Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! COTA~! WAGNER~! SATANICO~! GARZA~! PANTERA~! CARAS~! FIERA~!

Bronco/Máscara Mágica/Pantera vs. Astro Rey Jr./Guerrero De La Muerte/Mocho Cota CMLL 2/23/96

MD: Roy's uploaded a bunch recently and we'll hit some of it. I'm not going to say no to new Mocho Cota, even 1996 Mocho Cota. He's a step slow, but what he does with that step is still great. He'll bump to the floor off a dropkick and then careen towards a little kid, halting at the last moment and menacing him with his missing fingers. What a guy. He also fed into rudo miscommunication as you'd imagine, so they kept things brisk, moving, and fun. According to Rob, this was a couple of weeks before Pantera jumped to AAA. He was matched up with Guerrero here early and looked good the whole way through, especially down the stretch where he got to stand tall at the end with the last pairing, post-dives, hit a great dive of his own, and then come back in to win the thing, which is honestly not a structure you usually see. He also drove the comeback, so he was certainly being featured. Mascara Magica was paired with Cota and they did ok, even if you got the sense that maybe he was still trying to figure it out a bit. You take Pantera and Cota out of this one and it wouldn't be as engaging (even if they did wildly different things) but as is, I enjoyed it.

Los Brazos vs. Negro Casas/Dr Wagner Jr./Rambo CMLL 3/15/96

MD: Apparently Brazo de Plata and Negro Casas really wanted to work with each other on this night, because they put on one hell of a show. Porky's fist was laser focused to Casas' face and it was great. Just the most brutal, mean-spirited, single-minded punches you'll see, no matter if Casas was standing, on the ground, in the ropes. And of course, Casas would just slide back into the ring at full speed only to get walloped again. They had an early exchange too where Casas did a reverse leg sweep and then Porky did the same in return. Great stuff. Porky had his shoulders bandaged and that made him a target overall. They primera had a great bit where the rudos, two at a time, tossed one Brazo after the next off the top rope. Then they tried Porky with all three and got squashed and pinned. Perfect comic build and timing. The segunda had them really hone in on Porky's shoulder, double teaming him and forcing hum to the floor. The remaining Brazos held their own for a bit, but Rambo pulled out an object and bloodied El Brazo and it became an inconclusive mauling. This was great while it lasted though.

ER: You go into this excited to see whatever happens between Super Porky and Negro Casas and then all of the Porky/Casas interactions turn out to be even better than you expected. The whole thing is great but everything that Porky and Casas do - especially to each other - is better than you expect and that means it's all time great. There is one especially great exchange between them that is like extravagant lucha morphing into shootstyle. No, this isn't UWFi, but damn when Porky gets swept and ankle picks Casas on his way down I flipped. Porky aimed carefully guided punches at Casas's face a dozen different times and Casas kept falling for them in bigger and bigger ways. Porky would knock Casas down and lean his weight on him and throw punches from half mount. It all builds to one of the most incredible ways to end a caida, when the rudos press slam El Brazo and Oro off the top turnbuckle. Two men handled them, but all hands were required on deck to press Porky. They all backed him into the corner and Porky started throwing potato shots at everyone, flat footed lefts and rights. Casas gets hit so square that he banana peels all the way to the opposite corner. When all three rudos finally get underneath Porky to slam him, they wind up crushed underneath. 

The segunda shows Porky as one of wrestling's great Targets. Rambo and Casas target his taped up shoulder. Injured Porky is one of my favorite salesmen in wrestling, his movements feel so suddenly real but delivered by the incomparable physique of Porky. He has one of the most sympathetic faces in wrestling (and here he doesn't even cry!) and the way he plops on his butt and kicks his legs while Negro and Rambo and stomping and kicking him is like a giant baby getting stomped out. 

Rambo is always great in matches like this. He's great during bumping for tecnicos (loved him hopping on his back across the ring after a Brazo de Oro quebradora) and then becomes the most violent rudo during the segunda. His wrapped fist shot to Oro was so good it held up in slo motion, and when he gigs El Brazo he really gets the blood flowing. Rambo knows several ways to open a cut, slamming Brazo's face into his boot in the corner as blood gets all over it, then starts kneeing him directly in the cut repeatedly. I wish the DQ had happened in the tercera so we got the full set of falls, but this was great stuff.   

Dos Caras/Héctor Garza/La Fiera vs. Bestia Salvaje/Dr Wagner Jr./Satánico CMLL 4/3/96

MD: The primera here was a super fun two minutes. First Caras and Fiera mowed through Bestia and Satanico with double teams, including a Hart Attack of sorts on Satanico. Then Wagner got the better of them with a flying double clothesline and Garza flew around for him before hitting a clutch roll up. From there, they did one of those multiman submissions where the third guy kneels on the shoulders of the person/people being stretched. You almost never see the tecnicos doing that and Garza paid for his hubris with Wagner pulling him off so he took a nasty bump into the ropes and then got posted, but the tecnicos still took the caida. 

The segunda started with in and out exchanges, with Wagner getting the best of Fiera and then everyone basing for Garza (who had to make frequent comebacks admittedly). They went around with it until Wagner ended up dangling from the ropes on a great bump/stooge spot, before the rudos finally took over. Wagner finished Garza off with both a superplex and a top rope splash, one after the other, doing it all himself (well, Satanico held Garza down at the end, not that it was needed). The beatdown that followed was short and nasty, with Satanico driving his foot into Garza's groin as the other rudos held him and chewing on his fingers. He meandered too close into the tecnico corner and they turned it around for some final exchanges, some rudo miscommunication, and then a triumphant tecnico victory including Wagner walking around forever with Caras on his shoulder holding an armbar before they finally rolled forward. As fun as you'd expect with guys this talented. 

ER: This had a great ramshackle feel to it. Tight rudo team who all had different ways of bumping cool in a large flat CMLL ring. It's a powerhouse rudo team with three workers who were all cool in different ways in 1996. Wagner got to show off his power, Bestia got to show off his speed and his grace while being built like Vincent Pastoricito, Satanico got to show off his cunning and sadistic leadership. But where they're at their best, is coming together to assault sweet young Héctor Garza. I don't know why Garza's magic didn't work in the United States. You watch his work in Mexico before his US run and his tecnico connection to crowds is so obvious, and it's just not there in WCW or WWF. His babyface presence and charisma mostly vanished on US TV. 

He was brought in to both WWF and WCW with plans on making him one of the pushed ones among his niche, but both bailed on him quickly. In WWF he was a two month foreign babyface firebrand, a busted experiment that stumbled so the later-that-year Taka Michinoku foreign babyface firebrand push. He was given the big solo in all the early WCW trios matches but never connected as even a top 5 luchador babyface with any WCW crowds. The charisma always instantly returned in Mexico and it's evident here. Any time the rudos focus on Garza the match becomes laser focused and Important. He is a tecnico muse to each rudo and inspires them to increased punishment. Satanico and Wagner seem like they take joy in assaulting Garza and I think Garza connects the way he does with Mexico crowds because some felt that sadistic joy and either felt he deserved it for being too pretty while other felt he was too pretty to deserve it. Wagner's top rope superplex and Superfly splash on on him was a real highlight, some real Welcome to the Big Leagues moment, and Garza in Mexico was still great at being the victim of those moments several years into his career. 

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Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! LOVE MACHINE~ BEYER~! LUBICH~!

Dick Beyer vs. Bronco Lubich NWA Upstate 1962

MD: Just watching them get introduced, I half wondered if this really was Beyer. We couldn't get close enough to see the nose and the frame from a distance seemed a bit off even for the youngest Beyer I would have seen, but no, within the first few seconds, he gets Lubich in a full nelson and repeatedly slams his head in the top rope and that was enough to convince me. I'd continued to be convinced as the match went on. He wrestled with incredible confidence and presence and ingenuity and imagination. That's Dick Beyer.

He was given the Destroyer gimmick this year so this was towards the end of him wrestling unmasked. Lubich was longer in the tooth and may have even been more managerial. They mention a birthday cake at the start (a birthday cake angle in 1962!) and Poffo (presumably Angelo) as allied with Lubich but hard to say exactly what was going on there. If it's documented somewhere I'd love to hear about it. This was all about Beyer having his way with Lubich though, with Bronco finding ways to get some shots in at the margins. For instance, Beyer dropped him into the leg nelson (with quickfire legwhacks) but right on the rope break, Bronco was on him. Or Beyer got him with an airplane spin but when he went for the second, Lubich grabbed the rope and landed on him. Or after a Giant Swing, Lubich rolled out and was able to ambush Beyer and drive his head into the side of the ring.

Lubich was credibly tough but Beyer looked like the best wrestler in the world and kept on him, finally beating him with a rolling bodyscissors sort of deal and a dropkick. Just a great look at Beyer in 62 right before he'd become the Destroyer.

ER: I wonder if there were any Sell The Arm fans in 1962 Buffalo who were upset at the ways Lubich never paid much mind to Dick Beyer standing and stomping and dropping knees onto his arm and shoulder. Some smart guy in Buffalo rolling his eyes after Dick Beyer gets run the length of the ring apron and flies off into the ringpost, because Bronco was in the ring holding up both arms instead of rubbing his shoulder. Maybe that man existed, because if Dick Beyer was moving like this in 1962 Buffalo then I'd believe anything. Beyer was so far ahead of his time and moved like no other American wrestler, so quick and crafty while built like a spark plug, an acrobat with thump. I love the desperate little ways Lubich tries to stop the onslaught, with his only chance briefly shifting his weight by grabbing for the ropes. If he wasn't a manager, it was a great "wrestling like a manager" performance against one of the coolest to do it. 

