Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82)


Phil Schneider

Recommended Posts

Really really good match.  Great matwork and hold working throughout, I especially loved the close up of one of Corelone's reverse headlock and how he would hit Canek with an elbow to the neck/shoulder every time Canek put his hands up to try to pry Corleone's arms off.  Corleone's sort of proto-Texas Colverleaf ruled, in fact Corleone just ruled in this match in general.  Corleone trying to go for a pin off the surfboard and El Canek blocking it with a bridge forcing Corleone to trap himself in a pin was awesome.  Nice section around the dive and a cool German Suplex to end it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don’t think I have ever seen Canek before.  I forgot to mention it in the last match but I love this arena and the look of this show.  This one starts mat oriented like the last match but was more explosive and active than the previous match.  Canek would get submission moves but not do a ton with them.  Corleone was having to push the action in the first fall and came off with some good transitions.  His flipover leg grapevine maneuver especially impressed which he then transitioned into a STF type hold.  Lou alls for a rope break and we get a little shoving contest.  Canek takes advantage with a dropkick and gutwrench suplex.  A couple of flash elbows and we have the finish to our  first fall. Canek starts the second fall where we left on in the first working over the arm.  Canek delivers a weird piledriver where he executes it like a tombstone.  Thesz pulls Canek off of a submission he had on Corleone when he reaches the ropes.  This fall has been way too one sided.  Beautiful bump by Corleone on a back drop.  Corleone fires back with a flurry and hits tonight favorite move, a double underhook suplex to even it up.  Third fall is a little back and forth before a deep surfboard by Corleone.  Corleone giving that up and going back to that STF type submission was super.  Canek makes his comeback here and powerslams and dropkicks to the outside.  Big dive for Canek. Thesz is out of position for a  nearfall.  Atomic drop gets a nearfall to the chagrin of Bob Backlund.  Canek then hits a german and wins the matchup.  I liked the previous match better as the work seemed more focused and it built up better to the third fall climax.  Corleone impressed though. 

 

C+ (***)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lucha 1.4
El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82)

Bit of a career change for Don Corleone here. I'm saying the ref is definitely Lou Thesz now. He should know better than to wear that shirt. He's been good as a ref so far though. Love this venue and watching the nighttime fall on it.

Lots of matwork early on here. Corleone controls mostly with a camel clutch and a reverse chinlock. The camera work is good here. Canek comes back with arm wrenches. Corleone seems to be going for a variation on the Texas Clover Leaf. Gets a bit argy bargy with Thesz. Canek hits a drop kick and a gutwrench suplex. Sick looking flying clothesline, elbow drop gets a 3. Canek did well do get the first fall after losing out to Corleone for most of it.

Abdominal stretch by Canek now. Works the arm now with knee drops. Match meanaders a bit here. Piledriverrrr? No, something else (no idea how to call it). Unusual. Backdrop by Canek. Big Ernie Ladd legdrop get a 2. Corleone comes back with kicks and punches now. Really stiff looking right. Dropkick. Butterfly suplex! That gets 1-1.

I didn't think Canek's matwork in that second fall was much cop and I can't tell if that piledriver thingy was planned or a botch.

Corleone starts the third fall with a running knee. Razor's Edge? No, a very very painful looking stretch. Surfboard now. Canek starts to bridge out of it. Corleone goes back to a type of camel clutch. Leg grapevine thingy now. I am hopeless at calling matwork, I don't know the names of any moves ok. Gorilla press slam by Canek now and he starts a comeback. Big dive to the outside. Then he takes a backdrop. The outside is not concrete but wood!! Planks of wood!

Corleone slams Canek from the top now and hits a splash for 2. Atomic drop. 2 count. German suplex by Canek for the finish.

Hmmm, there were positives here. Corleone did some cool shit during his matwork. I thought Canek's matwork was boring. Some good bombs. Once again, the third fall didn't pick up enough for my tastes. I want a hotter finish. About the same as the last match. Good but not great.

B-
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Canek was great in this match, as he showed that he can probably out-wrestle Corleon, but didn't hesitate to get his cheap shots in, like dropping the knee into the hammerlock. Every hold in this match seemed like an absolute struggle, and the spot others mentioned where Corleon kept hitting those elbows to keep the headlock on was awesome. Some of Corleon's strikes left a little to be desired, or maybe Canek's selling of them was off, but the matwork in this was intense. The topes at the end were cool, and all in all this was a really good match.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very disappointed in Don Corleone's mask.  Couldn't we at least have an orange peel for the mouth or something?

 

I agree with Graham that this had more of a 70's NWA feel to it.  Both guys struggle for holds then move on to "bombs" (or at least bombs for the time, atomic drops, bodyslams, etc).  

