Exposer

So, Hulk Hogan was a rudo?

Satanico vs. Super Astro (10/26/84) – This is similar to the other Satanico bloody title matches and it’s another great one. Satanico seems like he’s pretty good on the mic. His charisma is really engaging when I talks and I want to know what the hell he’s saying. Satanico begs for a handshake then blindsides Astro with a knee. He just knees the fuck out of Astro and throws him head first into shit. Satanico is so great at casually being a dick. Astro’s comeback in the first fall is awesome as they just go a hundred miles an hour and Satanico keeps up Astro. The ending of the fall is great with Satanico moving out of the way of an Astro move, gloating about it, then getting hit with a flying head butt for the pin. The second fall is great with Satanico bloodying Astro and punching, kicking, and biting the cut. Then he starts ripping up Astro’s mask to expose the cut more. He forces him to submit to tie it up in the second fall. The last fall has Astro making a comeback and bloodying Satanico. Astros head butts are fucking awesome and I loved the sequence where both guys were brawling on their knees and Astro kept bouncing back from those vicious kicks to head butt the fuck out of Satanico. The last few spots are tremendous with Satanico awesomely stepping out of the way of an Astro aerial attack and watching him splat on the mat. The finish is good with Satanico mocking the crowd in shit with Astro in a hold only to get caught in a hurricanrana cradle for the Astro win. Satanico is livid post-match and his reactions are great. This was another tremendous Satanico performance and great match on his banner 1984 year. After some thought I don't think this was much better than the previous match. It's about four stars but I'm putting this at B+. It's still a very good to great match.

Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) – Well, here’s our first look of Villano III on this set and Perro hasn’t been around in awhile. I was really impressed with Perro in this match. He had great impactful offense, good facial expressions, good selling, and was very good on the mat in a defensive sort of way. I loved the way he would head butt or knee Villano III to try and escape holds. He’s great at struggling to find ways out as well and his mannerisms are good. I liked Villano III in this for the most part but I was highly annoyed with his no selling of some of Perro’s high impact offense. He’d just pop up and go to the next spot a few times. The first fall was awesome with the mat work being great and Perro crushing Villano III with offense. That top rope double stomp was nasty as fuck. The second fall is good with Perro unloading more great offense but Villano III mounting a comeback and forcing him to submit to a wacky arm submission. The third fall is fucking great with Perro desperately avoiding the same submission and being a cocky bastard and nearly costing himself the match by lifting a prone Villano III up during pinfalls to do more damage. I loved both guys taking all sorts of high risks moves. It kept the match very interesting. The last few sequences were off in execution and suffered from some poor timing and I didn’t like the double pin finish but the post-match was tremendous. Perro and Villano III wrapped shirts around their fists like boxing gloves and fought. Then Fishman (Perro’s second I believe) assaulted Villano III’s wimpy second. Afterwards, the fucking fans stormed the ring and tried to rip off Villano’s already torn mask from the post-match beat down and the announcer slid into the ring and the kids scattered. That ruled. This was a pretty great match but it had its flaws. I liked it better than the previous MS-1-Chichana match so I will give it four stars or so. It’s definitely a B+ and maybe even an A-. Great post-match too.

Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (9/21/84) – This was a totally different match than their classic. It has a similar beginning with MS-1 jumping Chicana early on but there’s no blood involved. Both guys are really great selling and they are as good as ever here but what was so unique about this match is how it was worked around dives. In the first fall, Chicana comes back after an initial beating and does a great spear head dive off the apron. He wins the fall with his cool looking leg/arm lock finisher. MS-1 sells his arm for the rest of the match which is awesome. The second fall is a pissed MS-1 getting back on offense and taking full control by hitting his own dive and winning the fall. The third fall has MS-1 working over Chicana’s neck. MS-1 brings the intensity here and is really vicious targeting Chicana’s neck. Chicana makes his classic comeback spot with the haymaker punches. Yeah, his punches are top five, top ten all time for sure. The finish of this is tremendously great with MS-1 getting sent to the floor on a big punch and Chicana hitting an awesome dive that literally sends MS-1 flying into the fourth or fifth row. Chicana wins by count out and poor MS-1 has to get another haircut. This is somewhere right underneath four stars. B+ range. It’s a very good match with an awesome finish but it was a little too condensed in my opinion.

