Found Footage Friday: PIPER~! VALENTINE~! SATANICO~! GARZA~! VILLANO~! ARANDU~! VULCANO~!

Roddy Piper vs. Greg Valentine JCP 8/4/83

MD: Elliott has been putting together great primer threads on twitter with match recommendations and came across this while looking for Piper. It's obviously from JCP TV but it wasn't on any of our radars. Just a great piece of business during a chaotic time centered around the US title. Valentine had it. He had damaged Piper's ear. Piper wanted revenge. Fellow heels Slater and Orton wanted it too. The episode was set up with Piper having the match but not expected to make it to the show, so they were going to give it to Slater instead. Piper did show up however and he came in hot.

They covered a lot in ten minutes here. The early stuff was so chippy and uncooperative. Piper wanted revenge but he also wanted the belt. An early sunset flip seemed so uncooperative that it almost turned into a flipping power bomb (and this is a good thing). Piper lit Valentine up with great punches too and a killer posting and the wild abandon kneelift where his limbs went flying as well. He kept going in too hot though and Valentine was able to take advantage. A lot of that was with escalating elbow drops but Valentine had this great gutbuster that hit almost sideways. Valentine could never hold Piper down for long and fired back and opened Valentine up, only to get tossed out of the ring on a fluke. That let Slater rush in and beat on Valentine to draw a DQ Piper didn't want. When Piper tried to fight him off, Orton came out as well. As best as I can tell, this never let to a tag match with the rivals on one side, which seems like a shame. Just great JCP TV.

PAS: This totally ruled, one of the great match ups in wrestling history and such a mitzvah Elliot uncovered another version of it. It is more of a TV match then the arena and Starcade matches we have, so it was trying to do a different thing, but the interactions were first rate, with Pipers handspeed and activity contrasting with the power of Valentine's strikes. It really feels like a boxer vs. a puncher. There is a an incredible section where Valentine bull rushes Piper into the corner and Piper just uses head movement to avoid and parry all of Valentine's shots and fire back. Whenever Valentine landed you could feel Piper's body shudder and react, Valentine was one of the great power punchers in wrestling history, everything he landed felt organ shifting. Finish was a good bit of business, although less satisfying then a clean finish would be. Really wish we had gotten the Parajas Piper and Valentine vs. Orton and Slater match this seemed to be setting up 

ER: This is just the best. You spend 10 minutes of your night watching this and you fully understand why so many people in the south rejected the wrestling product of the north. This is a bell to bell fight and then somehow ends with a different, just as good fight. I've been watching a lot of 1997 Piper and Valentine (although never against each other in 97, sadly) and I love them. It's crazy how good they both were in their mid 40s. But 1997 is not 1983. Nowhere close. It's like how I enjoy watching current Negro Casas and always will, but then you watch any 80s or 90s Negro Casas and go "oh, yeah. Right. He was this." Just because I love old man wrestling an inordinate amount, I don't know if anything else could ever compare to this era of JCP. No shit people watching JCP wouldn't be enthralled by Tony Garea or Swede Hansen or Sal Bellomo. 

It's all hammering Valentine punches or straight rights to the head. I forget how quick he was, how spry. Seeing a Valentine elbowdrop off the middle rope performed with a luchador's speed and grace feels almost anachronistic, my eyes having seen so much more Old Valentine than Young Stud Valentine. How wild is it that Piper's rabbit punches hit just as hard as Valentine's famously heavy fists. Look at that camera shot from the floor when Piper is punching to comeback, Valentine's head mostly obscured by the camera being aimed up at the lights of Carolina Civic Center. It's perfect. Piper's jittery style of selling damage is so electric when he's in with a real fighter like Valentine. They're perfect for each other. The way he stutters and moves his head when he starts fighting back and the way Valentine glances his blows while walking into Piper's fire. Piper's airplane spin was a real impressive surprise, and I love how it quickly turned on him when Valentine held the ropes and forced a momentum shift. Slater and Orton run in and act just as violently as Piper and Valentine and at this point I expect Bugsy McGraw matches to also look super violent. Orton wrecks these men with cowboy boot stomps and Dick Slater is like pissed off Tenryu. It's all so beautiful. 

Arandu/Vulcano vs. Villano III/Panterita del Ring

MD: This was something. We come in with Arandu and Vulcano with the advantage. Vulcano was mostly matched up with Villano and they were working the mask. Just a big beatdown. Villano was able to sidestep and take over but before they could press the advantage, Vulcano lost his head and pulled the loosened mask off to draw the primera DQ. Immediately thereafter, after Villano had put his mask back on, Vulcano charged back in and this time both took it off and ripped it up. Villano rolled to the floor and some kid ran up and immediately put his shirt over Villano's head so that he could be helped to the back. Just a super wholesome moment that you'd think you'd see more in lucha but that I haven't come across much if at all. 

From there, the rudos pressed the numbers game, hanging Panterita up and laying it in until Villano could come in with another mask to break things up and get revenge. Get this, though, he was punching them with the white shirt around his hand! Super iconic moment. Apparently he either fouls or Vulcano feigns a foul as they have Arandu hung up (for revenge!) so the rudos get the segunda. In between falls Villano ups Vulcano up in the stands and things settle back in for a loose and chaotic tercera of them going back and forth until Villano crashes into the ref on purpose and then pretends Vulcano had fouled him. Such beautiful bullshit in this one. The best.

ER: 2/3 of this match is somebody being pinned in the corner or held in the tree of woe while being punched and kicked and yelled at. I'm sure some would read that sentence as a criticism but I'm also sure that none of those people are reading that sentence here. Arandu is a south Texas Mocho Cota, with less shtick but somehow better hair. Vulcano does an incredible thing where he's so focused on keeping V3 in a  modified abdominal stretch that he just ignores Panterita Del Ring's strikes as he's trying to break the hold. Vulcano is laser focused on Villano and Panterita is just going to have to throw better elbows if they are to be acknowledged. 

I was enjoying this and would have honestly enjoyed just a light punching and choking and fake ball shots kind of match...but nobody could have seen one of the greatest REAL moments in pro wrestling history happening. Who could have been prepared? Now I'm sure this has happened before, on camera, and I'm sure the matches that it happened in are all common knowledge, and I'm sure I have written about this kind of thing happening before but my memory is so bad that the only thing I remember about wrestling anymore is that the date 6/3/94 is significant for some reason. Old language. The moment happens when Vulcano rips and tugs Villano's mask off and Villano rolls to the floor covering his face. As he hits the floor, a sweet chubby kid is seen literally giving Villano III the shirt off his back so that he could protect his identity! A reverse Mean Joe Greene! What a sweet boy, who sprang immediately into action the moment he saw a hero unmasked. Villano returning, masked, from the back with the white t-shirt still in hand, wrapping his fist in it and throwing blows? Incredible. No American child would have given their wrestling hero the shirt off their back. The closest anyone in the states came to this was when some 10 year old in Revere handed a frying pan to John Kronus.  

Satanico vs. Hector Garza CMLL 1/6/95

MD: We had 9 minutes of this title match previously. This gives us the entire 20 and you can really get a sense of the narrative at play. One thing that makes Satanico stand out even more is that he could implement narratives that would be more conventional elsewhere, even in places like title matches where you usually get things along different lines. Here, in the primera, he controlled Garza on the mat, Garza was able to get back into it once things got moving, and then Satanico, realizing that, hit a cheapshot and started to lay things in. Garza was able to use his speed to turn it back around, dodge a shot in the corner, and lock in the torture rack. Just a nice and neat story executed well and engaging to the crowd.

The segunda is where things turned a bit. Satanico came out with a handshake attempt but Garza would have none of it, taking him down and starting on the leg. Satanico spent the entirety of the segunda as Honky Tonk Man, basically, already down a fall but playing the vulnerable champion. This lasted a few minutes until Satanico was able to shrug Garza out of the ring by countering a camel clutch. He pressed that advantage with lift up/drop downs until he could put on Satan's knot.

For the tercera, it started as back and forth nearfalls, before Satanico got a mini beatdown in until Garza was able to toss him out and hit a dive. Finish was very clever as Garza locked in a back bridge. Satanico ensured that he himself was pinned, a sacrifice, to also ensure that Garza's arms were trapped down. Just an absolute confident leap of faith in his own ability to ensure mutual destruction knowing that in the event of a draw, he would keep the title. I can't think of almost any other time in wrestling I saw a heel pull off that trick to keep his title. Very clever stuff.

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Found Footage Friday: QEPD EL SIGNO~! VILLANO III~! MR. ARGENTINA~! LA MUMIA~! CAPOEIRISTAS~!

Mecânico Paulão vs. Mr. Argentina Astros do Ringue 2000 

MD: Mr. Argentina passed away earlier in June as well. We've covered one or two of his matches before but as some more have popped up given said event, I thought it was time to head back to Brazil. This had a dinner theater type setting with round tables with white tablecloths surrounding the ring. They were sparsely populated. Argentina was older at this point, balding with strands of hair on either side. Everything he did was interesting though, every entry, every exchange, every counter. Not one thing seemed rote or boring. It all had an extra twist or spin or bit of torque to it. You were eager for them to lock up just to see what he'd do next because none of it was familiar. 

Paulão was, as stated, a mechanic, and he had a way of asserting himself in the ring. All of his offense involved moving Argentina this way or that. Where he had advantage, however, was that the ref was on his side. If Argentina was going to try to do a crazy headstand bridge on a pin, the ref was going to push him over. That sort of thing. This was in rounds and they made it to the third round before the ref really crossed a line by putting Argentina in a full nelson, he got his legs up to headscissors Paulão though and took them both over, drawing a particularly frustrating DQ. Argentina just shrugged though, confident and at peace with what happened. 

