Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! RED~! NUNZIO~! JUVI~! MARTINEZ~! HERMANN~!

Luis Martinez vs. Hans Hermann NWA Chicago 1960

MD: Another one that Charles posted a while ago that we're just getting to now. This one went through Lee first as the length would have probably had me deprioritize it. It's only five minutes but it's five very fun minutes with a few comedy spots that I've never seen before. Hermann had a foot on Martinez and was an evil German with a chin to match. He ground Martinez down early with nerve ("muscle") holds and the sort.

When Martinez took over, he never really looked back. He went for a waistlock and Hermann crashed his fists down to break it, but Martinez was gone and he punched himself. Legitimately funny spot. There were a few more like that, like Martinez darting out of the way as Hermann tried to club him in the ropes. That set up Hermann tied up in said ropes and the charging headbutts to the gut. The physics of Hermann going over for Martinez on things like a flying headlock takeover felt weighty to say the least (and Martinez accentuated it with a loud "Arriba!"). He put him down in short order after this flurry with a Thesz press.

Post match, there was a special spotlight segment with John Paul Henning (sic). This is third hand, as in I found it on the internet, but apparently Henning had to stop wrestling because during a riot, he slammed the door and locked it, leaving Sonny Myers out with the rioting crowd to get stabbed. 

Nunzio vs. Juventud Guerrera WWE 11/15/05

MD: The vault released this one fairly quietly a few weeks ago and we're just getting to it now. It was in Rome. Nunzio was wildly over. Juvi was more than happy to get heat in front of a crowd like that. This ended up being incredibly minimalist, way more than I would have expected, but they were eating up everything that happened so it worked.

Juvi was doing a thing where he'd go for a pin at almost every opportunity and it meant that every kickout got a pop and felt almost like a hope spot. He'd cut Nunzio off with kicks to the guts, nothing fancy, but they could do no wrong (and in my mind, they did no wrong). Eventually, Nunzio got the slice rocker dropper off the top and it felt like a finish but Juvi got a foot on the rope, which, in itself, felt like a signal to the crowd that Nunzio wasn't winning in the old WWE style. The Juvi driver that followed would have really signified that but Juvi picked him up at one and demanded another. That allowed Nunzio to slip up and over, get a backslide and listen as the place became unglued. Fun stuff with just an amazing crowd and two guys willing to just bask in the glory of it all.

ER: I'm not sure when it started, but at some point I started writing "Juvi" as "Juvy" and now there's no turning back. I think Matt's right on this one. He also goes Eddy to my Eddie so it's clear my Mexican nickname spelling is nowhere near as good as my taste in wrestling. But one thing I know is that people with real taste in wrestling think Juventud Guerrera is one of the greats. Now, 1997 Juvy is different than 2001 Juvy is different than 2005 Juvy and beyond, but they are all phases of Juventud and that attitude and insanity is lurking inside every iteration. In 1997 he was one of the most insanely athletic ring guys in history, an improviser with nutty ideas and offense that nobody else was thinking about, a guy outshining Rey Misterio on the weekend shows with a degree of danger. 

This was Juvy in 2005, in Rome, against an Italian man who reveals after the match that he can barely pretend to speak Italian phonetically. "Italia Numero Uno" is the kind of thing someone guessing at Italian would say, but for this match Nunzio is a regional hero fighting for a championship in front of 10,000 Italians. Except in no part of this match does Nunzio come off like the star, only the de facto star, because this is expert heel Juventud working a match in Italy in 2005 like he's heel Terry Taylor. Juvy is great at working as heel Terry Taylor. Don't go into this waiting for the springboard improv of 1997, this is Juvy being a smug prick and drawing real damn heat. There is absolutely no highflying in this (well, aside from Juvy taking a mighty high backdrop during Nunzio's fiery comeback) because Juventud is Terry Taylor. Nunzio is the only one who goes up top, and it leads to the greatest part of the match: while up top, Juvy sweeps his leg and Nunzio flies off the top onto his tailbone (a bump I don't really remember him taking) and then Juvy does the fucking funniest little strut that ends with a slow motion shoulder shimmy. Juvy's strut is everything and all I need to tell me how damn good this match is. Juvy could have worked all of this without a highspot - he does the Juvy Driver and picks it up at 1 - because he really didn't need them. He takes the Sicilian Slice perfectly and gets his foot on the bottom rope with expert timing and nonchalance, and you could hear the crowd realizing they wouldn't be seeing this ox-eyed prick defeated. Until he is, by his own smugness, and the roar is deafening. Juvy fully understood what could be accomplished within a stripped down "safe" WWE style, a totally different kind of star than he was a decade prior. 

CM Punk vs. Amazing Red WWE 5/14/05 

MD: Not a ton to say here. I didn't think they were totally on the same page during the comeback and down the stretch and that felt a little more on Red, but he worked well from underneath before that and got to show off a bit in general. Punk stood out though, adapting to what he thought they were looking for like he always did in these situations. Just canny stuff. Lots of being vocal, wrestling for the last row, trying to get the crowd engaged. Yes, he had a couple of flashy things like the curb stomp and his grapevined DDT finisher, but in general, he was working this like it was fifteen years earlier as a way to show his mettle and that he wasn't some spot-laden indy guy. A worker working.

ER: I feel for Amazing Red here. I had no idea he ever even got a WWE tryout, let alone after he had already been done with his first several year run in TNA. It was clearly a case of them making him work a restrained version of whatever his match would have been in 2005. By the early 2000s they weren't really letting tryout dark match guys go out there specifically to Wow the audience, they wanted them to work a basic face/heel match with Young Boy restrictions. Hey Amazing Red, go out there and show every one your armdrags and dropkicks and your inside cradle. Maaaaybe a sunset flip. Red is a guy capable of Amazing things timed very nicely, and he was basically not allowed to be Amazing or use his timing. 

But - and I can't say "lucky for Red" as this tryout clearly went nowhere for him - CM Punk went out there and had a superstar performance that made this crowd fully get behind a generic Young Boy. Punk kept the crowd engaged the entire time and worked like an asshole from the second he appeared through the entrance. It's a super vocal performance that made me want to go back and rewatch all of that 2004-05 Punk that I haven't watched since 2004-05, just to see how much of this kind of heel wrestling he carried over from the indies. He sold loudly but not theatrically, yelling not to be funny but in a way that stood out as unique. Not like "Barry Darsow Unique", not hammy noise, but noise like nobody else was making on 2005 WWE cards. Seeing how vocal Punk was made me wonder if everyone else on the roster is given directives to be as quiet as possible. Rob Conway, Sylvan Grenier, the Bashams, I don't remember any of these guys making noise in a 2005 WWE ring. Punk kept people invested with great selling - vocals being a big part of it - and small movements. He came off like an asshole but kept them there with details, like that punch to the jaw after a rope break or the way he absentmindedly shook out his arm long enough after Red had driven his knee into it that it would have been understandable if he never referenced it again. 

Red wasn't allowed to be Amazing, and it didn't matter because people wanted him to shut CM Punk up. This crowd bit so hard on Red's swinging DDT, 100% convinced that Punk was going down, and I think it was all because he made himself out to be a guy who people wanted to see get beaten. 

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Found Footage Friday: SUPER BOY~! LA PARKA~! SHOCKER~! DANIELSON~! MODEST~! MORGAN~! DANIELS~! CAPITAN~! JUVI~! DRAKE~!

ER: What an amazing surprise for me this week, when Phil found a YouTube channel that's been uploading West coast indies from the early 2000s, an era that is hardly represented online and was often never even released, and an era where my friends and I went to a lot of live West coast indy wrestling shows. We very easily found three different matches from three shows I attended in Spring-Summer 2002, none of which I've been able to see since watching them live. 2002 was a really great year to be a wrestling fan. I'm lucky to get the excuse to relive some wrestling memories experienced by a 21 year old college senior, half my lifetime ago. 

LA Park/Shocker vs Super Boy/Capitan de Oro FMLL 03/23/02

MD: This is about as 2002 DVDVR a match as you can get. Two fat guys that could go: base, bump, stooge, fly, and in Super Boy's case flip, against two of the very best and most stylized in the world in Park and Shocker. I've seen a bunch of Shocker from a few years earlier and plenty of old man Shocker but I've never quite found the rosetta stone match that shows me what drove him all the way to the top of the old 500s. This gives you a lot of little elements: a great strike, a great bump, the charisma and presence, the signature elbow drop, but the match as a whole is more fun than anything else. Park is at the height of his groin utilization, which is crowd-pleasing and opponent-infuriating and a fine enough sort of thing to do for this indy against these opponents in front of this crowd, but it's not quite the Park you'd hope for. That's not to say he doesn't hit a dive and doesn't take some stuff, and it's certainly not to say that it's not great when Super Boy is trying to match him step for step. It's fun when Super Boy and Capitan de Oro are working together. It's fun when they're basing for Shocker's stuff. It's fun when Park and Shocker hit some tandem stuff and the synchronous frog splashes at the end. There's never really any drama but there's not a moment where this isn't enjoyable nonetheless.

ER: I think Matt is really really underrating this match. This was the kind of big action match that played perfectly to the flea market audience, and watching it now I couldn't believe it was even better than I remembered. Honestly, it was way better than I remembered. This was at Franks & Sons indoor flea market, a flea market where I bought Homies figurines, Desert Storm trading cards, a new Vader WCW Toymakers action figure for $2, and several lucha tapes. We watched those tapes in my boy Jason's RV, which we drove down to LA to see a bunch of wrestling shows. We had a TV hooked up in the RV so we could play No Mercy and watch tapes, so the tapes I bought were: the La Parka vs. Hijo del Santo Super Libre show, the Nicho vs. Hijo del Santo mask vs. mask show, and the 2001 IWRG show with the Dr. Cerebro vs. Hijo del Santo mask vs. mask match. Man, Santo had a really great 2001 that we celebrated while parked at a Wal-Mart. While we were lingering around waiting for this show to start, my friend Devin pointed out "a dork in a La Parka mask" who had just walked in. Of course it was La Parka. He was wearing Sergio Valente jeans, a tucked in mint green polo, and his mask. He was the main draw that got us excited for this show. A king. 