I heard all of part 1 and got to Dave reading his 40-31 lists then I fell asleep. Nothing like falling asleep to Dave and Dylan's podcast. Anyways, this has been a great show from what I've heard. I need to finish this up sometime this weekend.

To be more clear, I don't think Cochise changed as much as I thought Satanico did. Yeah, he wasn't really a tecnico in the third fall but he did become the underdog and in some ways even gained sympathy from the crowd. It's the closest thing to a full turn I've ever seen in wrestling where a guy actually doesn't do a full turn. I also think Cochise didn't think the handshake was sincere but the importance of that spot was that Cochise turned Satanico's game around on him and played him for a fool instead leading Satanico to be the underdog for the third fall.

I have a big write-up in the back-up thread here but I'll give you something to think about. There is a narrative in the match. Satanico is the rudo. He starts off really relaxed and confident. Then he begins to get frustrated. The turning point of the match is Cochise kneeing him in the back after the handshake at the start of the third fall. You have to understand that in lucha that's a pretty fucked up thing to do. Satanico was offering a handshake. Maybe Satanico was fucking with Cochise on the onset of the handshake but it doesn't matter. Cochise pulled a dirty tactic over on Satanico in a lucha title match. That's a no no. The fans are audibly appalled at Cochise. It's a total character reversal. Satanico becomes the underdog and pretty much the technico. You have to watch this match by focusing on the roles from each guy and how they change throughout the match. Watch Satanico's expressions and mannerisms. Watch how they change throughout the match. Pay attention to the crowd's reaction after the knee to the back. This match isn't really about how one move or thing leads to another in a logical progression. It's about role reversals and changes in character emotions (That I think progress in a logical way mind you). Satanico goes from being relaxed in the first fall, frustrated in the second fall, and desperate in the third fall. That's incredible storytelling. Also, I watched this match not remembering there was a previous title change and having no knowledge of this feud prior to watching this match. I came in pretty clean. After the match I understood what I watched and I didn't find it at all hard to grasp. You have to pay attention to the right things in lucha but I don't think they're that hard to find. If you don't focus on those things than it will be hard to like a lot of lucha.

Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84) – This is Satanico’s career performance. I have a lot more to see of him but this is going to be hard to beat. I don’t know if I like this better than MS-1-Chicana. It’s really tough to say. I might have to watch these matches back to back once I finish the set to decide. I do think the story told here is more interesting. From a stylistic standpoint this match has a great mixture of everything. This is a title match so there’s not really any brawling but it has excellent mat work, excellent exchanges, and has the best build of almost any match I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if there’s a spot in this match like the first punch from Chicana in the brawl but I think the closest thing to that and maybe equal to that is when Cochise knees Satanico in the back on the handshake in the third fall. The character reversal is something that’s extremely hard to do in wrestling. Satanico does that here. His frustration early on sets the tone for everything else. It leads up to the reversal of roles. He’s unable to gain control and it’s terribly frustrating him to the point where he starts to lose focus. His mannerisms and expressions are awesome in this. I actually believed he was fighting for a championship. He’s still able to catch Cochise with his smarts and with the arm hold to win the first fall. The second fall has Satanico working over Cochise’s arm and he starts to get his confidence back. However, Cochise is game and turns the tide and pays Satanico back by working on his arm. This lets us know that Cochise is playing Satanico’s game. He’s checkmating him every time too. They sell their arms really well here and go back to the fast pace exchanges. Satanico sees that the arm work doesn’t work and tries to take Cochise on in Cochise’s game. This ends up being a big mistake and Cochise wins the second fall with a small package off of a body slam attempt from Satanico. Then the handshake spot happens. The crowd is livid at Cochise. He fucked Satanico over at his own game. The third fall is on another level from pretty much anything else on this set. Satanico is down. Cochise goes for the kill and just destroys Satanico with holds. He does everything in the playbook and more. Some of these holds are incredible. The best sequence here is when Satanico is audibly screaming in pain on that reverse arm bar and turns it into that wild leg hold but gets eventually overpowered by Cochise. Then the plancha spot comes. Satanico desperately ducking for cover is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in a wrestling match. It’s such a small thing to do but it means everything. Cochise still gets him with a plancha though. Then, they go back in the ring and have this slow tease towards Satanico’s victory that is something else. Satanico goes for all of these holds but Cochise keeps throwing him off. The last sequence is incredible. Both guys are running the ropes selling their asses off and I actually believed Satanico had some serious back injury he was moving so lightly. Then, Satanico finally wins on his feet and traps Cochise in a submission that goes back to the arm work. Cochise fights hard to survive but can’t hold on. The post-match is awesome too with the true handshake and the fan carrying Satanico off on his shoulders. This is either number one or number two. Either way it’s one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen. Five stars and A*. Satanico put on a top five performance in wrestling history. EDIT: I sort of want to make something clear. I was stuck in the second fall about Satanico's frustration. He really does have a great relaxation to him in the first fall. He did seem to start to get a little frustrated in the first fall but his full on frustration didn't come until the second fall. So, really we have him relaxed in the first fall, frustrated in the second, and desperate in the third. That's incredible storytelling.

