ohtani's jacket

I don't see what Tamana, Kumamoto means even to hardcore fans, and Birmingham is pretty infamous for its crappiness. So is Cleveland, but they still announce the Miz from there. Presumably, Cleveland means something to US fans that Birmingham doesn't.

I don't see what Tamana, Kumamoto means even to hardcore fans, and Birmingham is pretty infamous for its crappiness.

Why is it so surprising that good bookers would have bad ideas? Isn't that kind of natural?

Hamada had a hand in training the original JWP girls. Ultimately, both he and Onita wanted the book. UWA and FMW are what JWP would've turned into had the girls not resisted.

Hey Graham, thanks for the feedback. As I said in my newest entry, I can understand why Peña booked AAA the way he did, but for the most part it was a colossal waste of talent. A successful waste of talent but a waste of talent nonetheless. Which isn't to say that Santo was booked poorly in AAA or given a raw deal because that's patently untrue. I'm sure if you asked Santo how he felt about his AAA days he'd have nothing but good things to say since we know that most wrestlers judge success on the size of the gate and the number of tickets sold, but for us fans (in our tiny little corner of fandom), I agree that it could've been so much more. Santo was far from the worst misuse, however. How does Espanto Jr. go from being on par with all the top guys in Mexico in 1992 to being so useless in AAA? It seems like he spent most of his time in AAA getting fucked up.

The cover to Love and Rockets 46 reminds me I have a blog to update. 7/15/94 AAA: El Hijo Del Santo/Octagon/Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Psicosis - Gimnasio Juan De La Barera After saying my piece about Santo last time, allow me to turn around and praise him this week. Santo was phenomenal here and gave arguably his best AAA performance in this little known trios match. The difference between this and a lot of Santo's other performances is that this actually started out on the mat. One of the things that bugs me most about this era of AAA is the lack of matwork. The other day I was watching a match where Satanico squared off with Solar. Rather foolishly, I expected them to work like maestros, and well, you can imagine how I felt when all they did were shoulder-checks. I understand why AAA had the style that it did and I realise that my tastes in lucha are far more in line with Juan Herrera than Antonio Peña. I also acknowlege that there was a large fanbase for Peña's ideas and that many of them made money, but that money has been long since spent and it's just so frustrating to see great workers tumbling when they should be working the mat. That's what made this much such a wonderful exception. Santo and Panther wrestled on the mat for a good two to three minutes; and while it may not have been as deep or as long as some people would like, it was matwork that Blue Panther and Atlantis would be proud of. The thing that struck me most about watching them work is that unlike the lousy, assisted matwork of the Psicosis title match, their knowledge of the ins and outs of each hold extended to the proper counters, which meant that none of their escapes looked aided or assisted. It's not a very original thing to say, but for once the term "mat clinic" can be applied without sounding like a lazy cop out. I was also impressed with their second go-around, which was much more in keeping with the "Bull and the Matador" routine where one luchador clears the ring of the other but more inspired than usual. To top it all off, Santo produced once of the most exciting finishes to a caida I've ever seen. Octagon had Psicosis in the set-up position for a powerbomb, and all in one motion, Santo managed to turn a leapfrog into a forward somersault and a forward somersault into a huracarrana and the pin. Just a fantastic piece of athleticism from El Hijo del Santo and a kickass way for a technico to prove their superiority. The rest of the match was fairly decent too. It was pretty much standard fare for AAA with the technicos looking to get out on the break and the rudos being fooled into running with them, but it went down to the wire and had an exciting final play. AAA trios basically amount to either a technico showcase or a bone for the rudos and this was a case of the latter. None of the other parties gave an outstanding performance and Santo was less involved after the first caida, but he absolutely flew on one of this planchas to further prove he was on point.

You had me thinking he'd died.

