Found Footage Friday: LOS INFERNALES~! VALENTE~! GUERRERO DE LA MUERTE~! NIEBLA~! LATIN LOVER I GUESS~!

Rayo De Jalisco Jr./Latin Lover/Valente Fernandez vs. Los Infernales (Satanico, MS-1, Pirata Morgan) Monterrey 8/23/92

MD: We had previously covered the Latin Lover vs Valente Fernandez apuestas match so it's nice to get this as well, which has Fernandez turning on him, including him explaining it after the match. Morgan wears a bandana through this as he'd just lost his hair to Vampiro. Infernales ambush to start, and it's a solid rudo beatdown where they cycle through the tecnicos before slamming Lover, holding him down, and having MS-1 squash him with a top rope splash. Segunda starts with Rayo charging the ring and it settles down to exchanges. He gets all of his stuff in as the Infernales bumble about. They're as good as anyone playing into it. Fernandez looks very good too, sharp offense, going out as a tecnico with a bang. Lover less so, overall. The tercera was short but chaotic with guys going in and out of the ring and the tecnicos sort of trying a hit and run approach. It ultimately backfired as Lover rushed in to save Fernandez from a 3 vs 1 situation and accidentally dropkicked him. Fernandez lost it after that and started in on Lover with a chair before raising his hands with the Infernales and going back out to post Lover some more. He got a ton of heat for it and on commentary after noted how sick he was of Lover constantly being so clumsy. The payoff was fun so now it's nice to have the set up too.

ER: I loved the match long payoff of Valente losing his shit on Latin Lover, because every time Lover was in this match he looked like the worst wrestler in Monterrey. Were Rayo's bunny hop headbutts ridiculous? Yes. But everything Latin Lover did - outside of a cool bad landing dropkick on the floor to MS-1 - looked like it was done by a guy who should not be in a ring in front of paying customers. Watching him hit light clotheslines below the boobs or his weird Roadblock moonsault bumps to the floor was enough for me, but watching Valente doing several flawless classic lucha bumps to the floor made me fully understand his turn, even before the dropkick. And let's hear it for my boy MS-1, the least acclaimed of Los Infernales but a helluva show here, outshining Satanico and Pirata, huge aura, big top rope splash, throwing harder punches than his celebrated brethren. 

Latin Lover/Kato Kung Lee vs. El Sanguinario/El Mercenario Plaza De Toros Monumental mid-1992

MD: It's worth going through all of this just so we know someone's covered it. Rob had pointed out a number of new matches on this channel and I can report back that there's not a lot to see here. Lover still had his mask at this point and he was over with a part of the crowd as the new idol/sensation, and I'd even say his stuff looked a little better here, maybe because Sanguinario was flying into it so well, but this was fairly straightforward. At one point in the segunda when the rudo beatdown abruptly start, he got lawn darted into the seats and that was pretty satisfying and Kato Kung Lee got to do his stuff right at the end to entertaining effect but the VQ was rough for the most part and the opening exchanges were pretty subdued. Unless you really want a glimpse of what early Lover looked like, I'd say this is probably a skip.

ER: If any of you are out there reading this and still wondering what early Latin Lover looked like, picture the worst Lenny Lane match you've ever seen and now picture Lenny with less polish. 

Mr. Niebla vs. Guerrero De La Muerte Arena Coliseo 12/17/96

MD: Just the tercera here. We come in with Guerrero in charge, first with a camel clutch and then tossing Niebla off the top. He has a cool little bit he does where he winds up with his foot for leverage before tossing him too. He then starts slapping the piss out of Niebla, which only enrages Niebla and enables the comeback, which included a great moonsault from the apron to the floor. On the way back in though, Guerrero pulls off Niebla's mask. The ref buys that it was an accident and the match continues (which I've rarely ever seen actually).They rolled into a stretch from there, including a big top rope dive to the floor and then wiping out over the top in a Jerry Estrada bump by Guerrero which was followed up by Niebla having to shift directions to hit his tope. Guerrero caught him on a rana attempt and dropped him with a power bomb for the win though. A good fall. Shame we don't have the whole thing.

ER: Fantastic one fall tercera look at the things that made Guerrero de la Muerte a special worker, one who we've likely highlighted much less than other special workers from this era of special workers. This was Guerrero's fall. Niebla got a couple cool tecnico moments: a big Asai moonsault (the way he slingshots himself to the apron made it look like he was going to go even crazier, like Gran Metalik or Taka) and a tope with hardly any run up, just switched directions when he saw where Guerrero was running. Guerrero was great at setting it up, his backdrop to the floor superb, holding onto the top rope to get full extension and holding it for a full arc. It looked like he was captured in a vert ramp trick on the cover of Thrasher. 

But the fall was all about building to those few big Niebla moments and letting Guerrero run wild with the rest. Even Guerrero gets a big dive, hitting an awesome full arms out plancha. Both were excellent at catching the others' dives. I'm with Matt in that I don't think I've ever seen a mask removal deemed "accidental", and in this case Guerrero was definitely Up To No Good with the mask removal. The way it happened was so sick. He had the mask partially removed and had a handful of the mask's jawline so he could hold Niebla in place while punching him in the face. Niebla began to fall after taking punches and the mask came off in Guerrero's hand. An accident, in that he wasn't attempting to rip his mask off, he was merely using the mask to punch his opponent in the teeth!

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Found Footage Friday: CASAS~! CHARLES~! SIGNO~! DANDY~! HAMADA~! AZTECA~! TERRY~! FELICIANO~! SILVER KING~! BATMAN~?!

Batman/Chuy Escobedo/Ausente vs. Halcon de Oro/Mongol Chino/Astro Negro (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Some great names in the next couple of matches, but we have to see what we have here first. Astro Negro looks like a guy who never had a chance at recovering from losing his mask. Apparently he lost it to Mongol Chino so he's a forgiving sort. He is a mask maker of some renown ("El Pony") too. It's possible that Batman is a young Mr. Niebla but I couldn't say one way or the other (he had the swagger at least). The central story of the match was Batman vs Halcon de Oro.

I do have to admit that watching these six a month, it's nice to see the structure change up a bit. This was about Halcon dodging Batman. They cycled through Chuy vs Astro Negro (which was fine if slight) and Ausente vs Mongol Chino (nice and flowing; Ausente looked pretty good throughout) before teasing that third pairing between the prime combatants. Halcon took a powder, however, and upon reentering the ring, staged an ambush and started the beatdown. I haven't seen that sort of disruptiveness in a primera in a bit with these matches.

I'm not going to say that these were the smoothest guys we've seen in the Monterrey footage, but the segunda and tercera had the sort of wild abandon that's found in the best of these matches. The segunda started with a comeback and a lot of quick exchanges. Here we finally got a taste of Batman vs Halcon and they worked well together but it was just a taste, as Halcon got run off to the back to draw a count out. The tercera had a pretty brutal second beat down and an even more brutal comeback, wrought with mask ripping, before they cycled through submissions and break-ups and went for the ring-clearing dives: Chuy got all caught up on the ropes in a dive so that was brutal in its own way. Still, that left Batman and Halcon and from there it was a clear, crisp and direct tecnico triumph. The talent wasn't a high as it could be here, but the effort was admirable.

Negro Casas/Emilio Charles Jr/El Signo vs. El Dandy/Gran Hamada/Angel Azteca (Monterrey 1991)

MD: We lose some of the beginning, I think (my guess is an initial Signo vs Hamada pairing). We lose a lot of the tercera. It's still 22 minutes of these guys being absolutely amazing. The level of talent, commitment, trust, confidence is just off the charts. You have matches that follow a certain structure, that might be one dimension or two dimensional, moving this way or that on an axis or two. With these guys, there's a new dimension added. At any point they can deviate from what seemed to be going on in the match, take a side journey, but never, ever lose the true north of where they need to return to and their destination for that point of the match.

Look at the primera. We come in on Dandy and Casas doing their thing, sweeping movements, counters and counters to counters, all building to Casas putting his head down and getting kicked backwards and the two brawling out of the ring. Then it's Azteca and Charles, with tighter holds full of struggle. It breaks down after that, with the rudos having an advantage on Dandy, only for him to flip the switch and make a rolling hot tag. That allows Hamada to come in and crush everyone with headbutts. That entire mini beatdown segment was a deviation and they managed it flawlessly before heading back to where they would have been going without it. It adds drama and a sense of organic believability in the match. So much of lucha is ritual and meeting expectations, but these guys were good enough to switch partners and weave in whole bits without ever losing the plot or confusing the crowd. It could be something as simple as a Hamada/Signo strike exchange or Casas rope running with Hamada, eating an enzuigiri and stumbling right into Dandy's fist.

With lesser talents, the match would leave the ground, devolve into chaos or endless spots, and would never come back. These guys, though, could take moon leaps and always move in the right direction and land and sprint before leaping off again. There's talent and then there's mastery and people like Casas, Dandy, and Charles are in that rare, rare group of the latter.

Jose Luis Feliciano/Black Terry/Mr Terror vs. Silver King/Asterisco/Centurion Negro (Monterrey 1991)

MD: Great to see two thirds of the Temerarios here, but man is Mr. Terror ever not Shu El Guerrero. Moreover, the focus on this match was Terror vs Asterisco. There were pros and cons to that. I'm not going to say Terror brought nothing to the table. There was some mask ripping, some decent enough battering during beatdowns (though Feliciano and Terry were kind of edging him out to get shots in), and he took an entirely admirable bump on a back body drop on the floor to set up the finish to the primera, but his big move tends to be a clothesline (in a match where Silver King's was way better) and there's not much else there.

