All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD Santo/Casas v. Bestia/Scorpio Jr. VS. LCO v. KAORU/Yamada

Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. KAORU/Toshiyo Yamada GAEA 4/4/99

ER: Well, this wasn't very good. This was a mess. This was sloppy, and disorganized, and had zero selling in sight, had botches and was way too long. Picture a Tanaka/Awesome match from 1999. Now picture a tear in the space time continuum, and suddenly another Tanaka and Awesome appear. And then all 4 of them start fighting. So you have two Tanakas and two Awesomes all having a Texas Tornado match. And three of them are having an off night. That's what was happening in this match. You had botches and silly spots that took ages to set up (those falling guardrail spots were terrible) and moves that meant nothing because anyone who took a move could just stand right up and do your own move. Or maybe worse is KAORU, who spent more time selling in the match than anyone else, all consecutive, and all in the first half of the match. And then she was completely fine during the finishing 5 minutes of the match. Some of Shimoda's axe kicks looked like they couldn't cut butter. The crowd brawling was worthless. Yamada was the only one in the match who was sustainably good the whole match. Yamada made this have moments worth watching. She tried the hardest to keep the crowd brawling from being listless, had the best cut off spots, hit her timing best, sold emotion the best. But by and large this was not good.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric did, although it wasn't a great match by any means. It had the kind of ragged feel of a fun Sabu match, with people trying crazy shit and not always hitting it clean, in some ways the awkwardness added to the crazy feeling of the match. I also liked how LCO kept fucking up the ref, hitting her with chair shots and rail shots for the hell of it, added to LCO's characters. They don't give a fuck and will wreck anyone. Yamada also had some awesome looking spin kicks, total game changers and momentum shifters. Still this went way too long, and had as many bad spots as good ones. I imagine all four were in pain the next day, but you don't get an A for effort in wrestling

Apuestas Tag Review

Verdict:

ER: Yeah no chance. This had none of the nuance or storytelling of the lucha tag. The blade jobs were good but not as good as the lucha tag. The build doesn't compare, the heat doesn't compare. Lucha tag in every way.

PAS: This was a blowout, I liked the Joshi tag fine, even if it was a bit long, but the Lucha tag is an all timer.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 6: Shocker & Universo 2000 vs Kenzo & Marco Corleone, Cabelleras vs Cabelleras

Aired: 2006/12/15
Evento: Sin Piedad 2006 (Lucha Estelar) Arena Mexico
Shocker & Universo 2000 Vs Kenzo & Marco Corleone Cabelleras vs Cabelleras

So, this was a bit of a treat, and bear with me while I explain why. Just like it's tempting to watch a million Negro Casas or Blue Panther matches in a row, it's also tempting to find a million hair and mask matches and just watch them one after another. I don't think that's the best way to do this though, as it'd lead to diminishing returns after a while, and variety is the spice of life and all that. When slotting one in makes sense organically, that's another story, and that's this story, actually.

This was a big match on a big show with big stakes and it certainly felt that way. It's also not what I'd call good by any of the usual metrics. It's heated, but it's not smooth. It's almost a constant stream of bullshit, basically, from costumed dancing girls at the start (and Marco having a few bars of the Williams Superman theme and a cape in his entrance! Why in the world did he ever drop that?) to the entirety of the ring work to the haircut theatrics at the end. It was, however, wildly enjoyable bullshit that was put together almost exactly as it should have been. From some sort of "purity" standpoint, this wasn't good; hell, even the comedy wasn't the usual elaborate sort of shtick and sequence but something else altogether. I did sort of enjoy the heck out of it though.

It's funny. Part of why I wanted to see this match was to see Universo in 2007. He was in his early 40s here and I've seen some hints of really good character work from him from this period, just glimpses. Of course, seeing any Shocker earlier than 2014 was also of interest after the time I put into watching the Rush feud. So I wanted to see them, and they're there in this match, sure, but they don't stand out all that much. They had some great dives admittedly and Shocker slapped on one of the best STFs I've ever seen on Marco when they were doing a "reach the ropes" sequence to parallel on the rudos just had the advantage on, but some of that was just how tall Marco is. I did find it interesting that they weren't called tecnicos or rudos but they were introduced as the Mexicans with the others as the Foreigners. It made for a slightly different dynamic.