Regular readers will know that I don't like classic, hot period AAA very much, but I do like it more than any of the current stuff that's being put out so for the time being there will be an AAA season here at the Great Lucha blog w/ the occasional interlude should anything catch my eye. Some of these reviews will be critical and some will be filled with praise, but we start the season off with some criticism of a man who's hardly ever criticised: El Hijo Del Santo. 2/16/94 AAA: El Hijo Del Santo vs Psicosis (WWA Welterweight Title) - Aguascalientes Some time ago, I was prompted to watch Psicosis and El Hijo del Santo's 1995 WWA Welterweight title match again after reading the only criticism of the match I had ever come across. It was a bit of an eye opener really, not only because it changed my opinion of a match I had thought was pretty good, but because it drove home how little there is in the way of lucha match discussion. I figure most people who read this blog will agree with me that it can be tough finding match recommendations let alone a discourse. The reason for this is that there just aren't enough people who care, but one of the side effects of this lack of discourse is that folks tend to believe what they "hear," and one of the things folks tend to believe (without really knowing) is that El Hijo Del Santo is one of the greatest workers ever. Now before this starts sounding like tall poppy syndrome, let me just state that I like El Hijo Del Santo. Not as much as some people, but the next review I intend to write will be full of praise for Santo's performance. My gripe with Santo is the notion that he can't put a foot wrong. In many ways, this type of thinking was a by-product of this hot period of AAA where lucha went from being something Dave Meltzer didn't particularly like to a hot ticket that he could get behind. 1993-95 AAA was the peak of lucha's popularity among sheet readers (most of whom aren't around anymore), and because its popularity never grew from there, we're left with even more tired ideas than usual. I mean, Santo as superworker is a really 90s idea. It's the equivalent of a bunch of sheet readers saying, "oh, he's the Jushin Thunder Liger of Mexico." The point of this entry isn't to belittle anyone but to point out the lack of discourse, because I'd put it to folks that not only is El Hijo Del Santo not a superworker but these two years represent the worst two years of El Hijo Del Santo's prime. Take this match, for example. Santo coasted through plenty of trios matches in AAA but trios matches are there to be coasted through sometimes. This was a singles match and those are rare in lucha. It came on the back of some truly awful matches between Santo and Heavy Metal in 1993 and can't be explained away easily. Santo was given three falls, 20+ minutes and all the scope in the world to have a great match. It's difficult to say how much influence Peña had over the style Santo worked, but Santo certainly had all the allowances he needed to have a great match with 1994 AAA matches being longer and much more mat based than they would later become. But you take the first fall alone and it's just a shockingly bad fall. One thing I've noticed about Santo over the years is that there's really two Santos: the one who's in there with a great worker and the one who's not. The one who's in there with a great worker tends to test his skills against those of his opponent and is exceptionally creative. The one who's in there with a lesser worker tends to lead them through the standard Santo match. That's not a terrible knock on Santo; the guy's a pro who understands a house and always gives the fans what they came to see, but it seems to me that he judged Psicosis as being in the lesser category, and well, 20+ minutes of the Santo show isn't particularly inspiring. As uninspiring as it may be, was it necessary? I've always told people who judge Psicosis on his US work that he can't be judged on his US work for the sheer reason that he never showed even a fraction of his true personality in the US. It's night and day comparing WCW Psicosis to AAA Psicosis. One had a cult following and the other fell off the map completely. His strength wasn't in singles matches, however. Psicosis' strength was being an outrageous character in trios matches. In time, he may have been the heir to Fuerza or Pierroth in terms of being "that guy" in a trios match. You could argue that he was on the way already, but despite being most famous for his matches with Rey Mysterio, Jr., he wasn't a singles guy. You can see it in the first fall matwork here, which was an embarrassing series of released holds. Psicosis was more often than not taller than his opponent and this appears to have added to his difficulties on the mat, but you are what you are on the mat and the best you can do is try. My beef here is with Santo who did little to lead Psicosis through an acceptable opening fall to a lucha title match. His matwork was just as disjointed as Psicosis' attempts at countering it and to make matters worse he went to one of his worst finishes to end the fall. The subsequent fall only confused matters more. Psicosis sold the second fall like a technico while Santo dominated it like a rudo. It started off with the old "there's no timeouts in wrestling" schtick that Southern heels loved to pull, but then Santo started beating on him pretty hard. Call me crazy, but it made for uncomfortable viewing. No technico looks good injurying a rudo even if that rudo is stalling. It was better matwork than the first fall, but it was unbecoming of Santo as a technico and didn't really belong in a title match either, especially when the champion was a fall up. I can only imagine that Psicosis had done something penis like in the trios matches leading into this bout for Santo to behave like this. They may have been trying to get the crowd behind Psicosis since Peña liked to book him over Santo during this era, but the crowd didn't seem to particularly like it and who can blame them with no discernable story? There wasn't any particular rhythm to it either. I didn't really understand what they were playing at here and Santo over-sold some back bumps to finish the fall. Two bad falls in a row. The third fall was lucha at its worst and bored the shit out of me the first time I watched it. Watching it again now, I can't believe how much they're selling between rounds. They're obviously trying to heighten the drama but it's completely unwarranted. Had they been through two tough falls it might have geared me up for the third but it was completely Santo ran through his staples like a Saturday morning cartoon. It was probably their best work of the match but I don't care about nearfalls deep in a match when I didn't give a shit about the first two falls, and watching Santo whiz overhead for a tope is just so predctable even if it was picture perfect. A few seconds later (i.e. right on cue), Psiscois did an unbelievably awesome dive. A few seconds after that, he did his corner shoulder bump through the ropes and out onto the concrete, and Santo followed that up with a dive (you can guess which one.) I can't really fault the effort here. They were trying to hit the right spots and have a great match and Tirantes was getting into it with his counting, but a match doesn't start with the dives. (Well, they do these days, but that tells you what's wrong with modern lucha.) To sum up the night, the match ended with someone being out of position for the ref bump, which was more like a forward somersault into a takedown than an accidental collision. Look, it's never easy to create drama in a wrestling match, but this match was majorly botched. Santo didn't set the right sort of platform in the opening fall and Psicosis' selling was off-key. Santo tried to sell the same as Psicosis to give it the match the sort of symmetry that luchadores like to give their matches but by that point they were lost at sea. This match probably needed to be a carry but it was poorly done by Santo. They came back a year later at the same venue and had another ugly match. Obviously, they couldn't iron out the flaws. The point to all this isn't to prove Santo is shit, it's to point out the inconsistencies within his work. It's not my intention to disprove the notion that El Hijo Del Santo is a superworker, though I certainly don't believe it, but I'd like to float the idea because when I first got into lucha there was practically no criticism of name workers. I'm sure of the reasons for this, though I suspect it has something to do with the fact that because lucha is so underappreciated its fans constantly have to promote and protect it. Anyway, I've stated my case on Santo being an inconsistent worker. Decide for yourselves.

