Found Footage Friday: IWRG RETRO 1996~!

IWRG Retro 46 1996

Cassandra/Indomable/Chiola vs. Princesa Dorada/Julisa/Irma Aguilar

MD: You always spend some of these matches just figuring out who you're looking at. I'm no expert on 1996 IWRG luchadoras. Thankfully we had names on screen on the way out. The pairings are Indomable/Irma, Cassandra/Dorada, and Chola/Julisa.It's hard to say too much about any single wrestler here but Indomable hit hard and got hit hard against both Irma and Dorada. Julisa and Chola had some slick (or at least quick) rope running. The primera, in general, had a lot of simple and straightforward matwork n the first two pairings but everything felt like a struggle.

Cassandra stood out the most to me probably. She had a mask with the open hair and a unique look and really played to the crowd a lot. At the start of the segunda she wanted a handshake and when she didn't get it, she shook the ref's hand and give him a big hug instead. The primera was pairings with everything breaking down at the end. The segunda had a lot more in and outs. Sometimes it got a little too chaotic maybe and lost focused and it never settled down to a rudo beatdown and comeback. Instead, it built to a bunch of goofy (in a fun way) rope running where everyone got in there at once and some big tandem spots. Occasionally along the way you got ruda miscommunication. This felt better than the sum of its parts, honestly. At times it was a little rough around the edges but that didn't hurt the entertainment quota overall even if I could have used just a little more heat.

Mini Cochesse/Mini Andy Barrow vs. Mini Flashito/Mini Konnan

MD: Andy Barrow was The Killer's facepaint clad manager who became a rudo himself and this was a mini version of him. I can't say I'm super familiar but I sort of want to be now? I should ask Tom K about him. ANYWAY. This was his mini and this was pretty good. The rudos had no problem bumping, with Barrow sliding out of the ring over and over and Cochesse taking a crazy flight to nowhere through the ropes. They were solid in the beatdowns too though there was one Doomsday Device which seemed to go away afield. 

Flashito had some very nice and interesting stuff and Konnan was beloved by the kids. He also finished a caida with a nasty liontamer-esque standing cloverleaf. Flashito had a great press up dive to set the stage for the finish of the match, clearing the ring for Konnan to get a rana to end it. This hit a lot of the marks you would have wanted it to.

Kato Kung Lee/Tony Rivera/Torero vs. Los Oficiales (Oficial/Guardia/Vigilancia)

MD: A lot of fun and more heated than I expected coming in. The tecnico side was a joy actually. Kato Kung Lee has all of his super stylized faux karate stuff. Rivera has a lot of tricked out stuff including this great trip out of nowhere. And Torero has the bullfighter gimmick and most of what he does is play into that in the best sort of Rayo way. He had them charging at his red flag before the match. They clowned Los Oficiales pretty well during the primera.

Segunda went as you'd expect with three-on-one beatings. All fairly basic stuff but they controlled the ring and tempo well. Surprisingly, Rivera bled and they worked the wound a bit. That led to the big comeback in the tercera. A little bit of miscommunication set up the dives, but they twisted it where they caught each tecnico one after the next and then dragged things down until a rudo beatdown DQ (I think at least). It's always a little tough without the crowd noise but you can imagine how it went given how they worked this one. 

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This Sweet Thought Will Cheer Terry While Dying, We Will Miss Him When He's Gone

Black Terry vs. Multifacetico IWRG 4/17/08 - EPIC

PAS: Out of this world great match. There is something special about Terry in his house Arena Naucalpan, throwing left hooks, smashing people into beer coolers and spilling blood. I loved how he just tortured Multifacetico early, breaking his back by twisting his body in the rope, cracking him with perfcet punches, and then cutting him off mid air with a backcracker for the pin. Exactly what you want from that rudo beatdown fall. Loved the comeback he fed Multifacitico in the second fall and it all leads to a dramatic third fall with lots of blood. Terry has so many different great notes he could play, but this kind of dramatic fist fight is his best.

JR: They keep advertising their myspace page here: zona de combate. Can you imagine how great Terry would have been in mid 00s CZW?

There is a lot to like here. In the first fall, Terry works at such a deliberate pace, almost the closest we get to a WWE heel from this era. He doesn't preen, but the structure of the fall is so similar to something you might see on TV from Orton or someone else in the states just a few years later.

From there, we get Terry in a style that feels more familiar. The match quickens, and I think would come across significantly better if the camera had lingered on Multifacetico from ringside. The closer we got to him the more compelled I felt to root for him, but the hard cam here does him no favors.

The third fall is good, falling into some of the apuestas rhythms that I find so comfortable. Terry works holds that feel consequential and Multi finds flashes that make it seem as though he is in the fight. The seconds add very little here, muddying the waters in ways that lucha gets away with more often than other styles, but the finishing stretch feels mostly earned and suitably triumphant.

In a way, I like this match as an example of a match that feels taped together by Terry. There's nothing particularly exclamatory from him but I can't help but feel it would be decidedly worse with someone else taking his place. I don't mean for that to sound backhanded, quite the opposite. A Terry performance that for him seems so rote is inherently valuable, inherently above replacement.

Matt reviewed this match here

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Oh Bury Terry Not on the Lone Praire

Black Terry/Pantera vs. Negro Navarro/Pirata Morgan IWRG 7/23/11 - GREAT

PAS: Compact 13 minute match which kind of felt like an awesome first fall, where we never got the second and third. Match opens with 5 minutes of Navarro and Terry grappling which was delightful and an obvious highlight. Pantera hits a cool tope from the apron through the ringpost, and there are some cool eliminations. Pirata had a moment or two, but this was worth watching for that uncut raw Terry vs. Navarro.

 
MD: It's a joy to watch Terry and Navarro do their thing for a few minutes. They're wrestling's odd couple. Navarro makes everything look theatrical, able to somehow make a straight line look stylized and curved. Meanwhile, Terry's entirely business-like, poised and practical, able to make something infinitely complex seem simple and professional. Navarro is eternally bombastic and will take you on the scenic route pointing out every landmark true and fabricated along the way and Terry somehow finds a shortcut to wherever he's going, getting there two minutes early yet still leaving you completely satisfied by the quality of company. When you put them together, they play perfectly with one another's strengths, the contrast driving the entire endeavor and leaving you not wanting to look away.

Morgan was fun here too, pulling out a few things that, while maybe not contributing to a greater whole would be memorable: an abrupt contorting cradle when he first got in there, the rare double rotation Casita for one elimination and then a rolling sort of Anaconda Vice that felt just as rare for the second. And then Pantera added just a bit of flash and motion (not too much) with a few high spots. As Phil noted, this ultimately felt like a really good primera, never boiling over, never leading to heat and comeback, but as exhibitions go, any one that'll start with a few minutes of Navarro vs Terry like this is well worth watching.

JR:   This match is mostly an exhibition, although there are certainly worse people to have that sort of match than Terry and Navarro. There are fun holds and some good exchanges that might look too cooperative in the hands of lesser performers. Pirata Morgan hits a slingshot senton that I can only describe as a non-ironic version of the slow motion one Chuck Taylor used to do in Chikara.

After the opening portion, when Terry and Navarro tag out, there is a brief moment that will stick with me as Pantera struggles with Pirata Morgan. I found myself thinking, as I watched this, of Cubs' wonderful obituary from today. In it he talks about the truly beautiful outpouring of support for Terry and how beloved he was as a trainer and teacher. Terry was observant of new trends and styles and was willing to teach things that were not to his taste if he thought it would help his students succeed. Close to the corner, Terry crouches down and talks to his partner, giving what I can only assume are instructions. My relationship with Terry has always been purely critical, of course. I've never seen him train or eaten at his table or heard him tell stories. I've only watched him perform. Perhaps this was a performance as well, but in that moment I saw Black Terry not as a wrestler, but as someone that cared and wanted to help his partner sincerely. I saw the type of trainer he might be, offering quiet but serious suggestion.
When I picture Terry, I think I'll always picture a man brawling, grunting. I'll picture effort and sweat. Tonight, I am glad that I can briefly picture something else that makes me feel closer to the whole of him.

TKG: This is pretty much a one fall sprint with Terry and Navarro doing their ras de lona work, Pantera getting in his big dives and a small tease of Pirata v Terry.

At turn of century when both AAA and EMLL where both stripping out first fall technical exchanges…the indies fully leaned into them, highlighting the work of the older maestros keeping the style vital and alive.