Los Brazos vs. Jaque Mate/Dusty Wolfe/The Viking Monterrey 1992

MD: I have no idea who the Viking is. I know it's our job to figure this stuff out for you but no idea. Past one fun staggering bump into the corner off a Porky headbutt, we don't really care about him anyway. Dusty Wolfe is doing his best Jimmy Jack Funk impression with a silly mask but we don't really care about him either in this one. We're laser focused on El Brazo and Jaque Mate, because right from the get go, Mate opens Brazo up and never, ever looks back.

Brazo spends a chunk of this out on the floor bleeding buckets. They seem almost reluctant to put the camera on him before he towels off which is something I'm not sure I've ever really seen in lucha from this era. That's how much blood we're talking about. And while Mate's happy to beatdown the other Brazos with his compatriots, he makes sure to come back out to do more damage. At one point he goes for a chairshot and a fan puts a chair up to try to block it. They even play music to try to rouse the Brazos.

Eventually, Viking tosses El Brazo back in and he goes wild, crashing across the ring, rubbing his own blood on his fist to use it as a weapon, tearing at Mate's mask and then opening him up on the outside. It's a great Brazos comeback but ends abruptly with a Mate foul that the refs miss and the rudos taking it. Great bloody mayhem here.

ER: What a world. Exhausted on a Friday night, I throw this on and am taken away to another world where somebody's 1992 Monterrey tape survived and we get a perfect color distorted tracking lined masterpiece that may as well have been from another dimension. This is a bloody match even within the annals of bloody lucha matches, with Brazo's entire face and torso covered in blood maybe two minutes in, and a long primera beatdown where Porky and Oro also get busted open. It's an all time bizarre rudo team as Jaque Mate recruits two real American goobers - longtime WWF job guy Dusty/Dale Wolfe and another guy doing a truly great job Bad Brody impression - and they all punch the shit out of Los Brazos. I actually liked The Viking as a poor man's Sylvester Terkay, and I thought Wolfe did a real good job punching and scraping away at Porky. Wolfe's punches to bust Porky open were on point and he kept doing a bunch of cool things to work over a cut, like scraping his boot eyelets across Porky's face. 

But yes, the real show is the brutal beating El Brazo takes at the hands of Mate, and the way the crowd physically rallied behind a man completely covered in blood. Men in white dominant polo shirts are coming to Brazo's aid as he's trying to catch his breath and maintain his balance, and then things get surreal when they start playing music mid-match. With the hazy video and choppy tracking, it feels like another channel is bleeding over into ours. Brazo is bleeding out and suddenly an angelic choir is playing over the top of it and it elevates everything to high art. Porky and Oro were great at taking secondary beatings throughout, knowing their brother was the show but not content with hanging back and out of the way. Porky was still in there taking backdrops and getting worked over by both Americans. The Brazos comeback in the Segunda, with a primera dragged out long enough to build that anticipation, was shockingly brief and even more shockingly ended in a Brazos loss. We never get the full satisfaction of Wolfe or Viking getting busted open, even if we get Porky and Oro throwing headbutts that look like they should open cuts. As we eagerly await these American goons getting squashed in various ways by Porky, Jaque knees Brazo in the balls for an undignified loss, music still playing, his brothers confused. Now we need another 30+ year old Monterrey tape to surface that has Los Brazos' bloody revanche.   

Love Machine/Apolo Dantes/La Fiera vs. Negro Casas/Hijo del Solitario/Stuka Monterrey 

MD: Stuka was a replacement for Black Magic. Everyone else was fine in this one, but this was the Casas vs Love Machine show. Two dynamic, imaginative wrestlers, who knew how to mug and make the most of things. You always see something new with both of them and they were matched up here. We start with Casas beating down Love Machine with a table, including jumping on it repeatedly from the apron with it on top of him. Later on, Love Machine gets some great revenge, taking Casas's head and driving it down into the ground from the apron before chasing him into the crowd. And then towards the end, we get the spot that closes the circle, with Love Machine basically punching the table towards Casas. It's just a joy to watch these guys do their thing. Completely iconic stuff.

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New Footage Friday: CMLL Juicio Final 12/2/95

Parts of this show have flickered on and off on the internet over the years, but we get the three big matches all in one place so we can write about them!

El Dandy/La Fiera vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera 

PAS: My dream version of this match has Panther and Dandy getting a long chance to work the mat, and then building to a climax. This wasn't that, much more a traditional rudo vs. technico brawl, with the rudos bloodying Dandy and the technicos making fiery comebacks. These are four all-timers, so that kind of traditional lucha brawl is going to be elevated when it's El Dandy throwing the big shots. Pretty intense match from the start, so we don't get much shtick from Fuerza, although there is a great moment of him celebrating a spin kick, only to get enzigiried while he is raising his hands in glory. Fiera hits his beautiful over the top tope, Panther and Fuerza get their mask ripped and we end up in a technico triumph. Very enjoyable stuff, although maybe not the classic it looks like on paper.

MD:  This was technically for the Mexican National Tag Team Titles and was supposed to be Juvi with his dad but they had a falling out and it became this instead. No one's going to complain about Panther being in there. After some immediate, still wearing ring jackets, tecnico fire, this got to the beatdown quickly with Fiera accidentally hitting the spin kick on Dandy and then getting reversed right into Panther's feet in a great spot. Dandy bled shortly thereafter with a shot into the post. Panther went right to biting the wound to set the mood (with Fuerza being Fuerza and fouling Fiera simultaneously, also setting the mood). They had some fun tandem offense, like an elevated faceplant and working together to toss Dandy off the top by his hair. The mid-90s Panther who hangs out with Fuerza and bites a guy in the head and poses and stooges freely (the big transition was Dandy ducking a shot and Panther running into Fiera's foot on the outside and selling it like he got his jaw dislocated) is one of my favorite versions of the guy; what range, right? The tecnico revenge had everything you'd want: the image of bloody Dandy standing over Panther and ripping his mask, Dandy's punches, Fiera's spin kick, one guy setting the other up for offense including a huge Dandy smack on the side of the ring, people fouling Fuerza, etc. before rolling into some really fun match up moments and spots for the finish.


El Hijo Del Santo vs. Negro Casas -EPIC

PAS: This has to be in contention for the best in-ring series in wrestling history, so when I get to see a new one it is a mitzvah. We get an entire first fall of matwork and it is brilliant stuff, lots of twisting and reversing leglocks and armlock, they do a really cool section based on a top wristlock, Santo has his signature headscissors counter and wins the first fall with a facebuster into a sick armlock for the tap. Absolutely top tier mat work, two perfect grapplers at the top of their game. Casas works the neck in the segunda with a pair of nasty neckbreakers and a seated torture rack for the win. Third fall remained in the ring, remained primarily a grappling battle, there was a ton of little cool moments, things that Negro Casas brings to a wrestling match. There is a point where Santo tries to snap mare Casas, 999 of a 1000 times that is a throw away transition move, but here Casas uses a wide base to block the snap mare twice before Santo is able to power him over. So cool, and an example of the high end brilliance of both guys. This was a less complete match then some of their other super classics, this was all scientific and wrestling based, this is one of the only Santo matches I can remember seeing with out any of his signature dives, and we never got into the violence that both guys can bring, but the tune they did play was perfect. 

MD: Straight title match between the two. Casas escalated things with an elbow drop out of nowhere and some strikes in the segunda to answer the end of the first fall but otherwise, this was relatively clean. Unsurprisingly, it was really good too. I loved all of the little bits of maneuvering for leg grapevines and reversals in the primera. Casas whipped these double arm flips throughout, one leading to the tercera's finish but another setting up a cool little reverse monkey flip early on. One of the best truths in wrestling is that you'll almost always see something new in a Casas match. Here, for me, it was him using his knee jammed hard into Santo's back to escape the bridging cross-footed (Mascaras) headscissors. Santo's seated arm driver into a armbar ended the primera and it's such an underrated move. You always kind of forget he has it until he uses it. They turned up the speed for the tercera and I could have maybe used one or two more near-falls, but the Casita not ending things was a shocking enough moment to make up for it. Post-match there were challenges, but nothing would come of that for another couple of years.


Bestia Salvaje vs. Satanico vs. Hector Garza

MD: We come in with Bestia taking a huge bump into the post. It's a matter of time after that, with Satanico beating him around the ring until he got a little bit of hope but missed a somersault senton and got tied up in the Knot. Garza vs Satanico was a nice little preview of the singles apuestas match to come. Satanico was sure to get all of his advantages off of Garza missing moves due to youthful exuberance. There was a nice hope spot int here where Garza kicked him out of the ring on a Knot attempt and then hit a dive, but he kept missing his follow-ups The third or fourth time Satanico ducks a move, he faked the foul as well and the place comes unglued as it the ref fell for it. Bestia vs Garza gives Hector a surprise nearfall to start, but he's quickly fouled leading to an extended bloody high stakes beatdown. Bestia bleeds even better on the comeback, with some scrapping preceding Garza getting in all of his big dives. This fell apart just a little towards the end with Garza looking hesitant or lost at times, but the crowd went up for the finish and ultimately the match did its job. Garza came out of it with a big win and looking like he had a shot to defeat Satanico two weeks later and save his hair, but maybe not a very big one. If nothing else, Bestia got a well deserved payday.

