Found Footage Friday: FUNK~! RHODES~! APACHE~! ANGELICO~! NAVARRO~! PSICOSIS II~! SOLAR~! HYSTERIA~!

Gran Apache vs. Angelico Arena Lopez Mateos 2011

(Facebook Link) 

MD:  This really benefited from Black Terry, Jr. getting us so close to the action. Apache is so great to watch up close. First and foremost, the strikes are so damn good. Every time he rears back for a punch or a slap, it's an event. But I love watching him lace one limb over another and grapevine in to lock in a hold. There's just such confidence and assurance to it all. Meanwhile, it never feels given. It simply feels taken. Angelico, on the other hand, really worked to unlock one hold or another. He'd grind his elbow down or work the arm in order to get the leg and it always felt like he was accomplishing something of meaning. That was made all the more so by Apache selling after each and every hold. Even if he was only in it for a second, you'd see the toll it was taking on him. Eric had written about how hard Scorpio landed on Sabu last week and maybe that was on my mind, but there's a senton of the turnbuckles that Apache hits here that was absolutely thudding. Late in the match, Angelico pushes him off and Apache hits basically the only good roll in wrestling history because it prevents Angelico from being able to capitalize, and then he just clocks him again. Finish had a bit of distraction but they still went the extra mile to have Apache go for one last (distracted) punch only to end up contorted and pinned for his trouble. It's a joy to watch Apache work up close and personal. 

ER: We knew Black Terry's handhelds as the best place possible to see guys like his father, Negro Navarro, Los Traumas, but I don't think I recall seeing a lot of Gran Apache footage. Now we've got two new early 2010s Apache singles matches and I would love it BTJ just kept releasing more. This is a damn showcase for the man, a great look at all the ways he could entertain a crowd in a full singles match. I think we were too harsh on Angelico back in the day. We weren't ready for his Afrikaans llave and were repulsed by his tagger culture appearance. He's a great canvas for Apache to attack, whether it's Apache throwing punch varieties or slapping him on the back of the head (which happens a dozen times) or seeing how Angelico can get untied in honest ways. The camera work is incredible, giving us intimate glimpses at every step of their process. There was this amazing double bridge, where Apache rolled Angelico into a trap arm cradle and bridged up for leverage, only for Angelico to bridge his feet up onto Apache's bridge. We were closer than the referee for it.  

I was exciting to unlock some of the secrets behind Apache's punches or slaps and even with the closest possible view I was unable to. I watched several of his punches several times, watching what both hands were doing, trying to see how he was making it happen...and I couldn't. Apache's close up magic stays undefeated. He knows it too, as every time he throws a loud punch he looks off somewhere in the crowd with a grin, playful in his violence. Apache was in his early 50s here and his quickness and ability to spring to his feet was impressive. Moonsaulting off the top and landing on your feet in a lucha ring in your 50s? That's a crazy man, viewed as closely as possible.  

Hysteria/Psicosis II vs. Solar/Negro Navarro Arena Lopez Mateos 1/19/11

(Facebook Link) 

MD: BT, Jr. had released this previously but I don't think we've ever covered it. Pairings here are Solar and Psicosis and Navarro and Hysteria. Solar and Psicosis keep things flowing, lots of ins and outs, lots of motion. Navarro gets the sort of reaction you'd expect right when he gets in there. All the twists and turns (of his opponents') body that you'd expect too. There were a couple of escapes where I had to rewind to see them again and I'm still not quite sure how he got out of a hold but I believe it because I believe in him. The magic of Negro Navarro. When Solar made it back in, he got too close to the corner and the rudos started acting like rudos, beginning a beatdown. Psicosis and Hysteria worked well together (and had clear camaraderie) but they went too far, going after Solar's mask. That led not just into a comeback (Solar's quebradora and Psicosis bumping huge off the rope for a Navarro punch) but the rudos having their masks undone too. Fun finishing stretch where Hysteria whacked the post by accident, letting a bit of spirited pairing/cycling happening before a double pin and then a clutch Psicosis submission out of a cazadora finished it. Fun match which switched things up given the beatdown and cleaner lines.

ER: I'd never seen this. This is flat out some of Black Terry Jr.'s best work. This was a great match that Terry brought to full life. It is one of the most well-filmed wrestling handhelds I've ever seen. He's the closest person to the match and frames every exchange in full vision. It's a hard worked, impressive match with stiff submissions and long chain sequences to a quicker pace than I'd expect on a Wednesday night winter show. This crowd is hot, and these guys all bust ass. Negro Navarro looked so tough, stoic and strong as he worked through holds and hit harder than the others. When Histeria fakes a late match foul, Navarro can only stand and shrug into the distance, the toughest guy ever to work Teller physical comedy, When the loud, molten crowd is cheering his name, he handles it the same. His composure and focus is there in perfect frame, making Navarro's hidden reaction feel seen. 

