Lucha Memes 4th Anniversary 4/25/21

Tony Donati vs. Shocko

ER: Tony Donati is a really fun opening match guy. He's like if Scott Putski ever got good, or Cheetah Master ever worked heel. He works like a late 90s Chicago indy heel but with a lucha base, takes ranas nicely and throws hard strikes, stiff chops, a couple nice headbutts, big hard clothesline. The landings on his vertical and front suplex looked hard on the Coacalco ring, and his middle buckle splash landed harder for the same reason. If a guy looks like a scummy version of a late 90s WCW job guy, I'm going to take notice. Shocko took a beating well, hits a decent middle buckle moonsault, does his end of a rana well, a good guy for Donati to work his great expressive moveset against. The finish looked great, with Donati really Psicosising himself on a Shocko top rope Frankensteiner like it was 1995. Nice and definitive, making sure the greatest hits stay great. 

Perro de Guerra Jr. vs. Baby Extreme

ER: Arena Coacalco is always reliable at delivering younger guys having "here's everything I can do" matches. I'm pretty sure I've never seen either guy before and they already both showed tons of moments of being polished beyond their years. This was worked like a modern version of a classic lucha maestros match, which is a match that has seemed to be fading away as the maestro luchadors age out. Seeing guys work this primera style makes me more hopeful for lucha and that always feels good. They really built through some cool leg submissions and attacks throughout the primera, with Extreme having a cool rolling takedown and both working smoothly into maestro leg grapevines and deathlocks and bow & arrows. They didn't look like amateurs copying what they had seen, they looked like seasoned pros working through sick spinning toehold submissions. Guerra wins the primera with a running Atlantida, and it capped off a super cool round of lucha. 

The segunda and tercera got really crazy, with blood and a bit too much excess, but a ton of punishment. You all associate Coacalco with punishment, and these two knew how to live up to the legendary tin roof. They really up the crazy and turn this into a wild moves match, with several far ranging bullet topes and nasty spills. Extreme hits increasingly more cruel Death Valley drivers, running Guerra into the turnbuckles, then at extremely high speed through rows of chairs, and later back in the ring through a thick pallet for the finish. The spots get more impressive and they do hit peak indy dumb brain when Guerra hit an incredible tope into a flipping piledriver, and it kept Baby Extreme on the ground for maybe all of two seconds (and then does a kind of stupid Spanish Fly). 

And yet, I somehow didn't care? They both get busted open, Guerra gets great rivers of blood down his face, Extreme gets a cheese grater ran across his, and they integrate these weapon well because they're surrounded by sick bumps. The suplexes to the hard mat look just as disgusting as the suplex through the pallet and chairs, Extreme delivering a vertebrae smashing over the shoulder piledriver looked incredibly dangerous, and Extreme's fast body crunching Death Valley driver is a totally believable way to get a 10 count stoppage. This had excess, but these two went for it and whenever guys go for it at Coacalco, magic happens. 

PAS: I liked individual parts of this, but I didn't think they coalesced into a complete match. The running DVD into the chairs was sick shit, but it wasn't really sold as much, similar to the llave sections early, individually cool moves, but kind of one after the other. This felt like the lucha equivalent of one of those IWA-MS tryout matches in 2004 where guys try ever move they saw on tape to try to pop Ian in the back. Lots of blood, lots of huge dives and bumps, would make a hell of youtube video with metal music, but as a whole match it was basically that. 

Makabre vs. Toxin

ER: Another fun probably too long but oh well Coacalco match, where perhaps both guys do too much but it's always fun. Makabre is an under the radar Guadalajara legend, a very solid pro in his late 40s. And I thought the earliest parts of this were really great, before it turned into a more junkyard skewers match. Makabre works like a luchador Brian Kendrick or even Chris Hamrick. He ripped at Toxin's mask, worked stiff leg submissions, exchanged heavy hands, and flew with a beautiful tope. Both guys are willing to bump in painful ways around Coacalco, eat shots with a wooden crate, get gouged and stabbed and busted open, and that's all fine. But I really liked them working more traditional lucha, and thought they were more interesting doing that than what the match devolved into. Both got good reactions from the very full arena, so I'm not going to take that away from them. Makabre could be a cool Apolo Dantes type and I don't think he needs the garbage to do that, just keep taking sky high backdrop bumps. This was another "Coacalco Guys go all out" match and as a rule, those rule, so even the lesser ones like this have that nice high floor. 

Drako/Corsario Negro Jr. vs. Kastigador/Vengador

ER: This went nearly 20 minutes and really could have been a sick 12 minute tag. This match more than most Coacalco matches just did not need the superfluous weapons stuff. Drako and Corsario Negro are both really good, hard hitting rudos (well, they were treated as tecnicos by this crowd, but they are clearly the rudo team) and the parts of the match where Drako was throwing great punches and lariats, Negro was throwing hard lariats, and both were just crunching the fliers with doubles teams were WAY more interesting than the boring ass stakes getting pounded into their heads. The wrestling looked way more vicious than the weapons, and I must wanted more of Drako working as pudgy Halloween. I had already been thinking he was pudgy Halloween, and then he goes and slides on his belly out of the ring to squish Kastigador. Everyone bleeds, and pudgy guys bleeding is one of the best thing in lucha, and some of the rudo double teams are truly sicko shit. Drako has no qualms lifting both tecnicos into the air and dropping them in disgusting ways over Negro's knee. I really love how Corsario catches dives like it's a game of chicken. He doesn't even use his hands! He literally takes dives with his arms at his sides, like he knows exactly where to be to slow someone's momentum. It's risky as hell but Vengador survived both of his dives so it merely looks cool. Vengador hit a tope con giro and a huge moonsault to the floor, and seeing Negro not even bracing to catch a moonsault was just incredibly cool. Vengador's moonsault looked great, but seeing Negro stand straight and shrug it perfectly off his shoulder, followed by a great kip up from Vengador, very cool shit. Both rudos take suplexes in the dirt, match devolves into some silly flipping piledriver nonsense, but all worth seeing for Drako and Negro. 