PAS: The Satanico parts of this match are nice little aperitifs for a bloody banquet of a main event. It was worked as a sprint, and a great one. Both guys are opened up and you would expect and this was a showcase for Bestia's world beating offense. He hits a tope which was more like a flying lariat to the floor and a senton splash which was Togoesque. Garze seems a bit green at this point, but had some really big moments of his own including his corkscrew plancha and a quebrada which totally brained Bestia. Maybe could have used a couple more minutes to milk drama a bit, but this was a heck of a showdown, and a great chance to see two under appreciated greats get a big showcase moment. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE RIVALS 

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New Footage Friday: GUERREROS! PANTERA! APACHE! CASAS! FIERA! PIERROTH!

Los Guerreros Del Futuro (Damian El Guerrero/Guerrero del Futuro/Guerrero Maya) vs El Pantera/Filoso/Triton 9/7/93 - FUN

PAS:Solid workman like trios match and a chance to see Black Terry under a mask work this style. Pantera add the flash to the match with a bunch of flips and ranas. Terry(Maya) threw some big overhand chops and clotheslines. Felt more like a time filler then a standout match, but a pleasant way to fill some time.

MD: Perfectly fine trios here, from the Back to the Future music at the start to a motion-heavy finish. As Pantera pops up in this footage, I consistently like what I see. He had the best primera exchange with Futuro, though it also had the most time too. They started with a fun little head-to-head shoving match and moved onto solid matwork with good bridges from Pantera. He also had a nice moonsault press and unique step up wheel kick during the comeback. We didn't get much Maya (Black Terry) there, which was a shame. Really, past a few hard shots, his biggest contribution to the match was being in the right place for the stooging spots later on. The beatdown was fairly subdued, as they kept one rudo in the ring for most of it and kept things in their corner. The match never really exploded but it always kept moving.



El Mestizo/Gran Apache vs Escudero Rojo/Reyes Veloz 9/7/93

MD: It feels good to watch something with stakes and emotions and a hot crowd. This had a lot going for it, three heel control segments (which means three comebacks), Apache putting it all out there, his punches, an exciting, high-stakes finishing stretch, blood and guts. I really liked the end of the primera. The rudos had ambushed at the start and it looked like they were going to get the nod on a double stretch, but Apache came in with a dropkick on both guys. He then laid out one with an awesome punch and teased a dive outside only to turn it into a moonsault back into the ring as Mestizo hit a flip dive off the apron. The second beatdown came after an errant Apache punch which fed into the end of the segunda where once they got the rudos held for the shots, they just didn't stop and get DQed. One nitpick here is that I would have liked some color on the rudos here to help justify the weight of the DQ. Apache and Mesitzo bled (and got their wounds worked over) but the rudos never did. The tercera ended up as a one-on-one fairly quickly and had some pretty exciting post-dive countout teases and near falls, before the finish, where after a couple of missed leaps off the top, Apache had to chase his opponent down before hanging on and dropping him with a German. This is pretty much what you can reasonably hope for when a lost mid-card apuestas match shows up.


PAS: I think the work in this match was pretty basic, although the drama of the hair stipulation and the blood really brought the entire presentation up a big notch. I agree the technicos getting DQ'ed in the segunda was a little weird, this is an apuestas match, the ref has to give them a bit of rope. The third fall was an extended Apache vs. Rojo singles match, which had some real drama to it, interesting to see Apache here, as he really would go on to great things, he wasn't exactly a youngster but this is definitely some of the earliest footage we have of him.

Chamaco Valaguez/Faraón Jr/Oro vs Arkángel de la Muerte/Cachorro Salvaje/Drako 9/10/93

MD: Drako was some mysterious and short-lived North American in the gimmick. We're not sure who. I don't have an answer after watching this but I thought he had solid presence and size with a fairly potent knee shot. They built up a mystique of him going at it with Faraon, Jr. too with some pretty engaging pre-match theatrics. Guys eat falls in CMLL due to the 2/3 structure and he did fall to a German in the segunda but got his heat back (I guess) by getting DQed by wrenching Faraon's head on the top rope in the tercera. It was pretty unfulfilling. Oro was pretty over and had good energy. I liked how big a jerk Cachorro was. Arkangel hit an amazing sit out Rock Bottom to help end the segunda. Drako seemed competent enough that they could have run further with the gimmick. Maybe someday we'll know the story there.

Atlantis/La Fiera/Pierroth Jr vs Black Magic/Mano Negra/Negro Casas 9/10/93


MD: Fantastic stuff. This was building to the Anniversary show, where both Fiera and Casas and Mano Negra and Atlantis would have apuestas matches. They billed Casas, Magic, and Mano Negra as La Ola Negra, which I hadn't heard before. They do tag a handful of times between 92 and 94. This constantly entertaining with the fans very much into it. Fiera is such a perfect Casas opponent, gritty and tough, but with so many different kicks, all of which look good and Casas is so good at dodging one only to eat the next, that sort of thing. Atlantis and Mano Negra brought plenty of hate too, all the way to the mask ripping at the end. The beatdowns were glorious, the comebacks were earned and heated. There was an awesome bit where they picked up Fiera and drove him head first into the first row chairs before tossing Atlantis into the crowd and post match Fiera got revenge on Casas by doing the same. Pierroth and Magic were ok as bit players but this was really about the other four and made me want to go back and watch the 93 Anniversary show again.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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New Footage Friday: RUDGE~! KIDO! ANDRE! FELINO! CASAS! DANDY! FIERA! TEEN EXCITEMENT! WOLFIE! RIP JOCEPHUS!

Andre The Giant/Terry Rudge vs. Osamu Kido/Seiji Sakaguchi NJPW 10/2/76 - GREAT

MD: Unearthed gem where we get all but the first eight minutes, giving us around twenty as a whole. There's almost too much to cover here, and you should just watch it, but the two biggest elements to me were Andre's dynamism and the way Rudge grounded things and kept them along standard tag lines. That is, it'd be bad enough to have to face a heel Andre that would deadlift you from the mat, pick you up off the top and toss you of, or that made every chinlock look downright terrifying (especially when he'd lift you off the ground with it and just hang you there), but you were also dealing with Rudge who, working with Andre, would cut off the ring and draw Sakaguchi in to distract the ref. Basically, things just didn't get better even when Andre got out; I mean, they did, obviously, but not nearly enough. When it was time for Andre and Rudge to clown and stooge, it was Andre with huge, incredibly visual, incredibly engaged bumping. They even did an alley oop spot with Andre caught in the ropes. It's obvious how much we lost with Andre being a babyface distraction until the point where he was virtually immobile. He's so into everything he does here, so dangerous, so alert and active, and the perfect balance of terrifying (even to Rudge after he loses the last fall) and giving. Just great stuff.

PAS: Killer Andre performance, with the three other guys playing their roles. 70s heel Andre is about as cool as it gets. He is like a Grizzly Bear, tossing his opponents around the ring, and any second now looking like he is going to swipe down and disembowel everyone in the ring. His finish run in the second fall was awe inspiring, grabbing Kido by the wasteband, flinging him to the top rope like a porter with a suitcase, flinging him off the top rope and enveloping him in a splash. He had an easier time manhandling Kido then I do with my 4 year old son. He also was great at showing moments of vulnerability, the sport where Sakaguchi can't get him over with the headscissors, only to have Kido flying knee Andre in the back flinging him over, was one of the cooler tag team double teams I have seen from this time period. Rudge was a fun irritant, although he didn't pop in this match like he has in other stuff. 

El Felino/Negro Casas/Black Panther vs. La Fiera/Silver King/El Dandy CMLL 12/23/95

MD:A little bit short, but super talent all around, with a lot of the high spots and moments of personality you'd expect. The central narrative early was keeping Dandy away from Casas. Whenever he'd get him into a hold, one of Casas' partners would rush in to break it up. I argue, often, too often, that you see some new variation in almost every Casas match and here I liked how he rushed in on Fiera with a dropkick to the thigh during a test of strength engagement, keeping his hand up as a feint all the way into the dropkick. That ended poorly for him as Fiera ended up hitting this really cool bicycle kick style enziguri to basically end the fall. This cut off earlier than you'd like with a foul, but obviously it was building on to the next one.

PAS: This never got the big finish to push this into next level territory, but the work we got in the match was very good. I liked all three of the original match ups, Silver King versus Black Panther (Black Warrior) isn't a match up I have ever thought about before, but it was pretty great, and I wish they had a singles match up around this time. Casas and Dandy are of course excellent, and even minor works of theres are worth watching. Two great dives too, Panther's bullet tope, and Fiera's awesome over the top rope dive, which he did as good as anyone. So happy Roy Lucier is filling in the gaps of the 90s lucha we are missing.

Jocephus/Damien Payne vs. Wolfie D/Drew Haskins USWO 8/24/12

MD: This was an enjoyable Southern indy main event and a pretty good look at what Jocephus was up to in that era. Brian Lee wasn't there for some reason so Haskins, who worked earlier in the night, came out to tag with Wolfie. He took a lot of the match as a super dynamic, big bumping FIP, especially good for just propelling himself into the ropes off his opponents' offense. They protected Jocephus quite well here, I thought (Wolfie too, really), as he'd get staggered on blows but not go down easily. A lot of the babyface offense ended up on Payne. Wolfie worked the apron and the mic well and looked good the couple of times he was in there. Everyone came out of this looking better than they came in.

