FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: BABA vs. RUSHER~! BRET vs. SID~! PANTHER~! CASAS~! UG~! ATLANTIS~!

 
Giant Baba/Hiroshi Wajima vs. Goro Tsurumi/Rusher Kimura AJPW 3/27/88

MD: Classics drop from a while ago but no one else is going to cover this stuff at length. It was a lot of fun too. Tsurumi got in Wajima's face early and they honestly really went at it. I don't know if Wajima was just a bit further along in his development by this point or if Tsurumi brought the best out of him but they were slugging. Eventually Rusher got in and Wajima walked him to the corner and the crowd went nuts at the idea of Baba and Rusher (even in 88) facing off. Baba was so slick and self-aware too. He just dropped on his back and picked an ankle. Then he did the headlock > hammerlock > go behind and dropped on his back and did it again. Awesome stuff. After that, Rusher didn't break clean and just blistered him.That just pissed Baba off and he soon blocked a chop, hit the head chop, and was on the mat choking the life out of Rusher.

It wasn't until later on, a few exchanges and tags later (and after he hit the Bulldog on Wajima), that Rusher was finally able to chip away at him and knock him down. Baba mounted a big comeback though, turning a whip around into a neckbreaker drop. Tsurumi tried his luck and got headbutted for his trouble, and then Rusher made saves for him until Wajima was finally able to put him away. I had a lot of fun with it certainly. 

ER: We've been working our way through the entirety of All Japan's 3/27/88 show the last several months, like we're reviewing one song at a time from a Grateful Dead Hampton Coliseum show. We reviewed Big Bubba vs. Shunji Takano last month, we reviewed Isao Takagi vs. Tom Magee and Tommy Rich/Austin Idol vs. Great Kabuki/Tiger Mask II around Thanksgiving. Maybe we'll do Masa Fuchi vs. George Skaaland this summer. 

This is most exciting to me because it's Baba and Rusher Kimura on opposite sides of a tag. I've seen so many Baba/Rusher tags, so many visions of brotherhood, two men who always showed how much they cared for each other during their tags. Once they started teaming they never stopped. Rusher was always on Baba's side during their old man trios, so 1988 would be the last era to see any kind of Baba/Rusher interaction opposite each other. They love each other and don't want to hurt each other, and Rusher shows this by wearing a Giant Baba shirt to the ring!!! The looks they exchanged all match made this so special, and every look and exchange between them is special. On top of this dynamic, you have Goro Tsurumi shit talking Wajima during the ring intros, firing up Wajima to such temperature that he attacked Goro before Baba had even been announced. You could see faces of fans disappointed they wouldn't get to use their Baba-colored streamers. 

Rusher being the one to throw chops at Baba was inevitable, loud open slaps that Baba sold by folding cross-armed at the waist after finally blocking one and chopping Rusher. Baba vs. Rusher was more about gamesmanship, Goro vs. Wajima was hubris and irritability. Goro distracts the ref before mule kicking Wajima in the balls, pulling an inside cradle that Baba breaks up with a disdainful shoving boot from the apron, a real "knock it off, goofball" demeanor. When Rusher breaks up a pin by lightly pulling on Baba's leg, Baba rolls to his back and just looks at Rusher like his boyfriend just playfully pretended to trip over him while he was doing yoga. Wajima palms Goro's face and face slams him to the mat, and when Rusher comes in to save him, he turns right around and leaps through the ropes to the floor when he sees Baba is in position to stop him. I love them. I love what they had. 

Sycho Sid vs. Bret Hart [Cage] WWF MSG 3/16/97

MD: Great Sid bit coming out as he was startled by his own pyro, not afraid of it, but looking like he might lash out at it. Say what you will about thigh slapping, but Bret was the best damn strike stomper that ever struck. He stomped on his punches. He stomped on his kicks. He stomped on his headbutts. There's a sort of purity to it, a beauty, that wrestling can be this too, and it would not just be accepted, but seen as an immersive ideal. Almost instantly, it means that Sid's shots, though bigger arcs, don't feel quite as punchy because he's not stomping on every shot, just some. And of course, when Bret gets whipped into the corner (even back first), he's somehow able to hit in a way that makes the post crash into the cage to make a satisfying noise. Someone could write even more about the SOUND of Bret matches. But it's notable in passing for a paragraph here.

What Sid did do amazingly, however, was frame his action. At one point, after pulling Bret off the cage after he'd been trying to climb out, Sid lifted him up like he'd hit a fall away slam or backbreaker. He looked to the left abruptly, then to the right, these little stilted motions that brought you into the moment by taking you out of it. Then he ran Bret into the cage. He was so big and so strong he didn't have to do anything like that, but that's what made him not just a giant but a star. 

Finish of this was clever enough (if still bullshit like most escape the cage matches that involve the door). Bret had the Sharpshooter on, but that doesn't get him the win in a WWF escape the cage match. Sid was still able to get up and cut him off while climbing, but Sid sold the leg well when he tried to climb. That let Bret hit the huge superplex but Sid, despite being unable to climb, was able to crawl out the door just before Bret could drop.

ER: Cool blue bars MSG cage match just a week before WrestleMania, with something of note happening at all times. Bret gently stumbles during his entrance in a way you can tell really pissed him off, throwing off his entire walk to the ring. He tried to slap hands with a security guard and then ran into a guard on the other side of the aisle, completely rattled. Sid, meanwhile, is in control. Wet as hell, fist bumping everyone, entrance theme perfection. He reacts to his own pyro not like someone startled, but like someone who wasn't expecting pyro and had also never seen pyro before. Mystified, not rattled; curious, but upset. Sid wrestles like Cool Iron Mike Sharpe. Their movement and offense is identical. Body Glove elbow sleeve instead of forearm cast. The more you watch both the more undeniable it becomes. Their offense is thrown the exact same way. Sharpe was Vocal Sid with brown curls, Sid is wide eyed stoic Sharpe with blond curls.  

I've talked before about the audio on these Vault releases, and it really is like seeing wrestling from this era presented in a totally new way. Not having to mic down the crowd to hear any announcers is a marvel in itself, getting to hear individual fans through a full match, hearing how loud and heavy Sid is breathing after they did the first stretch of climbing, how LOUD the turnbuckles sound the three different times Bret gets run into them (two back first, the third his classic chest first), how the ring barely moves but explodes in sound when Bret is pressed off or Sid is superplexed. All the new revelations in sound leap out the entire match. When we wrote about a Goldust/Shawn Michaels ladder match last year, the sound of the ring was so incredible that it added to every bump and strike they did, and that was just as magnified here. A lot of this was arm strikes, Bret throwing his worked punches and Sid throwing his Iron Mike Sharpe arm swings. After Sid's first escape attempt, while Bret is fighting with him on the top rope, Bret's punches to Sid's body look outstanding. As Matt said, Bret is a stomper, a striker totally unseen in modern wrestling, but there's no stomping up top. 

After the match, after the big superplex, after Bret's sharpshooter failed and Sid was still able to crawl to the door that Bret must have forgot about (that stupid psychology wrinkle in every single WWF escape the cage match), there's an immaculate bridge and tunnel girl with her hair done up, trying to take a picture of Bret. He walks right past her on the aisle, and she reaches out to touch his shoulder. As he passes her and her hand makes full contact with him, all she can do in the aftermath is stare at her hand, no expression on her face. In her first physical brush with fame, she got to experience how oiled up and slimy pro wrestlers are, and her brain had no idea how to process this new information. 

Ultimo Guerrero/Atlantis vs. Negro Casas/Blue Panther CMLL 12/4/07 (?)

MD: This was a title match, worked like a title match, and it was refreshing to see in 2026. Primera had Casas vs Guerrero and they did fine, but the pairing of Blue Panther vs Atlantis was just great. Atlantis looked like a million bucks and some of that was on him and some of it was on Panther. Things built to everything breaking down and the tecnicos (Casas/Panther) won with simultaneous submissions (Scorpion by Casas, and a sort of Navarro inverted leglock by Panther). Segunda opened up when Panther went for it again on Guerrero only to get cut off. UG hit the senton de la muerte in the corner on both at once and after tossing them around a bit, Guerrero and Atlantis locked on a tandem submission on both at once (a sort of camel clutch on one while tied to the other and into an Octopus) that looked like a lot of fun.

Tercera had all the bombs you'd expect. There was a slight sense that the refs weren't allowing Casas to punch them because it was a title match and they were the tecnicos but once things went to the floor Casas unloaded. There was another great comeback moment where Guerrero missed in the corner and did his big knee bump over. Panther hit a tope on Atlantis while Casas hit his seated senton off the apron. Then he went and rubbed the head of some kid at ringside with a poncho, which is pure Casas. They followed it with nearfalls (including tandem power bombs) until GdA locked in tandem Atlantidas for the win. They celebrated big afterwards and it did feel like a big deal. Very good tag title match.

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2025 Blue Panther Double Feature: Hechicero! Ultimo Guerrero!

MD: We've been sitting on this Panther vs Hechicero review since January. But now past Panther vs Ultimo Guerrero, we figured we'd drop them both together. Keep in mind I wrote the following 7 months ago though. Eric’s review is new though.

Blue Panther vs. Hechicero CMLL 1/10/25

MD: What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, we were just off of the RUSH vs. Negro Casas feud. Casas and Blue Panther were just around 55 (Casas half a year older than Panther). It seemed fairly clear that while Panther was still enjoyable in the occasional trios or maestro match, and, of course, when paired up against Casas himself, he was simply outpaced by his archrival.

It made sense. Panther was always charismatic in his own way and there was a sort of seasoned toughness and mastery to him even after he lost his mask. Casas had spent a career without one, however, and he was an absolutely singular talent when it came to expressiveness, body language, actions and reactions. Just by winding up the crowd, he could accomplish more than wrestlers thirty years younger than him who could do the most complex and amazing spots.

Yet here we are at the start of 2025, and it is Blue Panther, at the age of 64, who towers like some sort of wizened warrior king. To call his mask (allowed to him for this one night by the commission) a fountain of youth would be doing an injustice to his own daring and pluck, to Hechicero's ability to create motion and base, but maybe most of all, to the virtue of showing one's age. At times Blue Panther moved amazingly well, but it was those moments where the cracks showed, where he struggled to get from Point A to Point B that truly gave meaning to his efforts.

