Found Footage Friday: 1982~! OLYMPIC~! AUDITORIUM~! LUCHA~!

 

Azteca Promotions, Lucha Libre, Olympic Auditorium, October 16, 1982

Super Astro vs. Capitan de Oro

MD: Super Astro was young here and though he'd always look small, he looked especially so in this one. This went a worked ten minutes (not quite) for a draw, and never really got out of first gear, but it was a very fun first gear. Lots of takeovers, lots of Astro having to use every big of lucha libre physics to get Oro over. What was most striking was how direct a lot of the landings were. Less rolling and flowing and more thudding than I'd expect. I'm not sure if it was the ring or the experience level or the locale or what, but the points of impact felt harsher than what I was used to. It never really opened up though, just one takeover after another even though some were novel relative to what we see today.

Black Shadow (last match), Santo de Oro, Huracan Ramirez vs. Sergio el Hermoso, Bello Greco, El Medico

MD: Interesting that Black Shadow would have his last match against a couple of exoticos. If there was anything else behind it other than them being a hot act, I don't know it. Though this is second on the tape, I'm pretty sure it's the main event of the evening. Sergio is great in the introductions, just leaning his cheek on the top rope as if to sully the integrity of the proceedings. Despite losing his match to Santo decades earlier, Shadow got to wear it out and then take it off before the match. 

I enjoyed this a lot. For the primera, after Sergio screwed around a bit early calling Santo out, they landed on pairings. Greco and Shadow worked well, very smooth. Sergio did all of his comedy bits with Santo, including where he keeps falling back into a body scissors. I saw him do that in 89 NJPW too. Then things sort of broke down and we got rudo miscommunication with an exotico twist spot after spot, bit after bit, just endless riffing as the rudos got more and more angry at one another. It was delightful how far they took it before the tecnicos won the caida. Second caida started the same way but then got pretty grisly as they tore at Santo's mask and started the woundwork. Tecnico comeback in the tercera was Ramirez having enough and shoving the ref down. And the finish, I suppose protected the rudos for some reason, as Ramirez, after Santo's dive, hit a low blow foul to save Shadow giving the rudos the DQ win. Entertaining stuff, with enough blood (Medico ended up with his masked ripped and bleeding too) to give it some substance even if maybe it didn't have quite the weight you'd expect.

Sonia Orellana vs. Marlene

MD: This was a good amount of fun. It went a worked 15 in two falls. Marlene would press an advantage and Orellana would come back, and it got pretty tricked out at times. In the first fall, Orellana came back in the end with a number of tumbling takeovers including one where she jammed her knee right in the crook of Marlene's hip in a way that looked nasty. She won that with a slam and a big splash. Second fall had Marlene try to grind her down but Sonia fire back. She hit some sort of diving takeover off the top that we couldn't really see and missed a splash from the top that went pretty far across the ring. The time expired (for hook or crook) while Marlene had her in a bodyscissors and they called it a draw. Solid stuff.

Tony Rocco y Gallo Tapado vs. El Cobarde y Muralla Del Ring

MD: All of this stuff has been really good, honestly, and it makes me wish that this was just on LA TV and we end up with a ton of it some day. I haven't seen Rocco since the 80s lucha set and he was very good. All of these guys were in their own way. I expected Cobarde to stand out more and while he had good strikes and occasionally played the coward well as you'd expect, Muralla was probably more dynamic. I loved the early exchange with Rocco where Rocco did his step over armdrag twice and then jammed Muralla when he tried to do it. Gallo had more high flying stuff, all a lot of fun. The beatdown was lengthy but they switched it up with some tandem slingshots and a lot of brutal shots. Eventually Gallo was able to lean into some rudo miscommunication for a quick second fall win, but the rudos came right back.They undid his mask so Rocco had to fight them off two on one, but he managed it until Gallo could even the odds. Finish had them tear off Gallo's mask. The ref went so far as to pull his own shirt off to cover the face, which was a great bit. 

Mando Lopez y Kato Fu Mask vs. Migra Primero y Tony Curiel

MD: We don't spend a ton of time on this one so it's a little hard to get a sense of things, but if I have everyone right here, I liked Curiel's reactions and Kato Fu Mask's bumping. After a little bit of clowning early (on Curiel, I think) by Lopez, the rudos took over and they did a good job controlling the ring and keeping the beatdown on. We only get the primera here. And then the rest of the tape are random Gagne vs Larry Z AWA and Skip Young vs Al Perez matches. Weird things to keep alongside this.

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Found Footage Friday: WWE IN AUSTRALIA~! BABE FACE~! FANTASMA~! SUPER ASTRO~! SCORPIO~! SATANICO~! EMILIO~!

Super Astro/Fantasma vs. Babe Face/Scorpio WWA Olympic Auditorium 09/12/87

MD: This has been sitting in plain sight for a few years but was thankfully was brought to light by the Wrestling Playlists newsletter recently. It hits so many of the marks you'd want with four very talented wrestlers doing their thing in a slightly alien place for slightly alien promotion. Super Astro is this tightly contained ball of energy, a little shorter than his peers, a little stockier than you'd expect, but it's almost like there's a wick counting down on him and he's always ready to explode. It gives his roles and vaults and stylized tricks an extra bit of oomph. They're things that would be impressive regardless but with him it's all somehow supercharged, and Scorpio, bald and wide and spry took it all so well. He shoved Fantasma before the bell and Fantasma bounced back off the ropes and shoved him back, causing him to bump huge. That's just the sort of guy Scorpio was.

I wouldn't say this had a rudo ref so much as the rudo was holding the tecnicos to far higher standards. That meant they withheld tags in a way that you don't usually see in lucha (though the out of the ring rule was definitely in play) and it allowed the rudos to stay in charge in the primera. That built the pressure for the comeback, even through the end of the fall and a nice double takover onto Fantasma and subsequent submission. You can tell the pressure was up beacuse there was an upset Granny at ringside. 

It was interesting because they used the ref taking back/not allowing tags to build heat but the moment of comeback was wholly within the ring on a bit of rudo miscommunication. From there things went even with it looking like the tecnicos might get swept under again only to outquick and outslick the rudos, all building to Astro knocking Scorpio out and landing on him with a senton through the ropes to the floor. Brutal stuff and Scorpio either bladed or got bust open. Either way, he was a bloody mess. That was the equalizer as simultaneously Fantasma was doing a ridiculous submission in Tombstone position on Babe Face (who I have less to say about here but he was perfectly fine in his role).

The tercera was full of the sort of great exchanges you'd expect until Scorpio was able to go behind on Fantasma off the ropes, using his momentum to push him through the ropes and right into a waiting chairshot from Babe Face. From there it was an academic 2-on-1 with them picking up Astro repeatedly after having him beat. That sort of hubris didn't lead to comeuppance though as they finished him off after one of Babe Face's great off-center running sentons and a nasty legdrop from Scorpio. I'm sure this led to some phenomenal return match we don't have, but at least we have this.

ER: You show up for a match like this to see what Super Astro might do, but then you leave getting to see  stocky rudo toughness from Babe Face and Scorpio. Super Astro is must watch in any setting. You're always going to get something worth writing about. Imagine seeing this stocky little guy in LA doing a slingshot senton to the floor in 1987. It's great. But this is a match that makes you want to watch more Babe Face and Scorpio. Scorpio Sr.! I have not seen much Scorpio Sr. He is as ugly as his son in a completely different way, more hideous monster way. He also looks like the perfect wrestler. Wide, round, ugly, bald, cocky. He's got a fat buff guy or buff fat guy body squeezed into a red King Kong Bundy double strap that you wish could be pulled off as well in modern wrestling but everyone is shaped wrong. Babe Face, it turns out, also has a perfect pro wrestling physique. He is stocky and muscular and compact and powerful. He's Bill Dundee with 20 pounds of thick bulk. He is one of three of the smallest most powerful men, wrestling inside of the largest ring in wrestling history. You fill not believe how long it takes Super Astro to run ropes in this ring. It's incredible. 

