Found Footage Friday: NEW BULLDOGS~! OLD FUNKS~! IWRG RETRO~! LA CORPORACION~! TEAM CASAS~! LAWLER~! MERCURY~! COACH~!

New Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith) vs. Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr. AJPW 11/20/90

MD: I don't think this is an all time classic, but I do think it's a bit of a "for want of a nail" scenario. Let me put it this way: if this match had existed on tape in the mid-90s, I think it would have been put on a lot of comp tapes and traded around. I think it would have ended up as a match with a "rep." We look at things with different eyes in 2023 than in even 2003 though, and that means maybe not being quite so amazed by the most novel thing in the match and instead really appreciating certain other elements. 

As such, it was a tale of three or so matches. There was a lot of Dory being down on the mat with Johnny Smith and less of hm down with Dynamite. Smith, against Dory, felt smooth, credible, like he belonged. They kept things moving. The matwork was more explosive with Dynamite and that's actually impressive in its own right, just the notion that matwork can be explosive. Then there was Terry feeding, primarily for Dynamite, though with a bit of being stuck in Smith's headlock too. That style of chain wrestling is just so different from what we see today, less set spots and exchanges and more of Terry just grasping at anything he can to try to escape. When in there with Dynamite, Terry bounced around the ring as they crashed into each other at high speed.

The match shifted gears when Terry got Dynamite out and started to beat on him on the floor. My favorite version of the Funks is the bloody, scrappy one where they're fighting monsters, but my second favorite is when they're outright bullies, like that really fun Martel/Zenk match from 86 where they treat Martel with respect but wipe the mat with Zenk. That's what we get here, first on Dynamite and then, after he rolls limply over to Smith, onto him. Tag. Pile driver. Tag. Pile driver. Seven times on Smith in a row. It's just a remarkable two minutes. He kicks out (too much) and is saved in the end and it has some reaction from the crowd, but maybe not as much if they really milked it instead of doing it so matter-of-factly. Moreover, after Dynamite makes it back in, Smith is back on his feet and rolling just a minute later. Still, definitely 1998 comp tape material and certainly a worthwhile match for anyone with even a vague interest in either of these teams, something that should definitely see the light of day and now it has.

IWRG Retro 4/6/23

La Corporacion (Black Tiger/Pentagon Black, Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro/Veneno/Scorpio Jr.) vs. Negro Casas/Felino/Heavy Metal/Matrix/Black Dragon/Mike Segura/Fantasma, Jr. IWRG 7/4/2005

MD: The     other half of the IWRG show and it got a ton of time (35 mins or so). It was good too, constantly moving with a lot of solid exchanges. I wouldn't say anyone stood out more than anyone else, really and no one looked terrible, though maybe Matrix or Fantasma, Jr. and Veneno were the weakest on either side. Maybe. There weren't any long bits of momentum from one side or another, just a lot of resets and into the next exchange. There was more of a sense that if you got into the wrong corner, you might get swarmed, in that sort of big NJPW multi-man tag style that you don't see in lucha as much.

Big indy moves had definitely reached lucha indy matches. Mike Segura managed to land on his head with some pretty crazy stuff from Cerebro Negro, for instance. And Pentagon Black was doing an Argentinian backbreaker into a cutter/facebuster sort of finisher. There was only one real dive but it was a huge one, with Black Dragon pressing up against the corner and going head first over it out of a running start. Despite a lack of major momentum shifts, there were patterns; Heavy Metal took out three guys with his bridging fisherman's suplex. Black Tiger got a couple of lucky fouls in. It ended with La Familia Casas vs Pentagon Black, Black Tiger, and Scorpio, Jr. with Metal outfoxing the rudos' interference for a deep roll up win on Scorpio, Jr. who had done a pretty good job asserting his physicality up until there. There was always something happening with characters that jumped off the screen just enough to keep you eternally engaged. Not at all a bad use of 35 minutes.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jonathan Coachman/Joey Mercury NEW 4/28/07

There was a similar handicap match vs. Romeo Roselli the night before and I'm glad we have this one instead. I loved the ebb and flow of it. They started off on the mic with Coachman bringing out Mercury as a surprise partner and teased a bit of Coach getting into it before starting with a big chunk of Mercury vs Lawler. It was all based around punches and it was all very, very good. King snapped his head back for Mercury's, of course, and he had a great tease high, go low that played off of Mercury's reconstructive face surgery.

When it was time for Mercury to take over, it was with a bunch of standard stuff like slams and back body drops but they all looked big and impactful and lived up to the moment. King got a comeback in when Mercury got distracted by the valet but he was able to take back over. Likewise, the first time Coach came in to pick at the bones, he got distracted as well, but they held off him getting his comeuppance. Eventually, Mercury went to the top rope double axehandle well once too often and ate the shot to the gut, the fistdrop, the pile driver. I would have liked them to find a better way to get Coach into the ring after that. He sort of just asserted himself to try to break things up and was pinned anyway. I would have preferred Mercury stumbling back into him or something along those lines. Regardless, he took two of the worst stunners imaginable, so bad that they were comically good, before Lawler pinned him for the feel good moment. There's a really good match with Mercury and Lawler from later in the year that felt more like a Memphis classic, but this was just straight up well executed and laid out and a lot of fun.

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New Footage Friday: ROCK N ROLLS! MX! DANDY! PSICOSIS! REY JR.! PANTHER! SUPER CALO!

Rock and Roll Express vs. Midnight Express NWA 9/7/86

MD: Pretty rare RnR vs MX match from WCW Sunday Edition featuring Dusty on commentary with Tony. It was what you'd want, flashy opening stuff that didn't at all wear out its welcome and a couple of heat segments with all of the roll-up hope spots you usually get from the RnR. Everyone looked great but Eaton looked like one of the best in the world, feeding big, hitting huge offense (the Alabama Jam here was used to cement the first bit of heat and really give the Express control, for instance), and doing tiny things like taking out a leg with a small kick to stop a block on a suplex. There were a couple of cuts due to commercial breaks but they didn't mess up the flow. We saw the transitions clearly, including them using the replay to take us back after a break. The finish was wonky with Dusty literally causing the MX pin to be reversed, but the post match with him sacrificing himself to a Bubba splash was good pro wrestling. It made me want to see a six man at least.

