Found Footage Friday: 1989 CMLL

Full Show

Septiembre Negro/Bufalo Salvaje vs. Pegasso/Sombra Poblama

MD: We come in JIP here, just the finish, but it's a fun one. After a bit of measured rope running, Septiembre Negro takes a wild hefting bump over the top. Sombra Polbama hits a great driving heatbutt off the apron onto him as Pegasso (I think) locks in this cool dangling pulling armhold on Bufalo Salvaje to win it. 

Las Estrellas Blancos vs. Bestia Salvaje/Comando Ruso/Panico

MD: Estrellas aren't super familiar to me but they had a kid or a mini out with them to do tricks pre-match and signed a bunch of autographs. Rudos ambushed to start with one Estrella getting lawn darted into the post. I'm not used to seeing Bestia Salvaje so young and he was really moving around in there well. Start of the segunda had solid tandem rudo offense including pressing an Estrella back against the top rope for a shot off the top and holding him up in Hart Attack position for a bunch of offense. Panico followed it up with a slam onto the side of the ring, but while doing so, the tecnicos came back. Little bit weird timing there. They did a revenge posting on Comando Ruso and then held Panico's arms so they could kick him again and again with big setups. A crowd pleaser that he sold like a foul. Rudos took back over and did a stacking submission with Bestia posing on top. Finish actually had an Estrella come from behind and foul him there, drawing the DQ but a moral victory perhaps. I'm not sure I've ever seen that exact finish to a fall. I had fun with this even if I thought the timing of the comeback as dubious.

Pirata Morgan/Super Halcon/Hijo del Gladiador vs. Jaque Mate/El Egipico/Pierroth Jr.

MD: Rudo vs. rudo war here. Pirata's side ambushed to start though it didn't really pick up until the end of the primera where Gladiador was waistlock dropping people on the ground and Pierroth's mask had been mostly torn apart. Egipico had a pretty solid comeback where he just started to punch everyone. Nothing really sparked it but it was fiery enough all things considered. After the comeback things devolved into lots of formless brawling and mask ripping. I wouldn't say there was any sort of central thesis to it, just things ebbing and flowing as people engaged and withdrew, but when it all came back together, it really all came back together. They were able to isolate Pierroth 3-on-1 and gave him one of the nastiest beatings I've seen in ages, leaving him a bloody mess with a strewn mask barely clinging on to consciousness. It was a hell of a way to end the thing at least.

Los Infernales (MS-1/Satanico/Maskare) vs. Magico/Blue Demon Jr./Huracan Ramirez

MD: Another rudo ambush. They were leaning hard into it on this one. They said this was a super libre, I think. Satanico can direct rudo beatdown traffic better than anyone and that's what we had here. Just a constantly moving beatdown ending in a triple submission that stretched Blue Demon in every direction at once. Notable is that when they were doing the "stand on your opponent" triple submission bit earlier, they saw the tecnico coming to break it up and dismounted to stop him, which you never really see.

Tecnico comeback was driven by Magico (Who would soon become Mascara Sagrada or at least Hombre Sin Nombre? That probably helps date this?) but things would sort of go back and forth with bits of tecnico comeback interspersed with renewed rudo beatdown. All the rudos managed to stooge and take the babyfaces' stuff, Satanico being especially great at it, but soon after they took back over and were undoing the tecnicos masks all at once. It went like that until they had the rudos in some real danger and in response they swarmed, beating the crap out of Huracan Ramirez and drawing the DQ when they wouldn't stop. So not exactly satisfying but you can't fault the rudo talent here certainly.

ER: I don't think we specifically set out to write about Satanico on consecutive days but there sure are worse ways to run this website. Our streak of Consecutive Days to Start 2026 Writing About Satanico will almost surely end with this, but I love our look at first 76 year old Satanico and now 40 year old Satanico. There is no moment of this match where my eyes were not drawn to whatever Satanico was doing. As Matt says, he is very clearly the one running traffic for this entire match. Whenever he is not directly involved in the action, my brain was always saying "Where is Satanico? What is Satanico doing right now?" because whatever he was doing was almost always the thing most worth watching. He is the man directly Los Infernales while dictating the match's tone and energy. It's incredible. It's one thing that his actual ring work is a cut above everyone else (not an insult to anyone, for he is Satanico), it's that he is such a presence at all times. He is the smallest of Los Infernales, but anyone seeing Satanico for the first time would instantly be able to tell that he is In Charge. 

Sometimes, due to 1989 lost lucha video quality and the incredible matching gear/full heads of gorgeous hair on Los Infernales, it would be easy to forget that Masakre or MS-1 was currently in the ring wreaking havoc and not Satanico. But then, our boy would come into frame with that smile and that even better head of hair and the mood would just change. He took offense from tecnicos better (love his fold on Huracan's huracanrana), he stirred shit and stooged better (loved the way he threw up his hands in plea while his boys were being pinned in the segunda), and he was the one who would always enter with punches and devilish charm. My favorite actual moment of the match was MS-1's apron fist fight with Magico. I've seen a lot of bad looking apron fights, and they had such a dramatic battle with both rocking each other with punches to the face, chest and body, both using the ropes to hold themselves up, never just simple back and forth, excellent dramatic movement by MS-1. But this was a six man Satanico match, through and through.   

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Found Footage Friday: KONG~! MEIKO~! CACTUS~! ATLANTIS~! MASAKRE~! DANDY~! JT SMITH~!

Cactus Jack vs. JT Smith TWA 8/20/91

MD: Guessing on this date from the finish. It's surreal to see Foley go from Manchester vs Vader back to this (just a couple of years earlier). He did stuff on top of stuff to keep it entertaining, smacking a chair into his head (two chairs; the first wooden which he sold more), going on the mic for a big rant (after which he ran right into Smith's offense), the Cactus clothesline over the top, a flip bump in the corner, so on and so forth.

His shots in the corner all looked great and he was there for every little thing Smith did. Smith was in the right place at the right time hitting the right stuff for a lot of this, keeping the crowd engaged as a babyface, but it was hard not to be overshadowed by Cactus. I'd call this more entertaining than coherent or great, but you still didn't want to look away which was the hallmark of early 90s Foley. Great finish too as Foley got his throat caught in the ropes leading to a count out, a very clever way to get Cactus Jack out of a tournament if need be.

ER: A cool match, and I love the timing of this coming just a week after we covered a new Cactus/Vader match. That was 1993, this is 1991, and Cactus seems like such a different wrestler in this one. Just two years later he was slower, beefier, and his execution on almost everything was completely different. Here he threw punches with his arm and threw them more overhand, completely different arm slot than he would use for most of his career. His punches looked great here. Every time he hit JT Smith it looked like a real shot. JT Smith was in there to take shots, and the crowd responded to it. They really got behind him, even though every single time we got a glimpse of the crowd there didn't seem to be a single person in attendance who looked like him. How about that. 

JT Smith isn't really a guy with offense, so of course you were going to have Cactus make up for that. That's when you get him wandering around the building hitting himself with chairs, cutting a promo mid-match, keeping people riled and wary against him and hot behind JT. He knew JT was going to bump big for him - JT Smith got thrown, hit, or clotheslined to the floor three times in under a minute and every fall he took to the floor looked great - and he is Cactus Jack so of course he's going to take some bumps. That said, I don't know if I've seen Cactus take that Ray Stevens bump in the corner before. It's not the Shawn Michaels roll up bump, it's the Stevens bump that John Nord and Mike Modest took neck/shoulder first into the buckles. Nord and Modest took it more horizontally and landed flat, but Cactus takes it messier and ends with an uglier bump down into the mat. 

There were two really great moments, as judged by some guy sitting near the cameraman who exclaimed "Oh SHIT!" two different times: The first was when a charging Cactus clothesline knocked Smith sideways on landed him on his stomach; the second was when Cactus got himself hanged in the ropes very near to where he was sitting. His verbal exclamations were absolutely correct both times. 

Atlantis/Rayo de Jalisco Jr/El Dandy vs. Pierroth Jr/Masakre/MS-1 CMLL 9/92

MD: Really a blast in the about ten minutes we get here. The primera and segunda function almost as a fully formed sprint and then we get at least part of the finish of the tercera. Atlantis looks like a huge star here. He bounds into the ring and gets ambushed starting the rudo control. Masakre is a menace here, sneaking in and punching anyone he can at any point, even when they're in holds.

