Phil Schneider, Eric Ritz, Matt D, Sebastian, and other friends write about pro wrestling. Follow us @segundacaida
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Black Terry Wove a Red Cloak So Regal to See
Black Terry vs. Chico Che IWRG 1/29/12 - GREAT
PAS: It's odd that this match escaped me for so long, it's hair match featuring two of my all time favorite wrestlers, during one of my favorite wrestling vintages early 2010s IWRG. How didn't I see it in 2012? How has it been on Powerbomb for two years? How did I review the set up match and not the apuestas? Well I am watching it now, and while booking kept this from being a super high end Black Terry match, it was still pretty awesome stuff.
Chico Che is full rudo in this match, which isn't a role I have seen him in before. He doesn't do his awesome rope running sequence and focuses more on chops and punches, but he has great looking chops and punches so it works good. We get a bunch of gruesome cinema verite close ups of bloody bruised faces getting punched and headbutted. There is an amazing BTJr. shot of both guys smashing their foreheads against each other, while blood sprays off. There was a lot of interference by the seconds (I want to say Dynamic Black and Commando Negro, but I admit my ability to ID IWRG guys from a decade ago has wained), and the third fall was basically all interference and a pretty mistimed ref bump, if they had kept it a gore fest brawl it would have been an easy epic, but I think the set up match is the better of the two. Still this is Chico Che and Black Terry in an Black Terry Jr. filmed HH, so incredibly worth watching.
ER: What a tremendous bit of family theater. This was a hair vs. hair match, except that Maximo was fighting for Super Porky's hair, and Mascara was fighting for Goya Kong's hair. It starts pretty simply, two very quick falls, but Maximo gets busted open in the segunda, serving as a sign of the drama that was coming in the tercera. Everybody played their role tremendously, and the fans were literally jumping out of their seats for nearfalls down the finishing stretch. Maximo turns in one of the great tecnico performances of the year, really eating some hard shots from Mascara before finally snapping. Maximo snaps off a couple nice headscissors, hits a plancha off the apron into his sister (with Mascara awesomely moving at the last minute so Goya takes the hit), and then goes nuts in the crowd throwing hard rows of sharp chairs at Mascara's head. Maximo was really throwing those things and suddenly this is an Alvarado take on a Park/Rush brawl. But Maximo manages to hit a better tope than any tope in a Park/Rush match. Maximo has an argument for best tope in lucha, and this is one of his finest ever, his chest and head battering Mascara hard into the barricade, like booby trapped tree knocking a storm trooper down a hill on Endor. I loved all the family interaction: You had Mascara slapping Porky, Porky hitting Mascara in the face with the handle of a ring squeegee, Porky hobbling after Goya - Porky was moving pretty poorly but has lost weight, looked like a lucha Sebastian Gorka - and smacking that handle against the ground with every step before hitting his daughter with it (!), and later an awesome nearfall when Goya runs in to interfere and splats Mascara with a great elbowdrop. The nearfalls down the stretch were fantastic, and the fans were dying with them. They wanted to see Goya without her great head of hair, and every single Maximo kiss into a schoolboy lead to the crowd going bonkers. Maximo even pulls out a triple dip kiss for a nearfall, the ref eats a kick to the back of the head, some other guy gets involved and kicked to the floor; that kind of overbooking can feel like a total mess but here I thought it all added to the chaos and the fact that a couple heads of hair were on the line! This tercera (which was basically the whole match) was too much fun. Maximo is a guy I've pretty much checked out on post-CMLL, but he does always seem to turn in one big early year performance. For all I know he's putting on shows like this all over town.
PAS: I feel like I need to get the backstory of this match with a brother fighting his cousin while wagering the hair of their invalid father and sister, respectively. The weirdness of this match was really elevated by everyone being family. Porky can barely walk but he is still bleeding and hits a splash on an imposter who he thought was his nephew, and hits his daughter with a giant cane. Maximo ends up getting multiple near falls after he kisses his cousin on the mouth. Hell of Maximo performance, if this had been a bigger match the image of him hurling rows of chairs at his bloody brother would have been iconic, this was a small Arena Lopez Mateos match and only available via handheld, but it felt like a huge main event. Lots of goofiness and shortcuts, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.
ER: Here's me, loving the career ending Virus match, talking to Phil and saying "When was the last time Metalico even worked a singles match!?" Well, it turns out he worked on earlier in the month AND it was also a stips match. It's quick and fun and worked stiff, two rudos going at it while Metalico is default tecnico. Disturbio sneak attacks him to draw a DQ, but sets himself up for an easy segunda win by ramming his knees into Metalico's face a bunch while he's still recovering from that sneak attack. The tercera is where all the action is, with Metalico unleashing two big topes and his Asai moonsault, and we get both men trying to distract the other before hitting cheapshots. Metalico's payback cheapshots were great, loved him getting Disturbio to take his eyes off the action before laying him out with a lariat, and the match ends with Disturbio almost hitting the ref and then getting punched right in the balls. We got a real stiff kneeling punch exchange with both guys comically recoiling before springing up and hitting harder and harder shots, and while this never quite felt like a high stakes apuestas, neither guy was holding back. Also, it's a fact that Disturbio's post haircut look is easily the best he's looked. Everybody wins!
ER: Real shame this only went 6 minutes or so, because this was a wild super libre match with tons of dives, tons of guys getting thrown into a packed crowd, and tons of stiff shots by our rudos, Los Haraganes (does that really directly translate to "The Lazy"? If so that's my favorite rudo team name ever). We start with a couple dives, including an unhinged flipping moonsault by Demencia, and from there we get a ton of chaos, guys getting launched 5 rows deep with hiptosses and taking out entire sections of chairs, honestly someone either gets thrown or lands in the crowd no less than 8 times in the 6 minute run time, and then come the chair shots. Everywhere you look someone is getting tossed through chairs, hit with hard chair shots, or choked with a chair. A kid gets shoved, more chaos. An important thing about Los Haraganes, is that all of them hit hard. Silver Star throws some forehead bruising punches from the mount, a guy who really makes all of his strikes count (and that's not something that really happens in these kind of spotfests). Animal hits a great dive, Xperia hits a cool climb up headscissors/rana on Demencia, Demencia takes a wild bump off the top when he tries - standing on the top rope - to BODYSLAM Torito, and we get another tornillo into the barricade for good measure. I could have gobbled up another 6 minutes of this, easily, but these guys get deservedly pelted with coin money after this ends (shout out to the kid standing at the entrance ramp launching coins as hard as he can from the back row).
ER: Ultimo Guerrero is one of the bigger stars in modern lucha, who occasionally will show up to an arena to take an actual vicious beating. Corsario Negro is a big tubby guy with a physique that would stand out as tubby on the PBA tour, who apparently really values his 1.5" of hair. This whole thing opens with them brawling on the floor, and Ultimo getting battered with a crate and then stabbed in the head. Ultimo is soon bleeding, plentifully. Corsario really punches him around the arena, shots to the face and cool punches to the chest, even hits a great sneaky headbutt in the corner. Ultimo returns fire with some nice chairshots, hard but glancing. Corsario responds by bouncing a chair off Ultimo's head so damn hard that it ricochet's off Ultimo's head bones and hits a fan 10 feet away. Seeing that things have come to this, Ultimo returns the favor and pastes him with a shot straight out of 1999, that probably erased much of 1999 from Corsario's memory. This is definitely a lucha stips match. Corsario impresses the hell out of me with a monster tope, a real fast, graceful, heavy shot; and we get a series of big top rope moves and big spills, and a moment where I thought UG could plausibly lose his valuable (I assume) mullet. Bloody hair match is a match style with a pretty high floor anyway, but Corsario's beating and UG's sick enthusiasm made this one special.