We all love Super Astro and we love the way he is in a competition with himself to take higher back body drops. But this hits peaks whenever Babe Face or Scorpio are throwing punches and chops and headbutts. Babe Face headbutts Super Astro in the eye socket to force a tag out and I thought we were going to get a bloody mask hole Super Astro match. He is stocky rudo cocktease, pouncing Astro to the floor to interrupt a dive, cameras catching a great close up of Scorpio's mug before he overhand chops Astro out of his boots. Things build throughout to big Babe Face/Fantasma showdowns, until Babe Face fucking BRAINS Fantasma with an open folding chair to the top of the head while Fantasma was draped over the ropes. The announcers say something about Intrepidos Punks, so either they're describing these two stocky men of differing beauty, or they're advertising the late 80s movie of the same name and either way makes this great. Los Intrepidos Punks lay a fucking beating on Astro while Fantasma's corpse is under the ropes, slapping him back and forth, Babe Face hitting full weight sentons, kneeling on his chest and groin while Scorpio holds a legdrop like the most smug sideburn asshole.  

I liked Fantasma's aggressively pistoning 69 bearhug. 

Emilio Charles vs. Satanico [hair vs hair] CMLL 3/20/98? 

MD: Pretty unique hair match here though one that hits a lot of the right notes despite that and despite some goofiness. As best as I can tell, this is rudo vs. rudo though Charles is the clear crowd favorite. Satanico gets an early ambush and starts dismantling Charles like only he can. No one is better in the history of wrestling at orchestrating violence, including his own. The bump Charles takes into the third row, head over heels, is excellent. Charles starts to mount some comebacks (including one really nice Fujiwara armbar reversal out of a grounded abdominal stretch that's lucha loose but symbolically perfect) but the ref (who apparently he hit the week before?) seems to get in his way each time and Satanico finally gets the caida on a backslide with a fast count.

That causes Charles to start complaining to the commission. Rey Mendoza is out there and says that Charles has a stipulation in his contract that he can call for a change in ref so Babe Richard comes out to take over. Meanwhile, Charles is unloading on Satanico, including tossing him into the crowd. Satanico is able to sneak in a foul though and locks in the Satan's Knot. That seems like the end and the end to Charles' hair, but he gets lost in the moment and refuses to let go and the ref awards the caida to Charles. So it's a bit of an odd dynamic with the ref switch and Satanico basically winning the second fall only to have it overturned. It all gets paid off in the tercera with Charles getting a foul in of his own and everything building to another Satan's Knot only for Charles to fight his way out of it and lock in this great Gory Special (where he has to slowly bring his hands together) before dropping down with it into a pin. I wouldn't call this the most primal match or the quickest path between two points but these guys were so good and they made this work so well for what it was.

ER: The ugliest default babyface fighting dirty through getting punched in the forehead and thrown into the third row by the devil. Satan himself throwing short punches aimed to open up an ugly man's forehead and biting him. I love situations where Charles became the tecnico. He is good at working through tecnico stages of a three fall match, peaking the reactions in the tercera and getting bigger reactions with consecutive quebradoras while the crowd loudly hates Satanico for breaking holds with biting at men's thighs. The devil fights dirty when the devil's beautiful head of hair is at stake. Satanico is a great rudo because he also wrestlers through submissions like the tecnico, pulling each limb with celebratory swipes like he's an Olympic runner raising both arms through the finish line. It makes Charles' win, through a biased ref and the persistent devil himself, even more of an ugly man tecnico triumph. I thought the execution on Charles' tercera-winning Gory Special was so good for this specific match. A fought for Gary, Charles' hands clasped, drawing out the inescapable backslide. 

It didn't get as violent as I expected it would, for a match I knew nothing about. When you start with Satanico biting and punching at a cut you expect escalation and that violent escalation never comes. We also don't get the actual haircutting. Satanico knew that he looked like a totally different badass when he had his head shaved and I wanted to see what that looked like at 50.  

Batista/Chris Jericho/Chris Benoit vs. Triple H/Ric Flair/Edge WWE 4/8/05

MD: New Richard Land Handheld from Australia right after Wrestlemania 21. Some of those names should worry you for a 50 minute clip, maybe, but this is house show bullshit and that's the best bullshit there is. Plus it's about ten minutes of entrances and pre-match talking and ten minutes of them breaking down the ring. I thought I was going to be taking one for the team here but I had fun with this. The pre-match yapping was ridiculous with Triple H going on about how terrible Australia was and how in America they had an army that could kick their asses, the Salvation Army. Basically the most definitional Triple H stuff imaginable. Batista's retort was short and sweet (he had just won the title), and the crowd was hot for all of this really.

All of the early exchanges were fun. Benoit and Edge started. Benoit chopped Edge out of the corner. Edge went for a tag. Both Triple H and Flair dropped down to avoid it. Jericho came in and Batista and Benoit cheerlead the crowd in a Y2J chant. Flair came in, had a chop off with Jericho so the fans could chant woo and then walked into the babyface corner to eat a bunch of punches and take the first flop (of many) of the night. Jericho grabbed a sign and paraded around with it. Batista came in. Flair eyepoked him and chopped him. Batista no sold it. Flair begged off. Batista waggled his finger. Flair took his second back body drop. Triple H came in. The crowd went up for the idea of them going at it. Flair wooed at Batista from the corner repeatedly. Batista posed and the crowd went nuts. Triple H won on a shoulder block exchange and posed. They milked a test of strength for a while before doing it. Triple H kicked Batista, drove him down. Batista fought back up and clotheslined Triple H over the top and the crowd loved every second of all of this. Truly entertaining house show BS, what much, much more of wrestling should be and what a lot of the times it isn't in a world where these barely exist anymore.

Again, this had a ton of time and they worked double heat on it. Jericho was drawn into the heel corner and when he came back and made a hot tag, Benoit came in hot for a bit only to miss the diving headbutt. Eventually, Triple H had Benoit down in the corner but got distracted by Batista and leaped right into a foot, wherein he spent an entire minute (not a second less) standing there looking at the lights dazed before flopping. Only on a house show. I'm actually not sure that spot hit as well as it could have but points for committing to the bit certainly. That let Batista make it in finally, let everything break down, and let Edge eat the power bomb (thumbs down beforehand) to end the match. I don't know if I would have seen this same match around the loop but to see it one time was honestly a lot of fun. Just a totally different world that barely exists anymore. And we're talking 2005, not 1985 here.

ER: We've been doing - and Matt's been running entirely - Found Footage Friday for over a decade now. It's probably the most valuable thing we've done because it preserves at least 1-3 different takes on footage that none of us as fans had ever seen before. In many cases, we've written about matches that can get newly added into a Greatest Matches discussion, 40 years later. New narratives, new looks, new opportunities to have views changed. It's an incredible resource, constantly growing. This week alone we have a new apuestas match, new Babe Face...and now a new 30 minute match with SC stalwarts like HHH and Edge and Chris Benoit. 

People love our HHH writing, and this is the match for those people. This is an essential HHH match for HHH fans, because not only did all 30 minutes feel completely laid out by HHH, but all six men wrestle like HHH from different eras of his career. This is a match agented, produced, and then wrestled by six HHHs. Jericho wrestles like Terra Ryzing, Batista wrestles like HHH did when he came back gassed up after the quad tear, Benoit sells like HHH in a way that you know it won't lead anywhere, Flair is slowed down so he wrestles like HHH during that long era of bloated HHH aping Flair spots, Edge wrestles like the worst version of 1998 bad Opponents' Momentum offense HHH, and HHH wrestles like some unholy house show HHH amalgam that includes a long comedy spot that he doesn't know how to make resonate but he 100% would have gotten anyone else fired over.

