Found Footage Friday: VILLANOS~! UNIVERSO~! PIRATA~! PANTHER~! ESPECTRO~! MANDO~! MARKUS~!

Villano IV/Villano IV/Milo Caballero vs. Universo 2000/Hijo del Gladiador/Babe Face Monterrey 1991

MD: The sort of lucha trios that hits just right for the most part. Villano IV was paired with Babe Face who was happy to stooge all over the place, feigning getting hit by low blows and making faces. Villano V was matched with Universo who was heatseeing (punching the post and getting DDT'd for instance). Both pairings were heated and seemed to have issues. Gladiador and Milo were more or less along for the ride.

Lots of feeding (more than basing) in the primera with an exciting escalation. When the rudos took over there was a nice bit of Villano V grabbing fans' hands on the outside after he took a beating. The comeback moment was just Milo recovering and attacking from behind but the Villanos more than made up for that. V got some great punches in on the floor on Universo while IV doled out justice on Babe Face. They rushed to pinfalls in the tercera but then had the Villanos make an illegal switch despite the fact they were the tecnicos here. The rudos complained but it was too little too late. Fun stuff but it almost would have been served better as a straight tag.

Pirata Morgan/Mascara Sagrada/Kato Kung Lee II vs. Indomito/Blue Panther/Espectro, Jr. Monterrey end 91/early 92

MD: The big appeal to this one was that the rudos had recently turned on Morgan and now he was with the tecnicos. It was straightforward overall with more exchanges than heat even with Morgan's turn but it was all pretty masterful so you don't mind. Primera pairings were Panther/KKL, Indomito/Morgan, Espectro/Sagrada. Lots of Panther matwork. He worked a short arm scissors/gotch lift sequence with you don't see every day in Lucha. At the start ot the second round of exchanges (rope running) he knocked KKL out of the ring immediately before eating an arm drag on his way back in and that was funny for the matter-of-factness of it. Equally funny was watching Morgan work staright tecnico including some flashy things like a Mule Kick out of nowhere. Espectro  and Sagrada didn't go as long but the had the most tricked out stuff overall.

Rudos took the primera with a beautiful Panther northern lights out of nowhere. That led into a fairly simple beatdown, simple because it didn't last long. The second they cycled to Morgan, he started firing back and tecnicos won quickly. Likewise, the third fall was quick, full of crowd pleasing tandem stuff (including an estrella with KKL using a victory roll into the center instead of a 'rana. So fun stuff but I wanted to see Morgan really go on the offense and that wasn't what this one was about.

Mando Guerrero/Centurion Negro/Monarca vs. Corsario Negro/Gran Markus Jr./Azteca de Oro Monterey 1991?

MD: This, on the other hand, was all heat. The issue was between Centurion Negro and Corsario Negro (the latter of which had no mask anymore). Corsario dodged him well enough during the primera (which was full of posturing), even if it meant that his team was at a bit of a disadvantage. In the segunda, they went all in on Centurion's mask, tearing it apart. The commentators were trying to get any glimpse they could, noting definitively that he did not have a mustache. The comeback in the tercera was because they were focusing too much on the mask allowing Mando and Monarca to come in and even the odds.

At that point, Centurion laid a pretty colossal beating on Corsario. The refs wanted to just award it to the tecnicos but they didn't want to stop. Nothing wildly over the top, just stomps and stomps and more stomps but they were pretty brutal ones. Eventually that let the other rudos come in and even the odds and they fairly quickly got a banana peel win. Post-match they had to do everything they could to keep Centurion and Corsario away from each other. If this led to an apuestas match, I would have bought a ticket for it. I think we might have five or six minutes of a JIP match actually. I should look at that.

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RIP Silver King, Part 3

Silver King/Dr. Wagner Jr./Fuerza Guerrera/Pierroth Jr. vs. La Parka/Super Parka/Emilio Charles Jr./Antifaz Del Norte Monterrey 7/9/00    Pt. 2    Pt. 3

ER: This was during the era of getting excited to buy Monterrey tapes based upon on paper match-ups, and then getting the tape and realizing a significant portion of the match was going to be devoted to the two referees. And this had that! And maybe it's just the mood I was in while watching this, but I didn't mind it. You still had 8 absolutely fantastic in the year 2000 luchadors (yes Pierroth obviously ruled, all Pierroths do; Antifaz was a guy I don't think about in 2019 who I really liked during this era). You get King and Wagner as stooging brothers, a great sequence with Pierroth and Park holding each other up by their shirts as they slap each other silly (Pierroth especially is so fun here, really milking that holding onto Park's shirt was the only thing keeping him standing), Emilio Charles is always fun as a fired up babyface away from Arena Mexico, and Antifaz shows that he was good back then and that I wasn't crazy. The whole primera is the rudo team (both teams look like on paper rudo teams, but when in doubt just assume the one with Fuerza is it and you'll almost always be correct) beating down the tecnicos, hitting them with garbage and brawling around the ring. Segunda is the comeuppance and ref involvement, with the tecnicos dragging a section of connected arena seats into the ring and sending King and Pierroth into them, then getting all 4 rudos seated while kicking over the seats. The ref spots are actually fairly funny and executed well, with Parka getting beaten down by the four rudos in a huddle, and then swapping the ref for himself without the rudos noticing. If you're going to work some kind of a Bugs Bunny spot, Park seems like one of the few that would be able to make it work. We do get a great Park dive, a nice splingshot splash by Super Parka, mean spots like SP getting rammed balls first into the ringpost and then getting Emilio Charles' head tossed into his groin, and seemingly the entire tercera is made up of ballshots. This whole thing was spirited and felt like everyone having a great time on a house show, which will almost always be my thing.