PAS: For a guy who mostly bores me, Ultimo Guerrero can sure deliver in alternative circumstances. This was an old school small arena hair match. We get a bunch of blood, guys getting smacked with splintery crates, a big fat guy tope into chairs and some unprotected chair shots. The big reverse suplex and top rope powerbomb, which come off so trite when they are thrown out in the middle of the six hundred and third Volador Jr. match, really come off cool in a bloody hair match. Corsario Jr. felt like a guy losing his hair in a high profile match, and performing up to the moment. Fun stuff, and we really need to dig into all of Lucha.Tv's stuff, what a treat that Youtube gives us so much small venue lucha.
ER: This wasn't in an easy spot on the card, right after a micros trios match that was fairly epic in scope, had a ramp dive and got a lot of time, big triumphant Micro Man finish. So this match had to follow that, and they opted for opening with 3 minutes of snug matwork. They went right out and said "you're getting something different" and I liked it. Dalys works mean throughout the whole match, totally turning a woman who is the QUEEN of ISIS into a tecnica. I liked their mat exchanges, a lot of hard takedowns and nice headlocks. Dalys muscled her around and stomped her around the ring, hit a couple nice throws and looked real scary in spots. Isis had a couple nice tecnica comebacks, a nice rana, dive off the middle rope to the floor, a nice Santo rolling sunset flip. But Dalys was real tough here, came off like someone who could believably work intergender trios. Dalys finished with a stiff senton, and I liked how energized Isis was throughout, and even while getting pinned she was still limply trying to kick her limbs out. I thought this was a tough match, and probably the most interested lightning match I've seen this year.
PAS: Dalys looked awesome in this match, sort of a mix of Finlay and Cris Cyborg. She really punishes Isis, putting her in a STF and yanking up on her neck, driving her knee into Isis chest, lifting her up by her hair. All of her slams had Isis landing flat backed, which is pretty rare in lucha, and felt like she knocked all of the air out of her. Isis had some headscissors and an OK dive, but I really didn't buy her getting any offense on Dalys. Joe Gomez wasn't ripping off offense on Fit or anything. Still a great vicious performance by Dalys and I need to dig around and watch more of her.
Hair vs. Hair: Barbaro Cavenario/Rush vs. Volador Jr. Matt Taven CMLL 9/14/18
ER: Say what you will about this match, but these are four heads of hair worthy of a hair match. If my head were shaved, it would be grown back to where I typically keep it within 6 weeks. Not a valuable guy to have in a hair match? But Cavernario has the most hair by volume in the fed, Rush has the most valuable hair in wrestling, Volador's is among the longest in the fed, and Matt Taven is a garbage direct to video Pauly Shore as Slender Man. The match has plenty of flaws, Matt Taven stinks up most of his time in the match, but he's countered by a touchstone big match performance from Cavenario, a performance that really cements him among the best main event workers in the world today. A crazy tercera also helps kick this to the good side, with plenty of big moves, a huge moment I don't think I've seen, and that continually crazy Barbaro performance. Barbaro breaks out some some unhinged caveman moments, diving off the entrance ramp with a big splash, diving off the top with a big splash, crazy missile dropkick that he lands on his feet, breaking out his from the apron past the ringpost dive, nearly beheading himself on a Fuerza bump, eating a flip dive from Volador, taking a suicide elbow from Taven, eating Volador's flipping piledriver with a death wish, taking a rana standing on the top rope....it was a fucking stunt show and Cavenario was Hal Needham. Taven looked like shit and even spent a large part of the match getting booed. Did the crowd sense the rudo turn, or were they just sick of his dogshit flipping neckbreaker variations? Sick of him hitting bad springboard dropkicks? Volador does plenty of stuff I dislike, and I think we're beyond needing a moratorium on backcrackers in lucha, but he throws himself hard into a quebrada and a big flip dive and that adds to the match. Rush walked around like a punk and threw some hard corner dropkicks, had an excellent timely save, and absolutely planted Volador with the piledriver finish. This whole thing was plenty fun, even with flaws, but even if the match stunk it would be worth seeing just for Cavenario.
PAS: So glad to see out boy Chico Che showing up again, he pretty much vanished after his last epic IWRG run, but has resurfaced. This is a hair v. hair brawl and is pretty much a one man Che show. Motocross bleeds and throws chairs, but doesn't bring much else to the table. Che is still really agile for such a chub, and his a beautiful elbow suicida to open the match. We also get some great Che thudding headbutts and a great top rope splash. Finish has a bunch of BS which keeps this from being a real top of the list contender, but still a treat to see Chico Che do his thing.
ER: This is a really really great "Oh yeah, THAT Chico Che!" performance, from a guy that I'm not sure I've seen since 2013. That 4 year gap vanishes as Che looks exactly the same and wrestles as great as you remember. Within the first couple seconds he hits a huge tope that crushes Motocross into the barricade, and in the first couple minutes he's already dropped him vertically with a seated double underhook piledriver, punched him across the bridge of the nose, and punted him in the jaw. Chico Che is the fattest Kurisu and it's great. I don't totally understand the finish of the segunda, as Che hits a full force crossbody and rolls away, and then just gets pinned. And that's a continuing theme, as I don't totally get Motocross here, but some fans in the back have a giant sign for him, and he takes some of the nastier chairshots you're going to see in modern wrestling, and lets a fat dude in overalls jump on him a bunch, so there's just a lot I'm not going to understand about Motocross. The violence keeps ramping in the tercera as both brawl around ringside and have a contest to see who can hit each other harder in the face with a chair. Neither win. Che takes some mean shots, but then gives it back to Motocross twofold, at one point wrapping a hard plastic chair around his neck and headbutting him. Both are bleeding, and we get some good nearfalls back inside. Che drops him with a nasty double underhook slam and splats him with a huge splash, but yeah we get some silliness with the finish, and I didn't think Chico Che should have gone down from just a nut shot, but this was a great Chico Che match.
PAS: Our week of Casas continues with the first entry in our 2018 Ongoing MOTY list. Casas representing Mexico goes into the temple of lucha and shaves the lucha avatar of our current toxic waste dump of a President. The triumph of lucha good over gringo evil is a good emotionally healthy way to start the new year. I wasn't in love with the super quick first two falls, although I thought Casas catching him early with a win was nice. Third fall was also shortish, although it had some really good moments. I loved how Casas sold getting whipped into the guardrail, he clutched his stomach the whole match like he at some really bad tamales. I also really enjoyed the finish, it was a nice bit of old rudo trickery, as he egged Adonis on to keep throwing his high kicks and suckered him into a Casita for the pin. I liked some Adonis stuff, but he does throw some questionable forearms and there were a couple of moments of real telegraphing. Still great to see Casas get a big win in a big main event.
