cad

Generally speaking, the 1993 match is a lot more competitive than the 1992 version. I'm not seeing the narrative similarities between the two at all. Casas looked like a chump in 1992, getting waxed all match and pulling out a couple of fluke falls. There wasn't any leg work in the second fall, just a scorpion deathlock out of nowhere. In 1993 he legitimately got back in the match by attacking the knee, fouled Dragon between falls and maintained control into the third. I'd actually cite the 1992 match as something that Mexican wrestling does NOT do well, and that's the Ric Flair style title match where one guy looks like the lesser man but manages to pull out a fluke win. It's never satisfying, not when Satanico does it against Lizmark, not when Santo does it against Psicosis, not here. Dragon looked like the better wrestler throughout in the latter match, but it still felt like he'd had to overcome some serious danger and a crafty champion to win it. Casas looked a much more worthy opponent on the ground in 1993 too. In the '92 match Dragon just sort of shuffles Casas from hold to hold, with Casas rarely even getting to counter. I liked how he blocked the figure four, but for the most part it's the counters that people look for in this kind of match for it to feel competitive. Dragon wantonly switching from armbar to leg scissors to figure four is hardly treating each hold as important, even if it maybe does resemble the universal ideal of NJPW style matwork. I wouldn't describe what they did on the mat in '93 as two guys aimlessly riffing. If it bored you it bored you, but every one of those sequences established that Dragon had the upper hand. I'm not sure what you were talking about with the third fall of the 1993 match. There's the spot when Casas falls off the ropes and they do a double down? But they kind of had to do it, or else you have Dragon just popping up for no reason. I actively looked for them slowing things down like a big WWE match and couldn't find it. After every kickout they went right back to work. I suppose they sold the big moves to the outside, but if they hadn't I'm sure they'd have gotten raked for that too. Long story short, I'm not quite sure I really bought that narrative of the '92 match being the same match but done better, and I don't know if some of the other analysis was executed that well either, but Casas doesn't deserve to get treated any more delicately than anybody else. I'd always assumed that this was one of the more accessible Mexican classics, so if I learned anything here it's that perhaps that's not the case.

Mex. '91: 1. Fuerza Guerrera 2. Atlantis 3. Brazo de Oro HM: Pirata Morgan, El Hijo del Santo Finally, we get something besides just CMLL footage this year, and it comes from... Monterrey? The UWA TV show started in October to provide another alternative. Last year's number one, Dandy, began the year in Japan and then I think took some time to heal from injuries. By the time he got back in March, last year's number two, Fuerza, had already laid down his Octagon classic on his way to leaving the rest of the promotion in the dust. I'd say Fuerza had the top spot on lockdown all year. Atlantis was no longer the top flyer in the world as he'd been in 1989, but he had enough facets to his game that he was just as good overall anyway. He finally got his excellent showcase match, against Blue Panther, and it remains one of his signature performances today. I've always found Brazo de Oro fairly uncharismatic, but his match with Santo is a classic, and there is a LOT of terrific technical work from him in 1991. For the last four months of the year, Pirata was performing at the same level as Fuerza. I just can't in good conscience rank him with how his tecnico run, which made up half his year, provided no real highlights and finished up quickly, almost as if everyone admitted that it had been a mistake. Hijo del Santo had some brilliant performances and probably was better than at least Brazo de Oro. There isn't enough of him to know what kind of a year he really had, though, especially given that Santo did sometimes have a tendency to coast a bit. I don't really think that Atlantis or Brazo de Oro could hang with the true best in the world candidates for 1991, but Fuerza? If you can accept a world number one who spends half his time falling on his ass, you'll see a guy who had a classic with an unremarkable opponent, built up an exciting match with a forty-nine year old who had never been a big name, and basically turned Misterioso from a flashy undercard worker into one of the promotion's young stars. There can't be a lot of years like that, where a guy is tasked with good hand duties and churns out superstar performances. My top ten:

That's nice of you to say, thanks. I wanna let you know, you break my heart, although not as much as the protracted discussion in the Dandy thread about whether it's even good at all. That match might be top 1 for me. But maybe its time has come and gone, and I'm just clinging to an opinion that was fashionable ten years ago.

