Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Idolo vs Exterminador 1: Idolo! Exterminador! Sandkan! Emperador!

Idolo/Exterminador vs Sandokan/Emperador (June 1988)

MD: I have to admit that I've spent a couple of months just wondering what the big deal with Idolo was. You can read from Graham's history posts that he was up there with Sandokan, if not definitively above him, as the top start of the territory, but we've been seeing a bunch of lukewarm rudo performances where he's outshined by the people he's teaming with again and again. He did carry himself like a star and like someone important, and the fans reacted accordingly, but there was a spark missing. Thankfully, we have a place to try to find it here with the Exterminador feud and this is a great start. This began with me more or less reaffirming my priors albeit with a glint of hope and ended with me starting to see the light (even if it might simply be the light at the end of the tunnel of Idolo's rudo run).

Right from the get go, Exterminador stands out more than Idolo. He brings a kid into the ring before the bell, flips in and out of the ring on tags, has some very fun chain wrestling with Sandokan, takes an atomic drop by spasming through the ropes and all over the floor. Just a lot of charismatic body language as he bumps, feeds, stooges, and batters Sandokan around the ring. Idolo honestly looks pretty good here in shorter exchanges despite it all, with a clear smoothness and familiarity with both Emperador and Sandokan, but he can't help but be overshadowed by a guy wrestling for the back row like Exterminador is.

That's especially true once the story of the match kick in and we begin to get the rudo miscommunication spots. They have to hit each other at least eight times and each one seems to matter more than the last. By the middle of the segunda, Exterminador has gone from being apologetic to begging off (which led to a funny moment of him hugging the ref and cheapshotting Sandokan) to trying to prove himself by taking all the offense, to trying to steal shots from Idolo as he got way out of hand. It boils over with an absolutely amazing turn as Sandokan comes back and someone starts interfering for Exterminador and everything begins to break down with the rudos coming to blows and Idolo, with the cheerleading and help from Sandokan and Emperador, starts mauling Exterminador around the ring and ringside area as the fans begin to mob in excitement.

When watching this, I had no idea how long Idolo had been a rudo, but it's obvious he had once been a beloved hero and there's building pressure during this post-match chaos as Sandokan and Emperador have their hands raise and continue to throw Exerminador back into the ring as they egg Idolo on. Throughout it Idolo has stopped caring about them and is solely focused on Exterminador building the suspense more and more until, after clearing the ring once and for all, Idolo and Sandokan embrace and the already wild crowd goes ever more so. I've mentioned before but sometimes with this old footage from a culture not at all our own, this stuff that has never been spoken about in our circles, that isn't part of some "canon" we all know like, for instance, Santito turning rudo, well, it can feel like sneaking into someone else's family gathering. Sometimes you get the sense that this isn't for you, that you don't belong, but here, it's impossible not to feel the elation of the crowd and the excitement of the moment and to share in the universality of pro wrestling at its most emotional. This was a huge, important, iconic moment and we're so fortunate that we've gotten to share in it, just as we're fortnuate that there's a chain match and a mask match to come.

GB: Exterminador would grace Panama roughly the same time as La Parka, with Parka obviously squaring off with Sandokan and Exterminador being the Mexican for Idolo to beat. By all accounts, this is either one or two weeks after the Sandokan/Parka mask match placing it toward the tail end of June 1988. It’s a relatively brief feud, culminating on July 17, but it saw its fair share of violence and hostility. The main matches (this tag, a chain match, and the apuesta) we are lucky to have on tape and will write them up in the coming three weeks.

As Matt eloquently put it, this was a huge cultural moment for Panamanian wrestling. Their hero, El Idolo, would turn tecnico after I believe his final run as a rudo during his peak. Cards on the table, this post was to be a recap of what led up to this moment. The plan was to recap a few questions, most especially: “Why had Idolo turned rudo to begin with?”  “How long had he been rudo?” and “What caused the return to the tecnico side?”  Unfortunately, the trail ran cold on me and I’ve seemingly exhausted every possible avenue. In terms of information, El Idolo is possibly the most written-about wrestlers out of Panama. So much so, in fact, that he has his own website covering his career. Yet, the information is more fanciful. Nothing quite detailed enough to glean.

Panama is an incredibly proud yet protective territory. I've mentioned it before but there's a very insular network going on where even local fans are gatekept in a sense. I do believe a lot of it is due to bad experiences with foreign writers who seemingly used Panama for their own gains, whatever that may be. Sammy de la Guardia has referenced some previous writers as "pirates of history" and Don Medina has taken great exception to what he believes are frauds in wrestling journalism. Those guilty are big names; ones that, if you're a follower of lucha, will have definitely heard of and might have read. It's daunting in that sense as I'm just one man, writing on a blog for the first time. I don't have credentials or authenticity to my name. These posts are my portfolio of evidence to that end. My hopeful key to getting to the fabled historian I keep hearing of but never encountering. All in the bid to share as much as I can of the beauty that is Panamanian lucha. Thus, dear reader, we will need to hold off on the big turn for this week in hopes that I can cast my net wider to those in the know.

