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

IWRG Retro 11/12/22

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

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

Azor vs Neblina 7/28/96

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

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

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

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New Footage Friday: RIP Harley, Dory, Villano III, Random French Guys

Harley Race vs. Dory Funk Jr. AJPW 12/12/81

PAS: This was a AJPW HH, and a nifty chance to see what a 70s title match between these two might have looked like. The opening of this match had Dory side headlocking, like a side headlocking machine. His dogged determination to hanging on to a dull headlock almost became a comedy spot. He was working like a Chikara or Beyond guy who's gimmick was "Dory Funk Jr." After they finally move on from that it got pretty great, I loved all of the work around the Indian Death Lock, it was applied in a way I hadn't seen before, and they did a bunch of nifty adjustments and reversals. Race is also a great heater, and when they stood out and started throwing it was pretty great, for all of Dory's starch when he gets fired up he can look good. The match got very good in the end run, with some big suplexes and some drama, although the draw finish was a bit deflating. This wasn't a hidden classic or anything, but it was a good chance to see what these guys could do in a long match.

MD: We come to celebrate Harley Race. I wish, maybe, that we had a different match to do it with, but that is a testament to the man in and of itself. Every time, over the last few years, that a new Harley match that looked interesting popped up, we reviewed it. This is one that was buried, that I didn't actually realize was on this disc. It's not a bad match to choose though. Harley won his first NWA Title from Dory. They had history. I don't think there are many (if any?) full singles match between the two that we have.

Look, this is Dory at his most Dory. He's working towards a draw. The first half of the match is a series of headlocks, building to spots, and brought back down to headlocks. The back half is basically the same thing but with Harley having the advantage. They escalate to a finish that calls back to parts of the match previous. Some of it is serene. Every time Harley starts to get out and has to get cut off is really solid. He was hugely entertaining in that role, feeding, giving, stooging. Likewise, every time he has to cut off Dory, he does so with either a bomb (suplex, pile driver, etc) or an organically placed shot that seems like the most natural thing in the world. It's not that they didn't work the headlocks, with Harley kicking his foot from underneath or lifting and dropping his body while on top. The few times Dory bridged up while in control made it seem tangibly painful. It amazed me a bit how many times they went in and out of it, but it went past the point of tiring me to feeling like real commitment.

I like where they eventually made it to, especially Harley's Indian Deathlock and the eventual reversal. The strikes were just great, Dory's forearm off the ropes, Harley's straight punches in the corner. Something like the first blocked suplex, deep into the match, felt like it really, really meant something. Hell, even Harley's first hit falling headbutt felt like it meant something because he'd missed it once along the ways. These guys were just so credible and the crowd believed them entirely. There's a reason that streamers went flying with the draw. They could get away with this match and even have it feel satisfying when others couldn't. And frankly, there was a great match possible here. If they had chosen some hold other than the headlock, something that would allow for some selling, a revenge hold other than the front facelock, if they had told the same match but had given themselves more of an (almost literal) crutch, then this thing would have singed. As it was, that they got as far as they did with what they chose to go with, and that they were rewarded by the crowd for such, does feel fairly legendary.

Bud Jenkins/Jean Sobek vs Gino Rossini/Eddy Warrant 6/11/88

MD: Look, if have to have Midnight Oil stuck in your head for a few hours because they played it before a 1988 match from Germany, this is the match to watch. I'm not even sure what to say about this. Wrestling can be a lot of different things, from shootstyle to Titanes en el Ring, but the opening exchange of this feels like it taps into an acrobatic genre/tradition that we've barely seen anything of. They intersperse it with some choice shots and heatseeking behind the ref's back because wrestling is wrestling, thankfully. There's the world's most casual ref bump drop kick, an endless stream of machine gun European uppercuts, guys camping on the top rope, and no finish, but you don't really care because you're just glad to have seen this stuff at all.

PAS: Belgian wrestling is apparently it's own wild thing. The opening of this match is totally bonkers, flips and spins that make the most agile luchador look flat footed. I especially loved the way one of these guys (no idea who was who in this match) jumped over a drop down, he floated in the air like he was levitating, this was after some crazy flip ups out of armdrag attempts. It gets a bit more standard in the second half of the match, but that first section was breathtaking and bizarre.


