Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! COTA~! WAGNER~! SATANICO~! GARZA~! PANTERA~! CARAS~! FIERA~!

Bronco/Máscara Mágica/Pantera vs. Astro Rey Jr./Guerrero De La Muerte/Mocho Cota CMLL 2/23/96

MD: Roy's uploaded a bunch recently and we'll hit some of it. I'm not going to say no to new Mocho Cota, even 1996 Mocho Cota. He's a step slow, but what he does with that step is still great. He'll bump to the floor off a dropkick and then careen towards a little kid, halting at the last moment and menacing him with his missing fingers. What a guy. He also fed into rudo miscommunication as you'd imagine, so they kept things brisk, moving, and fun. According to Rob, this was a couple of weeks before Pantera jumped to AAA. He was matched up with Guerrero here early and looked good the whole way through, especially down the stretch where he got to stand tall at the end with the last pairing, post-dives, hit a great dive of his own, and then come back in to win the thing, which is honestly not a structure you usually see. He also drove the comeback, so he was certainly being featured. Mascara Magica was paired with Cota and they did ok, even if you got the sense that maybe he was still trying to figure it out a bit. You take Pantera and Cota out of this one and it wouldn't be as engaging (even if they did wildly different things) but as is, I enjoyed it.

Los Brazos vs. Negro Casas/Dr Wagner Jr./Rambo CMLL 3/15/96

MD: Apparently Brazo de Plata and Negro Casas really wanted to work with each other on this night, because they put on one hell of a show. Porky's fist was laser focused to Casas' face and it was great. Just the most brutal, mean-spirited, single-minded punches you'll see, no matter if Casas was standing, on the ground, in the ropes. And of course, Casas would just slide back into the ring at full speed only to get walloped again. They had an early exchange too where Casas did a reverse leg sweep and then Porky did the same in return. Great stuff. Porky had his shoulders bandaged and that made him a target overall. They primera had a great bit where the rudos, two at a time, tossed one Brazo after the next off the top rope. Then they tried Porky with all three and got squashed and pinned. Perfect comic build and timing. The segunda had them really hone in on Porky's shoulder, double teaming him and forcing hum to the floor. The remaining Brazos held their own for a bit, but Rambo pulled out an object and bloodied El Brazo and it became an inconclusive mauling. This was great while it lasted though.

ER: You go into this excited to see whatever happens between Super Porky and Negro Casas and then all of the Porky/Casas interactions turn out to be even better than you expected. The whole thing is great but everything that Porky and Casas do - especially to each other - is better than you expect and that means it's all time great. There is one especially great exchange between them that is like extravagant lucha morphing into shootstyle. No, this isn't UWFi, but damn when Porky gets swept and ankle picks Casas on his way down I flipped. Porky aimed carefully guided punches at Casas's face a dozen different times and Casas kept falling for them in bigger and bigger ways. Porky would knock Casas down and lean his weight on him and throw punches from half mount. It all builds to one of the most incredible ways to end a caida, when the rudos press slam El Brazo and Oro off the top turnbuckle. Two men handled them, but all hands were required on deck to press Porky. They all backed him into the corner and Porky started throwing potato shots at everyone, flat footed lefts and rights. Casas gets hit so square that he banana peels all the way to the opposite corner. When all three rudos finally get underneath Porky to slam him, they wind up crushed underneath. 

The segunda shows Porky as one of wrestling's great Targets. Rambo and Casas target his taped up shoulder. Injured Porky is one of my favorite salesmen in wrestling, his movements feel so suddenly real but delivered by the incomparable physique of Porky. He has one of the most sympathetic faces in wrestling (and here he doesn't even cry!) and the way he plops on his butt and kicks his legs while Negro and Rambo and stomping and kicking him is like a giant baby getting stomped out. 

Rambo is always great in matches like this. He's great during bumping for tecnicos (loved him hopping on his back across the ring after a Brazo de Oro quebradora) and then becomes the most violent rudo during the segunda. His wrapped fist shot to Oro was so good it held up in slo motion, and when he gigs El Brazo he really gets the blood flowing. Rambo knows several ways to open a cut, slamming Brazo's face into his boot in the corner as blood gets all over it, then starts kneeing him directly in the cut repeatedly. I wish the DQ had happened in the tercera so we got the full set of falls, but this was great stuff.   

Dos Caras/Héctor Garza/La Fiera vs. Bestia Salvaje/Dr Wagner Jr./Satánico CMLL 4/3/96

MD: The primera here was a super fun two minutes. First Caras and Fiera mowed through Bestia and Satanico with double teams, including a Hart Attack of sorts on Satanico. Then Wagner got the better of them with a flying double clothesline and Garza flew around for him before hitting a clutch roll up. From there, they did one of those multiman submissions where the third guy kneels on the shoulders of the person/people being stretched. You almost never see the tecnicos doing that and Garza paid for his hubris with Wagner pulling him off so he took a nasty bump into the ropes and then got posted, but the tecnicos still took the caida. 

The segunda started with in and out exchanges, with Wagner getting the best of Fiera and then everyone basing for Garza (who had to make frequent comebacks admittedly). They went around with it until Wagner ended up dangling from the ropes on a great bump/stooge spot, before the rudos finally took over. Wagner finished Garza off with both a superplex and a top rope splash, one after the other, doing it all himself (well, Satanico held Garza down at the end, not that it was needed). The beatdown that followed was short and nasty, with Satanico driving his foot into Garza's groin as the other rudos held him and chewing on his fingers. He meandered too close into the tecnico corner and they turned it around for some final exchanges, some rudo miscommunication, and then a triumphant tecnico victory including Wagner walking around forever with Caras on his shoulder holding an armbar before they finally rolled forward. As fun as you'd expect with guys this talented. 

ER: This had a great ramshackle feel to it. Tight rudo team who all had different ways of bumping cool in a large flat CMLL ring. It's a powerhouse rudo team with three workers who were all cool in different ways in 1996. Wagner got to show off his power, Bestia got to show off his speed and his grace while being built like Vincent Pastoricito, Satanico got to show off his cunning and sadistic leadership. But where they're at their best, is coming together to assault sweet young Héctor Garza. I don't know why Garza's magic didn't work in the United States. You watch his work in Mexico before his US run and his tecnico connection to crowds is so obvious, and it's just not there in WCW or WWF. His babyface presence and charisma mostly vanished on US TV. 

He was brought in to both WWF and WCW with plans on making him one of the pushed ones among his niche, but both bailed on him quickly. In WWF he was a two month foreign babyface firebrand, a busted experiment that stumbled so the later-that-year Taka Michinoku foreign babyface firebrand push. He was given the big solo in all the early WCW trios matches but never connected as even a top 5 luchador babyface with any WCW crowds. The charisma always instantly returned in Mexico and it's evident here. Any time the rudos focus on Garza the match becomes laser focused and Important. He is a tecnico muse to each rudo and inspires them to increased punishment. Satanico and Wagner seem like they take joy in assaulting Garza and I think Garza connects the way he does with Mexico crowds because some felt that sadistic joy and either felt he deserved it for being too pretty while other felt he was too pretty to deserve it. Wagner's top rope superplex and Superfly splash on on him was a real highlight, some real Welcome to the Big Leagues moment, and Garza in Mexico was still great at being the victim of those moments several years into his career. 

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D3AN~!!! Day 1: MAESTROS~!

DEAN~!!! 3 9/6/25

Blue Panther/Virus/Pantera vs Hechicero/Dr. Cerebro/Xelhua

This exceeded every expectation.

Don't look at me that way. I'm a true believer. These are my guys. This was the match I was looking forward to the most, the one that kept getting better with every announcement. 

(I would have loved to see what Angelico could have done with these guys but now that I've seen it, I wouldn't change it for the world).

But just look at the numbers here. The tecnico side has a combined age of 181, with an average of  60.33333. And I love maestros matches, I do. It was a joy whenever any of those old man FLLM Masters title matches showed up with Negro Navarro or Solar or Blue Panther or Satanico or whoever. And yes, of course, Blue Panther is having a blowaway year. And it's not like he and Cerebro aren't empowered by wearing the mask again and there was Hechicero with his relative size to base, and Xelhua has all the youth and energy and flash you could want in a scientific wrestler. 

BUT STILL...

Even with those FLLM matches, you had a certain expectation when it came to pace and style. They'd build to a few more impactful spots, would pepper them in when it mattered the most. You might even get one dive which again, they would make the absolute most out of, but that's not why you were watching. You were watching to see the technique and the struggle and the effort, the personality and the interaction. The way they worked the crowd, the way they worked each other.

I tend to get frustrated with how six-man (and more) matches work in AEW, dependent on who you have in there. There are lots of ways to run them. I love the big 80s NJPW elimination tags where there's no room for escape if you get too close to the ropes. I grew up on Survivor Series matches which would be the only time each year to see so many personalities interact with one another. 

On paper, I understand the concept of a lucha trios style match allowing for quick action, for people to cycle in and out and keep the spots endlessly flowing. The problem is that the US wrestlers who focus on that element the most when they get to play by those rules are the same ones who generally do so much of that in the first place. It just takes away the need for them to structure a match at all and just gives them every excuse to "do stuff" without thought or meaning. 

Here, though, where there were obvious physical limitations, it worked perfectly. Instead of being more compounding more, creating noise, it allowed the action to continue and for the rigors of time to be overcome by spreading the load across all six wrestlers.

The other side of the equation in my frustration over "lucha styled" US matches is that they drop all of the other trappings, the ones that give the action purpose and form. Here, most were there. There were initial pairings (Pantera vs Cerebro, Panther vs Xelhua, Virus vs Hechicero). They made full use of the 2/3 falls format. In the primera caida, the pairings were given time so that they could work the mat. In the segunda caida, they escalated to rope running with a second round of pairings. Then the tercera caida had tricked out submissions broken up one after the next. In each caida, everything broke down building to the finish. The only thing it was missing was a clear rudo control and tecnico comeback but in a match that was, in many ways, an exhibition and showcase, that was fine, especially since the rudos took the primera, creating some inherent pressure anyway.

With the structure clear and the action steady, the details were allowed to shine, and what great details we got here. The initial pairings were a blast, with Pantera doing his headstands, with Xelhua and Panther leaning into attitude and trading similar holds, and with Hechicero's size allowing Virus (blue tecnico facepaint brandished) to hit some of his more stylized agility moves from years gone by. Everything built to Hechicero once again basing, this time for a flying Blue Panther 'rana (He'd hit another dive to set up the finish in the tercera too. What a guy). This cleared the ring for Xelhua to tie up Virus for the win. 

