ohtani's jacket

I'd laugh only I don't think I could get that high on a dropkick. Rude vs. Watts was cool, but Watts vs. Arn was disappointing.

Atlantis vs. El Satanico (1984) Atlantis continued to be pushed as a hot young superstar in ‘84. He was billed almost immediately as “El Ídolo de los niños” (The Idol of the Kids) and was extremely protected, always wrestling in the top two matches on the card and rarely jobbing. A modern equivalent would be someone like Mistico, though he became far more of a sensation than Atlantis. According to Steve Sims, in his recent bio for Atlantis’ induction into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, the company also worked hard at legitimizing Atlantis in the eyes of the “lower class” fans by having him work the type of brawling style matches that lead to revenge bouts and stipulation matches, which is what we see here in this mano a mano with Satanico. There were two key milestones for Atlantis in 1984. He had his first luchas de apuestas match at the 9/21 Anniversary show, wagering masks with midcard vet Talisman. Taking Talisman’s mask was an instant boost to his credibility and he followed it up by winning his first title, the Mexican National Middleweight Championship, which he captured from Jerry Estrada on 11/30. Satanico, by comparison, was right in the middle of his prime, a period which ran from roughly 1979 to 1991 or so. He enjoyed tremendous success during this time, winning numerous titles and wager matches and always featuring near the top of the card. When he wasn’t involved in singles feuds, he was generally given something interesting to do with the Infernales, and was basically a mainstay of the promotion until the 1992 Anniversary show, where a third hair match in three years against El Dandy failed to draw. His gimmick was that he was “El Número Uno,” the number one rudo in Mexico and by extension the best wrestler. As we’ve mentioned with the Chicana feud, this meant that he often feuded with both rudos and technicos alike. In truth, he wasn’t the biggest drawing rudo in Mexico, but he had by far the most technical ability, which allowed him to feature heavily in the nation’s title picture and demonstrate a level of skill usually only shown by technicos. In 1984, he was involved in title match feuds with Lizmark and Gran Cochisse for the NWA World Middleweight Championship, which are documented on the set, and won the UWA World Middleweight Championship from Super Astro, which we’re also fortunate to have on the set.

Atlantis y El Hijo del Santo vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Lobo Rubio (11/25/83) This was El Hijo del Santo’s debut at Arena Mexico, which he had to have been nervous about since it was the site of so many of his father’s most famous matches. Santo had made his debut as “El Hijo del Santo” on 10/18/82 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipa, where he partnered with Ringo Mendoza in a match against Coloso Colosetti and Sangre Chicana. His debut generated plenty of interest, but also a fair amount of skepticism as few believed that he would live up to his father’s name. While he never became as famous as the original Santo, by the end of his rookie year he had already silenced the skeptics with his sheer athleticism and was winning “Rookie of the Year” honours in the lucha magazines. On 7/22/83, he made his debut at El Toreo in a trios with Black Man and Matematico against Black Terry, Lobo Rubio and Blue Panther. For most of the decade, he would work predominantly for the UWA as well as the Tijuana promotion WWA while occasionally making appearances at Arena Mexico. He wouldn’t feature heavily on national TV until he jumped from UWA to AAA in 1992 along with many of the other UWA talent. The reason for El Hijo del Santo working for the UWA and not EMLL, aside from the UWA being the more successful promotion at the time, is presumably because his father had jumped from EMLL to UWA in 1977. Santo belonged to the lightweight class in UWA and competed against the likes of Black Terry, Negro Casas, Fuerza Guerrera and Espanto Jr early in his career. Atlantis had made his debut on 6/12/83 (as Atlantis, at any rate) and I believe his Arena Mexico debut at EMLL’s 50th Anniversary show was built up as the debut of a new young superstar and heavily pushed in the magazines. While we’re on the topic of Arena Mexico debuts, Fuerza Guerrera had made his debut on a major EMLL card at the 1981 48th Anniversary show, where he wrestled a match against Negro Casas that is somewhat legendary in that those who were there live claimed it was revolutionary for its time. Fuerza (the guy with the mask) is by far the better known of Santo’s opponents here and would go on to play a prominent role during the TV boom. He had just claimed the vacant Mexican National Lightweight title on 11/6, a relatively minor title which he would vacate in May when left the weight division and moved up to welterweight. Lobo Rubio (the Mad Max looking guy) was a veteran welterweight who’d been wrestling since 1969. He’s best known for being a member of Los Temerarios, a trios that considered of himself, Black Terry and Jose Luis Feliciano and had memorable feuds with groups such as Los Cadetes del Espacio, but he was also a fairly regular Santo opponent in the early days of Santo’s career. In fact, his was the first hair that Santo took on 10/28/83. It’s generally thought he was a trusted hand who was in the ring with Santo a lot during his rookie year to guide him through these difficult matches.

