New Footage Friday: RED! NECRO! BRAZOS! DAMIEN WAYNE! VOLADOR!

Volador/Misterioso/Lizmark Jr. vs. Los Brazos Early 90s? 

PAS: The Brazos are one of the most purely entertaining acts in wrestling history, so finding a new Brazos match is mitzvah. Lizmark Jr. was a guy whose spirit was truly crushed by WCW but he was really feeling himself here, flipping around, kipping up and hitting cool armdrags. Of course the focus of the match was on Super Porky doing his thing, we get a long section where he keeps accidentally smushing his brothers, causing him to cry and hug the tecnicos. In the tercera he turns on his new friends and unleashes the power of fat landing one of the most splattering top rope splashes in a long career of splattering. Cool opening section, some fun comedy spots and a big finish, exactly what you want to main event a lucha house show. 

MD: This one is well worth watching for some great work and even greater antics. Tecnicos take the first chunk which leads to miscommunication and a great tree falling spot with Porky, who citing the subsequent ill-treatment by his brothers, switches sides. We've all seen this sort of thing before, but it's not every day you can see it with the Brazos and see them commit so thoroughly to the gag. You keep expecting Porky to turn back and he eventually does but not until they've milked every bit of it that they could. Around all of this are three spry tecnicos and rudos that will gladly base and feed for them, including a memorable Volador dive.

ER: There are few wrestlers in history I love more than Super Porky, and watching him spend 20 minutes doing his specific thing is always going to be the best kind of panacea for me. This has some of his best gags, played to their fullest, in front of a crowd who adored his gags. Not only do we get to see him take several slick armdrags from Volador, we move past that into his great misdirections. Los Brazos keep trying to hold Lizmark prone while accidentally hitting each other, leading to Lizmark ducking a Brazo sunset flip attempt, and a hilarious long pause before the punchline. Brazo is "forced" to sunset flip Porky, and Oro misses Lizmark and chops Porky...and Porky just stares at him. Everybody knows the spot is for Porky to butt splash Brazo, and here's Porky just standing, looking at his brother, seconds disconnected from the actual momentum of the spot...before Porky finally, purposefully, plops down onto Brazo's chest. His brothers smack him around and Porky openly weeps, drawing the biggest cheers of the night as the crowd rallied behind him. 

We get a great pratfall bump where Porky steps to the apron and Oro lifts the middle rope on him, sending Porky to the floor with a wild banana peel bump. I couldn't get enough of Porky working with the tecnicos to get back at his brothers, flopping to his back to give up the primera, getting all possible mileage out of the tecnico turn before eventually rejoining his family. Give me more and more of Porky doing silly poses while getting "YAY/BOO" cheers back and forth from the crowd. It all ends when Porky smacks Misterioso in the face, and he ends the segunda with an all time great top rope splash, getting Oro to help him balance, then standing on the top triumphantly before doing a full squat...and just flattening Volador. Who can not love this man? Who couldn't get excited for Los Brazos? 

Necro Butcher vs. Amazing Red PWS 3/5/11

PAS: Match I had no idea ever happened, which is a real battle of aughts era indy legends a bit past their prime. Necro is at his most acclaimed as a walking heavy bag who takes enormous ass kickings, but he is also pretty great on top, and mauls Red around the arena for most of the match. Much like his obvious predecessor Rey Mysterio Jr., Red is an unexpectedly stiff worker, and fires back with some pretty sharp kicks, including some down right Sanoish solebutts right to Necro's bourbon and Percoset laden belly. He also absolutely savages Necro's bare feet and ankles with chair shots. We get a nifty finish run with Red getting some plausible near falls before falling to a perfectly executed jumping Tiger Driver (Necro's move execution was always an underrated part of his overall excellence). What a treat to run across this match on youtube, delivered on it's promise for sure. 

MD: We lose a little bit in the front here, but you still get the general idea. Necro lays in a beating around the ringside area in the expected walk, pound, and toss style. Red's hope strikes are super credible, which was half on Necro leaning into them, but every time he creates some distance it just knocks Necro back into another chair he can use. Eventually, after a horrific running crotch into the pole that would haunt Red for the rest of the match, it ends up back in the ring and that means no more chairs for a bit. That gives Red a fighting chance though he's still half a step behind due to the groin injury. He works on Necro's ankle, more as a way to keep him down than as a direct path to victory, including using a chair of his own, but the amount of high risk moves he needs to utilize (while always a little slow due to the grade A selling) means he's bound to get caught. Pretty much the sprint you'd want it to be.