Black Tiger III/Atlantis/Vampiro vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Universo 2000/Mascara Ano 2000 CMLL 6/15/01

ER: This is really fun as we get two brothers colliding, the criminally underrated early 2000s Dinamitas tearing it up, Atlantis getting stretchered out after taking a Wagner Driver, Atlantis reminding me of what a damn athlete he still was in 2001, and...Vampiro. 83% is something I would be cool with on my report cards, so I should be cool with it in my lucha trios. A lot of this feels like the Dinamitas show and while Universo wasn't the captain here he was certainly the primary shit disturber. Dinamitas were great bullies and I could watch a match of them just putting boots to guys like Atlantis. They always get it paid back, and I dug Universo falling on front row regulars to draw sympathy (god I hate that stupid ring barricade they've had this decade), and Mascara takes a wildly fast bump to the floor off Atlantis' tumbleweed. Wagner outdoes them both and makes Vampiro appear to be not a load: Vampiro throws Wagner merely towards the crowd, and Wagner goes off and tope con hilos himself into the second row, turning one poor individual into the most expected base of the day. They should've signed that guy, it was a great catch. King-as-Tiger hits his big caida ending rapid moonsaults and we get two different sequences of Tiger/Wagner, both working some playful spots off rope running, with a great moment of Tiger headbutting Wagner when he goes for a leapfrog. I only remember seeing the brothers in CMLL on opposite sides a couple times during this era, and this was a fun look at that.

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MLJ: Sin Salida 2010 Part 4: Brazo de Plata, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Strong Man vs Gigante Bernard, Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000

Taped 2010-06-06
Brazo de Plata, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Strong Man vs Gigante Bernard, Máscara Año 2000, Universo 2000

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdoazb_porky-rayo-strongman-vs-bernard-m20_latino


Sin Salida 2010 had been a pretty good show so far. Sure, the booking was a mess but the minis match was fun, and the two lower card matches with Los Invasores had the same sort of energy that their matches over the last month had and then the Revelos Increibles match was heated and effective.

Then we had this. It was definitely a nostalgia fest. Los Hermanos Dinomita and Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. were moving less smoothly than Porky in there at times. They had a few dives and I could have sworn the slow motion replay was on. Then to balance them you had Bernard and Strongman. I don't get how anyone thought this would be a good idea.

Rayo came out with a hat and a UWA title. Universo and Mascara Ano wore their masks to the ring. The rudos took an early advantage, mainly due to Bernard being such a force but their tandem offense wasn't exactly dynamite. There was a lackluster double lift snake eyes in the corner. Really, their best move for most of this match was to toss people into Albert's foot, after which point, he'd do his overhead X with thumbs down pose. It was kind of fun the first time but it got old.

Basically, the match had two things going for it. First, Bernard did well. He was doing little things like driving his forearm into Porky's face on a pin, and he did match up well with Strongman. By the time the comeback came around in the tercera he was playing into some of Porky's spots and selling and hamming it up big. The second thing was that Strongman is a pretty effective tool for rudos to run into. I was wondering how they were going to kill something like nine minutes for the tercera (the peril of watching match online is that you know how long is left in it at almost any point) and 2-3 minutes can be taken up by Strongman top wristlock strength spots and shoulder tackles or what not.

Another minute or two was taken up by Albert doing some really brutal armwork onto Strongman in order to take him out of the match. I could have watched another five or six minutes of that, really. It made me want to track down some more Bernard in Japan. Anyway, the whole point of it was to distract the refs with the carnage of him finding a foreign object to smash the arm (which he then failed to find?) so that Universo could hit a pile driver on Rayo.

In all the lucha matches I've seen over the last year, well over two or three hundred, I think this is the first time I actually saw a pile driver executed (and not, for instance, Rush's double underhook pile driver). For this. By Universo, on Rayo. The upside to this is that Universo and Rayo were sticking around for a bit at least. They even had a WWA title match main event at Puebla at the end of the month, so it's not like it was a total waste, but the fans, who were otherwise into this, didn't seem all that upset by it certainly.

Anyway, this was a match and I kind of wish it hadn't been.

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MLJ: 2010: Invasores Interlude 3: Brazo de Plata, La Sombra, Toscano vs El Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis

2010-05-02 @ Arena México
Brazo de Plata, La Sombra, Toscano vs El Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis


Alebrije, Histeria, Psicosis vs Porky, Sombra...

I come from a place of ignorance. That's the whole point of this project on some level, to push back against that. A lot of the people who check out what I write have been watching lucha for years or decades or even their entire life. There is cognitive disconnect that I need to put aside sometimes in doing this. I don't mean things like "why don't the tecnicos do something when their partner is getting triple teamed in a trios match?" or anything like that. I mean general booking and revenue issues, the underpinning behind what I see. CMLL owns the building(s?). They get their money by fans showing up and paying for tickets and concessions. They get some more money by selling as much TV product as possible. That leads to lazy and outright bad booking (which sometimes feels like no booking at all) being forgivable economically.