Ciber Black/Emilio Charles Jr./Shocker vs. Mascara Sagrada/Super Mueneco/Villano III 10/5/08

MD: I'd like to say that there's some secret method here at Segunda Caida Labs at how we find these matches, but there's really not. With lucha especially, there are so many regional or lost matches that some random new channel might have something and go under the radar. I do some searches every week or so, for Negro Casas because I want to check out his indy stuff, for Bockwinkel since sometimes you do get lucky there, but also for Emilio Charles. Because of when he passed and because there's no hijo de, you don't get the search
cluttered with a lot of newer matches.

I have no idea what's going on here, save for that the listing says it's a benefit show for Scorpio, Jr. and that the tecnicos come out to the Back to the Future theme (which Villano III's shoulder spikes and cape being awesome). I think that this was one of the first times Charles and Shocker had teamed since their feud in 2001.

This was just fun indy lucha with a bunch of solid, charismatic guys. I loved how meat and potato the initial beatdown was. They used the rope and the ramp, really grinding down. Everything Charles did looked mean. Shocker brought the star power and the fans (at least the young ones) were constantly chanting. They ducked the rule of three on the rudo communication/tecnico comeback and that could have breathed just a little better to prime the crowd. The tercera was full of the fun exchanges that you couldn't get with an initial rudo ambush. It was especially great to see Villano III against everyone. Fun little celebratory match (and only in lucha can a match end with a foul DQ and still feel like a celebration).

PAS: Emilio was rocking an amazing mustache in this match. He looks like a guy Rick Dalton would hunt down on an episode of Bounty Law. It is always worth watching guys like Charles and V3 and Shocker throw hands. This was a very formula lucha main event trios, it was designed to leave the fans satisfied, and not really as something to be rewatched and analyzed. When Super Muneco runs through his routine, it isn't anything new or surprising, and hell he basically made the rudos armdrag themselves, but we need to see him roll his head around and do a crazy dance, and he delivered. Very much a match that delivered.

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New Footage Friday: ALL EDDIE!! ALL THE TIME!!

Eddy Guerrero vs. Jushin Liger NJPW 12/9/92

MD: I'm not a huge proponent of one or two spots/elements making a match must-see. That said, this match has those one or two elements. First, there's Liger's leg selling. It's such a great balance of him allowing Eddy to stay in control and peppering in comebacks. It colors his decisions whether to dive or not to dive. It forces a post-offense hesitation that lets Eddy take back over. Even when Liger's hitting stuff cleanly, it doesn't feel dropped, just pushed past and there's always a cost, down to when he's leaving the ring after the (stolen) win. When Liger finally hits the dive late-match it feels like a huge deal, but it's also not something he can capitalize on.

The second big thing is the Eddy crowd dive. It was amazing and everyone should see it. There's nothing else to say about that really.

They had a match earlier in the year and it was far less of a complete Eddy performance and much more of a novelty minor Liger match. This is something people should go out of their way for.

PAS: I thought this was really fun, it reminded me of the Eddie vs. Ultimo Dragon WCW house show match I saw back in 97. Built slowly but really solidly with some early mat work, including some nasty leg work by Eddie, where he just cranked every hold. It built to some bigger spots, including a great Tapita by Liger and a huge springboard plancha into the crowd by Eddie which was a monster highspot in 1992. I loved the finish, Eddie just spikes Liger with one of the better superplexes I can remember seeing, it almost felt like a superplex version of the Dynamite Kid snap suplex, and the when he goes for a top rope back suplex Liger twists, lands on top, and gets the flash victory. Eddie comes out looking like a killer, and Liger is protected, great bit of business.

