Found Footage Friday: Lucha Calm before the Lucha Storm: ECLIPSE~! FLASH~! ARQUEROS~! TEMERARIOS~! TERRY~! SKAYDE~! AND FRIENDS~!

Flash I vs. Eclipse 1990s Arena Coliseo Guadalajara

MD: We're sitting on Roy's recent uploads but I'd like to get a better sense of the big picture on them before we figure out how to tackle them. In the meantime, Rob found some things looking around and they're worth covering.

This, for instance, is a lost mask match and they really threw themselves into it given that it was just one fall. Flash had recently gone rudo, as best as I can tell, and he took it to Eclipse immediately, tearing the mask and ripping at his face. Eclipse came back fairly early into a solid beatdown with a quebradora and the rest of the match was pretty hot with finishes. The struggle on holds was particularly good since there was no room for error. They weren't giving one another much of anything. If Eclipse hesitated for a moment, Flash would fight his way away. Flash had an overall advantage due to a rudo ref (Mario), looking the other way for Flash's second to interfere and slow-counting.

Eclipse probably won on points. He was able to lock in more holds, to target Flash's leg a bit, and whenever Flash had an advantage, he found a way to come back. He had a spectacular springboard moonsault into the ring that was stymied by the worst slow count of the match. The finish was controversial as Flash caught Eclipse with an electric chair back off the top and an immediate double underhook submission but Eclipse claimed not to have tapped out. These were two guys who knew they had the spotlight and leaned hard into it.

Los Arqueros (Danny Boy/Lasser/Robin Hood) vs. Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu El Guerrero) Mexican National Trios Titles UWA 1/21/90

MD: Once upon a time, I tried to get the Shu el Guerrero vs Robin Hood mask match. I failed. But Rob found this and we're glad for it.It has no sound, has some clips, and is pretty grainy (and yeah, I'm not always the best at telling Danny Boy and Lasser apart), but it's a lot of fun.

Primera had very strong pairings, a lot of competitive matwork with clever escapes. I wouldn't say that was quite the same with Shu and Robin Hood. They were still competitive but there was more oomph and less flash to it all. The refs sure liked to raise their hands after every exchange, but in my head canon, Shu won the fall for his side by dropkicking Robin Hood into submission. The segunda sped things up which benefitted the tecnicos. Picture perfect placement in basing by Los Temerarios helped though. They went back to the mat with different pairings for a lengthy tercera. Lots of really tricked out high drama stuff before everything broke down for the tandem moves, dives, and and exciting sides evening finish that brought it back to Shu and Robin Hood. They hit big stuff and leaped from high places on one another before a clutch pin out of nowhere (a clutch clutch) to end it. Just a very complete, very straightforward title match worked more or less clean but with clear animosity. Still, it'd be nice to see that mask match.

PAS: So cool that lucha like this keeps showing up. This is a classic trios match from 33 years ago which gives us a long chance to look at some cool wrestlers who we don't have a ton of footage of. Shu feels like a guy who might have a Navarro/Panther reputation if we had more available. He is built like a mailbox and is great at basing and putting on cool submissions. Robin Hood is another member of the Alvarado family (Brazos) and they have awesome wrestlers on ever branch of that family tree. This feels like the first match of series and I really want to see the next match which probably got chippier, still amazing that we got a chance to watch this.

Skayde/Vortize/Aztlan/Kanon vs. Black Terry/Dragon Celestial/Emperador Azteca/Fulgor I IWRG 2/26/14

MD: We have so much lucha ahead of us in the weeks to come, but a match like this reminds me so crisply and so clearly why I love it so much. It's structured in such a serene way. The primera has the initial exchanges: matwork, gamesmanship, the individual characters clashing against one another, building to a big moment of action. It gave us a tease of the captains (Terry and Skayde) against each other but just that. It gave us a little bit of animosity but never boiled over.

Then the segunda went from measured exchanges to quicker (and different) pairings, rope running, flowing action, still with clear resets. We actually get one dive at the end, again a tease for the tercera, and an abrupt finish. Then in the tercera, there are meaningful punctuated moments that are broken up as wrestlers flow into the match one after the other, all building to finding some way to get to Skayde vs Black Terry. They have a pointed exchange but even that's just a tease as it leads to the final dives to clear the ring for a finish that pushes things off for matches to come. So this match could exist in a format that was standard but with specifics that met the moment and the wrestlers therein. It's not even my favorite form of lucha, which is much more focused on beatdowns and revenge after that beautiful, built to, reacted to moment of comeback. But it's still wonderful and still has so much of the anticipation and payoff and aristry.

