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This might be true but I have a feeling the simpler explanation is that Meltzer (and his contemporaries) have just not seen much of 90s CMLL Negro Casas and might be basing the assessment on a few Japanese matches. Yeah, I was just spitballing there. Casas still had a high workrate in the nineties, so it's not like he turned into Sangre Chicana or anything. He probably wasn't the physical phenom he was in the decade prior, just because now the measuring stick was guys like Misterio and Psicosis. If I had to guess the most likely explanation would be Meltzer remembering how dull the CMLL was for a large part of the decade and lumping Casas in with all that, plus I imagine at the time Konnan was always explaining to him that the promotion and its wrestlers were stuck in the past. It's just weird because I don't ever remember him being negative about Casas in his newsletters from the time he's now talking about.

Well, that could just mean he sucked in Japan. With how much he idolized Choshu, I doubt he went over there and halfassed it. I remember that in his actual Observers from the nineties Meltzer would frequently write things like "Negro Casas, who is already said to be the best worker in the history of Mexico..." from when Casas was as young as his early thirties. I seem to remember him being particularly impressed with Casas' performance at this show (and if the attendance details are correct then the entire crowd went home happy that night). It's been a while, though, so I might not be remembering right. From most 1980s footage of Casas that's made its way online, he looks like he did start emphasizing his character much more in the nineties, and maybe the sheet community interpreted that as Casas putting in less work. Besides Kdawg (who never worked in the same major promotion as Casas) who are Meltzer's Mexican sources? I think Steve Sims still liked his nineties work.

Current favorite wrestler to watch: My opinion of Fuerza Guerrera has gone up I think every match I've seen from him in the past year or thereabouts Last fun match you saw: Random six man in which Jerry Estrada and Rey Misterio Sr. fought, good rivalry even if the one straight up match that I've seen wasn't good. Wrestler you want to see more of: Americo Rocca, Gran Cochisse, I'm not exactly holding my breath though Last live show attended (if applicable/different from last time you answered): Haven't been to a show in over five years. All I remember from my last one is one of my friends shouting violent advice to the wrestler he wanted to win. I can vividly recall "reach into his chest and slowly crush his heart", "eat his tongue" and "try to constrict his breathing", and the rest appear to be lost to history. Match you're most looking forward to watching: I'm trying to trade with this guy who has some stuff that looks good, but he responds to emails about every third day so my progress has been pretty sluggish. Get with it, guy. Last fun interview/promo you saw: It's been so long since I went on a Youtube kick of wrestling promos, what is wrong with me, have I changed? Last interesting thing you read about wrestling: Steve Sims saying (in 1992) that Atlantis was a guy who wrestled to the level of his opponent. I immediately thought "no, no, that's not right" and then spent a long time trying to think of solid, inarguable counterexamples. I still don't 100% agree but I can't say it didn't change how I look at Atlantis a bit. Last worthwhile podcast you listened to: I can't do podcasts, partly for the same reasons I avoid listening to other people's conversations on the train. Also if I try to multitask the podcast becomes background noise, and if I try to focus on just the podcast my eyes become bored, find something to look at, and reduce the podcast to background noise. Most fun you've had watching wrestling lately: I don't know, I haven't been stringently counting my funs recently Favorite recent post on this board: The one thing from this site that stuck with me the most was that person who was upset about his .gifs being stolen. That's interesting to me, the culture of fans exactly reproducing stuff that other fans have made available, and the protectiveness of the original uploaders who sort of view it as their own. Favorite thing about the wrestling landscape in the past three months (if you live in the past, then go with your past three months of time-traveling): Hahaha, probably the Alvarados beating the hell out of Ultimo Guerrero's car. Wrestling still has some badass left in it.

This might be the most gallingly selfish performance I have ever seen in a wrestling match. Satanico was losing in two falls, so he took ninety-nine percent of the match and sold zero percent of what little he let Octagon have. Ric Flair has to deal with breakdowns of random jobber matches, but Satanico, touted as an alternative for the number one spot, somehow avoids getting knocked for something like this, in a main event against one of the biggest wrestlers in the company. It looks worse when you compare what Satanico did here with what Fuerza Guerrera did against the same opponent, in the same year, in the same arena, with the same stipulations (albeit over three falls rather than just two).

