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Yeah, amazing promo. He was gonna "jerk" out his eye but then reconsidered because he wants Invader to be able to look in the mirror and see his disfigured face after Terry bites his nose off. Terry coming to Dory's aid and throwing guys around ruled as well. And I'm with you on that Invader match. No way that wouldn't have been awesome.

Disc 3 so far has been amazing. Terry Funk working Puerto Rico is something everyone needs to see. Just batshit insane and awesome.

For a tag team I would never have thought of years ago as being a "workrate team," the Sheepherders could cut a real pace when they wanted to. I mean, they don't do a ton of stuff, but this was fairly lengthy and they went absolute hell for leather all the way (I don't have anywhere close to a complete picture of the Invaders, but those guys being able to work at this pace isn't surprising at all). The early shine period was a hundred miles an hour, the Invaders going after Luke's arm and working constant quick tags. There were some cool bits where Luke would make it over to his corner only for Butch to be jawing with a section of the crowd, thus missing the chance to tag, or maybe he would tag but the ref' would be distracted by the other Invader. It all got Butch Miller ranting and raving on the apron. When they eventually take over the pace doesn't dip, so we get a nice, frantic heat segment on Invader I, which was a cool change of pace from Invader III playing FIP. The last few minutes were pretty great as well. They do another semi-extended run after the hot tag with guys brawling in and around the ring, and there's an awesome spot where Invader I tries to hit a double bulldog, but the Pastores pick him up and crotch him over the top rope before hitting a spike piledriver. I think the match gets thrown out at this point but we get another few minutes of brawling and Invader III wrapping handcuffs around his fist and clocking folk. The Pastores trying to break Invader I's arm with a flag pole at the end looked brutal as well. Really good tag. It had your traditional southern style structure, but it still managed to feel plenty hectic even before things broke down at the end (then it felt REALLY hectic).

Man, Abby attacking Jovica with a fork before he's even taken his executioner's hood off is a heck of a visual to start a match with. Pretty sure this is the first time I've seen Jovica wrestle. He was mostly okay and he bled like a maniac. Like, dude is absolutely covered in blood after three minutes. Abdullah ruled yet again. He was a nasty bastard when he was throwing chain-wrapped fists and whipping Jovica with the chain, and at one point he even threw in a dick punch for good measure. He was really at his best when he was wailing in pain, though. Jovica would punch him in the ribs and choke him with the chain and Abby would squeal and snort like a dying pig. This also had a really cool finish. They would sort of trade "nearfalls" in the sense that each guy would touch three turnbuckles then be cut off just before touching the fourth, going back and forth a bit with that for a few minutes. Then Abby looks like he's put Jovica down for good, but at the last second Jovica yanks the chain up between his legs and Abby goes down shrieking in agony. Even the Butcher will go down to that old chestnut.

Yep. This delivered. Maybe the two MVPs of the set so far, and it met the lofty expectations such a match-up creates. Where has Eric Embry been all my life? I have no recollection of him being THIS good in Texas/USWA. He was phenomenal in this, though. Invader beat on him to start, with big clubs to the chest and an awesome flurry of punches while Embry pinballed all over the place, both inside the ring and outside. And of course Invader kicked him in the balls, because Invader kicks everyone in the balls. Embry would futilely try and crawl away, then he'd beg off and plead for mercy, but Invader would just smash his face into the canvas. This whole first spell was great, basically. But then Embry takes over - through questionable means, obviously - and the match goes up another few levels. In the previous Embry matches he worked mostly from the bottom and/or tailored his offence around cheapshots and brief flurries. This time it was like he'd reached his breaking point and all he wanted to do was beat Invader all around the building. He hits him with a chair, throws him into the ringposts, rams him into a big blue garage door, then piledrives him on a table, which is bonkers for 1986. Some old moo moo-wearing lady in the crowd even tries to take a kick at him. His headbutt off the middle rope looked great, but his falling headbutt from a standing position looked even better, like the Ted DiBiase fist drop of falling headbutts. He really lives up to that Mr. Piledriver moniker as well by absolutely drilling Invader with a jumping piledriver (in addition to the crazy one on the table). Invader bleeds through all of this and Invader taking a bloody beatdown is pretty much can't fail at this point. He is so, so good at it, with his jelly-legged selling and his wild lunges as he's trying to make desperation comebacks. They do a big double knockdown reset spot that Embry really leans into, and that serves as the catalyst for Invader's comeback, which was spectacular. As soon as he chucks Embry out to the floor everyone in the building goes nuts because they know it's payback time, and sure enough Embry pays in blood. The last stretch with both guys trading last-legs punches and punts to the balls and throwing each other into chairs and barricades was out of this world. I think this went about twelve minutes bell to bell and it was truly exceptional. Everything that was promised and my new #1.