As for specific pairings, I really liked Aztlan and Dragon Celestial in the primera and Skayde and Dragon in the segunda. I'd love to see more of that second match up. There was a nice bit of chippiness throughout, especially when Terry was in there, but for Emperador Azteca and Kanon too. I'm not sure I had a sense of the overall direction of the feud but, this type of lucha is so universal that you can jump in and enjoy yourself.

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Found Footage Friday: ANDRE~! INOKI~! MAEDA~! CANEK~! CHOSHU~! RUSHER~!

El Canek vs. Riki Choshu UWA 12/19/79 

MD: Title match for the UWA World Heavyweight Title in Mexico City. We're lucky to have it more for Choshu being in the spot than anything else as it feels like we're much more apt to have Fujinami in a match like this. It went less than fourteen minutes over three falls. Choshu wasn't fully Choshu yet, but he was more than competent, hanging on to the arm for a lot of the first fall; it was about 60% of what we'd get from France just a few years earlier given such an exchange but 60% of that is still solid if you ask me. Canek was going through the motions of trying to escape but without some of the intensity we're used to. Canek took the early advantage when they picked up the pace, but Choshu caught him with a suplex and Scorpion Deathlock to end the first fall. Second was more back and forth with chippy strikes in between holds and Canek barely getting Choshu up with a press into a backbreaker. Tercera had some good nearfalls as they played into the title drama. Occasionally they were just a little off on some of their spots, but it was never anything that really took you out of the match. Finish was Canek tossing Choshu off the top and following it up with a flying body press. More enjoyable than great, but still a very complete match overall.

Antonio Inoki vs. Rusher Kimura NJPW 3/17/1982

MD: Kimura had come into New Japan to face Inoki late in 81 and they had a blowoff Lumberjack match in October. Kimura reemerged to menace Inoki at the end of his January 1982 series with Abdullah (which is all worth watching) and they were paired up in February and here in March. They come off as two alpha bulls of the 1970s, standing tall right around age 40. Kimura was a couple of years older than Inoki. The fans were into this and they almost got more reaction just standing, staring, posturing, or clapping to build anticipation than with the actual action. The holds were simple and hard-fought, straightforward grinding.

Midway through the match, Inoki, as he was want to do, became a complete jerk, starting a double knucklelock lock up and then just slapping Kimura, wrenching the arm into a pumphandle over the shoulder, and locking in a cross armbreaker. The fans loved it as they always did. Kimura came back with incredibly hard shots in the ropes and a massive running forearm, following it up with some brutality with a weapon on the outside (weapon shots were ok so long as they weren't in the ring in NJPW at this period). Inoki fought back hitting the enziguri to knock Rusher out and they brawled hard on the outside for the countout. Nothing was proven but the fans, so into this, got most of what they wanted to see, two big stars butt heads and egos with one another, and yeah, Inoki being a triumphant jerk. More heel-coded behavior that was wildly over for an ace babyface. Everyone loves a bully so long as he's your bully.

Andre the Giant/El Canek vs. Antonio Inoki/Akira Maeda NJPW 5/24/83

MD: Lots to see here. They had Maeda work almost all of this, likely because it wasn't taped. I haven't seen a ton of pre-UWF Maeda and it was strange to see him a little less confident than usual. Still, having Andre in the match will do that to anyone. The early minutes where Maeda had Canek in a standing toehold were interesting because Andre kept menacingly entering the ring. It ended up a bit like a pitcher who was thrown off by having to repeatedly look at the runner at first. I can't remember that same sort of feel in a lot of other matches, but that was the threat of Andre. They eventually did have Andre run in only to get single-legged himself and Inoki and Maeda locking in a modified version of the estella on Canek and Andre to a big pop.

Canek worked heel for the most part and had some good stuff (Neckbreaker drop, flying forearm, gutwrenching power slam, this great standing knee strike springing off the bottom rope like Abby's headbutt) though he was often working from underneath. Andre and Maeda really worked well together, surprising as that might be. Andre beat him around the ring, including the hugest chop. At times Maeda seemed unsure but Andre took his stuff, staggering for a dropkick and going all the way down for the spin wheel kick, the second time perfectly getting caught in the ropes. Brilliant Andre-in-Japan spots to end this. Inoki and Maeda kept tossing Canek into Andre as he was caught, so Andre, fed up, put his foot up to take out his own partner. Then Andre caught a massive Maeda dive only to help him over the rail for the DQ. I enjoyed this a lot even if it's not much of an Inoki tribute.