Still, this match is maddening. As best as I can tell, this was the invaders first match in Arena Mexico. They may not have been the biggest names, but they had a unified look with the outlandish purple colors, with Alebrije's size and Psicosis' over the top mask and Cuije's presence. They had a total surprise entrance to the company and then a very strong first match in Puebla. And here they gave way too much to Porky, a total comedy wrestler, even if he was a beloved one, and ultimately had to be saved by the near 50-something Mascara Ano 2000 and Universo 2000, who were better known and remembered names, certainly, but hardly had a rousing last run in the company and didn't fit the look of the other invaders at all. I'm not going to compare it to, let's say, Brian Adams in the NWO, but that's the vibe I got. I don't know if it was because someone else was booking the Puebla shows and it was just a regional angle that gathered more steam than they were expecting, which led to it getting play (but not positive play) at Arena Mexico or what. I have no idea what the arrival of Los Invasores did for business, but it felt like a hot angle to the live crowd when they arrived and the first match with them was very good. This felt like the worst way possible to capitalize on it.

That's not to say it was a bad match. It wasn't. Sombra had a good mix of athleticism and a general sense of knowing what he was doing back in 2010. Toscano was more than capable still. I even wanted to see Alebrije and Porky go at it from a morbid curiosity point of view. It was just very much the wrong match with the wrong outcome at this point of the story.

Still, not bad. The rudo beat down went well enough. Psicosis and Sombra started, with a nice Bow and Arrow from Psicosis; when Sombra went for a hold of his own, the rudos swarmed. After that, they mainly beat up Porky in the corner while his partners rotated in to get double teamed. It ended with some fun use of Cuije as a melee weapon and nice teamwork, two clotheslines in the corner followed by a double back kick in the corner, which shoved out Toscano for Alebrije's spear. This particular rudo trip was more the sum of its parts and I really do love the double armpit lift-up, charging battering ram flip finish.

They teased a reset to start the segunda but Sombra quickly got lured into an ambush. This immediately set up Porky charging out of the corner with a Porky Attack, Sombra hitting a visually impressive fireman's carry drop on Alebrije, and a split-legged senton/roll up/Porky splash finish to the lightning quick comeback.

So far so good, but it would devolve from there. They'd attack Cuije a bit. Toscano took his pants off and Porky did the spot where he smells them and fell over. Toscano went up against the world (which was fine, including really leaning into a dropkick), Porky pinched Alebrije (which was less fine). And the rudos all ended up in the corner for Porky to jump on. It devolved into stooging and the Porky show, ending with Los Capos running in to break up a Porky second rope splash, and this would have been fine and entertaining for a random mid-card match with no feuds behind it (and I imagine Porky was quite happy to have some new fodder to work with), but placed where it was in the angle, it was just brutal.

I guess that's CMLL for you. We're just not allowed to have nice things for long.

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Octagon and Mascara Sagrada in Fight to the Death (1992)

Was looking for some Paul Naschy movies on the old TV schedule and saw this was on (again, just one of the benefits of living in an area with a high hispanic population). I looked up the cast and outside of the two stars billed in the title (and what a great serial title that is! Be sure to join us next week, same time, for Octagon and Mascara Sagrada in…Ring of Fire! It makes me imagine a cool film noir starring luchadors, and this actual film I am presently watching will certainly have zero chance of being anywhere near as cool as this fake film I've just imagined. I have a feeling there's a reason why nobody talks about any of the luchador films post 1970s), the rest of the luchadors featured reads like a who's who of early 90s Segunda Caida favorites: Solar, Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Angel Azteca, La Parka, Universo 2000, Fishman, etc. I mean hot damn right?

We open with some guy picking up 3 ladies at a weird Flintstones-inspired bar. All the decor was fake rock and stone, with all of the tables inset into the floor, so while you walk through the place your feet would be at patrons head level, and you'd have to step down into your seat. One of the ladies is exceptionally foxy (this is likely Lina Santos) and really has the figure to pull off a slutty early 90s cocktail dress. You know she's sexy because when she takes off her sunglasses she bites the earpiece of them. That's like Sexy 101.

Elsewhere, presumably in Mexico, Octagon and Mascara Sagrada pull up to a hitchhiker on matching motorbikes, wearing windbreaker jogging suits the same color as their ring gear. Windbreaker jogging suits can really only look so cool (which is to say, as cool as your nana's retirement community friends) but Octagon's black suit with red and white paneling looks infinitely cooler than Mascara Sagrada's white jogging suit with teal and yellow. He desperately tries to salvage the outfit by wearing Keds style white sneakers with no socks. It somewhat works. Not long after they are working on their bikes in the countryside, where dozens of children are gathered, for reasons. The children are approached by a couple masked goons with guns (!), so our heroes run in to save the day. And this was the kind of shit I was hoping for, as Octagon and MS do great lucha exchanges in a real fight setting, all in the middle of a grassy field. Watching both of them hit body presses off of dirt mounds is too great, and MS works especially hard, even doing a high dropkick. Let me tell you, until you've seen a luchador hit a big dropkick in a field, brother you haven't lived. Once they sufficiently beat up the goons, many horseback cops with machine guns ride in and escort the goons off. Now, this field appeared to be very much in the middle of nowhere, so I have no clue why 6 cops on horseback happened to be riding by with machine guns and assault rifles, other than Mexico. I think the answer to many questions I will have in this film will be "Because Mexico".

