ohtani's jacket

Enrique Vera vs. Dos Caras (2/26/84) Enrique Vera, known as the Lion of the West, was one of the favourite students of legendary trainer, Diablo Velazco. A Guadalajara native, he came up through the territory, wrestling at Arena Coliseo Guadalajara and the surrounding Jalisco area before making the move to the Federal District. He may not have been a legit six-footer, but he was close enough by Mexican standards, and at around 220 lbs his wrestler's build made him one of the top young heavyweight prospects at a time when most of the existing stars were aging. His first taste of success came when he defeated Indio Jeronimo for the Occidente Light Heavyweight Championship, which was one of the state championships of the Guadalajara box y lucha libre commission and a reasonably important regional title at the time. After moving to Mexico City, he had a surprising title victory for the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship over Raul Mata (some sources say this was on 6/18/72, some say 12/23/72.) He eventually lost the title to Dr. Wagner on 3/16/73 at Arena Mexico in a match that greatly enhanced the reputation of both men. Vera would then score the biggest upset of his career to date when he defeated Angel Blanco for the Mexican National Heavyweight Championship on 10/26/73. EMLL continued to groom Vera with a long championship run, as well as keeping him strong with hair match wins over the likes of Indio Jeronimo, El Nazi and Alfonso Dantes. His biggest loss during this time was at the 1974 Anniversary Show where the team of Dr. Wagner and Angel Blanco took the hair of Enrique Vera and the mask of a worker named Super Star. By the time the 80s rolled round, Vera was the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship holder and had left EMLL for the independents. The biggest victory of his career came when he won the UWA World Heavyweight Title, which is the belt that Vera defends in this match. There seems to be some confusion over how Vera came to win the title, particularly at luchawiki where it's claimed that Vera was an unofficial champion for a week and that the belt was held up. What happened was that on 10/23/83 there was a triangular de apuestas match between Vera, Canek and Dos Caras where Vera put up his hair, Caras his mask and Canek his title. Vera emerged victorious with the title and this match was a straight title shot after Caras defeated Canek in a number one contender match on the New Year's Day show for 1984. Vera went on to wrestle right up until last year where he had a retirement show in September. True to form, he wrestled a few matches after that, much like Satanico and others have, but for the most part he remains retired. Dos Caras I'm sure you're all familiar with as the younger brother of Mil Mascaras and father of Alberto Del Rio. Caras was the number one native rival for Canek and arguably would have been in Canek's position if he hadn't spent so much time working lucrative All Japan tours with his brother. Most people's first exposure to Caras came with the Michinoku Pro Mask Tournament World League 95 commercial tapes, where Caras worked a considerably different style from his heavyweight days at El Toreo. The Michinoku Pro matches are closer to the maestro version of Caras who even now continues to work the indies. In his prime, he worked a mixed style, blending elements of lucha libre with a mat style more customary to both US and Japanese style wrestling. This version of Caras would occasionally work a lucha style hold at the end of a fall, but nothing like the exhibitions he put on in Michinoku Pro. Nevertheless, or rather because of this, he was regarded as one of the very best heavyweights in Mexico.

Solar, Ultraman y Super Astro vs. Sergio El Hermoso, Bello Greco y Rudy Reyna (2/26/84) This match pit the high flying Los Cadetes del Espacio against the exoticos team of La Ola Lila. We'll have the opportunity to talk about each member of the Space Cadets in more detail later in the set, so for now I'll give you a general rundown of the trio. The Space Cadets were part of the trios boom that occurred in Mexico after the Misioneros made it big. The Misioneros changed the landscape in Mexico from cards that were primarily made up of singles matches and tag matches to cards which were mostly made up of trios matches. This shift saw not only a rise in the number of trios matches, but also the number of gimmick groups. Now banking one of the hottest acts in Mexico, Francisco Flores tried to replicate the success of the Misioneros by packaging other lightweight talents together, most notably Los Fantásticos (Kung Fu, Kato Kung Lee y Black Man) and the Space Cadets. Ultraman was the oldest of the Space Cadets and the most established at the time of their formation. He had debut in the mid 60s with a superhero gimmick modeled on Robin from the 1960s Batman television show. For a time he partnered with a guy doing a Superman gimmick, before taking the name Milo Ventura, which was a play on his real name and the famous French actor Lino Ventura. In 1974, during a tag match, Ventura took a bump from a hurricanrana that left him unable to move. At first it was feared that he might die or lose the use of his legs, and in fact he spent the first several months in bed during his recovery. After rehabilitation, he returned to the ring with a new gimmick based on the Japanese tokusatsu television show, Ultraman. The gimmick was a success and Ventura was regularly booked in mask matches where he was like a real life superhero vanquishing the likes of Dr. Z and Alfa Centauris. Solar was also an established worker by the time the Space Cadets were formed. The idea for the Cadets came about when Flores brought in a young wrestler from Tijuana who'd had trouble with promoters but managed to create a successful masked gimmick for himself as Super Astro. Flores gave Astro a shot at working Mexico City and packaged the Cadets together as a trio with a sort of cosmic theme, the idea being that the high flying moves they did made them seem like meteorites or comets shooting across the sky. The trio was formed some time around 1984 and lasted through to about '87. Sometime around 2003, they reformed on the indy circuit despite the fact that both Ultraman and Astro had dropped their masks for cash. They still wrestle together as a trio every once and a while. Los Cadetes del Espacio had two big matches in '84, a match against Los Fantásticos on 3/18 to decide the first UWA World Trios champions, which they lost, and a six-way hair match against Los Temerarios (Black Terry, Jose Luis Feliciano y Lobo Rubio) on 7/8, which they won. The rudos here are all famous exoticos. The first really famous exotico was Sterling "Gardenia" Davis, a Texan wrestler who was brought to Mexico by EMLL promoter Salvador Lutteroth in the 1940s and was apparently an influence on Gorgeous George. Davis would hand out gardenias to women on the way to the ring and wouldn't dream of stepping into the ring without help from his personal assistant. He inspired the next wave of exoticos such as Adorable Rubi and Bello Greco, men who were such good workers that they rose above the stigma of exoticios being sideshow freaks and became legitimate main eventers. In the mid-70s, Rene Guajardo came up with the idea of pairing Greco with younger exotico, Sergio El Hermoso, in his Monterrey territory. Together they became known as La Ola Lila, "The Lilac Wave" in English. This was a play on the famous La Ola Blanco tag team of Angel Blanco and Dr. Wagner, The White Wave. They belonged to a higher aristocratic class and could afford eau-de-Cologne, and would regularly condemn wrestlers who would get into the ring without bathing or putting on perfume. The pair became extremely popular, winning Tag Team of the Year in the 1978 El Halcon magazine awards after finishing runner-up the year before. This success led to them working in Japan in 1979, which was a big deal for any luchador at the time let alone a pair of exoticos. Greco and El Hermoso would eventually drift away from the UWA and wind up feuding in Super Muneco's AWWA promotion, where they had a hair match in Tijuana. Greco worked the Karis La Momia monster gimmick in AAA at the end of his career and helped set-up his son Super Calo's career. Rudy Reyna was a newcomer on the scene when La Ola Lila were taking off, though he'd been in the business for a while. Along with Baby Sharon he was one of the first openly gay exoticos. The rudos here weren't an official trios, rather Greco and El Hermoso occasionally teamed with other exoticos in trios matches. For everybody's benefit, the first pairing in the match is Super Astro vs. Reyna (pink trunks), followed by Solar vs. Greco (yellow singlet) and Ultraman vs. El Hermoso (purple trunks and sideburns.)

