2019 Ongoing MOTY List: San Juan Pantitlan Brawl

44. Romano Garcia/Rocky Santana/Hijo del Fishman vs. Wotan/Fly Star/Toxin BELLO 9/14

ER: Gimme some young bleeders and some crazy old men and just let them go to war baby! This was wall to wall chaos, more chairshots than I could count, too many ugly spills. Santana and Garcia are both in their 60s, and Santana has that awesome old man luchador hunch. Neither is closed to washed, and I'm in love with the amount of punishment they can take and dish out. Fishman ups the crazy to keep up with his AARP discount eligible partners, and he's the one who really takes things into the fans. Fishman and Wotan take this to the people, loved the cool spear early in the match into a regular family (4 year old curled up sleeping directly behind them), and right before the finish we get the spot of the match when Fishman hits a running death valley driver into a set of chairs. Wotan gets a hard trash bucket bounced off his head a few times, and I love how the fans allegiances change as the match goes on. At first they are loud and proud for Wotan, but as the match goes on they clearly get behind Rocky, and how could they not!? Everyone takes gnarly chairshots off the head, and there was a running game of seeing who could could take a harder shot to the chest, with plenty of contenders. Wotan blistered Garcia with a double handed chop, Fishman leveled an elbow directly into Wotan's sternum, and the crowd was responding to every stiff strike. Peak crazy hits when Rocky and Wotan started flying at each other like territorial bighorn rams, and seeing Rocky Santana clonking coconuts midair in his mid 60s means I haven't been going out of my way enough to write about old man Rocky Santana matches (although a lot of Rocky/Romano match links I click end up being just 3 minute clips). The moment of Rocky going from violent headbutt offense into classic lucha exchanges (the first of the match) was a genuinely beautiful thing. I loved that late match exchange between Rocky and Toxin, showing that an old bleeding man can still do graceful sequences. Oh, and then eat a suplex into the turnbuckles. This kicked ass.

PAS: Wotan must have really hated his grandfather, because any time he is in the ring with a senior citizen he is unleashing hell. This isn't as good as the Wotan vs. Black Terry match (although maybe 20 matches in the history of wrestling are), but is still a heck of a grizzly brawl. There was some sort of broken concrete in the ring which made even the simplest bumps look super painful. There was way too much head trauma, I mean Garcia and Santana are already at the age where the average person forgets where their keys are, add in all of those chair and bucket shots and they will be drooling in their pudding in a couple more. There was a couple of modern wrestling moments which looked off, random Toxin Canadian destroyer and a tower of doom spot which took forever to set up and looked bad, but when they kept it simple and violent, it was simple and violent.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Aeroboy vs. Aramis! Diabolicos vs. Super Pinocho/Super Raton/Super Muneco!

Aeroboy vs. Aramis MDA 2/17/19

ER: Sadly this is going to be another one of those LWW posts where I didn't actually like the match I was recommended, but wanted to write it up just to show I did the leg work and gave it an actual chance. This is one of those modern lucha matches that I absolutely despise, the kind that borrows from every single awful American indy trope and sullies my beautiful lucha with stupid suplex no sells and mirror sequences. What makes this actually worth watching is 2-3 legitimately spectacular spots peppered throughout. I don't love a lot of the stuff in between those matches, although things don't get too egregious until the back half of the match. Before we get to the "I take a nasty German suplex but it rolls me onto my feet so I run at you and hit a huge lariat but that you pop up from that lariat and hit a superkick and then the superkick bounces me into the ropes and I hit you with a superkick and then we lie on the mat selling but also I adjust my gear a ton while selling" portion of the match there was some stuff I actually enjoyed. There were a couple nice pop up ranas and headscissors early, Aeroboy hit a hard tope that smooshed up his body while crunching Aramis into the barricade, and Aramis gets thrown nicely into the ringpost. A lot of the rest is that "run into the corner and lariat me, but then I'll turn around and run right after you when you run back and hit you" kind of stuff that is a pox on modern lucha. But again, the two spectacular spots are spectacular: Aramis hits a bonkers tope, super fast, hard contact, that sends both of them smashing violently into the second row through a few fans. Later, Aeroboy is in the crowd, and Aramis climbs to the top, rope walks a few feet out on the top rope, and hits an amazing tope con giro into the crowd. The match itself never really matched those two moments, and didn't offer me a ton more than those moments, but your mileage may vary.

Romano Garcia/Gallego/Rocky Santana vs. Super Muñeco/Super Raton/Super Pinocho Sanchez 3/2/19

ER: Man I love lucha. This wasn't technically good, but it sure was enjoyable, and it had all the silly charm that really drew me to lucha 20 years ago. I think Romano Garcia is so good. He's getting older (he's literally 61!) but he has such a great brain for lucha and still knows how to put together a satisfying match, shining with a few moments worthy of being stolen by younger guys. He set up a couple comedy pratfalls including one where he really took his time before missing a planned spot, it was great. Gallego is fun too and it's cool we're getting full length Diabolicos matches in 2019. For awhile none of them were making tape, so either they all took a few years off or they just worked out of sight. Our tecnicos looked crazy, truly a collection of looks and gimmicks that could only work within lucha libre: Raton and Pinocho in particular, with their tiny little shorts and massive bellies with tight little shirts and suspenders doing some major heavy lifting. I presume that these are at least 2/3 original members, which would put them all in their late 50s/early 60s, and that's an old age to be wearing this gear. It's fun seeing old tubby guys pulling off armdrags, and I flipped out when Pinocho did a huge fat guy tope in the tercera. I mean that was just completely unexpected. It's lucha and it can be ridiculous, and it certainly gets there as Muneco steals the segunda pin while Pinocho is setting up a Vader bomb, and then to pay him back he punts Muneco right in the balls to give the match to Los Diabolicos. You have a man in his 60s dressed as a little wooden boy, kicking a clown in the balls, all for free. I love spending time with this kind of lucha.