I really popped when after the initial submission exchanges, Terry started the technical leverage throw section with a big monkey flip and Navarro answered with an impressive nasty suplex.
As maestro’s got older we’d see fewer big suplexes. Your Hechicero generation of technical wizards really don’t do suplexes as part of technical display. That moving from leverage submission holds into leverage arm drags still happens but the subs into suplexes is something we see less and less and I miss.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Found Footage Friday: STUDD~! WANZ~! COCOS~! NOSAWA~! MASADA~! FANTASMAS~!

Big John Studd vs. Otto Wanz CWA 12/20/83

MD: This is a 40 minute John Studd vs. Otto Wanz match from December 1983 found in the massive lot of tapes that @maskedwrestlers was able to rescue from Germany. Go hit him up if you want to see it. Obviously, I jumped at it. I covered a slew of Wanz matches years ago and he has excellent timing, hits hard, and has a singular connection with the crowd. As the 80s roll on, he becomes less and less mobile and while none of those skills fade, the matches do suffer a bit for it. Then there's Studd. In so many ways, he's the most human of the giants, emoting frustration, fear, hatred, resentment. He's a two-hundred pound stalling stooge in a much larger frame. It creates an amazing dissonance he can use to rile an audience, but that dissonance unfortunately carries over to not being particularly dynamic on offense. 

This overachieved and I think it did so because the environment maximized the opportunity for these two to lean into their strengths. This match takes place over nine rounds. There's a minute rest period with music playing in between each. While the narrative can build over rounds, it creates a clear break and bit of respite. Studd has a reputation of sitting in some fairly uninteresting holds and there's very little of that there. There were other advantages as well. Studd's height allows him to strike down and always have an excuse for getting back into the match. They're both massive and everything, from a lock-up to punch to a snap mare to one of them daring to go up to the turnbuckles feels weighty and consequential. The ten count to win added gravitas to every knockdown as well. Maybe most important of all is the fact that Otto is very good at working from underneath in holds, constantly moving his hands, constantly trying to fight his way to a different position. That's more than half the battle against Studd. The crowd was hot the whole way through. There were two camera angles here, spliced together; one picked up the crowd better than the other, but they were buzzing, constantly chanting "Otto, Otto".

If any one of these pieces dropped, it might have been a slog, but none of them did. Let's take it through the text itself. This is going to be a little dry but I want to make the case knowing people may not have forty minutes for this. Right from the get go, after the anthems, Studd was quick to shove Otto, to demand a test of strength. They locked up, shoved off, crashed off the ropes into each other and shook the entire arena. Studd struck downwards with elbows and clubbers. Otto would come back off the ropes with big meaty shots. Studd would attempt a chinlock, a standing one at the end of the second round with him peppering in a knee, and grounded ones in the third, but Otto was quick to get up and the third ended with him jamming Studd's mare and turning it around, to a big pop from the crowd. 

Otto pressed the advantage in the fourth round, dropping Studd with a single leg and then rowing along in time with the crowd's chants with a standing toehold. Otto had a way to make these interesting and entertaining, whether working on top or from the bottom. They had teased slamming each other earlier, but at the end of this round, riding his momentum, Otto finally got Studd up and over as the bell rang. Right after, I'm Still Standing played for the crowd and it felt like a high point in some DreamWorks animated movie. In the fifth, Studd, desperate, was able to get Otto out of the ring and brawled with him there. He caught him on the way back in and layed in some heavy shots. He couldn't hold back Wanz for long though and Otto controlled this middle portion fairly well, even through Studd's attempt to work his arm in the sixth. 

By the seventh round, Studd was at his wit's end. He demanded they announce over the house mic that he had previously said that Otto was going down in the seventh. Otto charged in, they slugged it out, and Otto got the best of him in the corner at hit his signature flip senton. Studd was a bedraggled, sweaty mess by this point. He managed a cheapshot and a corner  beatdown of his own, but Otto powered up and tosses Studd from the ring. There was a clear narrative throughline in all of this, and while it could have potentially been a bit more dramatic, the crowd wanted to see Otto fight back again and again and it led to what happened after the seventh. Instead of staying in his corner, Studd attacked between rounds. This was treated like a horrific offense, with officials and Wanz's second coming in only to get dispatched with ease by Studd to a chorus of boos. Studd beat Wanz around ringside before pulling down the corner pad and opening him up with the metal underneath. Otto was able to fire back at the bell but Studd had the advantage.

Studd pressed that advantage in the ninth, picking Otto up a couple of times with a level of aggression you wouldn't expect out of him at this point of the match, before crashing into the exposed post himself, and finally getting slayed for the ten count (if just barely) by an Otto pile driver. 

Between the round system and Otto's ability to work from underneath, this never slowed down for long. The level of motion may have been more subdued but how hard they hit didn't. Studd taking three or four big steps across the ring to lay a clothesline across Wanz' chest was absolutely impactful. And those times when they really moved, whether it be Studd missing an elbow drop or Wanz coming flying off the top with a big shot, meant all the more for the build. Lots of little bits of build and payoff throughout too, whether it was Otto hitting that slam or changing the trajectory of the match by jamming the mare attempt. They very much knew what they were doing and while I think this could have been even stronger if Studd took slightly more of the middle, that only made his egregious (and dissontant; why does someone so big have to do that!) cheating between the seventh and the eight mean all the more. This was an unquestioned accomplishment. They went forty minutes, never losing the crowd, always hitting hard, utilizing holds at times but not wearing out their welcome and never just sitting there, finishing strong.

ER: I always think of Matt as the Big John Studd Guy because Matt was the guy who really dove into what made Studd different from other big workers, learning his patterns and strengths better than anyone else I know. I think I was close to the trail. I remember talking to Phil about him years ago, tell Phil that Studd wasn't anywhere near as big as he was billed. I thought he had Big Dick Dudley or Col. DeBeers size and build and was a fake big man. A man with military posture like DeBeers or Nick Nolte in Who'll Stop the Rain. Adding size. But I was just being tricked by Studd's sometimes odd style, the smallest working giant we've ever had. Matt recognized it for the oddity it was and cracked the code on what the best assets of Studd were. So Matt covered this match well, as I knew he would. Matt left me the link to this match in the draft of our review and told me to "give myself time." I did, because of course I wanted to watch 40 minutes of a Giant and an Obese Regional Megastar. I love the fat regional babyface. I love Big Daddy. Imagine if Abdullah the Butcher was the big Puerto Rico babyface and Carlos Colon was the island's greatest heel? The feud would be even more blowaway great than their actual feud. 

This is 40 minutes of big man wrestling heaven, where two behemoths worked like rival lumbering mastodons punctuated by polka and electronic instrumental themed rest breaks. It was slow but always intense. Otto Wanz is a real favorite of mine. I love a country who gets behind a big fat guy who looks like a King of Fighters character, and is the kind of fat guy that looks more normal in a double strap singlet than he does in normal clothes. John Studd has some of the great understated gear in wrestling. The long white tights have literally never been pulled off better. The fit impeccable, the build never more impressive. John Studd looked like a tree of a man and Wanz looked like a Bill Plympton drawing. His face has this youthful woundability, and no matter how short or long any Wanz match is, it will be constantly filled with Otto chants. Otto is a master of falling into ropes in dramatic ways, hitting the bottom rope on Studd's short arm western lariats to the fucking face, falling sideways or chest first into them reeling from other strikes. 

This was not a stiff match but had the appearance of a stiff match, an exquisitely worked long match where every single impact had real weight behind it. The longer they worked, the more dramatic it felt. This felt like a true clash of the titans. Studd was not a cheating heel, and often he would call his shot in a more badass way than I've seen from anyone this side of Stan Hansen: multiple times pointing to his very large flexed forearm before swinging it straight at the bridge of Otto's nose. Every time either one of them fell or was knocked down felt like a major deal. The few spills through the ropes to the floor felt like major moments all, none bigger than Studd kicking Otto's ass around ringside while a worried man on the house mic pleads with him to stop and a large old man in a dinner jacket keeps getting dangerously involved. 

The drama and big match feel were so strong here that you wouldn't even need to know anything about Wanz or Studd. You would be easily able to see their appeal even though nobody else works quite like them. I loved the pacing of this, I loved how it felt like it really could have kept going a full hour. I knew Matt had my best interests in mind when leaving a 50 minute link to a Wanz/Studd match, but I never anticipated feeling robbed of a longer match. 

