Chilanga Mask Love Letters

Hello, I'm Siobhan Gear. I cohost the Wrestling Is Gross podcast with my friend Bucky Barnett, which both Eric and Phil have guested on multiple times. I'd love to get the box set of Segunda Caida contributors on the show-- truly, I can't wait to Skype TomK through a payphone. I love pro wrestling and good pro wrestling criticism, first reading Death Valley Driver just over seventeen years ago (in the unlikely event that any of you have forgotten that time is an awful bitch). It's an honor to write for Segunda Caida.


Chilanga Mask has largely gone dormant after Dhani Ledesma started promoting under the Lucha Memes name but its anniversary shows have kept the energy alive with some truly brutal main events and apuestas. This year gave us two shows and three enticing matches that keep up the running rivalries over the last four-five years, so I thought that a look back at some of them was much deserved.


Black Terry vs. Makabre vs. Mr. Maldito vs. The Platino vs. Solar vs. Trauma I vs. Trauma II Chilanga Mask 4/23/17

SG: Billed as a ruleta de la muerte but worked as a reverse cibernético where the last two left fight it out for their hair/mask. This is a really perfect example of an indie lucha match lineup giving you all that you could want: old legends slumming it, fat guys, scummy guys, two sets of brothers, and the guys you least know stealing the show. And most of these guys fit in multiple categories! Action starts before we even hit the ring with Makabre jumping Trauma II from behind the curtain and then we’re off to the races as all seven participants loosely pair off and start hitting stiff chops and chair shots. Trauma I threatens to carve up sweet old Solar with a broken beer bottle before the maestro fends him off with some adorable granny-ass chairshots. There’s nowhere in the world where crowd brawling comes off better than Coliseo Coacalco so everything stays hot early. 

Solar & Terry are the first two who save themselves after the match progresses to staying in the ring because yeah, they’re really old, leading into an extended stretch of Maldito/Platino (aka the phenomenally named “Las Torres Gemelas de la Maldad”, the Twin Towers of Evil) and the Traumas working a tag match with Makabre in to stir shit and look like he has scurvy. Great almost-nearfall with T2 saving T1 after a true Vadersault by Mr. Maldito only for Platino to punish T2 & Makabre with a wild tope con giro and Maldito to pick up the crushed scraps of Trauma I and save himself. Los Torres have spent almost all of their career in Baja feds which is, off of the basis of this match, indefensible on the part of DF promoters. Enough time passes for T1 to recover and get a lo negro del negro on the buzzarding Platino to not seem egregious but only just enough. Trauma II has begun to pour like a fountain as we get down to the nitty gritty. Platino gets a big fat miss on a dive to the dirt that should have ripped a nipple off and it’s all downhill for him from there, though he does valiantly fight out of two negro del negros before a few brutal kicks to the mush and a headscissors armbar put him down. No shame in losing your mask after this performance.

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RIP Big Ovett

 Ovett/Los Traumas vs. Los Panteras/Aramis IWRG 2/18/18

PAS: IWRG trios have been one of the most consistent styles of wrestling for the last two decades. There were lots of very capable wrestlers here, and the Traumas come off like real superstars. Ovett is fun as their tubby muscle, although he doesn't really hit any of his big spots (they tease an Ovett dive, and that is a mean tease not to deliver on). Pantera is an old old guy at this point, but still executes his somersault tope really well, and his kid can really fly. There was a bit more referee nonsense then I would prefer, but watching the Traumas run Naucalpan is always a blast. 

Ovett vs. Mosco X-Fly IWRG 6/2418

PAS: I watched their hair match too, and while I thought that got too far into geek show territory (syringes and shit), this was much more my style: A pair of fat dudes beating on each other. This basically feels like the Rotten brothers' Mexican cousins. It started with some solid matwork. It wasn't Blue Panther or anything, but it was perfectly respectable, and built nicely to the point where they started punching and bleeding. Ovett uses his fat nicely, including an Abby style elbowdrop, and I liked when they brought out the lighttubes. They were used more like a roll of quarters, as a foreign object to use behind the ref's back.

JR: I think one of the things I like about lucha is how much they embrace weird bodies. US wrestling over the past few years has become homogenized, just as the style has seemingly become homogenized. It’s strange, as I think the indies embracing the Meltzerian wet dream of wrestling like a five year old bashing his action figures together over and over has directly led to the people with weird bodies only being booked for their ability to do this style; the Keith Lee’s of the world flying around and making sure to land softly enough so that someone who is 185 pounds doesn’t die while trying to base for them. In a way, it has positioned large wrestlers, heavy wrestlers as even more freakish than they were presented at any other time in wrestling history, as now they are reduced to a big man who can move like a light man rather than a big man who can squish you.

All this is a rather long preamble to say that I enjoy lucha embracing mat work by large men, and clobbering by large men, and all other regular things by large men. In fact, in some ways this match feels like it is a direct response to the very idea that large men must excel at the things that small men do, for the first major spot is a huge crossbody, and there seems to be a clear decision to not continue with this trend but to instead start walloping one another with chairs and wooden planks and fists and whatever else they can find.

I don’t necessarily think the purpose of this series is to try and convince anyone that Ovett is some super worker that has been toiling away in obscurity. That being said, he is rather charming here, understanding what he does well, doing everything with purpose, throwing his considerable weight behind all of his offense. The finish is both sublime and bizarre, with a wondrous light tube assisted low blow followed up by an interminably long wait for a three count. It feels loose and unrehearsed in a way that only lucha does. In the US, there would have probably been a kick out and a few more high spots.

Ovett/Lunatik Extreme/Advertencia vs. Shere Khan/Memo Romero/Terromoto Zona 23 1/20/19 (Complete version on IWTV)

JR: Have you ever been to one of those pop up haunted houses? Not like, an extreme haunt or whatever where you have to sign a waiver, but one of those run of the mill ones that are all throughout the Midwest, with a hay ride and a hastily erected indoor gimmick. This match is the closest wrestling gets to the energy and feeling of a haunted house. The camera man wanders cautiously and wearily, focusing on the place he thinks his eyes should be going for progress, and almost assuredly, something graphic and intense is happening in the periphery. It feels like a ride, as if at any moment something else predetermined but completely unforeseen will occur; someone breathing fire, or showing up with a chainsaw.

This match is incredible. I’m not even sure how to describe beyond the way I just did or to single out Ovette other than to say everything he does lands with such impact, including a second rope elbow drop that could’ve killed a man. In a match where almost everything is exclamatory, Ovette taking off his shirt is a moment that stands out for the reaction it gets. There is a clear connection. I don’t want to waste words on this match, really. It’s revelatory. I think everyone should watch it. I suppose this is somewhat hyperbolic, but it feels like a celebration. It feels like something that should be played over and over until the sound of it reaches the heavens. 

PAS: This has all you want from a Zona 23 match. Filthy mat, wrestlers getting thrown into drunks, people doing dives off of trucks, and lots of blood. Some of the stuff was a bit set up, which is kind of the style, and I could have done without the section of just shoving thumbtacks into Romero's cheeks, but this had plenty to like. Ovett clearly seems like a cult favorite, he gets the biggest chants of the match, and I enjoyed him cutting off the Sweet Child of Mine entrance by smashing Khan on the head with a box. My favorite part of the match was Ovett and Khan just exchanging hard punches to the jaw on the floor, Ovett could really throw heat. I wouldn't say this match was technically good, but it was really entertaining. 

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Negro Navarro's Bloodsport 10/27/18

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

Explosivo/Murcielago vs. Dankar/Fuerza Ballenata

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

Baronessa/Lolita vs. Chika Tormenta/Ludark Shaitan

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

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

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

Heddi Karaoui/Zumbi vs. Francois/Pierre Montanez

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Lucha Worth Watching: Dinastia Villano! Traumas! Chico Che!

