ohtani's jacket

Hijo del Santo/Octagon/Super Astro vs. Blue Panther/Hijo del Diablo/Fuerza Guerrera (AAA 9/27/92) Moving on to the Super Astro program. This was clipped so it was hard to make out what was going on at first. What was shown was below average. Super Astro and Panther brawled a bit and did some signature Super Astro stuff. Astro got the pin on Panther and began gesturing for a title bout. Kind of a boring way to jump start the feud. Disappointing considering both Fuerza and Santo were involved. Panther and Astro are an interesting match-up, though, as they're similar body types.

Actually, my favorite thing about the match was the guy waving at the television camera at the end and the commentator gesturing at him to get lost. Fans and commentators, the same the world over.

Franz van Buyten vs. Luc Verhaegue (10/2/82) There wasn't a lot to this, but any time we get a new van Buyten match it's a good day. I hate heel refs. i don't care how much they rile up the audience, the heat should be on the wrestlers not the ref. I'm sure most folks appreciate the carnival aspects of a match like this, but personally I thought van Buyten was wasted on a sideshow like this, and put forward more effort than the match deserved. I did like his creative use of the ropes to break the chokehold, though.

Blue Panther vs. Angel Azteca (AAA, September 13th, 1992) This was a very good match. A lowkey great match even, depending on how you feel about heel refs. It was structured in an unusual way for a lucha title match. Some of it made sense in the context of the build-up and some of it was the workers mixing things up. I liked the fact that the primera caida went long. They teased Azteca winning it quickly, but as far as I'm concerned if both wrestlers are fresh then it ought to be harder to win a fall. Panther was good throughout this bout, but he did some weird selling at times. The tercera had a steady stream of drama, and I liked how hard both men were working. I have no idea why this was the end of the road for Azteca as far as big single matches went. There was nothing in the bout to suggest that he shouldn't have continued to have bouts like this throughout the 90s. From a Panther point of view, it's not as good as the '91 classic against Atlantis, but one of his better 90s singles matches on tape. Worth watching but not iconic.

Ha, no. More to come.

1951.2.16 Vic Hessle vs. Georges Freymond 1951.3.30 Vic Hessle vs. Jack LaRue 1951.10.5 Vic Hessle vs. Deo Crasti The more Hessle I watch, the more impressed I am. This guy was a phenomenal brawler and fantastic at selling. He's so intense and such a tough bastard that it seems like every opponent hates his guts. The animosity in the Crasti match was so intense it felt real. He works holds too, and man do they look like they hurt. And he bumps like a madman too. He nearly broke his neck doing an injury finish (of all things.) Every now and again, there are flashes of Faulker and Royal. His finisher is incredible and looks like it devastates his opponent's leg. The LaRue clip is excellent, but the Crasti clip is one of the best pieces of business I've seen in a long time. Some of the best fights in the catch collection, IMO.

Here are a few: Black Man Shu el Guerrero José Luis Feliciano Cassandro Pimpinela Escarlata Scorpio Jr Freelance Stuka Babe Face El Signo Halloween Damian 666 Mascara Ano 2000 Apolo Dantes Valiente Super Parka Zumbido Ultimo Guerrero Mano Negra Charles Lucero Rey Hechicero Villano IV Arandu

1950.2.17 Jean Jourlin vs. Vic Hessle 1950.3.3 Jean Jourlin vs. Vic Hessle 1950.10.20 Jean Jourlin vs. Vic Hessle 1951.1.12 Felix Lamban vs. Vic Hessle Vic Hessle was the father of Bert Royal and Vic Faulkner. We already had a tag match of his from the archives, but this is a chance to see him in singles action. He was a top guy for Goldstein for around a decade. For that reason, perhaps, several of the clips run around 6-6 minutes long. Just as Dory Funk Sr wrestled more like Terry than Junior, Hessle is more reminiscent of Vaulker than Royal. He's a highly charismatic brawler, who is constantly moving and doing something of interest. I think he'd be a favorite of Matt. Just when you think he wasn't as skilled as his boys technically, he works the mat with Lamban and looks pretty good. I haven't finished all of the footage yet but he struck me as a highly versatile and entertaining performer. I would put him in the same category as Jack Dale and Tommy Mann. The value of these clips is seeing the Catch world expand, and filling in the pre-1956 gaps. The 1950s is my favorite era for catch, and it would appear that Hessle was a bigger player in that era than I imagined.