I loved Xelhua's swagger here. Cerebro, Hechicero, and Xelhua were a team spanning three decades of under the radar technical rudo wizards, and the youngest of the lot was full of bluster and attitude, making sure everyone knew he fit right in. Meanwhile, you had Pantera constantly clapping up the crowd and Blue Panther flexing his newly obtained rights to the "Yes" chant, keeping everyone engaged and focused and ensuring all of this was not just technically amazing but rooted in character as well. 

It carried through all the way to the tercera. I loved the cycling through. You watch that in old lucha and sometimes they'd just grab an arm or something, but here the wrestlers were going out of their way to make every hold as interesting as possible and then to wind the crowd up before breaking it up, all the way to Hechicero's last contortion for the finish.

I have no idea what inspired these guys on this night. I don't know what they were feeling. I don't know what butterflies might have been in Xelhua's stomach, or even Cerebro or Panther's, but they were given the room to stretch and express themselves and present some of the most genuine, creative, dynamic lucha libre in front of a game crowd, and they ran with faster and farther than I could have imagined. 

Whether or not they fully realized how much it would matter, they created something beautiful for my friends, in the memory of my friend, something that hit so many of the marks that I love about lucha, in front of a crowd, in a venue, and on a stage where this sort of a portrait has so rarely been allowed to be painted so genuinely before.  

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Oh Bury Terry Not on the Lone Praire

Black Terry/Pantera vs. Negro Navarro/Pirata Morgan IWRG 7/23/11 - GREAT

PAS: Compact 13 minute match which kind of felt like an awesome first fall, where we never got the second and third. Match opens with 5 minutes of Navarro and Terry grappling which was delightful and an obvious highlight. Pantera hits a cool tope from the apron through the ringpost, and there are some cool eliminations. Pirata had a moment or two, but this was worth watching for that uncut raw Terry vs. Navarro.

 
MD: It's a joy to watch Terry and Navarro do their thing for a few minutes. They're wrestling's odd couple. Navarro makes everything look theatrical, able to somehow make a straight line look stylized and curved. Meanwhile, Terry's entirely business-like, poised and practical, able to make something infinitely complex seem simple and professional. Navarro is eternally bombastic and will take you on the scenic route pointing out every landmark true and fabricated along the way and Terry somehow finds a shortcut to wherever he's going, getting there two minutes early yet still leaving you completely satisfied by the quality of company. When you put them together, they play perfectly with one another's strengths, the contrast driving the entire endeavor and leaving you not wanting to look away.

Morgan was fun here too, pulling out a few things that, while maybe not contributing to a greater whole would be memorable: an abrupt contorting cradle when he first got in there, the rare double rotation Casita for one elimination and then a rolling sort of Anaconda Vice that felt just as rare for the second. And then Pantera added just a bit of flash and motion (not too much) with a few high spots. As Phil noted, this ultimately felt like a really good primera, never boiling over, never leading to heat and comeback, but as exhibitions go, any one that'll start with a few minutes of Navarro vs Terry like this is well worth watching.

JR:   This match is mostly an exhibition, although there are certainly worse people to have that sort of match than Terry and Navarro. There are fun holds and some good exchanges that might look too cooperative in the hands of lesser performers. Pirata Morgan hits a slingshot senton that I can only describe as a non-ironic version of the slow motion one Chuck Taylor used to do in Chikara.

After the opening portion, when Terry and Navarro tag out, there is a brief moment that will stick with me as Pantera struggles with Pirata Morgan. I found myself thinking, as I watched this, of Cubs' wonderful obituary from today. In it he talks about the truly beautiful outpouring of support for Terry and how beloved he was as a trainer and teacher. Terry was observant of new trends and styles and was willing to teach things that were not to his taste if he thought it would help his students succeed. Close to the corner, Terry crouches down and talks to his partner, giving what I can only assume are instructions. My relationship with Terry has always been purely critical, of course. I've never seen him train or eaten at his table or heard him tell stories. I've only watched him perform. Perhaps this was a performance as well, but in that moment I saw Black Terry not as a wrestler, but as someone that cared and wanted to help his partner sincerely. I saw the type of trainer he might be, offering quiet but serious suggestion.
When I picture Terry, I think I'll always picture a man brawling, grunting. I'll picture effort and sweat. Tonight, I am glad that I can briefly picture something else that makes me feel closer to the whole of him.

TKG: This is pretty much a one fall sprint with Terry and Navarro doing their ras de lona work, Pantera getting in his big dives and a small tease of Pirata v Terry.

At turn of century when both AAA and EMLL where both stripping out first fall technical exchanges…the indies fully leaned into them, highlighting the work of the older maestros keeping the style vital and alive.

I really popped when after the initial submission exchanges, Terry started the technical leverage throw section with a big monkey flip and Navarro answered with an impressive nasty suplex.
As maestro’s got older we’d see fewer big suplexes. Your Hechicero generation of technical wizards really don’t do suplexes as part of technical display. That moving from leverage submission holds into leverage arm drags still happens but the subs into suplexes is something we see less and less and I miss.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Found Footage Friday: GALLI~!

GALLI 1/11/09 Full Show 

Calypso vs. D-Ray

MD: The ref (animated, sunglasses, shorts) here came off as a bigger star than either of these guys unfortunately. I couldn't tell if he or D-Ray(?) was coming out to the NWO theme. Calypso had an ok act on the way out running around the ring and at times he'd grunt and scurry about, but most of the time he turned it off. D-Ray had that solid Pat Rose physique, was vocal throughout with the fans and ref and his opponent in a good way and controlled the match. At one point he had a pumphandle power slam (Wrath's meltdown) with a slightly different entry position that was kind of neat. Calypso won in less than five minutes with a small package driver (maybe wasn't supposed to be a driver?) out of nowhere. This makes me wonder just how many matches are going to be on this card.

Chilango vs. Emperador Azteca

MD: Chilango here had a tee-shirt and bandana. He did the most heelish thing possible on an indy show; he interrupted the calling out of the sponsers. After that he ran down the fans. The guy in the red mask came out stop him and they rang the bell and got a ref. Chilango was quite the stooge to start, running about. He took over with a foul and didn't really look back. Just a lot of decent jerk offense. Simple, straightforward stuff that was mean and got over who he was. Mask guy didn't even get a comeback before he won with a Sharpshooter. Not sure about the layouts here so far.

El Potro/Justiciero vs. Simbolo/Silver Dragon

MD: Perfectly fine mechanical work until the end, just with a big "but." They were moving fast and hitting things mostly clean with just a slightly tendency to land a little too close to the ropes on armdrags and what not. Things didn't feel overly cooperative. It was a good mix of advanced and basic. The de facto rudos became more than de facto after ending up on the losing end of one too many exchanges and took over with a handshake > kick. Weirdly, there was no actual comeback, just one of the tecnicos coming in on a hold, breaking it up, and cycling on to the finish which was the only thing in the match that looked way off. Some bizarre layout here. Like reality itself was clipped.

Venganza/Resistencia vs. Elektron/Silueta Dorada

MD: I had the sense we hit the part of the show with more of the GALLI regulars. This still didn't have quite the comeback I would have wanted as Elektron just stormed into the ring while Dorada was hung up and there was a bit too much stumbling all around, but in general, it fit into the pattern better and they were working both each other and the crowd in a more concerted way, while still hitting a lot of their exchanges cleanly and crisply. Dorada and Resistencia worked together best overall. They started it and it felt like a living, breathing match instead of guys trying to figure it all out and glue together their spots. So not perfect but on the right track at least.

Centella de Oro/Meteoro I vs. El Guerrillero/Pentagono del Infierno

MD: I feel like over the last few matches, it's been like the meme of the horse drawing where more and more of it is filled in and made complete. Pentagono had a second who was a kid in a mask and I wonder if he has 13 year of experience wrestling by now. There was just more connective tissue between each move, even more working the crowd, everything seeming more alive. The wrestlers tried to get tecnico/rudo chants going since the fans were likely not super familiar with them. The rudos took over after Centella teased a dive and his back was turned. The dives did come towards the finish. I will say again that the comeback was kind of missing even if everything was a bit more fleshed out but I think at this point it's probably just a victim of this being a 9 or 10 match show which is maybe not how lucha should operate?

Demencia/Payaso Blanco/Payaso Negro vs. Furia Roja/Kamikaze/Nemesis

MD: Another match where they didn't actually have a comeback but instead just went straight to the submission cycling. Very weird. The opening exchanges and action was good but needed way more Payaso comedy. That was the best part. We've already seen a bunch of things hit clean. That's what would have made this one stand out. They did have a lot of fun tandem moves when the heat started, including this nice double torture rack. This had a solid enough beatdown that you could have gotten a solid comeback out of it. Pressure was ramped up. My guess is that both the comebacks and the comedy are waiting for later matches? The fans were getting their money's worth spotswise but it's all a bit much by this point.

El Tigre/Samuray del Sol/Slayer vs. Amenaza del Siglo/Mason Conrad/Tony Scarpone

MD: This was a bit of a mess but not an unentertaining one. It never really settled down into any sort of meaningful structure. People hit a bunch of stuff and eventually it ended with Amenaza turning on Conrad and Scarpone since they wanted to use a chair to set up a roll up out of nowhere. In the meantime, Amenaza did a lot of work in trying to base for an out of control Tigre (A for effort, lower score for most other things), Conrad did admirably against Slayer all things considered, and Scarpone postured well against Samuray del Sol but maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the right card for him to be on? He seemed like he'd make a very solid 1987 Crusher opponent on one of those bar shows they ran in the mid-west. 

El Pantera/Incognito/Lince Dorado vs. Cassandro/Charley Manson Jr./Gringo Loco

MD: This was the reward for everyone sitting through the rest of the show and it was quite the reward. To start you had Gringo Loco singing and Cassandro coming out like a head of state, full the sort of methodological grace that only he could encompass, kissing babies, the whole nine yards. The pairings were good in all the falls, Cassandro and Incognito wrestling clean with just a little bit of an exotico bent, Gringo basing for Lince like only he could, Pantera and Manson going tricked out but competitive.

The primera ended with absolute chaos, just a great mass of bodies hitting the mat from every angle before the tecnicos took it. The segunda went into the rudo beatdown as Cassandro hit a cheapshot dropkick out of nowhere. Gringo and Charley had some great tandem stuff like the rolling monkey flip across the ring into a headbutt. Again, not a very clear cut comeback but you almost don't care because it went right into Cassandro and Incognito doing super cool stuff like a small package out of a cazadora and a top rope dragon rana and then right into the dive train. The rest of the show had its moments, but by the end of it, you were absolutely appreciating the competence and brilliance to be found here.

