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October 1991 Lizmark vs Cien Caras One fall tournament match held at a nightclub during the strike, with people sitting at tables ringside. Pierroth and his white pants and white shoes came out with Cien Caras for some reason and Lizmark kicked his ass out of the ring, which didn't really seem warranted. Two minutes in they were out cold from a double knockdown, the match got restarted (the prestigious Copa Magic Circus cannot feature any byes) and the finish was Pierroth hooking Lizmark's leg (he brought that upon himself) and Caras schoolboying him for three. Straight out of 1999 WWF. Lizmark didn't even seem like he was trying and looked like a dick on top of it. He got to leave Pierroth laying with the sitout powerbomb though. Afterwards they hyped up Anibal vs Universo 2000 before plans changed on that. February 19 1993 Lizmark/Rey Misterio Jr./Eddy Guerrero vs La Parka/Heavy Metal/Psicosis Rematch from the previous week. Heavy came out with some of his rocker friends, but he still looked like a big haired '80s girl which is always going to cap how cool you can be. Fortunately for him his opponent was Misterio, who came out with a woman who could have been his mom, wore what looked like a pair of his mom's leopardprint pants, and still used "A Little Respect" as his theme song. You don't have to worry about looking lame tonight, Heavy. Him rolling around the mat with Rey looked positively childish compared to Parka suckershotting Lizmark in the aisle. The match was badly clipped and provided no clue about how the tecnicos got back in control of things, but it did show Parka take something like four crazy bumps in succession culminating in an armdrag from the apron to the floor. Even after that Lizmark wasn't ready to let him off and kicked the hell out of him outside the ring. It was hard to tell with all of the stuff that was missing, but it looked like the brawling was better than last week's. If nothing else this week included Lizmark's kneedrop, which has to be one of the best versions of that move. Despite not really featuring much in the body of the match, Rey vs Metal ended it to set up a title change the next week. Heavy sounded like a teenaged Negro Casas in his promo afterward.

December 1 1985 Lizmark/Mil Mascaras/Valente Fernandez vs Sangre Chicana/Angel Blanco/Angel Blanco Jr. Part of the undercard for Wagner vs Solitario, mask vs mask. Honestly, I had trouble following this. Lizmark botched a hiptoss spot with Sangre Chicana (they covered for it okay) and just looked unimpressive in the first fall. In the second he had some good punch exchanges with Angel Blanco Sr. They never went anywhere, I just wanted to point out that Lizmark throws a good punch. Valente Fernandez looked the best for his side. For the rudos, I don't know if he was the best, but Angel Blanco Jr. did some nice bumping and selling for Lizmark's kicks, especially for someone who usually fails to leave an impression on me. No one looked that bad but there wasn't really an overall idea and the work wasn't exciting enough to keep my attention in spite of that. February 12 1993 Lizmark/Eddy Guerrero/Rey Misterio Jr. vs La Parka/Heavy Metal/Psicosis I THINK that Lizmark and Parka might have started feuding by this point, but I can't say for sure. No big deal, either way this isn't too deep into the program that dominated Lizmark's time in AAA. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I guess that's true for any match I don't like so much, but this was a bunch of guys in their twenties (and one in his teens) plus Lizmark, who was over forty, and the old man had no problem keeping up with the younger guys. That could've been a bigger plus if the match had been really good. I liked how the first time Lizmark and Parka met in the ring they weren't quite trading holds but they weren't really running at each other either. It was competitive throws and pin attempts, testing each other's skills for a possible title match down the road. The second time was more standard tag action, and it was notable both for being good and for being a deviation from Lizmark's go to stuff in that spot. If nothing else, Parka was clearly a different kind of opponent for him. They didn't look totally comfortable as opponents yet though. Eddy Guerrero had a good fall and a good match. I know the tide has gone in and out on Guerrero in Mexico, but he was good here and matched up with Metal better than Misterio did. At the end of the first fall, after the tecnicos had already pinned Parka and Psicosis, Metal tried to outquick Guerrero and ended up getting caught with an all time German suplex. The second fall kept the momentum going with some complex stuff with Misterio, Parka and Psicosis, but the rudos took over shortly after that and there wasn't much worth watching afterwards. The tecnicos didn't even get a big comeback. It was kind of funny when Psicosis tried untying Lizmark's mask and Lizmark turned around and powerbombed him, and eventually Lizmark and Parka swapped masks somehow. I don't know, the ending needed to do something to make me want to see Lizmark vs Parka or Misterio vs Metal. Instead it was just the rudos disqualified for stomping Misterio all at the same time. I guess in the end it's just good on Lizmark for hanging with the kids and too bad about everything after that.