This was a HHH match in every way, and it was good. There is so much wrestling I've never watched and so much wrestling I never will watch but I love Matt, and Matt got me to watch a 30 minute HHH/HHH/HHH vs. HHH/HHH/HHH in Australia, because HHH - with his meaty nose and heavy brow beadying his eyes - is like Bruno at MSG to Australians.  

Seeing Flair work the brunt of a long house show match was surprisingly fun. HHH could never connect his in-ring comedy to a crowd like this, and we get a literal example of that during what should have been the crowd noise peak. Flair's punches looked fantastic throughout, and even though he enters the match in control he's soon taking a back body drop and it leads to a fantastic Flair spot, where he rolls up in the babyface corner, eats a headbutt from Benoit and a punch from Batista, hops around like he's getting back into the fight, then flops. Flair takes another back body drop when Batista tags in, classically begging off before poking him in the eyes, but none of his chops have any affect and he's soon flopping and back dropping and leaving down the aisle. It's the kind of ass showing that HHH admires about Flair, but could never bring himself to actually look weak enough for the extended periods that make the stooging work, meaning it always came off like Stooging While Still in Control and never worked. After Benoit gets his hand smashed with a chair (nasty business smashing it against a ringpost) and gets cut off, the long heat segment builds to Benoit's hot tag, but the entire tag is iced out by HHH doing a full minute of Working On Material that sounds great on paper but gets no reaction live. 

HHH leaps off the middle buckle into Benoit's up-stretched boot and stands there on his feet, selling and swaying, for exactly one minute. You can picture Larry Sweeney doing this spot and burning the house down, knowing the exact moment to grind an entire match to a halt for one self-aggrandizing spot, and how much HHH would fucking BURY anyone else who did that spot, regardless of how well it got over. To see HHH pull out a 2006 Chikara spot on a house show and get no reaction for it is the wrestling equivalent to a gay bashing Republican getting caught in a rest stop bathroom, all secret unfulfilled urges and embarrassing missteps. It's as clear as day that HHH would brand anyone else who tried this much of a comedy overreach a mark who isn't serious about the business that he's devoted his life to. Six different HHHs in one match, and the real HHH is the one desperate to show his chops as a comedy worker that didn't understand punchlines

Great match. The kind of match you can put on after a Gene Snitsky/Shelton Benjamin title match.

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Found Footage Friday: BATTLE OF THE BAM BAMS~! Los Cadetes Del Espacio~! MARTINELLI~! JARQUE~!

Tony Martinelli vs. Gregorio Jarque New Jersey 1959

MD: New Wrestling Films find. Jarque was from Spain and I imagine if he was in there against Tony Oliver in Barcelona around this time, we would have gotten something special but there wasn't a ton to see here. This was a Bill Stern reel entitled "Rasslin' Ref" and the match was pretty much built around the ref getting rolled on top of during pins and then jawing with Martinelli. Solid stuff but nothing spectacular and a pale imitation of what was happening (even the comedy work) in France at this time, obviously, but I liked the consistency of what they were trying to do at least. They had a nice bit of trading mares towards the end until the ref got crushed one last time and just called it a draw.

Terry Gordy vs. Bam Bam Bigelow TWA 1/27/90

MD: This was a third Battle of the Bam Bams that we didn't know was even filmed but here we are. They had a strong sense of just what they had here and made every lock up feel like a clash of the titans. I expect Terry Gordy in 1990 to bump around and create motion a lot more and he did but only when he was charging towards Bam Bam in order to knock him down, just that extra oomph. He worked a little bit bigger than he did elsewhere in the year to signify the titanic struggle for the crowd. Bam Bam met him equally, as he's another guy that you expect to move around a bit more, and I don't just mean the cartwheels. But they kept this grounded for the most part, selling every knockdown as a big deal and working up to the next piece of contact accordingly. Despite this video being almost twenty minutes with very little before or after the match, there were some annoying cuts that made it hard to tell how thing went from Point A to Point B but you definitely got the overall idea. They worked in a chair battle at the end which gave everything a nice crescendo before the inevitable non-finish. 

ER: This is really exciting for me. We finally got the best version we're ever going to get of the Battle of the Bam Bams. 1990 was the only pre-coma year they fought and thus was the best time for them to ever cross paths. The best possible Gordy/Bam Bam match would probably have been either 1993 or 1987, but we know those don't exist and this is the best it's going to get. Also this match was not at all what I expected. I did not expect these two behemoths to go into Philly and work a slow-paced (not in a bad way) minimalist heavyweight clash. It goes on a bit too long but there was weight behind everything they did, and what's wild is it went on so much longer. There was a "20 minutes have elapsed" call at the 12 minute mark of the video meaning the 2-3 cuts to that point meant 8 missing minutes of footage (depending on how much the ring announcer was kayfabing the time call). At 12 minutes in, the match was already feeling a little long, but I love the majesty of the two largest men lumbering through a minimalistic 28 minute match at Temple University, an unlikely great wrestling venue. I love this venue as a Wrestling Venue, with those steep bleachers climbing up so high I don't think we ever saw the top. Both men took some great bumps, spread out well through the long run time. 

I loved Gordy's counters to Bammer's kicks and enziguiris, catching his leg and making him hop around, shoving him off into off balance out of control stumbles. Gordy takes a big back bump through the ropes to the floor and Bam Bam saves his biggest for the end of the match when Gordy head of steams his way through him for a clothesline to the floor. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Gordy made more interesting bump choices than Bam Bam but I am. The match peaked when the two giants squared off with chairs. Bam Bam swung a chair around more compellingly than almost any wrestler I've ever seen, in a way I have never seen him do. Bigelow was like an expert sign spinner, decades before that job existed. Bam Bam swung his chair around like a balletic Leatherface, a dangerous visual spectacle of a spot done as well or better than the ECW chair duels that came nearly a decade later. What an awesome showdown at a very good American college. I love these two daring to work a 30 minute clash of the titans, sending larger than life magic to the back row of a wrestling venue I'd never known before but now adore. 

Super Astro/Ultraman Jr./Solar vs. Divulios Negros I + 2/Sergio Romo, Jr. Arena Solidaridad

MD: A handheld match. I'm sure someone knows the dates and whether this one is found or new but it's new to us and it was a lot of fun. Very much what you'd expect from the Space Cadets, but worked well and balanced even better. They did pairings and matwork to start, fed right into rudo clowning (Super Astro with his little jump, etc.) and the tecnicos taking the primera. Pretty solid rudo beatdown in the segunda with Romo hitting from odd angles and a nice triple team submission and corner succession attacks. Plus some working over the mask. They had swagger. The comeback in the tercera came on a missed charge the tecnicos got their revenge, did some more clowning, and they built to the (very solid) dives and Solar tying up a Divulio for the win. Nothing revolutionary but getting to see these guys do their thing one more time is always a joy. 

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Found Footage Friday: CASAS~! PANTERITA~! PIRATA~! ASTRO~! SMILEY~! CARAS~! ARANDU~! SCORPIOS~! DEMON~! VERDUGO~!

Black Magic/Panterita del Ring/Centurion Negro vs. Negro Casas/Cien Caras/Arandu CMLL 1991

MD: Back to another wild trios here, another exciting match in this feud. There's such energy and almost elasticity whenever Casas and Panterita are in there. No one else moves like Casas. The way he hits the ropes almost seems to stretch reality itself, like he's always threatening to tumble off screen at any moment, like the ring itself would give way to him. It was true throughout but most especially as they were careening towards the finish of the tercera (Casas going for a 'rana and getting power bombed). The primera started with Panterita going right after Casas. It looked like there would be an immediate rudo advantage as Casas turned it around but Black Magic was there to toss him off the top and they rolled into exchanges.