Here's a bit more on the Satanico/Chicana hair match that Raging Noodles translated for us off of DJ Spectro's blog. Note that Chicana went under the name of Andres Richardson rather than his real name and is often referred to as Richardson on lucha sites. "The semi-final would make clear who was the best rudo, a rivalry dating back years between Sangre Chicana and Satanico culminated. Even though two weeks ago, they had shaved [i guess they won a luchas de apuestas against] Los Hermanos Mendoza, their hatred to prove who was the best took them to this lucha de apuesta. The match started before the sound of the whistle, with a furious Richardson going after his rival, ripping his jacket (off) and sending him crashing into "the butaquerio" [i think these are the boards that they have on the apron, that advertises products, etc]. Satanico's face was immediately covered in blood, while (Chicana) expressed his anger with the fans, since their opinions were divided among who was the best. The match continued on "el enlonado" [i think this means mat or canvas]. El Infernal reacts by dodging an attack by El Paredon-native and the arena explodes. Chicana gets hit and gets out of the ring. His rival goes air-borne with a tope suicida but Chicana moves to the side to avoid it. Satanico hurts himself landing on the outside. Richardson now flies through the air and successfully connects. The rudo (Satanico), stays out of the fight, and the damn "pocho" advances. (In the U.S. Southwest, "pocho" like "Chicano" can mean an Americanized Mexican, while some have used both terms for lower-income Mexican-Americans or it can be political. Anyways, the meaning can be used differently, depending on the region and context but it's clearly referring to Chicana, which I thought was interesting). In the second fall, Daniel (Lopez) gives his rival a taste of his own medicine, by knocking him out of the fall with a tope suicida. Things are getting heated, the fans from ringside bursting with emotion. It's overshadowed by the sound of the whistle, signaling the start of the third fall. Now it's Andres (Richardson) who is bleeding dramatically, but he continues with this fight. It's close to 11:20 pm. [Had a difficult time translating one of the sentences on here so I passed it since it doesn't seem necessary to do a direct sentence-translation. Rough translation of the sentence I skipped was that it seemed like Satanico was on the verge of victory]. However, Chicana connects with a dropkick, which leads both wrestlers and the referee to go to the outside, through the ropes. Andres goes to the outside, to keep on punishing his enemy. But the arena and el rudo goes quiet when Palau responds by disqualifying (Richardson, awarding the match) in favor of El Satanico for the action outside. Nobody can change the result [Also, I think Richardson is taunting/mocking around this point, but I'm not too sure here]. Richardson is getting his head shaved. But the story doesn't end here. The losing "tuzadoel" [never heard this word before and couldn't find anything on Google except this blogpost] heads towards Satanico and smashes a Coca-Cola (glass) bottle that makes El Infernal go to sleep. Richardson heads off to the dressing room, while Daniel is taking away in a stretcher through the fans."

With some help from my buddy Raging Noodles, I was able to flesh out some of the details of the Satanico/Chicana hair matches. The first match was on 7/2/82, on the undercard to the Rayo de Jalisco, Jr./El Jalisco vs. MS-1/Carlos Plata match where MS-1 lost his mask. The finish to the match saw Chicana grab Satanico by the hair and launch him outside the ring. Chicana slammed Satanico hard into the wood panels that surround the ring. He repeated it twice, and the referee Palau told him that if did it again, he would DQ him. Chicana didn't care, he repeated the move, bringing the referree out, who tried to prevent it. This caused Palau to DQ Chicana, who lost his hair. While Chicana was being shaved, Satanico realised that he had won. He didn't even know how, but his rival was being shaved and he climbed the ropes to celebrate. Chicana took advantage of the situation, got out of the ring, and grabbed a beer bottle. He climbed back into the ring, smashing it on Satanico's head, leaving him knocked out. Afterwards, this type of action continued in their feud. Their second hair match was on 12/10/82, which I believe was the final Arena Mexico show of the year. The match ended in a draw and both men had their hair shaved. Here's a picture from that match: http://s790.photobucket.com/user/OPCELINON...c85bc4.jpg.html