That was a great post. It reminds me of the essence of lucha libre -- guys who are awesome in random trios matches and make you wanna track down everything they've ever done. I might hit you up with some names after you've done with your list.

Angel Azteca/Solar/Super Astro vs. Blue Panther/El Cobarde/El Indomito (AAA, September 6th, 1992) This didn't look like much on paper, but Cobarde and Indomito ended up being the best partners Panther had during the lead-in to his title match with Azteca. Instead of Solar/Panther, they started off with Solar/Cobarde, which was actually pretty good. That's partly because Solar is underrated as a trios worker, but also because Cobarde was an old-school guy who knew how to work. All of his work in this match is textbook lucha. Indominto vs. Super Astro was so much fun! Honestly, it was the most fun I've had watching Super Astro in a long time. I'm kind of hoping these guys have some other matches together as they were terrific dance partners. Panther vs. Azteca was red hot whenever they'd work lucha exchanges. Azteca's intensity and quickness were through the roof. They got bogged down in some mask ripping, and Azteca's comeback was similar to the previous two matches, but even the business end of this was entertaining with some fun dives. Azteca, Solar and Super Astro make for a fun Space Cadets style trio. It's a shame that there wasn't more done with them.

1947.1.15 Henri Deglane vs. Yvar Martinson 1947.2.10 Henri Deglane vs. Charles Rigoulot 1947.5.19 Henri Deglane vs. Yvar Martinson 1947.11.3 Henri Deglane vs. Hans Buesing 1948.12.6 Henri Deglane vs. Jim Burnett 1949.11.21 Henri Deglane vs. Frank Valois 1950.1.23 Frank Sexton vs. Henri Deglane 1950.9.24 Henri Deglane vs. Al Cabrol There was nothing too revelatory about Deglane in these clips. He tended to work a hard, clean match against top French talent like Martinson and Rigoulot, and more heated bouts with foreigners. There were a few exciting pull-aparts after the bout, and Deglane worked some fun boxing spots with Cabrol. He was older than dirt, but fairly solid for a guy right at the end of his career. I was impressed by Frank Sexton, who came across as flashy and stylish, and greatly surprised by Frank Valois. That clip ran about six minutes and was a hard fought bout. My image of Valois was from the Andre bout, so I wasn't expecting such a suave and skilled worker. That Andre bout was from 20 years later, so it's hardly a shock, but the clips definitely left me wanting to see more Valois whereas before I thought he was skippable..

Angel Azteca/Solar/Super Astro vs. Blue Panther/La Parka/Rambo (AAA August 30th, 1992) This starts off with an extended mat exchange between Solar and Panther that is easily the best thing Panther has been involved in since I starting watching these matches. It's mostly led by Solar, but that's largely because it's a tecnico driven fall. The others mostly do standard lucha exchanges, but there's some novelty in seeing matchups you don't see every day of the week such as Rambo vs. Super Astro. Angel Azteca gets to shine a bit offensively at the beginning of the match, but he spends most of the bout being beaten up by the rudos and having his mask ripped. He's awesome during the tecnico comeback ,and awesome at getting his revenge on Panther for ripping open his mask. Panther's brawling is ok, but again everything about Azteca screams star.

I always loved that song. It reminds me of Honda Minako. Mimi wasn't a bad singer either.

Herodes was one of the guys I was waiting to see. I'd be interested to hear if you have any workhorse or journeyman favorites.

Angel Azteca/Misterioso/Volador vs. Blue Panther/Fishman/Mascara Ano 2000 (AAA, August 14th, 1992) You would think that a title match feud would be more up Panther's alley, but straight away they work this like an apuestas feud. I usually despise it when a title match feud is worked like an apuestas feud, especially when they start ripping at each other's masks, but this match had two things going for it. First of all, the crowd was red hot. There's something to be said for Pena taking TV out of Mexico City to areas like this. Secondly, Angel Azteca led a fantastic tecnico comeback. I thought he was far better than Panther in this match. It reminded me of the incredible potential he had. I honestly think if he had continued on this trajectory, he'd be as well regarded as Santo and Atlantis.