But yeah, this is the kind of match you'd talk about several times on a 7 hour drive back from LA. I didn't even know this match was taped, and my handsome visage shows up really early in this, because Super Boy hit a big fatass tope that crushed the plastic chairs in front of me and landed him directly on my leg. My bright yellow Kawada shirt looks incredible. I am holding a digital camera that used floppy disks. Super Boy leans into me and I pat him on the chest, as commentary says that Super Boy landed in the lap of a lucky fan. A 20 years later reminder that I was once a Lucky Fan. Super Boy was a real marvel here. He was a more of a tape trading legend than anything, a cult star, but he moves, has the build, and has the timing of young Super Porky, with some of the greatest punches in lucha history. He's so awesome in all of this: hitting a big standing splash/standing moonsault combo, missing a big middle buckle moonsault, hitting a crazy late rotation swanton, cutting off Park by punching him in the face every time Park disrespectfully pelvic thrusts he or Oro, the previously mentioned tope into my lap, and he draws great flea market heat with a shirt removal that draws "Put it on!" chants. He looks like a total badass punching and slapping Park around through the whole match, any time Park started treating things as a joke. It all builds to Super Boy slapping the hell out of Park in the corner, then a great Park skeleton glove removal before he chopped the hell out of SB. 

La Parka was an absolute rock star, the kind of hard working, constantly entertaining house show performance that I've been lucky to see various versions of several times. His dancing is used to hilarious effect, tea bagging Oro to dance his way out of a sunset flip, backing Super Boy into the corner with sexually threatening humps, even break dancing! But the guy takes some Psicosis level bumps on a show held in a curtained off corner of a large warehouse. He takes his nasty upside down turnbuckle bump and takes a gross bump after getting crotched up top. He hits a big top rope splash and a gorgeous tornillo to cap off a fantastic dive train, while also throwing stiff strikes with Super Boy the whole match. It's a killer Park performance. Shocker and Oro have several standout moments of their own. Shocker was still so fast in 2002 and I thought he looked great here. I love his rolling elbowdrops and high headscissors armdrags, his flipping clothesline bump is a favorite, and his running boot looked BattlArts level. There's this awesome sequence of he and Super Boy going at it fast, peaked by Park throwing SB off the top with a nearly straight down arm drag, hitting a missile dropkick, and then crashing both of them through several plastic chairs with a tope con giro. Oro was going to get outshined by three mega stars, but he also hit some of the most high impact corner clotheslines I've ever seen, and he'd be a guy who would have really stood out on most shows I've attended. 

Trust me on this one, not the almost always reliable and usually trustworthy Matt. This match is a gem. Plus, how much of a treat is seeing a match again for the first time in 20 years, and it actually surpassing your memory? 

Michael Modest/Donovan Morgan vs. Juventud Guerrera/Tommy Drake Pro Wrestling Iron 5/31/02

MD: You come for Juvi but you stay for Michael Modest being a beast. He trained both Morgan and Drake and he was really laying things in on him at times. You did get an exchange between Morgan and Juvi and Juvi working the apron and having fun after the hot tag with Modest, but this was about Drake taking a beating. Modest had some pretty out there stuff, again because he probably needed it to stand out but he made it all look fairly grisly which is all the more impressive when you're doing headstand ranas in the corner or taking physics-defying head first bumps into the corner. For the most part, it was Morgan that had all of the over the top moves and while he hit them well and it was part of his deal in getting over, there wasn't that same urgency and aggression and chip on his shoulder that Modest had. Drake had a nice Russian Leg Sweep that he used a couple of times and some good scrapping when angry but some of the rest of his stuff looked a little loose. I don't think he had been wrestling for all that long at this point. The best part of this whole thing might have been early on where Drake wanted Morgan to charge off the ropes at him and Morgan just punched him in the face and cheesed a big smile. I don't think Juvi was super interested in taking most of this stuff but he was happy to come in now and again to hit some things. 

ER: I don't know if I've ever seen any Pro Wrestling Iron online before. I liked these guys. I briefly hosted a wrestling interview show at my college radio station, KSUN, that served as a Pro Wrestling Iron showcase: It was called The Iron Hour, and I interviewed Modest for the first show. Modest and Donovan Morgan were NOAH regulars at this point, which had lead to their bad split with APW. Infamous Sleaze Roland Alexander thought he should have a cut of their NOAH earnings and they split, taking several members of the roster with them (many of whom had been trained by Modest and/or Morgan). That caused Roland to go hard after Bryan Danielson and make him the new APW head trainer (which was a short, very fun era that we cover down in the match down below). Modest told me in that interview that Misawa respected workers who had their own school/promotion, so the PWI school was started partially to gain respect of the legend. It was also awesome that Modest took Misawa's advice so literally that he blew up the promotion after being the highest touted homegrown star who split with a large chunk of the roster. This is a good time to remember that Roland Alexander sent a wrestling school bill to the parents of a dead trainee, so Modest and Morgan laughing and leaving is a great thing. They also each had a 4 year strong run in NOAH, when it was my favorite fed in the world, and that rules.

This was another wrestling show we took the RV to. I'm not sure why we all hopped in the RV for this one, as the show was in Ukiah, a small town about 2 hours north of San Francisco. I grew up an hour north of SF, and Ukiah in 2022 is like my small town of Healdsburg was in 1992. It's the closest feeling to being in the midwest that you can get out here, but it's a charming place with some good diners and a great movie theater. Ukiah used to be an AWA town in the early 60s with Red Bastien as one of the top attractions, and I believe Shire promoted there in the 70s, but all small town stuff. Maybe we took the RV because we were bringing enough people that it made sense not to take two cars, but I'm not sure it made more sense to drive a huge gas guzzling RV. We probably just thought it would be fun to drive the RV up the gorgeous stretch of 101 (nothing but scenic views from Healdsburg to Ukiah) to the Ukiah fair. This show was held at the fair and I remember walking around the midway before and after the show. 2 Cold Scorpio was originally advertised for the main event but was replaced by Juvy. The posters all around the fairgrounds had him listed and pictured as Flash Funk, and I'd love to meet the hypothetical wrestling fan who would not have attended this show, but then saw they had the WWF space pimp from 5 years prior on the show and that forced their hand. The Vets Hall type building on a fairgrounds property is a classic wrestling venue, but one of my biggest memories of the show was how cold the building got as the night went on, and how loud the crickets got. If the temperature and some of the matches are leaving the crowd cold, and instead of silence you only have the loud sound of crickets? Tough optics. 

I don't remember a lot about this match, other than thinking Juvy didn't seem motivated to actually get in the ring for more than a couple minutes, and that my buddy Devin called Drake "Tommy Mistake", which got no reaction and lead to all of us clowning him for probably way too many months. Drake was Modest and Morgan's top student, and was a really new wrestler at this point (I'm not sure he even had 10 matches). He eventually went on one of the coolest NOAH tours ever. Seriously, look Tommy Drake up on cagematch and check his NOAH tour. In a promotion that ran tons of tags and trios, for some reason Drake got to work 8 singles matches on his 16 NOAH shows, ALL against different opponents. Japanese crowds got to see Tommy Drake singles matches against Morishima, Rikio, Ikeda, Taue, Honda, Inoue, Saito, and they got to see him BEAT Aoyagi. My new handheld white whale is going to be Tommy Drake, 20 matches into his career, pulling out a win against one of the toughest SOBS in a promotion of tough SOBs. 

The match lines up pretty much with my memory, even though I wouldn't have been able to tell you any details of the match before watching it again, if that makes sense. I remember the vibes. Modest and Morgan worked over Drake for most of the match, Juvy coming in twice and never doing too much more than very fast rope running. There were a lot of people in the crowd who wanted to see Juvy, but instead they saw a lot of Tommy Drake. And that's fine! Modest and Morgan were a good team and had a tight act by this point. Modest knew how to get a reaction from NOAH crowds and kept that shtick for his stateside gigs, looking like a cool jacked Jerry Tarkanian. There's no wrestler more responsible for getting me into local indy wrestling than Mike Modest, my favorite live wrestler of the era. He hit like a truck, and I loved that early spot where a couple shoulderblocks don't budge Drake, so he feints a third and then just throws an elbow smash. His rope flip rana (that later became far more famous as the Stratus-faction) is a move that shouldn't look good, but somehow Modest makes it look good. I liked how he used it successfully, then had it blocked to set up a Drake top rope clothesline, and then later used it to flip Donovan onto Drake. His torpedo bump into the turnbuckle was always one of the great signature bumps, one which he said he stole from Ray Stevens (even though we don't have any matches showing Stevens doing that bump). I loved his short elbowdrop and his kicks to Drake's back, and loved how Donovan worked him over with suplexes. Morgan's snap suplex -> fisherman's buster -> fisherman's neckbreaker is a cool combo and he snapped all of them off nicely. Juvy was exciting when he was in, but it was for maybe two total minutes of a 15 minute match, if we're being generous. 

Bryan Danielson vs. Christopher Daniels APW 7/6/02

MD: All of Danielson's stuff looked really good here. That's my biggest takeaway. This didn't go much longer than ten minutes, but everything looks great: the forearms, the step through/up and over out of the Greco-Roman knucklelock, the all time great missile dropkick, the front chancery suplex, the belly to back off the top. It's all smooth and impactful. Daniels gets credit too because he portrayed a chip on his shoulder in this one. It's hard to fault 2002 Daniels for all the STO/Downward Spiral/Complete Shot/inverted bulldog/etc. stuff. I don't think any of it works quite as well as the time he just grabs Danielson's head and tosses him down, but it was part of the appeal and part of what made him stand out at the time. I was on the wrong coast for this one, but I know 19-20 year old me watching NECW and Chaotic Wrestling and whatever other indy I had access to would have been all for everything he did. It was a little much at times, but less so in a ten minute match than it would have been in a twenty minute match. And hey, some of it, like the Blue Thunder Bomb was super impactful and really worked. The issue is that when everything a guy does is out of the norm and a little over the top, nothing ends up standing out too much. You end up with an overall impression of the guy with all the cool moves but it take you out of a match as much as it potentially adds to it.

