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.

I wouldn't say it's the number one reason I love this match, but the most impressive thing about it to me is that, if all you had was a blow by blow description, you couldn't know how well the match came off. When Dandy wants some heat, he does a bodyslam, or a clothesline, or an escape from a camel clutch, or a legdrop. There's a nearfall off a diving headbutt, but for the most part the close calls come off rollups and basic suplexes. The fans are with them all the way, though, because everything is timed perfectly. Everything is built up. Everything is sold right. You can get heat off a clothesline when it's largely surrounded by matwork, when the recipient sells it like a big move, and when the guy who executes it immediately and without any prompting holds up his forearm to indicate that what he did was technically within the framework of the rules. They've scarcely left the mat by the middle of the second fall, and the match has still turned into a life or death struggle by the time Dandy has to fight out of Angel Azteca's leglock. Then, having gotten that much out of holds, it opens up a third fall in which almost everything is a potential match ender. There are no nearfalls in this match in which it feels like the match should end. Instead they've managed to make it so that anytime someone's shoulders hit the mat it feels like the match COULD end. I love the technique on show here, but beyond that this is just a very well crafted bit of wrestling.

Eh. In my mind felt more like some kind of statement that they were trying to make than the culmination of a yearlong, promotion dominating program and a careerlong rivalry. But this wasn't something that I rewatched this time around and I'm going off old memories. It's a universally praised match, even somewhere like Cagematch, so I'm likely either remembering it wrong or offering a goofy opinion.

For Mexico: 1. Damiancito el Guerrero 2. Cicloncito Ramirez 3. Blue Panther The most important wrestling footage development for 1997, for me, is that rnrwrasslin stopped uploading TV shows midway through the year, limiting the stuff I got to see. I suppose that if I were truly dedicated I could get a hold of some of that stuff for myself, but that's not the kind of person you're dealing with here. Besides, I got no stomach for that kind of life anymore. As a result you get a pretty generic list for this year of minis and ciberneticos. Virus and Cicloncito are more of a 1/1A scenario than a true first vs second. Virus was a more interesting character I guess, so I placed him first with no real conviction behind it. I thought that the minis were pushing things with their work more than the big men. Blue Panther's 1997 work had the same flaws that it always did, but he did seem to want to establish a strong footing for himself upon his CMLL return. I also respected his attempts to brawl with a nextgen Mascara Sagrada and to wrestle on the mat with Apolo Dantes, who was solid there but not really a guy who saw the thrill in that type of work. What Virus and Cicloncito lack in (filmed, available) quantity, they make up for in an outstanding hit rate. They're definitely more pure work candidates than well rounded personalities, so you'd have to be okay with guys whose abilities lean more towards that side. An attempt at a top ten:

This match has the most well done ref interference I've seen. A backhanded compliment to some extent, but I appreciated the thought that they put into it. The issue is that Gran Davis doesn't want either man using closed fists. A fired up Dandy wrestles emotionally and repeatedly gets cut off when he prepares to throw a punch or simply protests Davis's admonishments. Charles on the other hand sees what's happening and plays the ref like a fiddle. A couple of times you see him tell Davis about Dandy's right hand, and then when Davis hassles Dandy, Charles nails him--with a kick. Charles of course uses his fists at points too, and Davis warns him as well, but Emilio never lets the ref take away his focus, and at one point basically tells Davis off when he tries to stop him from pounding Dandy into the dirt. The ref work never overshadows the two wrestlers, and instead the first fall is about how the two different personalities react to it. There's also plenty of fight and hatred on display throughout the fall, like when Dandy takes Charles down out of nowhere, and Emilio has to destroy him with right hands to keep him down. And when Dandy finally does make his comeback and busts Charles open in the second fall, he does it without throwing a single punch. By the third fall both men are bleeding and swinging wildly, and they've both gotten angry with Davis, so he gives up trying to enforce the letter of the law. If you're the kind of person who appreciates incremental escalation, with the moves getting bigger and bigger, you might like the big flying spots in the third fall, as they go from Charles's standard tope suicida, to Dandy's plancha suicida, to the splash that Charles won the first fall with, to Dandy's tope suicida over the top rope. There's nowhere to go after that, and then Davis springs back to the forefront of the match by counting them out. I think that it would have felt a bit flat if he'd just done that out of nowhere and the match ended in a draw. With the crowd already angry at him after how he called the first fall, instead we get a heated postmatch featuring some guy calling Davis an asshole, fans tugging on Dandy's arm to convince him not to go through with the haircut, and Dandy and Charles looking like they might unite to force Davis to get his hair cut. I don't know if any of this is why I think this is a great match (personally, I prefer that shot of Dandy struggling to get up off the floor after Charles sent him flying off the apron), but I really am impressed with how they laid this one out.

