Exposer

The WWF set will be big for sure. It might be 150 like the AWA. Crocket could be bigger. It's probably going to be 175, maybe even 200. Portland is going to be 100 I believe. We're trying 75 for Puero Rico, at least 50. Yeah, Puerto Rico and Portland will be smaller. Puerto Rico is awesome but there are footage issues. We have a lot of Portland it seems but when Buddy left the quality in the ring crashed.

Again, I'm loving all of these posts. Thanks a bunch for adding to this thread. I figured I'd tell the story of my first time ever attending one of these indie shows. When I was eight my wrestling fandom was limited to WWF on Mondays and Thursdays. Dylan actually gave Dustin and I a Japanese tape during this period. I'm pretty sure it had Liger-Sano and Funk-Foley King of the Death match. It's amusing now to think that I possibly didn't go outside to play once because I was watching a Naoki Sano match but that's beside the point. My uncle and cousin were a pretty big part of my childhood. After we left Charleston and came here to Chattanooga we spent a lot of time together. My uncle was sort of a long time wrestling fan but never watched it consistently and hadn't really paid much attention since the late 80s. He appreciated the old school, technical aspects of it. He loved average holds, bloody brawls, and simple angles. My cousin didn't watch wrestling at all until my uncle introduced it to him at an indie show. There was this show in East Ridge at the time that sent out flyers around town and I think my uncle spotted one at the flea market. Apparently, one Saturday evening my uncle and cousin are driving down Ringgold Road (the main road passing through East Ridge) and my uncle remembers this flyer and asks my cousin if he wanted to go see some wrestling. My cousin agreed and they went to this show. Sometime later, my uncle brings it up to my Dad and says it was a fun show. This is probably around Spring or Summer of 2001. My Dad seemed interested enough and we all went to this place. The name of the promotion was Ultimate Extreme Wrestling or UEW. Now, this place wasn't some hardcore indie birthed out of the legend of ECW it just had the appealing name to bring in more fans. In fact, it was a very traditional southern style promotion that took tag wrestling seriously and had plenty of ring rats screaming for the babyfaces. It had traditonal mat work, bloody brawls, and simple angles. That's what my uncle loved so it stuck out to him. I was skeptical as an eight year old because I thought nothing could ever compare to the WWF. I found it hard to believe that a warehouse with a small ring and a hundred strange people could ever keep my interest. I don't recall my first reactions to walking into this place but I probably wasn't too impressed. It was a warehouse with two gigantic garage doors. In the entrance was a window where a lady behind a desk would take up the fans money and stamp them. The "arena" was to the right and in the front lobby was a huge sign that read "UEW" and it was in red and black with white in the background. There was a shit ton of photos of fans with wrestlers pinned up on the wall. There was an entire backstage area to the left of the UEW sign. In the "arena" were chairs lined up in rows facing the ring. There was a commentary booth at the far end of the warehouse that had the same UEW sign directly behind it on the wall. Two sides at ringside had wooden barricades, the other two did not. We ended up sitting in one of the front rows without protection. I honestly couldn't say what was on this first card but I sure as hell remember the main event. It was a battle royal. One of those nights where there weren't enough guys on the roster to build a big card so they closed the night with some chaotic fun. There was this wrestler named Blackie Lawless who our cousin liked so we cheered for him. He had long black hair, a short black beard, and was average sized. It's in the middle of this battle royal and we're enjoying ourselves. Someone throws Lawless out of the ring on our side. He ends up going over without even trying to slow down his momentum. He comes crashing down right into my lap and takes me down with my chair. I was fucking shocked. I had no idea what had just ocurred. I just laid there frozen on the ground for a few seconds. I probably resembled someone who had just witnessed paranormal activity. The promotor, Crazy Eddie, rushes over to help me. He pulls me up and everyone gets me back in my chair. Dustin and my cousin are laughing at me. Some guy in the row behind me who won a miniature belt with his raffle gave it to me as a gift for being "tough" or something. Really, I was terribly embarassed and wanted to leave but I came back. Somehow, I think that first experience left quite the impression on me. It was such a unique coincidence and it really made UEW stand out as a place where literally anything can happen. So, I came back every week, minus a short few month hiatus in the fall of 01, until the promotion shutdown in June of 2004. That's one hell of a way to begin the southern independent wrestling experience.

