So cool that this match got to happen in the Finlay window. Mendoza is the unmasked Villano V, and I think the Villanos are the most Finlayish of the luchadores. We get all that we would want from this match up, starts out with very aggressive mat work, all of the counters had a bunch of struggle, nothing was smooth or fancy. Finlay reversing a grounded headlock is just beautiful, he grabs a leg and twists until Mendoza breaks and he puts on a knee crank of his own. Mendoza starts the brawl, as he cracks Finlay with a clothesline over the top rope, and hits him with a great old fat man tope. The last half is full of nasty clotheslines, over hand rights, and nasty bodyslams. This was gritty as hell, felt like a 70s crime movie as a wrestling match.
Cassandro Could Show You Everywhere You're Wrong/But He's Never Talking to You Again
Cassandro/Hijo de Pirata Morgan vs. Villano IV/Ray Mendoza Jr. - GREAT
ER: CASSANDRO! is back wrestling after a long layoff, and finally a couple matches of his have started popping back up.
This all starts as Texano Jr./Super Nova vs. Mendoza/V4, in some sort of show-long mask/hair tag tournament on Mendoza Jr.'s retirement show. Losers advance to the next round and here we are, with both Villanos (Mendoza is the former Villano V but I assume most people reading a specialty column on an obscure lucha star would know that already) beating the hell out of Nova/Texano (posting Nova and hurling chairs, Mendoza dishing some sick punches, and doing more of their classic legdrop/elbow drop double teams). Things really ramp up when V5 accidentally clotheslines V4 over the top (with both spilling out in spectacular ways) before eating great dives from Nova/Texano. V5 goes spilling into chairs and V4 splats on the floor. Back in the ring and V5 is soaking it all in, working over Nova's cut and torn mask with punches, then biting the cut!!! And then spitting out blood!!! But then they lose moments later and....
Cassandro and his partner hit the ring with his partner. This is the finals. Either Pirata loses his mask and Cassandro loses his hair, or Villano IV loses his mask and Mendoza loses his hair. V5 gets worked over pretty nicely by Pirata, bumping around the floor for him and letting Pirata blast him with a chairshot. I woulda liked to see what Cassandro and V4 were doing on the other side, but what we got wasn't bad. Cassandro is limping pretty bad (possibly from an earlier match?) but otherwise looks to be in incredible shape. He starts breaking out awesome JYD falling headbutts that I have NEVER seen him use before, and wouldn't you know that he does them better than anybody I've ever seen attempt them, really whipping his head into V5. His stomps are epic too, but he's always had incredible stomps, where he coils up and really gets full extension on his leg, right to the back of chumps' heads. When the tables turn Cassandro shows that he eats offense better than just about anybody, bumping viciously for a V5 clothesline (really whipped his head back into the mat) and then leaning in chin-first for V4's jabs. V4 hits him in the back of the head with a chair and good lord Cassandro is as insane as ever. He decides he hates his brain and whips his head into the mat again off a brutal V4 powerbomb, and then eats a brick wall clothesline from V5.
It should be noted that Los Villanos are just great here as well and it's incredibly fun seeing them stiff Pirata's son, but Cassandro keeps stealing the show from them (which is what we all expected going in). Cassandro can make a sunset flip look painful. I was hoping we'd get a Cassandro dive and we were not let down with Cassandro plowing through both Villano IV and the first couple rows of chairs. Cassandro eliminates V4 with a beautiful rana, V5 eliminates Cassandro with a slick sunset flip, and I suddenly don't like Cassandro's hair's odds. Pirata does a couple aesthetically awful moonsaults on V5, but they work since even though sloppy they look painful as all hell, landing knees first on V5.
Cassandro even knows how to sell a haircutting properly, snatching the scissors away and forcefully snipping away while crying. Crowd totally gets behind him at this point and begins chanting his name. Awesome match that goes by in a flash, hopefully more and more Cassandro stuff keeps popping up. Hopefully we get some sort of revanche?
PAS: Very good match, up there with the best stuff anywhere this year. V4 is incredible, he is brilliant as a wild old brawler clearing out a bar. Rey Mendoza Jr. has put on the pounds but he can still move around and brawl. Hijo Del Pirata isn't much and his performance keeps this from being the MOTY. However Cassandro comes limping in and we all remember why we love him, wild, violent and brilliant. I hope that leg injury isn't more serious, because with Finlay, Rey, Lawler and Dick Togo all stepping away last year wrestling needs Cassandro.
PAS: This is a Maestros Torneo match worked as a four team tag tourney with the winners wrestling each other. Your opening tag is Terry/Solar v. Navarro/VIV and is really the only match worked Maestros style. Villano IV v. Black Terry is a match up I hadn't seen before and they do some really slick matwork with very fast countering, there is a really cool moment with Terry countering an armbar into an indian deathlock which VIV flips into a headscissors. Navarro and Solar tag in and do their thing. Always great to watch and there was some especially neat standing submissions and counters.
Your next match is Ultraman/Rey Mendoza Jr. v. Fuerza/Dandy and this is a brawl. These are four guys who can throw hands, and they rail on each other. I love watching Ultraman throw combos and he unloads some pretty ones. Dandy looks like Dandy and he is a guy I am super happy to see resurface. He has some nice head movement and landed his hooking slapping right.
Your final is Navarro/IV v. Fuerza/Dandy and is also a slugfest. Navarro v. Dandy had a great feud in IWRG 10 years ago (holy shit that was 10 years ago? I am old.) and they start it right back up here. There is some nice arm drags and fast exchanges too. Our final is Navarro v. Villano IV it starts out as a brawl, but they take it to the mat at the end, and it is great to watch, with both guys wrenching in some cool kneebars. All of these guys seemed really inspired and were working hard, and while there are some matchups I wanted to see, which we didn't get (Dandy v. Terry for example) every thing we did get was a blast.
