He Called My Name and My Heart Stood Still, When He Said Black Terry Do My Will

Black Terry/Satanico vs. Silver Star/Garringo LLUE/ERLL 9/6/20 - GREAT

ER: Nothing like a match with mostly 70 year old men, in a building where 95% of the people aren't wearing any kind of mask (It's a lucha show! How are there not more people wearing even lucha masks!?). Satanico and Terry might be the oldest tag team I've ever seen, and it's pretty amazing what they are still capable of doing. Satanico has looked basically the exact same for 25 years now, and he still comes off super spry on the mat. I wasn't expecting him to take so many bumps, but he and Terry both bumped big for armdrags and hiptosses. Satanico took armdrag bumps as fast as he did when he was 50, only slow down came getting back to his feet, but luckily when you work with other senior citizens you can count on your opponent being slower to his feet too. 

Black Terry has certainly slowed down, doesn't look like he can run very well, and yet he still bumps hard and hits harder. His overhand chops and short elbows still sing, and at one point he lit up Silver Star in the corner with a mix of chops, body shots, and elbows. Satanico did a lot of super cool little things, like chop blocking Silver Star while Star was holding Terry in a stretch, and a cool as hell moment with Garringo: Satanico went to throw Garringo by the arm, Garringo held the ropes to break Satanico's hold, then Garringo hit a nice rolling armdrag. The crowd would have likely been fine with them just going through some rote spots, they guys didn't need to add interesting wrinkles to move set up, but that's what makes someone like Satanico a legend. Everyone got their limbs stretched here, beyond where their limbs should naturally be able to stretch at this age, and Terry taking a huge bump off a middle rope armdrag looked painful as hell. I also liked Garringo's sunset flips, he got more height on the jumps than I expected and made them look surprisingly fluid. This whole thing was a much more full, energetic match than I was expecting, and I love how these old dudes can still surprise.

PAS: I have no idea who Garringo is but he looked like a peer of Satanico and Terry and I am sure has been having cool matches for 40 years. Terry looked a little washed her when it came to running the ropes, pretty crazy he had an MOTY a year later, but his mat stuff looked good. Satanico was a badass as usual, that guy is truly ageless, I loved the bump he took into the ropes whiplashing his neck against the top rope to set up a pin. All of the brawling looked good, and for the most part this looked like lucha by guys in their 40s or 50s not 60s and 70s. 

Black Terry/Negro Navarro vs. Mr. Jack/El Gallego Lucha Strong 9/12/20 - FUN

PAS: Both Terry and Navarro are in their 60s (Terry is 68!) and I think we are getting to the point where they can't bring it full force every night. The early sections between Navarro and Gallego had a nice maestro exchange, but the brawling was a bit dull. Mr. Jack is the guy in here who was out of place, and he didn't bring much to the table. I am going to watch Navarro and Terry until they are done, and I imagine there are still some gems to come, but this wasn't it. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Lucha Worth Watching: Metalico vs. Disturbio for HAIR! Crash Minis!

Metalico vs. Disturbio CMLL 5/4/19     3ra Caida

ER: Here's me, loving the career ending Virus match, talking to Phil and saying "When was the last time Metalico even worked a singles match!?" Well, it turns out he worked on earlier in the month AND it was also a stips match. It's quick and fun and worked stiff, two rudos going at it while Metalico is default tecnico. Disturbio sneak attacks him to draw a DQ, but sets himself up for an easy segunda win by ramming his knees into Metalico's face a bunch while he's still recovering from that sneak attack. The tercera is where all the action is, with Metalico unleashing two big topes and his Asai moonsault, and we get both men trying to distract the other before hitting cheapshots. Metalico's payback cheapshots were great, loved him getting Disturbio to take his eyes off the action before laying him out with a lariat, and the match ends with Disturbio almost hitting the ref and then getting punched right in the balls. We got a real stiff kneeling punch exchange with both guys comically recoiling before springing up and hitting harder and harder shots, and while this never quite felt like a high stakes apuestas, neither guy was holding back. Also, it's a fact that Disturbio's post haircut look is easily the best he's looked. Everybody wins!

Los Haraganes (Animal/Demencia/Silver Star) vs. Toto/Torito Negro/Xperia The Crash 5/4/19

ER: Real shame this only went 6 minutes or so, because this was a wild super libre match with tons of dives, tons of guys getting thrown into a packed crowd, and tons of stiff shots by our rudos, Los Haraganes (does that really directly translate to "The Lazy"? If so that's my favorite rudo team name ever). We start with a couple dives, including an unhinged flipping moonsault by Demencia, and from there we get a ton of chaos, guys getting launched 5 rows deep with hiptosses and taking out entire sections of chairs, honestly someone either gets thrown or lands in the crowd no less than 8 times in the 6 minute run time, and then come the chair shots. Everywhere you look someone is getting tossed through chairs, hit with hard chair shots, or choked with a chair. A kid gets shoved, more chaos. An important thing about Los Haraganes, is that all of them hit hard. Silver Star throws some forehead bruising punches from the mount, a guy who really makes all of his strikes count (and that's not something that really happens in these kind of spotfests). Animal hits a great dive, Xperia hits a cool climb up headscissors/rana on Demencia, Demencia takes a wild bump off the top when he tries - standing on the top rope - to BODYSLAM Torito, and we get another tornillo into the barricade for good measure. I could have gobbled up another 6 minutes of this, easily, but these guys get deservedly pelted with coin money after this ends (shout out to the kid standing at the entrance ramp launching coins as hard as he can from the back row).

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

11. Charles Lucero v. Silver Star ACM 3/2

PAS: This was very similar structurally to last years awesome Hechicero v. Lucero match which might have been my 2013 MOTY. We have a couple of falls of tricked out maestro matwork and then a big near fall section with a crazy uncalled for bump. It is a pretty awesome match structure, which is always going to lead to a great match, and if the other guy is game, a classic. Silver Star doesn't bring as much to the table as Hechicero in this, he is right there with the matwork, but doesn't add a ton of flourishes, and delivers a big bump, but not the psychotic bump of the other match. I think this was hurt a bit in my mind by being so similar to something better, as Lucero looked really great again. He is so good as switching speeds on the mat, he goes from deliberately working over an arm or leg, to these very fast twisting roll ups, it's like a Fugazi song.

ER: So Lucero may be one of my absolute favorite old guys who I'd never heard of until last year. He works like a younger Blue Panther, all beautiful mat exchanges and cool sequences. There's something quietly graceful about old man luchadors. Lucero has a gorgeous sequence in the primera where he armdrag rolled over Star, picked a leg and did a suave Dandy Roll. I'm sure at some point in his life it was lightning fast, but the muscle memory is so tight that everything may be slower but still looks almost stately elegant. Like if Jim Jarmusch filmed it in black and white it would look incredible. Silver Star is a young buck by lucha standards (I was told 40) and a big fat guy. He was a good power base and even hit a fast fat guy tope at one point and takes a lunatic bump missing a senton off the apron to the floor. Holy lord. Finish was a great throwback spot and Lucero just kept upping the old man awesome as this went on. Lucero is my new Toro Bill Sr.


2014 MASTER LIST

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