New Footage Friday: RED! NECRO! BRAZOS! DAMIEN WAYNE! VOLADOR!

Volador/Misterioso/Lizmark Jr. vs. Los Brazos Early 90s? 

PAS: The Brazos are one of the most purely entertaining acts in wrestling history, so finding a new Brazos match is mitzvah. Lizmark Jr. was a guy whose spirit was truly crushed by WCW but he was really feeling himself here, flipping around, kipping up and hitting cool armdrags. Of course the focus of the match was on Super Porky doing his thing, we get a long section where he keeps accidentally smushing his brothers, causing him to cry and hug the tecnicos. In the tercera he turns on his new friends and unleashes the power of fat landing one of the most splattering top rope splashes in a long career of splattering. Cool opening section, some fun comedy spots and a big finish, exactly what you want to main event a lucha house show. 

MD: This one is well worth watching for some great work and even greater antics. Tecnicos take the first chunk which leads to miscommunication and a great tree falling spot with Porky, who citing the subsequent ill-treatment by his brothers, switches sides. We've all seen this sort of thing before, but it's not every day you can see it with the Brazos and see them commit so thoroughly to the gag. You keep expecting Porky to turn back and he eventually does but not until they've milked every bit of it that they could. Around all of this are three spry tecnicos and rudos that will gladly base and feed for them, including a memorable Volador dive.

ER: There are few wrestlers in history I love more than Super Porky, and watching him spend 20 minutes doing his specific thing is always going to be the best kind of panacea for me. This has some of his best gags, played to their fullest, in front of a crowd who adored his gags. Not only do we get to see him take several slick armdrags from Volador, we move past that into his great misdirections. Los Brazos keep trying to hold Lizmark prone while accidentally hitting each other, leading to Lizmark ducking a Brazo sunset flip attempt, and a hilarious long pause before the punchline. Brazo is "forced" to sunset flip Porky, and Oro misses Lizmark and chops Porky...and Porky just stares at him. Everybody knows the spot is for Porky to butt splash Brazo, and here's Porky just standing, looking at his brother, seconds disconnected from the actual momentum of the spot...before Porky finally, purposefully, plops down onto Brazo's chest. His brothers smack him around and Porky openly weeps, drawing the biggest cheers of the night as the crowd rallied behind him. 

We get a great pratfall bump where Porky steps to the apron and Oro lifts the middle rope on him, sending Porky to the floor with a wild banana peel bump. I couldn't get enough of Porky working with the tecnicos to get back at his brothers, flopping to his back to give up the primera, getting all possible mileage out of the tecnico turn before eventually rejoining his family. Give me more and more of Porky doing silly poses while getting "YAY/BOO" cheers back and forth from the crowd. It all ends when Porky smacks Misterioso in the face, and he ends the segunda with an all time great top rope splash, getting Oro to help him balance, then standing on the top triumphantly before doing a full squat...and just flattening Volador. Who can not love this man? Who couldn't get excited for Los Brazos? 

Necro Butcher vs. Amazing Red PWS 3/5/11

PAS: Match I had no idea ever happened, which is a real battle of aughts era indy legends a bit past their prime. Necro is at his most acclaimed as a walking heavy bag who takes enormous ass kickings, but he is also pretty great on top, and mauls Red around the arena for most of the match. Much like his obvious predecessor Rey Mysterio Jr., Red is an unexpectedly stiff worker, and fires back with some pretty sharp kicks, including some down right Sanoish solebutts right to Necro's bourbon and Percoset laden belly. He also absolutely savages Necro's bare feet and ankles with chair shots. We get a nifty finish run with Red getting some plausible near falls before falling to a perfectly executed jumping Tiger Driver (Necro's move execution was always an underrated part of his overall excellence). What a treat to run across this match on youtube, delivered on it's promise for sure. 

MD: We lose a little bit in the front here, but you still get the general idea. Necro lays in a beating around the ringside area in the expected walk, pound, and toss style. Red's hope strikes are super credible, which was half on Necro leaning into them, but every time he creates some distance it just knocks Necro back into another chair he can use. Eventually, after a horrific running crotch into the pole that would haunt Red for the rest of the match, it ends up back in the ring and that means no more chairs for a bit. That gives Red a fighting chance though he's still half a step behind due to the groin injury. He works on Necro's ankle, more as a way to keep him down than as a direct path to victory, including using a chair of his own, but the amount of high risk moves he needs to utilize (while always a little slow due to the grade A selling) means he's bound to get caught. Pretty much the sprint you'd want it to be.