ER: This show was at the Napa fairgrounds as part of the Napa county fair. I took a nice sunny afternoon drive out to Napa and stopped for an It's-It at a gas station on my way in, walked around the fair, then met up with friends for the show. All of the seating was in the grandstands, like we were about to watch a demolition derby, with the wrestlers all playing to our grandstand side and the dirt arena behind them. Justin Roberts did ring announcing and showed off his comedy chops to the crowd, getting booed for his novice and outdated Beavis & Butthead and Andy Kaufman impressions. His "Thank you very much" was tantamount to everyone thinking they can say "Here's Johnny" and have a Nicholson impression. The show was really fun, and unnecessarily stacked. The main event was a midgets match which was the only real draw on the show. This was a free admission show at the fair. You pay to get into the fair, but the wrestling was a free attraction. I remember noted deceased bag of shit Roland Alexander bragging repeatedly about drawing "several thousand people" to this APW show and bitch, most of those people just wanted to get a funnel cake and throw up on the fucking Gravitron. Like he thought a Super Dragon vs. Jardi Frantz hair vs. mask match was going to draw anything but some dork like me eating an ice cream. During that match I remember a lady getting up to leave, and a friend yelling out "You're going to miss the midgets!" and her replying "I'm obviously coming back for the midgets!" I don't think she was talking about making it back for the Tony Kozina match.

This was pretty much the exact kind of pro wrestling I wanted to see in 2002. This was the new style that Danielson was helping to pioneer and I was here for it, literally. Some of it hasn't aged well, but most of the things that haven't aged well are Christopher Daniels "I fall down with you" offense that became the basis for most of the worst Edge offense. It's a style we evolved from but damn if I don't still love a lot of this. Check out Danielson's amazing step over to Fujiwara, a sequence I don't think I've seen someone do so well, or at all. I thought he was swinging his leg over Daniels' head to set up a victory roll, and instead he just swings it straight over and drops down hard into that Fujiwara. Watching Danielson matches from 20 years ago gives the same gift as watching AJ Styles matches from Wildside, as you can see a lot of the physical movement is still similar (maybe a bit slower, but just slightly different) but a lot of the offense is completely different. At one point Danielson threw three right hand punches like I never remember seeing him throw punches before, then turns into an STO. Later, he hits this amazing missile dropkick where he ran up the turnbuckles and spun around in midair to hit the kick. I don't think any of the slick rope artists like Fenix, Freelance, or Gran Metalik could hit it any better. The crowd gets into this as they packed a lot of action and bumps into a tight runtime, and they got really loud when Danielson hit a big top rope headbutt, then got up and ran full steam into a huge spinning Blue Thunder Bomb. The top rope jumping back suplex was a great finish, and the match had a shocking amount of risk and hard bumps for something that was going to be absolutely blown out of the water reaction-wise 10 minutes later by two mildly trained midget wrestlers. 

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WCW Bash at the Beach 7/13/97

I can't believe they had under 8,000 fans in attendance for this show. I thought the build was great and the lineup on-paper is really strong. This really feels like the kind of show that should have drawn 20,000+, but a hot smaller crowd could be a great thing. 

1. Wrath/Mortis vs. Glacier/Ernest Miller (9:47)

If you found out that WCW was going to essentially have a karate division, with nothing but arcade fighting game characters, this is the best possible version of the kind of matches that attempted to fuse fighting games and pro wrestling. These guys all had varying levels of training and in ring backgrounds, but I don't think you could have laid out a better match for this specific combination of wrestlers, and it resulted in an insanely fun PPV opener. It's 10 glorious minutes of shockingly good spin kicks and crazy double teams, like a cartoon version of a Low Ki/Red match several years before that was a match. I'm not sure Ernest Miller or Glacier ever fit so naturally into a match again, Wrath and Mortis doing a great job of being in all the right places to take some complicated kick landings. This was much more snug than other Glacier/Miller matches, everybody really tightened up their punches and so many of the kicks looked genuinely explosive. The US was still in a big martial arts craze in 1997, and this match fit so well into that, and the crowd reactions showed that. There were some crazy spots here, all using some impressive timing. Mortis and Wrath hit their great powerbomb neckbreaker, Wrath hits a big cannonball of the apron, Miller is trying springboard attacks, and Glacier looks like he gets a concussion on the floor when Wrath hold a chair for Mortis to superkick directly into Glacier's ear. His left ear eats chair, right ear gets smashed into the ringpost. There is a little slow down before the finishing stretch, but when Miller tags in and is hitting spin kicks and James Vandenburg gets superkicked off the apron you won't care. The finish is the best possible Memphis Mortal Kombat, when Vandenburg wraps a chain around Mortis's boot for a loaded karate kick win. Pure brilliance, one of my favorite PPV openers of the 90s. 

2. Ultimo Dragon vs. Chris Jericho (12:55)

This was a pretty good embodiment of a lot of the 1997 WCW juniors matches. There's a lot of great spots that get big reactions, a couple of ambitious spots that look blown, they lose the page a bit and try to make up for it with big bumps, and it works! The best stuff makes up for the worst stuff, they mostly keep a good pace, and throw in some genuinely memorable spots. A lot of it is fairly typical 90s juniors wrestling: some engaging but meaningless matwork, a mirrored move, some cool backdrop reversals (Dragon landing on his feet, Jericho cartwheeling through), a stand off, we all loved it in 1997. It was the reason we traded for WAR tapes before all collectively realizing that the lumpy old sumo main events were the reason to be trading for WAR tapes. The best stuff here is very good, with a couple of very nice Jericho moonsaults and fun Dragon kick combos, a big double powerbomb from Jericho, great Asai moonsault to the floor, and some fun reversals. They get off the page a little bit when both men fall on a top rope spot, Dragon basically leaping to the floor while Jericho leapt back into the ring, and Jericho feels like he's trying to make up for that spot by taking a couple of really big bumps to the floor. It doesn't ever quite seem like it's anything other than a nicely laid out collection of spots, but the effort being put in elevates things. 

3. Steiner Brothers vs. Great Muta/Masahiro Chono (10:37)

This was filled with a lot of miscommunication, but still came off great to the crowd thanks to some huge Steiners throws and a fantastic stooging heel performance from Chono. He yelled at the crowd the entire time he was on the apron, and continues riling them up any time he was in control. He easily crossed any language barrier just by having no problem throwing the sole of his boot into heads with his great yakuza kicks, while also rubbing the crowd’s nose in it before inevitably getting smashed by the Steiners. The match is pretty formless, but the nWo Japan control is very fun and it’s cool seeing them dominating the Steiners and not being eaten alive like has happened. Scott looked absolutely massive here, which only makes it cooler when he is throwing Muta across the ring with his hip switch belly to belly or nailing the Frankensteiner. Muta hits his own big top rope Frankensteiner and Rick hits dangerous overhead belly to bellys on both. Chono also took some big backdrops from Rick, just a great house show main event heel performance. The match was a mess, but a cool mess, with big charisma and big highspots. The finish is dangerous and made everyone in the building get to their feet, with Muta taking an electric chair DDT. It looked as safe as possible, meaning it looked like a man taking a vertical dive off another man's shoulders. Those kind of things made it feel like a bigger, better match than it was. 

4. La Parka/Villano IV/Psychosis vs. Juventud Guerrera/Hector Garza/Lizmark Jr. (10:08)

This was the same kind of fireworks that made the opener so much fun, although the Daytona crowd didn't react as loudly to this as they did to that. It wasn't for lack of effort, and all kept working so hard to impress for 10 minutes that eventually the crowd finally had to respect it. It started a little slow with some nice Psychosis/Lizmark maestro match up, and the crowd reacted kind of confused to it. Even Tenay had to explain to Schiavone and Heenan that it was common for lucha matches to start with matwork. From there they build to some huge flying spots that come mostly at the end of the match, and they build to those big spots with hard bumps and stiff strikes. I don't think the crowd was looking for the luchadors to beat the hell out of each other, it's as if it isn't even happening right in front of them. Villano IV especially just comes in murdering everyone with chops and punches and lariats. La Parka does the same (he hit an amazing clothesline on Juvy in the corner, running down the length of the apron to land it), and Psychosis throws maybe the two hardest lariats in the match. 

La Parka is an excellent base for Juvy's headscissors, even catching a nice one through the ropes to the floor, and Psychosis took hiss missed corner bump on the back of his head. The crowd didn't react to any of Psychosis's bumps, even though he was killing himself. Seeing that, you really got the sense of how well Juvy and La Parka understood the timing of spots and how to hit them for the maximum crowd reaction. But the crowd got more involved after a series of misdirections, every member of the match missing consecutive top rope splashes, and it's like it suddenly woke everyone up and reminded them that bodies were crashing for their amusement. The dive train was tremendous, all started by Lizmark flattening V4 with a plancha. Psychosis got backdropped by Garza into a tope con giro, Garza acted as a tabletop for Juvy to get *incredible* height and distance on Air Juvy, just soaring beyond the ropes, building to the big Garza tornillo. A match that deserved to win the crowd over, and eventually did. Very memorable PPV lucha trios, one of the best. 

5. Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan (13:10)

A tremendous swan song performance for Kevin Sullivan, a real fight feel for its duration with some great use of non-participants and a ton of violence. The violence never dips and it's a painful pace to keep up, things beginning with a punch exchange that makes it clear Sullivan will be throwing fat fists square at Benoit's face. Benoit keeps everything entirely professional the full match, always working snug but clearly working elbow strikes and kicks. Sullivan, however, has no interest in worked shots and beats Benoit up the way someone fighting for their career would. Every punch is thrown to hurt, every kick to the stomach looks upsetting, he stomps Benoit in the balls, double stomps him in the stomach, throws him through a display of surfboards and even throws Jacqueline at him. Sullivan was an expert at taking advantage of Jacqueline and Jimmy Hart's interference, and both of them are great additions to the match. 

Jacqueline is relentless when things spill to the floor, getting flung aside by both Sullivan and Benoit but always screaming back into action. Benoit lifts her up for an atomic drop and instead launches her at Sullivan; Sullivan shoves her at Benoit while immediately following up with a fist to Benoit's eye. Jimmy Hart climbs a lifeguard's chair only to ride it into some fake palm trees after Benoit shoves it over, and the fight continues. Sullivan hangs Benoit in the tree of woe and delivers three hard running knees, and they cool things down a bit with a long crippler crossface. I really liked the long application, Benoit locking his hands right underneath Sullivan's nose, and Sullivan getting a long hard fought rope break and a nice reaction from the crowd after fighting to his feet. The ending pays off the weeks of Sullivan shoving Jacqueline around as she brains him with a wooden chair and leaves Benoit to fling himself straight down with a headbutt off the top. Great fight, worked with the importance of the stipulation in mind, stands out as a stiff brawl in a promotion full of them. 

6. Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett (6:56)

Very entertaining US Title match, with a crowd loudly against Jarrett. Jarrett knew exactly how to get heat from this crowd, and knows how to rub it in every time he's in control against Mongo. I love how Jarrett bumps and gets upended by McMichael's offense and has to keep spilling to the floor, yelling at fans, then pointing smugly to his head at those same fans whenever he would lure Mongo into a trap. Mongo looks good on offense, hitting a big powerslam and heavy knee lift, but was even more effective bumping for Jarrett. McMichael misses an awesome kneedrop into the corner, patella straight to the top buckle, and Jarrett immediately begins mocking him as he goes after the knee. The crowd hates it when Jarrett goes into a three point stance and takes out Mongo's knee, and just when it seems that Debra is about to step in and save her husband, she instead gives the Halliburton to Jarrett! The finish looks great, with McMichael blocking the first briefcase shot with his forearm and grabbing at it in pain, opening himself up to take the briefcase to the head. The crowd seemed genuinely surprised by Debra turning on her husband, and the announce team all seemed just as shocked. Everyone played their role really well and it lead to a great 10 minute segment. 

7. Randy Savage/Scott Hall vs. DDP/Curt Hennig (9:35)

This show has been really great at keeping every match within a perfect time window, giving everyone long enough to work an interesting and memorable match while not risking them losing the audience. It keeps the audience up the entire time, and this match had a good TV build. A lot of time was spent on who DDP's mystery partner would be, with Hennig and Raven being the ones not so subtly hinted at. In fact, it was hinted at so strongly that it felt more likely it would be neither of those two, so I was actually surprised when Curt Hennig came out as the partner. But even then the announcers had the appropriate reaction when they said "Oh so it IS Curt Hennig!" The match itself doesn't actually build much, as it turns out to be more angle than match, but the rare match ups elevated things and got us nicely to the angle. Hennig and Hall were a strong AWA tag team a decade prior and only fought on house shows and one PPV tag in the WWF.  And, outside of a few possible Royal Rumble interactions, Hennig and Savage is a first time match. So those are fun pairings, and to add to that DDP always works well with Savage so the floor on this one is high. This was an inspired stretch for Savage, always loved the energy between he and DDP. Hennig and Hall square off and it feels new, even though it's not, ahem, perfect. It all builds to DDP skinning the cat which causes Hennig to get slowed by a low bridge, but then he attacks DDP and leaves him prone to the Outsider's Edge/Elbow. I think Hennig made more sense as a heel during his comeback, so I liked the turn and thought it came off unexpected. 

8. Roddy Piper vs. Ric Flair (13:26)

I loved this match. Piper vs. Flair hadn't faced off against each other since 1992, and most of their early 90s WWF feud was house show only. Their interactions in the 1992 Rumble were arguably the best part of one of the most legendary Rumbles, and this match immediately brought back the energy of those Rumble interactions. Whenever I think of the 92 Rumble I think of Piper going after Flair every chance he got, running in and flinging himself onto Flair, and that's exactly how the first several minutes of this match go.  Piper's strikes all look classic, throwing hard overhand right chops, mixing up punch combos, big knife edge chops, Flair off balance the whole time and only making his way into the match by landing a chop block after Piper briefly gets tied up with the ref. Both men are good at both sides of the match, Piper looking like a crazed lunatic going after Flair, but also doing an impressive job selling the damage Flair was doing to his knee. 

Flair stooged and bumped and flopped for Piper's strike barrage, then looked near sadistic every time he would kick or stomp at Piper's knee or ring one up below the belt. Flair takes a couple bumps to the floor and Piper not only kept up the brawl energy at ringside, but he managed to limp around on his worked over leg the entire time. We get a couple of dramatic figure 4 moments, and a great twist when Piper has to deal with Benoit and Mongo. It's a bunch of chaos all at once, with ref Randy Anderson suddenly very easily distractible while people are crashing behind his back, but the payoff is worth it. Piper suckers Benoit into hitting a flying headbutt on Flair, but Mongo absolutely spikes Piper with a tombstone. There's a lot of great Flair/Piper drama as Flair crawls to cover Piper after Mongo's tombstone, and it really felt like it could have been the finish. Flair takes just enough time getting to the pin that it feels like there's a chance of Piper kicking out, and when it does it gets a huge reaction from the crowd. These two knew how to build to convincing pinfalls, with Piper also getting a reaction from a swinging neckbreaker that looked good enough to be the finish. But everyone wanted to see Piper drag Flair to the mat with the sleeper, and it was great seeing Flair's arm drop. This would have easily played as a strong main event a decade prior, and it was great to see both really go at it. 

9. Lex Luger/The Giant vs. Hulk Hogan/Dennis Rodman (22:30)

Buffer really adds to the big main event feel for this one, although he gives the nWo a way cooler intro than our two babyface heroes, saying that Rodman is a bad boy because he's good enough to be as bad as he wants to be. This tale of the tape feels very opinionated, but it does get the crowd buzzing. The match itself is long, but expertly laid out like a Memphis arena main event. It's classic Memphis, with a charismatic heel teaming with an athletic superstar and a charismatic face teaming with a green Giant. Sometimes the athlete is a babyface and sometimes the giant is a monster heel but the Memphis feel is strong. Hogan adds to that vibe by working as total chickenshit heel, and while the match had a purposely slow build, they knew exactly what they were doing as the crowd built along with it. They hide weaknesses and bullshit around strengths, with the Giant not tagging in until over 11 minutes into the match and Rodman being celebrated for every single wrestling move he managed to pull off. Hardly anything happens for the first several minutes and the crowd is along exactly where they need to be the whole time. Hogan takes forever to lock up with Luger, it builds nicely to Rodman entering the match, and the match works as a real impressive way to frame Rodman's first pro wrestling match. 

Rodman has a high floor as a wrestler. His size is impressive, and it makes his slow hesitant movements come off like a dangerous giant, not a tentative celebrity newcomer. Macho Man is the nWo's second, and he and Hogan are perfect cheeseballs who celebrate Rodman's every move as a feat of wonder. He locks up and armdrags Luger, and Macho and Hogan come screaming into the ring like Rodman had just grabbed a rebound to seal a playoff win. A Rodman leapfrog exchange leads to a reaction typically reserved for gold medal sprinters breaking the tape, and it's all great. The fans cannot stand Rodman and hate the idea of giving him credit, so we begin to get loud Rodman Sucks chants, and Rodman knows exactly how to soak it up. But they also can't help getting excited when he got more and more involved, and by the time he was hammering a trio of very nasty looking back elbows into Luger in the corner, he no longer felt like merely a celebrity attraction. They built well to everything the crowd wanted to see, and they especially reacted big whenever Rodman took damage. Rodman's size made his bumping more impressive, the crowd loved seeing him knock Luger down with shoulderblocks and also leap into a huge Giant bearhug. Giant is still real raw here, does a lot of Giant Gonzalez wide eyes swinging arms selling and comes off clumsy and unsure, but Hogan and Rodman are both good at working around him. It's all basic southern house show, but those connect with crowds and these reactions kept getting bigger. 

Not only did we get a steady stream of wadded up garbage thrown at the nWo, but the big spots all felt big. Rodman and Hogan did a double hip toss on Giant that felt shook the building, and the fans reacted like they had just been through an aftershock. Rodman violently manhandles ref Randy Anderson and headbutts him in the back of the head, and it leads to a chaotic finish that works for the match. Sting (a man who is clearly not Sting and instead a 7 footer who steps over the top rope entering and exiting the ring) hits the Giant with a baseball bat but WCW still gets to triumph amid the confusion, with Luger torture racking Hogan, Rodman, and Savage one after the other. It's a strong main event to one of WCW's best PPVs, a match that felt like a main event and properly navigated the egos of two top wrestling stars, one star rookie, and a major mainstream celebrity. It's not necessarily an easy match to book, but they made it look simple. 

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New Footage Friday: New AAA 4/30/95!

PAS: Roy Lucier continues to do yeoman's work uncovering lost classic stuff, including this AAA show which wasn't in circulation.

AAA 4/30/95

Mascarita Sagrada/Ninjita vs. Los Espectritos (Espectrito I/Espectrito II) 

MD: Fun, long minis match. I'm generally a stickler for the standards in lucha, 2 out of 3 falls matches, both parties getting pinned in tag matches, etc., but I probably would make exceptions for minis matches. This was standard structure and I'm not sure it helped things. The timing on the pinfalls didn't do anyone favors. The finish, instead of being dramatic with Mascarita Sagrada sneaking in a pin, had to be extended to Ninjita getting pulled back in by MS post-dive for the countout. Plus it was all more back and forth without that serene lucha moment of comeback (I could see them saving that for later in the card). Little things. That said, the match still worked, and a lot of that was due to the credibility of both sides. The Espectritos (especially I) were great bullies, great bases, able to take back over at a moment's notice or sneak in a well-timed bit of interference to keep the advantage. There was a power bomb in there where Espectrito I just picked up MS like he was nothing at all. And the tecnicos could believably take back over at a moment's notice, turning literally any physical contact into an arm drag just like that. For the first half of this we had a bunch of Ninjita when you really wanted MS in there, but halfway through the segunda we got what we wanted and he was spectacular. This took up most of the first quarter of the two-hour show and I can't imagine anyone complaining about too much it.

PAS: This was cool stuff, you don't normally see minis get this much time, and the Espectritos have plenty of stuff to fill that time. They just toss Mascarita Sagrada around like he is a wrestling buddy, Espectrios are both little people, but it looks like Rey vs. The Big Show when they are in there with Mascarita. Both technicos of course are armdragging and ranaing machines. Most mini's matches of this era have a pretty high baseline, and this doesn't push it pass that level but no shame in that. 

Aguila de Acero/Super Calo/Winners vs Los Diabolicos (Angel Mortal/Marabunta/Mr. Condor) 

MD: Fairly complete trios match here. I was definitely higher on the Diabolicos than the tecnicos. They were a well oiled machine, both feeding early in the primera and especially during the beatdown in the segunda. Some timing issues from the tecnicos, not getting up on the ropes at the right time, coming into the ring too early during the beatdown and having to stand around, Aguila de Acero coming into the ring too late for the fast count finish which meant the submission lasted way too long. I didn't mind the finish otherwise. When you're looking at this as a card instead of a bunch of individual matches, you need to switch things up and while it got over Pepe Casas more than any of the wrestlers, it's obvious the fans were pretty happy by it. Also, there were a couple of good dives to set it up and a nice tangible feeling of mild dread when post-dives, it ended up two on one for Calo.