The Tale of the Incomparable Wes Blaze Going back to our previous discussion of one of the more highly touted individuals related to the periodic table "The Element" Dustin Hales we will now discuss his former colleague Wes "Oh My God!" Blaze. Wes Blaze was given the birth name Wesley Davis. Young Wes was the son of a local independent professional wrestler who went by the name of Johnny Blaze. Johnny Blaze made sporadic appearances at the local indie promotion I frequented here in Chattanooga, UEW. He was more or less a jobber to the stars type and was not particularly engaging in the ring. He did however have a classic southern independent wrestling look. He was a big guy, kind of tall, but wasn't in all that great of shape. He had a thick brownish mustache and a tremendous mullet that stretched down to his shoulder blades. He was the sort of guy one might catch on the news after a meth lab bust. Well, his son Wes had many desires to be like his father. So, he began watching and talking about wrestling as a kid. In middle school, he met my brother Dustin. Dustin was huge into wrestling at the time so they would chatter constantly about what was going on in the "sport" at the time. As mentioned prior to this Dustin was big into backyard wrestling as was I. Wes, being the son of a professional athlete such as his father, felt inclined to take part in these wildly dangerous activities as well. In the spring of 2002 Dustin and I began hanging out with Wes a good bit and we would converse on such hot topics as the return of the NWO or the unfortunate events pertaining to HHH's dog. One day, Wes asked Dustin and I if we wanted to join his backyard wrestling federation. Dustin and I discussed this with other members of our organization and chose to produce a joint promoted show similar to the early to mid 90s joint productions of New Japan Pro Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling. WCW and NJ may have had Fujinami, Hase, Ohtani, Liger, the Steiners, and Flair but we had "The Man" (Dustin in a mask), "The Element" (Dustin without a mask), Jaws (me), D.J "The Show" Lashus (our wrestling hub was located in his homestead), and "Scream" (portrayed by Wes Davis). This show took place later that spring but not before some setbacks. Johnny Blaze had his own wrestling ring that he had in his side yard. This is not a lie. It was actually a nice ring with ropes, turnbuckles, and everything else in between. Wes had this plan where our show would take place in that very ring. So, we went to his house and tried the ring out. We all got on the turnbuckles and tried unsuccessfully to run the ropes. We were fully prepared to have this show take place in that ring. However, Johnny Blaze was having none of it. He nixed the whole plan with the real wrestling ring so we had to resort back to our traditional habits. That was wrestling on four king sized mattresses set up in D.J. Lashus's garage. Sure enough, we had our joint show right there in the garage. We even had a crowd. The proud parents of the Hales brothers took themselves down the hill and joined us for this spectacular attraction. They actually paid us the large sum of a dollar a piece for admittance. This was a terrific show that had several match-ups with four or five well-trained athletes. In the opening match "The Man" defeated Jaws with a flying elbow drop from atop a couch's right arm and the show ended with a brutal ladder match between "The Element" and "Scream." We used a small step ladder and the belt kept falling down from the ceiling. Dustin and Wes spent the whole match readjusting the belt and holding the step ladder for each other but it was still one hell of match. After that legendary card, Wes began to slowly turn away from our pack of friends and headed towards a real career as a professional wrestler. The last show he ever did with us was a taped card that coincidentally didn't involve a Hales brother. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that tape made much circulation. He might be most remembered by me for his tremendous attempt at the Rikishi close line bump where he did a 360 and smashed his nose on the ice cooler we used for "steel" steps. He bled everywhere. Wes moved on to bigger and better things. It wasn't long before he was in the wrestling ring. Myspace and Facebook photos proved these rumors true and Wes was becoming quite the young talent here in the area. He spent a long time at the recently defunct promotion TWA. There, he acquired his magnificent gimmick of Wes "Oh My God" Blaze. No one can truly compare to his great success in the past ten or so years since his famous joint production show in a garage. He still wrestles today all over the area. I have yet to see him live but I've taken a few looks at him online. With that, let's give a short look at an unforgettable introduction to the incomparable Wes Blaze.

