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[1992-04-03-CMLL] Blue Panther vs Love Machine (Mask vs Mask)


Loss

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 10 months later...

Even when I first got into lucha and was chucking at least ***3/4 at everything I saw that didn't involve Konnan, I didn't love this match. And I still don't love it. Good wrestling, and I wouldn't call it anything skippable, but it feels really mellow for a mask match. There's a mask/hair match from these two on youtube that I'm going to check out, hopefully I'll LOVE that one.

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  • 1 month later...

Yeah, for a mask vs. mask match it felt like some of the venom/desperation was missing. Seen little of these type of matches so I was quite shocked at the ending. Seems like a pretty big brain fart to lose a mask match on DQ because of tombstone piledriver in front of the referee. I would guess not many of these mask matches are determined by DQ finish.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Love Machine had no end of charisma and looked competant on offence. Was his selling always this bad though? Panther was a top class worker. They had the crowd going and it was a fun match before the extremely anticlimactic finish. One of those ideas that might have looked okay on paper.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I'm firmly in the camp that doesn't see this as something incredible, primarily due to the finish. Machine has great to start and the crowd is definitely into this with a big match stipulation. Barr turns up the heel antics in the second fall and is DQ'd for using a martinete, which gives Panther the victory. I would've loved this as a finish to Panther winning a fall, but not deciding the match. It felt very flat and anti-climactic.

 

Barr unmasks and does his own version of Funk's '83 Budokan promo post-match. This was definitely on track to becoming something great but the finish really brings it down.

 

***1/4

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  • 3 months later...

I'm the exact opposite of everyone else--I thought the ending and post-match were done brilliantly and didn't think the body of the match was anything at all. I was left staggeringly unimpressed by Barr, whose offense looked incredibly loose and sloppy--and incidentally he looked ridiculous with his pom-pom mask. Love Machine is well on his way to evening up the match when he forgets what country he's in and levels Panther with a tombstone piledriver, costing himself the match and his mask. Barr throws a fit afterward and tips Panther over on the stretcher and beats him down some more, which was the highlight for me. Eventually he capitulates and unmasks, and gives a pro-Mexico speech which is pretty jarring to hear. I would think losing that mask would be seen by Barr as CMLL doing him a favor.

 

This is an historic match that's the first Yearbook set-up to When Worlds Collide, so I'm glad I saw it on that basis. I just hope Barr looks better in the future because as a between-the-bells worker he didn't offer a lot besides his mannerisms.

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  • 1 year later...

Loved the story of the match. Barr was really picking up steam on offense for the first time when he got carried away and hit an illegal piledriver. With so much on the line, the humongous crowd watching (apparently the place was so pack, 8,000 fans were watching on a big screen in the parking lot), Barr only working in the country for about a year...he simply forgot. Amazing.

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  • 1 year later...

No, not amazing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

The only reason this finish ranks above Steamboat/Rude at SuperBrawl is because Barr eventually realizes his stupidity and tries his best to make up for it with the speech at the end. Who thought this mess up, anyway? What the hell is so brilliant about it? It would have been brilliant if Barr had decided that losing his mask was worth the satisfaction of sending Panther to the hospital and deliberately piledriven him. But to book an obviously talented guy like Barr to lose so ridiculously and then expect him to get over as anything at all in the future? Barr might have had a brain fart, but the booker had a full-blown brain movement, if you will.

 

As Eagle said above, maybe this would have been acceptable as a finish to a fall, but not to a match. I don't know enough about the context of the bout to go off like I did on Steamer/Rude, but rest assured, I'm just as bothered. I'll be even more bothered if Barr doesn't recover well from this.

 

Was that Norman Smiley in Barr's corner?

 

Barr should have fired the guy who came up with the ridiculous tassel mask. Why they didn't have Panther try to pull on it at some point in the first fall to illustrate why wrestling with it could be dangerous to Barr, I don't know.

 

I liked Barr giving the American flag to the old lady. I wonder what she did with it.

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  • 11 months later...

#267 - placetobenation.com/countdown-top-500-matches-of-the-90s-300-251/2/

 

This was alright. It would have made more sense for Blue Panther to be pulling on that tasseled mask the entire time. It seems like the heated bit of the feud was based on the fact that Love Machine had pulled Blue Panther's mask off during previous match and tossed it into the crowd. I feel like Panther should have grabbed those tassels and beat him senseless until he pulled that masked off teaching him a lesson in respect. We do get the callback to a previous encounter right off the bat, which I liked, where Love Machine is beating Panther's head into the ringpost on the outside. Eventually, Panther returns the favor. But, I just didn't feel the heat I was looking for (outside of the ringpost spots). It was quick, and the finish was out of nowhere. It didn't make me feel like it was a big deal to Love Machine for him to be losing his mask (during the match). Anyway, not a classic in my eyes.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1992-04-03-CMLL] Blue Panther vs Love Machine (Mask vs Mask)
  • 3 months later...

I didn't think much of Barr at all based on this match.  I've seen very little of him and I didn't think his offense or selling did him any favors here.  His rudo mannerisms and post-match promo salvaged this.  Put me in the camp that doesn't think there was enough hate for a mask/mask match.  Also seemed like Barr was working a very American/Japanese style while on top.  Not sure if that was on purpose or not.

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