Solar and Psicosis II are strong together, every exchange. Psicosis II was a very good worker that would probably be talked about more if he wasn't the second Psicosis. He is great at working with Solar, working up to Solar to his strengths, going up multiple times for Solar's strong delayed overhead backbreaker (one directly into Black Terry's camera like it was planned). Solar's selling during his near unmasking was sympathetic and led to a hot home stretch. Every stretch was hot. The Solar/Psicosis opener was 5 minutes that set a steep pace and they held it. Everyone's work held up to the closeness of Terry's camera. It was incredible how tight all of this looked. Psicosis locks Navarro's into such a wicked, contorted lifted submission and we're three feet away from where Navarro's body gets dumped. I don't often think about how pro wrestling is filmed, but this match was so good, and everything about how the action as filmed was to the match's benefit. It was all the angles I wanted to see of every exchange.  

Dusty Rhodes vs. Terry Funk [Texas Death Match] PWF 5/6/89

MD: Bob Cook of all people coming through and supplying this to us decades later. This has such a great feel and look and mood to it. They came down in street clothes without any music. There's no fanfare, no pomp and circumstance. They're just there to fight. And fight they do. The first half of this is in and out of the ring so we can only catch glimpses of the violence when it veers back into to screen. I love how organic it all feels. Funk brings in a table but it doesn't feel like a "spot." It's just him setting it up however he can to slam Dusty's head into it and then he tosses it out when he's done with it. Entirely different than the sort of things we see today in a way that I'm not even sure that I could explain to someone who's mostly only seen modern wrestling. The plunder is a means and not an end. It's just part of the path of violence that they're walking. It's opportunistic. They get bloody so quickly and the falls come quickly too but maybe you can buy the one for the other. They fight on the apron and Funk gets tied up in a microphone wire and it's all brilliant stuff. Dusty knows how to make the most of it spinning him about and whacking him with the mic. 

The rules here are a thirty count after the pin and then you have to beat a ten count, which does break things up but also leads to what is almost a clever finish. Dusty gets a roll up out of nowhere, which is the last thing you'd expect in a Texas Death Match, because how does that even work? Where's the drama? Funk just got rolled up. Obviously he's going to beat the count. But he goes after the ref and Humperdink comes in. The timekeeper is keeping the count, not the ref, so it keeps going while Humperdink tries to use an illegal object on Dusty. Dusty moves. He gets Funk. It would have been a perfect finish because it would have used that 30 seconds for the backfiring interference and then Funk wouldn't have been able to answer the ten count when he would have otherwise been fine, but they complicate it somehow and start the 30 count again. It's a great finish in theory though. And from what we got to see here, it was pretty wonderful over the top bloody violence.

ER: So this is what Funk was up to the day before Music City Showdown, where he created one of the greatest angles in wrestling history. When I found out this match existed and found out it was Texas Death rules, I knew we were in store for a Terry Funk master class on how to fill time while selling long counts between falls, both when he is the one counted down and when he's the one waiting. The shaky roving camcorder footage is not the best way to catch every detail of this match, but it adds something intangible to a fight between brawling legends. Seen by our eyes for the first time nearly 40 years after it happened, it is incomplete but the fuzziness makes it feel even more like lost lore. When we eventually see Dusty in full unobstructed view, he is already bleeding. I don't think I saw how the blood started, we just get a large bloody Dusty emerging from the people, and then all of the stumbling and swinging and artistry of falling we'd expect from Terry. 

Both men look perfect for Texas Death. Terry is in the red Bunkhouse Buck variant gear while Dusty is in all denims, the wrapped left knee over his jeans one of the subtlest and greatest Texas Death looks possible. Both men strip the clothes away of the other, Terry ripping open Dusty's shirt, Dusty ripping off half of Terry's pants so half the match is worked with the right cheek of his briefs exposed, along more leg than we'd seen of his since 1978. Funk's selling is expectedly excellent. During one of the falls, Funk spends the entire count flopping as if he's failing repeatedly to do a kip up, before pulling himself up from his back rope by rope, until he's pulled himself on top of the ropes, which lets Dusty kneelift him immediately to the floor. When Dusty uppercuts Funk in the balls, Terry crouches down into a beautiful strut away from Dust, before scrambling back at him in the same ball selling crouch just to get punched back down. Funk even goes after a security guard at one point, who has no idea what to do and just laughs nervously while keeping his eyes on Funk. Everyone was keeping their eyes on Funk. How could you not? 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: El Mosco in WWF

"El Mosco"/Abismo Negro/Histeria vs. Los Cadetes del Espacio (Discovery/Super Nova/Venum) WWF Raw 3/24/97

ER: This was plenty fun, with Abismo Negro looking like the guy of this group who could cross over. He got arguably the biggest reaction of the match when he powerbombed the hell out of Super Nova. Abismo also bumped upside down off the ropes and took a great bump around the ringpost. He did incredible little things that nobody else was doing in these matches, like actually acting like he was trying to stop the tecnicos from flying. He's the guy on the apron leaping futilely after Venum as Venum launches himself with a top rope quebrada to the floor. Venum also could have broken out with American fans. He was really fearless at this point, crazy with his body (like doing a springboard flip to the floor and landing on his feet), his a couple inventive headscissors, got some noise. Histeria was the bumper of the group, really flying hard backwards off moves, looking like a small Buzz Sawyer. He took this huge flying bump through the ropes to the floor, tumbling hard to the entrance ramp, and then ate a big tope con giro from Discovery.