The best part about that last vid is the ring announcer yelling immediately after the engagement, "ALRIGHT Y'ALL ARE YOU READY FOR SOME MORE WRESTLIN!"

Raul Reyes Jr. y Climax vs. Mocho Cota y Loco Zavala (1985) – Man, I’m tired as fuck and need to go to bed so I got caught staring off into nothing while watching this. This was a total blast and had some really excellent exchanges from what I know I caught. The early exchanges in the first fall were off the hook. Climax is exciting to watch. Reyes, Cota, and Zavala had some mean punches to deliver throughout this. That third fall punching war was fucking awesome. Once again, Cota was incredible. He’s one of the greatest rudos ever just off a small sample of footage. The crowd’s fucking loathe him and that segment early in the second fall with him being a total chickenshit with the lights going out was marvelous. He capped this off by begging to Reyes but catching him with a punch to the gut. The double submission finish was wacky as hell but I liked it. This goes on the definite re-watch page because of my sleepy ass but I caught most of it and enjoyed the hell out of it. This is about three and a half stars or so. It’s about a solid B. Fun match.

Well, I'm loving this thread for one. All of this nostalgia and other people adding to it is really awesome. I need to study more Spanish via watching the lucha set though I will definitely post a nice big write-up on the incomparable Wez Blaze tomorrow though so be waiting for that. Also, I'll give some of those other vids posted on here a look. I'm excited to check them out.

Fuck, I can't believe I forgot that. I actually didn't attend this show and was in Charleston watching fireworks with Dylan, his wife, and my niece. Dustin sent Dylan a text or something and then we watched the video when we got back to Dylan's place and nearly shit ourselves.

Keep these posts coming Kris. I'm loving them. You mentioned Iceberg Slim. He wrestled in UEW on a regular basis for a few years. He was a really great brawler and bled buckets every night. I believe he had an old manager who went by the name of The Mysterious Benefactor who passed away around that time too.

I'm never leaving the south. Ever. This is too great.

I'll definitely check this out soon. I've got lots of stories about seeing Lex Luger, Jake Roberts, Scott Steiner, Buff Bagwell, the Naturals, and Terry Gordy shortly before he died. It's always great to catch a legend in your hometown indie feds.

This is awesome! Man, the flyers for all of these indie shows are basically identical but they're great about showing these great photos of scummy workers. Southside trash is the best "trash" gimmick since Tennessee Trash who was a guy who wrestled semi-regularly at UEW in East Ridge here.

The biggest complaint I have heard about Reigns is that he'll sell by getting taken out of a match for a minute or two and then just be up as if nothing happened. I've heard that too. I honestly can't point to a match where he's done that but I won't go saying it doesn't happen. I think he's been incredible as the imposing force of his team all year. He's totally believable as an asskicker and on initial impact he's a good bumper and sells well. I think he's perfect in the role that was made for him.

