Found Footage Friday: SASUKE~! SHINZAKI~! TOGO~! ORIHARA~! BATMAN~! POTRO~! HALCON~! WILD RED BERRY~!

The Great Sasuke/Shinzaki Jinsei/Hayate vs. Dick Togo/Masao Orihara/Macho Pump Michinoku Pro-Wrestling 5/17/04

 MD: It's been a while since I've seen any M-Pro but this was the right guys in the right match at the right time, mostly. Every some early brawling that made me worried about the camera angle (it's fine for the rest), they got in and out of the opening exchanges (Pump/Sasuke, Togo/Hayate, Orihara/Shinzaki) fairly quickly. The faces got to show their flair and signature stuff that would hold up today for the most part and Pump got to preen; he always looks better than I expect in these when it comes to power moves, asserting himself, and even strikes. Mainly though, what stood out, and of course this wasn't a surprise, was just how good Togo could look in one minute of snapping stuff off and basing like a rooted tree standing in the center of the ring.

They went into a long, long heat, with the hope spots either being based on the faces getting a tag or one of them trying to interfere. There was that gang mentality of heels in M-Pro and it's often full of varied and interesting offense but it could get a little exhausting. You almost need the heat to go as long as it did because that helps to justify the fireworks of the extended finishing stretch but they would have been better served by a double heat or just meatier hope spots and comebacks, or maybe even a more defined central storyline. They tease Orihara and Sasuke having a beef but it's never really played up. That's really more of a nitpick or just expressing something that would have taken this over the top, because what we did actually get here was very good. 

Batman/Potro/Milo Caballero vs. Halcon de Oro/Diluvio Negro/Mongol Chino CMLL 1991

MD: Just a bit clipped up (we lose how the rudos take over in the primera, for instance, which is annoying) and I'd say just a little unfocused as well, but overall a fun undercard match. I don't have a great sense of who Potro is but he's got fun gear in blue and white with colts (horses) all over it, and something going on with the eyes. He's pretty smooth in there, including a fun spot where he armdragged everyone, including the ref. I haven't discussed just how racist the Mongol Chino look is, yellow gear with a yellow mask with a black fu manchu Hogan style mustache and slanted eyebrows. So that's not great. His rapid fire uppercuts are though, if that helps? Halcon de Oro is a perfectly fine undercard director of traffic in a beatdown and he had a nice whirlybird over the shoulder drop to end the primera.

The underlying story was rudo miscommunication that led to them almost coming to blows a couple of times, especially between Halcon de Oro and Mongol Chino. It sort of took the place of a central pairing but instead of it paying off towards the end, they just went into a dive train in the tercera and then some fun tandem submissions ending with Milo sneaking in and pinning the rudos after they had turned over a 5 person submission. You almost never see that actually ending a match so it was a bit shocking and probably good to condition fans to the possibility overall, but it also made everything feel anti-climactic.

 

Wild Red Berry vs. Carlos Guzman Long Beach, CA 5/22/52

MD: I know I said I wasn't going to skip around but I really wanted to see more Berry after that last tag I saw. This was interesting for some of the names of holds as much as anything else. An Irish Whip was a Kansas Cyclone. When they did cross-cross rope running it was a "Razzle Dazzle" and Berry's standing Figure Four that he won the first fall with was a Gilligan Twist. When Berry feigned arm damage after a series of Guman dropkicks that ended the second fall, a "Robin Hook" was Guzman draping Berry's arm over the rope and kicking it. Towards the end of the match when Berry started on the leg, he leaped down on it while it was dangling on the ropes and this was called a "Cannonball." We don't always see those differences in old footage so it was interesting.

I love Berry's act. He comes to the ring in his robe, signing autographs for kids and even giving them candy. Then the second he gets to the ring, everyone boos him and he's miserable. He's quick to tap his head, to complain, to make a big deal about the pre-match rule discussion with the ref. When he wins a fall, he celebrates  to the full extent. He seemed to drag Guzman down to his level to the point where both of them were sneaking in shots to each other's nose or playing dirty on breaks.  He reminds me, more than anything else, of Jonathan Harris in Lost in Space. Basic civility is impossible when he's around. It means that the matches never rise to a level of technical skill that some people might want from the era, but they're very entertaining in almost every moment.

