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Muto attacks Invader at the bell. Beating the crap out of Invader and even coming off the top rope with the belt to smash Invader. I love that they’re just calling Super Black Ninja “Great Muta.” Muta continues beating down Invader with chops. Invader’s selling is, big surprise, great. Spills to the outside and we finally get a good shot of Invader’s bloody mask. Muta posts Invader leading to awesome stumbling around selling by Invader. Muta gets a chair and beats on Invader. They continue brawling around the ring with Muta firmly in control. Invader starts to fight back starting with the big kick to the balls and some great punches. To the outside and Invader immediately hits Muta with a chair because everything in PR gets paid back. The right side of Invader’s mask is covered in blood but he continues to beat the shit out of Muta all around the ring and finally back inside. Muta makes his comeback by choking Invader with his shirt an then continuing his chopping/kicking assault. Muta takes his shoe off and attacks Invader with it but Invader manages to fight back and beats the crap out of Muta with his own show. More brawling on the outside leads to Muta kicking Invader in the balls and choking him out with some cables. Invader starts his chest pounding to signal his comeback and he flips Muta out over the ropes. But the choking has done its damage so Muta is able to continue working over Invader. We get the backbreaker and moonsault. Fastest count you’ll ever see but Invader manages to kick out. Sleeper by Muta as he’s just trying to use Invader’s blood loss against him. Invader dives over the top rope bringing Muta with him in order to break the sleeper which is such an awesome moment of desperation. Muta still beats Invader to his feet and starts to whip Invader with his belt but invader gets in ANOTHER lowblow. He wraps the belt around Muta’s neck and dumps him over the top choking the shit out of him because its Puerto Rico motherfucker. MattD is going to love all of the internal logic in every match. EVERYTHING is paid back. Invader starts throwing bombs. Backbreaker, piledriver wicked chops. This turns into them trading chops and headbutts back and forth and it is super intense leading to an awesome double knockdown spot. HUGE POP as Invader wins and a little kid tries to run into the ring right away to celebrate. Invader I: The Man is a Hero. This was excellent. It isn’t the life changing experience like Invader’s singles matches against Ron & Chicky Starr and Al Perez. I liked the Embry match more as well but this is a hell of a match. I prefer Invader maskless in singles matches. That may have something to do with it not reaching the upper echelon of Invader singles matches. But this was an excellent match.

I don’t know what to do with this. What a totally fucking bizarre concept. Crowd goes bonkers. Fun and all. Its just a steel cage battle royal. Which is insane. I'll rewatch this when we get a little El Boriqua guidance

This looks interesting. RNR’s start off on top with Jaggers bumping around and trying to tag out to Ricky Morton leading to more bumping around. Crowd is hot, RnR’s are fucking masters are this sort of showing up the heels early on schtick. I love Morton’s headlock takeover here. Both guys do a great job with it. Jaggers is just getting shown up over and over again so he finally has to tag out to Kroffat. By the way, I can’t go another Kroffat match without pointing out “Dandy Dan Kroffat” makes me laugh out loud every single time and I will ONLY call him Dandy Dan Kroffat from now until eternity. Dandy Dan is a great athlete at this point. He has some really good bumps and some really explosive moments. I also really like all of his schtick showing ass stuff too. I almost think All Japan might have limited his potential because he couldn’t do a lot of the really fun bullshit involved with tag wrestling. He should’ve gone to WCW to form the next generation Midnight Express with Bobby Eaton. Blind tag by the heels leads to Ricky Morton in peril. Jaggers piledrives him on the floor and posts poor Ricky. Jaggers throws some great punches. They do the worst doomsday device ever when Jaggers decides not to pick Ricky up at the last minute. Weird. Dandy Dan still nails him with the clothesline Then takes Morton down and blasts him like he’s Tsyuoshi Kikuchi. Morton gets busted open and its Ricky Morton selling so its spectacular. Robert Gibson house of fire is really good. Gibson is totally underrated as a worker. RnR’s pick up the win with the double dropkick. This was really fun. I mean its probably the 80th best RnR Express match on tape. This is very much their formula match. But their formula worked for a reason. Good match.