It's great to read all of the posts so far. I'm always interested in hearing about other indies from around the States and elsewhere. I don't want to flood this thread with too many links but I think this is a great way to kick things off. The above match is about as carny as carny can get. It's "Fly Guy" Cannon vs. "The Element." "Fly Guy" Cannon has been a local indie guy here in Chatt for over ten years and maybe more. He's this freakishly muscular and strong black dude who plays the gimmick of an over-the-top asskicker. I first saw him about ten years ago at UEW where he would show up every now and then and have these insane athletic match-ups. There was one match at a benefit show my uncle helped promote where he did a standing shooting star press and the crowd lost their shit. Now this guy is massive. He's got visible acne and an elongated forehead so we can all make our assumptions how that strength and mass came about. He also was a total asskicker in the ring and once tortured a greenhorn so bad with chops that his chest bled and our wrestling buddy Charlie was complaining about unprofessionalism and how "Fly Guy" "went too far." Another story about "Fly Guy" is the time my uncle ran into him at Food Lion of all places and was chatting it up with him in line. I find it hilarious that this gigantic dude with huge arms may have been buying bread or some shit while talking to my social butterfly uncle about independent wrestling in the area. I wonder what the other people in line were thinking? This match took place at AWF. AWF stands for American Wrestling Federation (I believe). It is run in Ringgold, GA, the home of my schooling from second grade to graduation. Ringgold is a pretty small town in North GA about fifteen to twenty miles south of Chattanooga. It's one of those stereotypical southern towns where everyone knows everyone else and three or four families run the town. I'd list the family names but I'm not sure I'd get them all right. So, wrestling was not out of the ordinary. The best part about AWF is that it is run by Paul Lee of SMW jobber fame. This guy is the greatest rip-off of Ric Flair of all-time and it's not even close. His nickname is "The Nature Boy", his finisher is the figure four, he cuts southern style Flair promos, he bumps like Flair including the corner bump and body press bump off the ropes, all of his offense is identical to Flair's, and he bleeds as much as Flair did. Funny enough, he's had Flair in town for several shows over the summer and paid big bucks for it selling out the Colonnade in Ringgold (which is a place where the prom, sports banquets, and small concerts are held in town). I went to school with Paul's second oldest, Lex who now wrestles. Lex and I had weight training together and shared bench press and worked out in the same group. In the locker rooms during changing periods we would chop each other as hard as we could. He nearly collapsed my lung one day as he put his full body weight into it. I was coughing for several minutes and shit. Paul's place is located off of Highway 41 down the road from the high school, past the main strip of town, and by one of the best BBQ places ever. Paul's day job is running a motorcycle/car sales/garage place right next door to the warehouse where the wrestling is held. Therefore this guy is a used car salesmen by day, runs a southern professional wrestling indie fed by night, and his claim to fame is as a jobber to the stars such as Brian Lee and "White Lightning" Tim Horner in Smokey Mountain Wrestling. Then there's "The Element." "The Element" is known by some in Ringgold. He went to the middle and high school there. He was on the soccer, football, and wrestling teams. He was an A and B student. In his glory days he was a backyard wrestling champion in the neighborhood of Smoketree Circle. He won his local neighborhood championship nine times. He brilliantly performed a pedigree to himself onto concrete off stairs at age eleven against an invisible Triple H. He often placed dirty laundry on the concrete of the main wrestling hub/garage in his neighborhood and missed Whisper in the Wind's. The laundry was there to break his fall. "The Element" also goes by another name. His other name is Dustin, Dustin Hales. Dustin is the fortunate sibling and brother of long time internet wrestling poster DylanWaco and recently acquired internet poster Exposer. This is his only match released on video or else he would go down in history as one of the great backyard wrestling heroes of the modern era. To set the stage, we have "Fly Guy" Cannon vs. "The Element." The idea behind this match was that "Fly Guy" is Paul Lee's muscle and he went out every week and picked someone out of the crowd who then signed a waiver and tried to take him down or beat him in a match. If the fan succeeded they would win a prize of money. I don't remember the amount offered but that's nothing to this timeless classic. This is southern indie carnival wrestling at it's finest and it involves a Hales brother too. Shame on you if you don't instantly click on this classic encounter.

Reigns is a top twenty worker on earth this year in my opinion. He's put on too many great performances this year to say otherwise. There's still two and a half months left and with seemingly a Rhodes tag or two left among other things he could be looking into the top ten.