ER: Outside of the finish, I thought this was great, and a real strong Loverboy Dennis showcase. Everyone was part of this showcase, though, Dennis just had a performance that made him look like one of the toughest men in wrestling. A big chunk of this was MX taking apart Robert's leg in real sicko ways, and even though it didn't actually lead to anything, it was work I loved to watch. Condrey has a ton of fascinating work out of half nelsons and 3/4 grapevines, so good that I want to see the entire alternate timeline of Condrey working shootstyle in Japan once his stateside gigs dried up. Condrey's Alabama U Style, where are you? He really knows how to tie up Ricky and Robert on the mat, and the pins he forced them into with his leg grapevines looked impossible to escape. And when he wasn't tying up their legs to work headlocks and pinfalls, he was dropping his knees into Robert's thigh, into his shin, violently twisting his ankle, and then handing it off to that savage Beautiful Bobby! At one point Bobby is hyperextending Robert's entire leg over the edge of the ring apron. Robert is on his stomach, and Bobby is slamming the front of Robert's femur into the apron, then pressing and forcing his leg down over that edge, truly disgusting legwork. Cornette adds one of his all time great racket shots to the match, flying in from offscreen with the handle of the racket aimed straight at the jugular. HHH always looked like a dweeb for using the handle of a sledgehammer as his weapon of choice, but Cornette really looks like the master of making a short handle look like a deadly weapon. Hell, in the post match melee, Cornette even shoulderblocks Ricky Morton through the ropes to the floor, like a man tripping another man into a fountain display. Rock n Rolls looked great and matched strikes with the fierce strikes of MX, and even with the actually stupid Dusty finish, this whole thing was classic stuff. 

El Dandy vs. Ray Gonzales CMLL 8/26/95

MD: A lost Dandy title match. Interesting primera here. Gonazlez controlled with fairly simple armbars, with Dandy working from underneath with a few hope spots, only to get cut off and contained with the arm again. I don't know if they didn't trust Gonazlez to do more complex matwork or not but it still worked because Dandy was working so hard to sell everything. I know on paper, that doesn't sound like much, but you don't often see a primera in a title match worked like this and I'm not sure there are many guys who could have done it quite like Dandy, so it stood out. The segunda was quick with a short bit of revenge with Dandy working over the leg and then a beautiful Northern Lights Suplex. The tercera had some back and forth and chicanery but eventually settled down to them returning to what worked in the primera, Gonzalez working a bodypart (the leg) and Dandy selling. They rolled out of the ring on a figure four and both got counted out and it ended up pretty anti-climactic. If this was building to an apuestas match, it would have worked but it seems like this was the end of the program. Still, a good look at just how great Dandy was at selling.

PAS: A new Dandy title match on paper is really exciting, this was a miss though. Gonzales is a guy who got pretty great in Puerto Rico later in his career, but he looked way out of his depth here. There was one of the worst clotheslines I have ever seen and Dandy really had to dumb it down for him on the mat. His little heel struts and stuff looked bush league too, just a zero of a performance. Dandy had a nice moment or two, his selling of the leg in the tercera was cool, and I like the figure four roll to the floor spot, but you are hoping for a missing gem when this passes by your youtube feed and this wasn't that.

ER: I had no idea Gonzalez ever showed up in CMLL, even though just a few years after this he became the reason I started trading for Puerto Rico tapes. The Ray Gonzalez I traded tapes for was not the Ray Gonzalez here, and many of the flaws in this match look like they could be blamed on miscommunication. I think Phil tuned out early on once Gonzalez hit that flying "clothesline" but considering Gonzalez follows it up with a crossbody block using the exact same form he used for that "clothesline", I assume it was just a spot that wasn't supposed to happen. It's amazing how much poise Ray had just a few years later, that was mostly absent here. It was a mistake to work this as Gonzalez trying to fit into Dandy's lucha setting, as while he had a nice missile dropkick and a couple decent bumps to the floor, he couldn't facilitate the level or speed of work Dandy was capable of. The most interesting this got for me was the beginning of segunda, where we got a glimpse of what could have made for an excellent title match. Ray got rudo heat during the break between falls, and knew it. The fans were rejecting him and it looked like he was going to really run with that, approaching Dandy with an extended right hand, left arm tucked behind his back, and a telegraphed double cross kick getting caught. Bringing some Puerto Rico rudo bullshit into the elegance of a skilled tecnico lucha title defense would have made for a great style clash, like a southern US heel just punching his way through a match opposite Blue Panther. But almost right after that Gonzalez falls back into line, and the rest of the match is worked like the boring end of the Flair vs. Terry Taylor spectrum. Dandy really did a lot to try to make this work, but it's hard to deny that Dandy could have likely had a better singles match with any wrestler on the CMLL roster. Let's all just go back a few days and remember how cool "El Dandy vs. Ray Gonzalez" looked on paper. 

Misterioso/Rey Mysterio Jr./Súper Caló/Volador vs. Blue Panther/Heavy Metal/Piromaniaco/Psicosis AAA 8/11/95 - FUN

MD: Not your average atomicos. You had Rey as captain, Signo as Piromaniaco, maskless Volador, and Calo in hatless, sleeves-only shirt, dancing glory. The story was Rey vs Psicosis, first delaying it and then paying it off. As they cycled through the pairings in the primera, Panther made sure to intervene and rob the fans of that first Rey vs Psicosis exchange. After a mini-beatdown, Rey would mount a comeback and allow the tecnicos to take the primera. The bigger beatdown came in the segunda, and watching Heavy Metal toss Rey around made me really want a 95 singles match with them. In the tercera, Rey came back again and we finally got a killer little Rey vs Psicosis exchange with a spectacular finish. Piromaniaco looked good using his size to bully tecnicos and eat their stuff, but the gimmick had no legs. Panther didn't do a lot but everything he did (the aforementioned cut off, choking Misterioso with part of the ring, ripping up what I choose to believe to be an anti-Tirantes sign, stooging with Psicosis on miscommunication spots) was very good. At times this was fast and loose and all over the place. The camera work missed half the dives. It's really hard to go wrong with cleverly building a match around Rey vs Psicosis though.

PAS: I thought this was mostly pretty forgettable outside of the Rey vs. Psicosis stuff which was incredible. I kind of enjoyed Signo adding some 80s style bumping and brawling to more 90s style lucha, but it didn't really lead to any exciting moments or anything. Psicosis taking the segunda caida with a brutal top rope guillotine was great though. The tercera exchanges between Psicosis and Rey were the highlight. Rey at this point was as elusive and fast as anyone ever, Psicosis was his perfect dance partner, and the finish top rope spiked spinning DDT was awesome. Is that a move they only broke out once, or is there a WCW Pro match which ends in it too?