Los Power Raiders (Power Raider Azul/Power Raider Blanco/Power Raider Negro/Power Raider Rojo/Power Raider Verde) vs. Heavy Metal/Juventud Guerrera/Karloff Lagarde Jr./Perro Silva/Picudo 

MD: Yeah, this was a mess. You knew it'd be a mess coming in but it wasn't as fun of a mess as I was hoping. The rudo side controlled most of the match, with little hope spots peppered in and there was a lot of talent there but they just didn't mesh. A long beatdown is fine, good even, if the rudos are on the same page and if they keep things moving and interesting. Here they kept Verde in there for way too long and there were a bunch of moments where Juvi just seemed at a loss. He was teaming with Lagarde and he'd hop up on the second rope to do something, and Lagarde would take things in another direction and he'd just have to hop back off. That sort of thing. The focus of the finish was on Perro Silva and Rojo but given the rules of the match, they were absent for most of it. I'm not saying there's not a situation where that could work but I don't think this was it. When things were moving, this was fine, but if this was going to be chaos anyway, I'd actually want more and not less.

La Parka vs. Jerry Estrada - FUN

PAS: This had been out there on a AAA yearbook, but I hadn't seen it before so I figured I would write it up. This was mostly a Tirantes match, which is about my least favorite kind of lucha. Most of the match was focused on Tirantes slow counting for Parka and fast counting for Estrada.  We did get three crazy Parka dives, an almost Sabuish flip dive off the top, a great tope, and a big plancha. Estrada hits a crazy tope into the second row, so we did get a lot of good even with all of the Tirantes. 

El Hijo del Santo/Octagon/Perro Aguayo/Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Blue Panther/Psicosis/Scorpio Jr/Shu El Guerrero

MD: The good stuff. As always, when you get this level of talent and experience and charisma in the ring, it really can't go wrong. Even Perro, who was more physically limited at this point, is such a character, so hard hitting, so spirited and fun that you just can't look away. He's such a folk hero, out there slapping hands on the way to the ring, and then mentoring Rey later. Rey's amazing, of course. What stands out the most to me is how comfortable and willing he is in his role. There's no sense at all of a Napoleon Complex. He doesn't veer in the least, leaning into all of his strengths and vulnerabilities (which are, of course, narrative strengths). Panther hammed it up against Octagon and showed flashes later, like hitting the double stomp or a huge slap on Perro as insult to injury. He was so broad and versatile in the 90s and doesn't get a lot of credit for that anymore relative to his maestro rep. Santo was smooth as could be. Shu was a great bully and Scorpio a perfectl y acceptable stooge, and even Octagon didn't bug me much. Of course, Psicosis was the guy I really wanted to see and he didn't disappoint. Just the perfect mix of basing (feeding and catching Rey) and attitude (shadow boxing on the apron) and flash (amazing twisting senton to end the segunda). It doesn't have a real finish but since it has an awesome and brutal surprise angle, it's hard to be too upset about that.

PAS: Just a murderer's row of legendary all time great luchadores (and Octagon, although he is fine here). I really loved the first fall, with tremendous exchange after tremendous exchange, including some great Rey vs. Psicosis stuff, ending with one of my favorite Star finishes ever, with Perro running around stomping all of the guys in the star. Rudo beatdown in the second and beginning of the third fall was nifty if a bit formless, and we get a wild finish run with tons of crazy dives, and constant switching of the camera from one bit of mayhem to another. Santo/Negro angle at the end was really cool, and pretty unexpected. Too bad Santo's family put a kibosh on the gimmick, because what potential that had. 

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New Footage Friday: REY JR.! JUVENTUD! FINLAY! CASAS! SOLAR! PARKA! ATLANTIS! DANNY BOY!

Rey Misterio Jr/Solar/Volador vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Juventud Guerrera/La Parka AAA 10/30/93 - GREAT

MD: What a moment in time this was. Everyone knew what they had in each other here. The vets knew what they had in Rey and Juvi. So much of this match was set up around highlighting them or using them as foils. There are a ton of examples: Parka catching Rey and marching across the ring with him, then Volador catching Juvi. The replay of the leap up 'rana off the top from Rey to Juvi. Fuerza slapping Juvi than being proud when they had him hit the splash across the ring to win the segunda. Obviously, Volador getting down so Rey could jump off his back with his dive onto a Juvi that just ate floor. Rey was the most dynamic entity in the world, with Juvi a game partner who already had working the crowd down. Everyone else more than kept up too. Parka was a rudo but got the chants right from the start. Solar and Fuerza had a great exchange to start the match. The spot where Fuerza hiptossed Volador off the apron and into a perfectly catching Park on the floor was probably the spot of the match and maybe one of the spots of the year. It had a little too much set up but the impact was great. And the character work was just so crisp. Everyone was well-defined, and there was a mini novella within the match between Fuerza and Juvi (With Parka coming out to comfort Fuerza, despite him being in the wrong, and to get them back into it). It's amazing how much they fit into such a short period of time.

PAS: Our boy Roy Lucier is unearthing Lucha TV which hadn't been out there before and found an early Rey Jr. match and a super early Juventud match. That is an all-time great pair and it is so fun to watch them dance their dance. In addition we get Fuerza at peak Fuerza shtick, some cool Solar mat work, a couple of nifty Volador spots and dancing La Parka. I especially loved the Fuerza and Juvi interaction, it has always been one of my favorite parings, the physical comedy between the two is always so great and Fuerza is an all time pantomimer. We got a couple of big time cool spots and just a ton of enjoyable lucha.

ER: This is the kind of match you know you're going to watch the moment you see the lineup. Obviously you are going to watch a match with these six guys, no matter what year it took place. This is one of those lineups where you have no way of knowing which one of them will deliver the hottest performance of the match, just a constant battle of cool wrestlers. Volador was my favorite guy here, but it's a tough choice. I love how tight he throws monkey flips and headscissors, not leaving any kind of space, making it really look like he's the one controlling his opponents' momentum. His monkey flip on Fuerza was textbook, and he played around with a couple of Super Calo like rolling headscissors that look as impressive in 2020 as they did in '93. I really dug him taking a wild Fuerza hiptoss off the apron into Parka, his match climax tope was world class, and his back boost alley oop that tossed Rey into a killer plancha to the floor on Juvy was so damn good. La Parka is a tremendous base for everyone, a guy who could take complicated ranas as good as anyone. Fuerza is a total jerk who might have had the greatest ball kicks in all of Mexico (Satanico would be his primary competition), and he really split Volador's uprights here. Fuerza is such a good mask actor, and it's cool to see he had such in-ring chemistry with Juvy from this early on. I love them as a team and seeing as this is among the earliest matches I've seen with Juventud, it's cool to know that was a thing they had from go. This might not have gotten to the peaks it could have (considering the names involved), but there is zero chance anyone could watch this and have a bad time.

Atlantis/Shocker/Silver King vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Emilio Charles Jr./Negro Casas CMLL 12/29/95

MD: Just good lucha libre. The rudos were out wearing holiday crowns, one of which Shocker stole in the initial melee. They got the beatdown done in the primera, after some initial tecnico advantage and stalling. Talent level was through the roof here and it was almost all action once the segunda kicked in. The combo of Charles and Casas were made to stooge for tecnicos and Wagner based well (especially for Silver King). An underlying story here was Casas vs Shocker (setting up two singles matches in January), with Casas playing coward, especially whenever he got knocked out of the ring. He was always quick to run away and avoid a dive possibility. He also slowed down the tecnicos' comeback momentum by diving across the ring and out of the fray. The payoff here, wasn't a dive but instead the two of them being in the ring for the final moment where Shocker got the best of him. That was set up not by dives but by a chaotic series of wrestlers being pulled out of the ring to prevent the possibility of them, but it was still unique and exciting. The very best part of the match was the end of the segunda, most especially the sheer velocity that Casas soared into La Reinera. Those two Shocker vs Casas matches (1/19 and 1/26) are the only two singles matches between the two of them in the Match Finder, the second being a Welterweight title match. If they're not already out there, I hope they show up.

PAS: This was quality by the numbers lucha, full of guys who are amazingly talented. Casas and Shocker is a fun match up, and I really want to see those singles matches Matt mentioned. I loved how fast Shocker put him in an Atlantida (which is weird with Atlantis right there) and their back and forths were done with such speed and precision. Shocker is part of that lost generation of late 90s luchadors who never lived up to their potential (Black Warrior, Niebla, Lizmark Jr.) but at his best he was electric to watch, and being matched up with a GOAT like Casas is going to be something. I liked the minor key stuff between Wagner and King too, those guys have been working each other since they were toddlers and you can really tell. Nothing that will be remembered a week later, but man was the day by day quality of this stuff incredible.

ER: Just like that AAA 1993 tag up above, this is a match that I'm going to want to watch just seeing the on paper lineup. I love Wagner and Silver King on opposite sides, I've always loved Negro Casas and Shocker matching up in trios, and I love Emilio Charles stooging around Arena Mexico. Wagner had a bunch of funny walk shtick to sell Silver King kicks, Casas and Shocker had the quick sequences I wanted, and I love Charles' opportunistic rudo. This is the kind of high floor match that comes from having nothing but pros in there. Watching these guys all do their thing while not taking a ton of risks is really fun, because you're dealing with some all timer charisma. Negro Casas moves with such snap, watching him throw a hard kick or take a big flipping bump is so precise and so clean, it really makes Shocker look like a star. It's cool seeing Shocker as the smallest guy in a trios. he looked like Shockercito looks now, and moves as quick as him. This was obviously going to be a win, a classic lucha trios to warm the evening.


Fit Finlay vs. Danny Boy Collins ASW 6/1/12 - EPIC

PAS: The Finlay indy run was such a treat, and it is awesome that another match from that run has popped up (Finlay vs. Dave Taylor in an Irish Street Fight is the coolest looking on paper missing match). This was high end Finlay, and worked pretty interestingly. Collins was working a lot like mid 2000s Finlay, landing cheap shots on the break, using the ring as a weapon, working really stiff. Of course Finlay working as a traditional Finlay opponent is pretty perfect and of course delivered as nasty as he got it. Parts of this felt like Regal vs. Finlay which is about as big a compliment as I can give a match.

