Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83)

[Phil Schneider]

Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83)

[soup23]

There is something bizarre about the first trios on the set involving Kevin Von Erich. He starts us off with a mat based section against Herodes which I never would have guessed would be the case but it was interesting nonetheless. Kevin may have missed his calling as a heel because he shoves Herodes down and has the most prick look on his face. He fires off a dropkick and Herodes retreats. Mascara and Colosetti have the next exchange and it is fine if not particularly inspiring stuff. This gives way to Pirata vs. Halcon. Pirata is the person I am most looking forward to on this set. With Dandy, Satanico, and Santo, I feel like I have seen a ton of their greatest stuff in the 90’s so I know what they can do. I have seen some great Pirata stuff but I feel there is more untapped potential in my viewing than in the other three individuals. Their first exchange ends in a funny moment as the ref gets taken out by Pirata. Halcon ends up on top for most of the exchanges. We get a switch up in the parings as Kevin and Colosetti are next. Kevins high standing elbow had great air on it. Kevin also drags his face against the mat while in a head scissors. What a dick. Herodes and Ano have a fast as shit exchange followed up by Pirata and Ortiz continuing doing their thing. Pirata looks a little better this time but gets monkey flipped to the outside and takes a sick bump. I’m loving the snippets of the different pairings we get throughout this match. The two bruisers Halcon and Herodes go at it. Kevin fires off dropkicks and another high elbow to pin Herodes and Halcon gets the victory roll on Pirata to end the first fall. Rudos start off dominating the second fall playing the numbers game and clobbering their counterparts. However, Kevin is able to fire off and now that team is dominating. Pirata finally gets one up in a exchange with Ortiz. He pins him on a front flip senton. Tempers are really flaring up with Devin and Colosetti. They continue wailing away on each other on the outside between falls and Kevin gets posted. Halcon looks out of gas on the third fall basically relying on Pirata to bump for him into the ringpost and to the outside. He does do a nice dive onto Pirata though. Kevin is able to get the top rope crossbody on Colosetti to win the match. Pretty anticlimactic final fall even with the spot the match had been building to with Kevin vs. Colosetti. Kevin steps over him in another dick spot from him in this match. Good intro to trios matches and I really liked the constant mixing of the pairings. I don’t think Kevin of course understands the dynamic of tecnico vs. rudo tendencies in lucha but they covered for him well.B- (***1/4)

[tim.]

Very fun trios.  Love Colosetti's selling and stooging and of course Pirata makes everything hit on him look great -- I especially loved him making a huge jump off the apron to avoid one of Kevin's punches and his sell of a punch to the gut.  Ortiz bodyslamming Pirata over the ropes and then hitting an awesome body press/tope combo sort of dive was nuts.  Some nice punch exchanges here too and Kevin's big cross body was a nice spectacular finish.  There were some sort of awkward and weirdly times moments here but overall this was a very enjoyable trios with some nice bumping and stooging rudos and a number of cool exchanges.

[JerryvonKramer]

Lucha 1.6
Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83)

Kevin von Erich and Herodes to start. What has Halcon got written across his ass? Why is Mascara Ano called "2000"? Did he have like a futuristic gimmick? Was he a Terminator before Terminator? I guess we can only speculate. Colosetti has the best facial hair of anyone so far. He looks cool and villainous, like he'd take you out with a rapier and swoosh his cape as he leaves.

Oh yes, the match ... Early exchanges do a good job of introducing everyone. Awkward exchange between Ortiz and Morgan. Colosetti's little "charge" thing cramps the style established by his cool goatee. I am getting more used to the idea that when someone leaves the ring, it's like tagging out. But it's still quite chaotic and hard for me to keep track of what is going on. First fall comes seemingly out of nowhere.

I do like how heelish the heels are here, especially Colosetti. They get von Erich isolated and work him over. Snapmare by Heredos. Triple teaming. Colosetti with some kicks. Kevin wins back advantage. Where the hell are his partners? Ortiz takes on Morgan now. Neckbreaker! Bodyslam. That gets 3.

