Found Footage Friday: REY JR.~! PANTHER~! GILBERT~! FIRE~! INFERNALES~! LA PARKA~!

Eddie Gilbert vs. Huracan Castillo WWC 8/6/94

MD: This was limited by the gimmick, obviously, but you watch it to see the spectacle of it and how Gilbert chose to work it and milk moments. For one, before they got into the ring he took a head into the post and immediately bladed. That way, if nothing else, there would be color. There were flammable pieces of material in fixed intervals just outside the ropes and visually, things were most spectacular when the wind was blowing and the fire seemed to be reaching into the ring. Much of the match was based on Castillo trying to work Gilbert into those ropes and it portrayed that sense you get in exploding cage or barbed wire matches that the heel simply cannot escape. For most of the match, the payoff was Gilbert's hand getting whacked into the fire. Gilbert was able to get a little bit of control and get some revenge, but after Castillo's comeback (off of a Hotshot of all things), Gilbert took some shots to the face into the fire, bumping around and recoiling like crazy for it. The overall effect was diminished by the end since the fire had gone down significantly, but the finish revolved around Gilbert getting some barbed wire and choking Castillo with it, moving things forward to the next match in a very Memphis manner.

PAS: I thought this was awesome, it would have ruled if it was just a bloody Memphis punch out, but add the spectacle of the flames into, what a treat. Tremendous Gilbert performance, his punches looked great, got great early color, and did a wonderful job of making the fire bumps look horrific. Castillo was a fine regional babyface, and got amped up, but this was an Eddie show. I am surprised they used powder as the transition weapon, rather then the Gilbert fireball, but I dug Eddie using the barbed wire to set up the rematch, clever booking, and I need to search out the barbed wire match between these two.

Winners/Rey Mysterio, Jr./La Parka/Octagon vs. Blue Panther/Los Payasos AAA 9/2/95

MD: Maybe the biggest appeal here is just seeing Blue Panther hang out with a bunch of clowns. Really straightforward structure on this one. Exchanges in the primera leading to a tecnico pin, beatdown in the segunda, comeback in the tercera leading to some of the flashier spots, the dives, and the finish. A lot of the details were very good though. I loved the Panther vs Parka exchange in the primera. That felt like a fairly unique match up and they had fun with it on the mat. Coco Azul based really well for Rey too. I was less into what Winners and Amarillo were up to. Payasos and Panther worked well on the beatdown including some nice tandem offense and submissions. The comeback was great as Rey just went through everyone's leg to create chaos for La Parka to dance around. It was exactly what it should have been and the fans loved it. In general, it was a lot of fun to see the other tecnicos keep Parka chants going throughout the match. Rey's backflip dive over the top with a La Parka boost was memorable, but just the way he'd get up on a floating armdrag was endlessly impressive for the time and even now. Finish involved Los Payasos beating down Octagon after a dive and then starting to fight with the crowd, allowing Rey to slip in for a last second countout win. This was pretty much as enjoyable as you'd expect.

Infernales (Satanico/Pirata Morgan/MS-1) vs. Hector Garza/Lizmark/El Dandy CMLL 9/2/95

MD: Fun bit early on here where Satanico and Pirata had Garza held hostage in their corner and Lizmark and Dandy had MS-1 in theirs and it was a bit of a standoff. You're not going to win fighting Los Infernales on their own terms, however, so they eased into the beatdown almost immediately thereafter. No one can direct traffic quite like Santico and lucha beatdowns don't get better than Infernales ones. The comeback moment was just ok, Lizmark coming in to get a shot in, but he was really over with the kids on this night, so it's hard to complain. It was followed by Dandy throwing amazing punches at everyone, including an all time shot to Pirata on the floor. There weren't a lot of exchanges in this one, Satanico putting Garza through the paces to start and then later on a really good Dandy and Morgan one but given who was in there, it all flowed well and did what it was meant to.

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New Footage Friday: SANTO! PANTHER! FISHMAN! BORNE! FINLAY! SABU! BRODIE LEE!

Fishman/Espanto Jr./Blue Panther vs. El Hijo Del Santo/Volador/Octagon AAA 5/15/94

MD: My hard drive went kaput, which has been a fight that's been going on for a while, so I lost my initial write up of this. In short, it was a solid lost trios with long entrances and a spirited post-match Panther promo where a lot of stuff hit well and where it moved briskly. There wasn't a pairing that really stood out, but there are things that will stick with me, like Espanto landing on his feet off of an exchange or Volador looking almost inhumanly athletic towards the end or Blue Panther being an absolutely amazing stooge off a quebradora, selling his groin in a spasm all the way across the ring and out to the floor or Santo's lightning crack tope off of an irish whip. The more I see of Fishman from this specific era, the more I think Eric should deep dive on him since he's got a sort of hammering Bestia del Ring vibe to him.

Matt Borne vs. Sabu ACW 11/23/01

MD: Deceptively long video. The match is pretty much what you'd hope it to be and doesn't wear out its welcome. That's because the back half is a pretty manic Borne post 9/11 rant about how he'd die for the crowd and challenging Sabu to come back out (he does, once, but not the six or seven times Borne wants). For the match itself, Sabu does his stuff and Borne is a very game foil. There's crowd brawling that we miss but that we can be assured was solid due to a father in the outskirts putting his kid up on his shoulder to see it, a sure sign of quality. They use weapons liberally but never gratuitously. Borne bleeds big as Sabu stabs at his head. There's a table. It does not break. I'm amazed they could move after that (I'm not really, because I've seen it before, but you know what I mean). Sabu's so good and experienced at this sort of match that he knows exactly when to head out and move things along when Borne can't get it in. Blood, plunder, big bumps, unmitigated violence, a clear finish, and only about ten minutes before the rant begins. Afterwards the camera sticks with Borne as he goes backstage and is told how spectacular it all was.

PAS: I thought this was excellent, it really had the pacing of a great 80s brawl, the kind of thing you might imagine Matt Borne might have had in Mid-South or Portland. It also had Sabu at his unhinged greatness, flying around, stabbing Borne in the head, crashing awkwardly into tables and chairs. Borne kept the whole thing connected, at no point was anyone standing around waiting, or setting stuff off, it always felt like a fight. The crowd brawling really felt chaotic too, they were just flying through the crowd, not seeming to care who they hit. This is easily the best 2000s Sabu match I have seen, and it felt right up there with the top tier Funk, Foley and Sandman stuff. 