ER: I was really excited for this one just to see Signo as Piromaniaco - a hood I've never seen him under and one with next to no footage of - and he did not disappoint. In fact, most of the guys in this didn't disappoint, but none of this really turned into anything that felt like a full match. Things were a little disorganized and a lot of the threads got abandoned, but there were plenty of individual moments to make this an easy, fun watch. Obviously, with these names there are going to be some moments. Heavy Metal worked fast and a little reckless, lead to a few moments of clear miscommunication and awkward repeat spots with Super Calo, but when Heavy Metal ran into someone with that speed it looked great. Volador had this fantastic huge hair, like Stefanie Powers in Hart to Hart, and based on the crowd reaction we missed a big late match plancha and bump off the top from him (This is AAA, my friend). I liked Piromaniaco working like El Brazo was great, using his status as stockiest man in the match to absolutely run over Rey a couple of times. He even no sold a Rey missile dropkick by acting like a cartoon kissed him, then did a silly dance. We got a decent dive train with Calo hitting a high quebrada crossbody and Misterioso getting out quickly, and of course all the Rey/Psicosis moments were what you'd want. The tornado DDT with Psicosis on the middle and Rey swinging from the top was wild, with such a high starting point it landed them past the middle of the ring! 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Pierroth in WWF!

Man, what might have been. By 1996 WCW had some of the best luchadors in the world, and they were becoming popular attractions on WCW undercards. Naturally, WWF brought in some of the leftover luchadors to compete, even though most of the luchadors WWF brought in couldn't really work the same style that was the actual reason for WCW luchadors becoming a popular attraction. It was a move inspired by any well-intentioned mother who bought her teen a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards because he played Magic: The Gathering. It's an attempt, but with no actual knowledge behind the attempt. "This is a card game and I know you like card games" = "Here are Mexican wrestlers and apparently people like Mexican wrestlers now". It was misguided and done with seemingly no knowledge of why they were doing it. This was NBC's "Joey", a Friends spinoff made by people who seemingly had never seen an episode of Friends and had no clue why people enjoyed the Joey Tribbiani character. It was a short-lived experiment that only lasted a couple of months, yet somehow the AAA luchadors got a showcase trios on the Royal Rumble card. A couple of the guys brought in seemed to be pushed above the others: Hector Garza (who makes sense as he was a hunky guy in his 20s who could do a nice tornillo) and...Pierroth.

Since one of the duties of Segunda Caida is to champion any luchador using the Pierroth name, WE obviously understood their intentions. But it was kind of odd. Pierroth then was the same age I am now, which feels old to be getting a new name push in WWF. While other luchadors got a showcase match at the '97 Rumble, Pierroth was actually IN the Rumble. This man was the Champion of Champions, according to Jim Ross.

We won't actually go over the Rumble match here, as I know his elimination is still a touchy subject for many. Some believe that Pierroth was never officially eliminated, as he wasn't properly told the rules before the match, and they feel he shouldn't have been punished for "eliminating himself" with a plancha, and should still technically be an active entrant 22 years later; others, are wrong. Let's take a look at the bizarrely, briefly pushed 38 year old masked brawler, WWF Superstar Pierroth!


Pierroth vs. Matt Hardy WWF Superstars 12/22/96

ER: This was a really cool match, paced quick as hell and getting absolutely no love and attention from the crowd. Pierroth came off real mean, hard punches, quick snapmare followed by a stiff kick to Hardy's back, hard lariat, back elbow, a cool Rock Bottom before that existed in this fed, just came off like a real badass. He really looked like a great brawler. Hardy came off as crazy as his brother, hitting an unexpected split legged moonsault...but then he unexpectedly upped the crazy, hitting an Asai moonsault after springboarding to the TOP rope, BARELY rotating in time to not land straight on his head. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen, but Hardy started selling instantly and Pierroth got right up. It looked like the moonsault landed (albeit with Hardy possibly bouncing off his forehead to get there), but they had other plans I guess. Pierroth hits a solid contact pescado, really landing heavy, AND - and this is important - for those of you itching to know, Pierroth's finisher in the WWF was a cool folding powerbomb. If I was a kid and saw this I would want to see more of both guys, and then be confused when I only saw Pierroth a couple more times on TV.

Pierroth/Cibernetico vs. The New Rockers WWF Raw 12/23/96

ER: This was weird, and really cool! Vince and JR were really amusing on commentary, pointing out how the fans don't really know who to cheer for because they don't know the luchadors and they don't like the New Rockers. Vince also points out we haven't seen much flying from the Mexican team, and JR actually goes off on him: "You know, that's just an unfair stereotype about Spanish athletes. Some of the best ones are high flyers, but many of them aren't. Look at Perro Aguayo, a great brawler!" JR goes full Mike Tenay and shuts Vince right up. Marty Jannetty was a really great wrestler all throughout the 90s, and Al Snow vs. Pierroth is a match up I didn't know I wanted but clearly I do. Pierroth again works stiff, and Snow is a guy who will work stiff back, and I dug the chops they were throwing at each other. Snow bumps really big for Cibernetico, taking a cool armdrag reversal and then going down like a shot for a hard dropkick to his chest, later taking a soft but somewhat reckless tope that saw both crash into the guardrail. Jannetty threw two really nice punches including a cool short uppercut, and a fantastic flying fistdrop, and I dug Pierroth throwing a bunch of short arm chops to him, knocking him down with a chop but always holding onto an arm to drag Jannetty back up for more. Pierroth hits a killer release powerbomb and a splash with a hard landing to win. Pierroth has a 2 match winning streak in WWF! JR fully advertised that Pierroth was in his late 30s, pointing out that he had been wrestling over half his life at 20 years. This guy is really going places in late '96 WWF!

