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Blogs

Great Lucha

Vintage Negro Casas of the Day #1

If you ask me, people watch too much maestro Casas and not enough of his vintage work, so here's a new feature on the Great Lucha blog that will hopefully encourage people to check out his glory years.   Ciclon Ramirez, Oro, Ultimo Dragon vs. Bestia Salvaje, Felino, Negro Casas, CMLL 3/12/93   This was part of the three-week build to the 3/26 UWA World Middleweight Championship bout between Casas and El Ultimo Dragon. Casas vs. Ultimo Dragon isn't the first match up that springs to mind when
Great Lucha

Virus vs. Fuego

Virus vs. Fuego, CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship, 6/15/14   This was a tremendous match and my working MOTY at this point. Virus was outstanding and showed once again why he is without peer not only in CMLL but in the whole of Mexico really. Fuego deserves credit for his part in the match as well. It would be easy to put all the focus on Virus & Kid, but Fuego put in about as assured a performance as you can expect from a kid.   The opening exchange saw them work from a tie-up
Great Lucha

Getting further caught up

Silver Star vs. Charles Lucero, UWA World Middleweight Championship, 6/22/14   This was a beautiful match. The type of match you could easily imagine Lucero having in his prime. Really authentic lucha maestros wrestling; the type of title match wrestling you don't see much of these days. To be fair, it probably wouldn't go over too well at Arena Mexico, but it's great to see two practitioners carrying on the art form as there aren't too many connections to old school Monterrey left anymore. Th
Great Lucha

Getting caught up

First up, let me just say that I LOVE the new colour scheme on the Arena Mexico ring. I think it looks fantastic and makes good matches seem even better.   Barbaro Cavernario vs. Cachorro, CMLL 4/18/14   I thought this was an excellent lightning match; much better than the Cavernario v. Hechicero workrate sprint where they tried to hit all the highs of a 20 minute lucha match in 7 minutes or less. Here we got a straightforward build from pure lucha exchanges to high risk moves and nearfalls.
Great Lucha

Satanico vs. Pierroth

Satanico vs. Pierroth Jr, CMLL World Light Heavyweight Championship, '92/93   This was from sometime during Pierroth's year long reign as CMLL World Light Heavyweight champion, which began in March of '92 and ended in April of '93. Pierroth's Los Intocables group feuded extensively with the Infernales during this period. Pierroth had several title defences against Pirata Morgan, a match against MS-1 in Puebla, and this match which appears to have been broadcast on some sort of local Tijuana te
Great Lucha

Dandy vs. Llanes trios

Atlantis/Ringo Mendoza/El Dandy vs. Mano Negra/Javier Llanes/Black Magic, CMLL 2/15/94   My buddy Raging Noodles once had a prank played on him that there was a trios match leading into the El Dandy/Javier Llanes singles match where Llanes worked over Dandy's fingers or something to that effect. It was a neat prank, but Noodles my boy, here's that trios you always wanted to see.   As with most gems, we get a great set of intros. I never realised what an ugly blighter Llanes was. He had this
Great Lucha

Virus, Cachorro & Hechicero vs. Negro Casas, Cavernario & Dragon Lee

Virus, Cachorro & Hechicero vs. Negro Casas, Cavernario & Dragon Lee, CMLL 5/23/14   Everybody's talking about this as a Match of the Year Candidate, but for a trios with four good workers in it, I thought it was pretty disappointing. The only parts that were exciting or genuinely engaging were during the finishing stretches, and the work in between was clumsy and unfocused.   The opening fall was a perfect example. Dragon Lee is a young guy and can't mat wrestle. If you have him wo
Great Lucha

More 90s stuff

El Dandy/La Fiera/Ultimo Dragon vs. Negro Casas/Black Magic/Jaque Mate (5/17/94)   This was just a 15 minute, straight falls win for the technicos, with a bit of dissension among the rudos, but man were the Casas/Dandy exchanges good. They had an opening mat exchange that was very reminiscent of their work from '92; where the purpose of each hold was to show who's boss. Casas would take Dandy down face first to canvas and slap him in the back of the head or pull his hair, and Dandy would use h
Great Lucha