Los Intocables vs. Octagon/Apolo Dantes/Mascara Sagrada, 4/3/92 Los Intocables was the trios Pierroth Jr. formed in 1992 with Masakre and Jaque Mate, which represented probably the highwater mark of Pierroth's career. Individually, they weren't as good as the Brazos or Infernales, or even some of the more randomly thrown together trios in Mexico at the time; in fact, you could probably argue that in this case the whole was equal to the sum of the parts, but the trios gave Pierroth a chance to shine as leader of a group and he took the bull by both horns and had a fantastic 1992. This wasn't a particularly outstanding match (in truth none of Los Intocables' matches were), but it was interesting to see what the rudos did with their share of the match. Pierroth was always a guy with a flair for the dramatic. He used to take the kraziest of bumps in even the most banal trios matches until a particularly nasty one almost marked the end of Pierroth Jr. Now that he was starting to get noticed, he shelves the killer bumps, but he still loved attention and nowhere was that more noticeable than in the extended and incredibly detailed sell he did from a slap to the face. For a guy wearing a mask, you'd swear he was Brando. The rudo beatdown was good too. I swear it was more measured than all of the rudo beatdowns in the last three years of CMLL combined. How difficult is it to kick, punch or knee someone then sell like you think you're great for kicking or punching someone? Here's another thing I swear, the next guy who watches old tapes and copies this will be declared a genius new wrestler. The other interesting thing about this match was watching a young Apolo Dantes. Dantes would go on to become a good worker and modest star, but man was his style all over the place. Somebody should've put him on the straight and narrow. The great failing of lucha is similar to Japan in that the next generation of great wrestlers never emerged. Workers like Dantes should've taken us through to an early 2000s full of great matches but it never happened and the seeds for that are back in the early 90s as good as that period was. Mano Negra/Gallo Tapado/El Misterioso vs. Espectro Jr./Espectro de Ultratumba/Fuerza Guerrera, 2/24/91 This was part of the fun mini-feud between Fuerza Guerrera and Gallo Tapado, the Rooster. CMLL had a habit during this era of bringing in older guys who were willing to drop their masks to rudos like Fuerza and Pierroth Jr. who could benefit from an apuestas win. It was all very respectfully done and in this case Gallo Tapado was a maestro of Fuerza, so there were no problems. Fuerza is a guy who I always forget about for the sole reason that he doesn't have a lot of singles programs that made tape, so this is a rare-ish opportunity to see him in a lead role and to be honest I think his charisma is on parallel with someone like Negro Casas. Casas was a little different in that he was maskless (along with being one of the greatest actors in the history of professional wrestling, as well as one of the most multi-faceted characters), but for a guy with a mask Fuerza was remarkably expressive. It seems that for awhile their careers were on a similar trajectory, but Fuerza never really got that career defining push possibly because he was too small. Anyway, this wasn't a great match, otherwise I would've devoted an entire entry to it, but it had its fair share of fun moments. Some nice comedy from the Espectros. El Satanico/Kamala/Pierroth vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr./Black Magic/Ringo Mendoza, 3/24/91 Kamala vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr is worthy of a Jack Kirby splash page. This was another fun "Kamala in Mexico" match. It didn't quite live up to the last Kamala match I commented on, but there was a krazy Pierroth bump (as referred to above), a glorious experiment in how to remove a limb from its joint between falls (whatever happened to that sort of work?), and a rough end to the night for El Gran Davis. Lucha should be fun and that's exactly what this was. Los Misioneros de la Muerte (Negro Navarro/El Signo/El Texano) vs. Jason/Leatherface/Chessman, LLL, 11/16/03 Disappointing. It would be easy to blame the AAA guys and say they can't work but the Misioneros were just as uninspiring. Villanos III, IV & V vs. Blue Panther, Pimpinela & Enterrador, 5/18/00 Decent "scientific" match. I love that term -- scientific wrestling. The only problem with the match was that it was too slow. The Villanos have always been a trios that struggled with rhythm and IWRG matches are wrestled at a slower pace than most lucha but this was slow even by those standards. In isolation it may not have been a problem, but contrasting it with those early 90s matches it seemed a bit faded.