This had to be pretty early into Smiley's sojourn into Mexico (in the pre-match interview, he pronounced Panterita's name wrong and couldn't remember Centurion Negro's name, not that he did much in this match) and he has raw size and presence but is still trying to figure out how to fit into a match like this. That's my takeaway at least. He has Casas, Arandu, and Caras to help him along but there are moments where he's coming back way before he's supposed to and I think there are spots here where he ends up getting goozled for his own good. They still were able to get a lot of use out of him though, like Arandu leaping back off the second rope only to get caught or Caras trying it on Smiley later only to get rolled up (the segunda finish). There were little bits of clipping here and there, maybe around fouls, but the long stretches of the beatdown and comeback were still satisfying. Casas was all over Panterita, tossing him into collapsing chairs, ripping the mask, trying to force his head into the space already occupied by the turnbuckle. They started the final exchanges with Casas tossing something in the air to distract him for a punch and set up the finishing stretch with Casas feigning getting fouled so his team could swarm in. I'm not getting sick of this pairing yet, that's for sure.

Panterita del Ring/Asterisco/Centurion Negro vs. Megatron/Scorpio/Scorpio Jr CMLL 1991

MD: Unfortunately, this was pretty clipped. We got a clear mat exchange between Megatron and Centurion Negro to start, which looked perfectly fine, and then bits and pieces of the beatdown and comeback and then the complete finishing stretch in the tercera. Therefore, I don't have anything intelligent to say about Asterisco (who I don't think was the Asterisco who feuded with Santito) for instance. I do want to stress how over Panterita was with this arena though. He had a cheering section; last match they had pom poms and here they had little flags. He had all the fire you'd want out of a local hero when fighting from underneath or making his comeback. He was probably matched with Scorpio, Sr. here but we didn't get to see much of that. It's a shame because Scorpio, Sr. feels like such a perfect wrestler for this blog given his size and overall scumminess. His nickname is apparently "El Rey Feo" (the Ugly King). Whenever he pops up in footage, I'm glad to see him. Anyway, this ended with things breaking down, the rudos controlling until the Scorpios had a mishap, and then a foul that the refs missed letting them win it anyway. This probably would have been pretty good, if somewhat slight, if we had gotten the whole thing.

Blue Demon Jr./Super Astro/Panterita del Ring vs. Arandu/Pirata Morgan/Verdugo Monterrey 1991 

MD: This is not actually new, but this video is in way more watchable form since it was cut up and misnamed before so we're going to cover it again. Here's the last review: 

(https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2012/08/just-call-me-pirata-morgan-im-sure-to.html)

It was epic then and it's epic now. While Panterita is in almost every match that have popped up in this dump and while I think it probably helps Ephesto's case over all to see these, and while seeing Casas off the beaten trail here has only spoken well of him too, Arandu is a guy who wasn't on anyone's radar and that really looks great in these matches: wild offense, big bumping, a lot of presence, fits right in with Estrada or Angel Blanco, Jr., or whoever. And here, he makes a great third Bucanero with Morgan and his brother. The story of this one was Arandu vs Super Astro and while everyone else played their part, it was some great contrast. Astro was willing to be lawndarted into hard objects and have his mask (and forehead) torn and chewed upon by Arandu and Arandu was more than happy to get chased around the arena and play into all of Astro's signature spots, including bumping out of the ring on the taunt spin.

My favorite moment in this was probably Demon dodging a punch so that Morgan hit Verdugo and then, when Morgan was selling his fist by shaking his hand in the air repeatedly, reaching his hand out to shake Morgan's, causing our one-eyed friend to freak out. The second was definitely Super Astro's final comeback where he burst into the ring and hit a DDT on Arandu that felt just as appropriate as punching him in the face due to how explosive it was. Even Blue Demon looked good in there, flying into hard objects for the rudos and hitting a nice Northern Lights Suplex. And Panterita fit right in on the tecnico side, hitting some of the more complex armdrags and vaults. Just a very complete match with blood, violence, comedy, big spots, something for everyone really.

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Found Footage Friday: CASAS~! PANTERITA~! EMILIO~! VOLADOR~! HAMADA~! ASTRO~! ... BUT REALLY JUST CASAS~!

Negro Casas vs. Panterita del Ring CMLL 1/3/92

MD: This isn't long and it leads off with Panterita and a bunch of kids who had competed in an art contest in a ring. The winner (and they claim Panterita chose the winner) got a mask.

Of the match itself, we get about ten minutes. It's clipped, but hard to say how heavily as it was artfully done, as in we don't miss momentum shifts. They matched up well, Casas and a local hero. The underlying story that the rudo ref, Guerrero, and Casas had a whisper to start and then a nice hug at the start of the segunda and he let Casas get away with murder. That all built to an errant dropkick in the Tercera where Casas took him out and a bunch of phantom pins by Panterita until a ref finally snuck in and caught Casas sleeping. Along the way, everything was smooth and flowing as you'd expect. Casas had these nice short kicks to the ribs that were almost Kawada-esque and since it's him, that led to comeuppance where his foot got caught and he was swept out as he went back to that well. I do think we lost some of the verve and feeling of this one due to the clipping but not the overall sense. Some of the specialness was almost certainly left on the cutting room floor since Casas is about the big picture and not just individual spots (though him getting kicked up into the ropes and bumping feet over head, for instance, will always be spectacular).

Negro Casas/Emilio Charles Jr/Medico Asesino Jr. vs. Panterita del Ring/Volador/Angel Azteca CMLL 1991

MD: This though? I really enjoyed this. Total sprint but with enough super talented wrestlers to make it work and resonate, with the focal point being on Casas and Panterita. Look, when you're putting Casas up as the top top, as maybe the greatest wrestler ever, one of the criticisms is that he can disappear a bit in trios matches where he's not the focus. I think this notion is kind of crazy because, one, it's endemic of lucha, and two, I don't actually think it's true. It's a case where you have to go a little out of your way to watch him, but if you do, you see amazing reactions and subtle bits where he's still hugely engaging and entertaining without drawing attention off of the main focus.

When he's the main focus, however, it's pure joy, and that was the case here. You barely remember anyone else is in the match for the primera (and one of those guys in the match is Emilio Charles Jr!) as Casas and Panterita just go at it. There's a moment where they exchange big throws and then sell after the fact and it's like the world's best possible "fighting spirit" bit but in Monterrey and in 1991. They're just constant motion in and out of the ring, fists always flying, like a cartoon where you just see a ball of dust as two people are scrapping. In the segunda we get some other exchanges, and Emilio and Volador look great together with some beautiful stooging from Emilio. For the finish in the segunda and the tercera, he's just in absolutely the right place at the right time in a way that I'm not sure that many other people in wrestling history could have done as well. But really, this was the Casas and Panterita show and what a show it was.

Negro Casas/Comando Ruso/Corsario vs. Panterita del Ring/Gran Hamada/Super Astro (Monterrey 1991)

MD: I was going to lead off by saying this was more of the same but that really underplays just how awesome this one was. On paper, it was more of the same, but it never really settles down to exchanges. There are a couple times both in the primera and the segunda where it looks like it's going to settle down and we'll get Comando Ruso vs Super Astro or something, but it goes quickly from the threat of violence bubbling up to things getting absolutely out of hand. They replay some of the spots from the last match early on but with slight differences. Really, though it's more just constant swiping and striking from Casas and Panterita. There's a little more of Casas withdrawing and then rushing back in, but overall, it's just consistent chaos.