Atlantis comes back basically on his own, including eating a punch and kipping up immediately to fire back. While this is happening Rayo is fondly holding the hand of a prone Dandy. Atlantis just outslicks all three rudos until his partners can come back (and when they do, it's with a huge Dandy punch and Rayo doing his shtick; it all felt balanced here). For the tercera we come in on them switching matches around which is a little weird, but the tecnicos pretty quickly overcome. I would have liked to see how we got to the mask switching but overall what we did get here was great.

Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura GAEA 6/14/03

MD: We're going to try to tackle some of these GAEA uploads that people think are rare/new as we've done a bad job at that. I have no idea about the context here, but I do know that Aja Kong might be the most immediately watchable wrestler ever. You can drop into almost any of her matches from almost any period and while the match might be enhanced by content, you're going to be able to figure out exactly what's going on. 

I call it the "Problem of Aja" which has to be overcome by any opponent she faces. She's too big, too strong, too fierce, too much, and even against someone like Satomura, you see it right from the get go where Aja just stuffs her and starts to pull her apart, wrenching her arms in all sorts of ways they don't belong. With a little bit of distance Satomura can get a quick shot in, but by giving Aja a little bit of distance, she'll get run over in turn. She can smash her head with the metal bucket (or throw it at her) but Aja will just take it and headbutt her back, or even worse: she'll get the bucket and smash Satomura and then drop her head first on it. 

The great equalizer here was Satomura's death valley drivers. Any move that took so much effort could justifiably have such an effect, and they were enough to turn the tide and even to almost put Aja away, but almost isn't enough and while she was able to duck the uraken a few times and get ten strikes in for every one Aja hit, all it took was one landing to end this.

ER: I thought this was incredible. This wasn't out there before? This is new? We're just seeing this match, that feels like one of the classic matches of a classic feud? That can't be. If this match happened on this week's Dynamite it would be a 5.5 star match that people actually remember two months later. Aja Kong is an unstoppable danger that must be endured, and I've never responded to a woman wrestler the way I respond to Aja. The same way I can show any of my non-wrestling bubble friends any Stan Hansen match from any era and they recognize on sight that this man is beating the shit out of everyone and moving and falling and reacting in ways they have never seen yet instantly understand, Aja Kong has that exact same level of accessibility. If this is your first Aja Kong/Meiko match, you will understand everything. The fight Aja forces Meiko into bringing, Aja's unbeatable and at times literally unmovable condescending honesty, and Meiko's urge and determination. Aja feels like someone who cannot be moved and it requires Meiko to do it for real, and when Aja takes something for real she's finally a monster wounded. 

The GAEA girls at ringside keep taking this to higher levels, their volume and cries and anger growing over a brisk 12 minutes, and the crowd actually sounds upset when Aja kicks out of Meiko's final surge of fire. The anguish of her girls at ringside was felt as much or more than the emotion all over Meiko's face.  Every hit in this match is honest as can be. The death valley drivers compress Kong, the slaps seem like they should all swell Meiko's jaw and wreck her hearing. Kong gives this woman a brainbuster on a metal bucket and it's not as violent as a half dozen of Kong's strikes. The emotion is huge for a "short" match, and Kong pulling a fucking small package - and a small package so well executed that it would have brought a tear to Bret Hart's eye - is one of the greatest bullshit asshole heel spots I've ever seen. Can you picture Stan Hansen needle dicking his way into pulling a small package on Misawa? Riots. I've never seen something so brazen. She eventually buckles Meiko's entire body with a uraken but I wanted to see the looks on everyone's faces and the boos from every mouth had Aja Kong won with that perfect small package. 

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Found Footage Friday: LA PARKA~! PIERROTH~! DOUGIE~! LAWLER~! RUFFY~! MOTO~!

Ruffy Silverstein vs. Mr Moto (Jiu Jitsu) NWA Chicago 1950s

MD: This was a judo jacket match where it was supposed to be no strikes, no pins, submission only, and with both wrestlers wearing judo jackets. Here they called it a Jiu Jitsu match and to make things more confusing, called Moto's illegal chops that drove a lot of the narrative of the match "judo". There were a number of gi assisted takedowns and submissions that were sort of interesting, but the match was really about things boiling over again and again as Moto took liberties, Silverstein fired back, and they built towards the end, to Silverstein hitting a couple of body slams. In that regard, the gimmick was more a means to an end, an environment to create contrast for them to do some more conventional things. There were a couple of interesting moments with the gis, but nothing more interesting than Silverstein going outside of them to lock in a cross-armbreaker. In general, not enough working joints or trying to get submissions as it always came back to the cheapshots and retaliation. Finish had Silverstein get a visual pin after the slams in a match where pins don't count and then Moto locking in a quasi-gi choke as the time limit wore off. Overall unsatisfying. My favorite bit at the end was when Davis called out a fan for just reading his newspaper during the match. 

Pierroth Jr. vs. La Parka Monterrey 7/16/00

MD: Park can be hit or miss in the 2000s for me, primarily because you get so much bullshit in his indy matches. Heel ref. Interference. Hamming about. When it hits though, it really hits, and here, I think it hit because the crowd wasn't as desensitized to it as they would be years later. That was combined with what makes it work as much as it does in the first place, Park's physical charisma, and, in this case, a very easy to understand and very clear and distinct injustice that was layered on top of the usual heel ref bullshit, a matter of seconds. La Bruja was supposed to be Pierroth's second. Parka was going to have another female to counter. She didn't show. In the pre-match when Parka was screwing around with La Bruja's gear to taunt her, and Wagner, Jr. came in with a weapon to whack Parka in the back, with the claim that he was Pierroth's second second. So they went right into a very uneven beatdown, with immediate mask ripping, subsequent blood, and Pierroth winning the first fall entirely one-sided with a power bomb.

It was the perfect alchemy of unfairness, blood, attitude, selling, animosity towards Pierroth and affection towards Parka and the fans were pissed. Early into the segunda, as the beatdown continued, the bottles started to fly. They went into a comeback (which stopped the bottles) where Parka had to work against basically four people, including the ref, only to get cut off by La Bruja crotching him on the top. He'd steal the fall by turning another powerbomb attempt into a 'rana but this second beatdown would continue, though maybe with a few less things thrown in thanks to the evening out of the falls. The tercera built to a ref bump and more overt interference until Parka's second finally ran out to turn the tide. That distracted the recovered ref, however, and led to Wagner coming in to set up a big foul kick while Pierroth held Parka. You can guess what happened next, though I'm not sure I've ever seen it executed with such gusto. Parka jumped straight up to dodge the kick. Pierroth got nailed instead and an elated crowd got to see a tecnico win and a title change. It was chaotic and messy and wild in the right ways, playing on heartstrings and building to big moments. 

ER: Remember when Monterey tapes started getting more widely circulated in the early 2000s, and we all realized all these great sounding on paper matches were all taking a back seat to some referee the entire match. I've watch so many La Parka matches over the last decade that even baseline shit entertains me in a big warm way. But seeing how incredibly a year 2000 baseline Big La Parka match played in Arena Coliseo Monterey made me nostalgic for buying $5 lucha tapes at Frank's and Sons. When all the bottles and trash starts flying in during the segunda? Forget it man, nothing beats that shit. I don't care how bad the ref's timing was or that he just flat out refused to take a La Parka headscissors, or maybe how long it took to get to certain places, once garbage starts hitting a ring it crosses over into Great Pro Wrestling. I wanted more stiffness from Park's eventual comeback but this crowd and this atmosphere meant that didn't matter. La Parka hitting a tope into Dr. Wagner, his second finally coming out and punching El Bruja around, and tons of fans rushing ringside to throw more water bottles when La Parka wins is some incredibly comfortable lucha to spend time in. All I need is thrown garbage, Pierroth's 60s western villain eyes and slacks, and a quarter of La Parka's face peeking out from behind his torn mask

Jerry Lawler vs. Doug Gilbert PWE Strawberry Slam 2018

MD: As minimalist as can be. You watch this and you see the breadth of what is possible with pro wrestling, or at least one far pole of it. It's vaudeville, Abbot and Costello, a constant build to the (very literal) punchline, again and again. It shouldn't work in the confines of wrestling, because you have to suspend disbelief and everything is so thoroughly telegraphed here but it does because of the wrestlers, their emotional connection to the crowd, and the expertise of their performance. The match starts with Gilbert pressing Lawler into the corner and punching him. It happens three times, with three corners, with gaps in between to let it resonate, with three great punches. After the third, he gloats and Lawler walks up, taps his shoulder and nails him with a punch of his own. It doesn't work without those punches looking as good as they do. It doesn't work without Gilbert being such a jerk about it. It doesn't work without Lawler being so matter-of-fact in retaliating, in letting the emotion build up until he unloads. It's not about what but instead about when and how. 