Villano IV/Villano V Jr./Rocambole Jr. v. Trauma I/Trauma II/Sharly Rockstar IWRG 12/3/17

PAS: Big old fashioned Villano brawl. The two baby Villanos (Villano V Jr. and Rocambole Jr. are the sons of V5, formally Kaving and Kortiz) look exactly like their father and uncle and wrestle just like additional Villanos (they really dropped the ball, by not just naming the Villano VI and VII). They dominate early eventually getting DQed for ripping off T2's mask. The second fall has the Traumas and the former Charley Manson (RIP) firing back and smashing the Villanos with chairs. Rocambole starts leaking and it gets more frantic. I think a slightly better finish would have gotten this on a MOTY list, but it was a bunch of fun nonetheless.

Hair vs. Hair: Chico Che vs. Ovett IWRG 1/1/18

ER: For some reason IWRG thought it would be a cool idea to do their whole new years show in a cage. It's probably because they just didn't want to assemble the cage for the main event, which makes sense because sometimes I just drive home from work with my emergency brake on because I know I'll just be using it when I get home anyway. Brother, you ain't seen dumb until you've seen the annual Reyes del Aire...inside a cage. I would prefer to see literally any match on this show not inside of a cage, but this one probably works the best within the stip. The cage match does spoil the winner, as one look at Ovett and you can bet when his choices are between "get a haircut" and "climb a tall cage", dude is not climbing that cage. The cage means that we don't get a classic Chico Che dive, but you get classic Che stiffness, big headbutts, big bleeding forehead, big overhand chops, and his huge torpedo splash. Ovett made this a garbage match, literally, by going for a chair, twisting off some sharp metal piping to stab Che in the head with, and dumping out thumbtacks. Ovett hits a huge fat guy senton, and later misses a fat guy moonsault right into those damn tacks. Match hits peak gross when Che stomps on the back of Ovett's head, right into the tacks, and Ovett comes up with a forehead full of thumbtacks. That's a flat out dumb and bonkers spot. While getting his head shaved the barber attempts to pull a couple tacks out of his hairline and Ovett understandably does not look like a happy camper.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Traumas v. Terry/Diablo

43. Black Terry/Diablo Jr. v. Los Traumas IWRG 4/23

ER: I really liked this match and I actually watched it twice. It had some subtle little things that kept grabbing at me and made me want to revisit it immediately. Diablo has improved a lot (I don't ever remember him being bad, but he also has never been on my radar like this year) and his mat stuff against T2 is all good. He hangs in and they each work some twisty leg subs, and then T2 does a painful double chickenwing. My favorite stuff was when they do some neat twists on traditional armdrags, with Diablo whiffing on one when T2 holds the ropes, and then Diablo trying to catch one of T2's so T2 alters to a head drag, really cool stuff. I dug how Terry came in and got tapped quick, requiring Diablo to get back in a try to hang with a fresh T1, who locks on his nasty whipping figure 4. Segunda is quick but it happened right after Traumas spent way too long firing up the crowd with bullhorns, Diablo and Terry hanging around looking like assholes waiting for them to stop patting themselves on the back, so Diablo rushing in, hits a leg drag, and locks on some awesome and vicious cross arm twisting armbar, like an arm version of T1's figure 4. T2 sells it like his shoulders are disconnected. Diablo needs Terry to focus up in the tercera, and after some nice brawling and Diablo hitting a coconuts flip dive into T1/the railing, Terry and T1 finally commence beating the hell out of each other, with Terry destroying him with headbutts. I'm really liking this Terry/Diablo team, really liked the unique structure of this tag.

PAS: This was really fun, IWRG has had a good under the radar year (which is really our fault, if anyone is going to pimp IWRG it's us) and the Terry/Diablo team is a big part of it. Diablo looked perfectly competent working the mat with T2 and even added his own flourish or two. Highlight of the match was the first couple of minutes of the third fall where it spills to the floor and we get to see Terry get gritty. Terry and Trauma 1 really lace into each other with chops and headbutts, while T2 gets vaguely unprofessional with Diablo Jr. The finish of the third fall wasn't as violent as I was hoping as it got down to T1 and Terry again and they wrestled instead of murdering each other. Still this was good stuff and part of another top 10 in the world year from the legitimately ageless Black Terry.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Lupus v. Trauma 1 Mascara Contra Mascara

3. Canis Lupus v. Trauma 1 IWRG 9/4/16

PAS: My goodness, what an absolute gore soaked classic. It feels on first watch like if Blue Panther vs. Villano 5 had a Cactus Jack v. Terry Funk KOTDM level blood. IWRG has fallen pretty far from the heights of 2010 and it was great to see it regain its glorious heights. Opening couple of falls serve as a great table setter. Lupus smacks Trauma with a tope and dominates the first fall tapping T1 out with his own Lo Negro del Negro spinning figure four. Stealing moves isn't a thing you see very much of in lucha (this is the Rock spamming shitty Stone Cold Stunners), so it was a cool bit of taunting by Lupus. Second fall has Trauma coming back and capturing the fall with a rocking chair, and then the true violence starts, they start cracking each other with headbutts and then they both go out to grab chairs. A couple of nasty hard plastic chair shots and the gore starts flowing. The finish run was awesome, the ref gets bumped hard, and Lupus quickly attacks and hits Trauma with the dreaded illegal martinete while the ref is down. I love lucha matches built around martinete's, and this was one of the best. T1 can't lift his neck and needs to block pins by grabbing the ropes and grabbing the ref's hand. Lupus gets frustrated goes for a splash, T1 lifts his knees. Now both guys are lying in their own blood, and a doctor runs in and tries to place a cervical collar on Trauma, Lupus gets to his feet, chucks the doctor to the side and tries to attack. T1 with a neck brace hanging half off attacks the leg desperately and they have a great fight over the spinning figure four. It is one of the coolest mask match finishes I can remember. We have awesome pageantry after with Lupus getting unmasked and proposing to his girlfriend. The wrestling parts of this were a little off, Lupus is only so-so at holds, but the brawling, bleeding and drama was off the charts.

ER: I remember talking to Phil maybe 4 months into 2016 and him asking "Is there going to be any lucha that makes our list this year?" And at that point there wasn't tons. There was a lot of borderline stuff. And now several months after that and the top part of our list is flat dominated by lucha. And this match brings drama and blood and even love. I wouldn't put it on the level of Blue Panther/Villano V, but it really is the first super bloody high drama mask match we've gotten since then. Stupid Arena Mexico and their hatred of plasma. I am entirely unfamiliar with Lupus, but was impressed right away with his opening brawling around ringside. He threw several punch combos that I really liked, and got into the faces of a bunch of fans. I was sold pretty early. Sadly he never really went back to this overly aggressive bully style the rest of the match, but he found other ways to do damage. I'm not used to seeing brutal chairshots in lucha, but now within the last couple months we've gotten Park and Rush blasting each other, then Black Terry getting his dome caved in by Wotan, and now Trauma and Lupus clonking each other with edges of rigid chairs. And both men start bleeding, and masks get ripped, and bleeding through masks is one of the best parts of lucha. At one point Lupus' face is dark red and his mask is torn away from his face, and the ripped mask looks like flayed skin hanging off his now dark red and skinless face. We get some very believable nearfalls with both men actually locking in pins, and believe it or not I didn't actually knew who won ahead of time (I mean, I *assumed* Trauma, but ever since that Blue Panther loss blindsided me, I don't know what to expect) so every nearfall got me. The martinete was great and I had a smile on my face during the various ways Trauma stopped the ref. All of the stuff with the doctor felt very much against lucha code, which added to the spectacle. The ring at this point is just stained an entirely different color, and we finally get an exhausted, deserved sub. I'm a sucker for wrestling and romance so I absolutely loved all the stuff with Lupus' fiancee afterwards, just as I loved Ultimo Guerrero's wife crying at ringside when he lost to Atlantis. Great stuff, all around.


