pantherwagner

I watched Mil Mascaras vs. Mr Hito. It was alright. Most people will be shocked that Mascaras lost a fall clean but it wasn't that unusual for him to do that. I expected Hito to be a generic post-war Japanese heel with the cut off tights with square kneepads, karate chops, salt, etc. but halfway through the match I remembered that he was the legendary Stampede wrestler trainer and enforcer. I was thinking he was the same guy as Masao Ito but he's clearly not.

That was fun. I had seen a bunch of Southwest ages ago (probably the PM Film archives) and Bracero had never made an impression on me, good or bad. Now I'll remember who the guy is!

The Tim Tall Tree saga keeps getting better. Random fact that only a few of you will get but for years I thought that Tim Tall Tree and Kurt Brown were the same person because of a similar crazy hairstyle. When I told Kurt he was flattered that I thought that could be such a good worker and bad ass (Tall Tree looked like a twig but he wasn't somebody you wanted to mess with, ask Konnan and the Guerreros!).

Book the Undertaker's streak but his opponents can only be Barry Darsow gimmicks... Nah just kidding.

I don't know about him being a master of image preservation... there are the comments about Graziano blaming him for what happened, the suncream photos with Brooke, him dating a woman that looks like his daughter and probably a few others that I am forgetting. He'll be eventually back... Hogan is truly a master at redeeming himself time after time.

During the last show (or the one before) Flair explicitly mentions that he's not allowed to drink during the shows. The Reid story was great. I had never heard about it.

And Sharpe vs Garea does not put you to sleep??? Now here's part II of my confession: as I have used wrestling to sleep since I started watching again two years ago, it's hard for me to keep my attention span when I am trying to watch something during the day. I end up making a phone call or reaching for my tablet. This is not a problem that I have watching anything else, including MMA, so it also takes me forever to get through things.

Here's a twist, when I'm in random hotel rooms somewhere away from home (mostly due to work) I watch wrestling to fall asleep. It could be the most exciting match ever and it wouldn't matter.

Incredible. I hope that there are eventually Tim Tall Tree backstage fight story reports.

If you didn't write everything then I hope to buy a beer someday to whoever wrote about Tim Tall Tree being addicted to crack. Gold.

I am going to disagree with this one. I haven't watched their matches in ages and a lot of Psicosis' best stuff hasn't aged well at all, but they completely "nailed it" in their famous match where Psicosis won in 2 straight. At the time it was a huge match with the common fan as well as us smart fans and it would still be considered a legendary match if AAA was better at promoting their own history. For a very long time it was a landmark match that would often be on a lot of people's recommended match lists. In Mexico this match elevated Psicosis to a different level than even Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera had at the time (these two would have eventually gotten there but AAA shortly started falling apart). This is a match that I'll probably never rewatch again, though. I'm not dismissing your opinion and it's not the Dave Meltzer logic mind you, it's just that I know that I won't like it nearly as much. I have found that revisiting "golden era" AAA almost feels like a chore. I'd rather use the time to revisit overlooked CMLL from the same time frame. A lot of the post-AAA Psicosis vs. Santo was pretty bad and was even considered so back in the day.

I voted for Casas, OJ has explained it in a much more eloquent way that I could ever do. I know this is somewhat of an intangible and something hard to explain or measure but to me Casas is one of the few wrestlers that is an actual pro wrestling genius. He could do anything and everything and there are very few ever at his level when it comes to crowd control or longevity. I know Konnan is a legendary bullshitter but I remember (and believe) a story about him being a green musclehead boxer in Tijuana back in 1989 and being amazed at seeing Casas making the crowd hate him, then laugh and then making young women cry, sometimes in the same match. Santo was a great wrestler and people have now forgotten but he'd work as hard in front of 500 than in front of 15000 people. He is a generational icon and a first ballot no questions asked Hall of Famer... but not a genius.

I remember reading or hearing Cena somewhere saying that he wanted to branch out into acting after wrestling. He doesn't seem like the type of guy that will happily vanish after wrestling and do nothing during the rest of his life.