Are we going to pretend the 3:16 promo isn't vital to Austin eventually becoming the biggest thing around ? Just because the WWF didn't picked on it immediately ? To answer the bolded part : because he didn't. He didn't book alone during that period. Hell, like Charles said, Corny was around until as late as 1998, when the turnaround was already done and Austin was the hottest thing. Pritchard was also there. And of course, Vince himself. The filters aren't overstated. I'm not saying he didn't contribute, but Russo without filter got exposed immediately, and le's not go into "oh, but he couldn't do what he wanted in WCW" since it was the exact same shit in TNA. When you're a failure 95% of your whole career, when you can spot the patterns of his whole "creative spectrum" after going through his stints in details (and yeah, I've done that both for WCW and early TNA, the masochist that I am), it's easy to expose his way of thinking and writing. It's not like he's that creative to begin with (the word "creative" is so overrated anyway, especially in pro-wrestling). There's probably something to be said about some of his ideas going through the Vince filter, working with Austin & Rock & Foley, simply being repeated everywhere else because the guy had no notion of why it worked before (context, worker). Which is another proof, if needed, he's a clueless idiot. It was a great promo. It wasn't a ticket to automatic stardom. WWE history is littered with great promos that the company didn't capitalize on, or tried to and failed. No reason that Austin's couldn't have ended up on that list. Not that Russo was the only one who saw money in Austin (and I doubt he had anything to do with the decision to push Stone Cold Steve to begin with), but he wasn't given a guaranteed legend in the making, either. I wouldn't want Russo booking a promotion alone, ever, but he was the guy who seemed to convince Vince McMahon that Raw was boring and needed a new direction. None of the others who had the boss's ear, all of whom had been around for a while before Russo, could do this. McMahon certainly didn't realize it on his own. These are the filters, the guys who were responsible for 1996 Raw, not some infallible wrestling minds. Obviously Russo was never again able to diagnose a problem and change a promotion for the better, so maybe it was just luck that his idea for a wrestling show lined up with what the WWF's fans wanted. That and the fact that the WWF didn't miss a beat when he left the company don't help his case. I guess that just totally writing off Russo's SUCCESSFUL period as right place, right time feels like watching a good Ultimate Warrior match and giving 100% credit to the heel. Yeah, maybe he was totally carried, but it doesn't seem like there's much critical thought to that. It's easy and tidy to just say, "okay, it was a good match, but here's why Warrior is still useless." I don't have a high opinion of Russo's writing or booking abilities either but there was a time when his stuff was working, and I'd rather give him credit for that than find reasons that it doesn't count.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF. Not at all. Russo has jackshit to do with Austin cutting his 3:16 promo. And Cornette was still on the writing team as late as mid-1997 FWIW. The only guy who believes Russo created Austin & The Rock is Russo himself. He's been a proven failure for 15 years straight in two major companies (on every level). Oh yeah, the legendary promo that rocketed Stone Cold to a pay per view rematch with Marc Mero stardom, that's what cemented him as an all timer. When Russo started booking no one would have said that having Steve Austin and Rocky Maivia under your control in the WWF was an impossible situation to screw up. They became stars while he was booking. He booked segments and entire shows with the intention of making those guys look like stars. I am sure they could have become stars without him, but I am also sure that bad enough booking could have sunk them. Even with the oft mentioned filters he had there, it is not like Vince McMahon and company have a flawless record of separating good idea from bad ones. Like you said, the man has over fifteen years of failures to pick apart. Why rip him for the one brief period when he actually seemed to understand the wrestling landscape better than those around him? I am also unconvinced by the argument that WWE already employs plenty of boring listens, so why not add another? If I am looking to replace the unreliable meth addict who works at my store, that does not mean that I should consider hiring a serious alcoholic on the grounds that he cannot be any less dependable than the man I already have.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF. But forget that. The reason Cornette should be on something like this over Russo is that Cornette is a good talker and storyteller and Russo is not.