2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

89. Negro Navarro/Black Terry v. Trauma 1/Trauma 2 IWRG 12/14

PAS: Really fun if unsubstantial brawl. Really worked like it was setting up next weeks revanche, but it is always weirdly enjoyable to watch Navarro and his sons work out their oedipal issues with each other. Meanwhile Terry is the dirtbag uncle, who is running around with blood dripping down his face and escalates the fight by pulling out a chain. Navarro rarely brawls anymore, but he was a Missionary of Death, so he can still throw a nasty right hand which just thumps. I hope Christmas at the Navarros wasn't too akward

ER: This was not what I expected, but pleasant for what it was. Traumas weren't really much of a factor here, but this was a pretty fun Terry/Navarro show. Navarro doesn't brawl a lot but his brawling here is all really good, but Terry is a vicious little monster. He's punching Traumas the whole time, and his stuff where he breaks out the chain is the best of the match, just lacing into with brutal chain punches from the mount while blood pools around his eye. But there were other neat tricks he had, probably my favorite little brawl trick of his was coming up on Trauma on the floor like he was going to punch, and then just kicking him right in the shin. I can't really picture these teams matching up and not doing something interesting.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Lucha Memes 12/25/15 Review

Lucha Memes is one of the super indies which have shown up in Mexico lately booking matches out of my brain. A lot of the time they don't live up to the on paper possibility, but always worth checking out. 

Alas de Acero, Aramis, Iron Kid y Demasiado vs Suicida, Freelance, Súper Mega y Séptimo Rayo

PAS: This is a spotfest opener, with a mix of cool and blown spots. Suicida and Freelance are always a welcome sight and they break out the two coolest dives of the match with Suicida going horizontal on a tope and Freelance getting thrown to the celling by his partner in a tope con hilo. There was some pretty bad construction Ric Blade stuff with chairs for the finish, much more of a chance to see some fun guys then a good match

Arez, Impulso y Belial vs Decnnis, Toscano y Zumbido


PAS: This a vetrans vs. young hot shot luchadores Indystrongtibles. The young guys have some fun spots, and I enjoy Zumbido, but parts of this were pretty bad. Toscano especially was clearly just mailing this whole thing in. Not enough good to recommend, most time your veterans work hard on these indy shows, not here.

ER: This wasn't good, but I did think Zumbido was actually really good in this. Not good enough to lift up 5 other guys, but his stuff looked like Zumbido's stuff, which is good. Loved him leaning jaw first into a Belial superkick, taking his huge flip bump to the floor, dragging a guy to the apron to paste him with a DDT. I thought he was a bright spot. Skip to those spots. 

Negro Navarro vs Virus

PAS: Maestro match of the year, and just beautiful grappling. No catch and release stuff, all nasty twists and counters. Both guys are like a pair of jazz masters just riffing, Navarro tries an attack, Virus comes up with a trippy way to get out, and Navarro counters his counter. Virus does this awesome thing where he is stuck in a submission and he just shifts his weight around until he finds a weak spot in the submission. Lesser mat workers will just go from hold to hold, you get to see Virus show his work. Navarro is especially great at setting up a submission and have an extra crank, he gets everything lined up and then BOOM here comes a quick extra violent twist. I loved this so much, it is a match up I dreamed about for years and it has always lived up to expectations. 

ER: This was just constant, and so damn impressive. Phil mentions most guys going hold to hold, and it's totally true. Submission, break, start over. Submission, let other guy go, start over. The stuff is impressive, but never advances things. This is constant advancement. There's a rope break and a truce off of it, but most of it is just two men wanting to roll and wanting to beat the other without strikes. It's a benefit of a una caida match, although most una caida matches are just worked like shorter, lesser matches. I can't fathom some of the predicaments each man ends up in during this match, even though they pretty clearly intentionally get into those positions. The foresight is incredible. Navarro on his back with Virus standing, Virus appears to be stepping around to get in the mount, but instead he's just slyly hooking Navarro's leg with his own leg, then dropping down and falling to his left, the momentum naturally rolling Navarro up a bit, as Virus is already focused on clamping down his leg at the knee over Navarro's leg. It's smooth, fast beautiful and the match is full of little things like that. No robotics, just too experts with incredible instincts who make this kind of stuff look easy. We know it's not easy, but you'd never know watching these two. Also let's give a shout out to the awesome ref in cool glasses, bowtie and short sleeve pink shirt. That man is almost distractingly cool. 


Dalys vs Keira


PAS: This was pretty bad, Dalys was a last minute replacement for Marcela and that would have work a lot better as Dalys can't do this kind of workrate joshi luchadora match at all. She is pretty Sexy Starish here, the rollup section early looked totally amateurish. She works kind of stiff but that is her only positive. Double pin finish just adds to the turd sandwich. 

Dr. Cerebro vs Negro Casas

PAS: What we got of this was pretty great, Casas is a wrestling genius and Cerebro is one of the more underrated guys in wrestling history. There was a great strike exchange with both guys laying into each other and doing a great job of selling each shot, Casas especially can write a novel with every expression. Still this goes 5 minutes, which is barely enough for a first fall, much less an entire match. I have no idea why you book this and give it such short shrift. Negro Casas is at the show, you booked a cool first time match, let him do his thing.

ER: I've always been curious about how things like this happen. I don't know how lucha payouts work, but I have to imagine Casas can demand more than your average luchador. So how does this happen? There are a few scenarios, so we can figure out which is the most likely: 1) Casas calls up and says "Hey I'm gonna be in Naucalpan, any room for me to pop in and work a really short match? I won't charge much." 2) Booker in the back says "Alright boys, go out and give me 4 minutes, and NOTHING MORE." 3) Both men just happen to work a short match, get into a shouting match with booker in the back who expected them to go longer. 4) Potentially all three of those things. 


Trauma I y Trauma II vs Black Terry y Negro Navarro

PAS: These two teams had one of my favorite matches of the decade in 2011 and this match hits a lot of the same beats. The match starts with cool mat sections between II and Terry and I and Navarro. Navarro and I were doing some catch and release stuff which I don't usually love, but works fine with a son trying to upstage his father. Navarro ends one mat section with a little tap on the head, and T1 responds with a nasty slap to Pops ear. This causes Navarro to do this great semi concussed selling, and it gets nasty from there with both sons trying to take out their father and their dad's old drinking buddy. Both oldsters are great brawlers, and there is a point where Terry has II in a full mount and is just punching him right in the jaw. I admit it is a little unnerving to see Trauma II slap someone he loves, but I suppose I should divorce art from the news. Finish kept this a bit below the 2011 classic as Navarro gets eliminated and it comes down to Terry v. both Traumas, considering the whole story was patricide, it is off to have Terry be the last man standing. Still Terry is a great last man standing as he opens up his own forehead with a headbutt before succumbing to the spinning figure four.

ER: Weird, cool match that had strange undercurrents to it. I was not expecting that slap to Navarro, and Navarro either did one of the all time great sells or he wasn't much expecting it either. Navarro acted kind funny and bell rung the rest of the match so who the hell knows. But things clearly changed after that. Now Navarro did work a tough match earlier in the night so maybe he just needed a reason to sit out a bit, but I bought it no matter how odd it was. From there the structure was odd, as instead of matwork gamesmanship, with guys working holds and then letting the other guy go, you had brawling gamesmanship. Terry would come in, slap around Trauma I for a bit, then let up. Then Trauma II would come in, slap Terry around a bit, then let up. I thought Terry looked great throughout this and drove the story along with his facials, and then doing his own amazing selling. Him dropping to his knees after a strike exchange reminded me of Lawler/Dundee. Loved him holding onto the headlock a couple times with Trauma trying to push him off, with Terry hitting the breaks and dropping down to the mat. I love headlock spots where the guy holds on. And those mounted punches to Trauma II were some of the nastiest strikes I've seen this decade. Terry might still be the best damn brawler in the game, which is crazy considering he's the age of my father. The two of them each have similar mustaches, one of them is the arguable best brawler in wrestling, the other is thinking of how best to retire from his dentistry practice. So we had a weird match, not the match I was expecting, but a match with tons of nasty charm. 