ER: These two hand at least a dozen singles matches together, with only one happening before this one, and that is very exciting. It has the 90s NJ juniors match structure, with matwork dominating the first half and leading to a big rope running exchange leading to some unexpectedly larger things. I say unexpectedly only because this was a house show, and they broke out some pretty big stuff for a house show, no doubt a long running habit of both men. The mat stuff was fun and engaging, both going after legs but Eddy getting the advantage and I thought they had some cool stuff. We all kind of know at this point that NJ junior matwork is more about filling time and establishing control, and they did a good job at that. I liked Eddy rolling Liger into tough pins, crucifixes and grapevined leg pins, forcing Liger's shoulder down (and then calling that back later in the match when he tried it again on a weaker opponent), wrenching Liger's knee (with Liger taking time to stretch it and pay it some lip service when Eddy was on the floor), and we finally opened things up nicely with two killer Liger armdrags, rolling off Eddy's back with a gorgeous Tim Horner style armdrag and whipping Eddy over with a Japanese armdrag, then just blasting him with a hard southpaw lariat. Great sequence. Eddy is one of the greatest armdrag takers of all time, a guy who whips over so fast and compact (and later shows off his  amazing variation where he slides out of the ring under the bottom rope and slams into the guardrail off a similar move, a bump he takes arguably the best of anyone ever). 

They drop some really big things here, suplexes, big exchanges, and the excitement really builds as it feels like the match perfectly ramps up. Nothing really feels out of place, each thing feels bigger than the last, each attack feels like it's advancing everything. We get a dive apiece from each guy, and they are both absolute doozies: Liger hits a crossbody off the top to the floor with Eddy literally standing 80% across the ring. I was looking at how far away Eddy was standing as Liger was climbing to the top, and assumed Liger was just going up there to taunt him, as there was NO way he was going to be able to ever touch Eddy...and I was wrong. That man FLEW. Eddy's dive was spectacular, hitting a springboard off the top and into the crowd, totally nuts to be doing on a show that nobody (except one secret man) was taping. The finish is satisfying, with Eddy setting up a beastly back suplex from the top only to see Liger shift his weight and land hard on Eddy on the way down. This was two absolute legends doing nothing but adding to their legacy. We live in blessed wrestling times. (Also I'm convinced that Phil brings up seeing that Eddie/Ultimo house show match more often than Al Bundy brought up his 4 touchdown game, so I'll just say that this reminded me of when I saw Eddie vs. Rey at a house show in 2005)

Black Tiger/Dean Malenko vs. El Samurai/Shinjiro Otani NJPW 9/24/93

MD: I'm pretty sure this one hasn't been out there. Even if it was, it's well worth watching, even in a sea of classic NJ Juniors matches. I love how mean and focused Eddy and Dean are here. Eddy is pretty much fully developed as mid 90s heel Eddy (which isn't as developed as 97 heel Eddy or 2000s heel Eddy but is still a great thing). Dean's not quite grown out of being a human being yet. There's a charm to the iceman thing, but this unfinished middle ground makes for better, more engaging matches. He actually acknowledged that there's a crowd out there a few times. I really liked the ebb and flow of this. There were constant stomps to break up pins and submissions instead of kickouts. Whenever Samurai and Otani started to fight back, they got double teamed or cut off. Anytime Eddy and Dean focus in on a limb, it's really dynamic and beautiful, just a constant machine gun assault to keep control of the match. It ends up just building and building until the chaos of the blind tag finish.

Sometimes I overcomplicate things, but there are a few easy crutches that can make wrestling narratives immediately better. Otani absolutely gets the value of paralleled spots. The crowd pops big every time he does immediately what he just got hit with, whether it be the heel twist on the face or following up a missed Dean falling headbutt with one of his own.

PAS: This was a great performance by Eddie and Dean, they look like they could have been a classic heel team if they had a longer run together. Just a master class of working heat on Otani, great cut offs, cool double teams and some real great timed comebacks. Loved Eddie jumping Samurai on the apron to keep Otani from making the tag. Malenko had some really smooth takedowns and roll ups and Eddie was really lining up some cool cheapshots. Unfortunately we get some real HH issues and we miss some big spots near the end, although what we saw had some nice near falls, and a great looking spinning DDT by Eddie.