Mexico's top three: 1. Negro Casas 2. El Dandy 3. Felino HM: Mascara Magica, Black Warrior I'd be lying to you if I said that I had a solid grasp on every Mexican group's 1996 matches. AAA fell victim to the throes of Konnan booking before eventually becoming an organization based on indistinguishable guys in bodysuits and Halcon Dorado Jr. Promo Azteca got TV at some point this year but never found its footing as a promotion. IWRG got TV too but I think the only ones who saved video of it are IWRG themselves. This is mostly just me rating CMLL stuff. They had a big bounceback year in 1996, and so did two of their biggest linchpins of the 1990s, with Casas at his most creative since early 1993 and Dandy at his best since 1992 or maybe even 1990. Like with Dandy vs. Emilio Charles in 1989, I thought that Dandy probably had the better list of matches but that Casas gave the stronger individual efforts. I will say, though, that over the last three months of the year, after Casas had turned tecnico, Dandy was outperforming Casas and might have had one final run as the top guy in the country. Felino gets third again. This year he actually got some spotlight matches, and we did see his overindulgent tendencies crop up, but his four fall title bout with Mascara Magica ranks as the banner outing of his career, to me anyway. Mascara Magica had a good six minute mat based match with Kung Fu Jr. this year. That's when I was sold that he was a real talent. He and Black Warrior both looked like future greats but never really built on what they had at this point. I thought that Casas and Dandy were up there with anyone in the Western hemisphere in 1996. Japan I can't really speak to though. Top ten matches:

My top three for Mexico: 1. El Hijo del Santo 2. Rey Misterio Jr. 3. Felino Santo's tough to rate for these things because he doesn't really change. Some years his matches are better, but he's always the same guy. What stood out for me in 1995 wasn't any particular performance but how the balance of power in terms of match quality shifted the moment he jumped. Just about marked the end of the AAA golden years for workrate fans, and suddenly CMLL TV became good after months of their TV presence consisting mostly of condensed matches. Not that it was all his doing (mostly it was that they stopped with all the clipping), but it helped for a narrative in my head if nothing else. Misterio was a genuine phenom. I've never found him interesting as a character and I prefer more grounded workers, but he had the year's preeminent big match and didn't totally reject the classic tecnico style. Felino's a guy I haven't always taken seriously. What I didn't understand was that 1992-94, which is more in my wheelhouse, represented his Stunning Steve years, when he was a clear talent who was maybe 75% of the way there. No one thinks of Felino when they think of 1995, and no one thinks of 1995 when they think of Felino, but this was the year that he seemed to mature and find the right balance (for him) between comedy and wrestling. He was a pure background character this year, and normally I try to list guys with more prominent roles, but, um, I guess didn't this time. Misterio Jr. actually was considered a best in the world candidate at the time. I think Santo was better, and he actually has a really strong case if you're high on his title matches with Psicosis and Casas, both of which have gotten strong reviews at one time or another. My top ten:

Mexico in 1994: 1. La Parka 2. Javier Cruz 3. Solar Not exactly one of my favorite years, this. Parka sort of wins by default, even though I doubt anything from his 1994 would make a "Best of LA Park" playlist. He had the flair to make a mount exchange with Mascara Sagrada one of the year's highlights for me, and I've never seen better AAA brawling than him vs Lizmark in some 4 vs 4 match. Javier Cruz put out more energy more consistently than any other CMLL worker in 1994. Whether because of dedication or because he could feel himself slipping down the cards, he fought his hardest against the lifeless atmosphere of 1994 Arena Mexico and managed to produce a classic with an increasingly irrelevant Ciclon Ramirez. Cruz didn't have the charisma to make everything he did must see TV, but he did manage some fun stuff with Los Rebeldes de Jalisco, one of the most pointless teams ever to garner a name. And I went with Solar because the Panther match had some nice technical work, he did some good stuff with Angel Azteca at points, and he managed to keep his form even while giving up the character that he'd made his name with. If that sounds like a stretch, well, fair enough. For that third spot I was wracking my brain for guys who could possibly go there and crossing them off the list one by one until eventually it got to a point at which I was considering if Mascara Sagrada, the full size Mascara Sagrada, was maybe the third best wrestler in the country, and that's when I knew I was in too far. I don't think any of the three listed names had a best in the world kind of year, and in fact it's probably more interesting what happened with the usual candidates. Santo had kind of a coasting year. Outside of the strong program with Javier Llanes, Dandy would sometimes start off like he really wanted to leave an impression (vs Felino, vs Hijo del Gladiador), before the matches would simmer down and end up not far off from average. Most of Casas's big opportunities this year came in a feud with Mocho Cota, and I don't think they ever really clicked as personalities. Pirata Morgan looked washed up. Fuerza Guerrera didn't have much going on. Atlantis didn't either and seemed to have shelved his technical side. Rey Jr. wasn't quite there yet. I'm not a fan of the AAA mini style or Art Barr, but this wouldn't be a bad year to list them, even with Barr's death. This was my top ten:

MEXICO #93 (12 mos) Q-GOOD 1. Negro Casas 2. La Parka 3. Lizmark HM: Satanico Just AAA/CMLL stuff this year for the most part. Negro Casas continued his inspired run from 1992 for the first few months before cooling off a bit towards the summer. By that point La Parka was probably more consistently entertaining, although Casas came back with a great match at the anniversary to ensure that he'd keep the top spot for the year as a whole. I don't know what to say about Lizmark. He was laying down the big title defenses this year, and no one seems to give a damn. I don't know if the matches don't hold up, or if the accomplishment just hasn't impressed anyone, or what. Try naming a better tecnico for 1993. Satanico really turned it on after jumping to AAA, but this was after five months of not a whole lot. Casas was still at his peak, but as the year wore on he didn't seem to have to same fire week in and out that he did in 1992. With big matches hard to come by for Mexican candidates, you have to be impressive in almost every appearance to match up with the candidates from elsewhere. It probably doesn't help that all CMLL footage from the final two months of the year seems to be lost (with one exception). These were my ten favorite matches:

Top three for Mexico: 1. Negro Casas 2. Espanto Jr. 3. La Fiera HM: Atlantis, El Dandy, El Hijo del Santo, El Signo, Pirata Morgan, Emilio Charles Jr. For footage this year, we lose Monterrey and gain another weekly TV show when AAA forms in May, briefly giving us three promotions' TV. Saved UWA TV becomes rare by the summer months and the show is gone by the end of the year. We also get a few months of Guadalajara TV in the summer-autumn months. Last year's number one, Fuerza, started off the year continuing the fun Misterioso feud but soon reignited his rivalry with Octagon, which felt like a rehash this time out. This about marks the end of his time as one of the best in the world. Around the same time, Negro Casas had one of his best matches with Santo and made it clear that he was Mexico's number one, but with Casas footage so scarce beforehand he may have already held that title and we just can't prove it. Espanto Jr. was the star of the UWA TV for me, and one of the great things about it is that he got to show how he wrestled against opponents who weren't El Hijo del Santo. He also had a great match with El Hijo del Santo. La Fiera, man. La Fiera did everything in 1992, title match, hair match, green foreigner match, match where he's the foreigner, bloody brawling, comedy, insane bumping, ref spots, and often several of these in one match. And he was in the zone in terms of pointless details, like when he'd start blinking his eyes after Ultimo Dragon shot his mist into the air, or bouncing on the apron when big Kendo Nagasaki took a bump. Lot of honorable mentions this year. I'll just mention that Dandy had some great performances but also quite a few big matches that ended up being fine when they could have been special, and that Signo was another one of the best workers on UWA TV, putting together a good LHW title reign and flying all over while the heavies around him moved in slomo. Casas does something brilliant almost every time he's on TV this year, and his match with Dandy is one of the legendary title matches in lucha fan canon. I think you've gotta reckon with him if you're naming your best in the world. This is my favorite year for Mexico, actually, but the workers spread the wealth around, so I don't know if anyone else had a 1992 that screams WOTY. My ten favorites from '92:

Emilio Charles Jr. in WCW

Generally speaking, the 1993 match is a lot more competitive than the 1992 version. I'm not seeing the narrative similarities between the two at all. Casas looked like a chump in 1992, getting waxed all match and pulling out a couple of fluke falls. There wasn't any leg work in the second fall, just a scorpion deathlock out of nowhere. In 1993 he legitimately got back in the match by attacking the knee, fouled Dragon between falls and maintained control into the third. I'd actually cite the 1992 match as something that Mexican wrestling does NOT do well, and that's the Ric Flair style title match where one guy looks like the lesser man but manages to pull out a fluke win. It's never satisfying, not when Satanico does it against Lizmark, not when Santo does it against Psicosis, not here. Dragon looked like the better wrestler throughout in the latter match, but it still felt like he'd had to overcome some serious danger and a crafty champion to win it. Casas looked a much more worthy opponent on the ground in 1993 too. In the '92 match Dragon just sort of shuffles Casas from hold to hold, with Casas rarely even getting to counter. I liked how he blocked the figure four, but for the most part it's the counters that people look for in this kind of match for it to feel competitive. Dragon wantonly switching from armbar to leg scissors to figure four is hardly treating each hold as important, even if it maybe does resemble the universal ideal of NJPW style matwork. I wouldn't describe what they did on the mat in '93 as two guys aimlessly riffing. If it bored you it bored you, but every one of those sequences established that Dragon had the upper hand. I'm not sure what you were talking about with the third fall of the 1993 match. There's the spot when Casas falls off the ropes and they do a double down? But they kind of had to do it, or else you have Dragon just popping up for no reason. I actively looked for them slowing things down like a big WWE match and couldn't find it. After every kickout they went right back to work. I suppose they sold the big moves to the outside, but if they hadn't I'm sure they'd have gotten raked for that too. Long story short, I'm not quite sure I really bought that narrative of the '92 match being the same match but done better, and I don't know if some of the other analysis was executed that well either, but Casas doesn't deserve to get treated any more delicately than anybody else. I'd always assumed that this was one of the more accessible Mexican classics, so if I learned anything here it's that perhaps that's not the case.

Mex. '91: 1. Fuerza Guerrera 2. Atlantis 3. Brazo de Oro HM: Pirata Morgan, El Hijo del Santo Finally, we get something besides just CMLL footage this year, and it comes from... Monterrey? The UWA TV show started in October to provide another alternative. Last year's number one, Dandy, began the year in Japan and then I think took some time to heal from injuries. By the time he got back in March, last year's number two, Fuerza, had already laid down his Octagon classic on his way to leaving the rest of the promotion in the dust. I'd say Fuerza had the top spot on lockdown all year. Atlantis was no longer the top flyer in the world as he'd been in 1989, but he had enough facets to his game that he was just as good overall anyway. He finally got his excellent showcase match, against Blue Panther, and it remains one of his signature performances today. I've always found Brazo de Oro fairly uncharismatic, but his match with Santo is a classic, and there is a LOT of terrific technical work from him in 1991. For the last four months of the year, Pirata was performing at the same level as Fuerza. I just can't in good conscience rank him with how his tecnico run, which made up half his year, provided no real highlights and finished up quickly, almost as if everyone admitted that it had been a mistake. Hijo del Santo had some brilliant performances and probably was better than at least Brazo de Oro. There isn't enough of him to know what kind of a year he really had, though, especially given that Santo did sometimes have a tendency to coast a bit. I don't really think that Atlantis or Brazo de Oro could hang with the true best in the world candidates for 1991, but Fuerza? If you can accept a world number one who spends half his time falling on his ass, you'll see a guy who had a classic with an unremarkable opponent, built up an exciting match with a forty-nine year old who had never been a big name, and basically turned Misterioso from a flashy undercard worker into one of the promotion's young stars. There can't be a lot of years like that, where a guy is tasked with good hand duties and churns out superstar performances. My top ten:

That's nice of you to say, thanks. I wanna let you know, you break my heart, although not as much as the protracted discussion in the Dandy thread about whether it's even good at all. That match might be top 1 for me. But maybe its time has come and gone, and I'm just clinging to an opinion that was fashionable ten years ago.

I'm generally down on all of Satanico's major 1990 matches vs the consensus (really that holds for all of the '90s). I saw the Dandy hair match as a big match that delivered rather than an absolute classic. Thought their other match was good but not anything special. As a whole the feud had a lot of forgettable matches that just kept the angle moving for TV. In the Angel Azteca-Dandy rivalry, I preferred the matches with Rocca/Guerrero to those with Satanico/Atlantis. Didn't really have an opinion on the Estrada match and don't even know what the general opinion of it is. With so many matches that I'm the low man on, he doesn't feel like a guy I need to be shouting out. I'd take Angel Azteca's 1990 resume over his fairly easily, and peak Pirata > postprime Satanico to me. You can see from this thread though that I'm an outlier here, so you don't need to take my thoughts on those matches too seriously.