IWRG Retro 3/8/2001

Suicida/Coco Rojo/Coco Blanco vs. Payaso Misterioso/Nosawa/Masada

MD: More IWRG Retro. This is episode 27 which feels like a high number so I probably have to go back and see what I missed. This is the same show with the Santo/Silver King trios main event. This from the undercard definitely worked for me. Nice mix of Nosawa and Masada moving at high speed with Segura, including doing a great job of getting into position for his stuff and then everyone just playing into Los Cocos' act with a bunch of crowd pleasing comedy stuff. Payaso Misterioso had some heft to him so Segura bounced right off of him, but then he'd stumble into a shot from Rojo or Blanco to get knocked out of the ring, that sort of deal. The primera had the beatdown, the segunda the comedy in the comeback, and then they cycled through fairly quickly in the tercera. The finish had Los Cocos get the advantage on the Japanese with quebradoras into submissions, only for a third figure to come in to disrupt things. Probably Minoru Fujita? What we had here was a little clipped but it was 13 minutes of good fun overall.

Enterrador/Bombero Infernal/Black Metal vs. Fantasma/Fantasma Jr/Ultimo Vampiro

MD: Pretty complete trios match here. Fantasma Sr. was just over 50 here if I'm not mistaken. Jr. is his nephew and, alongside, Vampiro, rounded out the tecnico side with flying since Sr. wasn't going to do that.. The rudo side were better than the sum of their parts. Black Metal was tall and Enterrador ("Undertaker") was wide in an Abyss sort of way. Apparently he'd have a mask match with Ultimo Vampiro later that year and from what I saw here, I sort of wonder if that exists. (Edit: It does.). Point being, in the segunda especially, Bombero Infernal was directing traffic as a poor man's Satanico and it all went quite well. Fantasma, Sr. was very giving, allowing for his mask to get pulled in a big way. He was front and center for the comeback, moving out of the way of an Enterrador dropkick. Black Metal used his height to the fullest, first eating a double dropkick from Fantasma, Jr. and Vampiro and then basing for a huge over the top dive. The finish had Enterrador vs Fantasma where Fantasma fooled Bello Greco (who had ref duties here) by tossing his mask to a charging Enterrador to draw the DQ. Totally blatant, no way the ref should have been followed, but wildly charming at the same time.

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Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! LOD~! DANDY~! SILVER KING~! SHU~! PANTHER~! SUPER PARKA~!

IWRG Retro 7/27/00

El Dandy/Silver King/Black Dragon vs. Shu el Guerrero/Mosco de la Merced/Hijo del Diablo

MD: VQ is tough with a lot of freezing but you can tell what's going on and the talent is so much here that you want to see it through. No real signature pairings here. I'd say that this was driven by the talent, energy, and star power on the tecnico side and structured accordingly. That meant in the primera, each tecnico got a chance to lean into rudo miscommunication and entertainingly fight them all off at once. There are things you'd note, like Silver King sliding across the ring or Dandy's punch or Black Dragon's crave dive at the end of the caida, but it was all good.

Rudos took over in the segunda after they teased pairings and they did the bit where they flip their opponents over and toss them into a kick in the corner. This could have probably used a couple more minutes, for once they hit the tecera, it was a quick reset and into in and out submissions and break-ups and really overall chaos with things breaking down. Finish had Dragon roll forward into a tapitia which you don't see often and Dandy hitting a jumping DDT for the win. Rudos did their job but this really was the tecnicos show, and even with the freezing, it was a good show.

ER: It's a shame this has so many freezes and bits of missing action because everything we get is really great. Everybody got their own moments to cook and I love a trios like this where everyone tries to take over the show the longer it goes. Mosco de la Merced and Hijo del Diablo were the real standouts to me but every brought something big. Silver King is so good at pushing pace and guys like Mosco and Diablo rise to that pace and it makes their bumps even crazier. The Segunda opening with King and Diablo really cooked, Diablo early on looking like the one guy in the match who was going to hang back and let everyone else handle things, building to him stooging and bumping as big as anyone. Mosco took at least four big bumps and worked comedy into half of them, including a great bit where he kept removing pieces of clothing while ramping up for a one on one confrontation, whipping his shirt and bandana into the crowd and firing up by almost removing his pants. Black Dragon is a guy who I literally only remember because of his incredible tope over/past the ringpost into the corner, which he hits beautifully here after pulling off a super smooth rana. His tope is one of the great lucha topes in history, one of those spots like Super Calo's slingshot senton that makes a luchador's career seem bigger than it really was. Shu el Guerrero is a total tank of a luchador, or dream build Valiente, but Mosco and Diablo handle all the toughest basing and catches. Shu's best bit of basing is sliding across the entire ring for a frankly breathtaking Dandy headscissors, Dandy getting full glorious extension and not tucking early, really making it look like he flung Shu 10 feet with his ankles and leverage. It would have been great to have the full uncut action (and crowd noise, and the actual screen presentation instead of the annoying TV screen aesthetic) but there's no denying the action we did see. 

Blue Panther vs. Super Parka

MD: WWA Title match. Parka's the champ. It's worked like a title match with just a bit of the dancing/histrionics from Parka, which he tends to pay for whenever he does. I liked the primera a lot. Nothing too tricked out but they kept close body contact for a lot of it in a way you don't always see in lucha matwork. It was all up tight and combative. Parka had advantage for a lot of it working over the arm. When they got moving towards the end of the caida, you had no idea who would get the ultimate advantage but Parka took it with a snap 'rana. 

Segunda was super short, but Panther won it with the old French Catch standard waistlock into a leg nelson (no roll). Not something you see every day, even from him. Then the tercera had all the bells and whistles and drama. Parka took out Panther's leg early and worked it over. Panther sold big on his comeback attempts. There was another 'rana for a nearfall and a long Cavernaria. Parka hit this amazing tope sending both of them over the barricade. Then Panther went for a submission and then pinned themselves. Only a couple of spotty moments VQ wise with the freezing, thankfully, as this was a very good title match to be unearthed. 

CM Punk/Doug Delicious vs. Legion of Doom WWE 5/13/03

MD: As WWE Vault stuff goes, this is better than something we already had, worse than if they had given it to us in full, and especially worse than giving us Omni shows or something. But it has its novelty and we should cover it, clipped as it is. Punk explaining that he had been on the banned list for doing a hammerlock DDT the night before gives his performance here color. Obviously, just in general facing the Road Warriors in this setting, he's going to do everything he could to stand out and bump and feed and stooge for them.

Since he was in hot water, however, he really went above and beyond, on from the get go. The fans absolutely loved seeing the LOD as a surprise and popped huge for them as Punk covered his head in shock in the ring. They cut out a lot of the stuff with Delicious and only give us Punk but I don't really mind that too much. He screamed as he went over for Animal's power slam and went sailing for the belly-to-belly throw. Hawk was totally on too, hitting his shoulder first post-bump to the floor. He even ate a Punk snap suplex. This isn't the first or hundredth thing I would have wanted, especially not clipped, but I was still smiling despite myself as I watched it, so I'll certainly take this sort of thing over nothing. 

ER: I was not actually expecting this to be really good but I have a feeling the full uncut match was actually quite good. I'm a big fan of 1998 LOD even though history says they were totally washed. Well, they were pretty washed, but Washed Legends is one of my favorite kinds of wrestler. 1998 Hawk was a particular favorite of mine. He wasn't lifting much anymore so he wasn't working as a power wrestler, so he just leaned into being a puncher with a couple of surprising big bumps. Hawk was a great puncher and a guy with great bumps, so it really felt like a super vulnerable version of the Road Warrior Hawk, boiled down to his most basics; still dangerous, now beatable. I loved it. It's a shame they were stuck feuding with DOA for most of the year during their final real run. I have a feeling that some good Hawk stuff was cut from this tag in cutting the Doug Delicious work, and that's a shame. I don't know much about Doug Delicious so maybe they were right to cut most of his work out of this, but I sure stood at attention when he lit Hawk the hell up with chops on the floor. I cannot imagine someone chopping either Road Warrior the way Doug was chopping Hawk in 1986 but this is 2003. That's the kind of things that makes vulnerable legends so compelling. They're on the way down and now fucking Doug Delicious is doing things that would have gotten greater men killed. 