Eventually, Gilbert plays hide the object, with the audience getting to interject and be part of the show by calling it out and delaying its use and delaying its use until it has a certain payoff of its own, letting him take over. Things build into a Lawler comeback, a ref bump, a chain getting tossed in, and the eventual finish, with a last second foot on the rope and a roll up out of nowhere. Other than punches and a side headlock to set up the ref bump and the schoolboy for the finish, the only other "move" in the match is Lawler slamming Gilbert's head into the turnbuckle one time as part of his comeback. But they filled sixteen minutes (and without late-era Lawler's usual house mic work) and accomplished what they set out to do.

ER: When you see a modern 70 year old Jerry Lawler match with a near 20 minute YouTube file, you assume it's 10 minutes of Lawler on the mic and not a file full of punching and wandering. Matt called it vaudeville and it's exactly what it is. It's notable for being evidence of Dougie passing Lawler as a worker. It took several decades, but 50 year old Doug Gilbert is now a better worker than a 70 year old Lawler. Lawler is a fun old man with a huge belly who works like Mama Harper in that episode of Mama's Family where Mama has to wrestle Mt. Fuji and Matilda the Hun. Doug Gilbert now might have the best worked punch in pro wrestling. Lawler was throwing Looney Tunes punches while little kids jumped up and down with each one, Doug was throwing one off bombshells in every corner, and there's a woman sitting in the bleachers opposite hard cam who you think has to just be wearing short shorts with a camisole top but the full length of the video reveals that it's just a very short dress and we wonder if the man/tripod operating the hard cam was building this story reveal into out main story. I didn't know there was a Portland, TN. It's basically Kentucky, but 45 minutes north of Nashville. I grew up in a town with a population under 10,000, which is around 11,000 now. I attended the one wrestling show that ever happened there (in 2000) and saw Mike Modest, Christopher Daniels, Bison Smith, Moondog Moretti, and others with my dad and friends. It was the day after I turned 19. Portland, TN is about the same size as the town I grew up in and where my parents still live, and I obviously would have gone to this show had I lived there, and I would have loved to watch two old men do nothing but throw fake punches at each other's face and bodies.  

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New Footage Friday: Nuevo Lardeo Super Card

This looked like an all-timer of a discovery, and only ended up being a cool novelty

Full Show

Damián 666/El Hijo del Diablo/Espectrito I/Super Crazy vs. Gitano/Mini Rey Misterio Jr/Rey Bucanero/Zorro

MD: This was a ton of fun. I've seen less atomicos with a mini than you'd think and maybe that means that the novelty still gest me, but Mini Rey was really good in his underdog role, Espectrito was very good getting punked by larger guys as a counterpoint, and Damian was incredibly giving (and a real louse, cheating when he didn't have to instead of facing Rey straight!), to the point where I came out of this thing primarily wanting a singles match between him and Mini Rey. I never expected the two of them to be the main pairing for the match but it absolutely worked. Everyone else worked, but maybe not too memorably. I lost track of Zorro after the primera and only caught track of Bucanero at that point. There was a little clipping too but you could tell this was fun nonetheless.

La Mascara vs. Antifaz del Norte

MD: Not going to lie. I'm not sure who Mascara is here, but I thought this was pretty good. They shook hands right at the start, as this was a title match, but Mascara started with the cheapshots almost immediately thereafter. Antifaz had just begun to get back in it when the brazen double-teaming set in and he had to spend the rest of the match fighting the odds. To their credit, they made it fairly compelling and you felt the triumph of his win in the segunda, just as you probably felt like the screwy finish for the tercera made the journey they'd taken you on a little less worthwhile.

Arandu/Pimpinela Escarlata/Pirata Morgan/Psicosis vs. Felino/Mascara Sagrada/Super Parka/Vampiro

PAS: We really only get parts of this, and it gets cut off in the second fall. There were some highlights, with Pimpi looking like a total killer just unloading all of the tecnicos including big overhand right chops and flinging chairs. There was also a great Psicosis vs. Felino exchange, not sure how many times those two interacted, but man did Felino's speed and Psicosis's recklessness meld well. 

Pierroth vs. La Parka

MD: We got a little burned on the promise of this, because really what we have here is most of the primera and segunda and just some clipping of the tercera, but it's ok. I really loved those first two falls. I also really loved the finish. What I didn't love were the glimpses in the tercera of the ref interference, so I'm almost happier not having it. We lose the very initial scene-setting of how Pierroth takes over, but between the heel ref and everything else, you can guess. The beatdown's good enough that it doesn't matter. Pierroth has great clubbing blows and both of these guys can milk absolutely everything, from a punch to the gut to a chairshot on the floor. There was mask-ripping, blood, Pierroth just being a total jerk, and it had that one core element you want from an apuestas match, from lucha in general, that buzzing build towards a comeback. 

Pierroth planted him with a power bomb and the beatdown continued into the segunda. The buzz built too, to the point where the fans were chanting for Parka while Pierroth was all but laying on a chinlock. So it built and built and built, until the lightning crack of Park's kick to the side of Pierroth's head, the greatest thing that can possibly exist in pro wrestling, the moment of comeback in an apuestas match. These guys really milked it too, with Parka having to really fight back after that moment. He did though, getting amazing revenge by wrapping a chair around a trapped Pierroth hanging on the apron. The ultimately finish played off the powerbomb in the primera and that will always work for me. A tercera for an apuestas matters so much more if you don't know the outcome; here, we did. What we didn't know was when and how Parka was going to come back and how that would shoot through the crowd like electricity, the build and the payoff. That's what I want and that's what I got here.

PAS: This is one of the legendary holy grails of lucha libre, a huge drawing feud and one of the bigger mask matches of the 1990s. We have had highlights before, and this looked like it was going to be the most complete version. Unfortunately while we get the first two falls which were great, the third fall was basically clipped to incoherence. There were glimpses of cool shit, though. I loved Parka just slamming Pierroth in the temple with punches, and the big Parka enziguiri was incredible, looked like he beheaded Pierroth. But man this was such a mean tease, hopefully someday more of this will arrive.  

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Mas Niebla

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Footage Friday: WCW Festival de Lucha

ER: This is one of those shows that I've heard about for 20 years, one of those shows that someone on a message board would pretend to have a copy of, cause a stir, and of course never actually follow through on getting the footage to anyone. It's one of those shows where people just wanted to see it more and more because they thought they would never get to see it, which is the best kind of Hidden Gems gift. And, excitingly, Super Boy is now officially on the WWE Network. Blessed. We get the fantastic mission-front set with traditional dancing, great pueblo set, ring valets all in traditional garb, and what sounds like a loud crowd who is into this. I'm there with them.

TOMK: It’s about time this showed up. You would have thought they would do this in September as some sort of Hispanic Heritage Month deal…but I’m not complaining about October.

MD: I'm dealing with some shifting watching situations that make annotations tricky currently (as in, I watched this show on a commuter bus over a few days), so the comments I provide will be general. Hopefully, Phil and Eric have the heavy lifting here.

I'm not going to say "Nitro lucha" is my least favorite lucha but it's certainly not my favorite. So many things that I've learned to love about lucha libre just aren't present. My remembrance with them is that you didn't really get memorable captain feuding or character driven pair-offs or momentum shifts with builds to comebacks. Clearly defined segments. Dives as means to a bigger end instead of ends in and of themselves.

It was distilled one-fall Lucha with some of the wrong things distilled.