Look, if this feud was as simple as just Idolo and Exterminador, I'd feel a bit better in connecting dots that may not be there. After all, Exterminador was just a statistic. Another notch on Idolo's belt. Number 31 of 78 (40 masks, 38 hairs). And although I have a small sense of the background and believe it similar to Idolo’s first tecnico turn (which took place during his feud with Furia Roja where he would take the Colombian’s mask in July 1965), it would be wrong of me to offer my guess work here. Not on something so important such as the reunion of Sandokan and El Idolo.

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Found Footage Friday: PANAMA~! SANDOKAN~! KATO KUNG LEE~! OLIMPICO~! GIGANTE TATAKI~! DYNAMITE~! CANEK~! KIMURA~! TAKANO~!

Sandokan/Kato Kung Lee vs. Gigante Tataki Panama 

MD: Tataki was Walter Quisbert Limachi, a 7'5" Bolivian giant who had been a boxer before getting into wrestling. They get around twenty minutes out of this before it breaks down completely. Tataki was fairly agile for his size, with a ton of presence. At one point, he gets Sandokan down and just bounds up to the second rope to miss a stomp. When he took and when he gave was a little suspect and he sure liked to bump out of the ring whether it was warranted or not. In general though, this all worked pretty well. Early on Sandokan and Kato Kung Lee used a lot of kicks to the legs and tried to play cat and mouse with the giant. If he got his hands on either of them, he could chuck them across the ring without any issue. The first time he stepped through the ropes to give chase, you could hear all of the kids screaming in horror. When they were double teaming him they were able to bound over him to hit sunset flips and what not. Unfortunately for the heroes, around halfway through the match, he got them both outside and smashed Kato Kung Lee with a chair. That was it for him and he got taken to the back. After that, Sandokan put up a valiant attempt, staggering Tataki with ten punches for every one that Tataki could throw, but after getting knocked to the floor, he recovered and started tossing Sandokan around again, including hitting a kneeling pile driver and this great toss where he grabbed Sandokan's singlet and rolled backwards. Both Sandokan and Kato Kung Lee were more than happy to fly around for him. Eventually, Olimpico (I think) came out to even the odds allow Sandokan to recover. Even then, they could barely hold the giant at bay, but after getting posted, he eventually got angry and went to the back, only to come back to sign a contract for the apuestas match we have upcoming. This wasn't Der Henker vs LeDuc/Corn or anything, but it was a pretty solid way to fill almost half an hour as a total package. All we have is the footage to go off of but Sandokan continues to look impressive as a local Carlos Colon type ace. Tataki may have given a little erratically, but for a guy his size he had a lot of presence and surprising athleticism. 

Sandokan/Olimpico vs. Gigante Tataki (Hair Match) Panama

MD: This falls on the spectacle side of apuestas matches as opposed to the bloody sort, but it was a hell of a spectacle. Sandokan and Olimpico started like the tecnicos did in the last match, throwing kicks in and darting around so Tataki couldn't get them. He sold the leg kicks as if he was taking bullets, but he'd also bound to the second rope threateningly. It didn't take him long to separate his opponents, given that he was able to toss them around so easily. Things opened up once he hit his kneeling piledriver to Sandoken on the floor. Once they could no longer double team him, he'd pummel one and then the next. The comeback was big, but it could have been bigger as he just missed a big splash in the middle of the ring. It was fun though, with Sandokan running up to sit upon Olimpico's shoulders so he could smash Tataki on the head, right until he'd get rolled forward, forced to victory roll his own partner. They kept bounding up and doing it again though. I was picturing Carlos Colon and Invader 1 doing it to Andre, and it was all pretty wonderful stuff. Tataki wasn't exactly subtle in his shift from taking to selling, but he sold enthusiastically when it was time. Even then, he was able to separate his opponents and was taking back over again with huge hanging tree slams onto Sandokan, until the ref ended up distracted by Olimpico and Tataki ate a mule kick to the groin. He sold this bigger than anyone has ever sold anything, basically, falling out of the ring and spasming across the basketball court towards the crowd. That set up the absolutely iconic finish with Sandokan and Olimpico throwing chairs at Tataki one after the other, burying him so he couldn't answer the count.

Dynamite Kid/Canek vs. Kengo Kimura/George Takano NJPW 4/3/81

MD: Chippy stuff actually. Early, early 80s mean jerk Dynamite is the best Dynamite and here he had a couple of kids to beat all over the ring. Canek tried to keep up, which was welcome, but he wasn't nearly as mean. Kimura and Takano had something to prove so it ended up being a little less cooperative than you'd think. Less artful exchanges. Kimura was especially good at hoping into the ring to assert himself and break things up and just swipe from the outside in general; good fire overall. When they could work together, they had a chance and Dynamite wasn't afraid to bump for them when warranted, even if he was less eager to sell. In return, they went up for all of Kid and Canek's stuff (butterfly suplex, delayed vertical, gutwrench suplex, clothesline onto the top rope, Canek's plancha, the press slam into a backbreaker that ended it). Like I said, Canek was fine but whenever he was in there, you wanted him to tag out just because you knew Dynamite was going to throw a nasty European uppercut or drop a headbutt.

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