I'm not really sure where to start with this one. I honestly don't think you could do this match anywhere other than in Puerto Rico. It starts out with them being a bit more hesitant, not trying to claw each other's face off straight away. I love how Abby backs Colon into the ropes and that entire side of the crowd are in uproar the instant Abby reaches down to his boot. The ref' is actually pretty great here, constantly checking to see if Abby hasn't pulled a fork from somewhere, really putting across how much of a menace he is. They throw a few headbutts, trade some strikes...then Colon gets a pencil from who knows where and stabs Abby in the eye! He's just digging this pencil into the eye, trying to gouge the eye out with his fingers, biting the eye. For the rest of the match it's basically Colon punching and biting and stabbing Abby while trying to rip his eye out and Abby just takes all of this and sells the crap out of it. At one point we even get some blood splatter on one of the ringside cameras. I actually started to feel sympathy for Abdullah the fucking Butcher because of the monumental fatboy shitkicking he was taking. This was like the time Token got fed up with all of Cartman's racist horse shit and just kicked fuck out of him on the Christian Rock Festival stage, except this Cartman is a psychopath (or more of a psychopath) who stabs people with a fork and Token kicked fuck out of him for twenty whole minutes. And the crowd eats it all up! The doctor comes in to check on Abby, Abby pushes him away because he will not die, so Colon goes back to punching him in the eye and smashing him with a wooden chair and standing on his head! Abby throws maybe six strikes the whole match. The rest of it is Colon abusing him. Relentlessly. There was one bit where Colon was peppering him with fists against the ropes and Abby was almost convulsing on his feet, bouncing off the ropes as if they were the only thing keeping him upright. I'm not sure how good this actually was, but it was one of the most engrossing, borderline-disturbing matches I've seen in ages. Maybe ever.

This was about as simple as you could get structurally, with one major momentum shift and both guys basically splitting the match down the middle in terms of who worked on top. I thought it worked perfectly well for them. The beginning consists of Brody beating Invader all over the place with Invader juicing and selling the blood like Invader does, though he doesn't hit an uber-gusher this time out. He tries to make his comebacks and he's his awesome scrappy self, but Brody fights through the blows and keeps on moving forward. Then Invader THUMPS him in the plums and Brody does this amusing sell where he walks around in a circle holding his nether regions before falling into a flat back bump. That's your one major momentum shift. Brody isn't great at selling, but he does give Invader the whole second half of the match; or maybe Invader TAKES the whole second half in spite of Brody wanting to be Brody. Actually, that's probably unfair to Brody, honestly, because he was decent enough in this, at times even pretty good. There's a great bit where he swings wildly and tries to grab Invader but Invader ducks away from it all and hits his double chop to land Brody on his keister in the corner. I'm not even sure that was an intentional bump -- I think Invader might've caught him off guard and legit rocked him. Eventually it spills out into the crowd and Invader chases Brody off with a chair in hand. Invader then gets hoisted up on fans' shoulders and paraded around the stadium like a king, which ruled. I enjoyed this. Even if it was kind of weird watching it knowing what would happen a couple years later.