There was only one problem with this match: It didn't actually have El Mosco. The onscreen graphic says El Mosco when the Galaxy Rudos make their way out, but it is Maniaco. Vince even calls him Maniaco, so this was merely a screen graphic error that has then been circulated incorrectly around match lists for 20 years. A fun match, but our search for WWF El Mosco is starting weird. 

El Mosco/Abismo Negro/Histeria/Maniaco vs. Discovery/Super Nova/Venum/Ludxor WWF Shotgun   4/5/97

ER: Ah, there he is! And this has to be the frontrunner for best match of the AAA/WWF failed/aborted/misguided showcase of talent. Perhaps most notably, in an 8 man battle between The Space Cadets and the Rudos of the Galaxy, JR calls 6 of the 8 by the correct name (he mixes up Abismo Negro and El Mosco, which is a higher percentage of success than I was expecting). Brian Pillman also wonders if these men were perhaps smuggling strawberries in their butt across the border, but JR at least attempted to learn names and call the action seriously. This felt like the kind of spotfest that could have actually caught on and gotten great reactions in front of WWF audiences, if WWF cared about what kind of reaction it got. This was a breathless spotfest with good pairings, short (6 minutes or so) and to the point, that the crowd was already reacting to by the time it was done. Most of this crowd likely viewed this as Max Moon x4 vs. Max Moon x4, but the wrestlers went for it and I thought succeeded. 

The best pairing was El Mosco and Venum, with Mosco bumping all over for slick ranas and headscissors, then catching a huge Venum dive to the floor. Venum's flying looked really great and the two of them went insanely fast through all of it, and the fans didn't know what to expect from the moment Venum hit a dragon rana. I assume most in attendance had never seen anything like that before. Mosco even took the big belly flop slide on the floor, and slid so far that he flew PAST the padded mats and onto the entrance way. Venum also does nice extra hard bumping, running chest first into the buckles as if he was really trying to show WWF he had done his homework on their top stars. 

Abismo and Discovery were fun as hell, with Discovery hitting a big tope con giro and Abismo later getting clowned by Nova into missing a tope con giro, crashing but first onto the floor (Abismo can later be seen working out his cheeks while walking ringside). Maniaco almost lawndarts himself taking a Jerry bump (that he thankfully does last minute fully rotate on), and wraps himself around the ringpost in an awesome way, splatting on the ring steps on his way down, then eating a huge flying headbutt from Nova after propelling him up the buckles. The Rudos were basing like crazy during this whole thing, pushing the Cadets to a super fast pace, and the Cadets met that pace. Fans were quiet when Maniaco and Nova started, but 5 minutes in they were into it. This was nothing but slick ranas, cool armdrags, big dives, great bumps, big powerbombs, all of it cool. These guys easily could have been a special attraction on house shows, Raw openers, whenever; and it's a shame we never got to see WHO would have been the breakouts from the AAA group, just because none of them were ever given any time to breakout. 

El Mosco vs. Super Nova WWF Raw 3/31/97

ER: This was a pretty good representative for the whole AAA in WWF experiment as a whole: Two guys - who honestly may as well not have been given names - thrown into the ring with no kind of hype, killing themselves to little reaction, while Vince talks to Sunny, and Sunny grinds on Hugo Savinovich during the most dangerous highspot of the match, assuring that nobody calls it. There is also a running thread of powerbombs getting a bigger crowd reaction than any other highspot the AAA luchadors do. It's as if planchas and tornillos confuse them, but a guy getting splatted with a big powerbomb is a universally accepted thud. Vince calls two spots that were supposed to miss (including a big sky twister press from Super Nova) as if they were blown spots, and seemingly nobody in the arena notices when Super Nova hits a crazy tope con giro into El Mosco, while Mosco is *seated* on the entrance ramp. Nova covered a lot of distance, the visual looked incredible...but admittedly, Sunny's black dress *was* impossibly tight.

El Mosco/El Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku/Scott Taylor WWF Shotgun 11/8/97

ER: So the AAA showcase experience was long over, but they brought Mosco back for a one-off, a way to pad their burgeoning LightHeavyweight division before they also lost interest in that a few months later. I don't think I've ever seen this match, and it rules. It starts with Mosco leading Scott Taylor through some cruiser offense that felt very atypical for Taylor. Taylor broke out a headscissors and a big cannonball off the apron, then hit a missile dropkick and landed on his feet like he was Bruce Lee out here with early 90s Brian Pillman hair. Mosco would get to shine a bit later, but early on it was all about leading Taylor through fun and passable lucha sequences. 

