[1979-01-19-Houston Wrestling] Jose Lothario vs Gino Hernandez (Cage)

[shoe]

Jose Lothario vs Gino Hernandez 1/19/79

This is a Texas Death match in a cage and it's amazing. Lothario threw a great punch. Gino shined him up real good.Lothario working the arm was great. Gino bumped big,had a good elbow. This was super hate filled. Gino's knee drops were vicious. Watch this match Asap if you're a fan of smart work. They did an amazing job of miliking the drama. 4*

[Phil Schneider]

This was a steel cage (called a fence match by Boesch) Texas death match. Bix mentioned this was available before, but I had never heard about it or seen it, so it was new to me. JIP after the first fall, but we get almost 20 minutes. Classic bloody 70s/80s cage match. Hernandez was a revelation, bumping, selling, bleeding and landing some big shots. Both guys were really good at milking drama out of 10 counts, Lothario is a simple wrestler but he has great expressiveness, awesome punches and pretty good old man bumping. I liked the finish a lot with Lothario going tailbone and spine first into the post, as a counter to a nasty neck crank. Felt like something which might paralyze someone, and definitely should have kept him down for 10. Great, great cage match, Gino is the guy who is going to get the biggest reputation boost from this footage.

[shoe]

Having this complete now made this even better. Jose early on trying to fuck up Gino's arm in response to Gino breaking his arm at an earlier date was great. Jose's attempts at messing up Gino's arm was nasty. Having the 1st fall really srt the table for the rest of the match. 4 1/4*

[FightingOkra]

The simplicity of this match mentioned above is spot on. There is no need for a highlight package to keep track of a meandering storyline, all Boesch tells us is that Gino broke Jose's arm and he wants revenge. The arm holds Lothario uses are move I have seen countless times but they looked so much more painful in this match, which may be the fact that the holds have meaning and depth within the story.

 

Having avoided spoilers for most of these matches I was quite surprised to see Gino winning. I can't wait to see how they top this to blow off the feud.

[Jetlag]

I watched this match and I was blown away by how good the psychology in this bout was. It felt like an AJPW heavyweight bout structure in a violent 70s style revenge massacre. That and the fact that they kept this interesting and high in intensity over 25 minutes was damn impressive. The announcer points out Gino gets pins in order to improve his confidence and that is a neat story. Gino looks like he's really losing his cool being locked in a cage and you buy it when he panics and tries escaping the cage after Lothario attempts to rip his guts out. Gino's positioning and tactics were damn great. Lothario is great as a tough bastard with nasty punches and holds that just look excrutiating. Everytime he gets ahold of Gino he looks like he is just going to rip him in half. Selling in between the falls was incredibly well done and kept you buying into the gimmick despite them having 60 seconds of rest before the count. We even get an AJPW style big match finisher to top it all off. Great great match.

[Matt D]

You can watch this whole match again and just focus on what Gino does with his hands while moving. He was very good here but I think it shows how much more confident he'd be a year later.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Jose Lothario vs Gino Hernandez - Houston 1/19/79 Texas Death Steel Cage Match

Lothario was a major find of the Houston footage as an asskicking avenger. Hernandez is someone who left us way too soon, but outside the short World Class run and the limited Southwest Championship Wrestling footage, we dont have much. I was going to remark on Hernandez interesting short cropped Caesar-esque hair style as sticking as a sore thumb in the big hair of the late 70s/early 80s, but we find out he had lost hair in a hair vs hair match with the balding Lothario. That's a pretty good deal for Lothario. However, Hernandez did break Lothario's arm at an earlier date. In a neat bit of psychology, Lothario is trying to rip off Gino's arm in response. Gino is the first to send Lothario into the cage out of desperation. But Lothario comes storming back and he lives up to the hype as a badass asskicker, punching his way out of trouble. I like that Gino's response to Lothario first throwing him into the cage is to try to escape. However, we are informed that nobody has ever successfully scaled the cage. Boy, would that change! Gino wins the first fall with a series of Russian legsweeps. This is a one minute respite followed by the ten count. Lothario is able to send him hard into the cage. The crowd screams on for more! Lothario drops fists and knees and legs on the head of Gino until he picks up a fall. At the start of the third fall, Lothario presses, but Gino sends him into the turnbuckle. Now he is punching his forehead, biting, sends him hard into the cage. Lothario comes up bloody. Gino pummels Lothario in the open wound, hits the big splash from the middle rope and picks up the third fall. The fourth fall is short, it is purpose is to show Gino is in dominant position in a about minute's time he pins Lothario just from beating on him. Things look bleak for our hero. Gino is pounding on him, but he is getting a bit cocky. Lothario on his knees and he applies the STOMACH CLAW~! Gino is in a world of hurt and tries to climb the turnbuckles, but Lothario drags him down. Lothario beats his ass from pillar to post. Combination of cage shots and punches bust the Handsome Half-Breed wide open! Lothario picks up the fifth fall. Just as the fourth fall was short to show Gino in dominant so was the sixth fall for Lothario. He picks Gino like a lawn dart drives him hard into the cage face first, a fist drop and he picks up the sixth fall. It is now tied 3 falls apiece. Now Lothario is looking to rip off the arm of Gino. Full on Fujiwara armbar, I am going to take this home with me. Gino submits to end the seventh fall. Lothario is pissed. He does not want to let go. He wants this to be the end of the match. I am loving how Lothario is selling this. Lothario hooks him in a guillotine choke in the eighth fall, but Gino hoists him up as if he to do a superplex, but the cage is in the way and Lothario takes a gentle bump to the canvas. Gino wins the eighth and final fall and I gotta say that was a LAME FINISH! 

It was lame because it was not cool, it did not look like hurt, the heel won, but it really was not that underhanded, Lothario was not protected. It was lame, lame, lame. It is a bummer because the match up until that point was a badass match. I thought Lothario outperformed Gino. Gino had his moments of strutting and cockiness, but this was the mature, refined product you see against the Von Erichs. He was not yet that heat-seeking heel. Lothario made up for him by kicking ass and taking names. The armbar at the end did a great job connecting the end of the match to the beginning. His comeback in the 5th fall was glorious. This pales in comparison to the greatest traditional Texas Death Match of all time, Chris Harris vs James Storm in TNA, but it was cool to finally see Jose Lothario. ***3/4