ER: Every new Andre match that shows up from any year only cements his status as the greatest wrestler of all time. Here we get Andre as a super active complainer, getting into and out of the ring a dozen times in a huff, threatening a walk out, it's all incredible stuff. This is a match where Inoki is hardly present, and Andre works the entire thing from his entrance to minutes after the bell. Andre moves as fast as anyone in the match, walking straight over the top rope and back the whole time, even exiting the ring like he was fucking Marty Jannetty or something. We get to see Andre as a Zbyszko stalling tactic guy, which is just what I wanted to see tonight without knowing it before watching it. This gigantic man just runs up and over the ropes and stamps his feet about Inoki being a sneaky opportunist and it rocks. His physical acting is the best in wrestling history. His apron work is incredible, but look at his in-ring selling. 

Watch Andre sell la estella better than any luchador I've seen; the way he howls and grabs at his hamstring and how Maeda goes right after the hamstring with kicks until Andre wedgies him like a little baby. Andre is a real showman, drawing boos from the fans while also drawing laughs, like when he does his throaty Giant Laugh while Maeda is crawling at his feet, then settles into working quick tags to cut Maeda off. I don't know why it's so funny seeing Andre work quick tags and keep stepping over the ropes just to come in and hit a punch. I love him. Maeda didn't always seem like he knew what to do with Andre, working a couple sequences uncharacteristically tentative. I guess I don't blame him for thinking twice about a sequence that ended with him taking one of the biggest chops ever. Maeda's comeback spinning heel kicks were fantastic. Andre took a big bump off the first and then got caught in the ropes on the second. Andre's bump over the top to the floor was amazing, just insane that he was taking bumps like that on shows that weren't being recorded. What a god. Him catching a Maeda pescado and trying to crush him over the guardrail, then chasing Inoki and Maeda all around the ring while yelling on the house mic, it's just great. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE

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Found Footage Friday: ARQUEROS DEL ESPACIO~! LOS TEMERARIOS~! TENRYU~! HANSEN~! FOOTLOOSE~! PANAMANIAN LUCHA RIOTS~!

Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu el Guerrero) vs. Arqueros del Espacio (Lasser/Danny Boy/El Arquero) UWA 1989 - GREAT

MD: Half an hour of pure action and motion here. Just one killer exchange after the next building to a tercera of multi-man spots and dives before honing in on an exciting finish. El Arquero is Robin Hood, generally considered to be a B-Team Alvarado, but this match is a great example how that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with how great his brothers are. He was spectacular here, including a step up moonsault press and an amazing contribution to the dive train. The VQ was a little rough, with a blue tint, so it was hard at times to tell Danny Boy and Lasser apart but they both more then held up their own so it hardly mattered. You could tell Feliciano and Terry apart on the rudo side but they based and kept up on all the exchanges equally well, each outdoing the last with every opportunity. The match started with a very good mat based Shu/Arquero exchange and basically didn't let up for twenty minutes and two caidas until things ultimately escalated even further. There wasn't really a beatdown or a comeback so the momentum shifts were slight and the finishes somewhat sudden but you definitely couldn't fault the action here.

PAS: Outside of a bit of a wonky finish, this is at the level of any classic trios we have on tape. Loved to get a chance to really see Shu El Guerrero do his thing. What a slick mat wrestler, he is so good at using Amateur style takedowns and level shifts. Robin Hood feels like a guy who if we had more footage of would have the rep of the rest of his family. He's so fast, so elegant in his movements, just a treasure of a wrestler to watch. Our boy Terry isn't a focus of this match, but looks like a great business like rudo in his ability to stooge, bump and base. I wish things didn't fall apart at the end, because before that this looked like an all time classic, and while I love unearthing cool oddities, finding an all-timer is really special.

ER: I'm a few days late to the party but was excited to check this one out. It delivered. It's 1989, but between the ref's untucked shirt and the video angle, it feels like a weird modern indy lucha. The main giveaway that it's 1989 is that no wrestler would be caught dead shirt-cocking it the way the Space Archers do. The matwork is modern as hell and showed hardly any light. When you're talking the Carlton Celebrity Room, the quality of your night depends on the luchador. You know, Jose Luis Feliciano, ya got no complaints. Feliciano was so quick, with Terry not too far behind him, both basing impressively for Danny Boy/Lasser. I'm not sure which one of them it was (if you're wondering, Shu has the mask with the white plume, Arquero is Robin Hood and has the bandit mask, Terry is the shortest Temerario), but let's say Lasser had two of the slickest armdrags I've seen, Robin Hood hits one of the sweetest moonsault presses (making contact while perfectly vertical and them landing on his feet like Kerri Strug) and a dive that was just as nice. If you're looking for the Terry highlights, my favorite bit with him was at the very beginning of the tercera. It's not the Black Terry you're used to seeing brawl through gravel, but it's great classic luchador Terry, a treat seeing him work airtight fast exchanges. 