To treat themselves for rescuing hundreds of orphans, our heroes go on a long and improbably gay hang gliding excursion. They literally ride their bikes up to a place that sells motorized hang gliders (the kind where you sit on a seat while flying, making it impossible to look like anything but a dingus), and we get a real time hang gliding sesh, while a twinkling piano instrumental (think the first 10 seconds of Tears for Fears "Head Over Heels") plays on a loop. I'm sure this movie was made as a way to market a new generation of stars, and what better way to get guys over than some pastel jogging suit hang gliding?

~El Tornado, Universo Dos Mil, & Fishman vs. Solar, Mascara Sagrada, & Octagon

Never seen Tornado before. He has a cool mask with a cyclone (or derp, possibly a tornado?) going up one of the cheeks and over both eyeholes. Sagrada is super fast and spry here, really funny that I saw a match just last week (a 2014 match) where he's literally twice the size as he is here. Octagon throws a cool spinning armdrag and Universo bumps big for him. Sadly there's no mat stuff and Solar is kinda portrayed as the weenie of his team (since he's teamed with the two stars of the movie) so mainly just takes abuse from the rudos. Just noticed that the referee is a super young and slender Tirantes. I really dug Sagrada throughout this whole match. He broke out a bunch of neat things (cool somersault dive from the top, big crossbody from the top to the floor, a cool move where he jumped up for a headscissors but just clapped Tornado's head with his legs). Tornado was a guy I've never seen before but took some big bumps, knew how to put Octagon over, and seemed like a good catcher. And I've never seen Universo so slim! Fun stuff all around.

Those three ladies from the beginning of the movie are back at some drug lord's (I assume) compound, and Octagon and MS are busting in on that shit. Octagon just jumps over a brick wall in his jogging suit, but Sagrada comes in driven by fucking boat! And he's standing on the front of the speed boat while some other sucker drives it! Just picture a boat approaching some sort of island fortress mansion, being driven by a shirtless man with a big fluffy mullet, with Sagrada standing on the bow of the speed boat, white/yellow/aquamarine windbreaker suit fluttering in the breeze. Onita fucked up by not riding the boat out to the ring in the same way. These rich assholes aren't gonna know what hit 'em.

Before the next match we cut to outside the arena and the three ladies are all in black catsuits, and they all have their hair up so you know business is about to be handled. They're getting tons of equipment strapped to them in a van, so I assume some sort of espionage or diamond heist is about to take place. The guys equipping them with their headsets and gear are also wearing black, much of it leather. However, they are parked directly under the one streetlamp in the entire alley, so really I have to wonder about their commitment to truly blending in with the night.

~La Parka, Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther vs. Angel Azteca, Mascara Sagrada & Octagon

Pepe Casas and Tirantes are back as the refs for this one. This match is more cut up than the other one, and it's intercut with diamond heist scenes. This match was much more of an Octagon showcase, with Panther bumping all over for his cool leg drag headscissors. Fuerza stooges all over for him as well, which is none too shocking for anybody who's watched 1992 AAA. Skinny Parka takes a real high backdrop bump, and Octagon does a bunch of silly bulldogs (the kind where you gently tap the back of the guys head) that BP tries his damnedest to sell. Match falls apart into a DQ as Fuerza gets his mask twisted backwards and accidentally hits Parka, who starts kicking Fuerza's ass all over the ring. Parka actually took a crazy amount of backdrops in this, so I'm sure this was a joy for him to film. I especially love the one where he essentially takes a Jerry bump but on a backdrop, so he hit Sagrada's shoulder with his ankle and then flips extra high up and over.

We get another extended hang gliding sequence, and this time the score has a looped sound effect of a woman's pleasure-filled moans. So that happened. "That last hang gliding scene was too gay! We need to sex this one up a bit more, in a suuuuper hetero way. ADD THE SEX MOANZ!" It's all done as Octagon and Sagrada are scoping out the evil drug lord's beach-front mansion, so they just casually hang glide around his pad while the drug lord and all his buddies are just out on his deck watching them hang glide. Bold move, heroes.

The ending of this (pretty flat) movie is…pretty flat. As Octagon and Sagrada scuba dive to retrieve the jewels (and that must have been joyous to film a scuba sequence while wearing a lucha mask) and do the old swaparoo and trading out the trash bag of jewels (right?) with a trash bag of empty jewel cases. When the drug lords go to sell their jewels and find all the cases to be empty, our heroes spring into action and do more awesome lucha sequences in a field. Nobody can ever convince me that a giant crossbody off the top of a car is less cool than one off the top rope into a ring.

So that's that. Again, there's probably a reason why you don't hear about lucha movies from the 90s.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 10: 2006 CMLL Infierno en el Jaula

Aired 2006-06-24 

taped 2006-06-18 @ Arena Coliseo 

Rey Bucanero, Shigeo Okumura, Negro Casas, Heavy Metal, Universo 2000, Terrible, Tarzan Boy, Máximo in a cage of death match

This is another match that's only tangentially related at best. In fact, the only interaction between Tarzan Boy and Rey was TB actively avoiding him, but it's still well worth me watching for a few reasons. The first is that it's a CAGE OF DEATH match. I've never seen a CAGE OF DEATH match. The second is that it was all part of the building (or rebuilding) of Rey as a tecnico leading up to his title match with Ultimo Guerrero that I'll be getting to soon.

