9/9/16)

ER: This is a match up that has happened dozens of times in lucha history, and originally one of the reasons that Octagon was even a thing was because of how good Fuerza made him look. And it's still happening. He's still doing it. This match-up doesn't show up as often as it used to (a quick check shows that it hasn't shown up on tape in 4 years, but no doubt it happens often), and Octagon has gotten chubbier and slower, while Fuerza is just as nutty as ever. This is predictably a total Fuerza show, but an impressive show. Fuerza does all the work on everything, as the slo mo camera reveals; what looks like some violent tilt a whirl backbreakers in normal speed can be seen as Fuerza violently whipping himself into Octagon's knee, while Octagon doesn't even go into a full knee bend. But Fuerza makes them look great in regular speed. Octagon can still spin fast on armdrags, and Fuerza bumps fast for all of them. To make up for Octagon being able to do much of anything, Fuerza even hits a big time gusher, bleeding all over the ring, hitting a big flip dive (that Octagon mostly bails on) with blood dripping down his chest, kicks balls, and just keeps making Octagon look better than Octagon should look, 25 years later. You'd think this would have been annoying to him in his 30s, and that somewhere along the way he would stop trying so hard, but here he is in his 60s, still trying hard, still doing it.

Wotan vs. As Charro Innova Aztec Power 8/7/16

PAS: Wotan was in our 2016 MOTY, so when Powerbomb.tv dumped a bunch of indy lucha on the internet, I wanted to check out more Wotan to see if he is great on his own or a Black Terry creation. Verdict after this match is closer to a Black Terry creation. This has got to be As Charro Jr. or something as the original was super old in the late 80s. This starts out with some pretty good matwork and some nice brawling, but really falls apart when they break out the light tubes. After that it is some geek show jabbing and poking and some of the most egregious your turn my turn stuff I can remember seeing. For example As Charro hits a running death valley bomb into the turnbuckle and the very next move is Wotan hitting the same thing on him, didn't even bother to pretend to be hurt. Finish was a nothing run in too, I do want to check out a couple more Wotan matches, but this wasn't a good start.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: El Hijo Del Santo, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Black Warrior, Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera

1998-11-13 @ Arena México
El Hijo Del Santo, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Black Warrior, Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera

There's a moment in this match towards the end of the third fall, right before Black Warrior hits a huge tope to get himself and Niebla out of the way for the finish, where Warrior very clearly screws up a baseball slide to the ramp. He had been trying to dodge a handspring (presumably a back headbutt) by Niebla. It's clumsy as hell. He recovers by owning it, by standing up, by waving his fingers to the crowd. There's also a moment at the end of the match where Santo and Casas (who had only been teaming for a couple of months after the turn) go for a big high five. It doesn't go well at all. Something that should be triumphant ended up strangely awkward.

Those two moments sum the match up in a nutshell. Amazing talent. Legendary talent, really. A pair of young wrestlers who are game and could go. It's a total mess execution wise. Absolute mess. While, yes, I care less about flawless execution than pretty much everyone else who watches lucha, I put forward the notion that this match is fun enough that it simply doesn't matter.

Panther's an underrated rudo stooge. In a lot of ways he's been misclasified by history. Fuerza is the king of rudo stooges. A huge chunk of the primera is Fuerza and Panther stooging for Santo and Casas. Some of it (like Fuerza hanging on to Casas' hair after every attempt to get out of a headlock or Casas refusing to let the beatdown start and fighting back, pissed off, repeatedly until Fuerza cut him off with a low blow) is pretty standard but still gold. The end of the fall, however, has Santo and Casas working in tandem, setting up double team tecnico spots. It's all mis-timed to a ridiculous degree, and not even in that sort of "faux organic struggle" sense you can sometimes bs. It's still an absolute joy to see the two of them working together like this, especially on Panther and Fuerza. It's downright charming, and while it should be no one's introduction to these wrestlers, if you're heavily familiar with them, it's well worth watching.