They were incredibly self-aware throughout. In the primera, Panther was put in a position to escape again and again, including a memorable headstand escape to headscissors. While he was able to showcase those escapes, he was working from underneath given Hechicero's superior youth and strength and his own technical mastery, and he got caught in the Conjuro. He evened things up in the segunda after a slick leap back body press. They were smart with these callbacks. In the tercera, Panther would finally get caught doing that one too many times. On the other hand, a rana that he attempted that got him caught early in the tercera (So that Hechicero could really take over) paid off later on.

Hechicero did control the first half of the tercera after catching Panther with a power bomb. Whereas he might bump through the ropes to set up a dive, he rolled Panther out and draped him over the guardrail instead, controlling and creating an illusion of motion (not that there wasn't a lot from Panther anyway, but every little bit helped). Panther's big comeback, getting the crowd going, standing tall, firing back, was as special as anything in the match and as special as anything we've seen this year so far. 

He followed it up with a dive that didn't quite work but they covered so well, with Hechicero taking over until he let Panther sweep him off the apron so they could get back on track. And anyway, there's no point in remembering that dive considering the two or three other impressive ones Panther hit and Hechicero caught. As noted, a match like this is just a little more impressive for holding together despite the cracks than something that would be plastic and perfect instead. 

And this was impressive from beginning to end, a notch on the belt not just of both wrestlers, but on the power of lucha libre and wrestling itself. Some of it was daring and athleticism and training. So much of it was the carefully crafted illusion of all those things and more. What is magic if not exactly that?

ER: I don't know where Blue Panther found the Fountain of Youth but he found it sometime at the end of 2024 and it's been something. I'm not going to say Panther has looked washed the last several years, he's just looked appropriately His Age. Great performances were more rare. We'd get a showoff spot in a trios, or a fun five minute lightning match, maybe one big singles match a year where he'd step up. Based on his work the last 5 (10?) years, Panther's 2025 has come out of nowhere. Going further, following the first two falls, the tercera also came out of nowhere. The primera and segunda felt like a Hechicero match, which makes sense. How would a 64 year old man show up any bigger in the tercera after a couple cool spots in their first two falls? Had you watched Panther's headstand escapes out of a floatover headscissors in the primera, or his gorgeous floating cannonball in the segunda, suspended in contact with Hechicero's upper torso until they crashed, you would not be expecting him to go insane in the tercera. But that's what happened. 

Hechicero looked like a monster picking on an old man, and Arena Mexico treated him as such. Every trademark Hechicero punishment was altered to be more punishing. He got several rotations on his trapped arm backbreaker and loved the heat he would draw whenever he slugged the legend. When Panther finds back at the end of the segunda, it feels like a last gasp, not necessarily the jumping off point into our special tercera.  Panther looks improbably lithe running up the turnbuckles into a crossbody, submitting Hechicero with a hold that looked like a Stu Hart Dungeon stretch punctuated and tightened by rolling. It felt like a triumph, and I guess I should never underestimate the power of a crowd behind a sympathetic old man, because again, this tercera could not have been anticipated. 

Everything jumps up to the next level in the tercera. Panther is thrown into a tree of woe and headscissors his way out of it, gets placed up top and loudly chopped. The crowd reacts as loud to Hechicero's chop as they do to anything he does all match. When Panther tries to leap off with a headscissors it is blocked, and it feels like a genuine stalemate that pushed things to a crazier place. The headscissors is fought for, the powerbomb is fought for, and when Hechicero's powerbomb wins out it feels more like a concession from Hechicero than winning a battle. A stalemate. Hechicero dropping him felt more like a man realizing he was fighting someone with more juice than he realized. And so, he dials up his inner asshole. 

Hechicero hits a leaping elbow off the apron, kicks Panther in the head several times, then starts punching him in the side of the head. All it does is fire Panther up, and the more fired up Panther gets, the louder Arena Mexico gets. Panther builds to a tope that almost kills him. His head catches on the ropes, he goes down almost head first, and it's one of those fragile moments that makes me love old man wrestlers more than any other kind of wrestler. There is built in sympathy because their bodies do not work the same, even in those moments where their youth has been tapped into, and in moments like these we are collectively reminded that they - and we - are all closer to death. As Blue Panther is making me think about death, he is unafraid, and hits a plancha off the buckles that lands like an anchor, building to a crazy leaping huracanrana off the apron. Panther either trusts Hechicero with his life, or has put aside has already come to terms with his God. 

When Panther tries running up the buckles for another crossbody, repeating what won him the segunda, Hechicero knows exactly what's coming and catches him with a big uranage, drops elbows on him, but takes too long attempting a moonsault. Panther rushes over on his knees for a pin attempt, seeing his shot, viewing the pin as a better chance at victory than locking in a sub, and manages to do so in a way that feels more capitalizing than desperate. His crossbody off the buckles that hit, was caught, but his leaping huracanrana off the buckles that was caught, now hits. Panther has Hechicero crossed up by his tenacity, and just as we seemed shocked at what Panther is suddenly capable of, that counts even more for Hechicero. They fight to the entrance ramp where Panther whips Hechicero into the tall staircase, and Panther hits a plancha off those stairs about 10 steps up, letting the crowd reaction grow with each step he takes, Arena Mexico urging him higher...wait but not that high! 

Hechicero is fighting for his life to keep this spirit down, going to his surefire basics and doing them twice, two running knees that should surely end this all. But his slower submission application almost gets him caught by a tight Panther cradle, and that's when he finally has to get dirty. To stop this from happening again, he removes Panther's mask in one quick swipe as part of his next submission attempt, a sleight of hand to throw the legend for just a brief second, a surprise for the man who has spent 20 minutes surprising everyone, which is all he needs to complete the application and bridge through for a high leveraged pin. With his performance at DEAN~! and the Ultimo Guerrero match still to come, even after witnessing all of this, nobody could have predicted Panther's continued 2025 rise.  

Blue Panther vs. Ultimo Guerrero CMLL 8/8/25

MD: The last thing I want to do is downplay the clips. I'm sure most of you saw them. Meltzer went nuts for them even. In this match, Panther did multiple dives of various sorts, be it a flip off the apron, lunging 'ranas, a trust fall from the stage, the over the post bound, and then the top rope electric chair twisting 'rana. Yes, on some of them he had help, be it from his son or Guerrero, but it was an insane stunt show by a man almost 65 years old. And while that's not what I want to talk about here (and if you know me, you know that's not what I want to talk about), the sheer abandon Panther showed in making this match work was remarkable. 

What I want to talk about, however, is how they made it matter. Some of it was going to matter anyway. It would matter by its own nature. You do a dive and it matters, because there's an element of the real to it. There's an element of the daring. There's an element of the spectacular. You do a dive as an old man and it's going to matter even more because all of those things (save maybe for the spectacular) are compounded by an even further element of real, and realness is one of the most powerful forces in pro wrestling.

But it's not the most powerful. Artifice done well will always be more powerful than the real, and when the real that is manifested (be it a resounding chop, a hold with proper technique, or a bump that you can feel from the last row) is framed by the perfect invoking of artifice, that's when wrestling hits the very best. 

And these two are masters of artifice. This was for the MLW Openweight Belt, and they had the pre-match photo. Usually that goes without a hitch, a last remnant of the 80s lucha title match, something held to a higher standard when it came to rules and behavior. Here though, it became a tug of war, with Guerrero the aggressor, hoarding his own belt and his moment to shine. All that got him was a trip to the mat and a bump onto his rear end. He rose enraged and leaped at Panther, ambushing him and tearing off his mask. Because Panther's mask is a ceremonial allowance, Guerrero was able to get all of the heat of the action with none of the penalty, the only time in a CMLL ring where that would be possible. It set the tone perfectly. Every trick in the book underpinned by real and actual substance. Every bump and move underpinned by all of those tricks.

In the Hechicero review, I had suggested that it was the mask that hid Panther's age and gave him some sort of primordial strength, serving as a fountain of youth in its own way. In this match, he more than proved me wrong. 

Still, what sticks with me now a week later and what will stick with me months down the line was that way that they framed every move, the way that they appealed to the crowd. If Panther was going to do a dive, he was going to go out of his way to let every person in that audience (and there were many) know that he was about to do it. He built up their anticipation, churned them into a furor, and then paid it off to their delight. When Guerrero turned things around on him, he did so as theatrically as possible. It wasn't enough to hit a suplex. It wasn't even enough to hit a suplex on the floor. He had to dump Panther back over the guardrail and suplex him back over that. 

And of course, when Panther came back, he made sure to channel the most powerful crowd interaction of the last fifteen years, fingers up in the air to combat Guerrero's roof-raising, Danielson's Yes Chant in full force.

There's always an element of ritual to watching an Ultimo Guerrero match. Ten years ago, I likened it to going to church on a Sunday (just on a Friday night), some of the same spots (and here there was the power bomb counter off the top), but in this match, it was Panther who was guiding the congregation. 

There was escalation and build and sense to all of it too. When Panther tried an early comeback, ref Edgar held the arm to stop a punch in the corner, because while Guerrero could get away with it, in a title match, the tecnico is to be held to a higher standard. Instead of being a hindrance and distraction, Panther used it as a way to build pressure, first for when he finally got shots on Guerrero in the corner later (once again pulled off but here not a hope spot cut off) and then finally when he mounted the turnbuckle defiantly, no... triumphantly, so that the fans could count along with him.

In the end, tasting glory as he did, feeling power that defied age and world-weariness, he flew just a bit too close to the sun. He dove one too many times, a relatively simple back cross body off the ropes. Guerrero rolled through it and won the day, retaining his title. But both men celebrated after the fact, because together they won far more than a simple match.

ER: He wore blue velvet, my god. Would you look at this beautiful man in the most perfect mask in lucha history. Believe it or not, I went into this match without seeing a single highlight. Every single crazy thing that Panther did was unexpected and every single thing got a bigger reaction from me. When I saw Sleepaway Camp for the first time a decade or so ago, I didn't know anything about it. None of my friends did, either, so the reaction by the end of the movie was a room full of humans jumping off their seats screaming. I don't know if I reached the point of screaming during this match, but Blue Panther's Continued Youth Revival did inspire me to shout at my TV no less than five times. Blue Panther was aged for a decade but now he is ageless, but he is ageless in a way that shows his age. His selling, to me, means more than ever, and his selling is better than it's ever been. 

He has this comedic babyface energy that people respond to, and it's amplified by his kind old man visage. Look at him quietly shaking out the cobwebs whenever Guerrero would kick him in the side of the head. He's doing like Milton Berle double takes within a pro wrestling selling framework. Panther's humanity is beautiful. Watching him get kicked around is like seeing somebody fight Mel Brooks. He draws sympathy in ways that would have been impossible 15+ years ago, but his selling didn't just naturally improve because he got old man sympathy, he works to connect with the crowd in ways he never used to. It's in the eyes, it's in his stumble steps, it's in the way he slowly fires up his arms. The selling alone would help him connect with these crowds to huge reaction...but the sudden moveset insanity puts it all over the top. 