I'm generally down on all of Satanico's major 1990 matches vs the consensus (really that holds for all of the '90s). I saw the Dandy hair match as a big match that delivered rather than an absolute classic. Thought their other match was good but not anything special. As a whole the feud had a lot of forgettable matches that just kept the angle moving for TV. In the Angel Azteca-Dandy rivalry, I preferred the matches with Rocca/Guerrero to those with Satanico/Atlantis. Didn't really have an opinion on the Estrada match and don't even know what the general opinion of it is. With so many matches that I'm the low man on, he doesn't feel like a guy I need to be shouting out. I'd take Angel Azteca's 1990 resume over his fairly easily, and peak Pirata > postprime Satanico to me. You can see from this thread though that I'm an outlier here, so you don't need to take my thoughts on those matches too seriously.

Mexico: 1. El Dandy 2. Fuerza Guerrera 3. Angel Azteca HM (so I guess fourth): Pirata Morgan Another CMLL only year, but with fewer shows missing than 1989. My top two from last year, Emilio Charles and Dandy, both had programs with Angel Azteca early in the year, with Charles' solid and predictable whereas Dandy's was intense and creative. I'd say Dandy took over as number one pretty much from the start and held the rest of the promotion at arm's length almost all year. Only in the final few months did Fuerza manage to keep pace with him, as his crafting a hot feud with two different guys simultaneously impressed me just as much as Dandy vs Satanico. Angel Azteca spent most of the year in matches with excellent workers and never once looked out of place or in over his head, and very often figured in the high points of those matches. Pirata hadn't declined from his 1989 level, but the dissolution of the Bucaneros left him with fewer chances to put on a show. He still managed a very famous match against part timer Faraon. There was a time when Dandy's 1990 used to be talked about as one of the all time great years a wrestler ever had, and from the looks of the replies in the thread he's still considered up there with (and maybe even above) anyone else in the world. My top ten matches:

One thing I've come to appreciate about that match. You see two great workers in a hair vs hair match, and you hate to see it bogged down with ref interference, but the Gran Davis spots in this one were excellent. For one, it seems like he just has a bug up his ass about the closed fist, and Charles is the one exploiting it (you can see him working Davis like a basketball player at one point), before Dandy finds a way to come back without punching. It's about the wrestlers as much as it is about the ref. And a draw would normally be a flat finish, but here they actually have the fans riled up about it (one fan tries to hold Dandy back from getting his hair cut, and another one is shouting, "Eres un pendejo, Davis," over and over). To get the feel of it as an injustice brought on by an officious referee, you need to establish him as such beforehand, which they did in the first fall.

Mexico list: 1. Emilio Charles Jr. 2. El Dandy 3. Pirata Morgan Honorable mention: Atlantis, Satanico 1989 is the first year that we have weekly(ish) TV for from Mexico. It's only CMLL, and it's not complete, but it's enough to try a top three. Charles and Dandy are hard to separate because so much of their best work this year came against each other. Dandy probably has the slight edge in top matches, but I just like Emilio's performances more. Pirata had memorable performances on his own, as captain of his own team and partnered with random rudos. 1989 might be the best year we have from him. You could maybe say the same about Atlantis, at least in terms of week to week output, but he just doesn't have a bigtime match to cement his spot. Satanico has the opposite problem, with the Chicana match and the match where he teamed with Dandy, and then not a whole lot beyond that. With him we are missing several televised big matches (vs Dandy, vs Lizmark, vs Blondy) so luck might have jobbed him a little bit. Or helped him. I think if you were trying to make a case for any of these guys as best in the world, it would be easiest to do it with Dandy, as he has such a strong resume. I don't think that Flair or whoever was operating far beyond what Charles was doing from show to show, though. For record's sake, these are my top ten matches for 1989 Mexico/CMLL:

Obviously a talented wrestler capable of having great matches. I gotta say, though, there's a pretty long stretch, like from 1991 to the mid-'90s, when seeing Villano III's name in a lineup is not a sign that there must be something good in this one. That's a pretty big portion of the Villano III that we have video of. It's not his prime (although it's not THAT far off it either), and he's not bad or anything. He looks elegant when he's in there, and I'm not the first to say that he basically made an artform out of the perfunctory second fall, but he rarely makes those UWA TV matches or early AAA matches any better. There's something about his work that feels like punching in, punching out. His 2000 work salvaged my impression of him to an extent, although I wouldn't say that I thought he worked at a phenomenal, best in the world type of level. I was more impressed by finally getting a glimpse of what it looked like when Villano tried to make random weekly TV memorable, which he did a pretty good job of. Like with most 1980s workers with reputations like his, I try to give him a boost because I know that we didn't get his best years. Then again, he finished ahead of Fuerza Guerrera, and no amount of envisioning missing Villano classics is going to push him ahead of Fuerza for me. I like that he finished 143rd, right next to Lex Luger. Peas in a pod, those two workers. Villano III vs El Signo (only one fall shown before the picture goes out, but it's the best part) Villano, Perro Aguayo and Octagon vs Rambo, Pirata Morgan and MS-1 Villano, Atlantis and Perro Aguayo vs Pierroth, Shocker and Mascara Año 2000 Villanos vs Pierroth, Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr. That does it for guys that I had some opinion of going into this:

Dragon has become something of a whipping boy as the embodiment of the 1990s fan mindset that great offense = great wrestler. I'm in the camp that thinks he had too many great matches in too many places to be a piece of crap worker. Ultimo Dragon vs Negro Casas from 1993, not just the match but the whole three week program, was probably the best thing on CMLL TV all year. Here are some matches from back when people thought Ultimo Dragon was good: UD vs Ray Richard (actually I have no idea what people thought about him in the 1980s) UD, Mascara Sagrada and Lizmark vs Fuerza Guerrera, Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 UD, Oro and Ciclon Ramirez vs Negro Casas, Felino and Bestia Salvaje UD, Brazo and Oro vs Negro Casas, Emilio Charles Jr. and Mano Negra (I think he bleeds in this one, not something you often got from him) UD vs Negro Casas

I don't know how to compare Brazo de Plata to anybody else. You watch a match like this, replete with fart sounds and dick jokes, and there's just no one else who works like that. How do you rate a wrestler against a bawdy comedian? I doubt any other worker could pull that off, and at the same time I don't know if they'd want to. It's funny as shit but also a total farce, even by the standards of professional wrestling. Typically his approach wasn't that extreme, but it was still singular enough that it's tough to rate him against other wrestlers as if they had the same goals out there. I say that, and yet you still have a worker as revered as Negro Casas doing a Porky bit almost note for note. If Casas steals from someone, that's when you know they're pretty good. One thing I'll say about Brazos matches is that a lot of them are like Rock promos. The Rock didn't cut your Jim Cornette template three pronged promo, "This is why I'm mad, this is what I'm going to do about it, this is when I'm going to do it," and I don't think anyone wanted him to. Same with the Brazos, who aimed to have Brazos matches more often than they aimed to have classic matches, and it usually sounded like Brazos matches were what the crowds wanted from them.