Tried to go for ones where it's actually kind of surprising that finding them has been fruitless so far. MS-1 vs El Dandy, January 20 1989 (the show from the week before is in circulation but not this one) Lizmark vs El Satanico, February 17 1989 (Friday Coliseo show so I imagine this was taped) El Satanico vs Fabuloso Blondy, April 7 1989 (we've got matches from the week before and from two weeks after, look at how much TV time Satanico got this year) El Dandy vs El Satanico, May 5 1989 (65-85% sure of the date, shows from the week before and week after are easy to find) Lizmark vs El Satanico, July 21 1989 (from the same show as this match, not sure why this one seems to be lost, boy did they love running this matchup) Emilio Charles Jr. vs El Satanico, June 1 1993 (Satanico's last match before jumping, minis match from this show aired on TV so cameras were at least in the arena) Ciclon Ramirez vs El Felino, June 18 1993 (another one where the previous and following shows are easy to get but this one isn't, made this list so SOMEONE has to have seen it) Dr. Wagner Jr. vs El Dandy, June 29 1993 (similar deal to the Emilio Charles match above) Jerry Estrada vs Heavy Metal, April 26 1994 (other matches from this show were shown in full but all I can find of the main event is about five minutes of highlights) Mascara Sagrada vs Black Cat, May 15 1994 (same deal as the match above) Jaque Mate vs La Fiera, October 28 1994 (I admit that probably no one else cares about unearthing this one) El Felino vs Mascara Magica, May 21 1996 (another one where there are filmed matches from this show but no trace of this one) A year ago I would have had Pirata Morgan vs MS-1 from 1991 on this list, but that one made its way to Youtube fairly recently, proving that there's still hope for these too. It's funny that 1989 is thought of as such a great year for the EMLL even with all of these matches missing.

I loved the holds that they applied. It was almost all the kind of elaborate stuff that you'd see in black and white 1960s highlights, and yet they found a way to make it flow and come up with sweet counters. That headscissors hammerlock from Pantera was awesome. And then in the second fall they impressed me with the way that they made it clear that Fuerza was taking control (namely through Pantera's selling), while still working a fairly even fall in which Fuerza was in danger of letting things slip away. I honestly cannot think of anything that I'd change about the first two falls, that's how good they were. The third fall had some terrific spots and close calls, but I thought it went on a bit too long, as the nearfalls over the last few minutes didn't seem any more dramatic than the ones from the middle of the fall. Still, they were cool nearfalls. Agreed on how important the match felt by the end and how consistently good the work was. There aren't a whole lot of matches showcasing Fuerza Guerrera, technician, and I think this is probably the best one for it. He looks like he has a funkier, older school style than most of his contemporaries. This is the kind of thing you'd use if you ever wanted to argue for Fuerza being the total package. Pantera was excellent too, which makes me wish he'd gotten more of a TV push during his career. I guess there wasn't much room at the time. Anyway, definitely one of the company's best matches of the year and a clear highlight in the dossier of Fuerza Guerrera.

Lizmark's run with the National Lightheavyweight belt from 1992-94. Quality TV matches against Jerry Estrada, Satanico, and Parka, with a really good defense at Triplemania I too. I also liked the match in which he won it, although I don't know if that would count as part of his reign or Universo 2000's. Unfortunately the match in which he was finally dethroned was just meaningless gimmicky AAA stuff, which set the tone for how the belt would be treated in the future. Atlantis's NWA Middleweight title run was on the same level, although other than the famous Blue Panther match all of his televised defenses were against the same person, and the title changes at each end weren't for TV. On the house show circuit he supposedly had championship matches with Dandy and Satanico that ran over half an hour, but who knows with that stuff? It's still an impressive list of defenses. There are plenty of reigns that look like that, though, with a whole bunch of matches we'll never get to see. Look at what Hijo del Santo did with the UWA World Lightweight title. I know that Virus's time with the CMLL Super Lightweight title was generally a happy period for current fans.