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There Are Diabolicos Matches Online That I Haven't Watched

Romano Garcia/Mr. Condor is one of my absolute favorite luchadors, yet most of his matches that turn up online are highlights. The highlights always look great, but are just cruel tastes. Well, I saw that there were a couple full Diabolicos matches that I missed from 2015, so let's dive in!

Romano Garcia/Gallego/Rocky Santana vs. Dante/Euro/Filder (AULL 4/19/15)

ER: Tecnicos team is made of three perfectly cromulent guys that I've never seen before, and who I won't actively seek out again. This is really more of a showcase for Los Diabolicos. Gallego is the youngest of the bunch, and he's 50. Garcia is almost 60 and Rocky is into his 60s. And they're all impossibly smooth and it still amazes me how ageless so many luchadors are. For the most part they match up as Rocky/Euro, Gallego/Dante and Garcia/Filder, and all segments are worth watching. Santana and Gallego break out some smooth maestro matwork, and it's noticeable how differently old luchadors move, how they take armdrags a little differently, how they transition on the mat differently. Santana and Euro work some really nice wristlock sequences and work up to snug headlock takeovers and headscissors, all with Santana moving like a guy half his age. Gallego works a lot of neat standing exchanges with Dante, more leveraged wristlock takedowns. Garcia is really great at fast rope exchanges, quick armdrag, headscissor, hiptoss and legsweep counters, always brings violent snap to rote lucha spots. Santana is still impressively graceful for a man who would be eligible for social security, still pulling off rope flip armdrags while getting 15% discounts on Tuesdays at Ross Dress for Less, I really loved his "missed punch flip bump", another example of an old-style lucha bump that you don't see much anymore. Things get a little messy when everybody gets in the ring, but we build to a big double dive by Filder and Dante, with Gallego eating a great Filder dive and Garcia throwing Dante in midair right into the barricade in nasty fashion. Match was unica caida for whatever reason, but I really dug all of what we got. It's crazy how these old guys can still go.

Romano Garcia/Gallego/Rocky Santana vs. Coco Rojo/Coco Verde/Coco Rojo Jr. (AULL 5/30/15)

ER: Ahhhh, lucha clowns, one of my least favorite things in lucha. They usually aren't good at wrestling, they're usually slow and fat, they're never funny and often don't even try to be, and really if you're a clown who's not good at your craft in any way, then why have you even made this life choice? All of us have myriad life failures, but at least the majority of us don't fail while also wearing grease paint, a yarn wig and giant toddler clothing. It's one thing to fail, it's another to look every bit the part of a failure while failing. So you get a great team in Los Diabolicos basically spending the whole time armdragging themselves, setting up everything, while a couple fat clowns constantly pull their yarn wig out of their eyes while wearing shitty sherbet colored baggy clothes. The segunda ends with Gallego standing around for an eternity while Coco Rojo Jr. literally falls off the top rope, then gets back up only to do his lousy body press. It's okay, because as this was happening Coco Verde was taking an eternity to lock Santana into a submission. Diabolicos try to add some little things: Garcia whips his head into the ringpost when getting thrown into it, Santana takes a couple nice pratfall bumps including a great faceplant with him holding his mouth afterwards...but man Los Payasos stink.

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Black Terry is a Ship Lost at Sea in this Ocean of White

Black Terry/Romano Garcia v. Dr. Cerebro/Solar Gimnasio Hercules 5/21/17 - FUN

ER: Not the full match sadly, though it feels like we got most of the working parts, with the cuts being mostly during move breaks and tag outs. I'm mainly happy about Garcia making tape as I haven't seen him in a couple years, still works just as well as he did last I saw him. The former Mr. Condor matches up great with Solar and I like the pairings with Cerebro as Cerebro is basically a younger (not young), better Garcia. Cerebro feels like the best luchador who still doesn't get talked about a lot. The Navarro/Terry stuff gets written up far more often by those of us who write about old guys, and here Cerebro is, a mid 40s youngster by comparison, but still flying questionably below the radar. It's not hard to picture him dropped into Hechicero's role in CMLL. His ropes offense is creative and executed impressively, he and Garcia does some really nice quick exchange stuff. It's cool to see Solar up against a non-Navarro guy, watch his nice leg and arm drags against Terry, Terry takes to working him really smooth, all nice stuff. I loved Garcia having the stones to rush in on Solar and immediately work a submission, tying the old master into a couple knots. It backfired eventually and Solar paid him back with a stiff backbreaker, and I liked how Solar was working a little out of formula. Short, inconsequential match, but fun.

PAS: Solar is sort of looking his age at this point, every time he takes a bump to the mat it looks like it might be his last, he can still wrap someone up in knots though, and the Terry exchanges may have lacked pep but they were technically sharp. I really liked the team of Garcia and Terry, pair of mean old dudes who can still clear out a bar. I was really impressed with how fast Garcia was in his exchanges with Cerebro, and this made me want to see Terry and Garcia in a brawl either against each other or against some young punks who need comeuppance.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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