I knew this had to have been taped, but I've never been able to find someone who has it. Luckily it was uploaded to Youtube today and now we actually have a one on one match from this brief period when Pirata was a tecnico.

March 2 1990 Lizmark/Super Astro vs Espanto Jr./Jose Luis Feliciano Because any time you get the chance to watch wrestlers perform in front of a sparse, quiet crowd you gotta take it. Lizmark was in Japan for a tour with Gran Hamada's promotion, and if nothing else it gave him the chance to wrestle Espanto and Feliciano, two guys you don't see him or Super Astro go against very often. Everyone worked hard and there was a lot of skill on display, but it was all an exhibition and never went much beyond "these guys are talented wrestlers," not even at the start when it was a battle of holds. Super Astro's spots seemed to impress the crowd more than Lizmark's. Good enough but my brain is dumping the memory of this match as I type this. September 18 1992 Lizmark vs Universo 2000 I forgot to mention that the match with Lizmark, Bestia, Emilio and Casas was Lizmark's last televised match for the CMLL until 1995. He was there for a couple more weeks and in his last (known) match unsuccessfully challenged for Pierroth's CMLL world lightheavyweight belt. After that he was off to AAA as part of the second wave of jumps, made up of stragglers who stuck around after the split but changed their minds within a few months (others in this group were Jerry Estrada and Love Machine). In just his second match on AAA TV, he got a shot at another lightheavyweight title, this time Universo 2000's national championship. He probably didn't deserve it, given his record in title matches thus far in 1992, but they were in Lizmark's hometown of Acapulco and AAA was excited to have him, so whatever, right? One of the reasons I like 1992 AAA is the venues. In this case they were in Acapulco's convention center, which Alfonso Morales described as "la catedral de la lucha libre de la Republica Mexicana" (okay) and the hometown hero came to the ring on a throne carried by seven men, one of whom was also shooting silly string into the air. The match was very strange. You had a drawn out process in which Tirantes was replaced by another rudo referee, Lizmark performing a tombstone right in front of the ref in the first fall (no DQ called), Universo actually winning the first two falls before the latter decision was reversed, and Universo then kicking out of the winning move at two and complaining about it during Lizmark's celebration. Is it really that hard to book Lizmark to a hometown win over the third ranked member of the Reyes family? The fans didn't seem bothered by any of this, so I guess I can't call it bad booking. The annoying thing is that the actual wrestling was quite good. Of all of Lizmark's hold for hold exchanges I've seen so far, this one was the best. Lizmark had some nice clotheslines in the second fall and the third felt more even than the third fall of the Satanico match. I don't know if I can say this match was better, because of all the weirdness, but around that they contributed some good work.