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Loosely Formed Statements on WWF's No Way Out of Texas 2/15/98

 

1. Marc Mero/Goldust vs. The Head Bangers

Marc Mero is a 1998 Rising Stock. Always on. Endless energy. 

Marc Mero's high back elbow and precise elbowdrop. Stocking Rising. 

Marc Mero's ass over crown bump to the floor for a Mosh lariat. Heat Seeker. 

Goldust working dropdowns and leapfrogs and a high backdrop bump in black lingerie. Picturing him working 2000s AAA. 

Marc Mero draws real heat. His bumps for Thrasher's shoulderblocks are real. Online Mero Discourse will swell. 

We get real blood 10 minutes into No Way Out of Texas. Thrasher takes a real manly bump when Goldust snake eyes him onto the ring steps. Blood spidering down his face. Match at a new level. 

Mero - the worker of 1998 WWF - immediately targets the cut whenever he is in, including stomping Thrasher all over the cut to spread the blood. 

We'll see if any chant will be louder during any other match than this MERO SUCKS chants. Scotching heat in February. That's before he unwraps some wrist tape and chokes Thrasher until the tape is red, and then the chants resume. 

Mosh has four sincerely great punches on his hot tag. 

2. Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku

Pantera has the greatest offense. Multiple rolling armdrags, THAT running swanton to the floor, a tricked out headscissors that felt more World of Sport than lucha, and a fast flipping bump to the floor. 

Taka's springboard plancha flies 4 feet past the guardrail into the entrance.

Pantera's rolling headscissors from the top rope to the apron is in the discussion of Greatest Headscissors in History. The tope diagonally past the ringpost was triumphant garnish. 

Well Brian Christopher called Taka Michinoku "slant eyed" on commentary. Jesus. 

Cools down a bit when Pantera is working over Taka's back, but I like it. 

The cooldown burst into flames when Taka took one of the highest bumps over the top to the floor that I've ever seen, moments before Pantera leapt over the top rope with his running senton, the most incredible move on 1998 wrestling TV. 

The cool back work stretch is paid off many times over when Pantera fills every bit of space with elbowdrops aimed with precision at Taka's lower back, and two different backbreakers that looked...backbreaking. 

Pantera pulls off an effortlessly accurate top rope moonsault, the way I might take a bite out of a sandwich, then snaps off a hurricanrana with both of them jumping off the top rope just as easily. 

Brian Christopher was a...real presence...on commentary. The entire match. You have never heard louder slurs on commentary. 

3. The Quebecers vs. The Godwinns

I'm not sure why they even brought in the Quebecers in 1998. They brought them back to Raw with no re-introduction, just the two of them wearing the blandest and worst gear of their respective careers. Still a good team, but out of place and oddly presented. 

Rougeau keeps ducking Phineas's lock ups and then yells "How about those Canadians, eh?" to the crowd like a prick. 

Jacques is out here getting mowed over by shoulderblocks, and when Pierre tags in he starts working wristlock exchanges with Henry. It's kind of silly, but those big boys did really yank the hell out of those arms. 

Phineas works really vicious with Jacques. He hits a full on Glacier front kick into Jacques's stomach and tries to pull his arm off with a single arm DDT. 

Henry drops his head and Jacques kicks him hard right across the chest. Pierre is the only guy not throwing leather so far. 

They're working this as a classic WWF heel in peril match, the crowd completely silent as the Godwinns cut Jacques off from Pierre. For some reason, the fans do not cheer for Rougeau's sunset flip nearfall, and I have no idea what crowd reaction they were expecting when Henry held Jacques in a chinlock that could only build to Jacques fighting back to his feet. 

The match is actually really good but the role reversal fucks everything up. 

The fans do not want to see Jacques make a hot tag to Pierre. The cannonball that they hit is not triumphant. 

Jacques hits a pretty crazy plancha off the top to the floor, crashing into Henry. 

Everything was completely backward and the crowd was icy but it was a good tag if you pretend it was in Montreal with a poorly mic'd crowd. 

4. Bradshaw vs. Jeff Jarrett 

Say what you will about Cornette being given a dead in the water idea, but I loved the short-lived NWA stable. What a bunch of weirdos. Windham, the Rock n Rolls, and Jeff Jarrett with my favorite gear and hair of his career. Robert Gibson is wearing a duster with county fair sweatshirt art of him and Ricky on the back. 

The opening is really well worked, just Bradshaw swinging arms and chaps and boots at Jarrett and Jarrett taking all of it. I loved when Bradshaw ducked down and Jarrett finally landed something, a stiff kick to Bradshaw's chest, and Bradshaw just straightened up and booted Jarrett in the face. 

It's funny when they exchange strikes, as Jarrett is doing these nice worked right hands but Bradshaw is just hauling back and smashing Jarrett with the edge of his elbow. 

I appreciate JR pushing the story that Jarrett knew to target Bradshaw's knee because Barry Windham told him about Bradshaw's knee in secret, because I guess it's better than telling the story of Jarrett targeting the two foot long braced kneepad that covers most of Bradshaw's left leg.

All of Jarrett's kicks to Bradshaw's leg look good, but none of it leads to anything. 

This was a lot better when it was Bradshaw laying waste to Jarrett and the NWA. It loses steam once they went into more of a back and forth. 

When the NWA runs out after the match, Robert Gibson takes a really fast, pretty crazy bump to the floor. I have to remind myself that Gibson was only 39 during this run and was really busting his ass. 

5. Faarooq/The Rock/Kama Mustafa/Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown vs. Ken Shamrock/Ahmed Johnson/Chainz/Skull/8-Ball

I remember watching this PPV a couple days after it aired, getting the tape from a friend whose dad had a co-worker who taped the PPVs. Something something the kids will never understand what we went through. If your parents didn't let you actually order PPVs, that's how you got to see a PPV in 1998. 

I remember watching this match before school, and my dad getting actually offended by them clearly running a team of militant black people opposite several white supremacists. My parents already hated pro wrestling because of its stupidity. I don't think my dad had ever even considered that there would be angles with white supremacist good guys. I remember him reading the paper and putting it down, saying "It's VERY clear what they're trying to imply here" and being mad about it. 

This match was set up by The Rock hitting Shamrock in the face with one of the most disgusting chairshots in history. 

Does anyone actually know any differences between Skull and 8-Ball? Is one of them better than the other? Does anyone actually know which one is which? Did they themselves actually keep track of which was Skull and which was 8-Ball? When JR tells me that Skull is in against D-Lo, should I trust him? Should I trust JR to know the separate identities of Skull and 8-Ball, even though this is a War of Attrition match and JR very clearly did not know the definition of "attrition" when Lawler asked him to define it, and JR had to use schoolyard tacts like "*I* know what it is, do you?" until the moment you can tell someone came on the headset and told him the definition. You can tell someone came on, as JR was *floundering* and fucking seething at Lawler for pressing him on this, and after 20 agonizing seconds suddenly JR blurted out 6 synonyms for "attrition". (Skull has a slightly rounder face, FYI)

Shamrock dumps himself on his head doing a Japanese armdrag to D-Lo. 

Chainz drops several fast elbowdrops but I'm not sure if any of them are good. His big boot is better. 

Mark Henry looks like a total badass calling for Ahmed, and the crowd really comes alive when he and Ahmed start wailing on each other. 

D-Lo does a frog splash onto Ahmed's ass and legs, committing to the splash even as it looked like Ahmed was a man not expecting a frog splash. 

It is wild how much smaller Shamrock looks than everyone else in the match. 

Who could possibly give a shit that D-Lo Brown is a Certified Public Accountant, JR? How would that be interesting to any person watching D-Lo Brown in this War of Attrition? Talk about his nice Hitman elbowdrop.

Jesus now JR is talking about The Rock's degrees. JR tanked this match. They're fucking fighting JR, stop talking about everyone's fucking GPA. 

6. Vader vs. Kane

The cameras cut away just as Vader was about to do some V-hand crab dancing and shit this company hasn't known how to film wrestling in 25 years. 

Vader is throwing punches straight at Kane's forehead and then swinging his whole arm into the side of Kane's head. 

Vader gets a rear waistlock and grabs Kane by the hair with his left hand so he can punch Kane in the back of the head a bunch with his right, including one shot from behind that snuck up and under into Kane's temple. 

Kane isn't bad in control, but things are much better whenever it is Vader punching Kane in the head. 

Vader has taken big bumps for clotheslines. 

My dad would have made such a good Paul Bearer, if he was someone who ever dressed up in a costume for any reason (I have never seen my dad in any costume for any reason). My dad is more handsome than Paul Bearer, but the body shape and parted brown hair are too similar. 

Kane does his uppercut but he hadn't learned how to arm slap yet. 

Vader tests just how sturdy Kane's mask is by punching him directly into the face six times until Kane literally responds as if he's being swarmed by bees. 

Kane is wearing some insane Boris Karloff lifts, and whenever Vader rocks him with a standing clothesline you can really see them throwing Kane off balance. 

Does Vader have the best standing splash? It's up there. 

Kane's strikes don't look great, his top rope clothesline doesn't look great, but there's absolutely no denying how awesome it looks seeing Vader get tombstoned. 

7. Savio Vega/HHH/New Age Outlaws vs. Steve Austin/Cactus Jack/Chainsaw Charlie/Owen Hart

Savio Vega sure makes a lot of sense as a kayfabe partner and as a guy who would be able to work this match, but when a teenager hears Mystery Partner and that Mystery is replacing the World Heavyweight Champion, well...

All of the Austin/Gunn exchanges are really great. Gunn scrambling out of the ring to avoid a Stunner, then bashing Austin with the edge of a trash can on the floor, Austin running him the hell over with a clothesline, beating him with 1998 chairshots

Billy Gunn is doing all of Hunter's Flair bumps better than Hunter

Funk is in there taking nothing but damage, beaten by trash cans, getting powerbombed through a pair of chairs, taking a piledriver on a trash can lid, back suplex onto a lid, also threw a trash can into the air and taking the hit when it comes back down.

Billy Gunn has that Paul Koslo weave

Cutting Funk off from everyone else is a cool way to work this 8 man

Austin throws a mashed up trash can so hard at Billy Gunn's head, and again, Gunn bumping for Austin is perfection

Nobody backstage told Savio and Funk that they were wearing the same thing? Both got that big ol dad butt denim 

Owen Hart's best role is running in from the apron to back off DX, and then returning to the apron. He hits a great missile dropkick into Savio and later runs across the ring to hit a big dropkick and take swings at all of them. 