Atlantis vs Caifán

PAS: This match is a real example of the value of blood. Atlantis is a wrestler who at his prime was a graceful athlete, he has lost almost all of that (there is a bodypress in this match which is really bad), but still has great timing and a sense of a match. Caifan goes ahead and sprays blood out of his head and bumps into the crowd and tries really hard to make this memorable. Don't know he completely succeeds, but I mostly enjoyed it.


***Navarro/Virus was awesome and was an easy addition to our 2015 Ongoing MOTY List***

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MLJ: Black Terry Boot Camp 3: Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro © vs Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II [EdM Trios] (4/16/09)

2009-04-16  @ Arena Naucalpan
Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro © vs Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II [EdM Trios]

This was a week prior to the last match I reviewed. It was a title match and that really speaks to the variety. The match a week later had much clearer tecnico/rudo alignment. This was worked like a title match, with a long primera and a fairly long segunda consisting mainly of matwork.

It was a crowd conditioned to respond to it and that appreciated it, which probably wouldn't fly today in Arena Mexico. They popped for complex holds. They chanted (sometimes dueling) after an exchange or an escape. While it's a bit of a chicken/egg thing, I imagine that if matches at this level are put in front of a crowd steadily enough, they learn to respond quickly if they weren't already inclined to in the first place.

I know this is about Black Terry, and ultimately, I think that he may well be a more consistent and overall talented performer in 2009, but Navarro is tremendously engaging. He stands out far more. Yes, it's the strikes, just him chopping someone in the throat. It's the facial expressions, the way he moves around the ring, even the fact he's bald, which is rare in lucha because hair is such a valuable commodity. It's how amused he seems the first time or two that someone gets an advantage on him, the old man allowance of it. While he does have an exchange with Terry late in the match (and another leading to the finish after the dives clear out everyone else), and it's a hard-hitting one, he was never unleashed emotionally, like in the match a week later. They also reuse the spot where Cerebro Negro locks him in a step over stump puller and he seems terribly amused by it, which in and of itself, is fine, but in the context of this match, where they do so many different things than they would in the other, it stood out in a negative way. He, more than anyone else in the match, has the ability to make something pop. For instance, the submission that ended the primera looked like it was going to pop Cerebro Negro's limbs off, all of them.

A lot of my general comments in this process so far continue to stand. This is tricked out, high end matwork across the board. I don't think that Cerebro Negro looked as good in the matwork as the others. That's been true throughout too. When they picked up the pace in the tercera, he and Trauma II had a good exchange though which helped make up for their "your hold, my hold" bit in the segunda. Dr. Cerebro is interesting; they all cross limbs in order to achieve holds, but Cerebro seems to use that in order to position his opponent much more. He'll twist someone around not as part of the hold but to get them into position for something far more simple like a STF or crossface.

And Terry was there, a constant, more than holding his own in the matwork, selling better than anyone else in the match, and standing strong in the brutal chop exchange with Navarro. Like I said, Negro Navarro does stand out more, but Terry comes off as more of a total package.

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MLJ: Black Terry Boot Camp 2: Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II vs Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro (4/23/2009)

2009-04-23 @ Arena Naucalpan
Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II vs Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro

I'm doing these all out of order. Blame Phil. These were what he posted first in the PWO thread. It absolutely goes against the way I generally operate, but I need to get my bearings and I'll start wherever I can. so what if this is the third match of three we have online with these exact trios, just from the month of April. So what if I'm missing likely callback spots and match-to-match progression. Why not just jump in blind, right?

Self-conscious context-porn aside, this match was good enough that anyone could jump in blind and enjoy it. First of all, as much as I love really well done mat wrestling and traditional, more exhibition based lucha, especially when it builds like the Ultraman, Jr. match did, I love heated wars more. This felt more like rudos vs tecnicos, with beatdowns and comebacks and revenge spots and Negro Navarro demolishing people with strikes.

Actually, let's start there. I've seen Navarro a few times, sure, but I've never quite seen him like this. It was sort of like if the King and I was mixed with Ong Bak or something, the world's deadliest, most badass, Walking Tall Yul Brynner. We only had a bit of Navarro in the opening exchanges. He had been matched up with Cerebro Negro, and the most notable thing there was Cerebro's step over stomp puller and Navarro's appreciative reaction to the way he had been twisted like a pretzel. Just as he was getting the advantage, he was swarmed, starting the beatdown. When he finally came back at the start of the segunda (and they didn't waste time with it), he just demolished anyone in his path with punches, kicks, clotheslines. This all built to a fairly subtle exchange with Black Terry in the tercera, where Terry held his own, but kept going for the win while Navarro was just trying to crush him. There was a real sense of Terry wanting to get out of the match and escape retribution, of being squirrelly, which he managed to do while never seeming less skilled or formidable.

Everyone else did their part too. The primera, for the exchange we did get, was full of believable, cross-legged (and later cross-armed) submissions, none of which looked overly collaborative. Terry and Trauma II had a run with them where they weren't even really doing the tricked out stuff, just moving limbs at all the wrong angles. Likewise, the tandem submission that ended the primera (after the rudo swarm) wasn't anything overly complicated, just pulling at limbs every which way. It punctuated the beatdown, and was all that moment needed.

It was a very layered match, with the highest point being Terry vs Navarro, especially because of when and how it arose in the match. A lot of times, that's because a match builds and builds towards an exchange. I don't think that was the case here. Instead it was more of a natural altercation in the midst of the story they were telling. I'm excited to go back and see the matches around this now. We'll see if I end up regret not seeing them in order later.

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MLJ: Black Terry Boot Camp 1: Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro vs Trauma I, Trauma II, Ultramán Jr.

2009-10-29 @ Arena Naucalpan
Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro vs Trauma I, Trauma II, Ultramán Jr.

Alright, everything's on hold because I need to watch a lot of Black Terry. There's nowhere on the net that's covered Terry better than Segunda Caida, so I just didn't feel the need to look in this direction. Because I didn't feel the need, I ended up checking out other things instead. This is an issue because the Greatest Wrestler Ever poll centered over at prowrestlingonly.com is due in a month or two and Navarro and Terry weren't going to be able to make my list because I hadn't seen enough to fairly rank them. I'm sure Phil/Tom/Eric did enough when it comes to these, but I'm going to run through and watch as many matches as I can in a short period and try to figure this out.

This was fairly late into the year and was a pairing that they seemed to run a lot in 2009, just with Ultraman, Jr. in instead of Navarro. Very long primera with Ultraman/Dr. Cerebro, Trauma I/Terry, and Trauma II/Cerebro Negro pairings. At least I think T1 was T1 and T2 was T2. I always have problems with that. Differentiating them through work is another pro here. Primera was very long mat exchanges. Segunda picked up the pace. Tercera had the constant break ups as they moved through wrestlers, with dives at the end and a foul finish.

I haven't seen a lot of Dr. Cerebro either, but in a match where everyone was pulling the most tricked out stuff in the primera, what I found interesting was how he, after trying a couple of such exchanges with Ultraman, simplified things considerably as it was obvious his opponent couldn't really keep up. That, to me, is the sort of course correction you don't see often and it was appreciated.

