Graham Crackers

Uneven is the word. I liked some parts and hated others. I saw these names and instantly thought brawl but I saw this was a title match and adjusted my expectations. It was living up to them at first with some interesting early matwork built around using leverage to pin your opponent. I'm a sucker for that stuff. Part of me was disappointed when they left the mat but I'm not really too sure what kind of mat game Perro Aguayo really had. Surprisingly this turned into a bit of a bomb throwing juniors affair and I can't say that's something I really wanted to see. Some of that stuff was cool but Aguayo's offense was a bit repetitive and the match was probably too long for what it was. Villano III did look pretty good and I'm still excited to see more of him on this set. I actually popped for his dropkicks to Aguayo's legs to capitalize on the missed double stomp. I'm not sure I've ever seen that spot done during this era. I wonder who the first person to do that was. And then we have the double pin. Man, another one? The double pin is turning into the lucha set equivalent of the New Japan DQ for throwing a guy over the guardrail finish. The post match stuff was fun but also a bit of a tease. Perro Aguayo looks way more at home in that setting than in this kind of workrate match.

Until you take your daughter out to a lovely father/daughter lunch, and some asshole approaches your table and tells her how much he loves watching her get fucked, and "How much would it cost to get to fuck her, too?". Would you also think your daughter was "asking for it"? Would you tell your daughter she brought it on herself or would you offer her moral support? This is an extreme situation and one in which I'd hope you would take your daughter's side regardless of if you supported her decision to enter the sex industry. Anyway, I'm getting a strong sense that very few people in this thread if any actually know a sex worker or somebody involved in advocacy for sex workers' rights. There is a lot of unfortunate ignorance being tossed around in here.

I guess I'll post my top 25 again:1.) Nick Bockwinkel vs Wahoo McDaniel (No DQ) (8/28/83)2.) Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs Midnight Rockers (Cage Match) (1/17/87)3.) Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs Midnight Rockers (8/30/86)4.) Tito Santana & Rick Martel vs High Flyers (8/29/82)5.) Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie vs High Flyers (Cage Match) (4/18/82)6.) Nick Bockwinkel vs Curt Hennig (11/21/86)7.) The Crusher & Greg Gagne vs Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie (Cage Match) (3/25/84)8.) Stan Hansen vs Curt Hennig (5/31/86)9.) Jerry Blackwell vs Mad Dog Vachon (Algerian Death Match) (5/22/83)10.) Nick Bockwinkel vs Curt Hennig (5/2/87)11.) Bill Dundee & Jerry Lawler vs Original Midnight Express (10/30/87)12.) Ken Patera, Jesse Ventura & Bobby Heenan vs Hulk Hogan & High Flyers (3/13/83)13.) Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs Midnight Rockers (Cage Match) (12/25/86)14.) Nick Bockwinkel vs Ric Flair (1/17/86)15.) Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera vs High Flyers (11/24/83)16.) Stan Hansen vs Leon White (3/13/86)17.) Jerry Lawler vs Kerry Von Erich (12/13/88)18.) Nick Bockwinkel & Masa Saito vs The Fabulous Ones (9/30/84)19.) Nick Bockwinkel vs Rick Martel (9/20/84)20.) Ken Patera & Brad Rheingans vs Badd Company (3/25/1989)21.) Buddy Rose, Doug Somers & Sherri Martel vs Midnight Rockers & Despina Montegues (11/27/86)22.) Stan Hansen vs Jerry Blackwell (6/28/86)23.) Nick Bockwinkel vs Col. DeBeers (4/17/86)24.) Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera vs Blackjack Mulligan & Jerry Lawler (3/4/84)25.) Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie vs Baron Von Raschke & Mad Dog Vachon (Taped Fist Match) (3/13/83) And my bottom 5: 146.) Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera vs Steve O & Buck Zumhofe (2/3 Falls) (4/15/84)147.) Wahoo McDaniel vs Curt Hennig (Indian Strap Match) (11/28/87)148.) Steve Regal vs Buck Zumhofe (11/28/85)149.) Wahoo McDaniel & Tom Zenk vs Manny Fernandez & Larry Zbyszko (2/7/89)150.) Col. Debeers vs Jimmy Snuka (Coal Miner's Glove On A Pole Match) (2/21/87) If it makes you feel any better, I have that match at number 27.

I'm with you on this. If we had more matwork in this one it'd be an easy number 1 for me but at this moment I don't know if I like this or MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana more.

As requested, here's a thread for errors on the DVDs so that way we can keep Chris in the loop. here are the only ones I've spotted so far: Hijo del Santo, Ringo Mendoza y Chamaco Valaguez vs. Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera y Talisman (3/9/84) I'm pretty sure Ringo Mendoza isn't in this match and that's actually his brother Cachorro Mendoza.