El Faraón, Herodes y Mocho Cota vs. Lizmark, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar (2/24/84) This is an example of the type of brawling trios that would be used to set-up revenge matches during the 80s, in this case the Herodes vs. Tony Salazar mano a mano grudge match that features later on this set. Tony Salazar was an older wrestler who had made his debut in the mid-60s after getting a try out on the recommendation of influential lucha magazine editor, Valente Pérez. He was best known in his early days as a rudo and earned the nickname "The Jackal of Tlatilco" for his rudo behaviour. According to older lucha fans, Salazar modeled his style on René Guajardo, but because he didn't have the same technical ability as Guajardo his technico push never really took off. Still, he received a solid enough push, particularly in the wake of so many workers leaving for the UWA. He had two significant feuds for the NWA World Middleweight title with Ringo Mendoza in the late 70s and Sangre Chicana in the early 80s, and the peak of his career was a year long run with the NWA World Light Heavyweight Title when he defeated Alfonso Dantés for the belt in 1981. Oddly enough, Salazar would drop the belt to British journeyman Dave Morgan, who had feuded with El Solitario for the same title a decade before and lost a hair match over it. Salazar himself was no stranger to hair matches, having fought them both as a rudo and a technico. His biggest apuestas match was on the 1982 Anniversary Show against Perro Aguayo, and after moving out of the title picture he spent a busy '83 having three hair matches, including two in a matter of weeks against Herodes and Coloso Colosetti. Much like Americo Rocca and Talisman, he enjoyed a mid card vet spot through to the mid-80s, and even featured in the '86 Anniversary Show main event in the Los Misioneros hair match, before donning a mask and becoming a rudo character called Ulises. As Ulises, he formed a short lived trio, Los Renegados, with another vet turned enmascarado, Gran Markus Jr (Tony Bennetto), and young breakout star Pierroth Jr. These days Salazar is an official with CMLL and is rumoured to have some sort of role in putting together CMLL's Sunday night Arena Coliseo shows.