El Signo vs. Villano III CMLL 7/15/01

MD: Far more found than new here, but it's a Signo match we haven't covered and you probably haven't seen. It also kicks off with a training video of him just crushing people before showing off Satan's Knot. He takes over immediately controlling the ring. When Villano makes it in, Signo rains down headbutts and knees. Villano fires back but eats a foul in the corner. Amusingly, they reshow the skull covered knee going up and down on the replay repeatedly. Signo hones in on the skull with a noogie and close-in punches to open Villano up and then wins the primera with the knot. The segunda's quick as Villano hits a rana out of nowhere and the tercera is clipped but has them going from trading holds to Villano hitting a tope and then the two of them rolling around and punching each other in the face before Villano tries to commit homicide by dropping a row of chairs on Signo causing people to swarm out from the back. Two masters pushing 50 beating the crap out of each other. 

ER: I have nothing but fond memories of watching pro wrestling in 2001. What a great year to be in college and trading tapes and watching Tenryu matches in girls' dorm rooms and telling them what a Shining Wizard was. I love 2001 pro wrestling, and yet it's apparent that some of my favorite matches from the year are still being found. Because THIS. This match between two old men - old men who are somehow just a couple years older than I - is a fight. Not a pretty fight, but a fight between two older men in a moderately nice cruise ship casino. Villano III looks like a Richard Kind character. One where he doesn't have to do anything with his hair, because Richard Kind and Villano III have the same hair. It's in the tuft. Villano takes an excellent ringpost bump and falls off the apron in the same way that I think Richard Kind would have fallen off the apron: Holding onto the ringpost, eyes crossing, swinging around the post into a pratfall to the floor. Signo is a great little fat guy here. The fatter Signo got the shorter he looked. He bites at Villano's face and headbutts him five times in the side of the head and right in the eye, and from there the struggle looks like the messiest fucking fight as they both grab at each other's hair and gnash teeth from close quarters, no longer looking like the smooth trained fighters of their youth but instead like two men getting into an incredibly boring fight at a wedding. 

I am sad that the limb work section of the tercera is clipped because what we have is incredible, as they scream and fight over leg locks while each getting to lock in a nasty deathlock, rolling slowly through them in ways that made them feel even more agonizing, old joints popping and muscles getting stretched. The matwork clips suddenly into Villano III hitting a great tope that sends Signo flying fast into a fan's sharp knees. The match is thrown out as these men literally start punching and kneeing each other while lying on the floor, fighting from their sides, refusing to stop. Villano tries to break Signo's arm by throwing a short front row of those hard Arena Mexico seats into the bone, and the pull apart felt like a real wedding dance floor feud. This was outstanding, a CMLL gem I had never seen from the era where I had just been starting to actually watch CMLL on my local Galavision affiliate.  

La Múmia vs. Kid Abelha & Guto BWF 2005

MD: A different styles fight between a mummy and two capoeiristas. Can that be the entire write up? It sums it up pretty well. No? Fine. This lived up to its promise. The first third was La Mumia just tossing these guys around with solid technique, mares and beales and the sort, right in the middle of being a guy who came out of a sarcophagus and being an actual trained wrestler. The middle of the match were the two of them getting to work together, bounding and flipping about, redirecting him, and hitting double dropkicks. Then the ref made one get out and the last third was a mauling again, a nice effort that got quickly cut off. He spent the last minute tossing one onto or into the other, including a nice butterfly roll back and a grisly press slam to the floor before he ended it with a powerslam. For ten minuets of this, it was pretty much exactly what I wanted. We don't write up a ton of wrestling mummies or capoeira around here and this was both.

ER: As advertised. This is the most Mummy vs. Capoeira Guys match I have personally seen. I assume this is a pretty common match type in Brazil or whatever pro wrestling footage we haven't yet uncover from East Timor. I still don't think I've witnessed capoeira that actually translates to pro wrestling, but I can see why it's been attempted. It never seems like it's far off from working, but nothing ever lands well. It reads visually as the lightest of the fruity martial arts. To make it work, you need a tall, largely padded mummy alternating between lumbering and feeding for dropkicks. It's amusing seeing a Mummy feeding normally for dropkicks but then also sometimes getting up from them and moving his arms and legs like Angry Frankenstein. Kid Abelha feels better at wrestling than the other guy, but only because he's mastered the high folding upper shoulders bump and takes it several times in a row, making me think that he could have adapted easily to Jersey All Pro within a month. La Mumia hits a dangerous looking vertical suplex on both capoeiristas, dangerous because none of the three looked like they fully understood what a vertical suplex was, or how it should land, or where it should land. Mumia press slamming one of them to the floor was another moment that made this feel like Shaolin Wrecking Crew vs. Rainchild or Ghost Shadow, without a rec center wall to stop the distance of the throw. 

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Found Footage Friday: IWRG RETRO~! CEREBRO~! COCOS~! VILLANOS~! CANEK~! SCORPIO~! OFICIALES~!

IWRG Retro 9/8/22

MD: IWRG is posting old stuff. Some of it is new. Some of it is rare. We are very happy about this development.

Fantasy/Zonic vs. Rey Cuervo/Caballero Azteca 4/11/99

MD: This is the "rare" one as opposed to the "new" ones, as it was apparently on tape lists. It's a pretty fun way to spend eight minutes. About half of that is Cuervo and Azteca beating down the tecnicos and it's solid comfort food. The comeback comes on a miscommunication dropkick and goes pretty quickly into a finishing stretch of sorts as this is just one fall. Most of the heat ends up on a rudo ref who misses a tag early and misses Fantasy's shoulder being up late. It's all light stuff with a real opening match feel, but colorful, with the biggest issue being that we lose out on the native audio to the new commentary, which is a problem throughout the show but less of an issue with the matches with more substance to them.

Dr. Cerebro/Paramedico/Cirujano vs. Los Cocos 12/23/01

MD: We've got Rojo, Blanco, and Verde for those keeping score, and they come out with "Super Capo" as their valet, which feels like a big deal. Rudos ambush early and make quick work out of the clowns to end the primera. Cerebro is great here directing traffic and flipping off the rope to crush someone or kick them in the face. He bites Rojo's hand after the submission for the heck of it. In the segunda, he goes from hanging out in the corner and watching the violence to hitting a spring up turning headbutt foul to a hung up Rojo. Apparently that impressed the production team so much that they decided to show it in slow motion instead of the moment of comeback. Both Blanco and Verde looked good here, with the best spot maybe Verde on the apron ready to jump and Cerebro diving at him only for his legs to pop up so Cerebro ends up sliding across the apron and off screen errantly. Tercera had some comedy miscommunication, submissions that were broken up one after the other and a pretty nice tope suicida train, with Paramedico all but sailing into the crowd. That cleared the ring for Rojo vs Cerebro and a pretty definitive and crowd-pleasing stunner finish on Cerebro. Big takeaway here was how good he looked overall.

Canek/Villano III/Villano IV vs. Scorpio/Guardia/Vigilante 8/22/96

MD: I don't think I've seen much Scorpio, Sr. before but he looked like an old, decrepit rudo with spaghetti like hair that was made to be taken by Canek in an apuestas match.  This was super libre and all about the numbers game, with as much mask pulling as I can remember seeing in one match. The rudos attacked the Villanos before Canek could come out to even the odds but the tecnicos fired back after a couple of minutes of beatdown to take the primera. There was already a lot of mask pulling here, all around, with Guardia and Vigilante spending a good chunk of the match just trying to keep their masks on. Between falls, Scorpio successfully got Canek's mask and that led to a 3 on 2 advantage as he had to run to the back. The beatdowns were solid here and utilized the super libre rules. Scorpio stood out and kept things interesting, in the primera by choking Canek with his own cape and in the segunda, by forcing Villano III into the corner, seated, groin first, and just jamming his feet into his back. Eventually, Canek rushed to the rescue with a new mask, but super libre or no, the refs seemed to call it after too many rudo fouls to try to stem the turned tide. I have to assume that this led to a bunch of mask challenges that went nowhere. Some satisfying lucha for lucha's sake in this initial drop.

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Andre & Bam Bam Go to UWA

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

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

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

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

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QEPD Super Porky

Brazo de Plata/Brazo de Oro/El Brazo vs. Solomon Grundy/Chavo Guerrero/Popitekus CMLL 4/8/90

ER: It doesn't get more portly than this in lucha, and this match was filled with a ton of belly busting. The big draw here is Porky/Grundy and it delivers in every way you'd want it to. In a match with no dives we still wind up with a ton of big boy gold. Outside of a few nice armdrags we don't really get any Popitekus (but with his gorgeous hair he looks like the fattest possible Ramone), but we get a lot of Porky picking on Grundy, building to a huge sumo war between them to end the tercera. Grundy dwarfs Porky but Porky throws harder fists, throws an uppercut into Grundy's neckbeard, and then bumps him to the floor with a belly bump. There are a LOT of belly bumps in this match, and they're all great. 

I love Grundy's slow bumps to the floor, feels and looks like a glacier falling into the Antarctic. He falls to the floor, Porky hits a lariat off the apron (felt like it was supposed to be a plancha but Grundy moved), and then Porky splatted him with his running belly bounce. Later Grundy takes the absolute slowest Harley Race bump, and I love it. The match is filled with entertaining misdirection, a lot of Porky accidentally hitting splashes and avalanches on his bros and then blaming them for it. Porky even shoves Grundy backwards onto his brothers! There are some classic moments, like Porky being knocked from the apron onto Oro's shoulders, who dumps him butt first onto a front row fan! I also loved the big build to Grundy hitting an avalanche on all three Brazos, with Porky doing a hilarious bump where he runs most of the way across the ring before just taking a normal back bump. The final sumo showdown between Porky and Grundy was fantastic, with Brazo shoving a ref in between them to get Los Brazos DQd, the ref getting a full stretcher job post-match to sell the Porky/Grundy loose meat sandwich. This match might have the most belly bumps I have ever seen, so of course it comes with the highest possible recommendation. 