Sangre Chicana vs. Ringo Mendoza (10/28/83) Luchawiki says this is title vs. title, Mendoza's NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship vs. Chicana's UWA World Light Heavyweight Championship, but while both men came to the ring wearing their respective belts, the footage suggests that it was Chicana's belt being defended. That was the belt the wrestlers posed with during the photographs at any rate. Mendoza is a guy who's easy to overlook as just another maskless wrestler, but he was more important than you'd think. When he debut in '68, he was given a Native American gimmick and wore a headdress similar to Wahoo McDaniel. He was also given the ring name "Mendoza" in order to get a rub from Ray Mendoza. Like his namesake, he was an extremely successful singles wrestler, winning titles in both the middleweight and light heavyweight classes, which as you're probably aware by now were the weight classes where most of the best talent in Mexico presided. He was particularly synonymous with the NWA World Middleweight Championship, a title he held on five occasions from 1977 to 1981. The World Middleweight title was the focal point of many of the most memorable rivalries of his career, including names such as Perro Aguayo, El Faraon, Tony Salazar, and indeed Sangre Chicana. Chicana and Mendoza basically belonged to the same weight class and challenged for the same belts. When Chicana was the NWA World Middleweight Champion in 1980, he defended the belt against both Mendoza brothers, Cachorro and Ringo. Ringo later took the belt from Chicana in '81, prompting a series of rematches, but their feud wasn't simply a bit of tit for tat for the middleweight titles. Chicana and Mendoza were no strangers to hair matches and they were no strangers to facing each other in hair matches, either. During the late 70s through to the early 80s, tag team apuestas were a lot more common than they are today. Ringo and El Faraon formed a team at the time that took a number of scalps, including Chicana and Alfonso Dantes' hair in '78. Faraon turned rudo overnight in '81 by turning on Mendoza and aligning with Chicana, which was the catalyst for Mendoza teaming with his brother Cachorro. Of all the people Chicana hated at this time, and there were many (Fishman, MS-1, Satanico, Aguayo, and still to come Villano III), he seemed to have a special place in his heart for Mendoza. His hatred for Mendoza even managed to forge an alliance with Satanico for long enough to take the Mendoza brothers' hair. At this particular juncture, Mendoza was the NWA World Light Heavyweight champion having bested both Faraon and Satanico in the same year, two of his biggest career rivals, as well as Mexican National Tag Team champion with his brother. Chicana was UWA World Light Heavyweight champion having defeated Fishman three weeks earlier at El Toreo. Mendoza would go on to hold both titles until '85 while Chicana vacated his title in early '84, but this was really towards the end of their run as top middleweights of their day.

Thanksgiving isn't available on pay-per-view in my region.

Thanks for the insight. On what basis? It doesn't look like any script format I've ever seen and I have a hard time believing a production at the level of WWE would have such amateurish looking shooting scripts. The scripted promos part in particular looks fake to me. Nobody scripts TV like that.

Espectro Jr, Satanico y MS-1 vs. Mocho Cota, Sangre Chicana y La Fiera (9/30/83) This was a rudos contra rudos trios a week after the Anniversary show. Judging by the evidence, rudo vs. rudo was something EMLL booked a fair bit of during this period. MS-1's trio were the original Los Infernales, a group created to capitalize on the popularity of trios wrestling and imitate the success of Los Misioneros de la Muerte, who had become a big rudo act at El Toreo. The original group consisted of MS-1, Satanico and Espectro Jr, but became more well known for line-up which included Pirata Morgan. Despite MS-1 vs. Chicana headlining the Anniversary show, Satanico was the biggest star on the team and more often than not the captain. Espectro (green tights and mask) had enjoyed a brief run with the Mexican National Middleweight Championship earlier in the year in a feud with Lizmark and Satanico was also in the midst of a feud with Lizmark for the NWA World Middleweight title, so they were quite a heavily pushed both individually and as a group. Sangre Chicana's trio were dubbed "Los Guerreros" and featured rudos Mocho Cota (goatee and missing fingers) and La Fiera (black vest and pants.) Cota was fairly new having debuted in 1979, but already he was making strides as a welterweight. He was both a skilled technican and a credible brawler and was pushed in both disciplines, title match wrestling and luchas de apuestas (hair and mask matches.) During the 80s, he feuded extensively with Chamaco Valaguez and Talisman. Had a second run in the early 90s after TV came in, but was a shell of the worker seen on the set. Fiera debut in '77 and had also come up through the welterweight ranks. He was part of a new wave of big bumpers with flashy offence, which ultimately took a toll on his body and by the early 90s he was physically wrecked. He was still fairly valuable as a veteran worker through to about '97, but had some serious drug issues and did a stint in jail for drug dealing before meeting a rather nasty end in 2010. The reason for their shaved heads was that Cota had lost a hair match to Gran Cochisse on 9/9 and Fiera had lost a hair match to Satanico on 9/16. Add to that MS-1's hair loss at the 9/23 Anniversary show and you had the culmination of a month's worth of hair matches at Arena Mexico. Not only that, but Chicana and Satanico had feuded ferociously in '82 despite originally starting as allies in Chicana's never ending feud with the Mendoza brothers, and Satanico had also taken Cota's hair in '80, which meant the La Fiera victory gave him a trifecta of scalps against the Guerreros. Even Chicana and Espectro Jr had been involved in a mano a mano bout on the 6/24 Arena Mexico show, and Espectro had tagged with Fiera and Cota on the previous week's Anniversary show, so there may have been yet another issue there. It shouldn't come as much surprise then that this match was quite heated.

Looks fake.

Yeah, I'm gonna dabble in it a bit.

