I liked this more than Kris. VQ will hurt this, but we have had stuff on Memphis and AWA that was around this level and I still regret leaving Dukes v. Deebers off of the AWA set, so unless something is truly horrific it's not going to stop me from nominating it. This fits nicely into a few buckets for me. It's a studio match with a hot crowd. It's an early WWC match from an era where we aren't likely to have a lot of stuff make the set. It's some different faces from the guys who will dominate the set. The ref looks like Gene Shalit. Most importantly it was a PR match with a pretty sick blade job and it had the "face returns with the head wrap on to avenge the evil heels" bit which is one of my favorite semi-regular things in wrestling. Nothing in this aside from the posting, blade job and run-in at the end were out of the world, but I thought the work was spirited and solid. We have nominated and I have backed the nominations of worse matches than this. I will go low end here, mainly because it lacks a real finish, but I could actually see using a personal on this.

Gino Dellaserra & Pierre Martel vs. Los Mercenarios (Cuban & Iranian Assassins) (12/18/82)

 

This starts in black & white which is odd watching but it would go to color soon. The faces dominate early but Martel would get posted on the floor and the blood was flowing with the Mercenarios working over the cut. Dellaserra would get the hot tag and ran wild with the crowd going nuts because they never saw action like this at the studio. Martel would get carried out as this was going on so Dellaserra would get doubleteamed until a bandaged Martel would return to run wild and would chase the Mercenarios off for a countout. This was easily the best match I've seen on WWC TV so far but still not enough for a nomination. Fun match though and it was definitely a gem in a pile of crap known as WWC TV in the early 80's.

This is one of those matches like the Budro match where we have something from an era that we don't have a lot of footage of. Add in the fact I thought this was a better match than the Budro match and we have I match that I can see going on the set. The first few minutes are face shine with arm drags and hip tosses but it's perfectly solid. When Martel is on the defensive bleeding it's great and I loved the crowd's reaction when he got a small hope spot with a punch to the gut. His hot tag to Dellasera was great and I loved how the tables turned in the heels favor again when Martel was taken to the back. The pop when that fucker comes back with his bloody head wrapped is awesome and all hell breaks loose. The match is pretty much thrown out from there but the circumstances of this match warrant a nomination. I don't think the VQ is any worse than a few matches I've seen on the lucha set. I'm giving this a LOW END nomination but I think it's close to SOLID.