MD: Great build here as they really milked a potential Porky vs Grundy encounter all the way to the tecera, with a couple of false starts along the way. The first was best as they teased it only to have the other Brazos rush in, kicking off the transitional beatdown. It wasn't just all Porky either as Grundy showed some decent physical charisma in his bumping and in building the anticipation. And of course, yes, he'd eat Porky's clothesline to knock him out, catch Porky's clothesline off the apron and get crushed against the barricade for good measure. The funniest bit of this one was when Porky ended up in some guy's lap in the first row. That shows protecting people with control of your body right there. This ended with one of the most satisfying bits of ref flattening you'll encounter. It was hardly definitive but I doubt anyone cared about that given the effort they made to stretcher him out.

JR: I don’t know if this is a personal failing or an issue with the narrative overall but I feel like far fewer words have been written about rudo Brazo de Plata, so I’m glad we can touch on it here. I think it’s instructive for how gifted a performer Porky truly was. He has great timing and great cut offs and when he does his normal spots minus the flourishes that made them so well loved otherwise, they stand out as tremendously impactful. He is a performer that can use his body in so many ways, or rather, can use his body in one way but change enough about it to make it feel so different. As he rushes forward, with good but rarely seen punches and headbutts and body checks, Super Porky feels inevitable.

Of course, as the match goes on, specifically in the third fall, we get to see the rudo comedy that one would expect from Porky, where he is essentially the incompetent henchman deployed by his slightly more competent brothers. Nothing here is exclamatory per say, or groundbreaking, but at the same time there is value in being able to play the hits and do so without any major faults. This match is fine, more of a Brazos exhibition than anything to talk about on behalf of their opponents, but at the same time it is nice to see Porky show off different shades and viewpoints rather than the standard fare we talk about most often.

Brazo De Plata/Negro Casas/TAKA Michinoku vs. El Hijo Del Gladiador/Gran Markus Jr./Satanico CMLL 5/30/97

MD: Fun trios. This was sort of a sweet spot where Porky was still imposing, to the point where he was, of course, funny, but could make someone like Hijo de Gladiador beg off when he was taking liberties. Within a decade, that would be over and he'd be there just for laughs. Great laughs, certainly, but here he could serve more roles within a match. He could also make like Shawn Michaels posing in the ropes while his partners were in the ring, so it was a balance. And when it was time for him to come in, the fans buzzed in a way that they didn't for Casas or Satanico, for instance. The end of the primera was fun stuff with Casas hitting one big DDT only to get jammed on the second, setting up Porky to come in and accidentally knock him onto Markus only to teeter him back to a sitting and pinning position and then squashing Hijo de Gladiador on a sunset flip attempt. They got the pin while shaking hands like gentlemen. Not much else to say here except for that TAKA (more Taka here than TAKA) was paired well with Satanico both in the primera and in the closing exchange. Satanico was pretty giving against him and looked as great as always; his big interaction with Porky was slapping him in the corner only to get crushed by a series of headbutts out of it as the crowd popped big. The final tecnico comeback was picture perfect Porky use too, as Hijo del Gladiador was trapped behind him in the corner so every time he got whacked by Satanico and Markus he was crushing HdG. Not only does that never get old, but here it was effective and pro wrestling believable in switching the momentum for that final time.

ER: Wow. I actually had no idea a match existed that had Satanico tearing it up on the mat against Taka Michinoku (I trust we do NOT have their singles match a couple weeks after this?), and it's only one of several very fun things happening here. Porky is really treated as the biggest name in the match, and he worked the match as someone who relished the role. This was always building to a big Porky/Markus chubby boys showdown, but all the pairings here worked really well. Gladiador and Casas gave us some quick exchanges before Satanico and Taka came in and outquicked them, and I loved all the rudos scrambling away from Porky whenever he came in. Gladiador hit a questionable strike on Casas and Porky runs in and just plasters him into the corner. We get a lot of classic Porky comedy mixed in with actual strong ringwork, so we get him bumping his butt into Gladiador's face when getting punched in the corner, but we also get an amazing sequence where Satanico starts punching and slapping Porky over and over in the corner. and I'm expecting Porky to start his crying routine. Instead, he had enough and charges out of the corner with a half dozen wicked headbutts that backs Satanico all the way across the ring. Porky hits a big dive into Markus (Markus had landed two very stiff punches earlier during Irish whip exchanges and I couldn't wait for Porky to flatten him) and Taka finishes things with his nice missile dropkick to Satanico's chest, then plants Satanico with the Michinoku Driver. Loved the vibe throughout this whole match, great mix of classic lucha and comedy and stiff strikes. 

JR: I must confess that I haven’t watched a ton of this 90s lucha since the pandemic, and returning to it here is like putting on an old pair of comfortable shoes. Seeing prime Casas and Satanico and remembering the things they did every night was so gratifying. It made me love wrestling for a moment.

But Porky! A revelation every time. People talk about Tajiri being a silent film star with his body language, but I see Porky do sequences here, with a stylized hip attack and a rope running sequence and I can’t help but think of Charlie Chaplin films, in which he is toeing the line between genius and accident. Porky does that here; getting kicked in the gut, but the momentum causes his ass to hit someone in the face, or flattening his own partner so hard that he bounces back up into a cover of his own.

Really, this is sort of the platonic use of porky in a match like this. Casas does the heavy lifting and holds everything together long enough for Taka to shine and change the pace and for Porky to have a few huge moments, including a tremendous plancha. This isn’t what I’d call an all time Porky match or anything, but I think it’s the blueprint of one.

Brazo De Plata/Brazo De Oro/Brazo Cibernetico vs. Villano 3/4/5 Acapulco 11/20/04

PAS: I think I have probably called 15 different lucha cage matches "the only good lucha cage match", but I am doing it again. Here is the only good lucha cage match and it is great one. You can put together any combination of wrestling's Hatfields and McCoys and they are going to try to murder each other, and this was an awesome combo. Nothing funny about Porky here, he was looking to put Villanos in the ground, and there was some big chop and punch exchanges and a fair amount of spilt blood. I liked the finish with V5 and Oro left in the cage only for V3 to break a bottle through the cage on Oro's head so his brother could escape. I am not sure how we didn't review this match when it arrived on the internet, but it is another chapter in this endless family feud. 

MD: Nothing is bad in a bubble. Lucha cage matches tend to be bad because they're a bunch of singles guys stuck together, a few of them maybe with programs or build, but with the primary goal of escaping in the midst of the chaos so that they're not one of the last two in there. Team vs team cage matches probably work better because there's much more hesitation for wrestlers to just scramble out at the first opportunity; to be doing so would be to leave their partners in danger. More so, there's generally a more visceral feud as was the case here. Finally, you have to factor in how hard it is for Porky to get up and out of the cage by this point, so they really had to do some damage to the Villanos to allow for that. Put that all together and you had a recipe for a good lucha cage match. 

I loved how this was filmed. You weren't going to see all the action but then that was impossible given the sight constraints and the size of some of the wrestlers and how thoroughly they were intent on beating and bloodying one another. Instead, it almost felt like you were on one of those rail rides at an amusement park, except for instead of the figurative horrors of It's a Small World, you were able to look left or right and see the real horror of a bloody Porky getting battered in the corner or Platino scrapping hard in a fist fight. It was less on the big memorable spots and more on the steady violence then, at least until the ring started to clear a bit. Thankfully, it all led to the most memorable moment of all, when Villano III smashed a beer bottle into the cage as Oro was trying to climb out, shattering it against the cage and sending glass right into Oro's face. Brilliant, unsafe spot, that was only lessened a little by the fact the Brazos weren't immediately on top of him to get vengeance.

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New Footage Friday: KIDO! IVAN GOMES! VILLANOS! LOS DESTRUCTORES! DEVILS REJECTS! NWA ELITE

 Ivan Gomes vs. Osamu Kido NJPW 8/14/76

PAS: Gomes is a legendary Vale Tudo fighter who both fought and trained with Carlson Gracie. Very little footage of him exists and this is a Different Style Fight with Kido. This was a worked shoot, and more of an interesting bit of historic footage then a great match, with Kido eating a lot of head kicks and eventually getting choked out with a guillotine. I would love to see Gomes in some actual Vale Tudo fights and I have to keep an eye on this youtube page.

MD: I don't have much to say about the specifics of the match. It's more that it exists at all, and of course, the general sense that if something like this does exist in the 70s, what else happened that we haven't seen along these lines and that might exist on tape? It's a whole style of wrestling that we barely have any of until years later. Some of the shots that do land were pretty great, at least. Hopefully we get more along these lines.

Villanos (III/IV/V) vs. Los Destructores (Tony Arce/Vulcano/Rocco Valente) AAA 3/5/95

PAS: These are a pair of great lucha rudo trios and on paper you would expect a brawl, but this was a title match and was worked mostly scientifically. We get some cool matwork exchanges and rope running in the first couple of falls, Villanos are super skilled and it is fun to watch Los Destructores try to match them hold for hold. At the end of the segunda Villano IV hits this fast northern lights suplex and damages his neck. The third fall has the Destructores working him over angering his brothers and heating up the third fall. It never really breaks down into a total brawl, and I really hate the double pin ending in lucha, however this was a cool chance to see great luchadores do something a bit unexpected.

