ohtani's jacket

Having to wake your opponent up after a sleeper was pretty common in territories where the sleeper was put over as a dangerous move, wasn't it? I know I've seen it in British wrestling. It works a lot better when it's a heel who applied the hold.

You're not wrong. Barr was occasionally okay in trios but so were Konnan and Vampiro.

This is actually Los Metalicos not the Brazos. I really liked this: "Los Metalicos vs. Los Cavernicolas, 12/18/92 This was the most wonderful undercard match I've seen in a mighty long time. I might even go so far as to say it was the perfect lower card CMLL workrate match. Los Cavernicolas were a short-lived repackaging of Popitekus, Verdugo and Hombre Bala as cavemen. All three were breaking down physically, but were still fantastic bases (especially Bala.) The Metalicos were your perfect trio of sensational young fliers, led by the incomparable Oro. Awesome bumping and catching from the rudos and absolutely gorgeous tope suicidas from the Metalicos. This stuff is so beautiful when done right. The highlight was Oro doing a springboard moonsault that will long be embedded in my memory as how to do that move. Really exciting match that I almost didn't watch until I decided I'd watch everything available to me. Would definitely make my short list for best matches of the year."

Kato Kung Lee y Shogun vs. Kung Fu y Xavier Monarca Cruz, 10/2/92 Javier Cruz in 1990 had one of the best babyface runs I've ever seen. There are a lot of classical babyfaces in lucha, but Cruz played the fired up babyface to perfection. He was like a lucha version of Tito Santana, able to play a perpetually pissed off babyface without coming across like a complete dick. The trouble with Cruz is that outside of that run his career really wasn't that interesting. He was a team player more than a leading man, but with the AAA defections beginning to take their toll, there wasn't much of a team to have a run on. Still, they turned him heel and he began wearing a black studded glove to distinguish him from his technico look. They also played up his history of hair matches. He'd won so many hair matches in the past that he'd earnt a rep as an El Tijeras de Oro (Golden Scissors), but after two straight losses to Apolo Dantes he needed some midcard hairs to build him back up, and that's how he wound up in this feud with ex-Fantasticos, guys he'd knocked around with in the past. I'm not sure Shogun was. I don't think he stuck around CMLL for long. At first glance he looks like another guy trying to cash in on the Fantasticos gimmick ala Octagon. This was a fairly tame tag that was build for the year-end show, a card which usually featured a couple of lower profile apuestas matches to see out the year; in this case, Cruz vs. Kato Kung Lee and Pierroth Jr vs. El Supremo, though it would be remiss of me not to point that out that El Supremo's mask had some historical value. Los Brazos vs. Los Infernales, 10/2/92 This is exactly what you'd want from Los Brazos vs. Los Infernales in a midcard spot as opposed to the main event. Some violence and intensity from the Infernales, a bit of blood from El Brazo, and the usual dive train from both sides. It was fun watching the guys walk around in various stages of their hair regrowth. MS-1 was recovering from a hair loss to El Faraon in the summer, El Satanico had just had his head cleanly shaven after losing to El Dandy at the Anniversary show, and Brazo de Oro had short hair from an issue with Chicana. This wasn't your four star hidden classic, but it was guys you know are good putting on a good performance. Atlantis, Love Machine y Mano Negra vs. Bestia Salvaje, El Supremo y La Fiera, 10/2/92 This never got going, and aside from a few glimpses of what