A lot of Kansai's best stuff is from 1996-1997, though. Her peak was probably from around '89-97, which is a fairly typical peak for a Joshi worker, or any wrestler really. Her GAEA work holds up in spots if you divorce yourself from any emotional investment you had in her as the heart and soul of JWP. It was hard to see her fade after being such an incredible leader for that promotion. One of the greats, for sure.

Jones vs. Mercier wasn't very good. Marty seemed to lose a clip after the outstanding match against Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) in '86. I don't think he was ever the same. I'm not a big fan of the Owen match, however, so YMMV.

Blue Panther vs Vulcano (AAA April 18th, 1993) Finally, we reach the apuestas match. As soon as Tirantes was announced as the ref I knew he'd get involved. A few minutes later, he disqualified Panther and Vulcano won the opening fall. Then Pena got involved and removed Tirantes from the match. Casas' dad took over as the ref and then he disqualified Vulcano. Somebody remind me why this promotion was so hot? It reminds me of Vince Russo jumping to WCW. The tercera was mostly nearfalls. It speaks to the power of an apuestas match that the nearfalls were as good as they were considering the match had no body. In fact, the tercera was pretty much the match itself. There wasn't much in the way of brawling. For all intents and purposes, they could have been working a title match. However, the crowd was red hot, so at the very least it entertained its primary audience. It was better than Atlantis vs. Mano Negra, I suppose, but I kept wondering why they couldn't just let the two guys go out there and try to have the best match they could. Then, somewhat amusing, Vulcano had his hair cut instead of taking off his mask. I guess I didn't listen properly or was listening to music while watching the bout. I naturally assumed it was a mask vs, mask match since the thing Vulcano wears looks like a mask. All that for a haircut? I guess there was a reason why nobody ever talks about this feud. The redeeming feature in my eyes was how over Panther was with the crowd. Next up, I'm going to take a look at matches that may feature Panther in a more favorable light. Or not.

1958.11.8air Joachim la Barba vs Jakob Thoma + Hans Schwarz III vs Jose Marques (Berlin) la Barba is working a comedy catchweight bout here against an extremely limited heavyweight opponent. Schwarz vs Marques is the best footage so far. Instead of clips, we get extended sequences from the bout. Both men are skilled and work a style that is similar to French Catch. Marques was a Spanish wrestler, so I guess you could classify it as a continental style. It seemed that most of the skilled workers of this era could travel between France, Britain and Spain and work seamlessly with local opponents. 1960.10.18air Hans Schwarz III vs someone + Oskar Muller vs Bill Martinez (Munich) Here's Schwarz again. His opponent looks a bit like Inca and does a lot of fun, exaggerated selling. Schwarz is one of the most skilled workers I've seen thus far. Muller is the stereotypical German wrestler. It's like watching the love child of Axel Dieter and Roland Bock. Bill Martinez did this spot that modern wrestlers should ape. He scored the pin, do a backwards roll, rolled forward again so that he was standing over his opponent, then taunted him in his face. 1957.11 Hermann Iffland vs Josef Kovacs + James Brown & Matthias Rösges vs Roman Waniek & Hans Dillinger (Wiesbaden) There was a lot of excellent wrestling in this clip. Iffland and Kovacs wrestled like men, and Kovacs wore Dick Shikat style tights, which I always approve of. The tag match featured something I've never seen before. Instead of standing on the apron, the tag partners stood in each corner holding onto the tag rope. At first I thought it was because there was no space on the apron for them to stand, but then they did a spot where one guy was placed over the top rope onto the apron. A very weird but interesting visual dynamic. I'd be curious to know if all German tag wrestling was like this at the time or it was unique to Wiesbaden. The wrestling and comedy in this bout were first class.

Jerry Estrada/Vulcano vs. Blue Panther/Tony Arce (AAA April 11th, 1993) Man are they dragging this out. It's Panther vs Vulcano not the fight of the century. Early on, it felt like they had gone back to the square one in terms of the apuestas feud,, but that wasn't Panther's fault. It felt like bad booking on AAA's part. Then Panther was forced to work what you might consider standard, or perhaps even classic, lucha exchanges with Jerry Estrada and suddenly it was the best that had happened since the feud began. So, clearly Panther isn't a great brawler. Then, finally, Panther's mask was ripped open, and you could see the top half of his face for the rest of the bout. It took them long enough to reach that stage, and I can't really fault Panther's selling from that point on, but overall, perhaps not the best use of Panther. Then again, at least they were using him. That in itself is kind of a Catch 22.