Panther's clotheslines and ability to fire up a crowd makes him come off like wrestling's most powerful Rusher Kimura. His cannonball off the apron has surpassed and outlived Negro Casas's Thesz Press as the greatest crazy fired up old man crazy peak. But remember when Panther spent most of his career not doing headscissors and huracanranas and now does crazier huracanranas than ever? Is it the ultimate testament to Ultimo Guerrero's accolades as a lucha base that a 64 year old man trusts him to catch the most highflying he's done in his long career? Blue Panther's leaping huracanrana is my favorite spot of 2025. It's like if Terry Funk had added a moonsault in the 90s but if his moonsault was as great as 2 Cold Scorpio's. I gasp as Panther's head scrapes 1" over the mat, then yelled when his head does the same thing swinging over concrete. I don't think I ever anticipated Blue Panther evolving into a crazy old man Terry Funk persona, but doing it with the old man sympathies combined with youthful adventurousness. Seeing all of Panther's flying is surreal, even more surreal than seeing Panther and Guerrero do a tug of war with a fucking MLW title. A plancha over the ringpost? You've got to be kidding me. I can barely take watching this man take these risks, and I honestly don't know how he does it. 

I don't remember the last time I saw a spot as triumphant as Blue Panther punching Guerrero on the turnbuckles, letting each punch sink in, crowd screaming along, before climbing onto the shoulders of Ultimo. The camera angle made their entire fall happen in slow motion, like Butch and Sundance, Panther being held steady and ready to ride an entire man down. You can see them start to slowly tip forward and know it's the point of no return...but this whole match felt like the point of no return. Blue Panther has committed to this. He's committed to wrestling, he's committed to putting on the craziest performance at an outdoor Arizona shopping center, he's committed to innovating and finding new ways to connect at a point where nobody would blame him for coasting. I love the guy, and I've never loved him more than I do in 2025. 

2025 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW (And CMLL) Five Fingers of Death 3/25 - 3/31

AEW Collision 3/30/24

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli/Katsuyori Shibata vs. Dutch/Vincent/Lance Archer

MD: Not quite an all-star trios match but certainly a unique one with Shibata in the mix. We're just at the start of him as a weekly player as opposed to an attraction and on some level, I feel like he'll add as much as Okada and Ospreay, maybe even more, because he is a contrast to a lot of the roster. Every match up with him feels like a fresh match up. Even with Archer, Cagematch says he's only faced Archer two times before this and they paired up really well to start. Likewise the early Dutch vs. Claudio bits where Dutch provided Claudio a massive canvas to work his strength spots on. 

The meat of the match, however, was Danielson working FIP against the unified trio. It was easily explained away by Danielson's jetlag and the Righteous and Archer's superior chemistry (even Danielson and Castagnoli have only teamed up ten times or so in the two years of the BCC existing). Plus, he got to absolutely dominate all three (including him getting up on the apron to take Archer out with a knee with lightning fast speed, really) right before he got dragged down by a Vincent cheapshot out of nowhere. It was a great face-in-peril performance, one that will probably get overlooked in time, but stood out hugely to me on a random Saturday night at the end of March. Danielson knew he had Claudio's strength and Shibata's suddenness and technique on the apron so it made sense for him to be in the role. He had to look strong despite the totally valid excuses because each week he's being judged against what Ospreay is up to. That said, he had to ensure that Archer, Vincent, and Dutch could keep dragging him down for their sake, the sake of the match, to justify this being a main event. And while Archer's instantly credible whenever he enters the room, the Righteous are, through no real fault of their own, deeply below their opponents in the hierarchy.  

That meant that while Danielson would be able to flip back over Dutch or get kicks in on Vincent in the corner, he'd make sure to give his opponents their due: Vincent with his ferocity, Dutch with his size, and Archer with the monstrous combination of both. Given that the crowd was hot all night and it built the pressure just right for Claudio to get the hot tag and come in like a freight train, and then, after everything broke down and we got the swing and various finishers, for Shibata to close things out almost simply by being himself. Overall, a difficult performance managed masterfully by Danielson, and we will continue to appreciate how lucky we are to get to see it week in and week out while we still can.

CMLL Homenaje a Dos Leyendas 3/29/24

Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley/Matt Sydal vs. Blue Panther/Mistico/Ultimo Guerrero/Volador Jr.

MD: Speaking of being fortunate, well, there's this, isn't there? Something that would have been impossible to imagine ten years ago or five years ago and that would have seemed very unlikely just one year ago even. For a lot of us, it's up there with the Sting retirement match as something that's just unbelievably special, so much so that it's hard to even put down words for. Arena Mexico is special. When you get a crowd that's really committed to what they're seeing, it's like nothing else in the world in 2024, or 2014, or 2004, or even maybe 1994 (Outside of Puerto Rico, I imagine). While there is ritual and expectation and that wonderful pro wrestling reality that exists with the particular style of CMLL's lucha, there's still a level of suspension of disbelief and immersion that almost undoes the chemical change that has affected (afflicted?) pro wrestling over the last few decades and has completely changed the incentives of wrestlers. 

That's the environment that the BCC and their erstwhile "captain" Matt Sydal (with his Peace, Love, and Pro Wrestling tron to counter the Violencia sin Limite BCC shirts) walked into. And while it didn't give me 100% of what I wanted, it gave me a lot of it. I wish that there was a longer feeling out process with initial pairings. I get why on a time-crunched PPV that was unlikely and it's total valid to skip that part in a trios or atomicos match in order to get straight to the heat. That's a totally valid way to build a match like this and maybe extra heat was what the doctor called for here given the stylistic issues and, frankly, inexperience of most of the BCC in maintaining the rhythm and flow of a lucha beatdown. I just wanted to see initial pairings, that's all. As for those shortcomings, Claudio was dropped in as natural as could be given his background, the ultimate base in so many ways, and I just can't imagine a world where Jon Moxley, if given two months of weekly Friday and Monday shows, wouldn't be an amazing traffic director; for his first try, he wasn't exactly Satanico in there keeping things moving though.

That meant you ended up with some weird, weird stuff where the more familiar you were with the trappings, the more it'd take you out of the moment. I'm talking about Blue Panther getting a full, momentum shift (mandate-of-heaven) comeback with the big Mistico leap into the ring, only for the BCC to take back over on Ultimo Guerrero (the best of all time in getting beaten up in a corner and still raising the roof to show the fans that he's the toughest star you've seen) to set up that lovely bit of ritual, his power bomb off the top and the real final third of exchanges and break-ups. As a match in a vacuum, it absolutely worked. It just threw me given that watching lucha in Arena Mexico is always a quarter about expectations being met and worshiping at the altar. 

There were a lot of great individual moments though: Panther celebrating Danielson at the start (and celebrating Danielson's celebration of himself, of course), Danielson embracing the yes chants, all the energy that led to things breaking down with that initial beatdown, Sydal being a spin kicking attack dog for the BCC, the giant swing on Volador, Claudio destroying Ultimo Guerrero after he raised the roof, and then the exchanges at the end, with Guerrero and Moxley scrapping and Mistico subverting the Yes chants like only he could, and Claudio basing for everyone, including allowing Panther to be absolutely fearless, down to just charging through the knee when Danielson hit him with it. So yes, overall, very special and they're even giving me what I didn't get here next week by running Danielson vs Panther back. Yes, I have a few nitpicks but absolutely no complaints for something we're all but blessed to have in the end.

AEW Rampage 3/29/24

Dustin Rhodes vs. The Butcher

MD: There are a lot of bad faith arguments about storytelling with AEW. I thought about engaging but we don't really engage with bad faith arguments around here. We focus on the text itself more often than not. Let's do that. Dustin's deferred his retirement which he was thinking might be this year. He feels good. He's ready to go. Butcher and he have history, so a feel good promo was interrupted on Wednesday. That history includes a Bunkhouse Tag back in 2020. They have familiarity. Usually a match on Rampage is either setting something up (including heating someone up), paying something off, or an attraction for a live crowd. Menard was in the main event here to do the last bit (and to set up a chain reaction ending with the Bucks standing triumphant if not tall), but there's probably something to Dustin, being an old WWF guy, popping a Quebec crowd. 

This was straightforward and leaned on that familiarity. That meant that they were able to make things that were less than smooth, like an early backslide attempt, feel like organic struggle and not miscommunication. It meant Butcher was ready for the first dropdown punch. It meant that he was able to capitalize and yank the arm over the top to take over. He had very straightforward, credible offense, mainly headbutts to the arm, but I'm never going to complain about headbutts to the arm. He was able to use it to cut Dustin off and take back over. Dustin, despite his size, was always so good at making himself smaller when he sold, and he did so here, pulling inwards with the arm to get the point across. He was able to tap into his bombs (like the code red) as hope spots, but Butcher was right there to take back over, playing to the crowd as he pressed his advantage. Down the stretch, Butcher had one last tricked out arm assault, a pulling fireman's carry right into a crossface which was something that would have played just as well in 1960s France, but Dustin was able to pay off the kneeling punch, hit his short power slam that the commentators weren't sure he could hit, the Cross Rhodes that he needed two tries on, and then the final reckoning for the win. We won't know for a couple of weeks if this was to heat Dustin up for something or just was an attraction for the crowd, but every chance to see Dustin work from underneath and get a crowd behind him is worthwhile and this crowd was lucky to experience it at least one more time.

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Mas Niebla, Segunda Parte

Mr. Niebla/Solar/Oriental vs. Zumbido/Arkangel de la Muerte/Ultimo Guerrero CMLL Japan 8/15/99

ER: CMLL Japan is some of the most consistently fun and excellent stuff out there. CMLL late 90s/early 00s workers were so talented that they could head to Japan in the middle of the week to break off a couple shows filled with 20 minute Michinoku Pro matches as if that was an easy style to work within. There were too many great moments to count, a bunch of chain spots and constant action with a swiftly rotating set of partners. Zumbido was a real standout, and Arkangel clearly tried to work up to the crazy level of Zumbido (and Arkangel always excels at these Japan trios) by taking the bump of the match when he redefines the Cassandro ringpost bump and takes some fast forward flipping nonsense right past it. Later he hits a big dive, just a guy really peaking a performance. Zumbido moves with such grace and has that Tony Hawk hangtime, love him getting upended, vaulted over the top to the floor, and sprawling backwards out through the ropes. Solar/Zumbido is a fun smooth legend vs. smooth punk battle, and we got some wild armdrags and confident basing throughout. These CMLL Japan trios are always all killer no filler, guys working a real go go style to get big pops. This was as great as expected.