Every time they headed outside, things really opened up in the best way. Panterita would just grind Casas' head into a chair and then Casas would return the favor by lawn darting Panterita into the fourth rope and then following that up by a slam onto the chairs that almost looked like he was about to drop him with a martinete and end his career. The end of the primera actually had the tecnicos get an advantage because Panterita (having caught Casas with a great sweeping kick as he was getting dragged out of the ring after a trip) hit the seated senton off the apron Casas would later be known for on Casas.

Anyway, by the time things did settle down in the ring after the segunda beatdown and said slam onto the chairs, when they did make it back into the ring, Panterita's mask was torn open and given the VQ I had no idea if Casas was gushing or just drenched in sweat. Much of the end of this was Panterita trying to take Casas' head off with a submission before everything just devolved into fouls and some crazy brawling towards the back. A wild scene over all and a definite escalation from the previous trios. The other tecnicos had tried to assert themselves at one point (including Super Astro's little hop and Hamada dropkicking someone between the eyes) but there wasn't much they could do to stand out through the whirlwind of Casas and Panterita's chaos.

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Found Footage Friday: BABY MISAWA~! ONITA~! SATO~! INOUE~! TENTA~! KABUKI~! JIVE TONES~! CADETES~! MISIONEROS~!

Mitsuharu Misawa/Atsushi Onita vs. Mighty Inoue/Akio Sato AJPW 12/08/82

MD: This is, I think, the earliest Misawa match on record that was identified in a handheld cache from a couple of years back and that's now online due to our new friend in Japan. We have some Goto vs early Kawada matches that we'll hopefully take a look at in the next couple of weeks too. A lot of this was putting Misawa through his paces with the basic spots you'd expect from someone in the system at his age. There was one point where he seemed a little lost on a whip and there were some things he did, like a big backflip off the top that you couldn't quite attach to the wrestler he'd someday be. In general, it was a good showing for his experience level, generally competent. Onita had that electricity that made you think that 82 Randy Savage vs 82 Atushi Onita would be the most interesting match in the world. He drew the eye with everything he did because it stood out so much to everyone around him. And it's not like Sato and Inoue were slouches. These two had as good a finishing combo as you'd see in 82, with Inoue's fireman's carry gutbuster, two flipping sentons, and Sato's wind up hook kick. 

ER: This was mostly simple juniors stuff, a lot of armdrags, some grounded headlocks, and some movements that seem destined only to ruin knees. You see Onita leaping off the top rope to the floor and landing on his feet, just to back off Inoue, and you think about how his knees were pure bone dust less than two years later. Inoue and Sato work over Misawa's knee (Sato had a really nasty grapevine kneedrop that did not prevent Misawa from backflipping off the top rope late in the match) and has a cool backbreaker. Misawa gets to show some spunk with a hard back suplex that gets paid back shortly after. I loved how the match built to a wild Inoue/Onita exchange, with Inoue hitting his high cross block and then FLYINF over the top to the floor after missing the immediate follow up, giving Onita the opening to fly into him with a great tope. The Misawa/Inoue stuff was nice and spirited, with Misawa missing a cool leaping crossbody off the top and getting his insides rearranged with a gutbuster and two fat flipping sentons. Misawa was only 20 years old here, but you could really see how high his floor was just from his young boy work. 

The Jive Tones (Pez Whatley/Tiger Conway Jr.) vs. John Tenta/Great Kabuki AJPW 9/2/89

MD: Jive Tones were generally supporting Abdullah (who was building up to his big, heavily promoted singles match with Baba) on this tour. We get them in some six mans but it's nice to see a straight tag match with them doing their thing. Tenta was winding down on his way to the WWF, having not been utilized all that much in 89. Kabuki, of course, would jump between lower card matches like this and being a second or third guy in Jumbo vs. Tenryu main event trios matches. Maybe that's why it was so enjoyable to see him goof and stooge about with Conway and Whatley here. There was a beautiful exchange where Conway escaped a headlock by dancing this way and that and Kabuki answered by mocking his little dance. The crowd was definitely into the act, popping for each bit of oscillation or jiving that Conway or Whatley pulled out. You never quite got the sense that they were going to win, between the hierarchy of it all and Tenta's sheer size, but they definitely irritated their opponents along the way. That made the post match dancing and strutting around the ring of Tenta and Kabuki all the sweeter after their victory.

ER: Matt really has a strong grasp on the kind of matches that will lure me into writing late on a Friday night. I didn't know the Jive Tones worked an All Japan tour, let alone in a featured tag match, so I was going to be here for this. You see, it's the way Conway shimmies Whatley's white jacket down his arms and shoulders, really taking his time, wiggling his partner free. He will continue wiggling his way through the match, but building to some surprising stiffness and a cool story. I would have enjoyed this if they had kept the early match vibes, like Kabuki barreling out of control doing rope running with Conway, leading to him eating an armdrag and dropkick, or how Tenta swung super low on a clothesline and then caught Whatley's high crossbody, only to go down in a heap from Conway's Thesz press. 

I thought this would settle down pretty quickly into Tenta and Kabuki dominating, and the fun twist in the match comes when Conway gets manhandled into the wrong corner. This is clearly where he was about to take a long beating, and instead, wins a punch out with Kabuki that turns into a nice heat segment on Kabuki, even giving us a Conway butt butt off the ropes. One of Tenta's best traits as a wrestler is how good he is at looking Actually Mad in the ring. He has great body language and is good at selling, but he's so good here at looking genuinely pissed off at Whatley's antics, coming off like someone who was upset that the Jive Tones weren't treating Professional Wrestling with enough Respect. It's so cool seeing such a big dude get knocked around by Conway and Whatley, and my favorite part of the match was this excellent last second pinfall save by Conway, flying into frame with a stage dive that Charles Peterson should have captured in black and white. Kabuki barely gets the win with an inside cradle as Tenta is getting smashed into the ringpost on the floor. Negative points to the cameraman for not giving us more of Tenta and Kabuki's celebratory in-ring strutting. 

Solar/Súper Astro/Ultraman vs. Black Terry/El Signo/Negro Navarro Primer Festival De Lucha Libre Regia 3/21/10

PAS: Always cool to see a new match from Navarro and Terry when they were in their mid 50s and smack in their prime. Terry was the greatest brawler in the world in 2010, but this was more of a Navarro vs. Solar style llave exhibition, which was fun but not revelatory. Everyone kind of hit their beats here, pretty heavily matched up, so we didn't see much of Navarro or Solar doing their things with the other guys in the match. We did get a nice Super Astro tope and some flips from him, and I liked how they teased the traditional Solar vs. Navarro double pin finish, only to switch it up and have Solar win by submission. 

MD: This felt like these guys playing the classics, especially with the initial exchanges, but they're classics for a reason and even though we shouldn't have been surprised by it, because we have Solar vs Navarro even a number of years later, it's absolutely impressive on paper. It was a lot of fun seeing Super Astro use Signo's sheer size as an absolutely literal base to use to bound around the ring. Navarro and Solar had a lot of time and they used it to the fullest with one interesting tricked out hold after the next, holds that almost no one else in the world could make plausible but them. Things opened up a little on the second or third set of exchanges and that let Black Terry unleash some of the shots you'd expect out of him from this time and it gave things some variety, but they snapped back to old form shortly thereafter. Past the action itself, my favorite bit of this was the audio of someone explaining to their kid who each tecnico was based on the color of their gear. It was matter-of-fact and wholesome, spreading the love of these guys across generations.

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Found Footage Friday: LYONS~! SCHMIDT~! SUPER ASTRO~! SUPER BOY~! OGAWA~! SAWADA~! FUJITA~!