Leilani Kai vs. Chigusa Nagayo, AJW All-Pacific Title, 4/27/87 The rematch from Osaka. Not quite as epic as their Tokyo match, but still really good. This time it starts off as more of the brawl that the Korakuen bout turned into with occasional flashes of targeted offence. Chigusa again used her kicks to good effect, and once again the styles clash of the American bruiser and Japanese "shooter" made for an electric mix. Both women did blade jobs, which were kind of cute (if a blade job can be cute), as both women rolled to their corners and had their seconds cut them. The stand off at the end with both women bleeding came across well and they both went to the top for nearfalls. The finish was a bit weak in terms of the move that actually won it, as it was a body slam from Chigusa after a series of top rope moves, but the schoolgirls were understandably excited and the post-match was cool.

How did Chicana not make a ballot even with Jose submitting a ton of luchadores' names? McManus has become the token British pick for the television era with Pallo getting the rub by association. Better than no token pick, I suppose. Jackie Sato and Chigusa Nagayo warrant more consideration for the top 100 from people.

Chigusa Nagayo vs. Leilani Kai, AJW All-Pacific title, 8/21/86 This was always one of my favourite Chigusa matches and it holds up really well. It starts off with Chigusa doing a lot of her shoot style kicks and submissions and Leilani not having much defence against them. Then when Kai finally does get a takedown on Chigusa, she launches a pretty vicious assault on Chigusa's leg and the match becomes this gritty brawl with Kai even working over Nagayo's fingers. There's some pretty innocuous outside inference at points, but it's more or less heel girls running in and getting chased out by the AJW ring girls. In the main, it's a fight, and even the high spots section packs a fair wallop. Leilani does a thunderous looking missile dropkick from the top rope, and the finish, while it looked like it might have been botched, is one of the best pure contest finishes I can remember seeing. Really great match in front of a hot Korakuen Hall crowd. Leilani was pretty emotional at the winning the title. I did wonder if she thought the crowd were chanting her name, as they kept crying "moiikai" which means "one more time" in Japanese. Probably one of my favourite Joshi matches.

Kevin Von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz vs. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83) Since I did a write up for this in the Lucha History Lessons thread, I thought I better get around to watching it properly. The reaction to this match so far has been interesting. Since it's the first trios on the set, there seems to be this mix of confusion and anticipation over how a trios match should go. There's also been a lot of comments on how lost and out of place Kevin Von Erich looked. On the second point, by the standards of foreigners looking lost or confused in Mexico there have been far worse instances than Von Erich. I'll admit that I'm biased towards him because I find his barefoot quasi shoot style work fascinating, but I don't think he was bad. He didn't seem to understand the flow of a trios match or what the other workers were trying to do, but like I said I dig his strange offence. I think someone raised the point that his offence didn't fit a lucha setting, but Mexico has always been a melting pot of different styles. That's apparent even in this match where you have heavyweights mixing it up with light heavyweights, brawlers working with technicians, bumpers taking on fliers, comedy guys jousting with bleeders, and an American to top it all off. There's a sense that anything goes in trios wrestling because most of the time the matches are just thrown together. Which brings me to my next point, that this was a nothing trios. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. It was one of those trios matches where there aren't any spectacular individual performances but everybody involved is a pretty good worker and the match has a bunch of solid exchanges. It was stock and trade stuff from pretty much everyone involved. The main story was the feud between Halcon Ortiz and Pirata Morgan, who had taken Ortiz' Mexican National Heavyweight title from him earlier that year. They touched on it throughout the match, but really it was an issue for another time and place and would escalate into a hair match. That's why if you take a "Who's feuding with whom? What's the story??" approach to lucha trios you're bound to be disappointed as the majority of the time they roll out of bed and there's the match. What impresses the long time fan are small details in the work or interesting spots. There was no big crescendo in this match because they didn't make an effort for there to be one, so structurally there wasn't anything to get excited about, but the bread and butter stuff was what you'd expect from the rudos and Ortiz held up the technico side of things well. There were at least six memorable things about the match and that's not too bad. It's unfortunate that it's the first trios on the set as we're missing a big chunk in the history of trios wrestling from the front end of the decade, but like so many other trios matches over the years it's more of an introduction to the workers than a great match. The highlight for me was Ortiz body slamming Morgan over the top rope and doing that close quarters tope. That was an impressive spot sequence for heavyweights.

I thought the toughest one to get a handle on was Anibal was in some of the footage he works like a middleweight and in some of the footage he's a bulked up light heavyweight. Is it just me or was Fishman always a pretty good brawler?