Mask vs. Mask: Mr. Niebla vs. Mr. Niebla CMLL 8/20/99

ER: Phil wrote this match up the night of Niebla's passing, and before he brought it up to me that day I had no memory of a Niebla vs. Niebla feud. I was a big Mr. Mexico fan, had no memory of him ever working as fake Niebla. This must have happened during that period where I knew lucha existed but had yet to start recording it weekly on Galavision, but it couldn't have happened that much earlier. The match is only 8 minutes and una caida, but it's fun while it lasts. Dr. Wagner spouts a lot of BS before the bell and they jump OG Niebla, but Niebla comes back and goes for a dive...that leads to him backsplashing the floor and sliding into the front row like he was Chris Hamrick. And from there we go right to the home stretch, right into the nearfalls, but even with the short build within the match itself I was into them, having now watched several weeks of the fake Niebla being a preening dick, strutting around and taking cheapshots. The nearfalls were good, like a tight victory roll cradle from Niebla, and we got a nice Niebla moonsault before missing another. The pinfalls were good and the chaos of having two twins (albeit one with a much tighter physique) really added to the fun confusion of the finishing stretch for me, the match ending with the impostor Niebla getting locked in Nieblina, and amusingly staying trapped in it for a minute after the loss. Earlier in the match Alfonso Morales had brought up Alfred Hitchcock, no doubt playing upon the fears of every man in so many Hitchcock films: Niebla an impersonated and wronged man, an impostor doing misdeeds in his name, the evil of himself made flesh while those in the cheap seats can't always tell the two sides apart. And then I saw all those familiar front row Arena Mexico faces that aren't there anymore: The old rudo fan with the bell, the old man who looks like a cartoon mouse, the bald man whose workouts are focused entirely on his chest, the older woman with an underbite who frequently admonishes rudos (and was sporting a nice green dress on the occasion of this apuestas match), and then I got sad.

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CMLL Juicio Final 5/31/19

ER: This show had THREE big stips matches (including a rare retirement match) and all the non-stips matches have on paper potential, so I figured I may as well write up the whole show!

Disturbio/Misterioso Jr./Kawato vs. Rey Cometa/Blue Panther Jr./Black Panther

ER: Quick opener that manages to pack a lot of fireworks into its short runtime. Cometa is out dressed like Johnny Depp's Tonto, a weirdly underrated movie. I'm going to need someone to start wearing Alita: Battle Angel gear to draw some more attention to that one. This is a match that tried to open the show with some big spots and delivered. BP Jr. is gassed to the gills and is starting to work more like Gronda and his father. I'm cool with that as it leads to great moments like him pouncing Kawato over the top rope into Disturbio (who was standing on the ramp). Cometa hit a big 450, huge tornillo to the floor, big crossbody off the entrance stairs (with Black Panther); Kawato hit a big flip dive over the ringpost, Misterioso is basing all over the place, and Kawato gets to yank Black Panther's mask for the DQ. This didn't have a ton of substance but was a nice junkfood snack.

Ephesto/Luciferno/Mephisto vs. Soberano Jr./Niebla Roja/Angel de Oro

ER: This was the match on the card I was least interested in, and it certainly played as something I shouldn't have been interested in. Niebla Roja and Angel de Oro may be my least favorite guys in CMLL, with Roja being a greater offender. I hate how they quit on all of their offense, it always feels like they're running through a practice exhibition and putting 100% of the work on the rudos' shoulders. Roja and Oro move with these big looping gestures, quit 75% of the way through on their ranas, aim to land as gently as possible on everything, all of their offense looks like how guys run through sequences backstage. It puts the rudos in a pretty thankless spot, as these two are only entertaining when rudos beat the shit out of them (which thankfully does happen in some matches, just not here). Roja hits a flip dive, Soberano (who I like much more than these two goofs) hits his Fosbury Flop, but this was a showcase for two guys I don't care to see showcased.

4. Career vs. Career! Virus vs. Metalico

PAS: There is nothing I love more then a random luchador given a big showcase match and stepping all the way up. Metalico has been a random undercard guy for years, and he gets a chance to fight for his career against an all time great and comes up huge. Two pretty great looking topes, an Asai moonsault and a nutty dropkick off the apron, he threw it all out there. I loved how they both stretched the rules, the ref wasn't DQing someone in a one fall career match, so they were throwing hard right hands to the face. Virus is one of the greatest singles match luchadores ever, and he is so great here, he gives Metalico plenty of shine, but comes off so dangerous. There are multiple moments where he just whips out a slick counter into a vicious submission, he was like a devastating counter puncher, any mistake his opponent would make its lights out. Loved that we didn't get a bunch of traded near falls near the end, just Metalico dying on his shield. Small arena lucha libre has been my favorite stuff over the last couple of years, but there is nothing in wrestling like an Arena Mexico match with real consequences, and I was so glad we got this.

ER: I've been a big Metalico drum beater for several years now. He's an undercarder who is basically the only CMLL undercarder who works Memphis stooging into lucha matches. He's a comedy rudo that doesn't really exist much anymore, and I love what he brings to a card. He's not the kind of guy to get long singles matches - or singles matches in general (I'm not sure I've seen a singles match of his since he lost his mask 4 years ago) - and here he gets to have an awesome dying in the ring performance against one of the all time best. Metalico breaks out every single thing he ever learned, from his ring entrance to highspots he hasn't broken out in years, and the crowd gets more and more involved and excited by his absolute refusal to quit. Metalico gets more and more tired as the match goes on - he's not a long singles match guy - and that just adds to his perseverance and desperation. You look at the difference between Metalico's two dives in this match: the first one, early in the match and filled with confidence, sending Virus into the barricade; the second one, late in the match, exhausted, Metalico does more damage to himself by just doing the dive. From minute one Metalico looks like a guy who has no real chance at beating Virus, and at times it looked like Virus was almost just letting Metalico have a respectable showing before letting him know just how quickly he could put a stop to his bullshit. Metalico started breaking out things he hasn't done in years, like a picture perfect Asai moonsault and a rana off the apron, and he started making headway on the bottom end as well. Phil noted how refs were being loose with DQ calls in a single caida big stips match, and I liked how each guy kept pushing the boundaries, hitting closed fist punches to the jaw, dropping a headbutt to the balls, and I loved Metalico's dickish combos where he would punch Virus and also kick him right on the inside of his knee. Metalico was tired but that just made him hit harder. There was a spot in the corner where he was supposed to flip over the ropes to dodge a charging Virus, but when his gas tank wouldn't allow him he merely opted to hit one of the most savage back elbows I've seen. Virus was a monster on the mat and was going to outclass Metalico at every opportunity, so Metalico had to play a little more dirty. But unfortunately for Metalico, Virus doesn't have to get dirty to do damage. When Virus locked in a gross STF, Metalico reaching for the ropes as his literal only chance of survival, Virus grabs that reaching arm and adds that to the pain. I thought it was the finish for sure. I loved desperate, last stand Metalico, and loved how the crowd kept getting excited as he kicked out of a sick vertebreaker and getting flipped off the top, the fans fully buying into Metalico refusing to step away forever. This was a wonderful display of character and storytelling, and I'm glad Virus was there to send my boy off into the sunset.

Hair vs. Hair! Kaho Kobayashi vs. Amapola

ER: I really liked this, and it wouldn't have taken a tong more to get this on a list. I thought the ending was building to something, and what we got was more abrupt than I wanted. But this was a great Amapola performance, with Kaho making up for her shortcomings with great energy and a willingness to be lead around by Amapola. I like Kaho and thought this was a good showing for her, and it felt like the Arena Mexico crowd was getting behind her effort while knowing she had no chance of leaving the ring with hair. This felt like when they let Virus lead a younger luchador through a match, and the younger luchador gets some surprising moments while overall getting worked by Virus. Amapola as Virus is something she can easily handle, she's clearly been one of the top CMLL ladies as long as she's been in the division, and showcase singles are somewhat rare for the women. You could see her really leading Kaho through - at one point she essentially moved herself through a complex pin combo - but she was generous and I think that helped Kaho thrive. This was all about the tercera as the first two falls went very quickly, but there were highlights throughout. Each hits a real rib breaking spear, with Kaho snapping Amapola in half to start and Amapola returning that favor in the tercera. Amapola was really awesome, crushing Kaho on a dive (Kaho kind of gets made fun of for bad catching skills, but she got smooshed here), hitting a hard dropkick to the spin as Kaho was trapped in the ropes, and later Amapola wraps herself around a ringpost violently so that Kaho can hit a beautiful crossbody off the top to the floor. There were some good nearfalls, and I thought they both did a good job building drama down the stretch, and for me I always get more into luchadora hair matches, feels like the stakes are even more real. A lot of women really tightly associate their hair with their femininity, so the drama always feels real to me.

Euforia/Gran Guerrero vs. Valiente/Diamante Azul

ER: This one felt a little low stakes, which was understandable on a card with three high stakes matches, but it had three stout boys so it was at minimum going to be fun. Azul and Valiente are a fun little team of power packs; Azul has been slowly bulking up and he appeared to gas down the stretch (Guerrero even appeared to dump him on the entrance ramp just to get him out of the way), and this didn't reach the heights it could have, but we still got moments. Azul's added heft does add to certain moves, loved his running elbow, high arcing hip toss, and the cannonball off the ramp lands even harder. Guerrero is coming into his own, and he sets up a gross bump taking an armdrag off the apron from Valiente (big splat on the floor there), hitting a nice heavy flip dive of his own in the tercera, and being tasked with taking that super fast Valiente tope. The finish felt a little unnecessarily dangerous, with the rudos hitting a press slam on Azul off the top, then doing the same to Valiente on top of Azul, but they almost end up lawndarting Valiente straight into the mat. The set up was really long and required Valiente to do almost all the climbing and all the work, so you had the ugly combo of "guy taking move doing all the work" with "move looking almost dangerously botched".

Barbaro Cavernario/Negro Casas/Mr. Niebla vs. Mistico/Caristico/Volador Jr.

ER: This one underperformed, had some timing issues, and didn't have a lot of Casas. It had a lot of Niebla dancing and Caristico being a step slower than everyone else, and some ugly moments like Cavernario whiffing a kick and Caristico bumping early on a Niebla slap. It was kept quick, a comedic palette cleanser with dives, mindless entertainment before the main event, and it worked fine on that level. Volador hit the best dive of the match, a high speed tope con giro that Cavernario took nicely. There was a big tandem dive by all the tecnicos and Caristico hit an additional dive into Casas. This was kept breezy, and I was hoping for more.