Billy Red Lyons vs. Hans Schmidt 11/13/59

MD: Schmidt was announced here as a replacement for Dick the Bruiser. We don't have a ton of Lyons footage in his prime and he was quite young here, on the way up. Davis says this was his biggest challenge yet. He was quick though, which seemed to light a fire under Schmidt too. By the five minute mark or so, they were both on their knees slugging it out with each other. Lyons held his own for fifteen minutes or so, but ended up counted out when an over-excited admirer wouldn't let go of him on the outside. Pretty clever count out spot that let Schmidt win while making Lyons look like he really had a shot.

Super Astro/Principe Joel/Jalisco vs. Super Boy/Fobia/Mano Negra Compton Lucha 6/5/95

MD: The primary pairing here was Super Astro vs Mano Negra and while Negra was high energy both in stalling and in his exchanges, the few glimpses of Super Astro vs Super Boy that we got made me wish that was the primary pairing instead. Jalisco stood out too as he had a certan swagger, even posture I would say, that made him stand out. He would take out all of the rudos with the same move and then the ref too for good measure. Super Boy had a great dive at the end (with Jalisco following up with a sort of elbow dropping dive) to set things up for Mano Negra vs Super Astro again. At that point, however, Joel turned heel and it ended as a pretty big rudo beatdown that probably built to some bigger match later on. The turn didn't really take away from the match as it felt like it came right at the end.

PAS: Very fun lucha trios filled with talented professional luchadores. The extra juice was getting to see bits of Super Astro and Super Boy two of the most electric exciting luchadores of all time. I love a fat highflyer and both of these guys were perfect example of melding chub and athleticism. Super Boy hits a crazy flipping senton to end a fall, and Astro is twinkle toed as ever. Finish was a bit of a dog's breakfast, but the stuff preceding it was a blast

Naoya Ogawa/Atsushi Sawada vs. Kazuyuki Fujita/Kendo Kashin IGF 4/11/15

MD: 8 minutes here and it's all action. The Fujita vs Sawada exchanges are great, just that right mix of intensity and flair and headbutts. Sawada really brings the energy whether it's his initial takedown or just scooting around the ring out of the way when Fujita gets the advantage. We don't get a ton of Kashin and Ogawa here, but the contributions are worthwhile, with Kashin trying to kill Sawada on the outside with some cloth around the neck and Ogawa giving in to Sawada's desire to get STO'd by his own partner so that he can hit a ridiculous and serene tandem DDT. I'd happily watch a 10 match Sawada vs Fujita series if such a thing existed.

PAS: This kind of hardhitting quasi-shoot puro stuff is right up my alley.  Fujita is such a rock headed dim bruiser and it is great to watch him bully Sawada and have Sawada fire back. Loved the flurry of strikes in the corner by Sawada, one of the advantages of wrestling Fujita is that you can hit him as hard as you can and it won't faze him a bit. Kashin and Ogawa are smaller players in this match, but Ogawa has such a great arrogant bruiser vibe, that he works great in this match as a foil. Taunting and bullying his partner until he had enough and just disposed of him. 

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Santo and Casas Keep Themselves Depleting Their Spiritual Wealth

El Hijo Del Santo/Bestia Salvaje vs. Super Astro/Negro Casas CMLL Japan 2/1997 - EPIC

PAS: Fukenmania on youtube has been uploading a ton of previously unseen CMLL Japan matches, and this is the crown jewel. Rudo Santo is so much fun to watch. His character is naturally arrogant, he is the son of a saint after all, and I loved how he weaves that arrogance into the match. He is perfectly willing to show off his technical skills, but if he gets one upped or challenged he turns vicious and starts stomping heads. I loved how he just viciously and contemptuously chucks Astro face first into the mat after submitting him with the Caballo. We get some great unusual matchups, I am not sure how many times Super Astro and Santo wrestled each other but it would have to be in single digits, and they have some pretty graceful exchanges and then it gets unfriendly.  Casas versus Bestia is really great too there are both such nasty brawlers and they just throw hands with speed and viciousness. I love the way Bestia throws a clothesline, he just clubs someone right in the side of their neck.  So happy this showed up.

MD: This was an amazing find, just a great hybrid of lucha-in-Japan spots and pure, visceral hatred from four great luchadors. I'm not sure what Lucha Fiesta 97 was but they wrestle this match in Korakuen Hall like it was a huge deal, putting as much effort into this as something you'd see on a huge CMLL show in Arena Mexico. While it still had that flair that you get from high end lucha touring in Japan, everything still had extra oomph to it, extra meanness. Casas' clotheslines were huge. I loved his rapid fire elbows to the skull (instead of a ten punch) in the corner. Super Astro was killing people left and right, tossing them into chairs, crowning them with chairs, putting more into a springboard twisting senton or just the leap back headbutt than I've ever seen out of him before, just crushing people with his tope. I've rarely seen Santo so mean either, putting in an extra stomp whenever he could. The sheer swagger he had in locking in the Caballo was just rudo perfection. The Casas vs Santo stuff was even better than you'd expect, given the setting, just dripping with hatred and the spirit of competition. Maybe it wasn't as big as in some matches due to the setting, but the actual work was exceptional and gritty as hell. Even early on, they worked stuff you've seen a hundred times just a bit sharper and rougher, be it Santo's cross-legged headscissors or just an extended front facelock exchange. It wasn't just the two of them either. All four made things look gritty and mean that you just take for granted as light and airy (like that back headbutt from Super Astro that usually looks downright dainty). The dive train was nuts. There were so many little throw away spots and bumps that almost got lost in the intensity of this. They almost killed Casas on a double back body drop for instance. The selling was there (including some heat on Casas; the crowd started even but learned very quickly to boo Santo), with them making use of the tag format to break up pins/holds. There were moments where it meandered but I didn't care because it was meandering with them all trying to beat each other to a pulp. All that and the pure novelty of rudo Santito falling for Super Astro's fakeout antics (early on, before escalation, right at the spot of the match where it belonged). Incredible find.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SANTO VS. CASAS

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Old Guys in Arena Mexico

92. Solar/Super Astro v. Virus/Black Terry CMLL 11/17

ER: I love the annual (is that right? biannual maybe?) old guys show at Arena Mexico. The matches aren't always great, but they scratch the nostalgia itch, and it's great to see some of them really try to impress the crowd instead of just getting a ring entrance pop. Super Astro has lost a step, but it's somewhat inevitable after 40+ years of wrestling, and he's still able to fire off a big time tope, like a battering ram knocking down a castle gate. Terry gets mostly matched up with Astro, so most of his time is spent facilitating a couple classic Astro spots. But the Virus/Solar exchanges? Those are straight fire. Solar busts ass and while you can see Virus hold back a bit, but he doesn't need to that much for Solar to catch him. He and Solar work some nice submissions, and it's amazing how quickly Solar pops up to his feet after these exchanges. I loved that step up rolling armbar he does to Virus, and the match has an incredible moment of Virus slaps Solar in the chest with both hands, and Solar catches his arms and tosses him with a nasty overhead belly to belly. The "okay, okay old man, ya got me" look on Virus' face after was amazing. I'm glad these guys can still do their thing, and glad a nice Arena Mexico crowd still responds to it.