I'm glad we get to see the original Infernales lineup together one last time on this set. This is more of a traditional trios match than the last one we saw them in. It's pretty good too although not quite the devastating spectacle the last one was. We get more of the Atlantis vs Satanico match up in this one. Satanico looks like such a force in these exchanges and Atlantis ends up getting hurt. Atlantis trying to will himself back into this match ends up being one of the important stories in this match. It alternately places him in the role of face in peril and AJPW style injured partner trying to make the save. Mendoza and Salazar hold down the fort pretty well. I've said it every other time I've seen him on this set but Tony Salazar is someone I want to see more of. He just feels like a badass oldschool babyface. I love his punches and it was pretty cool to see him bust out more takedowns and flying moves this time around. I really dug all of his exchanges with Espectro. MS-1, similar to the trios match almost a year earlier, just wants to get in everyone's face and that makes for a good rudo character. Back to Atlantis vs Satanico, I noticed the way Atlantis was kept out of the finish of the first two falls and I just knew he'd have to be involved in the third fall finish. We ended up getting another mask removal finish, which as far as BS finishes go is pretty good but not as great as a foul. The mask ripping didn't turn up until late in the match so it didn't feel as satisfying as Santo's mask getting ripped off on the last disc but it didn't take away from the match either.

Their first match is so perfectly simple and there's no way they can top it. This is worked as a more competitive brawl than the original. I mean, Sangre Chicana actually hits some offense in the first fall this time. He still spends most of this match selling a beating and it's still some great selling. This one has a few more bombs/dives and they are all pretty cool even if the first match is better because it doesn't have them. The tope that launches MS-1 back a few rows is pretty awesome and is one of the top 3 dives on this set so far. This is really good, it's just not transcendent like the original.

I just wanted to give everybody a heads up about the order of matches on the third disc. This is the order they are appearing in on my disc: Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (Hair vs. Hair) (7/30/84) El Satanico y Espectro Jr. v. El Faraón y La Fiera (8/12/84) Gran Cochise vs. Satanico (9/14/84) Sangre Chicana vs. MS-1 (Hair vs. Hair) (9/21/84) Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) Satanico vs. Super Astro (10/26/84) Javier Cruz, Impacto y Solar II vs. El Dandy, Franco Colombo y Panico (10/84) Perro Aguayo vs. Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraón vs. Villano III (Elimination Match) (10/84) Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (9/28/84) The menus however are still labeled as if the matches are in chronological order so if you click on Atlantis, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico, MS-1 y Espectro Jr. (9/28/84) then Villano III vs. Perro Aguayo (10/7/84) will play.

There was some brawling that looked pretty great throughout and I especially liked that Fiera used the spikes on his jacket as weapons during the first fall. There were a few moments during the two on one beat downs where I wasn't sure where the other wrestler was and how they got isolated. I'm not sure if that was because I was distracted, the bad video quality in some places, or a flaw in the match. I just feel like I missed some important transitions somewhere. The finish was pretty awesome though. La Fiera's missed tope was pretty sick and already took me by surprise but I didn't think Faraon would instantly follow it up with a tope of his own. I saw a lot I liked in this one but I think I need to give it another watch.

From the first lock-up you can tell this is going to be different from all of the other grappling so far on this set. Gran Cochisse has to work hard to find an escape from that first waistlock and from there they move through their first series of reversals. There is a graceful athleticism to great lucha matwork and that's present in this one but grace doesn't mean cooperative. These first exchanges happen at the perfect speed for viewers like us to see how these wrestlers jockey for position before finding the counter they need to turn the tide in their favor. The same difficulty that Gran Cochisse has in escaping that first waistlock is mirrored by the difficulty Satanico faces in getting his opponent off of his back. Like any good fight, neither man is going to give up their position that easily. Gran Cochisse is thrown out of the ring with a huge snapmare but Satanico doesn't pounce on him or dive. This is a title match and it's only the first fall. He waits for him to come back so he can submit him in the middle of the ring.The second fall is all about teasing escalation. They both try to pick apart their opponent's shoulder and things continue to heat up before they find themselves staring each other down on all fours. Gran Cochisse takes the second fall with a quick counter though it's not as decisive as Satanico's first fall victory. When the third fall starts Satanico suggests a handshake and at first Gran Cochisse is skeptical. Why wouldn't he be with a rudo as tricky as Satanico making the offer? Shockingly, it's Gran Cochisse who takes advantage by quickly going around and hitting Satanico with a huge knee to the kidneys and after that's followed up by a series of brutal spinebusters Satanico is not looking so hot. This leads to a series of spectacular near submissions. Each time Gran Cochisse puts Satanico into a hold that could end the whole thing Satanico barely finds a counter but after a while the damage starts to show and Satanico resorts to just desperately crawling away. The way the crowd embraces Satanico as an underdog in the final fall of this match is similar to the story of another one of my favorite lucha title matches, the Santo vs Espanto match from1992. Satanico's performance in this match is simply one of the best performances I've ever seen. The grappling and the selling are incredible but on top of that he manages to go from subtle heeling to underdog babyface within the course of one match.

