ohtani's jacket

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.

Depends where. Jerry Lewis always had good reviews in France, including from serious critics. At the same time, Louis de Funes was not highly regarded at all, and now 30 years after his death suddenly the serious critics are doing essays on the guy. Go figure. I've only seen the films he did with Bourvil and Gerald Oury, Le Corniaud and La Grande Vadrouille, but he seemed like an amusing little fellow. Comedy often gets shafted by critics. You didn't see too much written in English about Cantinflas or Toto.

I found this on a blog: "Below is a list of the 25 directors with the most votes, followed by how many films they have in the top 100 and how many of the votes went toward films in the top 100. 1.Hitchcock – 318 votes (4 films accounting for 281 of those votes) 2.Godard 233? (4 films, 161) 3.Welles 231 (3 films, 203) 4.Ozu 189 (2 films, 157) 5.Renoir 179 (3 films, 140) 6. Ford 158 (1 film, 78) 6. Dreyer 158 (3 films, 138) 8.Kubrick 157 (2 films, 115) 9.Tarkovsky 153 (3 films, 127) 10.Bresson 149 (3 films, 96) 11.Coppola 145 (3 films, 144) 12.Bergman 143 (4 films, 108) 13.Murnau 134 (1 film, 93) 14.Fellini 129 (2 films, 97) 15.Kurosawa 127 (2 films, 89) 16.Bunuel; 114 (1 film, 17) 17.Antonioni 110 (2 films, 65) 18.Chaplin 98 (2 films, 43) 19.Scorsese 97 (2 films, 66) 20.Lynch 92 (2 films, 63) 21.Lang 91 (2 films, 60) 22.Eisenstein 88 (1 film, 63) EDIT: 22 (tie) Hawks 88 (1 film, 24) 23.Mizoguchi 85 (2 films, 54) 24.Powell, Pressburger 84 (2 films, 35) 25.Rossellini 83 (1 film, 32)" My feeling is that Ford remains highly regarded but that critics gravitate towards one film. I wonder if a more interesting example of what you're talking about is comedians like Jerry Lewis or Harold Lloyd who were ignored by critics for a long time. Or directors who did women's pictures like Douglas Sirk.

On the last Sight and Sound poll, critics had The Searchers at 7 and directors had it at 48.

Since when did film critics dismiss John Ford?

In Race's book, he says Vader had more natural ability than anyone he managed and was the most agile big guy he'd ever seen. He says: "In fact, he might be the best big man to ever enter the ring. Just don't tell him I said it." His problem with Vader was getting him to hold back.

Andre the Giant y Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981) Andre was touring Mexico fairly regularly at this point. He’d stay for about a week and work for EMLL and UWA on alternate nights. This is a match from Arena Coliseo de Guadalajara and appears to be an EMLL booking. It aired on Jalisco television and is reportedly the only time one of Andre’s bouts aired on Mexican television. Andre was frequently booked in handicap matches while touring, sometimes two on one, three on one, anywhere upwards of four on one. The most famous Andre moment in Mexico was when he headlined the 1984 UWA Anniversary show against El Canek at the Palacio de lose Desportes, a large indoor sports arena that was built for the 1968 Olympics. The match drew a large crowd of 25,000 and is the bout where Canek body slammed the Giant. His partner for this bout was Cien Caras, the oldest of Los Hermanos Dinamita, a trios he formed in the mid-to-late 80s with brothers Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000. Caras, an Arena Coliseo de Guadalajara regular at this point, would go on to play a major part in the lucha television boom with both CMLL and AAA, headlining two of the biggest shows in lucha libre history, CMLL’s 57th Anniversary show against Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. and the inaugural Triplemania show against Konnan. In 1981, he was still a masked technico, who’d taken the scalps of Alfonso Dantes and Goro Tanaka in hair matches and won his first major title, the Mexican National Heavyweight Championship, in 1980. On the rudo side, Dantes and Herodes were regular rivals of Caras in the heavyweight division. Sangre Chicana (black tights with red stripe) was a middleweight to light heavyweight and not a natural rival of Caras’, though their paths crossed numerous times, particularly when Caras turned and became a rudo. Chicana rose to fame in 1977 when he lost his mask to Fishman at Arena Mexico in a triple threat match with El Cobarde I. This feud catapulted him to stardom and he was enjoying an extremely successful rudo run at this point, including stints with the NWA World Middleweight Championship. He’d get even bigger the following year in 1982 when he jumped from EMLL to UWA and resumed his feud with Fishman. Herodes (red trunks, awesome beard) has a rep as one of the great “lost” rudo workers of the 80s, though more footage of him surfaced in time for this set. Prior to the set, he was regarded as a great bumper and superb base for young technico flyers like Stuka, but he was also a hair match worker of note and a championship winning wrestler, taking the Mexican National Heavyweight belt from Caras in ’82. Alfonso Dantes (red trunks with white trim, no beard) was an older worker than either Chicana or Herodes. He was a star from the mid-to-late 60s through the 70s, where he spent a large portion of the decade in the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship title picture, as well as the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship, a belt he held in 1981 (and lost to Babe Face.) Like Herodes, he had a strong reputation as a worker, particularly for working bigger than his size, which due to his physique earned him the nickname of “El Tanque,” which means “The Tank.” His most famous feud was with El Halcon, but his career at this point was intertwined with the other wrestlers in the ring. He’d lost his hair to Caras at Arena Coliseo de Guadalajara at some point in this push of Caras’ and twice tagged with Chicana in hair matches. He was the father of 90s wrestler Apolo Dantes.

