Mocho Cota

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Jetlag]

Maybe the discovery of the Lucha 80s set, with two classic title bouts, great work in tags and awesome character work. Cota is one of those faces made for pro wrestling. He still had plenty left in the tank for his 90s run as old guy, so there's a lot to check out.

[ohtani's jacket]

His 90s stuff needs to be reevaluated as there was at least one trios I watched recently where I thought he gave a great performance. I really want to see the Casas hair match from '94. I doubt he has enough matches on tape to crack this list unless you go for sheer ability was a performer and then he belongs in the the conversation.

[Childs]

I'd love to see some '90s recs on Cota.

[pantherwagner]

Cota was one of those guys that was a fast forward guy back in the 90s. That's why when Alfredo Esparza found the first Rocca vs Cota match it was such a holy shit moment. It would be worth revisiting some of his career but I don't know if I'd like to be the one doing it. His 80s stuff is mostly outstanding.

 

Back in 1996 or 1998 I'd have laughed at all of you if you had told me that La Fiera was the third best worker of the Chicana/Cota/Fiera team and that it wasn't even close.

[Matt D]

I'll take a look at what's online if I can find it.

[Phil Schneider]

I found the Rocca v Cota match. I DEMAND MY PROPS

[pantherwagner]

You are absolutely right Phil, for some reason I thought that was from the stuff Fredo got when he bought Mike Tenay's tapes.

 

If we ever meet I'll buy you as much beer as you want just for that.

[ohtani's jacket]

First bit of the Cota/Casas feud has surfaced -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-430-vintage-negro-casas-of-the-day-8/

[BillThompson]

His 80s set work impressed the heck out of me, I'll definitely have to seek out more of his 90s work to see if the high quality of his 80s work carried over.

[goc]

Not sure if this is well known or not, but in looking for his 90s work you'll have to start after 1993. I was wondering why he seemed to just drop off of the 80s set and be nowhere in the results for the 92-93 Observers I've read and just came across this bit from the 6/7/93 Observer:

 

 

Mocho Cota, who returned a few weeks ago after a four-year absence, had been in jail during his absence from wrestling.

[JerryvonKramer]

Total dude. Cota has a realistic shot of my 100.

[Matt D]

Cota was still awesome in Fall, 1993. I'm going to do some matches next week on Segunda Caida nominally as part of a Lizmark vs Satanico feud, but Cota totally stole the show.

[pantherwagner]

 

Not sure if this is well known or not, but in looking for his 90s work you'll have to start after 1993. I was wondering why he seemed to just drop off of the 80s set and be nowhere in the results for the 92-93 Observers I've read and just came across this bit from the 6/7/93 Observer:

 

 

Mocho Cota, who returned a few weeks ago after a four-year absence, had been in jail during his absence from wrestling.

 

 

Yeah. His skills deteriorated a lot after his comeback.

 

Odd to think that out of the Cota/Fiera/Chicana trio the latter was the most decent human being (decent in relative terms compared to the other two I guess).

[ohtani's jacket]

Cota was still awesome in Fall, 1993. I'm going to do some matches next week on Segunda Caida nominally as part of a Lizmark vs Satanico feud, but Cota totally stole the show.

 

Those matches were building more towards Cota vs. Latin Lover than Satanico/Lizmark. It's a shame Cota bailed before the hair match as the Cota/Lover feud was better than you'd expect. I went off on a tangent about 90s Cota the other day -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-448-vintage-negro-casas-of-the-day-12/ In a nutshell, I think he was better than people thought at the time, but not as good as the top rudos.

[Matt D]

Yeah, I actually bailed from the Lizmark match and I'll be doing the Infernales match from 9/30/93 instead for the third match of the week.

 

I can see how he was a poor fit in the age of workrate, as you put it, but I love the guy even in what I'm seeing in 93.

[goc]

 

Cota was still awesome in Fall, 1993. I'm going to do some matches next week on Segunda Caida nominally as part of a Lizmark vs Satanico feud, but Cota totally stole the show.

 

Those matches were building more towards Cota vs. Latin Lover than Satanico/Lizmark. It's a shame Cota bailed before the hair match as the Cota/Lover feud was better than you'd expect. I went off on a tangent about 90s Cota the other day -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-448-vintage-negro-casas-of-the-day-12/ In a nutshell, I think he was better than people thought at the time, but not as good as the top rudos.

 

I just watched the Cota/Silver King vs. Dandy/Casas match and thought it was a great rudo performance by Cota. The match wasn't all that good but I came out of it liking Mocho Cota even more than I did before. Just a great job at being a total prick to everyone in the match, including his own partner. Is the Mocho Cota vs. Negro Casas hair match out there anywhere?

[ohtani's jacket]

Lynch has a copy. I don't think it's been uploaded yet.

[goc]

Well that's out the window because I'm about as broke as you can be. Maybe one day.

[Matt D]

Lynch has a copy. I don't think it's been uploaded yet.

 

I'm buying that thing if I can figure out how. I made that decision earlier today actually. You can ask Loss. I bugged him to check for me.

[goc]

That is a fantastic idea! I would very much like to read your review of it along with the accompanying footage on youtube

[alexoblivion]

The hair match is really good and worth the six dollars. There's also quite a bit of Casas/Mota trios, though the best one is online.

[alexoblivion]

For those who are interested, I put the hair match online. Reactions to it should be interesting. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to upload it to YouTube and had to upload it in two parts.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2sp92t_micheldeghelderodepart1_travel

[Matt D]

I just got to watch it a couple of days ago but haven't had time to figure out how to do anything with it yet (was planning to this weekend), so good on you for sharing with the class.

 

My main takeaways were that it was a wonderful beatdown on Casas for basically the whole match, which started with bloody violence and moved on to using limbwork to create openings; great selling by Negro Casas, perfect asshole offense by Cota, and way way way too stilted a comeback to justify it all. It's a frustrating match for what it could have been. Everything they do is great but it's just not enough. A lot of that is because it was just one fall, I think. There was a sense that Cota was vulnerable and all it'd take was one good shot from Casas but there wasn't ENOUGH of that sense to make it work.

[alexoblivion]

I think you summarized the positive and negatives pretty well. I initially had the same frustrations, but after watching it a few times, I still think it’s really good. I think they went an interesting direction and gave us a more thoughtful match than we would have gotten with the Latin Lover hair match. No doubt it would have been a good bloodbath though. It’s also a match I think very few are capable of, and it feels unique to me. Looking at results and what’s on tape, I’m thinking it might be the last big singles match that made tape for Cota.