Jimmy vs. Aramis

ER: Not good. Did Jimmy get hurt in Japan or something? Because for such a young guy he turns in a very lazy and slow performance here. Dragons Gate has a ton of rope running so maybe when he's not in DG he does the opposite and moves incredibly slow through sequences and locks on a couple of go nowhere chinlocks within the first 5 minutes of a 10 minute match. The guy looks bored to be there, and it doesn't matter how many cool handsprings and rope feints Aramis does, if one guy is bored then it will almost always be a boring match. His lack of effort is almost offensive. I've never seen someone put so little strength into spots. At one point he catches a rana and is supposed to powerbomb Aramis into the corner, but Aramis has to lift himself up just to be powerbombed! There are several of those spots where one guy hits a big move, there's a kickout, and then both lie on the mat for 20 seconds. Just brutally boring stuff, and in between Aramis is trying his damndest to spark something but cannot motivate Jimmy. The dance rehearsal kick exchanges were so bad, real slow motion stuff, that it doesn't matter when something occasionally looks good. We also get a silly finish with Aramis accidentally superkicking the ref, just bad all around. Easily the worst match on the show. 

Latigo vs. Tromba

ER: This was at its best when they didn't get too cute, with some genuinely great stuff mixed in with some less interesting thigh slap missed kicks. I actually liked a lot of the rehearsed chair spots as they always found interesting twists to throw in, not just repeating Tanaka/Balls spots from 20+ years ago. Tromba used his chair like he's in Master of the Flying Guillotine, using the open back to hook Latigo by the ankles a couple times, wraps it around his neck and runs him into the ringpost, then keeps it around his neck to drag him through the dirt. Not sure what chamber of Shaolin a man with a folding chair would be, but I dig it. They do some nice fighting right in front of the front row Coacalco mutants, exchanging some nasty headbutts that makes one woman stare frozen in horror, hand to hairline. I liked Latigo running Tromba into a ringpost and sliding in on the apron with a kick, then hits a crossbody off the apron to a seated Tromba. Tromba gets nice impact on his middle rope frog splash, both clearly have nice chemistry with each other, and we get a fun little match out of it. 

Toro Bill Jr./Rey Apocalipsis vs. Avisman/Judas el Traidor

PAS: Really great old fashioned Coacalco brawl. Bill and Apocalipsis are Puebla guys who came in to beat on the pair of Naucalpan veterans. Traidor looks great with the bald head and salt and pepper goatee. I loved how Avisman and Traidor just fling their body into the rudos while they are sitting in the crowd. They hit each other with dirty garbage on the floor, Avisman bleeds a bunch, and Puebla team hit very cool submissions to get the win. This match got a bunch of juice from the Arena, so cool to watch guys brawl in outdoor filth and really go for it.

Black Terry vs. Ricky Marvin - EPIC

PAS: When Black Terry was having his incredible early 2010s run, it was this incredible swan song on an amazing career, here was a guy who was in his early 60s who was the best brawler in the world. Now it is nearly a decade later and Terry is 68 years old and this is as good as the IWRG trios matches or his Wotan brawl. Marvin has been tremendous over the last couple of years and is a hell of a foil for the Terry dirt floor war. Marvin jumps Terry early, opening him with a post shot, and really stiffing him with punches and kicks, giving him a spin kick right in the heart! Terry is older than Giant Baba, and this is like Kawada hitting Baba as hard as he hit Misawa. Terry fights back with great looking punches of his own, but is really only able to take control when he cuts off a Marvin tope by obliterating him with a wooden crate. We then get some really great back and forth bloody punching, before Marvin distracts the ref and obliterates Terry with a guitar shot. Incredible stuff, easily the best brawl in the world in several years (maybe Wagner vs. Demon, but arguably since Terry vs. Wotan). Terry continues his improbable AARP run, and Marvin proves what a legend he has become.

JR: I feel as though I’ve been beating the drum for Ricky Marvin’s brilliant second act about as long and as hard as anyone, and aside from the Keyra match, this might be his standout performance. Really, this whole weekend is a showcase for Marvin, who is both a specialist and an incredibly versatile performer. On night one, he wrestles Villano 3 Jr. and does a credible impression of Daniel Bryan’s mid aughts indie work, and then follows it up with a truly harrowing brawl.

I don’t even really know where to start with this match. It’s one of those matches that flows wonderfully and organically to the point where transitions are hard to spot. Large portions of it remind me of the fight scene from Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac, where two men just run in to one another over and over and get progressively dirtier and more tired. It has a visceral quality that is wholly unique.