Colosetti posts Kevin. And the heels heel it up to draw some heat. "Three Kings of the Mountain". Kevin posts Colosetti's leg. And now the faces have control of the ring. Ortiz and Andre 3000 get in the refs face now.

Ortiz finds himself in the wrong corner but Pirata acidentally knees Colosetti on the apron. He posts his shoulder and Ortiz throws him out and dives after him. Herodes and T-1000 take over. Kevin hits a flying cross body on Colosetti for a piss-poor third fall.

There's a theme with these third falls being a bit disappointing now. Some nice dynamics here. The heels all looked good and played their roles well.

C+
 

[Graham Crackers]

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).

[newtalkingwall]

I felt this match was entirely skippable. Kevin von Erich has never done much for me. He is definitely athletic and at times has some fun offense, but he's always struck me as completely unable to guide a match and utterly lost when in control more more than 30 seconds at a time. Wrestling in a foreign country definitely didn't help him.

 

Pirata Morgan was excellent, and his bump to the outside was sick if not incredibly wasted in this match, but everything not involving him was average if not even tedious. All the tecnicos seemed incredibly lost, until mercifully the match was over.

[Log]

Once I was past the novelty of seeing Kevin Von Erich in a lucha setting, this match was all about the rudos for me.  I especially loved Herodes and his tubby-dude bumping.  This was a good introductory trios as it has a fairly conventional structure for that type of match.  

 

These are the matches that are really tough to rank.  Somewhere in the middle, I'm sure.  I enjoyed watching it, but don't think it was all that memorable.  

[KrisZ]

Halcon Ortiz/Mascara Ano Dos Mil/Kevin Von Erich vs. Coloso Colosetti/Herodes/Pirata Morgan (9/23/83)This is from the 1983 Anniversario show with a rare KVE appearance. They made a big deal about Kevin working barefoot on commentary here which was interesting. Herodes kinda favors Skandor Akbar so Kevin should be used to working against this body type. MA2K was really fun here as the spry babyface working as like the Mascara Dorada of his era. Pirata was great also bumping around for the tecnicos with Herodes being a fun big man and Coloso being the glue of the match as he mainly worked against Kevin since Coloso worked the US and knew English well. All in all a very fun match.

[fishbaugh]

This match really highlighted my problem with Kevin -- he doesn't really sell long-term worth a damn. His reactions to any given move are usually good, but as soon as that initial reaction is over, it is as if he just stepped in the ring. So I found it shocking that he submitted in the second fall, even though he gave no visual cue that he had. The third fall had a great bump to the outside on the slam by Morgan, and I loved Kevin's reaction to the missed cross body by Ano, but this match was nothing special. Hanging at the bottom of the first disc, and definitely feels like a bottom 20 match overall.

[Robert]

Announcers were great here giving us the history of Kevin & talking about how Herodes & Colosetti were once again welcoming another foreigner to Mexico... much the same way they did vs Andre The Giant. LOL They might have had a harder time in this match knowing the stories about Kevin in the ring!

 

Very entertaining trios match mainly due to the rudos. Colosetti was fantastic. Gotta love the charge he does every time he is about to feed the tecnicos for a spot. Herodes did what Herodes does which is make everyone look good and take awesome bumps for a guy his size. Pirata was Pirata... which is to say he was incredible. Kevin stayed out of the way pretty much and just did his big moves which kept things on track. Ortiz & MA2K didn't do anything to stand out although I did love the way Ortiz locked on his armbars and just sat there with a 'try and get up' look on his face.

 

I don't think this will be a top 20 or even 30 for most folks but it'll probably wind up in the middle of my ballot.

[Zenjo]

A watchable midcard trios. It passed the time and fulfilled it's function. Incorporating an outsider who is unfamiliar with the style is always a challenge. Unlike in the US or Japan I think it might be easier for the foreigner to work a singles match rather than a 6 man. As a viewer I find myself concentrating on wrestling mechanics rather than enjoying the action like usual. You can see the wrestlers having to think all the time.