That said, this entire show was a blast. So much of that was due to the setting, the dancers, the fact that they really just embraced this stuff instead of having it off to the side as a sideshow. On this show, these guys felt like stars. Top to bottom, too. You had Disco Inferno main eventing for maybe the only time of his career up until that point, and he felt natural in that role. Jericho felt larger than life, like a Buddy Rose type figure, and almost all the more charismatic or memorable luchadors felt like big deals.

And that was most of them. The talent pool here was great. You had a lot of the usual suspects: Villano III and V, La Parka, Psicosis, Juvi, Halloween and Damien, Hector Garza, Super Calo, Konnan and Rey, and the WCW contingent with Finlay, Smiley, Swinger/Lane etc. but you also had guys that didn't really show up in WCW like Felino, Pirata Morgan, Texano, Rey, Sr., and freaking Super Boy. Maybe coolest of all (not as cool as Super Boy, but...) we had new Blitzkrieg matches, and a bunch of unique pairings that you just didn't think you'd get.

Everything basically worked, from Jimmy Hart's Boricua first family to Jericho's foreign legion, to the fact guys seemed to trade between being rudos and tecnicos depending on the match. There was some sense of overkill or a lack of agenting. For example, I really liked the Juventud Guerrera, Pirata Morgan & Psicopata vs. Hector Garza, Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr. There was a pretty key story in there with a big fight for the top rope rana through the pairings and ultimately, a bigger fight for the Juvi driver, but in the next match on the taping, someone hit a top rope rana almost instantly, like it was nothing, and then I think a match later, someone hit a Juvi driver, of all things, just as a move. Even if these matches weren't all taped in the order they'd be filmed, that would have been a long term problem. That's not to say the matches didn't vary at all. Some had more thorough beatdowns (Especially the Damien/Halloween ones, I think), and others more comedy, but the general tenor of Nitro style lucha is "good action" and that's a lot of what this was.

Other random thoughts: Psicosis might have been the best masked rudo of his specific generation (guys born in the early 70s). He's so emotive, such a dick, able to play to the crowd, but also able to base so well and hit so much stuff. Juvi just really got it too. He integrated a lot more of US heel mannerisms and it was a good mix. I'm not super familiar with Salsero, but I'm amazed he didn't get himself more of a job out of this. He was playing a unique role and would have probably gotten over on a weekly basis in WCW as a clowning, joke-spot guy that could still go. Lots of clotheslines and DDTs on the show. It's a joy to watch the differences in the selling though: Blitzkrieg folds in half, Hector sails across the ring, and yeah, Disco makes sure to flail sell for quite a few seconds. There was at least one VIII decapitation of someone too. I thought Konnan worked surprisingly well in his trios match. I don't remember him working nearly that spritely in the late 90s. He also gave a lot for Disco who was giving his all. Heel Big Wiggle era Norman Smiley was a lot of fun and Jericho as a corner man made it all the better. I've seen rudo Rey Sr a few times lately (had mostly seen him as a tecnico) and he's just a great stooging pug base. I wanted to see Finlay, Blitzkrieg and Super Boy against literally everyone else on the show. I'm glad we had a few more matches than listed because it would have been a crime not to see Finlay in this setting.

I guess my biggest takeaway from it all is that I wish it had gone on for a while. 


Silver King/Venum/Kendo vs. Super Boy/Villano V/Felino

PAS: This would probably land in the lower half of WCW lucha trios, but it was still a ton of fun to see different guys work in this environment. Kendo's stuff fit in great in the sped up WCW lucha style, and his big tope looked awesome. Super Boy and Felino both looked great too, Felino was fully in his fastest luchador in the world prime, and Super Boy is an amazing short fat agile revelation. I have no idea why this didn't at least get them both WCWSN filler gigs. Venum Black looked not ready for prime time, he was tentative, and awkward, and even his big dive felt unsure.

TOMK: The EMLL announcers used to talk about Felino as one of fastest wrestlers in the world but you kind of forget how fast he could make an exchange look. Not sure if he’s actually “stop watch fast” or just knows how to make every move look sudden. It is a blast to watch Felino and Silver King working their fast exchanges. I think Super Boy and Silver King tried to do a ridiculous exchange near the end that had a 1/50 chance of working but if it did it would have blown every one’s mind and they were completely prepared for it possibly not working. Venum Black may have blown his leg on his dive near end.

ER: The Felino/King sections of this were really hot, and if this match just had their cool trips and ankle picks it would have been worth it. All of the Felino stuff was really great, and then you have Super Boy coming in and being the fast flippy fat guy who looks even more awesome taking falls, because his beautiful round belly looks great on the mat and his shirt always exposes it. It makes him look like when you'd KO King Hippo by punching him and making his pants fall off. Venum looked a step behind everyone but he did hit a wild dive at the end (which Tom thinks may have wrecked his leg). I have no clue what King and Super Boy were going for at the end, but it doesn't happen, and it was fun to see them pick up the pieces. I saw Super Boy work a flea market in the early 2000s, and he did a huge dive, crushed the two chairs in the row in front of me, and landed on my leg. It was great. 

ER: I am LOVING the Jimmy Hart Festival de First Family. What a great bunch of weird dudes, with American Wild Child mugging the whole time, Psicopata dragging around a blow up doll, and Pierroth yelling on the stick. I love Pierroth, and this late 90s period of Pierroth was really great. This was a stable I would have killed to see go up against the LWO. I'm just picturing Pierroth whipping everyone with his belt and hitting hard lariats on everyone. This is great.  

TOMK: Jimmy Hart comes out with his stable, Ricky Santana, Fidel Sierra, Pierroth, American Wild Child and Psicopata. Holy shit why couldn’t this have been a regular WCW stable. Pierroth gets the mic and explains that he is going to wear the Puerto Rican colors. And fuck it Pierroth really is the guy who I didn’t get at first but now when I see old footage absolutely can’t take my eyes off of him in a ring.

La Parka/Super Calo/Salsero vs. Halloween/Damien/El Mosco

PAS: Total fairgrounds lucha match, lots of classic shtick you can see at any small arena around Mexico, except performed by masters of the craft like Familia de Tijuana and Parka. Great stuff by Salsero too, who turned every move into a shake of the hip, and threw out a crazy top rope quebrada to the floor. Loved everyone missing an in ring dive, all of the stuff with the Kendo stick and Parka making the rudos dance to his tune. Usually WCW lucha wasn't this traditional, so it was a fun look into some stylistic differences between the matches.

TOMK: Salsero? Salsero? Of all the guys they brought in Salsero. I guess Salsero and Kendo come as package. But why would you want that package? For a little dancing followed by in ring tope and slapping rudos confusion comedy spots, Rayo is right there. This is mostly a match made by Halloween/Damien heel miscommunication spots and pretty much they are absolute kings of building a match around that.

ER: Damn this was fun. You show me this list of 6 names and Salsero would not be the guy I'd expect to be featured the most, but here we are. This whole match was full of schtick, and it was super welcome. And the pairings were all real fun, starting with Mosco and Calo. Mosco has a big high spinning heel kick, and later takes an amusing bump over the top off a Salsero dropkick. Salsero got to work a bunch of classic schtick, getting the rudos to attack each other (loved FdT ganging up on Mosco and Mosco swinging a chair at them), and boy did I not expect him hitting a gigantic top rope quebrada (to seemingly no reaction, on a show getting loud ass reactions from everything, that's weird). Halloween and Damien looked as good as usual, loved them getting outsmarted by La Parka at nearly every turn, and La Parka was so great at leaning into every single strike. I loved Parka's long  dance evasion from Halloween, ending in a perfectly timed mean slap from Halloween, and Parka was running so fast into Damien's corner boots, catching them right in the neck. This really got to unfold in a great way, and while it didn't hit anywhere near the peaks of WCW lucha sprints, it had a nice traditional charm that was felt throughout. 

  

Rey Mysterio Sr./Villano III/El Texano vs. Blitzkrieg/Piloto Suicida/Raul

PAS: Damn is Villano 3 a beast in this match, just a violent lucha machine, hard shots, great looking DDT, internal organ flattening senton, just a monster. Your tecnico team felt like a green tecnico team being carried by awesome rudos, and we had awesome rudos. I am surprised Blitzkrieg was as subdued as he was in this match, my memories of him were always just a lunatic breaking out crazy highspots, here he wasn't much crazier then Raul (whoever that was). Excited about the run in setting up a killer rudo battle later on the show.