Also charming was Fuerza squeezing Santo's hand while he's in a nasty Blue Panther submission that ended the segunda. I have no idea why he might have done it (he had been helping to torque the arms a moment before as they're opponents), but the replay catches it and it's weirdly endearing. Look, if Negro Casas teaming with Santo and winning a fall by using his partner's trademark flipping-rana-sunset flip on one rudo while Santo locks on the caballo on the other is the sort of thing that excites you, you should watch this match. If it's not, then we look for very different things out of lucha.

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THE MOTHERFUCKING INTERNET- Baby Fuerza v. Baby Casas

Negro Casas v. Fuerza Guerrera WWA 9/20/86

Dataintcash delivers again!! Here is two of the all time greats popping up with a previously unseen match which is the earliest footage we have from either guy. It is a little strange to watch a pair of consummate rudos work this kind of fast paced juniors style, but no surprise, they are really great at it. Two pretty solid initial falls with Fuerza doing some especially nifty armdrags where he never loses contact with the arm, and then a final nutso fall. Fuerza takes his signature bump to the floor at warp speed, and Casas follows it up with an out of control tope. They then exchange electric chair drops and bow and arrow counters, before Casas hits a Rita Romero slam and Casita for the pin. This is the kind of match which would have blown minds in 1986, although this kind of highspot juniors wrestling doesn't age as well as other styles. Still a true out of the blue treat and a great chance to see a pair of legends as athletic young guys.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Chavo Guerrero, Eddy Guerrero, El Dandy vs Mongolian Mauler, Fuerza Guerrera, Vampiro

1991-05-10 @ Arena Coliseo
Chavo Guerrero, Eddy Guerrero, El Dandy vs Mongolian Mauler, Fuerza Guerrera, Vampiro

We're going to have a brief detour from all things productive for this one. decadas80s90s2000 on youtube is a lovely human being, a double-threat who posts both fancams from Elite shows and older lucha on a regular basis. His nomenclature strategies can be occasionally misleading however. This one popped up on February 23, with the title of "EDDIE GUERRERO,EL DANDY VS FUERZA GUERRERA,VAMPIRO CANADIENSE." I figured that I could tolerate some Vampiro for the sake of a 23 year old Eddy, Dandy, and Fuerza. Not mentioned in there was Chavo Guerrero, but I've been enjoying him quite a bit in the nwaclassics.com footage, and he was probably better to watch in 91 than a relatively green Eddy.

Also not mentioned, however, was the Mongolian Mauler, which was quite the oversight. I kind of love fish out of water monster lucha appearances. Sometimes, it works out really well, like with Kamala or Haku. Or it can be at least functional like Solomon Grundy, a foil for a particularly talented tecnico or rudo to play off of. A Killer Kowalski graduate running with the Geeto/Bepo Mongol gimmick and black contact lenses and prone to eating the turnbuckles, the Mongolian Mauler was a totally different beast. He had a cup of coffee in 1994 WCW, including a Main Event match of Sting, Dustin, and Pillman vs Regal, Austin, and the Mauler, which I really need to see at some point. He was actually all over the place. SMW, Reslo, WING, CWA. It's a weird career for someone I hadn't heard of. I think his ring work is best summed up with this gif I made from a squash over Brian Armstrong in WCW:

Still, it shouldn't have been an issue in a match with Dandy and Fuerza, right? Fuerza could direct traffic and Dandy could sell and it'd be fine? They could work around Mauler like we've seen with so many other such wrestlers. Not so much. The problem was two fold. First and foremost, having the Guerreros in there made things problematic in a way that you wouldn't expect. While I imagine Chavo could work a trios match without breaking a sweat, having Mauler in there to play off of meant that he decided to break from convention and work things how he wanted. That meant getting tossed over the top rope a few times so that he could do a skin the cat spot as the match ground to a halt as the others weren't sure whether they should come in the ring or not, that sort of thing.

