Sergio El Hermoso & El Bello Greco vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kengo Kimura, New Japan 2/3/89

Oh, man. I'm a huge fan of Fujiwara, so there was no way I could resist watching him work against exoticos.

This got over with the crowd better than I thought it would, since there were nowhere near as many gay entertainers in Japan twenty years ago as there are now. There were a couple of genuine laugh out loud moments, and Sergio El Hermoso in particular was fantastic. They worked a pretty simple match around Fujiwara's old New Japan gimmick of having a harder head than the ringpost or the steel behind it. His weakness, as it turns out, is that he doesn't particularly like being kissed by transvestites. I've got to admit that I actually expected Fujiwara to be funnier than he really was, but the exoticos made up for it by being gold. Poor Kengo didn't have much of a personality, though. Jesus.

The highlight of the match were the spectacular bumps Sergio took off Fujiwara arm whips. Man were they good. His performance here totally made up for how shitty he was in that WWA tag against Solar and Super Astro. Sergio El Hermoso, you are back in the good books.

Sangre Chicana, La Fiera y Mocho Cota vs. Los Infernales (MS-1/Satanico/Espectro Jr.), EMLL 9/30/83

This was a revenge match a week after the famous MS-1/Sangre Chicana hair match, and I don't think I've ever seen a more fired up group of rudos in all my life. Their whole purpose seemed to be to keep the other technicos out of the ring so they could beat the shit out of Chicana. Cota tried making a save one too many times, and the Infernales got stuck into him, giving him a nasty cut over the eye.

The cool thing about all this was that MS-1 was staggering around the ring looking for someone to punch, which I don't think he was doing on purpose but made it seem like has having a difficult time controlling himself. The editing and dark picture made this difficult to follow, but this was one of the hottest crowds I've ever heard at Arena Mexico. It may have been the loudest support I've ever heard for a technico comeback, and what I liked about the comeback was that these weren't technicos who point to the crowd and signal they're going to use a closed fist. Guys like Chicana and Cota were at one time or another absolute cunts as rudos, so there was a viciousness to their comeback that you wouldn't ordinarily see from technicos. There were no real winners here, however, and no spoils despite Cota claiming Espectro's mask as a trophy. The post-match scene resembled a battlefield with both sides tending to their fallen. Unfortunately, the match was too short to be anything other than heated. It would've made a good first two falls, but the rudos never got a look in once their ass stomping began and there was never any sort of showdown between MS-1 and Chicana. It felt like their feud had been aborted, and along with it, the entire reason for having such a match.

Martín Karadagián vs. La Momia, Titanes en el Ring 1972

OK, so technically this isn't lucha libre, but it's in Spanish so we'll pass it off as a cousin.

The only reason I'm writing about this match is because I've never seen a guy play a gimmick better than the guy who played La Momia. Seriously, the guy was incredible. He moved and fought exactly as a mummy should. He even got up like a mummy should whenever he fell over. According to Kurt Brown, Martín Karadagián was the Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan of Titanes en el Ring all rolled into one. He looked a like Rip Rogers if Rip Rogers were Argentinian and had a ginormous nose. He pounded away at La Momia with right hands, but the mummy kept walking into him with big open handed strikes until he could get close enough for a chokehold. This was from a movie, so there were countless inserts of bewildered children. I couldn't really figure out what happened at the end, but there were countless inserts of happy children so I'm guessing Karadagián was the victor.