Kevin Von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz vs. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83) Since I did a write up for this in the Lucha History Lessons thread, I thought I better get around to watching it properly. The reaction to this match so far has been interesting. Since it's the first trios on the set, there seems to be this mix of confusion and anticipation over how a trios match should go. There's also been a lot of comments on how lost and out of place Kevin Von Erich looked. On the second point, by the standards of foreigners looking lost or confused in Mexico there have been far worse instances than Von Erich. I'll admit that I'm biased towards him because I find his barefoot quasi shoot style work fascinating, but I don't think he was bad. He didn't seem to understand the flow of a trios match or what the other workers were trying to do, but like I said I dig his strange offence. I think someone raised the point that his offence didn't fit a lucha setting, but Mexico has always been a melting pot of different styles. That's apparent even in this match where you have heavyweights mixing it up with light heavyweights, brawlers working with technicians, bumpers taking on fliers, comedy guys jousting with bleeders, and an American to top it all off. There's a sense that anything goes in trios wrestling because most of the time the matches are just thrown together. Which brings me to my next point, that this was a nothing trios. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. It was one of those trios matches where there aren't any spectacular individual performances but everybody involved is a pretty good worker and the match has a bunch of solid exchanges. It was stock and trade stuff from pretty much everyone involved. The main story was the feud between Halcon Ortiz and Pirata Morgan, who had taken Ortiz' Mexican National Heavyweight title from him earlier that year. They touched on it throughout the match, but really it was an issue for another time and place and would escalate into a hair match. That's why if you take a "Who's feuding with whom? What's the story??" approach to lucha trios you're bound to be disappointed as the majority of the time they roll out of bed and there's the match. What impresses the long time fan are small details in the work or interesting spots. There was no big crescendo in this match because they didn't make an effort for there to be one, so structurally there wasn't anything to get excited about, but the bread and butter stuff was what you'd expect from the rudos and Ortiz held up the technico side of things well. There were at least six memorable things about the match and that's not too bad. It's unfortunate that it's the first trios on the set as we're missing a big chunk in the history of trios wrestling from the front end of the decade, but like so many other trios matches over the years it's more of an introduction to the workers than a great match. The highlight for me was Ortiz body slamming Morgan over the top rope and doing that close quarters tope. That was an impressive spot sequence for heavyweights.

Black Terry & Jose Luis Feliciano vs. Rocky Santana & Skayde, Luchas 2000 4/1/04 Black Terry vs. Rocky Santana, hair vs. hair, Luchas 2000 4/1/04 This was interesting stuff. I've spoken before about the transformation that Navarro underwent from a balding, somewhat classical maskless luchador to the shaven-headed, shit talking ass-kicker he became circa 2006, but Terry also went through a similar shift, from a veteran guy still doing his 80s trios schtick to the phenomenal brawler and character actor we know today. In terms of his evolution, it was very much in the early stages here. That was evident in Terry and Feliciano wearing their Los Temerarios outfits and behaving very much like two thirds of a trios instead of the dominant personality that Terry would become, and in essence what we saw here was an older version of the little Terry we have on tape from the early 90s, but Terry is such a great worker that any Terry is key Terry. The first fall of the tag featured decent "lucha-looking" exchanges. Feliciano was out of shape at this point so his stuff was perhaps a tad bit sluggish, but Skayde was in his element. Where the match got fun was in the second fall when the Temerarios took over. Their teamwork looked as smooth as ever and had that old-school UWA feel to it; the kind of trios work where you can almost smell what a hotbed LLI was for trios with new teams springing up left, right and centre and guys pushing the form with their teaming and triple teaming. And even with Terry not being Terry as we know him, his brawling was still sharp. I can just imagine what it must have been like to watch some of the Temerarios matches, perhaps not at El Toreo but at the smaller, more intimate venues. Terry cheated to take the second fall and the match, which set up an impromptu hair match with Santana. It was a one fall, bloodless hair match that was more or less a third caida to the tag, but Terry rolled through some sweet looking offence and even showed his guile by pulling out of a top rope dive he would have missed and hitting a move off the apron instead. While I still maintain Terry's forte is brawling and hair matches, this was a reminder of how good younger Terry was offensively. I just love the career of Black Terry and what his talent has carried him to over the years. I'm sure he wishes he'd headlined the biggest arenas in Mexico, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The dude is the hero of this blog.

These are all guys I've watched clips of in the past few days. How much of Solar and Navarro's opinions are because these were the guys on top when they were coming up. That's a really distinct group of workers who wrestled each other around the same time.