DUTCH! All right! Abby jumps Dutch at the bell and starts throwing punches and headbutts. They go outside right away and Abby slams Dutch on a table and continues beating on him. Back in and Abby plays hide the fork from the ref and stabs Dutch in the face a few times. Abby continues to dominate with chops and a lot of eye gouging. Dutch gets his whip and uses it to make his comeback; choking and punching Abby with it. Stark contrast with the Brody match as the crowd stays hot from start to finish on this. Abby is busted open and Dutch keeps after him with great punches on the cut. Abby is always so great selling out on his feet. Chicky Starr looks like a cross between Mitchell from Modern Family and Christopher Guest from Best in Show in this match. I want him to name every nut. Abby chokes Dutch out with a clothes hanger and ends up getting DQ’d. Crowd is mortified. I’m delighted. Abby continues to attack Dutch post match as Chicky nods in approval and finally starts throwing some shots in including a headbutt that will make you laugh out loud if you have any soul. Chicky was a master. Dutch is left choked out and Abby attacks Victor Quinones after the match just for fun. LOVED this. This is like the opposite of the Brody/Dory match. Abby finished 234 on GWE and that’s such a travesty watching all of these matches. He only made 17 ballots. You can keep Kenta Kobashi. I’ll take Abdullah the Butcher.

Oh come on guys, really? Brody vs Dory? In 1988 no less? This is mean spirited. Ok Brody throwing chairs at small children is great. Crowd is HUGE & hot so that’s good. After Brody’s awesome entrance, and it is awesome, they casually lock up in the center of the ring. Sigh. Great camera angle on Brody’s really good dropkick. Dory spills to the outside and throws a wooden chair into the ring so Brody bashes the chair onto the ring post until it shatters. Dory Jr hides a giant shard of the chair down the back of his trunks. Dory shoves the ref out of the way and goes all Abdullah putting Brody in a side headlock and stabbing him in the face. OHHHH. That was unexpected. This turns into a brawl around the infield with Brody falling into chairs and dory blasting him. Back in the ring and Brody immediately comes back with boots and takes the chair away from Dory and crushes him. Even getting stabbed in the face can’t stop Brody for more than a couple of seconds apparently. Shit he barely even bleeds….uh…nevermind. Back to the outside and Brody slams Dory into the ringpost back first a few times and tosses him back in. Brody does an almost jackhammer back in the ring and then grabs a front facelock slowing the match down to a halt. Dory makes a comeback when he moves as Brody charges into the turnbuckle. Crowd is noticeably not as into this as they were at the start. Ref bump but nobody cheats. Weak strike exchange leads to the Hogan/Andre WM III piledriver reverse spot on the floor and Brody takes a bump more embarrassing than Hogan’s. Dory ends up winning by countout because Brody can’t recover from the worst backdrop of all time. This was not really a good time. There were moments where it seemed ready to become a good match. And then Brody got in the way of himself and shit fell apart. Everyone needs to see the reputed “tough guy” terrified to take the piledriver reversal on grass.

Excited for this. Muto takes over right away and starts kicking Invader and ripping his mask. Invader gets tossed into the steel, bit upon and thrown into the cage some more getting busted up right away. So this leads to Invader’s all time great selling and all time great comebacks. Even better are the comebacks that get cut off. This is a really short match but it is basically all Muto dominating Invader so Invader sells and makes brief comebacks to keep the crowd into it. So it rules. Invader’s big comeback is spectacular with the crowd going insane and Muto hitting a BRUTAL blade job. This is about as good of an eight minute long cage match as you can get.

Super fun all action 4 minute long TV tag match. Glad I watched it and the crowd was INSANE but not really match to say. Ref bump was nasty. Everyone looked really good. Enjoyable.

HUGE Crowd and they are HOT as fuck as Medico jumps Ayala right away and beats the shit out of him. WOW! Who is Super Medico? Holy fuck! Ayala bails and it’s a slugfest when he gets back in. He bails again after a cross body block and 2 count. Great start! Super Medico has won my heart. All sorts of really fun babyface schtick early on. Chicky even tries to get involved while dressed up like Ron Burgundy. Classic transition as Medico puts his head down too early on a back drop attempt. Ayala isn’t a very exciting wrestler and a lot of his control is stomps, punches, kicks, knees which is normally fine enough for me but Ayala just doesn’t hit the spot. The crowd hates him though and eat up his shit and Medico is a good underdog who the crowd loves so the heat really makes Ayala’s time in command enjoyable. Ayala’s timing is really good in terms of cutting off Medico’s hope spots though. He’s effective enough honestly. I just hold that over the line texas death match where he stomped Colon to death against him. INSANE pop for Medico locking in the sleeper but it was just another hope spot. And it was an amazing one. This crowd is gonna go nuts when he makes his comeback. Back from commercial and Ayala slams Medico leading to a missed elbow drop. Medico finally starts to lay in some shots but he gets cut off again by his own enthusiasm. Ayala goes to work on the legs to set up his figure 4. Each time Medico fights off Ayala the crowd explodes. This is awesome. Ayala is relentless going after the leg now. When he makes the ropes to break a figure 4, WOW. They really got me with this one. Terrific match. I love this Super Medico! And this might have been Ayala’s best performance.