JR: I think my feelings on Necro Butcher are pretty well established at this point, but one thing that I haven’t really written about is that he is a tremendous “on paper” guy. Think about basically any wrestler you can that is remotely competent, and putting them in a singles match against Necro is at least a perverse curiosity. Throughout this I couldn’t help but think about how wonderful it would’ve been to see Necro having a walk and brawl against Rey Mysterio, stumbling drunkenly into the 619, grabbing his toothless mouth and bleeding face after Rey clobbers him in the face with his knee brace. I guess I was sort of hoping I’d get something similar here, although that probably isn’t fair because Red and Rey are two different workers. What we got here was a relatively interesting match, albeit one that I think has issues that bother me specifically. I think, in a perfect world, we would have had a longer control section from Necro once they got back in the ring, as I think Red taking control almost immediately didn’t give the crowd an opportunity to get invested. I wish that Red’s control segment was a little more dynamic; it almost felt as though he was trying to work heel here and slow Necro down and not bounce around, which I found confusing, especially considering the finish was a pretty overt monster heel finish from Necro. Perhaps I’m being too hard on this. When I saw the names and the match time of under 9 minutes, I thought I was going to see something like the Demus/Iron Kid match from a few years ago, especially once I saw the opening portions were a crowd brawl. Instead we got a perfectly fine midcard match and I can’t help but think there was something better that could’ve happened here.

ER: JR brings up Necro as an on paper guy, which was precisely the criteria that made Necro one of my literal three favorite guys in wrestling for a really long time. When you ask yourself "Whose matches would you watch, regardless of opponent" it's a good way at getting to the heart of what wrestlers are truly your favorites. For a large portion of the 2000s the only wrestlers who fit that criteria for me were Finlay and Necro Butcher. It's a pretty accurate litmus test. There are plenty of wrestlers who I love (Super Dragon, Low Ki) who have matches against wrestlers I decidedly do not love (Davey Richards, Joey Ryan) that I have never watched. But I would watch Necro Butcher or Finlay against Davey Richards, because every possible opponent gives me the opportunity to see what Finlay or Necro would have done with a total negative factor. Play the game yourself, you might learn a thing about your personal preferences that you never realized. 

This match was incredibly entertaining, tons of great stuff that was over way too quick, and just like Phil I had no clue these two ever crossed paths. Necro throws Red into the crowd and bodyslams him back over the guardrail, buries him under chairs, deals with mouthy NY kids, takes a thrown chair right on the top of his head, the kind of tour around the venue you expect from any Necro match. The real gold happens in ring, as Red lands so many awesome shots to make the size gap vanish. Red has really great kicks, great solebutts to the bellybutton that Necro expertly and accurately sells like a guy who ate poisonous berries he found while camping. All of Red's stomps to Necro's feet and malleolus were looked super painful, and the chokeslam into a gorgeous tiger driver (while palming Red's face for the pin) was a great finish. I'm so happy this match happened, even happier that it is now online for all. 

Damien Wayne vs. Lance Erickson NWA Mountain State 6/4/12

PAS: Lance Erickson is nicknamed the Canadian Lion and has maple leaf tights, and based on his pre-match interview must come from Charleston or Wheeling Manitoba. He must be working some sort of PY Chu Hi or Krusher Kruschev gimmick where he renounced his Mountain State roots to join an evil group of Canucks. This is what you hope a dog collar match between bad ass southern wrestlers will look like. Damien Wayne is a DVDVR favorite from way back and has great looking punches and chops and a killer top rope elbow (which he wraps in a chain). He opens up Erickson early with a chain shot, with Erickson really cut deep as the blood starts to look like Merlot. Wayne bleeds too, which looks great on his bald head and they crack each other with hard chain assisted punches and chain chokes. They didn't bother with the touch the turnbuckles gimmick which is a much better way to do this kind of fight. 

