pantherwagner

I thought it was something similar (with the added note that Anibal was a contemporary rather than a guy on top when they were up and comers). The truth is also that we don't have a lot of them on tape. When they talk about best foreign wrestlers (5 Japanese and 5 non Japanese) they mention some "modern guys" if you want to call that to guys from the 90s: Pegasus Kid and Eddie Guerrero. Everybody else are old timers. This also reminds me of a time when I went with Dory Dixon to this tiny lucha gym in Puebla. Can't remember the name of the guy running it but he is one of the guys that trained Skayde so I recognised his name. I mentioned to him how popular Skayde was in the US indies and how he was considered a great lucha maestro and he was truly puzzled. He told me that he could probably name 50 guys he trained who are better than Skayde on the mat (he didn't say this with a dismissive or condescending tone, more a surprised tone). I guess it shows how different the opinions are from those inside to those outside the business.

A lot of wrestlers in Mexico say that El Santo was a really shitty worker. The only evidence we have got to analyse is whatever clips we have of his movies, and every time I have seen him he looks pretty good on them. Of course they are also not full matches but it is enough to see he is far from being a bad worker. Blue Demon, who was supposed to be ten times the worker, seems to be his worse critic and who knows how much of that is due to jealousy. Same think about Mil Mascaras. A lot of undercard and mid card wrestlers that he probably snubbed with his prima donna attitude used to talk about him like he couldn't mat wrestle and he was only a high spot monkey (which is funny as other than his few flying spots he wrestled a super safe Dory Funk Jr. type mat style not really taking hard bumps on his back). I remember Dick Steinborn being especially angry at him whenever his name was brought up on Wrestling Classics. He also often got the Thesz/Gotch criticism as being unprofessional because he wouldn't give you holds, you had to take them. However, I have read Thesz, Brisco, Destroyer, Funk Jr., Tim Woods, Wahoo and Manny Fernandez among others praise him as being a tremendous mat wrestler. Recently I read an interview where Dr. Lucha (Shimizu, not Sims) separately asked El Solar and Negro Navarro who the best five Mexican workers ever are. They, without talking to each other, gave the same list of five: El Solitario, Ray Mendoza, Rene Guajardo, Angel Blanco and Anibal. Tiger Mask is another guy who super hardcore fans don't praise as a worker anymore, but those who worked with him still talk about him with reverence. Both Solar and Navarro have said he's the best foreign wrestler they have ever worked with.

What a tremendous fight, one of those I wish I had seen live. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the fight. And don't want to be a mood killer but after it was done the only thing I could think about was how the quality of their life had been shortened for a few years, especially in Silva's case. I had the same feeling after Melendez vs Diego a few UFC's ago. The draw was one of those 1 in 1000 times where it is a perfect result and I hope they are never rematched.

Boricua, how true is it that the Aniversario numbers are lower than they could have been because after the first one the police and fire marshalls were incredibly mad at the promotion for letting in a ridiculously dangerous number of people?

El Dandy posted on his Facebook a photo of himself with Hulk Hogan from WCW and said how "his uncle" was a great friend, and a geniune person who liked to see him wrestle and gave him advice after the matches. Can't say that I know Dandy but I never found him to be a conman or BS artist. And I remember the stories back in the day of Hogan calling some luchadores backstage by their wrong gimmick name. But dammit if I don't want this story to be true. Hogan and Dandy as superfriends and having a teacher-student relationship.

I think that's why Infernales should get a lot of credit as draws. They had solid business with few supporting acts. Los Misioneros did much better business and undeniably were big draws but cards were loaded.

I agree with you on the 7 year run. It's a good run. I probably didn't consider it that great of a run back then. In lucha libre runs are usually much longer: somebody like Dr. Wagner Sr. was still a headliner (albeit not two on the Mexico City arenas) two decades after his first big run. And of course feel free to repost anything that I write anywhere else.

Not him, but guys like Rocky Nelson who I think is from Colombia, Rocky Tamayo from Peru (who was a journeyman in the US for a while), and a bunch of old school Spanish wrestlers like Joe Adell (who also worked in Japan for IWE) and other euro guys like Gilbert Cesca or Jack Lasartesse.