PAS: I remember really enjoying Haskins as a smirking big bumping pretty boy heel and he does a nice job converting those skills into a babyface in peril. He really flies around for Jocephus's offense flipping head over heels into the ropes with a punch. Wolfie and Drew had some nice chemistry for a make shift team, their vegomatic looked great. Payne and Jocephus were a nice slugging heel team which set up the hot tag nicely, and Jocephus's neckbreaker with a chain was an appropriately nasty finish. Hit all of the points you want from a hot Nashville main event tag.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Kahoz vs La Fiera [hair]

1996-07-09 @ Arena Coliseo
La Fiera vs Kahoz [hair]

This was a poor man's Sangre Chicana vs MS-1. That said, even a poor man's Sangre Chicana vs MS-1 is still a rich man's match. Lately, Kozmic Trooths (sic) has been posting more matches than I have time to watch, lots of stuff from mid-late 90s CMLL that's gone under the radar from the most part. I'm not going to write up the Cibernetico from 99 he posted, for instance, but it's a worth checking out as a fun look at where guys like Olimpico, Black Warrior, Ultimo Guerrero, and Rey Bucanero were at that point in their development.

What I am going to write about is this. I'm not entirely sure what the backstory was here. Kahoz had lost his mask to Shocker in 1995 (which seems very early for Shocker to pick up that sort of a win even if it was December and after he won the Gran Alternativa). I'm sure everyone knows that Kahoz was a gimmick that Pena himself had used but had given to Astro Rey in the 80s. I hadn't known that until now. Anyway, it doesn't look like there was a ton of build to this. It really doesn't matter.

This followed the beautifully minimalist Chicana vs MS-1 format, though here Fiera was a full tecnico. That meant that Kahoz took over early, spent long minutes beating Fiera to a pulp, bloodying him all around the ring and the ringside area. This was where Fiera shined, selling broadly, bleeding huge, drawing a ton of sympathy. There was little attempt to fight back but that just build up the pressure for the eventual comeback all the more. Kahoz ended the fall with three pick-up/drop downs in a row (which I'm not sure I've ever actually seen. He could have finished him but kept picking him up; more on that later), and a stepover submission. As a primera, it was just as good as MS-1 vs Chicana, I think, a bloody, brutal beating.

The segunda and tercera were still solid, even at times transcendent, but there just wasn't quite enough there to match the very best bloody one-sided brawls. In the moment, like with all Fiera tecnico performances, I kept waiting for the trademark spin-kick to signal the comeback. As a single move, it's not quite as good as Chicana's punch, but it's more stylized, flashier even if less visceral. He hit it early in the segunda, but not until countering a caught kick into an vicious enziguri. From there it was a short but utterly triumphant revenge beating, capped off with a picture perfect frog splash. The Tercera was more of the same, awesome punches, blood and selling, a spot-on kick to the back of the head to send Kahoz to the floor followed by exactly the tope the match needed, all capping with a finish that called back to Kahoz arrogantly picking Fiera back up in the primera.

There was also a commercial for "La Sexy Olympia," and normally, I'd post a gif, but this match is too good to distract from. Watch the match. You can catch the commercial right before the segunda. Like I said, if you like MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana, you'll probably like this too. Even though it's not as good, that's still as good a company as a hair match can be in.

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MLJ: 8/1/1997 Torneo Cibernetico

1997-08-01 @ Arena México

Torneo Cibernetico

There was a moment where I thought we were looking at a MOTYC here. Then, after a major detour, there was yet another moment where I thought the match could still pull it out. Ultimately it didn't but it's still well worth watching. In some ways it's late 90s CMLL at its best.

First of all, look at the talent involved. For tecnicos, you had Negro Casas, Felino, Ultimo Dragon, Shocker, and Fiera. For Rudos, it was Hijo del Santo, Scorpio, Jr., Bestia Salvaje, Dr. Wagner, Jr., and Satanico. Shocker and Wagner weren't fully developed yet (though they had years under their respective belts). Fiera wasn't what he had once been. Dragon has some definite flaws as an all-around wrestler, but ciberneticos were made to smooth out all of those things.

More importantly, there were two major feuds here, and there would be, in the subsequent weeks following this, two major apuestas matches, the Fiera vs Bestia Salvaje one a couple of weeks before the Anniversary show and then the long-overdue Casas vs Santo match at the Anniversary itself. That brought the heat and the structure of payoff, with Salvaje dodging Fiera until the very end (mainly using Scorpio as a shield), and with Wagner and Santo targeting Casas. It's what's so often lacking in modern cibeneticos. They're all action and usually worth watching, but they're rarely grounded with any sort of substance to them.

Here there was plenty of that, on top of a lot of fun pairings. Satanico looked great as a base for Felino. Dragon was at his explosive best. Santo and Casas differentiated their feud with that of Salvaje and Fiera by actively going at it. Fiera, on the other hand, seemed amused by Salvaje's stooging cowardice:

Great action and quality workers buoyed by two storylines is more than you can ask for from any CMLL cibernetico. Unfortunately, it veered too far into the realm of story progression. Just before the commercial break, Wagner dropped Casas with a brutal sit-out martinete. He and Santo continued on him in the corner and then as he was being brought to the back as Felino and Dragon tried to provide interference. It was super heated but both took a number of the best wrestlers out of the match and caused a distraction where we didn't see the action in the ring for a few minutes. Casas continued to sell it on the ramp but with Felino's help, he fought back enough where he was able to appeal to the crowd and make it to the back on his own power.

Even then, I thought everything would work out because we'd have a string of falls followed by some assuredly heated Salvaje and Fiera exchanges. They both had it in them after all. We did get the former, but the latter was a non-starter. They went at it a bit before an inadvertant ref bump ended the match. Fiera wanted things to continue and Salvaje, having tasted blood and also knowing that he had a DQ loss if things stood as they were wasn't playing chicken anymore, but they only got a few shots in before the ref separated them again. Deferring gratification is part of what makes lucha tick but in this case I wish they had been allowed to go at it a bit more first.

So this wasn't an all-time classic but it is a solid cross-section of what CMLL had to offer going into the Anniversary show. If nothing else, you'll get to see a deranged Lucky Charms commercial if you watch it (I'm sure Phil will love this gif being on the site):

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MLJ: Sangre Chicana vs La Fiera (Hair vs Hair)

1993-07-02 @ Arena México

La Fiera vs Sangre Chicana [hair]

Two of my favorite apuestas match workers up against one another in a hair match that hasn't gotten much play over the years (though both OJ and Paul Cooke have fairly positive reviews out there). It's up, in the last few months, on a youtube account with a few interesting things that haven't been posted before, including other personal favorites in lucha like Cota and Kamala.

This got a mighty 1 star in the quick Observer write up (no details except for that it didn't draw well). I'm not sure where that came from; maybe Sims? I'm not going to dwell regardless. I just thought it was funny to point out.

Structurally, it had what I wanted out of a hair match (especially one with these two), with a few weird wrinkles which both helped and hurt the match. Fiera was a recently turned tecnico and they started the match out like it was a title match, with wrestling, mostly even but with Fiera getting just enough of the advantage to justify Chicana cheap-shotting him in the kidneys. That wouldn't have flown quite as much in a 1993 title match (but more than in a 1983 title match, probably), but here, it was a great moment, thoroughly rudo. It mostly justified them starting a hair match off with wrestling instead of brawling as it helped establish the roles in the match, but it was also a little weird to defer the hatred like that.

My favorite style of hair match is in the MS-1 vs Chicana vain, lots and lots of heat and beating followed by a dramatic, triumphant comeback. This came close. Chicana was awesome on top, laying shots in to the kidneys, posting Fiera repeatedly on the outside, jawing with the ref and into the crowd, just a charismatic mauling. He took the first fall with a submission and the second was given to Fiera by DQ after Chicana slammed a drink into his head on the outside. I wasn't so high on that. It let the heat keep going, which was great, and it protected Chicana a little bit given he was going to ultimately lose, but I'm iffy on first or second fall DQs in apuestas matches. I would have preferred Fiera getting an early fall during the wrestling segment of things that they started with, which could have spurred on Chicana going to fisticuffs. That's nitpicking though.

The comeback went exactly as you'd expect it to with Chicana getting too cocky and Fiera hitting his spin kick out of nowhere. Sure, it's just a little goofy when he does it too much, but from a 1993 perspective, it's one of the best moves in wrestling. It's not quite as good as Chicana's comeback haymaker (which we didn't see in this match because he wasn't positioned as the crowd favorite) but I knew to look for it and popped when it came. He fought his way back, ending with the most insane tope suicida over the top rope. Chicana bumped huge into the chairs for it, but he didn't exactly catch it well and Fiera wiped out headfirst. Just brutal.

As you'd expect, both of them sold big to end, with each touch and attempt at a pin significant. I think it ended a little more on a whimper than a hugely dramatic moment, but some of that was made up for in the post match with Chicana, his hair cut into a mohawk, going after Fiera, only for Fiera to fire back as they disappeared  into the crowd. That's not the sort of post-match you see in apuestas matches often and it was a cool touch. I would have preferred a few structural changes, but this is well worth your time. I could watch Chicana punch Fiera in the kidney all day.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Black Magic vs La Fiera

1992-04-19 @ Arena Coliseo
La Fiera vs Black Magic (mano a mano)

If I wasn't sold on early 90s rudo Fiera before this match, I am now. I can't say the same for Smiley, though I do think he brought a lot to the table here. A quick note to begin. The video for this match is 23 minutes, but the match itself is probably ten minutes less between a pre-match Fiera promo and post match posturing and replays and credits. I expected a much longer tercera than we got. In some ways, it's good. One of the downsides in watching matches on youtube is that you usually have a good sense when they're going to end, and more importantly when they're NOT going to end. This one took me by surprise. I just wanted to manage expectations by pointing it out.