Some German film footage. 1965.8air Horst Hoffmann vs Ian Campbell + Leif Rasmussen vs Micha Nador + Mustafa Shikane vs Josef Molnar (Wiesbaden Ian Campbell shows up in the most interesting places. It's a shame we don't have any of his matches from ITV. He was mostly playing a stooge heel in these clips. Shikane vs. Moinar was wild. Very stylized and strange lightweight wrestling. It almost felt like performance art. 1962 Geoff Portz vs Paul Berger + Rene Lasartesse vs Jose Arroyo (Berlin) The German newsreel directors liked to focus on crowd reactions a lot. Must be that history of expressionism. Not a lot you could really gauge from this other than Lasartesse worked the same way in the 60s that he did in the 80s. The only difference was that he looked younger. 1965.5.8 Josef Kovacs vs Ian Campbell + Horst Hoffmann vs Jose Marques + Ricki Starr vs Leif Rasmussen (Karlsruhe) Speaking of expressionism, this stands off as a montage of the matches shot at various different camera angles, then shows extended clips of Ricki Starr vs. Rasmussen. As best I can tell, Rasmussen was a Buddy Rose style worker who seemed like a real character. The clips are fun, and I imagine the full match would have been similar to the great Les Kellett vs. Bobby Barnes matches. 1971 Leif Rasmussen vs Hansi Roocks This clip is already in circulation. There are some decent exchanges but the main focus is on interviewing women at ringside, and boy are there some interesting hairdos.

How deep does this list go? I keep wondering if certain names will show up.

Zarak & La Bete Humaine vs. Michel Di Santo & Eddy Mores (9/30/81) I thought this was going to be the drizzling shits, but it actually wasn't that bad. Di Santo and Mores were incredibly game, and whoever was under the La Bete Humaine mask was a pretty good worker. He had to be, too, since he did the lion's share of the work. I'm assuming that Zarak was Dave Larsen. He was pretty average, but grew on me throughout the bout kind of like a French Rayo de Jalisco Jr. There wasn't a shred of technique, really, but for a heavy metal circus bout it wasn't bad.

Los Destructores vs. Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada & Herodes (AAA, April 4th, 1993) This was the most fired up Panther has been in the feud thus far. It didn't lead to anything great, but it was a step in the right direction. Panther and Vulcano finally began brawling in the tercera, however instead of the violence escalating, they did some cutesy shit where Vulcano got his win back from the week before by cheating. Not as enjoyable as the first match.

Los Destructores vs. Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada & Herodes (AAA, March 28th, 1993) Here was a chance to see how Panther does in a proper apuestas feud, and the answer is not that great. It's not entirely Panther's fault. He wants to square off with Vulcano but the Destructores wind up triple teaming him. The beatdown is okay, but Panther doesn't get any shine before the rudos take over. When Panther makes his comeback, it's no different from the tecnico comeback in any trios match, and he botches the finish to the segunda caida, which ruins the visual. He tries to punch Vulcano in the tercera, but the rudo ref won't let him. Again, not his fault. His big moment in the match is pinning Vulcano while holding the ropes, which is both a retaliatory move and a nod to the fact that Panther used to be a rudo himself and knows a trick or two. However, nowhere do you see the type of intensity you expect from this sort of match. I don't expect Panther to be as intense as El Dandy, for example, and I'm not sure that his role as a masked tecnico allows him to be, but the bout gave me a renewed appreciation for how good Santo was in these situations. I don't think the booking does Panther any favors, but I think it's because his selling isn't very good. The best guy in this is a broken down, past-his-prime Herodes, who was hugely charismatic. In fact, I actually thought a Herodes vs. Vulcano feud would have been more fun than this. If Panther sold more like Herodes, I'd be a lot higher on this matchup. That said, the bout wasn't boring, so it wasn't a major loss. I don't have much hope for them ratchetting things up, but I'm determined to see it through to the end.