Mexico only. Other wrestling I watch and like, but, like, I couldn't tell you which is the best Flair vs Steamboat or anything. When I watch stuff from outside of Mexico I just sit back and enjoy. 1983 MOTY: Sangre Chicana vs MS-1, September 23 Runner-up: Sangre Chicana, Mocho Cota and La Fiera vs El Satanico, MS-1 and Espectro Jr, September 30 1984 MOTY: El Satanico vs Gran Cochisse, September 14 Runner-up: Americo Rocca vs Mocho Cota, January 27 1985 MOTY: El Solitario vs Dr. Wagner, December 1 Runner-up: Atlantis vs El Faraon, March 22 1986 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs Espanto Jr, August 31 Runner-up: La Fiera vs Babe Face, August 15 1987 MOTY: Villano III vs Rambo, October 25 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas, July 18 1988 MOTY: Espanto Jr. vs El Hijo del Santo, April 10(?) Runner-up: Lola Gonzalez vs Pantera Sureña, December 9 1989 MOTY: Atlantis, El Dandy and Mascara Sagrada vs Emilio Charles Jr, MS-1 and Tierra Viento y Fuego, November 24 Runner-up: Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata and El Brazo vs Pirata Morgan, Hombre Bala and Verdugo, November 10 1990 MOTY: Angel Azteca vs El Dandy, June 1 Runner-up: Fuerza Guerrera vs El Pantera, May 4 or 11 1991 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs Brazo de Oro, January 13 Runner-up: Fuerza Guerrera vs Octagon, February 1 1992 MOTY: Negro Casas vs El Dandy, July 3 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo vs Espanto Jr, May 14 1993 MOTY: Lizmark vs Jerry Estrada, June 18 Runner-up: Negro Casas vs La Fiera, October 1 1994 MOTY: Javier Cruz vs Ciclon Ramirez, June 10 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo and Octagon vs Eddy Guerrero and Love Machine, November 6 1995 MOTY: Psicosis vs Rey Misterio Jr, September 22 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo, Rey Misterio Jr. and Octagon vs Fuerza Guerrera, Blue Panther and Psicosis, March 17 1996 MOTY: El Dandy vs Black Warrior, October 15 Runner-up: Not sure 1997 MOTY: Atlantis vs Blue Panther, December 5 Runner-up: Cibernetico, December 30 1998 I've never watched a great match from 1998. Parka vs Pierroth is just clips (with much less shown than clipped matches like Wagner vs Solitario or Rambo vs Villano from 1987), and I have not seen either of the Olimpico vs Halcon Negro matches. 1999 MOTY: Fuerza Guerrera vs Mike Segura, November 4 Runner-up: El Hijo del Santo and Negro Casas vs Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr, March 19 2000 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther, April 9 Runner-up: Atlantis vs Villano III, March 17 2001 MOTY: El Hijo del Santo vs La Parka, December 23 Runner-up: Not sure Once we get into this century I'm pretty much stumped.

I actually thought the third fall felt like it needed a big explosion that never happened. There was that cool moment when Chicana was banging punches off Satanico as he covered up, and soon after they went back to doing spots that felt like they were from the first two falls. Same pacing, same intensity. On the other hand, when I was trying to do top tens for each year with comprehensive TV from Mexico, this match ended up being a late cut for 1989. After this watch, it would make the list if I redid that.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/12069-rey-misterio-jr-winners-super-calo-vs-heavy-metal-picudo-psicosis-aaa-020793/ It does have a thread, just listed under the airdate. Looks like most people who watched both were more into the rematch. The linked video is to the rematch, by the way. Agree that it's one of Mexico's best matches of 1993.

I thought this was the best I've seen Panther wrestle too. The best part for me was when he started focusing on Santo's arm. Then he wasn't just a master wrestler who could go tit for tat with any of the tecnicos, he was a wrestler whose technical expertise and ring generalship could put his opponent in serious physical danger. Him making Santo back off out of fear of his skills was the most badass Panther's ever looked. Santo, for his part, wrestled a classic match that didn't fit his formula at all. He did his dives, and that was about it for stuff you get in every one of his matches.

When I last watched this match, I thought Lizmark looked pretty washed up, but his fundamentals and title match experience allowed him to hold up his end. Satanico I thought looked as good as ever and gave a strong performance, which is saying something given that I'd long since lost interest in watching him. Sometimes I wonder if Satanico boosters are the biggest reason I got so sick of the man. Lizmark had multiple matches with La Parka and Jerry Estrada, and the average match in those series was better than the average match in the Satanico series. I agree that he took too much of the Satanico fights, but most of his matches don't go like that. Using just the Satanico matches as an indictment on his overall ability is classic tunnel vision. I also question the logic of using "performance vs Satanico" as any sort of barometer. Satanico vs anyone is always going to be a Satanico match, and Satanico matches are the kind where even if he helps "anyone" have a good match the guy isn't going to actually look better in it. But that's how it is with Satanico. Bad matches are always the other guy's fault, any good performance (doesn't even have to be a good match) confirms the great man's ability, and in the end Satanico is still a strong contender for number one all time. Here we have Satanico carrying a sucky guy who didn't actually suck to a decent match. Doesn't really sound like the stuff of alltime greats, as you'd think they should find a way to get the most out of a weak opponent rather than just working around him, but then those guys don't make those incredible Satanico faces in every single fucking match.

Cactus Jack vs Hardcore Hak Eddy Guerrero vs Villano Tercero Hansen and Brody vs (Charly) Manson and Lodi Maxx Payne and Damien Kane vs Steven Dane and Lenny Lane Tank Abbott vs Baby Rabbit Insane Clown Posse vs Ted DiBiase Doink the Clown vs Bad News Brown William Regal vs Starship Eagle (an ECW match at Barely Legal) Mile Zrno vs Disco Inferno Edge and Christian vs Men on a Mission Commentary would be handled by Stevie Ray and Mike Tenay.