The next two matches were from EMLL's 50th Anniversary show. Kevin Von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83) There was no real back story to this match. It was just Kevin Von Erich being brought in for a match the same way Andre was brought in for that Guadalajara bout. But let's take a look at the players: Mascara Ano 2000 (blue mask, gold trunks) was the younger brother of Cien Caras and the middle brother of Los Hermanos Dinamita. The brothers hadn't formed their trios yet (I believe it was actually a tag team first between the two brothers), so MA2k was still a technico here, a sort of aspiring Anibal/Lizmark type. Surprisingly, he wasn't that decorated a wrestler by lucha standards. He'd had a run with the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship in '82 built around feuds with Brit journeyman Dave Morgan and rudo El Faraon, but that as it as far as singles titles went. He did claim a fair number of masks, however, which built up the value of his own mask until finally he dropped it to Perro Aguayo at the first ever Triplemania. Halcon Ortiz (stocky, white trunks) was formerly El Halcon, then Halcon Ortiz, then Super Halcon... Well, you get the picture. He was a veteran heavyweight, who was actually the guy who Flair was supposed to wrestle on the previous year's Anniversary show (as the story goes.) He'd dropped his Mexican National Heavyweight Championship to Pirata Morgan in August in Guadalajara, so there was heat there. Morgan we'll have plenty of opportunity to talk about later, but he's the guy with the eye patch for those of you who are really lost. The heat between Ortiz and Morgan built to a hair match the following April, which Ortiz won. Herodes we've spoken about before, but Coloso Colosetti is new. Colosetti (blue trunks, goatee) was actually an Argentinean wrestler who worked primarily in Mexico and Southern California but travelled throughout the wrestling world. He belonged to the same generation as Ortiz, essentially. The high point of his career was defeating Ray Mendoza for the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship at the end of 1969, back when it was the most prestigious title in Mexico. Rather than jump to the UWA, I believe he spent a lot of time in Mike LeBell's NWA Hollywood territory before closing out his career in Mexico. MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (9/23/83) There's not much I can add to the backstory of this match that wasn't covered by Kris Zellner when MS-1 died or by Jose Fernandez in his old bio of MS-1, but to go over the basics: MS-1 was a masked rudo who EMLL liked the look of and wanted to lose the hood. He lost his mask to Rayo de Jalisco Jr. in July of '82 and became a rudo idol among the ladies, hence the hairdo. Chicana was a huge draw at this point at Arena Mexico and Arena Coliseo, as well as Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo, and in '82 had reignited his feud with Fishman over the UWA World Light Heavyweight Championship at El Toreo. I mentioned before that he jumped to the UWA in '82, but that doesn't appear to be factually correct. It was either a talent sharing arrangement between EMLL and the UWA or Chicana was working as an independent, but in any event he was everywhere in the early 80s. The interesting thing about Chicana was that whether he was a technico or a rudo, he seemed to develop rivalries with everyone. Prior to this feud, he'd had a massive rivalry with Satanico that led to two hair matches and been embroiled in a tumultuous situation where he sided with El Faraon after Fishman and Perro Aguayo turned on him, leading to a big rudos contra rudos tag match at Arena Mexico that seemed to spur on Chicana's popularity. Whether Chicana was a technico here or simply just "Sangre Chicana" is an interesting point. In any event, the match did so well that they ran it as the main event of the following year's anniversary show.

Dave Taylor & Bernie Wright vs. Colonel Brody & Butcher Mason (Hamburg 10/1/87) Colonel Brody coming out to the theme from The Bridge on the River Kwai was the mark of a man who's put some thought into his gimmick. Nice touch. This came out of left field and did quite an impression on me. Our good friend Jetlag says: "For those wondering, Butcher Mason's gimmick was that he had an invincible gut. It is also hinted that he has inhuman strength in his hands. That leaves his beard and his feet as his obvious weakpoints. They ran an angle before where they challenged people from the audience to hit Mason in the gut and whoever made him wince would get 5000 DM in cash (enough money to buy a car at that time)." Brody and Mason made for a fun rudo team and the crowd was hot for Dave Taylor. I was digging this a bunch and wanted to nominate it as one of the best European matches of '87 and just as Brody and Mason were doing all sorts of cool heel work on Wright, there were two quick falls and the thing was over. Why can't you give me a hot finish, Germany? Franz van Buyten vs. Butcher Mason (Hamburg 9/18/87) Same deal. Here you have a guy in van Buyten who excels at working against bigger guys and does the coolest strength spots imaginable with big men, including the most boss throw of Mason that really needs to be seen to believed, and the match is hot and building into something good and then they go all silly buggers on the ending. Charly Verhulst vs. Mile Zrno (Graz 7/12/80) This was good. Verhulst was Johnny Londos from the New Japan set and here he worked an up tempo, workrate match that was chock-a-block full of cool holds and awesome throws. Verhulst's takedowns were awesome. Zrno clearly liked this style of working, but I got the impression that it was Verhulst holding this together. What thrilled me the most was that they didn't cop out on the finish. It wasn't a blockbuster finish, but it was totally in keeping with the rest of the match and makes this a comfortable nomination for a Euro set. Ritchie Brooks vs. Bernie Wright (Hamburg 8/18/89) Ritchie Brooks had a mane Ricky Morton would have been proud of. This was all right, I suppose, but it was a match wrestled between Ritchie Brooks and Bernie Wright and that's about all it was. The action was better than the final years of wrestling on ITV, but it didn't blow me away. Franz van Buyten vs. Klondyke Mike Shaw (Hamburg 10/7/88) van Buyten again ruled at taking on a big guy and this was an awesome brawl for the first two thirds with Shaw looking pretty damn good. Then the silly buggers began. It wasn't too bad as van Buyten dished out a bit more punishment before the screwy finish, but fuck me I want the world to know the name Franz van Buyten and this CWA booking ain't helping.