Punk was great in this, reminded me again of why I liked him so much during this era. He bumped huge for everything the LOD did and even sold their entrance music. He fed really well for them both and I was pretty shocked at the amount of offense he got. The snap suplex on Hawk was a real surprise, but I liked how he worked the match as a guy who really belonged in the ring with the Road Warriors and not just a stooge who just lied on the mat in between moves. He set up Hawk's ringpost bump perfectly, moving out of the way at the last second so it made it look like an actual miss and not a set up bump, and Hawk spills past the apron to the floor as well as any of those times a missed western lariat sent Stan Hansen tumbling to the floor. I thought Animal looked good here too, taking on the bulk of the match (well, at least the way the match was edited) and I thought his movement looked strong. That leaping elbowdrop was fire and they each seemed real pumped at the crowd's loud reaction and chanting for them. WWE always hated the idea of bringing back older legends to work undercards but I wish we had years of All Japan old men matches on the undercards of house shows, it would have been incredible. They only viewed people on what they could potentially add to the top of the card but any time they brought back an older name and just plopped them in the third match it worked perfectly. I needed more runs like the Tatanka or, well, Road Warrior Animal mid-2000s Smackdown run. 

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

IWRG Retro 28 IWRG Retro 3/8/2001

Halieen/Ryo Saito vs. Siky Ozama/Bestia Rubia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Found Footage Friday: BLACK TERRY~! CEREBROS~! CUBAN ASSASSIN~! GRINGOS~! KANEMOTO~!

Koji Kanemoto vs. Cuban Assassin 11/4/95

MD: We rarely get to highlight what our old pal over at Armstrong Alley posts because it's usually in full episode form, but this absolutely stands out. Kanemoto was in the States for WCW syndi tapings to hype up Starrcade. Both he and Assassin were working these at the start of November but I have no idea where this is or how the booking came to be. There's some of what you'd expect here, Assassin going on the mic pre-match and calling everyone American Dogs and saying that he shook Kanemoto's hand because he wasn't an American Dog or just everyone getting to see Kanemoto do the Tiger Mask headlock to drop toe-hold spot or even the bs double count out finish where Assassin's valet stopped Koji from getting back into the ring. 

But in between all of that stuff, they were really going. Assassin asserted himself in the best ways, just powering Kanemoto over with a shoot-looking belly-to-belly and then dropping headbutts off the turnbuckles. He was more than happy to throw some standing ones too. Kanemoto, in return, would just chop him in the face or throw wild spinning kicks. This was in the old Tampa Sportatorium and these two did not feel at all out of place with whoever might have been destroying some poor jobber for Eddie Graham's amusement. Even in front of this mysterious indy crowd, even when they didn't have to, they came to work.

ER: When we heard a new Kanemoto American indy match had surfaced, America collectively held their breath while we waited to see which of the Jerry Flynn matches it would be. The singles match draw? The tag with Nishimura against Flynn and Dudley Dudley? Has American finally been given the Kanemoto/Dudley Dudley exchanges we've We still don't have the Flynn matches, but this is a fun one in its place. What this match has, that I can almost certainly guarantee the Flynn matches do not have, is a referee wearing a broad shouldered glittering tasseled blouse like he was the ringleader for an off-strip Las Vegas big cat show. Talk all you want about David Manning or Red Shoes trying to steal attention away from the wrestlers, I love a referee wearing the most garish shirt in Florida while working as an otherwise completely normal match. I also love the one commentator who, several times, insists that Ricky Santana is a much better wrestler than David Sierra, refusing to drop the argument after the other commentator said Sierra was the best Cuban wrestler he knew. 

But Cuban Assassin Sierra really did look great here. If a wrestler in 2023 wrestled the way Sierra did here, he'd be one of my current favorites. He was great at taking Kanemoto's strikes and had a lot of nice offense that he wasn't really allowed to do in his WCW role. Give me his short elbowdrop across the throat or his kneedrop springing off the bottom rope or his diving headbutts off the middle buckle and middle rope. Sierra will throw a baseball slide dropkick to set up a missed baseball slide that leads to him getting his ass beat around ringside, taking a nice posting in the process. He throws a powerbomb like Onita and takes a backdrop like a fat guy. 

I didn't really fall in love with Kanemoto until 2001/2002, but here he was a fun junior being held back by his choice in ring gear. If I took a shot every time he adjusted his obnoxious sash belt while he was supposed to be selling, I wouldn't have made it to the end of the match. He felt like a guy working worse versions of Tiger Mask and Muta spots - losing contact during the TM fast spinning drop toehold, overshooting and barely making contact on a moonsault - but looked far better just throwing kicks or elbows, or kneeling on Sierra's head while holding a single leg crab. Just because 1995 Kanemoto isn't as good as 1995 Cuban Assassin doesn't make this any less of a fun oddity, and now we know that David Sierra once hit a piledriver on Koji Kanemoto.

IWRG Retro 17 12/30/23

Miss Gaviota/Dinamic Black vs. Hammer/Eterno 1/22/11

MD: IWRG started doing the Retros a couple of weeks ago and we just figured it out. We'll catch up on the ones we missed later. Hammer here is Danny Casas. The match was best when he and Gaviota, being a very solid exotico, were in there together. They had the better, more competitive matwork, with Dinamic Black and Eterno half a step slower and more going through the motions. I didn't mind Black as a second banana rudo buddy here though. He just had less opportunity to do things as Gaviota got bigger reactions and took bigger, nastier bumps (including off hair throws). It went 3 falls with the rudos taking the first and Eterno getting to show off his big moves (Styles Clash and cross legged fireman's carry driver) in the latter two. Solid undercard stuff with a range of talent and experience overall, but it's the next match that's going to be the draw.

Terribles Cerebros (Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro) vs. Gringos VIP (Hijo Del Diablo/Avisman/Bombero Infernal) 1/22/11 - GREAT

MD: This hit just right. Primera was blink and you'd miss it but you'd miss a hell of a stage dive from Dr. Cerebro. Segunda had some control from Terry and co, fancy while keeping the gang warfare feel, until he edged too close to the wrong corner and got swarmed. That led to a massive beatdown full of Diablo honing in on his wound. The ref called the fall with Terry getting held and kicked over and over again. The tercera had escalating Gringos VIP beatdown, swarming and then having fun with some whips, and then allowing each guy on the other side to valiantly try to come back before stomping him down. They teased a few false comebacks there before Bombero and Avisman missed charges into the corners and ate dives by the Cerebros to set up Diablo and Terry and the savvy finish. I would have enjoyed a bit more coldhearted, bloody revenge from Terry, but a slick win is a revenge of its own, I suppose. Past that, this was pretty much what I wanted it to be.

PAS: This is always a great matchup. The peak of this feud was the year before, with Gringo Loco in the Bombero spot, but Bombero is always welcome. I just love when Black Terry gets into the crowd. He is such a force of nature, throwing chops and headbutts against Avisman to start the match and set up the Cerebro dive. Terry starts the match with a bandage on his head, and that obviously gets ripped off and he starts dripping. We get some brisk brawling lucha after that, and a fun finish. It isn't top level transcendent Terry, but an example of the great stuff he was doing week in and week out. 

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Found Footage Friday: Lucha Calm before the Lucha Storm: ECLIPSE~! FLASH~! ARQUEROS~! TEMERARIOS~! TERRY~! SKAYDE~! AND FRIENDS~!

Flash I vs. Eclipse 1990s Arena Coliseo Guadalajara

MD: We're sitting on Roy's recent uploads but I'd like to get a better sense of the big picture on them before we figure out how to tackle them. In the meantime, Rob found some things looking around and they're worth covering.

This, for instance, is a lost mask match and they really threw themselves into it given that it was just one fall. Flash had recently gone rudo, as best as I can tell, and he took it to Eclipse immediately, tearing the mask and ripping at his face. Eclipse came back fairly early into a solid beatdown with a quebradora and the rest of the match was pretty hot with finishes. The struggle on holds was particularly good since there was no room for error. They weren't giving one another much of anything. If Eclipse hesitated for a moment, Flash would fight his way away. Flash had an overall advantage due to a rudo ref (Mario), looking the other way for Flash's second to interfere and slow-counting.

Eclipse probably won on points. He was able to lock in more holds, to target Flash's leg a bit, and whenever Flash had an advantage, he found a way to come back. He had a spectacular springboard moonsault into the ring that was stymied by the worst slow count of the match. The finish was controversial as Flash caught Eclipse with an electric chair back off the top and an immediate double underhook submission but Eclipse claimed not to have tapped out. These were two guys who knew they had the spotlight and leaned hard into it.

Los Arqueros (Danny Boy/Lasser/Robin Hood) vs. Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu El Guerrero) Mexican National Trios Titles UWA 1/21/90

MD: Once upon a time, I tried to get the Shu el Guerrero vs Robin Hood mask match. I failed. But Rob found this and we're glad for it.It has no sound, has some clips, and is pretty grainy (and yeah, I'm not always the best at telling Danny Boy and Lasser apart), but it's a lot of fun.