Not sure why you thought Villano V would never unmask considering his brother did and he was a far bigger star. CMLL kind of booked themselves into a corner where Villano should've lost his mask to Blue Panther but they pulled a serve and then Villano lost to the guy who probably should've taken Panther's mask in the first place, Ultimo Guerrero. It's difficult to say for sure, but it probably had more to do with booking than money, though the loser of a mask match always gets a fair payoff.

El Satanico/Herodes/Kamala vs. El Dandy/Atlantis/Rayo De Jalisco Jr., 11/30/90 You can't judge a book by looking at the cover and you can't judge a trios by looking at the workers. This was fucking choice. It was on the undercard of the Fabuloso Blondy/Ringo Mendoza fight (a neat memphis style performance from Timbs let down by some inconsistent selling from Mendoza) and was really just a precursor for the action later that night, but it continued the ridiculously awesome cat and mouse game Satanico and Dandy were playing at this time. Kamala, for his part, was actually really good and certainly beat out a lot of other superheavyweights I've seen in Mexico. His selling was fantastic and his reactions really added to a match that wasn't meant to be taken that seriously. This was a ton of fun. All of the Kamala spots were awesome. Sangre Chicana vs. Heavy Metal, Toreo de Cuatro Caminos, 6/15/97 (clipped) This was a bloody street fight that couldn't have been more 1997 if it had tried. Half the clip was spent tracking the workers through the crowd with a spotlight. When they finally made it back into the ring, there were some typically good punches from both guys before a shitty AAA finish, but there was enough here to suggest that maybe (just maybe) there exist some quality AAA Sangre Chicana brawls. I dunno who Heavy Metal was trying to style himself after here, but he was straightening his hair to look like someone. Perhaps the dude from Type O Negative? Blue Panther/Negro Navarro/Enterrador vs. El Dandy/Mr. Niebla/Super Parka. IWRG, 4/5/01 Only worth watching for the El Dandy/Negro Navarro exchanges, but well worth watching for those exchanges. Has it really been ten years since the DVDVR guys were pimping this shit? Almost. El Hijo del Santo vs. Perro Aguayo, Sr. I'm not sure when this took place but Aguayo was fairly old. It was *exactly* what you'd expect a Santo vs. Perro Aguayo match to be like. You could've sat down before the match, blocked it out and got it almost exactly right, but in the end it was still fun as hell. I guess that sums El Hijo del Santo up for me: predictable as hell *and* fun as all hell. There were familiar elements from some of the Monterrey brawls Santo has had in the past and Aguayo was a relentless old bastard who wouldn't stop coming at him. The finish was cool and surprisingly decisive.