The flip side is that we got to see Terry and Feliciano go up against Centurion Negro and Silver King for a lot of this and all of that was great. Terry started with Centurion with all of the little movements and earnest openings you'd want from lucha matwork. Feliciano and Silver King brought the motion and all of them hit hard when it was time to do so. This one had too much heat on the ref too. That wasn't uncommon for the Monterrey footage but here it played too much into the finish and the ref got his comeuppance instead of Terror. Usually when watching a match with a singular focus like this, you come off annoyed that the apuestas match either never happened or we don't have it. I could probably live without seeing Asterisco vs Mr. Terror mano a mano though.

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Found Footage Friday: MORE BRAZOS IN PANAMA~! IWRG RETRO~! EXTRA EL BRAZO~! BRAZO CIBERNETICO~! DR CEREBRO~! MR NIEBLA~!

El Brazo/Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro vs Gemelos Infernales/El Taur Panama

MD: Very fun to see the usual Panamanian rudos as the heroes here. And they gave you no doubt on who to root for. The Brazos ran out with bats and beat their opponents around the ring for a short primera. They kept it going with the usual nice strikes (Oro with big sweeping shots) and Porky ripped at Taur's mask. A little bit of miscommunication led to a pretty spirited comeback, including Porky getting bloodied up and Taur smashing him him from across the arena with a running chair shot. They ripped the sports uniforms off of the Brazos too. The ref was counting quick for the locals too and things advanced on to Brazos comedy into the tercera. Gemelos did their headbutt thing with Oro stooging all over the place. As always one of them was more the worker and the other was more into the theatrics. We didn't get the more advanced exchanges that the one Gemelo was capable of as things stayed pretty light. Taur stood tall against Porky including a big bear hug that popped the crowd. There was more fun miscommunication and another quick splash. You definitely got a lot of the Brazos act here, but you always kind of wish they led with the fun stuff and escalated to the bloody brawling as opposed to the other way around.

PAS: Man 2023 has been the year of new Brazos matches popping up. This was pretty great with the Brazos cleaning house with baseball bats, and Super Porky bleeding a ton. Top rope Porky splash is one of the most violent moves in wrestling history and he breaks it out here. Structure was a bit wonky like Matt mentioned, but it was still a total blast. Panamanian lucha forever!

IWRG Retro 1/20/23

Paramedico/Colt vs Tigre Metalico/Zonik 2000 IWRG 7/12/2001

MD: Short match in two falls, mainly due to Zonik's arm getting hurt (real or otherwise). Tigre Metalico is, in fact Metalico, and he looked good paried with Paramedico at the start. The second Colt and Zonik came in, however, Colt started bullying him. He was solid in that role. The arm went down early and a lot of the rest of the match was a two-on-one against Tigre. There was a bit of hope on the outside in the segunda but Zonik couldn't do with it, selling the arm as he was, and he tapped bringing it back to two-on-one and a definitive win for the rudos.

El Brazo/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro vs Brazo Cibernetico/Halcon Dorado/Mr. Niebla IWRG 1/17/99

MD: More of an angle than a match. You'd barely know Niebla was in this, for instance. It was all centered around the inner struggle of El Brazo on whether or not he'd punish his brother or even allow his brother to get punished. As angles go, it was a good one, with Brazo really writhing, Halcon Dorado trying to appeal to him and Brazo Cibernetico bleeding all over the place as Cerebro and Bombero got increasingly frustrated at Brazo as he'd fight the other tecnicos but not his brother. To Bombero's credit, he really threw himself around the ring with his dropkicks. He just had a way of tossing his whole body into his offense which really came through in the small bit we had here. Anyway, Brazo decides that blood is thicker than water and saves his bleeding brother, laying down for his opponents. That's when things really pick up though, as Los Oficiales run down to put a beating on the Brazos and Platino running out to make the save (which set up a trios title match the following week).

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Lucha Worth Watching: More 1999 Mr. Niebla!

Mr. Niebla/Brazo de Plata/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Apolo Dantes/Shocker CMLL 9/10/99

ER: This is mostly a big rudo mugging to set up next week's tag, and it works. The entire primera is the rudos stomping down the tecnicos, ending when Dantes gave Porky a headlock takeover and kept choking him (while the others stomped him) until Porky started holding his chest and shaking. I love matches where Porky works in a heart attack spot. Babe Richard can't do much for Porky until the stretcher arrives, so all he does is pull Porky's waistband away from his belly. "Give this man some space, his pants are too tight!" The rudos kick at Porky to roll him out of the ring, and he lands hard on his side. Shocker was great here, breaking out big things like a double springboard elbowdrop, big missile dropkicks, and avoiding Niebla like the plague. The second Niebla would gain any bit of ground Shocker would hightail it out of the ring. V3 was the real thug of the beatdown, walking into frame and punching the nearest tecnico, yanking at Atlantis's mask, and holding guys for Shocker to hit with missile dropkicks. I loved how V3 would hang in to the last second, bumping himself for the dropkick instead of letting Niebla go a split second early. When the tecnicos make their big comeback  (nearly 75% of the way into the match, which had been completely rudo dominated up until then) it's really fun, with Atlantis/V3 pairing off and Niebla finally getting Shocker. Niebla hits a really nice moonsault off the top to the floor on him, and Atlantis/V3 give us a nice sneak preview of their huge mask match just a half year away, with V3 barely kicking out of a smooth rana and eventually getting caught in la Atlantida.

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Shocker CMLL 9/17/99

ER: Great, bloody tag match, the kind where the tecnicos win by default when the refs stop the damn match due to the tecnicos getting their asses beaten too violently. This is a super libre tag, and the Atlantis/Niebla team certainly bleed enough to make it so. Niebla is sporting killer all red gear that I don't think I've ever seen, and after this massacre it's clear that he should have debuted all white gear instead. This is a real mean Shocker performance. He is right on Niebla and gives him a helluva battering, at one point punching him several times right in the ear before Niebla could get back in the ring, always running at him with boots (including his great running full extension high kick), always beating at Niebla with pure scorn. Niebla makes a nice brief comeback, ducking a tandem clothesline and coming backing with a well timed tope en reversa, and a tope that knocks Shocker into the seats. But this was about the rudos being out for all of the blood, and both Niebla and Niebla give us a couple of great lucha bloodlettings. At one point Niebla is hung upside down in the corner and the rudos just use Atlantis as a battering ram, running from the opposite side of the ring, over and over, with Niebla and Atlantis only given mercy when a ref takes the Atlantis battering ram and the thing gets thrown out. After the match Shocker beats Niebla to the floor, booting right in the head several times. Shocker looked like a real monster here, total rudo asshole. It was the kind of beating you might see in a violent apuestas match, not the kind of beating to set up an apuestas match, and that's fine by me.

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Lucha Worth Watching: 1999 Mr. Niebla

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis/Lizmark Sr. vs. Villano III/Shocker/Mr. Mexico CMLL 8/27/99

ER: I loved this one. This was 9 minutes at most, a full 3 falls, and had so much crammed into it that it felt like they went 20. The rudo team was firing on all cylinders, with Shocker looking like the best wrestler in the world here. This match alone would have amped me up for the Shocker/Niebla mask match, as you had Niebla as this valiant tecnico who at one point glides through the ropes to the floor to go after a baddie, while Shocker does nothing but kick ass. I said we have a bunch of great happenings coming one after the other, everybody here getting their chance to shine. Niebla is a great tecnico, filled with energy, tons of charisma and big movements; Atlantis is right there with him for excitement, and we got a tremendous sneak preview of Atlantis/Villano III with Villano battering him with a quick punch combo; Shocker hits among the best corner clothesline I've seen, running hard into every single tecnico like he was Stan Hansen, and brings out a punch combo of his own; Mr. Mexico has a fun crazy guy energy and does these two really weird blatant prat fall bumps, doing these big swan dives without stumbling or anything. There aren't any dives, and the caidas end all very simply, and the meat of the caidas focused on violent strikes and rudos doing heavy sentons instead of flashy offense. The finish sees the tecnicos locking in la estrella, with Niebla aiming to rana Shocker into the middle of it...except Shocker powerbombs the shit out of Niebla, right into Lizmark at an awful angle. This was a damn efficient use of 9 minutes, total greatest hits collection.


Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Shocker/Mr. Mexico CMLL 9/3/99

ER: Sadly the segunda is clipped out of this one (which had all of the rudo revenge to complement the primera's tecnico rampage), but it's still a primo lineup. This is merely a snack, quick DQ and highspot matches to build to bigger things, but these are all guys I love seeing work in quick environments. Mr. Mexico is a great expressive bumper, Wagner is a true rudo, and Shocker is this great sneak attack artist. That's an awesome combo for a rudo team. Shocker kind of uses Mexico as his human shield, and with his fast bumps and bug eyed expressions Mr. Mexico is a fantastic human shield, meanwhile Shocker is the one cheering it on from the floor and coming in with kicks to the back of the head of downed tecnicos. The tecnicos whip through some great spots, a fantastic quebrada from Niebla, a big Niebla somersault senton off the apron that the camera mostly misses, Santo coming off the top with a cool Hart Attack lariat. Wagner and Santo felt like the big main event elephant in the room, as they went at it the whole time. Wagner dropped Santo early with a big powerslam, and peppers in stiff kicks wherever he can, and the finish run between the two is really cool: Santo goes for the camel clutch and Wagner stands up with Santo on his back, running him backwards into the turnbuckles to loosen him, then plants him with the Wagner driver for the DQ. I loved Negro Casas leaping in and covering Santo's body from further attack, before even thinking about breaking up a pin. Casas understands those personal details and it's the kind of thing that elevates a match like this.

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New Footage Friday: ARKANGEL DE LA MUERTE!!! MR. NIEBLA!! TEXAS HANGMEN!! RODDY PIPER!! ADRIAN ADONIS!!

