DEATH VALLEY DRIVERETTE 9242014- There is only Arkangel de la Muerte

[DEAN]

DRIVERETTE 9242014

Day 1 of 1000 straight weekdays of reviewing of Pro Wrestling- the RESTART of the RESTART of the RESTART!.  This one will be less esoterically about my love for obscure Japanese crowbars and more about internet wrestling fans want to talk about.  THEN! I remembered that they want to talk about NXT and the WWE and I haven't watched that in like five years.  It's probably no fault of the WWE, I just don't have time for non-internet wrestling.  So, this will actually be more of the same:  obscure shit that I get excited about when it pops up.  Sorry.   Behold.  The Professional Wrestling.

 

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DR WAGNER JR/ FLAMITA vs TRAUMA II/ PIRATA MORGAN- ARENA SAN JUAN- 9/16/2014:  Ringextremo is some kind of YouTube guy/thing that posts sometimes-horrendous/sometimes-good/always-random-as-fudge lucha underbelly matches.  This is chock full of guys who were useless to me a year or two ago but seem to be back on the upswing now, and they are all in one ring in San Juan.  And of them, PLUS! Flamita- who I've never had a problem with/never actually noticed in matches.   This hits the ground running with Doc Wagner ripping up Trauma II's mask while Flamita poses for the rubes.  Pirata Morgan is on one knee at ringside to sell a totally shitty kick to the head by Wagner- but fuck it, if I were a bricklayer or bottled water delivery driver in San Juan, it would pretty cool to see Pirata Morgan live and in person- even if he did have to pretend that Dr Wagner's colossally shitty kick wasn't colossally shitty.  The auditorium in which they wrestle is pretty awesome.  It has a balcony that extends directly out all the way to ringside.  I'm guessing it's usually used for cattle auctions or something- but it is custom made for wrestling or boxing.   The first part is all quebradoras, aforementioned comically shitty kicks and highlarious comedy spots.  Flamita is a perfectly fine highflyer that Pirata and T2 bump all over the ring for him- to the delight of the throng that actually appears to be hanging from the rafters.  It settles down to T2 beating on Wagner and leading to the first fall of the Wagner doing a very nice 14 step lucha roll-up, thus allowing Pirata and Flamita to take over.  Pirata hits two awesome fat old guy powerbombs to cover the corpse of Flamita and I'm confused about who gets the fall.  OH! Wagner and Pirata battle it out.  Pirata, being the oldest school rudo alive crushes Dr Wagner's balls and almost gets the pin.  BUT THEN- SHENANIGANS!  I will not give it away.   Yeah, this review is even more scattershot than this match.  It's fitting.  Post-match, Trauma II and Wagner brawl like motherfuckers through the near-riotous crowd- making the "perfectly fine"-ness of the prior ten minutes a little easier to swallow.  Oh man, there were some angry folks in San Juan- as Trauma is a complete asshole postmatch.  When the garbage is flying into the ring, you know you are watching quality the Lucha Libre.   This definately makes me wanna see Trauma II vs Dr Wagner Jr.  JESUS,  Pirata's punches at the end are soooo fucking awesome.  Yeah, this is went from nothing to fucking great in no time.  