Well damn. I never thought we'd get another scaffold match on the level of Dundee/Koko from the Memphis set, but this was a pretty fucking tremendous scaffold match. They also took it in a totally different direction from Dundee/Koko. That was mostly about shtick and Dundee using the tricks he learned working the high bar in the circus to scale and move around the platform. It was a little whimsical at times with some comedy thrown in. They never exactly beat the shit out of each other, because who in their right mind would want to have an actual wrestling match, never mind a full on brawl, up on a scaffold platform? Invader III and Chicky Starr, that's who. This started out a bit tentatively as you'd expect, with Chicky begging off and showing fear at being all the way up there, but pretty soon he gets busted open and it's like the blood forces him to cut loose. He knows that if he doesn't step up he might actually die, because that scaffold platform is HIGH and the guy he's on it with wants to throw him off it. Some of the stuff they did was batshit crazy. I've never seen anyone hit a dropkick in a scaffold match before, but sure enough Invader hits his all-time level dropkick and Chicky bumps himself almost to the edge of the platform. Invader hits a big vertical suplex, then they fight over a body slam at the shaky scaffold's edge and it's genuinely one of the most intense moments in a wrestling match I've seen in a while. I mean, if that goes wrong they are fucked. Chicky prematurely celebrating might've been a bit dumb, but Invader hanging on and dragging himself back up was impressive and Chicky's bump at the end was insane, like Batman dropping Sal Maroni off a balcony.

Man, this disc just keeps cranking out the hits. I thought this was an outstanding sprint and the second best match I've watched so far. The first half is a long babyface shine period and it was really excellent stuff. Invader I punts Chicky in the balls about thirty seconds in and every exchange between them makes me want to see that eventual blowoff even more. Ron Starr was on some Arn Anderson shit here, going from awesome stooging bump machine to stone cold killer after the heels take over. He hits a GREAT high knee, a bunch of suplex variations, a big running bulldog, viciously chokes Invader 3, and he and Chicky do the Beverly Brothers/World's Greatest Tag Team 'leapfrog onto opponent draped over the ropes' double team, which is never not a cool spot. Abby ruled yet again and I cannot believe how much fun he's been on this set. He just keeps getting better and better, doing something new in every match that I don't remember seeing him do before. This time he gets tangled up in the ropes Terry Funk style while Colon punches him, then later on he grabs Invader 3 by the mask and repeatedly headbutts him. He picks him up and body slams him onto the top rope, holding him in that position so Ron and Chicky can choke him and dig him in the ribs. Invader I's two-handed chop to the throat is such a good signature strike, the way he really springs forward and extends the elbows like he's trying to crush a guy's trachea. I liked how it was teased early that he'd end up being worked over, only for III to immediately rush over and drag him back to the babyface corner to make the tag. Crowd comes unglued for Colon's hot tag, and I like how ultimately it came down to him and Abby duking it out in the ring while the Invaders and Starrs brawled almost all the way into the dugout. Post-match Abdullah must've thrown a kilo of salt into Colon's eyes and I love how the ref' sold like he got caught in the crossfire. This is really my kind of wrestling.

Hell of a tournament final. This was reeeeeal good and my favourite tag so far. Eric Embry was fucking excellent yet again -- he's someone I kind of want to do a deep dive on at some point now. He comes into this with a bandaged up head and the badage gets torn off inside about a minute, and the cut the bandage was there to protect is opened up again less than a minute after that. There are a few times later on where that cut comes back to hurt him, like when he hits a headbutt on Davis and sells it like it did as much damage to himself as it did his opponent, which I thought was pretty damn cool. He was also the main recipient of the babyface shine early on and I about lost it when he got fed up and just booted Davis in the nuts (he does it again towards the end and Hugo on commentary assures us that, despite Bobby Jaggers telling us it was a kick to the midsection, it was definitely a boot to the "testicle area"). We get a bit of double FIP action in this as well, and the long heat segment on Davis was really awesome. Crusher is a bit of a stiff and miscues a few things a little, but otherwise he's fine throwing kicks and big knees. Embry doing his thing is enough to cover for him, anyway. I loved him tripping over as he came in to try and prevent the hot tag. I loved him selling exhaustion on the apron. I loved his piledriver. I loved pretty much everything he did in this match. I also loved the finish, and the crowd go absolutely apeshit for it as well. Like, the place is rumbling, the camera shaking, people in the crowd jumping around hugging each other. And then Embry assists his valet post-match in piledriving Wendi Richter after he and Crusher ruin the RnRs' title presentation. Long live Eric Embry.