Wrestling comfort food. I don't know if I've seen a Super Astro match that wasn't better for having him in it. The Super Astro backflip/dance combo never got old, even in the late '90s when it could easily have seemed out of place. Sometimes he'd cap it off by backhanding some poor rudo, and he was so short and so GOOD that he never looked like a prick doing it. Once you've seen his borderline suicidal tope atomico you'll never forget it. He bumped big, especially on backdrops, and was a very good technical worker too. Managed to feel like a big deal despite not getting many centerpiece programs on TV. This was a uniformly positive thread that didn't really translate into votes for Super Astro. He finished 283rd. SA, Atlantis and Faraon vs Fuerza Guerrera, Emilio Charles Jr. and Blue Panther SA, Atlantis and Mascara Sagrada vs Los Bucaneros SA, Octagon and Volador vs Fuerza Guerrera, Hijo del Gladiador and Ponzoña SA, Angel Azteca and Solar vs Rambo, Blue Panther and La Parka (my favorite Super Astro performance, for whatever that's worth) SA, Volador and Transformer vs Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada and Fuerza Guerrera SA, Mascara Magica and Olimpico vs Mogur, Arkangel and Scorpio Jr. SA, Mr. Niebla and Solar vs Felino, Arkangel and Guerrero de la Muerte

Eh, I don't feel too strongly about Silver King one way or the other. He's good for an impressive spot but I can't remember him ever doing anything really gripping. He didn't even leave behind that many matches to call overrated or underrated. I guess I'd compare him to guys like Black Warrior and Heavy Metal, other athletically gifted and charismatic workers who never put it all together to hit that next level. King was better than Metal, not sure about him vs Warrior.

I get the point about how not having a look at weekly peak Chicana creates some problems when trying to spot him. Chicana is unique, though, in that I think he's the only one of Mexico's top 1980s contenders who is better off for having his best years in that decade. '90s crowds probably wouldn't have lived and died with his every move to the extent that fans in '80s Arena Mexico did, and that's one of the key pieces to his candidacy.

A good test case for anyone wondering if Super Astro would still be a decent worker if he had to wrestle wearing fifteen pound ankle weights. Rayo vs Cien Caras is my pick as the best mask vs mask match of the 1990s, so sure, I can see that. Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs Cien Caras (P2, P3) Rayo, Konnan and Sangre Chicana vs Cien Caras, Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 Rayo, Vampiro and Atlantis vs Fiera, Emilio Charles Jr. and Pierroth Jr.

You know, I really do forget about Rambo. He rarely got much to do but made it count whenever they gave him a chance. Even facing a fairly washed up Brazo in a hair match, he got just about everything he could have out of it, fighting over post shots and taking ridiculous headstand bumps. It's actually surprising that he looks as good as he does in the matches we have. Almost all of it is post prime work from a man who took an armdrag on the floor pretty much once a match, so I'd kind of expect his body to have been shot. A rudo's rudo. Rambo, Parka and Blue Panther vs Angel Azteca, Solar and Super Astro (this has a lot of Super Astro punking out Rambo) Rambo, MS-1 and Pirata Morgan vs Octagon, Villano III and Perro Aguayo (brawling to set up an apuestas match) Rambo vs El Brazo Rambo vs Villano III (2001 mano a mano)

Dr. Cerebro vs Toro Negro Jr. (chain match, sort of) Dr. Cerebro beats the shit out of an indy worker with a chain in front of his opponent's home fans. What's not to love? Three things I really liked about this. It's brawling Cerebro, which isn't how I usually think of him. It's a match where they put most of their effort into the body/heat part of the match, rather than the finishing stretch. And it's Cerebro as a rudo rather than just an indy legend. After the match Toro Negro doesn't get on the mic and call Cerebro a great wrestler and an even greater person, he takes some shots while they're trying to stretcher the doctor out of the ring.