MD: I think we've seen so many dog collar and strap matches with the four corners stip that it's refreshing to see one without it. They use the chain well, with Wayne opening Erikson up early (after a failed ambush to begin) with it, a real gusher. The crowd seems a little split here (I get the sense that Erikson was more of a regular that they loved to dislike) and it means that while the violence is ok, the heat isn't necessarily there, even after Erikson takes over on a missed chain punch in the corner and subsequent hanging and opens up Wayne as well. It makes things more back and forth than something with a real tangible comeback. They work in some moves as opposed to just chain shots but it all works because there's always the chain they land on the chain. I really like the finish where Wayne had taken out his ribs on his first top rope elbow attempt and figured out to wrap it around the elbow for the second one. Could have used Erikson leaning on him a bit more but all of Wayne's stuff was good and you can't fault Erikson's gusher here. It sounded like the match ended up this way because they couldn't get a cage going for logistical reasons (maybe they didn't have one, maybe a commission, who knows) and I think I would have been pretty satisfied with what I got if I was in that crowd.

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MLJ: Guerreros del Infierno A-3: 2000 CMLL Tag Team Title Tournament

Alright, onto the comp itself (so this is the third entry in this series, but it's an A category). Again, apologies for not having matches to show people here, but Fredo was kind enough to transfer this over from VHS for me so it's out there. We're starting with the tag team tournament for the CMLL titles. These were vacated around this time due to El Hijo Del Santo going independent instead of working for CMLL full time. He had been teaming with Negro Casas.

It took me a little bit to figure out what happened here, as I have this listed as one half of the tournament bracket, with Emilio Charles, Jr. and Mr. Niebla winning the other side. On the comp itself though, this is listed as the 1st round, semi finals, and finals. Apparently what happened was that Charles was injured, so GdI having won their side of the bracket got the belts by forfeit, and then had their first defense against Niebla and a substitute partner (Villano IV) at the Entre Torre Infernal PPV where the finals were supposed to take place.

So this side of the bracket had Felino and Tarzan Boy, Blue Panther and Bestia Salvaje(who with Scorpio, Jr. had been the team trading the belts with Santo and Casas), Porky and Olimpico, Lizmarks Sr. and Jr., Cien Caras and Universo 2000, Gran Markus, Jr. and Pimpinela Escarlata, and GdI. In case anyone's curious, the other side had Niebla and Charles, Jr., Fuerza and Black Warrior, Scorpio, Jr. and Zumbido, Tony Rivera and Antifaz del Norte, Wagner, Jr. and Shocker, Rayo and Atlantis, Tinieblas, Jr. and Rivera, and Satanico and Apolo Dantes.

This was absolutely CMLL tournament lucha, but that's okay, because tournament lucha can be fun if you come in with the right expectations and are looking for specific things. Here, I wanted to see just what GdI brought to the table in 2000, both giving and taking. I've seen them in trios with Satanico to lead them, but here they were out there on their own on what would probably have been one of the biggest nights of their careers up until this point.

And I have to admit, it was all a lot of fun. Before the first match, they showed us this awesome training video with the two of them running tumbling drills and hyping each other up. That's going to be a theme in this. They are a team, a unit, in the sort of way that I've rarely seen with a tag team in my CMLL watching. Titles are defended so rarely and straight up tag matches, as opposed to trios that are almost always there to push a singles program, are pretty rare too. GdI were a team and I think that's part of why they stood out so much.

2000-06-30 @ Arena México
Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Felino & Tarzan Boy [CMLL TAG, 1st]

I want to stage the complaint of having Tarzan Boy's theme in my head once again. Just to give some perspective here, UG was 28, Rey was 26, Tarzan Boy was 27, and Felino was 36. According to cubs' Match Finder, Rey and UG only had one straight up tag match together in their career up til this point. GdI took over immediately, using either tandem offense or paralleled offense (as in Rey would hit a flapjack and then UG would hit a flapjack). After some mauling, both Tarzan Boy and Felino got to do "vs. the world" exchanges where they out-quicked both opponents. UG was more agile at this point and ate this stuff especially well.