Roddy Piper/Tim Brooks vs. Adrian Adonis/Ron Starr PNW 3/31/79

MD: About ten years ago, I went back and watched all of 79-82 Portland and there are very few pro wrestling pastimes more fulfilling. This wasn't part of that collection and I think it's because it was part of the syndicated show as opposed to the live (or delayed) Saturday night one. It seems like every other match we're watching these days is "before its time," but the shine here absolutely was. Starr and Adonis basically pinballed themselves around the ring in interesting and coordinated ways to land upon Brooks' leg. Meanwhile, on the apron, Piper showed ass by bumping himself in reaction or because he tried too hard to reach for a tag. The structure was interesting here. It was absolutely heel in peril, by definition, but it didn't wear out its welcome. Part of that was because Piper never made it in, so it wasn't the babyfaces dominating both heels, which is something you never see. Right when Piper did make it in, he launched a few "karate" cheapshots and the heels took over, controlling the ring, distracting the ref, etc. They had a double clothesline behind the ref's back lead to the heel's first fall win but a dodged one led to the finish and that's the kind of callback that always works for me. So yeah, it's cliche, but this was before its time, but then a lot of things in Portland were, tag wrestling especially. If nothing else, this is worth seeing for babyface Adonis.

ER: I really love the Portland wrestling scene of the 70s and 80s, and I wish that kind of thing were sustainable today. The crowds were always really great from the footage we have, and this kind of match seems so unique to PNW. Loved Piper's extended bagpipes squawking, and it's wild to go from minutes of bagpipe practice to minutes of Tim Brooks' knee getting ripped apart. Brooks is a guy who shows up in a lot of territories and is immediately the worst guy in the territory, but I really dug the Piper/Brooks team and thought Brooks was a great addition to the match. He had this great veteran taunting rope running to before the bell, hitting the ropes too close to Adonis and Starr under the guise of warming up. Adonis and Starr had some real heavy leg work on him, both of them flying high and landing on Brook's leg. Starr even comes off the top rope onto it! Babyface Adonis is a real treat, with his feathered hair and 100 lb. lighter frame. You can see his potential for being a chubby boy, but here we get him looking like the lead singer of Grim Reaper and it rules. Piper has become one of my absolute favorite wrestlers over the past 5 years or so, someone that was hiding in plain sight for so long. His style is so great and I can't believe he wasn't recognized as a greater in-ring guy, as he's really someone with a super extended period as an excellent worker. His Portland work has such a manic energy to it, always infectious. This got a lot of time and at the end of it I wasn't left feeling that the guys had done a ton of "big" stuff, but they all knew how to nail small moments that the match just kept sustaining.

PAS: I was shocked at what a great babyface team Adonis and Starr were, for a pair of guys who rarely worked babyface and didn't seem to have a long run together, they had a bunch of smooth double teams and great shtick. I loved all of the early leg work including some great fast takedowns from both guys, and a lot of leapfroggy drops on Brooks' knee. The Russian legsweep/superfly splash combo they used to win the second fall was dope, as was all of the taunting of Piper. The in ring breakdown of heels in the match was about 80/20 in favor of Brooks, which is suboptimal. Piper is really fun getting aggravated on the apron though. Any new Piper footage is a mitzvah and this had some really nifty moments from him.

Texas Hangmen vs. Carlos Colon/TNT WWC 11/3/90

PAS: Standard southern tag match, with the added addition of a wild start and finish. I loved Puerto Rican baseball stadium brawling, and the Hangmen jump the faces in the infield and they go after each other. We even get TNT smashing a Hangman's head into home plate. The in-ring stuff was solid, including Colon getting opened up. TNT is a fun hot tag too, love his spinning kicks. Finish goes back to the dugout with El Profe running to the locker room to grab bullropes and the locker room emptying. We could have cut five or so minutes in the middle, but otherwise this was good stuff.

ER: I'm always going to love the atmosphere of a big Puerto Rico baseball stadium brawl. I'm happy with 20 minutes of punch and kick as long as you have those great visuals of rowdy people in a bleacher, people standing up from their folding chairs on the infield, you get scenes of Ferris wheels and carnival rides out past the outfield, and it's just the best wrestling vibe. The first 12 minutes of this match are just TNT and Colon beating the Hangmen pillar to post, just the Hangmen stumbling around the stadium and ring getting punched into position. TNT has a bunch of spinkick variations, a big heavy swinging leg that he uses a bunch in control and during a late match comeback, his big leaping kick, big savate kicks and superkicks, punches with dramatically long follow through, and the Hangmen served as great punching and kicking bags. Colon is a ball of energy that is impossible to root against, too easy to feed off the crowd's reactions to him. Every time he or even TNT got any kind of a strike against the Hangmen, the crowd exploded. Colon is an animated puncher, a violent take on the classic dancing babyface, someone with a good foot shuffle and leapfrog to lead to a big coconut crush headbutt, and the fans losing it for all of his movements makes it so much better. Colon gets busted open, the Hangmen (Bull Pain among them) are good kick punchers themselves, and the match gets even more electric when they roll back out to the infield. Castillo and Los Medics running in front the outfield to break up Profe's bullrope choking was a spectacular wrestling moment, we get a great pull apart with the locker room, all of it is pro wrestling eye candy.

MD: I thought this had a great atmosphere, with the stadium crowd being up for almost everything, and bookended by the wild brawling out of the ring. Right from the start, we have Colon slamming a Hangman's head into home plate which is maybe the best way to start any match in the history of wrestling. I loved how TNT and Colon worked together for merciless shine. I've seen Abby in this (very Memphis) role as the absolute extreme of a partner Colon can unite with, but TNT brought the crazy kicks and mobility while keeping all of the manic unpredictability. Meanwhile, Colon was running around with a fork, preemptively, like he was Abby. It's Puerto Rico so both transitions involved low blows, but the Hangmen's control section was good, even if they were more sound and solid than violent and brutal like the match probably warranted. TNT's hot tag was cut off and cooled down a bit since they had to wait for Colon to recover and set up the end brawling. The bullrope beatdown and post match with the faces trying to keep Colon and TNT from going after the Hangmen off the field all really worked for me. Just good PR spectacle with a solid foundation.

Mr. Niebla/Oriental/Tsubasa vs. Arkangel De La Muerte/Zumbido/El Engima CMLL Japan 8/13/98

PAS: CMLL Japan was such a fun promotion, with a bunch of cool 90s luchadores just going all out for short Nitro lucha matches. Man it is easy to forget what an absolute athletic marvel young Mr. Neibla was. He was just flying all over the ring with really impressive pop and height on everything he did. Loved his feint into an over the turnbuckle tope, great vertical leap, would have loved to see what his combine numbers were. Zumbido and Arkangel were really great rudos (Zumbido shows up in shows around Denver and still fucking rules) and I always loved the way Zumbido's mullet would spin along with his dives. Enigma (who we think is a young Mazda) has some nice moments, but almost dies on a tope when his feet get caught. Good stuff, and I am looking forward to digging into more of the new stuff they are uploading.

MD: 9 minutes of all action, big dumb lucha spectacle with no real narrative but lots of bodies flying around. Of these guys, I think I'm least familiar with Enigma and I thought he comported himself well, in his opening exchange with Tsubasa and then eating all of Oriental and Tsubasa's tandem stuff. Plus he had the makings of a rolling Northern Lights Suplex sequence. Zumbido was charismatic as ever. There's not a lot you can do storywise in nine minutes though I guess I did sort of appreciate the 30 seconds of Arkangel putting Niebla in holds before a micro comeback and the dive train/finish. It's amazing what you can do with even the tiniest bit of glue.

ER: Love CMLL Japan, Phil is right that it's always sprint Nitro lucha, and it's always filled with guys who had enough fun spots to fill a Nitro lucha match. Niebla was such a king during the late 90s, super graceful height on everything and a willingness to die on dives and bumps. He jogs lightly around the ring to laughs from the crowd before slingshotting himself effortlessly over the top in a wild torpedo of a dive. Zumbido is a top 20 favorite luchador for me, a great rudo with huge bumps and spectacular highspots, whip crack strikes and tight rolling. His mullet flows in mesmerizing ways while his tassel pants are among the best in wrestling history, making every Zumbido roll through look like a crashing wave. Arkangel does rudo in Japan well, and here he's the big bumper in a match filled with them, taking a super high backdrop from Niebla, crashing on arm drags, and taking dives. We get several big dives to the floor: Tsubasa hits an Asai moonsault that flattens Enigma, we get a sloppy-but-reckless fun dive train with Enigma catching feet and faceplanting, Tsubasa almost breaking both ankles flying over Zumbido with a somersault senton, Zumbido hits a wild dive on Niebla that sends him face first into the 2nd row, Enigma mans up a mere 15 seconds after crashing on his dive and sinks a perfect catch on a big Oriental moonsault to the floor, all action that feels wholly like CMLL Japan. I love when stuff shows up there, always a must watch for me. 1998 was the first year I got into lucha so this era and these guys have major nostalgia for me, and it's always great to see how it holds up.

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Mas Niebla, Segunda Parte

Mr. Niebla/Solar/Oriental vs. Zumbido/Arkangel de la Muerte/Ultimo Guerrero CMLL Japan 8/15/99

ER: CMLL Japan is some of the most consistently fun and excellent stuff out there. CMLL late 90s/early 00s workers were so talented that they could head to Japan in the middle of the week to break off a couple shows filled with 20 minute Michinoku Pro matches as if that was an easy style to work within. There were too many great moments to count, a bunch of chain spots and constant action with a swiftly rotating set of partners. Zumbido was a real standout, and Arkangel clearly tried to work up to the crazy level of Zumbido (and Arkangel always excels at these Japan trios) by taking the bump of the match when he redefines the Cassandro ringpost bump and takes some fast forward flipping nonsense right past it. Later he hits a big dive, just a guy really peaking a performance. Zumbido moves with such grace and has that Tony Hawk hangtime, love him getting upended, vaulted over the top to the floor, and sprawling backwards out through the ropes. Solar/Zumbido is a fun smooth legend vs. smooth punk battle, and we got some wild armdrags and confident basing throughout. These CMLL Japan trios are always all killer no filler, guys working a real go go style to get big pops. This was as great as expected.