Charles Lucero vs. Blue Panther

Charles Lucero vs. Blue Panther, WWA World Middleweight Championship, Lucha Libre Azteca 5/9/2004   This was a good match, but not a great one.   Much of that boils down to expectations. When I first heard there was a Panther vs. Lucero singles match, I started wondering what it looked like and how they worked it. I practically booked the thing in my head. I had fantasies of a match that resembled the 1992 title match between Santo and Espanto Jr, forgetting that these two workers are well p
Great Lucha

Recent matches

Rush vs. Shocker, hair vs. hair, CMLL 3/21/14   This wasn't your papa's hair vs. hair match, but then what is these days? I was ready to write this off as another CMLL apuesta match that fails to keep the traditions alive, but they actually won me over with their physicality. It wasn't as measured as an old-school hair match where they flail about selling, but they hit each other hard and there was even a bit of hard way blood. They rushed through it even quicker on TV, but at least there was
Great Lucha

Charles Lucero matches cont.

Galactar y Rico Rodriguez vs. Alberto Dos Rios y Charles Lucero, ACM 3/9/14   I didn't pay too much attention to what the other guys were doing, but when Lucero was in, he showed he could still work rapid fire lucha sequences, at least with the younger guys. So, I guess the slower exchanges in the title match had more to do with Silver Star's bumping than Lucero's timing. These one fall Monterrey tags are completely unnoteworthy, but it's good to see Lucero is an even more complete worker than
Great Lucha

Charles Lucero matches

El Ninja, Hector Garza y Ruben Juarez Jr vs. Blue Fish, Charles Lucero y Gato del Ring, Monterrey 11/11/92   Yep, early 90s Charles Lucero is awesome. You knew that it would be, but here's the confirmation.   This was a fun Monterrey trios that took place a few months after Garza's debut. Lucero was about as close to his prime as we have on tape, Gato del Ring was one of those awesome Monterrey style journeymen who usually do all the wacky gimmicks, and Blue Fish is a legendary Monterrey rud
Great Lucha

Silver Star vs. Charles Lucero

Silver Star vs. Charles Lucero, WWA World Middleweight Championship, ACM 3/2/14   Charles Lucero is quickly becoming a must-see worker for me. At present, I'd rate him as the second best maestro in the country behind Virus.   This was a really old-school style title match worked on a stained and faded canvas in front of a tiny Monterrey crowd, and carried all of the traditions of UWA style Monterrey title matches. Watching this, it was easy to imagine what it must have been like to watch Luc
Great Lucha

Lizmark matches

Lizmark vs. Ulises, NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship match (CMLL 4/13/90)   Solid albeit unspectacular title match between Lizmark and a then masked Tony Salazar. The opening matwork was built around a number of Lizmark takedowns, as he worked toward the submission he was looking for. Both workers played around with an armbar theme before promptly dropping it, no doubt displeasing those looking for some sort of continuity in their wrestling. Salazar brought back the armbar during the p
Great Lucha

90s... Lucha!

Atlantis/Lizmark/Ultimo Dragon vs. Emilio Charles Jr./Bestia Salvaje/Negro Casas (7/31/92)   Standard rudo brawling followed by a standard technico comeback, but it all looked fairly good. Emilio and Atlantis continued to brawl, which explains the extra edge to their '92 title match.   Espectro Jr./Espectro de Ultratumba/Ponzona vs. Angel Azteca/Apolo Dantes/Eddy Guerrero (9/13/91)   Not good. Not much of anything really. The clip began with a lengthy vignette of Angel Azteca and some ladi
Great Lucha