Fit Finlay vs. Brodie Lee vs. Joe Gacy 3/16/12 - GREAT

MD: Our theme for this week are matches shorter than the video run times as this doesn't go as long as was indicated. Here, though, I could have used a few more minutes, because I liked what we had and I wasn't quite done with it. There was a sort of unique element for a three-way here, where the guy on the floor often operated like a moat monster. If you got too close to Brodie or Finlay on the floor, they'd just pull you right out. It made for a more interesting dynamic than guys laying around and played well into Finlay's ability to use the apron, for instance. Gacy felt like he belonged, with a great jab and willing to bump around for the other two.

PAS: I really liked the way this was organized. I hate three ways normally, but this was less about doing choreographed spots, and more about the third guy being a violent cheap shotter. I mean imagine leaving your back open and giving Finlay a free shot, or being near the ropes and being pulled out and smacked by Brodie Lee. I am crediting Finlay for the structure, because he is one of the greatest match architects ever, but whoever called this match was really smart. There were a lot of great little Finlay moments: he blocks a Lee Scorpion attempt by straight punching him in the face, takes his signature top rope bump to the floor and is just constantly killing people. Gacy is by far the least of these three guys, some of his stuff looked good, but some did not, and it seems totally BS to have him go over. That indy Finlay run was one of the coolest things ever, and I am excited we got to see another classic Finlay match. 

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New Footage Friday: New AAA 4/30/95!

PAS: Roy Lucier continues to do yeoman's work uncovering lost classic stuff, including this AAA show which wasn't in circulation.

AAA 4/30/95

Mascarita Sagrada/Ninjita vs. Los Espectritos (Espectrito I/Espectrito II) 

MD: Fun, long minis match. I'm generally a stickler for the standards in lucha, 2 out of 3 falls matches, both parties getting pinned in tag matches, etc., but I probably would make exceptions for minis matches. This was standard structure and I'm not sure it helped things. The timing on the pinfalls didn't do anyone favors. The finish, instead of being dramatic with Mascarita Sagrada sneaking in a pin, had to be extended to Ninjita getting pulled back in by MS post-dive for the countout. Plus it was all more back and forth without that serene lucha moment of comeback (I could see them saving that for later in the card). Little things. That said, the match still worked, and a lot of that was due to the credibility of both sides. The Espectritos (especially I) were great bullies, great bases, able to take back over at a moment's notice or sneak in a well-timed bit of interference to keep the advantage. There was a power bomb in there where Espectrito I just picked up MS like he was nothing at all. And the tecnicos could believably take back over at a moment's notice, turning literally any physical contact into an arm drag just like that. For the first half of this we had a bunch of Ninjita when you really wanted MS in there, but halfway through the segunda we got what we wanted and he was spectacular. This took up most of the first quarter of the two-hour show and I can't imagine anyone complaining about too much it.

PAS: This was cool stuff, you don't normally see minis get this much time, and the Espectritos have plenty of stuff to fill that time. They just toss Mascarita Sagrada around like he is a wrestling buddy, Espectrios are both little people, but it looks like Rey vs. The Big Show when they are in there with Mascarita. Both technicos of course are armdragging and ranaing machines. Most mini's matches of this era have a pretty high baseline, and this doesn't push it pass that level but no shame in that. 

Aguila de Acero/Super Calo/Winners vs Los Diabolicos (Angel Mortal/Marabunta/Mr. Condor) 

MD: Fairly complete trios match here. I was definitely higher on the Diabolicos than the tecnicos. They were a well oiled machine, both feeding early in the primera and especially during the beatdown in the segunda. Some timing issues from the tecnicos, not getting up on the ropes at the right time, coming into the ring too early during the beatdown and having to stand around, Aguila de Acero coming into the ring too late for the fast count finish which meant the submission lasted way too long. I didn't mind the finish otherwise. When you're looking at this as a card instead of a bunch of individual matches, you need to switch things up and while it got over Pepe Casas more than any of the wrestlers, it's obvious the fans were pretty happy by it. Also, there were a couple of good dives to set it up and a nice tangible feeling of mild dread when post-dives, it ended up two on one for Calo.

Los Power Raiders (Power Raider Azul/Power Raider Blanco/Power Raider Negro/Power Raider Rojo/Power Raider Verde) vs. Heavy Metal/Juventud Guerrera/Karloff Lagarde Jr./Perro Silva/Picudo 

MD: Yeah, this was a mess. You knew it'd be a mess coming in but it wasn't as fun of a mess as I was hoping. The rudo side controlled most of the match, with little hope spots peppered in and there was a lot of talent there but they just didn't mesh. A long beatdown is fine, good even, if the rudos are on the same page and if they keep things moving and interesting. Here they kept Verde in there for way too long and there were a bunch of moments where Juvi just seemed at a loss. He was teaming with Lagarde and he'd hop up on the second rope to do something, and Lagarde would take things in another direction and he'd just have to hop back off. That sort of thing. The focus of the finish was on Perro Silva and Rojo but given the rules of the match, they were absent for most of it. I'm not saying there's not a situation where that could work but I don't think this was it. When things were moving, this was fine, but if this was going to be chaos anyway, I'd actually want more and not less.

La Parka vs. Jerry Estrada - FUN

PAS: This had been out there on a AAA yearbook, but I hadn't seen it before so I figured I would write it up. This was mostly a Tirantes match, which is about my least favorite kind of lucha. Most of the match was focused on Tirantes slow counting for Parka and fast counting for Estrada.  We did get three crazy Parka dives, an almost Sabuish flip dive off the top, a great tope, and a big plancha. Estrada hits a crazy tope into the second row, so we did get a lot of good even with all of the Tirantes. 