Jim Breaks vs. Jackie Turpin (11/30/81) This was another good Turpin/Breaks match. It was the final of the knockout tournament that had poor sound quality for the Dennison/Breaks fight. The sound was also low on this, but the video was watchable. Turpin surprised Breaks with a folding press 13 seconds into the match and the rest of the match was pretty much a non-stop affair with Turpin notching another surprise win over Breaks. Not as exciting as their number one contender bout, but a good match all the same. All right, so I enjoyed the Dennison/Breaks feud more than I thought I would. The challenge now is to see what Breaks could do in his last major feud on British TV and that was against 16 year-old Danny Boy Collins. I don't like the boy apprentices much and I've got no love for Collins, so this is a hell of a tester for Breaks. Danny Boy Collins vs. Jim Breaks (11/2/83) This was Collins television debut. Breaks was actually meant to wrestle John Naylor, but Collins replaced the billed Naylor for whatever reason. Breaks carried Collins to something decent, but it wasn't as exciting as one of his normal bouts. The big talking point for Collins was that he took a fall off Breaks. The promoters must have been impressed, because they carried this over into '84 in a big way. Danny Boy Collins vs. Jim Breaks (2/2/84) The video crapped out a few minutes into this and skipped to the next match, so I assume this was a problem with the original tape. Danny Boy Collins vs. Jim Breaks (2/29/84) The finish to the previous match seemed to be a fall to Collins followed by a DQ win. In this return match, Breaks put up 500 pounds that Collins couldn't take another fall from him. Only three minutes of this exists and the highlight is seeing Collins win the 500 pounds. Danny Boy Collins vs. Jim Breaks (4/4/84) So, in a rather big shock, Danny Boy Collins, who'd only been a pro for less than a year and wasn't even born when Breaks started wrestling, took the British Welterweight Championship from Breaks at the 3/21 Royal Albert Hall Show at the age of 17. Breaks had a 90 day clause to receive a return match and this was it. The action was pretty decent, but the ref bump finish had some pretty comical acting from Peter Szakacs, who was a pretty shitty actor. Collins hit a nice looking dropkick on Breaks, but collided with Szakacs as he was attempting his next move. Breaks got a Boston crab on Collins while Szakacs was stumbling about and thought he'd won his title back, but the ref called it a non contest as Collins was being carried out. Breaks threw a tantrum about Szakacs' decision and his complaining led to a rematch of the rematch. Danny Boy Collins vs. Jim Breaks (4/26/84) A masterpiece. This was one of the most brilliant performances I've seen from Breaks and one of his very best matches. It's also his last great match before leaving Joint Promotions and shows he was still at the top of his game in '84. It started off slowly and began to warm up when Breaks started stretching Collins. The crowd were really behind the young welterweight champion and in a hostile mood towards Breaks. One guy gave him the fingers while another tried to pick a fight with him from something like the third row back. What's more, Walton got angry at Breaks saying "I'm tired of that man's yapping all the time" then defending himself for not being impartial. Even the ref, Ken Joyce, seemed against Breaks as he kept trying to find ways to avoid counting Collins on pin attempts. It was almost as though there was this perfect storm brewing. Breaks then went after Collins' face and kept raking at his forehead until Collins bled hardway. He was relentless and kept going until he got a submission. The crowd were fuming by this point and there was a hilarious moment where a woman threw in this pink balloon dummy that she'd made and Breaks kicked it which immediately made it pop. The thing looked more like a sex toy than a pacifier. The way Breaks kept working on the kid almost seemed like he was brutalising the poor boy and even I was starting to pull for him. To be fair, Collins' selling was picture perfect. I won't give away the finish, instead I'll just reconfirm that Jim Breaks was a master.

A few more details courtesy of Wrestling Heritage. According to their research, Jim Breaks was most prominent on TV from the years 1973 to 1984. Here are his rankings among the top ten workers to appear on TV during those years. 1973-76, 4= 1977-80, 4 1981-84, 2= The second equal ranking from '81 to '84 probably reflects the amount of talent that Joint Promotions lost to All-Star Wrestling in that period, whereas his success from '73-80 is probably attributable to the phasing out of the older television stars particularly as ratings began to drop. Wrestling Heritage also notes that Breaks defeating Mel Riss at the Royal Albert Hall to take the British lightweight title was one of the big surprises of 1963 and represented a changing of the guards of sorts as Breaks as "the slow, masterful technicians were being overtaken by the energetic, colourful newcomers who combined showmanship, acrobatics and wrestling skill," so perhaps early Breaks was more influential and innovative than I gave him credit for.