ER: I thought this was mostly awesome, with only an obnoxious juniors tag habit and some unfortunate handheld issues holding it back a bit. Eddy and Dean were absolute damn machines. Otani and Samurai may as well have been up against Stan Hansen and Vader. Dean and Eddy just eat them for lunch, spending much of the match cutting off the ring and absolutely eating Otani for lunch. Seriously it felt like Samurai was in this match a total of maybe 2 minutes. Dean looked fantastic here, breaking out some cool things that he abandoned not long after (that headscissors out of a knucklelock looked like something Hijo del Santo would break out, and Dean hit it just as gracefully as Santito would have). Eddy and Dean both throw several suplexes on Otani, Dean hitting an early and mean jackhammer, Eddy interrupting and Otani spinkick to rudely drop him with a German, and there are tons of rude things throughout by these two, really in everything they do. 

Eddy scrapes his boots across Otani's face, Dean drops him with a gnarly backbreaker that sends Otani recoiling onto his head. Otani would get flashes and comebacks, all delivered explosively. His pescado to the floor was incredible, landing was major impact and smashing Eddy into the guardrail, and the late match moment where he finally hits the spinkick and the scrapes his boot across Eddy's face was an awesome moment. My gripe is that when Otani finally makes the triumphant tag to Samurai, Samurai is in the match barely 1 minute before tagging back out, and Otani had been eating a beating for literally the entire match. Otani had been desperate to tag out for 10 minutes, getting blocked at every turn by Dean and Eddy, then Samurai misses one headbutt and Otani is totally fine to get back in. I hate that. Sadly the end stretch sees a real jerk of a fan stand up directly in front of our heroic cameraman *just* as Otani is about to hit a surely spectacular springboard attack. Doesn't this asshole know a bunch of white people were going to be writing about this match 25 years later? What a POS. I hate those fans who have no forward thinking whatsoever. What about the bloggers, dickhead?

This whole thing ruled, stupid miracle Otani comeback aside. These guys are 4 all time faves of mine, and this was an all time performance from Dean and Eddy. Would have liked to see more Samurai, but thought he had nice moments saving his boy from certain doom. You like these 4 guys - I mean obviously you do - and you will no doubt love all of this.

Eddy Guerrero/Fuerza Guerrera/Jerry Estrada vs. Blue Panther/El Mexicano/Mascara Sagrada AAA 11/13/93

ER: This one really starts as a fairly genial house show style trios, before pivoting suddenly to some wild floor brawling and then turning into a messy (in a good way) assault on the tecnicos. There is no matwork, but we get a lot of time and they clearly knew what the fans wanted to see. I never realized there was so much lucha tecnico offense that revolved around grabbing a rudo's head and just kind of throwing it to the ground, but a ton of the tecnicos' early offense is just that! Estrada is a great stooge, and while he doesn't break out much of his trademark crippling bump style, he knows how to do a goofy duck walk after getting hit, or mugging to the crowd to give his opponent an opening, and any time he gets yanked to the mat by his hair it looks spectacular (as he is the most tasseled wrestler in history). Eddy is part stooge/part lightning fast superworker, taking a fantastic delayed sell faceplant one moment, and then moments later breaking out one of the greatest looking fallaway slams you've seen (the kind where he turns it into an almost physics breaking bridging throw) and working faster than anyone in the match. Fuerza is the smallest man in the match, but he also reads as the total don, the guy who can stroll in and immediately shut down a tecnico, doing not much more throughout the match other than throw great punches and use his mere presence to intimidate. Mascara breaks out his fun "ear boxing" headscissors, Panther breaks out a couple quick headscissors of his own, the whole thing is a very fun house show lucha trios.

And then Panther reveals himself to be a rudo agent, Eddy runs Mexicano the length of the ring and launches him into the crowd (and what a great looking bump into the blackness from Mexicano), and this whole thing becomes Mexicano and Sagrada outnumbered and fighting for their life. Panther spends the rest of the match on the apron selling a phantom leg or ball pain, always about to tag in and help but just never being able to do so, due to his pain. Panther is hilarious in the ways he blocks Mascara and Mexicano from doing anything, my favorite moments include Panther casually grabbing Sagrada's leg when Sagrada is on the top rope, or Sagrada landing a punch and then Panther grabbing his arm to hold Sagrado prone for some shots, all while Panther is mildly scolding him and then appearing to tell Tirantes "he was using a closed fist, you don't want to win by cheating with a closed fist!" Panther is a wonderfully aloof rudo, and it makes the fans even more rabid for any peppered in comebacks the two remaining tecnicos get. Mexicano has several moments where he shines during this two man advantage, really firing up people and throwing nice punch combos, even getting his guardrail revenge back on Eddy. It's all obviously too much for them to handle, but this played out much more interestingly than most other snake in the grass lucha matches I've seen, and it unexpectedly made me want to see Mexicano singles against all the rudos.