May 28 2006 Lizmark/Pantera/La Mascara vs Black Warrior/Emilio Charles Jr./Hijo de Pierroth I'm unfamiliar with all of this. The style, the storylines, the respective ability of each wrestler, I know nothing, so this is probably going to be all wrong. But I thought Hijo de Pierroth was the best guy here. That could mean he had a good match, and it could mean he just wrestled an outdated style that I happen to like. He and La Mascara were pretty good going hold for hold, and as a rudo he was fun and got some good shots in. He did his one dance move once every two minutes, but it all paid off when he got dropkicked between the legs and incorporated his dance into the selling. Lizmark looked old. Of course he WAS old, but he'd hidden his age for a while. He could still do his regular stuff okay. Everything else looked like it was a challenge. Let me reiterate that I have no idea how good this was. July 31 1992 Lizmark/Atlantis/Ultimo Dragon vs Bestia Salvaje/Emilio Charles Jr./Negro Casas Same match as the previous week but with Felino swapped out for his older brother. They did a much better job of mixing story and workrate this time around. The rudos battered the tecnicos with an assault that was plenty violent but also saw the rudos show off their athleticism, and Lizmark and Atlantis both got to do their regular thing but first made their comebacks with brawling. This was the second week in a row that Atlantis looked good coming back against Emilio. Lizmark's brawling isn't really a facet of his ability or character that people think of with him, but it's pretty clear that he was good at it. He pounded Bestia with beautiful right hands and in the third fall they had a back and forth slugfest that made me really want to see a match between them. I can't imagine why that would ever happen, but it would have been cool. Very impressive given the two of them were the third men on their teams. At the end of the second fall they ran this spot where the rudos charged Ultimo Dragon and ended up running right into Lizmark's backbreaker. Actually, this might be the best Lizmark's been in any match I've watched. It was about as good as you'd expect Atlantis to be in the same situation. After the match Emilio gave an interview while looking like an absolute lunatic and demanded a shot at Atlantis' world middleweight title, and then stomped the piss out of Atlantis as he was in the middle of countering with an offer of hair vs mask. That led to a brawl that Emilio won by kicking Atlantis in the dick, ripping out a chunk of his mask, and hurling it into the crowd. Needless to say, he was much better here than he'd been the week before. Negro Casas, despite being in the middle of a program with Dragon, was content to act as Emilio's backup. That might disappoint Casas fans but I kind of appreciated it. The crowd was mic'd really well again. Right now this is neck and neck with that Infernales match for the best I've seen so far.

July 17 1992 Lizmark vs Satanico I'd have liked to watch some of the matches that built to this but I couldn't find any on Youtube. This was a disappointment, not much more to it than that. The holds were fine but beneath the ability of either man, the attempts to up the intensity didn't seem to arise from anything, and Lizmark looked better than Satanico in a way that undercut the match rather than serving as the main storyline. If Lizmark looking better was the idea, then there were some spots where Satanico's selling really didn't look like that of a man who was barely in the match, and there wasn't enough craftiness to the offense that he did get. If Lizmark looking better wasn't the idea, then Satanico just couldn't match his offense. And where was the Satanico from the Gran Cochisse match? Remember when he offered his hand to Cochisse and there was this air of tension as Cochisse considered taking it? None of that for the same spot here, because there was no way you could imagine Satanico hurting Lizmark after those first two falls. Not that Satanico ruined this match--there was no real trace of ingenuity from either man--but this feud has a reputation as being disappointing and a lot of that gets dropped in front of Lizmark. As someone who watched this amidst a bunch of Lizmark matches, I thought this was a step down from Lizmark's typical output too. On the bright side, this was the second biggest match on a show that drew extremely well, the last big CMLL success for a while. Satanico dropped the belt to Apolo Dantes eight days later. July 24 1992 Lizmark/Atlantis/Ultimo Dragon vs Bestia Salvaje/Emilio Charles Jr./Felino This was better in theory than in actuality. Even after AAA broke off you could still get matches like this in Arena Coliseo, with six of the company's most exciting wrestlers being tasked with wrestling an exciting match. Not sure why they booked another round of Atlantis vs Emilio Charles though. Atlantis had already defended his title against him twice during this one reign. Anyway, the first fall was really slow with Emilio refusing to wrestle Atlantis and a lot of stalling around that, and in the end Emilio just got in the ring with him even though Atlantis hadn't goaded him into it at all. Later there was some sort of side issue between Emilio and Lizmark before Emilio switched back to Atlantis, and I just wasn't getting what they were going for. It did result in Lizmark sending Emilio and Bestia out of the ring one after the other, which was a hell of a lot more exciting than anything from Lizmark vs Satanico. I thought Bestia was the best wrestler in this and Emilio was kind of weak as the point man. On the other hand the crowd was into it, so maybe I'm just a wet blanket.