Basically it blew up sometime in 1981-1982. I don't have a results archive in front of me so I can't accurately tell you when. Soon thereafter EMLL's main cards were only trios except sometimes the opener. El Toreo had tag matches in the first or second match, and the mains were often tags too. Here's a card where the main and the opener were tags. And now people start getting ready to cry because we will never see this card. How about this one? (Image is large so not linking it) http://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx175/o...acio/PAREJA.png Main event was a bloodbath where even Andre did the honors. The only one who didn't bleed like a pig was fucking Canek.

1- Good question. I forgot to mention them. The problem with them is that they did not have a lot of continuity. We have nothing of Villano I and II. Villanos I, IV and V had a half decade run but we have almost no footage. They were definitely a great team but not headliners like Villano III was. Villanos III, IV and V had a longer run but I think their AAA stuff was pretty uneventful. But, as a group, the five of them, would definitely be Mexican Hall of Famers. For a WON type Hall of Fame it would be hard to consider Villano II as more than a Mike Von Erich that could work. 2.- Yeah, and Shu el Guerrero too, I loved it when he would show up at IWRG a decade ago and he'd have a huge buddha belly but he was super agile and would do awesome submissions. But Black Terry is one of those guys who was a good hand, just like Jose Luis Feliciano/Guerrero del Futuro, but he wasn't a top 25 worker at any time or anything. Which is why it's so mind blowing how awesome he is nowadays. 3.- Again not sure why I didn't mention Los Bucaneros. They were freakin awesome. I was also a fan of Los Javieres (Javier Rocca, Javier Cruz and Javier Chamaco Valaguez, sometimes it was Javier Gusano Llanes instead of Cruz). If there's one thing that AAA gets right is that they are truly continuing the tradition of theme trios. Another awesome underrated team were Los Bravos: El Dandy, Talisman and Guerrero Negro. Dandy and Talisman used to be an awesome team, too. Wish we had footage of their matches with Solar I and II (we only have a clip), Hijo del Santo and Eddy Guerrero (when Eddy was a rookie), Lizmark and Atlantis...

I have never heard any numbers. Only claims I heard are similar to when Mexican wrestlers would go to Japan in the early 90s. They'd stay there for two weeks and make enough money to come back home to buy a car or put a big chunk of money for a new property.