Eventually though, Felino ran into a double flapjack/facebuster thing and then a cool double lift up into a double sit down choke slam. They were very smooth with this tandem offense and it really stood out. Then they flipped back with the arms into a cool double submission:

Tarzan Boy met much the same fate with another double flapjack, then a double wheelbarrow suplex and a really nasty arm pull/foot choke double submission. Striking stuff.

Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Villano IV & Villano V [CMLL TAG, quarterfinal]

The Villanos had pretty awesome music. They were tecnicos here and took a good chunk of the short match due to well-timed rudo miscommunication. The best spot here was Rey accidentally clotheslining UG over the top to set up stereo topes and a nice little exchange where UG got shrugged off while trying to bulldog a Villano into Rey's foot (as he was on the apron), followed by him shrugging off the Villano, only to see him float back over and hit a powerslam for two.

Eventually though, GdI took back over with whip reversals and tandem dropkicks. They hit another double facebuster, yet another (and different) double submission and then a double corner clothesline which I don't think I've ever seen before but it looked great. Then they finished it all up with this cool double leg lock roll into a double crab. I didn't grab screen caps of all these but you have to take my word on it that they were novel and cool, but at the same time fit well into the albeitly short matches.

Rey Bucanero & Último Guerrero vs Hijo del Lizmark & Lizmark Sr. [CMLL TAG, semifinal (de facto finals)]

Like I said, Charles' team had already won their bracket (I think the week before on June 23). The match finder has him wrestling up until July 28, and then not again until August 18, with the supercard being on August 4, so unless it was an angle, they didn't book this match with the injury in mind.

I say that because, for a de facto tournament final, this was very, very decisive. GdI swarmed. UG hit a corner clothesline. Rey leapt off his back with a poetry in motion body attack. UG slapped a leglock on Lizmark and leaned down a bit. Rey leapt off his back again (while he kept on the leglock) and hit a dropkick on Lizmark, Jr. in a really spectacular and novel spot. Rey locked in a reverse figure four and UG grabbed a double-underhook to really grind in the leglock. He rolled back. Rey turned over and just like that, within a minute, they won. It was a massive exclamation point to the night.

So, to sum up, this was tournament lucha so nothing went long or had much substance but GdI got to show off their teamwork in their first match, how well they could feed tecnicos in their second match (as well as some cool offense), and then totally dominated in the third, and I think the crowd absolutely noticed their presence. All of this was a lot of fun for what it was.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 4: Hijo del Lizmark, Místico, Último Dragón vs Olímpico, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

Aired 2006-04-29
Taped 2006-04-23 @ Arena Coliseo
Hijo del Lizmark, Místico, Último Dragón vs Olímpico, Tarzan Boy, Último Guerrero

This probably would fall more on the fun side of things, at it was fairly disposable from a structural standpoint. It did have a pretty snappy tercera caida though. Frankly, I think all of these Guerreros del Atlantida matches have been at least worth watching and I've enjoyed them in sequence as well. It's not even that there's an ongoing story from week to week (though there are some trhoughlines), but it's fun to just watch these guys in front of the same audience with slightly different variations in the make-up of the trios having to keep things interesting.

The way they chose to do so here was to have an outright rudo ambush to begin, run with a very short segunda caida comeback, and then reset for a tercera with a lot of action and some shtick. It was fairly effective, but ultimately sort of slight, especially compared to the last few matches which felt like they had a bit more substance. There were some nice moves and very solid dives and some character work that stood out, especially in the third fall, but it all came off as a little forgettable.

Everyone did get to show off at one point or another. The Guerreros had that bandit mentality like usual, with Ultimo's huddle with the fans really king-sized this time out. The ambush was believable and effective with two press slams (one onto Olimpico's knee and the other to the outside) and a brutal triple team spot involving a stun gun and being tossed across the ring on Mistico. They took the primera caida with three corner attacks on Lizmark and a nice looking double lift set-up springboard dropkick by Olimpico onto Dragon. Their triple pin after this was great. In general, I think Olimpico was a very useful addition to most matches he was in as he made for a great visual discrepancy and an effective foil for the tecnicos. In the tercera caida, the character work was fun as some miscommunication had Tarzan Boy and Olimpico at each other's throats until UG played peacemaker and they managed a goonish reconciliation, avoiding a misstep and recovering to double chop Lizmark.