Mask vs. Mask: Mr. Niebla vs. Mr. Niebla CMLL 8/20/99

ER: Phil wrote this match up the night of Niebla's passing, and before he brought it up to me that day I had no memory of a Niebla vs. Niebla feud. I was a big Mr. Mexico fan, had no memory of him ever working as fake Niebla. This must have happened during that period where I knew lucha existed but had yet to start recording it weekly on Galavision, but it couldn't have happened that much earlier. The match is only 8 minutes and una caida, but it's fun while it lasts. Dr. Wagner spouts a lot of BS before the bell and they jump OG Niebla, but Niebla comes back and goes for a dive...that leads to him backsplashing the floor and sliding into the front row like he was Chris Hamrick. And from there we go right to the home stretch, right into the nearfalls, but even with the short build within the match itself I was into them, having now watched several weeks of the fake Niebla being a preening dick, strutting around and taking cheapshots. The nearfalls were good, like a tight victory roll cradle from Niebla, and we got a nice Niebla moonsault before missing another. The pinfalls were good and the chaos of having two twins (albeit one with a much tighter physique) really added to the fun confusion of the finishing stretch for me, the match ending with the impostor Niebla getting locked in Nieblina, and amusingly staying trapped in it for a minute after the loss. Earlier in the match Alfonso Morales had brought up Alfred Hitchcock, no doubt playing upon the fears of every man in so many Hitchcock films: Niebla an impersonated and wronged man, an impostor doing misdeeds in his name, the evil of himself made flesh while those in the cheap seats can't always tell the two sides apart. And then I saw all those familiar front row Arena Mexico faces that aren't there anymore: The old rudo fan with the bell, the old man who looks like a cartoon mouse, the bald man whose workouts are focused entirely on his chest, the older woman with an underbite who frequently admonishes rudos (and was sporting a nice green dress on the occasion of this apuestas match), and then I got sad.

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Mas Niebla

ER: The passing of Niebla has really made me want to go back and seek out Mr. Niebla matches that I either haven't seen at all, or haven't seen in 20 years. I first started watching lucha 20 years ago after happening across it on Galavision, with Niebla being one of the early standouts to my "Never seen lucha outside of WCW" eyes. I'll be doing several posts documenting Niebla's high end 1999-2000, a cool run spanning an entire millennium.


Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas/Shocker vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Black Warrior/Scorpio Jr. CMLL 7/9/99

ER: This was a big fun sprawling mess, a big Blue Panther rudo performance, a match that saw guys always running around on the floor without having tons of big high spots. We got a big Niebla tope con giro in the tercera, but this match was built with charisma and sustained to the DQ finish. Panther was constantly stomping at Casas and looks like he aims to dislocate three of his limbs at once in the primera. And I loved the contrast with Santo and Casas separating Scorpio from the pack in the segunda while Niebla keeps on eye on the helpless Panther and Warrior. The crazy spot we build to is Casas holding Scorpio prone on the floor, with Santo getting overhyped and crazily thinking it would be a good idea to fly into them with a tope. Scorpio breaks free and moves, but it doesn't matter as Santo's leg catches the middle rope and he hits the ground hard. I think the plan was for Scorpio to move and Santo to send Casas into the seats, but this worked even more effectively, and gave us the visual of Santo leaving on a stretcher. Santo feels like a guy crazy enough to work a badly blown painful spot into his matches, so it could have been part of it, but either way it was a hot start to this feud.

Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Pierroth Jr./Shocker/Ricky Santana CMLL 7/16/99

ER: Picks up where the last one left off, with a completely new set of rudos. Niebla/Santo/Casas are a  tremendous tecnico team that just ooze constant charisma, they make every rudo team come off like real dicks. And it helps that Pierroth kicks all kinds of ass and brawls with Santo all around the building. Everyone knows brawling Santo is the best Santo, and this was no different as he gets punched and choked up the ramp by Pierroth, but hits his in ring headbutt and perfect dive past the ringpost to the floor. Shocker is playing such an aloof douche the whole match, fake Niebla causing a constant Who Me? ruckus. Pierroth looks like a crazed uncle as this whole thing brings apart, taking his belt off and threatening everyone. I miss these crazed CMLL DQ ending trios that actually built to bigger matches. You'd think that would be easy to do.

Mr. Niebla vs. Shocker CMLL 7/30/99

ER: This is more angle than match, but sets up and finalizes the Niebla/Niebla mask match and gets there in unprofessional fashion. Niebla sends Shocker into the 3rd row with a tope to start things, and most of the rest of the match is these two grappling and dragging each other around ringside. Shocker starts working Niebla's leg early and soon is literally dragging him by that leg all around the big Arena Mexico ring. The in ring action is fun and played out more like a same era New Japan juniors match (which was a trait I remember about 99-02 Shocker matches), with Shocker hitting a great sitout powerbomb and Niebla hitting a couple of cool suplexes, and we get a genuinely very good kneeling slap exchange (Niebla's final shot gets rightly played as a near KO). But soon the fake Niebla is out, and he and Shocker just nuke Niebla's leg into the entrance ramp. They bash his leg into the edge of the rampway, slamming the front of his thigh right above the knee, with fake Niebla jumping on his hammies, and both delivering a wishbone in the ring. They sign the contract in the ring right after the DQ, and I appreciate this kind of cut right to the chase.

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Mr. Niebla: Descanse en Paz

Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Black Warrior/Blue Panther CMLL 11/13/98

PAS: We reviewed an all time great trios match with a lot of the same guys from April of 98, and while this wasn't as good as that, it was still a total blast to watch. Really fun to see Santo and Casas as a tag team, especially so soon after their feud, and they really break out some fun combos here including an awesome flip rana by Santo off of a Casas Romero special. Fuerza vs. Casas was the highlight, with both guys breaking out a ton of full speed tricks and treats. Niebla was mostly matched up with fellow lost generation star Black Warrior, and they really had great chemistry. Warrior breaks out one of his incredible bullet topes which sends Niebla into the third row, where he barreled into what looked like a pre-teen girl. Just another example of how undeniable 1998 CMLL trios were.

ER: This was indeed a noticeable step down from that absolute classic 6 months prior, and Niebla may have been the guy least focused on the entire match. This is a Fuerza/Casas show, a match that essentially made me set out to watch some Niebla and 10 minutes in made me think I should just devote the next couple months to writing up exclusively 1998 Fuerza. Fuerza really appears to HATE Casas as he unleashes match long punishment on Casas's face and balls, the two punching and chopping each other through all three falls, Fuerza sticking him with a nasty inverted atomic drop, later tying him in the ropes and running into him with a straight boot to the jaw. Santo and Casas snap off gorgeous headscissors opposite Panther, Fuerza hits a gorgeous reverse powerbomb on Santo (Santo glides through moves so gracefully that it looks like Fuerza is lifting an empty plastic bag to slam), Black Warrior does indeed send Niebla crashing into a surly 11 year old girl with his trademark tope, and the whole thing felt like the kind of match where you could throw these same 6 together and routinely get something special.

Mr. Niebla vs. Mr Niebla CMLL 8/20/99

PAS: This was a weird situation where a guy had started wrestling in IWRG as Mr. Niebla, and eventually came to CMLL when the original Mr. Niebla was injured. OG Niebla attacked the imposter and it led to a mascara contra mascara match. This was fun stuff, it was one fall and either short or clipped, but what we got was good. There was a lot of pre match shenanigans with Dr. Wagner Jr. leading to IWRG Niebla getting the jump on CMLL Niebla and ripping his mask and bloodying him. CMLL Nieblas get the advantage back but misses a flip dive and lands hard on concrete. We moved pretty quickly into the closing run then, with some big near falls. I really liked how hard both guys were working to end the match or survive, really pressing on pins, and squirming out of holds. Niebla finally locks on the Nieblina to end the match, and IWRG Niebla would end up having a fun run as Mr. Mexico in CMLL.

Mr. Niebla vs. Abismo Negro AAA 2/15/08

PAS: This was part of the Niebla vs. Abismo feud over the leadership of the Vipers, and was a Bull Terrier match (aka Dog Collar). I liked Niebla attacking Negro at the bell and blooding him up, and trying to win the match before he even put on the collar. This was in the six sided ring days of AAA, and having to hit all six turnbuckles drags out that portion of the match even more then in normally does. The parts of this that were brawling were really nifty, but when it devolved into a game of tag, it got less interesting. Still fun to see Niebla in a different setting.

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CMLL Juicio Final 5/31/19

ER: This show had THREE big stips matches (including a rare retirement match) and all the non-stips matches have on paper potential, so I figured I may as well write up the whole show!

Disturbio/Misterioso Jr./Kawato vs. Rey Cometa/Blue Panther Jr./Black Panther

ER: Quick opener that manages to pack a lot of fireworks into its short runtime. Cometa is out dressed like Johnny Depp's Tonto, a weirdly underrated movie. I'm going to need someone to start wearing Alita: Battle Angel gear to draw some more attention to that one. This is a match that tried to open the show with some big spots and delivered. BP Jr. is gassed to the gills and is starting to work more like Gronda and his father. I'm cool with that as it leads to great moments like him pouncing Kawato over the top rope into Disturbio (who was standing on the ramp). Cometa hit a big 450, huge tornillo to the floor, big crossbody off the entrance stairs (with Black Panther); Kawato hit a big flip dive over the ringpost, Misterioso is basing all over the place, and Kawato gets to yank Black Panther's mask for the DQ. This didn't have a ton of substance but was a nice junkfood snack.