Villano III vs. Flama Roja, mask vs. mask, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua 5/87 This was uploaded by DJSpectro a couple of years ago, but the video quality made it difficult to follow, and I never got around to writing about it. Recently, a more complete version surfaced which is easier to watch. It's not the biggest mask match of Villano III's career and it's not the most important, but it's from smack dab in the middle of his prime and any addition to the 80s lucha picture is most welcome. Flama Roja was a wrestler of some repute in Cd Juarez. He was trained by the legendary Diablo Velazco and was such a cold blooded rudo that he earned such nicknames as "The Lord and Master of the Scandal" and "The Scourge of Technicians." I love that second one -- The Scourge of the Technicians -- not only is it the epitome of what every technico hating rudo should be, Roja faced a litany of face talent in the 70s and 80s in both Texas and Juarez. By '87, he was in his early 40s, which nowdays would make him a maestro but in the talent rich 80s made him an older wrestler looking for a payday. Make no mistake about it, this wasn't a shabby mask for Villano to win, and they did it very professionally, but I doubt Roja got too many more payoffs like this one. The match itself was a pretty traditional mask vs. mask match. Mask vs. Mask tends to be different from hair vs. hair in that the first fall is often wrestled like a title match with an emphasis on submissions. Lucha is often a show of superiority and making your man submit in a mask vs. mask match is the ultimate expression of this. There's also a sense of how important the masked wrestler's identity is and what a match like this means in a worker's career, hence the slow burn on the mask ripping and violence. Thus, the opening fall was a real arm wrestle with Roja showing his strength in submitting Villano first. There were some technical problems with the video and it skipped ahead deep into the third caida before cutting back to the finish of the second caida. The third fall was your meat and potatoes tercera caida. It had everything from a really nice tope from Roja to blood to Villano attacking the rudo's leg. There were plenty of cool submission attempts and nearfalls and Roja went down swinging, which is all you can ask from the loser in this type of match. It was a pretty cool match, easier to follow than the Rambo mask match and probably a top 30 contender if it had been included on the DVDVR set. It wasn't the kind of match where Villano comes out of it with his reputation enhanced even further, but it was a good watch. The final images of Roja unmasking and Villano holding up the mask to show the crowd the respect he had for his fallen opponent were the stuff that lucha fandom is made of. Make sure you check it out if you're an aficionado.

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Angel Blanco, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title, UWA 12/19/79 This was from a Mexico vs. the Rest of the World show at Palacio de los Deportes that drew 27,000 according to Matt Farmer. The Palacio de los Deportes is an indoor area that was originally constructed for the Olympic basketball competition at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and was used by the LLI as an alternative venue to El Toreo during their run as the top promotion in Mexico. Here is the card for that evening: Dorrel Dixon & Masanobu Kurisu beat Babe Face & Fishman by DQ Gran Hamada & Satoru Sayama beat Ray Mendoza & Rene Guajardo by DQ Tiger Jeet Singh beat El Solitario Canek beat Riki Choshu WWWF World Junior Heavyweight Title Tatsumi Fujinami © beat Angel Blanco That's a typically stacked card for UWA in this era, taking advantage of their talent sharing agreement with New Japan. Fujinami was the WWWF Junior Heavyweight champion at the time, and as I said in my recent Lucha History Lessons for the DVDVR 80s set, his run as champion really set the belt up as the world's premier junior heavyweight title. Angel Blanco had been a huge star in the late 60s to mid 70s, first as a member of the trios La Ola Blanca with Dr. Wagner Sr. and El Solitario, then by turning on Solitario as well as feuding with guys like Ray Mendoza and Dory Dixon. Blanco lost his mask to Solitario on 12/8/72 at a sold out Arena Mexico, but was charismatic enough to continue headlining as a rudo through the first part of the 70s. By the time he challenged Fujinami here, he was a lesser draw compared to the likes of Canek, but was still a respected vet. This wasn't a true lucha match as Fujinami didn't know the style, but there was enough matwork for it to pass as a lucha title match. It as more cool than great, but you won't hear me complaining about a mat flavoured title bout. There was the annoying 70s tendency of ditching the matwork to work a flash fall, but you take that on the chin. Blanco looked solid and his matwork was fine. The finish was one of those shitty double pins, which was questionable in terms of how much they actually needed to protect Blanco, but overall it was a decent bout. Karl Gotch was in Fujinami's corner to add that extra element of legitimacy that the UWA was so fond of and generally it was one of those neat time capsule matches that at least give you a feel for the era. If that sounds like I'm disappointed then you're probably right, as I wanted Blanco to be something special, and I'd definitely recommend the Fujinami/Mendoza match ahead of this, but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to old school lucha footage so definitely check this out.