This is the greatest film ever made. I almost fell out of my chair when he gave a speech where he literally says in order to get the big money on the Evangelical circut you've got to be the guy with the best gimmick because that's what draws. And really it's (somewhat disturbing) thematic similarities to wrestling aside, it really is a pretty good movie. His life after the documentary could almost be described as wrestler-esque -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjoe_Gortner

Los Infernales vs. Los Brazos, Arena Coliseo, 1991 This wasn't their famous match from Arena Mexico but a smaller match from Arena Coliseo. There appeared to be missing a fall, and the finish was pretty crappy, but the main thing I took away from this was just how good everyone was in 1991. Six of the greatest trios workers ever, each of them capable of playing the lead role. I've thought long and hard in this blog about the differences between old-school and modern lucha, and finally I believe it boils down to this: these guys were able to take exchanges they'd done a thousand times before and make them seem original. Modern guys take exchanges they've done a thousand times before and make it seem like the thousandth time. And while I think there are huge problems with pacing in modern lucha, it's really the performance aspects that are the biggest thing holding it back. The Infernales and the Brazos were over the top characters that had a unique lucha charm, but there was also a flesh and blood element to them that made them compelling. These days nobody can act anymore and I can't understand why the promoters don't see fit to change that since characters are ultimately their lifeblood. Negro Casas/Satanico/Mano Negra vs. El Dandy/El Brazo/Ultimo Dragon, CMLL 1/17/93 You know you're watching real lucha when the picture has snowy reception. This was another match from Arena Coliseo, which is generally speaking an easier night's work for most wrestlers, but it speaks volumes of these guys that they were able to put on a compelling match without exerting themselves too much. The match was wrapped around the simple idea of El Dandy having to fend off his two biggest rivals at the time, Negro Casas and El Satanico Daniel Lopez. Satanico was starting to show his age here and 1993 would mark the beginning of his decline, but he was still good enough to make Ultimo Dragon look like a passable luchador, which was no mean feat at this stage. Negro Casas, on the other hand, was flirting with the peak of his powers. It's a shame that as Casas was approaching the peak of his powers, CMLL had the core of its talent ripped out and that many of the UWA guys choose to go with the hotter ticket, as Casas spent a number of years without any true competition. I say this as a fan of course, since he cemented a CMLL position for life and will still be wrestling there when I'm long gone, but you can almost leapfrog the years between the Casas/Dandy feud and the Casas/Santo feud and that's a shame really. He was going through his football player phase here, complete with socks and boots, and was letting his ass hang out too. But more on that another time! He lined up a lot of goals during this era and his aim was true. The other cool thing about this match was the scrapping between Mano Negra and El Brazo. I kept thinking how cool it would've been if Brazo had taken Negra's mask instead of Atlantis. It probably wouldn't have drawn as well, but it would've surely been a better match. Los Villanos I, IV & V vs. Apolo Dantes/El Texano/Mascara Sagrada, 4/22/90 This was a rare appearance by the Villanos on the CMLL undercard during the tail era of the CMLL/UWA working relationship. For some reason or another, it didn't have a very big arc, whether that was because it was an undercard match, a "guest" appearance by outside workers or simply the short comings of the workers, but it was rock solid and as technically good as you'd expect from Los Villanos. Villano I is another guy whose name you can add to the list of guys who've made Mascara Sagrada look good (and he really did make him look surprising competent on the mat) and the mat exchange between Villano IV and Texano was off the charts good. It's easy to forget how much of a beast Texano was on the mat, but the guy was phenomenal and tore shit up with cuatro Satanico/Emilio Charles, Jr./Fuerza Guerrera vs. Atlantis/Kato Kung Lee/Octagon, 1991 This was beautiful. To be honest, I watched a lot of awful matches for this "random matches" entry, to the point where I was wondering whether I liked lucha anymore; but this right here, this reminded me why I eat this shit up. The match started off in the best possible way that any lucha match can start off and that's by having Satanico get into it with somebody. There are certain wrestlers (not many, but a few) who can get into it with anybody, and Satanico is one of those wrestlers for the simple reason that he fucks everyone off. I've told this story before, but it's like my father used to say about Precious Pupp: "he had a face that just made you wanna kick him up the backside." Invariably, the best guys for Satanico to get into it with are veterans (think Ringo Mendoza and Gran Cochisse), and Kato Kung Lee did not disappoint. They were building towards an Arena Mexico hair match with this trios, and if there's ever a Satanico comp made anything that's available from this feud ought to be included because this shit was tight. One of the things that Satanico truly excels at (and this is no faint praise since he excels at everything) is the "second go around." The second go around is my term for when wrestlers pair up for a second time in the same fall. I've seen Satanico do this a hundred times but it never ceases to entertain me when Satanico gets a head of steam up and gets his ass handed to him. Sometimes he recovers to win the fall, sometimes he doesn't, but it's a great example of how a well-honed act is what sustains a wrestling career. Other highlights in this match include quality exchanges between Fuerza and Octagon and Emilio Charles, Jr. and Atlantis, including an awazing series of punches from Emilio worthy of some local district belt. Watching the Octagon/Fuerza stuff, I still maintain that Octagon gets a bum rap. Yeah, Fuerza bumped for him better than anyone but that was some tricked out, intricate shit that Octagon was pulling off. The dude was a perfectly good poor man's Black Man.