We could probably change it to hometown indies in general. It will get maybe a few more people involved I think. I might throw in a match review every now and then too when discussing a particular worker. It'll be good to bring up examples. Back to inclusivity though. If anybody reading this wants to write their own personal stuff on hometown indies than please do it. I'd love to hear about it. Maybe we can change the title of the thread too.

Dylan's massive write-up on Rossville, GA inspired the nostalgia in me. Thanks to his consideration I'm starting this thread and will try to keep up with it as best I can. I'll start tonight with an intro and pick up where I left off tomorrow: I live and grew up in the metropolitan area of Chattanooga, Tennessee. On the surface, it's a beautiful city right smack dab in the center of the south. It's in relatively reasonable traveling distance from Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Huntsville, and Birmingham. We have a newly renovated riverfront with a great Art District, a revered Aquarium, an old but extremely popular walking bridge, a North Shore with tacky shops and restaurants, and a rising University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. We have mountains, rivers, lakes, streams, damns, trails, bluffs, magnificent peaks, and deep valleys. We have TVA, Krystal, Moon Pies, The Chattanooga Choo Choo, Coca Cola bottling factories, the birthplace of tow trucks, Ruby Falls, and Rock City. It's a pretty great place when you visit or have a look around town. But under the surface lies the heart of Chattanooga. The summers are hot. The heat index reaches unbearable heights. The air quality is bad. Imagine standing outside of a warehouse in the summer. The family is along for the fun. The uncle, brothers, cousin, friends, random acquaintances, and sometimes dad. There are grandpas smoking three to five cigarettes while their pants hang from their waist showing their ass. Grandmas round up the grand-kids to give them their money to pay. The grand-kids are wearing Jeff Hardy wrist bands, Steve Austin "What?" shirts, or WWE Raw Live shirts from shows at the McKenzie. Young couples join the crowd with the girl often carrying child. She sometimes takes a cigarette from the grandpas. The boyfriends are all cocky with their SEC football hats, tobacco spit, and bad tattoos. They ramble on about Dawg football, or Bama football, or Vol football. The uncle/dad pulls up with his kid. Then the families come flooding in. The mom who isn't wearing a bra underneath the John Cena shirt. The dad who lost his teeth a long time ago but still manages to give off a great big smile. The teenage girls wear their favorite boy toys t-shirts and gossip about Randy Orton on Smackdown. The teenage boys show up with their girlfriends in arm. They have tobacco in too and talk about Raw, Impact, Smackdown, or the latest local indie news. The dads join in and talk about going to the flea market in East Ridge with the wrestling stand. The wrestling stand guy sometimes comes to shows. He sells all sorts of old VHS DVDS, action figures, and merchandise. Finally, everyone's favorite shows up. The longtime wrestling fan who's been attending these events for years. He, usually, walks up to the door with a car full of nephews or sons following behind. He's wearing an NWO Wolfpac shirt and it's the 2000s. He complains about ticket prices and begs to be let in. After a while the doors open and everyone goes into the warehouse sweating and smelling of tobacco smoke. There is about 100 or so chairs lined up in rows surrounding a ring. A ring crew of one sometimes two or three are checking the turnbuckles and tightening the ropes. Everyone takes their seat but spot their favorite wrestler lurking behind the curtain. They try and get his attention. The ring rats get excited when the young green hands come around for a brief look at the set-up. Grandpa's pants are still not holding up too well. The ring announcer comes out to music and pyro. The fans cheer, some loudly, some half-heartedly. The long time wrestling fan shows everyone pictures he took with Reese from Raven's flock on his flip phone. The ring announcer tries to get everybody fired up. It sort of works. More music hits and out comes an out of shape bald guy with a beer belly, a terrible tribal tattoo, and a bad attitude. Finally, everyone cheered and now we all know what the best part of Chattanooga really is.