Atlantis vs. Bestia Salvaje might have looked like around this time was nothing to write home about. It did have a cool ending though, as Fiera was passed a towel which concealed his favourite weapon, the chain. He proceeded to whip the absolute shit out of Love Machine, which may have been hinting at something bigger, but Barr left shortly thereafter. King Haku, Ultimo Dragon y Vampiro vs. Black Magic, Negro Casas y Pierroth, 10/2/92 King Haku, Ultimo Dragon and Vampiro, that's my trio right there. This started off with a disagreement between Pierroth and Smiley over who the captain was and squabbling among the rudos. Negro Casas squaring off against King Haku has to be seen to be believed. He sold Haku's chop like he'd been shot in the chest with a double-barreled shot gun. The rudos began beating Pierroth up, and in one of those lucha quirks he kept tagging with them instead of an instant technico turn. Ultimo Dragon tried to bring some workrate and had some pretty slick exchanges with Casas, but this match was all story. Pierroth had gotten so big in '92 that they turned him technico, which killed probably one of my favourite runs in lucha history, but he was getting big cheers and they needed to do something with business sagging. Vampiro was surprisingly okay in this, in that "every once in a while Konnan was surprisingly okay" sort of way. Black Magic vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr., 11/20/92 I was hoping for a big, dumb and dopey Rayo match and instead I got a grounded, not so good mat display from Smiley. It was kind of interesting that they made him the heavyweight champ, I guess. Los Metalicos vs. Los Cavernicolas, 12/18/92 This was the most wonderful undercard match I've seen in a mighty long time. I might even go so far as to say it was the perfect lower card CMLL workrate match. Los Cavernicolas were a short-lived repackaging of Popitekus, Verdugo and Hombre Bala as cavemen. All three were breaking down physically, but were still fantastic bases (especially Bala.) The Metalicos were your perfect trio of sensational young fliers, led by the incomparable Oro. Awesome bumping and catching from the rudos and absolutely gorgeous tope suicidas from the Metalicos. This stuff is so beautiful when done right. The highlight was Oro doing a springboard moonsault that will long be embedded in my memory as how to do that move. Really exciting match that I almost didn't watch until I decided I'd watch everything available to me. Would definitely make my short list for best matches of the year. Xavier Monarca Cruz vs. Kato Kung Lee, hair vs. hair, 12/18/92 This was the type of hair match which you know isn't going to reach any grand heights, but it was simple and effective and stuck to the basic tenets of hair match wrestling: blood, brawling and submission attempts. So long as you stick to those tenets pretty much anyone can have a good apuestas match. It's the great workers that take it to another level. Cruz wasn't really in that category, you'd have to say, at least not without an opponent who was equally as good. Still, this was a decent way to cap a fairly insignificant feud and it probably wouldn't have made sense to have a legendary bloody match in a token end of year apuestas match, though it would have been cool. As many of you will know, I'm a big fan of the '89-92 CMLL period, but the strain on the promotion was really starting to show here. The guys who you'd expect to be good were good, but dark days were on the horizon and you could tell that the clouds were gathering. Still, I love this era, out of nostalgia if nothing else. Next I'm going to take a look at some CMLL from the lost years of '93-95, where the hardcores stopped taping CMLL and we literally lost stuff.