Sometimes, I just assume that anyone actually reading this knows more about lucha than I do. That's probably fairly short-sided but I can't understate how little I knew about lucha before the start of this year and how little I still know in the grand scheme of things. For that reason I don't spend paragraphs talking about history and context and what not and instead try to focus on the matches and what patterns I can find within. It's why I haven't explained Rey and UG's history, for instance, or certain other bits of backstory unless I find them very interesting. I will go back for the two of them when we hit the title match, though. In the here and now, I think it's worthwhile to explain how the Cage of Death works. All eight luchadors start within the cage and one after another, they escape, until they're left with the final two. At that point a one fall apuestas match begins. It's a little bit contrived, but ultimately a fun twist on the escape-the-cage rules that never, ever make for a good match, since for once, people have a good, logical reason to escape.

In this match, it was all a bit of a mess, but a fun one. We're obviously not dealing with the best VQ and camera work in the world, and usually that doesn't take away from things. When you have eight wrestlers in the ring though, none of them wearing masks to stand out from one another, it all got a little muddy. In fact, until the eliminations started, it was just a lot of senseless climbing and even more senseless holds, everyone making a wish on some poor fool and one giant (ill-conceived) leap from the top of the cage by Okumura on everyone. There wasn't even much room for character work, save for Maximo's over the top antics in not wanting to get in and then not wanting to get near anyone. As an aside, Maximo had a TON of hair matches in 2006. Wikipedia says he had six in 2006, if you include this one. A lot of them look to be more local but still. That's one way to establish someone.

The best part of this match was how dickishly each luchador managed his escape. Universo was out first, just climbing out in the chaos. Amusingly, he sold a blown Maximo kiss on the way out. Talk about a protected finisher. Casas escaped when he was tossed into the corner. He just darted right up as he hit it. Tarzan Boy totally messed up the point of this exercise in his escape. They'd set up Rey for the Guerreros three man alley oop body press and instead of hitting it on the guy he should have been pissed at, he valued his hair more and bounded to the side of the cage and up and over. Heavy Metal convinced Maximo to come back in at one point, then tossed him into Terrible in the corner as a show of teamwork. When it came time to charge in after, though, he escaped instead. Shortly thereafter, Maximo was able to use his speed to dart right out. The best one might have been Terrible convincing Terrible to missile dropkick Rey instead of escaping and then, after Okumura slammed Rey for Terrible, so that he could hit a top rope move, he climbed his way out instead. It was all a lot of fun even if you didn't really differentiate between one guy in the other in how he escaped. Everyone was a jerk, basically.

In the end, it was more of a showcase for Rey than anything else. The actual match with Okumura only lasted a minute before he ducked a move and hit his wheelbarrow drop finish for a pin. On some level, you'd think that the person who ended up in this situation and didn't escape would look bad because of it, but it didn't feel that way at all. Instead, the fans were chanting for him. He was back to black gear here, with the facepaint instead of the unfortunate white look of the week before and they were definitely into him. To his credit, Okumura demanded that Rey be the one to shave his head and took it like a man. All in all, it was a fun eighteen minutes spent and I wouldn't mind watching a few more of these. It certainly felt like Rey's tecnico run got off to a good start and I'm excited to see him really get in there with his former Guerreros partners.

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MLJ: Atlantida Rising 8: Heavy Metal, Máximo, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Shigeo Okumura, Tarzan Boy, Terrible, Universo 2000

Aired 2006-06-17
Taped 2006-06-11 @ Arena Coliseo
Heavy Metal, Máximo, Negro Casas, Rey Bucanero vs Shigeo Okumura, Tarzan Boy, Terrible, Universo 2000

This is another match that I initially thought about skipping but it's the earliest one I have after the Rey turn and Tarzan Boy's on the other side so you'd think there would be some interaction. There's some but not as much as you'd expect. It did allow me a few things: to see an 8 man tag which I haven't seen too many of, to see Okumura who's still hanging around CMLL and who was new to me, to see my first real look at Terrible, and to see Maximo when he was quite a bit younger.

I'm not sure that all of these things together did pay off but it'll let me talk about a different match structure, so there's that. It also let me hear Universo's theme which I kind of love, but that's sort of beside the point, even if it was in my head for the rest of the day. The main purpose to this match was to set up the 8-man apeustas cage match. It's kind of weird that there wasn't at least one masked luchador in there considering but whatever. That's, in part, why the focus wasn't really on Tarzan Boy vs Rey, despite the turn just happening, and it was why both teams were so awkwardly put together.

The structure was fairly straightforward but still a variation that I haven't really talked about yet. The rudos started out with the advantage, ambushing the tecnicos before they all made their entrances. It was a chaotic scene but very one sided and not all that compelling, in part because the rudos were so varied and not prone to working together. The tecnicos came back, hit a few things and took the segunda. Then they reset entirely for the tercera which involved a lot of different pairings and the sort of showing off of skills and match-ups that you might expect in the primera in other matches. With the number of guys in this match, it needed room to breathe and they chose to end-load it for that purpose. This led to the story driven finish and the post-match brawling and mic challenges.

Let's talk briefly about some of the different luchadors. Rey was sporting a new look with a white open shirt and no facepaint. He looked a little like Gangrel. From what I understand, despite being over here and the turn leading to a title win upcoming and a few other big matches, it didn't set in all that well and just a few years later, he was a rudo again as part of La Peste Negra (with more of a pirate character, which is where we got Zacarias). He was over here and energetic and dynamic with the stuff he hit. Despite eating a fun, if kind of weird looking double submission in the first fall, he was more or less protected and was in the driver's seat for the finish.