But yeah, frankly, It was the Kenzo Suzuki and Mima Shimoda show. I have no idea why he had Mima with him instead of Hiroko but she was 110% Sheri Martel here. I think she got more offense in this match than Universo and Shocker combined. Kenzo, who I do not remember fondly from his WWE run, was great except for one tiny thing which I'll get to in as second: Every little reaction he has to everything was amazing. He interacted with Marco really well. He sold what was happening perfectly. Some of it was just so well set up. The first fall ended with something I've been waiting to see: Marco hitting his own guy on the superman dive. It was pretty hilarious, as was Marco doing the Rick Rude gyration for Mima later on and causing Kenzo to collapse. And of course, there was Kenzo's glorious attempt to do a superman dive of his own where he totally wiped out. He was just brilliant in trying to avoid the haircut at the end (and I swear they called him a character from Dragonball once he was bald, which was also really racist, funny and unexpected. Maybe there's just a spanish word that sounds exactly like "dragonball" though). So yes, he did everything really well except for one tiny, minuscule thing: the part where he actually had to wrestle. His offense looked really rough, in the negative way (and frankly 2/3rds of it felt like it was him just holding someone for Mima to batter). His timing was all over the place. I thought Universo and Shocker sold pretty well and Marco was fine but I'd call Kenzo's selling more of the Benny Hill variety.

All that said, the match worked out pretty well, held together by the bells and whistles and (again) bullshit. Ultimately, in the tercera caida, Kenzo and Universo were eliminated and Shocker and Marco had an okay little exchange. It ended with Mima breaking up a fall again and arguing with the ref and Shocker. This led, perfectly, to Marco taking her out by accident with a really nasty flying knee and some wonderfully cheap foul stuff that played up Marco's strength (he nailed Shocker in the groin from a tombstone position) and allowed Universo to counter the cheating and help Shocker to pick up the win.

I can't imagine this match was well received at the time except for maybe the really nice dives and honestly, I won't blame anyone for not liking it. It reminded me a lot of those taped together smoke and mirrors WWE main event matches, just without all sorts of foreign objects (unless you count Mima as a foreign object), things that sort of get by on the illusion of substance. That was this, but since it's not something I'm entirely used to in lucha and the stakes and the heat were quite high, I found the whole thing well worth watching.

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CMLL on LATV Workrate Report, 10/8/11

1. Trueno/Bengala vs. Camorra/Zayko

Well...this wasn't that good. I don't really like the two rudos, but I can see Zayko being OK in a couple years. I don't think Camorra has been doing this for too long so I don't really expect much out of him and don't get much. He's your pretty standard newbie rudo, backcrackers and all. He bumps in really slow motion and is just boring. Zayko can at least bump to the outside off headscissors OK. Bengala is a guy I've seen a bunch and he regularly shows why he is right where he belongs, working paint-by-numbers openers at Arena Mexico. He never shows any emotion and there's rarely any flow to anything he does. It seems like before he does anything, he says to himself, "OK, now I have to do *this*". "OK, now I have to flip him over. OK, now I have to put on a surfboard." There's that delay. Trueno is a good tecnico and seems to have more potential than the others here, though he has a problem overshooting things. This was the definition of a skippable opener.



2. Goya Kong/Marcela/Ray vs. Amapola/La Seductora/Mima Shimoda:

Quick and fun women's match. Goya Kong is always a blast as the crowd always loves her and she uses her size well (big butt attacks, and an awesome "trust fall" senton where she just fell straight backwards onto an opponent), but also does really nice armdrags and has a very nice springboard arm drag that looks impressive. Marcela always looks great and is arguably the best luchadora in CMLL, with Amapola the being the other one I would argue for. This is great because they match up a few times and look great. Ray is a Tajiri student who I had never seen, but had some fun flying offense, nice rana, silly little dive off the apron. I really dug Shimoda's axe kick to a seated Ray. Fun popcorn match with not too much substance, but plenty of fun individual moments.