Since Breaks only got 16% of the vote in the WON HOF voting, I thought I'd put together a rough as guts Gordy List for him. I didn't put a ton of research into this, but I thought we could use it as a starting point for the one or two Jim Breaks fans on this board. 1. Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his country or his promotion? No, he was never regarded as the best draw in the world or in his country. As with most wrestling promotions, lightweight wrestlers were never put in a position to draw. 2. Was he an international draw, national draw and/or regional draw? It's next to impossible to get attendance figures for British shows and television ratings are also difficult to come by. The figures that we do have are in scraps. What we do know about Breaks is that he was considered one of the greatest post-war lightweights and enjoyed around two decades of success as both a lightweight and welterweight champion. During that time he became a television fixture, appearing on television upwards of ten times a year between 1970 and 1984, which was a lot for any given wrestler and a testament to his enduring popularity. He was featured on Cup Final Day four times and worked on two of the Wembley Arena shows, which were some of the biggest drawing shows in British wrestling history. He also featured prominently on Royal Albert Hall cards, fixtures which were among the biggest shows that Joint Promotions ran each year. Whether this translates into drawing power is debatable. The Joint Promotions business model meant that the wrestlers worked in crews, usually putting on three to four shows a day in different towns. This meant that the main events tended to differ depending on which workers were working which show. There was continuity between the shows in the same town and the wrestlers often did a circuit of the halls which mirrored what they were doing on TV, but for the most part the main events tended to be random match-ups similar to the majority of the TV tapings. Lightweights generally didn't feature in the main event unless it was a title match, which meant Breaks was rarely top of the bill. He enjoyed a tremendously long career and even in '84 there were no signs that his act had grown stale, but amongst wrestling fans from the 60s and 70s it's fair to say he wasn't regarded as the same level of draw as Mick McManus, Steve Logan, Jackie Pallo, Masambula and Les Kellett, who were the big five bill topping names of the pre-Daddy years, and was probably several notches below other household names as well. Therefore, realistically he probably belongs in the second tier of national draws, but again there's no evidence to prove that one way or another. 3. How many years did he have as a top draw? If we go by his television popularity, then he was a star from around 1970 until 1984. Television results from the 60s are slightly sketchier than from the 70s onward. He made his television debut around 1960 and was crowned British Lightweight champion for the first time at the end of 1963, so he would have been a known wrestler through the 60s, however the 70s was when the larger than life personalities really began to dominate television. In 1984 he jumped ship to Brian Dixon's All-Star Wrestling, but wasn't used as prominently as he had been for Joint Promotions. 4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in his country or in his promotion? Jim Breaks wasn't a known entity among overseas wrestling fans until old episodes of World of Sport began airing on The Wrestling Channel in 2004. This was largely because he never worked in Japan or North America. Whether that was because he didn't have a name or wasn't the type of worker promoters were looking for is unknown. Wrestlers his size generally didn't leave Europe, though there were opportunities to work in Germany, South Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and India. Breaks traveled abroad, but not extensively. He may have been satisfied running his pub or there may have simply not been any interest in him. It's notable that neither of his contemporaries Steve Grey or Johnny Saint were big travelers either, at least not during the television years. The middleweight and heavy-middleweights were much more in demand internationally. Breaks was considered one of the greatest post-war lightweights along with the likes of George Kidd, Johnny Saint and Steve Grey, therefore it's likely that he was considered one of the best wrestlers in the Britain during his peak years, but probably not the best. 5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in his class? Johnny Saint was generally considered the best worker in the lightweight class after Kidd retired. This was partially down to booking. Faces were generally presented on television as superior workers to heels with the likes of Saint, Mike Marino, Bert Royal and others receiving superlative after superlative from Kent Walton. Heels like Breaks who could obvious wrestle were often lamented as being superb technicians if they could just stick to wrestling. Despite this, Breaks and Grey were considered along with Johnny Saint to be the top lightweights of their day. 6. How many years did he have as a top worker? We don't know when he became a top worker per se, but from the footage we have he looks like a top worker from '72 to '84 with the actual period probably being longer than that. 7. Was he a good worker before his prime? Was he a good worker after his prime? We only have footage of his post prime and he was decent enough. 8. Did he have a large body of excellent matches? Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of opponents? The answer to both is yes. Along with Steve Grey, he has one of the best resumes of matches from the existing World of Sport footage. In part this is because lightweights were expected to put on excellent matches and were given the latitude to, but also because they were outstanding workers. He had excellent matches against a variety of opponents including catch weight matches against workers from heavier weight classes. He also excelled at carrying the young "boy apprentices" that Joint would try to push. 9. Did he ever anchor his promotion(s)? Not his promotion. He anchored his weight class on numerous occasions and he was a regular television fixture, but he was never the anchor for the entire promotion. 10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of cards? Yes, he was extremely effective. He generated a tremendous amount of heat for his matches and was consistently one of the most over performers on the cards they ran, and he did this for more than a decade despite largely using the same schtick. Many workers and television gimmicks came and went during this period so his staying power is worth noting. 11. Was he valuable to his promotion before his prime? Was he still valuable to his promotion after his prime? It's unlikely that he had any more worth to his promotion pre-prime than any number of amateurs turned pro. Early on it appears that he was a babyface and in the five years following his first British Lightweight title victory he earned draws with top welterweights like Jack Dempsey and Jackie Pallo and wins over the likes of George Kidd and Mick McManus, so he must have of been of some worth. He was still useful to Joint Promotions in 1984, but when he jumped to All-Star Promotions for whatever reason they didn't use him as much as they might have and he rarely featured on television in the final years of wrestling on ITV. He did feature a few times on satellite television, but the show had a different format to ITV wrestling and Mark Rocco was the lead heel. 12. Did he have an impact on a number of strong promotional runs? Not directly. He was part and parcel of "the wrestling" It was the bigger stars that had an impact on promotional runs. 13. Was he involved in a number of memorable rivalries, feuds or storylines? Yes, he had numerous memorable rivalries. Wrestlers he feuded with on tape include Jon Cortez, Vic Faulkner, Dynamite Kid, Bobby Ryan, Alan Dennison, Johnny Saint, Steve Grey, Danny Boy Collins and Young David (Davey Boy Smith), but this is only the tip of the iceberg from what is available. 14. Was he effective working on the mic, working storylines or working angles? Wrestlers didn't cut promos on television until right near the end. He was effective on the house mic and at taunting Kent Walton and the crowd. He was also effective at working storylines and angles. The storylines usually revolved around title shots, which generally involved a three match format of two non-title matches and a title shot, and working gimmick matches with stipulations such as a hundred pounds for every round a young worker could stay with him. Angles usually involved either injuries or disputed finishes. Breaks was effective at putting them over. 15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his career? Yes, he was an excellent heel. His gimmick was that he was a crybaby who would throw a tantrum whenever things didn't go his way. The crowds loved to hate him and would chant things to irritate him or throw dummies (pacifiers) into the ring to rile him. He often jawed with ringsiders and occasionally the odd overzealous fan would threaten him at ringside. He drew a tremendous amount of heat, especially when wrestlers beat him, and of the heels that regularly appeared on TV only Mick McManus and Sid Cooper got the same reactions with the same longevity. 16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was the importance of the reigns? Breaks won the British and European Lightweight titles and the British Welterweight title. He never won the World Lightweight title, though he challenged for it numerous times. The importance of the reigns was the sheer number of times he won titles from 1963 through to 1988. He probably won a number of knockout tournaments as well as tournaments for vacant titles, but there wasn't any particularly important tournament for lightweights like there was for heavyweights. 17. Did he win many honors and awards? It's possible that he won awards from the wrestling magazines like The Wrestler, but I'm not aware of any. 18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the wrestling media? As far as I'm aware, he was featured in wrestling media and wrestling's TV exposure most likely made him a household name. He didn't enjoy the same mainstream exposure as Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks or Kendo Nagasaki, but among wrestling viewers he would have been extremely well known. 19. Was he a top tag team wrestler? No, he wrestled in tag matches occasionally but was predominantly a singles wrestler. 20. Was he innovative? Not as much as Grey or Saint. He basically used the same schtick for more than a decade and worked a style of match that many heels followed. 21. Was he influential? Not really. He was off regular television for four years before wrestling went off the air and had no real influence on the indy wrestling that followed. He didn't have any influence on All-Star promotions and he didn't help to shape international junior heavyweight wrestling like Mark Rocco and Dynamite Kid did. He may have influenced some of the heels that followed him in the 70s but not in any obvious way. There may be wrestlers these days who quote him as an influence, but I haven't heard of any. 22. Did he make the people and workers around him better? Absolutely. He carried young workers like Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith and Danny Collins to important bouts early in their career and very rarely had bad matches with people. 23. Did he do what was best for the promotion? Did he show a commitment to wrestling? Yes, he did jobs on numerous occasions. His losses almost always meant something and benefitted his opponent. He showed enough commitment to wrestling that he wrestled for some thirty years, including a huge amount of travel which he didn't particularly enjoy. 24. Is there any reason to believe that he was better or worse than he appeared? We don't have any footage of him from the 60s and what we do have from the 70s and 80s is limited. With more footage, his standing as a worker would probably be enhanced. More research is required from wrestling magazines in the 60s and early 70s to get a better picture of how important Breaks was prior to appearing more frequently on television.