Ending is a bit abrupt, with Austin tagging in, wasting everyone quickly, and then just hitting a Stunner on Road Dogg, but the match was a really fun brawl. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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New Footage Friday: GUERREROS! PANTERA! APACHE! CASAS! FIERA! PIERROTH!

Los Guerreros Del Futuro (Damian El Guerrero/Guerrero del Futuro/Guerrero Maya) vs El Pantera/Filoso/Triton 9/7/93 - FUN

PAS:Solid workman like trios match and a chance to see Black Terry under a mask work this style. Pantera add the flash to the match with a bunch of flips and ranas. Terry(Maya) threw some big overhand chops and clotheslines. Felt more like a time filler then a standout match, but a pleasant way to fill some time.

MD: Perfectly fine trios here, from the Back to the Future music at the start to a motion-heavy finish. As Pantera pops up in this footage, I consistently like what I see. He had the best primera exchange with Futuro, though it also had the most time too. They started with a fun little head-to-head shoving match and moved onto solid matwork with good bridges from Pantera. He also had a nice moonsault press and unique step up wheel kick during the comeback. We didn't get much Maya (Black Terry) there, which was a shame. Really, past a few hard shots, his biggest contribution to the match was being in the right place for the stooging spots later on. The beatdown was fairly subdued, as they kept one rudo in the ring for most of it and kept things in their corner. The match never really exploded but it always kept moving.



El Mestizo/Gran Apache vs Escudero Rojo/Reyes Veloz 9/7/93

MD: It feels good to watch something with stakes and emotions and a hot crowd. This had a lot going for it, three heel control segments (which means three comebacks), Apache putting it all out there, his punches, an exciting, high-stakes finishing stretch, blood and guts. I really liked the end of the primera. The rudos had ambushed at the start and it looked like they were going to get the nod on a double stretch, but Apache came in with a dropkick on both guys. He then laid out one with an awesome punch and teased a dive outside only to turn it into a moonsault back into the ring as Mestizo hit a flip dive off the apron. The second beatdown came after an errant Apache punch which fed into the end of the segunda where once they got the rudos held for the shots, they just didn't stop and get DQed. One nitpick here is that I would have liked some color on the rudos here to help justify the weight of the DQ. Apache and Mesitzo bled (and got their wounds worked over) but the rudos never did. The tercera ended up as a one-on-one fairly quickly and had some pretty exciting post-dive countout teases and near falls, before the finish, where after a couple of missed leaps off the top, Apache had to chase his opponent down before hanging on and dropping him with a German. This is pretty much what you can reasonably hope for when a lost mid-card apuestas match shows up.


PAS: I think the work in this match was pretty basic, although the drama of the hair stipulation and the blood really brought the entire presentation up a big notch. I agree the technicos getting DQ'ed in the segunda was a little weird, this is an apuestas match, the ref has to give them a bit of rope. The third fall was an extended Apache vs. Rojo singles match, which had some real drama to it, interesting to see Apache here, as he really would go on to great things, he wasn't exactly a youngster but this is definitely some of the earliest footage we have of him.

Chamaco Valaguez/Faraón Jr/Oro vs Arkángel de la Muerte/Cachorro Salvaje/Drako 9/10/93

MD: Drako was some mysterious and short-lived North American in the gimmick. We're not sure who. I don't have an answer after watching this but I thought he had solid presence and size with a fairly potent knee shot. They built up a mystique of him going at it with Faraon, Jr. too with some pretty engaging pre-match theatrics. Guys eat falls in CMLL due to the 2/3 structure and he did fall to a German in the segunda but got his heat back (I guess) by getting DQed by wrenching Faraon's head on the top rope in the tercera. It was pretty unfulfilling. Oro was pretty over and had good energy. I liked how big a jerk Cachorro was. Arkangel hit an amazing sit out Rock Bottom to help end the segunda. Drako seemed competent enough that they could have run further with the gimmick. Maybe someday we'll know the story there.

Atlantis/La Fiera/Pierroth Jr vs Black Magic/Mano Negra/Negro Casas 9/10/93


MD: Fantastic stuff. This was building to the Anniversary show, where both Fiera and Casas and Mano Negra and Atlantis would have apuestas matches. They billed Casas, Magic, and Mano Negra as La Ola Negra, which I hadn't heard before. They do tag a handful of times between 92 and 94. This constantly entertaining with the fans very much into it. Fiera is such a perfect Casas opponent, gritty and tough, but with so many different kicks, all of which look good and Casas is so good at dodging one only to eat the next, that sort of thing. Atlantis and Mano Negra brought plenty of hate too, all the way to the mask ripping at the end. The beatdowns were glorious, the comebacks were earned and heated. There was an awesome bit where they picked up Fiera and drove him head first into the first row chairs before tossing Atlantis into the crowd and post match Fiera got revenge on Casas by doing the same. Pierroth and Magic were ok as bit players but this was really about the other four and made me want to go back and watch the 93 Anniversary show again.

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New Footage Friday: CMLL Handheld 11/25/95

Migra I/Migra II vs. Mexican Blanco/Súper Diablo (Erin O'Grady/Spike Dudley)

MD: I almost skipped this but I'm glad I didn't. It was a very fun opener. Blanco and Diablo were pretty creative and the Migras were solid bullies who weren't afraid to give and stooge. Very emotive and into what was happening. This followed southern tag structure more than you'd expect and the Migras looked like a million bucks in the heat. There were some wild and effective but very unfortunate acrobatics (the sort that land you on your own head) by the babyfaces but ultimately this was all pretty satisfying stuff for an opener.

PAS: I am guessing this was an all APW match. Diablo was listed on the file as Erin O'Grady (Crash Holly) and I am guessing Blanco was Matt Hyson (Spike Dudley). I assume La Migra was a pair of APW guys too (maybe Mike Modest and Maxx Justice). These guys all worked really well together, with Holly and Spike bumping like you would expect those guys to do, flying super high on monkey flips and eating shit on clotheslines. There were a bunch of dives which looked totally reckless in an awesome way, lots of flips which looked seconds away from killing both the guy who took it and the guy who dove. I really liked the German suplex which finished the match, fun stuff from some green guys who would go on to do things.

ER: Phil is right, this is definitely Modest and Justice as La Migra, a gimmick that has somehow sustained itself in northern and southern California indies. Modest and Justice were the first ones doing the gimmick, and after they stopped using it someone else would use it. even Brian Cage was a member of La Migra at one point in the 2010s. I'm not 100% certain that Matt Hyson is the non Erin O'Grady here, but my only other guess would be Chris Cole (I don't think Hyson ever had the muscle the non O'Grady had, and the offense didn't seem like Hyson's from this era). And this match is really great. This ranks among the best APW stuff I've seen, and I've seen more of it than most. Modest was so polished just a few years in, he really was a natural. But Maxx Justice/Mike Diamond also should have gone places and did bigger things. He was a legitimately intimidating dude with a great angry face, tall, with a big upper body (his day job was throwing luggage around for an airline, which feels like a great workingman's job that a 60s/70s regional babyface like The Crusher would have). But he takes moves really well from flyers. He caught dives and saved a huge rana from the top rope to the floor, and had this great base moment where he cut extremely low on a lariat before catching O'Grady. O'Grady had some crazy stuff, a guy who really did deserve to make it. He gets alleyooped into a dragon rana, hits a great tope, tope con hilo, that rana to the floor, all really big stuff for this era, and he also took two big bumps off the apron skidding across the floor. Hyson/Cole/whomever had some wild stuff too, great somersault senton off the apron and from the middle buckle to the floor, and hits a nice tandem dive with O'Grady. La Migra actually felt like a dangerous gimmick to be working in Los Angeles, feels like a thing that could have got Modest jumped. This match really showed the level of talent in mid 90s bay area indies,  incredible to get talents like this all at once, when you looked at what other American indies looked like in 95/96.


Los Brazos vs. Apolo Dantés/Pirata Morgan/Satánico

MD: This was just the second match on the card. The fans were familiar here and knew what they wanted and what they were getting, which was heaping amounts of Porky. The Primera had a bit of feeling out and one rudo swarm tease (the Brazos rushed in) before the rudos went cheap on a handshake and took over for real with triple teams. The segunda was a long bit of FIP heat, cutting off the ring, before the Brazos had enough and rushed forth. I'm not sure I'd have been as okay with that with normal tecnicos (as it defies logic more than having a thematic beatdown on one wrestler after another) but there's such a chaotic element to the Brazos that it worked. Most of the match was in the tercera, with Oro fighting off everyone and Porky doing a lot of comedy before they launched the dives. Satanico hit a nestea plunge off the apron on the far side of the ring which I don't think I've ever seen him do and somehow adds to his legend. They were chanting for Porky to dive well before it was his turn. The finish was fun as it was one of those everyone gets pinned out of a multi-man submission spots that never actually works and did here. I always appreciate that. The fans appreciated all of this and money was tossed in post match. There was literally no way this was going to be bad given who was in there.

PAS: Brazos are maybe the greatest formula wrestlers of all time. Nothing is more enjoyable then watching them do their match, you don't need any extra juice, the rudos really just have to show up. This match however had two first ballot hall of fame rudos and Dantes who was a king in the 90s. So not only to we get awesome Brazos stuff, but there is so true class to play off of. Satanico is a great Super Porky opponent, very comfortable with playing along, but also willing to get really nasty when it is desired. That Cactus elbow off of the apron was a true Holy Shit moment. We get some big time Pirata bumps too, and Dantes hits a great looking Superfly splash. Porky is of course a joy, he was at both peak fat and near peak agility at this point, and he hits his top rope dive so hard he nearly bounces out of the ring, he also reverses a double wrist lock by springboarding off the top rope into a flip, mind bending stuff from a guy who looks like Homer in the Simpson episode he got Obese to get on disability.


Silver King/Vampiro vs. The Headhunters

MD: This cuts off midway through the segunda, so all we really get is a mauling by the Head Hunters. Really, though, that's all we needed. They were tremendously effective at what they did. Not much more to say here except for that the crowd really wanted to get behind the tecnicos and that Silver King was one of the top guys in the world at working the apron and milking a moment at this point.