This quality makes the moments that do feel like more standard pro wrestling stand out as noteworthy. The missed dive, which marks the first true change in the match, is something that seems obvious even as it happens but manages to feel “real”, as though Marvin really has no other choice but to try and dive, even when everyone in the world aside from him will know it will fail. Of course he will be hit by a weapon he introduced. He will be hoisted by his own petard. That's irrelevant. It's something he must do.

In some way, this is more of an experience than a match. Both Marvin and Terry are loud performers, grunting and panting and shuffling around in ways that almost force you to watch them at all times. Once he starts bleeding, Terry looks dead on his feet, going purely on instinct and that instinct is enough to still beat almost anyone. Marvin looks perturbed throughout, the pissed off look of someone whose head hurts in a way that is truly unhealthy. He moves as though he wants this to be over because if it continues he likely will be hurt in ways he can’t come back from. It’s two unstoppable forces bouncing off one another and falling into a cloud of dust and blood. It’s incredible.

ER: What an incredible fight. Just when you expect Black Terry to fade off and become and actual old man, the King of Coacalco manages to reign supreme. This is a classic Terry brawl, with a major difference. In some of the greatest Terry brawls he can come off as the real punisher, the way Satanico is often left old, bloody, and grinning over his opponents. Black Terry is savage enough that old man sympathy doesn't always play into his matches, as he is often the one causing the worst violence. I'm not sure he's had someone try to bruise up his body the way Ricky Marvin does here. Marvin looks like a man who is casually trying to retire Black Terry, whose eyes keep getting wider the longer the match goes and the longer Black Terry is still fighting back. 

It's great seeing the love Terry gets from the crowd during his entrance, and that love is present but changed later when he is getting dirty on the Arena (yard?) floor, taking punches to the eye and kicks that seem to be aiming for individual internal organs. Marvin is a total casual killer, hitting super hard and utilizing a Finlay approach to using his surroundings. This match was filled with sick violence, but the "small" violence played as mean as the big violent spots. My favorite part of the match might have been when Marvin was forcing Terry's head into a ringpost, interlocking his fingers to get a better grip on Terry's head as he looked to change the shape of Terry's skull. But we also get so many up close magic displays of hard punches, stiff elbows, loud slaps, and all of the sounds of the strikes and the men are amplified in the environment. Both are really great at selling the punishment of their strikes, elevating the strike exchange far beyond the played out strike exchanges we've grown accustomed to this decade. There seem to be stakes in their fighting, you keep waiting for Black Terry to get dropped by the younger fighter who is hitting harder, and yet he keeps finding his way back in. 

Marvin diving headlong through a wooden crate (that he brought out, naturally) and essentially landing head and knees first in the Coacalco dirt is Terry smelling all of the blood in the water, and when he picks up one of the splintered stakes from that crate you get the sense that there are too many parts of Marvin's body that Terry could have started slicing. All of the brawling on the floor is fantastic, and since the crate worked so well for Marvin, he also introduces a guitar. I loved all of their fighting around who would be taking the guitar shot, who would wrestle away and use this heavy guitar, and Marvin winds up really braining Terry with a shot. My initial impression that Marvin was aiming to retire Terry in this match is only backed up by that guitar shot. This delivered beyond what could have been reasonably expected, an exciting on paper match up that kept surprising in the most painful ways. The rain pouring down during the climax of a fight, potentially putting an old man out of commission, gave them their Coacalco Blade Runner moment. 

Iron Kid vs. Demus

PAS: By the time they start this match it is pouring rain and Demus jumps Iron Kid and starts jabbing him with a bottle and fork while folks are setting up the ring. They brawl in the wet dirt (it wasn't mud yet, but getting there) with Kid getting a bit of advantage when he throws a beer in Demus's face. They finally get into the cage and they both smash each other through wooden boxes. Demus teases leaving the cage a couple of times, and they do some stuff where he beats up the ref. Kid is a bit along for the ride, although he does do a cage dive, which is really crazy seeing how wet everything is and how slapdash the cage was Demus is a force though, what a seedy little psycho. 

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Ricky Marvin vs. Epydemius

Ricky Marvin vs Epydemius Lucha Time 11/10

JR: I am going to fully acknowledge that saying stuff like this makes me sound like an old person, but just yesterday I was bemoaning how no one in wrestling understands how to sprint anymore. Matches are built to be bloated and monstrous, crowds are conditioned to expect nothing of consequence to happen for at least the first 10 minutes. I think this is why I have been such a proponent of Ricky Marvin’s work over the past three or so years, as he has developed in to the last of the truly great sprint wrestlers. Everywhere he shows up now he wrestles as though he has plans immediately after. The bizarre thing is even typing that out it makes it seem like a critical negative, but it truly isn’t. He has cultivated this indie future maestro vibe and each match is worked as though in his mind, a feeling out process is completely unnecessary.

Its true here, against Epydemius, just like it has been true in his Arez feud, chock full of great matches, almost none of which go past eleven minutes. This is about the same. Even though Marvin is working a more classic respect/exhibition match than he has been doing recently, the opening moments here are crisp and everything is worked as though he is trying desperately to gain an advantage.

The other thing present here that I often lament the absence of is cruelty. Look at how Marvin uses the dragon screw in comparison to how someone like Kenny Omega uses knee strikes. We see Omega hit knee strikes over and over because theoretically we are told they are effective, we can surmise that he is good at them. Marvin goes to the same well here, using dragon screw leg whips over and over. Why? Because he did it early in the match and it fucked a dude up so he figured that he might as well try it again. One time I watched a Cavs/Hawks playoff game where Lebron James posted up Jeff Teague on four straight possessions because it was clear the Hawks had decided they weren’t going to double. You could practically see Lebron licking his chops like a cartoon wolf. I got that same feeling here, and it played directly into the finish, as Marvin stretches Epydemius to the point of sympathy.

