[1990-01-12-EMLL] Mogur vs Pierroth Jr.

[Jetlag]

On 1/5 we got a couple very good trios matches, and one week later we get the singles matches we want to see most coming out of each. Booking can be so easy. And this was a great little match between two overlooked workers. We start in great simplistic fashion with both guys really cranking a side headlock and a wastelock each. The whole match they did a great job working around simple moves. Pierroth Jr. works over Mogurs shoulder using repeated armdrags, really whipping him into the mat and Mogur wincing. Later Mogur gets some nice revenge by locking in ultra tight headscissors, he has a brutal looking armwringer too that drives Pierroths shoulder into the mat. They do some more swanky lucha moves aswell such as a cool sequence where they move from a pin attempt into tombstone reversals, and Pierroth has a few cool submissions including a sweet crucifix lock. There is some cheating – after all Pierroth Jr. had reduced Mogur to a bloody pulp the week before – and he hits one of the sneakier low blows you'll see here - but they deliver a great sheninangless 3^rd fall. Pierroth Jr. destroying Mogur by picking him up and ramming him into the posts repeatedly ruled. Mogur builds a nice comeback out of that and we get a classic lucha third fall with crazy dives, desperation selling for an attempted surfboard etc. I bit on the nearfall for the crucixion hold and I really liked how they would take short breathers to how how spent they were. Finish was a simple move and worked. Not the most epic lucha title match, no top rope moves or big bumps, but they made everything they did count and built a great match. Classy stuff, maybe a hidden gem (does it count as hidden if it was on OJ's blog?).

[KB8]

This struck me as more of a fully-formed title match than Emilio/Azteca, though I'm not really sure how to quantify that. I guess it felt like everything carried more weight, like the impact of what they were doing was greater. Or something or other. It took me a minute to get into the primera but once I did I wasn't looking back. I've never thought of Pierroth as a mat worker. It's not that I'd have called him a bad one, it's just not the first thing that comes to mind if you bring up Pierroth. He was impressive in this, though. The mat work wasn't especially slick and it certainly wasn't tricked out, but it was rough and every time someone grabbed an arm it looked super tight. Mogur's arm wringers were brutal and Pierroth took a handful of bumps straight onto his shoulder. It was a fall that had plenty of time to build and they used that time wisely. The tercera followed suit and they upped the drama appropriately, with Mogur's dive looking sloppy and desperate and that fight over the tapatia being awesome indeed. I also loved Pierroth's low blow in the segunda. A good shot to the balls will go a long way with me and this was subtle enough that you probably missed it in real time, but on replay it was clear as day. I've always loved Pierroth and this was a side of him we didn't get to see too often. The title match, I mean. The low blow was nothing new. 

[cad]

This could have sucked. Pierroth isn't a guy who really embraced the dramatic opportunities that came with a title match, and Mogur's most notable characteristic as a wrestler is his complete lack of charisma. But what happened here is that they filled in the gaps for each other. Mogur isn't charismatic? That's fine, obviously Pierroth can work a crowd. More important, though, was that Mogur IS a good technical worker, and they played to that, built the match to him totally outclassing Pierroth on the mat until there was nowhere for Pierroth to go. He'd held his own at first with little tricks and a focus on Mogur's arm, but once Mogur came through with that brilliant slam counter the match belonged to the champ. He was torturing Pierroth, humiliating him, to the point that Pierroth's only hope was a genius reversal of his own (lol no) or perhaps a more out of the box solution. It was a great foul. Right there for everyone to see, but how could you possibly call that deliberate? Both guys sold everything wonderfully. Pierroth you'd expect, but Mogur might actually have outsold him here, even if he didn't possess Pierroth's theatrical flair. One of the best title matches of the '90s.

[Chess Knight]

I don't think I've ever seen Mogur outside of trios. If you asked me about Pierroth I would have said I was a fan but it's been so long that I couldn't tell you why aside from the cool mask. I will say this about these two, I pretty much knew just looking at them that Mogur was the tecnico, thought maybe its because he kind of looks like Tito Santana from a distance. The roles were confirmed for me pretty quickly when Mogur's second turned out to be Mascarita Sagrada, not to mention Pierroth's second (Hijo del Gladiador) distracting the referee so Pierroth could break some rules. The first fall was good on its own and great in setting the ground work for a longer match. Pierroth tried multiple times to get a good position going but Mogur just kept one-upping him. Favourite moment being Pierroth getting some awesome armdrag slams down and slapping on a hammerlock to keep pressure on the same arm, only for Mogur to have a badass counter where he rolled up and basically powerslammed Pierroth while on his knees. Maybe could have sold the pain of the arm a bit more but we're talking about a couple minutes of work if memory serves correctly. Pierroth was great in the second fall, he looked almost hopeless for most of it  (he struggled to even begin it, really) until delivering a PHENOMENAL low blow headbutt while he was trapped in a head scissors. Awesome rudo move. The third fall was a really good back and forth momentum shifting bout, with the kind of full circle drama that a lucha title match should do well.