February 17 1984 Lizmark/Atlantis vs Faraon/Egipcio I love how natural these teams are, the flying blues against the Egyptians. Lizmark looked better here than in any of the other matches I've watched so far. He did a little bit of everything in this one. What really impressed was how the match began as a brawl, and then Lizmark and Faraon spun it into a tecnico styled fall out of nowhere when Lizmark landed on his feet off a backdrop. That set off the best version of the Lizmark standard that I've seen, and he won the fall with something I've never seen before, a sunset flip off the top used a setup for another move, in this case the greatest one in wrestling, the butterfly suplex. The rest of the match was good but not as eye popping as the first fall, although Lizmark was just as sudden and natural in his third fall comeback as he'd been in the first. Atlantis was good here, but Lizmark was clearly the king of the skies, and Egipcio had some solid bumping. He's a guy who's always baffled me. He moves like a great wrestler, but the only really noteworthy thing about him is that he's the only lefthander in Mexican wrestling I can think of. The finish was a DQ, and I know somewhere out there is a Lizmark vs Faraon match that's missing the third fall. I want to see that now. March 13 1992 Lizmark/Atlantis/Mascara Sagrada vs Los Infernales This was tip. The Infernales had their purple alternates on, and the first fall showed how good they were as a unit. They operated in complete synchronization at a pace that would seem to make that impossible. It wasn't even that violent, just an efficient cleanup of the tecnico team. If there was a flaw to this it was that at the end of the fall Satanico began to pound away at Lizmark and let everyone know that he was coming for Lizmark's world lightheavyweight title. That in itself wasn't a problem, but he hadn't paid special attention to the champion before that and there didn't seem to be anything that would have set him off. Regardless of how they got there, they were doing Satanico vs Lizmark in this match and Lizmark was perfect in his role. Tecnicos kicking at their tormentor while being held back by the other two rudos is fairly common, but Lizmark really threw his body into his swings for Satanico. Soon enough the tables had turned and the Infernales got to show off how good they were at getting hurled all over the place. On Atlantis--Lizmark sold noticeably better (even though Atlantis was in a slot where his selling wasn't that important), but it's still a close call who was better in this, because Atlantis was that good on offense. Him vs Pirata was outstanding, much better than in that 1989 match (and it's not like that was bad), and it just kept going with Infernales coming into the ring and eventually Atlantis laying them all out on the floor. It wasn't just the Infernales making him look good. Both of the other tecnicos got to do their own versions, and Atlantis' stood far ahead. I liked Lizmark's brawling more than his fast paced stuff. Eventually a desperate Satanico entered the ring with his hand outstretched, but Lizmark knew him too well to fall for that and instead pulled him into a big backbreaker. The Infernales ended up taking this in a shutout and after the match Satanico issued a formal challenge for the belt. Things got hot and it looked like there was going to be a third fall after all, but Satanico decided he had nothing more to prove and walked off. This might be a top ten match for 1992 CMLL. Even if that's too far, this is still the kind of match that supports the Infernales' case as a threesome. April 5 1992 Lizmark vs Satanico Just the finish to each fall, so I may as well do the resulting title match here. What was shown of Lizmark's selling was weak and the winning move was a blocked victory roll where Satanico didn't press extra hard and Lizmark didn't really struggle to get out. Satanico got to wear a belt again after the Infernales lost theirs two weeks before, but I can't be too cynical, as he and Lizmark had been trading this title for the past two years and it's not like Lizmark had been doing anything important with it.

