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Psycho bomb throwing war which has to go down as the carryjob of the year. Vampiro was basically a stiff trying to be a video game wrestler here. However, his recklessness may have added to the match as he seemed to be self destructive hitting moves (e.g. knocking himself loopy with his own suplex, injuring his leg hitting a spin kick etc). It really adds to the suspense when you think this washed up drug fiend is going to blow his knees out any moment. Whenever Vampiro was in danger of getting lost, Bucanero engaged in some vicious brawling. I especially loved the segment on the ramp that started with Bucanero just clocking Vampiro in the back of the neck. He also had some really great brief work on the shoulder. The whole match made sense and was never boring as they just kept doing bumps and dives. The one weak point was Vampiros superman comeback which knocked the match down about 15 places in the MOTY list.
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Ah, 2002, when Shocker was a great worker. I really liked the brief opening matwork, with Shocker flipping around and Guerrero catching him in a great flash Fujiwara Armbar. 2nd fall was short but had UG working Shockers arm over with hurty wristlocks and takedowns. Then Shocker made this great comeback and trying to boot his head off. Shocker looked damn good here, even throwing a great punch combo. The 3rd fall was your typical UG end run where they exchange big dramatic kickouts. Not my favourite thing but it was awesome to watch these two crush eachother with huge chunky guy highspots.
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The best pure brawl of all time, IMO. One of the big reasons is that it is so different, completely rejecting the standard structure and themes of 2/3 Lucha brawls and 80s US bloodbaths. This was all about Satanico willing himself to stand up to master brawler Sangre Chicana. Satanico is working from underneath but he is still a rudo and doesn't hesitate to resort to dirty tricks including an awesome eye hook. Chicana uses cool psychological tactics to gain the advantage. Felt like an incredibly gritty yet strategic fight and where they are trying to claw and maim each other but remain somewhat cerebral in their approach even as the intensity ramps up. Includes the best punches ever thrown in wrestling, out of this world great selling from Satanico and the best use of a non-finish ever. Satanico is THE wrestling genius and Chicana is an all time great brawler and so they were able to construct something so unique and great. A breath of fresh air and a big middle finger to the formulaic American and Lucha brawls we keep seeing a millions times. ****5/8
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This was a pleasant surprise, as I'd actually listed this match in a thread about videos you hope surface some day. It's nice when your hopes get answered but even better when what you hoped for more than lives up to your expectations for it. El Felino and Mascara Magica got over thirty minutes at Arena Coliseo to have a great match. That was it--no clipping, no rushing, and the promotion actually gave them a bit of controversy to help the match feel bigger. It was one of those title fights where they actually set out to hurt each other. The holds in the first fall were tough and hard fought, in addition to being technically very good, but it was afterwards that they turned things up. Fans of working a body part even got the kind of payoff they love when Mascara tried to catch Felino in the same hold he'd won the first fall with and couldn't lock it in because of the damage inflicted on his arm. Eventually Mascara wiped out Felino with a somersault tope and just barely made it in the ring before the ref got to twenty, but he got counted out on the most technical of technicalities: he didn't get his foot back in under the rope. It was a brilliant screwjob. Mascara threw a tantrum (and continued to complain even after the match had ended and it was well past the point of being inappropriate), and the commissioner decided to settle things with a fourth fall. This brought out the big Felino spots that I'd been dreading--they're a lot like what you hear about Kurt Angle's big spots--but after twenty plus minutes of intense technical wrestling, they were tolerable and maybe even kind of good as the finale to a contest like this one. The Youtube description calls this the best performance of Mascara Magica's career, and I have no dispute with that (although I do think he's pretty underrated), but this is the most I've ever liked Felino, too. Usually he annoys me, but he was great as the veteran of the match. He was better than usual working holds and he seemed so poised. Even the cheating, which often feels like cheap heat when in a title match or coming from Felino, felt like desperate moves that he had to sneak in. Top five match for 1996 CMLL, in my opinion.