MD: Just about everything you could want out of a trios titles match. Just understand that it's a title match and it's worked like a title match. Therefore, it's not even close to everything you'd want from a Villanos vs Destructores match. The primera was technical and sound, very smooth, with that sort of escalation from pairing to pairing you like to see. Everyone got time. While nothing was breathtaking, everything worked. It ended cleverly with the bottom dropping out and Villanos pinballing into one another, allowing for a triple team. For such a logical sort of spot, it felt pretty fresh to me. The segunda kept that escalation going and was full of motion, with things never wearing out their welcome. It ended with the Villanos working like a well-oiled machine only for disaster to strike as Villano IV crushed his own head on a Northern Lights suplex, which is again, not a specific spot that I can think of seeing too many times, but carried the narrative for most of the rest of the match. He fought on but had to start the tercera and just got crushed by the Destructores, a great selling job as the fans more and more desperately wanted him to get out of the ring. Eventually it happened and they rolled into a big comeback until he was recovered enough (though still sluggish and selling) to move into a lot of finishing stretch near-falls, a few dives, and a final pairing with a really good visual on a double pin (which feels like a consolation prize, but what are you going to do?). It was a title match so it never became an over the top brawl (though the Villanos were pretty heated in their final comeback, for good reason), but it was loose enough that the Destructores really got to rudo it up in the back half. Otherwise, like I said, it was pretty much everything you could want from a title match that played it mostly straight, clever in multiple places and overall well-executed.

Devil's Rejects (Iceberg/Shaun Tempers/Azrael/Tank) vs. NWA Elite (Kory Chavis/Jeff Lewis/Phil Shatter/Abomination) NWA Anarchy 6/23/07

PAS: I wrote a long review of this match in my book Way of the Blade (buy it now on Amazon),  and have recorded an upcoming podcast on this match for my Way of the Blade podcast with both of the evil stewards of these teams Rev. Dan Wilson and Jeff G. Bailey. So I have said my piece. It was super hard to track down, and Rev. Dan has placed it on Youtube for all to see. NWA Anarchy is a real footage blind spot, it is clear that there are plenty of classics to be excavated. This is a heel versus heel War Games, with two psychos leading their respective crew of lunatics into battle, it has blood, huge uncalled for bumps by enormous men, a showdown between two untrained monsters, Phil Shatter looking like prime Scott Steiner and much more. It is a goddamn delight and everyone should watch it, buy my book to read me praise it more, and keep your ears peeled for the podcast. 

MD: This is one I've heard about and read about but never actually had the chance to see. It's just a perfectly balanced War Games, the mix of story and moments and spots and blood and violence and spectacle. More than anything, it creates a sense of mood, which is what you want from every match you see, but something you absolutely need in a match beyond. Multiple times in this thing, you get a sense of inevitability or dread or awe. Case in point, the first five minutes with Chavis holding an advantage over Tempers. It's unquestionable, but you know it's fleeting, on borrowed time. Likewise, later on when Lewis is kept out of the ring for long seconds; when he flies in around the barbed wire off the top of the cage, it's a great moment since it's full of daring and surprise, but you can feel the encroaching futility because the numbers game was about to be restored. The match succeeds at so many things: Tank's return, an absolute Shatter showcase, Abomination destroying everyone in the center of the ring, the escalation of weapons (fork, weapon of destruction, sword of screams) and blood, and of course, Wilson and Bailey getting involved, which is visceral and satisfying (the whole world seem to shift on that missed dropkick), but also doesn't distract from the wrestlers when it came to the finish, which is honestly some of the most restraint ever shown in a match like this.

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Lucha Worth Watching: More 1999 Mr. Niebla!

Mr. Niebla/Brazo de Plata/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Apolo Dantes/Shocker CMLL 9/10/99

ER: This is mostly a big rudo mugging to set up next week's tag, and it works. The entire primera is the rudos stomping down the tecnicos, ending when Dantes gave Porky a headlock takeover and kept choking him (while the others stomped him) until Porky started holding his chest and shaking. I love matches where Porky works in a heart attack spot. Babe Richard can't do much for Porky until the stretcher arrives, so all he does is pull Porky's waistband away from his belly. "Give this man some space, his pants are too tight!" The rudos kick at Porky to roll him out of the ring, and he lands hard on his side. Shocker was great here, breaking out big things like a double springboard elbowdrop, big missile dropkicks, and avoiding Niebla like the plague. The second Niebla would gain any bit of ground Shocker would hightail it out of the ring. V3 was the real thug of the beatdown, walking into frame and punching the nearest tecnico, yanking at Atlantis's mask, and holding guys for Shocker to hit with missile dropkicks. I loved how V3 would hang in to the last second, bumping himself for the dropkick instead of letting Niebla go a split second early. When the tecnicos make their big comeback  (nearly 75% of the way into the match, which had been completely rudo dominated up until then) it's really fun, with Atlantis/V3 pairing off and Niebla finally getting Shocker. Niebla hits a really nice moonsault off the top to the floor on him, and Atlantis/V3 give us a nice sneak preview of their huge mask match just a half year away, with V3 barely kicking out of a smooth rana and eventually getting caught in la Atlantida.

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis vs. Villano III/Shocker CMLL 9/17/99

ER: Great, bloody tag match, the kind where the tecnicos win by default when the refs stop the damn match due to the tecnicos getting their asses beaten too violently. This is a super libre tag, and the Atlantis/Niebla team certainly bleed enough to make it so. Niebla is sporting killer all red gear that I don't think I've ever seen, and after this massacre it's clear that he should have debuted all white gear instead. This is a real mean Shocker performance. He is right on Niebla and gives him a helluva battering, at one point punching him several times right in the ear before Niebla could get back in the ring, always running at him with boots (including his great running full extension high kick), always beating at Niebla with pure scorn. Niebla makes a nice brief comeback, ducking a tandem clothesline and coming backing with a well timed tope en reversa, and a tope that knocks Shocker into the seats. But this was about the rudos being out for all of the blood, and both Niebla and Niebla give us a couple of great lucha bloodlettings. At one point Niebla is hung upside down in the corner and the rudos just use Atlantis as a battering ram, running from the opposite side of the ring, over and over, with Niebla and Atlantis only given mercy when a ref takes the Atlantis battering ram and the thing gets thrown out. After the match Shocker beats Niebla to the floor, booting right in the head several times. Shocker looked like a real monster here, total rudo asshole. It was the kind of beating you might see in a violent apuestas match, not the kind of beating to set up an apuestas match, and that's fine by me.

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New Footage Friday: Brazos 25th Anniversary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXMKL-Iy2Yk&feature=youtu.be

Escorpion Dorado Jr./Corazon De Dragon vs. Super Halcon Jr./Bestial

MD: It's been a while since I've seen undercard lucha, especially undercard indy lucha from 2001. Not a ton to say here. One-fall opening match. They didn't do anything big and most of what registered was carried by Bestial and Halcon's rudo antics. The crowd was into it, but more into booing them than cheering the tecnicos. Some things looked good. Some things looked sluggish. The only build to the finish was Halcon launching a cheapshot after a handshake and as a match, it probably could have used a bit more of a beatdown after that.


Super Nono/Super Kepler vs. Enrique Vertiz/El Cazador

MD: Ñoño had a big kid gimmick. He was definitely young but maybe not as young as luchawiki would have us believe (though hey, maybe). I thought he had the act down pretty well and the kids were into it to the point where they were chanting for him and not against the rudos. Cazador was a bit more into the match than Vertiz who was mostly bemused by everything (completely no-selling an outside-the-ring wedgie for instance). Kepler did not look smooth including some of the weirder stilted armdrags you'll see. If you had gotten the rudos from the first match and let them work with Ñoño, you might have had something here.


Pirata Morgan Jr. vs. Dash

MD: This was the first of a bunch of Luchas 2000 vs XLAW matches. Anyway, the first two minutes were pretty good. Morgan hit a Dropkick followed by a tope right to start and then had a string of fairly nice looking offense (press up facebuster, somersault senton, etc.). It got rougher after that. Dash looked like he was wrestling underwater and just seemed to lack the strength to get Morgan up at times (which could have been on Morgan too, I guess, though he showed plenty of effort elsewhere, like his flip bump on a clothesline). They were definitely not on the same page with some of the spots and holds. The run-in at the end was at least high energy.


Brazo De Platino/Super Brazo vs. El Pietir/Dolar

MD: Pretty satisfying mauling at times. Brazos were full on rudo but beloved, to the point that when they try to take a powder up the stairs, the fans inspire them to come back. Some perfectly fine 405 Live stuff combined with handshake goofing. Platino's clap slaps/punches were fun but would probably get old quick. Dolar had a presence and really ran into the corner on one whip late in the match. Perfectly acceptable fat indy guy. Platino and Super Brazo could do this stuff in their sleep but it's still a good, charismatic act.

MD: There was a bit with Gringo Loco and some young luchador where they did a lot in a short period of time and Gringo got clowned which was effective but not really much to write about. It felt like if they'd done a big indy show in 1998 Calgary and gave Teddy Hart a showcase or something.


El Brazo Jr./Brazo De Oro Jr./Brazo De Plata Jr. vs. Crazy Boy/Mike Segura/Genesis

MD: Totally different vibe to the show once we hit this point. The entrances are more elaborate. There's more of a buzz. The Brazos are out with football gear and ski masks to start, with weapons to bear. The XLaw guys cut a promo and then the violence begins. Amusingly, they cut away from a lawn dart iconoclasm onto a chair in the middle of the ring to focus on some floor brawling. That set the tone pretty well. They kept things moving here with a lot of creative weapon usage that didn't have overly elaborate set ups (except for the chair assisted moonsault in the dive train but that you can forgive, and the final table spot but at least that had a soundtrack). As with a lot of this show so far, especially with the XLAW vs Luchas 2000 stuff, the rudo/tecnico dynamic was a bit off. The crowd was behind the Brazos but the XLAW guys got the big comeback/momentum shift off the Brazos going to the well once too often with a whip into a chair in the corner. The crowd got behind them during the mauling that followed though. Like with any of this stuff, the craziest bump isn't always the most spectacular looking one. Crazy Boy took a clothesline over the top and hit a chair on the apron on the way out which just felt nuts. The one-on-one exchanges towards the end maybe went on a little too long and broke the tone of what had come before but there was nothing innately wrong with them. The wrestling was all good. It just felt out of place. By that point the genie had been long out of the bottle and they couldn't just go back to order after all the chaos; maybe if they had fall breaks, I guess. It was all very 2001 post-ECW Emulation with unprotected chair shots and violence on women so inconsequential that the camera didn't even follow it and some worked shoot stuff post-match (I guess?), but that can be good for you in small doses now and again.