It was my first look at Okumura, but he didn't really stand out. Past hitting his seated senton off the apron, neither did Casas, which always amazes me because he stands out so much in 2013-14 no matter his role in the match. They did have one brief but fun strike exchange together. Maximo showed strong character work in his exchanges with Terrible, like always, but he didn't seem nearly as smooth as he is currently. There was a false start or two and he was lacking that crispness. Heavy Metal continued to impress. He had some very fluid exchanges (including a great one with Universo) and hit an awesome dropkick on the apron. He was a great part of the CMLL roster in 2006. Terrible is a guy I definitely need to see more of. He has a killer look, like he's the heir to Emilio Charles, Jr. or something. I'm going to have to double back for his feud with Los Guapos in 2003 and probably for the Rush feud at some point, since I bet we have a lot of footage of the latter.

The finish was well done and set up the match to come. The tecnicos had taken most of the exchanges in the tercera up until Universo cutting off Maximo as he prepared to hit a dive. He then went for a dive himself but due to a quick evasion and miscommunication, he hit Terrible with it by accident. Back in the ring, Okumura was able to lock an Octopus on Rey, but broke it when he saw Universo going for a tombstone on Maximo. Rey quickly hit Universo from behind, blamed it on Okumura and the rudos started brawling with each other. One sudden roll up later and the match was over. I thought this was fairly effective for what it set out to do, being a showcase for everyone and a way to build up rivalries and anticipation for the gimmick match. It was pretty harmless but fun enough. For the sake of this project, it really didn't have a ton of heated wrestling between Rey and Tarzan Boy. They had one good exchange in the tercera but that was about it. So long as we have it, I'll be glad to watch the cage match in sequence though.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 9: Marco Corleone vs Universo 2000, Cabellera vs Cabellera

Homenaje a Dos Leyendas:
Marco Corleone vs Universo 2000, Cabellera vs Cabellera
2007-3-30 @ Arena Mexico

I was going to maybe finish with this, but it's really not a great choice for it. This was another big final match of a big event, with a big trophy at the end and the dancing girls to begin and what not, but frankly, it wasn't all that great, even relative to my current breadth of watching. I think there's one ultimate sin that a hair match can commit, the absolutely worst thing: being boring, and this one sort of was. I was expecting a little more out of Universo based on the scope of the match, but I guess Marco just maybe wasn't ready for something at this level yet.

There wasn't the same feeling of pomp for the entrances or really excitement for the match itself compared to the tag hair match. In general, I do like Universo's look. That's the way to survive losing your mask (which he had only lost a few years before): to have this weird facepaint under the eyes, cowboy hat and goatee look. It was sleazy and iconic all at the same time. The crowd was mostly behind him, though he did work rudo, but in general they weren't into this like they were the previous one.

To be fair, Universo did kick out a number of fairly good touches, even if, in general, he was somewhat sluggish (especially coming off the ropes) for a match of this caliber. His very early beatdown attempt was effective, in part due to the fact it was sold well (like usual) by Marco. The abrupt ending of the primera was pretty good, as it looked like Marco was going to do one of his usual agility reversals, but got his foot caught and dragged into a quick and deep STF. The segunda began with a charging headbutt by Universo to break up the Rude Swivel. They paid some of this off later, somewhat at least, with a missed charge to start the tercera and Marco fighting back against a replication of the early beatdown attempts later in the match. I might have been reading too much into that, though. It wasn't that Universo wasn't trying. He had a nice dive, which Marco caught well, and towards the end of the tercera, he missed a big top rope senton because he was jawing with the second (Rey Bucanero). Best of all was probably his antics to try to avoid the haircut after the match; he did not take it gracefully at all.

The first two caidas were pretty brief. Like I said, I kind of liked how abruptly the first one ended, if only because it was a divergence from the usual Marco comeback. Moreover, his comeback in the segunda was a little different than usual, with a dropkick as the big move and a seated chinlock to end it, so it at least felt different. The tercera caida had a couple of good nearfalls and some fine late match selling, but ultimately didn't really pick up or had the sort of big moments or story beats that would make a match like this.

The finish was fairly clever as it built somewhat upon the mano a mano match, with Cien Caras interfering to stop the pin during the superman dive. This distracted the officials and allowed for Universo to try to try for a foul but Buccanero took one for the team and Marco picked up the roll-up win. Unfortunately, It wasn't enough to overcome an otherwise lackluster match, however. This was probably one of the most disappointing hair matches I've seen since starting to watch lucha. They tried, but this was lacking the smoke and mirrors of the tag cabelleras match and, while Marco would get better (and I've seen plenty of evidence of that), this particular pairing just didn't have enough to bring to the table at this point in time.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 8: Marco Corleone vs Universo 2000, mano a mano

Taped 2007-3-9 at Arena Mexico
Marco Corleone vs Universo 2000, mano a mano

Alright, here's where we stand. I'm going to hang out in 2007, watch this and the blowoff hair match to finish out this sequence, hit the Lizmark Jr. hair match as well, which I wasn't expecting to do but it's actually worth it, and then I'm going to roll on to attacking 2006 in a big way, focusing on Los Guerreros de la Atlantida, peppering in with some El Hijo Del Santo from all sort of years as I go. Meanwhile, I'm sure CMLL will build to another big match and then in a couple of months, I'll double back from that like I did with Rush vs Shocker. Slowly but surely, I'm filling out a map of things. A few more years at this rate and I might actually know something.