I'd go Satanico > Morgan > MS-1 but it depends on the match. For the Cadets, I think we only have the one match of theirs from the 80s, but Super Astro personified the gimmick and had the most memorable high spots so that's a good choice. How about, Cien Caras, Mascara 2000 and Universo 2000? Talisman, Fuerza Guerrera and El Dandy? Sangre Chicana, Mocho Cota and La Fiera? Trios Fantasia?

Okada/Naito was all right. The only thing I have to compare it to is the Tanahashi/Naito G-1 final, which I thought was a better match, but Tanahashi's a much more experienced worker than Okada, and leading Naito through a main event level Dome Show match was challenging for Okada. It was a bit messy, but they managed to pull off the real main event of the night.

Jeff Kaye & Ian Gilmour vs. Jon Cortez & Al Miquet (aired 9/2/1972) Cortez and Miquet were billed by the MC as the biggest threat to The Royals in tag wrestling, though I'm not entirely sure what that meant since there was no tag championship. With that in mind, I was curious about how the two lightweights would beat the heavier Kaye and Gilmour. Somewhat predictably, they went with an injury finish, but rather than having Kaye unable to continue and have Cortez and Miquet do the sporting thing and refuse to take the victory, the lightweights forced consecutive submissions on Kaye's injured arm. Before that the action was nothing special, which was a bit of a disappointment as this was the last bit of Jon Cortez for me and he's one of my all-time faves. Kaye grinned too much afterwards. If it had been a heel taking advantage of his injury it would've been a different story, I'm sure. Jim Breaks vs. Steve Best (aired 6/28/72) This is really early Breaks, as you can tell from how young he looks and the orange trunks which I never saw him wear again. Man, was he a great worker at the time. You really get the sense that this was his physical prime. In many ways, he reminds me of a Bill Dundee only better. This really was must-see stuff for Breaks fans. His heel act was already established, but slightly less vocal. But really it's his work that's impressive here. He's a real dynamo, even getting his nose legit bust open. Best was a pasty white guy, who was a dance partner for Breaks at best, but did a good job of building animosity and took a couple of good shots at Jim. Good bout. Robby Baron vs. Al Nicol (6/6/73) Robby Baron was such a fabulous worker. Despite the fact that he was working a guy who was the equivalent of a body here, Baron worked the same competitive, hard fought bout he had with everybody. Over at Wrestling Heritage, there's a rather scathing review of Walton's commentary in this match where the writer goes into all sorts of conspiracy theories about how the likes of Baron and Nicol were being held back by the promoters. That forced me to "listen" to this again and really it was no different from any other Walton call. The writer at WH didn't like how Walton rolled out the same tired old lines about Baron being a newcomer and Nicol the much more experienced man, but that's Walton for you. Because he had such a great voice and learnt the names of so many of the holds, people tend to view him as the "voice" of British wrestling, which he was, but he wasn't above shitting on a match that he didn't like or being unenthused for various workers. But his call here was pretty standard. Jackie Robinson vs. Leon Fortuna (4/10/75) Solid action lightweight action, though Fortuna was closer to a welterweight at this stage. He was a popular Tongan wrestler, who like many of the guys from the 70s footage was past his prime but still able to deliver quality bouts. I'd seen this before so I wasn't overly enthused, but they worked well together, and Robinson's a guy we don't have enough footage of.

Jaguar Yokota vs. Leilani Kai, 9/23/83 This was shaping up as something good, probably the best Leilani Kai match other than the Chigusa matches, and then it ended. Horribly disappointing, but man Leilani took a queen sized bump into the ringside chairs. That's the way that bump should be done.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, 1/4/14 -- I liked this well enough. It wasn't one of the more memorable Tanahashi matches in recent times, but I liked how they went out and wrestled a normal match instead of trying to work some sort of drawn out Tokyo Dome epic. I can see how it mightn't have been special enough for a main event, but as a stand alone match it was an easy watch. -- Nakamura is kind of weird. His entrance reminded me of Prince if Prince were a pro-wrestler, though I'm sure if Prince were a pro-wrestler he'd be a whole lot cooler. His pre-match schtick is almost like he's trying to do the weirdest poses he can think of. Still, it's better than Tanahashi's air guitar shit, I suppose. -- The early going was the usual inoffensive stuff. Tanahashi sold his ribs for the majority of the match in so far as putting your hand in front of your ribs is selling them. They cut a good pace the opening stanza, which is typical for a Tanahashi match. -- I actually didn't mind the forearm exchange here. I don't know if it's because it works better in a Tokyo Dome setting or because Nakamura was great at overpowering Tanahashi, but the best spot in the entire match was that knee to the back of the head. -- That blown powerbomb spot really took me out of the match, but really the entire finishing stretch was muddled. Tanahashi had an unnecessary run of offence around that powerbomb sequence and went to the texas clover leaf too many times. It didn't help that Nakamura doesn't have a lot of big offence, but the finishing stretches are usually better in Tanahashi matches. -- All told probably a three star match.

Maybe it would've been better to watch the version Gregor posted that cuts out the stuff with the commission. I need to do a full write-up of that match because I think you cared too much about the reffing.

This has the most complete version of Parka/Lizmark that I know of -- I think someone broke it into smaller files if you want to watch it that way --

Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) This marks the first appearance on the set of one of the biggest names of the decade, Villano III. The match is from a Japanese commercial tape that was released in the 80s. The tape was basically a one hour special release dedicated to Villano, heralding him as the 1984 MVP, an award given to him by LLI at their annual awards dinner. The full length version features footage of Francisco Flores, El Toreo, and the lengthy post match scenes. As many of you will know, Jose Fernandez wrote a lengthy and detailed bio of Villano III a number of years ago which is hosted on the Luchawiki website, so I'll just bring you up to speed on how Villano got to this point. Villano began his career working as a rudo in a lot of the smaller arenas on the UWA circuit. This was basically how he cut his teeth. He'd come in and work spot shows where they'd build to hair vs. mask matches or mask matches with the local talent. It was a formula that served him well for the entire decade, even when he became a big star at El Toreo, as he grew to become one of the lucha de apuestas guys in the independents. When he'd feature at El Toreo, it was usually on the undercard either tagging with his father or brother, but in 1981 Flores gave him his first big push by having him upset Fishman for the UWA World Light Heavyweight Title, which was a huge deal at the time and got tongues wagging about how the younger Mendoza was following in his father's footsteps. Flores next move was to turn Villano technico, which he did by having him feud with Los Misioneros. For weeks on end, the Misioneros would beat Villano up, tearing his mask and making him bleed. This wasn't come across on the set, but in the 80s UWA was by far the bloodier of the two major lucha libre promotions, and the Misioneros in particular were notorious for having bloody matches. As Jose mentions, Villano would blade not only his forehead but his arms and chin as well. Villano challenged the Misioneros leader, El Signo, to a hair vs. mask match which took place on 8/1/82, and when Villano won the reaction he got cemented him as a technico. El Signo's partner, El Texano, tried to avenge his captain a few weeks later and suffered the same fate. After a tour of Japan, Villano officially turned technico by forming a trios with two of the biggest masked superstars of the era, El Solitario and Anibal. The trio were known as "Los Tres Caballeros" (The Three Gentlemen), and were basically the personification of what you imagined masked technico luchadores to be. Now that Villano was the top light heavyweight technico it was only fitting that he feuded with the top light heavyweight rudo, Perro Aguayo, who was the number two rudo to El Canek (Canek had this weird thing where he was a technico against foreigners and a rudo against Mexicans.) On 3/20/83, Villano defeated Aguayo for the WWF World Light Heavyweight Title. In August of that year, they had a massive three match series. First Aguayo won the title back on the 7th, then the following week they had a super libre match that Jose describes a blood bath, then on the 21st they had one of the most famous matches in Villano's career when he defeated Perro Aguayo in a hair vs. mask match. Much like Sangre Chicana, Aguayo continued feuding with everyone through '83 and '84, before the Villano feud was restarted in late '84. Aguayo had dropped the WWF strap to Gran Hamada in Tokyo on 4/17/84 and Villano won it from him at El Toreo the following month. This match was Aguayo's first challenge during Villano's second run with the belt. What you see here is a bout that is a lot cleaner than these bloody El Toreo matches I've been describing and one that's a teeny bit junior heavyweight influenced as this was really the world's light heavyweight championship at the time and picked up a lot of different influences from a lot of different places. Villano would go on to hold this title for a full two years until Fishman took it from him on 8/24/86. The Villano vs. Aguayo feud would carry on until the late 80s though it abated somewhat as Villano moved on to feuds with Sangre Chicana and Rambo and Aguayo became caught up in a web of bloody hair matches with Chicana and El Faraon.

Nah, this match and the 5/92 Computer Challenge match were the two best Rude/Rhodes bouts. Their '93 series was really underwhelming with each match getting progressively less interesting.

Seibu Dome is pretty easy to get to. I don't think it will be a turn off for hardcore fans. They'll have a hard time drawing in the casuals the way a concert or sports event would out there.

Nancy Kumi vs. Leilani Kai (1979) Nice to see Leilani in a singles match instead of being Goon #1 or 2. Of course, she was still a stereotypical American brawler, but her brawling was tight and she made sure to stay with her woman and not let up. Kumi was a good worker and did some nice athletic spots for the era. The heels cheated to win and Moolah entered the ring to try to draw more heat for Kai, and man was she scarier than anything Leilani did in the bout. That was one frightening looking woman. This was pretty much what you'd expect from the era. Not too bad. Jumping Bomb Angels vs. Judy Martin and Leilani Kai (Royal Rumble '88) It's weird how workrate driven this was. I guess nobody was able to translate to Yamazaki and Tateno that you're not supposed to work like this in the WWF. Once again, Martin did the bulk of the work for her side, which wasn't such a bad thing as she was a pretty good bumper. There were some blown spots here and there, but it was a fairly exciting bout by WWF standards and it's hard to imagine it's been matched by their women's division since.