Might as well cross post these: Matt D asked me if I could start doing this. I'm not the most qualified to give lucha history lessons as there are plenty of people who know more about it than me, but I'll try my best. Feel free to suggest any corrections or suggestions. Satoru Sayama y Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo y Baby Face (4/13/80) Gran Hamada (green trunks) was one of the first New Japan trainees and came from a strong judo background, where he fought for one of the top universities in Japan and was a candidate for the 1972 Olympics. Due to his lack of size, he was sent to Mexico to train with the newly formed LLI promotion in 1975 and learn the lucha style. Despite having a hard time with everyday life, Hamada soon established himself in Mexico and by the time he returned to Japan in 1979 he already had a family in Mexico, which is why he split so much of his time between the two countries. Hamada had a rivalry at the time with Perro Aguayo (white trunks), one of the biggest stars in lucha libre history. Aguayo is famous for his blading and for being arguably one of the greatest brawlers in lucha history, but Aguayo vs. Hamada was, for the most part, a title match feud. This tag match from the famous El Toreo bullring was sandwiched between a pair of title matches the men had. The first was a match for the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship, which Aguayo took from Hamada on 4/22/79. The second was a title defence of Hamada’s UWA World Light Heavyweight Championship on 5/25/80, which Aguayo also took from Hamada. They would go on to have an even fiercer rivalry for the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, which would trade hands several times in both Mexico and Japan and their rivalry crossed promotions from UWA to New Japan to Shinma’s original UWF. Eventually, they would become tag partners in both Mexico and Hamada’s UWF promotion. Sayama (tights with a stripe) was on his own excursion at the time and had tasted his first success in Mexico by winning the NWA World Middleweight Championship from Ringo Mendoza on 9/9/79, a belt he lost to El Satanico on 3/28/80, a few weeks before this tag took place. He would move to England by the end of the year and have a run under a quasi-Bruce Lee gimmick as “Sammy Lee” before heading back to Japan to done the famous Tiger Mask gimmick. Aguayo’s partner Babe Face (red and white trunks) was one of the original UWA wrestlers and a hated rudo also known for his bloody hair matches. This was on the undercard of an Antonio Inoki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh match for the UWA World Heavyweight title, which is why it was filmed by a Japanese TV crew.

I haven't seen enough 1979 WWWF to rightly have an opinion on who the MVP was, but if we're talking about who I'd like to see more of, I'd take Valentine over Patterson in a heartbeat. Patterson looked old to me, and not in a "I can't believe this guy is still so good" kind of way. I only saw two of the matches but they followed along the same lines -- early brawling segment, ponderous armwork by Dibiase and brass knuckles finish. Some of Patterson's bumping was okay, but nothing out of this world. They're not really proper matches, just the equivalent of a throwaway TV bout. As Jerry says, I'm missing the context, but it's more a case of not seeing how Patterson was the MVP than feeling that he wasn't.

Man, the Dibiase/Patterson matches I just watched were underwhelming to say the least. I can't believe we lost Brick over sub 10 minute past-his-prime Pat Patterson. And what's with his Australian sounding lisp? I'm not feeling this MVP stuff, but more power to your podcast.

Which points?

I always disliked that Four Horsemen logo.

I want to come back to this as I was dealing with a sick child yesterday. There is enough footage available to poke holes in Dandy's career, it's just that most people haven't seen it. Dandy is a new discovery for a lot of people and right now they're only watching his best stuff. With time people may develop a more balanced view of Dandy, though it's unlikely that they're going to watch a bunch of non-pimped lucha TV. Eddy has always been overrated largely because he was a favourite of so many during the Monday Night Wars era and his athletic prime coincided with the arrival of the internet. Then, after he finally adapted to the WWE style, he had that final run of his that was the icing on the cake. I like Eddy and I'm more than willing to be critical of Dandy, but Dandy's '89-90 peak ('91 really, but he was being de-emphasised that year) is a better run than Eddy had in his entire career and his post-peak years where he gained weight throughout the 90s had a far greater output than Eddy's New Japan and WCW years. Even on the indy scene from '01-04, Dandy was pretty much on the same level as Eddy. If Dandy had been in '89 shape and they'd pushed him to the cruiserweight title in WCW, instead of heavier and less athletic, it wouldn't make much difference to the comparison. I don't think Eddy winning the Best of the Super Juniors meant much, either. All it really amounted to was a title shot against Sasuke. I actually think it's Dandy's early work that's overrated. He was not a great worker prior to '88.

By this rationale, Ultimo Dragon was a better worker than El Dandy.

Enjoyed the Colon vs. Ayala feud. Ayala obviously wasn't in the same class as Hansen as a brawler, but they made up for it with plenty of blood. That shot of Colon at the end of the Texas Death Match with his face covered in blood and his features indistinguishable is one of the most insane images in wrestling history. The only match I didn't like was the Barbed Wire match. I didn't like the psychology of the heel being afraid of the gimmick and it took forever for anything to happen, then when it did the match was over. On the other hand, I was really impressed with their Loser Leaves Town match where they were able to work an excellent brawl without any props. Colon always reminds me of Harry Belafonte. He's not really a wrestler's wrestler in terms of his appearance, I find. He is one insane blader, though.

This was interesting. It didn't seem like anything else from the US in 1990. It was like a worked shoot cum puroresu love indie match a decade before you'd expect one. I didn't think it was all that well worked. Wilkins has always been average and the Kid still looked green to me. Some of the transitions were incredibly awkward and the selling was weak. Waltman wasn't really that good on the mat and Wilkins wasn't capable of carrying a guy there. Still, it was interesting to see tape watching experimenting this early in US indie wrestling.