The big story, however, were the aforementioned tricked out submissions, the slight little leverage moves used to escape and reposition, and most of all, the selling. While sometimes a match will be built around limbwork or selling, what stood out here, especially from Terry and Trauma I was the way they'd sell, both in holds and especially after them. This didn't play into any specific part of the narrative. What it did instead, however, was to make all of the submissions seem more believable and more effective. Everything had weight, and when they're tying people up in knots that defy the general laws of physics, a little bit of that goes a long way. Terry went so far as to shake off an arm while on the apron after a tag.

This match worked exactly as it should have. The matwork didn't come off as collaborative or choreographed but was hugely engrossing (save for the Cerebro exchange, but that, at least, was not disruptive). There was a sense of escalation from fall to fall. It's really the perfect structure. Feeling out matwork, rope running, everything breaking down with spots and cut offs and dives. It's the three faces of lucha (past the brawling but the tercera had some of that too). I'm sure most people who come here have seen this, but if you haven't go out of your day and do so.

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MLJ: Recent Elite matches: Traumas vs Guerrero Maya Jr./Rey Cometa and Cavernario/Negro Casas vs Mistico/Caristico

2015-12-27 @ Arena México
Trauma I & Trauma II vs Guerrero Maya Jr. & Rey Cometa

El Cavernario & Negro Casas vs Carístico & Mistico

I'm still playing catch up, so here are two Elite matches from the last couple of weeks. There are two different video shots for them, one having better VQ, the other being less cut. You get the idea for both though.

You could tell, clipping or no, that they were fairly short, brisk affairs, but they were both a lot of fun. I still can't tell the Traumas apart as in I couldn't tell you which of the two was better, but their act is great (and they were paired up well against Puma/Tiger in previous weeks). I love how they dominated early on here, with a choreographed attack of letting Cometa in, only to slide out pull him back out to set up the double team dive onto the apron. 

The comeback here was very brief, a missed move, a dive, and Maya's finisher. In general, I thought Maya looked better than Cometa. I really don't think he ever quite recovered from losing his mask, even if it was for a good cause. He comes off as a poor man's Volador and could probably do well if he was paired with him in a trios. Maya just comes off as far more charismatic, even if Cometa does his his stuff cleanly. The tercera was a lot of tecnico shine until the Traumas finished it out of nowhere. Not a classic but a great use of ten minutes.

People could watch the Traumas tag and be happy. They should actively watch the Casas/Cavernario tag, though. That's probably my favorite quasi-makeshift tag team in the world. They're great together and the Misticos were great foils for them (though really, of course, it was meant to be the other way around). This was just as brief. 

It won't take you much more than ten minutes to watch, less if you watch the clipped version, but the clipped version sort of comes off as a good parts version, and it's all good parts, from the initial ambush to every bit of awesome Cavernario offense, to Zacarias getting to do a 619, to Casas doing a Fargo Strut, to seeing Caristico interact with Casas and Cavernario, to sort of accepting Mistico's crummy superkick, to the way that Casas and Cavernario make the tecnicos work for their comeback, to the fun back and forth tercera, ending with Casas' Oscar-deserving antics to break up the last pinfall so his team can win.

Negro Casas never not been revitalized but he feels even further so against Caristico. I'm looking forward to them having a singles match. Cavernario's such a star too, seeming like he absolutely belongs in there with the rest. 

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Lucha Worth Watching: Mask Matches and Family Feuds 10/12/15 & 11/8/15

Mascara contra Mascara: Molotov vs. Lestat, CMLL (10/12/15)

Two guys I don't watch that much, having a mask match. Lestat has been king of the mask match this year in Puebla, taking a mask just a couple months prior from King Jaguar. That's right. THEE King Jaguar. He's a Puebla undercarder, and Molotov is a CMLL undercarder who doesn't make TV that often but has shown improvement in the last few years. Lestat is clearly a Jeff Hardy obsessive, who potentially knows a guy who knows a guy who wants to push him to mask match glory. The match itself was poorly structured, but both men were clearly working hard. Lestat is kind of a slow motion Blitzkrieg, but worked in several fun swanton variations: a couple big ones from the top rope, a big one climbing the ropes, and tossed out a couple asai moonsault variations. The structure was all wack as we had several moments where a guy would take a big move, but then that guy would be on his feet first to deliver the next big move. It got kind of ridiculous after awhile. Lestat hits a big moonsault to the floor, landing on his feet, yet Molotov recovers faster and gets back in the ring to deliver a dive of his own. There were several moments like that. We also got a hilarious moment where Lestat yanked off Molotov's mask (Molotov had ripped at Lestat's in the primera), and Tirantes went to DQ him, and Lestat started begging and begging and getting on his knees apologizing to not be DQ'd (Molotov had won the primera so this would have meant Lestat's mask). It's a strange sight to see a tecnico doing something illegal and then begging the referee to not punish him. Who could get behind that kind of weenie?! When I was in 2nd grade, Mrs. Setterlund had a "punishment board" that was a physical three tier system of punishment. There were three levels: 1. Warning, 2. Lose a Recess, 3. Principal's Office. She had clothespins with all of our names written on them, and if you did something to warrant it, your clothespin would get moved from the "Not a Horrible Child" portion, down to the "On Warning" section, and so on. Since I was a constant chatterer, I would regularly see my clothespin moved into section 1 and 2, but never section 3. It usually took a LOT to get a visit to the principal's office. But one day I must have been particularly restless and got my clothespin moved down to dreaded section 3. And then I proceeded to run across the classroom and tearfully BEG to not have my pin moved to section 3. It was pathetic. I begged and pleaded and made promises as my mind rushed with all sorts of terrible things that would happen if my mom found out I had been sent to the principal's office. And eventually, Mrs. Setterlund relented, and I avoided further punishment, while I assume losing the respect of every single person of every age who witnessed it. And that was Lestat. Lestat was 2nd grade me. Crowds didn't want to root for 2nd grade me.

Also funny, is the longer the match went on, the more I felt like the lucha smoothness was hurting things. As in, both guys were trained a certain way. There was a certain slickness to their movements, that smoother lucha style. And I kept thinking that if this were worked in some garage but a couple of bad body guys in jean shorts, it would feel like a gritty war with tons of crazy spots and violent thud bumps. Not that Arena Puebla is a classy place, but it's an established professional arena, and the violence doesn't translate as well when done by guys in wide leg neon vinyl pants. I honestly think you can take this exact same match, hold it in a parking lot before a Raiders game, and have it between Shane Stevens and Shane "Gator" Stephens and suddenly I'd say "Man who the hell are these lunatics!?" But alas, it was not between two Shanes, and it had none of the drama of your good mask matches. Still, a man who you might not have known, lost his mask. This seems at least somewhat notable.

Dinastia Navarro vs. Dinastia Panther, All Elite 11/8/15

Alternate, more complete, but not as pretty fancam

Yay internet! I love family affair lucha matches, there's always a little added element of pride and the crowd gets buzzing for that familia atmosphere. It's structure is exactly what you expect, and it's goooood. Tons of matwork and grappling trade-offs in the primera, very short segunda with Navarros getting their submissions back, and a tercera that peaks with a beautiful dive and the two maestros squaring off. The mat stuff is predictably wonderful. Trauma I ends the segunda with his nasty indian deathlock into a violent twisting crescendo. Panther Jr. ends the primera by muscling Navarro to the ground and wrenching in a Fujiwara. BP and Trauma II go at it like men and the grappling is excellent. They both throw in little touches of professionalism, like BP slyly moving his leg away from Trauma's grasp moments before Trauma even blindly grabs back at the leg. Both lock on and slither out of nice indian deathlock variations but it doesn't feel exhibition-y, while it does feel nice and show-offy, seeing who can bust out freakier stuff. Trauma II is an absolute beast throughout this, being the only one who really laces into anybody with strikes, and BP Jr. pays him back at one point with an awesome ropewalk dropkick 3/4 of the way across the ring. Awesome spot. The Panther hits a super fast bullet tope to clear the ring, and we get the BP/Navarro showdown where they break out fun reversals and the gorgeous somewhat slower gracefulness of two masters comes into play. Navarro appeared slightly wooden in this and looked to have trouble bumping to the floor earlier, but it was clear he was saving his gas for Panther and I thank him for it. It wouldn't have taken much more for me to bump this up closer to MOTY list, just felt like it needed a couple more runs. Of the two videos linked, the top one is gorgeously clear, but has "down time" edited out. You get most of the action, but it's choppy. The second video is the whole thing, but shot from farther away, and the first 6 minutes are shaky and partially blocked by the referee. The first one you get a much greater sense of how hard Trauma II's shots are landing, and obviously all the mat transitions and work itself is so much clearer. The second video is a nice companion, as you get more crowd noise (and it appears to be filmed from a pro-Dinastia Navarro section) so you get a good gauge of how the crowd starts pro Navarro and by the end shifts to cheering both teams. I also includes what happens between the 2da and 3ra, which is mainly The Panther nicely selling the brutal T1 submission that took him out of the fall. For me, it made things mean a LOT more important to see Panther getting tended to, walking off his injury and gutting things through. Watch it, and thank the internet.

