Los Intocables vs. Octagon/Apolo Dantes/Mascara Sagrada, 4/3/92

Los Intocables was the trios Pierroth Jr. formed in 1992 with Masakre and Jaque Mate, which represented probably the highwater mark of Pierroth's career. Individually, they weren't as good as the Brazos or Infernales, or even some of the more randomly thrown together trios in Mexico at the time; in fact, you could probably argue that in this case the whole was equal to the sum of the parts, but the trios gave Pierroth a chance to shine as leader of a group and he took the bull by both horns and had a fantastic 1992. This wasn't a particularly outstanding match (in truth none of Los Intocables' matches were), but it was interesting to see what the rudos did with their share of the match. Pierroth was always a guy with a flair for the dramatic. He used to take the kraziest of bumps in even the most banal trios matches until a particularly nasty one almost marked the end of Pierroth Jr. Now that he was starting to get noticed, he shelves the killer bumps, but he still loved attention and nowhere was that more noticeable than in the extended and incredibly detailed sell he did from a slap to the face. For a guy wearing a mask, you'd swear he was Brando. The rudo beatdown was good too. I swear it was more measured than all of the rudo beatdowns in the last three years of CMLL combined. How difficult is it to kick, punch or knee someone then sell like you think you're great for kicking or punching someone? Here's another thing I swear, the next guy who watches old tapes and copies this will be declared a genius new wrestler.

The other interesting thing about this match was watching a young Apolo Dantes. Dantes would go on to become a good worker and modest star, but man was his style all over the place. Somebody should've put him on the straight and narrow. The great failing of lucha is similar to Japan in that the next generation of great wrestlers never emerged. Workers like Dantes should've taken us through to an early 2000s full of great matches but it never happened and the seeds for that are back in the early 90s as good as that period was.

Mano Negra/Gallo Tapado/El Misterioso vs. Espectro Jr./Espectro de Ultratumba/Fuerza Guerrera, 2/24/91

This was part of the fun mini-feud between Fuerza Guerrera and Gallo Tapado, the Rooster. CMLL had a habit during this era of bringing in older guys who were willing to drop their masks to rudos like Fuerza and Pierroth Jr. who could benefit from an apuestas win. It was all very respectfully done and in this case Gallo Tapado was a maestro of Fuerza, so there were no problems. Fuerza is a guy who I always forget about for the sole reason that he doesn't have a lot of singles programs that made tape, so this is a rare-ish opportunity to see him in a lead role and to be honest I think his charisma is on parallel with someone like Negro Casas. Casas was a little different in that he was maskless (along with being one of the greatest actors in the history of professional wrestling, as well as one of the most multi-faceted characters), but for a guy with a mask Fuerza was remarkably expressive. It seems that for awhile their careers were on a similar trajectory, but Fuerza never really got that career defining push possibly because he was too small. Anyway, this wasn't a great match, otherwise I would've devoted an entire entry to it, but it had its fair share of fun moments. Some nice comedy from the Espectros.

El Satanico/Kamala/Pierroth vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr./Black Magic/Ringo Mendoza, 3/24/91

Kamala vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr is worthy of a Jack Kirby splash page. This was another fun "Kamala in Mexico" match. It didn't quite live up to the last Kamala match I commented on, but there was a krazy Pierroth bump (as referred to above), a glorious experiment in how to remove a limb from its joint between falls (whatever happened to that sort of work?), and a rough end to the night for El Gran Davis. Lucha should be fun and that's exactly what this was.

Los Misioneros de la Muerte (Negro Navarro/El Signo/El Texano) vs. Jason/Leatherface/Chessman, LLL, 11/16/03

Disappointing. It would be easy to blame the AAA guys and say they can't work but the Misioneros were just as uninspiring.

Villanos III, IV & V vs. Blue Panther, Pimpinela & Enterrador, 5/18/00

Decent "scientific" match. I love that term -- scientific wrestling. The only problem with the match was that it was too slow. The Villanos have always been a trios that struggled with rhythm and IWRG matches are wrestled at a slower pace than most lucha but this was slow even by those standards. In isolation it may not have been a problem, but contrasting it with those early 90s matches it seemed a bit faded.