PAS: PAS: I am always going to be a sucker for a maestros match, and it is a treat to watch these guys perform on a bigger stage. Astro is always a bit problamatic in these as he always tries to wrestle the same athletic style he did 25 years ago, still he does break out an awesome tope and doesn't badly botch anything. Terry is a little miscast in these matches, he is less a mat wrestling wizard then an insane brawler, but he keeps up fine and I liked his role in the long submission train near the finish. Really liked Solar v. Virus, and we clearly need to check out their singles match. Loved that finish Virus pulled off to end the segunda, and Solar looked pretty springy.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST 

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Saturday Night Digging In The Crates

We go into the 90s AAA and find this awesome hidden gem of a trios match, matwork, flips, dives and mask ripping





Super Astro/Angel Azteca/Solar v. Blue Panther/Rambo/La Parka AAA 8/21/92

AAA was the lucha of choice for a lot of fans in the 90s. In some ways among lucha fans today it has switched back with the great CMLL matches being more well known (outside of some of your big Rey Jr. matches). This is a great classic trios match with awesome luchadores. We open up with exactly what you want from a first fall with these guys. Panther and Solar hit the mat hard with some of the best exchanges that pairing has produced. I just love the way Panther hangs on to a body part even as Solar tries tricky things to get him to let go. Then Astro and Rambo tag in, and we get to see Super Astro fly around the ring like a superball while Rambo bounces around with bumps. Second and third falls flip the script a bit, with the rudos getting rudoish, tearing mask and violently beating the technicos. Azteca and Panther are setting some stuff up, and Azteca takes a big beating including a huge bump to the floor off of a posting. Comeback is great with Astro breaking out his awesome flip senton. A little heel ref goofiness is the only complaint, just great classic lucha.

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A Shine In Pirata Morgan's Hair And A Steel In His Eyes, Only Nineteen And Impossibly Wise

Pirata Morgan, Jerry Estrada, & Villano III vs. Mascara Sagrada, Tarzan Boy, & Super Astro Promo Azteca 10/10/1997 - SKIPPABLE

I'm a little torn on this one. On the one hand, I mostly enjoyed myself watching it, but on the other, I walked away feeling really unfulfilled. The rudos do a good primera caida beatdown of the technicos, Super Astro does his usual cool shit and busts out a great corner tope, Sagrada bleeds, and Tarzan Boy is fairly game. But there were some awkward moments, the whole thing was really rushed, and the finish was extremely flat. Astro gets eliminated abruptly, but the rudo win actually drags out for another minute or so, and it's not like the remaining technicos look like they have match of a chance. Felt like the equivalent of booking an NBA game to end on a held ball with the winning team up 20 points. It wasn't an a nail-biter. It wasn't an amazing blowout. It's just not very compelling. And more distressing for my purposes is that Pirata looked like one of the least guys in this match, and certainly the least of the rudos (though that is a killer lineup). I mean, he wasn't bad or anything, but he felt roughly equal to Tarzan Boy and beneath Mascara Sagrada, and that should never be the case. I still enjoyed this for the most part, and I guess you could argue it was both FUN and SKIPPABLE, but it felt more SKIPPABLE than FUN. You can find a better use of 13 minutes.

Pirata Morgan, Jerry Estrada, Ultimo Guerrero, & Ultimo Rebelde vs. Zorro, Super Parka, Salsero, & Torero Promo Azteca 9/12/1997 - GREAT

This is a better use of your free time. Estrada and the Ultimos are rocking matching black bodysuits covered in neon green tassels, so this clears the FUN bar for wardrobe alone. Super Parka is not his nephew. He acquits himself fine here, but his attempts at matching La Parka's physical comedy are lackluster at best. At the top of the match, he gets tripped by Ultimo Guerrero, but responds by doing push-ups for a while as Guerrero looks on in bafflement. It's not really a funny gag on it's own. It seems like it could lead to something funny (he trips Guerrero, Guerrero tries to do as many push-ups as Parka but gets winded, maybe), but it isn't followed up on. You know that episode of The Simpsons where Ranier Wolfcastle does stand-up comedy? "Do you ever notice how men always leave the toilet seat up?....That's the joke." Yeah, it kinda feels like that. But he actually looks pretty good otherwise, and I'm genuinely kinda impressed by his ability to balance on the top rope while the Ultimos were shaking it. I was also really amused by Ultimo Rebelde selling frustration over not being able to shake Parka off of the top rope. We may not have actual La Parka, but at least Rebelde and Guerrero looked good as heels flustered by the babyface's comedy antics. They actually made good underlings here, and really made me wish Guerrero went a more traditional rudo route than the fake New Japan junior shit he adopted later in his career. They get paired up a bunch against Salsero and Torero. I really enjoyed Salsero's performance. He felt like the more fun "fun babyface" on his team, and did some pretty solid brawling as well. The initial fun face dominance in the first fall to to heel violence in the second, as these things tend to do. Then it turns around again in the third fall, with Salsero and Torero ripping at the Ultimos' masks and biting at open wounds, which I can always appreciate. Meanwhile, Pirata beats the shit out of Zorro before Super Parka starts gouging at his eye, which seems like a really good strategy to use against him. They have a fun little exchange which culminates in Pirata taking a no-hands somersault bump over the top rope to the floor, followed by a really cool dive train. I'd say Salsero wins with his somersault plancha, but that really means Pirata wins, because he did a less controlled version of the same spot TO THE FUCKING FLOOR, and that means you win the dive train. Admittedly, this is kinda by the numbers lucha, but it's very well-done by the numbers lucha, and that's what matters to me.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE PIRATA MORGAN

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Dick Togo Conversates a Bit About Your DNA, and His Salmon Suit From the VMAs

Dick Togo/Shoichi Funaki/Danny Collins/Shiryu vs. Gran Hamada/Super Astro/Alexander Otsuka/Super Delfin MPRO 9/23/96 - GREAT 

PAS: What an awesome weirdo lineup, it was like someone took a bag of my favorite wrestlers, shook it up, and drew eight out at random. Your MPRO regulars were as great as usual, Shiryu was just blindingly fast at this point, his flip out of the german suplex looks like it is in 8X fast forward. Hamada wasn't featured, but man is his signature stuff beautiful, that high rana he hits is just crazy, how he can get such ups off of such stumpy legs is a mystery. Your special guest stars were all awesome. Collins is a stubby little pissed off British guy, he wrestle similar to Dynamite Kid at his best, all nasty knees to the face, uppercuts, suplexes and scowls. Otsuka is a little out of his element, but we got to him rock some sweet mat wrestling with Shiryu and chuck some folks with suplexes. If anyone is tailor made to be thrown into a 96 MPRO 8 man it is Super Astro, he is such a breathtaking wrestler, and watching him and Togo match up is a portly dream match. Two tiny pot bellied men moving with a totally unexpected grace and beauty. Stunning stuff. Dick Togo/Men's Teiho v. El Hijo Del Santo/Super Delfin MPRO-11/10/96-FUN Perfectly enjoyable professional wrestling, although ultimately disappointing. Santo v. Togo is such a tremendous on paper match up, but it never really kicked into the next gear. This was worked much more like a Puro tag, rather then the awesome lucha tag it should have been. There were a couple of nifty moments where Santo and Togo do some rope running and we get to see Santo rip off a headscissors and see Togo fly for them. Still Santo felt like a bit of an afterthought, and the match was mostly Delfin being worked over by KDX. Again I want to judge the match on what it was, not what it should have been, but it is hard considering how good it should have been. 