Primera had very strong pairings, a lot of competitive matwork with clever escapes. I wouldn't say that was quite the same with Shu and Robin Hood. They were still competitive but there was more oomph and less flash to it all. The refs sure liked to raise their hands after every exchange, but in my head canon, Shu won the fall for his side by dropkicking Robin Hood into submission. The segunda sped things up which benefitted the tecnicos. Picture perfect placement in basing by Los Temerarios helped though. They went back to the mat with different pairings for a lengthy tercera. Lots of really tricked out high drama stuff before everything broke down for the tandem moves, dives, and and exciting sides evening finish that brought it back to Shu and Robin Hood. They hit big stuff and leaped from high places on one another before a clutch pin out of nowhere (a clutch clutch) to end it. Just a very complete, very straightforward title match worked more or less clean but with clear animosity. Still, it'd be nice to see that mask match.

PAS: So cool that lucha like this keeps showing up. This is a classic trios match from 33 years ago which gives us a long chance to look at some cool wrestlers who we don't have a ton of footage of. Shu feels like a guy who might have a Navarro/Panther reputation if we had more available. He is built like a mailbox and is great at basing and putting on cool submissions. Robin Hood is another member of the Alvarado family (Brazos) and they have awesome wrestlers on ever branch of that family tree. This feels like the first match of series and I really want to see the next match which probably got chippier, still amazing that we got a chance to watch this.

Skayde/Vortize/Aztlan/Kanon vs. Black Terry/Dragon Celestial/Emperador Azteca/Fulgor I IWRG 2/26/14

MD: We have so much lucha ahead of us in the weeks to come, but a match like this reminds me so crisply and so clearly why I love it so much. It's structured in such a serene way. The primera has the initial exchanges: matwork, gamesmanship, the individual characters clashing against one another, building to a big moment of action. It gave us a tease of the captains (Terry and Skayde) against each other but just that. It gave us a little bit of animosity but never boiled over.

Then the segunda went from measured exchanges to quicker (and different) pairings, rope running, flowing action, still with clear resets. We actually get one dive at the end, again a tease for the tercera, and an abrupt finish. Then in the tercera, there are meaningful punctuated moments that are broken up as wrestlers flow into the match one after the other, all building to finding some way to get to Skayde vs Black Terry. They have a pointed exchange but even that's just a tease as it leads to the final dives to clear the ring for a finish that pushes things off for matches to come. So this match could exist in a format that was standard but with specifics that met the moment and the wrestlers therein. It's not even my favorite form of lucha, which is much more focused on beatdowns and revenge after that beautiful, built to, reacted to moment of comeback. But it's still wonderful and still has so much of the anticipation and payoff and aristry.

As for specific pairings, I really liked Aztlan and Dragon Celestial in the primera and Skayde and Dragon in the segunda. I'd love to see more of that second match up. There was a nice bit of chippiness throughout, especially when Terry was in there, but for Emperador Azteca and Kanon too. I'm not sure I had a sense of the overall direction of the feud but, this type of lucha is so universal that you can jump in and enjoy yourself.

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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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Found Footage Friday: IWRG RETRO~! LAWLER VS DUNDEE~! INOUE~! RUSHER~! EIGEN~! OKUMA~!

Mighty Inoue/Rusher Kimura vs. Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 11/20/90

MD: We've covered the Andre match from this show but it's pretty overlooked otherwise. I'll go through most of it in the weeks to come. It was right during the RWTL and weirdly we have a chunk of HHs from this month so we get to see a lot of the different pairings. This match was not actually part of it, I think, as Inoue and Kimura were in it but Okuma an Eigen weren't. One fun thing about this, however, is because Baba was in the RWTL with Andre, these aren't the usual six mans. That means that all other non-Baba parties get more chance to shine and show individual personality. 

For instance, this match is all about Eigen and Eigen's pretty great in it. It starts with handshakes, and Eigen goes so far to bow to Rusher (drawing light applause) before smacking him in the face (popping the crowd big). He then dashes out of the ring and raises his hands in victory. Then, right as he was about to lock up with Inoue, Eigen turns and smacks Rusher off the apron before running away and raising his hand in victory once more. Then, once they've isolated Inoue and Okuma has him in an armbar, Eigen runs across the apron to stand on the top and taunt Rusher and after a tag and a double chop, he dashes across the ring to smack him again, drawing him in so they can double team Inoue some more. Just great heatseeking from a place not known for it. 

The initial comeback is Inoue slipping around to hit a belly to back on Okuma, so when Rusher comes in, he can't get his hands on Eigen. Then, they take over on Rusher so the gratification of it all is even more delayed. Okuma's fun in here, running all the headbutt spots with Rusher, even as they're beating him down, but this is Eigen's show, right up to the point where Inoue holds his leg as he's trying to come off the top on Rusher and he gets everything that was coming to him (which means he does his big trademark spit spot on the apron as Inoue and then Rusher and then Inoue smacks him in the chest). What an underrated jerk. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee Memphis Power Hour 2/25/06

MD: This is a four and a half minute segment but we're contractually obligated to watch all Lawler vs Dundee matches and this was a fun three minutes which could have been an uproarious ten if they gave it the time. It's 62 year old Dundee vs 56 year old Lawler, who happens to be wearing these triple high Stacks boots. They work about two minutes based around the boot, Dundee having the fans mock him, Lawler mocking the even more severe height difference, Dundee selling a kick like death, Lawler falling on his ass with an over the top trip by Dundee. They could have milked this forever and it would have been endlessly funny, but after a few minutes they play to the interference and the match gets thrown out. At least Dundee got to punch Lawler a lot and trip him again though. Very much 1990 heel Lawler with a different gimmick every week but that probably felt refreshing in 2006. It's just a shame there was only a couple of minutes of this.

Freelance/Tortuguillos I y II vs. Los Oficiales (AK47, Fierro y 911) IWRG (Retro) 11/10/2007

MD: This is from the 4/6 IWRG Retro, which fell through the cracks due to being around Mania, I think. There's another match on there we'll cover later. This was one fall by design but also by necessity. We start out with Tortuguillo Azul and 911 and they have some loose but flowing matwork. There's some of that anticipation where they end up where they should be a half second too early (especially 911), but it all comes off like baiting our turtle friend in by the end with the next counter, so it's ine. We get just a bit from Fierro and Tortuguillo Rojo and that's quite a bit more struggle laden. Before we can even get to Freelance and AK47 though, it all breaks down with the rudo swarm. AK47 decides it's a good idea to do the Sid style leaping kick off the apron to the floor. This is pretty horrific mistake as it was for Sid a few years earlier and that's the last we see him for the match.

Los Oficiales are good at pressing their advantage, however, and Freelance is very good at reaching for the ceiling while eating a double back body drop. They make short work of the the Turtles without much incident even being down one partner. Maybe if that hadn't been the case there would have been a spirited tecnico comeback, but as it was, this was a pretty satisfying mauling. 911's crane kick stylings and clumsy fall off the top splash weren't nearly as good as Fierro's way of asserting himself with his size and power but combined they were better than the sum of their parts. Hopefully AK47 was ok.

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Found Footage Friday: MORE BRAZOS IN PANAMA~! IWRG RETRO~! EXTRA EL BRAZO~! BRAZO CIBERNETICO~! DR CEREBRO~! MR NIEBLA~!

El Brazo/Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro vs Gemelos Infernales/El Taur Panama

MD: Very fun to see the usual Panamanian rudos as the heroes here. And they gave you no doubt on who to root for. The Brazos ran out with bats and beat their opponents around the ring for a short primera. They kept it going with the usual nice strikes (Oro with big sweeping shots) and Porky ripped at Taur's mask. A little bit of miscommunication led to a pretty spirited comeback, including Porky getting bloodied up and Taur smashing him him from across the arena with a running chair shot. They ripped the sports uniforms off of the Brazos too. The ref was counting quick for the locals too and things advanced on to Brazos comedy into the tercera. Gemelos did their headbutt thing with Oro stooging all over the place. As always one of them was more the worker and the other was more into the theatrics. We didn't get the more advanced exchanges that the one Gemelo was capable of as things stayed pretty light. Taur stood tall against Porky including a big bear hug that popped the crowd. There was more fun miscommunication and another quick splash. You definitely got a lot of the Brazos act here, but you always kind of wish they led with the fun stuff and escalated to the bloody brawling as opposed to the other way around.