MD: This one was a bit of a mindtrip. I can see why you'd have Finlay be the face during this run, and obviously the kids were very familiar and into him in that role as shown by the way they celebrated with him at the end, but this was not what I expected on paper, especially for a nostalgia show of sorts. They called upon Collins to play the bad guy and he did with enthusiasm. I thought they could have been a bit more consistent with the rules; it felt a little like lucha on when the ref made Finlay break things relative to Collins, but that was a minor issue in the grand scheme. The best part of Finlay as a face, of course, is that he works just as mean as he would as a heel, and when it was his turn to give back, he was just as stiff as you'd like.

ER: Collins has been showing up fairly frequently on our New Footage Fridays, which makes sense as he's a guy who essentially wrestles like Fit Finlay. This was practically Finlay vs. Finlay, which is the exact kind of match that will be written about by us. This whole thing was a clinic on hard loud bumps and perfect execution on moves that have been kind of washed over. After seeing Collins and Finlay each throw a couple of gorgeous snapmares, the kind where you have a firm grip around your opponent's neck and jaw and give them a throw while you're leading with their head, you realize just how perfunctory most snapmares are in modern wrestling. The snapmare is treated as an afterthought, a thing to do to get from point A to point B, except point B is typically a lousy thigh slap. Here they treat the snapmare as an actual piece of offense, the way it should when you're throwing a man by the neck, and the follow up cravats and chinlocks were highlights on their own. I love how hard they would lean into Irish whips, the loud PONG when Finlay bumped into the ringpost, and Collin's dropping a knee to Finlay's temple that looked so good that I thought "damn Finlay should steal that kneedrop". Finlay's standing Bombs Away is a treat, and it's a constant joy running throughout a match where you can tell they are treating each piece of offense as important. Finlay is going to sell a short uppercut to his bridge as well as he is going to sell being thrown face first onto a table, and when you treat your offense with this kind of respect it just makes everything come off as important. This was a real gem from a months long tour that saw several Finlay gems. And it might be time for us to break Danny Boy Collins reviews away from NFF and into a regular series.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LA PARK

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Lucha Worth Watching: El Hijo Del Santo & Juvy in London! Arena Neza Highflyers!

El Hijo Del Santo/Hijo del Fantasma vs. Juventud Guerrera/Laredo Kid LLL 5/11/19

ER: We've been getting a little more current Santo footage poking its head out, an occasional handheld, and now he's actually doing more of a US tour. Phil got to take his son to see Santo live, and I saw him work a singles match against Ultimo Dragon a week ago. This tag was from London and I dig how Santo is a guy who finds a dance partner he likes, takes them around the horn, lays low for a couple years, then does it all over again. He did it earlier this decade with Mystico de la Juarez, did the same with Angel Blanco Jr., and Laredo Kid appears to be the new Santo dance partner, and that's cool. And the match is really fun, though I was left wishing they mixed it up more. Outside of one brief attempted unmasking, Santo and Juvy steered clear of each other, and after awhile I assumed the big match ending blowout was going to be the two of them finally going at it. They never did, and that's a shame because Juvy looked game as hell throughout, and outside of a post WCW rush of luchadors back into Mexico there aren't a ton of times we've seen Santo across from Juvy. Juvy still has an argument for best strikes in lucha (and easily in the discussion against anyone), as he's a guy with good enough chops, punches, and elbows that he could survive as a wrestler even when he body eventually begins to fail. I absolutely love how Juvy throws a chop, it's one of my favorite wrestling motions. He works well with Fantasma, hits a nice rana off the apron and really stays fired up throughout (though I was amused by him bumping to the floor and then getting of dodge to not take a potential Fantasma tope). Santo looked like Santo, rolled a bit with Laredo on the mat, hit a few wild pendulum armdrags, hit a great baseball slide dropkick to the floor, and hit his rolling senton/dive past the turnbuckles. His knees buckled after the senton and I believe that's the only time I've seen that happen, it's crazy to me that he's still doing that spot around the horn. This whole thing was clean and professional, but needed a hotter tercera to get bumped up to list. Santo squaring off and brawling with Juvy would have gotten it there. Somebody book that.

Neza Kid/Dragon Bane vs. Aramis/Auzter AAA 6/1/19

ER: I love seeing flyers go nuts on a lucha undercard, and here are four guys pulling off some bonkers spots while hot Neza crowd goes nuts. I will seek out any Freelance/Neza Kid stuff, and thanks to him I also got to discover the joy that is Dragon Bane. I'm confident I've never watched him before, but he impressed me here and I'll be watching more. He and Neza are technically the rudos, though this isn't muddled up by cheating or fast counts or anything like that; this is much more about the four of them hitting weirdo headscissors and flying into the crowd on dives. Auzter was pretty raw and had a little uncertainty, didn't quite know how to get from a to b, but the b usually looked good when he got there. Neza and Dragon were much more the glue, and Bane especially did a pretty awesome job of reining in Auzter, going over for some of his less thought out ideas, taking big hard bumps and spilling to the floor far too quickly. I dig this guy. Neza brings his unmistakable aim and grace, and he and Bane work overtime as we get a zillion superkicks from Aramis and Auzter, but a bunch of them look good! But people want dives and they deliver dives! Boy do they. Neza hits a couple of doozies, a huge Asai moonsault off the top to the floor that bends Aramis over the barricade, and later hits his gorgeous springboard hilo, bending both Aramis and Auzter over that barricade. Auzter hits a wild springboard tornillo, Aramis hits a crushing bullet tope that threatens to literally collapse the barricade while at the same time Dragon Bane hits a crazy multi jump moonsault, and later Dragon hits a huge twisting press off the top, crashing into everyone before the video just fades to black (disappointingly leaving us with no visible finish). So yeah, the dives were spectacular, and if we got an actual ending this would have likely landed on list.

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New Footage Friday: WCW Festival de Lucha

ER: This is one of those shows that I've heard about for 20 years, one of those shows that someone on a message board would pretend to have a copy of, cause a stir, and of course never actually follow through on getting the footage to anyone. It's one of those shows where people just wanted to see it more and more because they thought they would never get to see it, which is the best kind of Hidden Gems gift. And, excitingly, Super Boy is now officially on the WWE Network. Blessed. We get the fantastic mission-front set with traditional dancing, great pueblo set, ring valets all in traditional garb, and what sounds like a loud crowd who is into this. I'm there with them.

TOMK: It’s about time this showed up. You would have thought they would do this in September as some sort of Hispanic Heritage Month deal…but I’m not complaining about October.

MD: I'm dealing with some shifting watching situations that make annotations tricky currently (as in, I watched this show on a commuter bus over a few days), so the comments I provide will be general. Hopefully, Phil and Eric have the heavy lifting here.

I'm not going to say "Nitro lucha" is my least favorite lucha but it's certainly not my favorite. So many things that I've learned to love about lucha libre just aren't present. My remembrance with them is that you didn't really get memorable captain feuding or character driven pair-offs or momentum shifts with builds to comebacks. Clearly defined segments. Dives as means to a bigger end instead of ends in and of themselves.

It was distilled one-fall Lucha with some of the wrong things distilled.

That said, this entire show was a blast. So much of that was due to the setting, the dancers, the fact that they really just embraced this stuff instead of having it off to the side as a sideshow. On this show, these guys felt like stars. Top to bottom, too. You had Disco Inferno main eventing for maybe the only time of his career up until that point, and he felt natural in that role. Jericho felt larger than life, like a Buddy Rose type figure, and almost all the more charismatic or memorable luchadors felt like big deals.

And that was most of them. The talent pool here was great. You had a lot of the usual suspects: Villano III and V, La Parka, Psicosis, Juvi, Halloween and Damien, Hector Garza, Super Calo, Konnan and Rey, and the WCW contingent with Finlay, Smiley, Swinger/Lane etc. but you also had guys that didn't really show up in WCW like Felino, Pirata Morgan, Texano, Rey, Sr., and freaking Super Boy. Maybe coolest of all (not as cool as Super Boy, but...) we had new Blitzkrieg matches, and a bunch of unique pairings that you just didn't think you'd get.

Everything basically worked, from Jimmy Hart's Boricua first family to Jericho's foreign legion, to the fact guys seemed to trade between being rudos and tecnicos depending on the match. There was some sense of overkill or a lack of agenting. For example, I really liked the Juventud Guerrera, Pirata Morgan & Psicopata vs. Hector Garza, Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr. There was a pretty key story in there with a big fight for the top rope rana through the pairings and ultimately, a bigger fight for the Juvi driver, but in the next match on the taping, someone hit a top rope rana almost instantly, like it was nothing, and then I think a match later, someone hit a Juvi driver, of all things, just as a move. Even if these matches weren't all taped in the order they'd be filmed, that would have been a long term problem. That's not to say the matches didn't vary at all. Some had more thorough beatdowns (Especially the Damien/Halloween ones, I think), and others more comedy, but the general tenor of Nitro style lucha is "good action" and that's a lot of what this was.

Other random thoughts: Psicosis might have been the best masked rudo of his specific generation (guys born in the early 70s). He's so emotive, such a dick, able to play to the crowd, but also able to base so well and hit so much stuff. Juvi just really got it too. He integrated a lot more of US heel mannerisms and it was a good mix. I'm not super familiar with Salsero, but I'm amazed he didn't get himself more of a job out of this. He was playing a unique role and would have probably gotten over on a weekly basis in WCW as a clowning, joke-spot guy that could still go. Lots of clotheslines and DDTs on the show. It's a joy to watch the differences in the selling though: Blitzkrieg folds in half, Hector sails across the ring, and yeah, Disco makes sure to flail sell for quite a few seconds. There was at least one VIII decapitation of someone too. I thought Konnan worked surprisingly well in his trios match. I don't remember him working nearly that spritely in the late 90s. He also gave a lot for Disco who was giving his all. Heel Big Wiggle era Norman Smiley was a lot of fun and Jericho as a corner man made it all the better. I've seen rudo Rey Sr a few times lately (had mostly seen him as a tecnico) and he's just a great stooging pug base. I wanted to see Finlay, Blitzkrieg and Super Boy against literally everyone else on the show. I'm glad we had a few more matches than listed because it would have been a crime not to see Finlay in this setting.