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Found Footage Friday: LA FAMILIA SCORPIO~! EDDY~! TEXANO~! SILVER KING~! SOLAR II~! LENADOR~!

Scorpio Jr y Sr/Tigre Blanco vs Matematicos I y IV/Angel Azteca (Monterrey 1991)

MD: In looking at all of this footage, you sometimes come across gems like Scorpio Jr. beating Batman down pre-match in the backstage area for no reason and then the commentators monologuing about how sad it'll be if the white tiger were to go extinct. Announcers seem to indicate that this as Matematico IV and not II. He actually looked pretty good int here paired with Scorpio Jr save for a wild but well recovered cazadora out of the ropes into a rowboat to end the segunda. Matematico I lost his mask in 89 so it made things a little bit even. Rudos ambused to start. Tecnicos came back at the start of the segunda. There was an underlying tension between Tigre Blanco and Scorpio Sr but it never went anywhere. I wouldn't say there were clear pairings either, especially a central one. Azteca chased Scorpio Sr around the ring at one point but at the end of the tercera it was Matematico and Scorpio Sr. paired off for the big foul/fake foul spot that the tecnicos got the best of. During the beatdown, Scorpio, Jr. successfully got a dropdown trip, which is always fun to see in the wild. In the comeback, Matematico had a crowd pleasing exchange with Tigre Blanco and Scorpio Sr. Overall, this was pretty standard stuff though. I thought it might go a few places but it never quite got to any of them. La Familia Scorpio had a pretty good act, which is good since I'm about to roll into another match with them.

El Texano/Silver King/Centurion Negro vs Mongol Chino/Scorpio Jr y Sr (Monterrey 1991)

MD: This had more of the heat I was looking for. The rudos ambushed at the start but the tecnicos fired back, including faceplanting Scorpio Sr which led to some color. That just incensed the rudos and they came back strong with an awesome primera beatdown around the ringside area with Centurion Negro hung upsidedown multiple times and Los Cowboys ending up tossed into the chairs. There were no fancy spots here just organic violence. The rudos looked at where the tecnicos were in the ring and figured out how to portray brutality in the moment. Great tecnico comeback at the start of the segunda too with Centurion Negro lifting the rudo ref up onto his shoulders almost in an Atlantida to get him out of the way so that they could charge the ring. That led to all the revenge you'd want, with Silver King lawn darting Scorpio Jr. into the seats and Texano gnawing upon Scorpio Sr's wound. That built to Mongol Chino losing his match and the big spots finally getting unleashed. Crowd-pleasing and blog-pleasing both. The tercera had all the exchanges but they had more oomph to them given that the heat had been ramped up. Silver King and Texano hit all of their big tandem stuff, but it felt like it was built to as opposed to cycled in after a reset. Finish had Centurion Negro and Mongol Chino paired after some Los Cowboys dives and they left me wanting a mask match. Basically everything worked with this one.

Eddy Guerrero/Centurion Negro/Solar II vs Lenador/Javier Cruz/Alarcan (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Pretty straightforward match bolstered by the Cruz vs Guerrero stuff. I had wanted Eddy to be matched with Lenador because Lenador is a great over the top character, but it made sense for Cruz to run him through his paces. While he might have been a tecnico in years prior, Cruz was a great "cruiserweight bully" sort of rudo at this point. I see that he feuded with Apolo Dantes a couple of years later and that makes a lot of sense too. So while Lenador got to make his faces against Centurion Negro and Solar and Alarcan took to the mat with solid stuff, this was mostly Cruz vs Guerrero, first with spirited chain wrestling, and then through a hugely sympathetic beatdown and fiery comeback. Eddy could play the part of the underdog tecnico with a big heart certainly. Finish in the tercera was a huge Guerrero springboard dropkick which I haven't seen in any of the other Monterrey footage as of yet. While we didn't get as much Lenador as i would have liked, this was a good look at young Eddy and a nice notch on the belt of Cruz.

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Found Footage Friday: ANGEL AZTECA~! MANO NEGRA~! PANTERITA~! MA 2000~! ARANDU~! GARGOLA~! WAGNER~! BLUE FISH~! ESCOBEDO~! MR. TERROR~!