Teams that definitely should be on any HOF: My top choice would be Los Misioneros de la Muerte: El Signo, Negro Navarro and El Texano I wrote this 10 years ago on Wrestling Classics: Top working trio of their era, and big drawing power on their own, not just at el Toreo when the other legends were in. They should be in because their immense popularity changed the way the Mexican business was. They, literally, changed lucha libre from a tag team matches business to a trios matches business. Trios wrestling had existed until then, but six men matches were usually a chance to see six stars together (or two stars with four locals) doing their big spots and otherwise mailing it in. Misioneros had a great working ethic and they brought to the table a "new style" (so to speak) where you could have more action (guys could go at full speed for a few minutes, tag in and rest) and promoters could book longer feuds as it was easier to protect wrestlers in this environment. Fans, promoters and wrestlers loved it and now people know Mexican wrestling because of the trios. This was NOT a natural business change, but something that came off the popularity of them. Also things to consider are: the three of them were top 15 Mexican workers at a time when there was more (and better) good workers than at any point in history. After them there were tons of regular trios with a gimmick name and matching tights popped up, including "Los Infernales" who were EMLL's answer to Los Misioneros, and that tradition still stands today, though on a minor scale. But on the other hand, they had a relatively short 7 year run headlining in both Arena Mexico and El Toreo, but never did anything of note after the trio broke up (Texano was 1/2 of Los Cowboys with Silver King, maybe the most underrated tag team of the 90s, but they couldn't even get a job with All Japan even though Furnas and Kroffat were desperate for that). Also they had the benefit of being pushed in a promotion that was already drawing big, even though they retained business and in fact, if it had not been for them and Canek (and not Villanos, or Dos Caras, or Casas, or Santo or whoever) the promotion would have died way faster, but I'm not sure that's too good of a thing. An added note is that it’s a shame that we don’t have a lot of footage from them at their best. Los Infernales: Satanico, Pirata Morgan and MS-1 As the note below mentioned, they were EMLL’s answer to Los Misioneros, though comparing the footage that we have they were much better as a trio. To me these three guys were the backbone of the company during a period were they were the second promotion in the country, but were still doing very good business even with a somewhat bland babyface roster during many years. Satanico and Pirata are two of the best rudo workers ever in lucha libre, and MS-1 is one of these guys who excelled at the epic bloodbath “mano a mano”. Los Brazos: top comedy team in the 80s and early 90s, as well as a tremendous draw all over Mexico, doing great business in places like Monterrey. Incredible workers even when two of them were ridiculously overweight. When Antonio Pena turned around EMLL he didn’t raid anybody else’s roster but he took five valuable players from UWA/LLI and signed them to exclusive contracts. One was Perro Aguayo who was the biggest draw in the country. One was Blue Panther, who nobody knew, but Pena considered the best rudo worker that there was in the country. The other three were Los Brazos. It’s interesting that he didn’t take El Hijo del Santo, or Canek, or Negro Casas. They also should get credit for being the stars that made Universal a hit in Japan (along with Hamada and Asai), even though the promotion wasn’t successful as it didn’t have a viable business plan. The lineage of that promotion is still alive today in Dragon Gate and Michinoku Pro. Los Rebeldes: Ray Mendoza, Rene Guajardo and Karloff Lagarde La Ola Blanca: Dr. Wagner, El Angel Blanco and El Solitario Los Hermanos Dinamita: Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000 and Universo 2000 La Pareja Atomica: El Santo and Gori Guerrero El Santo and Rayo de Jalisco Los Hermanos Shadow: Blue Demon and Black Shadow Los Hermanos Espanto (I and II) if you want to know more about them http://luchawiki.com/index.php?title=Espanto_I Los Compadres del Diablo (Perro Aguayo and Fishman) Teams that I want to mention just for fun: El Hijo del Santo and Negro Casas (their team was somewhat short-lived but damn if they didn’t have awesome matches week after week) Los Cadetes del Espacio (Solar, Super Astro and Ultraman): I’m sure they’d be held in much higher regard if we had more footage of them. Los Fantasticos (Kato Kung Lee, Kung Fu and Black Man): I wasn’t a big fan of their schtick but they were a sensational team that did very good business for at least half a decade. Los Cowboys (El Texano and Silver King): They lacked that major AJPW run that Baba never got them to be held on the same regard as Furnas and Kroffat. Los Guerreros (Sangre Chicana, Mocho Cota and La Fiera)

Excellent choice. Definitely worse than Tinieblas Jr. or Demon Jr. It's hard to believe it two decades after the fact, but for a short period of time, Mascara Sagrada was ENORMOUS. Of course not like Konnan or Vampiro, or anything like that, but definitely Atlantis level, perhaps almost Octagon level. I know it sounds absurd. But the guy was so awful that he's the only one from that generation that didn't parlay that fame into a decades long superstar career. At some point he vanished and NOBODY missed him at all.

I don't know, I have seen plenty of good Canek. Demon Jr. is alright when he can just work the mat. If he's got to sell or punch or kick people or use moves or shit like that it gets bad fast. I just can't think anything good to say about Tinieblas Jr. other than he's tall and he's got a cool mask. The old man was worse but at least he had the little motherfucker with him. I just checked luchawiki and it's awesome that my Alushe profile is still there though somebody added a last line that isn't mine.

Not in a world where Tinieblas Jr. exists.

Is that true? I have been to those three countries a number of times and I have never seen a trace of anything about it. Another interesting place that we know nothing about is Lebanon. Wrestling used to be huge there and I know there were tours at least up to the 80s. Spanish and French wrestlers would tour Lebanon all the time and make big money compared to what they'd make home (and I know that in Madrid and Barcelona the bullfighting stadiums and theaters were sold out or close to being sold out every week for years).