Atlantis/Héctor Garza/Pantera vs. Eddy Guerrero/Emilio Charles Jr/Felino

MD: I really liked this. Captains are Atlantis and Charles, and they set the tone immediately by having Charles get a cheapshot in on Atlantis during the announcements. After a brief exchange early where Atlantis gets the advantage, he dodges him for much of the rest of the match (though runs all the way around the ring into a quebradora as the tecnicos take the primera). The other main pairings are Felino and Pantera which works out quite well and Eddy and Garza which starts off a bit slow but on the second and third time through gets great. Late Garza is one of my favorite wrestlers period, so sometimes I don't give Early Garza enough credit, probably, but the point of comparison is always Eddy. I have no idea why the latter is here as he'd been working WCW for a few months now, but I'm not complaining. Once he really unleashes the rudo fury on him (after Felino sneaks in a foul on Pantera to turn the tide in the segunda), the beating is primal. Guerrero refuses to pin him after a nasty, wild powerbomb and then superplexes him and has Felino hold him down for the frog splash. Between falls, he slaps him and hits the brainbuster and locks in a STF for good measure. The comeback is a little all over the place, with Atlantis fighting to get his mask back on and just whipping Charles (who cries foul) around the ring, but Garza sliding all the way from one side of the screen, through the ring, to the other to get revenge on Eddy is great stuff. I could have used another minute or two of comeback, but Pantera gets to creatively upstage Felino, Atlantis gets the decisive win with the Atlantida on Charles, and post match, Eddy perfectly catches Garza on his signature dive. Post match, after the other rudos had left, Eddy wants a shake and Hector gives him one and it felt a little like a passing of the torch even if the real points of comparison would come years later. Always something to see here and it was always something worth seeing.


Mascara Ano Dos Mil vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr.

MD: Phil's already covered the Casas vs Santo match elsewhere, so this is our de facto main event. Lucky us. Look, it's been a while since I've willingly watched a Rayo match, especially a singles match, but the flip side of that is that it's been so long that maybe I'd be happily surprised? I love how if you go to the official ELP youtube page and find "Touch and Go" almost all of the first comments are in Spanish and about the Dinamitas. This is, obviously, a completely bullshit title match. Instead of matwork in the primera, there's lots of competent Mascara Ano stalling and a bunch of dancing foolishness by Rayo. There are basically two holds, one to stooge Mascara so he can go out and stall again, and one to finish it. The segunda is even less substantial, just a couple quebradoras, a couple of whips, and a missed top rope move by Rayo. My favorite spot in all of this was probably Rayo hitting two bouncing grounding headbutts and then comedically missing the third. My other favorite bit was him accidentally diving on the wrong person twice. We didn't even get Mascara punching him a bunch. This was not good lucha and I was not happily surprised.

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New Footage Friday: FUCK ITS! SUPER DRAGON! NEGRO CASAS! EL DANDY! SILVER KING! FAMILIA DE TIJUANA! EMILIO CHARLES JR.!

Felino/Emilio Charles Jr./Dr. Wagner Jr./Negro Casas vs. Pantera/Silver King/El Dandy/El Texano CMLL 12/16/95

PAS: This was an elimination 8 man tag with eight all time great wrestlers going out there are just flowing for 30+ minutes. We open with Negro Casas and El Dandy ripping it up on the mat and just go from there. Matches like these are always going to be more about the rhythm then any real story, although I did dig it coming down the Wagner boys. Fun Wagner performance as he was just planting people with powerbombs, and of course Dandy and Casas were both tremendous. As I have said a million times Casas is the master of minutia, little reactions or sells or execution on moves, everything matters and counts, and it is fun to watch him flit in and out of a match with so many other all timers.

MD: It's a 4x4 Cibernetico with some of the best talents of the era. What's not to like? According to the old WON I looked at, this was billed as "for La Copa de altra rendimiento which basically means the Cup of high-class submissions," and Dave was baffled at the pinfall finish. Anyway, it was interesting how this flowed. You didn't get a lot of clear pairings with defined beginnings and endings but instead transitions between one wrestler and the next. Of the pairings we did get, Silver King vs. Negro Casas stood out. I always love the little trip spots they work into their exchanges. Very few dives but lots of great exchanges and big moves. Maybe Casas kicked out of one or two more things than he ought of, especially when there were still enough guys around to allow for interference, but that's a small issue, as was the botch on the Felino elimination. Wagner came out of this looking like a big deal. And yeah, while it's cliché for us to say it, Dandy's punches were sure great.

ER: I love having a collection of these types of matches, the kind of match I can throw on in the background if a friend or two are over and everyone in the room gets their own level of enjoyment out of it based on their individual concentration level. The person concentrating the most gets the benefit of seeing small sequences or individual movements, but someone dicking around on their phone will still look up and see Silver King stomping the hell out of Emilio Charles' knee or Dandy getting Casas out of the way with a breathless magistral. They'll see fast moves done by men they don't know who have large perms. It's worked at such a pace that it's perfectly entertaining for every level of involvement. I thought the major standout here was Texano, looking like the stiffest and most aggressive guy in a match filled with stiff strikes and fast aggressive sequences. Everyone was lighting up everyone, like Emilio Charles throwing skeleton rattling corner clotheslines or Wagner crushing Pantera with a sitout powerbomb. Casas is the perfect kind of glue for a match like this, and Dandy comes off so plucky and punchy. I get why Dandy didn't translate to southern American wrestling crowds, but seeing him in his wheelhouse and basking in his enthusiasm is infectious. He looks like the coolest version of Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born. The first three minutes of this match are just Dandy and Casas tearing through brisk mat sequences and really its all you need. This is the kind of thing you can play through a couple times and notice new stuff each pass.

Super Dragon/Rising Son/Pantera vs. Damian 666/Halloween/Nicho El Millonario Rev Pro 11/30/02 - GREAT

PAS: This was Super Dragon really clearly excited to work a Familia de Tijuana match. Most of Dragon's career was fitting people into his formula, so it was fun to watch him fit into a formula. We get some early lucha comedy, some pratfalls, an awesome somersault rana through the post by Dragon and a killer finish. Really enjoyed Rising Son in this as he was ripping off high difficultly ranas with true pros there available to base for him. The kind of match which must have sent the crowd home on a real lucha high.

MD: Whatever I was doing in the early 00s, it wasn't watching RevPro. I guess I was focused on the East coast scene? I have no idea. That made this pretty fresh for me. The biggest problem was that La Familia de Tijuana was just too over as cool heels, getting more cheers by far, to the point where I was sort of embarrassed for Pantera at one point. They didn't adapt the match for the crowd. That said, everyone seemed to be having fun, especially Damien who was goofing a bit more than usual. They did a lot of groin based offense accordingly. Nicho based beautifully but there's nothing new with that. Super Dragon was in there less than Rising Son but his flipping tope out through the corner to set up the finish was breathtaking. The timing of the dives at the end felt a little off to maximize the moment, but I doubt anyone in that crowd cared.

Nasty Russ vs. T-Money vs. Jay Donaldson vs. Samson Walker NWF 8/15/15

PAS: This was a four-way cage match with our boys the Jollyville Fuck-Its against each other along with two other Kentucky area indy guys. It was a spotfest cage match and the Jollyville boys are guys with huge spots, and Donaldson and Walker were right there. Walker is a big guy, even bigger than T-Money and he does some chucking around including catapulting Donaldson into an ace crusher. We don't get a Nasty Russ cannonball, but we do get a crazy moonsault off the cage into Walker's feet, and several nasty cage bumps including one where he goes forehead first into a steel post. Finish was absolutely psychotic and one of greatest cage finishes I have ever seen. Total blast and a great look at some Segunda Caida favorites earlier in their careers.

MD: If you're going to have four guys in a cage, fatal four-way style, this is a pretty good way to do it. This gave everyone time to shine. When guys had to lay around, it was generally warranted. The characters were well-defined. Walker was comedic yet powerful and explosive. Donaldson had the hype man, the step-up kicks, the attitude, and the opportunism. Russ carried himself like a champ, tenacious, with fighting spirit and an easy charisma, and T-Money was an unquestionable force. The setting felt like an indy lucha match that just happens in a public square, which added to the ambiance. The big spots were sufficiently big (killing your own knees by landing on a moonsault from the top is insane and the finishing stretch worked really well). The gaga at the end (Walker faking an injury in a cage match to get the door open; Donaldson dismantling the ring, a unique use of a wrench to say the least, with the ref going above and beyond to cover for how long it was taking, the friends having victory and the belt between them at the end) was fun, even if you don't usually want gaga in a cage match. You definitely felt the stakes throughout, which is what you want in a match like this.

ER: This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to watch on my lunch break today. A loose cage with four guys willing to die, with a finish so doomed that if I hadn't seen these guys wrestle at a later date I would have just assumed that this did actually end with two of the guys dying. Russ and T-Money have seen a lot of praise from Segunda Caida. Those Boys from Jollyville are really the two that got us into AIW proper, and they're the team that has probably most often been referenced by us as a dream match tag opponent over the past couple years. I loved seeing the ways they acted as a team here, and even more excited for the gigantic moment where they were not together. I am not familiar with Samson or Donaldson, but came away especially impressed with Samson. As Phil said, he's almost like an even bigger version of T-Money, and had insane pop up strength. He shot Donaldson so far into the air a couple times that his body cleared the top of the cage, once for a super high backdrop and once for a fantastic looking cutter; but he also hoisted T-Money up for a sit up powerbomb like it was absolutely nothing at all, jerking him up sky high before bringing him down. I also loved how Samson basically stopped the match with an injury, waited until everyone was otherwise occupied, then dove for the cage door to attempt escape. That feels like Chris Hamrick Cage Match 101 and I love it. Donaldson had one dodgy strike exchange, but did a lot of things I liked. At one point he broke up a move by hitting an enziguiri right into Samson's armpit (intentionally targeted) and hit another enziguiri that really landed. He also ripped apart the ring ropes and strangled Russ with the rope, beating him with a wrench and buckle. Russ always flew into action with his awesome big punch, everyone took big bumps (Russ moonsault into feet was wild), and the finish was spectacular.

Everything about the finish was great, with T-Money about to escape but getting lured back in when Donaldson threatened to brain Russ with a chair. Money gets back in and just destroys Donaldson with a Pounce, sending him flying sideways into the cage. As Money is about to exit, Russ grabs his ankle, and we get a great bit of friendship when Money looks down and says "come on man". He already saved Russ from getting his face rearranged by a chair, and now the guy won't even let him win? Well, he certainly solves that problem, picking Russ up in a bearhug and running him straight through the cage door, sending both crashing to the grass in brutal fashion. T-Money looked like he went straight down, Russ crashed and burned underneath. Money had to leap, holding Russ, over the top rope and through a cage door, so both of their trajectories were beyond fucked. I can't think of many match finishes more spectacular than this one. I would have lost my mind live, then calmed myself down to make sure I didn't witness a death, then lost my mind again.

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WWF Raw 2/9/98: A Good Episode of Wrestling TV

I threw on this episode of Raw because I wanted to see the cruiser tag, but I found myself captivated by what looked like a top to bottom rock solid pro wrestling card. Every match looked fun on paper, figured I would dive back into my teens.