Angel Azteca/Mano Negra/Panterita del Ring vs. Mascara Ano 2000/Arandu/Sultan Gargola CMLL 1992

MD: We've been covering these more or less chronological on when Roy posted them and I don't always check to see if they've been easily available before. I am, however, skipping Mascara Sagrada/Atlantis/Panterita del Ring vs Negro Casas/Jerry Estrada/MS-1 because it wasn't just available but available with better VQ previously. Ah well. This footage has been a lot of fun to go through overall. Monterrey had a pretty wild feel for most matches and this was no different.

Here, though, the focus wasn't on Panterita but on Angel Azteca and Arandu. Obviously one of the big advantages of this footage has been Panterita/Ephesto/Safari/HsN and really getting a better sense of him in this stage of his career as a local hero, but Arandu has quickly become a favorite too. In some ways he looked like Estrada's bulkier brother, the Gordy to his Buddy, but he loved to bump out of the ring just as much. Whereas most guys would fall to the floor on a dropkick or armdrag, he'd go absolutely sailing through the ropes. On the comeback in the segunda here, we don't see how it happened, but when we cut from the ring to the floor, we just see him sprawled over six chairs. Azteca held his own when it was time to chase Arandu around the ring or what not too and obviously, he's the guy who lawn darted him into the seats, even if we didn't see it.

Everyone else was fine here. Mascara Ano 2000 matched his partners well in green. I probably don't give Sultan Gargano's mask with the turban enough credit but he was perfectly solid from what we can see and a natural partner for Arandu and obviously well-practiced working Panterita. Mano Negra really was just there save for one spot in the tercera where he got to punch everyone enjoyably. Panterita had one great flip off the top into a pin to end the segunda too. Finish was fun with Arandu fouling only to drop to the ground selling himself and somehow conning the refs into letting the rudos win. Judging by the objects flying into the ring after the fact, the fans really hated it in the best way.  

Mongol Chino/Blue Fish/Rey Venus vs. Ausente/Luminoso/Chuy Escobedo CMLL 1991

MD: This was undercard stuff and I can't tell you much about the tecnico side past Escobedo. He looked pretty slick here in his exchanges and crazy as he missed a flip dive off the apron to the floor. What probably made this most interesting was how much of local rudo Blue Fish we got to see. No single move or spot stood out, but he was confident and assertive, always in the right place at the right time. Chino was a solid cheapshot artist and did a really nice plancha over the top. While things ended with Fish and Austene after everyone else cleared out with the dives, there was never a clear central story that I could pick up on. The rudos ambushed early, the tecnicos came back, and things went more even for the tercera, sure, but there wasn't one pairing that seemed to be at the center of everything. Amusingly, rudo-leaning ref Guerrero got wiped out into Chino on the outside and the two were at odds for the rest of the match, only making things easier for the tecnicos. This one wasn't essential but I have a better feel for Blue Fish now at least.

 

Super Punk/Platino/Asterisco vs. Dr. Wagner Jr/Alacran/Mr. Terror CMLL 1991

MD: Luchawiki is not a ton of help here. For Mr. Terror it basically tells us that he exists. For Alacran (the Scorpion), it basically says that he existed and was thought to be poor. The Asterisco noted is a Reynosa guy but the mask checks out. Despite what the on screen graphic says, "Latino" is "Platino," and he's got some great gear and robotic taunting. I'll be honest that I spent the whole match tracking Mr. Terror hoping he'd do something cool and it never quite happens. Really, the interesting thing here is that Asterisco eats a nasty toss into the chairs (something common for this footage, right?) at the end of the comeback in the segunda and gets taken to the back and it becomes 3 on 2 with the rudos having a deficit. They were booked to win too and I don't know if it's because Wagner's the biggest name or what, but they didn't switch it. So you get some fun stuff of Wagner and Terror fighting for their lives to try to keep as much advantage as possible with double teams and fouling and attacking people on the outside when they really should have been in heavy deficit. They definitely didn't come up with any narrative reason why the third guy wasn't turning the tide except for the ref occasionally holding him back. And then they won it after a dive and a caverneria by Terror. Post match, Super Punk blew off an interview because there was no way of talking to the match without looking like a chump.

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