That’s the same Dan Kroffat? He looks like a different person. He is vicious in this early on; swinging the strap around like a baseball bat, using it as a clothesline and just generally whipping the shit out of I think Chris Youngblood. INSANE bump through the ropes by Kroffat too. This was short like 6 minutes but really awesome. Hard hitting and brutal with the heels juicing and getting whipped to death. Fun stuff.

Hot start with Invader III controlling with arm drags. Muto seems taller than usual. Crowd is hot as usual. Muto was such an explosive athlete during this time. It is really impressive to watch him flip around and take basic bumps. Invader III is really good. He’s not Invader I, that’s an unfair standard. But he’s a really good small babyface wrestler. He bumps and sells really well, has exciting offense and a clear connection with the crowd. Muto is good here. It’s easy to see why it was so hard for him to be a heel in this era and why fans always ended up cheering for him. He does some cheating and begging off but he is just so cool and spectacular and unique in this era that its hard not to root for him. The crowd is mic’d like a lucha show so they’re hard to hear but you can tell they are going crazy for Invader’s comeback after Muto misses the big elbow off the top. Love the finish to this match. Good overall. It seemed like it was about to really blow up when it ended but I still dug this.

Lol I wanna listen to this

I'm all caught up with posted reviews through Disc 4. I promise now my pace will fall off. Hopefully not too much though because I travel again next week and I would like to try and finish the set (or at least the matches) before then so I can come back to Portland and start reviewing the Portland set

Super Black Ninja is Muto and Invader I is Invader I so I have high hopes for this. Muto was so fucking fast as a young wrestler. It is pretty amazing. Really good back and forth chain wrestling early on. Muto uses his cool back suplex and elbow drop to take command of the match before slapping on a Choshu head scissors. Invader works his way out pretty quickly shows his mat skills. Great suplex by Invader. Awkward moment when Invader bends down for a back drop and Muto just kinda runs into him like he was expecting a shoulder block. They recover well enough and Muto continues to dominate with punches and a nice dropkick. I like the psychology behind Invader wearing the mask, but I prefer it when he’s maskless because his facial expressions are so great. His body language remains terrific though. I like this because it is more proof that Invader was a complete wrestler and not “just the best brawler and seller of all time at his peak.” Of course when it is time to fire up and kick some ass in this match Invader is fucking great as usual. This turns into a wild scene when Kendo Nagasaki tries to interfere and Invader III runs out leading to a wild brawl around ringside as Muto & Invader work to the finish. Good match. Spectacular finishing run.

Hugo is awesome. Totally beloved by the crowd and he goes after El Profe like a house of fire right at the start. Great punches. Great suplex. Hugo & Bobby Jaggers are on commentary and Hugo calling his own match is phenomenal. Hugo dominates early on and Profe bails out. Crowd is hot. Profe takes over when he gets back in. Biting Hugo and dropping a nice elbow and footstomp. Back and forth roll up attempts and this is SO MUCH FUN. Hugo admits to all of the cheating he does in this. “I’ll admit. I cheated here.” Hugo is such a fun babyface. I really wish we had 10 or so more Hugo matches on this set. El Profe is a really fun wrestler too. This was way better than I expected. Pop at the finish is monumental.

Good Lord another one. Not as good as the last one. And Rip Rogers’ racist heel commentary is overbearing and terrible. This has its moments (like when Invader handcuffs Chicky and just tees off on him) but it isn’t the life experience like the first Gran Guerra.

From El Boriqua: “All men start at the same time. The objective is to handcuff the opposing team to the cage. First team that manages to handcuff all five of their opponents wins. As the prize for winning, the winning team gets to free all of their handcuffed members and gets 5 minutes to attack the handcuffed losing team at their leisure.” So obviously this is gonna be amazing. Two rings with a war games cage. I’m so excited. I have no idea how to review something like this. Its just 10 dudes beating the shit out of each other at once. It is exactly what you want it to be. Even Brody comes across as great in this setting. Awesome spectacle.