The second issue was that this was a storyline driven match. This was the road to Vampiro's face turn, which involved miscommunication and a post-match beatdown by the rudos. Having Mauler in there as a prop for the miscommunication spots was less than ideal, especially when they were relying on Vampiro to make it all work in the first place. There were good things in the match: Fuerza/Dandy exchanges were as good as you'd expect; it was nice to see Chavo and Eddy interact, including them saving one another at times; and Vampiro, despite what I just said, is the sort of guy you're always better off seeing in story-driven matches as opposed to more technique-based ones, but I think it was, all in all, an example of just what happens when the delicate formula of lucha libre trios matches get distrupted. They only make it LOOK easy most of the time.

By the way, according to the Match Finder, Vampiro had two singles matches in 91: one vs the Mauler, one vs Nitron. Don't you wish you could see those? I sure do.

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MLJ: Villano III Interlude 2: El Hijo Del Santo, Fuerza Guerrera, Villano III b Felino, Negro Casas, Shocker

1998-09-04 @ Arena México
El Hijo Del Santo, Fuerza Guerrera, Villano III b Felino, Negro Casas, Shocker

I ended up with an extra Sombra write-up last week as we needed content to keep the every day train going and my Monday review was the victim, so I'm filling the gap with another Villano III interlude. I realize I'm post prime here, with VIII in his mid-late 40s, but this is another one of those matches that hits a lot of marks: heel Santo, masked Shocker, tecnico Negro Casas, Fuerza Guerrera. Frustratingly, I feel like every rudo Santo match I watch has him on the verge of turning tecnico. I don't know if that's a footage issue or if he just spent half of his time as a rudo teasing the turn back.

Here, it was the key story of the match, but it played out interestingly. He went rudo, in part, because Casas, his eternal rival, had gone tecnico. In this match, there's a narrative of mutual respect between the two. While Santo doesn't show much affection for Felino or Shocker (and they show none for him), he seemed reluctant to allow for triple teams on Casas, even pulling him out of the ring at one point when he was getting double teamed. Later on, Casas returns the favor. He seemed frustrated by Fuerza and VIII, not wanting his hand raised with them after they took the primera. The finish of the match had Santo knock Felino off the top rope and ready to leap only for Fuerza to knock him off so he could hit the senton and steal the match.

You'd think in a match with so much story that the action might suffer. It really didn't. It did take up a lot of the primera, since it was a key element to the rudo beatdown, but Fuerza and Villano worked well together and Casas was tremendously over and is extremely good at garnering sympathy when put in a position to. The tecnicos actually came back in the primera in part due to Santo refusing to triple team. I'm well aware of it by now, but it's still amazing to see how different Shocker and Felino are in 2015 relative to 1998. Shocker, high flying and dynamic hit this amazing missle dropkick on Villano before he caught him in a power bomb for the fall (check out Fuerza's senton too):

The real joy of the match was in the brawling that followed, though. I'm not sure what got into them in this night, but Casas and Villano, especially, decided that they were going to pound the hell out of each other and it was pretty glorious. I said that this probably wasn't a great match to watch to get a sense of villano since it was so past his prime, but in lucha, wrestlers are viable into their 50s, and it's always interesting to see how they adapt after they can't go physically quite as much. VIII punching Casas in the face and eating his punches is a hell of a way to go. Casas still threw in the spin kick (and the Fiera wide spin kick which I'm not sure I've ever seen him do before), but he was brawling in a way that I've not seen from any other match of his, even apuesta matches, even the heated work with Rush.

People should check this one out for the well executed Santo story, but first and foremost for the Casas and Villano of them going at it. I'm excited to go back and watch some of those VIII apuestas matches now and some of his trios matches vs the Brazos or what not.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Hijo del Santo y Octagon vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Negro Casas (Juarez)

Hijo del Santo y Octagon vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Negro Casas

We live in blessed times. This popped up yesterday and has 38 views so far. 38. I'm looking at this mainly so that more people can see it. It's not on the match finder. Really, I don't see any sign of Octagon and Negro Casas on opposite sides there. I am cautiously excited about more matches popping up from Juarez on this youtube channel but I know nothing about this otherwise. It's got about everything could want out of this sort of footage: lots of different camera angles, relatively high video quality, a full crowd hot for it. I don't know what the stakes are. I don't know when this was. I know nothing, but it was sure fun.