I don't think it's a matter of pimped matches but consistently good week to week TV matches.

That would probably make sense if it didn't follow directly after said low point.

99 WWF/E was a cesspool. You can literally take any year in the history of the company and compare it favorably to that year. You can literally take the Smackdown Six era and compare it favourably to just about any other era in the company.

Atlantis y Lizmark vs. El Egipcio y El Faraón (2/17/84) This next match features two guys who’ve been mentioned quite a bit already, El Faraon and Lizmark. El Faraon means “The Pharaoh” in Spanish, and as you can imagine he used to come to the ring adorned in Egyptian imagery, mostly notably the Anubis on the side of his mask, back in the era where lucha masks were truly beautiful. In 1975, he became embroiled in a “una grande rivalidad” with the rudo Fishman, where the only way to determine who was the best was a mask match. Both masks were coveted at the time, El Faraon’s beautiful emerald mask and Fishman’s distinctive green and yellow mask. El Faraon entered the mask match as the favourite, as he’d had a long string of undefeated matches and Fishman had just added the NWA World Welterweight Championship to his Mexican National Welterweight crown, which in lucha booking suggests the rudo is going to lose his mask while still being protected as a champion, but what the public didn’t realize was that El Faraon had movie star looks, and so on 4/23/76 Fishman unmasked the Pharaoh to the dismay of the fans. Fishman went on to become an even bigger star and El Faraon immediately got his heat back by taking Perro Aguayo’s hair, as well as defeating him for the NWA World Middleweight Championship in the Autumn of ‘76. Faraon would often team with fellow technico, Ringo Mendoza, in apuestas matches where they took a number of big scalps. The pair would also meet as rivals in the middleweight division. In 1980, Faraon was instrumental in cementing Satanico as a championship caliber wrestler after Satanico had defeated Sayama for the NWA World Middleweight title on 3/28 and successfully defended it against Ringo Mendoza on 4/9 in Acapulo. Some older lucha fans claim that while Satanico showed a lot of ambition in his early career he wasn’t a particularly good technical wrestler and was favoured by the EMLL office given his rise to stardom was quicker than others. Whether that’s just perception or there’s any truth to it I’m not sure, but Faraon, Mendoza, Americo Rocca, Halcon, Benetto, Dantes and Tony Salazar were considered better technical workers. On 4/11, they ran a trios between El Halcón Ortiz, Faraón y El Fantasma vs. Alfonso Dantés, Satánico y Sangre Chicana that set-up a challenge from Satanico for either his NWA World Middleweight title or Mexican National Heavyweight title, both of which Satanico held at the time. The end result was Faraon challenging Satanico for his NWA title on the 4/18 Arena Mexico show, which saw the return of El Santo to Arena Mexico and EMLL. The match was said to be a classic and Satanico earned plenty of admiration through his performance. At some point around 1981, Faraon turned on Ringo Mendoza and became a rudo. This tag match is from that period. Some time around late ’85-early ’86 he would turn technico again and feud extensively with Sangre Chicana and Perro Aguayo. He then enjoyed a veteran midcard spot with EMLL up until his retirement from injuries in 1992. He is best known to 90s viewers for his bloody hair match against Pirata Morgan from 1990. Lizmark was probably the most pure athlete in the promotion. Before getting into wrestling, he was a swimming champion, cliff diver, boxer and body builder. Fortunately, for us he also became one of the premier young flyers in lucha libre, as well as an excellent mat worker. He was particularly notable for bringing new moves to lucha libre that were state-of-the-art at the time like the flying dropkick and the powerbomb. For a long time he was criminally underrated in wrestling circles, possibly because he didn’t get over in Japan, but at this time he was arguably the best technico worker in EMLL or at least the best masked one. A good intro match for Lizmark is his title match against El Enfermero Jr., which didn’t make the set but which you should be able to find online easily enough. Around this time, Lizmark had just come off a run of being dual NWA World Middleweight and Mexican National Middleweight champion in a feud with Satanico, and would spend the next few years in title limbo before moving up to the light heavyweight ranks. Later on, he jumped to AAA where he produced some of his best work against rudos like Jerry Estrada and La Parka despite being in his mid 40s. Faraon’s partner in this match El Egipcio also had an Egyptian gimmick where he wore a type of Pharaoh’s headdress (if they’d found a third guy, they could have made a trios out of it.) His claim to fame was losing his mask to Rayo de Jalisco Jr. on the last Arena Mexico show of ’83 in a Relevos suicidas bout which also involved Hombre Bala and Masakre. The week before this tag Lizmark and Faraon had fought in a mano a mano bout, which may have been testing the waters for a future hair vs. mask match. That match never occurred, which makes this match more significant for the Atlantis and Lizmark pairing, which would go on to be a lasting combination that won both tag and trios titles.