ER: Phil watched this match the day before I did, and my what a difference in perspective a day makes. Going into this match knowing Casas breaks a rib or two, it's pretty obvious when the break happens, and pretty obvious how badly he's hurting at points after the break. Would I have been able to tell the difference between selling and injury had I not known? Impossible to say, that's the problem with talented wrestlers. A couple weeks ago I just thought Brian Kendrick sold the Go 2 Sleep better than anybody else, the way Tenryu sells an enziguiri. Turns out he just had his face broken by KENTA. So it gives the match an entirely different story from an entirely different perspective. Instead of an excellent selling performance, it's a freaking small triumph of human perseverance. King Fuckface looks shaky as hell going up top to end the segunda, and then just crushes Casas with a 450 splash (which I have not seen him use in CMLL), and Casas is immediately grabbing at his side. The rest of the match had so much more heft for me, knowing what Casas was going through. They could have easily cut to an improvised finish with the same result, but Casas went through with everything, even continuing to take bumps! You could see the pain on his face as he couldn't snap his kneelifts off as quickly as normal, and as he pushed Adonis away from him during pin attempts so Adonis' full weight wasn't on him. But then this lunatic goes and gets superplexed, takes a fireman's carry slam, a Michinoku driver, every one of those had to be sending hell through his body. The guy goes and hits another running Thesz press off the apron, making his rib break one in the tercera look just as good as his press in the primera. Adonis still has some issues but brings what he brings. He's the kind of guy you would slot around 400 if you were crazy enough to do a 500. But he's got a punchable mug and works enough shtick to rile up a crowd and allow for a big performance from a lucha hero. So yeah, what a difference a day makes, and the difference is Negro Casas.
ER: Every neighborhood in Mexico must have a tubby local tecnico or a tubby local rudo, born and raised in that neighborhood and wrestling exclusively in that neighborhood. Chavo Lomeli is in his late 40s, wears great tassel tights like old tubby Jerry Estrada, looks like current Felino (+ 40 lb.) and was unseen by mine eyes until now. And again, there are hundreds of Chavo Lomelis in Mexico, and I'm always excited when a new one pops onto my radar. This was a fun New Years hair match, and Lomeli has a great head of hair on the line. You remember Negro as the worst participant in the Busca de un Idolo, and he's mostly what you remember: A guy who can do a dive and take a couple nice bumps. Chavo is a big bumping fatty which is probably the quickest way into my wrestling heart. Negro roughs him up with knuckle punches and Chavo continues the tradition of fat guys being great bleeders. Negro tosses him into the third row of not ready fans, and Negro has a bunch of bad body seconds roaming the ringside waving towels and sneaking boots in on Chavo. Negro eats a chairshot, Chavo does the excellent Harley Race bump where he falls backwards through the ropes and splats onto the floor. Negro hits a dive and Chavo ends up tossing HIM into those same fans. Finish is typical lucha ref fast count BS, but happens with good reason as Negro throws a punch at Chavo, misses, and ends up throwing the nastiest strike of the match right into the ref's jaw. Fun start to the indy lucha year.
PAS: Sort of a B- bloody hair match, but we get so few bloody hair matches these days, and bloody hair match is such a great match type, B- is going to get you on a list. Guerrero Negro Jr. is easier on the eyes when he has less to do, he isn't trying to keep up with Dragon Lee, he is just trying to punch an old guy in his bloody head. There is an obvious Negro blade job, but otherwise he was fine. Lomeli was a blast, you just know he has defended that luxurious mane many times before (probably in better matches) and he knows how to work a compelling apuestas match. We have the dominant heel opening caida, the quick turnaround second fall with Lomeli turning a sunset flip into a reverse package piledriver (which must have shocked Negro). Third falls has all of the bumps and dives you want, and a fine BS lucha finish. I love grimey lucha hand helds and this was a blast.
PAS: This a hair v. hair match between an all time lucha legend and a gringo with an American flag with Trumps face embroidered on it. This had all the heat you would expect from that pairing. This is probably Panther's last big CMLL main event, and he really puts in a great performance, including taking a nutty missed tope bump to the floor. Adonis gets a ton of heat, although the Trump flag is doing a lot of the work. This had a enough cool moments in the third fall to put it on the list, including an awesome Fujiwara armbar on the ramp, and Adonis draping Panther with the Trump flag and frog splashing him. Still Tirantes dropped his pants and pooped on portions of this, nothing I hate more then a heel ref, and he spent a lot of this match heat sucking, this match didn't need him to work, and watching a Trump supporter triumph over good with the help of undue collusion was a little close to home for me.
ER: Man, what the fuck with all the Tirantes? He's been in CMLL for awhile now and I don't remember him pulling his specific brand of bullshit...but I guess I hadn't had the privilege of seeing big match Tirantes. Every single thing about him was a total distraction, and I have zero clue why they thought they needed his gleeful pissing on this match. CMLL didn't draw their biggest crowd of the year because of Tirantes. The people came to see Panther whip Adonis' ass, and CMLL felt it would be best to regularly impede that whipping. You have a motherfucker who looks like Richard Spencer with Milo's shitty hair, wearing gloriously garish tights and waving a shitty trump flag on one side, and on the other side you have maybe the most sympathetic tecnico on the roster. But you know, we better jam this to the hilt with ref antics.
That the match was effective as it was is a true testament to Blue Panther: Great Wrestler, because Tirantes literally interjected himself into every one of Panther's great moments. First two falls are inconsequential (although right out of the gate we get BP pummeling Adonis, only for Tirantes to catch his hand on a punch. Good grief.), but the tercera brings the flames. The crowd is going bonkers by the time Panther nails Adonis with a tope, and then another one. Tirantes "inadvertantly" gets in the way of a third, and when Panther finally gets a clear runway he ends up taking a flip bump through the ropes to the floor, right on his tailbone. I wish Adonis had played more of a coward and used more cheapshots and hiding behind Tirantes, as he still came off pretty strong. But Panther was so nuts and his facials were so good that nobody in the match was going to hold this down. By the time they brawl to the ramp I was dying, and Panther's sympathetic facials while taking kicks to the jaw were great. Adonis ramps up the sympathy by bodyslamming nastily on the ramp, really splatting him. When Panther catches him in the Fujiwara it was a real markout moment. The big splash onto the draped-in-trump Panther was big, and Panther's kickout was grand. No way he's going out like that. At least Tirantes took a decent bump into the ropes to set up the end, but dammit Panther needs to take on Tirantes in a career vs. career match. CMLL needs to book The Panther vs. Adonis, mask vs. hair as a main, or BP/Panther vs. Adonis/proxy, with BP's career and Panther's mask on the line, and Adonis' hair and Tirantes' career (proxy wrestling for Tirantes) on the other line. Do it!
Two of my favorite apuestas match workers up against one another in a hair match that hasn't gotten much play over the years (though both OJ and Paul Cooke have fairly positive reviews out there). It's up, in the last few months, on a youtube account with a few interesting things that haven't been posted before, including other personal favorites in lucha like Cota and Kamala.
This got a mighty 1 star in the quick Observer write up (no details except for that it didn't draw well). I'm not sure where that came from; maybe Sims? I'm not going to dwell regardless. I just thought it was funny to point out.
Structurally, it had what I wanted out of a hair match (especially one with these two), with a few weird wrinkles which both helped and hurt the match. Fiera was a recently turned tecnico and they started the match out like it was a title match, with wrestling, mostly even but with Fiera getting just enough of the advantage to justify Chicana cheap-shotting him in the kidneys. That wouldn't have flown quite as much in a 1993 title match (but more than in a 1983 title match, probably), but here, it was a great moment, thoroughly rudo. It mostly justified them starting a hair match off with wrestling instead of brawling as it helped establish the roles in the match, but it was also a little weird to defer the hatred like that.