More 90s Lucha

Pierroth Jr./MS-1/Ulises vs. Mogur/El Dandy/Popitekus (1/5/90)   A week before their title match, it's the match-up the internet never told you about, Mogur vs. Pierroth Jr. Their exchanges here may have been even better than during their title fight, as they really slapped the shit out of each other. At one point, Mogur was lying prone on the canvas and Pierroth went all romper stomper on him, kicking him in the back until he had finally cleared the ring of him. Another outstanding match-up h
Great Lucha

90s Lucha

Atlantis/Apolo Dantes/Octagon vs. Blue Panther/Javier Cruz/Emilio Charles Jr. (8/2/91)   It's always exciting when you see a rudo line-up like that. I don't know if they cranked up the pace or it was just edited that way, but this was one lively trios. Under ordinary circumstances, they might have meandered along setting up the Cruz vs. Dantes hair match and Panther vs. Atlantis title match, but in this case there was always something interesting going on. Dantes wore a purple wrestling leotar
Great Lucha

DVDVR Best of the 80s #13

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
Great Lucha

Virus vs. Titan

Virus vs. Titan, Mexican National Welterweight Championship, CMLL 1/28/14   Of all the older maestros in CMLL who regularly take on young guys, Virus is by far the best at putting young guys over. This was a title defence for Titan, and given the disparity in skill levels, Virus could have eaten him alive on the mat and just about everywhere else, but you never get the feeling that Virus needs to prove himself. He's not busting his workrate chops to prove he can still hang, he's just guiding a
Great Lucha

CMLL "The Lost Years" pt 2

Emilio Charles Jr., Negro Casas & Bestia Salvaje vs. Atlantis, La Fiera & Apolo Dantes, 6/3/94   Fantastic looking match-up on paper that was just some bullshit excuse to turn Casas technico. CMLL became hopeless at turning people once the TV boom began. In the 80s when rudos turned on each other, it would lead to these incredibly heated matches where the rudos would ratchet up the violence and turn Arena Mexico into a madhouse. Rudos would have these ongoing feuds with each other tha
[drokk] Ditch's Best of Japan 2000-2009

Kenta Kobashi Vs. Tamon Honda, GHC Heavyweight Championship, Pro Wrestling NOAH 4/13/2003

Kenta Kobashi Vs. Tamon Honda, GHC Heavyweight Championship, Pro Wrestling NOAH 4/13/2003   Underdog matches are great and all, but I particularly like the "Every dog has his day" type of underdog match. This match pulled that idea off very well and Kobashi being so selfless to Honda was cool to see.   The early mat work in this was killer. Honda goes for amateur throws and old-school submissions and Kobashi does a really good job of keeping up with him in terms of tricked-out mat wrestlin
  • drokk
Great Lucha

CMLL "The Lost Years" pt 1

CMLL "The Lost Years" (1993-95)   Mocho Cota, Felino & Kahoz vs. Silver King, El Texano & La Fiera, 8/22/95   Is it time to re-evaluate old man Cota?   He was pretty damn good here. He didn't move as well as the 1984 version we've been watching, but he brought a little mat work, a little brawling and some great trios bumping. It helped that he was working against world class workers in the shape of Silver King and Texano, but long time fans of the blog will know that I've never
[drokk] Ditch's Best of Japan 2000-2009

Koji Kanemoto and Minoru Tanaka Vs. Dr. Wagner Jr and Silver King, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles, NJPW 2/3/2001

Koji Kanemoto and Minoru Tanaka Vs. Dr. Wagner Jr and Silver King, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles, NJPW 2/3/2001   Hey! More Kanemoto and Tanaka! Let's hope Kanemoto gets a bit more of the spotlight here.   ...He didn't.   This was all about Wagner and King. They got to show off a ton of cool offense and seemed to get over with the crowd. I wish I could write a bit more but nothing really stood out to me. Felt a lot like Kanemoto and Tanaka were content to let the luchadores ge
  • drokk

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