Great Review Dylan. A few history notes for anyone else who cares: I've been going to East TN/North GA Indy shows for over twelve years so I know a good deal about the back history on some of these guys. So, for interesting randomness I used to see Leroy Lewis all the time at the Dollar Store where he worked on North Market here in Chatt. He had a tag partner, Jay Farley, (who coincidentally was the first UEW champion in 2000), who also worked there. Both are swell guys and whenever I went in there with my Uncle he'd chat them up while they were doing inventory and they'd give us scoops on the latest cards and shows in the area. My fondest memory of their work as a tag team was one night at UEW they were in the main event battle royal. UEW was like any indy fed in the area and some Saturday's guys wouldn't show up or the card was particularly light, etc. So, oftentimes a main event battle royal with all the workers that showed up would take place at the end of the night. On this night, Jay Farley was sick was some type of stomach bug or whatever. So, in awesome southern indy fashion he's coming down to the ring chugging pepto bismol while preparing for a ten to fifteen man battle royal. It was grand. Currently, Jay apparently still works at the North Market Dollar Store but Leroy was relocated to the even more downtrodden Dollar Store on South Market a few blocks away from the hit liquor store in town. Corey Cox was once a sixteen year old referee/ring boy at UEW back in the early 2000s. He was a skinny little punk kid who smoked cigarettes like a chimney and chatted with the fans while we all waited in line for the show. After a while, he started ripping teams off and shit or something as the ref and eventually do a full heel turn and became the roadie for Andrew Alexander's (Now a member of Devil's Rejects and a fab indy worker) tag team that was an early 2000s rip-off of Spinal Tap. I have no clue when Cox got fully trained or when he began working on a regular schedule because once UEW went out of business in 2004 we were jumping from indy show to indy show for years. Anyways, he's turned in some solid performances from what I've caught from him although I've never thought he was too special of a worker. I enjoyed him more as Andy Alexander's roadie. Also, I will tell a great story about friends of mine from high school hopping onto the highway off of Rossville Boulevard. There's this underpass right at the intersection of Rossville Boulevard and I think Central Avenue where drunken bums sleep. Next to the underpass on both sides is a motel that is a soliciting hot spot and across the street from that is a porn store. Behind the porn store is a small strip joint called "B.J.s Puss N Boots." Anyways, my friends were taking the ramp onto the freeway by the overpass there and a hooker was getting chased by her pimp midday as they avoided semis careening down the Ridge Cut which is a massive ridge (Missionary Ridge of Civil War fame) that the freeway goes over to connect the Chattanooga City Limits and East Ridge. The hooker ran in front of my friends car (thankfully they were at a near stop) and they hit her. Of course, the cops showed up and evidently the pimp was giving this hooker a telling in front of the cops and my friends (who are from a small town in North GA) were mortified. Man, no one will care about this but I love these stories. Thanks for the great write-up again Dylan and that was easily the best description of Rossville I've ever heard.

I can make out some Spanish since I'm a Comm major and it's required. The few times I've paid attention to the announcer it seems they announce the captain last in the respective teams. There also seems to be something said before the last name is announced too. It might be pertaining to captaincy but I can't guarantee that one way or the other.

Sangre Chicana vs. Villano III (12/7/84) – Am I insane or was a big part of the third fall missing from this? They did show the replay to the ending of the second which could have been when Chicana ripped Villano III’s mask up and bloodied him but that only lasted seconds. Anyways, this was worked similarly to the Chicana-MS-1 classic but didn’t have as much heat, meaning, and the Chicana’s comeback didn’t mean nearly as much. Villano bloodies Chicana up pretty good and Chicana is a master of selling so this worked. Villano III has great brawling offense and kept his interesting even if I thought he was in control for too long without a proper build to Chicana’s comeback. As an aside, I like Villano III way better in this match than any other he’s been in. He has annoyed me some with no selling bullshit in previous matches on the set. The brawling style fits him greatly. I loved his top rope senton. It looked brutal. Chicana throws his famous punch and hits a tremendous dive to win the second fall by count-out and officially make a comeback. The weird part comes here where after the replay of the second fall finish we have a bloodied and near maskless Villano III desperately trying to fend off Chicana from taking his mask. Chicana succeeds and Villano is still getting attacked so he awesomely punts Chicana in the balls for the double DQ finish. I loved that finish as it made total sense for Villano to just kick the fuck out of Chicana in the nads because Chicana was trying to expose him. Too bad something is missing or else I’d like this a little more. This is floating right under four stars. Something felt missing and this was a lighter version of Chicana-MS-1. Still, I liked it and it’s about a solid B or B+. Very good brawl.