My favorite style of hair match is in the MS-1 vs Chicana vain, lots and lots of heat and beating followed by a dramatic, triumphant comeback. This came close. Chicana was awesome on top, laying shots in to the kidneys, posting Fiera repeatedly on the outside, jawing with the ref and into the crowd, just a charismatic mauling. He took the first fall with a submission and the second was given to Fiera by DQ after Chicana slammed a drink into his head on the outside. I wasn't so high on that. It let the heat keep going, which was great, and it protected Chicana a little bit given he was going to ultimately lose, but I'm iffy on first or second fall DQs in apuestas matches. I would have preferred Fiera getting an early fall during the wrestling segment of things that they started with, which could have spurred on Chicana going to fisticuffs. That's nitpicking though.
The comeback went exactly as you'd expect it to with Chicana getting too cocky and Fiera hitting his spin kick out of nowhere. Sure, it's just a little goofy when he does it too much, but from a 1993 perspective, it's one of the best moves in wrestling. It's not quite as good as Chicana's comeback haymaker (which we didn't see in this match because he wasn't positioned as the crowd favorite) but I knew to look for it and popped when it came. He fought his way back, ending with the most insane tope suicida over the top rope. Chicana bumped huge into the chairs for it, but he didn't exactly catch it well and Fiera wiped out headfirst. Just brutal.
As you'd expect, both of them sold big to end, with each touch and attempt at a pin significant. I think it ended a little more on a whimper than a hugely dramatic moment, but some of that was made up for in the post match with Chicana, his hair cut into a mohawk, going after Fiera, only for Fiera to fire back as they disappeared into the crowd. That's not the sort of post-match you see in apuestas matches often and it was a cool touch. I would have preferred a few structural changes, but this is well worth your time. I could watch Chicana punch Fiera in the kidney all day.
I love big time stip matches in lucha (even if it seems like CMLL has been doing a LOT of them in the past year+), and Rush knows how to bring big drama better than maybe anybody in lucha these days. Rush's hair has to be seen as the biggest trophy in all of lucha at this point, and he knows it. This match is worth watching just for the ways Rush flips his hair and puts it back in a bun. There are few appropriate situations to break out a hair taunt, and Rush seems to cover all of them. A couple things hold this back from being really really good: Maximo got a little steamrolled. He only won the first fall because Rush threw the referee while he was beating down Maximo, and while he got plenty of offense in the tercera Rush still dispatched him rather easily and never looked in serious danger. Also, Super Porky was flat out embarrassing as Maximo's second. During a big moment where Comandante and Porky fight at ringside over their sons' fallen bodies, Porky comes off looking like a drunk who's seeing two of Comandante, and he's fighting with the one that doesn't exist. During their strike exchange Porky whiffs on everything, and when the ref breaks it up it seems more like a mercy killing. Porky still probably gets more love on this blog than anywhere else. Usually a Porky performance ends up landing on our MOTY list every year. But damn did he look bad here. The rest of the match was really good though. Rush is awesome in these kind of matches, not only the presence he brings, but the ramped up stiffness he brings. Here he plasters Maximo with awesome dropkicks, stomps all over him, tosses him with suplexes, and then occasionally soaks up the cheers of his fans, slaps fives, lets people touch his hair, steals a swig of their soda (or other?), and then goes back to beating Maximo's ass. Maximo gets his great comeback and starts hitting topes. Rush wisely pulls the Comandante in front of one of them, and Pierroth was an awesome second in this. Rush also manages to somehow survive three consecutive kisses FROM A MAN! and both men were amusing setting them up. I especially loved Maximo tugging Rush's hair to bend him backwards before planting an upside down kiss on him. But Rush keeps his glorious flowing locks. I personally hope he never loses them, or they at least wait until someone super deserving comes along, and then they realllllllly build it up properly. I know that's asking a lot from CMLL, but Rush's locks are practically Santito's mask at this point.
Two big hair matches on the same show feels a bit much, but the loud and full crowd tells me that I am incorrect. And while I strongly detest the move trading atmosphere and CMLL big match structure, there is extra drama when a full head of hair is on the line that I cannot deny. Casas is on fire and you can see that from the first move of the match when he cuts low with a brutal left arm lariat. That follow through looked like it took Volador's head off. Both guys have some big moments and clearly tried to have the biggest match possible within CMLL's maligned structure. Casas tried playing catch up to the younger man, breaking out a couple of Volador style ranas (though one doesn't go well and has to get awkwardly redone), and both guys bump big for the other. Casas taking that sunset flip powerbomb to the floor was disgusting and only made his eventual head shaving even more heartbreaking. I also really loved Mephisto as Casas' second. He was awesome at firing up the crowd and currying favor, really doing all the great mannerisms you'd want from a second in a large match. I loved when the camera would do large cutaways to show the impressive crowd, as you could always see Mephisto off by the ring barrier trying to fire up fans. CMLL and lucha in general is always a cut above when the crowd is hot, and this show was no different.
I had to go digging a bit for this one. That's one of the bits of madness about this whole thing. There's more lucha online that I'm ever going to get to, and that's just online, and really that's just the stuff that interests me too. There are things I prioritize though, and a Negro Casas hair match I've never seen anyone talk about is up there.
I have a soft spot for Tarzan Boy too. Because it's one of the first things I came across starting this a couple of years ago, I'm a sucker for the Ultimo Guerrero, Rey Bucanero, Atlantis, Tarzan Boy, Olimpico version of GdI. He's like the world's best, smarmiest Paul Roma, but you know, in a good way. He's absolutely insufferable here, coming out to Simply Irresistible with four girls, tights with 69 on them, and lipstick kisses all over his body. There's a great camera shot early on of Casas entering the ring with Tarzan Boy in the foreground, standing on the second rope posing, partially obscuring the entrance. Later on, he wouldn't stop posing and grinding even as the ref was trying to give him instructions. That'd distract Casas enough that he could rush in and take the early advantage in the match.
This was the main event of the 2002 Anniversary show, so it's not exactly totally under the radar or anything. This footage claims to be unedited but the only way that seems to matter is with some longer pan shots than usual and the fact they don't split screen the replays. It's very watchable.
This was a one-fall match for some reason (not unlike the Damien vs Satanico match from around this period). It could have used a few more minutes certainly and almost functions as a hair match sprint, without long spurts of selling you'd expect in the tercera, but it's a very good match for what it is.
What's telling, too, is that you could see where the act breaks would be. Tarzan Boy loses the advantage early as Casas hits this great spear, but he gets it back with a really nice Drop Toe Hold, and they go back and forth a bit until he hits this a killer half nelson slam/chokeslam thing, following it up with a springboard spinning splash. That'd probably be a fall. A few moves later, Casas escapes from a Gory Special/pin, and manages to get in the Scorpion Deathlock; that'd be the comeback and the second fall. Then they brawl back and forth for a bit until Casas puts him in a chair on the outside and as he gets up, hits his running seated senton. That would be the transition point to the finishing stretch in the tercera. So it all makes sense. It just happens to be one fall. In this match, given the time it had, it helps because there's never a real feeling of disappointment from short falls. It all feels like more than the sum of its parts. In situations where they're going to have three or four minutes between the first two falls, maybe they should go this way instead.
