Graham Crackers

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.

Disc 1 rankings1.) MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (9/23/83)2.) Espectro Jr., Satanico y MS-1 vs. Mocho Cota, Sangre Chicana y La Fiera (9/30/83) 3.) Atlantis y El Hijo del Santo vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Lobo Rubio (11/25/83) 4.) Satoru Sayama y Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo y Baby Face (4/13/80)5.) Sangre Chicana vs. Ringo Mendoza (10/28/83)6.) Centurion Negro vs. Gran Hamada (2/14/82)7.) Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83)8.) El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82)9.) Andre the Giant & Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981)10.) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Canek (6/12/83)Pretty damn good disc. I don't hate the bottom 3 matches and they each had moments I thought were fun but they didn't really add up to compelling wholes. I could easily see them close to the bottom of my ballot in the end. If those end up being the three worst matches on the set then this set is looking pretty good. Other than MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana which probably won't have more than a few matches I rank above it, if any, it's pretty hard to guess where these matches would end up in a top 100.That Santo match from his retirement tour at El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos looked awesome in highlight form.

This is a fun match that I've seen a few times now. It's a showcase for the cutting edge of high flying of young Santito and Atlantis with a pair of great rudos there to catch them. There are so many incredible looking spots in here that people have already mentioned and will continue to list so I won't really get into that territory. The other really interesting thing about this match is that it's an opportunity to see three all time greats before they were fully formed. They are so graceful and quick and you get to see them do tons of stuff that got dropped from their routines over the years. Atlantis obviously dropped most of the high flying spots for example. At the same time some of the things they are known for are already present like how Fuerza already throws a great right hand and doesn't hesitate to talk shit. In some ways they are also a little awkward, almost as if they lack the confidence they would develop later. Knowing who these guys are makes being able to go back and look at a match like this that much more special.

The kids love Sangre Chicana. The opening matwork is pretty cool, especially because I don't think I've seen Chicana in a setting like this. The dueling armdrag sequence where they remain locked up outside the ring and have to be separated by the referee was great and established that neither guy was going to give an inch. I just assumed because it's 1983 we wouldn't get such a workrate heavy first fall with all of this rope running and dives but we did. I may love a good matwork heavy first fall but all of the rope running, dives, and feints were executed really well and at a good pace so I still really liked this. That replay went on for way too long though. They each take a fall by submission and both follow up by working over the bodyparts the submissions targeted with moves. I'm surprised at how American this match feels at times. It started to feel like it was getting back to the cool matwork in the third fall but then we got the double pin. I liked this even though it was kind of like a 2000s CMLL match with 1980s offense and American limbwork.

This here is our first look at Los Infernales on this set, in fact it's the original lineup with Espectro. Well, they looked like Los Infernales to me so they looked pretty badass. This is a great chaotic hate filled brawl that never really let up. The first two falls follow the standard brawling trios formula, which is a great formula, and when you have all these great brawlers it really works. I'm talking about rudos jumping the babyfaces before the match starts and controlling things with a king of the mountain strategy while they isolate one guy in the ring. The babyfaces finally rally in the second fall and it feels like a huge moment, especially with the crowd coming unglued for it. I want more of this. You're nuts. His mask has this awesome b-movie quality that I love.

It's hard to think about what to say about a match like this. Both it's layout and the offense in this match are so simple but the performances of these wrestlers and the atmosphere that surround them are so captivating. This feels like one of those definitive wrestling matches that seem so universal that I imagine you could show it to most anyone and they'd enjoy it (except possibly Matt D). Sangre Chicana is an all time great and seeing more of him is something I'm really looking forward to about this set. In a way I look at him like I look at Stan Hansen in that every time I see him what he does just feels "real." His selling almost makes me believe he's really been beaten within an inch of his life. Every one of those big left hands looks so desperate. I love the way he punches at his head to get himself fired up. MS-1 delivers such a good beating and just seems so slimy. The finish is perfect and the way their hatred extends into the post match stuff feels so natural. I saw this once before and really liked it but this really clicked for me this time. If this isn't number 1 it'll be really fucking close to it.

According to luchawiki Pirata Morgan was Mexican National Heavyweight Champion at the time and he had defended the title against Halcon Ortiz a month earlier. I thought I heard the announcers talking about it but I couldn't quite make it out because my Spanish is a bit rusty so I looked it up. It makes sense that they would be matched up with one another in this one.This was a fun trios match though it's also something I imagine will probably end up on the lower half of my ballot. Pirata and Herodes were not too surprisingly the stars of this match with some good bumping and stooging. Pirata especially took some huge bumps including the classic Jerry Estrada bump. I was going to point out Kevin looking like an asshole after he pushed Herodes early in the match but soup beat me to it. Speaking of the tecnicos looking like jerks, it's really weird to see Mascara Ano 2000 as a babyface. He looked much more at home when he was beating up and tossing his already defeated opponent out of the ring. The third fall was brief but I thought the finish was pretty good with the tecnicos making their comeback and hitting some nice looking flying moves (Ortiz flying out of the ring and Kevin flying in).

So I'm glad there isn't more Canek to come on this set. Like the last match this isn't terrible but this isn't terribly compelling either. Everything was executed well and Fujinami looked pretty good when he was in control. The execution of that missed dropkick that hit the ref instead was pretty great. I didn't see that coming. Eh, too bad the finish was shit too. This is probably going to stay pretty low on my ballot.

Man, that sequence that tim mentioned where Canek bridges to turn the surfboard into the pin was really cool and probably the most lucha-ish thing these guys did on the mat. Otherwise this match was just alright. The Mil Mascaras matches on the AJPW set felt more like lucha than this. While many of the holds employed in this one had that lucha aesthetic structurally this felt like a hybrid between lucha and a 70s NWA style match with long stretches of slow matwork between the bigger offensive maneuvers. I guess it wasn't the worst example of that kind of match.