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.