The tecnicos were pretty fiery, as these three were sort of variations of the same. They didn't get to show much during the comeback (which consisted of Lizmark, Jr. ducking a double clothesline and Mistico flying in with a springboard dropkick out of nowhere, followed by a diving over the top 'rana to UG and the finishes), but I do like both Lizmark and Dragon's finishes. I think Dragon's looked a little goofy in the states but it seemed to fit in better here. During the tercera, Dragon and UG had a nice sequence and Lizmark and Dragon set up the rudo miscommunication well. Everyone played to the crowd which was definitely into this and very much behind the tecnicos.

The end played up the ongoing Mistico vs UG storyline where Mistico keeps getting closer and closer to beating him with La Mistica. After Dragon took everyone out with the Asai Moonsault (which still felt like something special) and it came down to the captains, Mistico got shrugged off on his La Mistica attempt and UG immediately went for the foul. There's an undercurrent in these matches that he can't beat him one-on-one which allowed for a pretty easy and effective narrative tool. Fun match, but better as part of a greater whole.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience Final: Marco Corleone vs Lizmark, Jr., Cabellera vs Cabellera

2008-10-17 @ Arena Mexico
Marco Corleone vs Lizmark Jr., Cabellera vs Cabellera

I wasn't actually going to look at this one. I never intended to do a career retrospective on Marco, after all. I just wanted to get a sense of him and how he was in different situations, like I did with Valiente. I think I've got that more than down at this point. He's a great foil for very good workers, can work some fairly elaborate sequences, especially comedy ones, that play up his size, can work the crowd fairly well, but ends up doing stuff that maybe he shouldn't be doing anymore. Back in 06-07, he was a lot smoother and his physical stuff looked more impressive, but he hadn't yet honed the more mental aspects of his work. You could sort of do a chart where one element rises and the other one sinks. That's, in a way, why I'm stopping back here, a year and a half after the hair match with Universo, at a point where he was still physically in his prime, but had amassed more experience. That sounds good, doesn't it? Really, this was always the first youtube result and I just never took a look at it. I figured I ought to before I tied all this up, not expecting to write it up, and then it was good enough that I felt like I sort of had to in order to end all of this on a high note.

There were some trios leading up to this, but let's not go more overboard here than I already have. Ten is a nice round number. Fourteen is, perhaps, a little much. Also, now that I've gotten a taste of it, I am definitely itching to go back and see more 2006 that doesn't involve Marco, so I'm done lingering. I don't think anyone can blame me too much there. That said, if I learned anything from the Rush vs Shocker series, it's that context really does matter, so I'm going to miss some nuance here. Thankfully, it wasn't really a "nuance" sort of match, and what did exist, I could pick up from just having seen a lot of Marco. I haven't seen a lot of Lizmark outside of WCW, just that one trios match from before and he was a tecnico then. He had lost his mask the year before this in a big multiman cage match but he developed a pretty good look without it, with the contact lenses and the long hair. Of course, losing his hair here probably didn't help that too much.

Frankly, this was pretty much how Marco should work every match he's in, at least the big ones. They beat the crap out of each other. At least half the match was Marco's really nice punches and him eating chops from Lizmark very, very well, with big spots, moments, sequences, and selling interjected in at the proper times, paced well. It didn't have as much of a big match feel as some of the previous hair matches I've seen. It looks sort of like it was just on a random episode of TV, but that's a guess. The crowd is very hot for it, however, with the huge majority of them behind Lizmark, and I think every female in the arena (and it looks and sounds like there are plenty) rooting for Marco. They had good reason to be into the match as it was worked with an intensity that I really had no idea that Marco could reach. It definitely wasn't boring. It wasn't some sort of frenetic mess either.

The first two falls were fairly smartly put together. They would go back and forth from trading blows into a larger move or sequence and back to the measured striking. This led to Marco hitting his back suplex/chokeslam and the first superman leap of the match for the pin. He celebrated it by playing to the crowd in a fairly cocky manner, which would come back to haunt him in the segunda. There, after some more back and forth and strike exchanges, Marco hit a big top rope press only to lift Lizmark up at two and mock him to get back up. Well, he did, and Marco ate a superkick and a deep half crab for his trouble. When against someone who's got a fairly decent offense, Marco's size could be a huge advantage visually. The kick is way up high and looked great and even something so pedestrian as the crab looked interesting between Lizmark's facial intensity and just how long Marco stretched from head to toe.