I'm guessing on the taped date. not sure about the aired date. This was the match that made me want to see more Universo from this era. He was in his 40s here and I'm pretty sure I've seen him two decades before this. He's the younger brother of Cien Caras and Mascara Ano 2000, but there's really nothing young about him here. There was a lot to like though. He married some very gritty offense (including a really nice tope, for which Marco caught him well. That's one thing I haven't talked about which he does do well, both due to his size and willingness) and a lot of flourishes, playing to the crowd, timing things well, and grinding down when the situation calls for it. He had a great look too, having lost his mask a couple of years before. There's this sort of  desperado with eye shadow thing he had going which was better than just losing the mask and walking around like yourself, I guess.

Marco, on the other hand, looked the most physically capable I've ever seen him. The height on his dropkick was pretty awe-inspiring. His flying clothesline was frankly awesome and that rarely looks good. He even locked on a great little neck stretch and teased a tombstone (which at first I chalked up to a cultural misunderstanding, but this was after Universo took his hair in the tag match with Kenzo so I figure he knew what he was doing. He already had a fall at that point. If you hit a tombstone does the match end or do you just get DQed for the fall? Does anyone know? It's like getting DQed on purpose in an iron man match in order to do more damage?). The flipside was that while he still actually sold very well, which is probably his strongest aspect as a wrestler in this setting past his size, his working the crowd was just not up to par yet. This was the very height of the eagle arm flaps, ALL THE TIME. Someone must have coached him on that and not much else. When you look at how he interacts with the other wrestlers and the crowd now it's absolutely night and day.

The match itself was extremely abrupt, though it was shaping up to be at the least fun before it got cut short. Even today, a lot of transitions and momentum shifts involving Marco are based around him either hitting a high flying move off of a reversal or him missing a high flying move. In some ways it's just the most logical thing to do given his size and agility, but when you watch a lot of these in a row, it passes the point of "good scouting" or dynamic and sort of veers into "repetitive." One thing I've noticed about CMLL in general, both in 2007 and especially so in the last year or two is that you rarely have matches end in interference, even to set up another match. You'll have fouls, sure, or some sort of clever rudo-based finish, but rarely matches just thrown out. That's exactly what you had here, as when Marco was going for the Superman leap to take the third fall, Universo's brothers ran out to maul him, thus setting up the hair match to come. Anyway, like I said, this made me want to catch some more Universo from the period, and what prompted met to go back and then forward, especially knowing that their feud was bookeneded by two hair matches, which is usually, though as we'll see next week, not always, a sure bet.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 7: Hijo del Lizmark, Marco Corleone, Satánico vs Olímpico, Pierroth, Universo 2000

aired 2007-03-10
taped 2007-03-04 @ Arena Coliseo
Hijo del Lizmark, Marco Corleone, Satánico vs Olímpico, Pierroth, Universo 2000

I've actually got a nice little four match feud here, between the hair tag match, this, a singles match that followed it, and the hair match that ended things. It seems a little weird to end the Marco stuff way back in 2007, so I might cap it off with a recent trios or something. Part of me does see the danger in having a 10 match Marco Corleone mini project as my second or third focus, but I do think I've picked up a lot of other things along the way so it's generally okay.

This match was no different. Look at what I get to delve into here: Old Man, tecnico (what the heck?) Satanico. Old Man Pierroth. Lizmark, Jr and Olimpico, who haven't seen too much of, and some more Universo. I am the world's only proponent of the idea that you can really, truly learn a lot about a wrestler by watching them after they've broken down and don't have the same physical gifts. The question is whether or not they know enough about the craft of professional wrestling to compensate and how they attempt or don't attempt to do so.

Satanico was aces in 1984 and he was pretty much aces here too. He could still take things to second gear in brief bursts though, which helped. It was still weird seeing him play the beloved old hero, but he was excellent in garnering sympathy and response, whether it be eating multiple hair throws, playing to the crowd at key moments, or even teasing a dive. His offense was pretty smart with my personal highlight being this amazing corner thrashing of Pierroth where he just smushed his elbow in the poor jerk's eye. Pierroth I was less enthused about. He didn't get out of first gear and he really barely had that. That, in and of itself, wouldn't have been too bad but he had one too many corner clotheslines or times where he hit the ropes and the world just stumbled to a stop. If you're forced to be sluggish or unwilling to find a way to turn it up, then try to wrestle smart. Do matwork. Punch it out. Make the other guy do the work. He was exposing himself way too much here, especially for someone who really ought to have known better. When he wasn't doing that, he looked pretty good though. I liked his little chops and pokey punches and he was directing traffic well.

The rudos, in general, worked very smoothly. They opened the match with a pretty great ambush that had a chaotic feel that you don't really seem to see much anymore. The best of it was when the camera quickly shot back to the outside to see Marco flying into the turnbuckle. They carried it forward into an effective mauling, with a very cool triple submission on Satanico and a nasty senton on Lizmark to take the primera caida. I love that the senton is still so relevant in lucha. It's this primal visual, just a grisly landing that makes for a very believable pinfall or nearfall when necessary or a momentum shift when it's missed. Anyway, they also had pretty fun character work, between a huddle after disposing of an opponent, and Universo and Pierroth hamming it up in response to Marco's Rude Gyration to hilarious ends.