El Satanico y Espectro Jr. v. El Faraón y La Fiera (8/12/84) – The VQ on this was distracting but man this was good as fuck. La Fiera was insanely great in this throwing mean punches, bloodying Satanico, kicking ass, etc. Satanico is really a fabulous worker. He knows how to sell fatigue better than most wrestlers I’ve ever seen. His body language is excellent which I think really makes his selling. He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen at it. The first fall beat down of Satanico was great. It’s quick but sets the stage for the rest of the match. The second fall is full of Satanico selling, Espectro coming to the rescue and failing leading to his mask getting ripped apart, and then a tremendous finish with Espectro taking an insane reverse tombstone on his head. The third fall was incredible with Satanico and Espectro mounting a comeback and brawling on the floor commences. The finish of this match is the finish of the set so far with Satanico being too beaten to make a full comeback and getting crushed with a face buster. Then, fucking La Fiera misses a tope and splats on the floor. I mean it’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. He goes full force and fucking wipes out on the concrete. Faraon says fuck it and launches himself at Espectro taking him down for the count and getting the win by count out as he tremendously tries to revive Fiera in the ring. This match had some issues with video quality and I agree something felt missing. This is going on the re-watch list because I thought it was fucking great from what I could put together. I’m giving this between four and four and half stars. It’s an A- for now. I really liked the high points of this a whole lot and La Fiera’s bump was my favorite of the set. Great match. Also, It's obvious the VQ is bad here but there seemed to be something missing in this match. I'm sort of confused a little. There was clippings? Maybe a jump or two? And how much was taken out? Just curious, because with those additional pieces this could be one of the better matches on the set so far.

Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (7/30/84) – This was a great, great match and I liked it more than the Satanico-Lizmark match. This does suffer from a poor finish. Koshinaka attacks Satanico before the bell and works on his arm the entire first fall. It’s nothing too great from his side but Satanico’s escapes and struggle is worthwhile. I liked how it ended with a back slide which sort of goes back to the arm work. The second fall has the match changing pace and moving towards the blood. Satanico has his leg worked on briefly which he sells for the rest of the match. He makes a comeback and bloodies Koshinaka. Satanico is really great at building fatigue and selling it as a match goes on. He’s pretty remarkable at it. Satanico gets Koshinaka with a cradle for the second fall. The third fall is tremendous with Koshinaka getting a payback spot and bloodying Satanico. Then we have both guys doing a really great job of selling the damage done. They throw everything at each other but the kitchen sink and it’s great, great action mixed in with top notch selling until the shitty foul finish. The post-match was fun too but damn if this match had a good finish it could have been even better. As it is, it’s a really great match. Four and a half stars. It’s a solid A and close to an A+. Great, great, great match.