I think I agree with this, at least among rudos. He had everything you'd want in that setting. He could brawl. He could make things work on the mat. He could bump big. He could fly through a breathtaking series of moves. He had big offense both on his own and in triple teams. He could do comedy at the level of a Fuerza Guerrera. Who else would even think of holding this impromptu test of strength tournament in the middle of a match? Everyone knows what he brought to Satanico's Infernales, but just in case, look at how weak their 1991 reunion was, from spring until fall when it was Masakre on the team. Morgan replaced him late in the year and suddenly they were one of the promotion's most important acts. As the leader of his own team, he wasn't trying to make a statement or anything, but I loved that the other Bucaneros had to wear eyepatches and essentially be good enough to wrestle with one eye like Pirata did. It would be like if Mocho Cota had a team where all the members had to wrestle with two of their fingers tied down or if Jerry Estrada had a team and they all had to show up to the arena wasted every night. The Bucaneros were like a souped up version of the Brazos, a trio of brothers working comedy spots but even faster and more daring. I could go either way on his longevity. On one hand, he was a big guy who took big bumps. That's a style that lives on borrowed time, so I can't praise the bumps and also say his prime should have lasted longer. Even by that standard he fell apart fast though. A lot of his contemporaries took a hit when the calendar turned from 1992 to 1993, but none of them collapsed like Morgan did. I can't think of a single widely praised Morgan match from after 1993, and I believe he turned 31 that year. He finished 117th in 2016. Tenth among Mexican candidates is really not bad, but I think he had the matches and the talent (especially the talent) to make the top 100, maybe even comfortably. His career feels offbeat compared to other workers of his ability. He doesn't have a definitive rival, he spent a lot of time as a #2/#3 instead of a team leader, and he had a real flop of a tecnico turn right in the middle of his prime. I have him about as high as someone can rank without having a serious argument for number one, although I'd listen if anyone wanted to make it. Heretofore unmentioned wrestling matches featuring Pirata Morgan: PM, Hombre Bala and Verdugo vs Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza and Angel Azteca PM, Emilio Charles Jr. and Pierroth Jr. vs Atlantis, Huracan Ramirez (Sevilla) and Blue Demon Jr. Pirata Morgan vs Mascara Sagrada (Pirata works this almost like an American title match, and for one night Mascara Sagrada looks like one of the best flyers in the world)

The rich man's Cien Caras. If you want a wrestler with personality, why vote for one of the rest when you can vote for the best? Pierroth knew who he was and what he could do. He was a brawler, but he wasn't a wild, flailing brawler like Sangre Chicana. Pierroth would chop you in the chest and hit you in the face, and if you got him just right then he would go stiff as a board and fall flat on his back. He liked to talk and he knew how to act, and he could also secretly wrestle a little. I'm not the biggest fan of wrestlers best described as "charismatic", but the thing with Pierroth is that he could fill in charisma gaps for other guys and get the crowd into matches with workers like Mogur and Supremo. Going on what we have, he found himself somewhere between the end of 1986 (just an undercard rudo trying to make it) and the middle of 1988 (no longer has the patience to share the ring with Birdman). They turned him tecnico in 1992. Some fans say that Pierroth shouldn't have been a tecnico, just so that such a definitive rudo could say he was never anything else, but he really was good at it. Then in the late '90s he returned to Arena Mexico as an unmasked over the top villain, and he seemed to get the appeal of the trendy US/PR wrestling style better than anyone else in Mexico. He got one vote last time, a #93 from El Boricua. It could have been higher but there were probably some lingering hard feelings from that mask match in '95. The best of Pierroth (some of these have already been listed): Pierroth, Ulises and Supremo vs Jaque Mate, Hijo del Gladiador and Tierra Viento y Fuego (bloody rudos vs rudos brawl with Pierroth playing babyface) Pierroth, Ulises and MS-1 vs Mogur, Dandy and Popitekus Pierroth vs Mogur (in these two matches Mogur contributes the technical skill and Pierroth contributes the heat, great complementary pairing) Pierroth vs Supremo (this is 95% made by Pierroth's selling and his popularity, and it's better than the mask match IMO) Pierroth, Mascara Magica II and Atlantis vs Negro Casas, Kahoz and Mano Negra (tecnico Pierroth spends this match bullying Casas) Pierroth, Mascara Año 2000 and Shocker vs Villano III, Atlantis and Perro Aguayo Pierroth, Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr. vs Villano III, Villano IV and Villano V

