DISC 3

[goodhelmet]

DISC 3

Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (Hair vs. Hair) (7/30/84)

El Satanico y Espectro Jr. v. El Faraón y La Fiera (8/12/84)

Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84)

Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (Hair vs. Hair) (9/21/84)

Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84)

Satanico vs. Super Astro (10/84)

Javier Cruz, Impacto y Solar II vs. El Dandy, Franco Colombo y Panico (10/84)

Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraón vs. Villano III (Elimination Match) (10/84)

Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (10/84)

[Exposer]

Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (7/30/84) –

This was a great, great match and I liked it more than the Satanico-Lizmark match. This does suffer from a poor finish. Koshinaka attacks Satanico before the bell and works on his arm the entire first fall. It’s nothing too great from his side but Satanico’s escapes and struggle is worthwhile. I liked how it ended with a back slide which sort of goes back to the arm work. The second fall has the match changing pace and moving towards the blood. Satanico has his leg worked on briefly which he sells for the rest of the match. He makes a comeback and bloodies Koshinaka. Satanico is really great at building fatigue and selling it as a match goes on. He’s pretty remarkable at it. Satanico gets Koshinaka with a cradle for the second fall. The third fall is tremendous with Koshinaka getting a payback spot and bloodying Satanico. Then we have both guys doing a really great job of selling the damage done. They throw everything at each other but the kitchen sink and it’s great, great action mixed in with top notch selling until the shitty foul finish. The post-match was fun too but damn if this match had a good finish it could have been even better. As it is, it’s a really great match.

Four and a half stars. It’s a solid A and close to an A+. Great, great, great match.

[Exposer]

El Satanico y Espectro Jr. v. El Faraón y La Fiera (8/12/84) –

The VQ on this was distracting but man this was good as fuck. La Fiera was insanely great in this throwing mean punches, bloodying Satanico, kicking ass, etc. Satanico is really a fabulous worker. He knows how to sell fatigue better than most wrestlers I’ve ever seen. His body language is excellent which I think really makes his selling. He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen at it. The first fall beat down of Satanico was great. It’s quick but sets the stage for the rest of the match. The second fall is full of Satanico selling, Espectro coming to the rescue and failing leading to his mask getting ripped apart, and then a tremendous finish with Espectro taking an insane reverse tombstone on his head. The third fall was incredible with Satanico and Espectro mounting a comeback and brawling on the floor commences. The finish of this match is the finish of the set so far with Satanico being too beaten to make a full comeback and getting crushed with a face buster. Then, fucking La Fiera misses a tope and splats on the floor. I mean it’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. He goes full force and fucking wipes out on the concrete. Faraon says fuck it and launches himself at Espectro taking him down for the count and getting the win by count out as he tremendously tries to revive Fiera in the ring. This match had some issues with video quality and I agree something felt missing. This is going on the re-watch list because I thought it was fucking great from what I could put together.

I’m giving this between four and four and half stars. It’s an A- for now. I really liked the high points of this a whole lot and La Fiera’s bump was my favorite of the set. Great match.

 

Also, It's obvious the VQ is bad here but there seemed to be something missing in this match. I'm sort of confused a little. There was clippings? Maybe a jump or two? And how much was taken out? Just curious, because with those additional pieces this could be one of the better matches on the set so far.

[Exposer]

Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84) –

This is Satanico’s career performance. I have a lot more to see of him but this is going to be hard to beat. I don’t know if I like this better than MS-1-Chicana. It’s really tough to say. I might have to watch these matches back to back once I finish the set to decide. I do think the story told here is more interesting. From a stylistic standpoint this match has a great mixture of everything. This is a title match so there’s not really any brawling but it has excellent mat work, excellent exchanges, and has the best build of almost any match I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if there’s a spot in this match like the first punch from Chicana in the brawl but I think the closest thing to that and maybe equal to that is when Cochise knees Satanico in the back on the handshake in the third fall. The character reversal is something that’s extremely hard to do in wrestling. Satanico does that here. His frustration early on sets the tone for everything else. It leads up to the reversal of roles. He’s unable to gain control and it’s terribly frustrating him to the point where he starts to lose focus. His mannerisms and expressions are awesome in this. I actually believed he was fighting for a championship. He’s still able to catch Cochise with his smarts and with the arm hold to win the first fall. The second fall has Satanico working over Cochise’s arm and he starts to get his confidence back. However, Cochise is game and turns the tide and pays Satanico back by working on his arm. This lets us know that Cochise is playing Satanico’s game. He’s checkmating him every time too. They sell their arms really well here and go back to the fast pace exchanges. Satanico sees that the arm work doesn’t work and tries to take Cochise on in Cochise’s game. This ends up being a big mistake and Cochise wins the second fall with a small package off of a body slam attempt from Satanico. Then the handshake spot happens. The crowd is livid at Cochise. He fucked Satanico over at his own game. The third fall is on another level from pretty much anything else on this set. Satanico is down. Cochise goes for the kill and just destroys Satanico with holds. He does everything in the playbook and more. Some of these holds are incredible. The best sequence here is when Satanico is audibly screaming in pain on that reverse arm bar and turns it into that wild leg hold but gets eventually overpowered by Cochise. Then the plancha spot comes. Satanico desperately ducking for cover is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in a wrestling match. It’s such a small thing to do but it means everything. Cochise still gets him with a plancha though. Then, they go back in the ring and have this slow tease towards Satanico’s victory that is something else. Satanico goes for all of these holds but Cochise keeps throwing him off. The last sequence is incredible. Both guys are running the ropes selling their asses off and I actually believed Satanico had some serious back injury he was moving so lightly. Then, Satanico finally wins on his feet and traps Cochise in a submission that goes back to the arm work. Cochise fights hard to survive but can’t hold on. The post-match is awesome too with the true handshake and the fan carrying Satanico off on his shoulders. This is either number one or number two. Either way it’s one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen.

Five stars and A*. Satanico put on a top five performance in wrestling history.

 

EDIT: I sort of want to make something clear. I was stuck in the second fall about Satanico's frustration. He really does have a great relaxation to him in the first fall. He did seem to start to get a little frustrated in the first fall but his full on frustration didn't come until the second fall. So, really we have him relaxed in the first fall, frustrated in the second, and desperate in the third. That's incredible storytelling.

[Exposer]

Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (9/21/84) –

This was a totally different match than their classic. It has a similar beginning with MS-1 jumping Chicana early on but there’s no blood involved. Both guys are really great selling and they are as good as ever here but what was so unique about this match is how it was worked around dives. In the first fall, Chicana comes back after an initial beating and does a great spear head dive off the apron. He wins the fall with his cool looking leg/arm lock finisher. MS-1 sells his arm for the rest of the match which is awesome. The second fall is a pissed MS-1 getting back on offense and taking full control by hitting his own dive and winning the fall. The third fall has MS-1 working over Chicana’s neck. MS-1 brings the intensity here and is really vicious targeting Chicana’s neck. Chicana makes his classic comeback spot with the haymaker punches. Yeah, his punches are top five, top ten all time for sure. The finish of this is tremendously great with MS-1 getting sent to the floor on a big punch and Chicana hitting an awesome dive that literally sends MS-1 flying into the fourth or fifth row. Chicana wins by count out and poor MS-1 has to get another haircut.

This is somewhere right underneath four stars. B+ range. It’s a very good match with an awesome finish but it was a little too condensed in my opinion.

[Exposer]

Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) –

Well, here’s our first look of Villano III on this set and Perro hasn’t been around in awhile. I was really impressed with Perro in this match. He had great impactful offense, good facial expressions, good selling, and was very good on the mat in a defensive sort of way. I loved the way he would head butt or knee Villano III to try and escape holds. He’s great at struggling to find ways out as well and his mannerisms are good. I liked Villano III in this for the most part but I was highly annoyed with his no selling of some of Perro’s high impact offense. He’d just pop up and go to the next spot a few times. The first fall was awesome with the mat work being great and Perro crushing Villano III with offense. That top rope double stomp was nasty as fuck. The second fall is good with Perro unloading more great offense but Villano III mounting a comeback and forcing him to submit to a wacky arm submission. The third fall is fucking great with Perro desperately avoiding the same submission and being a cocky bastard and nearly costing himself the match by lifting a prone Villano III up during pinfalls to do more damage. I loved both guys taking all sorts of high risks moves. It kept the match very interesting. The last few sequences were off in execution and suffered from some poor timing and I didn’t like the double pin finish but the post-match was tremendous. Perro and Villano III wrapped shirts around their fists like boxing gloves and fought. Then Fishman (Perro’s second I believe) assaulted Villano III’s wimpy second. Afterwards, the fucking fans stormed the ring and tried to rip off Villano’s already torn mask from the post-match beat down and the announcer slid into the ring and the kids scattered. That ruled.