Stan Hansen/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Samson Fuyuki AJPW 7/16/89

MD: Just to put this into context, it's just five days after Hansen and Tenryu win the tag titles, on a Brody memorial show. In 89, we see Tenryu against both Fuyuki and Kawada in singles matches, but this tag is new to us. A person might expect all of them to go easy on one another since they were stablemates in Revolution, but that person simply wouldn't know the first thing about Genichiro Tenryu. This was a war, with Hansen and Tenryu working to teach Footloose a lesson and Kawada and Fuyuki fighting to prove a point, sure, but also for their very lives. They did best when they were able to work as a unit, and they shined most individually when Tenryu pushed them to far and they furiously fired back, Kawada with kicks and Fuyuki by punching Tenryu repeatedly in the face. More often than not though, they ended up on the ground having the meanest boots from Hansen and Tenryu crashing into their back or ribs. 

Hansen created emotional opportunity better than any wrestler ever and an Irish whip reversal never looked as real as when Fuyuki managed to reverse Hansen and throw his entire body into him with a back elbow so he could make a tag. Likewise, Kawada hit a front missile dropkick, which rarely looks great because it always just pushes his opponent into his own corner, into Tenryu who leaned into it and not away from it. All four of these guys leaned into everything, except for that tragic moment after Footloose had gotten Hansen on the ropes through staying on him two-on-one where Kawada went for a dive and crashed and burned as Hansen moved. There was a lot of that here, with Footloose knowing they had to take higher risks to stay in it and Hansen or Tenryu simply being able to move, including the finish where Tenryu got a clever cradle out of nowhere after a dodge. It was a clever finish but maybe a slightly anti-climactic one after the violence that preceded it.

ER: I really loved what Matt said about this match, and I love AJPW matches that have all of these little story elements going on that you can really get into, all of these little hierarchy moments where you know when Kawada or Fuyuki are really punching above their weight and the crowd is half getting excited to see how they might test Hansen/Tenryu, and half getting excited to see how Hansen and Tenryu are going to punish their insolence. But I also love AJPW matches like this where you can pay no kind of attention to the stories or relationships and just sit back at 1 AM on a Friday night and have a ball watching all these guys beat the hell out of each other. I love how hard Footloose came out of the gates, fearlessly going for the kill on Tenryu knowing that the punishment will be threefold. I couldn't believe how hard Kawada was throwing lariats in this match, what a murderer. When you are in a match with Stan Hansen and you are the one throwing lariats that make me flinch away from the screen, you are a murderer. I love how Footloose really felt like they were throwing the kitchen sink at the champs, how a lot of their strikes were thrown at odd angles and not just "proper kick exchange" form. It felt like Footloose were just wildly throwing all of their limbs at the larger champs and praying something would land significantly enough for them to capitalize. 

When Hansen tagged in and started going after Fuyuki's arm and shoulder (just to be a dickhead), it's so perfect that Footloose pay all of that back when Hansen misses a charge shoulder first into the corner. Hansen's lariat never even comes into play, but Footloose were so good at capitalizing and changing gears that it was easy to see them somehow getting an upset. The whole thing is wall to wall nasty kicks to the back, Kawada's wild missed running plancha, Hansen's great bump where he builds up a head of steam and crashes headlong between the ropes to the floor, and Footloose throwing their bodies as hard as possible at the champs. I thought the finish really worked, as not only did Tenryu's inside cradle look impossibly snug with no way of escaping, but I loved the visual of Tenryu having to "resort" to just using weight and leverage to win the match. Tenryu was getting beat worse than he expected, and instead of staying in and fighting fire with fire, he saw a quick way out and took advantage of it. I don't know if the finish would have worked as well in other Tenryu/Hansen title defenses, but I thought it worked perfectly here as the champs won but showed how vulnerable they might actually be, a vulnerability that was non-existent 20 minutes earlier. 