I like Angel Azteca vs Dandy more than Sangre Chicana vs MS-1. Some of that is just preferring championship style wrestling to a brawl, but I also think that in this case the title match was simply more interesting. Chicana vs MS-1 was not really that different from hundreds of other hair vs hair matches in terms of how it progressed. It's just that the wrestlers and the crowd were incredible. Angel Azteca and Dandy tried to wrestle a match that was not just better than but also different from the standard good title fight. AA vs Dandy also doesn't have anything as objectively poor as those MS-1 punches that he winged right over Chicana's head, although I'm not really a stickler for "good stiff strikes." As a bit of an aside, I thought that the refereeing in both matches was very good.

I'm sorry, but who are you trying to kid with this? Everything you've said in this thread goes against the idea that you just want to learn and talk about the matches. If you didn't want a conversation about whether the style is any good then you shouldn't have started the conversation by saying that the style isn't any good. On the other hand, this entire post has the sincerity and timing of Fuerza Guerrera reluctantly entering the ring with his hand outstretched, looking for nothing but a handshake, so kudos on your homage to one of the greats.

Yeah, I agree with this, and to me the skill tied his character together. It made him into almost an evil genius rather than just a trash talker. Does anyone know anything about Cota's listed maestro, Reveles Lopez? It looks like he was not a big name among trainers, which would mean that Cota got as far as he did without a boost from any kind of pedigree.

If you start from a point of "Puro is true wrestling, lucha is too different to be taken seriously" then obviously it loses. By definition it loses. But Japan's wrestling isn't any truer or more pure than anywhere else's. I could just as easily say that Mexico is the standard and judge everywhere else by how similar it is. Also I'm not sure if the UK's style is closer to Japan's than it is to Mexico's, but that's probably for someone who knows the stuff from the UK more than I do.

What other country has all of its wrestling glossed over with "it sucks"? And not just once, but frequently? There are people who have no interest in anything from Japan but I don't think I've ever heard anyone flat out say "I don't like it because all puro sucks." Same with US, PR, Britain, Germany. Also, protip, calling out someone's hypocrisy isn't an irrelevant argument. "But x is how you behave!" is a perfectly logical response to "I cannot stand people who behave in x manner."

I wouldn't claim that any of this is untrue, but I also don't think it matters much at all in this discussion. I for one am someone who has much more of an affinity for Mexican culture, and Latin cultures as a whole, based purely on the personal relationships I have with people of Hispanic descent. I generally don't have any personal ties to Japan or any Japanese people. I've been to Mexico, I know some Spanish, and some of my closest friends are Hispanic. If cultural bias was involved, I'd probably like lucha far more than puro, but I don't. I don't believe it has any bearing at all on my opinion of any particular brand of wrestling. It is a style of wrestling that isn't for everybody, and that is probably as deep as it gets. It's fair to call me out on that, and I sure as hell can't read anyone else's mind either. On the other hand, I don't think that any Japanese promotion's idiosyncrasies get questioned the way Mexico's do.

I wouldn't accuse someone of racism for not liking some kind of wrestling. Japanese culture in almost all shapes is usually treated as more important than Mexican culture, simple as that. Maybe it just captures the imagination more. I don't know why it would surprise anybody that the same holds true in professional wrestling.

I was going to say something similar to that, except with no film references and I'd also have added something about the scarcity of one on one matches.

I'm not sure I buy the "we" in that second paragraph. I believe that it's not just you. If I listened to wrestling podcasts, maybe I'd realize how widespread this is, but on the other hand maybe that would be the case only if I listened to a specific few, all coming from people who run in the same circles. On the same note I don't buy the term character work being satisfying to "no one". In its own way, a wrestler getting shoved to the ground off a lockup by a larger opponent, and then futilely attacking after the bigger guy has turned their back is accomplishing the same thing as the wrestler begging off after the shove. I don't see what is gained by lumping these together. I'm not sure that even you would lump them together, as the former is more active, but then I don't think categorizing everything as either active or reactive is particularly common. Bumping and selling often accomplish the same thing, too, and listing them together confuses more than it clarifies, because often they don't accomplish the same thing, and plenty of wrestlers are good at one but not the other. The same is true of (traditionally defined) selling and acting (in direct response to something). Mogur is a wrestler I'd list as terrific at the former and not really interesting at the latter. Splitting the difference and saying that he's average at selling is less descriptive, IMO. Stop. Disagreeing is different from not understanding. It's not a particularly complex point that you've made. Not that I didn't deserve the insult, as I was plenty snide and dismissive in my previous books, but let's not flatter ourselves either.