MD: This was just constant good stuff. The level of talent here was incredible and while it played out fairly traditionally (exchanges with escalation for a tecnico win, rudos swarm to take the segunda, goozling until the comeback until the weirdness at the end) everything was so fun and full of personality and skill that you can't help but love it if you love lucha.

The initial pairings were great and crowd seemed to just ignite the second Fuerza got in there. And they never really slowed down after that. It was just a constant buzz. Eddy, by this point, was so good at looping in little flourishes like pointing to his head after dodging one move so he could walk right into another (and subsequently flopping). Everything he did seemed to have an interesting little twist. The rudo side here was wildly expressive. You've surely seen Fuerza do the handshake/hug/cheapshot deal a thousand times and it's still as good as the first time you ever saw it. Between the dancing and playing to the crowd, bumping over the rail and coming back with a chair, Mexicano could match. Sagrada kept the quebradas coming at least. It almost felt like the tecnicos were basing for the rudos antics, if that makes any sense.

Panther was in the midst of a turn and that was probably more of a distraction than a plus in how it played into the finish, though the post-match was fun. There were a few spots that didn't quite work out and the tercera meandered a bit maybe in part due to a fight in the crowd, but everything generally flowed well despite all that and you just couldn't argue with the level of talent and charisma that was in the ring.

PAS: Eddie/Estrada and Fuerza are such a dope rudos trio, and I like all the technicos too. Before it succumbed to heel red stuff and turns, there was some really sweet exchanges. Mexicano looked great, not a guy I had searched out before, but man this makes you want to see what hidden Halcon 78 is floating around. Eddie has such explosive execution which makes him stand out even amongst a group as talented as this. Match was there to get heat on the rudos with the crowd and cement the Panther turn, and it does all that business effectively. I would have rather just seen a clean trios, but they certainly riled up the crowd and solidly executed all of the angle stuff.

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MLJ: Two Years of Lucha: Atlantis, Máscara Sagrada, Pantera Del Ring vs Jerry Estrada, MS-1, Negro Casas

1991-10-27 @ Arena Coliseo
Atlantis, Máscara Sagrada, Pantera Del Ring vs Jerry Estrada, MS-1, Negro Casas

My first actual review here on SC, as part of the lucha journey, was on April 21, 2014. Since then, I've written three match reviews a week, every week, without fail. That's two years and just above 300 reviews. Three hundred is a lot of anything. I never expected to actually stay on schedule. I never thought that I'd still be doing this two years later.

Once again, thanks to Phil and Eric for letting me playing in their sandbox. While I'd read the site for years (and have been attached at the online hip to DVDVR since I was 17 in 1999), I think it surprised me a little how much our collective views tend to sync up. We all piss off the same people for the same reasons, basically. That was a happy accident. Thanks, also, to everyone who takes the time to read these. I started this for myself, as a way to wrap my head around lucha, but it's appreciated when anyone leaves a comment or posts about them on twitter, or links to them, like Cubsfan does religiously. Thank you.

I do think I've hit the realm of diminishing returns. It took me maybe 100 of these to figure out how things like trios matches really worked. After that it was exploration up and down, especially when a new bit of footage popped up, and there are still thousands of matches out there for me to watch, but I think the value in me moving forward as I have been is sort of limited. I'm going to finish the Sombra Spotlight over the next few weeks. It doesn't make much sense to go past 2014 since I already covered those matches. I plan on making a Master List early next week because I do think people who follow NXT but not lucha will be curious and this might give them an in. After that, I think it's time for me to start looking at things that aren't lucha as well, and maybe not with the 3x a week regularity.