52. Hair vs. Hair! Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Ultimo Guerrero

ER: All the CMLL dancers are decked out in sexy Ultimo Guerrero outfits, which I must say seems a little biased. But who cares, because this whole match rules! Ultimo Guerrero does this weird thing where he has a match or two year and just gets punched in the face a ton. And this match keeps coming right back around to Guerrero getting punched in the face, and Mascara gleefully throwing right hands up and down the left side of UG's head. This is really one of the finest big match lucha performances from a 60+ year old in some time. Mascara Ano Dos Mil pulls out every trick he's ever pulled in his long career, all the bullshit is impeccably timed, the cheap shots are cheap, the nearfalls are great, and we always go right back to fists punching face. Mascara hits a nice springboard splash, nice vertical suplex, gets a great nearfall on a backslide, and Disturbio's involvement is excellent. Disturbio and Gran Guerrero are the seconds, and Disturbio eats a great dropkick from UG, and later has a pitch perfect piece of interference: Guerrero locks on the sure fire finishing sub, and Disturbio is able to run in to kick UG away and bail back to the floor just as ref Edgar is turning around. On the floor we get a killer scrap between Gran and Disturbio, a ton of other Dinamitas come out to cause problems on the entrance ramp, Mascara boots UG right in the balls (which got him a win and set up this very match), and it's all incredible theater. There's a series of fun desperate pins, Mascara grabbing the rope, getting his foot on the rope, grabbing ref's hand to stop the count, all of it was great. This is my favorite old man scrap of the year, with all of the drama I love from lucha, plus an old guy punching a less old guy in the eye. It'll work for me every time.

PAS: MA2K can't really bump or run the ropes anymore, but he is very willing to throw multiple punching combos upside UG's head, so Dayenu. This had plenty stuff built around Gran Guerrero and Disturbo which makes sense to pad the time, and give the oldsters in the ring time to catch their breath. Still once the wind came it was nasty stuff, hard knuckles to heads. I liked UG's goofy dive into the crowd, not pretty at all, but this wasn't a pretty match. I kind of wanted a big post match Dinamitas beat down, if your gang is going to come let them roll deep, but this really was aimed at my lucha libre pleasure centers.


ER: This card looked real dynamite to me on paper, and three of the matches delivered various levels of big for me, and the rest of the stuff was either fun or inoffensive. I really liked the women's hair match which wasn't far from making list, Mascara Ano Dos Mil is still a compelling guy into his 60s and I love the couple matches a year where Ultimo Guerrero agrees to get shoot punched in the head, and the retirement was an instant lucha classic. The latter two matches were obvious additions to our 2019 Ongoing Match of the Year List.

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New Footage Friday: Dick Murdoch! New Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can-Ams! Infernales vs. Villanos in TJ!

Dick Murdoch vs. Johnny Rodz WWF Kuwait 1984

PAS: Murdoch is on one in this match. Three stooges selling, phantom air punching, multiple shoving matches with the ring announcers, just the full Murdoch. Rodz was a fun foil in this match, but my goodness what a Murdoch show. It was clear that he was going to take everything to 11 in front of a crowd who may not be familiar with wrestling, so he was especially off his rocker here. There may be five minutes of shtick before the first lock up, some all-time atomic drop sells, everything you would want from a showman in front of a small crowd of Emir’s in a carpeted soccer stadium.

MD: We had a few Kuwait matches to take a look at. After a scan of a few matches (including a pretty fun Adonis/Murdoch/Smirnoff vs. Morales/Johnson/Gama Singh cage match and a 25 minute tag with a fake Masked Superstar, Don Muraco and DeCarlo/Bellomo!) this was the way to go. Two immediate thoughts. First, one of my favorite matches of all time is Funk vs. Martel from Puerto Rico from 1986. In it, Funk wages an indirect war with the entire country of Puerto Rico. This kind of feels like that, with Murdoch spending more time arguing with the crowd and menacing the PA announcer than fighting Rodz. Second, you know how even in the most serious matches, Murdoch ends up stooging in the third act. Like in the amazing Karl Kox match? Here, you don't get anything but the stooging. It's the purest distillation of comedy house show Murdoch and it's a thing of beauty. The way he shooting gallery walks across the ring after getting hit by Rodz is amazing. His reactions to the PA guy calling out every bad thing he does? Brilliant. His stagger shadowpunch selling? He wasn't wrestling for the empty back rows; he was wrestling for someone on Mars. The crowd was a constant buzz. Rodz did his part, but you get the sense he was just happy to be there. This is in no way good but it is in every way great. Dick Murdoch, walking contradiction.

ER: You see some on paper potential for a Murdoch being Murdoch match, and then something so bizarre comes along and ends up out-Murdoching any kind of Murdoch you were hoping to see Murdoch. First, let me say that I really loved Johnny Rodz here. It's tough being the straight man forced to play things normal and not look like a nerd while your opponent is duck walking around the ring and starting fights with timekeepers. Rodz bumps really big for Murdoch to keep him looking like a threat while Murdoch is hilariously stooging to fill in the gaps. There's no chance anyone in the crowd knew who Murdoch was, but because of the work of both men they all got to see Murdoch as a very believable threat and total buffoon. I loved Rodz' big bump off Murdoch's 2nd strike of the match, staggering fast 3/4 of the way across the ring and spilling hard into the ropes, and later Rodz does an awesome twist on Flair's corner bump, flipping over the top and landing hard on his butt on the apron. Murdoch is a great striker, but Rodz had a big variety of shots that made him look super credible. I especially liked him hitting a leaping punch to Murdoch's beer belly, then tags him in the chin when the gut punch causes him to buckle. Obviously Murdoch is a master. He was his own one man Ministry of Silly Walks here, doing this absurd straight leg/straight arm waddle while being punched, and clearly peaking with his atomic drop sell. Murdoch sells an atomic drop like someone who is dangerously close to shitting their pants, knees buckles, on his tip toes, asshole clenched, rubbing out his tailbone, while also moving his hips as if he was working out a major wedgie without using his hands. He punches the air and flops face first with his butt in the air, he punches the air and gets kicked over onto his butt, and every second of it is great. These two men reached people who - honestly - they couldn't have actually known how to reach. They just did what they knew how to do in the most exaggerated way possible, bringing the gift of stooging to Kuwait.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Kenta Kobashi vs. Doug Furnas/Dan Kroffat AJPW 10/7/92

MD: There are a lot of batches of these handhelds. For instance, there's a batch of AJPW dates that we've barely looked at because they were followed so quickly by first Fujiwara vs Fuchi and then by the new NJPW set. This was part of yet another group where we knew these aired on TV but generally JIP or clipped and sometimes just as part of a digest of finishes. As best as I can tell (and I double checked it with Ditch, so we'll call it the best I could tell), only four minutes of this actually aired on TV.

That means that we have for you a never-before-seen-in-the-wild Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Can-Ams match, another iteration of one of the best tags of the 90s.

This is a good and interesting, but lesser version of the match-up. For one thing, the crowd, while definitely abuzz, isn't quite as electric. Also, there isn't quite the same commitment to a singular theme that makes the May match such a great Southern Tag.

This had another six months of history behind it and definitely some of the same elements. I love how Kroffat and Furnas can draw heat in this setting. Every time they cheat or even take a shortcut, the crowd boos. Some of that is Kikuchi's charisma or how beloved Kobashi was, but I think a lot of it is respect and admiration for Furnas and Kroffat. They really lean into it. There are two moments in the match where Furnas comes in behind an opponent who is fighting back against Kroffat and grabs him for a belly to back; the fact they repeat the spot later on adds more than it subtracts because it doubles down on the theme and it gets a reaction each time. I do think overall, there are a number of individual reactions instead of the sort of building one you get in the May match. Ultimately, they instead build to some pretty cool spots and a moonsault that the world for how hard Kobashi had to work for it. Ultimately this was good stuff that couldn't live up to what they'd already laid down months before.

PAS: I thought this was tremendous, their May match is of course an all time classic, and it is so neat that this big run of HH’s had given us two other versions of that match up. Kikuchi is of course a legendary face in peril, and he takes the expected level of beating here. Kroffat was especially nasty throwing knuckle punches like he was trying to open up his eyebrow, Furnas also bends him in two with a variation of a torture rack, which really looked like a guy being tortured. Lots of cool cut offs in this, Kikuchi flies into Furnas when he was about to leap into a rana, Kikuchi grabs Kobashi so he won’t get double team, only to pay the price when Kroffat lariats him off the apron. Video blips out a couple of times so we miss a shot or two, but we are still totally blessed to be able to check this out, and all four guys are at their prime.

Satanico/Rey Bucanero/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Villano IV/Villano V/Atlantis Tijuana 2001

ER: This was from a real hot time in TJ, tons of big talent was coming through fresh off the demise of WCW, and more talent was coming in from CMLL than any time since. This was also around the time me and some friends made some trips down there to finally check out Auditorio Municipal de Tijuana. I got to see some cool things there, and now Roy Lucier is posting a ton of handhelds that not many others have ever seen. This is a great house show style match with some great bits, spirited performances from everyone, and a nice build to a big dive finish. Satanico was an absolute machine in his early 50s, punching everyone in sight, working as ringleader of his Infernales goons, and throwing in a genuinely hilarious spot where Atlantis gets him to flinch and take two fast back bumps in anticipation of getting hit. All of the comedy worked, and there was a really good Bugs Bunny Duck Season/Rabbit Season joke where guys kept turning over sunset flips to favor their side, so the tecnicos flipped it on them and made Infernales flip their own man over, a really fun take on an old spot. Later I laughed when Atlantis started chasing UG around the ring and UG was running full speed but also Atlantis threw out practically a dozen tilt a whirl backbreakers (I know he's slower now, but I have no clue how he has any knees left at all) and worked with big energy; both Villanos looked good, and one in particular (I'm not going to bother to guess which one, as there's no way I'm reading a roman numeral IV or V on a handheld that I'm watching on my phone) has this awesome sequence where he hits a pop up rana, armdrag, and sticks the exclamation point with a cool cutter. All of Infernales alley oop avalanches got real good height, and I laughed at Bucanero/Guerrero locking on their overly complicated rolling leg bars and armbars, because everytime they would roll through Satanico would stroll over and just grab a free limb and start yanking. This was also during the period where Bucanero was maybe the biggest bumper in wrestling, and here he slides to the floor to challenge a Villano to slugfest, then brings it to the apron and takes his big vaulting bump over the turnbuckles to the floor. This all comes to a head with both Villanos hitting stereo dives, capping off the kind of fun and charismatic 15 minute match that anyone would love to have seen live.