Also, we need a whole paragraph to talk about Fiera's look and feel at the start of the match. He had the chain/dog collar again. He had sunglasses. he had a cut down tank top thing and I have no idea what was on it, a band maybe? His fingers were taped up. He had some crazy aquamarine zubaz-style-on-the-side tights and white boots that went up to knee pads. I think I like his tecnico "crazy tiger shirt" look better, but this was such a spotlight of the time. So, he came down, Black Magic came down. They had words for each other, moved around the ring. When Smiley was announced, he posed around the ring a bit. Fiera used that as a chance to ambush him with the chain. The ref (who was certainly inclined towards the rudos, annoyingly so, but not as annoyingly so as in other matches I've seen), halfheartedly tried to take the chain away, which led to this utterly amazing double clothesline spot, with Fiera clapping at the end:

Even better? Fiera kept beating on Smiley for another minute or so before finally taking the sunglasses off, to surprisingly big heat. Smiley would come back and set up a ten punch in the corner only to have the ref cut him off. With both of them distracted in that position, Fiera hit an awesome low blow, setting the stage for the rest of the primera:

Fiera followed this up by forcing Smiley out of the ring and slammed his arm into the post, and here's where the real meat of the match began. We know from the Casas hair match that Fiera could mount a great, focused limb assault. He did so here, unrelentingly keeping on the arm and shoulder, even as Smiley sold extremely well, and tried to fight back with one arm even better. You'd get moments of hope and temporary rudo comeuppance like this:

but between the ref stopping Smiley's haymakers and Fiera being too focused in his attack, it was a futile effort. Fiera ended the caida with a shoulderbreaker and a submission. Good primera that really became something substantial once the limbwork set in.

It continued into the segunda too, with Smiley's initial comeback attempt stymied by some ref slow counting and a subsequent Fiera ambush as he complained. That led to Fiera going back to the arm and a very solid transition. Fiera went for another weighty-feeling stepover armbar, but Smiley, playing up the strength gimmick, lifted his opponent up out of it, placed him on the top rope, and after a few shots, dropkicked him out. On the outside, he slammed Fiera's back into apron, and we found ourselves in one of my favorite narratives in wrestling, dueling limbwork.

I'm not going to say that this was super elaborate (though Smiley got full points in the primera for trying to fight back with one arm). It was focused though, with Smiley really targeting the back for a few minutes before putting Fiera away with a half crab. Within the confines of pro-wrestling, it's one of the most believable ways in the world for a wrestler to fight back from such a deficit and it just feels right. It's paralleled and I thought it worked really well here.

It would have worked even better if they were going to continue the duel into the tercera. They only had time to play with it a bit though. Instead, Smiley went back to complaining to the ref, Fiera ambushed (and the crowd hated that), hit a really nice corner clothesline but missed the next. There'd be some lip service to the limbwork (Fiera got back on offense for a moment by driving the shoulder into Smiley's arm out of the corner; Smiley reversed a whip into a bear hug, targeting the back, but couldn't keep it on due to the arm), but after the little back and forth, they'd rush to a pretty good finish of Smiley going for the German, Fiera blocking, and Smiley reversing the reversal attempt into a Nothern Lights.

This was another great Fiera performance. Smiley's selling was top notch, but his offense was a little over the top. It's what would help him stand out later in WCW, but as of yet, I just haven't seen it fit right in Mexico. This also had probably the least painful heel ref work I've ever seen. The match itself is less than fifteen minutes and well worth watching though.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Espectro Jr., La Fiera, Satánico vs Black Magic, Love Machine, Último Dragón

1992-04-10 @ Arena Coliseo
Espectro Jr., La Fiera, Satánico vs Black Magic, Love Machine, Último Dragón

I don't know about you guys but my favorite lucha themed holiday isn't Dia de Muertos but "whenever dataintcash posts new lucha." I realize that there's a near endless amount of lucha I haven't seen. I realize I never exactly finished the DVDVR 80s set. I realize this, but it's still kind of a blast when something previously unavailable online pops up.

I like nice tight little series, a trios or two and a singles match at the end of it. Here, we've got a Coliseo mini feud, a trios match, a singles match. Nice and neat. Norman Smiley is a guy who got good at some point but I'm not convinced in the least that 1992 was that point. I haven't been impressed yet as he seemed to almost be working a strongman gimmick with lots of posing. I have a feeling his rudo work is stronger than his tecnico work (which is true for just about everyone, it seems) but I haven't seen much of that. Frankly, I'm more interested in this as a Fiera showcase. It's another singles match for him from the early 90s. We've just got to get to it through a pretty crazy trios.

I've seen very little Art Barr in Mexico. This seems early for him there and he was a tecnico which also seems wrong somehow. This was just a week after the Panther mask match, and yeah, how have I not seen that? Just looking online quickly, most of the build isn't online so that'd be frustrating but I have to still check it out at some point. I go around looking at random Panther lightning matches and not that? Anyway, yeah, this was a week after that, and Panther was hanging out with the rudos selling the piledriver that finished it, neckbrace and all, well-appreciated in an age of Rush doing package piledrivers and what not. Also appreciated was Love Machine bursting out to attack Panther. Hell of a way to start the proceedings. Here's the newly unmasked Barr sort of basking in it all:

Probably the best part was that right after the assault, after the other rudos batter him away from Panther, Fiera, who had a dog collar and a chain around this time, immediately smashed Magic with it and hung him over the top rope. They didn't waste any time getting into it while still building off of the giant match that had just happened between Panther and Machine. So we had a more than solid rudo beatdown. Rudo Fiera certainly was spirited, blasting Magic and Dragon with the chain, and finishing the fall off with a foul while the ref was distracted.

The match never really settled down into something that felt controlled or structured. There was always something wild about it, as if it'd get thrown out at any moment. I think that's an energy Barr brought to the table really, even when he was getting swarmed. In the segunda, the tecnicos kept trying to fight back but couldn't get traction until Magic reversed a whip. Dragon was happy to blow mist all over the place (though never at his opponents); it's funny how that part of his gimmick disappeared over the years. Eventually things ended up as Magic vs Fiera again, finishing with a German from Magic. I have no idea what happened, though, as while it was a nice suplex, Smiley couldn't hold the bridge. I think he might have landed on his head. The ref just gave it to the tecnicos.

Segunda was a bit of a reset, with the highlight being Satanico and Dragon having a short but really good exchange. Satanico never disappears in these matches. Here, he seemed to be directing traffic, like always, with the express intent of getting revenge on Machine for what happened to Blue Panther. I love watching Satanico do his stuff: just little things like his mannerisms here as they were triple goozling Magic in the corner:

It's hard to say that this broke down at the end, since it had never really come together except for as a slightly focused brawl, but it became even more chaotic in the end, with Dragon hitting the Santo corner tope on Satanico, and Espectro (who did pretty much disappear in the match) just rolling around with Barr for far too long in order to distract the ref and allow Fiera to crotch Magic to set up the match for the following week.

We end up watching plenty of matches that are ultimately a mess. This was one of them but it was heated with some great punches from Fiera and Satanico and a lot of energy from Dragon and Barr. I'm real curious what Smiley is going to look like in the mano a mano match and we'll look at that next time.

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MLJ: Emilio Charles, Jr. Spotlight 4: El Hijo Del Santo, Misterioso, Mascara Sagrada vs Emilio Charles Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, La Fiera

1991-11-29 @ Arena Mexico
Fuerza Guerrera/Emilio Charles Jr./La Fiera v. El Hijo del Santo/Mascara Sagrada/Misterioso

First, a plug. The latest issue of Odessa Steps Magazine just dropped and in it Mark has outdone himself this time. He's got interviews with Hechicero, Zeuxis, and Marco Corleone, plus a "Dr. Lucha" Steve Sims article on Atlantis and the marking of the end of an era, my Chilanga Mask write ups (including the women's match that I didn't do on here), and other lucha goodness. It's an outright zine in an age that they no longer exist and well worth supporting. More info at Mark's site: www.odessasteps.co.uk.

Onto the match: this is the stuff. Another great match, but with a different structure than the last and a little more focused on building the Misterioso vs Fuerza title match. Having Sagrada in there instead of Dragon didn't really change much, but there was slightly too much reliance on the heel ref trope to make the logic fit into place in the otherwise great tercera.

Here, instead of the feeling out/shine, swarming/heat, comeback/reset/finish sort of structure, it's a rudo swarm from the get go, followed by the comeback in the segunda, and a reset in the tercera, which ultimately led to Misterioso and Fuerza finishing things off. The variation shouldn't be understated. One thing that makes CMLL stand out from a lot of other wrestling is that they run the same crowds, week after week, with many of the same wrestlers. There are only so many pairings and quite often they go back to them again and again. That they can have very good matches, two weeks in a row, with almost the exact same grouping but also make them feel different while getting across the same messages is impressive. It's a testament to the wrestlers but also to the nature of the genre. I think it's something that we often overlook through cherry picking matches and watching them out of context.