He had a great build for a wrestler and was a machine. He was like a superior version of a young Scott Steiner. The kind of guy you'd hope someone with amateur cred would be. Dude doesn't have to be the greatest of all time to appreciate that he had a motor.

All I've got to say about this is that in '99 there were people hoping that a 3 minute Brood vs. Hardy Boys match would contain workrate.

Devil Masami, Yukari Omori and Jaguar Yokota vs. Bull Nakano, Leilani Kai and Velvet McIntyre, 6/25/85 Devil Masami had crossed over to the face side by this point and Bull Nakano had peroxide blond hair not blue. This looked like it was clipped to shit, but there were still some cool moments. There were a couple of times when Devil squared off with Bull that really made me want to see a singles match from this time period and Devil vs. Leilani would have been welcomed too. Leilani didn't get to do much here, but she bumped pretty well. Jackie Sato, Rimi Yokota and Mimi Hagiwara vs. Mami Kumano, Yumi Ikeshita and Leilani Kai, 1/4/81 This had the almighty shit clipped out of it, but what aired was chaotic and fun. Leilani got a bigger role this time around, getting on the house mic to start with and taunting the shit out of Sato. The usual mix of brawling and non stop running between the ropes. Yumi Ikeshita was so fucking cool. Man, I love that girl. The rudo side was fantastic in general. Yokota, as she usually did, looked great in her early years. Dump Matsumoto, Bull Nakano, Condor Saito and Leilani Kai vs. Chigusa Nagayo, Yumi Ogura, Kazue Nagahori and Yumiko Hotta, 8/23/86 This was from American TV and was a bit of a hatchet job, though I'm sure the original broadcast version was the same. The parts where Leilani fought Chigusa were awesome, especially the ending where she kept taunting Chigusa about having taken her belt. As you can imagine, it came down to three on one with Chigusa not having much of a fighting chance. Ogura and Nagahori showed their usual spunk.

Alan Dennison vs. Jim Breaks (8/23/83) This was the finals of a knockout tournament to present some sort of charity shield. Joint Promotions used to run tournaments like these several times a year and usually had the town mayor or some other dignitary present the trophy to the winner. I suppose it was done to book something different on TV every once in a while. Since it was a tournament final, the match was a special no-rounds 15 minute bout. Breaks and Dennison showed their usual working chemistry, but the most entertaining thing about this was the Swadlincote crowd. They were really hot and kept chanting "mardy" at Breaks, which Walton was told by his crew at ringside meant "yella" in the local dialect but wikipedia says it means soft or crybaby. Someone threw a dummy (pacifier) at Breaks as well, which the crowds used to do to rile Breaks up. The bout itself was pretty good, though the fall that breaks won was confusing as the bell rang without anybody really knowing what had happened. After that, the match went to a draw and the ref declared Dennison the winner since he'd received less public warnings. Breaks threw a tantrum and the Swadlincote crowd got their night's entertainment. Jim Breaks vs. Little Prince (11/8/80) This was fun while it lasted. It was nothing outstanding, but I didn't really expect it to be being the heats of yet another tournament. The Prince was sans moustache and looked much different. Some fun exchanges mostly in the final fall. Jackie Turpin vs. Jim Breaks (6/15/82) This was really good. According to Walton, the winner became the number one contender to take on Steve Grey for his British Lightweight title. Turpin came from a famous boxing family and had been a boxer himself from the late 60s through to mid-70s. His uncle Randolph Turpin was famous for defeating Sugar Ray Robinson for his World Middleweight title in 1951 (a victory that later had tragic consequences for his uncle who committed suicide some years later.) For a guy who wasn't a natural wrestler, he was pretty good. He had a bit of a strange physique for the sport, but he made up for whatever shortcomings he may have had with plenty of enthusiasm and this was a nice mix of Breaks' schtick and actual wrestling. Turpin had some nice high spots and the booking was really good. Breaks wound up jobbing for Turpin and when Breaks jobbed it always meant something. Now I really want to see Turpin's match with Steve Grey.

Don't forget about the Mendozas. Pirata Morgan has produced quite a brood as well. There's also the Masacaras/Dos Caras family.

Why would a production company do this?