TOMK: Who is Raul? Is that Zorro? Facially kind of looks it. I thought Zorro was a tad taller than that. Anyways this is a fucking Texano showcase match as he just beats the fuck out of everyone and throws himself around bumping and setting up face comebacks. Jimmy Hart’s team runs in at the end attacking both faces and heels and we get an awesome tease of Pierroth vs. Texano. Is Psicopata actually Mando at this point? He doesn’t really move like Mando…If WCW only had been willing to air this show we might have gotten a WCWSN main event Psicopata/Bad Street vs. Psycho/Killer and that would have turned everything around.

ER: Damn check out this Rey Mysterio Sr. showcase, what a brute who knew how to make green fliers looks formidable. He's someone who throws in extras, fills time nicely, a guy who needs to be spoken about in the same sentences as other era workrate lucha gods. I like how he throws in an extra spin while getting into position for a Piloto Suicida armdrag, and on the floor he eats a rana and purposely throws himself into the legs of the guardrail to make the bump look better. Oh but then you had his excellent rudo partners looking like all time asskickers. Villano III gets Blitzkrieg a WCW contract by crushing his ribs with a top rope senton, and Texano was the most explosive guy in the match throwing strikes as hard as his bumps. The thing falls apart in absolutely glorious fashion, I mean three tecnico dives that all miss in increasingly spectacular fashion, terrible catches and botched dives and the most incredibly ugly trainwreck you've seen. Raul (yeah who the hell IS Raul?) slips and dives head first straight into the floor, Piloto apparently pilots the plane on the cover of License to Ill, and Blitzkrieg takes a flip dive into nothing when Rey whiffs. I was so damn into this rudo team, but this ending was too funny. Post match Pierroth run-in made everybody in the match look like a lesser luchador though. It's unfair to people in the match to let Pierroth come in and beat the shit out of people as the last visual. 

Juventud Guerrera/Pirata Morgan/Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Hector Garza/Konnan

PAS: Juvy/Psicosis/Pirata Morgan is a absolute killer rudo team, and it is really cool to see all three of them have matchups with Rey Jr., all great exchanges worked at a high level. Konnan is also working super hard on this show. This was his big opportunity to headline a show, and he was delivering at the peak of his abilities (admittedly a low peak). Run in was fun, although weird they had run ins at two different matches.

TOMK: You forget how amazing Juventud was. Just the entire fucking package, has the crowd in the palm of his hand, able to do the workrate midcard lucha spotfest that was asked of everyone while also just slowing it down to get little things across. It is WCW, so of course they are going to do two matches with invading foreigner heel teams attacking Mexican faces and rudos for a finish. The heel stable of Finlay, Lenny Lane, Jericho, Kaz, Norman Smiley, Chavo and Johnny Swinger is bizarre but would have also liked to see that as a regular WCW stable. Well maybe not Swinger.

ER: Damn now look at THIS rudo team! This is definitely the high profile main event of episode 1, because that's a big time tecnico team too. Tecnicos were fine but this was a rudo bump showcase. Psicosis and Juvy are among the greatest most explosive bumpers of all time, and this was them compressed and burning bright. The way Juvy takes whip snap somersault bumps looks so great, he rolls up tight like Samus and just bounces off that mat. Psicosis bumps to the floor, onto his head, onto his stomach onto the floor, onto his head again, just dude being who he is. Even Pirata takes a totally preposterous somersault back bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the apron; the bump felt completely disconnected from the dropkick, sending him the totally opposite direction of where he should have bumped, but the dude somersaulted to the floor so who gives a fuck. No padding on the floor, no logic to the bump, but Morgan is here taking a hard bump to the floor on this taping.

The run in was totally badass and I LOVE the invading foreigners stable!!! What a kick ass gang of everybody-but-Mexicans. They're wearing light wash jeans with cuts ranging from "dad" to "Kaz Hayashi's Jncos", black sleeveless crop tops, woven belts, just throwing stomps and beating ass. This is what the stunt doubles would have looked like if there had been a Backstreet Boys Movie. It's so perfect. You can already see the hierarchy of the stable, with Lane, Swinger, and Kaz being the underlings who would actually get their asses kicked in trios matches before either Finlay or Jericho came out to cheat for them to win. Also Tom isn't excited for Johnny Swinger? Swinger is a guy who ate some of the worst beatings on 1997 WCW TV, he's the perfect guy to be the lowest totem pole guy in a stable. Somebody needs to take the ugliest beatings while the top guys escape. I hate that I never got to see this stable until now, and not more.


Juventud Guerrera/Felino/El Mosco vs. Piloto Suicida/Salsero/Raul

TOMK: Is El Mosco really wearing “Live Drug Free” on the back of his tights?” Really?

ER: This was pretty messy, and probably the weakest of the show so far. Felino doesn't vibe really well with Piloto, Salsero breaks out a nice tope con giro and STILL gets no reaction (his dives are like the only ones that get met with silence, it's like people enjoy his shtick but then get mad when he breaks out actual impressive highflying), but this is 100% a showcase for Juventud. Juvy is a genuine frontrunner for best chops in wrestling history. That sentence is not hyperbole. Juvy's chops are the fastest and feel like the best representation of the term "knife edge". His chops absolutely slice and hit harder than the chops of men twice his size. He does have the curse of overly visible frustration when things go wrong, and things can go wrong with a green face team, but there is still gold here. Juvy hits a real hard missile dropkick and Piloto takes a nice classic rolling lucha bump through the ropes, Juvy drops a great springboard legdrop, hits his great spinning rana off the top, basically Juvy on offense could do no wrong. But we do get a real bizarre finish, as Juvy calls for the Juvy Driver, picks up Piloto Suicida, and then drops him twice in a row. Maybe it was supposed to look like Piloto was blocking it? He did eventually get a kinda roll up nearfall, but it just looked like Juvy kept blowing the spot. I really don't think that's what they were going for. 

Kaz Hayashi/Psicosis/Ron Rivera vs. La Parka/Blitzkrieg/Kendo

TOMK: Why is Kaz in this match? He’s in the Jericho outsider stable but just a regular rudo here? They only had one taping and still couldn't keep booking straight? Kaz really leans into all of Kendo’s stuff nicely and the two RPW guys work match up and know how to work their spots together. Parka is over and kind of weird to see him getting this much of a showcase in all these matches when I don’t think he ever got this much of a taste at any other time in WCW. Wait, they were aware that he was super charismatic and can carry a face team on charisma? They knew?

ER: Parks was given a WCW showcase in several ways that other luchadors were not. On the WCW/nWo Revenge game - the highest selling wrestling game on the Nintendo 64 - La Parka was one of only a few luchadors included in the game (Rey, Psicosis, Juvy, Chavo and Eddie if you count them as luchadors), which had a really large roster for video games at the time. And Parka was presented as separate from the "cruiser" luchadors, the only luchador other than Konnan who was lumped in with the heavyweights in the game (tantamount to guys like Barbarian, Stevie Ray, and Yuji Nagata). He was presented separately and as a potential breakout star, and they seemed to know it was a good idea to feature him more in matches and give him side angles to work his gimmick...and yet they seemingly had the coldest possible feet about pushing him as an actual singles star. It made no sense. They knew, but they didn't know. Highlights of this match were Kaz really making all of Kendo's headscissors look great, a great Blitzkrieg dive followed by a big twisting La Parka dive, and Blitzkrieg hitting a big phoenix splash for the win. Blitzkrieg was a cool part of wrestling 1999, and I love that we're getting a little more added to his story. He's a total cult fave, indy white guy shows up as an out of nowhere unknown in WCW one episode of Nitro, gets over immediately when he's treated like a peer by Misterio, and has maybe 30 matches total on tape. He was a nostalgic part of my teen wrestling fandom, and now we get like 10% more Blitzkrieg appearances than previously existed. That's awesome.

Rey Mysterio Sr./Villano III/Villano IV/El Texano vs. Pierroth Jr./Fidel Sierra/Ricky Santana/Psicopata

TOMK: There was some nice Pierroth and Fidel Sierra stuff, but this wasn’t going to live up to my expectations. I was also expecting a big Hart bump, and instead Hart was subdued. He felt like a watered down Andy Barrow.

