Phil Schneider

Pretty much a perfect lucha trios, it has everything beautiful and great about lucha libre wrapped up in three caidas. Traditionally primera caidas in lucha matches are battles of skill, and we get some all time great match ups in the first fall. We open up with Niebla and Warrior squaring off, in a match full of all timers, these two are the outliers. They kind of remind me of that lost group of 90s basketball players who seemed poised to take over for Jordan, Barkley and Hakeem but failed to live up to their potential. Niebla vs Black Warrior is basically Shawn Kemp trying to dunk over Derrick Coleman. Really smooth counter wrestling with some real moments of athletic explosion, prime Niebla's movement was pretty breathtaking. The Primera Caida also gives up Blue Panther grappling with Atlantis and Negro Casas and Santo, which are just legendary and both pairings look amazing. Man did I loved the finish of this fall, with Panther doing a Backlund lift on Casas and Santo just blasting him with a top rope dropkick, and Warrior cleaning out Niebla with his awesome tope. Segunda Caida is quick and more high impact and includes a great assisted Niebla tope con hilo. Tercera Caida gets nice and grimy Santo and Panther beat the bricks off of Casas, the running kicks to the face here are as nasty as in their all time classic the year before, and Panther is throwing some brutal punches. It is a Satanico level rudo beatdown from two guys you don't think of as that kind of asskicker (Warrior is around too, but on the periphery.) I loved the fuck off finish of this too, with Panther just ripping off Atlantis mask and parading around with it, totally unconcerned about losing the match. I don't remember ever seeing this match before, and it as an all timer.

Really a tale of two different matches. We open with Cide, Xavier and Jeez in the ring and the commentators saying Hart no showed, there is some really stinko juniors wrestling to start, with Xavier looking especially terrible. Then Hart comes from the back and we get a classic psychotic Hart vs. Cide JAPW arena brawl. Eye gouging, fish hooking, awkward chairshots to weird parts of the body, everything you want from those two lunatics try to kill each other. At one point Homicide places Hart's foot in between a chair and smashes it with some fans backpack, Hart pries open Homicide's jaw with his hands and punches his square in the open jaw. Xavier and Jeez take some bumps too, Xavier gets hurled into the bleachers back first, Homicide takes Jeez's head and cracks against the wall like he was trying to open a coconut. All of this is going on while Julius Smokes (who is managing Jeez now) is running around whipping Hart and Xavier with his belt while his pants are falling down exposing his bare ass. It goes back to ring we get another terrible looking juniors run between Xavier and Jeez, while Cide and Hart are fighting on the floor. Hard to rate this, because the brawling was fucking amazing, and the wrestling parts were mostly awful. On a pure enjoyment scale though, this was pretty high.

I assumed that the days of Fujiwara classics had passed, I have been working on the C+A Fujiwara project since 2009, I have found a couple of EPIC's since then, but they have all been tags and trios matches which included great performances from other wrestlers as well. Fujiwara is 67 years old, how is it possible for him to be able to work a 15 minutes singles match this good? Aoki isn't a guy who has done much pro-wrestling before, although he is one of the greatest MMA grapplers ever, he fits in to shootstyle great, he is so skilled and fast. I love how Fujiwara was working this as a guy a little outclassed on the mat, it is a foreign role for him, but Aoki is so slick that Fujiwara keeps finding himself in a compromised position. He has to resort to cheapshot headbutts to get an advantage (and man what a cheapshot headbutt it was, one of his best), I also loved how Fujiwara used wrestling grappling in a shoot context, at one point he uses a headlock to drive Aoki's knee to his temple, another time he does almost a drop toe hold to get back position, credit to the skill of both guys that it looked natural.

I loved this match Loved the story of this match. Schumann tries early to wrestle with Severn and gets thrown violently. I mean he just hurls Schumann to the mat like he was a punking a first day trainee. I also really liked Schumann putting Severn in the guard and Severn constantly lifting and slamming him. I am sure Severn has bad Royce Gracie associations being stuck in guard, and certainly wasn't going to let a random German guy Brazilian Ju-Jitsu him. Franz realizing he was out gunned broke out some 1980's highflyer offense to stymie Severn, "My ju-jitsu may not be up to par, but I bet no one ever gave you a standing dropkick in the octagon, fine you have a better double leg takedown, but how about this tope." Really loved the finish with Severn deciding he had enough and just tossing Schumann and trying to rip his arm off. Great stuff.