The real money was in the Taka/Pantera exchanges, and they cruelly cut who knows how much out of our time with them for commercial purposes. The second Pantera tagged in he hit a gorgeous rolling armdrag on Taka, rolling smoothly right over his back and sending Taka to the floor. Pantera does his dope rolling headscissors to the apron, that sends Taka crashing hard to the floor (a move they'd get to do on PPV a couple months later, which is a crazy PPV singles match we got, in retrospect), and then Pantera just obliterates Taka with a tope, running from the apron and diving past the ringpost. The lunatic even did it through the ring corner where the steps were, the worst of the four corners to try that lunacy. Mosco and Pantera control segment was nice, from the simple things like a picture perfect tandem drop toehold on Taylor, to a cool as hell springboard flipping legdrop from Mosco. The ending is pretty simple, as obviously we know Taka is winning all of these matches, and at a certain point they kinda rush into go home mode and Take just starts dropping Mosco with kicks, a nice brainbuster, and the Michinoku driver. So a simple way to wrap things up, but the whole match was filled with gold, the types of things nobody else was doing on WWF TV at the time. Mosco looked great in all of his WWF appearances, but there was clearly nothing he could have actually done in the ring to get hired. The fact we got a dozen or two Pantera matches in WWF was an actual lucha miracle.

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We Need to Talk About Zumbido

Zumbido & Yuriko vs. Relampago & Hijo del Medico Asesino (FULL 6/18/15)

Remember Zumbido? I don't think a lot of people remember Zumbido. Certainly nobody talks about Zumbido anymore. Remember how good he was?? And how much you would smile when the announcers would call him Zumbidowski? I think a long time ago he beat up the mother of his children. I think he was also caught stealing diapers. I don't think I made up either of those things, but we're flying without a google net on those two facts. Both of those crimes easily could have been committed by Juventud or Ryan Leaf. But still, he may be a scumbag. My memory and instincts and internal compass tell me he is a scumbag. He looks like a guy who would be a scumbag, so the math checks out so far. But Zumbido was also one of my absolute favorite wrestlers for a time. And now he's a guy who nobody ever talks about. So I went on a little mini Zumbido rabbit hole to see if there's any particular reason people aren't talking about Zumbido. And using this one match as a sample size, Zumbido looked great in 100% of the matches I just watched. 

I would assume the reason people aren't talking about Zumbido, is because they don't care just how good Zumbido is if he's wrestling matches against roid slugs like Medico Asesino or Relampago, while working in front of 17 people. Fair points, those. BUT the important thing we learn here is that ZUMBIDO doesn't care if he's working in front of just 17 people, because he still wrestles like Zumbido. He looks great here. The match itself? Not great. Relampago is okay-ish if you squint, Asesino is bad, so he didn't have much to work with. But that didn't stop him from breaking out his blistering left hands and gorgeous overhand chops (Zumbido may still have the best overhand chop in lucha, rivaling LA Park), throwing beautiful dropkicks, his weird cannonball elbowdrops, and just a general sense of energy and excitement that nobody else was really attempting to bring. Yuriko is probably the most consistent Night Queen, but that's like ranking your favorite to least favorite jury duty summoning letters. Still Yuriko also has nice overhand rights (is a hearty overhand right the first thing they teach exoticos? That was a staple of Cassandro and Pimpi matches as well...) and breaks out a cool flip dive. S/He also hits some super sloppy ranas and takes forever to set up armdrag spots, but you expected this. Zumbido also breaks out a big flip dive and basically beats the hell out of the two slugs the whole match. The whole thing was a Zumbido show. Zumbido, who we don't talk about. Still a great wrestler, likely still a terrible person.

Zumbido & Scorpio Jr. vs. Alebrije & Histeria II (Leyendas Immortales 3/28/15)

This was from a much more well attended show, and Zumbido definitely works harder than anybody else in the match (though Guapito and Cujie do try). Scorpio is approaching certain load status, as he is tubby and looks like he can barely move. His Irish whips were an exercise in touching a man's hand and then watching them run all by themselves. Histeria I believe is Morphosis, and he doesn't do a ton here. Alebrije I believe is Kraneo, as I refuse to believe there is another active luchador who is that size, but I am not 100% sure as a certainly doesn't bust as much butt as he does on Arena Mexico shows. His brawling is there, but he's working about half speed and doesn't take any big bumps like he does in CMLL. Zumbido, though, busts ass throughout. He throws some mean left hands to everybody, including the referee, and at one point he throws one of the loudest overhand rights I've ever heard. I cannot believe he didn't get a receipt for that one. Zumbido hits a pretty senton, his big hang time plancha to the floor, all the strikes. Zumbido is still clearly a guy well worth seeking out on small time indie cards.

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MLJ: Sin Salida 2010 Part 1

Sin Salida 2010 Part 1

I'm going to tackle the first two matches on the card today. The plan is to make it to the main event, double back to the trios which helped set up Maximo vs Taichi and then finish with 2010 with the hair match. I'll probably double back through the anniversary show (sticking with Garza) at some point.

I've seen very few whole shows in my lucha watching. I've also seen almost nothing when it comes to mini matches, ever, as in "ever," my whole life. I'm sure I've seen a bit of what WWF fed me back in the late 90s but for lucha, nada. I'm sort of curious to see these first two matches in the context of a card, because I don't have a great idea for how one's put together in Mexico, especially a big CMLL show.

For big shows in the states, there are a couple of things I'd expect from the first couple of matches on a card.