So, it's missing some of the drama that you'd get in the end of these because it doesn't nearly have the number of near falls you'd usually expect (Though one at the end is really good). It also does have a slight veneer of its times. Tarzan Boy hits a Scorpion Death Drop and later in the match, Casas hits a full nelson spin out into one. Tarzan Boy launches this pretty silly cradle suplex too which didn't quite have the execution it needed. Those are minor things in the grand scheme though. As part of the Casas canon that doesn't get talked about much, it's worth seeing (But then every part of the Casas canon is worth seeing), and hey, Tarzan Boy's such a jerk in it that a fan even runs in to attack him after the match.
PAS: This was the co-main event hair match of the Sin Piedad New Year's Day show and was a great start to 2016. First fall had Kamaitachi work over Maximo's knee with some nasty stuff, I loved his diving knees onto Maximo's knee. He eventually gets the submission with a kind of modified figure four, liked the second fall with Maximo still getting brutalized and pulling off a twisty armdrag and then really cranking a single crab to even it out. Third fall was more back and forth, with some really cool stuff. It also felt more like a story with Maximo gritting out the bad leg, this wasn't just a series of crazy spots. Maximo is a great bad leg diver, his topes are awesome looking but he also throws in a subtle but noticeable limp. Finish had a little goofiness with fake fouls that was uneccesary, but otherwise this was awesome stuff.
ER: What a fun match. I like Kamaitachi a lot in CMLL, and he has a wonderful head of hair to put up in a hair match. And it seems like Maximo has to pop up at least once a year on our MOTY list, so he fills his quota pretty quickly here. Kamaitachi is crazy and fully throws himself into everything he does. He's an easy guy to watch, but an easy guy to boo here. We're all used to him in the Dragon Lee feud at this point, and all their match-ups (both in singles and trios) have been go go go. Here we get to see Kamaitachi slow things down and be more sinister. He still gets to be a showy bump machine, but this is much more classic rudo bully picking apart a sympathetic tecnico's knee. And boy does he pick apart Maximo's knee! We start with a low dropkick and it's curtains for Maximo's knee from there. Kamaitachi does a great job of adjusting his signature offense to specifically attack the knee, especially his double knee drop. Maximo's selling is great throughout, and he's already one of the more over tecnicos in CMLL, so the selling bumped him up to an even greater level of sympathy. Crowd is going nuts the whole time, but CMLL also makes sure we see (a lot of) Kamaitachi's big fan as she holds her Kamaitachi mask, gleefully laughs when he's doing well, and sits in shock whenever Maximo turns the table. Of course, they end up showing her so much that it practically feels like she's the one who put her hair on the line. But Maximo is really great at putting over the knee injury, and the topes that it built to were glorious. Now, Kamaitachi still does his lunatic senton off the top to a standing opponent, and it's just crazy. I think I may use the word lunatic a lot, but I'm not sure any move deserves it as much as this senton. Kamaitachi just seems to have minimal regard for his body when doing this move, not caring if the back of his head smashes into the ground, caring most about just wrecking ball leveling his opponent. It's insane. It's awesome. And I liked the end run fake fouls. I thought it actually led to a nice false finish where I bought into Kamaitachi's nearfall (and considering I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese guy win a mask or hair match in CMLL, that should tell you how effective they were at creating this nearfall within the context). I loved the build throughout this match, felt it was one of the best uses of the modern CMLL caida format, with the two quicker first falls and then a longer tercera. A lot of times singles matches feel like they go that way because that's how the fed structures singles matches. This felt like it fit logically into that format, with Kamaitachi working over the knee and getting a quick win in the primera, Maximo getting a flash submission that worked great in the segunda, and then they worked a long tercera without ever making it feel like a 50/50 move exchange, as a lot of CMLL's long singles terceras devolve into. Everything about this was satisfying.
I haven't looked at recent uploads in a couple of weeks, so I figured I'd see what decadas80s90s2000 had put up. He's been posting a lot of 2005-2006 Perros del Mal CMLL matches and they're all interesting and worth looking at, but it feels too big to wrap my head around. they're just those big, heated, high impact trios and atomicos matches, the stuff that makes up for the basis of Perro, Jr. getting into the WON HOF this year.
I decided to stop in on this one, which was embedded in a bigger show that he posted. It's an apuestas match. It has Hector Garza, one of my favorites, and the angle leading up to it felt really heated to me. I'll embed that too. At the end of an atomicos match, Pierroth and a legion of goons in his masks came in, made the Perros eat dog food and berated and beat the crap out of Perro, Jr. and Hector. It was quite the scene.
This was obviously going to have a low cap since Pierroth was pretty limited by this point, but for what they tried to do, basically a lot of bullshit, it was executed well. It felt very iconic, simple but effective, and it had the crowd, especially for the finish.
Once again, Pierroth came down with a small army of masked followers. This gives a bit of a sense of the chaos:
In the midst of all of it, Pierroth was able to get the first blows, including a surprisingly painful looking dropkick, before overstretching himself and going for a rana. Garza powerbombed him and then did it again, and then hit the most beautiful corkscrew moonsault for the very brief primera. I love the way that he arched back before hitting it. It was the ultimate little Garza gesture, a bit of grace to go along with his incorriglbe nature. That's what makes Garza so great, not the fact that he could hit stuff and was athletic but the way that his athleticism was married with his charisma. Everything worked towards a total whole:
The segunda had Perro, Jr. get involved, trying to hold Pierroth only to get moonsaulted by Garza for his trouble. It led to all sorts of BS with a Pierroth pin in the ropes and the match getting delayed for complaining. Lots of disruption but it sort of worked in this context. This wasn't going to be a bloodbath or a workrate classic, but all of this felt character driven and there was a level of belief and commitment from the wresters that made the crowd buy into it all.
The tercera was well enough worked for what they were trying to do. Both wrestlers had good facial expressions in the holds even if nothing was particularly smooth. And yes, it all stayed consistent, ending with that same sort of bullshit. Garza went back to the top. Commandante came out. Perro, Jr. nailed her in the skull with a blunt object. Pierroth tried to take advantage. Garza fouled him and stole the win. The crowd went nuts and post match, Perros del Mal held him for a probably completely racist head-shaving and humiliating headshaving ceremony. Again, the crowd loved it.
Nothing classic here but a plan full of smoke and mirrors well-executed. It's interesting to see a match like that out of CMLL now and again.
Back to our good friend Volador. I'm feeling an itch for slightly older lucha so I'll either dust off my GdI comp, hope dataintcash posts something else soon, or check out some Texano/Silver King tags since I've seen next to none of those, for next week. Right now, I need to make it through some more 2015 Volador. I'd like to at least make it to some of the more hyped matches for the sake of fairness, even though you learn plenty from any match. Let's get through this one first, though, as it's on a relatively big stage.
This was a comedown after seeing Ultimo Guerrero vs Rey Escorpion, but I wouldn't necessarily call it bad. It was just sort of there. Some of that is just the fault of CMLL's booking. Terrible and Maximo have history. Rey Bucanero was riding whatever tiny, tiny wave he had gotten from taking Felino's hair a few months before. Terrible and Bucanero are certainly competent at being bad guys. Maximo is one of the only over tecnicos on the roster. They had a slight story coming in that Bucanero and Terrible were just the better team. It just never reached a point where it felt like it mattered or was a big deal or was all that serious. Popcorn matches are fine and good. Popcorn apuesta matches are a problem.