The Invaders have been really good on the set so far, but this is the first chance to see them work a tag together that didn't involve barbed wire and buckets of blood. They're pretty great at it. All of the early babyface control stuff was good, especially the way they'd work the arm and make quick tags, everything looking super smooth and crisp. There's also the running story of Invader I having beef with Chicky Starr and Chicky wanting no part of him. Invader III plays face in peril here. In the awesome match with Embry he was mostly about the big offence, but he was strong fighting from the bottom in this. I don't really have a ton to say about this specifically since I watched it a couple nights ago, but you had a good babyface team against a good heel team and it resulted it a very good tag match. That's about the bare bones of it.

Another fun RPM's southern style tag, though I liked this one more than the Greer/Kent match. This had a better heat segment on Lane as well, primarily because the Zambuies had some killer fat guy offence and Lane bounced around admirably for all of it. There was one weird bit early on where Muhammad kind of stood with Davis in a headlock waiting for something to happen with Akeem and Lane, but for the most part he and Akeem threw their ample weight around and tried to squash folk. Davis hit another couple great looking dropkicks and I bet the pop at the end would've been thunderous. The camera literally shook and people were going ballistic for the RnRs, which took me aback a little because I had no idea they were so over.

Nice, short, southern style tag. I'd never seen Greer or Kent wrestle before, but Kent was part of the Fabulous Kangaroos team that I kinda wish we had some footage of (or maybe we do and I just haven't been made aware of it yet). Greer apparently lost a hair match not long before this but instead of going fully bald he decided to keep his ridiculous rat tail ponytail. The RPM's were a pretty fun second-rate RnR Express here, with Lane playing Morton and Davis playing Gibson. Davis' running dropkick was awesome, just blasting Greer who took a big bump into the corner. We've had southern tag formula on the set already, but this is the first time it's been presented in its purest/most Americanized form. It wouldn't have looked out of place as a Great American Bash tour opener, for example.

Well, I loved this. Abby has been hugely enjoyable on the set so far (loved the bonus Abby v Al Perez match where Abby is an AMAZING bastard), but this time he really blew me away. On the surface it doesn't feel like he works a whole lot differently in PR than he did in Japan or Texas or wherever else he popped up. He still has the fork. He still bleeds. He more or less still has the same offence, with the elbow drops and the thrusts to the throat. But in PR it all feels like it's done with a little extra piss and vinegar. His thrusts and kicks are a little quicker, his elbow drops a little meatier, his headbutts a little stiffer, and on top of that he seemed to add a bunch of other mean looking shit to his repertoire. The close-up camera shots make all the fork-stabbings look even more nasty than usual, but there are times where, if the fork isn't close to hand, he'll just start gouging peoples' eyes or biting their ears (and I cannot stress enough how much the camera work adds to the ghoulishness of it all). In the Perez match he stabbed Perez in the head with the fork, then he whipped out a bag of salt and threw it in the cut! It was crazy. And man, some of his facial expressions in this were awesome. There was one bit where he was using the bottom rope to try and strangle Colon, while biting the middle rope and staring out at the crowd all bug-eyed and demented. Colon really is the perfect Abby opponent. I've seen Abby matches where his opponent will let him do just about whatever he wants, and it can lead to Abby doing a ton of fork shtick and not a whole lot else. There's no real urgency to what he's doing. When he's not made to work for it, it's not nearly as fun. Like, I get that Abby is a horrible creature who stabs people with cutlery just because he wants to, but it's better when you get the sense he's resorted to the fork because maybe he feels like he needs to. Colon makes him work for it, and when Abby pulls the fork out the boot it feels like he needs it to weather Colon's assault. That the ref' managed to actually grab it and take it from him this time, which led to Abby needing to find another way to take control, was another one of those cool wrinkles in this match-up. It's also a match-up with a ton of great payback spots. Abby takes control by punting Colon in the balls, so later on Colon punts Abby in the balls right back (though this is PR, where everybody punts everybody in the balls). Abby had his fork confiscated early in the match, but later Colon pulls out a fork of his own and stabs Abby in the stomach, then towards the end Abby somehow produces ANOTHER fork and carves up Colon's forehead. Eventually the ref' takes a crazy bump to the floor and Colon and Abby brawl around the place for a while before there's a Dusty Finish, which then leads to more brawling and stabbing. I had an absolute blast with this. Loved it.

