Found Footage Friday: UNDERCARD MONTERREY~! RAMBO~! SOLAR II~! GRAN HAMADA~! SKELETOR~! LUCHADORAS~!

Rambo/Engendro/Alacran vs. Huracan Jr/Solar II/Gran Hamada (Monterrey 1991)

MD: From the initial promo, I thought this might be a showcase for Huracan, Jr, billed as Ramirez' son but actually his nephew. He was more known as a UWA guy as were Rambo and Engendero, the latter of which was part of Los Desafiantes with Scorpio, Jr. and Shu. I wouldn't say Huracan got any more of the spotlight than Solar II or Hamada though. He was matched with Egendero but was the last pairing to get to go and while Egendero based well for him, they didn't get to do much. In that primera, Solar and Alacran matched up well, but what stood out the most, even with just a few shots, was how Rambo and Hamada were very natural opponents. Rambo just got it and Hamada wasn't afraid to throw a headbutt or a punch to send him sprawling and stooging.

They kept it moving and entertaining, with Alacran bumping from his own partners in the primera. Rambo took over with a fairly blatant foul in the segunda but they had crowd control well-managed and it was a solid beatdown ending with Engendero absolutely squashing Hamada with a somersault senton off the top. The comeback was driven by some rudo miscommunication on an elbow smash and they went into one of the usual high energy celebratory finishing stretches with a big dive by Solar and Hamada crushing Alacran with a belly to back. It only went twenty or so but it covered most of the bases.

Skeletor/Astro Negro vs. Angel del Espacio II/Johnny Curiel (Monterrey 1991)

MD: This was as undercard a match as you could get save for maybe the finish, a pair of dives that led to a count out (though being an undercard match, the escalation to dives was an acceptable finish for a tercera). That's not Angel del Espacio. It's Angel del Espacio II. That said, these guys were constantly moving and put a lot into this, placement on the card be damned. Skeletor (who may or may not have been Bronco - I'm leaning towards not) had the baggy MOTU mask and the big gestures to the crowd and bumped all over the place for armdrags and everything else. Astro Negro and Johnny Curiel were like mirror images of one another, journeymen who could still go through the motions. Angel del Espacio (II) kept coming during the beatdown, forcing the rudos to work and stay on him. This certainly didn't wear out its welcome. 16 minutes was the exact right amount of time for it.

India Azteca/Venus vs. Selene/Guerrera Purpura (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Of note here, Guerrera Purpura would become Lady Metal. This got really good as it went along. The rudas ambushed right from the get go and the tecnicas came back and because they cycled into some dubious exchanges, ruda miscommunication spots, and comedy (including that really fun spot where the tecnica slaps the mat as the rudas are on the outside, causing them to duck; then when their heads are down, she slaps both of them, making them think that they hit each other), I thought things would settle down into a pretty conventional match. That was not the case however. Instead, Guerrera Purpura got bled buckets after getting tossed into a row of chairs as part of a pretty brutal beatdown. After Guerrera Purpura recovered enough to storm the ring, the tecnicas would get their revenge through slamming their opponents into the posts, not a row of chairs. The finishing stretch had a bunch of fun bits until they brawled on the outside leading to a last second roll in by the tecnicas (Which much like the tercera dive count out finish from the last match just isn't something you see every day in lucha; oh and speaking of things you don't always see, make sure to catch the giant swing down the stretch).

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Found Footage Friday: PANTERITA~! ANIBAL~! ARANDU~! TIGRE BLANCO~! DILUVIO NEGRO~! LENADOR~!

Zeus/Diluvio Negro vs. Sergio Romo/Johnny Curiel CMLL 1991

MD: Zeus is probably Ray Richard here. He'd lose the mask against Transformer the following year. So not the original. Curiel is new to me but he came of as an older journeyman tecnico. So much of this match was rudo miscommunications and he was great at being the straight man for that. I don't think I've ever heard a word in the lexicon for that role, he's almost "basing" for the antics, but he did a great job at it, just like Diluvio and Zeus did a great job of stumbling over one another.

Opening exchanges were good, with Zeus and Curiel putting a real sense of competitiveness and struggle to it while Romo and Diluvio were natural (and almost certainly well-rehearsed) rivals, quick and slick with stare downs (and a brief strike exchange in the tercera). They peppered in the comedy in all three falls and the beatdown only took up a bit of the segunda. I did like Zeus' segunda-ending submission though, which was in a sort of Air Raid Crash position. It was a good balance for an opening match, with a lot of the fat trimmed. They got right to it in the tercera with the tecnicos storming the ring to start the comeback right from the get go before cycling into the submission trading in the finish. Certainly a better twenty minutes than it would have been twenty-five or thirty.

 

Anibal/Panterita del Ring vs. Arandu/Tigre Blanco CMLL 1991

MD: Anibal was in the midst of a comeback here; he'd lose his mask in a big match the following year. He was relatively broken down but knew what to do to get big responses. He was primarily matched up with Tigre Blanco who was up there in age as well. It felt like another bit of rub for Panterita and Arandu, who felt more or less at the peak of their 'local star' power. Arandu came off like across between Estrada and Barbaro Cavernario here, big bumps to the floor, flailing limbs, wild shots and temperament, a surprising amount of superkicks. He and Panterita created the motion, both against one another and for their older opponents.

This had its share of rudo miscommunication too (and that's where Anibal shined the most, in setting it up) but with more purpose than sheer entertainment. Arandu and Tigre Blanco came to blows multiple times, all building towards a moment at the end of the match where Arandu had worked on Panterita's mask and it accidentally came off with a labored pick up slam on Arandu. That led to the DQ and gave the tecnicos the win and everyone, the commentators most of all, were very excited to see things boil over and have the rudos come to blows. I don't think we get what this led to, which is a shame, but it was fairly effective in the moment.

Trueno/Ausente vs. Lenador/Diluvio Negro CMLL 1991

MD: I can't pin down exactly who this Trueno was. He might have been Mascaras' godson, from the timing, but he had a pretty unique black frayed mask and look fitting the "thunder" gimmick that doesn't seem the same. He did have some interesting offense down the stretch though. Ausente is a pretty run of the mill tecnico, competent enough but not dynamic: he runs into the post headfirst well and has a fun leg-hooked surfboard submission. Lenador we'd seen once before and he is a fun stooge. The VQ meant that we missed some of the antics admittedly.

What stood out the most here were some of the exact same rudo miscommunication spots between this match and the last. They did the bit where the got the rudos to sunset flip one another and more strikingly, the bit where both stumble to the floor and a tecnico slides between them on the apron and slaps both on the back, causing them to start fighting in confusion. Diluvio Negro was the common thread (and he was smooth and sharp here too) but I wonder if it was just the zeitgeist at the spot; we'd seen that with French footage too. Sometimes spots just catch on and get overused. Some of this stuff I hadn't seen too much before or after but it's in both of these. As things didn't boil over for the rudos (they actually went over after an exciting tercera), it didn't have quite the same oomph, even with Lenador being over the top. So maybe less novelty for rudos fighting rudos but a looser, more chaotic match overall.

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