Big time main event LA Park singles matches are such a rare treat, and Fenix is a great opponent for a monster brawler (Park is basically the platinum version of Mil Muertes). Starts out with Park wrecking Fenix, javelining him into the crowd headfirst into chairs, throwing about fifty chairs on to him (and encouraging the fans to hurl chairs at him too, Tijuana is a different place), he even brains him with a giant drink cart. Fenix fires back with one of the best spin kicks I can remember seeing, and sends Park into the crowd with a tope con hilo. He then hurls Park four rows deep into the crowd where he obliterates a lady who didn't move fast enough. It goes from there, Park is totally awesome in this match, brawling, flying and bumping like someone who isn't super fat and super old, he is a true marvel. I really hated Fenix eating a tombstone and immediately putting on a submission (we got to get him out of PWG) but otherwise this was total blast, so glad we got a good copy of this.

I boxed Golden Gloves in my early days, but it would be silly to criticize Jerry Lawler for not moving his head and winding up on his punches. Pro wrestling is it's own thing and Negro Navarro is as awesome a grappler as Yoshiaki Fujiwara just in different ways

Sabre actually worked a FUTEN show in 2015, and seems to be really excited to work a BattlArts guy. He keeps this mostly BattlArts style, with the matwork being pretty shooty, and really dialing down his flourishes (in fact any of the goofy stuff in the match was done by Sawa). There is some really nice grappling early. With Sawa working for leglocks, and Sabre attacking the arm. They exchange some nasty slaps to the ear which is the stiffest I can remember Sabre working, he really laid into Sawa and bloodied his mouth. Finish run was awesome, with Sabre yanking Sawa out of the air on a kick attempt and putting on a nasty STF variation. After Sawa gets to the ropes, they exchange some shots, and Sabre does another cool counter as he ducks the Ohtani punch and drags Sawa down into a sleeper which he quickly transitions into a banana split for the tap. I really liked this, it was one of my favorite Sabre performances, it wasn't his best match, but I thought he maximized the cool shit, and minimized the dumb shit in a really entertaining way.

Riddle continues his incredible Mania weekend with a wild sprint with Osprey. Osprey comes in with his neck taped from a gif worthy blown spot in New Japan, and Riddle just viciously attacks him. He really feels like he wants to knocks his blocky yellowed British teeth down his throat. Osprey gets his neck wrecked with Riddle just crawling all over him and landing sick elbows right to the KT tape on his neck. The spot where Osprey climbs to the top rope with Riddle on his back, only to get murder deathed off the top rope was truly nuts. I honestly would have been fine with the match ending there, it would have established Riddle as a vicious killer, and Osprey as a tough guy with a death wish. The post restart stuff was great though, the crowd gets totally behind Osprey and his comeback and it ends up being really frenzied and great. I wouldn't think these guys would work well together, as Riddle against flyers is often iffy, but this was a hell of war. Loved it.

We reviewed EVOLVE 103 which had a bunch of fun matches although nothing blow away great http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/wrestlemania-weekend-cherry-picking_13.html

I thought the ladder match was fun, but it was easily behind the title match, Gargano vs. Ciampa and the Moon vs. Bayzler match which I thought was great.

Not 1989 Flair?

Steph was definitely the MVP of the match, she might have been the MVP of the whole weekend.

I went and reviewed a couple of matches from Wrestlecon and the Lee vs. Ohno HH http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/wrestlemania-weekend-thursday.html

Great match and fitting swan song for Sabre's EVOLVE title reign (and his run in EVOLVE overall). Match was set up as Riddle's strikes and throws against Sabre's submissions and we got great versions of both. I loved Sabre torturing Riddle's feet and he was just twisting him up in some really inventive pretzels, Riddle's body is taking a beating this weekend, I can't imagine his knee felt good the way Sabre was twisting it. Sabre also took some pretty big shots to the jaw, Riddle's go to sleeps felt especially reckless. Loved the finish with Riddle attempting a twister, Sabre countering it into some sort of calf slicer, and Riddle able to re counter back into an arm trap twister for the tap. So much of the matwork was dominated by Riddle, it was nice to see the Ju Jitsu brown belt break out some tricks.