A lot of them are watching TV after 11pm it would seem -- http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/2003-1...g-viewers_x.htm

Lelani Kai vs. Yukari Omori, 9/14/87 This should have been more than what it was. Leilani tended to follow the Japanese workers' lead since she was in Rome, and for whatever reason, booking or otherwise, Omori wasn't interested in making it anything special despite the fact that she had major matches with both Chigusa and Lioness around this time and was perfectly capable of working a big match. Maybe it would've been a bigger deal if it had been a title defence between the Chigusa matches. In any event, this was disappointing. Lucy Kayama, Victoria Fujimi & Rimi Yokota vs. Mami Kumano, Joyce Grable & Leilani Kai, 12/79 This was your typical late 70s trios match with the bad girls bullying the idols. I don't think too many people here would enjoy this sort of thing as the face comeback wasn't the kind of tight, well-executed thing that people sing about, but man was Mami Kumano the glue that held this kind of thing together. She may not have been technically great, but her presence and relentless bitchiness really make her stand out in this era. Kai was just a heavy at this point. Jaguar Yokota, Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori vs. Devil Masami, Leilani Kai & Velvet McIntyre, 5/15/82 This was a 6 man tag main event from an early 80s episode of AJW TV. It was from some point after Jaguar became the WWWA World Heavyweight champion, back when Devil Masami was the lead heel in the company after they'd phased Monster Ripper out and before they pushed Dump Matsumoto. As with any tag match where Devil faces off against Mimi Hagiwara, there was a big heat segment where Devil beat on Mimi. Mimi wasn't the originator of screaming in Joshi, but she took it to new levels. If that's not your thing steer clear of Mimi, but she was very good in her role. Leilani was again hired muscle. I think Devil's trio were called Black Gundam Trio or something. Match ended with Devil going batshit with a kendo stick.

Jim Breaks vs. Alan Dennison (5/28/80) After Breaks finished feuding with Young David, he began a program with Alan Dennison that became his big feud of 1980. Dennison had been in Davey Boy's corner when they did the Dusty finish that saw the kid win the British Welterweight title. When Breaks complained about the finish, the title was held-up and a rematch was signed for the vacant belt. Breaks won the rematch and Dennison stepped in immediately as the first challenger, despite being on the upper limit of the Welterweight bracket, which meant that kayfabe-wise he had to train down to face Breaks. I never really cared for Dennison's wrestling or his strongman gimmick, but when I was going through the dregs of the World of Sport footage I softened on him a bit, and this is Breaks in a major feud, so I picked up all the footage there is of these two guys and man am I glad I did. Partly, I'm excited to see Jim Breaks again, but this Solihull match is a great piece of TV. It's joined in progress and really gets going when Dennison puts a hold on Breaks' pectoralis muscle and keeps telling him he's nothing. Apparently, these two were best mates in real life and the chemistry between them is off the charts. I had never seen such an intense performance from Dennison. Breaks threw him to the outside between rounds, which injured Dennison's arm and the ref and medics wanted to stop the bout, but Dennison pleaded with Brian Crabtree and the ref to allow the match to continue while Breaks was gloating in the background. The match continued with Dennison fighting with one arm and Breaks getting all cocky and slapping him in the face. Breaks got the Breaks Special on a couple of times, but Dennison was able to power his way out of it with his good arm, and just when it seemed like Dennison would succumb to his injury, he reversed the Breaks Special into a submission of his own for the upset victory. Cracking TV. Jim Breaks vs. Alan Dennison (8/6/80) Surprisingly, Dennison won the British Welterweight title in a non-television match yet the rematches aired. This was a non-title bout with Breaks searching for a win to force a title shot. Again, the intensity from Dennison was palpable. These two matched up extremely well. This was original broadcast footage, but joined from the beginning and complete. It was an excellent match with Dennison's strongman schtick looking fantastic against the weaselly Breaks. Apparently, Dennison used to have quite heated bouts with McManus and Pallo, which must have been something to watch. Match was building up to be one of the best of 1980 when they did a finish that was a neat idea in theory but disappointing for a one fall catchweight contest (Dennison was over the weight limit here.) Breaks injured his knee and Dennison went over to help stretch it out and Breaks took Dennison's outstretched hand and folded him up for a pin. Dennison was outraged at the poor sportsmanship, but I would have liked a better finish. Still, this was vintage Breaks. Jim Breaks vs. Alan Dennison (11/30/81) This was JIP and had sound issues and was a knockout tournament bout to begin with so it wasn't very long. Kind of outside of their feud anyway so it didn't really matter.

Fuck, imagine being at a party with Ric Flair and Jack Nicholson in the 80s. That's cardiac arrest stuff for the normal man.

In New Zealand, shows like Get Smart, The Munsters and The Addams Family would fill that 17:00-19:00 time slot along with stuff like Dr. Who and children's serials, while the morning time slot before the afternoon soaps might be filled with WKRP in Cincinnati, The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show or what have you. These days, they're filled with stuff like Friends or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but I think the real point is whether kids today watch as much TV as we did. When I was a kid, I watched TV pretty much from the time I got home until I went to bed and you watched whatever was on. If I stayed home from school, I watched all the daytime stuff. If I was a kid today, I'd probably be on the computer.