1.) The first match is there to get the crowd going, engaged. This is a principle dating back at least thirty years and probably far longer. Wrestlemania I started with Tito Santana vs Buddy Rose for a reason, an admitted reason. Most WWE PPVs over the last two years started with a spot-filled tag team title match for the same reason. Again, I'm not super familiar with minis matches but my instinct is that they're high-velocity affairs and it makes sense to lead off the card with them.

2.) These aren't the matches that are supposed to steal the show. They should be energetic and for a certain breed of fans I'm sure that's what's most engaging. I have a feeling, however, that they're not supposed to contain some of the more key themes that'll be in the later matches. There'll be less build and payoff, less heat to the beatdowns, less complexity to comebacks.They'll get a little less time and maybe won't even have the big dives that'll come later in the night.

Now, these are just assumptions. I honestly don't know, and there's never been any assurance of CMLL being logical about this.

Taped 2010-06-06
Bam Bam & Shockercito vs Demus 3:16 & Pierrothito


So, minis. Bam Bam is just an inch shorter than me, so there you go. I would probably be a mini. I feel a connection already. He was the Mini-Estrella champ. Shockercito is 500% guapo which is pretty funny. Pierrothito is the NWA Light Heavyweight Champ which is a belt they had cycled down to the minis a year before. Demus used to be mini Damian. He's got a pretty good look.

This was what I expected. It had about ten minutes and it was almost all quick action with most of the normal elements of a match compressed (shrunk down even). Now and again you'll see a match structured in two falls with a shine, beatdown (ending the first), extension of the beatdown and then the comeback foiled in some horrific way. This was what happend here.

The early exchanges were really just "an early exchange." One or two interactions and then out of the ring and back to the other pairing. What they did was smooth and athletic though. The rudos took the primera with a wheelbarrow into a facebreaker. onto Bam Bam and then this really cool reverse powerslam/rolling neckbreaker submission combo by Demus onto Shockercito.

The segunda started with the continuation of the beatdown (including a giant swing/dropkick combo) followed by the comeback that consisted of comedy miscommunication by the rudos mainly. This all set up the finish which was Shockercito and Pierrothito ending up on the apron with Pierrothito flat on his back. Shockercito charged forth but got monkeyflipped. He was supposed to end up in a powerbomb position by Demus on the floor but it didn't quite work out and looked nasty. Back in the ring Demus and Bam Bam had a roll up fest with the rudo getting the better of it for the win.

This was quick but fun. I really need to dip my foot deeper into the mini waters.

Taped 2010-06-06
Metro, Rush, Stuka Jr. vs Histeria, Maniaco, Monsther


This was my first look at Monsther. He fit right into Los Invasores, far more so than some other guys in the stable. Chucky is so in your face and over the top as a mascot too. He was all over the match and you can hardly blame them for it. Stuka was the captain for the tecnicos and pretty much the only guy over in a good way. There were signs with the Porra Tecnico and everything. Rush had a surprising amount of boos for so early in his career. I hadn't realized they had turned on him so quickly.

I thought Rush looked good here. It's the earliest I've seen him and my plan is to spend more time with him in 2011 after I finish this show. He was definitely Rush, down to beating the crap out of Chucky in a way that put sympathy on the mascot and elicited boos from the crowd. Monsther was pretty funny as Stuka tried to rope run with him and just got goozled for his trouble. The tecnicos took the primera after Stuka did his reverse course leap out of the ring, leaving Rush and Metro to take out the remaining rudos (including Metro doing this really great backcompression submission over his knee.)

Rudos took over in the segunda, in part because the tecnicos were spending too long going after Chucky. It wasn't anything special. Histeria got Stuka from the outside in on a rope running sequence. The finish was a little goofy as I swear he got pinned twice and Monsther splashed his legs instead of something that made more sense, but it was ultimately harmless. Anyway, and this could be an indication of the spot on the card, the comeback in the tercera was almost immediate with Stuka moving out of the way of a charging Chucky, some humorous rudo miscommunication, and Stuka's dive bomb.

This was short and sweet, with a bit of flubbing here and there. Metro looked good. Monsther fit in well and Chucky was certainly energetic and happy to take a lot of abuse. It was pretty much what it was supposed to be. I thought it was most interesting how quickly Stuka started his comeback in the tercera and that they managed to clear the ring without dives (since they were saving those for later in the night, I guess).

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MLJ: 2010: A Garza Odyssey 17: Convergence

Taped 2010-05-16 @Arena México
El Alebrije, Histeria, Maniaco vs Brazo de Plata, Héctor Garza, Toscano

Porky, Héctor, Toscano vs Alebrije, Histeria...

Embedding isn't working well on this one, unfortunately.

So, this is where it all comes together as if I knew what I was doing from the beginning. I really didn't. Garza had been straddling the line for a better part of a month now. He'd been having dissension with two sets of tecnicos, really, with Fantasma and Mascara on the one side (and he walked out on them costing them the trios title) and Porky and Toscano on the other, and of course had won the Gran Alternativa with a rudo, despite claiming that he still wasn't. Meanwhile, Los Invasores had invaded, most of them being previous AAA wrestlers.

All of that set the stage for this match which was the first time on TV that Garza teamed with Porky and Toscano since walking out on his other partners and since winning the Gran Alternativa the week before. It was also the first time he was paired up against the Invasores. Unsurprisingly things came to a head, though maybe in potentially ambiguous ways.