MD: This was a blast. The New Infernales were one of the best acts in the world at the turn of the century. Satanico is probably the best guy in history at directing rudo violence. Atlantis was at the height of his power here and the Villanos were Villanos, nothing more said. The initial beatdown was fluid and solid, with everything the Infernales did smooth and practiced. They made each bit of complex tandem offense look natural, like it's obviously what would happen if these three goons teamed up. Even when something didn't quite work perfectly, it still felt like it fit into the match. I really liked the corner alley-oop. I've seen a million GdI matches and they very rarely use it. It made for a great transition. The back half of the match was mostly them feeding comedy spots for the tecnicos. You can hardly imagine Ultimo Guerrero running from Atlantis like that even a year or two later. His knee-bump over the top was at hyperspeed and Bucanero did this twisting trip flip bump over the other turnbuckle which I don't remember seeing him do too often (probably for good reason). I liked the extra (post-)post-dive wrinkle to the finish as I thought it'd end in the ring between Atlantis and Satanico. Just crowd pleasing lucha with some of the best acts in the world at the time.

PAS: This was a very CMLL trios for 2000 Tijuana. Pretty trippy to see these guys work in a different environment. Infernales were just such a smooth lucha machine, the first fall is rudo dominated and dominated in a pretty perfect fashion. Bucanero and UG's shtick eventually began to tire me in 2000, but I can really appreciate it looking back 20 years later. It was fun to see the Villanos who are such master rudos themselves work as technicos against another rudo force. Atlantis is great in this too, he was so fast and agile back then, and having watched him for so long, I was really getting a lot of joy anticipating where he was about to go. Beautiful bumps to the floor from Gdl, in a way that felt totally safe but looked totally dangerous which is really the best way to do it. Great stuff, had a grin on my face the entire time.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Ultimo vs. Caifan CABELLERA CONTRA CABELLERA

22. Ultimo Guerrero vs. Caifan XMW 3/2

PAS: This was a hair match and another chapter of the inexplicable UG indy run. This one wasn't the blood fest their early match was, but UG still took a pretty big beating, getting smashed with crutch, tossed into chairs, hit with full cups of beer. Caifan took a thumping too, including eating a baseball slide on the apron which sent him crashing to the floor and may have opened up the back of his head (you couldn't see anything, but the ref was checking it good). Really good near falls in this and UG's final submission was nasty. Great little two match feud between these guys, and Caifan is pretty consistently a must watch.

ER: UG the indy monster is back in San Juan Pantitlan again, showing those fine folks what a beating his head and face can take the smaller the crowd is. Small arena UG + stips match Caifan and you knew this would be good. I think hair match and I think blood, and while this didn't have that, it did have a ton of mean spills and Caifan taking his future loss out on UG's face. UG taking a beating around ringside is one of the more sympathetic tecnico things in modern lucha, as he is really able to portray that Blue Panther old man sympathy in these moments, really tapping into a guy too old for this shit, as he takes several headers into old as hard seats, absolutely cruel overhand chops to the face and chest, and punches right to the chin. He gets so much sympathy from me during these beatings that I just find myself sitting here saying "WHY?" But his comebacks always deliver and the baseball slide dropkick was an awesome moment, and I love how they treated it like a huge potential stoppage, really made the move feel like a huge deal. UG's running hip attack looks cool when he's jumping barriers, but HERE it looks its best ever as he literally hip attacks Caifan directly through the back of a chair, looked like a comic book where someone gets thrown against a wall and the wall cracks behind them. The reversals in the ring were hard fought and added extra excitement to the big nearfall spots (loved the fight that ended with a dangerous rana off the middle rope from Caifan, with him maneuvering around UG's shoulders and looking like he was going to take a lethal powerbomb). They kept up their violent pace well, and this kept paying off.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWCI Arena San Juan Pantitlan 2/16/19

Another week, another cool looking Indy Lucha show put up by Lucha TV. Grabbed what looked cool to review

Demus vs. Bam Bam

PAS: Bam Bam was a mainstay of the CMLL minis division, but seemed to disappear around 2014. Demus welcomes him to the indies with a classic Demus bloodletting. Bam Bam comes in with Demus style face paint on and Demus tries to wash it off using Bam Bam's blood. Lots of great looking brawling from both guys. Bam Bam hits a great looking tope early, but when he goes for it again, Demus steps aside and flings him head first into some ratty looking chairs. It is a crazy bump and a great way to finish a match. Demus brawls are one of the most fun things in wrestling and welcome back Bam Bam.

ER: Bam Bam was out! He was done! So, welcome back to wrestling Bam Bam, and if you're curious, here's what a bunch of your blood looks like! I loved these two feuding a decade ago, would love to see them feuding right now. Bam Bam is a little chunkier, but that's probably because he was told that people love bleeding chunky luchadors, so he probably took a few years off to get that proper size. The weight doesn't appear to slow him down a lot, his rope running was still whip fast and he hits a tope in the first minute of the match that looks as good as his topes looked a decade ago. Demus won't stand for that, naturally, so proceeds to bust Bam Bam wide open. And it's one of those really great lucha bloodlettings where Bam Bam's face and torso get covered in dark red and you realize Bam Bam is a lunatic who must have wanted this! The finish is incredible, truly a finish worth of a count out victory: We get a scene very similar to the beginning of the match, a Bam Bam feint sends Demus to the floor, tope clearly coming...and Demus steps aside and helps Bam Bam find the front row of painful chairs instead. This needs to be run back all throughout 2019.

Impulso/Drako vs. Fly Star/Toscano

PAS: Three young indy guys and Toscano (the former Tarzan Boy) put on a shortish spotfest. I don't think I have seen Drako before, and I am always going to enjoy a fat guy who wrestles fat. He had a nice tackle, a baseball slide splash to the floor and a stiff powerbomb. Fly Star and Impulso are clearly setting something up, and they try some complex spots, some of which they pull off. The finish was true young guy dippshittery with Fly Star hitting a running electric chair headrop right into the corner, really looked like the kind of thing a backyard wrestler might break a cervical vertebrae with. I think we get hair challenges post match, which makes total sense, I would want to shave a guy bald if he tried to break my neck like that.

Caifan vs. Ultimo Guerrero

PAS: Ultimo Guerrero is one of the five biggest stars in one of the biggest promotions in the world, and for some reason he will show up in a tiny filthy arena to cut him self open and leak all over the ring. I am as captivated by indy brawl Guerrero as I am bored by CMLL main eventer Guerrero. Caifan is a great, great wrestler who never got a break, and he jumps Ultimo and posts him, and 90 seconds into the match Guerrero is dripping. Caifan whoops him all around the ring, including chucking a bunch of beers into his bloody head. Guerrero comes back, opens up Caifan and they just exchange big shots on the floor. This goes about 10 minutes and maybe 90 seconds are in the ring. Finish was kind of a lame low blow DQ, and they set up a hair match on the next show (third hair challenge on this show but they are doing this one.) They sold me.

ER: I loved this! UG is such a bizarre and fascinating glutton for this kind of a dirty gritty small crowd arena brawl, here he is leaving blood souvenirs on chairs and bystanders and merch all over Arena San Juan Pantitlan, beaten bloody and bumping hard on a ring that doesn't move an inch. I don't know what his deal is, but it's weird how my eyeballs glaze over his CMLL matches at this point and yet actively seek his indy work. It would be like if Dean Ambrose were currently working his typical fast forwardable Raw matches, but also bloody brawls from random VFWs near wherever Raw was taped. It makes no sense. Caifan is really great. He's someone who knows just how well to set up UG's trademark offense, while also knowing when to step in and bop him on the nose. And a LOT of the early part of this is nose bopping. I might have to break the stopwatch out to see who started bleeding earlier, UG or Bam Bam, but we're the winners in that race. UG gets smashed around ringside, Caifan is really mean about sending him tumbling and then running after him with a hard kick before UG can regain his bearings, and we get all time great brawl violence like Caifan wrapping UG's head in a banner and then punching his face through the banner. I love Caifan's hockey fight style of lucha. Ultimo's comeback on the floor is great, shoving through fans, grabbing drinks to bounce off Caifan's head, doing his flying hip attack into Caifan who was also sitting on a fan (and that fan went wandering off after being on the bottom of that pile making that teeth sucking face of someone who accidentally opened a car door into their own balls); at one point Ultimo is slamming Caifan's head repeatedly into some chairs and right behind them you can see 4 or 5 young boys just staring at these bloody lunatics in awe, not knowing how to react to the violence right in front of them. I like how Caifan handles a couple signature UG spots, namely how he ran headlong into eating a front suplex off the middle ropes (onto that damn hard ring). We've all seen UG just climb the ropes with his opponent on the way to doing that move, so it's cool that instead we get Caifan setting UG up for something and then getting grabbed on the run. Big ball shot finish works for something like this, and honestly with how much they killed each other here I have no clue what they're going to do in their hair match to top it...but I can't wait to see them try.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Ultimo Guerrero vs. Corsario Negro Jr. FOR HAIR!

64. Ultimo Guerrero vs. Corsario Negro Jr. FILLM 11/3

ER: Ultimo Guerrero is one of the bigger stars in modern lucha, who occasionally will show up to an arena to take an actual vicious beating. Corsario Negro is a big tubby guy with a physique that would stand out as tubby on the PBA tour, who apparently really values his 1.5" of hair. This whole thing opens with them brawling on the floor, and Ultimo getting battered with a crate and then stabbed in the head. Ultimo is soon bleeding, plentifully. Corsario really punches him around the arena, shots to the face and cool punches to the chest, even hits a great sneaky headbutt in the corner. Ultimo returns fire with some nice chairshots, hard but glancing. Corsario responds by bouncing a chair off Ultimo's head so damn hard that it ricochet's off Ultimo's head bones and hits a fan 10 feet away. Seeing that things have come to this, Ultimo returns the favor and pastes him with a shot straight out of 1999, that probably erased much of 1999 from Corsario's memory. This is definitely a lucha stips match. Corsario impresses the hell out of me with a monster tope, a real fast, graceful, heavy shot; and we get a series of big top rope moves and big spills, and a moment where I thought UG could plausibly lose his valuable (I assume) mullet. Bloody hair match is a match style with a pretty high floor anyway, but Corsario's beating and UG's sick enthusiasm made this one special.