Doug Furnas/Phil Lafon vs. Pierroth/Cibernetico WWF Superstars 1/5/97

ER: This is particularly notable, because Pierroth grabs the mic and talks trash before the match, and then grabs it *again* to talk more trash after the match, the match he had just lost due to DQ. This is a total hidden gem of a tag. This one should be a syndicated classic. Can Ams were dangerous guys who always had the potential to eat up an opponent, but Cibernetico and Pierroth were fine if the Can-Ams wanted to try that. Pierroth starts this by going right after Furnas with hard chops and a stiff corner lariat. It's part of a great sequence where Pierroth gets Irish whipped chest first into the opposite buckle, then bumps forward out the ropes after eating a Furnas lariat to the back of the head. It was one of those airtight sequences that you could picture Arn or Bobby doing in a tag. He then went right in and took down Kroffat with a clutch single leg, felt like he was directly going after both Can-Ams strongest suit and it made him come off like a total badass. 

Furnas takes this monster Sgt. Slaughter bump over the corner after Pierroth dodges, and then when Furnas makes it back in Pierroth throws a fantastic punch right to the nose. Goddamn this match rules. If Pierroth knew of the Can Am's tough guy reps, he clearly did not care. Cibernetico was pretty raw (and well, never got Actually Good), but here he had some young guy stupid in him and that's a plus. He throws some kicks to Kroffat that looked like they earned him receipts, took a wild Furnas overhead belly to belly, Kroffat snap suplexed him as hard as he could, chopped him across the collar bones, tossed him hard with a snap back suplex, rough stuff. Cibernetico earned his keep. Pierroth and Furnas have a cool little violent brawl on the floor, Pierroth taking a great bump out there and an awesome chest first posting. We even get an excellent bullshit finish when Cibernetico pulls the ref into the way of a Kroffat crossbody. Can-Ams couldn't go over these two in 1997, because Pierroth was Too Fucking Strong. Ref called the DQ on Cibernetico, but this was 50% Kroffat. His body hit the ref. I'm calling Pierroth's WWF W-L at 2-0-1. 

Pierroth/Heavy Metal/Pentagon vs. Hector Garza/Latin Lover/Octagon WWF Raw 3/10/97

ER: Yep, you're right, this is total Weirdsville. Our luchadors were being presented strongly on television for a couple weeks leading up to the Rumble, then they had a featured trios at the Rumble to start the new year, Pierroth and Cibernetico got to actually be IN the Rumble match, and then...they disappear only to show up 2 months later, and then never again. This is your swan song boys. Go out in a blaze of glory. And by entrances alone, you can already call this a win. Latin Lover is wearing his cuffs and collar, Heavy Metal looks like a total sleaze star in leopard print tights, stringy hair hanging over his face, and an expression that makes him look like he's about to pull out a switchblade. So this is already great. But there was nothing these guys could have done. On paper they got 8 minutes, but it wasn't a fair 8 minutes. Everyone here works hard and they're actually starting to win people over and starting to get reactions...and then they show "That Woman" Chyna in the crowd and cut away from the ring for 90 seconds while she is removed (she had been showing up and causing problems, attacking Marlena and getting in the ring to confront Bret), then the moment they remove Chyna and go back to the ring, they cut to a split screen for a great (but also 90 second) Brian Pillman promo. Luchadors were doing dives, but Pillman was busy talking about the witching hour and there were just way too many things fighting for attention (this era of Raw had constant split screen cutaway promos, the screen action always felt very hectic).

Heavy Metal mostly paired off with Garza, Pierroth mostly paired off with Latin Lover, and Octagon/Pentagon did their thing, and it worked really well! Metal and Garza pushed a really fast pace. They're the guys who really started to get a reaction, doing fast armdrags, Metal did a big handspring elbow and did a fast rolling dropdown to take our Garza's legs, Garza landed on his feet on a moonsault and then hit a springboard crossbody, and people were finally making noise. Pierroth was good at actively yelling at fans in the front row to get them involved (it works) and throwing tons of hard short chops to Lover. LL's chest is red shortly into the match because of Pierroth, and that's a good thing. Heavy Metal takes a humongous Jerry bump to the floor, the dives all look good (even in split screen) and of course we cap it off with Garza's tornillo knocking everyone down like pins. The only thing weird about the ringwork is Latin Lover doing a frog splash to someone who wasn't even there (Metal had been standing for some time) and Metal just rolls him up with la magistral. That could have been cleaner. Still, the match was really fun and if the fed actually wanted to promote lucha, fans would have easily gotten into it. There's no reason they couldn't have just put them exclusively on Superstars or something, have occasional feature matches on Raw, it would have worked. But, most importantly, Pierroth wraps up his WWF career with a dominant 3-0-1 record.

JR referred to Pierroth as "The Champion of Champions" in every single one of his 4 featured matches. Clearly JR knew class when he saw it.

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LKAC Night 14/ New Footage Friday: Ki, Murat, Solar, Heavy Metal, Jumbo, Robinson

Billy Robinson vs. Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 3/21/82

MD:I promise we'll get back to the weird stuff soon with the 1981-1982 footage. There's another Robley match that Eric's been sitting on, for instance. I just feel like we have a moral responsibility to take our medicine on these matches. If we have something that feels canonical that no one in our extended community's ever seen before, we have to get it out there.

On this one, it helps that Billy Robinson's amazing. Yes, we have a lot of footage of him between 75 and 85, even it it feels like we're missing all of the AWA main events that I wish we had, but watching him be a wizard in the ring is always special. You can't look away from him here. The way he brings a limb around to create a momentary point of leverage to escape a hold is pure magic. He does things that make so much sense, like bringing his hands together to force just enough space to pepper in elbow shot. Just the footwork in widening his base to force Jumbo off balance is stuff that no one else does. He does all this while continuing to succumb to Jumbo's persistence. It means that while he stays in a hold forever, it's never at all boring. When he takes over, he puts the same effort and creativity into his holds. You know this is heading towards a draw but it's still fun how it gets there, with meaningful hold trading down the stretch and Jumbo making everything feel big and important and the crowd coming along for the ride.

Maybe this was us taking our medicine, but I, for one, feel healthier for it.

PAS: I am a real low voter on 70s/early 80s Jumbo. He just doesn't have a ton of spark to me, still he is technically excellent and you put him in with an elite opponent and the match is going to be great. Billy Robinson definitely counts as an elite opponent, and this was a real treat to watch, despite being a 30 minute draw which is always tough. I dug how a huge part of the opening section of the match was contested grappling on their feet. You normally think of grappling as a mat based thing, but here both guys were doing some great Greco pummeling, as well as grabbing holds and counters while keeping their vertical base. Robinson is awesome at using leverage and level changes to bring drama to a match. He was also rocking a great early 80s mustache which made him look like Dan Severn's dad. We get to the big bomb section and both guys have great looking bombs. I love Robinson's delayed neckbreakers and Jumbo has a beautiful butterfly suplex. It really felt like a draw was coming from the first minute, and it could have used a spit shine at the end to make people believe the near falls. Still this was a great excavation a chance to see two all timers with plenty of time to do their thing.