Like usual for matches of this project, this was the Garza show, with him stooging and hamming and emoting and everything else, while the Invasores got to show their dominance, Porky was able to be Porky and Toscano was able to fight against huge odds and show righteous fury towards Garza. As the culmination of a turn, it was anti-climactic but some of that was due to the sheer length of said turn. My gut says that they hadn't really worked out the whole Invasores thing when they began it.

This was my first look at Maniaco and he didn't really stand out as being much different from Histeria, but his mask was awesome, with a fully on bat in the middle of it, with eyes and fangs and everything. Over the top and it fit in perfectly with his stablemates. By the way, they had a bunch of little promos/videos with the invaders around this time, usually with Psicosis II doing the talking. They were all set in some sort of backstage factory type lot and involved them destroying things to high effect. They definitely played up on the wild elements they brought to the table.

The story of the match was Garza doing everything humanly possible to avoid tagging in and his partners getting more and more frustrated with him. Porky started the match by charging Alebrije on the ramp, which was pretty great, but then the rudos used their numerical advantage to take over. Even Kemonito looked like he was going to kill Garza as he kept pulling his hand back in or faking a leg injury. It was a distraction like that which let Cuije nail the poor little monkey guy from behind and knock him off the apron. Immediately thereafter, Cuije let himself be used as a projectile bomb onto Porky and the rudos pinned him. They followed that up with a brutal double armdrag into an Alebrije Power Bomb on Toscano, who then ate a Maniaco senton bomb as well to end the primera.

Then things got pretty perilous. First, Garza "accidentally" stands on Kemonito for about twenty seconds. Then, the rudos pulled out this insane spiked metal bat, the sort of thing you never see in CMLL during this era, and they spent about three minutes menacing Garza with it. They made a big deal out of this before Garza finally escaped untouched and started selling the leg again on the outside as Toscano pushed him. They went back in, did a reset and some decent sequence with Toscano before once again making a big deal about Garza coming in, this time, forced by his partners, against Alebrije. Even at this point Porky was trying to rouse the crowd to encourage Garza. Or mockingly encourage him. And I suppose to either their credit or their lack of credit, there was some animosity there. Garza played his character, trying to avoid conflict, going for the time out , but Alebrije kept pushing, and Garza fought back. While the bat sequence was cute, there wasn't any real drama here, except for whether or not Garza wasn't just a rudo now, but with the invaders.

We've seen dozens of great heel turns in tag matches where the turner avoids tags and contact until the last second. That didn't happen here. Garza just came off as so amazingly irritating that everyone wanted to hit him. That would have been well and good if he wasn't to be revealed at a press conference a few days later as one of the leaders of the faction. It made the back half of this match, once he started to get physical, seem weird. The tercera ended with Garza knocking Toscano off the top so the rudos could pin him and then just laying down so they could pin him, but we'd seen behavior like that out of him over the few weeks before. He seemed like he had turned up the passive aggressiveness but not like this was a big stop on the "turn" roadmap. Still, watching him stand on Kemonito (especially after how pissed the monkey was at him earlier in the match) was pretty damn entertaining, so the match had that going for it.

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MLJ: 2010: Invasores Interlude 4: El Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis vs Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra, Shocker

Taped 2010-05-03 @ Arena Puebla
El Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis vs Hijo del Fantasma, La Sombra, Shocker

5:59 in

http://youtu.be/cDITa-uIM1o

http://youtu.be/c3m0D-chMh0

I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this, to be honest. Trying to figure out CMLL booking is kind of like staring at the sun for too long. It hurts us. We know better, but we still do it. My current guess is that it was a local angle that ended up surprisingly hot and when it got brought to Arena Mexico, too many hands got into the mix, maybe some old favors were called in, and Porky kind of went into business for himself? Or not. I am just fumbling at the edges of Mexican wrestling politics here. I could give a pretty good educated guess at why every match happened on the last seven WWE shows, but I've got nothing here. A stranger in a strange land, with a small man in a monkey costume.

A small man in a monkey costume with a vicious alien rival in Cuije. Who was in silver and black, like his Invasores comrades. This match has Shocker subbed in for Mascara, and I'm perfectly fine with that move. I'll take lazy tecnico shocker over Mascara without much hesitation. Past that it was more of the same, which is not necessary a problem, nor an endorsement of adding Los Hermanos Dinamitas to the mix so soon. It still felt fresh enough and heated enough and was plenty enjoyable. More than that, the invaders started to give just a little more here, which was probably the proper pacing, as opposed to what we saw in the aggravating Porky match at Arena Mexico.

Standard B-A-C formula here. Rudos swarmed from the start and took the primera. They ran a comeback and then teased a reset before letting the tecnicos take the segunda. Then they actually ran the reset and did some tecnicos vs the world spot run throughs before going to the dives and the finish. It was formula but the formula, when executed well, works, and it was perfectly fine here.

The beatdown was just as good as the last few. These three work well as a unit, double teaming, utilizing Alebrije's size and kicking out double teams. Particularly nice here was a wheelbarrow drop/facebuster on Sombra and lifting Cuije up super high for a splash on Shocker.