Ephesto/Luciferno/Mephisto vs. Soberano Jr./Niebla Roja/Angel de Oro

ER: This was the match on the card I was least interested in, and it certainly played as something I shouldn't have been interested in. Niebla Roja and Angel de Oro may be my least favorite guys in CMLL, with Roja being a greater offender. I hate how they quit on all of their offense, it always feels like they're running through a practice exhibition and putting 100% of the work on the rudos' shoulders. Roja and Oro move with these big looping gestures, quit 75% of the way through on their ranas, aim to land as gently as possible on everything, all of their offense looks like how guys run through sequences backstage. It puts the rudos in a pretty thankless spot, as these two are only entertaining when rudos beat the shit out of them (which thankfully does happen in some matches, just not here). Roja hits a flip dive, Soberano (who I like much more than these two goofs) hits his Fosbury Flop, but this was a showcase for two guys I don't care to see showcased.

4. Career vs. Career! Virus vs. Metalico

PAS: There is nothing I love more then a random luchador given a big showcase match and stepping all the way up. Metalico has been a random undercard guy for years, and he gets a chance to fight for his career against an all time great and comes up huge. Two pretty great looking topes, an Asai moonsault and a nutty dropkick off the apron, he threw it all out there. I loved how they both stretched the rules, the ref wasn't DQing someone in a one fall career match, so they were throwing hard right hands to the face. Virus is one of the greatest singles match luchadores ever, and he is so great here, he gives Metalico plenty of shine, but comes off so dangerous. There are multiple moments where he just whips out a slick counter into a vicious submission, he was like a devastating counter puncher, any mistake his opponent would make its lights out. Loved that we didn't get a bunch of traded near falls near the end, just Metalico dying on his shield. Small arena lucha libre has been my favorite stuff over the last couple of years, but there is nothing in wrestling like an Arena Mexico match with real consequences, and I was so glad we got this.

ER: I've been a big Metalico drum beater for several years now. He's an undercarder who is basically the only CMLL undercarder who works Memphis stooging into lucha matches. He's a comedy rudo that doesn't really exist much anymore, and I love what he brings to a card. He's not the kind of guy to get long singles matches - or singles matches in general (I'm not sure I've seen a singles match of his since he lost his mask 4 years ago) - and here he gets to have an awesome dying in the ring performance against one of the all time best. Metalico breaks out every single thing he ever learned, from his ring entrance to highspots he hasn't broken out in years, and the crowd gets more and more involved and excited by his absolute refusal to quit. Metalico gets more and more tired as the match goes on - he's not a long singles match guy - and that just adds to his perseverance and desperation. You look at the difference between Metalico's two dives in this match: the first one, early in the match and filled with confidence, sending Virus into the barricade; the second one, late in the match, exhausted, Metalico does more damage to himself by just doing the dive. From minute one Metalico looks like a guy who has no real chance at beating Virus, and at times it looked like Virus was almost just letting Metalico have a respectable showing before letting him know just how quickly he could put a stop to his bullshit. Metalico started breaking out things he hasn't done in years, like a picture perfect Asai moonsault and a rana off the apron, and he started making headway on the bottom end as well. Phil noted how refs were being loose with DQ calls in a single caida big stips match, and I liked how each guy kept pushing the boundaries, hitting closed fist punches to the jaw, dropping a headbutt to the balls, and I loved Metalico's dickish combos where he would punch Virus and also kick him right on the inside of his knee. Metalico was tired but that just made him hit harder. There was a spot in the corner where he was supposed to flip over the ropes to dodge a charging Virus, but when his gas tank wouldn't allow him he merely opted to hit one of the most savage back elbows I've seen. Virus was a monster on the mat and was going to outclass Metalico at every opportunity, so Metalico had to play a little more dirty. But unfortunately for Metalico, Virus doesn't have to get dirty to do damage. When Virus locked in a gross STF, Metalico reaching for the ropes as his literal only chance of survival, Virus grabs that reaching arm and adds that to the pain. I thought it was the finish for sure. I loved desperate, last stand Metalico, and loved how the crowd kept getting excited as he kicked out of a sick vertebreaker and getting flipped off the top, the fans fully buying into Metalico refusing to step away forever. This was a wonderful display of character and storytelling, and I'm glad Virus was there to send my boy off into the sunset.

Hair vs. Hair! Kaho Kobayashi vs. Amapola

ER: I really liked this, and it wouldn't have taken a tong more to get this on a list. I thought the ending was building to something, and what we got was more abrupt than I wanted. But this was a great Amapola performance, with Kaho making up for her shortcomings with great energy and a willingness to be lead around by Amapola. I like Kaho and thought this was a good showing for her, and it felt like the Arena Mexico crowd was getting behind her effort while knowing she had no chance of leaving the ring with hair. This felt like when they let Virus lead a younger luchador through a match, and the younger luchador gets some surprising moments while overall getting worked by Virus. Amapola as Virus is something she can easily handle, she's clearly been one of the top CMLL ladies as long as she's been in the division, and showcase singles are somewhat rare for the women. You could see her really leading Kaho through - at one point she essentially moved herself through a complex pin combo - but she was generous and I think that helped Kaho thrive. This was all about the tercera as the first two falls went very quickly, but there were highlights throughout. Each hits a real rib breaking spear, with Kaho snapping Amapola in half to start and Amapola returning that favor in the tercera. Amapola was really awesome, crushing Kaho on a dive (Kaho kind of gets made fun of for bad catching skills, but she got smooshed here), hitting a hard dropkick to the spin as Kaho was trapped in the ropes, and later Amapola wraps herself around a ringpost violently so that Kaho can hit a beautiful crossbody off the top to the floor. There were some good nearfalls, and I thought they both did a good job building drama down the stretch, and for me I always get more into luchadora hair matches, feels like the stakes are even more real. A lot of women really tightly associate their hair with their femininity, so the drama always feels real to me.

Euforia/Gran Guerrero vs. Valiente/Diamante Azul

ER: This one felt a little low stakes, which was understandable on a card with three high stakes matches, but it had three stout boys so it was at minimum going to be fun. Azul and Valiente are a fun little team of power packs; Azul has been slowly bulking up and he appeared to gas down the stretch (Guerrero even appeared to dump him on the entrance ramp just to get him out of the way), and this didn't reach the heights it could have, but we still got moments. Azul's added heft does add to certain moves, loved his running elbow, high arcing hip toss, and the cannonball off the ramp lands even harder. Guerrero is coming into his own, and he sets up a gross bump taking an armdrag off the apron from Valiente (big splat on the floor there), hitting a nice heavy flip dive of his own in the tercera, and being tasked with taking that super fast Valiente tope. The finish felt a little unnecessarily dangerous, with the rudos hitting a press slam on Azul off the top, then doing the same to Valiente on top of Azul, but they almost end up lawndarting Valiente straight into the mat. The set up was really long and required Valiente to do almost all the climbing and all the work, so you had the ugly combo of "guy taking move doing all the work" with "move looking almost dangerously botched".

Barbaro Cavernario/Negro Casas/Mr. Niebla vs. Mistico/Caristico/Volador Jr.

ER: This one underperformed, had some timing issues, and didn't have a lot of Casas. It had a lot of Niebla dancing and Caristico being a step slower than everyone else, and some ugly moments like Cavernario whiffing a kick and Caristico bumping early on a Niebla slap. It was kept quick, a comedic palette cleanser with dives, mindless entertainment before the main event, and it worked fine on that level. Volador hit the best dive of the match, a high speed tope con giro that Cavernario took nicely. There was a big tandem dive by all the tecnicos and Caristico hit an additional dive into Casas. This was kept breezy, and I was hoping for more.

52. Hair vs. Hair! Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Ultimo Guerrero

ER: All the CMLL dancers are decked out in sexy Ultimo Guerrero outfits, which I must say seems a little biased. But who cares, because this whole match rules! Ultimo Guerrero does this weird thing where he has a match or two year and just gets punched in the face a ton. And this match keeps coming right back around to Guerrero getting punched in the face, and Mascara gleefully throwing right hands up and down the left side of UG's head. This is really one of the finest big match lucha performances from a 60+ year old in some time. Mascara Ano Dos Mil pulls out every trick he's ever pulled in his long career, all the bullshit is impeccably timed, the cheap shots are cheap, the nearfalls are great, and we always go right back to fists punching face. Mascara hits a nice springboard splash, nice vertical suplex, gets a great nearfall on a backslide, and Disturbio's involvement is excellent. Disturbio and Gran Guerrero are the seconds, and Disturbio eats a great dropkick from UG, and later has a pitch perfect piece of interference: Guerrero locks on the sure fire finishing sub, and Disturbio is able to run in to kick UG away and bail back to the floor just as ref Edgar is turning around. On the floor we get a killer scrap between Gran and Disturbio, a ton of other Dinamitas come out to cause problems on the entrance ramp, Mascara boots UG right in the balls (which got him a win and set up this very match), and it's all incredible theater. There's a series of fun desperate pins, Mascara grabbing the rope, getting his foot on the rope, grabbing ref's hand to stop the count, all of it was great. This is my favorite old man scrap of the year, with all of the drama I love from lucha, plus an old guy punching a less old guy in the eye. It'll work for me every time.

PAS: MA2K can't really bump or run the ropes anymore, but he is very willing to throw multiple punching combos upside UG's head, so Dayenu. This had plenty stuff built around Gran Guerrero and Disturbo which makes sense to pad the time, and give the oldsters in the ring time to catch their breath. Still once the wind came it was nasty stuff, hard knuckles to heads. I liked UG's goofy dive into the crowd, not pretty at all, but this wasn't a pretty match. I kind of wanted a big post match Dinamitas beat down, if your gang is going to come let them roll deep, but this really was aimed at my lucha libre pleasure centers.


ER: This card looked real dynamite to me on paper, and three of the matches delivered various levels of big for me, and the rest of the stuff was either fun or inoffensive. I really liked the women's hair match which wasn't far from making list, Mascara Ano Dos Mil is still a compelling guy into his 60s and I love the couple matches a year where Ultimo Guerrero agrees to get shoot punched in the head, and the retirement was an instant lucha classic. The latter two matches were obvious additions to our 2019 Ongoing Match of the Year List.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Niebla's Return! Mephisto's Title Loss!