I went to the Santo/Wagner show yesterday. I'm guessing about 250-300 people were there. A good 40% were women, not only wives and girlfriends but many groups of 2-3 girls coming to the matches. Maybe 1/3 Mexicans, 2/3 mostly urban white Londoners but not nearly as much of a hipster audience as I would have expected. Two weeks ago there was an announcement of a 1200 sellout of the show that had Nakamura, AJ Styles and others (which I missed because I was not in London). No way 1200 people can fit in there. 1.- Local Lucha Britannia trios mixed match. One guy had a Freddie Mercury gimmick and the tecnico valet had some sort of weird S&M gimmick. First time I see fake UK lucha. They worked very hard but it was spot spot spot spot. They were quite over though (many friends, family and regulars in attendance) and all of them looked like wrestlers (the only one not in great cosmetic shape was Freddie but he was athletic). One of the wrestlers milky white thighs was bruised by the end from slapping himself so often to do the fake hard kick noise. Freddie in London is a great opening match gimmick. Good guys won. Later on during the break they were taking pictures with tons of fans and the wrestlers seemed to be having the time of their lives. 2.- Carmen Rosa b Elisabet la Roba Corazones. These were the cholitas from Bolivia. If you have never seen them... 5 foot chunky compact middle aged looking ladies in traditional dresses. These were not the super high flying ones that I saw on CNN and BBC a long time ago, highest spot was a monkey flip and a not so graceful plancha. Great intros and tons of charisma displayed by both ladies. Very basic match but a good change. 3.- Octagoncito beat Mascarita Sagrada for the WWA Minis title (I'm guessing that was it). Mascarita is shot. Several missed spots and none of the crazy flying stuff from back in the day. Octagoncito still looked good and did a pretty cool 2nd rope moonsault. At points Octagon was getting more cheers than Mascarita. 4.- Angel Blanco Jr. and Ray Man b. Heddi Karaoui and Zumbi. Decent match, lots of schtick and comedy with some good spots. Basic Mexico vs foreigners match. Karaoui is from France and a good hand. Ray Man is fat. Angel Blanco Jr. did a pretty cool Silver King dive. 5.- Cassandro and Hijo del Santo b. Dr. Wagner Jr. and Magnifico. Here's the good news. Santo looked like normal 2010's Santo (a slower version of him 20 years ago basically) and Cassandro didn't look like somebody who had recently had health issues. Cassandro was the most over and carried the entire match by himself. Santo did a lot of his trademark spots but not all of them (no la de a caballo and no bullet tope, but he did a pretty nice plancha). Magnifico did most of the bumping but Wagner also showed up to work.

Not blaming Ross there at all. I think it's tremendous that Ross, who knows Vince quite well, had to explain it with a porn analogy so Vince could understand.

Any Harley Race vs Halcon and any Bockwinkel vs Dusty matches will be welcome. I’d love to see the Chavo vs Gino feud too (which later seemed to turn into Dynamic Duo vs Chavo/Manny Fernandez). I have morbid curiosity to see this: NWA World Heavyweight Title: Harley Race © fought Tony Atlas to a 60:00 draw As a lucha fan, I want to see this: Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – July 11, 1980 No Time Limit Mask vs. Mask Match: Gran Markus d. El Halcon Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – October 2, 1981 Dos Caras & Mil Mascaras d. The Dynamic Duo This looks like something booked by Tenryu. Boesch @ Houston, TX - Sam Houston Coliseum - January 2, 1981 Tiger Conway Jr., Chavo Guerrero, & Tom Prichard d. Red Dog Lane, Eddy Mansfield, & Twin Devil #2 It may be that we have yet to see Tito’s best match on tape? Boesch @ Houston, TX - Sam Houston Coliseum - December 27, 1981 AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel © fought Tito Santana to a 60:00 draw Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – March 26, 1982 AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel © d. Tommy Rich These two had a pretty good match when they were old as fuck so this one may have been great: Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – May 14, 1982 Manny Fernandez battled Mil Mascaras to a DDQ More tremendous looking stuff Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – July 2, 1982 AWA World Heavyweight Title: Nick Bockwinkel © d. Ricky Morton Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – October 1, 1982 Andre the Giant, Junkyard Dog, & Mil Mascaras d. The Dynamic Duo & Killer Khan No way Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – December 7, 1984 Chavo & Hector Guerrero d. Jose Lothario & Shawn Michaels As far as complete shows goes, this one looks pretty great: Boesch @ Houston, TX – Sam Houston Coliseum – April 7, 1985 (9,000) Brickhouse Brown d. Jack Victory Brad Armstrong d. Kevin Kelly Brickhouse Brown d. Steve Williams by DQ Gino Hernandez & Jake Roberts d. The Fantastics Bounty Match: Hacksaw Duggan d. One Man Gang Ghetto Street Fight: The Barbarian d. Butch Reed Kevin Von Erich d. Chris Adams by DQ Terry Taylor d. Kamala by DQ 4 Way Elimination Match: The Rock n Roll Express d. The Dirty White Boys, The Fabulous Freebirds, The Midnight Express NWA World Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair © fought Kerry Von Erich to a 60:00 draw

I'm not sure what to think about this.