Some people were just made to be projectile weapons. Finally they took out Sombra with the still aces lift up pendulum bull charge...

and finished off Fantasma with a lift-up top rope senton thing by Psicosis.

Between falls they really drove things home by having Psicosis slamming Fantasma into the wall between the fan seats that is the most scenic part of Arena Puebla.

The comeback was brisk but definitely solid. It involved shocker grabbing Histeria's legs from the outside, Fantasma dodging a flying Alebrije, and Sombra flying in from outside and ended with Kemonito getting his hands on Cuije, Fantasma getting revenge on Psicosis at the wall and some weird reset-feeling rope running that led to a Fantasma tope and a Rana from Sombra and the Reinera by Shocker for the caida. It was spirited (and capped off with a Kemontio dropkick to boot), which is all I ever usually need.

Tercera had a lot of tecnico shine, especially for Fantasma who got to go against the world, but all the tecnicos got to show off with the rudos doing a good job eating their showcase offense and cutting one off to bring in the next. Some highlights were the use of Cuije as a projectile once again...

and some crazy sequence from Sombra...

In the end, Sombra nailed a big dive and cleared the ring for Psicosis and Fantasma. Psicosis pulled the mask off and that was that. Pretty good match that kept the heat on the rudos, but showed more chinks in their armor.

Somewhere between the beginning of writing this and the end I decided to look at a few Observers. I think what was going on here was CMLL trying to build a big marketable angle for a rare big Sunday show in Sin Salida, meant to combat Triplemania, as both were running in Mexico City on the same day. With that in mind, they had to bring in as many Invasores as possible, and that meant calling upon a mix of old and new names. The whole paragraph up until now indicates that CMLL had a plan, be it a good one or a bad one, and I'm not entirely willing to give them that level of credit.

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MLJ: 2010: Invasores Interlude 3: Brazo de Plata, La Sombra, Toscano vs El Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis

2010-05-02 @ Arena México
Brazo de Plata, La Sombra, Toscano vs El Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis


Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis vs Porky, Sombra...

I come from a place of ignorance. That's the whole point of this project on some level, to push back against that. A lot of the people who check out what I write have been watching lucha for years or decades or even their entire life. There is cognitive disconnect that I need to put aside sometimes in doing this. I don't mean things like "why don't the tecnicos do something when their partner is getting triple teamed in a trios match?" or anything like that. I mean general booking and revenue issues, the underpinning behind what I see. CMLL owns the building(s?). They get their money by fans showing up and paying for tickets and concessions. They get some more money by selling as much TV product as possible. That leads to lazy and outright bad booking (which sometimes feels like no booking at all) being forgivable economically.

Still, this match is maddening. As best as I can tell, this was the invaders first match in Arena Mexico. They may not have been the biggest names, but they had a unified look with the outlandish purple colors, with Alebrije's size and Psicosis' over the top mask and Cuije's presence. They had a total surprise entrance to the company and then a very strong first match in Puebla. And here they gave way too much to Porky, a total comedy wrestler, even if he was a beloved one, and ultimately had to be saved by the near 50-something Mascara Ano 2000 and Universo 2000, who were better known and remembered names, certainly, but hardly had a rousing last run in the company and didn't fit the look of the other invaders at all. I'm not going to compare it to, let's say, Brian Adams in the NWO, but that's the vibe I got. I don't know if it was because someone else was booking the Puebla shows and it was just a regional angle that gathered more steam than they were expecting, which led to it getting play (but not positive play) at Arena Mexico or what. I have no idea what the arrival of Los Invasores did for business, but it felt like a hot angle to the live crowd when they arrived and the first match with them was very good. This felt like the worst way possible to capitalize on it.

That's not to say it was a bad match. It wasn't. Sombra had a good mix of athleticism and a general sense of knowing what he was doing back in 2010. Toscano was more than capable still. I even wanted to see Alebrije and Porky go at it from a morbid curiosity point of view. It was just very much the wrong match with the wrong outcome at this point of the story.

Still, not bad. The rudo beat down went well enough. Psicosis and Sombra started, with a nice Bow and Arrow from Psicosis; when Sombra went for a hold of his own, the rudos swarmed. After that, they mainly beat up Porky in the corner while his partners rotated in to get double teamed. It ended with some fun use of Cuije as a melee weapon and nice teamwork, two clotheslines in the corner followed by a double back kick in the corner, which shoved out Toscano for Alebrije's spear. This particular rudo trip was more the sum of its parts and I really do love the double armpit lift-up, charging battering ram flip finish.

They teased a reset to start the segunda but Sombra quickly got lured into an ambush. This immediately set up Porky charging out of the corner with a Porky Attack, Sombra hitting a visually impressive fireman's carry drop on Alebrije, and a split-legged senton/roll up/Porky splash finish to the lightning quick comeback.