Frankly, I think I might have underestimated Marco a bit when it came to how he handled the character work in 2007. The flip side to this is that maybe I overestimate him a bit now. When he's in there with someone who really seems to know what he's doing, like Universo, they can play it up really well. He's a great foil, maybe more so than just being a great prop. They use him here to fuel the tecnico comeback. I almost wonder if you would get these luchadors who rarely get to work with a guy his size and they think "Why the hell wouldn't we use him to climb up the ropes and leap back at our opponent to turn the tide? The crowd will eat it up!" so you see it again and again. The difference between then and now is that he's able to be part of much more elaborate sequences now instead of just prompting reactions with his swivel.

This had a pretty clever finish that pushed things along on the road to a big singles match. After Marco had disposed of Universo from the ring (no dive though. I don't think there was a dive in this match at all), his partners got dumped to the floor and then summarily tied up in chairs by their feet. This led to a 3 on 1 in the ring and a distracted ref, where Marco fought for a moment, but ate a foul from Universo, allowing the rudos to win the match. It was a nice little bit of chicanery to keep the feud going and maybe further cement Marco as a tecnico since that was relatively new(?). All in all, this was a pretty good trios and a nice chance to see how much zing Satanico still had.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 6: Shocker & Universo 2000 vs Kenzo & Marco Corleone, Cabelleras vs Cabelleras

Aired: 2006/12/15
Evento: Sin Piedad 2006 (Lucha Estelar) Arena Mexico
Shocker & Universo 2000 Vs Kenzo & Marco Corleone Cabelleras vs Cabelleras

So, this was a bit of a treat, and bear with me while I explain why. Just like it's tempting to watch a million Negro Casas or Blue Panther matches in a row, it's also tempting to find a million hair and mask matches and just watch them one after another. I don't think that's the best way to do this though, as it'd lead to diminishing returns after a while, and variety is the spice of life and all that. When slotting one in makes sense organically, that's another story, and that's this story, actually.

This was a big match on a big show with big stakes and it certainly felt that way. It's also not what I'd call good by any of the usual metrics. It's heated, but it's not smooth. It's almost a constant stream of bullshit, basically, from costumed dancing girls at the start (and Marco having a few bars of the Williams Superman theme and a cape in his entrance! Why in the world did he ever drop that?) to the entirety of the ring work to the haircut theatrics at the end. It was, however, wildly enjoyable bullshit that was put together almost exactly as it should have been. From some sort of "purity" standpoint, this wasn't good; hell, even the comedy wasn't the usual elaborate sort of shtick and sequence but something else altogether. I did sort of enjoy the heck out of it though.

It's funny. Part of why I wanted to see this match was to see Universo in 2007. He was in his early 40s here and I've seen some hints of really good character work from him from this period, just glimpses. Of course, seeing any Shocker earlier than 2014 was also of interest after the time I put into watching the Rush feud. So I wanted to see them, and they're there in this match, sure, but they don't stand out all that much. They had some great dives admittedly and Shocker slapped on one of the best STFs I've ever seen on Marco when they were doing a "reach the ropes" sequence to parallel on the rudos just had the advantage on, but some of that was just how tall Marco is. I did find it interesting that they weren't called tecnicos or rudos but they were introduced as the Mexicans with the others as the Foreigners. It made for a slightly different dynamic.

But yeah, frankly, It was the Kenzo Suzuki and Mima Shimoda show. I have no idea why he had Mima with him instead of Hiroko but she was 110% Sheri Martel here. I think she got more offense in this match than Universo and Shocker combined. Kenzo, who I do not remember fondly from his WWE run, was great except for one tiny thing which I'll get to in as second: Every little reaction he has to everything was amazing. He interacted with Marco really well. He sold what was happening perfectly. Some of it was just so well set up. The first fall ended with something I've been waiting to see: Marco hitting his own guy on the superman dive. It was pretty hilarious, as was Marco doing the Rick Rude gyration for Mima later on and causing Kenzo to collapse. And of course, there was Kenzo's glorious attempt to do a superman dive of his own where he totally wiped out. He was just brilliant in trying to avoid the haircut at the end (and I swear they called him a character from Dragonball once he was bald, which was also really racist, funny and unexpected. Maybe there's just a spanish word that sounds exactly like "dragonball" though). So yes, he did everything really well except for one tiny, minuscule thing: the part where he actually had to wrestle. His offense looked really rough, in the negative way (and frankly 2/3rds of it felt like it was him just holding someone for Mima to batter). His timing was all over the place. I thought Universo and Shocker sold pretty well and Marco was fine but I'd call Kenzo's selling more of the Benny Hill variety.

All that said, the match worked out pretty well, held together by the bells and whistles and (again) bullshit. Ultimately, in the tercera caida, Kenzo and Universo were eliminated and Shocker and Marco had an okay little exchange. It ended with Mima breaking up a fall again and arguing with the ref and Shocker. This led, perfectly, to Marco taking her out by accident with a really nasty flying knee and some wonderfully cheap foul stuff that played up Marco's strength (he nailed Shocker in the groin from a tombstone position) and allowed Universo to counter the cheating and help Shocker to pick up the win.

I can't imagine this match was well received at the time except for maybe the really nice dives and honestly, I won't blame anyone for not liking it. It reminded me a lot of those taped together smoke and mirrors WWE main event matches, just without all sorts of foreign objects (unless you count Mima as a foreign object), things that sort of get by on the illusion of substance. That was this, but since it's not something I'm entirely used to in lucha and the stakes and the heat were quite high, I found the whole thing well worth watching.

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