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Canek (6/12/83) Tatsumi Fujinami wrestled in Mexico on his first excursion abroad in 1974, but he wouldn't rise to prominence until he defeated Carlos Jose Estrada on 1/23/78 for the WWWF Junior Heavyweight championship. For the next three years, Fujinami defended the title across Mexico, Japan and the US, establishing it as the world's premier junior heavyweight wrestling title. During that time he had matches against Mexican stars like Perro Aguayo, Angel Blanco, Ray Mendoza, Canek and Fishman, some of which are the only real footage we have of 1970s lucha. Unlike Hamada, Fujinami never stayed in Mexico for a significant amount of time, so he didn't really work a lucha style, but lucha at the time wasn't idiosyncratic enough that UWA stars couldn't work a 70s style mat based match for Fujinami's title defences, as LLI had close ties with both New Japan and the WWWF and the booking philosophy of using a lot of outside talent meant that the matches were often a hybrid of various styles. Fujinami vacated the WWF Junior Heavyweight title in December of '81 when he moved into the heavyweight ranks, but he'd actually begun challenging Canek for his UWA Heavyweight Championship earlier than that. They had a match on the 5/1/81 UWA show at El Toreo that drew 20,000 (with thousands turned away), a show that was headlined by Antonio Inoki vs. Bob Backlund in a NWF vs. WWF title match. In what was a direct copy of Canek vs. Choshu the year before, Fujinami defeated Canek for the UWA Heavyweight belt on 5/1/83 at El Toreo, setting up this rematch between the two.

The next two matches are from the LLI’s 7th Anniversary show. It was headlined by Perro Aguayo y Abdullah the Butcher vs. Antonio Inoki y Tatsumi Fujinami, which is why there was a Japanese television crew present. LLI was the top promotion in Mexico throughout the 80s, but didn’t get television until 1991, by which point the company was in terminal decline. The only footage we have of the UWA in its heyday is either from handhelds or Japanese TV. As with the opening tag match, the footage comes from El Toreo de Naucalpan, or Toreo de Cuatro Caminos as it was officially known. This domed bullring was to the LLI what Madison Square Garden is the WWE. It was demolished at the beginning of 2009 and a mixed-use development project was supposed to begin construction at some point this year. Lou Thesz is your ref for these bouts. Centurion Negro vs. Gran Hamada (2/14/82) This was for Centurion Negro’s UWA World Middleweight Championship. The middleweight championship was the first belt Hamada won when he started working Mexico, as UWA co-founder Rene Guajardo put him over in the early days of Monterrey, a region in the North of Mexico where Guajardo had begun promoting a style of show that would go on to be synonymous with lucha brawling. The belt passed hands through Hamada and Guajardo and another big star in Anibal before it ended up in the hands of Jungle Negra. Not much is known about Negra other than Anibal took his mask as penance for Negra winning his title and Centurion Negro later took his hair. Centurion Negro was not a wrestler of particular note. As with many LLI/UWA wrestlers, he resurfaced on the indy scene once UWA folded, but there’s not much to be said about him. He dropped the belt here, but won it back on 6/13, which suggests that the LLI put Hamada over for New Japan’s benefit since the TV crew was there. On the other hand, the title wound up back around Hamada’s waist in ’83 and he enjoyed a lengthy year-long reign, so perhaps they just wanted a title switch on the Anniversary show. El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82) Canek, as many of you will know, was the UWA’s top attraction and the biggest Mexican wrestling star of the 80s. He was the guy chosen by Francisco Flores to headline the promotion when it became apparent that Guajardo and Ray Mendoza were getting old and other draws like Mil Mascaras were out of the country most of the time. His push to the top started with title match victories over Dr. Wagner Sr and Lou Thesz in 1978 and was greatly aided by the LLI’s talent sharing agreement with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. As the Japanese promotions had done after the war, the UWA built Canek up by having him go over foreign stars from all over the world. Incidentally, he usually worked as a junior heavyweight in Japan, but in Mexico he faced heavyweight challenges from the likes of Inoki and Choshu. The formula worked and played a large role in the UWA being so successful in the 80s, as Canek vs. foreign “invader” consistently drew people to El Toreo. Eventually, they drove the formula into the ground and the UWA was left for dead by Antonio Pena’s new style of booking, but in 1982 Canek was still on the rise. He was enjoying his second reign as UWA World Heavyweight champion, a title he would go on to hold 15 times. It had become a year earlier when he defeated Tiger Jeet Singh at El Toreo on 2/15/81 and included title defences against the likes of Strong Kobayashi, Tatsumi Fujinami, Billy Robinson and Pat Patterson. Why Don Corleone was chosen to face Canek at the Anniversary show is unknown. Corleone was Tony Rocco, who worked Los Angeles a lot. Canek also worked Los Angeles a fair bit, so there may have been a connection there. This was sort of a two part deal as the following month Canek took Corelone’s mask.