PAS: Man 2023 has been the year of new Brazos matches popping up. This was pretty great with the Brazos cleaning house with baseball bats, and Super Porky bleeding a ton. Top rope Porky splash is one of the most violent moves in wrestling history and he breaks it out here. Structure was a bit wonky like Matt mentioned, but it was still a total blast. Panamanian lucha forever!

IWRG Retro 1/20/23

Paramedico/Colt vs Tigre Metalico/Zonik 2000 IWRG 7/12/2001

MD: Short match in two falls, mainly due to Zonik's arm getting hurt (real or otherwise). Tigre Metalico is, in fact Metalico, and he looked good paried with Paramedico at the start. The second Colt and Zonik came in, however, Colt started bullying him. He was solid in that role. The arm went down early and a lot of the rest of the match was a two-on-one against Tigre. There was a bit of hope on the outside in the segunda but Zonik couldn't do with it, selling the arm as he was, and he tapped bringing it back to two-on-one and a definitive win for the rudos.

El Brazo/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro vs Brazo Cibernetico/Halcon Dorado/Mr. Niebla IWRG 1/17/99

MD: More of an angle than a match. You'd barely know Niebla was in this, for instance. It was all centered around the inner struggle of El Brazo on whether or not he'd punish his brother or even allow his brother to get punished. As angles go, it was a good one, with Brazo really writhing, Halcon Dorado trying to appeal to him and Brazo Cibernetico bleeding all over the place as Cerebro and Bombero got increasingly frustrated at Brazo as he'd fight the other tecnicos but not his brother. To Bombero's credit, he really threw himself around the ring with his dropkicks. He just had a way of tossing his whole body into his offense which really came through in the small bit we had here. Anyway, Brazo decides that blood is thicker than water and saves his bleeding brother, laying down for his opponents. That's when things really pick up though, as Los Oficiales run down to put a beating on the Brazos and Platino running out to make the save (which set up a trios title match the following week).

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Arena Naucalpan Madness/Normalcy

27. Hijo del Fishman/Hijo del Pirata Morgan/Tonalli vs. Toxin/Relampago/Aster Boy IWRG 2/13

ER: Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a specific kind of Arena Naucalpan trios match. It's the kind of trios that surely happens several dozen times a year there, but they don't always have every element of what I'm seeking. I need: crazy dives, guys falling painfully into the crowd, guys getting brained by chairs that look like they came from a parent-teacher conference, blood, and at least one guy fucking up half the stuff he tries (without it slowing down any attempts at him doing and/or fucking up other stuff). This match had all of those things. 

Aster Boy bled so much (from too many edge chairshots from those rec center chairs) that he needed a full mask replacement 8 minutes in, and that didn't stop him from doing a crazy double rotation tornillo. Relampago fucked up like 3 spots in a row, including not hooking any part of his legs on a huracanrana off the apron that sent him crashing to the floor, triumphantly springing to his feet as if he stuck the landing. But he also hit a great flip dive and a crossbody off the 2nd tier, got bieled with only painful chairs to break his fall. Relampago spammed terrible looking superkicks whenever he wound up out of place, like this backyarder dude I used to know who would always panic in matches, forget what to do, and just hit DDTs. But, Relampago also hit a sick spin kick into a huracanrana that I rewound three times. Fishman and Tonalli hit a pair of crazy "don't let go" death valley drivers into the crowd, Toxin hit a sleek tornillo, Fishman - my stout king - was there to catch every dive and misplaced rana Relampago could through, and glued this all together by landing all his punches and elbows with real wallop. This is all standard Naucalpan business, but I was craving their kind of normalcy. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: IWRG RETRO~! HIJO DEL SANTO~! SUPER PARKA~! REY BUCANERO~! SCORPIOS~! CEREBROS BEFORE CEREBROS~!

IWRG Retro 11/12/22

Guerra C3/Multifacetico 2 vs Super Atlas/Epidemia 2/21/02

MD: Quick opener in two caidas. Guerra C3 would become Cerebro Negro but here he was capitalizing on the prequels with a Star Wars gimmick. I don't think we've ever written about Epidemia here but he had cow-print type pants and passed himself off as a virus with that. He was paired with Multifacetico 2 in the primera and they had a solid mat exchange, nothing fancy but some struggle in there. In the segunda, when the rudos took over, Atlas hit pretty hard while Epidemia had a lot of dropkick set-ups (like out of a stunner). Both of them were throwing themselves into the dropkicks. The big comeback was basically Multifacetico pointing to the ceiling and tricking Epidemia, which as big comeback moments go, was dubious at best, but this was fun for what it was overall.

Azor vs Neblina 7/28/96

MD: Azor was a short lived gimmick (hawk mask with wings on the side) for the young Dr. Cerebro, and what I can tell you from seeing this one was that he absolutely had it early on. Talk about a guy who just got it. There was nothing innovative or fancy here. He just beat Neblina all around the ring, peppering in kicks and knees and shots, choking him on the ropes and, once they got to the segunda, pulling on the mask and working the wound. He just had this confident, consistent way of moving around the ring and drowning Neblina from having any space to move. There was chicanery between the ref cutting off Neblina's comebacks and Azor's second (Samoano) sneaking in to help at times, but that didn't really detract. Azor was just able make the most out of all of it. Neblina's comeback, when it came, mostly involved getting cut off a couple of times, the expected quebradora and some revenge mask ripping. Azor had won the primera with a hidden object of all things, slipped to him by his second and then placed into the tights and at the end of the segunda, Neblina got it and smashed Azor with it, but in front of the ref to draw the DQ. Nice early look at Cerebro here.

Hijo del Santo/Mascara Sagrada/Super Parka vs Scorpio, Sr./Scorpio, Jr./Rey Bucanero 12/2/1999

MD: This started with a rudo beatdown and never really settled down into exchanges or sequences, even over three caidas. Old man Scorpio was a sight, carrying a proper gut with all the heft to his blows that came with that, with a face that seemed to be melting right off of his skull, held on maybe only by his mustache, long hair that screamed for an apuestas match, and a surly disposition that leaned towards sneaking in a foul whenever he could. He directed traffic like the best of the rudo captains and for most of the match it worked. When it didn't, Santo was able to dodge a shot and the tecnicos got back into it, both in the primera and to set up the finish in the tercera. You had to like the balance on the rudo side, with Bucanero bringing some flash and innovation in his offense and his bumps, carrying Super Parka over his shoulder into the corner (until he crashed into it himself), skidding across the mat to the floor face first later. Scorpio, Jr. could bring some speed and intensity to the beatdown and then recoil from all of Santo's comeback shots on the floor. On the tecnico side, Parka got to dance and spin when clowning Bucanero and Sagrada was where he ought to have been when he ought to have been there, but all eyes were on Santito throughout. During the second comeback, he fought off all comers, slipping on one submission after the next. The finishing stretch was nothing if not amusing, with Scorpio, Sr. pulling a ref down to take the flipping senton for him and then hitting a perfect foul with no ref to count it. Santo got his revenge with a foul of his own but by then the ref was recovered and he drew the DQ. If this led to a hair vs mask match, I hope that gets uncovered as well, as it was a great finish to build anticipation for such a thing.

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Found Footage Friday: IWRG RETRO~! CEREBRO~! COCOS~! VILLANOS~! CANEK~! SCORPIO~! OFICIALES~!

IWRG Retro 9/8/22

MD: IWRG is posting old stuff. Some of it is new. Some of it is rare. We are very happy about this development.

Fantasy/Zonic vs. Rey Cuervo/Caballero Azteca 4/11/99

MD: This is the "rare" one as opposed to the "new" ones, as it was apparently on tape lists. It's a pretty fun way to spend eight minutes. About half of that is Cuervo and Azteca beating down the tecnicos and it's solid comfort food. The comeback comes on a miscommunication dropkick and goes pretty quickly into a finishing stretch of sorts as this is just one fall. Most of the heat ends up on a rudo ref who misses a tag early and misses Fantasy's shoulder being up late. It's all light stuff with a real opening match feel, but colorful, with the biggest issue being that we lose out on the native audio to the new commentary, which is a problem throughout the show but less of an issue with the matches with more substance to them.