I don't think they really have footage going back that far. They uploaded 2 "matches" from the early 70s but it was really just pictures in a slideshow narrated by Paul Boesch. That's a shame. Sometime I read that they had stock starting from the 60s so I took that literally. So there's this legend of a match where Kintaro Oki tried to shoot on Thesz to go back to Japan as NWA champion. Key word being "tried" as Thesz made a point of making it a long slow beat up. Oki and Thesz eventually became good friends (Thesz carried Oki's wheelchair at some events decades later). The legend says that this was taped and never shown on TV but it was part of the Boesch archive.

A lot of what Mascaras did is, but I thought his best work was in Japan. I have yet to be impressed by anything that I have seen in the US.

I thought Chavo vs. Bock was promised on the original press release but I haven't seen it there. Also, I am looking forward to the day this gets uploaded (if it ever does!) 5/24/74 – Houston, TX @ Sam Houston Coliseum NWA Champion Jack Brisco vs. Mil Mascaras in a 2/3 falls match AWA Tag Team Champions Nick Bockwinkel & Ray Stevens vs. Gran Markus & El Solitario

Shoe, this match has been around forever. I remember having a 6th generation (at least) copy of it back in the day. I'm looking forward to more Halcon matches - he supposedly was the best Mexican heavyweight in the pre-Dos Caras era.

Lucha Libre World (the Santo/Wagner one running four shows from Thursday to Saturday) has not released a line up yet but we have one for the Lucha Libre UK (Demon/Parka) courtesy of KrisZ's daily update. Royal Albert Hall in London, England 1. Blue Demoncito & Octagoncito vs. Mini Abismo Negro & Mini Histeria 2. Fenix vs. Pentagon Jr. 3. Bengala & Fabi Apache vs. Drago & Sexy Star 4. Blue Demon Jr./La Parka Jr./Psycho Clown vs. Hijo del Fantasma/Villano IV/Texano Jr. It may be a pretty good show. I will decide mid week if I go to this one or not. There are 30% discount tickets available via Time Out UK if anybody is interested. I'll go to the Santo show for sure, probably on Thursday night (opening night).

CZW and Smash both have streaming services too. I have no interest in those, though - I only mentioned the ones I am paying for. However it's interesting that now there are a lot of players competing for our dollars... at some point some of those services may have to merge or cease to exist. There may be soon an oversaturation of the already thin indy market and the bar of what we are supposed to pay has been lowered time and time again.

I'm thinking that I will unsubscribe from UFC but I bet you the fuckers will then upload the entire Pancrase library and make me stay. I'm also at a low point of UFC fandom but I have somewhat revived it by getting cheap tickets to Berlin (which was a lot of fun) and Glasgow (next week). I have also given up on WWE uploading anything from their library. Apparently there will be a new show soon called WWE Vintage that Renee is working on but I assume that will be the same as the show that we get on Eurosport. It would be a shame if we only got old PPV mash-ups when they have such a large library. Anyway, sorry to derail the thread. I'm off to watch the Von Erichs vs Murdoch, Gary Hart and the White Knight.

A couple of days late to the party but Andre vs Race felt epic. I wonder if it was one of those matches that people in the arena talked about for months, but that has been lost in time. The only thing that I have watched so far is that and the Dixon vs Von Erich stills with the terrible Boesch commentary. Maybe it's because I'm in the UK and the servers are in the US, but the player started and stopped several times. It's annoying because when it stops, it dies, and I need to rewind or ffwd a few seconds to get it to restart. If this is a common occurrence I may have to think about unsubscribing. They added in an extra pound (a dollar and a half) on taxes as I'm in the UK but still feels like good value. Now I'm at that point in time when I may be in "I have too many streaming services" territory: WWE Network: about 11 USD (incl. taxes) but hard to unsubscribe when the library is so large. UFC TV: I paid for the entire year when they had their Xmas promotion. I think it works out at about 7 USD a month. NJPW World: about 9 USD after forex fees have been accounted. Addition of new "old" footage has been almost non existent, and I don't particularly care about their new stuff, so this may be the one to go... but lately I have been using it quite a bit. NWA Classics: about 10 USD. Let's see how Classics does - Tharpe mentioned they have footage to keep going on for years and at this point it covers a gap that the WWE Network should (but doesn't) provide.