I won’t claim this is my match of the year or anything, but I think it’s probably something that I would put as noteworthy for 2020. It stands out because it’s so different than what we have grown accustomed to. I would certainly recommend anyone spend 10 minutes seeing a style that has fallen out of favor for unclear reasons. 

PAS: Hard to get a huge sense of Epydemius here, he hit a nice dive early and had some nice limb selling for a style where that isn't super present, I thought his DDT variation was cool. Still this was a Ricky show, and a damn cool one. Marvin was one of the more spectacular wrestlers in the world during his NOAH stint, but he has put on some solid lucha weight and gone full Negro Casas at this point. Casas himself has finally started to slow down in his 60s and I am excited Ricky has taken up the mantle. The leg work here was so cool, just gross looking dragon screw after gross looking dragon screw. He puts on a very cool kneebar after the first one, shifting his grip on the ankle to add extra tourque, and rips up a nasty half crab into a twist to get the tap. I thought the minute before the finish run got a bit formless, but this was a nasty performance, reminds of the kind of thing Brian Kendrick is doing in obscurity on 205 Live, cool second acts for 2004's coolest juniors. 

ER: Matches like Ricky Marvin vs. Virus were the kind of matches that really hooked me on lucha in 2000. And now 20 years later Ricky Marvin is bulked up, and now he's the Virus attacking the leg of a younger fast moving flyer. Epydemius is quick and has nice follow through on his rolling and flying. He hits a very smooth and heavy flying headscissors, and then one of those wild 1999 Shocker topes. You know, the kind where he flips vertically before crashing? Well, Marvin decides to do something about that speed and wraps Epydemius's leg around the middle rope with a dragon screw on his way back in, and that's the start of Marvin using that dragon screw as a way to always level things off. I like how Epydemius kept trying to break out and start to get any line on Marvin, Marvin would catch that leg and give it another twist. His kneebar looked great and the finishing crab was extra nasty. But Epydemius always looked like he belonged and set a strong pace for Marvin to plays strengths to. I agree with Phil that Kendrick is having these same great "give a younger guy some leash" performances on 205 Live (Here are links to three of Kendrick's latest obscure 2020 gems), willing to get dropped on his head with a couple of sick package DDTs in between attempts at stretching Epydemius's achilles. Also, I like that Marvin still uses his 2005 driver's license photo, like me. 

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Negro Navarro's Bloodsport 10/27/18

ER: So, Negro Navarro ran a show inside an octagon, for reasons I personally do not know. But I've never seen lucha take place in an octagon. I've seen plenty of lucha cage matches (which are mostly dreadful) and plenty of Octagon (which I couldn't say is completely dreadful) but never lucha in an octagon. This feels worth writing about (even though it is almost certainly going to be dreadful). The show was not actually called Bloodsport, but it probably had some kind of name like Arena Lopez Collision Course! so we'll instead go with Bloodsport.

Explosivo/Murcielago vs. Dankar/Fuerza Ballenata

ER: Well, yep, it's certainly weird. The first part of the match is normal, as it's mostly in the center of the cage and has the guys pairing off doing the kind of lucha exchanges that you'd expect. There's more mat stuff, more arm drags, more standing work around arm twists and blocking hip tosses. It's weird because the partners are just standing inside the cage off to the edge, waiting for their turn. It doesn't turn into a full tornado match until halfway through, and then it gets amusing as we get rope running exchanges with no ropes. So guys are bouncing off the cage, or just working more clever start/stop spots, rolling away to get distance before running back to do quicker lucha spots. I have next to no clue who any of the guys are. I think I have one of them figured out - the stout rudo has "Fuerza Ballenata" across his back, which would seem to be a strong indicator that he is Fuerza Ballenata...but he also has the Batman logo on his shirt. Murcielago = Bat. It's as if these guys weren't even thinking about the white men who would be writing up this show at a later date. There are no sure things. The guy in gold (Explosivo?) took some nice bumps into the cage, Ballenata threw a couple decent low dropkicks and bumped big off a dropkick to his own knee, and one match in we're definitely already feeling confined by the octagon.

Baronessa/Lolita vs. Chika Tormenta/Ludark Shaitan

ER: Also having to guess who is who here. I was hoping one of them would have a Nabokov shirt on or something and then we could move from there. But I'm gonna pretend Tormenta is the blond bully, and this was pretty fun. As in the first match, I think the one on one portions are strong but things get messy once it breaks down into a tornado tag. We need the partners standing awkwardly in their respective corners. I cannot wait for the trios on this card as you'll just have bulky guys lurking around the edges of this very large octagon. I liked the standing exchanges, and Lolita-or-Baronessa had some nice arm work, a few cool ways to work into an armdrag, nice back elbow and she also takes a nice face first bump into the cage. Tormenta has a really impactful dropkick and nice big boot and a cool inverted Samoan drop, and Tormenta/Ludark work a backcracker/chestbreaker combo that doesn't come off forced and looks good. Ludark takes a suplex at a nice high angle and throws a nice butterfly suplex of her own. This was fun.