3. Angel de Plata/Metal Blanco/Palacio Negro vs. Cancerbero/Nosferatu/Raziel:

Some good moments, some stumbly moments, overall fairly decent. The rudos trio are kinda hard to pin down into a "quality of work" hierarchy. Every match I see, a different member of the group looks like the better worker. I think it's called the "Los Oficiales Conundrum". Cancerbero seems to get better every match, and Raziel is probably the most consistent. Nosferatu has impressed me before but has had a pretty bleh 2011. So I'd go Cancerbero, Raziel, Nosferatu. Nosferatu also doesn't do anything remotely like a vampire. He doesn't even have fangs on his mask as far as I can tell. Blanco can be fun when his spots are on, but he seemed just a *little* off in this one. And his knees and ankles hate him for not being able to enter a ring without doing a springboard flip while landing on his feet. I do like Blanco's springboard "crotch myself, then bounce off the middle rope back to the top rope and do a rana" spot. Palacio Negro seems to get some praise around the internet, and sometimes his spots are cool, but other times there is a hilariously awesome amount of set-up time. It's like when Chris Hero was working his "2001 JAPW throwback" gimmick and the NOAH fans were confused. Negro can't just do a rana to the guy on the floor, he has to bounce off the opposite ropes, roll over the top rope to the floor, spin around, then do a rana. That being said, his ranas always do look nice when he actually finally does them.



4. Blue Panther/Super Porky/Toscano vs. Ephesto/Euforia/Vangelis:

This was good, and quite frankly if it had been nothing but the two minutes of Panther/Ephesto matwork then I would've loved it just as much. Panther is having one helluva year, and my favorite part of it is all the different people he's worked. When Panther comes into the match against an opponent I haven't seen him work so far this year, it's always a really exciting moment, and it seems like he always gets a solid 2 minutes against a bunch of these guys. So far when looking back at the year, when you think of who so and so matched up best with, Panther's name is always the one that immediately comes up. Panther, Virus and Arkangel all can hang their hats on certain workers' "best 2 minutes" this year. I'm pretty sure this was Ephesto's best 2 minutes this year, and he's always good. Panther seems to work the mat different with every single person he works, doing things I've never seen him do before each and every time. Him slowly getting out of an Ephesto headscissors was maybe my favorite mat transition of the year. All the bridging back and forth and fighting for leverage just looked totally great.

Toscano was wearing some absolutely ridiculous jorts that just came off too desperate. I just don't know what to do with you Tarzan Boy. Dude has to be one of the lazier workers of the last 10 years, and it's annoying because when he tries then he can totally rock it. His 3rd fall performance here (once he did a Garza and removed the stupid pants) was awesome, with him whipping off a great rana and a great missle dropkick. The more I see Euforia the more I love him, just a big bumping rudo who allows tecnicos to shine. Vangelis always stands out since he's a power worker and usually the only power worker in a given match. Here he hits a cool spear through the ropes onto the rampway and a nice dive into Panther. Also of note was Blue Panther getting a hot tag and starting to undo his pants, threatening to remove his tights while poking fun at Toscano getting a cheap pop from the ladies. Blue Panther, ladies and gentleman: Best wrestler in the world, 2011?



5. Atlantis/Hijo Del Fantasma/Mascara vs. Mr. Niebla/Ultimo Guerrero/Volador Jr.:

Niebla hides on the rampway to start and blindside Atlantis after he makes it down the stairs and while all of this is fun while it lasts, I knew we weren't long for this world (match started with about 11 minutes left in the show). Rudos get DQ'd 2 straight falls in a row, first one for taking Atlantis' mask off, 2nd for Niebla just punting Atlantis in the balls right in front of the ref. Volador was awesome trying to roll up Atlantis immediately following the ball shot, as if nothing happened. The rudos get fun runs with Fantasma in the 2nd, with Ultimo leveling him with a shoulderblock (great bump by Fantasma), Fantasma and Ultimo work a lightning fast segment where Fantasma charged, got tossed to the top rop by Ultimo, Ultimo gets his arm kicked away (love that spot) and then Fantasma snaps off a rana. Volador has the same luck against him, with Fantasma nailing him with a big enziguiri. Niebla figures out the Fantasma riddle by just punching him in the face and it rules. Super short match, but enough fun moments for me to enjoy.

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Thoughts on Dragondoor?Gate? Hole? whatever in Mexico from DVDVR 158

Arena Mexico- 5/13/06

Arkangel de la Muerte/Negro Navarro/Skayde vs. Hayato Fujita Jr. /Kanjyuro Matsuyama/Shinji Nohashi

PAS: We only got about half of this match but it was pretty fun. It is always a treat to see Negro Navarro, and he was pretty great here, locking up a nice submission and doing his great kip-up. Nohashi hit a cool tope with a nice camera angle.