Seeing that the Brooklyn show was held in a room like this makes me love indy wrestling even more. Is that the Brooklyn Lyceum?

The finish of the Herodes vs Tony Salazar match just got a lot better for me because in some ways it sets up this finish. In that match there is a low blow that the ref misses but the crowd lets him know and he calls for the DQ. In this one Satanico fakes a low blow and the ref totally buys it.The rest of the match is pretty awesome as well and it's probably the best match Koshinaka has ever been in, or at least the best singles match. Koshinaka may not be great when he has to work a back and forth title match but he sure knows how to bring it in a hate filled brawl. There are some really brutal strikes in this one, and I especially liked how they would hit each other with nasty kicks, knees, and stomps while grappling. My favorites were when Satanico threw some some nasty kicks to try and escape the cross arm breaker. This is yet another Satanico performance for the ages. His selling was great throughout the match but I was particularly fond of when he freaked out at the sight of his own blood and pounced on Koshinaka looking for vengeance. EDIT: Okay, so I just read OJ's write up and he thought the low blow was blatant. Rewatching the finish, Koshinaka's arm does go between Satanico's legs but I'm not sure if it really looked like a strike. This match was awesome with or without that finish but now I'm curious if others think it was intentional.

ohtani's jacket has a terrific write up on this match on his blog where he talks about the rivalry between these two and how this match represents it.In terms of my own thoughts on this one, it isn't as epic as I would have hoped but it's still pretty damn good. The real problem is that after the first fall Lizmark is never in enough danger for the match to remain compelling. Satanico barely scraping together a victory could be interesting but in the end it feels cheap and not the spectacular kind of cheap you get when everything has gone according to the villain's plan. Lizmark does have some impressive offense and counters. Satanico is a master at selling all of that stuff. I love the way he goes back to selling the neck after he misses a knee in the corner to start the third fall. They both contributed some great stuff to this match but it feels as if it's less than the sum of it's parts.

The "story" is he was a tough dude who was hung with a bad crowd in his younger days and got caught up in drug deals and such. This is why he went to jail for a short time early on and again later in his life. The theory is his fingers being cut off was a message being sent to whatever gang he was in at the time. You can take this as kayfabe or legit. Personally I buy it since the jail sentences were real and cutting off fingers is exactly what you'd do to send a message to a rival gang. Thanks. That's even better than I could have imagined. For me of course, not for him.

I'm pretty sure that's Cachorro Mendoza and not Ringo Mendoza: http://luchawiki.org/index.php?title=Cachorro_MendozaIt's funny to see baby Misawa and baby Koshinaka getting interviewed at the beginning. This is a really fun fast paced trios match. There are a bunch of heel miscommunication spots involving Fuerza and Talisman that are perfectly timed. Santo's team acts more as his backup than anything else and most of this match is built around Santo vs the rudos. The rudos trying to remove Santo's mask in the third fall is really well done and is sold as being as big of a deal as all of the other action in this match which is pretty cool. Fuerza vs Santo is a goldmine and it's a shame the only singles matches they've had against each other are the triangle mask match from 89 and that one from Hamada's UWF that is way too short.

This was a fucking awesome bloody Memphis style brawl. Salazar makes a great Lawler stand-in and spends most of this match working from underneath Herodes. Herodes attacks him before he can enter the ring which leads to a quick first fall victory. The second fall was also really quick and having two quick falls like that would usually bother me but the third fall more than makes up for it. Salazar's comeback is sooooooo awesome. He just ducks a punch and stuns Herodes with a series of jabs. It's so simple and so fucking cool. The bulldogs on the wooden planks outside of the ring were brutal. Herodes hits a fucking insane fat guy tope. There are some great nearfalls as well including one where Salazar misses a tope en reversa and Herodes just crushes him with a senton. I wish we had a better finish than the ref calling a DQ on a low blow he didn't even see. How often do refs take the crowd's word for it? Still, that wasn't enough to put a damper on how fucking cool this match was.