Mr. Niebla/Mephisto/Rey Bucanero vs. Diamante Azul/Dragon Lee/Mistico CMLL 3/12/19

ER: This was Niebla's return to Arena Mexico after 6 months of suspension, and he kind of owned it. Niebla owned this with the confidence of a white dude waltzing back into his old government job after accepting a voluntary demotion. Niebla was walking around ringside slapping fives with regulars like someone greeting people at the You Served Your Time cookout thrown in his favor. This is a total throwaway straight falls Arena Mexico main event, but I love that straight falls because Niebla lost the first fall for his team because he was kicking too many asses. Always feel bad for the tecnico getting his hand raised because his ass got kicked too hard. This whole thing just livens up the second Niebla high-stepped it across the ring to palm slap Mistico across the dome. I was dying. It looked like a hilarious move Sandman would use to kick someone off the Apollo stage. Niebla just slapped his way through this whole match, in the ring and out, and it was great. He mugged with fans, slapped face, and looked like a megastar. Azul hits a great dive, Bucanero throws some nasty chops at Mistico's throat, Mephisto plants Dragon Lee with a powerbomb, the whole thing was short mean and triumphant.

Mephisto vs. Dragon Lee CMLL 3/19/19

ER: A match that lost me at points during the long tercera, but that overall felt like a big enough match for a title to change hands. I know lucha titles don't mean a whole lot to American fans, Mexican fans, or the promotion themselves seemingly, but it feels like Mephisto has had this thing for ages and that should mean SOMETHING. They went big enough with this that it felt like a big stip match, so I think it earned it's third fall bloat. Also, I just really liked Mephisto in this, especially his work in the primera/segunda, but he had plenty of nice rudo moments in the tercera. It really felt like a guy sadistically beating down Lee, smacking down this punk coming for his belt, and that's a great pro wrestling feeling. The primera is short but mostly matwork, and it's cool to see Mephisto work some maestro exchanges that we don't often get to see from him, some cool tricks like standing on Lee's foot while shoving him over. He controls all the matwork, and when Lee breaks free into some rope running he immediately tricks Lee into a pin. And then Mephisto only gets MORE dominant in the segunda, when he starts stalking and dishing stiff kicks. He does a flapjack and hits a mean kick on the way down (possibly because Lee didn't get as much height as expected), and then does a second flapjack, Lee gets tons of height, and then gets kicked just as hard on his way down, again. I liked Lee's selling during these nasty kicks a lot, as he showed great pain through the mask, and was also working to loosen the area of his mask around the nose, freeing up the pressure and selling it like Mephisto had broken his nose [note: if I find out later that Lee just got his nose broken, forget all the stuff I said about good selling]. Mephisto goes on to throw a few more kicks, slowly, confidently, letting Lee crawl around on the mat while he would come in with a hard kick to the face or chest, letting the crowd really build a Lee comeback. The comeback stuff wasn't as exciting to me, as we knew we'd eventually get a long series of nearfalls, but some of them I really liked and the match threatened to lose me at a couple points but never did. There was always something to bring me back into it, like Mephisto casually waiting on the apron to catch Lee's high jump rana and just planting him with a nasty powerbomb on that apron, or Lee crashing fast into Mephisto on two straight topes. There were at least two moments where I was positive Mephisto had sealed up the title defense, and while I didn't love a couple of the kickouts in this I thought the overall excitement level sustained. Mephisto is 50 now. He lost his title that is a thing. Now he needs to go on more grimy indy shows like Ultimo Guerrero and be an old guy asskicker.

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Lucha Worth Watching: March CMLL

Negro Casas/Barbaro Cavenario/Mr. Niebla vs. Soberano Jr./Marco Corleone/Valiente  CMLL 3/13/18

ER: Damn, you guys. Casas comes back from an injury and he's tan as hell and mean as hell. Every Casas comeback match I've watched has seen him as a total asskicker, he's been far more aggressive, working really differently than just a few months ago. And all the rudos got the same message: Be total assholes. Niebla runs around the ring punching face, Barbaro is landing stiff splashes and kicking guys in the guts, Casas is picking guys off left and right (what's with that weird leg swipe takedown he ran in and did to Soberano?). This was a rudo team to be reckoned with. But the tecnicos took their beatdown in stride and integrated perfectly. Corleone has had a fun year getting beaten down. We've dealt with superman Marco for quite awhile, but I much prefer take a beating/big comeback Marco. Casas and the boys slap around everyone, lighting up chests all over Arena Mexico, and the tecnicosall get big moments: Soberano flies off the entrance ramp, Corleone comes sprinting back into the ring, Valiente hits his big moonsault to the floor (and really this guy crashes harder and faster on dives than almost anybody). It all comes down to Casas and Soberano, with Casas reversing an Irish whip by just kicking Soberano in the shins, fighting over a Casita...and then Cavernario just runs in and punts Soberano in the balls. I mean right in the balls. Casas had him held prone, he was distracted fighting off Casas, and he just took a furry boot right to the balls. Heck yes to all of this match.

Drone vs. Blue Panther Jr.  CMLL 3/23/18

ER: This was a fun take on the typical lightning match formula, a little grittier and a little messier. They didn't go after a lot of smooth lucha sequences, or, they did and that's not what they ended up with. I liked the jagged edges. A Drone headlock takeover that has some stopped momentum, making it look more like he's yanking Panther over by the neck, or a messy rolling figure 4 by Panther, with his ankle kind of slipping out so he has to roughly yank it back into the sub, or them fighting around the ring for an armbar, Drone rolling through and keeping his arm secure while Panther holds onto it and tries to drag him to the mat like a rottweiler. Drone uses some fancy footwork to chase Panther on a dive, running and sliding around the ring before hitting a dive past the ringpost. Panther later roughs him up on the floor, including giving him a press slam onto the barricade. Panther is bigger and there were some fun spots around him catching Drone and slamming him, Drone takes a big bump off a lariat on the apron, that kind of thing. It was a tougher match than I went in expecting, and I like that.

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ALL TIME MOTY LIST Head to Head 1998: Hotta vs. Kandori VS. Atlantis/Niebla/Casas vs. Santo/Panther/Warrior

Atlantis/Mr. Niebla/Negro Casas vs. El Hijo del Santo/Blue Panther/Black Warrior CMLL 4/24/98

PAS: Pretty much a perfect lucha trios, it has everything beautiful and great about lucha libre wrapped up in three caidas. Traditionally primera caidas in lucha matches are battles of skill, and we get some all time great match ups in the first fall. We open up with Niebla and Warrior squaring off, in a match full of all timers, these two are the outliers. They kind of remind me of that lost group of 90s basketball players who seemed poised to take over for Jordan, Barkley and Hakeem but failed to live up to their potential. Niebla vs Black Warrior is basically Shawn Kemp trying to dunk over Derrick Coleman. Really smooth counter wrestling with some real moments of athletic explosion, prime Niebla's movement was pretty breathtaking. The Primera Caida also gives up Blue Panther grappling with Atlantis and Negro Casas and Santo, which are just legendary and both pairings look amazing. Man did I loved the finish of this fall, with Panther doing a Backlund lift on Casas and Santo just blasting him with a top rope dropkick, and Warrior cleaning out Niebla with his awesome tope. Segunda Caida is quick and more high impact and includes a great assisted Niebla tope con hilo. Tercera Caida gets nice and grimy Santo and Panther beat the bricks off of Casas, the running kicks to the face here are as nasty as in their all time classic the year before, and Panther is throwing some brutal punches. It is a Satanico level rudo beatdown from two guys you don't think of as that kind of asskicker (Warrior is around too, but on the periphery.) I loved the fuck off finish of this too, with Panther just ripping off Atlantis mask and parading around with it, totally unconcerned about losing the match. I don't remember ever seeing this match before, and it as an all timer.

ER: There's just something about a well executed lucha trios, and this just has a great vibe. You get rudo Santo, tecnico Casas, rudo Panther, slender and ridiculously athletic Niebla, Warrior showing all that promise that he continued showing into the early 2000s, just a great cast. Santo and Panther as rudos is always so good, Santo really lays in nasty strikes, and his tecnico work is rarely about strikes. But rudo Santo is always throwing big slaps, clubbing the back, kneelifts to eye sockets; Panther working rudo maestro matwork always has differences from his tecnico matwork, always being the aggressor instead of working reversals. Everybody gets something to do here. 

Niebla as Shawn Kemp is really about as accurate a simile as you can get, a young hyped athlete who delivers as promised...until he keeps getting fatter and keeps dealing with more and more off work hours problems; in lucha he reminds me of Bestia Salvaje, someone who you see young and is just incredible with his movement, and even older and chubbier is still capable of bringing it, but also capable of dogging it. His movement here is so graceful and yet so impactful, it's wild to see how agile he was working in and bouncing off of the ropes, and that backdrop into a tope con hilo was breathtaking. Warrior was a real fast moving, violent luchador when on, one of the guys I watched a lot from 1998-2001 (before he looked like he was playing an evil resort maitre d), and for a guy with a long history of violent bullet topes, I still flipped for him sending Niebla into the crowd with one. Casas is a great tecnico, and in the tercera two legends give that great tecnico a nasty rudo beatdown, and Panther diving in for the "save" at the end to yank Atlantis' mask off (the one he loosened earlier during a beating) was a great dickhead rudo move, not giving the tecnicos the opportunity to get a clean pinfall victory. It was like diving to knock an ice cream cone out of a child's hand.

Kandori vs. Hotta review

Verdict:

PAS: Man this is tough, I absolutely love Hotta vs. Kandori, that kind of visceral Puro war is right up my alley and kind of a dead artform. However lucha libre at its best is the best, and this has so many awesome moments, and all time great at their height I think I am going with the trios match by a hair.