El Hijo del Santo/Octagon/Perro Aguayo/Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Blue Panther/Psicosis/Scorpio Jr/Shu El Guerrero

MD: The good stuff. As always, when you get this level of talent and experience and charisma in the ring, it really can't go wrong. Even Perro, who was more physically limited at this point, is such a character, so hard hitting, so spirited and fun that you just can't look away. He's such a folk hero, out there slapping hands on the way to the ring, and then mentoring Rey later. Rey's amazing, of course. What stands out the most to me is how comfortable and willing he is in his role. There's no sense at all of a Napoleon Complex. He doesn't veer in the least, leaning into all of his strengths and vulnerabilities (which are, of course, narrative strengths). Panther hammed it up against Octagon and showed flashes later, like hitting the double stomp or a huge slap on Perro as insult to injury. He was so broad and versatile in the 90s and doesn't get a lot of credit for that anymore relative to his maestro rep. Santo was smooth as could be. Shu was a great bully and Scorpio a perfectl y acceptable stooge, and even Octagon didn't bug me much. Of course, Psicosis was the guy I really wanted to see and he didn't disappoint. Just the perfect mix of basing (feeding and catching Rey) and attitude (shadow boxing on the apron) and flash (amazing twisting senton to end the segunda). It doesn't have a real finish but since it has an awesome and brutal surprise angle, it's hard to be too upset about that.

PAS: Just a murderer's row of legendary all time great luchadores (and Octagon, although he is fine here). I really loved the first fall, with tremendous exchange after tremendous exchange, including some great Rey vs. Psicosis stuff, ending with one of my favorite Star finishes ever, with Perro running around stomping all of the guys in the star. Rudo beatdown in the second and beginning of the third fall was nifty if a bit formless, and we get a wild finish run with tons of crazy dives, and constant switching of the camera from one bit of mayhem to another. Santo/Negro angle at the end was really cool, and pretty unexpected. Too bad Santo's family put a kibosh on the gimmick, because what potential that had. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Pierroth in WWF!

Man, what might have been. By 1996 WCW had some of the best luchadors in the world, and they were becoming popular attractions on WCW undercards. Naturally, WWF brought in some of the leftover luchadors to compete, even though most of the luchadors WWF brought in couldn't really work the same style that was the actual reason for WCW luchadors becoming a popular attraction. It was a move inspired by any well-intentioned mother who bought her teen a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards because he played Magic: The Gathering. It's an attempt, but with no actual knowledge behind the attempt. "This is a card game and I know you like card games" = "Here are Mexican wrestlers and apparently people like Mexican wrestlers now". It was misguided and done with seemingly no knowledge of why they were doing it. This was NBC's "Joey", a Friends spinoff made by people who seemingly had never seen an episode of Friends and had no clue why people enjoyed the Joey Tribbiani character. It was a short-lived experiment that only lasted a couple of months, yet somehow the AAA luchadors got a showcase trios on the Royal Rumble card. A couple of the guys brought in seemed to be pushed above the others: Hector Garza (who makes sense as he was a hunky guy in his 20s who could do a nice tornillo) and...Pierroth.

Since one of the duties of Segunda Caida is to champion any luchador using the Pierroth name, WE obviously understood their intentions. But it was kind of odd. Pierroth then was the same age I am now, which feels old to be getting a new name push in WWF. While other luchadors got a showcase match at the '97 Rumble, Pierroth was actually IN the Rumble. This man was the Champion of Champions, according to Jim Ross.

We won't actually go over the Rumble match here, as I know his elimination is still a touchy subject for many. Some believe that Pierroth was never officially eliminated, as he wasn't properly told the rules before the match, and they feel he shouldn't have been punished for "eliminating himself" with a plancha, and should still technically be an active entrant 22 years later; others, are wrong. Let's take a look at the bizarrely, briefly pushed 38 year old masked brawler, WWF Superstar Pierroth!


Pierroth vs. Matt Hardy WWF Superstars 12/22/96

ER: This was a really cool match, paced quick as hell and getting absolutely no love and attention from the crowd. Pierroth came off real mean, hard punches, quick snapmare followed by a stiff kick to Hardy's back, hard lariat, back elbow, a cool Rock Bottom before that existed in this fed, just came off like a real badass. He really looked like a great brawler. Hardy came off as crazy as his brother, hitting an unexpected split legged moonsault...but then he unexpectedly upped the crazy, hitting an Asai moonsault after springboarding to the TOP rope, BARELY rotating in time to not land straight on his head. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen, but Hardy started selling instantly and Pierroth got right up. It looked like the moonsault landed (albeit with Hardy possibly bouncing off his forehead to get there), but they had other plans I guess. Pierroth hits a solid contact pescado, really landing heavy, AND - and this is important - for those of you itching to know, Pierroth's finisher in the WWF was a cool folding powerbomb. If I was a kid and saw this I would want to see more of both guys, and then be confused when I only saw Pierroth a couple more times on TV.

Pierroth/Cibernetico vs. The New Rockers WWF Raw 12/23/96

ER: This was weird, and really cool! Vince and JR were really amusing on commentary, pointing out how the fans don't really know who to cheer for because they don't know the luchadors and they don't like the New Rockers. Vince also points out we haven't seen much flying from the Mexican team, and JR actually goes off on him: "You know, that's just an unfair stereotype about Spanish athletes. Some of the best ones are high flyers, but many of them aren't. Look at Perro Aguayo, a great brawler!" JR goes full Mike Tenay and shuts Vince right up. Marty Jannetty was a really great wrestler all throughout the 90s, and Al Snow vs. Pierroth is a match up I didn't know I wanted but clearly I do. Pierroth again works stiff, and Snow is a guy who will work stiff back, and I dug the chops they were throwing at each other. Snow bumps really big for Cibernetico, taking a cool armdrag reversal and then going down like a shot for a hard dropkick to his chest, later taking a soft but somewhat reckless tope that saw both crash into the guardrail. Jannetty threw two really nice punches including a cool short uppercut, and a fantastic flying fistdrop, and I dug Pierroth throwing a bunch of short arm chops to him, knocking him down with a chop but always holding onto an arm to drag Jannetty back up for more. Pierroth hits a killer release powerbomb and a splash with a hard landing to win. Pierroth has a 2 match winning streak in WWF! JR fully advertised that Pierroth was in his late 30s, pointing out that he had been wrestling over half his life at 20 years. This guy is really going places in late '96 WWF!

Doug Furnas/Phil Lafon vs. Pierroth/Cibernetico WWF Superstars 1/5/97

ER: This is particularly notable, because Pierroth grabs the mic and talks trash before the match, and then grabs it *again* to talk more trash after the match, the match he had just lost due to DQ. This is a total hidden gem of a tag. This one should be a syndicated classic. Can Ams were dangerous guys who always had the potential to eat up an opponent, but Cibernetico and Pierroth were fine if the Can-Ams wanted to try that. Pierroth starts this by going right after Furnas with hard chops and a stiff corner lariat. It's part of a great sequence where Pierroth gets Irish whipped chest first into the opposite buckle, then bumps forward out the ropes after eating a Furnas lariat to the back of the head. It was one of those airtight sequences that you could picture Arn or Bobby doing in a tag. He then went right in and took down Kroffat with a clutch single leg, felt like he was directly going after both Can-Ams strongest suit and it made him come off like a total badass. 