I do want to talk a little about tag team apuestas matches though, mainly about the long terceras common in this type of match. I think they are sort of unique in and of themselves, just in the pacing. With a trios match (and you don't get too many trios apuestas matches from what I've seen, but you do get title matches and ones with high stakes), they can move wrestlers in and out once things break down torwards a finishing stretch. You don't get a lot of that laying around, but at the same time, exactly because of that, there's not often a big feel of selling. It's on to the next near-fall and there's a real threat everything becomes noise. On the other hand, in a singles match, any near fall has to be a kick out and the selling can be overdone, not earned by the first two, often quite short, caidas. You can sort of get the best of both worlds in a straight tag team match though, where you can use saves instead of kick outs in order to control the escalation and make it more believable but also have more extended selling to make things matter.
I think that was the case here. On a structural level, I liked the tercera. I wish there was more heat though, a little more visceral intensity. That's not what this was. It was a "fun" apuestas, one that matched the build, with some cute spots and miscommunication and Maximo wiping off Volador's sweat and a bunch of dives and roll ups out of nowhere. I get what they were going for, but I'm not sure I've seen too many hair matches that were played up like this and that made it all a little jarring. Even the Maximo ones I've seen in the past have come off a little more serious.
There were a lot of independent things to like. The tecnicos tried to rush the rudos up the ramp to start but were overwhelmed and within seconds destroyed with a couple of tandem moves. Then the comeback was fluff (and had a painfully flubbed vault to the top by Volador to hit a Spanish Fly), but followed by Terrible taking an amusing bump off of a dive that sent him into the crowd. The dives were all pretty good, Maximo having two rope walk ones, Bucanero careening off of the ramp, Volador leaping into the crowd from the top. The flash roll up exchange was good in a vacuum, some of the near falls came off well down the stretch and I liked, in part, Terrible's attempt at interference in the finish. I do sort of wish Volador had neutralized him on the second roll up, though, since that would have punctuated things better.
It just had so very little of what I look for an an apuestas match. It had none of the mood, none of the violence, none of the stakes. For the most part, it was compete wrestling, and it was fun wrestling, but it was empty where it counted. Maybe if they had drawn out the heat at the beginning, it'd have been better. If there was more of a sense of peril some of the more fun stuff might have felt more like pay off, or even a narrative of triumphant tecnicos being true to themselves to overcome adversity in the face of nefarious rudos dwelling in an Ingobernable world, something like that. What we got instead didn't quite cut it.
I actually thought I'd be looking at a Tortugas match but I was fooled by European styled dating and the one available for July with Black Terry and Dr. Cerebro, while looking interesting, probably isn't the best introduction. I'll do a week at some point and probably come off like a nuanced killjoy. Best to avoid that for now. Then I thought about the King Jaguar vs Lestat match but there's really not a lot to say about that. I liked the broad strokes of hubris surrounding transitions (Lestat going for the mask prematurely and losing the advantage because of it; Jaguar outright cheating and paying for that, etc), but man the work was not smooth.
Quick plug before we go with what I did decide to watch. Mark had Vandall Drummond and Karl Stern on (along with a few minutes of me talking Piper in Portland and TCM's Summer Under the Stars of all things) the Winter Palace Podcast this week, mainly on Piper but with some talk of the busca trios match I covered on Monday.
I figured I'd finally look at UG vs Escorpion from CMLL's big show in July. I'm not running through all the matches leading up to it due to time restraints, but this stands on its own anyway. I thought it was really good, and I thought it was really good for reasons that didn't necessarily have to do with anything either guy did.
First, a quick review on CMLL big matches, especially those with our friend Ultimo Guerrero in them:
1.) Generally either a short even primera with a decisive "catch"/mistep that leads to the win or a thorough one-sided beatdown that does the same.
2.) A very brief segunda with a lightning comeback, or more usual, a lightning pin.
3.) Then a tercera with a reset followed by an early dive or otherwise right into big moves with long stretches of selling (generally laying around) for fifteen minutes with escalating near-falls.
It doesn't really work. The brevity of the first two falls mean that the selling in the third isn't earned; they're offering the crowd something that's facile and empty that is supposed to seem important but never quite gets there.
This did, and it worked for a few minor reasons and one major one. Ultimo Guerrero was burst open hardway and that made a difference. The primera and segunda got a bit more time and had a bit more meat to them. There was also an element of novelty to some of the spots, things like Escorpion slapping the guardrail into UG's head, or Guerrero leap springboarding off of it into the crowd to get his opponent.
Most of all, and this is what I meant by saying that the wrestlers didn't really work it that differently than any other of these matches, it was the crowd that made all the difference. There's a general sense, that I don't disagree with, that a crowd can help a match but rarely hurt it. I think it helps here, immensely. You'd have a totally different experience watching this match on mute. It'd just be another, slightly more heated, big CMLL singles match. With the crowd though, things that usually don't mean much, suddenly had meaning. It's interesting to me, because it makes me wonder about the evolution of this style of match. Apeustas matches from the 80s don't look like this, and I wonder when and how the changeover happened, because I think it may have happened naturally and then with the crowds dropping off and the tecnico fans getting chased off, something that worked (albeit as a shortcut) suddenly stopped working.
Again, though, the primera and segunda helped. Escorpion taking it right to Ultimo Guerrero, the nasty punches between the two, all that helped. Escorpion ducking out of the ring to avoid the first senton de la muerte attempt helped. Him rushing back into the ring to ambush UG, the blood that first became apparent shortly thereafter, all of this helped. It built the mood and the anticipation. It put some real heat on Rey. The crowd was behind Ultimo Guerrero to begin with. He's the CMLL mainstay, the bandit leader of years past, Arena Mexico's rudo. Rey took the first fall soon after the ambush by turning a rana attempt into a power bomb. It felt right and it just pissed the crowd off more.
After that came the slam with the rail, UG fighting back from a point of difficulty, which is one of the things he does best, and then getting cut off with a low kick. Back in the ring, UG pulls him back down into the corner on a reversal and hits the senton de la muerte and since it had the build from the previous caida, it's a huge moment. From there he just unloads hitting his seated body shot from the top to the outside and that running springboard jump off the rail into the crowd. It's a great mix of violence and showmanship, just a heated comeback. All of it was good, but it was really just a few minutes. They still had the tercera with the laying about ahead of them.
It worked, though. It worked better than almost any of this style of match I've seen and it worked because the crowd was the orchestra and the wrestlers were the conductors, and usually, in a situation like this, they're trying to conduct without the orchestra. Here, though, it boomed. When both wrestlers were selling, they focused their collective energy into Ultimo Guerrero and he responded in kind, feeding upon it. During chopfests or moments where Escorpion had the advantage, he recoiled from the boos, his power and confidence chipped away by it.
They hit spots, including teasing another big power bomb reversal by Escorpion, and a huge dive off the ramp by Guerrero, top rope moves and counters, and the crowd reacts. It leads to this real feeling of inevitability with Escorpion just feeling it all slip away. When he hits a late match press slam and climbs the ropes, presumably for a moonsault, time seems to stop. Ultimo Guerrero is just there, cutting him off and yanking him over backwards for the Guerrero Special. The look on Escorpion's face as he realizes what's about to happen and what it means is golden.