Solar vs. Canelo Casas UWF 1/19/92

ER: Man, 21 year old Heavy Metal looked like 1992 Johnny Depp had sex with 1992 Tawny Kitaen and they birthed a fully formed adult luchador. And this was awesome, very fast paced and very feisty. Solar comes off super powerful and Casas comes off nice and slippery. There were so many fun mat scrambles, so many fun simple spots worked around an arm (at one point Solar picked Casas off the mat by his left arm and chucked him across the ring with what looked like a half judo half lucha toss). This was no Solar exhibition, it was Solar scrambling to lock in subs on Casas who kept slipping out in fun ways and frustrating him. This whole thing is go go go and while there is good Heavy Metal out there this footage really paints him as someone who should have been a lucha legend. We get a lot of great Solar show off moments but I love how Casas never just lied still during submissions, always struggled to get out of them even if it lead to him getting caught in something else right away. Solar takes a big fast bump to the floor and gets hit with a big Casas plancha and staggers all around ringside into tables. The ending is a little abrupt with a couple Solar backbreakers and a belly belly that Casas appears to kick out of, but this felt like a 15 minute sprint which was more breathless than I expected it to be. Nothing but fun here.

PAS: Solar is a stone cold mat legend, where most of the footage we have is when he is in his 50s and 60s. While I love watching Solar and Navarro rip it up in Maestros matches, it is super cool to see him work that style closer to his athletic prime. Casas never reached his potential (don't do heroin kids) but you could see the potential here, while a little jumpy he was right there with Solar hold for hold, using his speed to press the action and shake Solar a bit. I really liked that contrast of styles, with Casas more jackrabbity and Solar more deliberate, it was really cool to see that work itself out in the context of a match on the mat. The standup stuff was a little more pedestrian, I liked Casas's dive fine, but it was pretty basic, and the three count felt tossed off. They basically did an awesome first fall, and kind of jumped to a finish. Would have loved to see this in Mexico where the second and third falls would be their own thing.

MD: I'm glad this turned up. It's just pure, distilled lucha fun, like you often get in Japan in this era. Sort of an abridged "good parts" version of a title match. Now, I'd argue that you lose something without more of the build, but the good parts are still good parts. They stay on the mat for most of it, with some rope-running interspersed. I'd argue that it's probably a good match to show to someone to introduce them to the style or as a bridge to more traditional title matches. There's a chunk of this with Solar letting Heavy Metal put him into stuff, and I do think he shows his youth and that not everything is entirely smooth, but it's all believable and effective. Still, this is somehow the epitome of lucha matwork, where they leave realism at the door for the sake of aesthetics, creating a new, entirely immersive reality where tying up a limb or adding in an extra twist or just one more rotation creates a superior overall effect. It's a journey to a mirage and it's the most beautiful wrestling there can possibly be.

Low-Ki vs. Murat Bosporus 2007?

ER: Bosporus is a Turkish wrestler who showed up on a NOAH tour or two, and worked some names we like (Chris Hero, Trik Davis, I assume others) on American indies in the mid 2000s, and seemingly pops up at random in Japan and Europe. I seem to remember TomK being into him. He's the same height as Low-Ki but probably 80 lb. bigger, just a Turkish spark plug (if there's a brand of Turkish spark plugs and he never did advertising for them while wearing a spark plug cone hat, then I'm not sure this is a world I want to be a part of any longer). He's basically an even stockier Sugiura. The match is pretty clipped up so it's hard to get a feel for ebbs and flows, but it's clipped to 6 minutes of all action, so we can at least see that they did a lot of fun stuff. This is Ki taking a humble loss in Murat's home country, so we get a lot of Murat, big belly to belly suplex and German suplex, some real explosive standing elbows, a nice lariat, and really plants an awesome frog splash. Ki didn't work unprofessionally stiff, but he still hit a double stomp to the chest after blocking a sunset flip, and hit some flat out baseball bat to chest kicks, hard uppercuts, a nice low kick, but goes down pretty easy. Couldn't get too invested in this one, even if a lot of stuff looked good, as - likely due to the clipping - we never really got to create much drama.

PAS: I really dug this as an opportunity to watch Ki as a traveling heel. It isn't a role we see a ton of anymore, but Ki is pretty great as a guy putting over a local legend. I loved his dropkick, smirk, eat and opposing dropkick spot, and his offense works well as a pure heel. That double stomp and those wheel kicks are mean stuff when punishing a hometown hero. I remember liking Murat during his random US Indy and Japan appearances, and he was neat here, great crowd pleasing wind ups on his uppercuts, and his big suplexes really looked great, he had that big hip power you see from legit amateurs, Ki isn't leaping over on that belly to belly he is getting thrown. I would have liked to see this in full, but I imagine this is what exists, and it is a treat.

MD: The clipping is definitely in an issue here, especially early as you can't really get a handle on the initial back and forth. Once we get more defined control, it's a little better. Murat has a sort of abandon to his stuff. When he did take over, I liked the way he was throwing himself into everything with a Jim Duggan-esque enthusiasm. Ki adapted to the audience just as much as he had to, setting up a comeback spot with an extended over-the-top thumbs down for instance. The clipping means we miss the set up to the finish, which is always a little frustrating. Do we have more Murat in Turkey? I could go for a few more matches of him as local babyface against mid-00 indy foreign invaders. 

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MLJ: Sombra Spotlight 9: La Sombra & Volador Jr. © vs Heavy Metal & Negro Casas [CMLL TAG]

2009-02-13 @ Arena México
La Sombra & Volador Jr. © vs Heavy Metal & Negro Casas [CMLL TAG]

I had mainly been gauging my Sombra viewing based on his singles matches. What I hadn't realized at the time was that he had a tag champion run with Volador. I decided to take a quick look what was available there and I'm going to look at three of these matches. Unsurprisingly, two have Negro Casas as he teams with his brothers. I am skipping the title change, which was an Averno/Mephisto match because there just isn't enough time in the world. This first one has Casas and Heavy Metal, who I like whenever I see him from this era. Volador and Sombra had their heads shaved and goofy matching strap masks.