Sandoken vs. Rocky Star Panama 1980s

MD: More Panamanian lucha. The primera didn't waste any time. After a bit of jockeying for position, Rocky Star hit three dropkicks, moved Sandoken right into a butterfly suplex flawlessly and then press slamed him and locked in a bow and arrow for the win. The segunda was even more abrupt. Rocky Star pushed the advantage with some shoulder tackles, but ran right into a fairly nasty submission all within a minute. So in that regard, this felt almost like modern CMLL. They had a long tercera and they did a lot. Rocky Star just had a lot of stuff in general. Neckbreakers, goardbusters, drop down No Future style kicks. Sandoken's comeback was big but could have been even bigger, and led to the dives. I loved the finish. Rocky Star made a grab between the legs with the ref trying to talk to Sandoken. In doing so, he made it so Sandoken's leg fouled the ref. That gave him an opening for a foul of his own and the win. The fans, as you can imagine, were not pleased and the last five minutes of this clip are people walking around with chairs over their head threateningly. At first I gave it the benefit of the doubt as there was a lot of potential energy but very little kinetic energy and figured that maybe they were just packing the place up for the night, but nope, it all turned south by the end and became a well-deserved riot scene. 

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Andre & Bam Bam Go to UWA

Andre the Giant/Bam Bam Bigelow/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Villano III/Fishman/Canek UWA 4/24/92 - FUN

ER: 40 matches-to-go-Andre wrestling in Mexico must have been some wild stuff to see. Look at how many kids are in the crowd of this UWA show, all getting to see a tecnico team made up of three of the biggest luchador idols of modern lucha history, and on the rudo side you get to see the two - presumably - largest men you had ever seen in your life (with the Headhunters in the next match!). Andre looked like a burnt out 500 lb. Eric Bogosian, but there's so much life when he's in the middle of acting out a story. Here he is, taking a month long Mexico vacation while working a handful of UWA shows, getting real joy out of working comedy spots in Arena Neza. Obviously he stays on the apron for much of this, but he's the best apron worker of all time so that always leads to moments. Here Wagner and Fishman tied up and - as soon as Fishman backed Wagner into the corner - Andre casually chopped Fishman in the back to swing the advantage, like an uncle reaching out to get your nose. Andre smacks Fishman, smiles at Bigelow, then kind of shrugs at the ref. Seeing Andre explaining away cheapshots to a Mexican referee is the closest we ever get to Hiding a Weapon Andre and it's wonderful. He plays that act through the primera, culminating in a spot where he sneaks in a no look cheapshot on Fishman but hits Wagner instead, with Wagner as a rudo selling the chop 4x as much as tecnico Fishman. Andre makes these great apologetic faces to Wagner and explains what he was going for, and it's the best. 

Andre gets into the ring to end the primera, taking out Canek with a couple of lariats, then choking Villano III. The top Mexican stars being smaller than guys Andre typically fought only made him look like more of a giant, able to palm Canek's entire head and drag Villano III around by the neck like a sack of laundry. Andre is setting Villano on the turnbuckles by the neck when Fishman has this tremendous moment of dumb tecnico hubris, decided the best way to stop this giant was by hitting a sunset flip. And so, while Andre chokes Villano III, while Bigelow hits a nice somersault senton on Canek, Fishman climbs to the top rope just to clear Andre on the sunset flip, rolls down Andre's back, and immediately pulls Andre down onto his chest. Andre was huge in 1992, looking bigger this month than in his matches a month prior, and Fishman thought he could just tumble right through. 

The rudos work Canek over more in the segunda, and there's a great moment where he hits the triumphant bodyslam on Bigelow, but the bodyslam proves to me more symbolic than actually damaging, and he causes himself more pain than he causes Bigelow. Andre sets up a few spots where he holds Canek from the apron while Bigelow hits an avalanche, and he does a really nasty full nelson around the top ring rope. Andre was really great at being the stunned giant, letting out a bark when Canek catches him in the stomach and getting knocked into the ropes from a Canek spinning heel kick. Andre's weak stomach was an awesome late career add, a weakness he would use to transition to the big opponent comeback, and he was good enough at selling his stomach that there was always a sense of danger that Andre was about to violently ruin a singlet. In a great twist, Andre gets knocked into and trapped in the ropes, but Bigelow uses the distraction to hit a glorious uppercut between Canek's legs, then grapevines Canek's leg and trapped it, selling like Canek kicked him (Bigelow) so hard in the taint that his foot got stuck. Rudos win straight falls, and I really didn't talk about how much of a blast Bigelow was having. This was the only couple month stretch he ever worked in Mexico, and he knew exactly what to do and looked like he loved doing it. He had a couple smiles during this match that made it look like he was on vacation, and seeing him there makes it pretty easy to imagine this 400 pound fireball gringo as the biggest thing in lucha. 