Eric jumped in and watched some of the intergender stuff http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/wrestlemania-weekend-cherry-picking-lot.html

We reviewed Bloodsport over at Segunda Caida http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/wrestlemania-weekend-thursday-matt.html Pretty much liked everything outside of Masada vs. Stone

This is another undiscovered Tony Halme masterpiece. I had no idea early 90s Tony Halme was such an awesome killing machine. This was a Karate vs. Boxing mixed match, and Aoyagi is great at these kind of hyrbid fights. First round had both guys working their opponents into corners, with Halme using his pulverizing body shots, and Aoyagi winging head and body kicks. Aoyagi takes over during the second round, really working over Halme's mid section with knees and kicks, Halme is great at selling fatigue and being winded as he is stumbling around the ring, however he is still able to drop Aoyagi with one body shot. Second round ends with a really cool back and forth exchange. Third round is what pushes this into EPIC territory. Aoyagi gets a quick knockdown with a spin kick, Halme barely beats the 10 count and Aoyagi flies at him to finish him off and leaps right into a huge right hand. Aoyagi beats the count, but a second monster right hand floors him for good. Great stuff, Halme doesn't have a lot of different songs to sing, but he sings the fuck out of this one song.

This was so good, Casas comes off a broken rib (which has to kill your endurance and effect your breathing) and works a just break neck paced match against some kid young enough to be his grandson. Nothing unusual about oldster luchadores having great matches, but how in the fuck does a 58 year old man work this kind of sprint, Casas looked like 22 year old Juventud Guerrera for shits sake. Aramis is obviously a little green, but I though he was pretty great in this, landing some awesome leglocks, which Casas would counter beautifully, he also breaks out a nutso tope, right into the stantion, and crushing Casas into the seats. Finish was super cool too, with Aramis making the fatal error of trying to Casita, Negro Casas and Casas rolling through and wrapping him up with a gorgeous Casita of his own. Absolutely loved every second of this.

Just a sleaze indy dream match. It is weird that this is New Japan and not main eventing a NOW or ZIPANG show. Aoyagi comes out jumps the rail, and spin kicks Kurisu right in the mouth, and it is fucking on! Aoyagi beats Kurisu around the ring a bit, and is really laying in to him, you know Kurisu is going to potato you, so you got to throw spuds at him. Kurisu fires back with those odd angle vicious headbutts, unprofessional stomps and chair shots where he digs the corner right into the throat, the whole Kurisu shebang. There is this great moment where Aoyagi blocks a headbutt with a karate forearm block and thrust Kurisu right in the throat. The match stays ragged and unprofessional throughout, lots of wince inducing shots and a DQ finish that has Kurisu violently chair shotting Aoyagi, the ref and multiple trainees. This is part of a batch of new NJ HH's unearthed by Pete over at PWO, this is what I was dreaming it was going to be like when I saw the match listing and it lived up to every second.

The treasure trove of NJ HH footage delivers us what seems to be a previously unearthed New Japan 10 man elimination match. The other Elimination matches finished very high on the NJ DVDVR 80s sets, and this might be a slight step below a MOTD level, it is still really awesome. This was worked at a super sprint pace which works well with all of these guys in this match, and with Choshu, Muto and Fujiwara we have some of the greatest sprint wrestlers ever. I actually really loved Takada in this, he was about as violent as I have seen him, he really kicks the shit out of Choshu and at one point mounts him and lays out some nasty ground and pound. I also love Sakaguchi as a big bruiser chucking people around, he kind of felt like a proto Akira Taue in this. Kind of an odd match structure as the Choshu team gets a four on one advantage on Fujiwara at the end. We get an awesome Stone Cold moment where the crowd in chanting for Fujiwara as he tries to fight everyone, but while he gets a near fall or two, it would have been cooler if he had gotten an elimination before going down. We did get a great Choshu lariat on the finish and Fujiwara sells a Choshu lariat better then anyone. Still that was a minor complaint for an otherwise awesome match. Had no idea this match existed until a week ago, and it was such a treat to have it show up.