I thought this was a blast. Everything from the rudos taking over to the comeback felt like a Steiner Brothers match in all the best ways. I've never seen Casas so brutally dominant and it was the presence of Heavy Metal that took it over the top. He was just a force in there, with clotheslines (corner and otherwise) that took guys' heads off, with a grisly sort of high-flying, with haphazard exploder suplexes and this insane top rope gorilla press:

And he seemed to wake a sleeping giant in Negro Casas, channeling his brother's intensity into a fine laser point. Let me just post a few more gifs of the brothers Casas mauling their opponents:

It meant that when the come back did happen (based on missed spots, including Metal missing a drop kick through the ropes that we barely see), it means all the more. The young high-flying tecnicos had gotten destroyed and now it was time for them to get revenge, primarily by leaping from high places down upon their opponents.

There was a little moment afterwards where Sombra was unable to hold the Northern Lights, but it was fine. Volador came over to help with the pin and it helped sell the damage.

The tercera was all action, but I sort of wish they revisited some of the Casas Brothers bruising from earlier in the match. That's where Metal hit his flip dive which was a very rough imitation of the one done earlier by Volador. There were a ton of dives in this thing, and all of the third fall selling you'd expect and some good near falls. I loved the way Negro Casas was hyping things up throughout:

Sombra would take out Heavy Metal with another dive, though (he'd get counted out), and Volador would reverse la Casita and hit one of his own, letting the tecnicos win the day. I really liked this. Maybe it could have used a bit more matwork to begin and another minute or two of absolute mauling, but it was about everything you'd want from mean veterans who could go vs plucky tecnicos who could fly.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 10: 2006 CMLL Infierno en el Jaula

Aired 2006-06-24 

taped 2006-06-18 @ Arena Coliseo 

Rey Bucanero, Shigeo Okumura, Negro Casas, Heavy Metal, Universo 2000, Terrible, Tarzan Boy, Máximo in a cage of death match

This is another match that's only tangentially related at best. In fact, the only interaction between Tarzan Boy and Rey was TB actively avoiding him, but it's still well worth me watching for a few reasons. The first is that it's a CAGE OF DEATH match. I've never seen a CAGE OF DEATH match. The second is that it was all part of the building (or rebuilding) of Rey as a tecnico leading up to his title match with Ultimo Guerrero that I'll be getting to soon.

Sometimes, I just assume that anyone actually reading this knows more about lucha than I do. That's probably fairly short-sided but I can't understate how little I knew about lucha before the start of this year and how little I still know in the grand scheme of things. For that reason I don't spend paragraphs talking about history and context and what not and instead try to focus on the matches and what patterns I can find within. It's why I haven't explained Rey and UG's history, for instance, or certain other bits of backstory unless I find them very interesting. I will go back for the two of them when we hit the title match, though. In the here and now, I think it's worthwhile to explain how the Cage of Death works. All eight luchadors start within the cage and one after another, they escape, until they're left with the final two. At that point a one fall apuestas match begins. It's a little bit contrived, but ultimately a fun twist on the escape-the-cage rules that never, ever make for a good match, since for once, people have a good, logical reason to escape.

In this match, it was all a bit of a mess, but a fun one. We're obviously not dealing with the best VQ and camera work in the world, and usually that doesn't take away from things. When you have eight wrestlers in the ring though, none of them wearing masks to stand out from one another, it all got a little muddy. In fact, until the eliminations started, it was just a lot of senseless climbing and even more senseless holds, everyone making a wish on some poor fool and one giant (ill-conceived) leap from the top of the cage by Okumura on everyone. There wasn't even much room for character work, save for Maximo's over the top antics in not wanting to get in and then not wanting to get near anyone. As an aside, Maximo had a TON of hair matches in 2006. Wikipedia says he had six in 2006, if you include this one. A lot of them look to be more local but still. That's one way to establish someone.

The best part of this match was how dickishly each luchador managed his escape. Universo was out first, just climbing out in the chaos. Amusingly, he sold a blown Maximo kiss on the way out. Talk about a protected finisher. Casas escaped when he was tossed into the corner. He just darted right up as he hit it. Tarzan Boy totally messed up the point of this exercise in his escape. They'd set up Rey for the Guerreros three man alley oop body press and instead of hitting it on the guy he should have been pissed at, he valued his hair more and bounded to the side of the cage and up and over. Heavy Metal convinced Maximo to come back in at one point, then tossed him into Terrible in the corner as a show of teamwork. When it came time to charge in after, though, he escaped instead. Shortly thereafter, Maximo was able to use his speed to dart right out. The best one might have been Terrible convincing Terrible to missile dropkick Rey instead of escaping and then, after Okumura slammed Rey for Terrible, so that he could hit a top rope move, he climbed his way out instead. It was all a lot of fun even if you didn't really differentiate between one guy in the other in how he escaped. Everyone was a jerk, basically.

In the end, it was more of a showcase for Rey than anything else. The actual match with Okumura only lasted a minute before he ducked a move and hit his wheelbarrow drop finish for a pin. On some level, you'd think that the person who ended up in this situation and didn't escape would look bad because of it, but it didn't feel that way at all. Instead, the fans were chanting for him. He was back to black gear here, with the facepaint instead of the unfortunate white look of the week before and they were definitely into him. To his credit, Okumura demanded that Rey be the one to shave his head and took it like a man. All in all, it was a fun eighteen minutes spent and I wouldn't mind watching a few more of these. It certainly felt like Rey's tecnico run got off to a good start and I'm excited to see him really get in there with his former Guerreros partners.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 8: Heavy Metal, Máximo, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Shigeo Okumura, Tarzan Boy, Terrible, Universo 2000

Aired 2006-06-17
Taped 2006-06-11 @ Arena Coliseo
Heavy Metal, Máximo, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Shigeo Okumura, Tarzan Boy, Terrible, Universo 2000

This is another match that I initially thought about skipping but it's the earliest one I have after the Rey turn and Tarzan Boy's on the other side so you'd think there would be some interaction. There's some but not as much as you'd expect. It did allow me a few things: to see an 8 man tag which I haven't seen too many of, to see Okumura who's still hanging around CMLL and who was new to me, to see my first real look at Terrible, and to see Maximo when he was quite a bit younger.