Les Kellett vs. Johnny South (aired 12/30/72) Les Kellett was a right bastard. It's hard not to think about how everyone hated his guts and hated working with him. Even when he's grinning and telling jokes you can tell he's a bastard, and it's amusing that at the end when he tries to hug South, Johnny doesn't want a piece of him. Kellet was a funny bugger, though. The comedy spots with Max Ward were gold. The rest was fairly middling. South was a decent foil, but if you've seen one Kellett match you've seen 'em all. They're all fairly entertaining, but the first one you watch is the most memorable. Mick McMichael vs. Bobby Barnes (aired 3/25/72) This is really early WoS footage in terms of what we had. Everyone looked so young and in Bobby's case so beautiful. Walton called McMichael one of the most underrated wrestlers around, which is a nice way of saying he was dull. This was par for the course from Barnes, but it was fun to watch him when he was so young. Alan Dennison vs. Johnny Kwango (1/5/72) God, this was awful. There was no way either Dennison or Kwango were going to lose, and since both wrestlers were used to controlling bouts where they did a lot of schtick, this was a rudderless mess where neither guy was about to get their shit in. One of them should have sacrificed their ego and made it either a Dennison or Kwango bout, the way Pallo/Kwango was a Pallo match. Brian Maxine vs. Zoltan Boscik (aired 4/22/72) This was another strong Boscik performance. Maxine's act wore a bit thin, but once Boscik began his comeback this heated up. Boscik was posting Maxine and snapmaring the shit out of him and then Maxine caught Boscik off the ropes with the nastiest looking forearm smash of all-time. He fucking nailed Boscik, who bumped like a motherfucker. It's really been a revelation to me how good a bumper Boscik was. For what it's worth, I found a live performance from Maxine with the backing bands for one of his country albums. He wasn't the greatest singer, but he seems like a fun dude:

You're probably thinking of Mick McMichael.

Are you sure about that? McManus was well retired before Relso was on TV.

Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (Hair vs. Hair) (9/21/84) This one is pretty straight forward. The most interesting thing about this match is that Sangre Chicana had his finger in so many pies at this point that it's interesting that they went with a return match for the Anniversary Show. Not only did he have a personal vendetta with each of the Los Infernales members, he also had bad blood with Fishman, Perro Aguayo and the Mendoza brothers. Hell, he'd even taken Los Guerreros over to El Toreo in '83 and started something with the Misioneros that led to a Super Libre match, which is basically a no DQ match. On the undercard of the 7/1/83 Mendoza brothers vs. La Fiera and Mocho Cota hair match, Chicana and Aguayo had a mano a mano bout that was so bloody the doctor stopped the fight. So, there was any number of ways Paco could have gone if he wanted a Chicana fight in the main event, and you can judge for yourselves if you think it was the right choice. Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (9/28/84) There doesn't appear to be anything special about this other than it's another bout with the original Infernales.

This was from the summer tour of Kyushu and Okinawa. It must have been a hot summer as the girls were gleaming with sweat. The match was from that weird venue in the Okinawan countryside that looks like some kind of ditch. Folks are sitting on the banks, kids are running around free, it's in some field fucking field somewhere. Not only that, but the canvas looked like it had either been drenched by some kind of downpour or didn't fit the ring properly and the girls kept slipping on each other's sweat, I guess. None of this was really conductive to a good match and the end result was that apart from Ikeshita's awesome headbutts this was the most boring Kai match of the lot. I did enjoy the commentators, who don't help matters with their BS commentary, saying that brawling in the crowd was Tokyo-to style. There you go, whenever you see Japanese wrestlers brawling in the crowd that's distinctly Tokyo style.