 

I liked this match just fine, but it never really got to that next gear where I'd rank it really high.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

UWA World Heavyweight Title - SR: Lou Thesz: Canek © vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82)Don Corleone is Tony Rocco under the hood and this may be the biggest match of his career. Great tight matwork here to start as Canek was bringing the best out of the grizzled veteran Rocco. Rocco was really good here at delivering punishment as well and he brought a unique hard hitting style which brought out the aggression in Canek who was even having issues with Thesz. Canek dropping Rocco with a fucking screwdriver (front piledriver) was great. Rocco really worked over Canek's back but Canek made a fun comeback including hitting a big tope to the mud before hitting a big German Suplex for the win. Damn good match.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guess I should mark this down as a rewatch, as I thought this was easily the worst match so far. Canek looked bored at times, and what others see as a struggle I thought looked like two guys who couldn't get on the same page. I did like the beginning of the third fall with Corleone working over Canek's back, but as soon as he shifted back to offense, it was as if Canek was just starting the first fall with the way he ignored the damage. Didn't like this one at all, but if everyone else is enjoying it I should at least give it a second chance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Both of those matches are really dependent on how you view the progression of the falls -- I thought that the Centurion/Hamada match progressed logically and escalated in the third fall into something really good, but found this match to be disjointed and kind of sloppy. I'll revisit it during my final rankings and see if I take something else from a second viewing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My reaction after watching this was like Michael reacting to Ann on Arrested Development: "Her? Really?"

 

Can't imagine there weren't hundreds of matches better than this. The crowd seemed utterly bored to the point they were whistling (not good) plenty of times throughout the match. It takes a ton of skill to take a Toreo crowd out of a Canek match but Don Corleone did it! Canek seemed disinterested and they never really kicked it into any gear at all. Very basic stuff with a flat finish. Would have been better if Thesz/Corleone switched roles.

 

This will be bottom five for me. Maybe even dead last after all is said and done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, add me to those who got a "'70s NWA-style" vibe. Given what I knew/know of Canek, I was surprised by how quiet the crowd seemed (other than the pop at the finish), though this isn't against an American (which it would obviously be nice to have an example or two of, but, y'know, footage and what-not).

 

The opening matwork was, like the match before it, solid, without being blowaway. It wasn't quite as tight and snappy as the former but these guys are 50lbs-or-so bigger. In all, I'll probably have them at about the same level, but this is the more disappointing of the two, I felt, because it came closer to being very good. Canek's control at the start of the second fall dragged on and began to lose me, but when Corleone took over, won the fall, and did a number on Canek's back in the process, they had me back and he structure was working. Had Canek's comeback been more than a missed senton, and had they took 3/4 minutes from the second and used them to pace out the end of the third, this would've been really good. As it is, it's still decent, with some good stuff, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A decent feature match on what was clearly a major show celebrating the UWA's 7th anniversary. The main event was the bizarre combination of Abby & Aguayo vs Inoki & Fujinami. thecubsfan really is an incredible site that I'm just discovering.

 

The emphasis was on matwork, which was more captivating than the previous bout. They did some interesting sequences and reversals. Lou Thesz was ref again. He did a decent job for a special guest but it always distracts from the wrestlers. At times the match lost focus and the offensive flow didn't always feel right. Canek was doing too much damage in the segunda after being a fall up. He went from unloading powerful offence to completely laying off when he had him set up for the kill. So there were ups and downs before coming together well enough at the end. Nothing spectacular, but I found it satisfying overall.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is rare that one moment really hurts my impression of a match, but unfortunately, this match had it. It is early in the third fall, when Corleone throws Canek to the turnbuckles, and the latter waits a split second after impact before launching himself out into a flying back bump. 

 

It was a shame, since I was pretty happy with the match up until that point. One thing that stood out to me was Corleone using an armdrag to escape a hold from Canek. That always struck me as more of a technico thing to do to a rudo, instead of the reverse. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This was a match I remember liking a lot when I originally watched it that didn't particularly hold up on rewatch. It was a one man show with Corleone looking awesome and Canek looking pretty bad. Corleone had a very Greg Valentine feel where e made the simplest things look really violent, Canek didn't hold up his end as his stuff looked awkward including some really bad in ring bumps. Small sample size and all but I think Canek might have sucked