I haven't seen a ton of Jerry Estrada. From what I have seen I do know he's a lunatic bumper but otherwise he hasn't given me much reason to think he's a great worker. He doesn't do much to sell me on his skills in this match either. In fact I don't recall any crazy bumps from him in this match outside of those front rolls for every enziguiri which are a little over the top for my tastes. I've always wanted to see Ultraman in a singles match and he didn't disappoint here. This was a title match so we didn't really get to see any of those punching combos but he looked good controlling Jerry on the mat in the first fall and he did a fantastic job selling the damage to his shoulder in the second and third falls. The finish was a bit anticlimactic and a pin or submission would have obviously been preferable. In the end this is a match that will end up somewhere on the bottom half of my ballot.

I get excited about every opportunity to watch Dos Caras do his thing. As I've said before he has an almost Tamon Honda or Volk Han quality where when he applies a hold or takes down an opponent it always looks as if he's generating the force as opposed to how others can appear more cooperative. A Dos Caras title match sounded pretty amazing on paper but this wasn't amazing like that. Still, it was pretty enjoyable. I've been surprised at how much some of the matwork on this set differs from my traditional interpretation of what is lucha matwork. This match was similar to the earlier Canek matches or even the Hamada/CN match in that they spent more time working individual holds as opposed to finding counters and escapes to those holds. This had more chain grappling than the Canek matches. None of it was particularly mindblowing but it looked good and held my attention. Plus most of the grappling here felt like attempts to win the match, especially all of the roll-up nearfalls in the final fall. I liked it but I guess this will be midrange at best and more likely a bottom half match.

This was one of my favorite trios matches going into the set and watching it again confirms just how much I love it. I'm predisposed to liking a match like this. I love great high flyers. I'm a mark for exotico gimmicks. I love matches built around great schtick and man, the comedy spots in this one get me every fucking time. Also, Ultraman is a candidate for best punches ever and he throws some jaw droppingly good combinations in this one. They're almost as impressive as Super Astro's flying. I love love love this match.

This was a quick, fun, and heated brawl. Mocho Cota continues to be someone I enjoy though Herodes and Tony Salazar were the main focus in this match. Herodes is just a spectacular bumper for such a barrel chested guy. I'd never seen Tony Salazar wrestle before but I thought he threw some great punch combinations.

This is fun but ultimately too short to really be anything special. It's cool to see Lizmark because he is a really impressive high flyer but I know there is more of him to come on this set. The stuff he did here was pretty impressive, especially his springboard arm drag which may look better than anytime I've seen anybody else do that move. The rudos had some decent strikes but didn't bring a lot of personality.

Do we know how Mocha Cota lost his fingers?EDIT: I will also accept a kayfabe answer.

Another great match. I really like how in lucha, and especially in the stuff on this set, they sell every impact on the mat as a big deal. In a match like this every hiptoss and armdrag looks really painful and I think a lot of that is how the offense is presented. Rocca slamming the back of Cota's head into the mat repeatedly during the indian deathlock looked brutal. I may have liked some of the matwork in this one more but the last match felt like more of a complete package.

I never saw Mocho Cota before this set but when I saw him I wondered about his name but the closeup on his missing fingers cleared all that up for me. Imagine if they billed Zach Gowen as "Lame Zach Gowen." Yeesh. After a match like this I think I'm going to be a fan of this guy. He's a rudo to the core. Even when he's not actually cheating like during some of the matwork he is just rough. Of course he actually cheats as well and it's awesome. It was the perfect kind of cheating for a title match too because it never turned into a brawl. And man, his tope was nuts as well.Rocca looked pretty good too. I really liked his selling, particularly his facial expressions and the way he favored his shoulder later in the match. The finish was well done and it put over that Cota will take any victory he can get. I'm pretty excited about the rematch.

This is a cool match to watch coming after the last one and it might even be better. Rookie Atlantis is here again but this time in a singles match against a far more formidable foe. The slower pace brings more attention to his flaws but that is a compelling part of the story told in this match. That lack of confidence I talked about in the tag with Atlantis and Santito comes into play here. Atlantis turns to the crowd after almost every move. It's common to appeal to the crowd in lucha but look at the difference between how Satanico looks to the crowd and how Atlantis does it. The stance that Atlantis adopts throughout the match is a bit awkward too. His arms are stiff and he keeps them at his sides. He only looks up to appeal to the public. When I watched this back in late 2008/early 2009 La Sombra vs Ephesto was a match that was getting a lot of hype and I remember someone drawing a parallel between his performance and Atlantis in this match. Similar to that match we do get to see Atlantis show more confidence the more he controls the match. Of course this match is nothing without Satanico. He gives Atlantis a lot but never too much and rather than take away from Atlantis's athleticism he cuts him off by being crafty or just plain ruthless. He'll bite his fingers to break a hold or rip his mask. I think this will be a popular match with those who haven't seen much lucha as it's easy to get into this kind of rookie/underdog performance.