PAS: This was fun without actually being particularly good. They wandered around and smashed each other with things, and sometimes the finish ended up being worth the set up, and sometimes it wasn't. The stuff that resembled traditional lucha brawling was the best, I really liked the bleeding and the dive train, and the ECW prop stuff didn't work as well. Segura is the biggest pro on the XLAW team, and his lucha stuff looked the best, Jr. Brazo's were fun, although it probably made sense for their careers to ditch the Jr. gimmicks and go with what they did.

Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/Brazo De Platino vs. Villano III/IV/V

PAS: I love the idea of Hatfield vs. McCoys wrestling family feuds, Armstrongs vs. Fullers is really the only other one I can really remember which spanned generations like the Villanos and the Brazos. Imagine my glee when my boy Rob lets me know about a previously unseen Villanos vs. Brazos match. This is exactly what you want, expect and love about a match between these two families. Lots of blood pooling in forehead scars, great looking wild brawling, a couple of Super Porky miscommunication spots and all six guys looking like the dazed survivors of a tour bus crash. Porky is just iconic, I loved how he worked in the splash-his-partners comedy spots into non-comedic violent spots in a brawl, and the highlights of the match where him just standing and trading hard shots with Villano 3. A worthy addition to this iconic rivalry.

MD: This was shaping up to be a great, hate-filled, bloody brawl, and certainly there's a big history of those between these families but I'm not sure that was the right move to follow the last match, especially after the ceremony. I think this would have worked better if they started with more shtick and then built to the violence. There was plenty of room to transition that way. That's the problem with watching these things in context sometimes. That said, it was a really good brawl until the finish when La Dinastia Alvarado came in to battle in full force. Porky's physical timing was amazing as always. At the end of the first fall, he was masterful at trying to portray an attempt at stopping himself from jumping off the second rope after the Villanos switched up who he was going to land on. Too often guys in that situation would just jump. I was really into where it was heading with Villano III directing traffic but then everyone rushed the ring and that was that.

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Lucha Worth Watching: 1999 Mr. Niebla

Mr. Niebla/Atlantis/Lizmark Sr. vs. Villano III/Shocker/Mr. Mexico CMLL 8/27/99

ER: I loved this one. This was 9 minutes at most, a full 3 falls, and had so much crammed into it that it felt like they went 20. The rudo team was firing on all cylinders, with Shocker looking like the best wrestler in the world here. This match alone would have amped me up for the Shocker/Niebla mask match, as you had Niebla as this valiant tecnico who at one point glides through the ropes to the floor to go after a baddie, while Shocker does nothing but kick ass. I said we have a bunch of great happenings coming one after the other, everybody here getting their chance to shine. Niebla is a great tecnico, filled with energy, tons of charisma and big movements; Atlantis is right there with him for excitement, and we got a tremendous sneak preview of Atlantis/Villano III with Villano battering him with a quick punch combo; Shocker hits among the best corner clothesline I've seen, running hard into every single tecnico like he was Stan Hansen, and brings out a punch combo of his own; Mr. Mexico has a fun crazy guy energy and does these two really weird blatant prat fall bumps, doing these big swan dives without stumbling or anything. There aren't any dives, and the caidas end all very simply, and the meat of the caidas focused on violent strikes and rudos doing heavy sentons instead of flashy offense. The finish sees the tecnicos locking in la estrella, with Niebla aiming to rana Shocker into the middle of it...except Shocker powerbombs the shit out of Niebla, right into Lizmark at an awful angle. This was a damn efficient use of 9 minutes, total greatest hits collection.


Mr. Niebla/El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Dr. Wagner Jr./Shocker/Mr. Mexico CMLL 9/3/99

ER: Sadly the segunda is clipped out of this one (which had all of the rudo revenge to complement the primera's tecnico rampage), but it's still a primo lineup. This is merely a snack, quick DQ and highspot matches to build to bigger things, but these are all guys I love seeing work in quick environments. Mr. Mexico is a great expressive bumper, Wagner is a true rudo, and Shocker is this great sneak attack artist. That's an awesome combo for a rudo team. Shocker kind of uses Mexico as his human shield, and with his fast bumps and bug eyed expressions Mr. Mexico is a fantastic human shield, meanwhile Shocker is the one cheering it on from the floor and coming in with kicks to the back of the head of downed tecnicos. The tecnicos whip through some great spots, a fantastic quebrada from Niebla, a big Niebla somersault senton off the apron that the camera mostly misses, Santo coming off the top with a cool Hart Attack lariat. Wagner and Santo felt like the big main event elephant in the room, as they went at it the whole time. Wagner dropped Santo early with a big powerslam, and peppers in stiff kicks wherever he can, and the finish run between the two is really cool: Santo goes for the camel clutch and Wagner stands up with Santo on his back, running him backwards into the turnbuckles to loosen him, then plants him with the Wagner driver for the DQ. I loved Negro Casas leaping in and covering Santo's body from further attack, before even thinking about breaking up a pin. Casas understands those personal details and it's the kind of thing that elevates a match like this.

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New Footage Friday: Satanico! Perro! Lawler! Fishman! Ringo! Taue! Air Paris! V3! Dr. Death!

Perro Aguayo/Fishman/Satanico vs. Villano III/El Jalisco/Ringo Mendoza CMLL 1983?

PAS: My god is this a whirlwind. We have six tremendous lucha brawlers just ripping into each other, and it keeps building and building. Cubsfan guessed this match was 1983, which makes this some of the earliest Satanico footage we have, and my god is he brilliant, he throws these multiple punch combos with such preciseness and force, it is like watching Sugar Ray Robinson footage. It is a great contrast to the more unhinged and wild brawling of Perro, Perro and Ringo Mendoza are mostly paired up in this match, they had two apuestas matches in the 70s which must have been classics, because this felt like an all time rivalry, by the end of the match they are both covered in blood on their knees just whirling shots at each other.  Don't know much about Jalisco, but he takes a bump to the floor in the match where it looks like he tears his ACL, but gets back into to fight more, so it must have just been a great sell. Villano 3 spends most of the match in an incredible boxing war with Satanico, and I loved his little dances before unloading shots. The match ends with a low blow, but there are six minutes or so of post match brawling where it gets so intense that it feels like the crowd is going to rush the ring. The point of this project is look at all kinds of footage, a lot of time we unearth fun curiosities, this however was a stone cold classic.

MD: This felt evolutionary. I wouldn't necessarily call it revolutionary, as you get the sense these guys were having matches this good all the time. Part of why I love wrestling is the structure, the patterns, the ritual, and that exists nowhere as much as in lucha. There are things you just don't see a lot of, whether you're watching a match from 86, 96, or 06. One of these are two distinct rudo beatdown segments. You just don't see it much. This had that, with the beatdown that opens the match an all timer. All three rudos absolutely shined, with Perro's boots the 1983 equivalent of Suplex City, with Fishman's punches more memorable than anything else he's done in any other match I've seen him in, and Satanico just holding court as the true king of wrestling villainy. Throughout this Ringo is sympathetic working from underneath and Villano III is tough as nails as the guy wanting to get in and save his partner.

When I say evolutionary, though, it's because not everything has been calcified yet. You still get the sense of reasons behind things we've always just taken for granted. For the first comeback, It's Villano III in there and it's a bunch of the classic rudo miscommunication that they've been doing for decades and that you can imagine in your mind just with those two words alone, but there's an element of danger and desperation that I've never seen. It's not just a given. There's still a chance that the rudos are going to win out with the numbers game and Villano III will get pulled back under. It eventually becomes ritual but here it, the element of lucha which however enjoyable has the least amount of actual struggle, felt just a bit more believable than usual. That was a testament to the rudos, to the tecnicos, to the viciousness of the beatdown, and yes, to the punctuation of Ringo just unleashing on Perro after the momentum shifts.

Even the stuff that feels a bit more out of place in a war like this, like the Estrella-rana combo after the second comeback in the tercera, works because of how battered Perro and Ringo were by that point and the way they sell their exhaustion as they move towards each other in the center of the star. Everything builds towards the end-of-match fouls and they feel less like a means to an end but meaningful ends in and of themselves.

ER: Matt and Phil covered this one before I had a chance (my family's Christmas is today due to sister working on Christmas, so I'm holed up in my parents' bathroom typing about pro wrestling to avoid their mockery), but I watched this last night before bed and my god is this era lucha as heated as any Mid South brawl you've seen. There's a vocal contingent that says they don't get lucha, but what is not to understand about a match like this? This is 20 minutes of fists flying and men taking dangerously fast bumps to the floor, before running back in to send more fists. Satanico is in his early 30s here, has his hair styled like Richard Dawson, takes at least 6 lightning fast bumps to the floor, and has the exact same hunched posture as 70 year old Satanico has. But here's Perro Aguayo also throwing fists and flying to the floor, and here's a luchador - Jalisco - I don't really know, taking a mammoth bump to the floor with a knee sell so convincing that someone could say "oh yeah this is the match where Jalisco blew out his knee and never was the same again" and I'd say "sure makes sense"; This is the greatest Fishman performance I've seen (the way he would square up and fire shots to the gut and collarbones!), the greatest Ringo Mendoza performance I've seen (I don't think I've ever seen such a majestic fired up tecnico performance from him, the perfect combination of tecnico intensity and peak athleticism), Villano III wrestles like Villano III, and the whole thing just washes over you in a perfect bath of dickhead relentless rudos and walking tall tecnicos. The striking is so tight, and yet so passionate that it probably didn't need to be as tight as it was, the message still would have shone through. Perro and Ringo go at it like dogs and leave bleeding, Satanico would fly to the floor and fly back in just as fast to gun for Villano's head, the crowd keeps surging closer and closer to the ring, the whole thing is just gorgeous. This is lucha perfection, the kind of match worked in a universal language with flair that only lucha can provide.


