[1993-12-17-FULL] Gran Hamada vs Villano IV

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I have no idea why Villano IV uses Whitney Houston's "Queen of the Night" as his entrance music, but I find it really, really funny for some reason.

 

We wanted to include at least one match from FULL, and on paper, this looked to be the best one. And it's definitely a good match. There's nothing wrong with it. But there's not really anything great about it either. Hamada has been in plenty of better matches for sure, and Villano IV may have been too. Think about your three-star undercard match from the Nitro era, and that's about where this is. It's more tempered than a Nitro match, so I'm not comparing the work style, more just the end quality.

 

The top rope shoulderblock is in general one of my favorite moves that almost no one uses. Kobashi, Butch Reed, not too many others that stand out. Hamada does a beautiful one here. The falls are counted in a way more consistent with lucha pacing than Japanese pacing, but the psychology is Japanese all the way.

 

Worth seeing for the novelty of it, but not so much as a hidden gem.

[Kevin Ridge]

This match looks to be taking place in SMW at one of their high school gym shows. Those noise makers are annoying but it is a spirited crowd. Average match that I won't remember much of.

[PeteF3]

The dude with the cowbell had me thrown WAY off--it sounded exactly like the old World of Sport bell and I kept thinking it was the end of the round. Also, the lucha announcer clearly says this match is dos de tres caidas sin limite de tiempo--the standard 2-out-of-3-fall stip, I guess out of habit. So once again I was bemused by Hamada winning a fall and then guys piling in to award titles and trophies. What we're left with is a standard good undercard match, not really a main event one. Hamada is supremely talented but he does tend to be samey--he's pretty much required to get in his wind-up headbutt, his back body drop counter, and his pop-up huracanrana. Villano IV was more interesting.

[garretta]

Other than a couple of chair spots from Villano (to establish him as the heel, I guess), this match was rather sedate. Both guys worked well, but as Kevin said it's nothing I'm going to remember in a few days.

 

I heard the ring announcer say that Hamada was the WWF light heavyweight champion. Did the WWF still officially recognize that title? I know they never brought Hamada (or any other light heavyweight champion) stateside, but did Vince or his people have any influence over how the title was booked, or did they just take money from the Mexican promoters for the use of the name?

 

Was FULL a Mexican promotion or a Japanese promotion? I noticed that they had a Spanish-speaking ring announcer and a Japanese ring announcer, and I heard a few announcements during the match in Japanese.

 

I liked the ref instructing the wrestlers in how fast his counts were going to be before the match started. You'd think more promotions would do something like that, but If they did how could refs get heat for overly fast (or slow) counts?

[Tim Evans]

WWF didn't start acknowledging the light heavyweight title till 1997. It was brought to Japan in the mid 80's I believe and they just used the name until WWF made them stop when WWF started using it. Also FULL is a Mexican promotion that is still around to this day run by Tienblas Jr. I think Hamada was apart of it back in the early 90's which is why he used the name.

[garretta]

Thanks for the info, Tim!

[soup23]

Agree with much of the comments here that this was decidedly good but not much more than that. Some of the strike exchanges were good and Hamada did some great dives but overall this was just a well done lucha match performed in front of a foreign crowd that was receptive. *** (6.2)