This was a pretty great match but it had its flaws. I liked it better than the previous MS-1-Chichana match so I will give it four stars or so. It’s definitely a B+ and maybe even an A-. Great post-match too.

[Exposer]

Satanico vs. Super Astro (10/26/84) –

This is similar to the other Satanico bloody title matches and it’s another great one. Satanico seems like he’s pretty good on the mic. His charisma is really engaging when I talks and I want to know what the hell he’s saying. Satanico begs for a handshake then blindsides Astro with a knee. He just knees the fuck out of Astro and throws him head first into shit. Satanico is so great at casually being a dick. Astro’s comeback in the first fall is awesome as they just go a hundred miles an hour and Satanico keeps up Astro. The ending of the fall is great with Satanico moving out of the way of an Astro move, gloating about it, then getting hit with a flying head butt for the pin. The second fall is great with Satanico bloodying Astro and punching, kicking, and biting the cut. Then he starts ripping up Astro’s mask to expose the cut more. He forces him to submit to tie it up in the second fall. The last fall has Astro making a comeback and bloodying Satanico. Astros head butts are fucking awesome and I loved the sequence where both guys were brawling on their knees and Astro kept bouncing back from those vicious kicks to head butt the fuck out of Satanico. The last few spots are tremendous with Satanico awesomely stepping out of the way of an Astro aerial attack and watching him splat on the mat. The finish is good with Satanico mocking the crowd in shit with Astro in a hold only to get caught in a hurricanrana cradle for the Astro win. Satanico is livid post-match and his reactions are great.

This was another tremendous Satanico performance and great match on his banner 1984 year. After some thought I don't think this was much better than the previous match. It's about four stars but I'm putting this at B+. It's still a very good to great match.

[Exposer]

Javier Cruz, Impacto y Solar II vs. El Dandy, Franco Colombo y Panico (10/84) –

Well, Dandy-Cruz rules. These two brought the great in this match. Solar II brought some good too. The other guys were good when they got some time but the focus of this match was Dandy-Cruz. Everybody had awesome punches which was cool. Dandy’s bump to the floor early ruled. Then we had Cruz taking a tremendous beating and the best posting ever in which he looked like he was shot out of rocket into it. Dandy’s high impact offense in this looked lethal and his top rope senton is fucking brutal. The last fall is full of awesome punching exchanges between everybody and Cruz taking a few wild bumps. This goes into elimination mode and we’re left with Dandy-Cruz. Cruz has Dandy on his shoulders but runs to the second turnbuckle and falls back with an electric chair. Cruz gets the win for his team and Dandy has to be carried to the back by his partners. This was a lot of fun.

The Dandy-Cruz exchanges were enough to make this over three stars. It’s around a solid B. There’s missing parts of this I think which hurts this a bit. I wanted more out of this but it was still very good.

[Exposer]

Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraón vs. Villano III (10/84) –

I wisely read the other reviews to put the pieces together about the rules of this match. I’ve got it down pat now. The first couples of minutes were fun with guys getting their heads smashed into aprons. Then we got Perro-Faraon which was a fun little match-up. Some of the strikes were good in this and I loved Villano III being a fucker and costing Faraon the match. Chicana-Villano III was pretty much the same as Perro-Faraon, short and to the point, but it had an awesome finish with Chicana blasting Villano III with a dive to score the win on a count-out. The following showdown between Perro and Chicana was tremendous. Perro beats the fuck out of Chicana quickly and bloodies him. Some of his punches and kicks were brutal. Perro takes the first fall but Chicana comes back in the second and posts Perro. Perro’s bleeding now and getting his kicked. Chicana makes Perro submit to his finishing hold. The third fall is off the charts great with an excellent call back to earlier in the match where Chicana hits a dive and almost wins via count-out. Then we have both guys crushing each other with punches and Perro missing his top rope front flip which is great. The finish is awesome as Chicana is gives Perro what he wished for with a huge punt to the balls. The post-match is fun too with the fans crowding the ringside area and chanting “Chicana.”

This started out slow but this was all about Chicana-Perro. It was great final portion of the match. This is about four stars or so. It’s a B+ to an A-. Great and fun stuff.