Here, Fuerza just walked across the ring and attacked Misterioso as he was announced as captain. He's the most brazen wrestler in history, I think, utterly shameless. He sealed the attack through running Misterioso into the post from the apron and the rudos gained an immediate numbers advantage with the ambush. Sure, Santo fought back a bit because he's Santo and that's to be expected, but the onslaught is too much. Good, gritty beatdown, with enough movement and action and teamwork to keep things interesting. It ended with everyone on the tecnico side getting pinned or submitted, which was a little confusing, but just showed the rudo superiority.

I liked the comeback here as it was logical and a little bit unique. For once, the tecnicos, all recovered at about the same time, entered the ring to back up their partner (Misterioso). The rudos couldn't play the numbers game and instead withdrew during the standoff. That let Misterioso charge after Fuerza and get some revenge posting in. The tecnicos churn through the rudos after that, including a great moment where Charles gets pissed after eating multiple drop toeholds and kicks the rope, causing Fuerza, who was standing on it on the apron, to go stumbling in. Does anyone still do Misterioso's reverse quebradora gutbuster? It's a very fun move. Anyway, they did the usual fall ending for a Santo trios with him diving over his partner pinning someone with a headbutt off the top to the standing, charging rudo partner. Good stuff made even better by the fact that the ref breaks up Misterioso pounding on Fuerza on the outside, delaying that ultimate confrontation for the tercera.

They actually cycled back into heat on Misterioso for the tercera, which was welcome as you rarely get a real double tecnicos-in-peril in a trios match, but it was a bit too contrived by the ref keeping the tecnicos out for me to fully enjoy. Anyway, this involved a bunch of mask ripping and ref interference, before the tecnicos finally had enough. They charged around the ring to avoid the ref and evened the odds that way. This lets them move into the quick exchanges and ring-exits, with two pretty awesome and super-heated Misterioso vs Fuerza encounters, Santo hitting his senton/tope combo, and Sagrada and Fiera suplexing each other over the top to take them out of the match. At the end of the day, Misterioso locks in the Reinera again and wins the day setting up the title match to come. Great trios match only brought down a bit by ref antics.

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MLJ: Emilio Charles, Jr. Spotlight 3: El Hijo Del Santo, Misterioso, Último Dragón vs Emilio Charles Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, La Fiera

1991-11-22 @ Arena México
El Hijo Del Santo, Misterioso, Último Dragón vs Emilio Charles Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, La Fiera

The problem with a career like Charles' is that there's almost too much. We have bits and pieces online from a span of years and years and it's hard to know where to start. That's the problem with just about everything I do. The good news is that there's an easy solution: start anywhere. Just put your head down and charge; watch things and in doing so, you start to get oriented. You start to figure out what other directions you should be going.

I like to watch things that are close to one another chronologically because that gives a slightly better sense of what's going on. I also like to find things which have other wrestlers I really want to see. That's the case here as I have a two match series from 1991 with Hijo del Santo on one side and Charles, Fuerza, and Fiera on the other side. Since I wasn't sure what this was building to, I looked to the Wrestling Observer for the week. It was pretty fun, actually, noting:

1.) That this was Ultimo Dragon's debut on Galavision;
2.) that the tecnico side was "a team of a Japanese wrestler, a Mexican idol, and an American;
3.) That Santo, Dragon, Guerrera, and Charles were all excellent in the match (which was given ***1/2) and;
4.) that it was interesting due to the cross-promotional nature of Santo (UWA Welterweight champ) going up against Fuerza (NWA Welterweight champ).

Way more detail than we'd get a few years later, and I figured it out too: two weeks down the line Misterioso was going for Guerza's title. That made TV and I'll probably have to divert off to watch it. I'll talk more about Misterioso when I do.

Anyway, were I to give out star ratings, I might even go higher than that. This was one of those iconic, idealized trios matches that I often say I could watch all day in and all day out. First and foremost, Fiera's shirt was awesome.

The pairings here for the primera were Fiera vs Misterioso (which is weird considering they were building to Fuerza vs Misterioso, though that would play later in the match), Dragon vs Charles, and Fuerza vs Santo. For some reason, the first Santo vs Fuerza exchange is clipped out. It's the only thing clipped out in the match and that's a shame.

This has what I would say is the most basic trio structure. A-B-A, with a reset towards the end and a finish that focuses on the feuding players. Even exchanges to begin with an increasing tecnico shine, the rudos taking over in the middle of the segunda, taking the fall, and carrying it over into the tercera, a strong comeback which settles into the reset, the clearing of the ring, and the finish. There's such a purity to matches like these and when they're well worked, they're a joy.

This was. Dragon was there to show off and he did, especially showing off his ability to land on his feet out of snap mares or back body drops. I find him hit or miss in general, but here he was a useful cog in the machine. Fiera is very good at bumping and feeding as a rudo. Those same big back body drop bumps he can take to garner sympathy as a tecnico work just as well here. Charles, as we've seen, was hugely versatile, and he made for a surprisingly good foil for Dragon both with matwork and in quick rope running. Fuerza was Fuerza, working in the low blows and the rudo miscommunication spots, and even a few nice suplexes.

The rudos took over after a Charles foul on Misterioso

I find how unfocused (or at least "off-task") the match was interesting in that regard. Fiera started against him. Charles was the one that fouled him. Yet they were leading up to him facing Fuerza. It could have distracted from the match, but everything was good enough that it didn't really matter. In a lot of ways it felt more organic because of it.

Anyway, the comeback was more than solid, starting with a Misterioso quebradora on Charles (again, not Fuerza), and the tecnicos swarming. They reset a bit after that (and to Misterioso vs Fiera, not Fuerza), and it was the usual quick stuff with guys coming in and out and a great Santo dive out of nowhere after Fiera tried to run away to avoid a Dragon Dive. Dragon still got to hit his moonsault, though, just against Charles a moment later. That led to Misterioso vs Fuerza (finally) and a Reinera that put the tecnicos over and the upcoming challenger over the champ. Very fun trios.

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MLJ: Emilio Charles Spotlight 2 w/bonus Casas vs Cota: Corazon De Leon, La Fiera, Negro Casas vs Bestia Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr., Mocho Cota

1994-04-08 @ Arena México
Corazon De Leon, La Fiera, Negro Casas vs Bestia Salvaje, Emilio Charles Jr., Mocho Cota


1993 - CMLL - Tag Match by Y2JFans

I missed this one on my way through 1994 Mocho Cota. What's cool about the match is that it's an intersect between the Fiera/Charles feud and the Cota/Casas feud. Yes, we have young, green Jericho to bring everything down a bit, but Salvaje can hold up his end so that's not a huge deal. This was the following week from the Fiera vs Charles singles match and fills in the gap between that and the hair match. For Casas and Cota it's during the period where Casas had temporarily shifted tecnico before stumbling back towards rudoness and their eventual hair match in the fall.

This is as bloody and heated as it had to be to set up what they were trying to set up. It was a bit of a mess too, but a forgivable one. The rudos took over immediately with the logical pairings. It was really a great beat down, although once or twice Jericho stumbled in when he shouldn't have. Thankfully, part of the joy of rudo beatdowns is that if someone seems unsure of what to do, they'll probably get the crap beat out of them in short order. In this case, Salvaje was more than happy to missile dropkick Jericho in the face. Meanwhile, Cota was focused on stomping Casas' leg for about five minutes in the corner, which was more effective than it sounds. I think by this point Casas and Fiera were both bleeding. Ultimately, Charles pinned Fiera after one of those super high back body drop bumps that Fiera takes. And Cota put an exclamation point on the fall by slamming Casas' leg into the ring apron's wooden enclosure.

The comeback didn't quite live up to the beatdown. By the end, it was good, but it was a bumpy road to get there. Fiera, as mentioned before, is really good at building up an earned comeback. The spin kick (here on Cota) was a pretty useful weapon for that, since he could hit it out of nowhere, but it left him vulnerable to attack in at trios match. As he was getting attacked by Salvaje and Charles, Casas grabbed Cota's legs and posted him from the inside out, groin first. So far, so good. It was a great moment, but then they sort of stumble back into a reset and the rudos swarm again before Fiera hist a back brain kick out of nowhere and the tecnicos finally rush forth to really take over. Sometimes I like that little fold to make things harder for the good guys to really establish control and get revenge, but here it just seemed confused. That's not to say there weren't some fun moments like Casas and Jericho missing a couple of double clotheslines on Salvaje, looking annoyed at one another as Salvaje gloated and then double dropkicking him in the face. Also, Casas hit his no-rope bounce springboard back elbow on Cota and that's just an amazing spot and one of those moments where you remember that Younger Casas definitely could do things that Older, still awesome, Casas just can't.

The tercera, which was a reset, some rope running, and a lot of pin break ups as guys cycled in and out also had a few moments like that, most especially, Casas SAILING across the ring with a dropkick out of nowhere. The momentum he had behind it was nuts. I think of the best dropkicks I've seen in my life, like the one that ended Santana/Martel vs High Flyers and they're all usually ones that get high elevation but are basically static with a guy running into it face first. This was like a corner drop kick in its momentum (and we all know that Casas can do those) but in the middle of the ring. Things ended with Fiera taking his over the top back body drop bump and Jericho getting lifted up and kicked over the top. This left Casas outnumbered and quickly disposed of so they could shift the focus back to Fiera vs Charles. The rudos held Fiera. Charles punched him repeatedly. The ref called for a DQ and they heated things up for the hair match.

The VQ on this isn't great. It's on Dailymotion. Without the Hair Match, you're going to end up ultimately unsatisfied, and in general, it doesn't quite reach the level that you'd hope it would coming in, but this is heated with some great individual spots and probably worth watching if you've got twenty minutes to kill.