Demus 3:16/Pasion Cristal vs. Angel Del Amor/Jessy Ventura

ER: This octagon is really proving to be quite a hindrance, as so far all three matches would have been much better inside a normal ring. I am now regretting watching this entire show, and not just the intriguing main event (which was the only reason I even found out about this show). But also, the matches have gone on entirely too long. 18 minute una caida matches in a limiting environment feel eternal, and every match so far has been allotted way too much time. More than anything, this made me want to see a Demus/Jessy singles. I believe this is my first time seeing Ventura (and Jessy Ventura is a GREAT exotico name) and I came away impressed. She has great dramatic exotico chops and slaps, really laces in with stomps and kicks, cut out the knees on a cool backdrop, and seems like someone who would be great within an actual ring. Her brawling with Demus was a real highlight of this, as was her putting the boots to Cristal, as was her 0.8 Zeuxis level hair. Demus didn't go fully enraged honey badger, but it was telling that 15 (!) minutes into this when the octagon door got opened and the combatants started spilling out I thought "oh this might actually be picking up!" This was not bad, the exoticos and Demus looked good (though all seemed completely thrown by not be able to time rope running, and there was a weird botch where Cristal just kind of fell off a cage after taking awhile to get up there), but at least they brought some unique elements to a restricting environment: crowd brawling, and brawling on top of the octagon. And it should be noted that while the octagon is a problem so far, the real problem may be the continued insistence on working traditional lucha style within the octagon. If the matches had all been worked more appropriately to their confines and focused far more on shorter matches structured around matwork, this could have been killer.

Heddi Karaoui/Zumbi vs. Francois/Pierre Montanez

ER: This definitely felt like the most wholly realized version of the show's gimmick so far. Francois and Montanez come off much more like MMA guys in a lucha environment whereas everyone else on the show have been lucha guys uncomfortably doing lucha in an MMA cage. This match seemed to get the vision right. It was kept to 8 minutes and was almost entirely a tornado tag with guys pairing off working submissions concurrently, with some fun moments of pro wrestling thrown in. It felt exhibition-y, but in a mean aggressive way. The transitions made up for lack of real struggle with what looked like some actual pain, which is good! Karaoui and one of the MMA guys trade armbars and Zumbi is watching from a distance and is really great at getting involved, with my favorite moment being Zumbi running in and breaking up a sub with a hard dropkick. The chaos on this was cool as it looked like 4 guys doing gym sparring so there always looked like danger, with the fun added element of a partner trying to rush over when things got dangerous. Two moments showed that these guys knew how to come up with neat ways to utilize the octagon setting more than anyone else on the card (so far): Early on Karaoui threw an MMA guy into the cage and hit him with a great belly to belly as the guy was recoiling from the cage; and for the finish Zumbi locked in a triangle but was picked up and swung into the cage a few times before sinking in the triangle for the stoppage. I liked Zumbi's energy in this, throwing strikes and mixing up subs, and Karaoui worked some tough looking holds with both MMA guys. If the whole show was like this, I would be recommending this show.

Ricky Marvin/Estudiante Jr./Hijo Del Solar vs. Trauma I/Trauma II/Hijo del Fishman

ER: We're getting a little warmer, but this concept is still dead in the water. The ring ropes can provide such visual distance and now it's just every single person involved in the match standing inside the octagon, off to the side. Someone will lock on a nice submission, but teammates are literally standing a few feet away against the cage, so nothing has time to breathe. Traumas both at least understand that the way to make this work is to just work stiff, so they mostly avoid the prior "just try and work bad lucha without any of the ropes that make it work" and just beat down Hijo del Solar. A lot of this is them cutting off the octagon and stiffing Solar Jr. . Marvin shows good spunk but all of his spectacular spot potential is taken away by the cage, so he does a really nice dropkick and a less successful crossbody off the top. I really liked the Traumas here, but this is a tough style to work with, and they were more successful than most. They really started throwing hard shots (T1 bullied Solar Jr. through the cage door and dragged him back in) and T2 was using the cage to work takedowns, but everyone being so close means there is no drama for submissions.

Negro Navarro/Mascara Ano 2000/Scorpio Jr. vs. Solar/Mano Negra/Canek

ER: We made it! We made it to the end of this cursed show that I was tricked into watching by Siobhan. And this match and the prior were the ones that excited me enough to fall for the obvious trick. But man this match was a bummer. These guys are old, and I love old man matches, but these guys were old old. And what's annoying, is that we were one guy away from having a legitimately 60-and-up match. Scorpio Jr. is 52 (and moves as if he was the 5th oldest in the match) and fucks up everything. However, the mean age of the participants is 61, so make no mistake this match is still filled with old as fuck luchadors. Mascara is easily the most feisty, taking far and away the most bumps on the clearly hard as hell mat. But Mascara took rolling armdrags and was the only one keeping the rhythm tight when the match broke into classic comedy routines. This whole show had been clunky shootstyle and clunky lucha, and it's like Mascara noticed that and fell back on an old routine, an established stand up falling back on greatest hits from their first special. The rudos all accidentally chop each other when tecnicos move, and they work in a genuine funny moment when Mano Negra (masked) is holding Scorpio Jr.'s arms behind his back, and Mascara sneaks in behind Negra aiming to kick him, and Negra turns around as Mascara comically holds back on his kick so as not to kick Scorpio. Navarro repeats the bit. It's a funny bit done by old pros, in the middle of a lucha octagon. But this was rough. Canek is the elder statesman of this group, and while he looks cosmetically in impressive shape for a 67 year old, he moves slower than maybe any wrestler I've seen. He came off slower than late career Andre or Baba. He could barely lift his arm to throw a couple lariats and couldn't hit with any ounce of force, and his best armdrag was him holding out his arm to his side and falling to the mat, as Mascara held the arm and rolled through it like he was being tossed by a legend. Canek was kind of sad here, but weirdly inspiring as he still looked resplendent as fuck in his luminescent deep orange tights. Canek slammed Andre. I'm cool with him throwing bad lariats several years into AARP eligibility. Solar also looked slick as hell; his gray, black, and dashes of red ensemble made him look like an asskicking NES, and as you can imagine we did get moments of he and Navarro doing their thing. Not as many as you'd think (Navarro disappeared entirely for large portions of this), though Solar's climb up victory roll was a cool as hell move for a guy in his 60s to pull off. This was not good, but had some moments of inspired surreality, and made me like Mascara Ano Dos Mil somehow even more than I already do.