JR: I think my feelings on Necro Butcher are pretty well established at this point, but one thing that I haven’t really written about is that he is a tremendous “on paper” guy. Think about basically any wrestler you can that is remotely competent, and putting them in a singles match against Necro is at least a perverse curiosity. Throughout this I couldn’t help but think about how wonderful it would’ve been to see Necro having a walk and brawl against Rey Mysterio, stumbling drunkenly into the 619, grabbing his toothless mouth and bleeding face after Rey clobbers him in the face with his knee brace. I guess I was sort of hoping I’d get something similar here, although that probably isn’t fair because Red and Rey are two different workers. What we got here was a relatively interesting match, albeit one that I think has issues that bother me specifically. I think, in a perfect world, we would have had a longer control section from Necro once they got back in the ring, as I think Red taking control almost immediately didn’t give the crowd an opportunity to get invested. I wish that Red’s control segment was a little more dynamic; it almost felt as though he was trying to work heel here and slow Necro down and not bounce around, which I found confusing, especially considering the finish was a pretty overt monster heel finish from Necro. Perhaps I’m being too hard on this. When I saw the names and the match time of under 9 minutes, I thought I was going to see something like the Demus/Iron Kid match from a few years ago, especially once I saw the opening portions were a crowd brawl. Instead we got a perfectly fine midcard match and I can’t help but think there was something better that could’ve happened here.

ER: JR brings up Necro as an on paper guy, which was precisely the criteria that made Necro one of my literal three favorite guys in wrestling for a really long time. When you ask yourself "Whose matches would you watch, regardless of opponent" it's a good way at getting to the heart of what wrestlers are truly your favorites. For a large portion of the 2000s the only wrestlers who fit that criteria for me were Finlay and Necro Butcher. It's a pretty accurate litmus test. There are plenty of wrestlers who I love (Super Dragon, Low Ki) who have matches against wrestlers I decidedly do not love (Davey Richards, Joey Ryan) that I have never watched. But I would watch Necro Butcher or Finlay against Davey Richards, because every possible opponent gives me the opportunity to see what Finlay or Necro would have done with a total negative factor. Play the game yourself, you might learn a thing about your personal preferences that you never realized. 

This match was incredibly entertaining, tons of great stuff that was over way too quick, and just like Phil I had no clue these two ever crossed paths. Necro throws Red into the crowd and bodyslams him back over the guardrail, buries him under chairs, deals with mouthy NY kids, takes a thrown chair right on the top of his head, the kind of tour around the venue you expect from any Necro match. The real gold happens in ring, as Red lands so many awesome shots to make the size gap vanish. Red has really great kicks, great solebutts to the bellybutton that Necro expertly and accurately sells like a guy who ate poisonous berries he found while camping. All of Red's stomps to Necro's feet and malleolus were looked super painful, and the chokeslam into a gorgeous tiger driver (while palming Red's face for the pin) was a great finish. I'm so happy this match happened, even happier that it is now online for all. 

Damien Wayne vs. Lance Erickson NWA Mountain State 6/4/12

PAS: Lance Erickson is nicknamed the Canadian Lion and has maple leaf tights, and based on his pre-match interview must come from Charleston or Wheeling Manitoba. He must be working some sort of PY Chu Hi or Krusher Kruschev gimmick where he renounced his Mountain State roots to join an evil group of Canucks. This is what you hope a dog collar match between bad ass southern wrestlers will look like. Damien Wayne is a DVDVR favorite from way back and has great looking punches and chops and a killer top rope elbow (which he wraps in a chain). He opens up Erickson early with a chain shot, with Erickson really cut deep as the blood starts to look like Merlot. Wayne bleeds too, which looks great on his bald head and they crack each other with hard chain assisted punches and chain chokes. They didn't bother with the touch the turnbuckles gimmick which is a much better way to do this kind of fight. 

MD: I think we've seen so many dog collar and strap matches with the four corners stip that it's refreshing to see one without it. They use the chain well, with Wayne opening Erikson up early (after a failed ambush to begin) with it, a real gusher. The crowd seems a little split here (I get the sense that Erikson was more of a regular that they loved to dislike) and it means that while the violence is ok, the heat isn't necessarily there, even after Erikson takes over on a missed chain punch in the corner and subsequent hanging and opens up Wayne as well. It makes things more back and forth than something with a real tangible comeback. They work in some moves as opposed to just chain shots but it all works because there's always the chain they land on the chain. I really like the finish where Wayne had taken out his ribs on his first top rope elbow attempt and figured out to wrap it around the elbow for the second one. Could have used Erikson leaning on him a bit more but all of Wayne's stuff was good and you can't fault Erikson's gusher here. It sounded like the match ended up this way because they couldn't get a cage going for logistical reasons (maybe they didn't have one, maybe a commission, who knows) and I think I would have been pretty satisfied with what I got if I was in that crowd.