[1991-09-12-Hamada's UWF] Los Ninja Turtles & Robin Hood vs Shu El Guerrero & Jose Luis Feliciano & El Texano & Black Terry & Ricky Boy

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Great match with all sorts of awesome exchanges between Robin Hood (a Brazo brother, who gives a superstar performance) and the other team, who were great athletic bumpers. It was cool to see this given so much time, and this was the most luchaesque match I have ever seen in Japan. I'd be interested in hearing more thoughts on this from lucha novices, because I agree with Phil that this feels like a really great intro match.

[PeteF3]

Luchawiki tells me that one of the Turtles (this particular group of Turtles--there were of course two separate lucha Ninja Turtle stables) *was* Robin Hood. Now I'm extra-confused, and it leads me to deduce that the remaining Turtle in this bout has to be Chris Champion. The Turtles looked great, with Michelangelo in particular throwing a bunch of nifty armdrags in the second fall, and Robin Hood threw some awesome kicks and showed some good charisma. In addition, I've developed great appreciation for just how difficult it has to be to wrestle in that Turtle gear.

 

But...I simply didn't find any of the rudos to be that interesting. They have a loooong 5-on-1 on the various technicos in the second fall, and we get the downside of the 2/3 fall format--"We all know you're winning the second fall, just PIN the guy." The third fall picks up with a spectacular dive train and Robin Hood getting the tepid crowd warmed up when he's got Shu one-on-one. The rudos did more than Fujinami did in the previous bout but this still felt like a one-sided Turtles/Robin Hood showcase. It's a good match, but an overlong one if this is all the heels were going to provide.

[BackToBionic]

It was Champion.

[Kevin Ridge]

Copyright infringement! Too bad they couldn’t get Corey Feldman on commentary. I was hoping for some tag team moves from the Ninja Turtles movies to make an appearance. No four turtle shell shock like they did to Tatsu? That would totally translate into this match. I think Pete nails it for me in the problem with the rudos just not coming across as much.

[Rock_Of_Jericho]

This was pretty interesting. I gotta give those guys props for wrestling in that Ninja Turtles costume. There were some nice exchanges, but like a poster above, I wasn't very impressed with the heel side of the match. It was fun and memorable, but felt like an overly long exhibition match and showcase for the Ninja Turtles.

[pantherwagner]

I remember being puzzled about Robin Hood back in the day. I think the original Tortuguillos were Rocky "Onita" Santana, Robin Hood, Gallego and Danny Boy. All of them pretty good workers. Then I think Lasser got the gimmick when Robin Hood went back to that name. Pretty sure about 30 other guys were under the mask at some point or another, though.

[soup23]

Fun ass match. Lots of wacky stuff going on surrounded by the turtle gimmick but the action was still hot and featured some neat armdrags and a super dive train in the final caida. The crowd seemed to really get into this and so did I.

[Alan4L]

I just discovered this match and google lead me to this thread. I absolutely loved it. Robin was oustanding - his little shuffle fire up dealy after the dive series was the greatest thing I've ever seen.

[garretta]

Almost everyone else has said what I was going to. I applaud the Turtles for not only wrestling in those suits, but being as athletically impressive as they were while doing it. This was booked as a kind of exhibition match for the Turtles and Robin Hood, and they shone as expected, to the point that I'm still not sure who all the heels were.

 

When I saw that a group of Ninja Turtles was wrestling on this Yearbook, I thought back to a match I saw on Will's Smoky Mountain set between a guy in a Ninja Turtle costume and Jim Cornette. This was back when Corny was trying to get himself over as a top heel not only out of the ring but in it, for the simple reason that he couldn't count on anyone else to show up for a given card. At any rate, the guy in the suit looked absolutely terrible, and not just because Corny booked himself to be in control. He could barely do anything except lay around in chinlocks, and if I'm not mistaken the bout ended in a DQ against Corny, so there wasn't even a clean pin.

 

I expected something similar in this match, and I don't mind saying that I wasn't looking forward to watching it. Boy, was I surprised. Not only was there thrilling athleticism and high flying, but plenty of brutal strikes and good brawling, culminating in Robin Hood taking a double crotch job on the ringpost. The dive train might have been the best I've ever seen, and didn't feel like a rote spot at all. I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have a dogpile pin with all four Turtles instead of a Robin Hood submission win, but that's my only problem with this match. It's the best I've seen so far from a promotion that I just haven't been able to get into before, and I hope we have at least one more match out of it to see if this one can be topped (I'm betting it can't).

 

Was Champion really one of the Turtles? If so, which one? We know it wasn't Cowabunga!

[dawho5]

I'm gonna be the lone dissenting vote on this one. Not into it. I'll agree the rudos didn't bring a lot to the table. They should have cut off their 5 on one stuff in less than half the time they took. Robin Hood did take a ridiculous floor bump after being crotched on the turnbuckle after the second fall though. Really nasty looking. Dive train was pretty incredible, but I just wasn't into the rest of the match. I do respect that they did what they did in the costumes. May have to revisit this.