Black Terry, Cerebro Negro, Dr. Cerebro vs. Bombero Infernal, Maldito Jr., Samot [captains hair], 6/24/10 Black Terry rides again! This was uploaded by an occasional source for IWRG on youtube and shot from the balcony, giving it a more classic handheld look. The first fall was rubbish, really, as both Maldito Jr. and Samot are useless at delivering a rudo beatdown. How you can be useless at your bread and butter is beyond me, but the next two falls were impressive. Los Terribles Cerebros have been resurgent of late after going through a late season funk last year. This match swung on their comeback and from the balcony it was noticeable how much the Cerebros' brawling opens up a match. You don't often see carries in IWRG. The workers tend to wrestle exactly to their level and the good matches are predominantly wrestled by the good workers, but this was a strong carry. The Cerebros struck me as the only old-school trios left in wrestling and looked resplendent in their matching outfits. Cerebro Negro hit a couple of topes that looked fantastic from the balcony and there were some cracking exchanges between Dr. Cerebro and Bombero Infernal. Terry was less prominent than usual, but that's okay since the best trios have always been three-pronged attacks. The "Cerebros" picked up the slack here and the third fall was geninuely good stuff.

I dunno about that. AAA did a terrible job using a lot of the talent that jumped from CMLL and the UWA which would be the only way I'd see him make the top 20.

All pro-wrestling fans should watch the documentary Marjoe about a former child evangelist who exposes all the carny tricks of the "church tent" Revivalist circuit. So much carny goodness, so many killer promos. It's on youtube if you're ever bored.

I've only just started from the beginning so I haven't gotten to Whoa, Nellie! yet, but there's plenty of pro-wrestling stories in the original run of Love and Rockets. One of the main characters is loosely based on Moolah, I believe. It's actually the best "wrestling in other media" stuff I've seen. I love how they never break kayfabe.

Kind of odd they picked him and not a Lucha character, no? He says xenophobicly. It's an autobiographical piece. Adonis was Gilbert's childhood hero when he wrestled as Gorgeous Keith Franks and the story's about what happened years later when he met him at a houseshow. There's even a cameo by Iron Mike Sharpe. Someone should get these guys on a podcast.

I had no idea Adrian Adonis was immortalised in a back-up story in Love and Rockets. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kZ6kU5rMhwA/Sdjw...6R16_page31.jpg

Rude was Heyman in WCW for the better part of his run. Maybe I'm reading this wrong. Are you saying he was better in WCW after he split with Heyman?

I think everybody likes Estrada more than me. The link is dead I'm afraid. I think you can get it from Alfredo for fairly cheap.