June 30 1989 Lizmark/Rayo de Jalisco Jr./Atlantis vs Pirata Morgan/Cien Caras/Gran Markus Jr. A basic description of what happened in this match would make it sound awesome. Atlantis and Pirata going hold for hold! Rayo Jr. and Cien Caras brawling just as you'd expect! Lizmark having to deal with Gran Markus while keeping an eye out for Fabuloso Blondy, who had a ringside seat! As you can probably tell from the exclamation points, none of this turned out to be that interesting. The technical stuff between Atlantis and Pirata was high energy but not much of a battle, Markus Jr. did nothing I can remember, and all of the matchups seemed to keep to themselves. At a couple of spots it seemed like the match was finally going to explode, but then everything would stop and it would continue on as it had before. On top of all that you had bizarre decisions like the tecnicos making their comeback after the third fall had already ended, and Pirata Morgan submitting to Roberto Rangel pulling him off Atlantis. The best part of the match was probably the scene at the end, with Blondy disappearing into the night as the crowd hurled garbage at him, Lizmark being helped to the back, Pirata holding two masks aloft, and Rayo threatening Gato Montini while wearing a green sweater on his head. Lizmark did a tope suicida again and again it wasn't good. March 20 1992 Lizmark/Rayo de Jalisco Jr./Konnan vs Los Brazos Los Brazos weren't quite as good in 1992 as they were in 1991, I don't think. Maybe they were overshadowed a bit by the big stars on the tecnico side, or maybe it was just familiarity setting in now that they were CMLL regulars. This was still a decent match. The Brazos weren't the best bumpers for tecnico offense, at least not on this night, but they made up for it in other ways. Rudos shrieking in fright when Konnan flexes should be the lamest shit in the world, but El Brazo and Brazo de Plata can pull it off. They also talked a lot when they were on offense. You don't see the smug side of Brazo de Oro often. Lizmark did some of his usual stuff, and it was good but it's just not as electrifying as Atlantis'. On the other hand, he gave Brazo de Plata a big backbreaker, and this time he went with the tope and it looked pretty good. Maybe those two weak ones were just flukes.

August 1983 Lizmark vs Enfermero Jr. This is supposedly the earliest Lizmark match of which known video exists. At least I think I remember reading that. I appreciate it whenever the seconds look like actual members of their guy's training camp, and here MS-1 wore a jacket with pretty "ENFERMERO JR" lettering on the back, and Aristoteles had donned a blue and silver pants+jacket combo to signify that he was with Team Lizmark. Enfermero had it tough here. If Lizmark looked like a superhero then the recently unmasked challenger looked like a standard criminal. He did nothing particularly villainous, and everything that Lizmark did just looked so much better that it was hard to ever buy Enfermero as in control. It didn't help that it was the tecnico who was pushing things, with Lizmark the first to start with both big throws and body shots (with some HARD looking kicks to the back), and that when Enfermero finally got the advantage it was simply by escaping a Cavernaria and sending Lizmark into the ropes. That was a weak way to shift the momentum, but I liked how Lizmark started off the third fall aggressively in an attempt to get right back into it and ended up paying the price. Curiously, Enfermero followed this up with a plancha to the outside, usually a trademarked Lizmark spot, so Lizmark later ended up doing a standard tope suicida that actually didn't look very good. Despite those complaints, this was still a good match. Dive aside, Lizmark's offense looked great, and he took two tumbles to the outside (one a rough looking bump) that did more to create a sense of danger than Enfermero could. Enfermero was a quietly solid worker who remained good well into his forties, and here he contributed some excellent selling and a cool backdrop bump where he flew over the top rope and took the bump against the apron. There wasn't much in the way of ingenuity or shooting for the stars, but at the end of the match Lizmark looked like a top technical wrestler, which was the main idea they were going for. This is listed as Lizmark's first defense of the belt, but apparently he was a bit busier than that--Alfonso Morales said this was his sixth defense, with prior ones coming against Fiera and Supremo I. March 6 1992 Lizmark/Salomon Grundy/Aaron Grundy vs Satanico/Pirata Morgan/Nitron I'm not going to tell you that this was a good match, and even if I did no one would believe it, but this could have been worse. The Grundy brothers and Nitron got their audience, even if they couldn't provide typical CMLL spots, and the regulars did a good job of reacting to and interacting with the big foreigners. Lizmark slugging with Nitron didn't look unbelievable (well, Nitron's punches looked bad, but I mean in terms of Lizmark going toe to toe with a much larger man), which has to be a credit to both of them, and when matched with the Infernales he brought some quality that was more in tune with what the audience was used to seeing. The third fall really dragged, though. After the match (and a big Lizmark plancha), Nitron had to drag Satanico to his feet, and he immediately crashed back down to the floor. I don't think of Satanico as a master comedian, but that was good.