Disc 2 Rankings: 1. Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (2/3/84) 2. Lizmark vs. El Satanico (April 1984) 3. Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (1/27/84) 4. Solar, Ultraman, y Super Astro vs. Sergio El Hermoso, Bello Greco, y Rudy Reyna (2/26/84) 5. Tony Salazar vs. Herodes (3/2/84) 6. El Faraon, Herodes, y Mocho Cota vs. Lizmark, Ringo Mendoza, y Tony Salazar (2/24/84) 7. Atlantis vs. El Satanico (1984) 8. Atlantis y Lizmark vs. El Egipcio y El Faraon (2/17/84) 9. Enrique Vera vs. Dos Caras (2/26/84) 10. Hijo del Santo, Ringo Mendoza y Chamaco Valaguez vs. Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera y Talisman (3/9/84) 11. Jerry Estrada vs. Ultraman (3/2/84) This was a really good disc. The top four or five matches were really great. This is looking to be one of the better sets out so far. MVP: Mocho Cota - This guy is world class level in pretty much every category but he doesn't have any footage past basically what we have on this set. He's an all time level talent from what I've seen. Honorable mention: Herodes - He's been a nice gem from this set. He's a great muscle in trios for the rudos and his brawls with Tony Salazar were awesome. Very good worker.

Solar, Ultraman, y Super Astro vs. Sergio El Hermoso, Bello Greco, y Rudy Reyna (2/26/84) – Holy shit I wish I could have told the rudos apart because they were all awesome. If anybody can help me out about that please do. Anyways, this was an awesomely fun match with tremendous comedy, stooging, and a mixture of great, great high spots. The rudo in the bright red shorts was phenomenal and took whiplash style Buddy bumps to the floor two or three times and the way he took the technico offense was insane as he did full body selling and took every move with high impact. The yellow singlet rudo was great too and was a bit more of a toned down version of his teammates. The faces offense was absurd at times and gave us easily the best dives and technico offense of the set. That one Astro dive (I think it was Astro) was ludicrous. This was great shit. This is four stars and a little more. A-. Great action and fun comedy equals well done trios match. Enrique Vera vs. Dos Caras (2/26/84) – The first fall clipping was a problem for me because in lucha there’s so much detail in what’s going on anything missed is a bad thing. However, this was a good title match. I liked some of the early arm stuff in the first fall and the last few minutes were pretty strong as they picked up the pace. The second fall was awfully short but that’s because they were setting up for a huge third fall. The first half of that third fall was great with Vera getting stuck in this awesome holds from Caras followed by the awesome surfboard sequence. The back and forth stuff was good but it was a tad bit annoying at times when they just went to the next spot instead of taking a little more time to sell. I hated Vera recovering quickly from the piledriver. The last few minutes were fun though and the finish had a tremendous pop. This was very good but suffers from clippings and a few annoyances in the third fall. Three stars or so here. I might call this a B-. Solid to good stuff. Jerry Estrada vs. Ultraman (3/2/84) – This was disappointing. The mat work was solid and I liked the focus on the arm. It was even pretty gritty stuff too and there was some nice struggle for the holds. I just wasn’t as engaged here as other matches with similar work. I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t enjoy it as much but it might have something to do with lack of versatility on the mat. Once Estrada started bumping and the dives came into play this got better. I liked the finish a lot too actually with Ultraman hurting his arm. Overall, this was a good match and might be better on a later re-watch but right now it’s going to be towards the bottom half of my ballot. Close to three stars or possibly a little less. This is probably a solid C or C+ at best. It was fine but nothing stood out to me much at all. Tony Salazar vs. Herodes (3/2/84) – If this match could have put more continuity into the third fall from the second fall with Salazar selling his arm I would have really loved this match. That said, this was a great match with a tremendously great third fall. Herodes spitting point blank into Salazar’s face to warm it up for posting was fucking awesome. The first fall was well done I thought and I liked Salazar’s comeback offense at the end of it. On stand alone, the second fall was really good with Herodes crushing Salazar’s arm with his fat ass and shit. It did well to set up Salazar on the defensive to start in the third fall but I wished they had continued some with the arm instead of completely ignoring it. The third fall was fucking awesome with Salazar bleeding like a stuck pig and then Herodes doing the same. I loved the cut biting and clawing. The bulldogs on the floor sounded sick because Herodes is so big. The final five minutes were incredibly great with Herodes doing an unbelievably awesome fat man dive and both guys selling their asses off all tired and bloodied. The ending was a little too abrupt and kind of cop out to me. It was a disappointing finish. Still, this was really great at its best. It’s tough because I liked this a lot but I wanted the second fall to be a little more important than it was. I’m giving this four stars and maybe a little more. It’s close to an A- but definitely a B+. I enjoyed this a good bit. Hijo del Santo, Ringo Mendoza y Chamaco Valaguez vs. Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera y Talisman (3/9/84) – This was another strong trios. I thought it faltered some in the second fall when the rudos were on top. It seemed to be dragging a little bit and not much was going on. I really enjoyed the first fall and that was almost completely because it had Fuerza and Estrada taking numerous idiotic bumps in the ring, out of the ring, all over the place, etc. I liked the Santo-Fuerza stuff later on too with the mask pulling. The post-match was fucking awesome with Santo getting pissed and brawling in Lizmark’s mask. Good fun. I will give this roughly three stars. That period in the second fall was really lacking but the first fall and the Santo-Fuerza stuff were enjoyable enough to give it that rating. It’d be a C+ probably from the grading scale. Lizmark vs. El Satanico (April 1984) – This was a great match. Satanico is a great “selling heel” here and what I mean by that is he’s extraordinary at working underneath as the heel and withstanding the tecnico’s arsenal. The first fall is a lot of stop and go mat work but it’s all great. I loved Satanico shaking his arm off after countering an arm lock from Lizmark and putting him in a leglock. It’s the strong attention to detail that is impressive here. The section where Satanico is struggling through a head scissors while putting Lizmark in a modified crab is awesome. Lizmark’s crossfaces were awesome too. The finish of the first fall sets up the rest of the match. Lizmark wins by suplexing Satanico on his neck. Satanico sells his neck for the rest of the match. Lizmark goes right back to it in the second fall and works over Satanico’s neck but gets caught and powerbomed nastily on his head for the end of the second fall to tie it up. The third fall is tremendous with Lizmark going all out and doing everything he can to put away Satanico but slowly getting frustrated. I loved when he pounded the mat after Satanico made a kick out. The finish is something I actually liked too as it fit well with the narrative of Satanico trying to survive and keep the championship. Great match. This is between four and four and a half stars. I liked this a lot. It’s close to a solid A.

