Ok! I am trying more lucha to see if I can deal with this 80s set without being an annoying nuisance. This time Gran Cochisse vs Satanico - 9/18/84. I am going to try to do a write up as I go. This could get painful. I feel like Parv watching a best of Kamala comp here.
I have no context at all. I'm going to make an ass out of myself Great. Let's go.
I like that Satanico's second has the a mask that fits the second of a guy named Satanico. I liked how both guys posed with the belt. The VQ is a little rough but thankfully they're dressed in a way I can tell them apart easily, so I'm doing pretty well already. That is "stage one." as Dylan put it. Early jockeying for position leading to a waistlock by Satanico and it's a nicely worked waistlock too til Cochisse gets out using momentum and leverage. As they move to a head scissors/pin back and forth I get the feeling that regardless of how much or little I'm going to like everything else, I am going to love the matwork on the set for the SAKE of the matwork. We get some extended Satanico control stuff with the arm with a really cool counter til Satanico just hiptosses Cochisse to hell. Oh Cochisse's rolling waistlock thing is kind of cool and it's there to set up a cradle. They're really just feeling each other out here. There's a lot of the prototypes of more flashy/complex tosses and throws and whips that come years later and I kind of like it better this way. It feels like there's more effort behind it. This is still very back and forth including the prototype of a prototype of the 2000s indy reset. If there's a narrative i'm not quite grasping it. Cochisse seems a bit quicker and Satanico a bit stronger. Nice fly mare that sends Cochisse out but there's no dive. Instead, he comes in, back body drops Satanico and goes for a victory roll only to get dropped on his face and slapped in a cool submission for the first fall. i felt like I was following everything there but I'm still missing the context to really make it mean anything outside the vacuum. It seemed like it was really back and forth, Santanico got one big move but Cochisse got the upper hand immediately thereafter and went for a big pin attempt too early and got caught and lost the fall.
Moving on to the second fall. They get right to it. I've been watching portland matches with fairly sizable breaks. Presumably Satanico is going back to where he targetted with that submission and his arm/shoulder work is all pretty cool and nasty looking. I particularly like the headbutt into the shoulder. Cochisse sweeps a leg and does a quick short elbow drop that was almost too low. His arm's hurt though and Satanico's right back on it. He's really stalking his opponent with measured, dickish offense. I can get behind that. It's a bit too measured though and Cochisse reverses, twisting Satanico's arm and driving him to the corner. He's still selling his own, so good on him. He keeps on the arm and keeps selling his own. Everything seems really measured to me. It's minimal but it makes every move resonate more. Great grapevine on a standing armbar but Satanico powers out and just waistlocks Cochisse down cruelly. They end up teasing JYD headbutts before picking up the pace, doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't resonate nearly as much and having another standoff. One thing I do like in this exchange is that when Cochisse armdrags Satanico, Satanico does a momentary sell while getting up which allows Cochisse to keep the momentum and set up his next move. It's all very quick and subtle but it makes everything very believable. This is how Cochisse eventually gets him out.
He gets a couple of quick and nice looking flying headbutts and dropkicks when Satanico finally gets in and then hits that victory roll that cost him in the first fall but he uh, well, he helps Satanico roll him back over which lets Satanico take over. Was he going for another move out of there or something? Anyway, Satanico hits a slam, gets a two count. Satanico goes for another slam off the ropes but gets rolled up and Cochisse takes the second fall out of nowhere.
Third fall starts with Satanico offering a handshake. Cochisse is dubious because a guy named El Satanico is offering him a handshake. Cochisse slips around and knees him in the spine before hitting the world's slowest spinebuster. Satanico sells it as if his kidney exploded. Sorry that was the world's second spinebuster. He does it again and this time it's the world's slowest one. Satanico makes it work by selling his head like his bell rung allowing for Cochisse to do this cool fireman's carry cradle pin which more people should do. Satanico takes a break in the corner but it doesn't last. He gets slammed into the corner and he's still selling his head like doom. Ha! Cochisse starts slamming his leg over it again and again and again while holding cross arm breaker. The contact lets Satanico slap on a... I guess we'll call this, I feel like an idiot, but it's kind of a Brocklock. I'm going to say he was playing possum with the head. Cochisse uses his foot, locked behind the arm to power his way out. Cool stuff. Then he slaps on a crazy over the back surfboard thing. It's not really a sustainable submission though and Satanico cradles his way out and then does sort of a tiger back cradle roll up. Cochisse kicks out and slaps on a Gory Special. The best part is when he flaps Satanico's arms and Satanico rolls him up out of it again, which is a pattern. Both guys sell the damage hard before Satanico goes back for another pin. Cochisse gets him into this driving neckbreaker submission and I'm wondering how Satanico will turn it into a pin. He doesn't. It's just a hip toss. He tries to put Cochisse into the turnbuckle but with GREAT effort Cochisse reverses it. He then tries to bulldog Satanico out but gets flung into the ropes only to leap up and hit a cross body for a two count. This is all pretty good finishing sequence stuff. They're putting enough oomph into things and fight and meaning that I would buy a fall at just about any point here.
Satanico pushes him into the ropes and goes for a charge. Cochisse jumps up and drops down and it almost looks like Satanico gets him in the groin by accident. Cochisse still gets up first (I guess a near miss), hits a dropkick, misses a dropkick as Satanico moves away dickishly. Satanico goes for a complex cradle. Cochisse reverses and goes for an inverted surfboard but Satanico leans back and we get a very close nearfall. Cochisse tries to catch Satanico in a roll up off the ropes but Satanico drops down and we get another close nearfall. Cochisse dropkicks him out of the ring and then off the apron and then hits the dive which means a hell of a lot twenty-something minutes in. Couple more flying headbutts and another tight nearfall. Huge slam off the ropes and a submission attempt that Satanico blocks. Cochisse hits another big slam and that was a little repetitive but he misses the senton. Satanico tries for a submission but gets knocked off. Lots of slow motion shoulder blocks until Satanico moves and locks on a sort of spinebuster of his own straight into a submission for the win.
I think maybe I needed a little more context. I probably should have watched the August title change first. This was good. I followed it. There were things in the match that built. I'm not sure if the build matched the payoffs and the payoffs matched the build. I did especially like the second fall. I'm not sure I saw much in this match that I'd consider objectively great relative to, let's say all of the two/three falls matches with Buddy Rose I've been seeing. And that's a high watermark, yes, but this match gets a lot of praise, so I'm not going to compare it to something i don't think is good. Certainly if I started with the best AWA matches of the 80s, I probably would have liked them more, but I gained a lot in watching both all of the matches leading up to them and also a lot of the TV that went along with them. That's not a luxury I'm really going to have here.