I could watch Lizmark matches all day. I won't, I'll try to keep it to two per, but to me he's one of the most watchable wrestlers out there. Like all tecnicos he had his spots that he tried to use in all of his matches, but through some combination of likability and effort he never got boring. Well, I'm not too familiar with this millennium Lizmark, so actually that remains to be seen. Most of these will end up being from 1989-1994 simply because that hits the sweet spot of TV+push, but I'll try to pepper in stuff from before and after as well. January 27 1994 Lizmark/Rey Misterio/Rey Misterio Jr. vs Jerry Estrada/La Parka/Espanto Jr. What better way to kick off a look at Lizmark than a match featuring a brilliant performance from... Jerry Estrada? This was in Rey Sr's hometown of Tijuana, and he and Estrada matched up either to set something up for several months down the road or just because they thought it would be interesting here. Either way Estrada was beautiful. He didn't even do anything particularly awful to Misterio, it was just the contrast between how smug he was when he had things under control and how quickly he'd scuttle for safety at the mere hint of danger. I suppose that sounds like fairly generic praise, as to some extent every rudo is like that, but with Estrada it works so perfectly because his whole character is that he's a punk. Even when Rey Sr. was on the apron Estrada managed to be a dick, press slamming Jr. with one hand and turning to Uncle to talk some shit. It all might have gone down as nothing more than some nice character stuff from Estrada, but the two nonprincipals on each team did an excellent job of working a match around the two important figures. Parka and Espanto were perfect goons, and they spent the first fall picking off Jr. and Lizmark every time they jumped in the ring and made a move for Estrada. AAA matches didn't always have that. A lot of times they'd have three separate but equal matchups even when only one of them mattered in the booking. Here Estrada was always the center of the action. It was interesting to watch Espanto Jr. just because how often do you get to see him away from Hijo del Santo? He worked it both on offense and defense, badmouthing Lizmark and later leaping back in shock when Rey Jr. sprang to his feet. Misterio Sr. also was very impressive. It doesn't seem like he gets much discussion as a worker, so I have no clue what his reputation is, but his selling in the crowd was terrific. For the first two falls this was an outstanding Monterrey styled brawl and not even the bottom rope breaking could thwart the rhythm the workers had going, but they lost it with the third fall. The rudos had dominated the first 1.5 falls and the tecnicos made their comeback midway through the second. Instead of going home from there, they went with another rudo controlled fall in the third, which felt like taking the match back to places it had already been. They underscored that point by repeating spots from earlier in the match, and by the end the whole thing had ground to a stop with Lizmark tied to the ringpost and Estrada winning on a truly uncreative fake foul. On the Lizmark front, he was good but clearly the third man on his team. I liked it more when he was pissed off and trying to get to Estrada than when he was on offense, although he did stomp on Parka's foot and fling him into the crowd. Even with the disappointing ending this was still a quite good match overall. February 28 1992 Lizmark/Octagon/Mascara Sagrada vs Pierroth Jr./Emilio Charles Jr./Jerry Estrada Unremarkable match that was above average only because it had enough good workers in it to always be watchable. Like the last one they worked in two stretches of rudo dominance and two tecnico comebacks which made the whole thing seem longer than it was. Pierroth and Mascara Sagrada continued their rivalry and Pierroth even bled. They weren't building to anything, and Sagrada's assault didn't really merit a bladejob, so the blood just felt cheap. Lizmark and Estrada were good together and Emilio looked like he was just as good a matchup for Octagon as Fuerza. The best part of the match was when the rudos were getting their asses kicked and Pierroth gathered his troops on the outside. Apparently his battle plan was "Emilio, have one of them turn his back to us, and then Estrada, you jump him from behind." Not exactly a creative strategem, but it worked.