PAS: I loved this, it was rudo vs rudo and kept up a really killer pace. Pierroth is rocking an amazing Soul Glo Jheri Curl and every time he throws a chop activator juice flies all over his opponent. Psicopata was all over the ring and the outside, stooging, flipping to the floor, bumping huge, total barrel of energy. Really different from a normal WCW lucha match, and I dug that difference.

ER: This lineup is far and away the match I am most excited about on the show. Tom is right that it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations, but damn did I think this was just great. This was our Pierroth showcase match of the evening, and this was an evening that benefitted from a Pierroth showcase match. He was throwing the best punches of the show, kicks to dicks, and the best non-Juvy chops. He came off like a total boss against a very badass team. We got a lot of simple brawling, and it was satisfying as hell. Villano III gets some nearfalls that the ref keeps missing, including a gorgeous small package off of a delayed vertical suplex, and we get an actual powder in the face spot for the finish!! Hell yeah! There was so much powder!!

Rey Mysterio Jr./Silver King/Hector Garza/Konnan vs. Chris Jericho/Norman Smiley/Johnny Swinger/Lenny Lane

TOMK: I think there may have been a good Black Magic vs. Silver King exchange but this was messy.

ER: My god who is the Festival de Lucha girl accompanying Rey? Jesus. And this foreigners stable is so much gold. I love every single stable at the Festival de Lucha tapings!! Every single stable in this 75 minutes has been something I want to watch weekly!

Felino/Psicosis/El Mosco vs. Super Calo/Blitzkrieg/Venum Black

TOMK: Venum Black’s leg is fucked and he comes into this match hobbling. The whole match is just super impressive to watch this guy work a match on one wheel. Should he have worked this match? Should an agent have put someone else in? Whatever. Super Calo does my favorite Super Calo thing where he eats a clothesline by landing on the top of his skull.

Fit Finlay/Kaz Hayashi/Norman Smiley/Johnny Swinger vs. La Parka/Hector Garza/Kendo/Raul

TOMK: I really liked this match. This is hidden gem that you didn’t know you wanted. Kaz’s offense looks great and he sells and bumps to make Raul look like a bad ass. Eats a real nasty piledriver from Raul. Parka gets extended exchanges with Finlay and a dance off and exchanges with Smiley and hits a tope that takes Swinger’s head off. Garza gets some cool stuff in opposite Smiley as well, Swinger and Kendo keep each other occupied, and it’s a cool finish.

PAS: This was really fun, so awesome to watch Finlay and Parka beat on each other. I can imagine an alternate universe where this show was successful and these two had the greatest Apuestas match in wrestling history. Jericho was really fun as a douche on the outside heat seeking. Parka and Smiley had a fun dance off too, honestly Parka is so great he can have dope exchanges with everyone on this roster.

Super Boy/Halloween/Damian 666 vs. Rey Misterio Jr./Piloto Suicida/Salsero

TOMK: This I liked too. A bunch of Halloween/Damien stooging, miscommunication stuff, and you get to see the California guys match up and showcase what they can do together. I really wish Rey vs. Halloween was a WCW series at any point cause it is a cool match up…plus there was an ESTRELLA!!!!

PAS: Really fun stuff, Super Boy has to have some of the biggest missed potential of anyone in the 90s, and it is cool that we get to see a little more of what he could do. Halloween and Damian 666 are such pros and they make everything the tecnicos do look great.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Pierroth in WWF!

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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THE FATTEST FEUDS: Gran Markus Jr. vs. Los Brazos!!!

Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Ulises vs. Los Brazos CMLL 2/4/90

ER: This was so good and immediately told me that I had made the right choice in chasing down chubby dudes to watch. This was much more like a fun 80s house show tag in a southern territory, starting with the rudo team stalling themselves away from Los Brazos, including some fun sneak attacks that backfire (love Ulises missing a running hip attack on the floor and hip attacking the ring apron, don't think I've seen that before). But before long it's a great fight, and Markus starts throwing these short hard punches to Brazo's temple, it looked like he was attempting to slice him open, and within seconds sure enough El Brazo's head, torso, and arms are covered in blood. The Markus/Porky moments are all fire, and there's a long stretch where Porky is just taking kicks and punches and Markus' slashing shots to the head that made me absolutely die for a Brazos ring clearing. Porky hits an absolutely phenomenal butt splash off the top, crazy height and distance, Markus ran in and Porky flies in with a butt first Thesz press and sticks the landing, so incredible. Ulises (much more commonly known before and now as Tony Salazar) has sorta flimsy offense that works for a cheapshotting rudo, but he takes big dramatic bumps which nicely highlight some Brazo punches. We get some chaos as this spills all over, with great shots of Pierroth laying down a beating up in the seats, we get more fun Porky/Markus tradeoffs including some gorgeous fat guy armdrags, the whole thing felt like it made as much sense in 80s Mid-South Coliseum than 1990 Arena Coliseo. The finish was abrupt, a shot to the balls that gives the win to Los Brazos, but you KNOW this is setting up the title shot rematch...

Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Ulises vs. Los Brazos CMLL 2/16/90

ER: This is the title match rematch, and it's all action, go go go, no excessive rudo cheating or DQs like in their prior match; this is everybody in the match showing off with speed, quick tags, and super fun sequences. Porky is obviously a standout, he was such a freak athlete and honestly I'd be happy just watching him do his gorgeous rolling handsprings. But he gets to show off his speed and excellent shtick, doing quick leapfrog spots, missing a colossal senton that lands him halfway across the ring, works a fun comedy spot where he shows of his amateur skills by getting into referee's position before casually reaching up an arm to armdrag Ulises, hits a suicide dive onto everyone that must have felt like getting hit with a barrel from Donkey Kong, does his big butt splash off the top, hits an awesome low angle hip pivot belly to belly suplex on Markus, just totally kills it. All the Brazos came in with speed, working several cool fast armdrag spots with Pierroth and Ulises, and I especially thought Ulises had some cool ones, and Pierroth took a really great fast backwards bump to the floor at one point. Markus was much more of a stooge here (no signs of that bare knuckle brawler from their previous match), but he is a really great stooge opposite Porky; his shaky knee sell off Porky shoulderblocks alone would probably get me to recommend the match. The dive train is really fast and exciting, all Brazos really ramped up the speed and flew out of the ring as fast as possible (Porky's was going to be impossible to top, but Oro and Brazo's dives looked fantastic). Total speed match, nothing but fun.

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RIP Silver King, Part 3

Silver King/Dr. Wagner Jr./Fuerza Guerrera/Pierroth Jr. vs. La Parka/Super Parka/Emilio Charles Jr./Antifaz Del Norte Monterrey 7/9/00    Pt. 2    Pt. 3

ER: This was during the era of getting excited to buy Monterrey tapes based upon on paper match-ups, and then getting the tape and realizing a significant portion of the match was going to be devoted to the two referees. And this had that! And maybe it's just the mood I was in while watching this, but I didn't mind it. You still had 8 absolutely fantastic in the year 2000 luchadors (yes Pierroth obviously ruled, all Pierroths do; Antifaz was a guy I don't think about in 2019 who I really liked during this era). You get King and Wagner as stooging brothers, a great sequence with Pierroth and Park holding each other up by their shirts as they slap each other silly (Pierroth especially is so fun here, really milking that holding onto Park's shirt was the only thing keeping him standing), Emilio Charles is always fun as a fired up babyface away from Arena Mexico, and Antifaz shows that he was good back then and that I wasn't crazy. The whole primera is the rudo team (both teams look like on paper rudo teams, but when in doubt just assume the one with Fuerza is it and you'll almost always be correct) beating down the tecnicos, hitting them with garbage and brawling around the ring. Segunda is the comeuppance and ref involvement, with the tecnicos dragging a section of connected arena seats into the ring and sending King and Pierroth into them, then getting all 4 rudos seated while kicking over the seats. The ref spots are actually fairly funny and executed well, with Parka getting beaten down by the four rudos in a huddle, and then swapping the ref for himself without the rudos noticing. If you're going to work some kind of a Bugs Bunny spot, Park seems like one of the few that would be able to make it work. We do get a great Park dive, a nice splingshot splash by Super Parka, mean spots like SP getting rammed balls first into the ringpost and then getting Emilio Charles' head tossed into his groin, and seemingly the entire tercera is made up of ballshots. This whole thing was spirited and felt like everyone having a great time on a house show, which will almost always be my thing.