I'm not sure that all of these things together did pay off but it'll let me talk about a different match structure, so there's that. It also let me hear Universo's theme which I kind of love, but that's sort of beside the point, even if it was in my head for the rest of the day. The main purpose to this match was to set up the 8-man apeustas cage match. It's kind of weird that there wasn't at least one masked luchador in there considering but whatever. That's, in part, why the focus wasn't really on Tarzan Boy vs Rey, despite the turn just happening, and it was why both teams were so awkwardly put together.

The structure was fairly straightforward but still a variation that I haven't really talked about yet. The rudos started out with the advantage, ambushing the tecnicos before they all made their entrances. It was a chaotic scene but very one sided and not all that compelling, in part because the rudos were so varied and not prone to working together. The tecnicos came back, hit a few things and took the segunda. Then they reset entirely for the tercera which involved a lot of different pairings and the sort of showing off of skills and match-ups that you might expect in the primera in other matches. With the number of guys in this match, it needed room to breathe and they chose to end-load it for that purpose. This led to the story driven finish and the post-match brawling and mic challenges.

Let's talk briefly about some of the different luchadors. Rey was sporting a new look with a white open shirt and no facepaint. He looked a little like Gangrel. From what I understand, despite being over here and the turn leading to a title win upcoming and a few other big matches, it didn't set in all that well and just a few years later, he was a rudo again as part of La Peste Negra (with more of a pirate character, which is where we got Zacarias). He was over here and energetic and dynamic with the stuff he hit. Despite eating a fun, if kind of weird looking double submission in the first fall, he was more or less protected and was in the driver's seat for the finish.

It was my first look at Okumura, but he didn't really stand out. Past hitting his seated senton off the apron, neither did Casas, which always amazes me because he stands out so much in 2013-14 no matter his role in the match. They did have one brief but fun strike exchange together. Maximo showed strong character work in his exchanges with Terrible, like always, but he didn't seem nearly as smooth as he is currently. There was a false start or two and he was lacking that crispness. Heavy Metal continued to impress. He had some very fluid exchanges (including a great one with Universo) and hit an awesome dropkick on the apron. He was a great part of the CMLL roster in 2006. Terrible is a guy I definitely need to see more of. He has a killer look, like he's the heir to Emilio Charles, Jr. or something. I'm going to have to double back for his feud with Los Guapos in 2003 and probably for the Rush feud at some point, since I bet we have a lot of footage of the latter.

The finish was well done and set up the match to come. The tecnicos had taken most of the exchanges in the tercera up until Universo cutting off Maximo as he prepared to hit a dive. He then went for a dive himself but due to a quick evasion and miscommunication, he hit Terrible with it by accident. Back in the ring, Okumura was able to lock an Octopus on Rey, but broke it when he saw Universo going for a tombstone on Maximo. Rey quickly hit Universo from behind, blamed it on Okumura and the rudos started brawling with each other. One sudden roll up later and the match was over. I thought this was fairly effective for what it set out to do, being a showcase for everyone and a way to build up rivalries and anticipation for the gimmick match. It was pretty harmless but fun enough. For the sake of this project, it really didn't have a ton of heated wrestling between Rey and Tarzan Boy. They had one good exchange in the tercera but that was about it. So long as we have it, I'll be glad to watch the cage match in sequence though.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 7: Dos Caras Jr., Heavy Metal, Negro Casas vs Averno, Mephisto, Rey Bucanero

Aired 52MX: 2006-05-27
Taped 2006-05-21 @ Arena Coliseo
Dos Caras Jr., Heavy Metal, Negro Casas vs Averno, Mephisto, Rey Bucanero

One of my basic rules of this project was that I really wanted there to be at least two of Los Guerreros in a match for me to look at it. This is an exception as much for what we don't have as what we do. It was the first part of Rey's turn which is going to be the focus of the next series of matches, so even though he's teamed with Averno and Mephisto and not his usual partners, the fact that we have this and not the later parts of the turn made it worth a look. That I got to see more Metal/Casas and masked Averno, which I haven't seen much of, didn't hurt.

So this was basically a lighter style match that told the story of Rey aligning with the tecnicos over his partners. I think it was an interesting way to do it since Averno and Mephisto weren't the Guerreros, and in fact, if he was in there with his usual partners, he probably wouldn't have been swayed by the tecnicos and the crowd, even if he might have had longer-seated frustrations. It let them draw it out and probably provided some real anticipation of what would happen the following week.

Averno and Mephisto surprised me a bit here. I was expecting something a bit more nefarious from them. I've liked what i had seen in 2013-2014 of Averno without the mask. He seemed like a rudo's rudo and very much the heir to Satanico, in personality and temperment and maybe on some level skill. Here, he and Mephisto were about as goony as they come, between getting in a muscle pose off with Dos Caras and snatching a fallen Heavy Metal away so they could pin him instead of letting Rey hit his back somersault senton. They didn't exactly come across as fearsome. That said, they took all of the tecnico offense quite well and they were believable as obnoxious jerk rudos even if they weren't exactly fire and brimstone.

The tecnicos were there to be fairly flashy and inspire Rey and they served that role competently. Heavy Metal stood out as the real inspirational force, with a solid little opening mat exchange with Rey, a tit for tat: his initial advantage was broken up by Mephisto, frustrating Rey. When Rey managed to do the same back to him, he went for a handshake that was almost taken. Later on, after his rudo partners had further annoyed him Rey and Metal had two other good exchanges, the first ending with the payoff of that handshake and the second with a plancha that took them out of the way for the finish. Both Metal and Caras had nice looking two-on-one exchanges with Averno and Mephisto.

Caras and Casas were pretty much there to goof around. Caras had his pose-off with Averno, but he also ended his two-on-one sequence by flipping Rey up of the ropes to dropkick his partners, after which, he made sure to applaud for Rey. This led to Averno and Mephisto tossing Rey out and, thus distracted, walking into a couple of big moves to lose the first caida. In between falls they tried to do the Guerreros huddle with Rey only to have him walk away and turn right into Caras' own huddle. Late in the match Casas, who was cheerleading the crowd in a Bucanero chant, got the better of Averno in the corner and after stomping him all over, made sure to high five Rey on the other side of the ring before hitting the corner dropkick. Funny stuff.