His match with Kato Kung Lee was bad. Kato had a good cabelleras match with Bestia Salvaje not a year later, so it's not as if Satanico couldn't have been expected to do any better there.

I watched some 1998 CMLL recently that had Fiera and Negro Casas in it. They were fine, but it wasn't the same as 1992. Casas was bug eyed and kind of hamming it up to get the crowd with him, and he was throwing Ringo/Solitario style spinkicks, and Fiera just wasn't a badass anymore. Lots of kicks but no dark underside. When a guy like him turns there should always be the hint that he could snap and unleash the kind of violence on the rudos that he used to deliver as one of them. Point is, Dandy made that switch and didn't lose a thing, and that impresses me more and more with everything I see from other wrestlers. He'd pump his fist trying to get the fans to chant his name and he wouldn't look desperate, he'd look like a man who knew he could control the crowd. How all that stacks up to having to wrestle as a character brought to life entirely by someone else, and all through that present yourself as the best in the land and a representative of your entire country, I don't know. I agree about Dandy's selling, but only rarely. The 1989 hair vs hair match with Emilio Charles is great, but it really did bother me when Emilio slipped a sweet foul past the ref for a two count, and then Dandy got up quickly and suplexed him. The other side of that is I don't know if Santo ever sold as well as Dandy did for something like that one Angel Azteca leglock in their 1990 match.

This wasn't new footage. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/18710-fuerza-guerrera-vs-negro-casas-wwa-1986-or-1987/

I have a soft spot for 1992 AAA, in part because of that brief period when they pushed Angel Azteca as someone important, but realistically that was a bad fit. Rayo Jr, MS-1, and Solar were like that too. I guess the flip side would be Love Machine as a CMLL wrestler for a few months after the split.

Jerry Estrada vs Pirata Morgan from 1993 was not just disappointing, it was seriously bad.

Butterfly suplex Indian deathlock Frog splash (when done by anyone other than Eddy Guerrero)

Atlantis vs Satanico is probably from January 20 1984, the week before the first Rocca vs Cota match. It was at Arena Coliseo.

He was nominated. He just got skunked, along with the guys listed with him.