Furnas takes this monster Sgt. Slaughter bump over the corner after Pierroth dodges, and then when Furnas makes it back in Pierroth throws a fantastic punch right to the nose. Goddamn this match rules. If Pierroth knew of the Can Am's tough guy reps, he clearly did not care. Cibernetico was pretty raw (and well, never got Actually Good), but here he had some young guy stupid in him and that's a plus. He throws some kicks to Kroffat that looked like they earned him receipts, took a wild Furnas overhead belly to belly, Kroffat snap suplexed him as hard as he could, chopped him across the collar bones, tossed him hard with a snap back suplex, rough stuff. Cibernetico earned his keep. Pierroth and Furnas have a cool little violent brawl on the floor, Pierroth taking a great bump out there and an awesome chest first posting. We even get an excellent bullshit finish when Cibernetico pulls the ref into the way of a Kroffat crossbody. Can-Ams couldn't go over these two in 1997, because Pierroth was Too Fucking Strong. Ref called the DQ on Cibernetico, but this was 50% Kroffat. His body hit the ref. I'm calling Pierroth's WWF W-L at 2-0-1. 

Pierroth/Heavy Metal/Pentagon vs. Hector Garza/Latin Lover/Octagon WWF Raw 3/10/97

ER: Yep, you're right, this is total Weirdsville. Our luchadors were being presented strongly on television for a couple weeks leading up to the Rumble, then they had a featured trios at the Rumble to start the new year, Pierroth and Cibernetico got to actually be IN the Rumble match, and then...they disappear only to show up 2 months later, and then never again. This is your swan song boys. Go out in a blaze of glory. And by entrances alone, you can already call this a win. Latin Lover is wearing his cuffs and collar, Heavy Metal looks like a total sleaze star in leopard print tights, stringy hair hanging over his face, and an expression that makes him look like he's about to pull out a switchblade. So this is already great. But there was nothing these guys could have done. On paper they got 8 minutes, but it wasn't a fair 8 minutes. Everyone here works hard and they're actually starting to win people over and starting to get reactions...and then they show "That Woman" Chyna in the crowd and cut away from the ring for 90 seconds while she is removed (she had been showing up and causing problems, attacking Marlena and getting in the ring to confront Bret), then the moment they remove Chyna and go back to the ring, they cut to a split screen for a great (but also 90 second) Brian Pillman promo. Luchadors were doing dives, but Pillman was busy talking about the witching hour and there were just way too many things fighting for attention (this era of Raw had constant split screen cutaway promos, the screen action always felt very hectic).

Heavy Metal mostly paired off with Garza, Pierroth mostly paired off with Latin Lover, and Octagon/Pentagon did their thing, and it worked really well! Metal and Garza pushed a really fast pace. They're the guys who really started to get a reaction, doing fast armdrags, Metal did a big handspring elbow and did a fast rolling dropdown to take our Garza's legs, Garza landed on his feet on a moonsault and then hit a springboard crossbody, and people were finally making noise. Pierroth was good at actively yelling at fans in the front row to get them involved (it works) and throwing tons of hard short chops to Lover. LL's chest is red shortly into the match because of Pierroth, and that's a good thing. Heavy Metal takes a humongous Jerry bump to the floor, the dives all look good (even in split screen) and of course we cap it off with Garza's tornillo knocking everyone down like pins. The only thing weird about the ringwork is Latin Lover doing a frog splash to someone who wasn't even there (Metal had been standing for some time) and Metal just rolls him up with la magistral. That could have been cleaner. Still, the match was really fun and if the fed actually wanted to promote lucha, fans would have easily gotten into it. There's no reason they couldn't have just put them exclusively on Superstars or something, have occasional feature matches on Raw, it would have worked. But, most importantly, Pierroth wraps up his WWF career with a dominant 3-0-1 record.

JR referred to Pierroth as "The Champion of Champions" in every single one of his 4 featured matches. Clearly JR knew class when he saw it.

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Hugo's Lucha Libre Road Report 4/22

One of the cool things about moving to Denver is that there is a thriving lucha libre scene here. There are at least three separate promotions running with seemingly completely different rosters. There was actually two shows going on at the same time tonight, one show that had Hijo Del Dr. Wagner, Hijo Del Dos Caras and Wes Briscoe for some reason, and then this show which was main evented by Blue Panther vs. Octagon. The venue was awesome for wrestling, they were in a fairgrounds and had good bleacher seating, lighting rigs and big screens. I think I might have been the only white person in the crowd, and it was a raucous group. Since I don't speak Spanish, the names for these matches are off the poster, so I can't verify their accuracy.

Alley Gato vs. Psycho vs. Rachelle

Only really sure about Alley Gato's name. She was the standout here, hitting pretty hard and bumping well for the other two greener luchadoras. Rachelle was in an American flag get up, but I don't think was working ruda, she certainly spent a lot of the match smiling. She did bust out an Angle slam which was amusing. This was fun stuff, Alley Gato is legit good and this moved at a nice pace.

Severino vs. Amaya

Amaya had a really good look and was super over with the crowd. Severino had an Italian singlet on and may have been a gringo. He was pretty good, based well for Amaya's stuff and had two great looking suplexes, including an awesome delayed German and snap belly to belly, you really don't expect to see local undercard luchadores throw suplexes like Alexander Otsuka. Amaya had a nice tope too.

Jr. vs. Sol vs. Nueva Estrella

I am really not sure about these names, they are what was on the poster, but it doesn't seem familiar. This was the least match on the show, greenish guys who were trying some stuff but not cleanly hitting it all. Sol gets unmasked and helped to the back and Jr cheats to the get the win over Nueva Estrella who was also working rudo. They need more trios matches and less three ways

They have an intermission where their mascot throws out T-Shirts and the girl who sang the national anthem sings a Mexican song, and then sings It's a Mans World.