Jeff Jarrett/Barry Windham vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got actual cool tag teams with them, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a flat out 1985 NWA tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Hawk took a really nasty bump for the finish, charging into the ringpost and falling to the floor. The crowd was already into LOD, just two big dudes in face paint running into people would have been enough, but Hawk is out here taking bumps like this. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. this was great TV tag wrestling.

Pierre vs. Henry Godwinn

ER: A slow burning hoss battle and a rare singles match appearance from 1998 Pierre, who takes several crazy bumps. Both guys hit hard, really swinging limbs into each other, and Pierre kicks things up a notch with a bonkers no hands tope that falls a little short, so the big man just does a gigantic belly flop to the floor. Godwinn takes a nice spill to the floor, too, but here's Pierre taking a big lariat over the top to the floor, missing a huge in ring cannonball, and getting super height on a backdrop. They kept a real pace here, really filling the minutes with a lot more movement than I expected from two tag guys. This was a big man's match where the misses were just important as the hits, and both landed heavy.

Pantera/Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku/Aguila

ER: This show is an easy 3 for 3 so far. This match got 6 big minutes and everyone here made the most of those minutes. Pantera gets catapulted over the top and gets big air before crashing hard, and then Christopher gets backdropped to the floor, with Pantera taking a somersault bump into him after getting dropkicked off the apron. Aguila hits a killer corkscrew plancha, Taka hits one of his breathtaking no hands springboard planchas; this was a hot freaking match and the crowd was reacting well. Christopher had a long heel control segment on Aguila that was real good, and I forgot how strong the reactions were for Aguila. There's a great moment where Christopher narrowly ducks a high arcing, 2/3 across the ring Aguila moonsault press, and Aguila grazes vertically over the top of him and lands belly first on the mat. The finish was a great Memphis finish, with Christopher digging in under his balls to pull out a fake weapon, and Pantera shoving the crotch weapon into the nose of his mask. Pantera leaps off the middle buckle right into Taka, and Taka bumps as if he just got hit in the face with a sock of nickels. High end WWF cruiser match for the time. Pantera had this incredible 6 match run in 1998, bounced, then came back for more a year later. I'd love to know who was asking about Pantera every year.  

Ken Shamrock/Chainz vs. The Rock/Faarooq

ER: I really liked Chainz here, he of arguably the dumbest WWF wrestling name of 1998. But he hit with big clubbing hands to the side of Rock's ear, took a nice Nation beatdown, and took a big bump over the top and into the guardrail. Faarooq had a nice powerslam and took Shamrock's sillier MMA strikes (he still hadn't figured out punches, but his kicks were thrown nicely), and Shamrock hits a really cool standing rana. Rock stooged around nicely and took advantage of cheating with such confidence, he was really operating at peak heel power already. House show Rock was probably amazing during this period. The match ends with a DQ when Rock absolutely obliterates Shamrock's brain cells with a chairshot. Good lord. Rock swings a chair right into the flat of the forehead and this was a 19 fucking 98 chairshot indeed.

Steve Blackman vs. Recon

ER: This ruled. Blackman does a bunch of karate blocks and chops and a big armdrag, and suddenly the Truth Commission's (genuinely great, almost John Carpenter influenced) music starts up and Jackal gets lowered from the ceiling speaking over the house mic from a podium. He cuts this wild Jim Jones promo about how the WWF fears him, and Blackman and Recon bizarrely have a match like they have no idea it's going on. They don't stop once to look over at Jackal's sermon, just continue having a very normal (and very fun) match. It's so weird!! Blackman comes off as a more interesting worker than Shamrock at this point (though he has no crowd connection whatsoever. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge anybody other than his opponent), and here he's awesomely and robotically going through every single move he knows, landing weird elbow drops, high spinkicks, a fast sunset flip, and finishing with a cool rings of Saturn variation. The whole presentation of this was strange in a great way.

Goldust vs. Thrasher

ER: This is the late 90s, and so Goldust is dressed as Marilyn Manson (and really is wearing almost the exact same gear Charly Manson would later use), and we have to hear JR obnoxiously call him "Marilyn Manson Dust" the entire match. I hated how he said it every time. Mare-uhh-lenn MAN-sun Dust. We don't get too many Thrasher singles matches, and this is a unique match up, and a Goldust singles match is almost always going to work even if it's Goldust working with a stupid wig. They do oddly get mixed up on who is supposed to be the heel, with Mosh choking Goldust from the floor and Goldust getting a babyface comeback right after. But this match had Goldust throwing several great punches, Thrasher hitting a cool springboard back elbow, a nice Goldust hotshot on the barricade, the kind of stuff I wanted to see.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: El Mosco in WWF

"El Mosco"/Abismo Negro/Histeria vs. Los Cadetes del Espacio (Discovery/Super Nova/Venum) WWF Raw 3/24/97

ER: This was plenty fun, with Abismo Negro looking like the guy of this group who could cross over. He got arguably the biggest reaction of the match when he powerbombed the hell out of Super Nova. Abismo also bumped upside down off the ropes and took a great bump around the ringpost. He did incredible little things that nobody else was doing in these matches, like actually acting like he was trying to stop the tecnicos from flying. He's the guy on the apron leaping futilely after Venum as Venum launches himself with a top rope quebrada to the floor. Venum also could have broken out with American fans. He was really fearless at this point, crazy with his body (like doing a springboard flip to the floor and landing on his feet), his a couple inventive headscissors, got some noise. Histeria was the bumper of the group, really flying hard backwards off moves, looking like a small Buzz Sawyer. He took this huge flying bump through the ropes to the floor, tumbling hard to the entrance ramp, and then ate a big tope con giro from Discovery.

There was only one problem with this match: It didn't actually have El Mosco. The onscreen graphic says El Mosco when the Galaxy Rudos make their way out, but it is Maniaco. Vince even calls him Maniaco, so this was merely a screen graphic error that has then been circulated incorrectly around match lists for 20 years. A fun match, but our search for WWF El Mosco is starting weird. 

El Mosco/Abismo Negro/Histeria/Maniaco vs. Discovery/Super Nova/Venum/Ludxor WWF Shotgun   4/5/97

ER: Ah, there he is! And this has to be the frontrunner for best match of the AAA/WWF failed/aborted/misguided showcase of talent. Perhaps most notably, in an 8 man battle between The Space Cadets and the Rudos of the Galaxy, JR calls 6 of the 8 by the correct name (he mixes up Abismo Negro and El Mosco, which is a higher percentage of success than I was expecting). Brian Pillman also wonders if these men were perhaps smuggling strawberries in their butt across the border, but JR at least attempted to learn names and call the action seriously. This felt like the kind of spotfest that could have actually caught on and gotten great reactions in front of WWF audiences, if WWF cared about what kind of reaction it got. This was a breathless spotfest with good pairings, short (6 minutes or so) and to the point, that the crowd was already reacting to by the time it was done. Most of this crowd likely viewed this as Max Moon x4 vs. Max Moon x4, but the wrestlers went for it and I thought succeeded. 

The best pairing was El Mosco and Venum, with Mosco bumping all over for slick ranas and headscissors, then catching a huge Venum dive to the floor. Venum's flying looked really great and the two of them went insanely fast through all of it, and the fans didn't know what to expect from the moment Venum hit a dragon rana. I assume most in attendance had never seen anything like that before. Mosco even took the big belly flop slide on the floor, and slid so far that he flew PAST the padded mats and onto the entrance way. Venum also does nice extra hard bumping, running chest first into the buckles as if he was really trying to show WWF he had done his homework on their top stars. 

Abismo and Discovery were fun as hell, with Discovery hitting a big tope con giro and Abismo later getting clowned by Nova into missing a tope con giro, crashing but first onto the floor (Abismo can later be seen working out his cheeks while walking ringside). Maniaco almost lawndarts himself taking a Jerry bump (that he thankfully does last minute fully rotate on), and wraps himself around the ringpost in an awesome way, splatting on the ring steps on his way down, then eating a huge flying headbutt from Nova after propelling him up the buckles. The Rudos were basing like crazy during this whole thing, pushing the Cadets to a super fast pace, and the Cadets met that pace. Fans were quiet when Maniaco and Nova started, but 5 minutes in they were into it. This was nothing but slick ranas, cool armdrags, big dives, great bumps, big powerbombs, all of it cool. These guys easily could have been a special attraction on house shows, Raw openers, whenever; and it's a shame we never got to see WHO would have been the breakouts from the AAA group, just because none of them were ever given any time to breakout. 

El Mosco vs. Super Nova WWF Raw 3/31/97

ER: This was a pretty good representative for the whole AAA in WWF experiment as a whole: Two guys - who honestly may as well not have been given names - thrown into the ring with no kind of hype, killing themselves to little reaction, while Vince talks to Sunny, and Sunny grinds on Hugo Savinovich during the most dangerous highspot of the match, assuring that nobody calls it. There is also a running thread of powerbombs getting a bigger crowd reaction than any other highspot the AAA luchadors do. It's as if planchas and tornillos confuse them, but a guy getting splatted with a big powerbomb is a universally accepted thud. Vince calls two spots that were supposed to miss (including a big sky twister press from Super Nova) as if they were blown spots, and seemingly nobody in the arena notices when Super Nova hits a crazy tope con giro into El Mosco, while Mosco is *seated* on the entrance ramp. Nova covered a lot of distance, the visual looked incredible...but admittedly, Sunny's black dress *was* impossibly tight.

El Mosco/El Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku/Scott Taylor WWF Shotgun 11/8/97

ER: So the AAA showcase experience was long over, but they brought Mosco back for a one-off, a way to pad their burgeoning LightHeavyweight division before they also lost interest in that a few months later. I don't think I've ever seen this match, and it rules. It starts with Mosco leading Scott Taylor through some cruiser offense that felt very atypical for Taylor. Taylor broke out a headscissors and a big cannonball off the apron, then hit a missile dropkick and landed on his feet like he was Bruce Lee out here with early 90s Brian Pillman hair. Mosco would get to shine a bit later, but early on it was all about leading Taylor through fun and passable lucha sequences. 