So that's Mexico sealed and delivered. The only thing left to find out is where Negro Casas ranks overall. 1. Negro Casas 2. Hijo del Santo 3. Dandy 4. Satanico 5. Blue Panther--too high but he's always been rated at this level 6. Atlantis 7. Sangre Chicana 8. La Parka 9. Virus--Virus over Pirata and Villano III I wouldn't have guessed, not complaining though --TOP 100-- 10. Pirata Morgan 11. Perro Aguayo--not at the level of worker of the guys around him 12. Villano III 13. Black Terry 14. Fuerza Guerrera--a little low, kind of surprising 15. Fiera 16. Negro Navarro--another guy I thought would do better 17. Psicosis--feels high, but I have no idea what any of his work is like after about 1999 18. Mocho Cota--either too high or too low 19. MS-1 20. Emilio Charles Jr.--MS-1 and Emilio finishing b2b on the overall list is a success --TOP 200-- 21. Brazo de Plata--Perro Sr. should have finished around here 22. Juventud Guerrera--not sure if he's here for his work in Mexico 23. Solar 24. Dr. Wagner Jr. 25. Mascarita Dorada 26. Super Astro--I expected him to do better 27. Dos Caras --TOP 300-- 28. Ultimo Guerrero 29. Mascarita Sagrada 30. Lizmark 31. Espanto Jr. 32. Perro Aguayo Jr. 33. Art Barr--?? not sure if he counts but most of his case is from Mexico, isn't it? Shouldn't be top 500 34. Bestia Salvaje 35. Cassandro 36. Brazo de Oro 37. Rush 38. Espectrito 39. Angel Azteca 40. Cien Caras --TOP 400-- 41. Octagon--not top 500 material, but I'd take him over Love Machine 42. Canek 43. Jerry Estrada--way too low 44. Mistico 45. Villano IV 46. Ciclon Ramirez--these lower guys have been bundled pretty tightly on the big list, but I wish he'd ended up next to Angel Azteca 47. Cicloncito Ramirez--not bad for someone who wasn't nominated 48. Super Crazy--?? I assume he's here mostly for his US work 49. Dr. Cerebro 50. Trauma II 51. Silver King 52. Trauma I 53. Pequeño Pierroth --TOP 500-- 54. Javier Cruz 54. Felino--you know, I like Felino and Cruz equally too 56. Pimpinela Escarlata 56. Hombre Bala 58. Hector Garza 59. Freelance 60. Gran Apache 61. Faraon--I've always considered Faraon a slightly better Shane McMahon myself 62. Pierroth Jr. 63. Barbaro Cavernario 64. Konnan Big 64. Rayo de Jalisco Jr.--I seriously did think that people loved his twirly dance moves and not that one #100 vote had gone uncounted 64. Demus 3:16 No better than the countless wrestlers who went unnominated: - Chico Che - El Brazo - Javier Llanes - Kung Fu - Rey Hechicero If I missed someone please try not to get too mad.

The Rock ranked above Emilio Charles. HHH ranked above Fiera. Chris Jericho ranked above Sangre Chicana.

Hasn't the top 100 had one European guy? Either people aren't watching the stuff, or they're watching it and deciding that no one great wrestled there, which sounds like the result of a pro-elsewhere bias. I don't even care about the niche that is the continent of Europe, it's just the easiest example I could think of. At the end of the day as long as you're happy with the list that's all that matters. Let's not go crazy in defending it, though. Mainstream US guys clearly did get more chances than other equally talented wrestlers. You sure? All the AJPW sacred cows are still alive, and yet no hand wringing is going on on that front. I wonder why? I didn't say ALL others, and in my post before that I noted that mainstream Japanese was the only type of wrestling to get as much attention as the US did, both mainstream and territorial. But yes I'm sure, the numbers have already been posted.

Hasn't the top 100 had one European guy? Either people aren't watching the stuff, or they're watching it and deciding that no one great wrestled there, which sounds like the result of a pro-elsewhere bias. I don't even care about the niche that is the continent of Europe, it's just the easiest example I could think of. At the end of the day as long as you're happy with the list that's all that matters. Let's not go crazy in defending it, though. Mainstream US guys clearly did get more chances than other equally talented wrestlers.

There was a breakdown of what types of wrestling people considered. U.S. was far, far ahead of anywhere else except "mainstream Japan". There objectively was a bias. Also guys who get talked up as #1 candidates finishing in the thirties isn't much of an argument that there can't have been any kind of bias.

The best part of the Casas vs Panterita program

Panther should have finished behind Atlantis. Hell, Panther should have finished behind Emilio. I'll take a guy who's decent one on one and a big contributor to tags vs a guy who can be great one on one and decent in tags, just because of how infrequent the big one on ones are. I'm not even sure Panther's average singles match star rating would be higher than Emilio's. He had more great matches (and even on that front I like him less than most), but he also had more duds. I don't think he was overrated on the mat, though. It's every other aspect of his game that doesn't hold up.