All of this was definitely goofy but certainly entertaining, and it paid off in the third fall where Rey insisted on wrestling like a tecnico, much to the dismay and ultimate defeat of his partners. Rey did have a fairly natural charisma and the crowd seemed to want this turn, save for the Guerreros fans who didn't seem to know what to make it of it. It's a shame we don't have the match from the next week online because I'd love to see how this played out when he was put in a situation with his usual stable once again. We have plenty of the aftermath of that, though, and that's what I'll be looking at shortly.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 3: Dr. Wagner Jr., Heavy Metal, Místico vs Olímpico, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero

Aired 2006-04-22
Taped 2006-04-16 @ Arena Coliseo
Dr. Wagner Jr., Heavy Metal, Místico vs Olímpico, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero

We're back to having at least one of the Atlantida leaders in on this match as Ultimo Guerrero was captain for his side. Mistico was captain for his and though he'd serve as a well-glorified punching bag again, he had come quite a ways in the half a year since my last match with him. He came down to the ring with two belts and was presented as something more of a force with the big anticipation being him squaring off in the ring alone with UG. The Guerreros struck a fun balance. Coming out, there was a feeling of them being almost locally beloved bandits or what not, with UG doing the huddle with fans and Rey cheesing it up with the girls. In the match itself, however, the tecnicos were pretty universally over, especially after an early moment from Wagner.

I try not to do play by play in these for various reasons, one of which being that it really doesn't fit Segunda Caida's style of review. I really liked how the primera caida played out though, so I'm going to run through it with more detail than usual. I thought it was pretty smart and not at all lazy, which is not to say that utilization of the usual tropes is lazy, but this teased them and then took another twist and turn to get where it was going. To point, usually, from what I've seen, a primera caida in a standard trios (neither a huge brawl or a title match) goes one of two ways: either they square off until the tecnicos use their superior skill and speed to gain a huge advantage or the rudos find a way to swarm and divide and conquer. Here, they did a very good job of teasing the latter, and then, finally only after teasing the former, was it fully realized.

The match began with Heavy Metal and Olimpico. I haven't seen much of Metal yet. He's Casas and Felino's younger brother, of course. Here he was about 36, had a great look with his hair falling over his face, and had a lot of zing, especially in the tercera caida where he got to have a short sequence vs. the world. They tried to cut him off from the outside in with a shot off the ropes, which in a normal primera might lead to him charging the rudo corner and getting swarmed. Here, he pushed Olimpico over instead, which led to the lucha equivalent of a bench clearing brawl (which ended with Mistico springboarding in with a rana of course). They hit the floor for a quite literal Mexican standoff, and Wagner got his big early moment, putting his arms around his partners' shoulders in a sign of solidarity. It almost became a Jets vs Sharks' snap off here, but didn't quite topple over that line.

Back in the ring, they teased Ultimo vs Mistico for the first time before going with Rey vs. Wagner. After a short sequence, Rey hit a jumping back brain (shoulder?) kick and the rudos swarmed Wagner, which in another match would have spelled the beginning of the rudo control beatdown. Here, though, Wagner got up, dragged Rey over to his corner and the tecnicos did a paralleled beat down. It was all a lot of fun. We got another tease of Mistico vs UG, this time with Mistico taking another shot to the back off the ropes, which didn't lead immediately to the beatdown, but instead enraged him enough that he got careless and went for an rope-climbing armdrag right in the rudo corner. They held on to his legs and tossed him to the mat, finally jumping the other tecnicos and forcing them out so that they could really take over.

What followed was a pretty solid beatdown. Mistico, despite how far he came belts wise, still ate a bit pancake and then a UG press slam into the top turnbuckle. Then, they called Olimipco (who was slamming Wagner back on the apron) back in so they could do this triple powerbomb with a twist at the last moment that dropped Mistico right on his face. UG press slammed him to the floor and they did a quick flurry of high-precision team moves to pin Metal (Sprinboard kick from a bearhug position, catapult into a clothesline, castigo) and Wagner (draping him over the rope and having Olimpico spring off Ultimo's back to land on him there) to take the caida. It was a really nice fall and I think what made it so nice is that they don't do it every day. It'd get sort of old quickly if they kept trying to twist the formula so much but every one of these matches does something out of the norm and here it was the primera caida and it worked great.

The rest of the match had more highs than lows, including a great finish. The tecnico comeback was definitely effective, save for one little knock. After squashing Metal in the corner to start the segunda caida (including UG's handstand corner senton, which works so much better in trios matchse with his partners to hold the guy), they set up Wagner for an assisted leapfrog right onto his back. All well and good except for the fact that Wagner was hamming it up the whole way, playing to the crowd with the Hogan ear thing. I like how Wagner shows SO much personality in his matches; it's engaging and pops the crowd huge, but here it took me completely out of the match. If he doesn't give a damn about the beating he's about to get, then why should I? Casas did something similar in a previous match, but that was more spitting in the face of the beating he was about to get. This was very different, especially as it led right to the transition. They went to try it again on Mistico but the other tecnicos made it back in to break it up and they turned the tables, doing it to Olimpico. Things broke down from there with Mistico finally getting his hands on UG. He started immediately to undo the mask, which almost always feels like an act of hubris when the tecnico does it without proper provocation. Eventually they went into a sequence, which included the spot Mistico does when he holds his opponent's hands and jumps up backwards for a twisting rana that always looks way too collaborative for my tastes. It led to a really amazing corkscrew plancha though so I guess I can't complain too much. With Mistico and UG out of the ring, the tecnicos made short work of the rudos with a roll up/power bomb to take the segunda caida. It was a good comeback and set up the finish well.

The tercera caida allowed Metal to show his mettle a bit, had one really solid dive exchange of sorts, and then bled into the finish. I think the structuralist in me prefers when you get this sort of tecnico sequence in the primera caida as opposed to after a restart at the end, but it was still good to see here. It made me want to see more of Metal certainly. The sequence ended with the dive sequence with Metal doing a Hamrick-bump style dropkick through the ropes, getting kicked out face first on the apron by Rey who then landed on him with a sliding splash across the apron to the floor, and Wagner finishing it with a huge somersault senton off the apron, that bowled Rey over. This left Mistico and UG in there and after a moment of hype, they immediately went at each other. Mistico almost instantly hit La Mistica, but the mask he worked on earlier in the match went flying off and UG picked up the DQ win. Good finish that built off of how heated Mistico was earlier in the match. He really made for a great foil for rudos to play against, but I'm almost amazed he was so over with the crowd considering his Scrappy Doo antics. Very good match with a great primera. I just wish Wagner had dialed it down a bit once or twice.

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