Akira Taue vs. Dr. Death Steve Williams AJPW 6/4/91

PAS: Thumping heavyweight wrestling which is exactly what you want from this match up. Really great Willams performance, he just puts so much pop on everything he does in this match. He does this great sliding dropkick where he just sticks both feet into Taue's ribs and send him flying to the floor, and then works an abdominal stretch by pounding on those ribs. There is a minor key AJPW finish section with some really nasty falling lariats by Taue and a fun near fall where Taue grabbed the rope on the Stampede and got a two count, only to fall to a big stampede for a three. The older I get the less I care about smoothness and both of these guys are rough as sandpaper.

MD: This was a Doc showcase, from the fans chanting along to his music at the beginning to him powering Taue around the ring with the second Oklahoma Stampede attempt (not counting the posting on the floor) that was the finish. Doc felt like a proto-Brock here, just full of energy and explosiveness. Taue was there to take everything, get in position, and bump around for Williams. When he fired back, it was memorable, be it the hundred-hand slap across the ring or the back brain kicks. The finishing stretch was each trading bursts of momentum before Williams won out. The whole thing was an absolute clash of the titans. Size in and of itself doesn't matter any more than speed but the way that these two went at it made it feel larger than life.

ER: I pushed a little extra for this one as Taue is a guy who is weirdly under-represented on Segunda Caida, and that's something that should change. Taue vs. Doc was almost always a once a year singles match, and this is the first time it happened (and the only time it didn't happen as part of the Champion Carnival). So they met up nearly every year after this in the Carnival, including the well known '96 CC Final, so it was a fairly rare match up and one that always happened as some part of big tournament...except for here. It's their only singles match without some kind of stakes, and that's pretty cool. The two shouldn't blend well, and maybe they kind of don't, and that's what makes it fun. Taue's clunkiness is part of his charm and makes his moments of athleticism that much more exciting, and it's fun seeing him take offense because he moves like the only two "How to Move and Stand" models in his life were Giant Baba and Bob Backlund. Seriously, watch when Taue takes a punch or stays standing on a shoulderblock, his butt out/fist cocked stance is pure Backlund, the way he takes suplexes is like Backlund...just a perfect Frankenstein monster of Giant Bob-uh.

I liked how Taue used his falling clothesline a lot here, spamming it as a guaranteed takedown on Doc, as it was a way to actually swing things back to Taue's favor while also still making it feel like he was working underneath the full match. Taue does a lot of simple things here to play into Doc's crazy strength, like just grabbing the best kind of chinlock (tight arm choke while pressing his weight down into Doc's back and shoulders, and also holding tight onto a side headlock. Doc is not someone you want to put in a side headlock, but Taue locking in a snug one actually adds some meaning to Taue eating a back suplex, making it feel like his actual offense was reversed (as opposed to the moments where someone with zero business headlocking Doc was merely doing it for the spot). Doc had some cool punishing slams, and surprised me with a great baseball slide dropkick that sent Taue sprawling to the floor. Taue sprawls better than most wrestlers, there's always at least one limb sticking up in a way that it shouldn't be. Taue reads as a hard guy to lift (another secret about the greatness of Taue), so when Doc press slams out of a pin and Taue goes flying, it comes off like an even greater version of that spot. Doc Stampeding Taue into the ringpost is only more gold, and the nearfall that comes from Taue holding the ropes on a Stampede, falling on top of Doc with a crossbody, fully convinced me it was the finish. Two guys who infrequently met in singles matches, meeting for the first time, just made me want to go back through their half dozen CC matches.


Jerry Lawler vs. Air Paris NAWA 4/18/03

PAS: Really simple, really pleasurable Lawler indy tour match. Weird heel/face structure with Lawler doing sort of heelish mic work at the beginning (insulting a big Air Paris faction in the crowd) but Paris and his manager Bert Prentice working heel in the match. Paris was a highspot guy in NWA Wildside (and in his one WCW match) but was working Memphis heel here, he had a great greasy haired laser tag attendant look, and threw some really great looking punches. Lots of complaining about pulling hair and other fun horseshit. At one point Prentice holds Lawler while Paris wraps a chain around his hand, and instead of Paris accidentally hitting Prentice, the interference actually works!! We did have a Lawler Stone Cold Stunner, which is my least favorite Lawler thing ever (outside of the young girls of course), but otherwise this was spot on.

ER: We've gone through and watched a ton of Lawler indy matches from the 2000s, and this is just more of that same fun Lawler formula. Lawler can have this match in his sleep, so a capable opponent will always lift things, and Paris was a fun jerk here. He was bigger than his WCW appearances a couple years prior (when it looked like he and Styles were actually about to be a pushed new TV team...in the very last week of WCW), and he's dressed like an undercover cop at a rave, so it's fitting when he's complaining about hair pulls and tights pulls to eventually justify his own cheating. Lawler is always capable of surprising me, in mixing up his formula and catering it to specific crowds and opponents; here he surprised me by absolutely leveling Paris with a standing clothesline out of a blocked hiptoss attempt. Lawler is not someone I think about when I think about guys with a good short arm clothesline, but it shouldn't shock me that he uncorked a beauty. Lawler punches Paris around the ring, with Paris eventually coming back by punching Lawler in the back of his head. It's also no surprise when guys tend to "punch up" when facing Lawler. I recently watched a Lawler/Aldo Montoya match where it looked like Montoya was trying to break Lawler's jaw, and here Paris throws several knuckle shots right at Lawler's eyebrow. We get Paris choking Lawler with a chain behind the ref's back, and I'm always going to love a chain in a Lawler match. Lawler knows how to work around a chain, whether it's his chain or responding to someone else's chain. We build to both guys eating backdrops, Lawler punching Prentice off the apron (with Prentice taking an impressive bump for a guy cosplaying as the Mayor of Flavor Town), a strap removal spot where Lawler request Paris stop advancing on him, and then we really do get the chain spot to beat all chain spots. Phil mentioned it, but the whole spot is drawn out the exact way you've seen it countless times: Prentice gets on the apron and holds Lawler prone, Paris theatrically wraps the chain around his fist, gives his fist a big kiss, rears back...and just punches Lawler in the head. Prentice hops off the apron. I made an audible "HUH?" type sound. This is like when Matt saw a match where someone hit an axe handle off the middle buckle to a downed opponent, a true in the wild rarity.

MD: Air Paris is always going to be the unfortunate answer to a trivia question, but he put on a good show here. Lawler's opening mic act was ten years out of date (even for this crowd) and Prentice's act half-hearted and probably fifteen. None of that was a certainty because Lawler as of a few years ago could still spend the first ten minutes of a twenty minute recorded match on the mic and you wouldn't mind it at all, but here it was all too homophobia driven and the fans only seemed partially into it.

Paris did have his own cheering section which he used well as a prop throughout the match. There was nothing 'air' about him here, instead playing up the mic work insinuating that if he beat Lawler, he'd get a shot at the following Raw. He was the upstart jerk, playing up every won exchange or bodyslam as if he won the lottery (through skill, not luck). He kept the volume up high and presented himself as an entertaining foil for Lawler. The strap-dropping felt particular satisfying even after only a few minutes of it. Pure formula, but so long as you lean into it, it almost always works and they leaned into it here.

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New Footage Friday: WCW Festival de Lucha

ER: This is one of those shows that I've heard about for 20 years, one of those shows that someone on a message board would pretend to have a copy of, cause a stir, and of course never actually follow through on getting the footage to anyone. It's one of those shows where people just wanted to see it more and more because they thought they would never get to see it, which is the best kind of Hidden Gems gift. And, excitingly, Super Boy is now officially on the WWE Network. Blessed. We get the fantastic mission-front set with traditional dancing, great pueblo set, ring valets all in traditional garb, and what sounds like a loud crowd who is into this. I'm there with them.

TOMK: It’s about time this showed up. You would have thought they would do this in September as some sort of Hispanic Heritage Month deal…but I’m not complaining about October.

MD: I'm dealing with some shifting watching situations that make annotations tricky currently (as in, I watched this show on a commuter bus over a few days), so the comments I provide will be general. Hopefully, Phil and Eric have the heavy lifting here.

I'm not going to say "Nitro lucha" is my least favorite lucha but it's certainly not my favorite. So many things that I've learned to love about lucha libre just aren't present. My remembrance with them is that you didn't really get memorable captain feuding or character driven pair-offs or momentum shifts with builds to comebacks. Clearly defined segments. Dives as means to a bigger end instead of ends in and of themselves.

It was distilled one-fall Lucha with some of the wrong things distilled.

That said, this entire show was a blast. So much of that was due to the setting, the dancers, the fact that they really just embraced this stuff instead of having it off to the side as a sideshow. On this show, these guys felt like stars. Top to bottom, too. You had Disco Inferno main eventing for maybe the only time of his career up until that point, and he felt natural in that role. Jericho felt larger than life, like a Buddy Rose type figure, and almost all the more charismatic or memorable luchadors felt like big deals.