Dr. Cerebro/Paramedico/Cirujano vs. Los Cocos 12/23/01

MD: We've got Rojo, Blanco, and Verde for those keeping score, and they come out with "Super Capo" as their valet, which feels like a big deal. Rudos ambush early and make quick work out of the clowns to end the primera. Cerebro is great here directing traffic and flipping off the rope to crush someone or kick them in the face. He bites Rojo's hand after the submission for the heck of it. In the segunda, he goes from hanging out in the corner and watching the violence to hitting a spring up turning headbutt foul to a hung up Rojo. Apparently that impressed the production team so much that they decided to show it in slow motion instead of the moment of comeback. Both Blanco and Verde looked good here, with the best spot maybe Verde on the apron ready to jump and Cerebro diving at him only for his legs to pop up so Cerebro ends up sliding across the apron and off screen errantly. Tercera had some comedy miscommunication, submissions that were broken up one after the other and a pretty nice tope suicida train, with Paramedico all but sailing into the crowd. That cleared the ring for Rojo vs Cerebro and a pretty definitive and crowd-pleasing stunner finish on Cerebro. Big takeaway here was how good he looked overall.

Canek/Villano III/Villano IV vs. Scorpio/Guardia/Vigilante 8/22/96

MD: I don't think I've seen much Scorpio, Sr. before but he looked like an old, decrepit rudo with spaghetti like hair that was made to be taken by Canek in an apuestas match.  This was super libre and all about the numbers game, with as much mask pulling as I can remember seeing in one match. The rudos attacked the Villanos before Canek could come out to even the odds but the tecnicos fired back after a couple of minutes of beatdown to take the primera. There was already a lot of mask pulling here, all around, with Guardia and Vigilante spending a good chunk of the match just trying to keep their masks on. Between falls, Scorpio successfully got Canek's mask and that led to a 3 on 2 advantage as he had to run to the back. The beatdowns were solid here and utilized the super libre rules. Scorpio stood out and kept things interesting, in the primera by choking Canek with his own cape and in the segunda, by forcing Villano III into the corner, seated, groin first, and just jamming his feet into his back. Eventually, Canek rushed to the rescue with a new mask, but super libre or no, the refs seemed to call it after too many rudo fouls to try to stem the turned tide. I have to assume that this led to a bunch of mask challenges that went nowhere. Some satisfying lucha for lucha's sake in this initial drop.

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Comando Negro Apuestas Matches

Comando Negro has to be the most obscure wrestler to have multiple matches in my book

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I covered his classic mask matches with El Pollo and Trauma 1 (as Canis Lupus). While checking out his Luchablog entry, I noticed he also had hair vs. mask matches with Segunda Caida favorites Freelance and Chico Che so I tracked them down to review as well.

Comando Negro vs. Freelance IWRG 10/10/10

PAS: This was a a nice mix of highspot heavy lucha with an Arena Naucalpan style bloody brawl. Freelance starts out by headscissoring Negro off of the stage and following up with a stage dive into chairs. He also does a flip dive off the iconic Naucalpan beer cooler, a crazy plancha and a beautiful diving rana to the floor. Negro is a great solid meat and potatoes luchador, catching all of the fancy stuff perfectly and mixing in a great looking bullet tope of his own. Both guys bleed, go face first into beer coolers and chairs, and the finish has Freelance setting up for a top rope rana only to get fouled by Negro's second and powerbombed from the top rope. The tecnicos cut the ref's hair before Freelance get shaved, which seems a bit uncalled for, since he didn't really seem to be heeling much. A slight step below the two Negro all timers,  but it was an excellent apuestas full of cool shit.

Commando Negro vs. Chico Che IWRG 12/9/10

PAS: This was a total war. Che is one of my favorite all time obscure guys, and seeing a new awesome Che performance is a total treat. This match has the inversion of the traditional lucha apuestas formula with technico Che getting the dominant Primera Caida. Che is one of the hardest hitters in lucha, he feels almost like an old WAR wrestler with his combination of chub and thump he puts in every blow, he just moves Negro with ever forearm. Che takes the first fall with a heavy top rope splash and continues in the Second to tour the arena with Negro bouncing him off of beer coolers and chairs. We get some interference by Negro's seconds Gringo Loco and El Hijo Del Diablo, and when Che's seconds Los Cerebros hit double topes on them, Che gets DQed and the Cerebros get bounced to the back by the rudo ref. The third fall has some shenanigans with Loco and Diablo and the heel ref, but it also has some really beautiful moments of lucha, Negro sending Che over the guardrail with a tope, Che returning the favor later with a elbow suicida of his own. Che hitting some amazingly graceful headscissors, the seconds running in and getting pelted with trash by the crowd, and finally Negro cracking Che in the jaw with a fist wrapped in a chain for the win. Great stuff, might have actually squeezed a third Negro match in the book if I had seen it before I wrote it. 

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Black Terry Wove a Red Cloak So Regal to See

Black Terry vs. Chico Che IWRG 1/29/12 - GREAT

PAS: It's odd that this match escaped me for so long, it's hair match featuring two of my all time favorite wrestlers, during one of my favorite wrestling vintages early 2010s IWRG. How didn't I see it in 2012? How has it been on Powerbomb for two years? How did I review the set up match and not the apuestas? Well I am watching it now, and while booking kept this from being a super high end Black Terry match, it was still pretty awesome stuff.

Chico Che is full rudo in this match, which isn't a role I have seen him in before. He doesn't do his awesome rope running sequence and focuses more on chops and punches, but he has great looking chops and punches so it works good. We get a bunch of gruesome cinema verite close ups of bloody bruised faces getting punched and headbutted. There is an amazing BTJr. shot of both guys smashing their foreheads against each other, while blood sprays off. There was a lot of interference by the seconds (I want to say Dynamic Black and Commando Negro, but I admit my ability to ID IWRG guys from a decade ago has wained), and the third fall was basically all interference and a pretty mistimed ref bump, if they had kept it a gore fest brawl it would have been an easy epic, but I think the set up match is the better of the two. Still this is Chico Che and Black Terry in an Black Terry Jr. filmed HH, so incredibly worth watching.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Demon vs. Park

17. LA Park vs. Blue Demon Jr. IWRG 12/15

PAS: So Blue Demon Jr., after basically stinking his entire career, goes ahead and puts out a serious Wrestler of the Year candidacy at age 53. This is a great bloody LA Park brawl, with Demon being right there at every step. Park really might be the best bleeder since prime Tommy Rich, he really gets it red and soppy. We get some classic Naucalpan brawling spots, including some beer cases getting tossed at noggins and using the glass to slice. There is some nonsense with a heel ref, which probably keeps this from the absolute peak of this year, but I did love how Park wasted both Demon and the ref with a huge tope. The Traumas run from the back and hand Demon his trusty claw hammer, which he uses to bang Park on the knee, but Park gets the hammer and KO's Demon (there is a great timber sell from him) there is some more stuff with the Trauma's and Park's kids, but that was basically the finish. Hammer murder is a great wrestling finish.

ER: As a rule I already like any match between two guys in their 50s, but when it's between the greatest tubby skeleton in wrestling history and the guy with the weirdest and most unparalleled career, it gets pretty tough to beat. I keep trying to idly think of any person in any medium who can be compared to Blue Demon Jr.'s career trajectory. Every time I think I come up with someone there are details that just don't compare. Would it be like Nelson coming out with the album of the year in 2020? Maybe, but it's a stretch to call Nelson active musicians for all of the past 30 years. Would it be like Max Landis becoming an actual good person in 20 years? Maybe, but no matter how many people would pay to see him get his head carved open by a broken bottle, it won't happen. So Demon stands alone at the top of his own bruised scarred broken body pedestal, and takes the option of punching Park in the face and getting punched right back. They brawl around Naucalpan, both throwing stiff chops and punches, and I think about how crazy it would have sounded a few years ago to know that I'd look forward to Demon/Park matches in the same way I look forward to Rush/Park matches. There's a lot of BS in the match, some satisfying some not, but even the not satisfying stuff is a means to the great stuff; the combatants age adds to their vulnerability, which adds exponentially to the most violent and crazy parts of the match. I will just react bigger to old man punching, old man diving, old man falling, than I will to the same moves done by a 25 year old. I even weirdly got into the rudo ref fast counts - which is something I'm sick to death of in lucha and especially faux lucha feds - and the payoff to Park crushing that guy into the barricade was a wonderful moment. The hard shots keep landing, Demon gets gouged by a broken bottle and gets that perfect pro wrestler fanned out blood splatter down his chest, and the claw hammer really puts this over the top. Demon smashes that thing into Park's knee and it actually makes an audible thump! If I thumped my knee on the corner of my bed and it made that same sound I would be on the floor screaming. BS happens, but that BS ends with Blue Demon taking a hammer to the head, doing a great tim-berrrrrrrr sell to the mat, and then presumably growing a large cone shaped lump from that spot, so that starry eyed birds may fly around it.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Wotan vs. Fly Star! Hijo de Canis Lupus! Dragon Bane!

