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Entries in this blog

Vintage Negro Casas of the Day #18

Negro Casas vs. Mocho Cota, hair vs. hair, CMLL 9/23/94   This was the main event from the first weekend of Anniversary celebrations in 1994. A show which only drew 4,000 people; a shockingly poor number for a CMLL Anniversary Show. For some reason, the promotion decided to make it an una caida one fall, presumably because of the glut of apuesta matches they ran over the Anniversary Show weekends.   I may as well get my first bias out of the way and confess that, outside of tournament lucha,

ohtani's jacket

ohtani's jacket

Pirata Morgan vs. Masakre (hair vs. hair)

Pirata Morgan vs. Masakre, hair vs. hair, 2/28/92   When I first saw this match I was in awe of Pirata Morgan.   Like most people I saw it as a big time performance from the best wrestler in the world.   This time I'm not so sure.   As awesome as Pirata was, he could've worked the match with one arm tied behind his back. Watching Los Intocables, it's clear that Masakre lacked focus. When you're facing a guy who isn't a great brawler, you've gotta have him fight. You've gotta make h

ohtani's jacket

ohtani's jacket

Fiera vs. Porky: The Night the Line Was Crossed, Kamala comes to town, and more!

La Fiera/Espectro Jr./Kahoz vs. El Brazo/Brazo de Oro/Brazo de Plata, CMLL 12/25/92   So, we've established that washed up Fiera (who really wasn't that old) was better than I ever gave him credit for, especially in scummy lowdown trios matches that reflected the shadiness of his character outside the ring, but here he got to show off his comedic talents. Comedy is an important (often misunderstood) element of lucha libre. No matter how great your brawling is, or how bloody your apuesta matche

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ohtani's jacket

Vintage Negro Casas of the Day #15

Negro Casas vs. La Fiera, hair vs. hair, CMLL 10/1/93   This looks like it was the show-stealer on the 1993 Anniversary Show. I'm not sure how wildly available it was before, but if Lynch sold it I doubt many people bought it.   It was a fascinating match for me on a number of levels. Casas was going through his whole "is he or isn't he a tecnico?" phase, and Fiera appeals to me as a scumbag rudo and not a worn out baby face, so I wasn't sure how the heel/face dynamic would play out. There

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ohtani's jacket

Santo and Espanto tagging?! Bestia and Dandy forget they're in a trios, and more!

El Hijo del Santo/Espanto Jr. vs. Blue Panther/Black Man, UWA 3/25/90   This was discovered by Phil Schneider in the middle of a six hour YouTube video. Don't ask me how he does it; he's like a bloodhound when it comes to these things. The match was billed as the first time rivals Santo and Espanto had tagged together, and could have easily been parejas increibles given Panther had taken Black Man's mask in '86. Santo was swarmed by kids to start with and I swear he wasn't that much taller tha

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ohtani's jacket

Your Fuerza Guerrera of the Hour #3

Fuerza Guerrera vs. Misterioso, NWA World Welterweight Championship, CMLL 12/8/91   So let's recap: Misterioso was a modern style worker (great build, pretty athletic, not much in the way of wrestling ability) who was given a mask and a back story and pushed to the moon by Antonio Pena. As with other Pena creations, charismatic rudo Fuerza Guerrera was the go-to guy for a star making tilt. Just about everything in the lead up to the title match was good except for the Fuerza vs. Misterioso exc

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ohtani's jacket

The Fiera vs. Dandy feud #3 -- the Finale

La Fiera vs. El Dandy, hair vs, hair, CMLL 11/27/92   Here we go with the revisit then.   Fiera attacked Dandy on his way to the ring, which comes as no surprise given he'd been doing it to him for weeks. Perhaps Dandy should have been better prepared for it, but I guess they were trying to sell that there was nothing he could do about it. The beginning wasn't as frenzied or as bloodthirsty as it could have been, and in truth some of the trios openings were better, but I liked the image of t

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ohtani's jacket

The Fiera vs. Dandy Feud #2

Atlantis/El Dandy/Pierroth Jr. vs. Sangre Chicana/La Fiera/Gran Markus Jr., CMLL 11/20/92   Pierroth's a cowboy! There was another weird CMLL vignette to begin this where Pierroth, dressed in jeans, a leather jacket and cowboy hat, saddled up his seed and rode through some mountain country. He looked a bit like the Marlboro Man, but I think his horse riding skills were meant to seem more impressive than they did. The vignette ended with Pierroth laying his horse down on its side and standing o