I guess my biggest takeaway from it all is that I wish it had gone on for a while. 


Silver King/Venum/Kendo vs. Super Boy/Villano V/Felino

PAS: This would probably land in the lower half of WCW lucha trios, but it was still a ton of fun to see different guys work in this environment. Kendo's stuff fit in great in the sped up WCW lucha style, and his big tope looked awesome. Super Boy and Felino both looked great too, Felino was fully in his fastest luchador in the world prime, and Super Boy is an amazing short fat agile revelation. I have no idea why this didn't at least get them both WCWSN filler gigs. Venum Black looked not ready for prime time, he was tentative, and awkward, and even his big dive felt unsure.

TOMK: The EMLL announcers used to talk about Felino as one of fastest wrestlers in the world but you kind of forget how fast he could make an exchange look. Not sure if he’s actually “stop watch fast” or just knows how to make every move look sudden. It is a blast to watch Felino and Silver King working their fast exchanges. I think Super Boy and Silver King tried to do a ridiculous exchange near the end that had a 1/50 chance of working but if it did it would have blown every one’s mind and they were completely prepared for it possibly not working. Venum Black may have blown his leg on his dive near end.

ER: The Felino/King sections of this were really hot, and if this match just had their cool trips and ankle picks it would have been worth it. All of the Felino stuff was really great, and then you have Super Boy coming in and being the fast flippy fat guy who looks even more awesome taking falls, because his beautiful round belly looks great on the mat and his shirt always exposes it. It makes him look like when you'd KO King Hippo by punching him and making his pants fall off. Venum looked a step behind everyone but he did hit a wild dive at the end (which Tom thinks may have wrecked his leg). I have no clue what King and Super Boy were going for at the end, but it doesn't happen, and it was fun to see them pick up the pieces. I saw Super Boy work a flea market in the early 2000s, and he did a huge dive, crushed the two chairs in the row in front of me, and landed on my leg. It was great. 

ER: I am LOVING the Jimmy Hart Festival de First Family. What a great bunch of weird dudes, with American Wild Child mugging the whole time, Psicopata dragging around a blow up doll, and Pierroth yelling on the stick. I love Pierroth, and this late 90s period of Pierroth was really great. This was a stable I would have killed to see go up against the LWO. I'm just picturing Pierroth whipping everyone with his belt and hitting hard lariats on everyone. This is great.  

TOMK: Jimmy Hart comes out with his stable, Ricky Santana, Fidel Sierra, Pierroth, American Wild Child and Psicopata. Holy shit why couldn’t this have been a regular WCW stable. Pierroth gets the mic and explains that he is going to wear the Puerto Rican colors. And fuck it Pierroth really is the guy who I didn’t get at first but now when I see old footage absolutely can’t take my eyes off of him in a ring.

La Parka/Super Calo/Salsero vs. Halloween/Damien/El Mosco

PAS: Total fairgrounds lucha match, lots of classic shtick you can see at any small arena around Mexico, except performed by masters of the craft like Familia de Tijuana and Parka. Great stuff by Salsero too, who turned every move into a shake of the hip, and threw out a crazy top rope quebrada to the floor. Loved everyone missing an in ring dive, all of the stuff with the Kendo stick and Parka making the rudos dance to his tune. Usually WCW lucha wasn't this traditional, so it was a fun look into some stylistic differences between the matches.

TOMK: Salsero? Salsero? Of all the guys they brought in Salsero. I guess Salsero and Kendo come as package. But why would you want that package? For a little dancing followed by in ring tope and slapping rudos confusion comedy spots, Rayo is right there. This is mostly a match made by Halloween/Damien heel miscommunication spots and pretty much they are absolute kings of building a match around that.

ER: Damn this was fun. You show me this list of 6 names and Salsero would not be the guy I'd expect to be featured the most, but here we are. This whole match was full of schtick, and it was super welcome. And the pairings were all real fun, starting with Mosco and Calo. Mosco has a big high spinning heel kick, and later takes an amusing bump over the top off a Salsero dropkick. Salsero got to work a bunch of classic schtick, getting the rudos to attack each other (loved FdT ganging up on Mosco and Mosco swinging a chair at them), and boy did I not expect him hitting a gigantic top rope quebrada (to seemingly no reaction, on a show getting loud ass reactions from everything, that's weird). Halloween and Damien looked as good as usual, loved them getting outsmarted by La Parka at nearly every turn, and La Parka was so great at leaning into every single strike. I loved Parka's long  dance evasion from Halloween, ending in a perfectly timed mean slap from Halloween, and Parka was running so fast into Damien's corner boots, catching them right in the neck. This really got to unfold in a great way, and while it didn't hit anywhere near the peaks of WCW lucha sprints, it had a nice traditional charm that was felt throughout. 

  

Rey Mysterio Sr./Villano III/El Texano vs. Blitzkrieg/Piloto Suicida/Raul

PAS: Damn is Villano 3 a beast in this match, just a violent lucha machine, hard shots, great looking DDT, internal organ flattening senton, just a monster. Your tecnico team felt like a green tecnico team being carried by awesome rudos, and we had awesome rudos. I am surprised Blitzkrieg was as subdued as he was in this match, my memories of him were always just a lunatic breaking out crazy highspots, here he wasn't much crazier then Raul (whoever that was). Excited about the run in setting up a killer rudo battle later on the show.

TOMK: Who is Raul? Is that Zorro? Facially kind of looks it. I thought Zorro was a tad taller than that. Anyways this is a fucking Texano showcase match as he just beats the fuck out of everyone and throws himself around bumping and setting up face comebacks. Jimmy Hart’s team runs in at the end attacking both faces and heels and we get an awesome tease of Pierroth vs. Texano. Is Psicopata actually Mando at this point? He doesn’t really move like Mando…If WCW only had been willing to air this show we might have gotten a WCWSN main event Psicopata/Bad Street vs. Psycho/Killer and that would have turned everything around.

ER: Damn check out this Rey Mysterio Sr. showcase, what a brute who knew how to make green fliers looks formidable. He's someone who throws in extras, fills time nicely, a guy who needs to be spoken about in the same sentences as other era workrate lucha gods. I like how he throws in an extra spin while getting into position for a Piloto Suicida armdrag, and on the floor he eats a rana and purposely throws himself into the legs of the guardrail to make the bump look better. Oh but then you had his excellent rudo partners looking like all time asskickers. Villano III gets Blitzkrieg a WCW contract by crushing his ribs with a top rope senton, and Texano was the most explosive guy in the match throwing strikes as hard as his bumps. The thing falls apart in absolutely glorious fashion, I mean three tecnico dives that all miss in increasingly spectacular fashion, terrible catches and botched dives and the most incredibly ugly trainwreck you've seen. Raul (yeah who the hell IS Raul?) slips and dives head first straight into the floor, Piloto apparently pilots the plane on the cover of License to Ill, and Blitzkrieg takes a flip dive into nothing when Rey whiffs. I was so damn into this rudo team, but this ending was too funny. Post match Pierroth run-in made everybody in the match look like a lesser luchador though. It's unfair to people in the match to let Pierroth come in and beat the shit out of people as the last visual. 

Juventud Guerrera/Pirata Morgan/Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Hector Garza/Konnan

PAS: Juvy/Psicosis/Pirata Morgan is a absolute killer rudo team, and it is really cool to see all three of them have matchups with Rey Jr., all great exchanges worked at a high level. Konnan is also working super hard on this show. This was his big opportunity to headline a show, and he was delivering at the peak of his abilities (admittedly a low peak). Run in was fun, although weird they had run ins at two different matches.

TOMK: You forget how amazing Juventud was. Just the entire fucking package, has the crowd in the palm of his hand, able to do the workrate midcard lucha spotfest that was asked of everyone while also just slowing it down to get little things across. It is WCW, so of course they are going to do two matches with invading foreigner heel teams attacking Mexican faces and rudos for a finish. The heel stable of Finlay, Lenny Lane, Jericho, Kaz, Norman Smiley, Chavo and Johnny Swinger is bizarre but would have also liked to see that as a regular WCW stable. Well maybe not Swinger.

ER: Damn now look at THIS rudo team! This is definitely the high profile main event of episode 1, because that's a big time tecnico team too. Tecnicos were fine but this was a rudo bump showcase. Psicosis and Juvy are among the greatest most explosive bumpers of all time, and this was them compressed and burning bright. The way Juvy takes whip snap somersault bumps looks so great, he rolls up tight like Samus and just bounces off that mat. Psicosis bumps to the floor, onto his head, onto his stomach onto the floor, onto his head again, just dude being who he is. Even Pirata takes a totally preposterous somersault back bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the apron; the bump felt completely disconnected from the dropkick, sending him the totally opposite direction of where he should have bumped, but the dude somersaulted to the floor so who gives a fuck. No padding on the floor, no logic to the bump, but Morgan is here taking a hard bump to the floor on this taping.

The run in was totally badass and I LOVE the invading foreigners stable!!! What a kick ass gang of everybody-but-Mexicans. They're wearing light wash jeans with cuts ranging from "dad" to "Kaz Hayashi's Jncos", black sleeveless crop tops, woven belts, just throwing stomps and beating ass. This is what the stunt doubles would have looked like if there had been a Backstreet Boys Movie. It's so perfect. You can already see the hierarchy of the stable, with Lane, Swinger, and Kaz being the underlings who would actually get their asses kicked in trios matches before either Finlay or Jericho came out to cheat for them to win. Also Tom isn't excited for Johnny Swinger? Swinger is a guy who ate some of the worst beatings on 1997 WCW TV, he's the perfect guy to be the lowest totem pole guy in a stable. Somebody needs to take the ugliest beatings while the top guys escape. I hate that I never got to see this stable until now, and not more.


Juventud Guerrera/Felino/El Mosco vs. Piloto Suicida/Salsero/Raul

TOMK: Is El Mosco really wearing “Live Drug Free” on the back of his tights?” Really?