I love how everything in Puerto Rico is just so much more NASTY than everywhere else. No other wrestling territory does disgusting close-ups of someone getting barbed wire sawed into their face like Puerto Rico. I fucking love this promotion. In true Puerto Rican fashion this had someone bleeding from their forehead inside the first minute and a half, and then about twenty seconds later we get our first close-up shot of Colon digging barbed wire into the cut on LeDuc's head. LeDuc was pretty fun in a Luke Williams sort of way, like how he'd take a punch and bump either back or throat-first into the barbed wire. He takes over with a kick to the balls, which is another Puerto Rican staple, and that leads to a truly grotesque spot - complete with close-up camera shot - where he jams the barbed wire in Colon's MOUTH. I don't know if Colon popped a blood capsule or bladed his mouth like a complete fucking crackpot, but there was a bit later on where he was drooling bloody saliva while LeDuc tried to garrote him with a line of barbed wire. I wouldn't call this a great match by any stretch, but it was a spirited brawl with a few pretty gnarly spots thrown in, and nobody works the barbed wire like they do in Puerto Rico.

For a six minute extended squash, this was fucking tremendous. I'd seen a couple Invader matches before watching this set, but I had pretty much zero recollection of how good he may or may not have been. This is his second singles match on the set, though, and I already feel comfortable saying he's one of the best blood loss sellers I've ever seen. Kamala basically chops him in the head for the entirety of this and Invader just bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. By the end he's an absolute mess, but the selling is what really does the blade job justice. Sometimes guys will hit a total gusher and visually it'll look gruesome, but they don't really sell it to put it over the top. Like, they don't do anything differently than they would have had they not been bleeding all over the place. If you're a bloodthirsty vampire like myself then the blood alone is usually enough to keep you happy, but you'll appreciate it when someone goes the extra mile. Invader goes the extra mile. He stumbles and staggers, can't quite stand up properly, tries to fight back, but it's an uphill battle when he's losing blood like he is. The more he loses the weaker he becomes, the less he can put behind his blows, and on top of it all Kamala is relentless. Kamala was actually really fun in this as well. He's mostly about throwing chops, but he shows some vulnerability when Invader makes his brief comebacks and at one point he licks up some of Invader's blood Pirata Morgan style. I might end up overrating this on the final ballot, but it felt like one of the best matches of its ilk I've seen in a long time.

This was your traditional southern style tag with a Puerto Rican twist. There was no real babyface shine at the beginning. Instead, everybody just brawled in and around the ring before it eventually settled into a Perez Jr.-in-peril segment. Colon was great working the apron during this. Like, really great. I'm a total mark for guys making it look like they're desperate to get in there and save their partner or generally start wrecking the heels' shit, and that was Colon in this match. At several points he decides he's seen enough and comes in and headbutts someone, which then prompts the ref' to try and get him back out so the Pastores can work some double teams on Perez. It wasn't always smooth, but it worked, and if anything the ref' not always being in perfect position added to the tumult. We saw Colon in a few different roles on disc 1, but this is the first proper look at him playing genuine hot tag. Shockingly enough it's another role he's good in. It's a shame the dubbed over commentary drowns out the crowd a bit because there's no way they wouldn't have been molten for the cartwheel upon entry and the extended stretch of babyface offence afterwards. And that's the second Puerto Rican twist. Rather than going straight to the finish after the hot tag - or even working back and forth for a spell - the whole last stretch is basically Colon and Perez wringing out every bit of comeuppance on the heels that they can. The Pastores bump and stooge, the babyfaces exact revenge, the crowd go home happy. Fun match.