Wotan vs. Fly Star FILLM 3/16/19

ER: Hey, it's 13 minutes of grimy indy lucha asskicking, bleeding, and nasty spills onto concrete. I love those things in my wrestling! This is a super libre which should always be code for "covered in blood" and wouldn't you know, that code is still active! Wotan starts by throwing Fly Star violently into, onto, and through some chairs (those hard ass old wooden arena seats), ripping a chair back loose for later, and hitting quick and mean headbutts whenever Fly Star puts up a fight. By minute 3 of what we have here, Fly Star's face is already covered in blood. Wotan is obviously going to keep headbutting him and punching him in the face, and the great thing about Wotan is even though he might beat the blood out of you, he will happily donate his own plasma to the bottom of your boots. Fly Star hits him with a dropkick on the floor that sends him tumbling, punches him in the head, and eventually tries to do a corner dropkick that had to be Fly Star seeing just how hard he could run and kick Wotan in the jaw. I love when Wotan's mask is ripped and loosely covering only his mouth, blood running everywhere, and both guys still decide who hits harder. I dug Wotan just wasting fly Star with a double chop, with Fly Star taking it as if he'd been hit by a truck, and I imagine Star's chest and neck were already tender, because Wotan had thrown 5 of the hardest possible lariats up to that point in the match. Both guys take HUGE violent bumps to the floor on missed offense, with Fly Star crashing hard on a slingshot senton, and then Wotan crashing hard on a somersault senton off the apron. These guys are dying out there, but neither man really got finished, the batteries just kind of ran out or just plain broke. It looks like we'll have to run this back again with another violent stip.

Dragon Bane/Hijo de Canis Lupus vs. Aramis/Imposible IWRG 4/28/19

ER: Super high octane sprint, that made smart use of partner saves to keep the crazy spots turned up without making for any eye rolling kickouts. They also figured out that the best way to make a stupid dance-y sequence look good is to just work stiff. Spinning around someone and hitting a superkick is fine by me, as long as you're Aramis here and look like you realign a jaw. The dives were expectedly spectacular: Bane and Lupus took both tecnicos with them on bullet topes into the front row, Aramis hits a gorgeous dive past the ringpost in the segunda, Imposible wears impossibly small trunks, etc. They throw in some fun visuals, like Bane running around the ring away from Imposible, only to get caught with a quebradora from Aramis, both Bane and Lupus taking vertical suplex bumps on the entrance ramp, and the saves all got great reactions from me as they went to big moves early and didn't turn the match into a bunch of kickouts and lying around. Hijo de Canis Lupus looked really good, had that same vibe Los Traumas had when they started to get noticed more. Lupus hit some of the hardest damn corner clotheslines I've seen this year, and the forcefulness of many of the strikes and running shots really added to the match. We also got a couple nice powerbombs, including Lupus tossing Aramis onto his partner with one, followed by immediately rolling him through to hit his own sitout powerbomb. The breakdown at the end was fun, and the way they staggered the pins was nice. Aramis surprised me with an awesome ankle lock to finish things, suddenly making me want to see Aramis work a Bloodsport show.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Family Feud in Naucalpan

38. LA Park/El Hijo de LA Park vs. Dragon Lee/Rush IWRG 6/17

PAS: Watching Park and Rush work their feud in Arena Mexico is sort of like when a great mixtape rapper releases his studio album, it is going to have the same feel, but it is going to be a bit more produced, a bit less grimey, maybe they will get Chris Brown to sing an R+B hook. Rush and Park working that feud in IWRG was the real street shit, you could hear the DJ Drama tags being yelled out. It starts out with some wild Arena Naculpan brawling, folks getting hurled recklessly into chairs, random pieces of wood being slammed into people's heads, at one point Rush fills a bucket full of beers and hurls it at PARK's skull, later Park uses one of broken bottles to gouge up Rush's forehead. We get some great double team taunting by Rush and Dragon Lee, including some fake soccer and lounging poses. Match drops off a bit in the third fall when Dragon Lee and Hijo do some PWG juniors wrestling, but we do get a huge PARK spear before the inevitable ref nonsense. I doubt CMLL ever lets it get this filthy, so I am glad they took their act into the gutter.

ER: I was going for something similar to Phil, but I like his better. There's a taco truck a few blocks away from our house that is always packed with Mexican families, going there on a Friday night is insane, and there's like one picnic table and questionable cleanliness, but they are legit. Up the street from that (among the 7 other Mexican restaurants on the block) is a "cantina" that is also busy, has good Yelp reviews and will no doubt make you a nice meal at 3x the price. This is street tacos and it is delicious. Get this, Park and Rush brawl around the ring and it's predictably good, and I was flipping out when Park emerges from the crowd with a flat of water bottles, and then a heavy as hell looking metal bucket filled with ice, both aimed at Rush's head. That thing looked SO heavy, totally something I would walk into an arena - knowing I was seeing Park throw down with Rush - and go "Oh my god you guys I hope one of them hits the other with that heavy bucket!!" These two are electric and you know Park is going to bleed and take falls that look impossibly painful because you know he's carrying a lot of extra weight so his knees are killing him and he probably has sore feet. Plus the dude makes towns for life so he probably has a semi-permanent case of driving butt. This up close handheld footage is really good because while thigh slaps are used liberally, you do really get a sense of how hard and fast these two are crashing into each other. The parts with Lee and Hijo were not my favorite, but I do really like Lee working rudo. It makes his flippy stuff come off more cocky, and that makes embellished flipping infinitely more interesting. The close up handheld gave the offense a fun surprise feel, seeing Dragon Lee fly into the frame with a rana or Rush came crashing into frame with a dropkick. It made the match feel more out of control than it might have been, and you get real close-up looks at the agitated Dianabol topography of Rush's back. We get what feels like a lot of mirror exchanges, but they're not bad, and Park is better at it than I assumed. It gets a little taxing once we go through the dueling reverse ranas that are both deadly and yet also cause a man who takes one to spring to his feet to also deliver one. But rudo Lee is great with his bro and Park is a great fat guy to storm triumphantly back into a match. His spears are the best in history, and it would take a lot to make this match-up not work.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Dinastia Villano! Traumas! Chico Che!

Villano IV/Villano V Jr./Rocambole Jr. v. Trauma I/Trauma II/Sharly Rockstar IWRG 12/3/17

PAS: Big old fashioned Villano brawl. The two baby Villanos (Villano V Jr. and Rocambole Jr. are the sons of V5, formally Kaving and Kortiz) look exactly like their father and uncle and wrestle just like additional Villanos (they really dropped the ball, by not just naming the Villano VI and VII). They dominate early eventually getting DQed for ripping off T2's mask. The second fall has the Traumas and the former Charley Manson (RIP) firing back and smashing the Villanos with chairs. Rocambole starts leaking and it gets more frantic. I think a slightly better finish would have gotten this on a MOTY list, but it was a bunch of fun nonetheless.

Hair vs. Hair: Chico Che vs. Ovett IWRG 1/1/18

ER: For some reason IWRG thought it would be a cool idea to do their whole new years show in a cage. It's probably because they just didn't want to assemble the cage for the main event, which makes sense because sometimes I just drive home from work with my emergency brake on because I know I'll just be using it when I get home anyway. Brother, you ain't seen dumb until you've seen the annual Reyes del Aire...inside a cage. I would prefer to see literally any match on this show not inside of a cage, but this one probably works the best within the stip. The cage match does spoil the winner, as one look at Ovett and you can bet when his choices are between "get a haircut" and "climb a tall cage", dude is not climbing that cage. The cage means that we don't get a classic Chico Che dive, but you get classic Che stiffness, big headbutts, big bleeding forehead, big overhand chops, and his huge torpedo splash. Ovett made this a garbage match, literally, by going for a chair, twisting off some sharp metal piping to stab Che in the head with, and dumping out thumbtacks. Ovett hits a huge fat guy senton, and later misses a fat guy moonsault right into those damn tacks. Match hits peak gross when Che stomps on the back of Ovett's head, right into the tacks, and Ovett comes up with a forehead full of thumbtacks. That's a flat out dumb and bonkers spot. While getting his head shaved the barber attempts to pull a couple tacks out of his hairline and Ovett understandably does not look like a happy camper.

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