And that was most of them. The talent pool here was great. You had a lot of the usual suspects: Villano III and V, La Parka, Psicosis, Juvi, Halloween and Damien, Hector Garza, Super Calo, Konnan and Rey, and the WCW contingent with Finlay, Smiley, Swinger/Lane etc. but you also had guys that didn't really show up in WCW like Felino, Pirata Morgan, Texano, Rey, Sr., and freaking Super Boy. Maybe coolest of all (not as cool as Super Boy, but...) we had new Blitzkrieg matches, and a bunch of unique pairings that you just didn't think you'd get.

Everything basically worked, from Jimmy Hart's Boricua first family to Jericho's foreign legion, to the fact guys seemed to trade between being rudos and tecnicos depending on the match. There was some sense of overkill or a lack of agenting. For example, I really liked the Juventud Guerrera, Pirata Morgan & Psicopata vs. Hector Garza, Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr. There was a pretty key story in there with a big fight for the top rope rana through the pairings and ultimately, a bigger fight for the Juvi driver, but in the next match on the taping, someone hit a top rope rana almost instantly, like it was nothing, and then I think a match later, someone hit a Juvi driver, of all things, just as a move. Even if these matches weren't all taped in the order they'd be filmed, that would have been a long term problem. That's not to say the matches didn't vary at all. Some had more thorough beatdowns (Especially the Damien/Halloween ones, I think), and others more comedy, but the general tenor of Nitro style lucha is "good action" and that's a lot of what this was.

Other random thoughts: Psicosis might have been the best masked rudo of his specific generation (guys born in the early 70s). He's so emotive, such a dick, able to play to the crowd, but also able to base so well and hit so much stuff. Juvi just really got it too. He integrated a lot more of US heel mannerisms and it was a good mix. I'm not super familiar with Salsero, but I'm amazed he didn't get himself more of a job out of this. He was playing a unique role and would have probably gotten over on a weekly basis in WCW as a clowning, joke-spot guy that could still go. Lots of clotheslines and DDTs on the show. It's a joy to watch the differences in the selling though: Blitzkrieg folds in half, Hector sails across the ring, and yeah, Disco makes sure to flail sell for quite a few seconds. There was at least one VIII decapitation of someone too. I thought Konnan worked surprisingly well in his trios match. I don't remember him working nearly that spritely in the late 90s. He also gave a lot for Disco who was giving his all. Heel Big Wiggle era Norman Smiley was a lot of fun and Jericho as a corner man made it all the better. I've seen rudo Rey Sr a few times lately (had mostly seen him as a tecnico) and he's just a great stooging pug base. I wanted to see Finlay, Blitzkrieg and Super Boy against literally everyone else on the show. I'm glad we had a few more matches than listed because it would have been a crime not to see Finlay in this setting.

I guess my biggest takeaway from it all is that I wish it had gone on for a while. 


Silver King/Venum/Kendo vs. Super Boy/Villano V/Felino

PAS: This would probably land in the lower half of WCW lucha trios, but it was still a ton of fun to see different guys work in this environment. Kendo's stuff fit in great in the sped up WCW lucha style, and his big tope looked awesome. Super Boy and Felino both looked great too, Felino was fully in his fastest luchador in the world prime, and Super Boy is an amazing short fat agile revelation. I have no idea why this didn't at least get them both WCWSN filler gigs. Venum Black looked not ready for prime time, he was tentative, and awkward, and even his big dive felt unsure.

TOMK: The EMLL announcers used to talk about Felino as one of fastest wrestlers in the world but you kind of forget how fast he could make an exchange look. Not sure if he’s actually “stop watch fast” or just knows how to make every move look sudden. It is a blast to watch Felino and Silver King working their fast exchanges. I think Super Boy and Silver King tried to do a ridiculous exchange near the end that had a 1/50 chance of working but if it did it would have blown every one’s mind and they were completely prepared for it possibly not working. Venum Black may have blown his leg on his dive near end.

ER: The Felino/King sections of this were really hot, and if this match just had their cool trips and ankle picks it would have been worth it. All of the Felino stuff was really great, and then you have Super Boy coming in and being the fast flippy fat guy who looks even more awesome taking falls, because his beautiful round belly looks great on the mat and his shirt always exposes it. It makes him look like when you'd KO King Hippo by punching him and making his pants fall off. Venum looked a step behind everyone but he did hit a wild dive at the end (which Tom thinks may have wrecked his leg). I have no clue what King and Super Boy were going for at the end, but it doesn't happen, and it was fun to see them pick up the pieces. I saw Super Boy work a flea market in the early 2000s, and he did a huge dive, crushed the two chairs in the row in front of me, and landed on my leg. It was great. 

ER: I am LOVING the Jimmy Hart Festival de First Family. What a great bunch of weird dudes, with American Wild Child mugging the whole time, Psicopata dragging around a blow up doll, and Pierroth yelling on the stick. I love Pierroth, and this late 90s period of Pierroth was really great. This was a stable I would have killed to see go up against the LWO. I'm just picturing Pierroth whipping everyone with his belt and hitting hard lariats on everyone. This is great.  

TOMK: Jimmy Hart comes out with his stable, Ricky Santana, Fidel Sierra, Pierroth, American Wild Child and Psicopata. Holy shit why couldn’t this have been a regular WCW stable. Pierroth gets the mic and explains that he is going to wear the Puerto Rican colors. And fuck it Pierroth really is the guy who I didn’t get at first but now when I see old footage absolutely can’t take my eyes off of him in a ring.

La Parka/Super Calo/Salsero vs. Halloween/Damien/El Mosco

PAS: Total fairgrounds lucha match, lots of classic shtick you can see at any small arena around Mexico, except performed by masters of the craft like Familia de Tijuana and Parka. Great stuff by Salsero too, who turned every move into a shake of the hip, and threw out a crazy top rope quebrada to the floor. Loved everyone missing an in ring dive, all of the stuff with the Kendo stick and Parka making the rudos dance to his tune. Usually WCW lucha wasn't this traditional, so it was a fun look into some stylistic differences between the matches.

TOMK: Salsero? Salsero? Of all the guys they brought in Salsero. I guess Salsero and Kendo come as package. But why would you want that package? For a little dancing followed by in ring tope and slapping rudos confusion comedy spots, Rayo is right there. This is mostly a match made by Halloween/Damien heel miscommunication spots and pretty much they are absolute kings of building a match around that.

ER: Damn this was fun. You show me this list of 6 names and Salsero would not be the guy I'd expect to be featured the most, but here we are. This whole match was full of schtick, and it was super welcome. And the pairings were all real fun, starting with Mosco and Calo. Mosco has a big high spinning heel kick, and later takes an amusing bump over the top off a Salsero dropkick. Salsero got to work a bunch of classic schtick, getting the rudos to attack each other (loved FdT ganging up on Mosco and Mosco swinging a chair at them), and boy did I not expect him hitting a gigantic top rope quebrada (to seemingly no reaction, on a show getting loud ass reactions from everything, that's weird). Halloween and Damien looked as good as usual, loved them getting outsmarted by La Parka at nearly every turn, and La Parka was so great at leaning into every single strike. I loved Parka's long  dance evasion from Halloween, ending in a perfectly timed mean slap from Halloween, and Parka was running so fast into Damien's corner boots, catching them right in the neck. This really got to unfold in a great way, and while it didn't hit anywhere near the peaks of WCW lucha sprints, it had a nice traditional charm that was felt throughout. 

  

Rey Mysterio Sr./Villano III/El Texano vs. Blitzkrieg/Piloto Suicida/Raul

PAS: Damn is Villano 3 a beast in this match, just a violent lucha machine, hard shots, great looking DDT, internal organ flattening senton, just a monster. Your tecnico team felt like a green tecnico team being carried by awesome rudos, and we had awesome rudos. I am surprised Blitzkrieg was as subdued as he was in this match, my memories of him were always just a lunatic breaking out crazy highspots, here he wasn't much crazier then Raul (whoever that was). Excited about the run in setting up a killer rudo battle later on the show.

TOMK: Who is Raul? Is that Zorro? Facially kind of looks it. I thought Zorro was a tad taller than that. Anyways this is a fucking Texano showcase match as he just beats the fuck out of everyone and throws himself around bumping and setting up face comebacks. Jimmy Hart’s team runs in at the end attacking both faces and heels and we get an awesome tease of Pierroth vs. Texano. Is Psicopata actually Mando at this point? He doesn’t really move like Mando…If WCW only had been willing to air this show we might have gotten a WCWSN main event Psicopata/Bad Street vs. Psycho/Killer and that would have turned everything around.

ER: Damn check out this Rey Mysterio Sr. showcase, what a brute who knew how to make green fliers looks formidable. He's someone who throws in extras, fills time nicely, a guy who needs to be spoken about in the same sentences as other era workrate lucha gods. I like how he throws in an extra spin while getting into position for a Piloto Suicida armdrag, and on the floor he eats a rana and purposely throws himself into the legs of the guardrail to make the bump look better. Oh but then you had his excellent rudo partners looking like all time asskickers. Villano III gets Blitzkrieg a WCW contract by crushing his ribs with a top rope senton, and Texano was the most explosive guy in the match throwing strikes as hard as his bumps. The thing falls apart in absolutely glorious fashion, I mean three tecnico dives that all miss in increasingly spectacular fashion, terrible catches and botched dives and the most incredibly ugly trainwreck you've seen. Raul (yeah who the hell IS Raul?) slips and dives head first straight into the floor, Piloto apparently pilots the plane on the cover of License to Ill, and Blitzkrieg takes a flip dive into nothing when Rey whiffs. I was so damn into this rudo team, but this ending was too funny. Post match Pierroth run-in made everybody in the match look like a lesser luchador though. It's unfair to people in the match to let Pierroth come in and beat the shit out of people as the last visual. 