The last match between these two was so gruesome I’m nervous about this one. This is billed as figure 4 vs figure 4 and that’s the only way to win. Cool stip in a barbed wire match actually. This starts off with Ayala accidentally bumping into the wire and Carlos pushing him into it. Great stuff. Awesome way of getting over the danger of the wire without diving right in. Colon is the first to taste the barbed wire face first after Ayala takes control with a lowblow. Ayala immediately goes for the figure 4 but Colon is able to block it and gets in his own lowblow. Colon takes over stomping on Ayala and forcing him between the ropes and barbed wire and kicking Ayala into the wire. Pretty brutal as blood starts to stream down Ayala’s back and arm. Colon keeps after Ayala with punches and headbutts. Colon goes for a figure 4 but Colon kicks him off. He shoves Colon back into the wire face first holding him down. Gross. Ayala continues to beat down with punches, chops, and clotheslines forcing Colon into the wire again and again. Cool that all the figure 4 attempts are what lead to counters, hope spots and transitions. Carlos gets caught in between the ropes and barbed wire and he’s just taking it full bore on the back and its brutal. He makes a comeback from between the ropes and wire which rocks. Crowd goes nuts when he finally gets free and goes insane on Ayala. The pop when he hits the cartwheel is fucking CRAZY. Ayala manages to fend him off and get his own figure 4 on though and it’s a super hot segment. Finally Carlos gets his figure 4 on and Ayala can’t take it. He’s crawling to the ropes and finally reaches them but its anything goes so the ropes don’t matter. Ayala is literally grabbing the barbed wire trying to pull himself towards the ropes on instinct to get free. Finally he has to give up. AWESOME finish. I liked this a lot more than I expected. Surprisingly good stuff.

I feel like my whole life has been building to this match from 30 years ago. This is a 15 minute time limit match. Invader I is wearing the mask when he comes out. Chicky is a totally smug looking bastard. Like Rick Rude and Magnum TA with Tully Blanchard’s body. Invader cuts a promo before the match and I don’t know what he says but its awesome. Bell rings and Invader goes right at him. He gets a 2 count on a small package right away and Chicky FREAKS the fuck out. He tries to run away but Invader grabs him by the hair and drags him back over and into the ring. Chicky tries to bail on the other side. Invader tries a backdrop and Chicky kicks him and bails out and hides under the ring! YESSSSS! This is so great already. Invader goes under the ring and drags him back out, throws him in the ring and starts slapping the shit out of him before kicking him in the balls. The crowd goes insane. This is so much fun. Invader keeps going for rollups and pin attempts to end it. Ok. No bullshit. Chicky firing back a few punches and then kicking Invader in the balls as hard as he can then wiping his hands smugly and looking around while pointing at a fake watch to check the time remaining with THAT LOOK on his face is the best thing that’s ever happened associated with wrestling. CROWD GOES INSANE rooting for Invader when Chicky is on top. INSANE. This is so great. When Invader hits the clothesline at the 6 minute mark. Damn. Chicky tries to run away but Invader grabs him by the hair and slams him down. Invader’s comeback leading to a Figure 4 is great with the figure 4 getting a HUGE pop but Chicky is too close to the ropes. Chicky tries to run away again but Invader cuts him off. Chicky manages to slip away and there is a huge pop as Invader drags him back. This is like the best Kerry von Erich vs Michael Hayes match only if Kerry was like the 15th best wrestler of all time. Sleeper by Invader is great. I really had to stop reviewing this because I was having so much fun watching the match. The closing minutes are incredibly dramatic and heated. This is one of those million billion stars matches. Top 5 contender. Even on this fucking set.

Los Hermanos Funk have spectacular music. It’s perfect. Fans are throwing shit at the Funks from the very beginning. Road Warriors coming out to Iron Man is always awesome as Terry picks fights with random audience members. Terry throws a chair in the ring and Dory grabs it as the Roadies jump in the ring and they just straight up take it from him. Good luck Funk Brothers. Terry plays psychological games with Animal and refuses to tie and tags out to Dory right away. Dory isn’t as smart and tries to shoulderblock Hawk. So Hawk picks him up and press slams him. Hahaha. Dory sucks. He tags right out to Terry. Hawk whips Terry around the ring. Chops and punches him until Terry gets tied up in the ropes and tumbles out. Dory comes in to face Animal. Lets see what Dory’s master plan is this time. Dory actually plants Animal with some European uppercuts until getting shoulderblocked to death. Terry & Hawk come in. Hawk misses a splash off the top rope and Terry puts Hawk in a front face lock before tossin him outside. Dory comes over and works on Hawk and hits him with a chair. This just pisses off Hawk. Hahaha. Hawk just takes the chair from dory again! And starts blasting him with it. Dory is helpless getting crushed and Terry comes over and cuts off Hawk. Funks do the least spikey spike piledriver ever on Hawk but keep up the double teams hitting their awesome double forearm smash. Terry controls Hawk with a sleeper and choking him with tape. Hawk eventually reverses it for some payback. Terry’s selling is awesome as he gets beat on by both Road Warriors. Hawk manages to tag out and Animal comes in for a house of fire. Work to the finish includes a half doomsday device on Dory (they just held him up instead of putting him on Animals’ shoulder, presumably because they didn’t want to kill him) before Terry comes in with a chair for a DQ. This was probably more fun to read than the actual match. I love the Funk Bros team in spite of Dory and I generally really like the Roadies in this era. This was like the worst possible version of that matchup in PR at this time. Terry brought some good shit as always. Otherwise this was disappointing. Dory is a terrible opponent for the Road Warriors. And they weren’t exactly busting their ass to begin with. Terry always tries god bless him.