Black Tiger III/Atlantis/Vampiro vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Universo 2000/Mascara Ano 2000 CMLL 6/15/01

ER: This is really fun as we get two brothers colliding, the criminally underrated early 2000s Dinamitas tearing it up, Atlantis getting stretchered out after taking a Wagner Driver, Atlantis reminding me of what a damn athlete he still was in 2001, and...Vampiro. 83% is something I would be cool with on my report cards, so I should be cool with it in my lucha trios. A lot of this feels like the Dinamitas show and while Universo wasn't the captain here he was certainly the primary shit disturber. Dinamitas were great bullies and I could watch a match of them just putting boots to guys like Atlantis. They always get it paid back, and I dug Universo falling on front row regulars to draw sympathy (god I hate that stupid ring barricade they've had this decade), and Mascara takes a wildly fast bump to the floor off Atlantis' tumbleweed. Wagner outdoes them both and makes Vampiro appear to be not a load: Vampiro throws Wagner merely towards the crowd, and Wagner goes off and tope con hilos himself into the second row, turning one poor individual into the most expected base of the day. They should've signed that guy, it was a great catch. King-as-Tiger hits his big caida ending rapid moonsaults and we get two different sequences of Tiger/Wagner, both working some playful spots off rope running, with a great moment of Tiger headbutting Wagner when he goes for a leapfrog. I only remember seeing the brothers in CMLL on opposite sides a couple times during this era, and this was a fun look at that.

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MLJ: King Haku, Pegasus Kid, Vampiro vs Black Magic, Mocho Cota, Pierroth Jr.

1993-10-01 @ Arena México
King Haku, Pegasus Kid, Vampiro vs Black Magic, Mocho Cota, Pierroth Jr.

This was probably the most high profile of the Cota return tour trios. It was the top trios match in the 93 Anniversary show (the 60th for CMLL), which, though Meltzer reported it as disappointing at the time, had this match, Casas vs Fiera, and Mano Negra vs Atlantis in apuestas matches on top, both of which I think I've looked at before. It was up against an AAA show with the Vulcano/Huichol/Misterioso apuestas match which I ALSO think I've looked at before. Worth noting is Meltzer commenting that people found the Fiera vs Casas match disappointing because it was all brawling with no dives. Ah 1993 lucha fandom.

Story here was that Pierroth had just turned on Vampiro a week or two before. Also Cota had jumped not long before this, apparently, screwing up the payoff of a Latin Lover hair match over in AAA. This is just two falls with Sangre Chicana interfering with a foul on Haku on the outside, which, unfortunately, didn't lead to an awesome Chicana vs Haku singles match, but instead to Rayo Jr's return from AAA (looking kind of fat with a tie on).

What we have is just awesome though. Occasionally people would make broad statements such as "If you don't like X, then we'll never agree on wrestling." Something like that. They're generally silly, but look, if you don't like Mocho Cota bouncing off of Haku, then I don't know what to tell you. It's amazing. I love 93 babyface Haku in Mexico. He was just such a force, and as good as Negro Casas was as a foil for him, I think Cota might have even been better.

That's just gold, and the match is full of stuff like that, coupled with everyone beating the crap out of Vampiro, which is absolutely the best use of 1993 Vampiro. I think he may actually be just a little bit underrated in that role, to be honest. There's something lanky and awkward about him, but it generally worked in context. The end to the initial beatdown, with Benoit and Haku just having enough and rushing in, felt like one of the better frustrated tecnico brawling comebacks I've seen in ages too. It makes sense given who was involved.

This was a feel good, palette cleanser with a huge amount of entertainment value and a big return right before the two apuestas matches. Haku vs Cota was the greatest match up that we never knew we wanted.

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Digging in the Crates Podcast #5

Phil is joined by multiplatformed Internet journalist David Bixenspan to discuss some cool under the radar matches

Digging in the Crates #5

Perros Del Mal v. Dinamitas

Caribbean Sunshine Boys v. Kung Fu Fighters

Danny Cannon v. Kongo Kong

The Weeds podcast

Some CTI Records Jazz

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MLJ: Enter: King Haku 1: King Haku, Pierroth Jr., Vampiro vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Emilio Charles Jr., Negro Casas

1993-08-22 @ Arena Coliseo
King Haku, Pierroth Jr., Vampiro vs Dr. Wagner Jr., Emilio Charles Jr., Negro Casas

Back to 2010 next week, but I need to break things up now and again or I go a little nuts. I've got a few things I'm going for here. First, I need to watch scattered amounts of Negro Casas in the early 90s because of something I'm going to do with OJ later on. I'm behind on that. Second, I really want to see some Haku in Mexico. Yes, I've more than learned to love lucha for the sake of lucha but I like seeing some wrestlers I'm familiar with in this setting as well. I'd say that seeing some prime Vampiro would be important too, just for historical value, but it's really not. Seeing Wagner, Jr. under 30 was kind of interesting though.

So this was a pretty weird match. It was two falls, and two fall matches can do weird things structurally. This one had a long showcase primera, where everyone pretty much got to wrestle everyone else, where the action kept flowing, and where the tecnicos got to look great. Then, between the falls, there was a beatdown on Vampiro on the outside, a pretty vicious one at that. You'd think the segunda would be a numbers-game beatdown on the remaining tecnicos, but it never really picked up that way. It was, instead, about them beating the odds (and the rudos) in a pretty convincing fashion until Casas made a desperation foul on Haku to end things.

I'm not 100% sure how to write this up, because I have about 10 gifs I want to post but I'm not sure I really want to go into too much depth on the action. I think I'm going to talk about it a bit more and then just post away. In general, the storytelling broke down both at the beginning and the end. In the beginning, it's because they gave away some match ups too early. For instance, Wagner was dodging Pierroth and that could have made for an interesting start to the match but after a bit of stalling they went right to it. Wagner was already good at letting things breathe, even if he, in the rudo role, didn't really get to show much of his charisma. Pierroth was pretty fiery though. I liked Haku's matwork stuff a lot. You forget that he could do stuff like this. It wasn't high end or anything, but it was simple and straightforward and effective, the sort of stuff you could see him doing in Montreal in the mid-80s against Martel or Bockwinkel. Neither Charles nor Vampiro showed me much. The crowd seemed split for Vampiro, with the girls cheering for him and others booing. He had some energetic rope running exchanges but nothing memorable. Charles was fine but just didn't get to do enough. He was definitely the third guy on his side. In some ways, I like (and miss) primeras like this. Right now, in CMLL, they'll run long falls, usually terceras, but they are more structured, with quick cut offs and switches, and a lot of tecnico vs the world sequences, and I like structure, but how wide open this was can be really enjoyable sometimes. Yes, they didn't keep a clean throughline of story but they also didn't lose things completely.

The best interaction of the match was Casas vs Haku, because Casas wasn't afraid to bounce off of him and eat all of his stuff and cower in utter fear. You'll see it in the gifs, but he just got completely killed, flying across the ring after a chop, eating an insane power bomb to end the primera and an even more insane choke slam later on, and my god, the foot choke! It's probably the best I've ever seen and Casas was so good in both taking and trying to fight back to prevent it. Haku had press slams and this crazy loose powerbomb where he almost pressed him. At one point (though I didn't capture it), he even caught Casas off the top with a press. He just looked like an absolute beast here.

The destruction of Vampire was well done too. I'm sure that went somewhere later. It was mostly Charles but Wagner got in on the act too. They took out the arm and then posted him heinously, and whenever he started to get up, while the action was going on in the ring, they'd just keep on him. It's just a shame that it never really led to a rudo advantage of any length. By the end of the match, Haku was just hitting bombs and the numbers game was there mainly to just break up the pins. It was really meandering by that point. Sure, the rudos didn't completely lose their heat between the destruction of Vampiro and the DQ finish (to avoid a German which I swear would have been the nastiest German ever), but this could have been far less one sided, especially after the power play began and still gotten the point across.