 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$  ZANE DAWSON vs DYLAN KAGE- MIDNIGHT MAYHEM- 3/2014ish:  Fuck it. YES. FUCK IT.  IT IS TIME! TIME! TIME! It is to eschew contractions and IT IS TIME to watch all this wrestling that has survived several purges of my YouTube Watch Later list- and yet, I never actually watch them.  Until now. BECAUSE IT IS TIME!  TO WATCH! The wrestling that I keep putting off. TIME!  Zane Dawson is fucking awesome and I would have watched this... FIVE months ago if I knew it was him on this episode of Midnight Mayhem.  I don't recall ever seeing Dylan Kage but most everybody who works this indie- wherever it is, is at least competent.  So colour me stoked.  I see from the first moments, that Kage is really good at taking an ass-stomping from Dawson, who jumps him and beats him to death early.  Then Zane does an armbar and some guy comes in and CUTZ A PROMO~! mid-armbar. The guy on the STICK is bedecked with fringe and fidgits a lot while talking.  Being indie wrestling with the usual shitty indie PA, you can't make out any of the filibustering on either side.  Then it kind of ends and we all wonder what it leads to.  I assume Zane Dawson will be beating the crap out of the be-fringed guy- oh! who is actually Dylan Kage.  So that was the set-up.  Fair enough.  Kage has comical facepaint as low-rent as his indie name- but who gives a shit about that- it's not the hilarious indie get-up in the fight, it's the fight in the hilarious indie get-up.    God, Zane Dawson will bump like a CHAMP for Kage.  Kage's punches are semi-comical and there is a lot of them early, which is thus semi-unfortunate.  Dawson leans into everything as hard as he can, so we will always have that.  Kane's offense is a bit pedestrian - kinda like a peppy version of Lash LaRue but with Dee Dee Ramones face.  Dawson stops the nonsense with a counter to Kane running up the ropes by converting it into a pretty beautiful powerbomb.  Dawson's punches are world's better but he doesn't really lay into his kicks or anything so I'm losing the love for this match.   Dawson then brings me back into the match with infinitely better punching.  It's a last man standing match so the brawling has to keep you in the match, and brawling is like 65% punching so if the punching sucks your brawl is gonna suck.  This keeps teetering.  They screw up a spot where Kane was supposed to block a punch and instead oversells a punch that never lands- and, yeah, I think we just lost this one.  Kane goes all low-grade lucha/ retro Kanyon on his big comeback and I am having a Devin Storm flashback- or maybe more of an Ace Darling flashback.  Either way it's not incompetent but it's very 90s and nobody is laying it in during a fucking Last Man Standing Match.  And they screw up more spots that I don't think would have been that magnificent if they had hit it correctly, I am now counting the minutes and hoping for... I dunno... buckets of blood?  I don't think anything is saving this.  Dawson sinks in the armbar that we started this with and the guy who was in the set-up to this comes back out!  Kane hits a flying, spinning crescent savat kick!  The ref never counts because he inexplicably keeps looking at bald guy from the set-up!  Dawson with a chain!  And boy that looked like shit!  But at least it's over so I can get on with my life and watch the next thing in the Watch Later Bin....     

 

%%%%%%%%%%%%% GALLO/ PEGASSO/ REY COMETA vs ARKANGEL DE LA MUERTE/ KAMAITACHI/ SHIGEO OKUMURA- CMLL- 5/3/2014:   I'm trying to figure out why I haven't watched this for three months.  It's got fucking Arkangel and Shigeo Okamura, WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?  Shigeo and another fave, Rey Cometa go at it and it is everything you want in a opening sequence.  Pegasso and Kamaitachi is also really fun.  Of course, when you watch guys very slowly blow five basic spots, it's easier to appreciate guys hitting basic stuff really quickly, so the love is kinda contextural against the backdrop of the prior match and all, but fuck the police, Arkangel is fucking beautiful in an classic rudo sense in this.  Punching motherfuckers in the face but also hitting elegant and graceful armdrags that you only get in the Lucha Libre tradition. Rudos take the first fall with a very nice Sharp-shooter-cum-Figue Four submission by Okimura and THEN Kamaitachi with the Kohei Sato Inverted Falcon Arrow #43 of the New Era!  YEaaaaa!  Segunda Caida is everybody being a dick towards Rey Cometa, with Kamaitachi enraging the good-lookin' technico the most with all sorts of shins across the face of Cometa who was prone on the mat- which made me cheer with utter glee!  Arkangel ups the rudo greatness by laying into the beating of Pegasso like a total bastard.  Okay, this is a fucking GREAT rudo trio.    Rey Cometa uses high-flying to get the technicos back on offense; Gallo and Arkangel go at it totally old school- even to the point of Gallo hitting the Ciclon Ramirez-esque tope.   Cometa's roll-up evens the score and I assume this will be the rudo hellstorm that we all pray for.  Cometa is all spectacular flying around the ring with Okumura, Pegasso is pretty suave in his paces with Kamaitachi, but Gallo and Arkangel decide to just beat the dogcrap out of each other before Pegasso and Cometa do assorted suicide dives to the floor.  Arkangel, fucking ruling as the rudo of rudos, crushes the the testicles of Gallo when the ref isn't looking to take the third caida and YOU are sooo filled with love.  

 

TOMORROW: I finish watchin' and reviewin' HOMBRE BALA JR/ PEGASSO/ STIGMA vs CANCERBERO/ RAZIEL/ SANGRE AZTECA- CMLL- 5/3/2014!  You are stoked.

[JRV]

I loved these when I was printing them out clandestinely at summer jobs 15 years ago, and I love them today

 

god how the fuck am I thirty