It was interesting to me. We're really quick to damn the laying about and the faux drama but when the crowd actually buys into it, it puts an entirely different lens upon things. This was a match that seemed sort of unnecessary, with Escorpion not promoted on Guerrero's level (he was barely used for a while before this feud started), that just seemed like standard CMLL stopgag booking, but that somehow drew a crowd that wanted to believe in it. It wasn't Atlantis vs Guerrero, but they didn't care. They came, they screamed, and they helped to power a match that should have probably been running on fumes and misguided effort.
MLJ: Satanico vs La Familia de Tijuana 4: Satanico vs Damian 666 1 and 2 [mano a mano] and [hair]
EDIT: I wrote up the hair match a week or so ago and since then the singles match from the week before dropped, so I'm posting it here with a few thoughts.
2002-10-18 @ Arena Mexico
Satanico vs Damian 666
Short match but a fun, heated one. They started with Nicho distracting Satanico (and Averno/Mephisto) from the outside and Damian sneaking in. That led to the initial beatdown, which was pretty much everything you would want in this scenario: stomping, punching, kicking, biting, etc. with just a hint of Satanico potentially coming back, only to be cut off soundly, sometimes by Damian and sometimes by an interfering Nicho. Finally, this led to Averno and Mephisto taking out Nicho and Satanico dodging a weapon shot in the chaos to get some revenge, leading to a quick backslide win that was satisfying but not nearly so satisfying that you didn't want to see the hair match. Good and functional for what it was.
This is the second single fall CMLL hair match I've seen in the last week or two. One was from 1994. One's from 2002. Neither were on big shows. It's still weird since I've not seen another CMLL Apuesta match like that. Even something like Oro, Jr. vs Metalico had three falls and that was a lower card match just meantto get a young guy over. This felt much more name than that (as did Cota vs Casas). If anyone has any ideas why these two were one fall, let me know.
Anyway, this is triumphant rudo babyface Satanico and that, like every other version of Satanico, is awesome. When you were so bad for so long, you bask in the support and adulation of the crowd and it's got to be even better when you don't have to change your ways to get it. Damian made a good foil for him in some ways. They were close in age, just a few years different. They both had the satanic gimmicks. Damian had this indy sheen in his moves and manner that Satanico didn't.
Since he was playing de facto face, it was Satanico that was ambushed from the start. Satanico, always good at taking enough of the match fought back, with the two of them trading blows until Damian hit a low kick and really took over. With only one fall to work with, they couldn't do things within the normal structure. There was a beatdown but it didn't last long. It was pretty good though with pin attempts (this is one fall after all), choking over the ropes, raking the eyes, biting the hand, and going for submissions.
Finally though, Satanico pulls him down in the corner and starts punching away. He hits the bulldog and then, much to my amazement hits it the second time. He used that spot in a lot of his more babyface performances but usually he's cut off on the second one. It's always validating to see someone hit a move that usually gets reversed or is a transition (like Flair hitting a top rope move) since it makes it all seem less unreal. He followed it up with a nice Vader bomb for two (Damian grabbed the ropes) and then the two of them started to unload on each other on their knees. I think it was a testament to them that they could already reached this level of selling just a few minutes in:
They started to throw bombs at this point, Satanico's hart attack clothesline, a missed knee into the corner, a hugely overshot Damian moonsault, etc, only for Damian to hit the ramp drawing Satanico in for another ambush. This would lead to the loose story of the rest of the match, with Damian rudo-ing things up as much as possible, grabbing onto the rope for dear life on cradle attempts and an abdominal stretch. Just like how Satanico was able to play babyface here, I think Damian was able to take things up a notch as a bad guy. The ref kept catching him however, which let Satanico come back and hit two running arm breakers and a Fujiwara. This match, while solid, was really missing that long beatdown/visceral comeback that I want to see in an apuesta match.
Satanico kept on the arm towards the finishing stretch and Damian sold well enough, using his good arm to attack when he could. Case in point is this double clothesline. I love how Satanico sold it here, just making it mean so much when it was just one small, late match collision.
The finish could have been more dramatic, and it was muddied as well with Damian's second putting his arm on the rope. I liked what they did and thought it was good for the time and limitations they had but I really wanted something more gripping, in the heat, the comeback and the payoff/finish.
Bonuses: One, kids in Damian paint approve.
Two, A much later video of Damian putting on his mask
In one way or another, I've been talking about wrestling since 1998, since I was 16 or so. During that time, I bought a few of the early WWE DVD offerings (Flair, Eddy, etc). Before that, I bought a few comp tapes (MX, Rockers, Mr. Perfect, which shows where my head was at in 02-03), and maybe one or two ROH shows. I love hearing stories of people tape trading back in the 90s and the early 00s, but I was always a little detached from that side of things. In the last few years I've bought a couple of other comps (A Dangerous Alliance one for instance), and I participated in a couple of the DVDVRs 80s projects (way too few, just AWA and Lucha, which got me into this mess in the first place). I'm not exactly a big spender. In fact, one of my rules of watching wrestling now is that I don't let it get in the way of my family life, and that includes financially.
I needed this match though. It's the first time in my life I ever really sought out one specific match and dropped at least a little cash for it. I needed it for a few reasons. For starters, Negro Casas and Mocho Cota are two of my three favorite luchadores (with Satanico). To see them in a hair match was exciting. Also, the Fiera vs Negro Casas match that popped up was really good, and there was also the sense of this being lost. I'm sure some of you reading this will have seen this in years past, but no one I talked to regularly had. I get the impression that this era of CMLL is underlooked because people were more into AAA at the time. Amusingly, I did get it, and then within a week of getting it someone posted it online (as he had the same idea/needs as I had in seeing it and got it around the same time I did. It was a zeitgeist thing). I'm not linking it here, but it is on Dailymotion, and people should look for the link, if they can't find it on DM, in the midst of the Greatest Wrestler Ever discussions for Cota on prowrestlingonly.com which I think would be interesting to anyone who reads this site anyway.
The match itself was two great performances. It should help the legacy of both men. It hit so many of the things I really love about wrestling in general. Ultimately, though, I think it missed on the thing I care the most about in lucha apuestas matches.
Put simply, it was all Cota. The match, for one reason or another, was only one fall. It had three acts though. The first act had Cota attack Negro Casas at the start, slam his head into the outside post a number of times, and open him up. From there, he worked over the head, stomping, containing, controlling. This ended with Casas fighting back from the apron and leaping to the top rope, backflipping into the ring. He hurt his leg on the landing, and the second fall was Cota opportunistically attacking the leg, pulling off the shoe, twisting, stomping, standing on, using it as a way to open Casas off for other offense or to cut him off whenever he tried to mount any sort of comeback. Ultimately, though, Casas got a few shots in, which led to the last act, where Cota tried to put Casas away, more and more desperate as Casas started to get a few more hope spots and a few shots in. Ultimately, Cota missed a big dive and Casas was able to capitalize with a back suplex. The struggle there, with Cota banging hard on Casas' hands to break the waistlock only for Casas to keep on the attack with a few forearms to set him up was really good and showed the sort of struggle that the entire match had, even in being so one-side.
The performances were great. Cota, whose hair was massive, was an incredible jerk. He would put his hand up in victory throughout the match, would stomp or stand on Casas' leg at any point, would kick and stomp him and just be unrelenting. He was a twisted, opportunistic goblin, a malignant spirit, a scoundrel. In the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, he'd be the Ugly. His frustrated or desperate or downright cruel reactions to Casas trying to come back were great.