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Long, quality lucha that told a story. Early on Emilio Charles Jr. gets the better of Azteca during a wrestling exchange. Of course Angel takes great offense to this and immediately goes after Emilio. Azteca going out of his way to ram into Emilio with a huge forearm while in the middle of a rope running exchange with Espectro was straight out of the AJPW playbook. Of course Emilio Jr. makes him pay dearly later when he slaps the hell out of him during the beatdown. That along may have been the highlight of the match along with Aztecas bumping, including flying with his back into the edge of the ring apron. Of course Super Astro and Kung Fu also do lots of fun wrestling. Astro is such a trip to watch with the insane height on all flying moves, while Kung Fu manages to not suck doing his faux martial arts stuff and hitting weird/cool kicks, punches and leg trips. We also get the awesome and devastating tope to the floor from Super Astro aswell as Emilio Charles Jr. not falling for The Star. -
Arena Coliseo Guadalajara in the early 1990s reused a lot of older, somewhat famous gimmicks. They had updated versions of Los Gemelos Diablo, El Jalisco, Torbellino Negro and probably plenty of others. The Ciclon Mackey in this match is probably one such character, as the original wrestled in the 1930s and supposedly hailed from Ireland, whereas this one does not appear to be in his eighties or nineties and is called a local by the announcers. With four guys I knew were good and one who'd been fine in the few matches I'd seen from him, it was Mackey, who I knew nothing of and lacks even a Luchawiki page, who I guessed might be a weak link in this. Instead this was a match that was about him and he made it count. He beat the hell of out his fellow Ciclon with some of the best headbutts I've ever seen as rudo offense, and then when it was time to turn the tables he was up for some big bumps in return. The star of the match was Ramirez, though. I know he was featured in a big feud with Felino around this time, but talk about an underused talent. His selling consisted of these amazing contortions, both on his bumps and while writhing around on the mat, that I doubt anyone could match except possibly Emilio Charles. It turned a simple head to the turnbuckle spot into a devastating blow. Later on he gave everything back, actually went further than Mackey did, throwing a row of chairs on him and smashing the man's face into the ringpost. In the third fall they slugged it out before dropping to their knees to exchange headbutts. I watched pretty much all of the Ramirez vs Felino stuff from 1993 and I can tell you that nothing that awesome happened in any of those matches. Only Javier Cruz managed to tap into this side of Ciclon Ramirez in Arena Mexico. He probably was best suited for small arena brawls like this, but was too talented for that and ended up getting signed by a company that ensured that fans decades later would get to know who he was. Fiera contributed some crazy bumps that he didn't really need to do on a show like this in a match that wasn't even about him, and Espectro had maybe my favorite sell of a quebradora ever. It's interesting to me that this went back to back with a bloody rudos vs rudos match that had a lot of the same elements, like guys picking up the chairs. You'd think the booker wouldn't want that, because then the crowd wouldn't react as strongly for the main event, but it didn't stop the fans in the front row from giddily offering their seats as a potential landing spot for Mackey. I know Ciclon Ramirez is a bit of a cult figure, so his fans might be pleased to know that this was actually part of an extended feud between the two Ciclones, and a rare chance to see Ramirez as a central figure in anything outside of the neverending Felino feud. They were in six mans on the two shows after this, but either that was it or the final showdown wasn't on TV. Even the Youtube comments (well, one Youtube comment) wondered where the blowoff was. Oh well. Ciclon doesn't fly, and I can't imagine anyone getting tired of watching that man do his dive, but after a fight like that I didn't even feel cheated. -
This got four stars from whatever kind of crazy person rated Arena Coliseo Guadalajara matches back in 1992. Knowing nothing of any of these six men I expected some kind of crazy flying display with everyone wanting the match to steal the show. It was not that. Poseidon is not a tecnico with a flashy costume, he is just some guy. He's got a black singlet on and he blasts people with elbows and digs his foot into the torn eyehole of his opponent's mask. La Araña Atomica was a Spiderman ripoff long ago (or he might have been the son of the Spiderman ripoff actually) but in 1992 he was dropping chairs on Torbellino Negro. This was rudos vs rudos with blood, a DQ for some kind of metal spike, and nonstop violence up until the end from a bunch of guys I'd never seen before. It wasn't the most focused match, because there wasn't one major matchup, so you didn't have one specific guy or pairing to pay attention to, but they compensated by having something interesting/violent on screen at all times. I didn't like them finishing with dives, though. Not very befitting of rudos vs rudos. To whatever moderator approves these, I guessed with the formatting of the Gemelos' names, but I don't know what they were individually called. The date could be wrong too, as this supposedly aired on a Wednesday, September 2 1992 was a Wednesday, and wrestling shows didn't usually air live or a full week behind, but I figured I'd just stick with the luchadb date.
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I didn't expect to see a solid Match of the Decade contender at this point, but this was it. Just an incredible match, if CMLL did this kind of story based intense pro wrestling more often there would be no stopping the company. The psychology was sharp as a knife, early Virus working over Metalico with shots to the head followed by a control switching dive sequence felt straight out of 90s AJPW. The struggle and nearfall sequences where top tier and as good as it gets in lucha. I realize I'm sounding a little generic here, but they worked so many fine details into the back and forth, combined with a determined Metalico giving it all to take down the trickiest wrestler in the world. I haven't seen as much Metalico as I probably should have but he was great here as the aging gunslinger who would throw fists and fight tooth and nail. Even his sloppiness added to the match. Virus was as classy as usual. Every counter was incredibly well executed and perfectly timed, with some great struggle over holds and pins thrown in. Loved the constant punch outs which gave the match a feel like somebody would have to be KOd for it to end. Gotta love the fact they made suicide dive feel this epic in 2019.