Everyone was good here. Octagon was less good, but still had some great foils to work with. I'll get back to that in a minute. They cycled through pairings throughout the match, everyone getting to work with everyone else a lot. There wasn't a ton of heat as this was more of a traditional tecnico showcase but the rudos were able to keep up and look strong. They'd control the start of an exchange with something underhanded and then end up getting out-wrestled. This had a long primera, a shorter segunda with a bit of heat, a pretty much non-existent comeback, and a lot of action in the tercera, with a few dives and chaos (down to a very chaotic finish).

Fuerza and Octagon did their part but it was Santo and especially Negro Casas that really stood out. Casas is one of my favorite wrestlers ever and I was still a bit surprised by just how good he was here. It's a shame we don't have more of him against Octagon because it was a great pairing. Casas oscillated between Memphis-level stalling (which was extremely effective at getting Octagon's strikes over as dangerous) with heavy-rudo antics (like asking for a test of strength and just walking up with a killer uppercut or goading Octagon to the mat with a second one and then dropkicking him in the face). He was also able to carry a mat section with him. Fuerza and Casas were pretty much made to feed tecnicos, but Casas was so emotive here, stooging and selling and posturing and making everything feel like it mattered. Basically, he out Fuerza'ed Fuerza, which is a stark contrast to the way someone like Blue Panther would retreat within himself when paired with Guerrera.

Santo really brought it too. Occasionally, he works this bully-styled aggression into his work, the sort that you'd get out of Bruno or Hogan. It's just human nature. Each and every one of us, deep down, want our heroes, even the purest of the pure, to have a mean streak. It came up here now and again, with a brutal Belly-To-Belly I've never seen him do before, with a great short clothesline, with a few wrenching submissions (and did Casas ever sell the pain of them!)

Like I said, everything sort of fell apart in the end, but at least it all fell apart in novel ways. Watch this for the lengthy, mat-driven primera and for the classic pairings and to see Negro Casas closer to his prime and at the height of his power (which is saying so much). Watch it to see him match up against Octagon. It's good stuff and hopefully we get more of the same soon.

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MLJ: Misterioso/Volador 3: Blue Panther, Emilio Charles Jr., Fuerza Guerrera vs Blue Demon Jr., Misterioso, Volador I

1992-01-10 @ Arena Coliseo
Blue Panther, Emilio Charles Jr., Fuerza Guerrera vs Blue Demon Jr., Misterioso, Volador I

Going off of the almighty match finder, this was the third match in a three match series pitting Misterioso and Volador against Fuerza Gurrera at Arena Coliseo. This followed the title match (and matches that built it) a month prior in Arena Mexico. I covered the second match on Wednesday but the first one isn't online, which is a shame because it had Nitron, and I can only imagine him taking Volador and Misterioso's stuff. Anyway, this was a pretty weird match, but if it was a blowoff to help Fuerza get his heat back, I can sort of understand it. That said, there's almost no one in the history of wrestling who feels as Teflon when it comes to losses as Fuerza.

I've seen extremely little Blue Demon Jr. He was around 25 here, so my guess is that a lot of his more negative tendencies I've heard about developed later. Granted, most of what he had to do was get beat on and some rope running. He did take some good bumps for Charles and I wouldn't be against watching a title match against Blue Panther from this era if it existed (it doesn't) but he was a supporting player here.

Like I said, weird structure. Unless it was clipped, and I saw no sign of that, it went two falls, with the rudos taking both, and a tecnico comeback in the middle. There wasn't any sort of shine or feeling out at the beginning either. The rudos just swarmed in after a bit of Fuerza vs Misterioso. Then there was a lot of post match brawling and posturing, including a face off between Fuerza and Misterioso once again. Looking at results and Observers, this didn't go anywhere. It was just it. Fuerza started teaming with Satanico and Panther against Vampiro, Dragon, and Octagon.