This was a show with some genuine, weird on paper appeal to it. But no match on this card benefitted in any way from that damned octagon, and here we are at the end of the show when we wind up saying aloud, "literally every one of these matches would have been better in an actual ring." I am dedicated to viewing weird things people tell me to view. But goddamn, people. Appreciate my efforts, please.

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Low-KI Advent Calendar Night 10: 2006 NOAH Trios

Low-Ki/Mushiking Joker/SUWA vs. Mohammed Yone/Dakota/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi NOAH 3/5/06 - FUN

PAS: Pretty disposable NOAH trios match, with a moment or two, but some really bad stuff. Dakota (who I assume is one of the Harley Race trainees who would get NOAH runs, he was more Bull Schmidt then Trevor Murdoch) and Mushking Joker are both pretty bad here and Kikuchi was really washed. SUWA is always worth watching and he hit his great John Woo dropkick, Ki had a fun finish run too, with a great looking wheel kick and Ki Krusher. Good doesn't outweigh the bad, but there is some good for sure.

ER: Really feels like I watched a different match than Phil. Dakota was not a guy I remembered at all (even though this was a pretty major NOAH show from an era when this was my favorite fed) and he's green but also spends much of the match eating a beating from SUWA and Low-Ki, two guys you wouldn't want to eat a beating from. He also wrestles barefoot and I give extra crazy points for guys who do that. He hits a great plancha early on Marvin, pops the crowd with a crossbody off the top coupled with a YEEHAW, and is fun as the guy clearly eating the pin. The heel team is a real fun combination that teamed a few times, three real favorites of mine with SUWA da GOD, Ki, and Ricky. They're really complementary as workers while being different as workers. Marvin had a couple great bumps here, an awesome bottom rope springboard low dropkick, took a fast bump to the floor early to eat a Dakota plancha, big flip bump on a lariat; SUWA was at his best here, targeting Dakota's bare feet the moment he tags in and stomping all over them, stomping over his ankles too, big fistdrop, nice elbowdrop and a slingshot elbowdrop, really made Dakota duck clotheslines and a backfist while running ropes, just doing every single thing that makes SUWA an all time favorite of mine. Shoot, SUWA even kicked at a cameraman on the floor while walking to the ring. He's exactly what I want a pro wrestler to be. Kikuchi is a step slower here but a fun SUWA foil, hitting his calf kicks and dropping a nice snap suplex/fisherman's suplex combo and stays out of the way for the rest. Yone is a guy who I have watched a ton yet often forget how much I enjoy. My brains always thinks of Ikeda as the former Batt guy in NOAH, but there's Yone the whole time, and man Yone is STILL IN NOAH. He throws a few awesome running big boots to the face and chin (loved Marvin leaning right into that kick) and he drops his big damn heavy legdrop. Ki was doing a fun elbow-based offense that he's mostly dropped, flying into people a few times with standing elbow drops, and the group's concentrated effort on getting Dakota away from the pack for the finish is a great run off chain offense. The big SUWA atomic drop and running dropkick (thought Dakota's dazed sell in the corner after the dropkick was fun) looked great, and Ki hits a big cartwheel kick and sticks him with the Ki Krusher. The thought that this trios has more bad than good really doesn't make sense to me as the only sketchy moment I saw was Dakota leaning away from a Ki springboard kick too early. There might be some miscommunication between Dakota and SUWA but I can't tell what it is as SUWA did something different than planned and it worked fine. I thought Dakota overall added to the match and was a fun Mandela Effect guy (rodeo cowboy junior working NOAH in the mid 2000s is something I clearly saw all of yet I would have called you a liar about before watching this), and everybody else wrestled as well as you would expect those names to wrestle. Who was taking the pin was never in doubt, but we got a long fun heat section on him and some awesome hits from the others.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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All Time MOTY Head to Head: Ishikawa v. Ikeda V. Captain's Fall NOAH

KENTA/Naomichi Marufuji/Kotaro Suzuki/Ricky Marvin vs. SUWA/Makoto Hashi/Takashi Sugiura/Yoshinobu Kanemaru NOAH 4/17/05