Joined in progress with Ayala beating the crap out of Colon and Ayala already bleeding. They’re brawling on the infield at the start. Ayala sets up a table but is reversed and thrown into it by Colon to a huge reaction. Jaggers and Hugo on commentary so this should be fun. OH FUCK Ayala is choking Colon out with a table. Goddamn. This is brutal. Ayala is just beating the crap out of Colon. Colon is AWESOME selling in this. Its not Invader level, but Colon is really good doing the punch drunk stumble routine and occasionally firing back with big right hands. They finally get back into the ring and Ayala continues working over Colon. Ayala goes after Colon’s knee and puts on Colon’s own figure 4. Really cool stuff. Colon is awesome selling the damage. Colon manages to make a comeback with his own legwork. Great job as Colon does his routine legwork at a slower more deliberate pace than usual selling the damage he’s taken. He’s not able to jump as high as normal but he’ll grind it in a little more. This of course leads to Colon getting a figure 4 of his own on and you can see the fans jumping up and down in the background as Colon locks it in. Ayala is awesome selling it. Colon gets a 3 count off the figure 4. Ayala staggers to his feet to beat the count and Colon goes right back to the leg. Jaggers is more Scott Levy than Jesse Ventura on commentary in this one. Hugo is brilliant calling the match and dealing with Jaggers. Colon’s repeated legwork is awesome. Chicky Starr manages to slip Ayala some brass knuckles and he NAILS Colon with them. Colon is bleeding right away. Colon tries to fight back with punches and even a headbutt but Ayala’s brassknucks hit may have been too much. Ayala continues to work over Colon and man Colon is really bleeding. Every punch and kick from Ayala is to Colon’s head and Colon’s face is just covered in blood. Ayala keeps punching and kicking Colon and going for pins but Colon keeps kicking out. Colon is fantastic selling. He’s completely out on his feet. The doctor wants to stop the match but the ref won’t let him because it’s a Texas Death match. That’s such a great touch and it really fits. This is brutal. They should stop this match. Jeez. Colon just keeps kicking out but he can’t even fight back. Stop this match. Finally the bell rings because Colon is completely helpless as Ayala stomps away again and again and again right on his face. This has gotten uncomfortable. Holy shit.

Fuyuki gets jumped at the bell and Rebelde is in charge early on. Some basic off the ropes stuff leading to Rebelde taking Fuyuki down with a chinlock and controlling him from there. Fuyuki is abe to take over with armdrag body slam type basic babyface wor. Fuyuki looks just like a smaller Choshui its crazy. Fuyuki takes control with an armbar after a flurry building to a nice clothesline. Rebelde is able to take back over eventually sending Fuyuki to the outside with a nice jumping knee. This is just a super basic back and forth match. Fuyuki gets a GREAT reaction and shows a lot of fire. Rebelde is perfectly fine. This is nothing remarkable but was a perfectly fine young still learning wrestlers match.

Come on, you can’t put this on right after Hansen vs Colon in a cage not fair. Pretty damn brutal to start with both of them throwing stiff shots. Fatal flaw by Richter as she tries to slam Ripper but can’t. Ripper takes over with her own slam and then slamming Richter into the cage but Richter is able to come back with elbows and a lot of kicks. Lots of kicks. Ripper takes back over going after Richter’s arm. Arm work is pretty solid with several legdrops to the arm. Cool hopespot as Wendi reverses into almost a triangle choke. Awesome dramatic near escapes by both women. I need to rewatch this because I watched it right after Hansen vs Colon because this looks like a very good match but nothing could really follow Hansen vs Colon. I’ll rewatch eventually with non-cloudy eyes.