That's what I thought, just wasn't sure. Been a long time since I read it. Shame, it will take 11 years at this rate for 2007 to be part of the WON archive.

Virgil gets an undeserved bad rap as a crappy worker but he was a serviceable low and sometimes mid card babyface during his early 90s WWF run. He was not a master psychologist or seller but he was a good athlete, fast, had good execution and could pull do some decent stuff with a good opponent. Another guy that I also feel gets a lot of undeserved crap is Paul Roma. Yeah, he should not have been in the Horsemen, I get that, but he was a good hand.

I was thinking about this subject fairly recently. It's quite intriguing watching Brad Armstrong vs. Super Calo, or Mark Starr vs. Jim Powers, there definitely was a hierarchy even at the lowest rungs of WCW syndicated C-shows.

I considered pointing that out but since his reply would almost certainly be "They're not in the wrestling business, they're in the sports entertainment business. Just ask them if you don't believe me!" I didn't think there was any reason to tweet it. How about Motoko? Where can I read more about Moolah's "unsavoury" exploits? I had no idea about them, or maybe I did back in the day but I forgot. It sounds horrible.

This morning during a flight I listened to Jim Cornette's latest MLW Radio show. It's an interesting one for those who want to know more on his process on choosing candidates for the WON HOF. Cornette is a guy who is probably top 1% among the wrestling business voters who are actually historians. He's done research, written books, he reads a lot, cares about it, and on paper is one of those guys that you'd think would do the effort of thinking about the candidates instead of it being a two minute exercise going on memories and gut feeling alone like I am guessing most pro wrestlers do. So all of this being said, even a real historian-in-the-business like him seems to quickly disregard Dave Batista for some reason and anyone that votes for him as being insane, while trumpeting Bob Armstrong as an obvious because the guy is really well known in Alabama. Not saying that I personally agree or disagree with his approach or his comments on both candidates (I didn't vote for either, and I probably wouldn't have even if I had 20 choices) but it's interesting to see his thought process. I imagine that it's pretty hard to have worked closely with the candidates and not have any personal feelings one way or another somewhat clouding the criteria.

Yeah, I know of at least another person who acts like a "courier" for votes and it is possible that Konnan is doing the same thing but I don't know for sure. It's a weird system but there is no way you could get most of the old timers to send votes to a kayfabe breaking gringo who is measuring up wrestlers using things like "well this guy was very good at making others look good". A decade ago I had conversations with people like Villano III, Huracan Ramirez, El Halcon or Espanto II, some of them for hours, where kayfabe was not broken a single time. They didn't talk to me like a mark either (well, Huracan did, but he was a bit of a weirdo) and carefully tip toed around the subject when they wanted to explain something without breaking the magic. It took several conversations with some others for them to feel at ease and open up. It really helped a lot that on my website I wasn't publishing things like real names of people who were still masked. It's a different world now with the younger wrestlers though.

This one goes for KrisZ, or any other guys here who watch AAA regularly. For the first time in almost a decade I have watched AAA not involving Park or Wagner. Now, I know that Konnan blows a lot of smoke up his ass when talking about AAA wrestlers. But for a long time he's been talking up Daga as this next Mexican Bryan/Punk type guy with slick MMA submissions... and I have seen him 3 times now and I think that he's terrible. He's like a slow and uncoordinated version of Davey Richards that doesn't lay his shit in and his submissions frankly don't look more intense or painful than anything by Ringo Mendoza. I can see why he likes Fenix so much (I don't, but I can see why he does), but can't see anything at all in Daga. Is it just me or what? Am I completely wrong in my ways or should I stop wasting my time with AAA? (FWIW I like Texano Jr. a lot)

The shitting on the NSAC was more to do with Dana disliking Keith Kizer I imagine. Dave mentioned that the night before there were some sort of shenanigans involving the NSAC during the taping of TUF (BJ vs Edgar) so Dana was pissed.