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MLJ: Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II vs Felino, Puma, Tiger

2015-11-22 @ Arena México (Elite)
Negro Navarro, Trauma I, Trauma II vs Felino, Puma, Tiger

I'm playing catch up from Thanksgiving here. I have more Sombra for later in the week, including a really fun trios match that I need to watch the end of and the start of his singles matches against Felino, the first of which I can't watch the end of because it's not online. I think they'll give a good look at his development over the years, however.

This was from last week's Elite show. I know we get fancams pretty quickly on these from one of my favorite uploaders but the vantage isn't always the best. This, on the other hand, is a pretty nice shot of it all. Unfortunately, I still can't tell the Traumas apart. Them matched up against Puma and Tiger is absolutely ideal though, and Felino, while having devolved into a body humor-centric comedy act over the years, can still go in short bursts making him a great potential Navarro foil. And this was a blast. I think I liked it more than what we saw of the Panthers vs Navarros match from a few weeks ago, as while the initial matwork between Navarro and Felino wasn't as good as what he did with Panther, everything else was just a lot of fun.

I'd say the weakest part of the match was the primera. There wasn't quite the sense of struggle that I look for in matwork on the level that this should have been at. There was a lot of showmanship, first between Felino and Navarro and then between the kids, and I even think there was an escalation balanced by some timely working of the crowd to help make things matter, but the weight just wasn't there. They cycled through a couple of times before escalating into an awesome spot where Tiger dropkicked a Trauma on the way out for a dive and Puma powerbomb position lawn-darted him into the guardrail.

Felino locked in the reverse figure four on Navarro shortly thereafter and it felt secondhand earned because his kids pulled off something so devastating.

I'm not a big spot guy but there is a joy in watching Puma and Tiger, and it's enhanced somehow when they get their dad into the act. Felino's much more enjoyable with them than he is with Niebla and his brother. Case in point, this spot during the cats' momentum holding into the segunda:

There was a lot of that sort of thing in a short period of time, including Puma and Tiger's usual shtick with superkicks and dragonball posing. We have a few cuts in the match, but just a few. You still get the sense of what's going on and where the transitions are. Here after a sense of superior teamwork from the cats to keep control, one of the Traumas put a hand up to stop Puma so he could posture (and thus stop beating on them). I'd like to say this was deep psychology centered around their need to play to the crowd, but that's a bit of a reach. Anyway, the other Trauma grabbed his leg which let the Navarros come back (with Negro Navarro winning with am STF to make for the parallel structure).

The tercera was pretty much what you'd want for a low stakes, high action match like this. They cycled through with guys going in and out, with spots and cutoffs and playing to the crowd and the Traumas taking it with tandem submissions. The best part about the end was Navarro's pride. It's more fun than great but I'm glad that we have it to watch even though it was on an Elite show.

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MLJ: Chilanga Mask X-Mas in August 2: Trauma II vs Blue Panther

2015-08-16 @ Arena Naucalpan
Trauma II vs Blue Panther

Starts at 1:28:22

We've been lucky over the last few years to have all of the BT Jr. captured lucha. The Traumas have been a big part of the footage and it's on me and my watching habits that I just haven't seen more of them. They're Negro Navarro's kids, as I'm sure most people reading this know. I just haven't gotten around to seeing a ton of them as of yet. I will rectify that at some point. They have a lot of stuff with their dad out there, and I'm seeing a trios right now of Cerebro/Traumas vs Virus/Tiger/Puma that I need to watch, etc. There's a lot out there.

Short answer on this one is that it would have come off better if it didn't have to follow Virus vs Cerebro, but the finish here was better. I think the match itself, wasn't, and a lot of that was in the matwork. It's not that what they did was bad. It absolutely wasn't. I'm just not sure it compared. They were going for high level, complex stuff, and it fell into the sorts of traps that the Virus match avoided: there were moments where limbs were given over too freely, or even for no discernible reason. There were times where Trauma would lock in a hold and I didn't really have a great sense what he was going for or how it'd work. Sometimes it just looked like a mess of limbs. There were times where Trauma especially fumbled a bit going for a hold or that Panther would lack a bit of zing in snapping one on; these are the sort of things I'd have forgiven if I hadn't just seen Virus vs Cerebro, I think.

That's not to say there weren't flashes of brilliance, both little and big. I liked how Trauma went for the same move that ended the Virus match, that sort of lifting scorpion deathlock but it was too early into the match and he couldn't hook it. There was a great moment early on where Panther was trying to step on the back of Trauma's leg to get out of a hold by shifting the leverage, but it didn't work so he shot a quick chop there to do it. Just a tiny detail that really stood out. There was a great Tapitia war, including Trauma ALMOST hooking one in using a method I'd never seen before. Some of his holds and escapes were really good and they definitely had the crowd. I just thought the match had more than its share of dubious moments too.

As I said, I did like the finish better. At first, I had gotten worried since they made some distance and did a dive, much like the other match. I thought they were going to do exactly the same thing for a moment. Instead they stretched out a few signature holds to really amp up the drama with Panther ultimately winning the match by sticking to his own move instead of trying to steal Trauma's (after Trauma showed something of a lack of maturity by doing the opposite). It was a good match but I think it paled to what Virus and Cerebro accomplished just a few minutes previous.

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

2. Negro Navarro/Trauma 1/Trauma 2 v. Ultimo Guerrero/Magnifico/Rey Hechicero CaraLucha 1/31

PAS: Awesome match, probably the best Dinanista Navarro trios since the Terry/Cerebro series. Ultimo Guerrero continues to be a revelation in these Maestro style matches, the opening section has Guerrero and T2 just tearing it up on the mat, violent looking and explosive some of the better lucha submission stuff I have seen in recent years. The brief exchanges between Navarro and Hechicero were as great as ever and Magnifico was fine in his fill in role. Still this was focused on Trauma 2 v. Ultimo, that was a match I had never thought about before, but it is high on my dream match scale now, finish run had those two getting a little violent with each other and it was pretty boss. First BTJR. gem of 2015.

ER: Damn, Ultimo Guerrero right!? I've not been as down on career UG as Phil, historically. When I got into lucha in the late 90s (first match I saw was some Virus vs. Oriental singles match when we first got cable TV and discovered we had Galavision) and UG was one of the guys I really loved. Then as I watched more lucha and time went by his mid 2000s style eventually became the style of lucha I avoided. Guys like Cien Caras that I used to hate when I began watching lucha were now the guys I actively looked forward to. I just grew apart from his style. But over the last couple years I've started appreciating what he brings again, now that I didn't have to see him in any blown up singles epics and just saw him in trios, bumping big and controlling action. But I don't think any fan of UG's could have predicted the few standout performances he's thrown out over the last calendar year. He's been so good in these matches that it almost makes you hate him for not ALWAYS looking this way. Now naturally it just lends more credence to the thinking that fine luchadors don't begin until 40, and these kind of performances are certainly getting me excited for age 50 UG. I liked Trauma playing the role of shit stirrer here, always running in and breaking up pins in dickish ways, slapping Hechicero in the head or kicking a guy in the back. Loved the Hechicero/Navarro segments and loved all of Navarro's quirky leg drags, felt like something I'd see in World of Sport. I wish they paced the falls more evenly as the last two were much quicker but the work in all of them was good.