Dammit, now I'm livid about this match not being booked. That is kind of infuriating.

Buddy Rose is the greatest American multi-man tag wrestler of all time, the greatest rope runner of all time, one of the five most versatile wrestlers of all time, and had a great match with Chief Jay Strongbow. Nick Bockwinkel was the best wrestler in a promotion with a number of great workers, was the best wrestler in a company when he was well past fifty years old, is one of the ten best tag wrestlers of all time, is one of the ten most versatile wrestlers of all time, and had a good match with Boris Zukhov. Nick Bockwinkel also started wrestling in 1955 and the majority of footage we have of him is from 1975 to his retirement. We have a good majority of Buddy's entire career. Unfortunately, this hurts Bock. Therefore, my pick is Buddy. If we had the first half of Bock's career then this question might be a lot different.

Bryan vs. Orton (WWE Title) This match had reached great status by the time Big Show interfered. That's too bad. The pops for Big Show were good though.

I suppose "The Authority" gets involved in this main event somehow.

Punk vs. Ryback I liked some of Ryback's offense and Punk was stiff as hell but this didn't get anymore than solid. The finish was stupid too.

Wyatt vs. Kofi This was better than it might have been but Kofi was still in this. The spider walk was silly but I did like Kofi's dive. Some of Wyatt's offense is fucking nasty and really dangerous.

Shield (Reigns/Rollins) vs. Rhodes (Cody & Goldust) This was really, really good with some great moments. Dustin was outstanding in this. He even did the fucking Dustin bump which I marked out huge for. The finishing run was awesome, awesome, awesome. Great stuff.

Dustin's paint looks fucking awesome.

AJ vs. Brie (Diva's Title) I'll give them credit for having a layout. It was fine. There's been a lot of "fine" matches tonight.

Axel vs. R-Truth (IC Title) This was fine. It was a completely average match. R-Truth is one of the lesser guys in the company too so that doesn't help this.

Real Americans vs. Khali/Santino This was really fun and not bad at all. The crowd loved it and the finish ruled.

RVD vs. ADR (Hardcore WHC) This was the best RVD match since he's been back by a wide margin. This is the RVD I enjoy. He took crazy bumps, a bunch of props were used, etc. Del Rio took some lunatic bumps too including the one into the ladder. The finish was really good too.

Ziggler vs. Sandow Match was fine. Nothing great. Nothing bad. Solid match to have to get the crowd going.