The real money was in the Taka/Pantera exchanges, and they cruelly cut who knows how much out of our time with them for commercial purposes. The second Pantera tagged in he hit a gorgeous rolling armdrag on Taka, rolling smoothly right over his back and sending Taka to the floor. Pantera does his dope rolling headscissors to the apron, that sends Taka crashing hard to the floor (a move they'd get to do on PPV a couple months later, which is a crazy PPV singles match we got, in retrospect), and then Pantera just obliterates Taka with a tope, running from the apron and diving past the ringpost. The lunatic even did it through the ring corner where the steps were, the worst of the four corners to try that lunacy. Mosco and Pantera control segment was nice, from the simple things like a picture perfect tandem drop toehold on Taylor, to a cool as hell springboard flipping legdrop from Mosco. The ending is pretty simple, as obviously we know Taka is winning all of these matches, and at a certain point they kinda rush into go home mode and Take just starts dropping Mosco with kicks, a nice brainbuster, and the Michinoku driver. So a simple way to wrap things up, but the whole match was filled with gold, the types of things nobody else was doing on WWF TV at the time. Mosco looked great in all of his WWF appearances, but there was clearly nothing he could have actually done in the ring to get hired. The fact we got a dozen or two Pantera matches in WWF was an actual lucha miracle.

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RIP Angel of Death

Arkangel De La Muerte vs. Pantera CMLL 9/21/99

ER: We purposely made the title of this post misleading so that we could clickbait some guy who was looking forward to us finally reviewing Angel of Death vs. John Tatum from Global. But seriously, Arkangel de la Muerte is one of the first names I thought of when I think of guys who I discovered because of the DVDVR 500. I would go through the top 100 and write down names of any guys I didn't know, and actively seek out matches from all of them. In the late 90s that lead me to Arkangel (a couple years later that would lead me to Michael Todd Stratton/Todd Morton), and what I saw I instantly liked. He always felt like a cool fusion of luchador with southern asskicking heel. He bumped generously, threw stiff arm lariats and cool scoop powerbombs, but would also roll on the mat and hit fast dives. He pretty quickly became a guy I would always seek out. And I liked what he brought here against Pantera. Pantera was going to be bringing the flash, and he does, with a beautiful springboard tope con hilo and various rana and headscissor combinations.

But there were two big moments where Arkangel showed who he was, showed why his game was respected. He bumps generously and amusingly on two big Pantera spots where Pantera either half assed or quit early on. Pantera hits a big leaping rana off the top, but it's really going through the motions, making no attempt to actually look like his legs and momentum are whipping Arkangel off the top, just doing an impression of a big rana. But Arkangel launches himself halfway across the ring off that loose shrug of a rana. To end the primera Pantera hits his gorgeous inverted headscissors on the apron, except his ankles don't actually land on Arkangel's shoulders and instead he basically gives Arkangel double knees to the back of the head before crashing across the edge of the apron. But Arkangel takes this majestic sprawling bump, launching himself off the apron sideways and rolling across the floor, kicking his legs spasmodically, and keeps kicking them as he's rolled back in the ring, and keeps kicking them the whole time he's getting pinned. I've seen Pantera hit that spot cleaner dozens of times, but due to Arkangel's selling I'm sure that nobody in the arena was thinking about Pantera not hitting it clean. We get some lucha that I miss, like Pantera slamming Arkangel and looking to the crowd to see if he should go up top, before opting not to. And we get several nice Arkangel moments: a picture perfect stomp to Pantera's ear in the tercera (his real ear, and his panther ear), those quick release scoop powerbombs I love (and that he was still using in the last match I saw him), a nice seated powerbomb to win, nice full extension senton with great snap and style, and a fast full force tope into the aisleway that was my favorite spot of the match. I've always loved Arkangel as a kind of lucha Finlay, and he'll always be a guy I go back and watch. I noticed him start to slow down noticeably in matches last year, and I hope he was not in much pain during his last year on Earth. At minimum I'm glad he got a long, respected career.

PAS: There aren't a ton of long Arkangel singles matches, and it is cool to watch him work a long title match. Pantera is definitely the more flashy of the two guys, but this was clearly a match controlled and put together by Arkangel, Eric mentioned him covering for some of Pantera's iffy execution, and this was a Lil B level based god performance. That bump he took on the semi blown headscissors to the floor was awesome and nasty. I also loved a lot of the little things he brought to the match, his straight arm clothesline looks like he is hitting a guy with a baseball bat, and that tope was truly awesome as was Pantera's bump. What a pro Arkangel was, the ultimate mechanic, put him anywhere on the card and he is going to look good and make everyone around him look good.


Arkangel vs. El Hijo Del Santo CMLL 11/17/95

ER: What an all time great WorldWide match. This is under 4 minutes and part of a tournament, but is absolute rolling fire. It starts hot with Santo locking on several of his incomparable crossed ankle headscissors, rolling Arkangel through in a few cool ways as Ark kicks and flails out of pain and frustration. Santo also hits a sweet rolling piledriver/headscissors takedown that I don't think I've ever seen, and we get cool moments of Arkangel trying to spread and put pressure on Santo's hips, dropping headbutts on Santo's stomach, and getting caught in more headscissors. There's a great moment where Santo goes for one of his kneelifts and Arkangel catches him and deadlifts him into a back suplex, and the tope Arkangel hits is absolutely 10 stars, looks like he practically broke Santo's jaw with a flying lariat. But as always, Arkangel is giving, and Santo hits a beautiful tope headbutt into the ring, with Arkangel taking this awesome bump, spinning around and landing face first on the mat before eating the camel clutch. I've never seen these two work together and this really should be considered a legendary sprint.

PAS: Very neat short match, lucha tournament wrestling is usually pretty lame, but this was a blast. The little teases of matwork here make me feel like there is some untaped long classic between the two, loved all of the work Arkangel working the core and thighs and his rolling back elbow into a missile tope was dope. I like how much Santo let him shine in a short match, he may have lost quick, but he looked great.

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Lucha Worth Watching: IWRG and the Stiffest Punches in Puebla

Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro/Relampago vs. Imposible/Odin/Pantera (IWRG 2/12/17)

ER: Fun rudo beatdown that wouldn't have taken much more to land on our MOTY list. The rudos are all total bullies and it leads to some nice comebacks from the tecnicos. Los Cerebros are the perfect complement to each other: Dr. brings the mean striking and Negro brings the fast bumps that look great on a tecnico comeback, just try not to fall in love with them while they hold a seated Pantera's arms and chop/kick him to a pulp. Both of them lay a beating on Odin - who I had never seen before - but Odin seems like a guy who can take a good beating, leaning into a nasty avalanche from Doc. He had my heart when he got launched by a backdrop, and his gorgeous pop up headscissors in the tercera sealed the deal. While Cerebros are doing damage in the ring, Relampago is dragging Imposible around and throwing him through the crowd, Imposible taking some great bumps through chairs, getting those hard plastic chairs thrown at his head. Later Imposible gets revenge and it's Relampago bumping through the crowd and getting beaten with chairs, Relampago even takes a funny stooge bump getting into the ring, "botching" a springboard and screaming at the crowd, and I loved Relampago's wild Ong Bak-esque headscissors on Imposible down the stretch. Really the only thing holding this back is a few clunky moments in the middle with Pantera, but it's minor and even those were saved by a alley oop dropkick (sending Negro flying super fast to the floor) and a nice armdrag on Doc. Everybody was really busting butt in this one. You could see stuff happening off in the periphery, like Doc slamming Pantera into a post or Relampago flying off the ring barrier with a legdrop, stuff done when the roving camera wasn't even on them. That kind of energy always sets something like this apart.

Negro Casas/Rush v. El Terrible/Sagrado (Puebla 1/8/17)

ER: A 5 minute match on a free show, how good could it be? Well, it fits in several little stories, has the stiffest punches I've seen from any of the 4 men this year, and it's under a circus tent. So, pretty good. Rush and Terrible trade at the start, both men hammering opposite fists, both throwing serious blows. Within any given Terrible match you'll see Terrible punch someone in the head with a wicked stiff punch, and then also throw one of the prettier worked punches you've seen. And you don't know which is going to be which. Rush gets them both. Rush is under a circus tent and he's surely aiming to  be the greatest show on earth here. He hams it up nicely with the crowd, lies in his Burt-Reyonlds-in-Playgirl pose, smacks Casas and yells at him to hit Terrible harder, kicks Terrible so hard in the back that you don't need any Lucha Underground sound sweetening, a real showman. The Casas/Terrible showdown in question is awesome. Terrible, towering over Casas, wants a strike exchange and even allows Casas to have the first few shots. Casas throws a few good ones, then blasts Terrible in the neck and throat with a couple HARD elbows, but they still somehow don't faze Terrible. So Casas awesomely falls back on the middle rope to spring up with the hardest forearm yet, knocking Terrible down. Terrible then gets up, squares up, and breaks Casas' face with a left hook. Casas ends up coming back and hitting a huge Thesz press to the floor to the approval of a loud crowd. Maybe the stiffest lucha match I've seen this year.

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Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report, 10/20/13

Alright, so with this episode (with more matches from the 5/11/13 show in Turlock), literally EVERY match on that card EXCEPT for the Santo match has now been aired. Does the match exist on tape? Did the match actually even happen?

1. Pantera/Famous B vs. Kafu/Dinamita

I realize fairly early that this is not the real Pantera, just some guy. Kafu and Dinamita are two Brody-ish clones (But look more like El Terrible a few weeks after losing a hair match). Match is structured really weird as Kafu is billed at 6'4" and 240, and Dinamita looks to be the same size or larger. But they're both working FIP to Famous B and Pantera who each look about 70 lbs smaller. None of the heel control segments worked well, as neither Pantera or Famous B seemed believable enough to control two significantly larger dudes. There was a real ugly Total Elimination where Pantera's weak leg sweep and Famous B's whiffed spin kick left Kafu just kinda windmilling his arms around before just softly bumping. Kafu is a guy who started in APW over a decade ago, and still does not look good at all in the ring. He had a WWE developmental deal at one point, but still looks tentative and soft in the ring. Real light clotheslines thrown at half speed, slow big boots, okayish knee drop. Leaves a LOT to be desired. Dinamita on the other hand looked like somebody I would want to see again. Everything Kafu did lousy, Dinamita made look good. Plus he busted out a real nice rana, big slingshot somersault senton, squashed Pantera with a back senton, etc. His offense didn't fit his look at all, as he's decked out like Brody but then does moves like a 170 lb indy undercarder (I'm gonna catch your bodypress off the top with a Diamondcutter!!!). Face-dominating tag matches are pretty pointless, especially when your two faces tower over the two "heels" (who didn't really attempt to be heels). Still, goofiness aside, I'd like to see more Dinamita. Preferably not with the other three. Also Sparky Ballard now appears to be working a heel ref gimmick but completely half-assed, as the only times you would notice it would be when he'd slow count Kafu or Dinamita, and then after the match he was pissed that they won. Other than that he was totally normal. I don't get it.