TKG: Yeah that was a great camera angle. Arkangel threw some really nice elbow drops and Navarro took a posting well and any time you get to see Navarro it‘s a treat but there really wasn’t much to this match.

Dark Angel/India Sioux vs. Mima Shimoda/Raven Hiroka_

PAS: Hiroka is the worlds shittiest Etsuko Mita, but she did have a really nice exchange with Dark Angel. Mima Shimoda doesn’t do a ton here, and we didn’t get a ton of time.

TKG: This was real clipped and nothing you want to see again. I liked India Sioux’s version of Virus’ finisher.

Dragon Scramble Match: Matematico vs. Ultraman vs. Kahoz vs. Cuchillo vs. Black Terry vs. Astro Boy Jr.vs. Brazo de Plata Jr. vs. Daisuke Haonaka vs. Hijo del Fantasma vs. Toshiya Matsuzaki

PAS: Ridiculously fun match which was a total train wreck but in a really entertaining way. You got to see a bunch of old luchadores who never see the light of day. Black Terry had an awesome punch exchange with Ultraman. For an ex-high flyer Ultraman has really turned into Jose Luis Castillo in his old age. Cuchillo and Kahoz are guys I haven’t seen in years, and they looked like guys I hadn’t seen in years. Kahoz especially looked shitastic, as he was completely unable to bump over the top on his first attempt, so he has to run to the other side of the ring to bump to the floor Also that actually looked like the real Matematico who must be 70. Total blast.

TKG: Black Terry looked to be guy holding this entire thing together working fun sections with Hijo del Fantasma, Matematico, and Ultraman and one of the Japanese kids. Gran Cuchillo comes out and stretchers the other Japanese kid just smacking him around with the butt of his gun, suplexing him on the ramp and then dropping elbows. Cuchillo hitting opponents with the butt of a pistol may expose the business more than Tiger Jeet Singh hitting opponents with butt of sword. But Cuchillo is way more fun. Cuchillo and Kahoz are really too old to pull off their miscommunication heel double team stuff. But fuck all that other shit: BLACK TERRY~!!!

Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Platino/Passion Hasegawa vs. Mazada/NOSAWA/Katsushi Takemura

PAS: This was alot of fun, the early parts were a little rough, as Platino spent the opening parts just doing all of Super Porky's spots but not as well as Super Porky. However when it got kicking it got really fun. Oro was especially awesome here, especially his stuff with NOSAWA, and his incredible tope. Passion was really fun as the fake Brazo fucking up all of the Brazo spots, and when Platino stopped apeing his brother and started hitting all of his dives he looked great too. Easily the match of the show.

TKG: Was that really Brazo De Platino. I remember him looking more scummy and garbagey. He does all of Platinos big dives but I don’t remember Platino looking that kind of classically handsome. Platino’s section where he was apeing Plata spots wasn’t much and the Passion v. Takemura exchanges weren’t much. But then fucking Brazo de Oro worked his section with Nosawa where they essentially did Ki vs. Red spots with Oro working superfast to dodge all of NOSAWA’s offense and then getting in his own strikes. Brazo de Oro’s speed was just amazing. And then once the match got going it was just on. I think my favorite Passion being too small to do Brazo signature spots was when he kept trying to lay across the heels only to get tossed off while Platino set up his big dive.

4 Way Dance: Averno/Mephisto vs. Trent Acid/American Gigolo vs. Brute Issei/Shigeo Okumura vs. Milano Collection AT/Kazuchida Okada

PAS: The match listing listed the Backseat Boyz, but instead American Gigolo was Trent Acid’s partner. You know someone sucks when you are pissed about being baited and switched out of Johnny Kashmere. Okada took some big bumps, but this match may have been the worst multi man match of Trent Acid’s career. Imagine what that entails.

TKG: The screen says that this went 11:23 but I swear it felt twice as long. They do the everyone puts everyone else in a headlock section before the big guy comes out only to do a big man miss-communication spot two or three times. With Issei really playing poor man’s Pancho Tequilla playing a poor man’s Brazo Platino playing a poor man’s Brazo de Plata. Averno and Mephisto are first eliminated for excessive rudisimo. Yeah so the Arena Mexico crowd is left to watch Issei/Okamura vs. Gigolo/Trent Acid. Do the Arena Mexico fans have any stake in an All Japan vs. PWU match up. All Japan is eliminated for PWU vs. Toryumon finish. This needed Slugger.