So, this is what I picked for the two year anniversary. I wanted some sort of Casas vs Atlantis singles match, after the trios I saw the other day, but they are few and far between. I thought about the Casas/Mistico vs Atlantis/Olimpico tag title match, but this just jumped out at me more. Panterita del Ring is Ephesto, which makes this interesting. That it had an all time rudo side makes it interesting too. MS-1 is the ultimate rudo goon and Estrada, in 91, was just so over the top and dynamic, constant motion with the tassles flowing this way and that.

The match is a beautiful Casas showcase, with him being as nasty and craven as possible. This gif sums it up really well:

Atlantis giving the thumbs up, Cass walking over and casually kicking Panterita between the legs. Panterita selling as he rolls into the crowd. That's the match. It's primarily a Casas vs Panterita focus, with Casas stooging, heeling, ducking and dodging. They have a signles match in January of the next year and I presume this, in part, builds to that. Let's get the big thing out of the way first here. Something happens relatively early in the match (it could be that water is tossed into the ring) and they have to stall for a while. Normally, that's a match-killer. Here, though? They stall by Negro Casas locking in the nastiest armbar that the world had ever seen in 1991, just grinding it back against the metal connective bits of the turnbuckle. It's awesome. The problem is this. He had to lock it on for close to five minutes while his partners play crowd control.

(That's the guy with the mop to clean the ring, by the way).

It's cool enough to be compelling and even if it wasn't, Casas' performance and his intensity and charisma are enough to make it work. It worked well enough that people kept on throwing things into the ring in anger at him. The problem comes in the fact that Panterita totally drops the arm selling the second he's on offense and then for the rest of the match. Generally, that's fine in lucha. It's all about momentum shifts, not that high level consistency. This was such an abberation, though, and the hold was on so long, that it really stood out as a blight upon the match.

It was okay for a while though, with the rudos in control Casas using it as an opening to beat Panterita around the ring, and to his credit, he did sell the big picture stuff well for a time. Really, Casas was just a joy here. He's so good now. He was so good then, but he was so good with just more energy and playfulness and a chip on his shoulder. Estrada was a perfect partner for him too. I love this rudo side.

Eventually, of course, the tecnicos come back, and yes, Panterita just ignores the arm completely. You end up not caring too much because in the midst of the comeback, Casas decides to run and hide behind a cameraman and it's the best thing since the armbar:

Sagrada and Atlantis are in this match too, sure, and they play their parts well enough, especially in the comeback, but this was all about the rudos. When it ends, it ends in a satisfying way. It's a weird one but I'd suggest watching any pairing of Estrada and Casas in this era. It still boggles my mind that I've seen hundreds of matches with Negro Casas and there's something new and fascinating in every new match I see.

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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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Octagon and Mascara Sagrada in Fight to the Death (1992)

Was looking for some Paul Naschy movies on the old TV schedule and saw this was on (again, just one of the benefits of living in an area with a high hispanic population). I looked up the cast and outside of the two stars billed in the title (and what a great serial title that is! Be sure to join us next week, same time, for Octagon and Mascara Sagrada in…Ring of Fire! It makes me imagine a cool film noir starring luchadors, and this actual film I am presently watching will certainly have zero chance of being anywhere near as cool as this fake film I've just imagined. I have a feeling there's a reason why nobody talks about any of the luchador films post 1970s), the rest of the luchadors featured reads like a who's who of early 90s Segunda Caida favorites: Solar, Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Angel Azteca, La Parka, Universo 2000, Fishman, etc. I mean hot damn right?

We open with some guy picking up 3 ladies at a weird Flintstones-inspired bar. All the decor was fake rock and stone, with all of the tables inset into the floor, so while you walk through the place your feet would be at patrons head level, and you'd have to step down into your seat. One of the ladies is exceptionally foxy (this is likely Lina Santos) and really has the figure to pull off a slutty early 90s cocktail dress. You know she's sexy because when she takes off her sunglasses she bites the earpiece of them. That's like Sexy 101.