PAS: For a guy who mostly bores me, Ultimo Guerrero can sure deliver in alternative circumstances. This was an old school small arena hair match. We get a bunch of blood, guys getting smacked with splintery crates, a big fat guy tope into chairs and some unprotected chair shots. The big reverse suplex and top rope powerbomb, which come off so trite when they are thrown out in the middle of the six hundred and third Volador Jr. match, really come off cool in a bloody hair match. Corsario Jr. felt like a guy losing his hair in a high profile match, and performing up to the moment. Fun stuff, and we really need to dig into all of Lucha.Tv's stuff, what a treat that Youtube gives us so much small venue lucha.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Lucha Worth Watching: Heavyweight Cibernetico! Sangre Azteca Stomps Balls!

Kraneo/Valiente/Rush/Volcano/Blue Panther Jr./Diamante Azul vs. Shocker/Rey Bucanero/Terrible/Gran Guerrero/Euforia/Ultimo Guerrero  CMLL 10/9/18

ER: This was a match I didn't really know I wanted until it was right in front of me. A 12 man cibernetico with heavyweights, not a fliers showcase, but a fun heavyweight spotfest. Rush is the fun monkeywrench in this whole thing, and while the teams are divided into tecnicos and rudos, there are still teammates that hate each other and everyone is mostly out for their own interests. Plus it was a good chance for some guys like Shocker and Rey Bucanero to show they can still go in the right situation. Bucanero is going for 2002 status here which is a shock since I saw him live a few months ago and he never moved faster than walking speed. Here he hits the somersault senton, takes a classic Bucanero bump over the top to the floor, gets nailed with a dive, clearly looked like he was working hard here for whatever reason. And everybody was. I'm not sure what will make a bunch of guys in CMLL suddenly make the decision to work hard in a random match, but this whole thing felt spirited, guys worked snug, made the match feel more important than it likely was. We get a lot of Kraneo and a lot of Volcano, and let's just talk about how silly it is to have the two largest guys in the fed (largest guys in lucha) both on the tecnicos side. We need one of the big guys to be rudo and we can then build to a Clash of the Titans. Kraneo is great but was better as a rudo, but also way over as a tecnico, so I get keeping him where he is. I think Volcano and his modern take on Roadblock's gear (his Caltrans vest highlighter and weird brown back brace) look pretty doofy, but maybe working rudo would open him up a bit. Panther Jr. turns in a nice tecnico performance here, Valiente hits a big dive, Terrible don't care who his partners are for the match, he's still gonna stomp out his enemies, Azul gets his class Mexico mask shredded, whole thing was fun. Ciberneticos feel like more of a thing I wanted when I first started watching lucha, but this unexpectedly delivered. Less spots than your typical ciber, but more character and tight work. That's a good trade.

Sangre Azteca/Metalico/Nitro vs. Oro Jr./Star Jr./Retro CMLL 1/15/19

ER: Stiff work and plenty of shtick will almost always win me over, and this undercard gem easily won me over with both. Rudos worked stiff and tecnicos bumped big, and this thing didn't need any dives to make it a ton of fun. Azteca was a real standout and he's a guy I've always really liked, someone whom I assume there must be backstage reasons that he's never been moved up the card before, because he's been great as long as I've been aware of him. He makes it his mission in this match to stomp all over the tecnicos butts, balls, and loins, and succeeding in his mission. At least once a match he usually throws his big high angle dropkick right to the balls (do we not do faultas anymore?) while an opponent is seated in the corner or being held spread eagle...well, here he does that like 7 or 8 times, flying into the corner with precision shots, teasing doing one from the middle rope but then climbing to the TOP rope to drop straight down like Slim Pickens riding a missile to straight to tender tecnico loins. He even kicks the middle rope as Retro is climbing back in the ring, the lucha equivalent of the turkey tap. Nitro gets in on the action, dropping a great elbow drop off the middle rope. Metalico was Metalico, and I love Metalico, so he was taking pratfalls and throwing nice big hooking lariats (Oro Jr. took four lariats in a row, really throwing himself back and landing on his shoulders with gusto), and bailing on the tercera by ripping off a mask rather then suffer a pinfall defeat. Oro Jr. had a really nice performance for a tecnico I don't often notice, I was really impressed with how he ran into rudo strikes. Star Jr. is kind of like Soberano Jr. but with floppier limbs, but he still snapped off a really cool headscissors that was like a cross between a smooth lucha headscissors and a Marty Jannetty one. Retro appears to be working a 70 year old Mil Mascaras gimmick, but his shoulderblock hits snug enough and he leans jaw first into a low Nitro dropkick, and those are a couple things that will at least get you into the 490s of a 500. This match scratched a nice lucha itch for me. A match that might seem inconsequential, but having something like this that doesn't steal flash from later matches, while still presenting high end work, is an important part of any card.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Fenix Debuts

Negro Casas/Barbaro Cavenario/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Rey Fenix/Mistico/Caristico  CMLL 6/8/18

ER: Casas/Fenix is one of the modern lucha match-ups I've been most excited to see, and I didn't think that CMLL would be the place where I would see it. This match was a nice taste of that, and while it didn't strive to be much more than some greatest hits from all participants, these are guys with some nice greatest hits. The crowd was REALLY loud for the Mistico/Casas segments and I wish they would have built off that, wish they would have picked up on that and wish Casas would have been a little more vicious. He seemed understandably focused on keeping up with everyone, which is what this whole match is all about, and it's good enough as that. Everyone gets big moments, a high Jerry bump to the floor from UG, big ranas off the top to the floor by Mistico and Caristico (with outstanding catches on both from UG and Cavernario), Barbaro throwing nice worked punches and his big Vader Bomb, Casas works fast segments like he somehow still can, but this match was clearly designed to introduce Fenix to anyone who might not have seen him. Fenix is the focus of the rudo beatdown on the floor, Barbaro tosses him over the barricade, he works with everyone (with them saving the Casas showdown until the tercera), gets a pin on UG, really only has one awkward moment as he whiffs on a spin kick in the corner opposite UG (and I don't think UG leaned out of it). He hits an awesome late rotation flip dive off the top to the floor, splats spectacularly on the floor after eating the running dropkick from the apron, works a bunch of fast exchanges with Casas that ends with Negro taking two boots to the face. This was designed to get Fenix over, and he got over. Looking forward to where this all goes, and want even more of him against Casas.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Gran Alternativa Final

Templario/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Flyer/Volador Jr.  CMLL 5/18/18

ER: Huge, bloated, overkilled Arena Mexico main event, which was the match the crowd was amped to see, that totally delivered with some huge spots, and two excellent performances from the two younger guys. If the point of the Gran Alternativa is to come out of it with a couple of stronger young guys, then they nailed it. Templario and Flyer put on two really tremendous performances, and the crowd responded excitedly to them. Flyer took some major tumbles here, and some big time bumps on hard surfaces. It wasn't just him taking big bumps to the floor and hitting a dive, it was him taking all of this big UG power offense, getting bounced off the mat on a middle rope powerbomb, taking the big reverse suplex off the top, just taking a lot of body damage on the mat and floor. Templario is one of my new favorite guys who I don't think I even saw until late 2017. He's got a lot of nice flying spots, but also a lot of great power offense. I guess you can say the power/flyer combo reminds me of a younger Hechicero? He's really great at catching flyer spots, has cool press slams kind of spots, catches and swings Flyer into the barricade, but then can hit a big springboard move of his own. Volador really allowed Flyer to shine, and when he did start breaking out big spots he did them to complement Flyer, and UG did the same thing with Templario. Volador following up Flyer's big Asai moonsault to the floor with his own massive rana to the floor just makes Flyer look at his level, and the fans responded as such. We get a ton of ridiculous but fun kickouts, but if you're going to do overkill, have fun with it. And with the fans flipping out for every kickout, everybody in the ring looked like they were having a ball.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Cuatrero/Angel de Oro!

Cuatrero/Negro Casas/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Angel de Oro/Volador Jr./Atlantis  CMLL 3/9/18

ER: Hot sprint building up next week's mask match between Oro and Cuatrero, with the two of them getting super loud crowd reactions with some mask ripping and mask removal, Cuatrero blatantly pulls Oro's off to lose the primera (with Oro returning and flying off the entrance balcony) and Oro getting a huge reaction when he rips Cuatrero's in the middle of the ring. I've never seen Oro appear so interesting. The other four aren't as important to the match, but all make solid cameos. Casas is back from his rib injury and looking energized (and he's so tan that I assume he's going to start working as Chief Jay Casas any day now), UG took his big Jerry bump to the floor, Volador came in with a huge springboard rana, Atlantis and Casas have an old guys showdown, all fun noise. Oro has never made an impression on me, Cuatrero is my favorite Dinamita, and I am suddenly more interested in their mask match, all in about 7 minutes of work. Well done. You all thought this was gonna be the mask match write up. That's coming next.

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Lucha Worth Watching: CMLL in Japan, 1998

Somebody uploaded a few matches from a 1998 CMLL Japan tour, and none of them have been released before now. Let's check 'em out!

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Fishman  CMLL Japan 8/22/98 

ER: Wow what a treat. I don't think this match has ever seen the light of day before now, it's the only listed singles match between the two, and it's really good. Fishman is in his late 40s and spry, Santo is in his mid 30s and the greatest. Santo is so fluid and graceful, but hits hard, lighting up Fishman with great chops the whole match. Just a couple minutes in and Santo already hits a gorgeous dive to the floor, landing far away from the ring, just crazy distance on a dive you knew was going to land you on a gym floor. I wish we could have seen more of the crowd brawling, as it's filmed semi-handheld style and the guy doesn't move, so you hear a bunch of crashing but only see bits and pieces. Still neither man hesitates to throw stiff blows and what we can see is good. The in-ring work is gold, with Fishman taking a nice backdrop bump to start (and Santo later taking an even higher, more graceful one), and I was really struck by the violence of Santo's knees, just the best kneelifts and flying knee strikes, done with a luchador's grace but the end result still being a sharp knee getting driven into Fishman. We get an awesome battle over the camel clutch, with Fishman bringing excellent struggle, twisting to get his arms free, Santo working for it and turning it into a twisting cravate, rolling it back into a nasty seated surfboard, all great stuff. And after another crowd brawl Santo even hits a rolling senton off the apron to a freshly bodyslammed Fishman. The finish is a great one, as Fishman is beating Santo in the ropes, undoes his mask, ties it to the top rope, and continues beating on him. He walks away to soak up the boos, and Santo merely removes that mask to reveal that he was wearing ANOTHER MASK, and gets a surprise roll up. Dude just wrestled a match wearing two masks, just for a cool finish. Legendary status.