Mexico: 1. El Dandy 2. Fuerza Guerrera 3. Angel Azteca HM (so I guess fourth): Pirata Morgan Another CMLL only year, but with fewer shows missing than 1989. My top two from last year, Emilio Charles and Dandy, both had programs with Angel Azteca early in the year, with Charles' solid and predictable whereas Dandy's was intense and creative. I'd say Dandy took over as number one pretty much from the start and held the rest of the promotion at arm's length almost all year. Only in the final few months did Fuerza manage to keep pace with him, as his crafting a hot feud with two different guys simultaneously impressed me just as much as Dandy vs Satanico. Angel Azteca spent most of the year in matches with excellent workers and never once looked out of place or in over his head, and very often figured in the high points of those matches. Pirata hadn't declined from his 1989 level, but the dissolution of the Bucaneros left him with fewer chances to put on a show. He still managed a very famous match against part timer Faraon. There was a time when Dandy's 1990 used to be talked about as one of the all time great years a wrestler ever had, and from the looks of the replies in the thread he's still considered up there with (and maybe even above) anyone else in the world. My top ten matches:

One thing I've come to appreciate about that match. You see two great workers in a hair vs hair match, and you hate to see it bogged down with ref interference, but the Gran Davis spots in this one were excellent. For one, it seems like he just has a bug up his ass about the closed fist, and Charles is the one exploiting it (you can see him working Davis like a basketball player at one point), before Dandy finds a way to come back without punching. It's about the wrestlers as much as it is about the ref. And a draw would normally be a flat finish, but here they actually have the fans riled up about it (one fan tries to hold Dandy back from getting his hair cut, and another one is shouting, "Eres un pendejo, Davis," over and over). To get the feel of it as an injustice brought on by an officious referee, you need to establish him as such beforehand, which they did in the first fall.

Mexico list: 1. Emilio Charles Jr. 2. El Dandy 3. Pirata Morgan Honorable mention: Atlantis, Satanico 1989 is the first year that we have weekly(ish) TV for from Mexico. It's only CMLL, and it's not complete, but it's enough to try a top three. Charles and Dandy are hard to separate because so much of their best work this year came against each other. Dandy probably has the slight edge in top matches, but I just like Emilio's performances more. Pirata had memorable performances on his own, as captain of his own team and partnered with random rudos. 1989 might be the best year we have from him. You could maybe say the same about Atlantis, at least in terms of week to week output, but he just doesn't have a bigtime match to cement his spot. Satanico has the opposite problem, with the Chicana match and the match where he teamed with Dandy, and then not a whole lot beyond that. With him we are missing several televised big matches (vs Dandy, vs Lizmark, vs Blondy) so luck might have jobbed him a little bit. Or helped him. I think if you were trying to make a case for any of these guys as best in the world, it would be easiest to do it with Dandy, as he has such a strong resume. I don't think that Flair or whoever was operating far beyond what Charles was doing from show to show, though. For record's sake, these are my top ten matches for 1989 Mexico/CMLL:

Obviously a talented wrestler capable of having great matches. I gotta say, though, there's a pretty long stretch, like from 1991 to the mid-'90s, when seeing Villano III's name in a lineup is not a sign that there must be something good in this one. That's a pretty big portion of the Villano III that we have video of. It's not his prime (although it's not THAT far off it either), and he's not bad or anything. He looks elegant when he's in there, and I'm not the first to say that he basically made an artform out of the perfunctory second fall, but he rarely makes those UWA TV matches or early AAA matches any better. There's something about his work that feels like punching in, punching out. His 2000 work salvaged my impression of him to an extent, although I wouldn't say that I thought he worked at a phenomenal, best in the world type of level. I was more impressed by finally getting a glimpse of what it looked like when Villano tried to make random weekly TV memorable, which he did a pretty good job of. Like with most 1980s workers with reputations like his, I try to give him a boost because I know that we didn't get his best years. Then again, he finished ahead of Fuerza Guerrera, and no amount of envisioning missing Villano classics is going to push him ahead of Fuerza for me. I like that he finished 143rd, right next to Lex Luger. Peas in a pod, those two workers. Villano III vs El Signo (only one fall shown before the picture goes out, but it's the best part) Villano, Perro Aguayo and Octagon vs Rambo, Pirata Morgan and MS-1 Villano, Atlantis and Perro Aguayo vs Pierroth, Shocker and Mascara Año 2000 Villanos vs Pierroth, Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr. That does it for guys that I had some opinion of going into this:

Dragon has become something of a whipping boy as the embodiment of the 1990s fan mindset that great offense = great wrestler. I'm in the camp that thinks he had too many great matches in too many places to be a piece of crap worker. Ultimo Dragon vs Negro Casas from 1993, not just the match but the whole three week program, was probably the best thing on CMLL TV all year. Here are some matches from back when people thought Ultimo Dragon was good: UD vs Ray Richard (actually I have no idea what people thought about him in the 1980s) UD, Mascara Sagrada and Lizmark vs Fuerza Guerrera, Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 UD, Oro and Ciclon Ramirez vs Negro Casas, Felino and Bestia Salvaje UD, Brazo and Oro vs Negro Casas, Emilio Charles Jr. and Mano Negra (I think he bleeds in this one, not something you often got from him) UD vs Negro Casas

I don't know how to compare Brazo de Plata to anybody else. You watch a match like this, replete with fart sounds and dick jokes, and there's just no one else who works like that. How do you rate a wrestler against a bawdy comedian? I doubt any other worker could pull that off, and at the same time I don't know if they'd want to. It's funny as shit but also a total farce, even by the standards of professional wrestling. Typically his approach wasn't that extreme, but it was still singular enough that it's tough to rate him against other wrestlers as if they had the same goals out there. I say that, and yet you still have a worker as revered as Negro Casas doing a Porky bit almost note for note. If Casas steals from someone, that's when you know they're pretty good. One thing I'll say about Brazos matches is that a lot of them are like Rock promos. The Rock didn't cut your Jim Cornette template three pronged promo, "This is why I'm mad, this is what I'm going to do about it, this is when I'm going to do it," and I don't think anyone wanted him to. Same with the Brazos, who aimed to have Brazos matches more often than they aimed to have classic matches, and it usually sounded like Brazos matches were what the crowds wanted from them.

Wrestling comfort food. I don't know if I've seen a Super Astro match that wasn't better for having him in it. The Super Astro backflip/dance combo never got old, even in the late '90s when it could easily have seemed out of place. Sometimes he'd cap it off by backhanding some poor rudo, and he was so short and so GOOD that he never looked like a prick doing it. Once you've seen his borderline suicidal tope atomico you'll never forget it. He bumped big, especially on backdrops, and was a very good technical worker too. Managed to feel like a big deal despite not getting many centerpiece programs on TV. This was a uniformly positive thread that didn't really translate into votes for Super Astro. He finished 283rd. SA, Atlantis and Faraon vs Fuerza Guerrera, Emilio Charles Jr. and Blue Panther SA, Atlantis and Mascara Sagrada vs Los Bucaneros SA, Octagon and Volador vs Fuerza Guerrera, Hijo del Gladiador and Ponzoña SA, Angel Azteca and Solar vs Rambo, Blue Panther and La Parka (my favorite Super Astro performance, for whatever that's worth) SA, Volador and Transformer vs Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada and Fuerza Guerrera SA, Mascara Magica and Olimpico vs Mogur, Arkangel and Scorpio Jr. SA, Mr. Niebla and Solar vs Felino, Arkangel and Guerrero de la Muerte

Eh, I don't feel too strongly about Silver King one way or the other. He's good for an impressive spot but I can't remember him ever doing anything really gripping. He didn't even leave behind that many matches to call overrated or underrated. I guess I'd compare him to guys like Black Warrior and Heavy Metal, other athletically gifted and charismatic workers who never put it all together to hit that next level. King was better than Metal, not sure about him vs Warrior.

I get the point about how not having a look at weekly peak Chicana creates some problems when trying to spot him. Chicana is unique, though, in that I think he's the only one of Mexico's top 1980s contenders who is better off for having his best years in that decade. '90s crowds probably wouldn't have lived and died with his every move to the extent that fans in '80s Arena Mexico did, and that's one of the key pieces to his candidacy.

A good test case for anyone wondering if Super Astro would still be a decent worker if he had to wrestle wearing fifteen pound ankle weights. Rayo vs Cien Caras is my pick as the best mask vs mask match of the 1990s, so sure, I can see that. Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs Cien Caras (P2, P3) Rayo, Konnan and Sangre Chicana vs Cien Caras, Mascara Año 2000 and Universo 2000 Rayo, Vampiro and Atlantis vs Fiera, Emilio Charles Jr. and Pierroth Jr.