Elsewhere, presumably in Mexico, Octagon and Mascara Sagrada pull up to a hitchhiker on matching motorbikes, wearing windbreaker jogging suits the same color as their ring gear. Windbreaker jogging suits can really only look so cool (which is to say, as cool as your nana's retirement community friends) but Octagon's black suit with red and white paneling looks infinitely cooler than Mascara Sagrada's white jogging suit with teal and yellow. He desperately tries to salvage the outfit by wearing Keds style white sneakers with no socks. It somewhat works. Not long after they are working on their bikes in the countryside, where dozens of children are gathered, for reasons. The children are approached by a couple masked goons with guns (!), so our heroes run in to save the day. And this was the kind of shit I was hoping for, as Octagon and MS do great lucha exchanges in a real fight setting, all in the middle of a grassy field. Watching both of them hit body presses off of dirt mounds is too great, and MS works especially hard, even doing a high dropkick. Let me tell you, until you've seen a luchador hit a big dropkick in a field, brother you haven't lived. Once they sufficiently beat up the goons, many horseback cops with machine guns ride in and escort the goons off. Now, this field appeared to be very much in the middle of nowhere, so I have no clue why 6 cops on horseback happened to be riding by with machine guns and assault rifles, other than Mexico. I think the answer to many questions I will have in this film will be "Because Mexico".

To treat themselves for rescuing hundreds of orphans, our heroes go on a long and improbably gay hang gliding excursion. They literally ride their bikes up to a place that sells motorized hang gliders (the kind where you sit on a seat while flying, making it impossible to look like anything but a dingus), and we get a real time hang gliding sesh, while a twinkling piano instrumental (think the first 10 seconds of Tears for Fears "Head Over Heels") plays on a loop. I'm sure this movie was made as a way to market a new generation of stars, and what better way to get guys over than some pastel jogging suit hang gliding?

~El Tornado, Universo Dos Mil, & Fishman vs. Solar, Mascara Sagrada, & Octagon

Never seen Tornado before. He has a cool mask with a cyclone (or derp, possibly a tornado?) going up one of the cheeks and over both eyeholes. Sagrada is super fast and spry here, really funny that I saw a match just last week (a 2014 match) where he's literally twice the size as he is here. Octagon throws a cool spinning armdrag and Universo bumps big for him. Sadly there's no mat stuff and Solar is kinda portrayed as the weenie of his team (since he's teamed with the two stars of the movie) so mainly just takes abuse from the rudos. Just noticed that the referee is a super young and slender Tirantes. I really dug Sagrada throughout this whole match. He broke out a bunch of neat things (cool somersault dive from the top, big crossbody from the top to the floor, a cool move where he jumped up for a headscissors but just clapped Tornado's head with his legs). Tornado was a guy I've never seen before but took some big bumps, knew how to put Octagon over, and seemed like a good catcher. And I've never seen Universo so slim! Fun stuff all around.

Those three ladies from the beginning of the movie are back at some drug lord's (I assume) compound, and Octagon and MS are busting in on that shit. Octagon just jumps over a brick wall in his jogging suit, but Sagrada comes in driven by fucking boat! And he's standing on the front of the speed boat while some other sucker drives it! Just picture a boat approaching some sort of island fortress mansion, being driven by a shirtless man with a big fluffy mullet, with Sagrada standing on the bow of the speed boat, white/yellow/aquamarine windbreaker suit fluttering in the breeze. Onita fucked up by not riding the boat out to the ring in the same way. These rich assholes aren't gonna know what hit 'em.

Before the next match we cut to outside the arena and the three ladies are all in black catsuits, and they all have their hair up so you know business is about to be handled. They're getting tons of equipment strapped to them in a van, so I assume some sort of espionage or diamond heist is about to take place. The guys equipping them with their headsets and gear are also wearing black, much of it leather. However, they are parked directly under the one streetlamp in the entire alley, so really I have to wonder about their commitment to truly blending in with the night.