Vago/Rayo vs. Corsairo/Heros

There is some angle at the beginning where Vago doesn't show up initially but comes in from the crowd. Lots to like here, Vago is a great rudo, hits hard, muggs to the crowd, bumps big, by far the best local on the show, reminds me a bit of Rey Escorpion. This goes three falls and mostly is solidly executed lucha, Finish is nuts as Heros goes for a tope and Rayo sidesteps him, and Heros goes full speed chest and throat first into the guard rail, totally insane bump. Then Jr. from the earlier three way comes out to interfere and cost Corsairo the match. There are a lot of challenges back and forth setting up something for next month I assume.

Blue Panther vs. Octagon

This was billed as a battle of the Maestros (man I wish they had flown in almost any other maestro besides Octagon), and the first fall was worked Maestro style, with Panther leading Octagon through some mat exchanges, nothing super fancy, but it was fun to see the flourishes Panther lends to simple things. Second and third falls were not what I was expecting. Panther goes full over the top rudo (even thought the crowd was 80% for Panther) slams a chair in to Octagon's nuts, tossed him into the crowd, ties his mask to the ropes yells at fans. We get a full fake Tirantes heel ref, they go full Monterey. Panther doesn't wrestle like this normally and hasn't for years, and it was fun to watch him break out some old tricks. He has great muggy faces, and does a lot of hamming it up. Octagon isn't great even in a match where Panther just worked as Fuerza, Not a great match, but I had a total blast watching Panther perform.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Fuerza, Still Doing It; Y Tu, Wotan?

Fuerza Guerrera vs. Octagon (Liga Elite 9/9/16)

ER: This is a match up that has happened dozens of times in lucha history, and originally one of the reasons that Octagon was even a thing was because of how good Fuerza made him look. And it's still happening. He's still doing it. This match-up doesn't show up as often as it used to (a quick check shows that it hasn't shown up on tape in 4 years, but no doubt it happens often), and Octagon has gotten chubbier and slower, while Fuerza is just as nutty as ever. This is predictably a total Fuerza show, but an impressive show. Fuerza does all the work on everything, as the slo mo camera reveals; what looks like some violent tilt a whirl backbreakers in normal speed can be seen as Fuerza violently whipping himself into Octagon's knee, while Octagon doesn't even go into a full knee bend. But Fuerza makes them look great in regular speed. Octagon can still spin fast on armdrags, and Fuerza bumps fast for all of them. To make up for Octagon being able to do much of anything, Fuerza even hits a big time gusher, bleeding all over the ring, hitting a big flip dive (that Octagon mostly bails on) with blood dripping down his chest, kicks balls, and just keeps making Octagon look better than Octagon should look, 25 years later. You'd think this would have been annoying to him in his 30s, and that somewhere along the way he would stop trying so hard, but here he is in his 60s, still trying hard, still doing it.

Wotan vs. As Charro Innova Aztec Power 8/7/16

PAS: Wotan was in our 2016 MOTY, so when Powerbomb.tv dumped a bunch of indy lucha on the internet, I wanted to check out more Wotan to see if he is great on his own or a Black Terry creation. Verdict after this match is closer to a Black Terry creation. This has got to be As Charro Jr. or something as the original was super old in the late 80s. This starts out with some pretty good matwork and some nice brawling, but really falls apart when they break out the light tubes. After that it is some geek show jabbing and poking and some of the most egregious your turn my turn stuff I can remember seeing. For example As Charro hits a running death valley bomb into the turnbuckle and the very next move is Wotan hitting the same thing on him, didn't even bother to pretend to be hurt. Finish was a nothing run in too, I do want to check out a couple more Wotan matches, but this wasn't a good start.

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MLJ: Recent Uploads: Hijo del Santo y Octagon vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Negro Casas (Juarez)

Hijo del Santo y Octagon vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Negro Casas

We live in blessed times. This popped up yesterday and has 38 views so far. 38. I'm looking at this mainly so that more people can see it. It's not on the match finder. Really, I don't see any sign of Octagon and Negro Casas on opposite sides there. I am cautiously excited about more matches popping up from Juarez on this youtube channel but I know nothing about this otherwise. It's got about everything could want out of this sort of footage: lots of different camera angles, relatively high video quality, a full crowd hot for it. I don't know what the stakes are. I don't know when this was. I know nothing, but it was sure fun.

Everyone was good here. Octagon was less good, but still had some great foils to work with. I'll get back to that in a minute. They cycled through pairings throughout the match, everyone getting to work with everyone else a lot. There wasn't a ton of heat as this was more of a traditional tecnico showcase but the rudos were able to keep up and look strong. They'd control the start of an exchange with something underhanded and then end up getting out-wrestled. This had a long primera, a shorter segunda with a bit of heat, a pretty much non-existent comeback, and a lot of action in the tercera, with a few dives and chaos (down to a very chaotic finish).

Fuerza and Octagon did their part but it was Santo and especially Negro Casas that really stood out. Casas is one of my favorite wrestlers ever and I was still a bit surprised by just how good he was here. It's a shame we don't have more of him against Octagon because it was a great pairing. Casas oscillated between Memphis-level stalling (which was extremely effective at getting Octagon's strikes over as dangerous) with heavy-rudo antics (like asking for a test of strength and just walking up with a killer uppercut or goading Octagon to the mat with a second one and then dropkicking him in the face). He was also able to carry a mat section with him. Fuerza and Casas were pretty much made to feed tecnicos, but Casas was so emotive here, stooging and selling and posturing and making everything feel like it mattered. Basically, he out Fuerza'ed Fuerza, which is a stark contrast to the way someone like Blue Panther would retreat within himself when paired with Guerrera.

Santo really brought it too. Occasionally, he works this bully-styled aggression into his work, the sort that you'd get out of Bruno or Hogan. It's just human nature. Each and every one of us, deep down, want our heroes, even the purest of the pure, to have a mean streak. It came up here now and again, with a brutal Belly-To-Belly I've never seen him do before, with a great short clothesline, with a few wrenching submissions (and did Casas ever sell the pain of them!)