Decision Match for the vacant NWA Welterweight Title: La Mascara vs. Hajime Ohara

PAS: This was okayish. Mascara is a little green to lead Ohara through a real lucha title match, and it came off as more of a mediocred BOSJ match which doesn’t make TV.

TKG: Yeah this was where the lucha and the resu in your lucharesu just fall apart. This isn’t worked like a lucha title match at all. There is a cool part early on where La Mascara appears to get pissed as though Ohara is taking liberties with him and the two just start swinging at each other. Baby Richard keeps on trying to remind Ohara about his closed fists and elbows. This would be fine in a lucha brawl but you build to the brawling parts of match. Ohara paces his stuff like a puroresu match so you don’t have the lucha ebb and flow where wrestling section leads to break down into brawling section which leads to a regroup to wrestling section.

Super Libre: Dos Caras Jr./Hijo del Lizmark vs. Mark Jindrak/Johnny Stamboli

PAS: This was a pretty fun WWE Heat main event tag (2002 Heat, all four of these guys are liver enzymerific.) I don’t think this was as good as the technicos v. Stamboli/Palumbo would have been, and definitely not as good as the technicos v. Jindrak/Cade (especially with all the real life familial heat between Dos Caras Jr. and Lance Cade) Still these teams work each other alot, and they have a ton spots with each other. Jindrak looks like a total superstar as he hits all of his high spots and is a taunting fuck, doing a little bird flapping with his arms after he flew. He has crazy ups, and if he actually moves to Mexico he will be a big ass star.

TKG: Not as good as a Heat main event tag…closer to a RAW one. Jindrak’s taunts are great and him and Stamboli work like a touring tag team with lots of heel miscommunication spots that they could work against any face team. They do the old MX arm pull over rope spot that always makes me smile. And well, so about a year ago New York Times printed an article about the success of lucha libre in Mexico. Someone in WWE read the article and said “the only people who watch our shows are gays and wetbacks, we need more wetbacks”. There was all kinds of writing on the internet about WWE bringing in Mistico and Ultimo Guerrero and who they should and shouldn’t bring in. I proposed that they bring in Dos Caras Jr and either Sicodelico Jr or Hijo del Lizmark as they essentially can work you’re basic OVW style and are tall and masked and would be easy to plug in and build around..WWE ended up bringing in a bunch of minis and having them work US midget comedy spots. After watching this match, if I were to fantasy book luchadors in WWE, I’d use Sicodelico Jr as my Dos Caras Jr partner. But still fun, full Worldwide point.

Relevos Increibles: Atlantis/GREAT MUTA/Ultimo Dragon vs. Perro Jr./Dr. Wagner Jr./Ultimo Guerrero

TKG: Man I was expecting this to be BA—AD. Arena Mexico announcer says that Ultimo Dragon is thought of in Japan the way Santo is thought of in Mexico…and I was all ready for the worst type of money mark match. But this turned out to be pretty fun. Dr Wagner and Perro come out and agree to team while Atlantis and Ultimo Guerrero are pissed that they are on opposite sides. And they do a lot of great lucha storytelling throughout the match with Atlantis and Guerrero sparring happily. Guerrero unhappy whenever his partners go after Atlantis. Atlantis and Perro Jr stoked to match up, etc. Atlantis just looks super great in this as he has to carry his team in ring. Ulitmo Dragon has been useless for years and for the most part never eats anything. At least in this match he spent a lot of time eating offense. Muta has had twenty years of great ring entrances and essentially works as Abby here. Guy wandering around looking deranged and scary. His elbow drop isn’t as good as Abby’s and Abby can work a simple effective match around opponent stealing his fork and forking Abby while Muta having opponent dragon screw him really doesn’t mean a ton in Arena Mexico. Also the Arena Mexico crowd has become enough of a heel crowd that they react to Muta’s stuff like its camp while the Coliseo crowd seemed to have a more visceral reaction. Still Muta was hell of fun in this and the movement back and forward from guys just doing shtick and storyline to guys wrestling is what you want out of this type of main event lucha.

PAS: I liked this a lot too. MUTA is fun as an old old guy who still kind of can hit some of his signature spots at half speed. It’s lucha every weekend there are a dozen shows main evented by guys like that. Ultimo who normally works exactly like a old old guy who hits some of his signature spots at half speed, actually seemed kind of energized, with his spots being hit more 3/4 speed.

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