ER: I've definitely not seen this match before, and it was a great leap back to when I first started watching lucha, and while I hadn't seen this match it's pretty easy to figure out why I immediately got into lucha and have stuck around for 20 years. That being said, I think I'm still edging towards Kandori/Hotta, not by much, but I loved the focus and the blood and the mistake capitalization, with the violence. I'd happily watch both of these matches tomorrow, but at the moment I'm saying the champ retains.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SANTO VS. CASAS

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Lucha Worth Watching: Tiffany! Niebla!

Tiffany/Dalys/La Metalica vs. Princesa Sugehit/La Jarochita/Maligna (CMLL 1/2/18)

ER: I've seen a lot of lucha, and a lot of uninspired lucha. And sadly a lot of luchadora matches are the same damn matches, every year, same spots, run through like they've done them a thousand times (and they have). But occasionally you get some actual fire and intensity, and Tiffany brings both of those here. I love Tiffany. She's always been one of my favorite luchadoras, and now she's a little older, a little bigger (and considering the portions and constant snacking that her husband Kraneo is throwing down, you'd have to be Karen Carpenter to not snack more than normal) and meaner than ever. I'm going to need a Total Luchadoras show with Kraneo and Tiffany just dicking around doing errands with Mije and their corgi (they own a corgi because it makes for good TV). But Tiffany is a total badass all throughout this match, really targeting Sugehit. They have a cool standing maestra sequence with Tiffany twisting her around and working little standing exchanges, fast armdrags, there's a cool feeling of oneupmanship you don't always see in ladies trios, and you know it's real when Tiffany dishes a nasty stomp to the back of Sugehit's head. Maligna is pretty new and Jarochita is someone I've seen many times and rarely remember what she does in a match, so this relied on a fine tecnica performance from Sugehit and Dalys being a savage with the other gals. Dalys is scary at this point, looking manlier and manlier and meaner and meaner, and seeing Sugehit eventually come back against her was great (even if the match ended with Sugehit getting smashed hard into the barricade). The rudas rough up all the tecnicas and I loved all of them hitting increasingly stiff sentons and always putting the boots to them. But Tiffany was what made this whole thing awesome, really looking like the best luchadora on the roster. I want Tiffany, Dalys, and Reina Isis as a trio of mean girl thugs.

Mr. Niebla/Felino/Sagrado vs. Stuka Jr./Soberano Jr./Guerrero Maya Jr. (CMLL 1/2/18)

ER: Alright guys, who tricked Niebla into giving a damn again? This is beyond a coincidence at this point, the guy is clearly working as if he has something to prove. I love when this kind of thing happens, when a guy becomes wildly resurgent. Niebla was just a ball of energy in this match, not just waiting on the apron to hit a couple of spots, but really aggressively making himself a part of the match, getting involved in as many moments as possible, really making the match. Early on when things don't go Sagrado's way Niebla is already in the ring smacking people with his big lefts, and his presence kinda dominates the match from there. He throws big bombs all match, eats a big dive from Stuka (I always love big Stuka dives), hits a fat senton, and then throws in a couple great bumps: He breaks out his backwards fall through the ropes to the floor that I LOVE (and the camera almost misses) and later goes for a kick on the apron and misses, taking a big comical back bump. I don't know what the hell started inspiring this guy to show up, but I love it. The odds of getting an inspired Niebla AND Felino in the same match has to be about the same as winning your office Super Bowl squares after drawing 2 and 8, but it happens here. I love when Felino ramps it up against flippers, he always throws in fast rope running (love the showoff move of bouncing off the bottom rope) and works stiff, it's a beautiful thing. The tecnicos bring their share, with Stuka always have nice rope sequences and dives, Soberano breaking out his big Fosbury Flop (and really coming into his own as a tecnicos star these last several months), and Maya hitting a big dive in the tercera. This was a blast and probably didn't look like that on paper. It's amazing what happens when guys actually show up.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Leyenda de Azul Cibernetico

Leyenda de Azul Cibernetico (CMLL 12/22/17)

ER: Ciberneticos are a fickle creature. It doesn't take too much in one direction to make them good, and it doesn't take much in the other direction to make them totally skippable. This one already starts as a win as Mije and Zakarias sit on the entranceway steps with their heads in hands, as if they're sitting on a curb waiting for their parents to pick them up after soccer practice. Then you see that referee Edgar is sporting cornrows and you know it's going to be a great cibernetico. The strength in a cibernetico is always the action that happens before the eliminations. Eliminations typically come quick and are predictable, and often unsatisfying (and you know there's going to be a double elimination), but the work that takes place before pinfalls start is gonna make it worthwhile, and this had some great action.

Ultimo and Euforia start of with some fast matwork, the kind that UG doesn't often do in CMLL, and it's fun as I don't recall these two ever going opposite each other. It never gets mean, but it's a good exhibition. Bucanero and Terrible do more of the same and we get a nice fun engaging scrap to our cibernetico. Stuff bumps up when Kraneo splats Vangellys with a big legdrop, but then gets backdropped over the top to the ramp, Kraneo taking an awesome big fat guy bump to the ramp and down the side stairs, with Vangellys immeditely shifting his focus and hitting a big dive on Misterioso.  We get a fat guy showdown between Niebla and Kraneo, and Niebla had a pretty nice showing. Maybe the key to Niebla now is just thinking of him as the new Super Porky. Don't be mad at him for having trouble standing up or kind of standing still while people get into place around him, just get excited for the 1-2 matches a year that he shows up for and just enjoy him slapping dudes the rest of the year. With this match and the Caifan match this is two straight Niebla matches where he utilizes his hip swiveling and silliness much more like Dusty than just a fat goof. It's a fine line. But I loved Kraneo slapping him, with every slap leading to Niebla turning around and slapping someone else on the apron. He and Kraneo are the fattest in the match, so I'll always love the two bigguns exchanging armdrags. Shocker has deflated a bit so he's not as fat (you can really see it in his arms, Shocker has really small arms now). Vangellys is the sneaky pick to be 2nd fattest in 2019. Nobody is getting as fat as Kraneo, I really don't think there's a luchador in history who is as big as Kraneo. But if something stressful happens in Vangellys' life, I could see him hitting the tortas pretty hard. Later on Niebla works a couple complicates armdrags with UG, and does a fired up Dusty act against Bucanero, swiveling his hips and pop locking with his legs, even flicking his own nipples. I don't think I've seen the nipple flick before. I'd much rather see that than the loogy.

Hechicero was treated like a big deal here, so much so that I thought he would win. He had a cool run  where he did his nice middle rope dropkick to knock Sanson to the floor, then gets Mascara Ano Dos Mil to the floor, then taps Vangellys with his awesome inverted bow and arrow choke. I was the drum beater for Pierroth the last couple years and haven't run across too much recommendable Pierroth this year, but I really liked him here, easily best Pierroth moments of the year. We get a nice old guy battle with he and Mascara, we get an actual Rush/Pierroth face off which is something I've never seen, with Pierroth actually soccer kicking Rush before they stand up. Then, he sweetly brushes the hair out of his baby boy's face, and tenderly kisses him on the forehead (much to the hate of the Arena Mexico crowd). Later he helps Rush pin UG from the floor, grabbing his son's hand in a perfect Schwarzenegger/Weathers Predator handshake to give Rush pinfall leverage. I wish Kraneo and Rush got more of a showdown but we did get one, with Kraneo bumping big for him and getting a soccer kick as a thank you. We end with Euforia/Rush and I was rooting for Euforia. He's got kids, man. Euforia takes his always nice ringpost bump and eats a Rush flip dive, and the Rush win is academic. Afterwards Rush stomps on the Blue Demon plaque and HOW COME I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE HORRIBLE BLUE DEMON BELT BEFORE!!?? Has this awful thing been around for years and I somehow keep missing it? Or did I always just stop watching the match after the pinfall and never watch the award ceremony. Oh man that belt is awful. Wearing it essentially gives you a Kuato growing out of your torso, or turns you into Krang's mechanical suit. Just Blue Demon torso flexing around your stomach. It's awful. And the best way to end this cibernetico.

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Negro Casas Worth Watching

Rush/La Sombra/La Mascara v. Negro Casas/Shocker/Mr. Niebla CMLL 7/4/14

ER: Oh man, Rush and his boys come out in suits, pork pie hats, Mascara is wearing a vest, Sombra has his dress shirt unbuttoned way too low under a suit jacket, Rush is wearing no shirt under his jacket. They look like the three most aggressive dry humpers at the club. They look douchey enough that one of them should have "Don't you know who I am?!" tattooed on them. And this match was awesome. It was way more even than most matches between these two teams, and while there was never any real flow to it, that was because each team kept cutting off the other in logical ways. It was a really great use of 6 people as right when one side would gain an advantage, a guy who had been on the floor or apron would come in and cut the momentum right off. The work in this was as stiff as expected, with Sombra rattling Shocker's teeth with plenty of elbows, Mascara delivering plenty of on-point superkicks of the non-thigh slap variety, Rush and Casas each leaving boot imprints on the other's face. Shocker had a great showing here with some of his best selling ever. At one point he fell on his butt after some Sombra elbows and it was downright Kawada-esque. Earlier while selling his knee he valiantly limped right into a Mascara superkick. Niebla hits a dive out the corner past the turnbuckles like it was 1999, Rush boots a charging Casas right off the rampway, Sombra goes full douche by posing while splayed out across the middle rope, and this shit was all awesome. Go watch this.