'80s Perro Aguayo was a wild brawler, and '90s Perro Aguayo was maybe the most visibly adored wrestler ever (but still kind of a wild brawler). I don't know if I can articulate what I mean here, but it's hard for me to link the two together. Like, with Sangre Chicana, it's easy, because both were happening at the same time, and he was such a tremendous seller, and even in the '90s he could still interact with the Arena Mexico crowd like no one else. '90s Aguayo doesn't feel like a natural evolution of the '80s version, and nothing in his work makes it obvious how things turned out that way. It probably doesn't help that most (all?) of his 1980s matches feature him as a visitor rather than in his home arena. Perro did do well in that period in early 1992 when Arena Mexico was regularly having wild heavyweight brawls that were more than the sum of the wrestlers involved, and even as an old man he still took some crazy bumps. His style wasn't really a fit with AAA, but it didn't hurt his believability any. Why does no one talk about the match where he took Konnan's mask? It's one of the most famous matches from 1990s CMLL AND it got four stars from Meltzer (ehh...), but it doesn't even have a thread here. PA, Satanico and Fishman vs Ringo Mendoza, Jalisco and Villano III (Probably March 18 or March 25 1983) Perro Aguayo vs Konnan PA, Konnan and Vampiro vs Fiera, Sangre Chicana and Cien Caras (the best part of this is when Perro is lying in the seats among the fans)

Naw, I didn't think you were being accusatory. I just wanted to explain. I didn't like the stuff the Cerebros did with the Navarro family that much, but I did really like a match between them and... did that other team have a name? Los Malditos? I think it was Bombero Infernal, Samot and a third guy I'm forgetting.

I didn't think anyone would have known that. I might not even have guessed anyone knew this site had a guy called cad posting about Mexican wrestling. I have my issues with Satanico, but I also try to be fair. Some of my dislike doesn't even have to do with his work, and some of it is just cynicism on my part. I'll acknowledge that he's great even if I'm not a fan. It's an ordered list, though, so he is the lowest ranked of all my great workers. I can't remember ever dissing Black Terry, beyond maybe not liking such and such match.

Here's the big O in action back when he was just a young guy trying to get noticed (he's in the black tshirt top). Not great or anything, but it's something different from what you usually get out of him. Once he got over, he pared his repertoire down to stuff that he knew would work every time and made pretty much no effort to try anything new. You know what you're getting from him. There are other workers like that, and they get criticized for it too, but even with someone like Hogan the Hulk Hogan routine shaped his matches more than Octagon's did. The quality of an Octagon match rests on who his opponents are and what they do. I have enough guys now that I can probably start breaking this up into tiers:

Normally I don't care how a guy looks twenty years past his prime, but for someone like Casas I felt I owed his later work at least a superficial look. I never saw him really impose his will on the new style. Instead he just tried his best to do Negro Casas within the context of 2010s CMLL, which sometimes had a big effect and sometimes didn't. Volador Jr. vs Negro Casas from 2016 was just a Volador Jr. match featuring Negro Casas. Titan vs Negro Casas from 2013 organically went from competitive wrestling and brawling to dramatic reversals and nearfalls in a way that not a lot of modern CMLL matches do. And Blue Panther vs Casas was a great match, this coming from someone who doesn't get that excited about 21st century wrestling or Blue Panther matches in general. That basically redefined what a hair vs hair match could be, even if it doesn't seem to have had any lasting effect. Maybe more importantly it had me wondering if Titan is a strong worker in the new style and if maybe Panther peaked as an old man with no mask. That's when you know the work is good, when it actually gets you interested in the other guy in the match. Casas having two matches that impressed me like that while in his fifties and working a style I don't like counts as a success in my book. Younger Casas: Casas, Arandu and Cien Caras vs Centurion Negro, Black Magic and Panterita del Ring Casas, Espectro Jr. and Espectro de Ultratumba vs Dandy, Mano Negra and Ringo Mendoza Casas, Fiera and Bestia Salvaje vs Dandy, Ringo Mendoza and Ultimo Dragon Casas, Bestia Salvaje and Felino vs Ultimo Dragon, Dandy and Blue Demon Jr. Casas, Emilio Charles Jr. and Mano Negra vs Oro, Brazo and Ultimo Dragon Casas vs Fiera Casas vs Great Sasuke