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MLJ: Emilio Charles Spotlight 1: Emilio Charles Jr. vs La Fiera [mano a mano]

1994-04-01 @ Arena México
Emilio Charles Jr. vs La Fiera

I will get back to Dragon Lee soon, but I wanted to take some time to linger on some older stuff. I'm ever trying to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and of my watching (which are near-infinite) and for now I've settled on Emilio Charles, Jr. My early indications of him, from what I've seen in passing, have him as very good and very versatile. He's someone with a relatively long career, much (but not all; more on that later) of which we have on tape and a good amount online. I like doing chronological looks but I'm not sure that's the way to go here due to spottiness. So instead I'm going to pick another wrestler and do interactions, sometimes in specific feuds, sometimes not. I'm going to do a couple of matches with Fiera here, and then, in order to round out next week, do a couple of matches of him tagging with Fiera against Hijo del Santo.

Why Fiera? Well, because I came across this mano a mano match and it's pretty awesome, that's why. I think the footage we have of Fiera can be fairly hit or miss, but one thing that he could do extremely well was build up the tension on his comeback after taking a big beating. That skill is one of my favorite things in the world. He did it in the Negro Casas hair match and he did it here as well.

It was a monumental beating too. Charles, with his amazing music, came down first. Fiera (whose promo picture was hairless, probably taken after the Casas match actually) stormed down to the ring, ready to go but immediately got ambushed anyway. Charles was very good at spacing things out and making things matter. He'd beat on Fiera a bit, play to the crowd, come back in. Very methodological in the best way. Here he was moving Fiera around the ring, slamming his head into the corners, punching, stomping, and then gloriously slamming his head into the wooden apron cover. He brought him to the post outside and I think that's where the initial blading happened because after one huge back body drop back in the ring, he started working the forehead a little, biting the head.

Fiera'd fight back here, but only once or twice. There was the mild tinge of a heel ref that brings everything down just a tiny bit, but only a tiny bit. It delays and distracts Fiera on his comebacks but it just FELT too early for him to come back. Anyway, Charles finished off the primera with another massively high back body drop, a crushing senton, and a submission. That didn't end the beating though. At the start of the segunda, he chucked Fiera into the stands, keeping him there and beating on him any time he tried to get up. It was pretty grisly. Fiera would keep trying to recover but Charles would roll in, celebrate, and roll out to attack before he could. By now, Fiera was bleeding pretty thoroughly, to the point that when Charles went to bite again, blood ended up all over his face.

As I said, Fiera was good at gradually coming back. It started with him walking around the ring. Yes he got cut off but he was drawing in his strength. This happened a couple of times. Then, in the ring, he was able to get his hands up and walk it off a bit, only to get distracted by the ref and cut off again. Finally, as Charles got just a bit too complacent, he hit his signature spin kick. Even then, Charles fought back and it took another reversal of a whip and a revenge back body drop and then, after leapfrogging out of Charles' way, one of the best superkicks I've ever seen to drop him and pick up the fall.

The tercera is more back and forth. Fiera gets in a revenge posting that opens Charles up and a shot of his own onto that wooden ring apron enclosure as Charles tried to crawl out of the ring. I love revenge spots in bloody lucha matches. I really do. He held the advantage until he missed a diving headbutt. Charles was a bloody mess now but holds the advantage, in part, by ducking a spin kick in the corner and launching his foot up for a near foul. Ultimately, though, he missed a senton (the same sort that set up his win in the primera; I love callbacks too), which let Fiera get in one last flurry of great fist-drops to Charles' wounded head. The finish was a little lackluster, a cross body block rolled over by Fiera and a pin that didn't look quite right, but that's okay. This was to set up a hair match later in the month. It did everything it had to in that regard.

Which brings us to the hair match. Has anyone seen this? Cubs has it as 4/25/94. As best as I can tell, it was the same night that the Grand Prix tournament was filmed that year and that made tape but I've seen no sign of anyone seeing the apuestas match. Anyone? What we do have is the trios match the following week, which is fun because it doesn't just encompass this feud, but the Cota vs Casas one as well.

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Digging in the Crates Podcast #1

Welcome to my new podcast, as Phil and guest create an on-air Schneider Comp, we pick a couple of matches each episode, discuss what we dig about them and at after a half dozen or so, we will have a new comp.

Digging in the Crates Episode #1

Here are links to the matches

Riki Choshu, Kantaro Hoshino, Kuniaki Kobyashi, Kantaro Hoshino, Kensuke Sasaki v. Animal Hamaguchi, Super Strong Machine, Tasutoshi Goto, Hiro Saito, Masanobu Kurisu 2/3 Falls (New Japan 6/26/90)

Negro Casas v. La Fiera Cabellera contra Cabellera EMLL (1/10/93)

Yukimiko Hotto v. Aja Kong (AJW 1/21/94)

Low-Ki v. Chris Dickenson (JAPW 3/21/15)

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The internet gives and gives - Fiera vs Casas - 10/1/1993 - Cabellera v. Cabellera

1993-10-1 - CMLL - Cabellera v. Cabellera - Negro Casas v. La Fiera



So the incredibly generous boon to society who posted the Santico/Chicana match that Phil went nuts over (and those early 90s Mocho Cota matches that I wrote up a few months ago) followed it up today by posting the Fiera/Negro Casas hair match from the 60th Anniversary show in 93 that I badly wanted to see. It was the follow up to this Haku match: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2015/02/mlj-enter-king-haku-2-king-haku-la.html

And it is awesome. I'm taking a look at the Taichi vs Maximo hair match on Friday and I'm not going to give this one a full write up like I might otherwise because a) I've already written that up before I saw this and you can't even compare a modern mid-card CMLL hair match with a match from twenty years ago with guys like this. It's night and day and it'd make what I have to say about Maximo/Taichi in a match that I liked for what it was, ring real hollow. and b) I don't want to spoil too much for people.

Instead, I'll just say that it has so many of the elements that I love in a really heated match of this type. There is a violent assault by the rudo, including the sort of biting that it's hard to imagine out of Casas looking at him now with selling (of the nose!) to match and a hard fought tecnico comeback, so very earned, where the hope spots aren't about the momentum shifting so much as the violence subsiding for a brief moment. There's a revenge spot into the stands to cap it off and an awesome, triumphant German suplex to put on the exclamation point.

There's the intense revenge beating by the tecnico, the rudo getting his second wind and desperately fighting for his life, and winning back the moment. Casas' selling after he gets the advantage back in the segunda is so great. At one point he is just leaning with his bloody head on Fiera's back in the corner trying to get a breath so he can get an attack in before Fiera can recover.

And the tercera's maybe a few minutes shorter than I'd have liked, but full of the earned selling that you'd expect from a match like this, with one or two really brutal spots (including a shove down out of the corner, and a really great spinkick block into a kick), with the ultimate finish coming in a satisfying way from a spot that both Casas and Fiera had attempted to hit previously. The first one that managed it won the match.

Great stuff. (NOTE: The sound drops for a bit early on but it comes back later)

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MLJ: Enter: King Haku 2: King Haku, La Fiera, Pegasus Kid vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Negro Casas, Sangre Chicana

Taped 1993-09-24 @ Arena México
King Haku, La Fiera, Pegasus Kid vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Negro Casas, Sangre Chicana

I realize I may have gone a little overboard with the gifs last time, so there will be none here. Full disclosure would tell you that there were just less things TO gif here. This is it for what we have online for Haku in Mexico which is a shame because he was pretty great in these two matches. I would have loved to see him in some more brawl-centric stuff. I see 31 matches with him in the Match Finder between 92 and 94, and a lot of them were Tv matches, as best as I can tell. Some of the match ups, singles matches, are pretty goofy. He beat Porky in the quarterfinals of a Heavyweight title tournament and lost to Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. I can't even imagine that second match. He lost to Rayo in a Grand Prix tournament final too. There's a trios where he's teamed up with Dos Caras and Villano III vs Canek, Pirata Morgan and Satanico. You have to admit that sounds cool. Oh wait, Atlantis, Haku, and Lizmark vs Emilio Charles, Jr., Satanico and Pirata Morgan sounds even cooler. Ah well, we've got what we've got.

And unfortunately, this one is much less of a Haku focus. Fortunately, however, it's much more of a Fiera vs Negro Casas focus. This was setting up a hair match between the two a week or so later. Yes, Benoit's in this too, and I don't often watch a lot of his stuff these days (yeah, I'm one of those), but this feels so far removed from who he was ten years later, that I don't quite see the harm. Sangre Chicana's here too but he's sort of a non factor.

I enjoyed the previous a lot more for a number of reasons. For one, it had more time, and used it well, with a lot of showcase exchanges and everyone getting to wrestle everyone else. This started out with some heat, though, and that's always welcome. The rudos charged right in with Casas beelining towards Fiera and the numbers game immediately being played. This lasted for a minute or so until Haku intervened, which lead shortly thereafter to the first of what felt like seventeen Fiera spin kicks in the match. It's a really nice move but boy did he go to that well a lot. This kicked off the rope-running and back and forth exchanges, the highlights of which (almost gif worthy) were a double strength top wristlock spot that Haku reversed on Chicana and Wagner and Haku hitting four one armed backbreakers in a row. I have in my notes Benoit doing a "reverse plancha headscissors" and I'm going to guess those were two moves. Also, Haku superkicking people all over the ring. I liked the finish of the primera a lot. Oh what the heck. Let's go with one gif here:

Segunda wasn't much, really. It had a lot of Fiera beating up Casa and a fun bit of back and forth finishes where everyone got to do something. Benoit hit a superplex but ended up tripled teamed and killed by a Casas senton. He ended up eliminated but it was all for naught as things end up Fiera vs Casas again and Casas loses to yet another German (after yet another spin kick).