2015 MASTER LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

43. Guerrero Maya Jr./Hechicero v. Traumas 1 & 2 CMLL Sanchez 11/15

PAS: Really fun mat based match which very much delivered on the promise of Hechicero mixing it up with the Traumas. We open with a spectacular Trauma 1 v. Hechicero section which has some cool athletic counters, and a series of nasty rolling cradles into submissions. We also get a cool second fall exchange between T2 and Hechicero. Maya looked good when the match sped up a bit, but he looked a little lost during the mat stuff, Trauma's will eat you up if you can't hang. The other thing that kept this from being really high end was the wonky finish which felt like some sort of double pin cop out so on one had to job. More of a match with great exchanges then a great match, but man alive were those exchanges amazing.

ER: This was a fun match but really more of an amazing mat exhibition than an actual mat that built to finishes. But if you're going to to a mat exhibition, might as well break out some of the most gonzo crazy submissions you've ever seen. Some of the submissions here I can't even begin to describe. When people hear about "trippy lucha submissions" I don't think they've ever seen anything like this. Hechicero vs. either of the Traumas was the stuff lucha dreams are made of. Hechicero might be the best current mat guy in the lucha game, and yes I understand implications of that statement. I want to see Hechicero against Thatcher/Gulak as he can easily work the lucha version of their thing, and some of his movements are just so damn impressive. He always does these cool things with leverage and is really great at highlighting how close some of his riskier submissions can come to being reversed. He'll lock on a high leverage move but you can see how it can be quickly reversed by an able opponent. Hechicero will lock on a nasty legbar and then when wrenching it in will take the leverage too far, and then the Traumas gamely take control back. My favorite sub was this nasty three-parter with Hechicero starting with a half Rings of Saturn, holding onto that while locking in an Indian deathlock (with it locked in by holding Trauma I's legs in place with his chest, and then rolling all that through into a surfboard. That he didn't make it look like Trauma was just waiting around to be put into it speaks volumes about both men. Maya was lost during all the mat stuff and did a bunch of annoying stuff like offer up his arms without making Trauma even begin to fight for them, but Hechicero vs. Traumas heals all wounds.


2014 MASTER LIST

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Rifling Through the Trash: The Unfinished Segunda Caida

We here at Segunda Caida all watch a lot of wrestling. We also start a lot of projects. More projects than we can ever ever possibly finish. We start watching something, write about it, don't finish writing about it, and there it sits. We have about 80 unfinished drafts dating back 4 years. Some of them may get finished some day (IWA-MS show reviews, WAR show reviews), others are kind of pointless to ever finish (old CMLL TV write-ups, reviews of WWE Superstars episodes). Still these write ups all took at least SOME time out of our schedules, and it's only fair that we get SOME use out of them. Tom used his best shitty tag team name from his "shitty indy name" rolodex AND made fun of RPGs in almost the same sentence.

The FINAL snippets from TomK's review of ROH's "Take No Prisoners":

Vulture Squad v No Remorse Corpse

TKG: Huh? Why? The bonus match from other show on ROH PPV is kind of a staple, but why this match? Did someone say “hey this show is missing a big moves workrate tag”? This whole entire card has been really well paced with every match being different than the one before, and matches ending without long finisher exchange sequences and excessive kickouts to protect the main event. There is a reason not to do a workrate tag with hot finisher train. The opening Ruckus v Rocky Romero mirror missed stuff was every bit as laughably bad as you’d expect. Where is Julius Smokes? Jigsaw without the mask looks like a guy who should have been on the second season of the Wire. Maybe not White Mike, but White Mike’s skinny cousin. When Ruckus eventually joins Eddy Kingston, I want a Smokes managed Jigsaw/Grim Reefer tag team. Is “Eight Myle” a shitty enough tag name? I also don’t think I’ve mentioned the shitty “pokemon” style tales of the tape that they’ve been doing before each match. I didn’t mind this when they used it for the Aries v Nigel main event as they where actually building the match around the idea that the two knew each others stuff. But really if these are the talking points, give them to the announcers to make. Putting it up on the screen really feels like someone is laying out the profile pages from a role playing game.

Notes for Phil: I think you liked this more than I did and thought the spike piledriver was a good finish and finish train wasn’t too long or something like that. You're wrong. But that's what you were arguing.

Phil reviewing IWRG 6/17/10:

Bombero Infernal v. Dr. Cerebro

PAS: This really felt like heavyweight professional wrestling. Just a pair of big guys throwing big bombs (indy lucha big, I am sure Dr. Cerebro is like 5'4). Infernal jumps Cerebro outside and whoops on him for the first fall. Cerebro has a really great looking trickle of blood rolling down his face. Cerebro fires back with some soup bones, including a spectacular elbow smash plancha which looked like the ghost of Misawa. Finish was decent, although the low blow finish is such a lucha cliche, I don't want to see it infecting IWRG.

Mickie Segura/Trauma I/II v. Los Gringos VIP

PAS: 2010 IWRG is so good that the baseline for an average match is pretty high. It will consistently put out solidly worked excellent matches with occasional flashes of brilliance, that it is kind of hard for a match like this to stand out. This was six very good wrestlers having a very good trios title match. We got a long first fall of mat work, it isn't normally what you expect out of the Lucha Libre VIP team (outside of Avisman, who is the guy who doesn't work the mat in this match), but they are pretty good at it. I especially liked El Hijo Del Diablo v. Trauma I, which was really a pair of powerhouse using their strength to move in and out of hold, Diablo is having a hell of a year. Second fall was rudo triple teams and brawling, which was done well, although there was no huge bump or blood or anything to distinguish it. Third fall was a traditional title match third fall, down to the step over toe hold comedy spot which you see a ton of in classic lucha (the spot which ends with the Technico wiggling in a pinning all three guys.) Good workman like lucha libre, which won't register when we look back at 2010, but is certainly well worth spending 20 minutes watching

Notes from EricR watching the 3/27/14 TNA iMPACT:

~Davey/Edwards vs. Magnus/Abyss: Wow Davey Richards is just a hilariously bad wrestler. I mean, not as horrid as Abyss, who seems to fight every natural way to take bumps and go against every body instinct to fall in the most ridiculous way possible. So Eddie Edwards always does a spit take bump in his matches, and here he took an elbow from Magnus and ended up accidentally spitting directly into Davey's (on the apron) eyes. And what's amazing is Davey sold it! He didn't just casually pretend another human being, his partner, didn't just accidentally spit directly into his eyes. He sold it. But he didn't sell it like a normal human would sell the indignity of feeling another human's warm spit hit your eyes and face, he sold it like Eddie Edwards was a Dilophosaurus and he was Nedry getting acidic mucous spit into his eyes. The goggles! They do nothing!!! He also later took the most hilarious back bump, where it looked like he was jumping up and landing back first on a big trampoline, just 11 year old me getting bounced higher and getting sick air, landing on my back. Or doing a cannonball into a swimming pool, with all the grace of a "mom watch me dive!" child.

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2013 Lucha Roundup

So much Lucha is available on the internet these days, I thought we would try to cover the 2013 highlights here on SC. If I miss something good throw me a message.