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After the previous lightweight title match we now get to check out the heavyweights giving the formula a shot. Well, you could've picked better heavyweights than Canek, but atleast Corleone was really game here and a nice discovery. He drew some nice heat from the crowd elbowing Canek in the throat. While this had some good, deliberate action and some really cool pro wrestling especially from Corleone digging his knee into Canek whenever he could and of course that beautiful surfboard sequence, it was mostly slow paced and Canek couldn't quite build a match aswell as Negro or Hamada. Solid bout. Also agree about the NWA comparison.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a mixed bag to me. On the one hand, the mat work is really outstanding. The struggle of each hold was the most engaging the mat work has looked on this set for me. I really liked Corleone’s mat attack and his various clever ways of gaining control over Canek. For example, the entire surfboard section in the third fall was out of this world great with Canek bridging out of it but Corleone managing to contort his legs up and go back to his base cross face (which was an interesting base by the way and one I enjoyed). The first fall was the best of the three. It was paced really well on the mat and very deliberate. Canek’s fire at the end made sense after losing on the mat and he picked up the win with it. The second fall started out fine but then the match began to fall apart a little bit. I had a hard time understanding or dealing with the fact that Canek got away with a piledriver. That was frustrating to me when Thesz clearly saw it. I did like Corleone’s staggered comeback to win the second fall though. The third fall had some good and bad. I loved Corleone’s focus on Canek’s back but Canek going out and doing body presses after merely escaping a hold was utterly frustrating. I did like that they went back to the back though at the end with Canek missing a second dive and getting tossed to the floor. It sort of fell back into place at the end but then we got the pin controversy which was another frustration. Overall, I think this had the focus and the right amount of good to make it a very good match but the structure was unbalanced to me and the sketchy selling and aggravating finish were enough to hurt it too.

Three stars range. The opening tag and the last match are both better than this. It’s still a very good match but there were certainly glaring flaws here. And yeah, Corleone was fantastic in this match.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a mixed bag to me. On the one hand, the mat work is really outstanding. The struggle of each hold was the most engaging the mat work has looked on this set for me. I really liked Corleone’s mat attack and his various clever ways of gaining control over Canek. For example, the entire surfboard section in the third fall was out of this world great with Canek bridging out of it but Corleone managing to contort his legs up and go back to his base cross face (which was an interesting base by the way and one I enjoyed). The first fall was the best of the three. It was paced really well on the mat and very deliberate. Canek’s fire at the end made sense after losing on the mat and he picked up the win with it. The second fall started out fine but then the match began to fall apart a little bit. I had a hard time understanding or dealing with the fact that Canek got away with a piledriver. That was frustrating to me when Thesz clearly saw it. I did like Corleone’s staggered comeback to win the second fall though. The third fall had some good and bad. I loved Corleone’s focus on Canek’s back but Canek going out and doing body presses after merely escaping a hold was utterly frustrating. I did like that they went back to the back though at the end with Canek missing a second dive and getting tossed to the floor. It sort of fell back into place at the end but then we got the pin controversy which was another frustration. Overall, I think this had the focus and the right amount of good to make it a very good match but the structure was unbalanced to me and the sketchy selling and aggravating finish were enough to hurt it too.

Three stars range. The opening tag and the last match are both better than this. It’s still a very good match but there were certainly glaring flaws here. And yeah, Corleone was fantastic in this match.

I don't think piledrivers became illegal until the late 80s early 90s. You will see many more piledrivers on this set.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've listed this in my # 1 position so far and that might not sound like much four matches in but I really liked it. Corleone was a revelation for me and I wish there was more of him on the set. It's probably the best Canek match I've seen as well. I loved the mat work and Corleone brought I pace to all three falls that I'm not sure Canek can do on his own. He seemed to have some British influence and I want to track down more of his stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

This is a mixed bag to me. On the one hand, the mat work is really outstanding. The struggle of each hold was the most engaging the mat work has looked on this set for me. I really liked Corleone’s mat attack and his various clever ways of gaining control over Canek. For example, the entire surfboard section in the third fall was out of this world great with Canek bridging out of it but Corleone managing to contort his legs up and go back to his base cross face (which was an interesting base by the way and one I enjoyed). The first fall was the best of the three. It was paced really well on the mat and very deliberate. Canek’s fire at the end made sense after losing on the mat and he picked up the win with it. The second fall started out fine but then the match began to fall apart a little bit. I had a hard time understanding or dealing with the fact that Canek got away with a piledriver. That was frustrating to me when Thesz clearly saw it. I did like Corleone’s staggered comeback to win the second fall though. The third fall had some good and bad. I loved Corleone’s focus on Canek’s back but Canek going out and doing body presses after merely escaping a hold was utterly frustrating. I did like that they went back to the back though at the end with Canek missing a second dive and getting tossed to the floor. It sort of fell back into place at the end but then we got the pin controversy which was another frustration. Overall, I think this had the focus and the right amount of good to make it a very good match but the structure was unbalanced to me and the sketchy selling and aggravating finish were enough to hurt it too.

Three stars range. The opening tag and the last match are both better than this. It’s still a very good match but there were certainly glaring flaws here. And yeah, Corleone was fantastic in this match.

I don't think piledrivers became illegal until the late 80s early 90s. You will see many more piledrivers on this set.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. I was confused as hell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I much preferred the opening matwork in this to the last match. That said once it actually got going I was let down by Canek and impressed with Corleone. This had some good stuff sprinkled throughout but by and large was totally average and forgettable.

 

C- or **

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...