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I Miss Super Porky

Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro vs. Gran Hamada/Perro Aguayo UWA 3/10/91

ER: What a great tag, the kind of match where you'd consider yourself lucky if you got to see a variation of it live, and a real tour de force Porky performance. The fans are way into everything Porky brings, and he keeps surprising them. Before the match even starts he does a hilarious pratfall to the floor, falling flat on his face just getting from the ring to the apron. The fans eat it up and want only more Porky, and they get it. This starts nice and ramps up the entire match, and gives us a full feeling match in 11 minutes. There's some simple almost US style matwork from Oro and Aguayo to start, and I like how that played into the gradual ramping up of the match. The 11 minutes felt so complete because of the way they kept building speed throughout and kept working to bigger and bigger things. Hamada got to flash his speed and work blazing fast exchanges with both Brazos, the kind of speed that still stands out as special 30 years later when the foundation modern style of wrestling is based around speed, and his huracanrana roll up still stands as the best of all time. But, that pre-match faceplant pratfall set things in stone, and this was always going to be Porky's match. He gets into slap fights, does muscle pose downs with Perro, hits an awesome big boy tope, hits his crushing Porky splash, and does all the little things like whipping over fast on armdrags and showing his always shocking agility. This match feels like the kind of thing that should have lead to Porky being one of the most popular foreigners in Japan for the next decade, and I'm sure that Hamada recognized that. I imagine Porky wanted to remain in Mexico for good reasons (such as several young children at home), but I love thinking of this alternate timeline where Porky spends his 90s working a bunch of M-Pro and Toryumon tours. 

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New Footage Friday: 1976 UWA TV

UWA 5/1/76

MD: Whenever an old reel gets found and converted and we get more 70s studio wrestling, it's worth talking about. This episode has a lot going for it, since it's a pretty rare promotion, has Lou Thesz promoting and announcing, and gives us a timely look at a few wrestlers we don't have a lot of in 76. It was very much of its era, down to the stars on the ring ropes and Buzz Benson's announcing (Zam!; Zap! Right into the midsection). It was a fun package with a complete match to start, a couple of flashy squashes with big characters, and a hot angle at the end.

Tommy Seigler vs. Bruce Swayze

MD: Seigler I know best from the one 73 Dick Steinborn match we have and he was positioned as babyface here with Swayze billed from Florida, with goofy tights and working the inside moves. Thesz fingerprints are all over this as they worked it like they were hired by Thesz, paid by Thesz, and knew Thesz would be announcing their match. They worked it tight and snug, giving Thesz opportunities to talk about leverage technique, about his own evenness in matchmaking. In the first half, Swayze focused on the arm with underhanded, well-hidden cut offs. Seigler sold well, able to come back with fiery shots but too standup a wrestler to really be able to capitalize when the ref was holding him back. They were working towards a draw so when Swayze finally took over, it was with a headlock but it was still well worked as he held on through Seigler's attempt to cheat. It opened back up as the time headed towards expiration but never quite went over the top. Good TV draw that was interesting for how Thesz looked at is as much as anything else.

The Islanders (Afa and Sika) w/ Gentleman Saul Weingeroff vs. The Mighty Yankee/Troy Graham

MD: Afa and Sika felt pretty young here, Sika especially. Afa I'd call relatively young since for the most part, we always knew him in his late 30s and older. Here, he was mid-30s with almost a literal babyface. Most interesting here was the amount of wrestling they still did, but how they added in the chops and shoulder blocks and shots. The base of what they were doing was the wrestling, putting on a hold and taking a guy over, but they twisted it (a nerve hold) and added to it (the headbutt and splash) to make it seem more exotic (for 76 at least).

Dale Mann vs. Mario Leone

MD: Leone's gear was amazing. It was an orange singlet and tights, with red boots, black kneepads, and black trunks with a little orange trident/pitchfork on the back, the sort of thing that you'd picture 76 Satanico potentially wearing but only if Peña booked AAA existed in 76. Somewhat less wrestling here and more Leone comically bumping himself over the top long, long after Mann moved out of the way while Cora Combs joins in on the announcing and lets us know she'll be wrestling next week. I'm not super familiar with Mann, but he was big, with decent presence, sound fundamentals, and a bowlcut. He ended up promoting in KY a little later, but I don't think we have a lot of 70s footage of him. You definitely get the sense he could be a local attraction. Post match (and airplane spin), Leone trips over the mic cord. What a worker.