Like I said, everything sort of fell apart in the end, but at least it all fell apart in novel ways. Watch this for the lengthy, mat-driven primera and for the classic pairings and to see Negro Casas closer to his prime and at the height of his power (which is saying so much). Watch it to see him match up against Octagon. It's good stuff and hopefully we get more of the same soon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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MLJ: Hijo Del Santo vs Blue Panther 5: El Hijo del Santo/Rey Misterio, Jr./La Parka/Octagon vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Psicosis/Pentagon

1995-06-18
El Hijo del Santo/Rey Misterio, Jr./La Parka/Octagon vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Psicosis/Pentagon
Triplemania III-B

The breadth of footage I've been dealing with here is a little strange to me. The sense I get is that almost everything I've been watching, AAA-wise, has been from some super show. I don't know if that's just because I've been focused so narrowly on Panther vs Santo or not. I've taken a look at a few other lists and I don't see that I've missed a lot of stuff. I just don't see TV readily available and I don't know if no one taped it or what. I find that unlikely since AAA was so heavily featured in the WON at the time. Maybe they just didn't give matches the time on AAA TV that they do in what I'm more used to? Or maybe it's just Mexico and this footage isn't available? Or maybe it is but only to tape traders even in 2014. I'm sure most of you reading this know more about this than I do. It's just weird to me. It's like trying to watch WCW in 1994 and only having Flair vs Steamboat from Spring Stampede and War Games from Fall Brawl available to you. Obviously that's an extreme comparison but it's the feeling I get sometimes. Given the talent of the luchadores involved in all of these matches, you have to think there was good stuff almost every week. How could Fuerza Guerrera not have been completely and utterly awesome at weekly TV matches in 1995, you know? The great thing about a paragraph like that is that either I'm accurate and people are nodding their head along with me, or everyone calls me an idiot, BUT by doing so, it's revealed to me that there's actually tons and tons of footage I didn't know about that I get to watch someday. It's win-win.

Anyway, on to the match. This had a couple of different additions that changed things up, most notably the inclusion of La Parka. I'd never seen him so young and lithe and agile, and he added so much just by his presence. There are masked luchadores with a lot of charisma, be it Wagner, Jr., or Niebla, or Fuerza, but La Parka is just in his own class. Guys like Rey, Jr. seem to dance on air and make wrestling seem so beautiful and effortless, but Parka dances on hearts the same way, sometimes quite literally dancing. Tossing him into this now-familiar mix of talent was like lighting a spark in a dynomite factory. He's a great foil for all of the rudos, especially because he WAS younger and more agile than I was used to and thus extremely versatile within the scope of the match. Pentagon seemed like a new addition at first, but a bit of research told me that this version of the character was just Espanto, Jr. repackaged as the Storm Shadow to Octagon's Snake Eyes. Still, since a lot of the narrative of this match was around building to the two of them matching up, it did add a new twist.

Really, when you start to see a few of these in a row a lot of it becomes about the individual match-ups and the differences. Past Parka, the biggest difference was that there was a large sense of chaos to the match that the previous ones didn't have. Those were all a little more focused when the rudos were on top. This was a bit more all over the place, which had its pros and its cons. The tecnicos won most of the initial match-ups in the primera and took the fall. After more matchups, the rudos finally took over when they isolated Rey in a corner, which made sense even if it wasn't particularly clever. Then, in the tercera, in the midst of the chaos, Santo made a pretty low-key "duck a clothesline" transition into a nicely fiery comeback by his side, with it all ending with a huge dive by Psicosis and a couple of flash pins by the tecnicos. All fine, if a bit pedestran stuff structure wise.

Plenty of fun match ups though. Blue Panther and Rey got to tussle in the primera, with Panther being both a great base for Rey and full of awesome cut-offs. Parka pretty much faced down everyone, spinning around like a maniac as Psicosis and Fuerza got to be emotive and freak out. Then in the segunda, he and Psicosis had a pretty outlandish suplex fest with one another that actually worked quite well in the context of the match. I like Psicosis more and more each match I see him in. He was extremely versatile here. Rey ate some huge offense, including another power bomb/rocket launcher thing, but some of his work, especially with Pentagon just felt a bit too collaborative. I love how Fuerza can from trying to convince the refs he got fouled on a backbreaker (which makes no sense) to doing a huge power bomb in a matter of moments.

The chaos of the beatdown and comeback was full of fun moments. There were fouls all over the place, including to take the second fall. Much of the tecera was them beating on Santo, especially with a chair (which immediately made things feel different). He garnered a ton of sympathy, which was good because his opening work with Psicosis was weirdly sluggish. Between Santo selling and all the faults, the fans were becoming irate, so they more than ate up the fiery comeback. Rey showed a ton of passion there, and Santo came from off the side of the screen with the chair in a revenge spot. There was a bit of Octagon getting his hands on Pentagon in the comeback but just a tease of it, really. Psicosis, again with the versatility, hit a massive dive to take himself and Parka out of the match and then Rey and Santo hit a couple of flying roll ups to take the match.

You really can't go wrong with these matches, even if this wasn't quite up to the level of the last couple that I saw. I said it before but I could watch these all day.

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MLJ: Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther 4: El Hijo Del Santo, Octagón, Rey Misterio Jr. b Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Psicosis

1995-03-17 AAA Sin Limite
El Hijo Del Santo, Octagón, Rey Misterio Jr. b Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Psicosis

I'll be perfectly honest here. This was a great trios, but at the end of it, I only wanted to talk about three things: Fuerza being awesome, how far I thought Psicosis had come in a short time from the few matches I've seen from him here, and the match structure. The last of the three is actually quite simplistic. It's a basic A-B-A structure (and I'm introducing this here). The tecnicos dominate in the primera, sort of your typical babyface shine. The rudos take over in the segunda (your heat) which builds to the hot comeback in the tercera. It's Tito Santana's wrestling psychology 101 and I thought I might contrast it to some other structures you often see in lucha like a B-A-C sort where the rudos lead the match off with a mugging and the tecnicos come back in the segunda leading to a reset in the tercera. I'm not going to do that here, because this isn't the match for that. It's too good to take up too much time with something so basic. What I will say instead is that the A-B-A structure is one of the most time tested things in all of wrestling. Shine-Heat-Comeback works. It works well. It especially works here, but it also achieves different effects than something that's more predominantly rudo-centric. The last match I saw with this pairing was far more intense even if this may have been more entertaining.