[Exposer]

Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (9/28/84) –

I like the green from the rudo team here. MS-1 was real sharp in this match. He took a couple of great tumbles to the floor and had some awesome exchanges with Mendoza. Satanico’s fast paced exchange with Atlantis in the first was the highlight as they just went balls to the wall. It was really impressive stuff. The entire first fall was made up of fun exchanges. The second fall has a great beat down on Salazar with the rudos doing some cool triple teaming and working great together to put him away. They take out Mendoza afterwards to tie up the falls. The third fall is good but it was a little too disconnected at times as it was just one guy getting beat down followed by another guy coming in to beat the previous aggressor down etc. It was too repetitive for my tastes even if the exchanges were good. The tecnicos get the win on a triple sunset flip pinfall but Satanico is pissed and rips Atlantis’s mask off.

I liked the rudos in this a lot. I had some issues with this structurally and this also didn’t feel on the same level as previous trios matches on the set. With that said, this is still a very good match and falls in the three and a half star range. I think it’s probably somewhere between a B- and a solid B. Very good match.

[ohtani's jacket]

Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraón vs. Villano III (Elimination Match) (10/84)

Skip all the stuff at the beginning and head straight to the Chicana tope on Villano III. That has to be one of the best topes I've seen. An absolute bullet that was made even better by the camera being fixed on Villano III on the outside, and Chicana rocketing into frame at a million miles an hour. For a guy who's mostly known for brawling and selling, Chicana had an awesome tope and the big gamble on a tope suicida is something that really fit his character.

This was a four way elimination match featuring Perro Aguayo against three of his biggest rivals at the time. It came down to Perro vs. Chicana, one of the best match-ups in lucha history if not all of wrestling. Watching these two work is fantastic, even in a match like this where they're essentially holding back. I love the theatrical spin they put on every bump and every bit of selling.They get so much mileage out of the kick-punch style that typifies 80s lucha brawling. The nuts and bolts of what they're doing couldn't be simpler, in fact it's very Memphis-like the way they're able to weave a compelling narrative around knocking each other to canvas. I also love how the highspots are missed or teased more often than they're hit. The message is clear on the big tope bailout and the DQ finish: nothing's settled here, but if the crowd's lucky they'll get that hair match sooner or later.

[dawho5]

Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka 7/30/84

 

Satanico playing de facto tecnico?? He's surprisingly awesome at it. Kosh is all over him and won't let up, then wins with one of the more slick backslides I've seen, playing off of the earlier arm work. Satanico bloodies Kosh and is just as merciless, but to the fans delight for a change, to even things up. Kosh gets ervenge and bloodies Satanico worse and we're off to the races. I thought the finish was fun in an odd way. A rudo claiming foul and it actually _was_ a foul by the other guy. Certainly not what I wanted, but fun.

 

El Satanico y Espectro Jr. v. El Faraon y La Fiera 8/12/84

 

Satanico jumps Faraon to make sure he's not going to get too much sympathy later. Faraon gets the two on one beatdown until Fiera comes flying in and it's Satanico's turn to take a beating. And we get another Satanico as the de facto tecnico performance that is amazing. His punching comebacks in this match are second only to Lawler's that I've seen. He comes up a little short and ends up taking a brutal looking double team to really piss off the crowd. Espectro looks to be making a comeback, especially after he makes Fiera miss. Fuck me, Fiera really doesn't care if he kills himself out there. I need to see more of this crazy dude. Faraon, like any good rudo, takes advantage of an opening and splats Espectro for the countout. Faraon trying to revive Fiera while Satanico is just laying there next to both and Espectro is dead on the floor is such a great, great finish. If this didn't have video issues it may be my match of the set so far.

 

Gran Cochise vs. Satanico 9/14/84

 

First fall was really good with Satanico finally capitalizing on arm work despite Cochise fighting back. Cochise gives the armwork right back and both are selling it extremely well. Third fall both guys do such a great job of selling the exhaustion and damage done so far. Great chess match style work also, with a few attempt -> reversal -> reversal into the intended move spots that play really well for me. I think Exposer nailed it when he said "it looks like Satanico really is fighting for a championship." The dive spot and the tease beforehand was really brilliant. This is behind MS1 vs. Sangre Chicana and right on par with Mocho Cota vs. Americo for best on the set so far. Satanico is so great at walking that line between evil bastard and a guy you really want to get behind because he just refuses to quit despite the odds. To me his selling is great not just for the obvious reasons, but because he does just enough of it to be more of a "tweener" type without crossing over into the territory of being a tecnico. Oh, and that knee to the back by Cochise was pretty brilliant. I still think it would have been hard to pull that switch off with anybody besides Satanico.