So far so good, but it would devolve from there. They'd attack Cuije a bit. Toscano took his pants off and Porky did the spot where he smells them and fell over. Toscano went up against the world (which was fine, including really leaning into a dropkick), Porky pinched Alebrije (which was less fine). And the rudos all ended up in the corner for Porky to jump on. It devolved into stooging and the Porky show, ending with Los Capos running in to break up a Porky second rope splash, and this would have been fine and entertaining for a random mid-card match with no feuds behind it (and I imagine Porky was quite happy to have some new fodder to work with), but placed where it was in the angle, it was just brutal.

I guess that's CMLL for you. We're just not allowed to have nice things for long.

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MLJ: 2010: Invasores Interlude I: Shigeo Okumura, Taichi, Virus vs Hijo del Fantasma, La Máscara, La Sombra

Taped 2010-04-12 @ Arena Puebla
Shigeo Okumura, Taichi, Virus vs Hijo del Fantasma, La Máscara, La Sombra

3:03 in

http://youtu.be/bTe9kb_kykY

http://youtu.be/0-NFrnKuvBY

I know what you're thinking. Why the heck am I watching a Taichi match for no apparent reason? There's no Volador here at least (I'm on anti-Volador, Jr, kick right now and will avoid him when possible), but Taichi is definitely there and Mascara is looming too. Even 2010 Virus isn't enough to offset that. There's a method to my madness, though. This isn't any match but the start of a fairly big angle (I say fairly big because while it had a big footprint, it started in Puebla and there just seems to be something off about that).

The entrances were pretty great. Virus' look back then was awesome. He had this cool robe, a mask over that, some spiky arm things. I get that there's a sort of maestro feel he has now, where some of this might take away from his skill or distract from it, but it was a really great look and it's a shame he went away from it. Kemonito, carried by someone, came out wiht Mascara, wearing a shirt. More on this later. Sombra and Taichi were captains. I have no idea how Taichi gets to be captain of anything.

I quite like Fantasma; he never really wows me but he's always more than solid, someone who was ideal in matches like this because he could really serve as the glue, as someone who knew his role and could play it well and by doing so, helped to keep everything together, usually without going into business for himself like Wagner or someone. He was fairly young at this point too. I've said it before but it's a shame that they didn't keep him around (he jumped to AAA in 2013). Okumura, on the other hand, never really makes an impression on me.

The structure was a little weird here, which is quite often a red flag for the finish of the match. I've seen people complain about the typical CMLL structure lately, but I've kind of come to love it over the last year. It's the ebb and the flow and it provides a great point of comparison because you get to see how a number of different wrestlers work within the same constraints; more often than not, to reach this level, they know how to do great things within it.

Whenever the match diverges, it changes the mood because it raises your attention a little. That was the case here. They went through the motions of a standard back and forth opening with a rudo takeover. Fantasma carried Taichi to something halfway tolerable. Sombra and Okemura turned up the pace a bit,  but the rudos swarmed immediately thereafter so we never got to see what Virus would have done with Mascara.

At this point, in a normal match, we'd skid to a relatively quick rudo taking of the fall, ride the beatdown into the segunda, have a tecnico comeback, an then reset for a lot of tecnico-vs-the-world antics, some posturing, and a few dives for the finish. Instead, Virus, directing traffic, set up Fantasma for an Okumura missile dropkick and the pin, but then Sombra ducked past everyone to tope Virus and planchaed his way back in off the top onto Taichi. He ducked a double team kick and hit his split legged moonsault on Taichi (still inexplicably the rudo captain) to take the fall. They basically rushed through the beatdown to the comeback in one fall. It was a sign that either this was going to go two falls or that it was going to have that added loop of a second beatdown.

As it was, the segunda was mostly everything you'd want in a tercera from these pairings. Virus got to stooge a bit. We had those tecnico-vs-the-world spots where one tecnico fought off all three rudos. There were dive cutoffs to cycle to the next tecnico. Kemonito got to do the shirt-take-off spot where he can't get it off and then recovered to hit a legdrop. Someone hit that lightning flip over backdrop counter sunset flip I really like. They made Taichi look stupid, and finally, Fantasma and Mascara hit tandem topes. That left Taichi and Sombra in there and almost immediately, the former fouled the latter and the tecnicos got the DQ win.

All well and good, right? Once the match was over, the real fun began. Out of nowhere ran in luchadores who had, until recently, been working for the independents, Perros Del Mal and other places: Psicosis II(Reaper/Ripper), Histeria, Manico, Alebrije(Kraneo) and his mini Cuijo. The post production called this the "Invasion en Puebla" and the fans were unsurprisingly going nuts for it. This was about as formula breaking as it got, a mauling from a group of wrestlers not even in the company.

Eventually, the tecnicos set to wrestle the next match, Strongman, Porky, and Mistico hit the ring to chase them off (with Mistico being so good and aware of the situation that he was quickly able to get all attention himself by press slamming Cuije to the outside; he had a chant shortly thereafter). In one of the biggest Crash TV segments I've ever seen in CMLL, the rudos they were to face: Terrible, Averno, and Texano, Jr. followed them right out and started the match. I decided that Strongman and Porky together were probably not something I was up to perusing and decided to move on.

This was certainly a match rushed through to set up an angle, but as such things went, it was an enjoyable one and I thought the angle came over extremely well, the mood set by the weirdness of so sudden a two fall match.

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