"El Ninja", Kato Kung Lee & Super Astro vs. Black Shadow Jr, Invasor II & Espanto Jr, Monterrey 11/91

Great to see Espanto again, one of the most underrated luchadores of this era. Unfortunately, he didn't do anything truly outstanding, even in his exchanges with Super Astro, but Monterrey was a bit of a holiday for the workers at times and this was one of those nights off. The focus was really on the upcoming mask match between El Ninja and Invasor, but Monterrey has always been this hodgepodge of great workers and heavily gimmicked shit. The good workers were only there to make up the numbers, but it was all right. The highlight was probably Super Astro doing his dance routine followed by Kato Kung Lee doing a pretty outstanding imitation of it, but when Astro's dance number is the highlight you might want to skip it.

Negro Casas/Espanto Jr vs. Super Pinocho/Halcon 78, Arena Neza 1992

I doubt anyone will agree with me, but to me Casas was so much more creative in the earlier part of his recorded career than he is now. He wasn't at his sublime best here, but he worked at least one exchange with Super Pinocho where you thought "only Casas would think to do that." This was your typically solid early 90s UWA television match. They never reach great heights, but the wrestling is always worth watching.

Espanto Jr/Dr. Wagner Jr vs. Villano IV & V, UWA 1992

The Villanos are broken down warhorses these days. Villano III could barely string his sentences together when interviewed on his brother's retirement show. The younger brothers can still brawl with the best of them, but if you're ever in need of a reminder of how good Los Villanos were these UWA matches are the best footage we have of prime IV & V. This was an excellent lucha tag match. It didn't have an epic enough third caida to make it onto a yearbook or anything like that, but it had a bit of everything and there was plenty to like if you're an aficionado. Espanto and Villano IV had a swank opening mat exchange that was the best you'll see from Espanto in these three matches, the Villano family provided their usual blend of scientific wrestling and roughhousing and I loved Wagner's clumsy enthusiasm. The finish was one of the more brutal looking, Perro Aquayo style La Sillas I've seen. A Villano taking out Wagner like that is a ton of beef colliding.

Mario Segura "El Ninja", El Dandy, Tigre Canadiense vs. Los Misioneros de la Muerte "Negro Navarro, Signo y Black Power," Monterrey 1992

This was a surprising long trios match with a lengthy El Dandy face-in-peril section. My eyes light up when I saw this was Dandy vs. Misioneros thinking we might get a Dandy/Navarro section, but to be brutally honest Navarro wasn't much chop at this point. He focused a lot of his schtick on his physique and being the "strength guy" in the Misioneros. The real worker of the group was Signo and the Signo/Dandy exchanges we got were actually better than if Dandy had squared off against Navarro. Throughout the match, it was noticeable how much better Dandy and Signo were than everyone else, even when doing simple exchanges like clearing workers from the ring. Their ability to make every exchange a flurry of activity made them continually stand out. Signo was a really good worker and it's worth watching this to see him go toe-to-toe with Dandy even if the other workers aren't so inspiring. Tigre seemed high on something, Segura did some goofy shit that was vaguely amusing, Navarro was disappointing and Black Power was his usual journeyman-esque self, but Dandy vs. Signo was really, really good.

Centurion Negro, Los Matematicos II & IV vs. Pirata de la Muerte, Black Terry & Jose Luis Feliciano, Arena Coliseo Monterrey early 90s

In the annals of lucha libre history there is a hatred that's gone unrecorded and that hatred is the hatred between Jose Luis Feliciano and Centurion Negro. This was some of the coolest shit I've seen in a while as these guys didn't care that there was a match going on with rules and purses and other guys involved. Terry was awesome here as well. He was a bit part to Feliciano, a role I guess he's always been comfortable playing, but he did the cockiest facial expressions this side of Ric Flair cutting a promo in the TBS studios. What a legend. This was all about Feliciano though, who looked like the sixth member of The Blue Oyster Cult. The fact that Feliciano and Negro never had a documented hair vs. mask match is a huge disappointment to me as few luchadores have ever had such antagonistic hair as Feliciano. Fun match.