ER: Well, this stunk. And it stunk differently from the typical bad match stink, because this stunk AND lasted 50 minutes. That's just cruel. I remember really liking a few of these NOAH Captains Fall matches. This must not have been one of them. This match was all over the map, paced poorly, structured oddly, and just not very good. It was long. And I can't for the life of me understand why it took 50 minutes for them to accomplish what little they did. At minimum, it was a masterful SUWA performance. Everybody looked their best against SUWA, even when he had to wait eternities for Marufuji to set up his horrible offense. SUWA made some little things mean more, took offense like he and few others can (that dragon rana that Marvin pinned him with, yeesh), and just looked like a boss. Sugiura feels like a guy who got really overlooked during this era, and during his career, as I liked all of his contributions here. Whereas KENTA would be breaking up pinfalls with weak ass stomps, Sugiura would come blazing in with a vicious spear. All of his spears looked like the best version of any spear. Hashi really didn't blossom until a couple years later and peaked in FUTEN, but he still has some fun contributions, and he's a certified psycho for all of the damage he's no doubt doing to his body with those diving headbutts. But man that babyface team was junk. Marufuji is arguably the worst wrestler of the last 15 years that anyone thought was "good". He's terrible. He's super klutzy, his selling is out the window (watch him sell a brainbuster from Kanemaru by just standing up and slapping him in the side before getting the pin with a roll up) and his offense looks convoluted and weak. He's so, so terrible. KENTA looked slow and weak in a lot of this, with him finally getting inspired to throw some full force slaps in the midst of his awful combos and overly rehearsed junk. Marvin had some beautiful flash and I always liked him. His fast flip moonsault with his knees hitting face was amazing. Suzuki is a weird guy, as his offense always kind of blew, but he knew how to sell damage better than most of the other babyface juniors. Watch him lock on an octopus, get clonked by a Hashi headbutt, and then crumble to the mat out of his submission. There was also a lot of questionable reffing, as many times he would prevent the faces from making saves while the heels ran wild, and that never made sense. And right out of the gate the heels were the underdogs as Kanemaru got beat first. Who ever books a multi man match and has the heels outnumbered!?!? I am normally one to piss all over quick eliminations, but this really could have had 20 minutes lopped off and benefitted so much more. But I really, really disliked this.

PAS: I didn't mind this, it was way too long, there was about twenty minutes before the first elimination, and while there was some OK stuff, it really dragged. I also don't get the psychology of having KENTA and Marufuji v. Sugiura as the final guys in the match. Sugiura team was working the match as heels, so having the heel fail to fight off two blowjob babyfaces is odd, you didn't see Arn taken to the back, while Tully valiantly fought off Ricky and Robert. I am always happy to see SUWA and he was pretty great in this, SUWA was Toryuman trained so he had lots of experience working with pretty boy flyers, and every time he was in, his opponent looked awesome. He absolutely slaughters Suzuki with his John Woo dropkick, and the Ricky Marvin dragon rana was about the slickest I remember seeing.  I also really liked KENTA throwing shots with Hashi (who has a lifetime pass for me based on his FUTEN tag) and Sugiura. Enough good stuff in this, that I basically enjoyed it, although it isn't anything I would strongly recommend.

Ikeda v. Ishikawa review

Verdict:

PAS: I didn't hate this as much as Eric, but it doesn't even come close to Ishikawa v. Ikeda. This is a wire to wire win for FUTEN

ER: I thought this stunk. Killer SUWA performance, but no moment in this even came close to sniffing Ikeda/Ishikawa.

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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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Wrestling I've Enjoyed Recently (9 Months Ago Edition)

Whenever I talk with Phil I always feel like the most out-of-the-loop wrestling fan around. I love watching wrestling on DVD. DVDs have revolutionized tape trading. You used to buy a tape for $10-15, and now I can find people selling DVDs for $2 a pop. I can afford to keep up with every single promotion in the world at that rate. BUT, I don't love watching wrestling on a computer. I will watch if it is the ONLY way I will ever see a match (the amazing VIP lucha tag from a couple years ago, the Navarro/Terry match, etc.), but otherwise I'll just wait for the DVD.

PHIL, however, is the master of watching wrestling on a computer. He watches matches matches that have disappeared forever by the time he tells me about them the next day. "Oh man, it was fucking amazing." "Where can I see it!?" "Oh, it got taken down 7 minutes after I watched it. I doubt it'll ever be uploaded again." If we're talking music terms, then Phil is getting his hands on all the cool new 7"s from hip indie labels like Hozac or Captured Tracks or Woodsist before they go for ebay money, while I'm still listening to my Deep Blue Something cassingle on my Walkman.

So, yeah, I watch wrestling way late, on DVD, like a loser. Here are some matches I watched recently that I really enjoyed, that took place 9 months ago.

1. Bronco/Romano Garcia vs. Danny Boy/Flecha (El Toreo, 12/3/08)

Going into this I didn't know Bronco, loved Garcia but didn't realize he was still even making tape (Mr. Condor/Diabolicos, along with Apache and Pimpi, were one of the only bright spots on early 2000s Galavision AAA TV), didn't know Danny Boy, and knew Flecha was Skayde. Didn't have tons of hope for it but I love old guy lucha so figured it would be OK.

It was awesome. Romando Garcia is a total monster here. He's a little greyer up top, but he's as sneaky and bastard-y as ever. He just makes Danny Boy (who has the appearance of an older, hispanic Joey Maggs) his target the whole match and is just ruthless. Just kicking him in the balls, beating him with nasty chairshots, and in one of the greatest things I've ever seen in wrestling, Garcia grabs an empty beer bottle from a ringside vendor, breaks it on the ring post, and goes after poor Danny Boy with it!! Garcia is a marvel here, one of the ultimate heel performances I've ever witnessed.