Cowboy Ray Parker (Scott Elmore)/The Spoiler ("The Angel" Frank Morrell) w/ Al Costello vs. Luis "Arriba" Martinez/Lorenzo Parente

MD: The heels take out Parente with a chair before the match. Spoiler with the mask/hat combo was quite the look. Thesz then turned it into a handicap match, which is really more of a gauntlet, the idea being that Martinez would face Parker and then Spoiler. Martinez came out with the stereotypical latin fury with Parker bumping around the ring for him. I have a ton of time for Costello's act with the boomerang: after a Spoiler distraction, he was able to whack Martinez in the leg with it, hit him over the head, AND choke him in the ropes by putting it over his head. That's a versatile weapon. Ultimately after a comeback and (another) airplane spin, the heels rushed the ring and worked over Martinez, bloodying him with Spoiler's claw, until Parente rushed back with a steel pipe and made the save. Post match, Martinez had a great bloody promo about how he wasn't an animal ("The bible says no revenge!") but how they were driving him to it.

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Andre Runs Around in the Rain with a Hole in His Brain

Andre the Giant/Villano III/Canek vs. Kokina/Buffalo Allen/Black Scorpio UWA 5/17/92 - FUN

ER: I had always seen this match on paper and thought it looked like an excellent WAR combination of guys (man I would have loved to see even this era of Andre in a trios with some WAR sumos) but had never watched it. It doesn't get crazy, but it's very satisfying doing what it does. Andre looks mammoth here, big belly and butt, a curly shag and sideburns that makes him look like a spitting image of George Demosthenes Savalas from Kojak, only doubled in size. He's also wearing a red singlet which just looks weird, but I like the attempt at switching up his looks for a different area. It's wild to think of Andre working Mexico this late in his career. It's Juarez, so he didn't have to fly deep into Mexico or anything, but I am dying to know more about end of days Andre bumming around Mexico and southwest Texas for a month in between gigs. The dates he worked Mexico in '92 are close enough together that I imagine he just stayed there and didn't opt to fly in and out several times in a month. I imagine he was keeping air travel to a minimum at that point, but I don't know! I need to know more. It would make a fantastic article. I would write the article! I just have no idea where to start looking for info.

Andre in 1992 still throws some of my favorite punches, just these big round fists slowly lunging at guys; they look like someone getting hit by a breaking pitch that didn't break. He throws big chops, sits on guys for a pinfall, and even sits on the back of Allen's neck (while Allen is in a seated position, so Andre's butt was forcing Allen's head down between his own legs) which isn't an Andre spot I remembered. He also gets trapped in the ropes - my favorite - and gets members of his team thrown into him. It's fun. The rudo team is great, made up of guys who worked Mexico who nobody thinks of as guys who worked Mexico. Black Scorpio is 2 Cold under a mask, best shape of his life, landing absurdly light on his feet for everything (can't imagine how dope a 450 splash must have looked to a 1992 Juarez crowd). This whole thing really deserves to be the Kokina show, as he's taking these great stooge bumps inside and out of the ring, and we get cool glimpses of the most famous giant of all time vs. one of the most famous big men of all time. Canek gets some great moments including two effortless press slams on Scorpio (one of them throwing him onto Kokina and Allen). Sadly V3 felt a little underutilized, but there were huge fat guys and a mysterious masked flier and major star Canek, so somebody was going to get lost in the shuffle. I would love more lucha Andre.

PAS: Andre is pretty much just a boulder that needs to be moved, or has guys thrown into him, but he is a great fucking boulder.  2 Cold didn't have a huge role in this match, but man did he look light on his feet, I kind of like later in his career bruiser 2 Cold the best, here he looked Ricochet fast and jumpy which was cool and different. Allen is a guy who was always cooler than great, but he is pretty good at bouncing off of Andre. This wasn't the match where Andre pooped on Bad News, but knowing that story adds a bit of extra drama to the match, you are constantly wondering whether the poop is coming.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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ALL TIME MOTY LIST Head to Head 1988: Hansen/Gordy v. Tenryu/Kawada V. Brazos v. Destructores

Los Brazos (Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo) vs. Los Destructores (Emilio Charles Jr./Vulcano/Tony Arce) EMLL 1988?

PAS: God bless youtube as this tasty slice of lucha libre violence just shows up one day. I didn't even know Emilio Charles Jr. was in Los Destructores and here he is trying to open up El Brazo's head like a difficult coconut. Destructores lose the first fall by DQ by removing Oro's mask, and as he goes to the back, they take a 3 on 2 advantage on the Brazo's and really beat them badly. Brazo is leaking like Reince Preibus, and they tie Plata in the corner and work his ample belly like a heavy bag. Emilio Charles is so great to watch here, the other Destructores are great, but he is on another level, just an amazing explosive brawler. Loved Porky in this too, he may be one of my favorite high flyers ever, he is such a hippo that to watch him fly around is so incongruous, and he knows how to land everything with such force. My favorite kind of holy grail, a match I had no idea existed, which shows up like a surprise present.