It's not as if the tercera immediately shifted into a higher gear than what they had been working, but then again, it didn't really have to. The back and forth strikes were carrying the match and dropping that for a bunch of dives and rope running would have probably been a mistake. Instead, they escalated the stakes, interjecting more big moves, whether it be a pretty impressive powerbomb by Lizmark (who didn't have Marco jump up into the position like  he usually does) or a superplex or Marco's clothesline from the ramp to the floor. Lizmark more or less had the advantage throughout, with him hitting the larger moves and Marco getting a reversals or snap pin attempts in. It all came to head in a very fun finishing stretch. They let loose with one final strike exchange, which didn't veer into annoying fighting spirit mode since it played upon the earlier parts of the match, had very good selling, and was ultimately fairly brief. It ended with Lizmark charging at Marco who backdropped him over the top to the ramp. He then flew at him at high speed, hitting the Superman leap from the inside out and set him up to do it from the ramp back in. Lizmark rolled through for a near-count which completely and utterly had the crowd. It was a downright brilliant sequence. I think the body presses are overdone in a lot of Marco's matches and make him look fairly limited, but rarely they can make them really pay off like they did here. They took it home immediately thereafter, with Marco hitting a corner splash and then a sunset flip from the outside in. Lizmark grabbed the rope at the last second but the ref missed it, so he was able to save some face but not his hair.

It's funny. Marco's selling of strikes is very good. His punch is great. In some ways, his size is almost a detriment in that regard, because on a visual level, he rarely gets to just walk around the ring brawling with guys. He could have a great match with a wrestler like Lawler, for instance, especially if we're talking back in 2008. He's always going to have the size and he can use it more subtle ways like he does now with some of the comedy sequences he works in trios. It doesn't always have to be him changing momentum of a match with a big body press or his clothesline of diminishing returns. I think it'll be interesting to see where he's at in a couple of years when he's been forced to adapt his act a little bit due to aging. This match, however, might have been the peak intersection of his physical gifts and his development as a wrestler. I'm sure it didn't win any match of the year awards, but I think it was well worth watching.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 7: Hijo del Lizmark, Marco Corleone, Satánico vs Olímpico, Pierroth, Universo 2000

aired 2007-03-10
taped 2007-03-04 @ Arena Coliseo
Hijo del Lizmark, Marco Corleone, Satánico vs Olímpico, Pierroth, Universo 2000

I've actually got a nice little four match feud here, between the hair tag match, this, a singles match that followed it, and the hair match that ended things. It seems a little weird to end the Marco stuff way back in 2007, so I might cap it off with a recent trios or something. Part of me does see the danger in having a 10 match Marco Corleone mini project as my second or third focus, but I do think I've picked up a lot of other things along the way so it's generally okay.

This match was no different. Look at what I get to delve into here: Old Man, tecnico (what the heck?) Satanico. Old Man Pierroth. Lizmark, Jr and Olimpico, who haven't seen too much of, and some more Universo. I am the world's only proponent of the idea that you can really, truly learn a lot about a wrestler by watching them after they've broken down and don't have the same physical gifts. The question is whether or not they know enough about the craft of professional wrestling to compensate and how they attempt or don't attempt to do so.

Satanico was aces in 1984 and he was pretty much aces here too. He could still take things to second gear in brief bursts though, which helped. It was still weird seeing him play the beloved old hero, but he was excellent in garnering sympathy and response, whether it be eating multiple hair throws, playing to the crowd at key moments, or even teasing a dive. His offense was pretty smart with my personal highlight being this amazing corner thrashing of Pierroth where he just smushed his elbow in the poor jerk's eye. Pierroth I was less enthused about. He didn't get out of first gear and he really barely had that. That, in and of itself, wouldn't have been too bad but he had one too many corner clotheslines or times where he hit the ropes and the world just stumbled to a stop. If you're forced to be sluggish or unwilling to find a way to turn it up, then try to wrestle smart. Do matwork. Punch it out. Make the other guy do the work. He was exposing himself way too much here, especially for someone who really ought to have known better. When he wasn't doing that, he looked pretty good though. I liked his little chops and pokey punches and he was directing traffic well.