Mick McManus vs. Kung Fu (4/19/78) This aired on Cup Final Day '78. The crowd at Croydon were all pumped up for a great match, Kent Walton was pumped up for a great match and the wrestlers seemed pumped up for a great match, but right before the match began the MC announced that Kung Fu was about to form a tag team with Kendo Nagasaki in the near future and that little tidbit should've been enough to trigger alarm bells. McManus seemed like he was working this match on fast forward, receiving two public warnings in the first two rounds, and to be honest he looked old here. Kung Fu had the better of the bout early on, but McManus ended up choking him out with his own gi. The bell sounded and McManus still wouldn't let go, prompting the rarest of angles in World of Sport, a run-in, with Kendo Nagasaki appearing from nowhere. Nagasaki chased McManus from the ring, which would've been an all right finish, I suppose, but then they went through this drawn out drama over whether to DQ Kung Fu or not, and they teased McManus having to return to the ring or the match would be ruled a no-contest, as though that mattered. Nagasaki, who was wearing these John Lennon type glasses, went into the back to find McManus, but his manager Gorgeous George claimed he was locked up in the toilet or somewhere. That's the kind of TV you get when you're not used to running angles, but the whole thing left me kind of peeved. I love McManus, but the fact that he got into the HOF with absolutely no critical appraisal whatsoever of his booking, the fact that he never lost, or even his work, is a free pass. Clive Myers vs. Tony Walsh (12/4/78) Tony Walsh was still fine tuning his gimmick here. He was wearing this awesome combination of a rugby jersey with cutoff sleeves and a wrestling leotard. I've got a soft spot for Walsh even if he was several leagues below the top heels ring-wise. It's just a shame the majority of his bouts were against Big Daddy. Even if his act was a bit green here, he bumped about as well for Clive Myers as anybody during the Iron Fist years and made the gimmick tolerable for me. Good job, Tony Walsh. Caswell Martin vs. Lenny Hurst (4/10/79) Caswell Martin was such a brilliant wrestler, it's just a shame that there's no one bout you could point to that shows it. You kind of have to watch all of his matches to get an overall impression. I was glad that they gave these two plenty of time, even if it was as obvious as the nose on my face that the bout would be inconsequential. Both guys seemed motivated working against one another and outside of the crappy booking the work was strong. I never get tired of watching Martin in the ring. Mick McManus vs. Jackie Turpin (aired 1/27/79) This was a waste of time. Not to turn on McManus or anything, but he should have retired earlier than he did as he wasn't helping put anybody over by hanging around. I've heard good things and bad things about his work behind the scenes, but he could have kept doing that without wrestling. Bobby Ryan vs. Sid Cooper (aired 1/27/79) This was a bit of a nothing bout as well, which was a shame considering it was Ryan vs. Cooper. Ryan did the nasty Euro piledriver on Cooper and Cooper got up, wound up on the outside and got himself counted out while arguing with the crowd. That's got to be some sort of cardinal sin in regard to selling a piledriver. Clive Myers vs. Young David (3/17/81) This was all right. It was probably the best Young David bout I've seen outside of the Breaks trilogy. But it was a bit too happy-go-lucky with Myers smiling every time the kid did something good and a crappy injury finish. Some of the action was good, but it didn't blow me away. Pat Roach vs. Romany Riley (7/15/81) Man, Romany Riley was unrecognisable from the 70s wrestler. The only way I would have recognised it was him was the arm tattoos. And he wasn't up to much in the 80s, falling pretty easily to Roach's Brummagem Bump, which is the hardest finisher in wrestling to spell. Pat Roach vs. Ray Steele (12/30/80) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, how could they have aired so little of this? From what was shown it looked like the best Pat Roach vs. Ray Steele bout you could possibly imagine. Steele was fucking taking it to Roach, which if you know the vacuum of charisma that is Ray Steele you would be impressed by. I've looked over these WoS matchlists countless times, and I always get suckered into the Roach/Singh/Steele triumvirate. This is the shit I've been looking for, that I knew in my gut existed, and only half aired. Crap. It was fucking great, though. Ray Steele, take it to him!

One thing I forgot to mention about the Koshinaka match is that Baba had tried to set-up his own juniors division in the early 80s to provide some sort of counterpart to the success New Japan were having with Tiger Mask, and initially he had Onita as his juniors ace feuding with Chavo Guerrero Sr. When Onita was forced to retire, Baba bought the Tiger Mask rights to have something to replace him with. I believe this is the reason why their stay was cut short.

Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84) Gran Cochisse was a trainee of Diablo Velazco in Guadalajara and made his debut at 14 years old. While working in the Jalisco region, he adopted a Native American gimmick and began calling himself "Gran Cochisse" ("The Great Cochise") after the famous Apache chief, Cochise. Gran Cochisse wore traditional feathered headdresses and face paint, and even carried a tomahawk to the ring at times. Why there were so many Native American gimmicks at this time, I'm not sure. It may have had something to do with Cochisse's generation being reared on a healthy dose of Cowboys and Indians, or perhaps it was just a popular gimmick in the Guadalajara region as there were other workers with similar gimmicks such as Indio Jeronimo and Indio Medina, who formed the Los Indios Bravos tag team in the early 70s. When Gran Cochisse and Águila India began tagging in the Jalisco territory, they also took on the Los Indios Bravos nickname, a gimmick they took with them to EMLL. Unlike most of the wrestlers we've profiled, Gran Cochisse didn't win a million titles. A real rough, physical type, Cochisse was more accustomed to bloody hair matches than ten pounds of gold. In the late 70s to early 80s period, he had hair match feuds with Americo Rocca, Sangre Chicana, Chamaco Valaguez and Mocho Cota, to name some of the workers now familiar to you. He even had a hair match feud with his Los Indios Bravos blood brother, Aguila India, in the summer of '83, just before Aguila India was repackaged as the masked worker Unicornio. With their partnership dissolving, Cochisse experienced something of a purple patch. On 8/18/84, he won the NWA World Middleweight title from Satanico at Arena Mexico, which led to the title defence you see here. After Satanico won the return bout, EMLL pulled another title switch in Guadalajara on the 30th. Cochisse then dropped the title to Gran Hamada at El Toreo on 11/18/84, clips of which are on YouTube. Cochisse ended his career year with a hair match victory over Cota on the 12/7 Arena Mexico show. The following year it seemed as though he was heading into the twilight of his career when he was used to put over the younger El Dandy, but he managed to stretch out those last rays of sunlight by winning the world's middleweight title for a third time on 5/18/86 when he became the first man to defeat Chamaco Valaguez for a major wrestling title. By the end of '86, Cochisse gave way to the new generation of middleweights such as Kung Fu, Atlantis, El Dandy and Emilio Charles Jr, but he enjoyed one last title run as UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight champion, a belt he took from Blue Panther in September of '88. After dropping the title to Ringo Mendoza, Cochisse was phased out of competitive wrestling and given the masked gimmick Espectro de Ultratumba ("The Ghost from Beyond the Grave.") Eventually, he took over as one of the trainers at Diablo Velazco's school in Guadalajara, but he lost that position when CMLL weren't happy with the quality of workers coming out of the school. Incidentally, there was also a phasing out of Satanico from the title picture around this time. Once he lost the UWA World Middleweight title in early '85, he became more heavily involved in trios wrestling and the various hair match feuds he was embroiled in. Presumably the reason for this was to push some of the young workers that EMLL had high hopes for in terms of reclaiming ground from the UWA.

There's not much I can add to the following two matches: Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (Hair vs. Hair) (7/30/84) For those of you who don't know, Koshinaka was originally an All Japan wrestler before jumping to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. In March of '84, Baba sent Koshinaka and Misawa overseas on a learning excursion. They were expected to stay in Mexico for a year, but Baba called them back to Tokyo just a few months after this match. These Mexico stints were a real eye-opener for most Japanese wrestlers as in the early '80s Japan was still experiencing its post-war period of miracle economic growth, while Mexico was in the throes of a debt crisis that had caused its worst recession since the 1930s. Add to that the language barrier, no money and nagging concerns over safety and drinking water, and a lot of young Japanese guys found these tours a bit hairy. While in Mexico, Koshinaka and Misawa took on the names Samurai Shiro and Kamikaze Misawa and worked on the technico side, however because this match involves a foreigner there's an element of the crowd cheering for Satanico. Had they stayed in Mexico, it seems that Koshinaka may have gotten some sort of a title shot similar to Misawa's title shot against Satanico for the NWA World Middleweight Championship a few months prior, but Baba had bought the rights to the Tiger Mask character and was eager for it to make its debut. Ironically, when they returned from Mexico, Koshinaka saw the writing on the wall with the Misawa push, and after the deflections in '85 left New Japan shorthanded he made the jump. El Satanico y Espectro Jr. v. El Faraón y La Fiera (8/12/84) This was rudos contra rudos, and I believe part of the longstanding Satanico y Espectro Jr. vs. Sangre Chicana y El Faraon feud.

Yeah, the indies had women's wrestling. I'm not sure about midgets, though. I think there may have been midget wrestling in the 50s but it didn't take off. Princess Paula died last month, I'm sorry to say.