2. Cheerleader Melissa vs. Ivelisse Velez

Short match, just a few minutes. Ivelisse didn't really look that good. I have almost zero memory of her on Tough Enough, but she apparently hasn't learned tons since then. There really just isn't much that happens here. Melissa carries her through some sequences, Velez throws a weak kick to the stomach, Melissa ends up winning after a nasty curbstomp and a cool surfboard variation. Too short to be much of anything.

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Back About Eighteen and Twenty Five Black Terry left Naucalpan Very Much Alive

Guerrero Maya/Guerrero Del Futuro/Damien El Guerrero v. Atlantico/Ciclon Ramirez/Zumbido CMLL 9/13/96 - SKIPPABLE
I am still waiting to find the quality Los Guerreros match. Like most midcard CMLL matches of the 90's this had some individual moments of cool shit. We got a fun exchange between Guerrero Maya and Ciclon Ramirez, and Zumbido hit a cool corner tope. Still the last two falls were really short, and there were a couple of really awkward blown spots. Also I think the opening exchange between Damien El Guerrero and Alantico was actively bad. Plus this is another Ciclon Ramirez match without a Ciclon Ramirez tope. NO SIR!!

Black Terry v. Cerebro Negro IWRG 11/22/07 - EPIC

Tremendous match which is a better finish away from being the MOTY for 2007, and is the best Black Terry singles match I have seen. This is a violent hair match which is one of the best things in professional wrestling. This truly felt like a war, there were multiple moments where both guys forgot about lucha and just wailed away at each other with blows. Terry unloads one of the better overhand slaps I can remember, but Cerebro Negro is right there firing back with everything he had, especially landing some nasty coconut headbutts. There is a great moment where the camera pans to a little kid in the audience who is simultaneously horrified and engrossed by the carnage. Both of the first two falls ended on great counters Cerebro Negro counters a shoulder block with a beautiful Pain Game DDT, and Terry just demolishes Cerebro with a backcracker counter to a back tope. It's IWRG I am pretty desensitized to backcrackers but I nearly jumped out of my seat. I also loved Terry tearing apart Negro's pants to get at his knee, it had an almost cinematic quality of desperation, it felt like the end of a Peckinpaugh film. Finish was kind of bullshit, with Fantasma De La Opera running in and chair shotting both guys, total buzzkill to something that was building to one of the great lucha libre apuesta matches of all time.

Black Terry/Cerebro Negro/Dr. Cerebro v. Pantera/Suicida/Zatura IWRG 1/7/10 - GREAT

PAS: Cerebro looked pretty great really nice looking overhand slaps, and an reckless tope. This was just super solid lucha libre, a little shorter then a normally IWRG trios, so we only got one longish mat exchange (Terry v. Sucida and it was pretty sweet) and it was mostly slick armdrags by agile technicos and bumping and stooging by great rudos. Amusing finish with Cerebro grabbing Pantera's leg and causing him to low blow the ref. Nothing which will stand out by the end of year, but if we keep getting twice weekly stuff like this 2010 will be ok.

TKG: Without the hair dye and gel, Cerebro Negro looks like a really scummy Bruno Campos gone to seed. This was laid out really similarly to the fourth match on Sunday’s card: instead of establishing everyone's character by having everyone pair up for a mat section in the first fall you just have one pairing work a mat section and then move directly into first fall brawling. Here you had Black Terry and Suicida pair up for some mat work which led to Dr Cerebro and Pantera doing some first fall toe to toe brawling and Zatura and Cerebro Negro pairing for first fall fast exchanges. It’s a format that I imagine will play well to the Jr Piratas or Oficiales strengths (keeping a match moving). It doesn’t really play to Terribles Cerebros (character work) but it made for a fun match that kept moving at a nice clip.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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IWRG 2/18/10

http://www.youtube.com/user/tvluchadelpasado

IWRG on Segunda Caida

Guizmo/Heros v. Carta Brava Jr./Alan Extreme

TKG: Yuck. This was a mess. There were a couple moments of nice Heros underdog selling, a couple moments of nice Carta Brava Jr stiffness ( and even that occasionally looked ill timed), and the Guizmo top rope rana set up and eat was cool. But everything else was a mess. Guizmo and Alan Extreme never seemed to click. They had this one chop exchange where the two would do bigger and bigger wind ups only to hit weaker and weaker chops. And Carta Brava Jr was either standing around arms out 30 seconds too early to catch stuff or out of place 30 seconds too late.

PAS: I actually thought Heros was actively good in this, really enjoyed his opening Carta Brava Jr. matwork, liked his dives, thought he took some nasty shots. Still his perfectly fine performance was overshadowed by the crappiness of Alan Extreme and Guizmo. Yikes were they a mess, lots of their exchanges had that 3/4th speed pre match run through feeling to them. Like when we got to see them do it later at regular speed it was going to be fine. Alan Extreme did hit his Matt Sydal clothesline well, and had a decent Orihara moonsault, but otherwise this was probably his worst performance.

Trauma II/Avisman/Gringo Loco v. Brazo Metalico Jr/Fishman Jr./Chico Che

TKG:I don’t seem to see a part one to the first fall here. So we only get the last minute of the first fall where Chico Che looks to legit fuck Avisman up with a face slam. Second fall starts with Chico Che running through all the heels in succession. It's Chico Che and that's always fun to watch. Then Trauma II comes in with his fast hands and works over Fishman Jr. And pretty much that’s the whole match. Trauma II spends the next two falls just destroying Fishman Jr and Brazo Metalico Jr. An absolute beatdown. Just roughing both guys up. I am assuming Fishman Jr isn’t the Fishman Jr who became Blackfish. Fishman Jr has a real lumbering moose-like awkwardness to him that made his mauling seem even nastier. The maulking was so thorough that I have a hard time calling the eventual face comeback a comeback. Barely even a moral victory. Chico Che kind of gets in a comeback. Trauma II just backs away from the faces while they appear to be on a potential roll then just returns to beating them, Metalico Jr asai’s himself on the ring barrier and Trauma II and Fishman Jr. have a post match pull apart brawl where Trauma II looks to block all of Fishman’s shots.

PAS: There is some pretty nasty beatings laid down by Avisman and Loco too, both top rope moves which finish the second fall looked like they landed in injurious ways. Avisman also lays in some nasty short headbutts. This was Trauma II's show. In DC their is a pair of very good pro prospect fighters the Peterson brothers, Anthony and Lamont (one of the guys I trained with actually got matched up with Anthony in his first ever amateur bout, it didn't go well). They have a pretty compelling story growing up homeless and basically being adopted by their trainer, and largely because of that story they have been on a ton of ESPN and HBO fight cards. The Traumas remind me of the Peterson brothers, Trauma I is like Anthony a bigger bruiser who uses power and force to beat on someone, Trauma II is more like Lamont, he uses speed, angles and combination punching to lay his opponent out. The Puncher and the Boxer, this was a pretty masterful Boxing performance by II.

Los Officiales v. El Angel/Angelico/Freelance

PAS: This match had some moments of excellence mixed in with some real moments of crap. Freelance is spectacular as usual, looking really good in the brawling sections, and breaking out some spectacular highspots. Two crazy dives including a rana which sent Fierro flying into a bunch of fans. He looked really, really sharp here, and I hope he gets some more chances to showcase himself. Angel and Angelico however are a different matter, we have talked a ton about Angelico's shittiness, but there is a section near the end where he rips off his big offense which nearly made me cover my eyes in embarrassment. El Angel was pretty bad too, this match was a pretty big brawl through out, including AK-47 bleeding badly, and in the third fall Angel starts whipping out his comedy spots. It was just terrible and killed the match dead. Worth watching for Freelance v. Oficiales, but anytime the camera isn't on him, move along.

TKG: No real reason to move along. Given the tecnicos there were suprsingly few“moments of crap”. This is a 25+ minute match with both Angelico and El Angel where the only time I cringed was in that last minute and a half Angelico run. And this is the best Angel has looked in his IWRG run thus far, and probably the longest Angelico has been kept from embarrassing himself in a trios match. I mean Oficiales have been doing matches opposite Freelance and two schmucks for over two years now and they have this formula down. Watching this I did get the sense that Freelance deserves better. IWRG has a bunch of neat rudo teams: Traumas/Dinastia Navarro, Terribles Cerebros, Jr. Piratas. Ola Maldita, Gringos VIP, hell I’m sure I’m going to enjoy the Comandantes de La Muerte too. IWRG will move rudos around for matches but these guys have team affiliation. But your faces (Freelance, Chico Che, Zatura, Suicida) are kind of thrown around willy nilly. Freelance deserves a regular partner.

Hijo Del Pantera/La Pantera/Zatura v. Trauma I/Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro

PAS: Merciful Mother of Fuck is Black Terry awesome in this match. This was pretty much a three fall brawl, and I don't know if there is a better brawler in the world. He is just kicking everyones ass here. There was a moment in the first fall where he is faced off with Pantera and yells something at him and just cracks him with a headbut. It was a total barfight move. There is also a great point in the post match, Zatura is protecting a downed Hijo Del Pantera and Black Terry lifts his had as if to say "OK the match is over, we are good" and then he just sneak shots Zatura in the chops. I am reading a biography of Gene Tunney and Terry reminds me of the Pittsburgh Windmill Harry Greb. Greb was the master of dirty fighting, he is described as a guy talented enough to win cleanly but his temperament caused him to take every advantage in the ring. That is how Terry felt to me here. For this kind of brawl, Trauma I is a way better third rudo then Hijo Del Signo, he is such a nasty bruiser and totally the guy you would want watching your back in this kind of bar fight.

TKG: This was a blast. Pantera is a guy who normally does lots of Walking Tall selling, here he did more Dusty beat down struggling to walk tall selling. He constantly had this “what the hell did I do to deserve this” look on his face. After he had already been isolated and triple teamed in the ring and forced to roll to floor to try to regain composure, Pantera crawls back in a second time to go through whole process again. Pantera’s selling of the whole Sisyphean nature of reentering a brawl after you’ve taken a beating is awesome. I have mixed feelings on the Hijo del Signo v Trauma I question here. This is a superlibre match and yeah you want Trauma I in a no DQ match beating people down. And he did a ok job (although not as impressive as last time) at selling for Hijo Del Pantera’s flying. But there were moments where I though we missed the Hijo del Signo/Hijo Del Diablo “young guys as equals dynamic”. As I had a hard time buying Hijo del Pantera when he wasn’t playing victim role. Pantera trades punches then headbutts and posts Dr Cerebro. And it’s only after that, that Hijo del Pantera gets in his offense run against Cerebro. And Hijo del Pantera as a guy who can only get in cheap shots on a hurt opponent makes for a weird baby face. Oh yeah let me echo Phil here: Merciful Mother of Fuck is Black Terry awesome in this match.

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