Casas put in one of the most sympathetic performances I've ever seen in lucha. He oscillated from desperate and defiant to pained to almost comatose with his body language and glazed eyes. He sold throughout the match and every shot he got in on Cota was earned. He had to climb a mountain for every moment of hope, but in climbing so hard and so high, he never had the strength to capitalize; Cota would take his leg right out again. Probably his biggest offensive move in the match, before the finish, was a desperate mule kick that he snuck in. Afterwards, he looked to the crowd and stuck out his tongue in valiant rebellion, a hint of the trickster god he'd morph into in his old age.
Those performances are why the match was ultimately unsatisfying to me. Cota was so nefarious and craven. Casas was so defiant and brave. They sold the meaning to everything in the match, from the legwork to Cota's Gory specials back into the turnbuckle, to his pokey punches in the corner, to Casas' doomed taptia towards the end. I wanted to see Casas unload on Cota. He toughed out the assault and scored a victory. Cota lost his hair and at least to me, was vanquished as someone on Casas' level. But I wanted to see Casas pound him. I wanted to see him get an immediate, violent revenge and it just wasn't there.
What was there instead, however, was very good, and you got the sense that the crowd was satisfied and that Casas was satisfied, even if we didn't get to see the actual hair cut. I just thought Cota deserved more violent comeuppance and I thought that Casas deserved the chance to give it to him. A match well worth watching though. I don't regret going out of my way for it.
So last week the randomly decided to show matches from the 9/13/13 Arena Mexico show. I'm unsure why. It had the Volador/Sombra mask match, so it's possible they were hyping up the Atlantis/UG mask match by showing the promotion's last big wager match? The match that set up the Volador/Sombra match was a relevos increibles match featuring Atlantis/UG vs. Volador/Sombra, with the winners of the match fighting in a singles match for their masks (which seems like an oddly harsh punishment for the winners of a match…), so maybe they were showing just how close Atlantis and UG came to fighting for masks just one year before?
Or maybe the promotion was late delivering the show and they just picked a random show from the last year to air.
Either way, they jump a couple weeks ahead from their normal schedule to bring us the two big WAGER matches from the 9/19/14 Anniversario show!
Hair vs. Hair!
1. Barbaro Cavernario vs. Rey Cometa
This was a real good match, though not as good as the Rush/Casas hair match or the women's mask vs. hair match from that same show. But this was really good. Both guys pulled out some crazy stuff here, with Cometa hitting a moonsault off the entrance and a big time tornillo. Cavernario hits his great array of splashes (the killer one to the floor, all the cool Vader bomb style ones) and bumps all over including a cool Cassandro bump. Cometa leans into all of Cavernario's stiff shots, my favorite being Cavernario blasting him with a superkick on the floor that practically scalps Cometa. Cometa's selling is great afterwards with an awesome "what the hell did I just get hit with!?" expression on his face. I believe Phil pointed it out that it was weird seeing a wager match-as-spotfest, and that's what this was, and it was kind of odd. This did not have the drama of the women's match, it never really felt like either guy had anything major at stake. Even though it should have as both guys have two of the more desirable heads of hair in the promotion, with Cavernario having the MOST hair, and Cometa having a shiny, thick mane (God we're gonna get so much cross-traffic from bronies if I keep typing shit like that). It felt like a big showcase main event for both guys, and I felt it succeeded at that. But it did not feel like MORE than that, which you really need from a great wager match. Still, well worth going out of your way to see.
Mask vs. Mask!!
2. Atlantis vs. Ultimo Guerrero
This match was one of the best of the year and easily made Phil's and my Match of the Year List. I'll just go ahead and link to our review of the match here:
These matches were both from the big 8/1 Juicio Final show. I actually didn't even realize until this episode that there was a luchadoras mask vs. hair match on the undercard of the Rush/Casas hair match. I saw there was a Volador/Sombra match and I just assumed they would take the opportunity to show the 300th singles match between those two, so I was very pleasantly surprised that they showed the ladies match.
MASCARA CONTRA CABALLERA!
Marcela & Princesa Sujei vs. Princesa Blanca & La Seductora
Sujei and Seductora are putting up their masks, and Marcela and Blanca are putting up their hair! Again, I actually didn't realize this match happened before watching it, and it was extra exciting going into it not knowing who was going to win. Blanca has probably the longest hair of any gal in CMLL, and Sujei and Seductora have had their masks longer than any CMLL gal I can think of. So in my brain there is a lot at stake here, and I think they more than delivered. Marcela is probably the best luchadora in the fed, and her and Sujei make a great team here. Both take some big bumps (Marcela missing a somersault senton off the apron to the floor, Sujei crashing and burning after getting kicked off the ropes onto the apron and also earlier launching herself spectacularly into the front row), and Blanca and Seductora really work like bitches. Seductora was always dropkicking and stomping throats, and Blanca genuinely felt like a woman who desperately did not want to lose her hair, scrambling and brawling the whole time, throwing woman by the hair, or planting them with the most badass spinning powerbomb I've seen in ages. I really loved this match, a lot of it really felt like a struggle and the stakes felt real. The end potential interference was also really exciting, with Seductora getting thwarted from cheating to win, and Marcela and Sujei gratefully embracing on the mat post victory. Crowd was hot for this too, much hotter than most Arena Mexico crowds. I get it.
CABALLERA CONTRA CABALLERA!
Rush vs. Negro Casas
[Note: This match ended up landing at #11 on our Best of 2014 list. My review is reposted below, here's a link to Phil and my co-write up: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2014/10/2014-ongoing-match-of-year-list_15.html]
Well this was awesome. Totally lived up to everything I wanted it to be. Rush comes out in a white suit with his hair tied up in a bun, so he can unfurl its majesty on the hate filled Arena Mexico crowd. And then Rush turns into an absolute hulked up bacne covered steamroller. Some matches you can see guys getting into position for parts of the match, purposely moving the match to a specific turnbuckle they need to be in to hit their mark. But here Rush just organically beats Casas' ass all over the ring. Hits a clothesline, pie faces Casas down to the mat, kicks him to the floor, kicks him on the floor, etc. Casas runs and Rush casual chases him down. Casas peppers in his comebacks when Rush gets cocky, and man does Casas blast in his own kicks. I love Casas' short low kicks to Rush's chest, and I love how every time he got his chance he really tried to make the most of that chance. Watch him desperately/shrewdly latch onto Rush's left arm during La Casita, using any ounce of leverage he can to get the pin. Rush plays a vicious game of oneupsmanship here taking what Casas dishes and bringing it back fiercely. Casas kicks him in the corner? Rush kicks him harder and then gloats to the crowd while standing on his throat. Casas hits the big Thesz press? Rush hits a lunatic dropkick off the apron, not giving a shit how hard his own body thuds onto the ground. And then there's poor Casas getting back into the ring, and Rush punting him right in the face. Casas gets a busted lip and few few brain cells taken off his hands, and the crowd goes silent. I'm not sure I've seen anything like that before. Casas still makes great comebacks and as I told Phil a few days ago, I'm not sure there's a better fired up babyface comeback in wrestling than Negro Casas. I love him going toe to toe with Rush, trying to outwit him, trying to strangle him with subs, ripping at Rush's hands. But it wasn't enough. Rush was too much. He even risks losing the match just for the opportunity to punt Casas in the balls, just because. Great, great match.