Gran Cochise, Villano III y Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs. Fishman, Mocho Cota y Tony Bennetto (11/84) – Mocho Cota’s hair is AWESOME. This guy is like the best scummy looking wrestler ever. He’s pretty great in this too. He opens things up before the bell by plowing Cochise with a punch and knocking him off the apron. This starts with the rudos triple teaming and using isolation tactics but it doesn’t work. We end up getting some strong exchanges with all six guys mixing it up before the tecnicos take the first fall off of sunset flips. Cota is awesome backing away from Cochise after his teammates lose the first fall. He’s such a chicken shit. The second fall rules with Cota stirring shit-up and trying to blindside Cochise at every turn. Both guys take tremendous post bumps in this fall as well. Cochise ends up getting isolated as does Villano III. Jalisco is nowhere to be found and he added absolutely nothing to this match either. Fishman hits a great top rope splash to pin Villano III and take the second fall. The third fall is great with Cota and Cochise brawling all over the place, Cochise bloodying Cota and biting his cut, etc. This lead to an outstanding dive sequence with Cota taking an insane monkey flip to the floor on his teammates and Villano III and Jalisco hitting dives right afterwards. Everyone is counted out except Cochise and Cota. This goes into a really good last few minutes with both guys getting near falls until Cochise catches Cota in a small package off of a body slam for the win. Cota is appropriately pissy in the post-match. This was grand. Cota was the star in this and was tremendous throughout. Cochise looked great too. I’ll give this around four and one fourth stars. A-. Great trios.

Javier Cruz vs. El Dandy (Hair vs. Hair) (10/26/84) – This is a strange match in that I’d typically want a hair match to have blood and violence. This didn’t have any of that. The first two falls I waited for that but it never came. I was feeling disappointed at the beginning of the third fall but by the end of the match I was satisfied. Dandy controls the majority of the first two falls which is fine. He’s got exceptional variation in his offense and brings great punches along with it. Cruz is a fantastic bumper and is seriously a top ten all time probably. His post bump, clothesline bump, and turnbuckle bump were all tremendous in this. I dug both submission finishers as “strangulation” submissions as the commentator was indicating. They both looked pretty brutal. The third fall was chock full of near falls and close calls but it built really well. Dandy’s plancha was great but Cruz has one of the greatest dives ever so his high spot wins out here. That ends up being the finish as both guys tries to keep one another from entering the ring to break the count so they both lose and get haircuts. The post-match haircuts are always a blast too. Again, I think this is a bit of a hard match to rate because a part of me wanted blood and violence and didn’t get that. However, this built pretty well especially in the third fall and it was satisfying enough to be called a really good match. I don’t think it’s quite great even with the positive write-up so I’ll give it close to four stars. It’s certainly good enough for a B+ I think. It was different but I liked it.

Disc 3 Rankings: 1. Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84) 2. Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (Hair vs. Hair) (7/30/84) 3. El Satanico y Espectro Jr. vs. El Faraon y La Fiera (8/12/84) 4. Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraon vs. Villano III (Elimination Match) (10/84) 5. Satanico vs. Super Astro (10/84) 6. Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (Hair vs. Hair) (9/21/84) 7. Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) 8. Javier Cruz, Impacto y Solar II vs. El Dandy, Franco Colombo y Panico (10/84) 9. Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (10/84) This was the hardest disc to rank on the set so far by a wide margin. I mean 4-8 are basically interchangeable. I really wanted to have the Cruz-Dandy match higher here but I couldn't justify it because of the clipping and the entire first fall being missing. The Los Infernales tag is very good so that says how good this set is when a very good match finishes last on a disc. Also, I enjoyed the Andre-Canek clips. Andre looked tremendous. MVP: Satanico - He wins this by a landslide. He has four of the top five matches on this list and managed to have one of the greatest performances in wrestling history in the match with Cochise. Honorable Mention: Perro Aguayo - I want to mention a new name for every honorable mention on each disk so I chose Perro here. I liked him a lot in the title match with Villano III and thought he was better in some ways. Of course, he was awesome in the elimination match and his showdown with Chicana was great.

Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (9/28/84) – I like the green from the rudo team here. MS-1 was real sharp in this match. He took a couple of great tumbles to the floor and had some awesome exchanges with Mendoza. Satanico’s fast paced exchange with Atlantis in the first was the highlight as they just went balls to the wall. It was really impressive stuff. The entire first fall was made up of fun exchanges. The second fall has a great beat down on Salazar with the rudos doing some cool triple teaming and working great together to put him away. They take out Mendoza afterwards to tie up the falls. The third fall is good but it was a little too disconnected at times as it was just one guy getting beat down followed by another guy coming in to beat the previous aggressor down etc. It was too repetitive for my tastes even if the exchanges were good. The tecnicos get the win on a triple sunset flip pinfall but Satanico is pissed and rips Atlantis’s mask off. I liked the rudos in this a lot. I had some issues with this structurally and this also didn’t feel on the same level as previous trios matches on the set. With that said, this is still a very good match and falls in the three and a half star range. I think it’s probably somewhere between a B- and a solid B. Very good match.

Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraón vs. Villano III (10/84) – I wisely read the other reviews to put the pieces together about the rules of this match. I’ve got it down pat now. The first couples of minutes were fun with guys getting their heads smashed into aprons. Then we got Perro-Faraon which was a fun little match-up. Some of the strikes were good in this and I loved Villano III being a fucker and costing Faraon the match. Chicana-Villano III was pretty much the same as Perro-Faraon, short and to the point, but it had an awesome finish with Chicana blasting Villano III with a dive to score the win on a count-out. The following showdown between Perro and Chicana was tremendous. Perro beats the fuck out of Chicana quickly and bloodies him. Some of his punches and kicks were brutal. Perro takes the first fall but Chicana comes back in the second and posts Perro. Perro’s bleeding now and getting his kicked. Chicana makes Perro submit to his finishing hold. The third fall is off the charts great with an excellent call back to earlier in the match where Chicana hits a dive and almost wins via count-out. Then we have both guys crushing each other with punches and Perro missing his top rope front flip which is great. The finish is awesome as Chicana is gives Perro what he wished for with a huge punt to the balls. The post-match is fun too with the fans crowding the ringside area and chanting “Chicana.” This started out slow but this was all about Chicana-Perro. It was great final portion of the match. This is about four stars or so. It’s a B+ to an A-. Great and fun stuff.

Javier Cruz, Impacto y Solar II vs. El Dandy, Franco Colombo y Panico (10/84) – Well, Dandy-Cruz rules. These two brought the great in this match. Solar II brought some good too. The other guys were good when they got some time but the focus of this match was Dandy-Cruz. Everybody had awesome punches which was cool. Dandy’s bump to the floor early ruled. Then we had Cruz taking a tremendous beating and the best posting ever in which he looked like he was shot out of rocket into it. Dandy’s high impact offense in this looked lethal and his top rope senton is fucking brutal. The last fall is full of awesome punching exchanges between everybody and Cruz taking a few wild bumps. This goes into elimination mode and we’re left with Dandy-Cruz. Cruz has Dandy on his shoulders but runs to the second turnbuckle and falls back with an electric chair. Cruz gets the win for his team and Dandy has to be carried to the back by his partners. This was a lot of fun. The Dandy-Cruz exchanges were enough to make this over three stars. It’s around a solid B. There’s missing parts of this I think which hurts this a bit. I wanted more out of this but it was still very good.