Faby Apache/Mary Apache v. Trauma 1/Trauma 2 PDM 1/1

(As always with these BTJr. files, the first fall is public, message him for the final two)

This is always a fun match up, and I am happy they made it Apaches v. Traumas rather then a parajas like they have done in the past. The Apaches have some size to them so this doesn't look like as big a mismatch as some intergender matches do, when Fabi hits a senton it looks like it hurts. Enjoyed the first fall matwork a bunch, this is what the Traumas do at an elite level, and both sisters are well trained too. Second fall had the Traumas really rudoing it up, bullying and stiffing the ladies until a satisfying comeback. Third fall was a bit perfunctory and short which kept this from being a high end match, fine start to the year but nothing which is going to stick by the end

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IWRG 2/18/10

http://www.youtube.com/user/tvluchadelpasado

IWRG on Segunda Caida

Guizmo/Heros v. Carta Brava Jr./Alan Extreme

TKG: Yuck. This was a mess. There were a couple moments of nice Heros underdog selling, a couple moments of nice Carta Brava Jr stiffness ( and even that occasionally looked ill timed), and the Guizmo top rope rana set up and eat was cool. But everything else was a mess. Guizmo and Alan Extreme never seemed to click. They had this one chop exchange where the two would do bigger and bigger wind ups only to hit weaker and weaker chops. And Carta Brava Jr was either standing around arms out 30 seconds too early to catch stuff or out of place 30 seconds too late.

PAS: I actually thought Heros was actively good in this, really enjoyed his opening Carta Brava Jr. matwork, liked his dives, thought he took some nasty shots. Still his perfectly fine performance was overshadowed by the crappiness of Alan Extreme and Guizmo. Yikes were they a mess, lots of their exchanges had that 3/4th speed pre match run through feeling to them. Like when we got to see them do it later at regular speed it was going to be fine. Alan Extreme did hit his Matt Sydal clothesline well, and had a decent Orihara moonsault, but otherwise this was probably his worst performance.

Trauma II/Avisman/Gringo Loco v. Brazo Metalico Jr/Fishman Jr./Chico Che

TKG:I don’t seem to see a part one to the first fall here. So we only get the last minute of the first fall where Chico Che looks to legit fuck Avisman up with a face slam. Second fall starts with Chico Che running through all the heels in succession. It's Chico Che and that's always fun to watch. Then Trauma II comes in with his fast hands and works over Fishman Jr. And pretty much that’s the whole match. Trauma II spends the next two falls just destroying Fishman Jr and Brazo Metalico Jr. An absolute beatdown. Just roughing both guys up. I am assuming Fishman Jr isn’t the Fishman Jr who became Blackfish. Fishman Jr has a real lumbering moose-like awkwardness to him that made his mauling seem even nastier. The maulking was so thorough that I have a hard time calling the eventual face comeback a comeback. Barely even a moral victory. Chico Che kind of gets in a comeback. Trauma II just backs away from the faces while they appear to be on a potential roll then just returns to beating them, Metalico Jr asai’s himself on the ring barrier and Trauma II and Fishman Jr. have a post match pull apart brawl where Trauma II looks to block all of Fishman’s shots.

PAS: There is some pretty nasty beatings laid down by Avisman and Loco too, both top rope moves which finish the second fall looked like they landed in injurious ways. Avisman also lays in some nasty short headbutts. This was Trauma II's show. In DC their is a pair of very good pro prospect fighters the Peterson brothers, Anthony and Lamont (one of the guys I trained with actually got matched up with Anthony in his first ever amateur bout, it didn't go well). They have a pretty compelling story growing up homeless and basically being adopted by their trainer, and largely because of that story they have been on a ton of ESPN and HBO fight cards. The Traumas remind me of the Peterson brothers, Trauma I is like Anthony a bigger bruiser who uses power and force to beat on someone, Trauma II is more like Lamont, he uses speed, angles and combination punching to lay his opponent out. The Puncher and the Boxer, this was a pretty masterful Boxing performance by II.

Los Officiales v. El Angel/Angelico/Freelance

PAS: This match had some moments of excellence mixed in with some real moments of crap. Freelance is spectacular as usual, looking really good in the brawling sections, and breaking out some spectacular highspots. Two crazy dives including a rana which sent Fierro flying into a bunch of fans. He looked really, really sharp here, and I hope he gets some more chances to showcase himself. Angel and Angelico however are a different matter, we have talked a ton about Angelico's shittiness, but there is a section near the end where he rips off his big offense which nearly made me cover my eyes in embarrassment. El Angel was pretty bad too, this match was a pretty big brawl through out, including AK-47 bleeding badly, and in the third fall Angel starts whipping out his comedy spots. It was just terrible and killed the match dead. Worth watching for Freelance v. Oficiales, but anytime the camera isn't on him, move along.

TKG: No real reason to move along. Given the tecnicos there were suprsingly few“moments of crap”. This is a 25+ minute match with both Angelico and El Angel where the only time I cringed was in that last minute and a half Angelico run. And this is the best Angel has looked in his IWRG run thus far, and probably the longest Angelico has been kept from embarrassing himself in a trios match. I mean Oficiales have been doing matches opposite Freelance and two schmucks for over two years now and they have this formula down. Watching this I did get the sense that Freelance deserves better. IWRG has a bunch of neat rudo teams: Traumas/Dinastia Navarro, Terribles Cerebros, Jr. Piratas. Ola Maldita, Gringos VIP, hell I’m sure I’m going to enjoy the Comandantes de La Muerte too. IWRG will move rudos around for matches but these guys have team affiliation. But your faces (Freelance, Chico Che, Zatura, Suicida) are kind of thrown around willy nilly. Freelance deserves a regular partner.

Hijo Del Pantera/La Pantera/Zatura v. Trauma I/Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro

PAS: Merciful Mother of Fuck is Black Terry awesome in this match. This was pretty much a three fall brawl, and I don't know if there is a better brawler in the world. He is just kicking everyones ass here. There was a moment in the first fall where he is faced off with Pantera and yells something at him and just cracks him with a headbut. It was a total barfight move. There is also a great point in the post match, Zatura is protecting a downed Hijo Del Pantera and Black Terry lifts his had as if to say "OK the match is over, we are good" and then he just sneak shots Zatura in the chops. I am reading a biography of Gene Tunney and Terry reminds me of the Pittsburgh Windmill Harry Greb. Greb was the master of dirty fighting, he is described as a guy talented enough to win cleanly but his temperament caused him to take every advantage in the ring. That is how Terry felt to me here. For this kind of brawl, Trauma I is a way better third rudo then Hijo Del Signo, he is such a nasty bruiser and totally the guy you would want watching your back in this kind of bar fight.

TKG: This was a blast. Pantera is a guy who normally does lots of Walking Tall selling, here he did more Dusty beat down struggling to walk tall selling. He constantly had this “what the hell did I do to deserve this” look on his face. After he had already been isolated and triple teamed in the ring and forced to roll to floor to try to regain composure, Pantera crawls back in a second time to go through whole process again. Pantera’s selling of the whole Sisyphean nature of reentering a brawl after you’ve taken a beating is awesome. I have mixed feelings on the Hijo del Signo v Trauma I question here. This is a superlibre match and yeah you want Trauma I in a no DQ match beating people down. And he did a ok job (although not as impressive as last time) at selling for Hijo Del Pantera’s flying. But there were moments where I though we missed the Hijo del Signo/Hijo Del Diablo “young guys as equals dynamic”. As I had a hard time buying Hijo del Pantera when he wasn’t playing victim role. Pantera trades punches then headbutts and posts Dr Cerebro. And it’s only after that, that Hijo del Pantera gets in his offense run against Cerebro. And Hijo del Pantera as a guy who can only get in cheap shots on a hurt opponent makes for a weird baby face. Oh yeah let me echo Phil here: Merciful Mother of Fuck is Black Terry awesome in this match.

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