The opening swarm was effective enough given the guys you had on the rudo side. The tecnicos cycled in and out to get beaten on and there was a decent amount of tandem offense with the highlight being Misterioso lifted up onto two rudos' knees for a triple gutbuster. My favorite spot, however, was an electric chair splash by Panther and Fuerza. I always like how they work together. They really balanced one another:

Also, while we're at it, check out this pretty mare by Panther:

The comeback wasn't too much to write home about (just a quebradora out of nowhere). Really all you need to know about it is Emilio Charles' sell of a later quebradora:

He also took a back body drop bump out. The match ended with Misterioso getting slammed off the top by Fuerza and put into a double underhook backbreaker/submission by Panther. It was very sudden, but I guess it set up the Fuerza/Panther tandem to be at the top of the card for the next month (except for this was at Arena Coliseo and that was at Arena Mexico and frankly I'm probably looking too deeply at CMLL booking, even old CMLL booking). In short, I have no idea why this went two falls, why it ended with brawling and posturing. The previous match was better since it was more complete. I'm pretty sure that this was fine for what it was. I'm just still not sure what exactly that was.

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MLJ: Misterioso/Volador 2: Huracán Sevilla, Misterioso, Volador I vs Fuerza Guerrera, Kung Fu, MS-1

1992-01-03 @ Arena Coliseo
Huracán Sevilla, Misterioso, Volador I vs Fuerza Guerrera, Kung Fu, MS-1

Once again, the idea behind this one is to look at the Misterioso/Volador team and the big matches of their eventual feud. So far though, though it wasn't my intention, I'm stumbling behind the look at Emilio Charles I took a few weeks ago. That turned into a look at the Misterioso vs Fuerza Guerrera title match and this and the match following, through no real planning on my part, will be a look at the aftermath of that.

Sevilla worked as Ramirez II before this and as DARTH VADER before that:

I really don't know a lot about him. Kung Fu had turned rudo at some point and worked a grumpy nunchucks gimmick here. The match started with the ref running around trying to find his hidden weapons. MS-1 had just lost a hair match to Maskare (which sounds fun but I don't think we have it).

Anyway, the rudos took right over here due to all the hullabaloo over the nunchuk search. There was a distraction. They took advantage. General pairings here were Volador and MS-1, Kung Fu and Sevilla, and, of course, Fuerza and Misterioso. The ambush created a numbers advantage for the rudos and they cycled the tecnicos in for the primera. Misterioso, especially, seemed like he knew how to get the crowd behind him and to look strong, but whenever he started to fight back he was double or triple teamed. Kung Fu's stilted leg drop was ridiculous. I'm not even going to gif it.

I will gif this though. It's Fuerza being a total dick to Sevilla and yanking him around by his hair:

Also, this sell of a corner shot by Sevilla:

All in all, it was a good beatdown. They kept things moving and the rudos were just unrelenting. It was a little unfocused, but that seemed to add to the feel of it, not subtract. It felt like grumpy violence for the sake of it.

The rudos took the primera and left the tecnicos convalescing on the outside. After a bit of miscommunication, however, we'd get a pretty spirited comeback that almost immediately moved into tecnicos vs the world. It began well, however, with MS-1 stooging it up in preparation for a faceoff with Sevilla:

and Fuerza falling out of the ring in retreat for no reason:

and ended amazingly with this awesome monkey-flip-your-own-partner-into-a-sunset-flip spot. It's a cool enough spot that you figure that they had to use it fairly often. Look at Fuerza sell the shot on the top too:

So that evened up the caidas. The tercera was a lot of what you'd expect, very paint but numbers, but executed well. I'm not going to say that trios matches from 91/92 just feel more "right" than what we get today but there's some element of comfort in them, which is a funny notion for me since I'd never seen any of this stuff before two years ago. This was heated with a solid beatdown, some good tecnico shine, some fun spots and moments, and a great post-match brawl. What else can you ask for in a random trios match from twenty five years ago?

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