Danny Boy bleeds like a champ and plays a really great sympathetic technico. Really interested in all their other meetings this year (two of which I have on my old fashioned Digital Video Diskz), so look forward to watching those some time in 2011.

2. Sami Callihan vs. Trik Davis (IWA-MS, 12/5/08)

These guys matched up a couple times in '08, but THIS was the singles match to watch from them. This is one of my favorite indie workrate singles I've ever seen. Trik Davis is so great here it really makes me think I should've had Trik over Sami, and Sami just got more showcase matches against cool opponents (Trik didn't get the Scorpio or Ian singles matches). Trik makes Sami's offense look better than I've ever seen it look before. Trik just leans into EVERYthing and both guys really deserve some kind of weirdo standing ovation for giving and taking such nasty beatings in front of like 35 people. The way Trik takes Sami's finisher on the floor is just totally painful, and it was on a side of the ring that had like 6 people sitting on it. Sami doesn't really know how to play to the crowd very well and project, he just kinda does his Billy Idol sneer and that's it. Trik is getting really good with his facials and plays to the crowd well and it really ties the match up. This is a great match, well worth going out of your way to see. PLUS, Fannin points out that Trik came out to the Fall Guy theme song , which may be appropriate. Trik still doesn't get much credit as a great worker, just because he looks like Big Pete Wrigley. So even though he might fall from a tall building, or roll a brand new car, he's still the unknown stunt man, that in this match made Sami Callihan such a star (I still have my Fall Guy lunch box up on my living room shelf).

3. Grits N Gravy vs. Ian Rotten/Mickie Knuckles (IWA-MS, 12/6/08)

This was part of the IWA-MS Candido Cup tag tourney. Grits N Gravy is Sami Callihan and Michael Elgin. You're all familiar with Ian, Mickie, and Callihan, and Elgin is a big doughy squishy dude squeezed uncomfortably into a singlet, who hits REALLY hard.

Ian is the standout here, and he's just awesome. He looks like my old elementary school classmate Nathan Hoffman, who would kinda do anything just to get attention (and had a baby blue Member's Only jacket with a spot on the left breast pocket so you can put I.D., so Nathan sloppily wrote "Nathan" on a piece of torn lined paper and put it in there). I usually don't get too excited for bullshit in wrestling. I have to be in the right mood for it. But Ian's bullshit? I could watch that all day. The dude is always on and people could gain a lot by watching his tag work. The dude is just always on. His apron work here is fantastic, his stuff on the mat is cool, there's a great spot on the floor where he dishes out some classic "Smothers-Fu" to Elgin, and when Sami wanders over to save Ian delivers a mule kick to the balls. Just watching the guy waddle around and somehow be awesome is such a treat.

Mickie Knuckles genuinely scares me. I like watching her wrestle, and like seeing her come in and headbutt her brain cells away, but she scares me. She really has a kind of reckless way about her -- not in a sloppy way, but in a I-don't-care-if-I-die way -- that makes her really intriguing.

Real fun tag match with four people who hit hard and get hit hard.

4. Takeshi Rikio/Naomichi Marufuji/Mohammed Yone vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano/Ricky Marvin (NOAH, 12/7/08)

I am such a sucker for NOAH six mans. Throw six guys with seemingly little connection to each other, one side acts like heels, the other acts like faces, somehow all six guys end up looking awesome. I have no idea how this happens. Marufuji consistently looked like the worst guy in everything he was in the last two years, and he was great here! And remember when Ricky Marvin was the best wrestler in the world!? Well he looked like those days were upon us NOW. All his stuff looked good and he did a rope-walk dropkick that I had to rewind a few times. Yone is really big now and he has his fro back. The only guys larger than him in the match were Rikio and Takayama, and man he packs a wallop. This had all the shit you know and love about NOAH. Dudes getting thrown into guardrails a bunch, dudes setting up spots where they run all the way across the building to clothesline a guy, stiff strikes, hott stand-offs, everybody wins. I love NOAH six mans.

5. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima (NOAH, 12/7/08)

This was the first time I enjoyed a singles match with Nakajima. I've enjoyed a good amount of tags where he's in with heavyweights that just beat him up and all he has to do is get beaten up and throw some big kicks. But this was a good Nakajima singles match. Misawa is fat, grumpy, and in no mood to get kicked by some punk. Misawa's elbows are truly insane. They're like an Anderson Silva back-peddling jab: He doesn't look like he's throwing them that hard, but when they connect, they just might dislocate your jaw. Misawa hits all sorts of elbow combos and Nakajima reddens his chest, and the match ends when it should end.

6. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki vs. KENTA/Taiji Ishimori (NOAH, 12/7/08)

There are gonna be a hundred of these matches this year that I can't stand, filled with wasted big moves and dudes popping up doing the jacking two dudes off fighting spirit fist pumps. But I dug this one. KENTA plays a great face-in-peril and Kanemaru/Suzuki are really good at cutting off the ring. The first 10-15 are classic southern tag, and by the time we get to the big spots they're all really fun and well strung together, making good use of saves to avoid too many pointless kickouts. This was real fun and I seriously doubt I'm going to enjoy a juniors tag this year as much as this one...but like a sucker I'll still watch them.

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