With the structure defined, you know most of what you need to about the match's narrative. Let's talk about performances then. First off, Blue Panther was an afterthought here. There was next to no matwork and while he did alright as a base and a bully against Rey, he just didn't seem to be in there much at all. In fact, he was so much of an afterthought that I left wondering if maybe I should have done this project on Santo vs Fuerza instead, because frankly, I love Fuerza. Character work matters so much more to me than flashy moves or great dives or hard punches, and he's just a king at it. He's such a slimy rudo, and especially so here. There has to be two-three times he calls for the ref to DQ his opponent on a ludacrisly imaginary ball shot, the best being after a quebradora which both refs saw clearly and where the physics just made such a thing impossible. I've seen him do clean handshakes/hugs in a few matches now, so it was great to see him, at the start of the segunda, put an arm around Rey, walk around the ring with him, kiss him on the forehead, and nail him in the skull. It wasn't the exact start of the transition to rudo offense, but it was close. The great thing about him is that he's not all sthick. He also is great at eating offense and serving as a base, especially with Octagon, and he'll take these crazy bumps over the guardrail, which he then decorates with additional charcter-driven flourishes. He's a joy to watch.

While Rey hit some incredibly daring spots, stuff that would honestly seem cutting edge now, and played face in peril quite well, and while Santo hit his stuff as smooth as ever, Psicosis really stood out to me the most. First of all, he was the one taking a lot of that daring Rey offense, including the 'rana to the floor that if he had timed even a second differently could have snapped Rey's neck in half. I also loved how he took Santo's offense, sliding across the ring with each bump. It was very distinctive and it's something more wrestlers should probably figure out how to pull off. He also had a fairly impressive twisting senton to end the primera. It was more than that, though. In the last match, he felt mainly like the guy in there to face off against Rey, his rival flyer. Here, though, many months later, he felt like a much more total package. He wasn't just selling moves but also attitudes and reactions to what the crowd did or what his opponents did. The best part might have been when Santo was mocking him with bullfighter moves while the crowd shouted Ole. The second he got a shot in, he shouted it back to the crowd. The other big contender would be the transition, where Fuerza and Panther had Rey in a standing submission and Psicosis thought it would be a good idea to stand on top of him and pose. He got shoved off from behind leading to the tecnico comeback. I'm not sure if it was teaming with Fuerza so much or what, but this was a much broader, though still athletic performance from him and it makes me a little frustrated for how we lost a few of his prime years in WCW. I imagine at the time, the sentiment was that it was great to be able to see so many luchadors on weekly TV, but now, looking back, most people would rather they have been working more in Mexico and that we had tape of those matches. I'd read recently someone mention that he was fairly overlooked in this period and while I hadn't picked up on that so much in the match from the year before, I was definitely feeling it here.

Octagon looked good once again. He seemed to me like someone very good at playing his role and hitting his stuff. He also seemed like a great foil for Fuerza, including the moment in this match when Fuerza tied his mask to the ropes. The two of them were spotlighted at the end of the tercea, leading to the finish where Octagon ultimately got the upper hand. This was a textbook trios match. I could have probably used a slightly longer beatdown in order to build the anticipation for the comeback, but in general, for a match of this type it was extremely well executed and hugely entertaining.

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MJL: Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther 3: Fuerza Guerrera/Blue Panther/Espanto Jr./Psicosis vs Hijo del Santo/Octagon/El Mariachi/El Mexicano

Either 1994-12-8 or 1996-8-19
Fuerza Guerrera/Blue Panther/Espanto Jr./Psicosis vs Hijo del Santo/Octagon/El Mariachi/El Mexicano

I'm not sure about the date here. It's a big difference if I'm trying to watch the matches I have available to me in order, but I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much. It's either twenty years old or eighteen years old. It's also one of those cases where I just can't be sure if what I've been watching is just very, very average or if this was very, very good. I'm a few months into the project now but I've just not delved backwards too much. This had even different generations of luchadors than what I've been used to and while some of the general principles were the same (anticipation!), the match was given more time and room to breathe than a lot of what I see these days, and the level of skill and experience involved here was just off the charts. The match was constant action, with a visceral beatdown and spirited comeback. I've found that eight-man matches can really take things into a different gear due to the extra bodies in the ring.

Mexicano and Mariachi, as far as I can tell, were part of a group with El Charo. Mexicano had been using the gimmick forever and had super cool pants, but Mariachi was actually Solar I with a nice mask that had a music note on it, a tendency to dance, and all the skill of, well, Solar I. Once again I am thankful for luchawiki on this because trying to google "mexicano" and "lucha" was not the most fruitful thing in the world. Both of them were very good at their roles and had a real connection with the crowd. Mariachi took the brunt of punishment in the beatdown. Espanto, of course, was Santo's long time rival. He had lost his mask to him in a great match from 86 but still wore a mask here for most of the match. I suppose that's the sort of thing a rudo can get away with? It's a great mask so I don't really blame him.

There's just too much to note in this match. I can't begin to hit it all. Let's start with structure. There was a long primera which was set up in a series of switch exchanges, with things breaking down and reforming. In the last Santo trios I saw, there were clear demarcations in style between the different pairings. Here, there was much less of that. Maybe Blue Panther and Mexicano did more matwork and Santo and Psicosis turned up the pace a bit, but it was all pretty much along the same lines in the end, with an amazing level of fluidity as one exchange smoothly led into the next, really no matter who was in the ring. The tecnicos take the first fall after a great finishing sequence. What truly made the match work, however, was the way this primera led into the beatdown. Early into the segunda, the rudos finally got an advantage and the pressed it, using the numbers game to isolate Mariachi. They beat the hell out of him, ripping at the mask, bloodying him, biting and swarming and pounding while they kept his partners out of the ring. I feel like there's an element of pressure building up in lucha. During the primera where the tecnicos were winning exchanges, this was building up and up. Then it was unleashed upon Mariachi, and as it was, the pressure began to build again. It paid off in the tercera with Mariachi ducking a double clothesline and coming back just enough for his partners to storm the ring. The moments of revenge were both brutal and sweet with mask ripping and righteous fury, but ultimately, the tecnicos made a huge mistake in the form Mexicano accidentally hitting a dive on Octagon. That allowed Psicosis to hit the most insane senton ever onto a prone Santo on the floor and his partners to swarm Mariachi once again. This time they get the mask off, losing the match, but very much winning the war.