ER: Unseen anything popping up is always exciting, feels like something that can just keep happening forever and ever. And when it's a young mid 20s Porky I will get a little extra exciting. Destructores are all really good and them taking apart Brazos was a treat. Arce was great at crowd riling, and Charles was a vicious beast, those punches to the side of Brazo's dome looked line crossing. But I came for the chubs and I rooted for the chubs. Porky at 25 is pure joy. His leaps from the apron are insane. He gets no kind of running start, just does a huge standing broad jumps and gets frankly absurd distance for a butterball. It's fun seeing younger variations on older, fatter Porky spots, like how he just plops immediately on a sunset flip attempt, and while you're laughing he then breaks out a handspring kip up like the fattest Dynamite Kid and you're in love. His big splash off the top early in the match is an all time big splash, and after 20 years of seeing him hold teammates' hands while climbing to the top it's downright shocking to see him fly 60% of the way across the ring and just crush a man. Great find, god bless unseen lucha.

Hansen/Gordy v. Tenryu/Kawada review

Verdict:

PAS: Loved the trios match, so happy it showed up and it was a great showcase for excellent wrestlers in their prime. I thought it was a slight step below an all time great match though, needed a more intense finish run to really put it over the top. AJ tag is an all time great and is going to need a classic to beat it.

ER: I really liked this, but I don't think this was very close to the AJ tag. I thought portions were kind of aimless, and admittedly the poor VQ made it a little difficult to see any emotion on display. It's admittedly cheap to complain about VQ when we otherwise wouldn't have seen the match, but emotion is pretty paramount in lucha for me. What we got was wonderful, but I don't think there were any points of this match where I had it over the AJ tag.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 1991: Fujinami vs. Vader Vs. Santo vs. Brazo

Brazo de Oro v. El Hijo Del Santo UWA 1/13/91

ER: I wasn't expecting the primera to be such a Brazo mugging, but he destroys Santo. Santo is always great at taking a beating. He always falls around in dramatic ways and always seems like he's just trying to get to his feet, knowing right when to lean into a punch to send him another way. He's always great at showing that desperation, shooting in for a single leg that Brazo just rolls into a crucifix before continuing the beating. One glorious 10 second run has him throwing a brutal left to the body, attempt to run Santo into a ringpost, Santo blocks, then gets paid back with a straight right hand and a headbutt. 

They do a bunch of really engaging stuff around avoiding that ringpost, better than any "avoid the barbed wire" stuff you've seen, really treating that ringpost like death. Both guys threw violent strikes, Santo punching to the neck and Brazo headbutting away. By the start of the segunda Santo's mask is filling with blood and brother there are few things cooler in wrestling than bloody masks. Santo does on of his classic snap Santo comebacks, catching Oro with a knee, dropkicking him to the floor and hitting a huge dive. Back in Santo locks in the grossest camel clutch you've seen. And now Brazo is busted wide open from hitting the rail and he's spurting blood, and Santo is throwing huge bombs, fighting over submissions, a couple big dives, the best victory roll ever, a mean double stomp to Oro's stomach followed by his always nuts rolling senton, a great momentary Oro comeback and a beartrap rollup for the Santo win. Gorgeous match, with every little thing I love about lucha.

PAS: Man alive is Brazo a killer in this, most of the classic Brazo stuff is really great comedy wrestling, with the two older brothers working around Super Porky, but they started out as Los Mosqueteros del Diablo (The Devil's Musketeers) and the Devil was back for this match. Brazo was throwing these headbutts to Santo's neck which were just vicious stuff and he had great liver lacerating body shots.. I always love the rudo domination first fall and this was a dominating first fall. Santo's comeback was awesome too, I love how he can explode with big dives and attacks and his tope is one of the most gorgeous moves in wrestling history. That caballo to end the second fall may have been nastier then the famous one in the Dandy hair match, gross river of blood and a true chiropractic destruction. Finish run was really exciting and the finish felt like a finish.

Verdict:

ER: This match has it all and wastes no time giving it to us. Blood, brawling, drama and tremendous execution. This one takes it for me.

PAS: Fujinami v. Vader is a really fun discovery and a great brawl, but the added stakes of mascara contra cabellera and the all time legendary Brazo De Oro performance give this the nod


ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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