In the most famous version of the Infernales it basically broke down like this. You had Satanico, a man who considered himself not just the team's number one but the promotion's number one, with a title around his waist more often than not and innumerable hair match victories, the complete package. You had Pirata Morgan, the best wrestler in the world, who would dig deeper than anyone else to win a match, and who could go out and form his own team that required all members to wrestle with the same handicap that he did. And then you had MS-1, who comparatively speaking was just a dick. MS-1 had no designs on leaving anyone thinking him the number one wrestler in the world or even the team. Instead he was content to beat guys up three on one, laugh about it and rack up the spoils that came with all that. He didn't let his career define him the way that Satanico and Pirata did, I don't think. You think either of those guys would dress up as a giant alien? Or be willing to sport an apuestas match record that would make even Kato Kung Lee turn up his nose? Naturally this makes MS-1 my favorite of the Infernales. As far as making him the greatest wrestler of all time, though, it left me thinking he could perhaps have used a little more vanity. In the 1980s he brought it almost every time out, flying all over for whatever tecnico needed it, in good matches and boring ones. MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana from '83 actually has some visibility outside of lucha circles, a pretty remarkable achievement. They also have a rematch the next year that isn't half as memorable. And even the week after the famous match, when MS-1's boys fought Chicana's, MS-1 happily took a backseat to Satanico in a match that you'd expect would be his quest for revenge. He could still have been a cinch as a top worker had he aged better. Would you believe that he and Emilio Charles were born in the same year? His 1990s work is still solid, but there's no spark to his big apuestas matches with Pirata Morgan or Faraon, to name two. It wasn't that he didn't care or didn't try by then. Rather, he approached his craft in a way befitting of a carpenter by trade who happened to wind up in wrestling, doing the work that was needed, but not really intending for people to look at it as a reflection of his own greatness. Sometimes he was so good that it just couldn't be helped, though. Random MS-1: MS-1, Talisman and Terror Chicano vs Cachorro Mendoza, Atlantis and Samurai Shiro (I have never seen a better spinkick than Cachorro's on MS-1 here) MS-1 and Masakre vs Dandy and Satanico MS-1, Masakre and Satanico vs Lizmark, Konnan, and Vampiro (not a good match at all, but look at how good him vs Konnan is on the mat)

Yeah, that was one I rewatched last week. I liked it more than the hair match, but it didn't feel quite right. What I remember from it: - Casas lost the first fall way too easily. He got pinned by a basic slam that was usually a setup for a top rope splash or a badass submission finish. If he was going to go down so quickly and to a move like that then he needed to do more selling and less arguing with the referee during the fall. - I liked that he tried to come back with low blows. Very true to himself. They weren't as creative as the ones he'd been pulling for the past two years, but maybe the idea was that he didn't want to look sneaky or something in match where he was to be cheered. - Cota blading off a DDT on the floor was cool, but then when they came back from break he was yelling at the fans as blood streamed down his face. I think once you start bleeding, that's a signal that you're not in the physical state to be jawjacking with the fans like you're stalling for time in the first couple of minutes. - They did the fighting on their knees spot that always looks good, but they weren't doing it as they were pulling themselves off the canvas, which is how that usually works. A standing Casas actually dropped to his knees to slug it out with Cota if I remember right. That's a piddling thing to be annoyed about but it's what I mean when I say that something about the match didn't click with me. It didn't feel like the best either man was capable of at that time. Cota had more chemistry with overmatched youngsters that he could torture like Latin Lover and Blue Demon, and for Casas showing his pluck it didn't compare to Casas vs Fiera from half a year before. I'd compare it to Fiera vs Sangre Chicana from 1993, another match that had memorable moments but put everything together in a way that made it less satisfying than the sum of its parts for me.