PAS: Fishman was always a guy with a great reputation, who looked completely washed every time he showed up on tape. I remember when I did commentary on a lucha TV pilot in Monterey around the time of this match, Fishman was the worst guy on the show. Here though he is the spriest I have seen him, he is throwing pretty hard shots and bumping around. It is a little glance at why he has such a great reputation. Santo is of course brilliant, people mainly think of how graceful he is, but he isn't afraid to brawl and really lays it in Fishman. Loved that finish, what a fun BS twist on a wrestling trope. Feels like the kind of thing Eddie Guerrerro might come up with.

El Hijo Del Santo/Atlantis/Lizmark/Mr. Niebla/Rey Bucanero/Mano Negra Jr./Tsubasa/Ultraman Jr. vs. Satanico/Arkangel de la Muerte/Ultimo Guerrero/Fishman/Black Warrior/Tortuga/Super Cacao/Pirata Morgan  CMLL Japan 8/23/98

ER: A lot of this wasn't very good. It was not a cibernetico, instead it was worked like an All Japan battle royal, only it didn't have the alliances of the best AJPW battle royals, and the comedy didn't land as well. We did get an amusing early dogpile spot, with Arkangel and Santo really leaping up on top of a big pile only to have Tortuga eventually crawl out of the bottom unscathed (I assume because he has a tough turtle shell). Santo is probably the most active throughout, but the eliminations all come immediately from guys either taking one move or getting in one loose sub. BUT, Atlantis and Santo are the final two, and we get a 5 minute sprint between the two of them, and they aren't guys who ever had a singles match at this point (and I still think their only singles match is the 2005 Leyenda de Plata finals). So we get a big Santo dive and a somersault senton, and the handheld up close camera work really shows how damn hard those bodyslams are. Every bump is loud and painful, and the struggles over the camel clutch are all great. But my favorite moments is after the match, when Santo finally traps Atlantis in the clutch, and Atlantis is lying on his stomach holding his back......Santo then begins standing on Atlantis' back and buttocks to help with his back pain!! THAT is an awesome wrestling moment that I have never seen before, making all of this totally worth it.

Arkangel de la Muerte/Ultimo Guerrero/Fishman vs. Atlantis/Lizmark/Mano Negra Jr.  CMLL Japan 8/23/98

ER: A fairly by the numbers trios that picks up a bit down the stretch, but is mostly kept to the same marriage partners throughout (Arkangel/Negra, UG/Lizmark, and Atlantis/Fishman), working what feels like a CMLL house show match. But that's not a bad thing. My favorite combo was Lizmark/UG as it was fun seeing UG work some mat tricks that he basically stopped doing after 2002, he had this neat takedown where he wrapped Lizmark's arm around his own neck and then rolled backwards, taking Lizmark down with him, he takes a super high late rotation backdrop, and late in the match he even goes for a moonsault (and almost lands on his shoulder). Arkangel working with Negra is fun with both hitting cool leaping armdrags, and peaking with Negra hitting a mammoth tornillo over the ringpost to the floor that I really didn't think he had in him. Late 40s Lizmark and Fishman were far more lively than I remember them being, and while this never attempted to go into 3rd gear, it was solid work and a fun historical piece.

Now let's just hope this person uploads the Hijo Del Santo/Rey Bucanero match that happened on this tour...

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Lucha Worth Watching: Kraneo! Hechicero! Rush! Ultimo Guerrero!

1. Rush vs. Ultimo Guerrero (CMLL 12/5/17)

ER: Classic Arena Mexico dickhead performance from Rush, really hamming it up and soaking in squeals from the ladies. He stomps all over UG and does plenty of Burt Reynolds Cosmopolitan poses throughout the match, on the mat, on the ropes, on the corner of the guardrail; he kicks UG in the face a bunch, and I like the way his corner dropkicks built throughout the match: He hits it flush to end the primera, later he does it again, stops short and kicks UG right in the cheek, then goes for it again in the tercera, leading to UG finally moving and Rush whiffing. Rush beats him to the floor and smacks the barricade door of UG's head, then grabs a mighty full soda and bounces that of UG's head (and onto about a dozen people in the first couple rows). Guerrero gets to pay him back in the tercera with his own cup bounced off the head, but he's a tecnico so he politely throws it away from the crowd. Rush had an awesome bit of rudo shtick that I've never seen before, hitting a running dropkick  that sees him land on his back with his legs on the middle rope...so he improvises and starts doing some elevated crunches, then flips it over for some quick push-ups. So great. Guerrero ends up cheating to win, using Rush's bullshit against him and grapevining the bottom rope during a pin. Guerrero didn't bring tons to the match, and the crowd sounded smaller and quieter than normal, but Rush didn't let that stop him from being Rush.

2. Kraneo v. Hechicero (CMLL 1/19/18)

ER: This is gonna be the year of the biggest Luchador to ever lucha, Kraneo baby! This is a super fun lightning match and really I don't even remember the last time I saw a Kraneo singles match, so him in a lightning match is a fun treat. With Kraneo's monstrous size and Mije's constant interference (there must be a weigh limit on the person interfering for it to count as a DQ) we get Hechicero cast as a tecnicos which is a role he hasn't played much in CMLL. Kraneo is fun bumping around for Hechicero, and Hechicero hits a pretty crazy dive early on, so Kraneo relies more on Mije to even things up. I loved Hechicero going after Kraneo's knee and ankle, because jesus look at the guy! Carrying that much weight around has to be murder on your knees and ankles, it's just smart business. Kraneo sells it all really well and continues to pay service to the legwork (which nicely sets up an end of match ankle lock false finish). Kraneo is big enough that him merely missing a move is huge, as it immediately shifts the tide, so you don't need to have your giant bumping for tons of moves as he can do just as much damage to himself. At one point he teases a dive but Mije ends up taking it, getting caught by Hechicero who teases a bunch of great thrown into the crowd spots....and as the camera pans back towards the ring Kraneo crushes BOTH of them with an awesome plancha off the apron. Good gracious. The end stretch isn't as good as the beginning stretch, but we get a nice Hechicero strap removal spot, and him lifting Kraneo with a fireman's carry got a deserved big cheer, but he just wasn't enough for Man Mountain Kraneo.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Leyenda de Azul Cibernetico

Leyenda de Azul Cibernetico (CMLL 12/22/17)

ER: Ciberneticos are a fickle creature. It doesn't take too much in one direction to make them good, and it doesn't take much in the other direction to make them totally skippable. This one already starts as a win as Mije and Zakarias sit on the entranceway steps with their heads in hands, as if they're sitting on a curb waiting for their parents to pick them up after soccer practice. Then you see that referee Edgar is sporting cornrows and you know it's going to be a great cibernetico. The strength in a cibernetico is always the action that happens before the eliminations. Eliminations typically come quick and are predictable, and often unsatisfying (and you know there's going to be a double elimination), but the work that takes place before pinfalls start is gonna make it worthwhile, and this had some great action.

Ultimo and Euforia start of with some fast matwork, the kind that UG doesn't often do in CMLL, and it's fun as I don't recall these two ever going opposite each other. It never gets mean, but it's a good exhibition. Bucanero and Terrible do more of the same and we get a nice fun engaging scrap to our cibernetico. Stuff bumps up when Kraneo splats Vangellys with a big legdrop, but then gets backdropped over the top to the ramp, Kraneo taking an awesome big fat guy bump to the ramp and down the side stairs, with Vangellys immeditely shifting his focus and hitting a big dive on Misterioso.  We get a fat guy showdown between Niebla and Kraneo, and Niebla had a pretty nice showing. Maybe the key to Niebla now is just thinking of him as the new Super Porky. Don't be mad at him for having trouble standing up or kind of standing still while people get into place around him, just get excited for the 1-2 matches a year that he shows up for and just enjoy him slapping dudes the rest of the year. With this match and the Caifan match this is two straight Niebla matches where he utilizes his hip swiveling and silliness much more like Dusty than just a fat goof. It's a fine line. But I loved Kraneo slapping him, with every slap leading to Niebla turning around and slapping someone else on the apron. He and Kraneo are the fattest in the match, so I'll always love the two bigguns exchanging armdrags. Shocker has deflated a bit so he's not as fat (you can really see it in his arms, Shocker has really small arms now). Vangellys is the sneaky pick to be 2nd fattest in 2019. Nobody is getting as fat as Kraneo, I really don't think there's a luchador in history who is as big as Kraneo. But if something stressful happens in Vangellys' life, I could see him hitting the tortas pretty hard. Later on Niebla works a couple complicates armdrags with UG, and does a fired up Dusty act against Bucanero, swiveling his hips and pop locking with his legs, even flicking his own nipples. I don't think I've seen the nipple flick before. I'd much rather see that than the loogy.

Hechicero was treated like a big deal here, so much so that I thought he would win. He had a cool run  where he did his nice middle rope dropkick to knock Sanson to the floor, then gets Mascara Ano Dos Mil to the floor, then taps Vangellys with his awesome inverted bow and arrow choke. I was the drum beater for Pierroth the last couple years and haven't run across too much recommendable Pierroth this year, but I really liked him here, easily best Pierroth moments of the year. We get a nice old guy battle with he and Mascara, we get an actual Rush/Pierroth face off which is something I've never seen, with Pierroth actually soccer kicking Rush before they stand up. Then, he sweetly brushes the hair out of his baby boy's face, and tenderly kisses him on the forehead (much to the hate of the Arena Mexico crowd). Later he helps Rush pin UG from the floor, grabbing his son's hand in a perfect Schwarzenegger/Weathers Predator handshake to give Rush pinfall leverage. I wish Kraneo and Rush got more of a showdown but we did get one, with Kraneo bumping big for him and getting a soccer kick as a thank you. We end with Euforia/Rush and I was rooting for Euforia. He's got kids, man. Euforia takes his always nice ringpost bump and eats a Rush flip dive, and the Rush win is academic. Afterwards Rush stomps on the Blue Demon plaque and HOW COME I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE HORRIBLE BLUE DEMON BELT BEFORE!!?? Has this awful thing been around for years and I somehow keep missing it? Or did I always just stop watching the match after the pinfall and never watch the award ceremony. Oh man that belt is awful. Wearing it essentially gives you a Kuato growing out of your torso, or turns you into Krang's mechanical suit. Just Blue Demon torso flexing around your stomach. It's awful. And the best way to end this cibernetico.

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