There was too much to note and too many great moments to mention. Panther locked on a hugely cool hold on Mexicano that he had to keep handstanding out of. They even shook at the end of their exchange. Psicosis brought not just the crazy senton but also a couple of huge bumps over the top. Fuerza was all over the place with his usual dickishness, including two pretty blatant fouls when he was holding up an opponent. Santo was smooth as hell, just floating around the ring like he was as light as air. He ended the primera by hitting his big somersault senton on Psicosis (who had just missed one on his own) that goes right into the tope suicida by the corner on another opponent. Fuerza bumped all over the ting. Mariachi had these cool throat thrusts on the outside. Mexicano did a very fun flip from inside of the ring to the outside on his feet. Psicosis finished the segunda with a weird frog-splash elbow drop.

The match had a ton of character moments too. In the primera, Santo drew "Ole"s from the crowd by dodging Psicosis and his horned mask like he was a bull. Espanto fooled Mariachi with a handshake and later on Psicosis actually took over the match by hitting a dropkick after teasing a test of strength. Mariachi had the well-placed dancing. Octagon wasn't fooled by a handshake and instead did a look high-punch low to the stomach that was so good they actually replayed it. Espanto had almost gotten Santo's mask off and during the comeback Santo returned the favor by unmasking him so he had to wrestle the rest of the match without it. I could go on and on here. There was so much cool stuff and all of it was very fluid and fit perfectly within the formula.

Obviously, the finish was there to set up another match. Santo ended up on a gurney and then, because this is wrestling and wrestling is awesome, attacked by the gurney as the rudos just wouldn't let up. To my still somewhat uninitiated eyes, this was the good stuff.

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MLJ: Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther 2: El Hijo del Santo, Octagon & Rey Misterio Jr. vs Psicosis, Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera

1994-07-15 AAA Sin Limite
El Hijo del Santo, Octagon & Rey Misterio Jr. vs Psicosis, Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera

Now THIS is the good stuff. There is a ton of lucha out in the world, a ton, and I've been avoiding a lot of the big feuds and big matches and big moments as things to work up to. Sometimes, though, I sort of stumble into something great. This match was one of those, which might speak to the fact I stacked the deck with this particularly mini-project. It had everything I could have hoped for in looking at Panther vs Santo matches. Not only did it have a pretty extensive pairing of the two, but all the other luchadors in were a lot of fun, the structure was there so things had meaning, and Santo looked downright amazing. When people talk about how he's the greatest luchador of their lifetime, it's matches like this which make him that.

I have to admit that I was a little worried about this one too. I have a preconceived notion about a lot of the AAA matches from this era for one reason or another. So many of my previous notions of lucha have turned out to be false but I always thought they came from some truth and probably from this era when it was in vogue with Meltzer and what not. Almost through the process of elimination, since I hadn't seen it in most things I've watched so far, I was expecting spotfests and disjointed exchanges and meaningless matwork. That wasn't THIS match at all.

First, a brief note about the match's structure, so we have a roadmap for diving in and out of individual performances and match-ups. The primera was mainly exchanges, with Panther/Santo, Rey/Psicosis, and Octagon/Fuerza getting the most time. The tecnicos took the first fall spectacularly. The segunda had the rudos taking over, utilizing unsavory tactics and the numbers game. It bled into the tercera, an eventual comeback, and the finishing stretch. I've seen people complain about how one-sided the caidas were in this specific match but that's what lucha trios is all about, the match-ups, the shine or beatdown, the anticipation for the comeback, and the charge to the finish. This match worked all the better because it had very high-end wrestling within the confines of a framework that gave it all meaning. I just wish the comeback had been a little bit better, because that's so often the key emotional moment in lucha trios matches and it just came up a little short here.

Let's lead with Santo since he's the wrestler who stood out the most and also the one who we're ultimately examining. He showed amazing range and skill here, both in physical prowess and wrestling knowledge. Everyone got to work with everyone else at one point or another but Santo vs Panther led and they led with some top-notch matwork. Some of what they did has been copied and overused over the years but here it felt so natural and organic and real. There were moments in this exchange that were definitely collaborative but they somehow felt competitive. That's astounding to me because it simply shouldn't be possible and it almost never works that way. They had another exchange later in the fall that was just as good and then Santo ended the caida by flipping over Psicosis who Octagon had in a power bomb position so that he could hit a 'rana. It was fluid and agile and beautiful.

He spent much of the back half of the match on the other side of things. First off, he played fiery babyface on the apron very well to help fuel the rudo beatdown. Then he had a great stretch as FIP, including both eating some nasty offense like a killer knee drop onto the apron from Fuerza and selling and garnering sympathy. He capped it all off with a huge plancha from the top rope to set the stage for the Rey vs Psicosis finishing sequence.

Everyone else had a chance to stand out as well. All of the rudos were more than solid as bases for the tecnicos. Psicosis and Rey had quick exchanges. It was obvious that they were talented but maybe Rey didn't quite have quite the savvy he'd have even a year or two later. He served his purpose though, getting pinballed about to start the rudo beatdown (including eating Fuerza's power bomb rocket launcher) and hitting an amazing dive on Psicosis after Panther launched him to redirect Rey charging at him. He took the tecera with a lightning 'rana. Fuerza and Octagon worked more shtick into their exchanges but they still came off as showy and impressive. For I guy I've only seen in two or three matches, I really love Fuerza. He just instills so much character into what he does and he's able to do it while still working fairly complex sequences and kicking out big moves. It's a great balance. I can't say I got a great sense of Octagon from this match save for the fact he worked well with Fuerza and didn't drag things down.

The first fall was incredibly high end and the beatdown was a lot of fun. I love that the rudos used a ref distraction in order to take over and that they were picking up heat using both traditional southern tag team tools and the rudo numbers game advantage even as they were hitting memorable moves on Rey and then Santo. As I said, the comeback was the only thing lacking. During the tercera, and after a brief bit of instruction on the outside from Santo, Rey snuck in to assist Octagon who had just gotten overwhelemed by the numbers game. They sort of just walked up and double suplexed Psicosis and then the tecnicos recovered so they could take it towards the finish. It was sudden, sure, but definitely didn't pay off well the build of the match.

That said, everyone looked great in this and I could watch trios matches of this caliber all day. It's up there with the best lucha I've seen in this project so far. Santo's skill absolutely stood out the most. He was as agile as Rey and Psicosis, sold and drew sympathy as well as Rey, more than kept up on the mat with Panther, and portrayed his character almost as well as Fuerza. He was both subtle and spectacular when the match called for it, with spot on timing. Here, he was as good as his reputation, and that is saying a lot.

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