The finish made sense considering that Casas was going over in the hair match. A fun little functional match but ultimately sort of hollow. Casas was around 32 here and already had so much of that character mastery down, but he could supplement it with bumping and selling and spots he just can't do now. I like some of the shortcuts he's come up with over the years but you can't watch this stuff and not notice how engaging and dynamic he can be. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

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MLJ: Hijo Del Santo vs Blue Panther 7: Negro Casas, Felino, & Fiera vs El Hijo del Santo, Scorpio, Jr., & Blue Panther

1997-11-28 @ Arena Mexico
Negro Casas, Felino, Fiera vs Santo, Scorpio Jr Blue Panther

Lots to see here. This was during Santo's rudo run, but on the back end. We've got a younger (33-ish which is younger than 50!) masked, tecnico Felino, a sort of forgettable-in-this-match Fiera, who was only 37 himself. Wiki tells me that Fiera means "The Beast." I always thought it meant the fiery guy. Ignorance rearing its ugly head again and again, to my endless shame. Tecnico Casas was here too, and yes, this wasn't actually a Santo vs Blue Panther match but a Santo & Blue Panther match, as they're teamed up. Finally we've got Scorpio Jr., and I'm not sure how he's generally received but he was a fun addition here. Outside the ring, in the crowd, an ever looming presence, was Bestia Salvaje.

This is the second match I've seen of rudo run, and the first was also on the back end. Both sort of felt like they heading towards a tecnico turn, too. That's not too surprising as looking at the dates of it all, it almost feels like the turn back lasted half the entire run. I've read that he was only rudo mainly at Arena Mexico, there are some extreme examples. He would be wrestling as a Rudo at Arena Mexico two weeks after he teamed with him as a tecnico in Tijuana. That sort of thing. They were clearly heading in that direction here, to the point that this match was more story-driven than anything else, but as best as I can tell, the full tecnico turn didn't happen for almost another year. That's CMLL for you.

I think I like primera caidas from the 90s more than from the 00s. I know that's a broad and general statement and that I do watch more current, or nearly current stuff, but there was just this great sense of escalation back then. One exchange would bleed into the next, and then when it was its turn again, repeat but more heated this time, and then would crescendo towards a finish. There's less of that now, I think. Here we started with Casas vs Santo which is a fun match up no matter the affiliation. They did some basic but quality holds that the crowd was into. It moved on to Panther and Fiera hitting some more high impact stuff, and then Scorpio and Felino really going at it. It was great to see a younger Felino, who literally bounced all around the ring. He stooges like crazy now but back then he was able to add a sort of ridiculous athletic flair to it. Scorpio had a ton of intensity in this match and some of that was probably because of the story they were trying to tell but it made a great impression on me. Ultimately it turned into Casas vs Santo again, with slightly more advanced technical work. The second that Casas gained an advantage, Scorpio rushed, much to Santo's frustration, and as he kept hammering Casas in the corner the ref DQed the rudos.

This did let the rudos take over though, and it all turned into a well-executed mauling. Santo was hesitant to double and triple team with his partners, but he did get on board, and, in the midst of the chaos, to add more fuel to the fire, Bestia jumped out of the crowd and posted Casas' knee while the ref wasn't looking. There was a powerbomb on Casas and a great Panther quebradora on the outside and Scorpio showing great fire. Ultimately it looked like the comeback was starting when Panther tried a second flapjack on Felino, who reversed it into a Rana and then sent him towards the corner, but Panther reversed the whip and Santo hit a body press off the top and almost immediately thereafter a huge tope into the crowd. Panther followed by hitting one of his own on Fiera, leaving Casas and Scorpio in the ring. Casas took the advantage but Bestia charged back in and attacked the leg again (which Casas really hadn't been selling, which was a shame), leading to the DQ and the tecnico win. To say that Santo didn't take this well was an understatement, as he, more frustrated than heroic, cleared the ring of both Bestia and Scorpio much to the fans' delight.

This was a fun, story driven match with a few good exchanges, that gave the fans at least a taste of being able to cheer Santo. I would have liked to see Casas sell the leg a bit more, and really, I'm still itching to go back and fine a deep rudo performance from Santo. I hope that there are some Scorpio vs Santo matches from after the tecnico (re)turn since I bet those would be heated and a lot of fun.

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Pirata Morgan, Killing So His Power Grows

Pirata Morgan, Satanico, & MS-1 vs. La Fiera, El Faraon, & El Egipcio EMLL 3/29/1985 - EPIC

Damn, that was violent. I've had the chance to see Pirata in a bunch of different settings thanks to this project, but at the end of the day, he's still a guy at his best working out-of-control lucha brawls, and this here was an out-of-control lucha brawl. He starts right out by punching El Egipcio in the face when he tries to get in the ring. Egipcio returns the favor, and their brawling is sort of the big hook throughout this match (unsurprising, as they were building to a hair match between the two). I've seen a handful of Egipcio matches now, but this is the first time he's actually stood out to me. And yeah, that's probably because he was booked so prominently in the match, but when you're throwing hands with Pirata and look like you're actually in his league, I'm inclined to think you're doing something right. They pave a nice little path of destruction through the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is any good Infernales brawl, including some great brawling around the ring where Pirata wins the award for most violent apron bumping now and forever, actually breaking the wooden barricades surrounding the ring. Satanico and the recently deceased MS-1 lend some very able support. Satanico in particular almost stole the match from Pirata and Egipcio. Phil said he looked like the abusive husband in a Lifetime made-for-TV movie, and I'm hard-pressed to disagree. Fiera and Faraon maybe perform below expectations insofar as they don't stand out the way they usually do, but you'll be too busy in awe of the Infernales' brutality to notice. Although you will notice at the end of the match when Fiera uncorks a "Hector Garza under-rotating on a shooting star press to the floor"-level horrifying botched dive. He comes off of the top rope with essentially a completely vertical upside-down bodypress to Satanico, except he lands just short of the target and Martinetes himself on the floor. Ouch. Surprisingly, for a brawl this intense, there actually wasn't any blood, but I don't suspect you'll find too many bloodless brawls better than this one.

Pirata Morgan, Antifaz del Norte, & Charly Manson vs. Sangre Chicana, Alebrije, & Vampiro Canadiense Monterrey 5/21/2006 - GREAT

This is a big step up from the last Monterrey match I reviewed for this. There are still some annoying heel ref shenanigans, but he eats a Sangre Chicana armdrag really nicely, so I can't really complain too much. Also, there's no Hator in sight, and everyone looks really game here, even a load like Vampiro. This is a garbage brawl, and like most lucha garbage brawls, it feels less violent than it does when they leave the foreign objects alone, especially after the match above. But it's still on the higher end of your lucha garbage brawls, with Alebrije in particular looking like a star here. He eats and bumps for everything really well, including getting his head taken off with a nasty clothesline from Pirata, and taking some nutty bumps on the wooden ramp to the ring. And there's plenty of fun abuse of Cujie as well, with Pirata putting the little guy in a Romero special, before he's used as a projectile by Alebrije to get his revenge later. I thought Antifaz looked really good here as well. His foreign object shots all had some nice pop to them. This wasn't a standout Chicana performance, but I don't think I've ever seen a match where he looked bad, and this is no exception. If nothing else, he clotheslined a wooden board into Antifaz's face. That was pretty cool. I'm a little iffy on the finish, but I admire the gusto with which Pirata faked his getting fouled, especially after the ref didn't believe him right away and he started to sell more frantically.

Pirata Morgan, Emilio Charles Jr., & Astro de Oro vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Mascara Ano 2000, & Cien Caras EMLL 1989 - FUN

This was a one-fall tournament match, but it's a four-team tourney, so they still get 10+ minutes and I can review it, just with lowered expectations. It's also apparently a parejas increibles tournament, as Rayo is not getting along with the Dinamitas, and Astro de Oro is not getting along with Pirata and Emilio. I am not familiar with this Astro de Oro character, so I checked out luchawiki to see what his deal was.

"Greatest Guatemala superstar. Tecnico, who teamed with Rayo Lazer, Skeletor, Starman (Guatemala), Silverman, Arriero de San Juan. Astro de Oro received 50 Quetzales in his first match.

His best match was versus Mascara Ano 2000 in June of 1989, and his worst was against Dr. Wagner Jr.. Astro de Oro's favorite wrestler is Ric Flair.

In his other life, Astro de Oro is an educator. Astro de Oro also claims to be a very successful amateur wrestler before entering lucha libre.

Greatest Guatemala superstar"

Well that clears that up. I don't know when exactly in 1989 this match was in relation to his career best match against Mascara Ano 2000, but I don't remember any especially great exchanges between the two. Overall, the greatest Guatemala superstar didn't make me forget Super Astro or Brazo de Oro, but he was harmless. Pirata and Rayo were the best guys on their respective teams, and their work against each other was plenty fun and fired up. Emilio looked good, but you'll see much better from him, and the Dinamitas were solid but unspectacular. Still, Rayo doing his comedic evasive twirl face-first into Pirata's fist with nobody else fucking anything up will at least earn this FUN status. In conclusion, greatest Guatemala superstar.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE PIRATA MORGAN

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