The rudos, in general, worked very smoothly. They opened the match with a pretty great ambush that had a chaotic feel that you don't really seem to see much anymore. The best of it was when the camera quickly shot back to the outside to see Marco flying into the turnbuckle. They carried it forward into an effective mauling, with a very cool triple submission on Satanico and a nasty senton on Lizmark to take the primera caida. I love that the senton is still so relevant in lucha. It's this primal visual, just a grisly landing that makes for a very believable pinfall or nearfall when necessary or a momentum shift when it's missed. Anyway, they also had pretty fun character work, between a huddle after disposing of an opponent, and Universo and Pierroth hamming it up in response to Marco's Rude Gyration to hilarious ends.

Frankly, I think I might have underestimated Marco a bit when it came to how he handled the character work in 2007. The flip side to this is that maybe I overestimate him a bit now. When he's in there with someone who really seems to know what he's doing, like Universo, they can play it up really well. He's a great foil, maybe more so than just being a great prop. They use him here to fuel the tecnico comeback. I almost wonder if you would get these luchadors who rarely get to work with a guy his size and they think "Why the hell wouldn't we use him to climb up the ropes and leap back at our opponent to turn the tide? The crowd will eat it up!" so you see it again and again. The difference between then and now is that he's able to be part of much more elaborate sequences now instead of just prompting reactions with his swivel.

This had a pretty clever finish that pushed things along on the road to a big singles match. After Marco had disposed of Universo from the ring (no dive though. I don't think there was a dive in this match at all), his partners got dumped to the floor and then summarily tied up in chairs by their feet. This led to a 3 on 1 in the ring and a distracted ref, where Marco fought for a moment, but ate a foul from Universo, allowing the rudos to win the match. It was a nice little bit of chicanery to keep the feud going and maybe further cement Marco as a tecnico since that was relatively new(?). All in all, this was a pretty good trios and a nice chance to see how much zing Satanico still had.

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My Favorite Wrestling! WCW Main Event 5/24 & 5/31/97

1. Pat Tanaka vs. Yuji Nagata

The Main Event was pretty much the D-List WCW syndicated show, as it was 50+ minutes of recap and had one exclusive match. This was a kick in the dick as Tanaka/Nagata is joined in progress. Soooo many minutes of Bobby and Tony hanging out in the studio talking about feuds and doing "analysis" and I can't see how the one exclusive match started?! But either way, the match was cool as hell and Tanaka still appeared to be a great worker in '97, even as a tubbo. Match went only 3 minutes but Tanaka had a GODLY fist drop, flying halfway across the ring with it. Nagata threw a bunch of nice kicks, tons of different varieties, which ended with Tanaka catching a leg and hitting one of the more brutal dragon screws I've ever seen. I can't believe Nagata's leg didn't snap. Nagata's comeback is really good as he had a few great suplexes with his exploder and awesome overhead belly to belly. Tanaka was aces here leaning into all of Nagata's kicks, flying chest first into turnbuckles, eye gouging and fish hooking and dishing fine offense of his own. These guys could have an epic if given 8-10.

2. Super Calo vs. Lizmark Jr.

Decent rushed lucha match. Lizmark goes over I guess because of his size, although the announcers seemed to be putting over Calo the whole match. I actually had assumed Calo would go over, just because I know he ended up in some ppv singles matches and I don't recall Lizmark getting the same. Lizmark was in a pretty tough spot in WCW as he was a luchador, but used a lot of power offense like lariats and powerbombs so didn't really "match up" for lucha singles matches the way WCW wanted to present them (fast action, lots of flips and spins) and was bigger than all the other luchadors (save Parka), but wasn't big enough (or white enough) to be pushed with other WCW heavyweights. He and Calo work about the most basic 3 minute lucha match you can work, with Lizmark hitting a cool spin kick and Calo hitting an awesome tope en reversa/back elbow after running up the turnbuckles. Finish was nice with Calo going for a rana off the top and Lizmark planting him with a powerbomb.

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