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ohtani's jacket

Vintage Negro Casas of the Day #9

Negro Casas vs. Ultimo Dragon, UWA World Middleweight Championship, CMLL 3/26/93   This managed to both thrill and confuse me.   The first fall was worked using the international currency for juniors matwork. Usually it would bother me that the matwork wasn't 'lucha enough,' but in this case it was being presented as an international title fight so it made sense for the work to be more universal. Ultimo wasn't that great at working holds from the top, but Casas provided enough movement to ke

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ohtani's jacket

Random 90s

Ultimo Dragon vs. Emilio Charles Jr, UWA World Middleweight Championship, CMLL 4/27/93   People shit on Ultimo a lot these days, but you won't find me badmouthing him. This won't make you forget 90s classics like Dandy vs. Azteca or Blue Panther vs. Atlantis, but it was on the same level as Emilio's matches with Azteca and a step down from his work with Atlantis, which is pretty good for a non-luchador. Had it been a classic it would have been a point in both men's favour, but as much as I lov

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ohtani's jacket

Vintage Negro Casas of the Day #4

Negro Casas/El Felino/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. El Dandy/La Fiera/Corazon de Leon, CMLL 7/23/93   This was the epitome of a nothing match.   It began with some sort of sit down talk between Casas and Felino with heel commentator Arturo Rivera serving as mediator. They seemed engaged in a philosophical debate over whether Casas was still a rudo, which I'm sure is riveting if you understand a word of Spanish, but perplexing if you don't.   How could Casas and Felino remain on the same side when Ca

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ohtani's jacket

Lizmark vs. Jerry Estrada

Lizmark vs. Jerry Estrada, Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship, AAA 6/18/93   I hate Jerry Estrada.   He's probably my least favourite lucha worker of all time. To me he's like the anti-Sangre Chicana. Sangre Chicana was out of his mind the entire time and took it to surreal heights. Jerry Estrada was out of his mind the entire time and was a train wreck.   But like him or not, this was one hell of a match.   By far the most coherent performance I've seen from Jerry Es

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ohtani's jacket

Random CMLL part two

Emilio Charles Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr. (CMLL 2/20/98)   This was rudo contra rudo from what I could gather, but since Emilio was about to turn it was set up to garner him face heat. Broken down Emilio had his moments (as we'll see later), but a match this length was beyond him. He kind of struggled in that '93 hair match against Dandy let alone in a singles match five years later, and while I like Wagner he wasn't a good enough worker to make this interesting. They did all the things you're su

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ohtani's jacket

AAA season

Regular readers will know that I don't like classic, hot period AAA very much, but I do like it more than any of the current stuff that's being put out so for the time being there will be an AAA season here at the Great Lucha blog w/ the occasional interlude should anything catch my eye. Some of these reviews will be critical and some will be filled with praise, but we start the season off with some criticism of a man who's hardly ever criticised: El Hijo Del Santo.   2/16/94 AAA: El Hijo Del

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ohtani's jacket

Black Terry, Negro Navarro y Villano IV vs. Blue Panther, Ultimo Dragon y Olimpico

Black Terry, Negro Navarro y Villano IV vs. Blue Panther, Ultimo Dragon y Olimpico, UWE 4/24/10   This was a beautifully worked match and definitely the purest trios I've seen this year. Black Terry Jr. really spoiled us with this one. Thank you, you magnanimous young man.   I've often complained that when Black Terry works these UWE matches alongside Negro Navarro he's nothing like the Terry we see on his home turf. That Terry is an unqualified legend, but in UWE Terry pretty much does hi

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ohtani's jacket

IWRG 3/11

IWRG 3/11   Negro Navarro, Trauma II, Barba Roja vs. Black Terry, Dr. Cerebro, Hijo del Signo   Negro Navarro was back in Naucalpan this week and took on all three opponents in this match, including a fella by the name of Black Terry.   Black Terry vs. Negro Navarro -- the best match-up in wrestling, save for the fact that it never happens!! For some reason, Black Terry and Negro Navarro go out of their way to avoid each other on most occasions. Even on miscellaneous shows, they avoid

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ohtani's jacket

Blue Panther vs. Atlantis (1991)

Blue Panther vs. Atlantis, NWA World Middleweight Championship, 8/9/91   I thought I ought to do something a little special to mark my 200th entry, so since I've been talking about Blue Panther vs. Atlantis lately, I decided to go back and watch their match from '91. This match was part of the first batch of lucha I ever bought and is a large part of why I became hooked on lucha. I'm not particularly fond of watching matches I've seen before, particularly when I'm comparing it to the exciteme