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20 Plus Years of Selling Johnson and Johnson, Dick Togo Started Out Life as a Baby Faced Monster

Dick Togo/Satanico/Pirata Morgan/Pierroth Jr. vs. Ricky Marvin/Negro Casas/Ultimo Guerrero/Super Parka CMLL Japan 11/5/99 - EPIC

Holy moly, look at that team of rudos. This is a total out of nowhere youtube gem. I was watching a shit ton of Puro in 1999 and I had no idea this match existed. You get all of these great dream matchups you never really thought about. Satanico and Negro Casas both work the mat and beat the bricks off of each other. We get a great Dick Togo v. Negro Casas section, where they just exchange super fast stiff chops and kicks. With all of that, I think my favorite part of this match was Pirata and Pierroth as nasty lucha Anderson brother total crowbars, just laying in an asskicking on cuter then Menudo Ricky Marvin and fun endearing Super Parka. I just got this image of Pierroth and Pirata vs. the Rock and Roll Express being the greatest match that never happened. This goes about 25 minutes and we get pretty much all you want from a lucha match. Some matwork, some violence, some triple teams, some nifty dives. Finish was a bit weird as Pirata is just killing Marvin and you keep waiting for the comeback or the tag, and instead Pirata just pins him. There is also a post match angle where Pierroth taunts a Japanese guy with a cast I didn't recognize (who was CMLL Japan's late 90's young up and comer) into the ring, and the whole rudo crew (including a pre-Juggalo Nosawa) just beat this kid half to death with baseball bats. Who ever this guy is, is covered in blood and they pound on his leg, and man alive is Togo, Pirata, Satanico and Pierroth the fucking greatest fake NWO ever (I don't even mind NOSAWA as their Brian Adams).

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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IWRG 3/26/09

PAS: After a too long 3 month hiatus, IWRG has returned. Arena Puebla undercards had been picking up the real lucha slack in its absence, but man am I happy to have it back. and along with our other full show feds (XCW-Midwest, IWA-MS, BattlArts and LGN) we will be reviewing it all here.

TKG: We were going to do full shows and this doesn’t actually feel like a full show. I think we are missing an opener but beggars can’t be choosers.


PAS: God Bless Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1EA3D88F6D1F8C22

Freelance/Chico Che/Turbo v. Black Terry/Black Thunder/Captain Muerte

PAS: Any match with Freelance on one side and Black Terry on the other is going to kick ass, right there are two of the top 10 wrestlers in the world, they are going to deliver, and all you really need to make a lucha libre trios is one good technico and one good rudo. Luckily for us, the other four were bringing it too. Chico Che is a guy I remember enjoying in last years Battle Royal, but I figured he was just an opening match dude, a guy who could work an exchange or two with Judas El Traitor, but not some one you want higher on the card. Here though he looked damn good, agile, fun arm drags, nice fat boy tope, he looked like good tertiary Brazo, lets say Brazo de Bronce. I was also shocked at how awesome the Turbo v. Black Terry mat section was, as that is not something I imagined Turbo had in him, although that was clearly a bunch of Black Terry. I imagine that every week will be a running battle between Black Terry and Freelance for IWRG god hood, and I think Terry takes week #1. Freelance was great, his flipping Fujiwara to end the first fall was fucking great,

TKG: I’m not really comfortable with running battle analogy. Lucha trios are about how guys are positioned in the trio. There are captains and secondary guys, sometimes those secondary guys are the featured guys with an important story in the match and sometimes they are secondary figures who are there to shine the light on the guys in the important story. The real story of the match is that Turbo comes in with the new NWA lightweight belt and Black Terry wants to challenge for it. Everything else is filler. Chico Che and Capitan Muerte were the captains. For guy who by design isn’t supposed to be featured performer Freelance still is pretty great. Freelance has the coolest finisher to first fall, eats the nastiest finisher for second and does a large FIP section in third, still the match is built around highlighting Terry and Turbo. This is a pretty classically constructed match with some neat twists. First fall is all about Turbo v Black Terry technical mat sections that make you stoked for possible title match. They do some Black Thunder v Freelance technical exchanges where everytime Freelance gets Thunder in a hold Captain Muerte comes in to break it up leading to Chico Che coming in to stop Muerte. Thunder is a guy who works with Turbo a lot and is a guy who eats Turbos stuff pretty spectacularly (there is an amazing multiple Tijeras thing Turbo does around BlackThunder). He’s got some interesting ideas for offense that aren’t quite worked out. Captain Muerte looks like a world beater here as trio captain. He’s been through maybe four gimmicks since last time I remember seeing him look this bad ass. Your opening technical stuff is eventually broken up by an absolutely nasty Muerte mafia kick to Freelance’s back and a bunch of rudo two-on-one and three-on-one ass-whooping. You get a last minute change of momentum with Che taking out Muerte and technico comeback. Second fall is your faster fall starting with faces taking turns besting each of three heels in one-on-one match ups, which leads to more rudo two and three-on- ones. Third fall is all nasty brawling with Turbo and Terry matching up again, Freelance ends up working an extended 6 minute or so FIP section as the rudos go all Anderson bros quick tags on his arm and Chico Che gets super Robert Gibson indignant only to eat a face destroying second rope Alabama Jam when he finally gets in the ring. Still Freelance and Che were all secondary, everything about this match made me want to see Terry v Turbo for title.

Headhunters 1+2/Veneno v. Hijo Del Pierroth/Pierroth Jr./Arliquin

PAS: Man this was rough, like all 90's tape traders I always dug me some Headhunters, they were these guys who looked like twin Abdullah the Butchers and did crazy moonsaults into plates of glass, and that was back before you had lots of dudes moonsaulting through plate glass. Well shockingly being morbidly obese and doing crazy highspots ages you quick as they now look like a pair of slower and less agile Abdullah the Butchers. It was a shame, this was a plodding stinky brawl, there was an occasional nice punch by one of the Pierroth's but this was not the IWRG that excites you.

TKG: Really you’re going to complain about the Headhunters? Arlequin is right there. Arlequin is easily the worst wrestler in this mess and is a guy who IWRG appears to be pushing hard. He has been pushed as a heavyweight since the cage match where he lost his mask and he just sucks. He really works like a guy trained to wrestle by Shane Mcmahon or like he was inspired to become a wrestler by watching tapes of Shane. Although he doesn’t do the big Shane highspots, just the Shane Mcmahon midrange stuff and Shane Mcmahon level selling.

Fuerza Guerrera v. Offical 911

TKG: Freelance is seconding Fuerza and comes in wearing a DTU shirt. While I’d like to see Freelance v Jimmy Jacobs, I can’t think becoming involved with DTU is a good thing. I was kind of disappointed in this match. Maybe Fuerza v Official Fierro would have worked better, I don’t know. I’ve written before about how there are different ways to work different types of wrestling matches in lucha. This was advertised as a title match and it never worked for me as a title match. At some point in the first fall I kind of figured out that they were working this like a match that was being worked like a mano a mano or hair match that was building to big interference spots in the third. There is an inherent drama in a hair v hair match where something important is on the line, there is a level of “hate” and “bad intention” underlying in rudo v rudo mano a mano. This match was structured like those but didn’t ever feel like these guys had anything on the line or had any bad intentions. After the match is over Fuerza laid out a challenge for mask match or a superlibre rudo v rudo style duelo sin referi match and I’d be stoked for any of those things. This was a match that teased those things and made me want to see them. I don’t know if doing heatless version of match to set up the heated version really makes sense but whatever. This was perfectly ok and I think if this was a trios match worked exactly the same way with none of the other participants ever tagging in until the Freelance/AK47 finish I would have loved this. But this never really worked for me as a title match.

PAS: This was undoubtably a solidly worked match. Pretty good opening mat section, really nice second fall with Fuerza looking especially spry, and a fun third fall. However you really expect more from guys like this in a showcase title match. Really the only truly memorable thing in the match is the crazy Freelance dive, and I want something more to pop out at me with such great wrestlers. I really don't think Fuerza is at his best as a technico, and while I adjusted to technico Blue Panther and rudo Atlantis, virtuous Fuerza seem out of place. Although honestly I could be just looking for a reason why something with out obvious flaws, and that I was looking so forward to, fell flat to me

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