~La Parka, Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther vs. Angel Azteca, Mascara Sagrada & Octagon

Pepe Casas and Tirantes are back as the refs for this one. This match is more cut up than the other one, and it's intercut with diamond heist scenes. This match was much more of an Octagon showcase, with Panther bumping all over for his cool leg drag headscissors. Fuerza stooges all over for him as well, which is none too shocking for anybody who's watched 1992 AAA. Skinny Parka takes a real high backdrop bump, and Octagon does a bunch of silly bulldogs (the kind where you gently tap the back of the guys head) that BP tries his damnedest to sell. Match falls apart into a DQ as Fuerza gets his mask twisted backwards and accidentally hits Parka, who starts kicking Fuerza's ass all over the ring. Parka actually took a crazy amount of backdrops in this, so I'm sure this was a joy for him to film. I especially love the one where he essentially takes a Jerry bump but on a backdrop, so he hit Sagrada's shoulder with his ankle and then flips extra high up and over.

We get another extended hang gliding sequence, and this time the score has a looped sound effect of a woman's pleasure-filled moans. So that happened. "That last hang gliding scene was too gay! We need to sex this one up a bit more, in a suuuuper hetero way. ADD THE SEX MOANZ!" It's all done as Octagon and Sagrada are scoping out the evil drug lord's beach-front mansion, so they just casually hang glide around his pad while the drug lord and all his buddies are just out on his deck watching them hang glide. Bold move, heroes.

The ending of this (pretty flat) movie is…pretty flat. As Octagon and Sagrada scuba dive to retrieve the jewels (and that must have been joyous to film a scuba sequence while wearing a lucha mask) and do the old swaparoo and trading out the trash bag of jewels (right?) with a trash bag of empty jewel cases. When the drug lords go to sell their jewels and find all the cases to be empty, our heroes spring into action and do more awesome lucha sequences in a field. Nobody can ever convince me that a giant crossbody off the top of a car is less cool than one off the top rope into a ring.

So that's that. Again, there's probably a reason why you don't hear about lucha movies from the 90s.

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Uprising Lucha Libre Workrate Report 11/3/13

Blue Demon Jr., Mascara Sagrada & Strongman Jon Andersen vs. La Migra (Oliver John, Derek Sanders & Zack Reeb)

Wow, I can see why they took the time to unearth this 4 year old match. What a pile. You know that Blue Demon Jr.'s side is going to go over, but there are plenty of interesting ways to get to your destination. This was not one of them. The tecnicos get - I kid you not - 98% of the offense. The only offense that La Migra got would be when one of them was in a submission, and one of the others would come in a break up the submission. That was it! Oliver John got a couple chops in on Demon, also hit that Jeff Jarrett move where your opponent is draped over the ropes and you run at him and end up draping your leg over him.

The match was almost 16 minutes long! That is so much time to have an awesome match. But the tecnicos did not show ass for two seconds in this whole match. The first 7 minutes were spent with one of the tecnicos (Demon or Strongman, as Sagrada sat on the aprong until the final minute of the match) standing in the middle of the ring, then a member of La Migra would come in, get chopped by Demon, flat back bump and roll to the floor, then repeat with the next member. Strongman would get in the ring, a member of La Migra would come in, lock up with him, and Strongman would shove him down. Usually each guy got shoved down a couple times. This literally happened for the first 8 minutes of the match.

The rest of the match were members of La Migra getting put into submission holds, coming in to break up submission holds, and then getting put back into submission holds. It just would not end. Demon would slowly lock on a submission, it would get broken up, and then he'd just put on another submission. Eventually all three of them came in and awkwardly all got into position to be put into submissions by the tecnicos, including Sanders doing the hilarious "I'm gonna jump at you legs first like we're at a picnic and the wheelbarrow races are starting!" as Demon left him no good option of getting into position. Then the match mercifully ended with a clunky triple submission.

So I'm still dying to know, what the hell is the point of this show? They pay to air it, so they must have a goal in mind. They air mostly matches from 4+ years ago, featuring mostly wrestlers who no longer work for them. A lot of the matches they air aren't very good (with this one being arguably the worst one they've aired so far). They don't advertise upcoming live events. They don't try and sell merchandise. They don't even mention Pro Wrestling Revolution, their own brand name. For some reason they chose to re-brand their TV property as "Uprising", which doesn't make tons of sense in building their PWR brand. They just seem to exist to show old matches, but they PAY to show these old matches.

The best case scenario is that people find the show, and tune in the next week...but since they don't get advertising dollars this really doesn't benefit them at all. Please, anybody, tell me why you think this show exists?

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