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ohtani's jacket

IWRG Round Up

Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro vs. Gringo Loco/El Hijo del Diablo, 1/24/10   This was pretty cool.   Of all the styles Terry works, brawling suits him best because you get a caricature of Black Terry the man. There was nothing pretty about this match; it was about as scummy as you'd expect from two guys working the Gringo Locos gimmick in a lucha indy backwater. They brawled all over the ringside area in a match that never really got going in the ring since neither side wanted to settle it prope

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ohtani's jacket

First Lucha for this year

IWRG 1/07/10   Black Terry/Dr Cerebro/Cerebro Negro vs. Pantera/Suicida/Zatura   This had some of the lousiest matwork I've seen in a Terribles Cerebros match. It was like they were trying to do old-school Los Temerarios/Fantásticos exchanges, but they're all a bit too portly. Things picked up in the second fall when the Cerebros started brawling and I dug the camera angle on the technicos' comeback (and the topes in particular), but this was largely forgettable.   Angelico/Solar/Ultra

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ohtani's jacket

Lucha Awards

Time for some lucha awards.   2009 was a frustrating year that saw a lot of sources for IWRG and Arena Puebla appear and disappear, but at the same time a lot of random lucha indy footage made its way onto the internet. These awards are unashamedly based on the Tapatía Awards at cubsfan's site, and this year I asked Raging Noodles to give us his thoughts too. Don't bother reading them if you like CMLL and AAA.   Best Wrestler:   RN -- Negro Navarro   This was one of the best years

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ohtani's jacket

Solar/Black Terry vs. Negro Navarro/Rambo

Solar/Black Terry vs. Negro Navarro/Rambo, UWE, 10/17/09   This continued the trend of matches failing to be anything special, but it did feature some high end Solar vs. Negro Navarro.   In all of their recent matches, they've shown that they're not content to rest on the laurels of local MCs hyping them up as maestros extraordinaire. The 10/5 Misioneros vs. Space Cadets match from Futrap de Nuevo Laredo and the 11/22 Solar/Platino/Perro Mastin vs. Negro Navarro/Fishman Jr/Arcanos trios fr

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ohtani's jacket

Dr. Cerebro vs. Suicida

Dr. Cerebro vs. Suicida, hair vs. hair, 11/15/09   This was the most poorly booked hair match I've seen in a long time.   There was no reason for these guys to be fighting, IWRG just threw the match out there like they usually do. The workers were given about a week's turnaround to have a hair match and there wasn't even time to have a series of low blow finishes like Policeman and Centella de Oro. Given the confines of what they were asked to do, it wasn't a bad match, but there wasn't a

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ohtani's jacket

Satanico vs. Lizmark (1984)

Satanico vs. Lizmark, NWA World Middleweight Championship, 4/84   With both these guys retiring on the Luchas 2000 show, I thought I'd pay tribute to two of my all-time favourite workers.   This isn't a great match, and to be honest, I wish it had been much better, but it's as close as we'll ever get to the heart of the Lizmark/Satanico rivalry.   There's a moment towards the beginning of the match that sets the tone for everything that follows. The ref is giving his instructions to L

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ohtani's jacket

Black Tiger, Blue Center, Tigre Rojo vs Espiritu Maligno, Mr. Rafaga, Toro Bill Sr.

Black Tiger, Blue Center, Tigre Rojo vs Espiritu Maligno, Mr. Rafaga, Toro Bill Sr., Arena Puebla 3/2/09   After two years of marriage, I finally decided to have a wedding. That was a blast and so was this match.   This was a bunch of older guys doing stuff they're not capable of anymore and pulling it off. It was fantastically old-school; the kind of lucha you can hang your hat on. The last thing I expected the first thing this morning was a great match, but this was instantly recognisabl

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ohtani's jacket

Ringo Mendoza/Atlantis/Ultraman vs. Los Infernales (Satanico/Masakre/MS-1)

Ringo Mendoza/Atlantis/Ultraman vs. Los Infernales (Satanico/Masakre/MS-1), early-to-mid 80s   Now here's a match nobody ever talks about.   This was a classy trios that started out with an awesome exchange between Satanico and Ringo Mendoza.   Ringo Mendoza is the kind of technico that never backs down from a fight. If a rudo tries to rough-house him, he puts up the fists. He's never a dick about it, you just don't take liberties with Ringo Mendoza. Satanico was looking for an advanta

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ohtani's jacket

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