[dawho5]

Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (Hair vs. Hair) 9/21/84

 

Shorter than their earlier match. I really like MS1 as a brawling rudo. The finishes of caidas 2 and 3 work really well together, especially with that nutty bump MS1 takes off of the tope. MS1 selling that tope forever didn't hurt either. Not near as good as their match on disc 1 though. Still a lot of fun to watch.

 

Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo 10/7/84

 

Perro's offense is all kinds of awesome. I liked how the matwork had a different feel to it than previous mat-based encounters. That double stomp was a great way to end the fall. Perro going right back to the midsection was good psychology. I kind of wish Villano had taken a few moments here and there to do some long term selling of the ribs. Finish is a bunch of garbage, but the post-match brawling kind of makes up for it?

 

 

Satanico vs. Super Astro 10/84

 

Okay, you know how I mentioned Satanico is great at getting just enough sympathy to not be a complete rudo? Yeah, that's not how it goes down here at all. First he gets in the much shorter Super Astro's face and talks a bunch of shit. Finishing up with a gesture involving grinding Astro's face into the mat with his boot. And immediately offers a handshake once the match starts. Which he gives cleanly....then starts to viciously kick and knee Astro repeatedly. And then bash his head into anything handy. Astro makes the big comeback bid only to get cut off, but Satanico is gloating and ends up getting caught. And proceeds to throw a fit, fucking great. Second caida Satanico beats the fuck out of Astro more and starts biting and ripping the mask after he can't get it to come all the way off. What a great, great beatdown. Some of Satanico's punches are just brutal looking. Anyway, on to caida 3 where Astro is all over Satanico with the revenge biting. Satanico's face is covered in blood, he gets up and finds that out for himself. And gets royally PISSED OFF! The back and forth contest to see who can work the cut over more is on! The brawl on their knees was really great stuff, with Astro really shining despite getting his face beat in. Satanico is all kinds of pissed off after the rana pin and the crowd lets him have it. Sounds like they set up another match between the two post-match (it's hard to tell) that I'm psyched to see!!

 

Satanico is really making a case as a GOAT caliber wrestler in 1984. He's got a lot of variety in his performances.

[dawho5]

Javier Cruz, Impacto y Solar II vs. El Dandy, Franco Colombo y Panico 10/84

 

I was a big fan of Dandy ducking Cruz right up until the advantage was there. The beatdown on Cruz (mostly by Dandy) was all kinds of awesome. Impacto and then Solar coming in to save Cruz from the beating was really good the way they did it in stages. Dandy is really incredible in this with the HUGE floor bump, the big sentons, the knee drop to the apron and the awesome punches. His exchanges with Cruz late were really awesome. I also liked him getting a little irritated with his bigger partner for constantly hitting teammates early on. Cruz brought the fire for his comeback and I dug how long it took and the struggle involved for all 3 tecnicos to put away their tormentors. Given how dominant the rudos had been, it seemed right. The finish was awesome, with Dandy selling big even after the match for Cruz's big reversal. Wish there was more of this on tape, because what is there is damn good.

 

Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraon vs. Villano III (Elimination Match) 10/84

 

I don't know that I'd skip all the great early brawling leading up to that tope mentioned by Exposer. These guys all knew how to throw a punch and were going toe-to-toe for a short while. The tope is possibly the most glorious dive I've ever seen. Loved how nobody could keep their nose out of what was going on after the 4 man fall. Chicana bleeds big again and Perro is incredible working him over. The punching comeback from Chicana is as awesome as you would expect. Third fall is gritty as Hell. Loved the dropkick Chicana threw after hitting the ropes. And both of them beating the shit out of each other. Chicana catching a foul kick and responding in kind is another cop-out finish, but they make it work. I'd rank this fairly high so far, but under the cream of the crop.

[dawho5]

Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. 9/28/84

 

I thought a lot of the exchanges not involving Satanico and Atlantis looked really awkward. There was one punch exchange involving MS1 that was really good in the third caida. Some excessive repetition drags this down a lot. Two of these came about two minutes apart, which made them stand out. Match followed a good story, with Satanico refusing to face Atlantis on even terms. Atlantis finally gets the better of Satanico in the third, ending with the final sunset flip for the cover. Looks like this was meant to set up a singles match between Atlantis and Satanico and it works for that. Definitely not one of the better matches on the set even if it was fun.