Sometime around the beginning of the year, I asked the question: "which will last longer, Black Terry Jr.'s handhelds or this good patch IWRG are going through?" Fortunately for us, they both lasted longer than expected. Now that Terry has quit his handhelds, all that remains is to thank him. I think we're all indebted to BTJr. for capturing a unique period of lucha libre history on film. Hopefully, it can be perserved in a more durable form than internet video sharing files, and hopefully this isn't the last we've seen of our Naucalpan favourites. Though it's poetic in a way, isn't it? Los Terribles Cerebros vs. Los Gringos VIP, Distrito Federal Trios Championship, 5/20/10 The ongoing Cerebros vs. Gringos feud has produced most of the top matches in Mexico this year despite the fact that it doesn't have an ascertainable storyline. After watching lucha for a number of years, I have decided that the key feature of lucha booking is creating gimmicks. Once a gimmick sticks, a worker or group of workers can prosper for a mighty long time by going through the same basic cycles. This is in direct contrast to the fidgety booking styles of US companies, who'd sooner have the Gringos turn on one another than have the gimmick meander on forever. Lucha can be a bit rudderless at times, and this match was a case in point. Title belts on brawling rudos is a cheap prop, in my opinion. Brawling rudos winning trios titles from their rivals is an acceptable piece of booking but brawling rudos winning a trios title tournament is wonky in my view. I'm probably forgetting a thousand instances where this type of thing happened in the past, and lucha title booking is a bit of a merry-go-round at the best times, but if you can't mount a lucha title defence to any great degree then I don't think you should be wearing the props. Avisman is the most capable of the three on the mat and should probably be working as the lead-off guy because of his stature within the group, but the problem with that is that it leaves the less talented workers as first and second drop, and there's never really been a memorable trios match where they weren't building better and better exchanges with each pairing. Hijo del Diablo did some fun stuff with Dr. Cerebro on the mat this year but it's questionable how much of that he can reproduce outside of his ring time with the doctor. I think Diablo has a good captain's fall in him, but Gringo Loco is the "gringo" in Los Gringos VIPs and there's not much happening on the mat there. He's improving in his general exchanges with people, but his matwork is a below par version of the stuff Cerebro Negro passes off as matwork. Since the group dynamics prevent them from having their best worker as the ace in their pocket, they're an awkward bunch when it comes to title matches and the upshot of all this was that this match was more like your standard trios match than a proper lucha libre title match. And by standard, I really mean the kind of record that was massed produced when the gramophone was first invented. Not the world's most original trios match this. My advice is to stick to the brawls. Los Terribles Cerebros vs. Los Gringos VIP, 6/5/10 This was more like it. The first fall was too compact for my liking but they ratcheted up the match in the second fall to the point where I thought perhaps they were easing their way into the match in the first fall and I had been too harsh. The catalyst for all the excitement was all three members of Los Terribles Cerebros blading and the galvanising effect it had on their comeback effort. Easily the best Terribles Cerebros performance since their performances started to go South towards the end of last year. If this is the last I see of Terry for a while (or indeed ever), we can be rest assured that camera or no camera Terry will keep brawling into the sunset.

Black Terry y Negro Navarro vs. Ultraman y Solar, 5/1/10 Since the Celtics couldn't grab a rebound to save themselves, I thought I'd drown my sorrows in some professional lucha libre where the results are fixed and the outcome doesn't matter that much. And people wonder why Dave Meltzer wishes the world was booked. (I've got to admit, Celtics/Lakers was probably booked the right way storywise but it still sucks.) This was your typical sort of maestros match. The focus here was on the exchanges with not much else holding the match together; not the sort of match you watch if you want to see how great wrestling can be as a storytelling medium, but definitely worth watching if you want to see how cool lucha libre exchanges can be. There wasn't a lot of matwork this time round, but this sort of middle ground between matwork and running the ropes has long been one of my favourite parts of lucha libre. Solar and Navarro, in particular, really excel at working the middle ground. I know I've complained about too much of a good thing when it comes to Solar and Navarro but some of the stuff they did in this match was ultra slick. The first two falls of this match were pretty crips with everything humming along nicely. The third fall wasn't the greatest in terms of ideas or execution but it was still pretty fab. It was a great crowd and you kind of wish they'd turned it up a bit in the third caida but the lucha indy circuit isn't much of a Chitlin' Circuit in terms of raw soul. Stilll, it was an easy watch on a lazy afternoon and helped chase the blues away.