I will never understand the criticism of the Smackdown Six era. I quit watching before that era began and when I went back and watched it for the Smarkschoice poll it was like "fuck, here is the kind of wrestling I was desperate for in '99." That era was better ring-wise than anything from the Monday Night Wars era and was probably the best TV wrestling since 1992 WCW. I don't get looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (1/27/84) Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (2/3/84) According to Cota, he made his debut in 1968 for a local promoter in the Nogales region when he was a teenager. In 1971, he had an accident at the factory he was working for and from there the "Mocho Cota" gimmick was born. Of course, you'll have all read the story of how he hung out with the wrong crowd as a teenager, got into drug dealing and did a little jail time, and that his fingers being cut off was a message to whatever gang he was in, but the way Cota tells the story these days is that he worked as Mocho Cota for a long time locally until Blue Demon recommended him to Mexico City, who sent him to Diablo Velazco in Guadalajara to polish his act. Regardless of how he lost his fingers, he wasn't shy about flashing his stumps at the audience. He waved his hand more times than Arn Anderson gave the Four Horsemen signal. When he finally cracked Mexico City, he was immediately pushed into a top rudo spot by EMLL, squaring off against El Satanico on the 1980 Anniversary show in a hair vs. hair match. He then entered into two long running feuds with Talisman and Chamaco Velaguez that were both title match feuds and hair match feuds. Another frequent rival of Cota's was Gran Cochisse, who allegedly faced Cota in hair matches twice in the same year, though I very much suspect their second match took place in '84. This pair of back to back matches shows Cota defeating Americo Rocca for the NWA World Welterweight Championship and then successfully defending it. Cota would hold the belt through to July before losing it to his rival Velaguez, who he then took his revenge on just prior to the '84 Anniversary show by taking his hair. Cota's last major match for EMLL in the 80s was a hair match in March of '86 where he and Chicana took El Faraon and Talisman's hair and after that he disappeared until 1993, presumably because of another prison stint. The reason that these matches are so special is that prior to their discovery when people thought of Cota they thought of the worker from the 90s, who was decrepit to put it nicely. These matches show him as the worker he appeared to be from 1980-86, who famed television commentator Pedro "El Mago" Septien described as the "little giant of lucha libre." These days he's semi-retired, but still works the odd show in Nogales and around the Northern region, often tagging with his brother or sons. I believe he works at a centre for vaccinations against rabies while being involved in training local talent. Americo Rocca is a guy like Ringo Mendoza who the company just seemed to trust. Like Mendoza, he enjoyed some lengthy title reigns during his prime. He started off with the Mexican National Lightweight title, which he took from Flama Azul in '77 and worked his way up through the welterweight ranks to the National Welterweight title and the NWA World Welterweight title. Within that weight class, there was strong competition and he would be chased by wrestlers such as Cota and Talisman and later on the likes of El Dandy, Javier Cruz and Fuerza Guerrera. He had held the NWA World Welterweight title for 558 titles prior to Cota's challenge, and although Mocho takes the belt here, the company would give him a third reign in '86 that lasted for a further 606 days. He would continue to challenge right up until 1990 then adopted the old masked gimmick of Antonio Pena's father, Ponzona, and did some goofy stuff with the likes of Espectro de Ultratumba and Espectro Jr. Eventually, he began wrestling as himself again and worked for CMLL up until around 2001. Like Cota, he still works occasionally in the indies and has sons in the business.

This was perfectly good Terry Rudge. Fuck knows what I was thinking the first time round. Rudge gave War Cloud a working over, the ref stuck his nose in one too many times and a spit between the two led to a red card for Terry. Like all German bouts it needed a better finish, but it was worthy Rudge and watchable Rudge.

Bud Jenkins & Jean Sobek vs. Gino Rossini & Eddy Warrant (Herne 6/11/1988) This was the most lucha looking match I have ever seen from a European promotion. In fact, if you squinted hard enough the heels even looked like Infernales. Really cool stuff with some beautifully coordinated sequences. Would have made a great addition to a feature Euro set, but true to form it cut out before the end. Hansi Rooks vs. Dave Viking (Recklinghausen 1987) Hansi Rooks vs. Frank Merckx (Recklinghausen 1987) Undercard stuff. Basic journeyman brawling. Nothing to write home about. Franz van Buyten vs. Suni War Cloud (Hamburg 8/10/87) I was ready to write this one off since I found Suni War Cloud boring the last time I watched him, but leave it to van Buyten to hook me in. This looked pretty awesome, but it was clipped to the first and final rounds and judging by how many hugs they gave each other at the end it must have been a time limit draw. Forced me to take a re-look at this: Terry Rudge vs. Suni War Cloud (Hamburg 9/20/87) This was perfectly good Terry Rudge. Fuck knows what I was thinking the first time round. Rudge gave War Cloud a working over and the ref stuck his nose in one too many times and a spit between the two led to a red card for Terry. Like all German bouts, it needed a better finish, but it was worthy Rudge and watchable Rudge. Indio Guajaro vs. Wolfgang Saturski (Bamberg 4/3/83) I've been trying to find a good Indio Guajaro Germany match on par with his match against Pete Roberts from WoS, but we'll never know if this is the one as whoever edited it had a field day using every dissolve effect known to man and most of them in rapid succession. Billy Samson vs. Butcher Mason (Hamberg 10/8/87) This was a lot of fun. For some reason, there's 40 mins of this available and so little of the stuff you really want to see, but this was good heavyweight stuff. Mason ended up selling the fuck out of his leg and despite Rudge urging him on in his corner, Samson took him to the pay window. That pretty much ends my German vacation. I came away with a far greater appreciation for German wrestling than I'd ever had before, but it's still frustratingly incomplete. When the matches aren't clipped to shit, they either go too long or are marred by a shitty finish. Nevertheless, from '86 onwards it's clearly better wrestling than anything in the UK.