Okay, while Chicky/Invader I felt like two thirds of an awesome match, this was the WHOLE of an awesome match. I honestly haven't seen a ton of Eric Embry. He was all over the last disc of the Texas set where he was really fun, and I remember loving the Lawler match, but he was playing scuzzy-looking-yet-easy-to-get-behind babyface in that. This wasn't that Eric Embry. This was Eric Embry being the biggest shitbag imaginable. He was so great in this. It was like he made the conscious decision to try and annoy people with every single thing he did. I loved all of his early stalling, very deliberately calling the referee over to tell him there was some hair-pulling going on, refusing to properly engage Invader until he's good and ready, making obnoxious whiny faces even John Tatum would scoff at. Even when he was selling he'd be making faces that made you want Invader to hit him again, only this time a little harder. Then when he was on top he'd pat himself on the back for everything as if it was a victory unto itself, like when he grabbed Invader's mask and used it to yank him into a headlock, whooping at the crowd because this was obviously something worth celebrating (of course he shit himself when Invader got out of it two seconds later). In the back half of the match there's a spell where Invader works over his leg, and even though the leg work gets dropped eventually it doesn't stop Embry from selling it right through to the end. Invader might not be Liger or Pierroth in terms of masked wrestlers expressing themselves through body language, but he has some killer offence. His dropkick looked awesome, he does this cool wishbone spot where he headbutts Embry in the stomach to stop him from sitting up, he does a super slick roll-up, and down the stretch he was throwing out all sorts of cool stuff. The stretch run actually felt like something you'd see in a Ric Flair title defence, with Embry playing the Flair role of trying to hang in there while Invader pushes to put him away. Every move Embry kicks out of ups the heat a little more, then he spills out to the floor, dazed and confused, and Invader screwballs him into the barricade with a bullet tope. Great, great match. The best on the set so far.

This was like two thirds of an awesome match. The fact it's not the whole of an awesome match isn't so much the wrestlers' fault; it's more the dreaded JIP/clipping and booking of the finish that hurt it. We're joined in progress with Chicky beating on a bloodied Invader out on the floor, almost doing a hyperactive, Nick Bockwinkel-esque King of the Mountain bit. Invader is stumbling around bloody, beating his chest to rally the crowd - and motherfucker do they rally - but Chicky keeps rolling out and cutting him off. When Invader manages to make it into the ring Chicky just chucks him right back over the top rope, with Invader's bump hitting an 8.6 on the Randy Savage scale. People are hucking all sorts of garbage at Chicky and Chicky is amazing in the way he prances around in the face of it all, just absolutely reveling in this contempt. Chicky working an armbar after the early shellackings is a bit of a downer, I guess, but he makes sure to lift Invader's head up with a handful of hair to show the crowd his bloody handiwork. I think we get a commercial break just prior to Invader's comeback, which is annoying, but man does Invader know how to work a comeback. He adds just the right amount of desperation and frenzy into his shots, half staggering backwards after one connects, then leaping forwards again like he's putting everything he has left into the next one. He hits this awesome looking two-handed chop to Chicky's throat and the crowd erupts and...then Chicky bails. Literally gets out the ring and runs away. And there's your count out, folks. On the one hand it's a pretty deflating finish considering it looked like things were about to get REALLY real, but these two have other matches with higher stakes on the set, so I'm gonna look at this as something to set the table for what's to come. And it was a damn fine table-setter.

Yeah, Puerto Rico was a massive blind spot for me and I had almost no idea what to expect going in. I'm only just past the May '86 Colon/Abby match so I've got about 95 matches still to watch, many of which feel like potential top-ballot types. And I'm absolutely loving all of this. Guys like Invader I and III, Chicky Starr and Colon who I had no real opinion of before have been awesome. Ron Starr, who as far as I could tell had pretty much no rep to speak of, has been in two matches so far and I've loved him in both. Abby has been unbelievably fun in everything and he might actually be the guy I've enjoyed most out of everyone so far. Before this I was neither here nor there on him. Eric Embry has shown up twice and been phenomenal both times. The crowds living and dying with the bayfaces, the grizzly close-up camera shots, everyone punting everyone else in the balls, Hugo and Jaggers on commentary -- just ridiculously fun. And I haven't even watched any of the extras yet.

Man, Murdoch and Lothario matching up is a dream match I never really thought about before. This should be good.

Invader I using laminated eye hole coverings to offset Fuji throwing salt is so great. It already feels like there's going to be a ton of potentially awesome matches and feuds in the first half of the decade that we'll likely never get the chance to see. This, of course, is a hell of a thread, and a huge thanks to Boricua for doing it.

Bobby Jaggers' little laugh on commentary is great. He did it about seven times during the "bonus" Perez/Abby match on disc 2 and it set me off laughing every time.