ER: This was pretty messy, and probably the weakest of the show so far. Felino doesn't vibe really well with Piloto, Salsero breaks out a nice tope con giro and STILL gets no reaction (his dives are like the only ones that get met with silence, it's like people enjoy his shtick but then get mad when he breaks out actual impressive highflying), but this is 100% a showcase for Juventud. Juvy is a genuine frontrunner for best chops in wrestling history. That sentence is not hyperbole. Juvy's chops are the fastest and feel like the best representation of the term "knife edge". His chops absolutely slice and hit harder than the chops of men twice his size. He does have the curse of overly visible frustration when things go wrong, and things can go wrong with a green face team, but there is still gold here. Juvy hits a real hard missile dropkick and Piloto takes a nice classic rolling lucha bump through the ropes, Juvy drops a great springboard legdrop, hits his great spinning rana off the top, basically Juvy on offense could do no wrong. But we do get a real bizarre finish, as Juvy calls for the Juvy Driver, picks up Piloto Suicida, and then drops him twice in a row. Maybe it was supposed to look like Piloto was blocking it? He did eventually get a kinda roll up nearfall, but it just looked like Juvy kept blowing the spot. I really don't think that's what they were going for. 

Kaz Hayashi/Psicosis/Ron Rivera vs. La Parka/Blitzkrieg/Kendo

TOMK: Why is Kaz in this match? He’s in the Jericho outsider stable but just a regular rudo here? They only had one taping and still couldn't keep booking straight? Kaz really leans into all of Kendo’s stuff nicely and the two RPW guys work match up and know how to work their spots together. Parka is over and kind of weird to see him getting this much of a showcase in all these matches when I don’t think he ever got this much of a taste at any other time in WCW. Wait, they were aware that he was super charismatic and can carry a face team on charisma? They knew?

ER: Parks was given a WCW showcase in several ways that other luchadors were not. On the WCW/nWo Revenge game - the highest selling wrestling game on the Nintendo 64 - La Parka was one of only a few luchadors included in the game (Rey, Psicosis, Juvy, Chavo and Eddie if you count them as luchadors), which had a really large roster for video games at the time. And Parka was presented as separate from the "cruiser" luchadors, the only luchador other than Konnan who was lumped in with the heavyweights in the game (tantamount to guys like Barbarian, Stevie Ray, and Yuji Nagata). He was presented separately and as a potential breakout star, and they seemed to know it was a good idea to feature him more in matches and give him side angles to work his gimmick...and yet they seemingly had the coldest possible feet about pushing him as an actual singles star. It made no sense. They knew, but they didn't know. Highlights of this match were Kaz really making all of Kendo's headscissors look great, a great Blitzkrieg dive followed by a big twisting La Parka dive, and Blitzkrieg hitting a big phoenix splash for the win. Blitzkrieg was a cool part of wrestling 1999, and I love that we're getting a little more added to his story. He's a total cult fave, indy white guy shows up as an out of nowhere unknown in WCW one episode of Nitro, gets over immediately when he's treated like a peer by Misterio, and has maybe 30 matches total on tape. He was a nostalgic part of my teen wrestling fandom, and now we get like 10% more Blitzkrieg appearances than previously existed. That's awesome.

Rey Mysterio Sr./Villano III/Villano IV/El Texano vs. Pierroth Jr./Fidel Sierra/Ricky Santana/Psicopata

TOMK: There was some nice Pierroth and Fidel Sierra stuff, but this wasn’t going to live up to my expectations. I was also expecting a big Hart bump, and instead Hart was subdued. He felt like a watered down Andy Barrow.

PAS: I loved this, it was rudo vs rudo and kept up a really killer pace. Pierroth is rocking an amazing Soul Glo Jheri Curl and every time he throws a chop activator juice flies all over his opponent. Psicopata was all over the ring and the outside, stooging, flipping to the floor, bumping huge, total barrel of energy. Really different from a normal WCW lucha match, and I dug that difference.

ER: This lineup is far and away the match I am most excited about on the show. Tom is right that it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations, but damn did I think this was just great. This was our Pierroth showcase match of the evening, and this was an evening that benefitted from a Pierroth showcase match. He was throwing the best punches of the show, kicks to dicks, and the best non-Juvy chops. He came off like a total boss against a very badass team. We got a lot of simple brawling, and it was satisfying as hell. Villano III gets some nearfalls that the ref keeps missing, including a gorgeous small package off of a delayed vertical suplex, and we get an actual powder in the face spot for the finish!! Hell yeah! There was so much powder!!

Rey Mysterio Jr./Silver King/Hector Garza/Konnan vs. Chris Jericho/Norman Smiley/Johnny Swinger/Lenny Lane

TOMK: I think there may have been a good Black Magic vs. Silver King exchange but this was messy.

ER: My god who is the Festival de Lucha girl accompanying Rey? Jesus. And this foreigners stable is so much gold. I love every single stable at the Festival de Lucha tapings!! Every single stable in this 75 minutes has been something I want to watch weekly!

Felino/Psicosis/El Mosco vs. Super Calo/Blitzkrieg/Venum Black

TOMK: Venum Black’s leg is fucked and he comes into this match hobbling. The whole match is just super impressive to watch this guy work a match on one wheel. Should he have worked this match? Should an agent have put someone else in? Whatever. Super Calo does my favorite Super Calo thing where he eats a clothesline by landing on the top of his skull.

Fit Finlay/Kaz Hayashi/Norman Smiley/Johnny Swinger vs. La Parka/Hector Garza/Kendo/Raul

TOMK: I really liked this match. This is hidden gem that you didn’t know you wanted. Kaz’s offense looks great and he sells and bumps to make Raul look like a bad ass. Eats a real nasty piledriver from Raul. Parka gets extended exchanges with Finlay and a dance off and exchanges with Smiley and hits a tope that takes Swinger’s head off. Garza gets some cool stuff in opposite Smiley as well, Swinger and Kendo keep each other occupied, and it’s a cool finish.

PAS: This was really fun, so awesome to watch Finlay and Parka beat on each other. I can imagine an alternate universe where this show was successful and these two had the greatest Apuestas match in wrestling history. Jericho was really fun as a douche on the outside heat seeking. Parka and Smiley had a fun dance off too, honestly Parka is so great he can have dope exchanges with everyone on this roster.

Super Boy/Halloween/Damian 666 vs. Rey Misterio Jr./Piloto Suicida/Salsero

TOMK: This I liked too. A bunch of Halloween/Damien stooging, miscommunication stuff, and you get to see the California guys match up and showcase what they can do together. I really wish Rey vs. Halloween was a WCW series at any point cause it is a cool match up…plus there was an ESTRELLA!!!!

PAS: Really fun stuff, Super Boy has to have some of the biggest missed potential of anyone in the 90s, and it is cool that we get to see a little more of what he could do. Halloween and Damian 666 are such pros and they make everything the tecnicos do look great.

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RIP Silver King, Pt. 2

Silver King/Juventud Guerrera vs. Kaz Hayashi/Blitzkrieg WCW Thunder 10/21/99

ER: This is a fairly infamous WCW TV match, where they let these four go fast for 10 minutes and everyone broke out new and crazy offense. Blitzkrieg is just as much fun in 2019 as he was in 1999, a guy much more in line with Amazing Red than a few dozen Red clones that came after both. He was constantly moving forward and always coming up with some fresh attack, occasionally getting hung up but more like how the best short stops are the most aggressive short stops. Derek Jeter may have barely made errors, but he also didn't get to anywhere near as many balls as Jack Wilson. I'll take Wilson. Blitzkrieg is one of those great flyers who throw nice strikes and stiff shots in between their spots so it actually ties things together, instead of just moving to new spots. He gets great height on offense and really leans into Silver King beating the shit out of him. And King looks incredible here. He hits the highest flapjack possible on Blitzkrieg, throws these super high and violent knee lifts, stiff kicks, his great flipping legdrop, really helps Blitzkrieg through a couple tough spots, hits a gorgeous double springboard moonsault, just a total superstar showcase for King. But if King looks like a superstar here, then I suppose that would make Juvy a megastar. Juvy probably has a pretty solid claim at being the #1 wrestler in 1999 WCW, and this match is one of his masterpieces. He glues this whole thing together and really keeps all the parts moving, really keeps segments sharp by hitting a ton of wicked knife edge chops, snaps off impossible ranas, makes all of Kaz/Blitzkrieg's offense absolutely soar, I mean he and King should have gotten pushed to the moon after this. This whole thing holds up remarkably well. It's a fantastic spotfest that reads as well as classic M-Pro or the JAPW stuff not far after. The flying still looks tremendous, with Kaz hitting a crazy height Asai moonsault to the floor and making it back in time to break up the pin after King's epic moonsault, and there's bananas stuff that is crazy enough that it would still seem crazy in 2019, like King picking up Blitz for a powerbomb but getting hit with a Kaz missile dropkick, causing him to then take a reverse rana over the top to the floor. I mean my god. This is rightly a legendary WCW b-sides match, as fun as ever.

Silver King/El Dandy vs. Dean Malenko/Saturn WCW Thunder 10/28/99

ER: This was a fairly thankless performance for King/Dandy, but I thought it was important as it was the first TV appearance of Dandy and King as a team, and I love that they ended up getting a little TV push because of the team. Malenko and Saturn swallow them up for a lot of this, though we get a great moment down the stretch where Dandy hits a big missile dropkick and punches Saturn in the face. Saturn and Malenko (and Benoit) were getting a big EDGY push at this point, so the match was definitely designed to be their showcase, and they looked good! They looked like two guys who should get showcased. Malenko even punches Dandy with a chain wrapped around his fist, which is a very weird thing to see Malenko doing. This whole thing was more than worth it just for King getting murdered with an absolutely insane Demolition Decapitation, with Saturn hitting a brutal kneedrop while King was draped over Malenko's knee. That King agreed to take it at all is all the proof you need of his legendary status.

Silver King/El Dandy vs. Kaz Hayashi/La Parka WCW Thunder 11/11/99

ER: Give these four a tight 5 and watch what they can do! Total blast, the first half is basically Park working misdirection spots around King/Dandy, doing goofy dancing, making King accidentally punch Dandy, moving away from offense and then mocking them; but King hits a big dropkick while Park is dancing, and we get a funny moment where Park hits an awesome lariat and then goes for his headlock takeover/headscissors on both of them...and Dandy just drops him to the mat and puts the boots to him. Why hasn't anybody else ever thought of that? Los Fabulosos work nicely together and Dandy was given a lot to do here, really showing off a couple nice bumps but looking tough as hell on offense. Both were great at integrating Parka's comedy into things, and the Park/Kaz team playing chair guitar was weirdly something that could have had legs. I coulda watched these teams match up all the time.

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