Juventud Guerrera/Pirata Morgan/Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Hector Garza/Konnan

PAS: Juvy/Psicosis/Pirata Morgan is a absolute killer rudo team, and it is really cool to see all three of them have matchups with Rey Jr., all great exchanges worked at a high level. Konnan is also working super hard on this show. This was his big opportunity to headline a show, and he was delivering at the peak of his abilities (admittedly a low peak). Run in was fun, although weird they had run ins at two different matches.

TOMK: You forget how amazing Juventud was. Just the entire fucking package, has the crowd in the palm of his hand, able to do the workrate midcard lucha spotfest that was asked of everyone while also just slowing it down to get little things across. It is WCW, so of course they are going to do two matches with invading foreigner heel teams attacking Mexican faces and rudos for a finish. The heel stable of Finlay, Lenny Lane, Jericho, Kaz, Norman Smiley, Chavo and Johnny Swinger is bizarre but would have also liked to see that as a regular WCW stable. Well maybe not Swinger.

ER: Damn now look at THIS rudo team! This is definitely the high profile main event of episode 1, because that's a big time tecnico team too. Tecnicos were fine but this was a rudo bump showcase. Psicosis and Juvy are among the greatest most explosive bumpers of all time, and this was them compressed and burning bright. The way Juvy takes whip snap somersault bumps looks so great, he rolls up tight like Samus and just bounces off that mat. Psicosis bumps to the floor, onto his head, onto his stomach onto the floor, onto his head again, just dude being who he is. Even Pirata takes a totally preposterous somersault back bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the apron; the bump felt completely disconnected from the dropkick, sending him the totally opposite direction of where he should have bumped, but the dude somersaulted to the floor so who gives a fuck. No padding on the floor, no logic to the bump, but Morgan is here taking a hard bump to the floor on this taping.

The run in was totally badass and I LOVE the invading foreigners stable!!! What a kick ass gang of everybody-but-Mexicans. They're wearing light wash jeans with cuts ranging from "dad" to "Kaz Hayashi's Jncos", black sleeveless crop tops, woven belts, just throwing stomps and beating ass. This is what the stunt doubles would have looked like if there had been a Backstreet Boys Movie. It's so perfect. You can already see the hierarchy of the stable, with Lane, Swinger, and Kaz being the underlings who would actually get their asses kicked in trios matches before either Finlay or Jericho came out to cheat for them to win. Also Tom isn't excited for Johnny Swinger? Swinger is a guy who ate some of the worst beatings on 1997 WCW TV, he's the perfect guy to be the lowest totem pole guy in a stable. Somebody needs to take the ugliest beatings while the top guys escape. I hate that I never got to see this stable until now, and not more.


Juventud Guerrera/Felino/El Mosco vs. Piloto Suicida/Salsero/Raul

TOMK: Is El Mosco really wearing “Live Drug Free” on the back of his tights?” Really?

ER: This was pretty messy, and probably the weakest of the show so far. Felino doesn't vibe really well with Piloto, Salsero breaks out a nice tope con giro and STILL gets no reaction (his dives are like the only ones that get met with silence, it's like people enjoy his shtick but then get mad when he breaks out actual impressive highflying), but this is 100% a showcase for Juventud. Juvy is a genuine frontrunner for best chops in wrestling history. That sentence is not hyperbole. Juvy's chops are the fastest and feel like the best representation of the term "knife edge". His chops absolutely slice and hit harder than the chops of men twice his size. He does have the curse of overly visible frustration when things go wrong, and things can go wrong with a green face team, but there is still gold here. Juvy hits a real hard missile dropkick and Piloto takes a nice classic rolling lucha bump through the ropes, Juvy drops a great springboard legdrop, hits his great spinning rana off the top, basically Juvy on offense could do no wrong. But we do get a real bizarre finish, as Juvy calls for the Juvy Driver, picks up Piloto Suicida, and then drops him twice in a row. Maybe it was supposed to look like Piloto was blocking it? He did eventually get a kinda roll up nearfall, but it just looked like Juvy kept blowing the spot. I really don't think that's what they were going for. 

Kaz Hayashi/Psicosis/Ron Rivera vs. La Parka/Blitzkrieg/Kendo

TOMK: Why is Kaz in this match? He’s in the Jericho outsider stable but just a regular rudo here? They only had one taping and still couldn't keep booking straight? Kaz really leans into all of Kendo’s stuff nicely and the two RPW guys work match up and know how to work their spots together. Parka is over and kind of weird to see him getting this much of a showcase in all these matches when I don’t think he ever got this much of a taste at any other time in WCW. Wait, they were aware that he was super charismatic and can carry a face team on charisma? They knew?

ER: Parks was given a WCW showcase in several ways that other luchadors were not. On the WCW/nWo Revenge game - the highest selling wrestling game on the Nintendo 64 - La Parka was one of only a few luchadors included in the game (Rey, Psicosis, Juvy, Chavo and Eddie if you count them as luchadors), which had a really large roster for video games at the time. And Parka was presented as separate from the "cruiser" luchadors, the only luchador other than Konnan who was lumped in with the heavyweights in the game (tantamount to guys like Barbarian, Stevie Ray, and Yuji Nagata). He was presented separately and as a potential breakout star, and they seemed to know it was a good idea to feature him more in matches and give him side angles to work his gimmick...and yet they seemingly had the coldest possible feet about pushing him as an actual singles star. It made no sense. They knew, but they didn't know. Highlights of this match were Kaz really making all of Kendo's headscissors look great, a great Blitzkrieg dive followed by a big twisting La Parka dive, and Blitzkrieg hitting a big phoenix splash for the win. Blitzkrieg was a cool part of wrestling 1999, and I love that we're getting a little more added to his story. He's a total cult fave, indy white guy shows up as an out of nowhere unknown in WCW one episode of Nitro, gets over immediately when he's treated like a peer by Misterio, and has maybe 30 matches total on tape. He was a nostalgic part of my teen wrestling fandom, and now we get like 10% more Blitzkrieg appearances than previously existed. That's awesome.

Rey Mysterio Sr./Villano III/Villano IV/El Texano vs. Pierroth Jr./Fidel Sierra/Ricky Santana/Psicopata

TOMK: There was some nice Pierroth and Fidel Sierra stuff, but this wasn’t going to live up to my expectations. I was also expecting a big Hart bump, and instead Hart was subdued. He felt like a watered down Andy Barrow.

PAS: I loved this, it was rudo vs rudo and kept up a really killer pace. Pierroth is rocking an amazing Soul Glo Jheri Curl and every time he throws a chop activator juice flies all over his opponent. Psicopata was all over the ring and the outside, stooging, flipping to the floor, bumping huge, total barrel of energy. Really different from a normal WCW lucha match, and I dug that difference.

ER: This lineup is far and away the match I am most excited about on the show. Tom is right that it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations, but damn did I think this was just great. This was our Pierroth showcase match of the evening, and this was an evening that benefitted from a Pierroth showcase match. He was throwing the best punches of the show, kicks to dicks, and the best non-Juvy chops. He came off like a total boss against a very badass team. We got a lot of simple brawling, and it was satisfying as hell. Villano III gets some nearfalls that the ref keeps missing, including a gorgeous small package off of a delayed vertical suplex, and we get an actual powder in the face spot for the finish!! Hell yeah! There was so much powder!!

Rey Mysterio Jr./Silver King/Hector Garza/Konnan vs. Chris Jericho/Norman Smiley/Johnny Swinger/Lenny Lane

TOMK: I think there may have been a good Black Magic vs. Silver King exchange but this was messy.

ER: My god who is the Festival de Lucha girl accompanying Rey? Jesus. And this foreigners stable is so much gold. I love every single stable at the Festival de Lucha tapings!! Every single stable in this 75 minutes has been something I want to watch weekly!

Felino/Psicosis/El Mosco vs. Super Calo/Blitzkrieg/Venum Black

TOMK: Venum Black’s leg is fucked and he comes into this match hobbling. The whole match is just super impressive to watch this guy work a match on one wheel. Should he have worked this match? Should an agent have put someone else in? Whatever. Super Calo does my favorite Super Calo thing where he eats a clothesline by landing on the top of his skull.

Fit Finlay/Kaz Hayashi/Norman Smiley/Johnny Swinger vs. La Parka/Hector Garza/Kendo/Raul

TOMK: I really liked this match. This is hidden gem that you didn’t know you wanted. Kaz’s offense looks great and he sells and bumps to make Raul look like a bad ass. Eats a real nasty piledriver from Raul. Parka gets extended exchanges with Finlay and a dance off and exchanges with Smiley and hits a tope that takes Swinger’s head off. Garza gets some cool stuff in opposite Smiley as well, Swinger and Kendo keep each other occupied, and it’s a cool finish.

PAS: This was really fun, so awesome to watch Finlay and Parka beat on each other. I can imagine an alternate universe where this show was successful and these two had the greatest Apuestas match in wrestling history. Jericho was really fun as a douche on the outside heat seeking. Parka and Smiley had a fun dance off too, honestly Parka is so great he can have dope exchanges with everyone on this roster.

Super Boy/Halloween/Damian 666 vs. Rey Misterio Jr./Piloto Suicida/Salsero

TOMK: This I liked too. A bunch of Halloween/Damien stooging, miscommunication stuff, and you get to see the California guys match up and showcase what they can do together. I really wish Rey vs. Halloween was a WCW series at any point cause it is a cool match up…plus there was an ESTRELLA!!!!

PAS: Really fun stuff, Super Boy has to have some of the biggest missed potential of anyone in the 90s, and it is cool that we get to see a little more of what he could do. Halloween and Damian 666 are such pros and they make everything the tecnicos do look great.

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