Black Terry, Negro Navarro y Villano IV vs. Blue Panther, Ultimo Dragon y Olimpico, UWE 4/24/10 This was a beautifully worked match and definitely the purest trios I've seen this year. Black Terry Jr. really spoiled us with this one. Thank you, you magnanimous young man. I've often complained that when Black Terry works these UWE matches alongside Negro Navarro he's nothing like the Terry we see on his home turf. That Terry is an unqualified legend, but in UWE Terry pretty much does his thing and heads back to the apron. Not on this night, however. Terry packed his working boots for this trip. His stuff may have been secondary to You Know Who vs. You Know Who, but he really gave Olimpico a match here. And it's fair to say that Olimpico responded in kind. The two of them put on probably the best standard trios stuff Terry has done all year. Whatever happened to Olimpico's career, anyway? He came across as a lost good worker here. If someone would kindly tell me why he's working nothing but indy dates, I'd appreciate it. Of course the main reason to watch this match was the battle of the maestros; Blue Panther and Negro Navarro being arguably the two most deserving recipients of such a title. I can't think of too many potential match-ups in lucha that are more appealing to the vocal minority than Blue Panther and Negro Navarro and let me just state emphatically that they did not disappoint for a second. This was some serious, serious wrestling. I know Panther's wrestled just about everyone in the business in his 32 year career and works a ton of dates each year, but a guy with the skills that he possesses HAS to appreciate working a match against Navarro. How could he not have enjoyed that? Panther's having a good year from the little I've seen, but anytime he wants to have a falling out with CMLL and be reduced to working indy dates to survive he's welcome to go right ahead. A lot of times in matches like these, Solar and Navarro dominate the ring time and there's little tying the falls together but I thought this was a tidy little match with nice balance to the exchanges. They even managed to hit the ring well for the finishes and there were a couple of dives at the end. You're never going to get the really great trios we saw in early 90s Arena Mexico in the sort of arenas UWE run and it's hard to work that sort of a match in front of smidgings of people, but this was another three stars is the new four stars classic and another Black Terry Jr. handheld victory. Watch it if you haven't.

Black Terry y Cerebro Negro vs. Trauma I y Trauma II, IWRG 4/29/10 I took a bit of a break from lucha over the past couple of months. It wasn't something I intended to do, but I'm back and ready to talk about the Grupo Internacional Revolución. The IWRG style of wrestling isn't perfect, but one thing's clear and that's that their workers try harder than just about anyone in the business. In wrestling you can either work big or small depending on he venue and the size of the crowd. With an arena the size of Arena Naucalpan, IWRG workers are forced to work small all the time. There's no distinction between studio and arena match like there was in the old US territories or in companies where multiple venues are used. When you work small, you need to work small and sell big. That means working with the type of energy and charisma that draws people's attention and builds that interest into heat. Wrestling like you're working in front of a hundred people, selling like you're performing for ten thousand. This, of course, is easier said than done. Oftentimes, IWRG matches never get off the ground. They become bogged down in half complete ideas and lack any sort of forward momentum, which often occurs when the performances aren't "big" enough. As wrestling fans we tend to make a big deal out of big performances and often exercise our own creative juices when describing a big match performance and the story that came out of it. That's a fan's prerogative and I have no problem with a bit of artistic license, but it struck me while watching this match that a little bit of antagonism is all it takes to charge a professional wrestling match and give it the spur it needs. When you think that all story is based on conflict and all professional wrestling is based on fighting, that makes sense I believe. But what really made this match work was how the workers turned that conflict into forward momentum. I was impressed with how each detail in this match was followed up on and expanded upon as the match progressed. Now the idea that a Black Terry match would become chippy and confrontational is a pretty simple idea narrative wise and not particularly startling considering it happens in practically every Black Terry match, but I don't think workers ever get enough credit for stringing together a central theme in "real time." To lay out all those details, build off them and pay them off without the ability to go back and edit and revise anything and to just adlib and juggle it all in your heads makes wrestlers far more talented performers than they're given credit for. As a viewer, it's easy to watch a match and piece things together (and even easier to criticise when there's nothing to piece together) but for workers to work structure on the spot, so to speak, never ceases to amaze me. Make no mistake about it, this wasa big performance from Black Terry. The other workers were all good but it was Terry's charisma and selling that made this a more compelling match than usual. If you ask me, Black Terry is the Most Interesting Man in the World and certainly the most badass 57 year-old on the planet. I'm starting to wonder if a reasonable case can be made for Black Terry as a top 10 lucha guy all-time at least in regard to what exists on tape. Terry's reached a level like Satanico or Casas where you'd consider his performing to be acting. He may not be a real actor in the stage sense or anything like that, but in terms of wrestling his performance skills are on a far higher level than the average worker. I mean when you think about it, this was a two-on-two tag match, a form of wrestling that most luchadores are uncomfortable with and matches that tend to underwhelm even in IWRG, yet Terry's personality still dominated. On a side note, this was the first time I'd seen Cerebro Negro wrestle in quite some time. I wasn't sure whether he'd been injured or if he was in the doghouse but it was a solid return. His early exchanges with Trauma II surprised me as I couldn't remember him being so quick with the type of armdrag/judo throws that they were working. I did think the end of their exchange petered out a bit, however. Particuarly in comparison to the upward swing that Terry usually leaves his exchanges on. Anyway, it's good to see that IWRG is still kicking out the matches. Which begs the question: is this one of the greatest indy runs ever?