Dick Togo/Sonjay Dutt v. Alex Shelley/Masato Tanaka Z-1 3/15/05 - FUN 

PAS: Lots to like in this match, but enough to hate to drop it below great status. This is a TLC match and those are what they are. Match starts out looking like the weird bifurcated Santo/Onita matches from LA with Togo and Tanaka doing some nasty brawling on the floor, with Togo sprinklering blood out of his head, meanwhile in the ring Dutt and Shelly are running through their horseshit. Match gets better when Tanaka and Shelly double team Dutt smashing him through tables and such. Togo makes an awesome hot tag, with a bloody white towel wrapped around his head like zombie Lawrence of Arabia. He just explodes with an awesome run of offense ending with a phenomenal tope con hilo That was the high point of the match, as the rest is a bunch of prop bumps, some of them cool, some of them awkward. Hard to avoid getting drawn in at points, also hard to be drawn out. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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Everything Black Terry Does is Done with a Southern Accent, Where He Comes From

Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu El Guerrero v. El Signo/Negro Navarro/Black Power Lucha Lucha 2000 9/28/02-GREAT

One fall bloody brawl which was a ton of fun. No preface as all six guys go right after each other punching, stomping and biting at foreheads. Shu's mask gets ripped to shreds and he is just pouring blood. I haven't seen much of Black Power before, but he was an impressive tank of dude, really thick chested and could brawl. We got some great Navarro v. Terry as they had a couple of toe to toe exchanges which were really impressive. Terry was brilliant here, looked like the best guy in the ring, he had real impressive hand speed, and would throw some very cool combinations. Finish felt a bit flat for such a crazy brawl, as it just kind of ended, and I would have liked more a crescendo. Still a totally awesome discovery, good looking out to Rob for digging this up.

Black Terry/El Signo/Negro Navarro v. Solar/Super Astro/Ultraman Monterey 3/2/10-EPIC

One of the better maestro exhibitions they have done in recent years. Focus was on our traditional Navarro v. Solar match up which is always great. This one had some especially sweet leglocks. Navarro puts on this awesome tapitia Indian Deathlock combo which I had never seen before. The build from that matwork to some really intense throws and slams. Super Astro is one of my all time favorite wrestlers, and he still has some freaky agility and speed for a fat old man. He matches up with Signo who has had a bit of a resurgent 2010. Black Terry and Ultraman are paired and their stuff looks good, but it is probably the least of the match ups, Ultraman is the least of the six at this point, and doesn't bring a ton to the table if he isn't throwing hands. FInish had a really fun breakdown with Super Astro and Ultraman throwing sick topes, and Solar getting the submission with a very cool rolling keylock.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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HAMADA UWF #2 3/2/90

Shoji Akiyoshi v. Masonari Murakawa

PAS: Young Sasuke is basically getting squashed at this point, as young Jado stiffs and beats him quickly. I think the story with Sasuke is that he was trust fund rich kid, and he is getting beaten on like a trust fund kid trying to break into wrestling.

TKG: I thought Sasuke bought a gold statue of himself. That’s a kind of tacky Tony Montana move…not really the type of thing you do if you’re actually born to wealth. Really Sasuke is a pretty tacky guy lots of ways. It’s possible that over the course of his career he concussed the class out of himself. No concussion here but did feel like Jado was taking him to the grocery store: “Learn to loose like common people”.

Monkey Magic Watika v. Black Aidoman

PAS: This wasn’t as good as baby Gedo v. baby Jado from the previous show, as baby Delfin just isn’t as good at this point. There is some fun bumping by Aidoman, and his offense looked good. Seems weird because I don’t remember Gedo being this good 3 years later.

TKG: This had feeling like they were given too much time and they tried too much but yeah Gedo surprises. The early section with Delfin throwing non contact dropkicks which Gedo bumped huge for was kind of ugly. But I had a real sense of Gedo as guy controling and putting a match together.

Bison Kimura v. Xochi Hamada

TKG: Is it really a joshi match if there are no neckbridges and no screaming? I mean there may have been one pin where Hamada neck bridged out, and Hamada did scream when Kimura bit her foot. But essentially this was worked like Leilani Kai vs. Starla Sexton at the state fair. They wouldn’t be given this much time at the state fair. Promoter might tell them to go long while he waits for Austin Idol to show up. This was given too much time and Hamada started blowing lots of stuff.

PAS: The ropes were really loose and I think Hamada blowing stuff can partly be attributed to the shitty ropes. Kimura was fun beating on Hamada, I especially liked her stomps. Still this wasn’t much of a match and was a thousand minutes long.

Shu El Guererro/Black Terry v. Kendo/Blackman

PAS: This was exactly what you want from a fourth from the top tag. Kendo and Blackman have some really fun spots, and both rudos bump and stooge like champs. Kendo is a guy with out a ton of substance, but has some serious flash. Black Terry is such an asskicker, there is a section where they trap Blackman in the corner and you have some black on black violence so bad that someone should call Bill Cosby.

TKG: Kendo is super super fast here. He isn’t as good as guy eating opponent’s offense as he is as guy running through his own spots. But majority of match was spent with the rudos eating stuff and getting outwitted, so not much of a problem. Kendo does a spectacular dropkick where he spreads his legs and simultaneously knocks both Terry and Shu out of ring. It looks like no one has tightened the ropes and Shu does a nice job protecting Blackman from dieing on his top rope arm drag. Shu grabs at Blackman’s legs and makes it look like he’s trying to prevent Blackman from hitting his spot, while actually holding Blackman up.

Super Astro/Lizmark v. Jose Luis Feliciano/Espanto Jr.

TKG: Aw fuck Super Astro is the most spectacular wrestler in the world. This starts with some Super Astro going through his signature stuff with Espanto Jr while Lizmark matches up with Feliciano. They switch up half way into match and Super Astro matches up with Feliciano while Lizmark gets paired with Espanto Jr. When they switch pairings you really don’t want to see the Lizmark/Espanto Jr sections as they are a mess. But this is all about Super Astro. They still haven’t tightened the ropes which are sub foxy boxing loose at this point and you realize the degree to which Super Astro can just launch himself from standing position and doesn’t need the ropes to do most of his big spots. Lizmark is really handicapped. Super Astro doesn’t do his fake (the 619 inspiration) but just hits one beautiful back tope and flip after another.

PAS: Lizmark still hits all of his spots, they just look super dangerous because he looks like he is going to land wrong, but they all come off. Espanto Jr. isn’t very good, there is a point where he breaks out an insane looking tombstone, which was completely out of place in this match, and which Lizmark doesn’t really sell. Tom is right about Super Astro. He is incredible and he does a tope rope dive into a tope which is breathtaking. Feliciano was pretty great too, as he took everything really well, and had amazing clotheslines for a luchadore.

Negro Casas v. Yoshihiro Asai

PAS: Casas is a complete pleasure to watch in everything he does. At this point Asai was an over green babyface with some nice spots, kind of like a paunchier Mistico. Casas does a better job carrying Asai here, then anyone ever has carrying Mistico. The opening matwork was especially impressive considering that really isn’t what Casas is known for, or really what Asai is either. The finish felt a little abrupt, and they definitely want to make me see the hair match they challenged for.

TKG: This wasn’t nearly as heated as their sections in the trios match from the last show. Still pretty fun. Negro keeps getting taken to the floor and then bailing before Asai can dive. Eventually he gets stuck and Asai hits this nutty over the top rope flying forearm. Casas hits a top turnbuckle dive too. But this is mostly kept in ring and on the mat.

Gran Hamada v. Perro Aguayo

PAS: Man alive was this fun, Aguayo just exudes asskicker more then anyone else his size in wrestling history. He totally beats the shit out of Hamada here, throwing rows of chairs on him, hitting him with bottles, busting him open. Meanwhile Hamada is getting in some really great babyface comebacks. Aguayo goes over super strong winning two straight falls and just destroying Hamada in the second fall. His double stomp off the top is the end all be all of double stomps.

TKG: The brawling in the crowd was just awesome. I mean I have seen enough joshi that I should be immune to “wrestler gets tossed headfirst into row of chairs” spots. But Hamada gets tossed headfirst into row of chairs and the force of the toss flips him over that row and he takes another bump on the next row. Aguayo then just picks up the chairs wallops Hamada with the row and then tosses the row of chairs at the fans. Hamada leans into everything and there really is no need to lean into Aguayo’s boots to the face. He doesn’t need help making it look like he’s knocking his opponents face off.

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