Negro Casas v. Volador Jr. CMLL 5/31/15

ER: Fun short match with both guys working fast and tossing in little extra dickish things, and Casas almost rubbing it in Volador's face that the Arena Mexico crowd will always like him more. Both guys work stiff here but also really fly into the other's offense. Volador flies fast and nose first into a Casas DDT (with Casas adding a stiff senton afterwards to an unsuspecting Volador), both guys take a few really fast bumps over the top to the floor. You can tell right from go that they were working hard, with Volador jumping him and hitting a dive right before the bell. Later Volador hits a flip dive and then "slips" back first on Casas' face, but slow mo replays clearly show him doing it on purpose. No wonder he got that little senton receipt later. Casas brings some atmosphere and gravity to this, both things normally absent from Volador singles matches. Strikes were on point throughout, both guys gunning for the other's knee on dropkicks, Casas going jaw first into a superkick, Volador manning up into a Casas Thesz press. The whole thing was worked like they were trying to prove something, and this made it a cut above other match-ups I've seen between these two.

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

49. Rush/La Sombra/La Mascara v. Negro Casas/Mr. Niebla/Volador Jr. CMLL 7/25

ER: Awesome short match, full of guys working stiff and with a hot surprise finish. Rush and Casas beat the holy hell out of each other here. I'm not sure how Casas' throat can stand up to some of the stomps that Rush unleashes on it. Both guys throw some nasty kicks to the other's chest and face, shove each other violently into the ring barricade. At one point Rush charges Casas in the corner, stops short, whips his hair back and slaps Casas right across the ear. Great dickhead spot. Niebla is a guy who can wrestle lazy when he's not feeling things, but then we get *this* Niebla and all is well. He slaps guys the whole match, really laying the shots in to a nasty degree, and at one point even breaks out his great back bump to the floor (Rush front kicks him and he falls through the ropes backwards onto the floor). Volador stayed out of most of this, spending a lot of it getting kicked and stomped by Sombra/Mascara, but does hit a spectacular top rope moonsault to the floor. And obviously he plays into the finish which I really dug. Sombra is kinda manhandling him, but Volador gets the surprise flash pin by reversing a Sombra samoan drop into a brutal Sombra head drop. Flash pins don't feel like they get used in lucha that often, and I really love how the match just ended since Volador pinned the captain. Felt like they finally outsmarted the rudos and the cuts to a surprised Rush on the floor were a nice touch since Rush hasn't shown tons of ass in this feud. This could have been epic with more time, but for a straight falls match I can't imagine it being much better. This was some of the stiffest ring work I saw in lucha that year, and no matter how long it was this was a hot match.

PAS: Man I had forgotten what a great act Rush and his boys were. Sombra is such a dick bag, I loved him lounging on the ring barrier. I agree with the greatness of Niebla here, he really gets his ass kicked and him spitting on the heels while he gets beaten is a fun bit of babyface fire, as was his lighting fast slaps on the outside, with this match and the awesome 2017 Caifan matches I think a Neibla reinvestigation maybe on deck. I liked the use of Volador here too, one cool dive and otherwise getting gang stomped is about the only way I can tolerate that dude, although his finishing move was some goofy Will Osprey looking shit. Rush and Casas are the headliners and they are great as always, just violent asskicker with Rush having Bruno level awesome stomps, and Casas landing his great chops and his all time awesome looking facewash dropkick, I have no idea how that move doesn't put Rush's nose into the third row.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Niebla v. Caifan

27. Caifan v. Mr. Niebla Lucha Memes 11/20

PAS: Talk about an out of nowhere gem! Niebla has spent the last 20 or so years, drunk and fat and coasting on comedy spots, Caifan comes out as says "fuck that we are spilling blood" and we get a great grimey Arena Naculpan bloody brawl. Caifan rips Niebla's mask and cuts him, smashing him with chairs, a case of beer and some great knuckle punches to the wound. At one point he even uses Niebla's blood as face paint. Niebla gets a great comeback, opening up Caifan with a chair shot and a box, and even hits a great fat boy tope. I also loved Niebla using his Pesta Negra dance moves and loogie spot as a Dusty style dancing babyface comeback.  Loved every second of this, and on paper this would have totally been a skipper.

ER: I think the last Niebla match I actually wrote up and recommended was from early 2016, and that was a 4 minute tournament lucha match. Now, it was a really fun tournament lucha match that I think would be a legendary WCW WorldWide match, but that's still a rough recent track record. And here, suddenly many of the things that make Niebla FF material in 2017 work to his benefit. He's not hammy, he's fat and vulnerable, and Caifan jumps on him and acts like a total prick for the first half of this. He jumps Niebla at the bell and violently rips his mask, and a violent mask rip always looks great and makes me cringe. My neck can ache if I hold a phone awkwardly or sleep weird, so picturing my head and body being yanked around by something I'm wearing on my face, and not just wearing but using my neck and arm muscles to try to keep it on my face, just makes me hurt. Caifan has his hands taped up with white tape, so you know you're gonna see Niebla bleed, and he bleeds, and Caifan continues beating on him, bashing him with those hard Naucalpan chairs, braining him with a wood crate holding empty beer bottles (with a great glass clank as it hits Niebla's head), and back in the ring Niebla gets his head smashed through an empty wood crate. Caifan is a royal jerk dragging Niebla around, painting with his blood, and for the first time in ages (ever?) I found myself really really rooting for a Niebla comeback. And it was a good old fat man comeback. He pops Caifan with his big swinging left, lures him into dropkicking the ref, lures him into wrapping himself around the ringpost, and then follows up with a great middle aged fat guy dive that sends Caifan into the front row near a guy holding a baby. We get a great bloody standoff in the ring with Caifan making these bloody tear facials, all that early match confidence gone. And, miracle of miracles, for the first time ever I totally loved Niebla's hip wiggling loogie spitting comeback, treated here like Lawler dropping the strap or Popeye downing a can of spinach. What a total surprise, what a total treat. Shock gem of the year.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: El Hijo Del Santo, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Black Warrior, Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera

1998-11-13 @ Arena México
El Hijo Del Santo, Mr. Niebla, Negro Casas vs Black Warrior, Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera

There's a moment in this match towards the end of the third fall, right before Black Warrior hits a huge tope to get himself and Niebla out of the way for the finish, where Warrior very clearly screws up a baseball slide to the ramp. He had been trying to dodge a handspring (presumably a back headbutt) by Niebla. It's clumsy as hell. He recovers by owning it, by standing up, by waving his fingers to the crowd. There's also a moment at the end of the match where Santo and Casas (who had only been teaming for a couple of months after the turn) go for a big high five. It doesn't go well at all. Something that should be triumphant ended up strangely awkward.

Those two moments sum the match up in a nutshell. Amazing talent. Legendary talent, really. A pair of young wrestlers who are game and could go. It's a total mess execution wise. Absolute mess. While, yes, I care less about flawless execution than pretty much everyone else who watches lucha, I put forward the notion that this match is fun enough that it simply doesn't matter.

Panther's an underrated rudo stooge. In a lot of ways he's been misclasified by history. Fuerza is the king of rudo stooges. A huge chunk of the primera is Fuerza and Panther stooging for Santo and Casas. Some of it (like Fuerza hanging on to Casas' hair after every attempt to get out of a headlock or Casas refusing to let the beatdown start and fighting back, pissed off, repeatedly until Fuerza cut him off with a low blow) is pretty standard but still gold. The end of the fall, however, has Santo and Casas working in tandem, setting up double team tecnico spots. It's all mis-timed to a ridiculous degree, and not even in that sort of "faux organic struggle" sense you can sometimes bs. It's still an absolute joy to see the two of them working together like this, especially on Panther and Fuerza. It's downright charming, and while it should be no one's introduction to these wrestlers, if you're heavily familiar with them, it's well worth watching.

Also charming was Fuerza squeezing Santo's hand while he's in a nasty Blue Panther submission that ended the segunda. I have no idea why he might have done it (he had been helping to torque the arms a moment before as they're opponents), but the replay catches it and it's weirdly endearing. Look, if Negro Casas teaming with Santo and winning a fall by using his partner's trademark flipping-rana-sunset flip on one rudo while Santo locks on the caballo on the other is the sort of thing that excites you, you should watch this match. If it's not, then we look for very different things out of lucha.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Tournament Lucha!?

Triton & Mistico vs. Rey Bucanero & El Cuatrero (CMLL 3/22/16)

Man, a tournament lucha match that actually gets some heat from the crowd, AND features guys taking silly bumps as if the match actually mattered? Are the Gran Alternativa's always this interesting? It's still tourney lucha so it ain't perfect, or great, or very good, but damn did this exceed some expectations. Triton decides to take a Bucanero shoulderblock like Chris Hamrick and just flies through the ropes to the floor without slowing himself down, then later gets yanked out of the ring onto his stomach and into the barrier. Mistico also didn't get told this was just a tourney as he does this great dead fish sell off a Bucanero clothesline and does things I've never noticed him doing before like a sneaky little drop down during a Bucanero rope run. We get some dives that mostly hit, and most excitedly we get a series of pinfalls that are unexpected. Often in these quick tournament matches, we go through each match with both members of one team getting pinned at the same time. It's an end to a caida you've gotten used to after years of watching lucha. Yet here we get each pinfall staggered, 4 in all, which is something very rare in early tourney matches and helped add to the overall unique feeling of this match. This was a pleasant surprise.

Mascara Dorada & Boby Zavala vs. Mr. Niebla & Volador Jr. (CMLL 4/15/16)

This is from the parejas increibles tourney and I feel like if this had been on WorldWide in '98 it would be one of those legendary syndicated matches. It's just 4 minutes, but Dorada is flat out insane. He starts the match taking two of the highest backdrop bumps you've ever seen (Niebla and Volador tossed him up at the same time), and then takes a big splat hiptoss onto the entrance ramp. Niebla cuts the ring off by just shoving Zavala to the floor, and Dorada runs smack into a Niebla slap. But we do build to one of Dorada's high speed dives and man is it a crazy one, with him flying almost vertically to the floor. Volador gets a nice flip dive, Dorada gets planted with a flip piledriver, Niebla plants Zavala with a big senton, and yeah this would be a legendary C-show WCW match. Watch it thinking about your fond WCW Pro memories. (Match starts at the 1 hour 50 minute portion of the video)

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