 

Von Erich wasn't that bad considering, and the rivalry between the teams escalated as it progressed. It's essential to make some notes on a set like this because matches like this don't live long in the memory.

[MJH]

I'm with others in having this as a nice but middle-of-the-road trios. I love Pirata Morgan, and whilst he took some fantastic bumps here, he also looked young and far from the late-'80s super-worker version I'm used to at times. Herodes impressed me the most. Looking him up beforehand, he was described as a lost great rudo, very athletic for his size who always made the technicos look great. That's right on. 

 

This suffered a little coming after all those tighter title matches in that some of the opening sequences looked looser than they otherwise might have. I thought Kevin did OK all things considered, and I liked him doing two immediate payback spots. How many times had he worked Mexico before this? There was a glaring familiarity compared to the others, but I'm sure if we had every foreigner's first trios match on tape there'd be plenty that were far more awkward and messy.

 

6 matches in, nothing to really write home about yet, and four of them having Japanese commentary is weird, but something tells me that's about to change...  

[Young Mr. Grace]

I really liked this, moreso than I think alot of people will. This match is all about Ortiz and Pirata to me as their sequences stood out the most. Colosetti was alot of fun too, I especially liked his selling of the repeated arm drags.

 

Kevin looks akward at times, but I felt like that was more just Kevin as a worker than Kevin wrestling an unfamiliar style in a different country.

[goodhelmet]

Kevin looked awkward but his stiff elbow drops made up for it. Also love the fact the rudos isolated Kevin at different points and looked like they were getting a receipt for the previous beatings. Fun nasty shit. Not high end but well worth watching. 

[Johnny Sorrow]

Kevin has always been one of my favorite wrestlers, and I loved him dropping those stiff fucking elbows. Like Will said, the Rudos giving KVE a receipt was cool as fuck, but I somehow doubt Kevin minded. Like Phil said on the podcast, he was probably more interested in scoring some blow backstage after the match than confronting anyone.

[Exposer]

This was a really fun trios. The open minutes were really bland due in large part to Kevin not really fitting in the lucha style. Things picked up at the end of the first fall when Ortiz-Morgan had their first great exchange. We get a tremendous bump from Morgan off of a monkey flip to the outside. Ano throws in a dive and the technicos pick up the win. The second fall was worked with a lot of fun rudo bullshit from the heels and Herodes taking a wild tumble to the floor (I think this was in the second fall. Anyways, it happened and it ruled). The rudos tie it up and the third fall is both good and sour with Kevin looking way out of place but Ortiz-Morgan having great exchanges again. The finish is great with Morgan taking a body slam bump to the floor and Ortiz crushing him with a nose dive head butt on the floor. Kevin hit a nice top rope crossbody for the win. This was super fun at times and boring at others. Morgan and Herodes were great in this and I was impressed with some of what Ortiz gave us.

This is hovering around right at three stars probably maybe a tad less. So, the grade would be C+ if I’m pissed off but B – if I’m in a good mood. I’m neutral right now so 79.9? No matter. This was a fun match though with a nice opening performance from Morgan. 

[KillerSpeed]

This was a bit of a mixed bag. This had some really neat fast, intricate exchanges, quality rudo brawling and Pirata Morgan killing himself with a few bumps in his first appearance on the set, including getting flat body slammed over the rope and to the floor. That guy shouldn't be walking in 2013. Kevin kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. I assume he could've had a good singles match but he didn't blend in here at all. I've heard people talk about Herodes working in europe later and I can imagine him doing that working entire matches around his hair pulling spots. In a lucha setting he's great though, he looked like he was going to beat the shit out of anyone. Also, I'd like to add that Halcon Ortiz was very good here with some of the best exchanges of the match and an awesome tope. Fun match.

[keith_h]

This was tons of fun, but I don't know that it will be super memorable. The highlights for me were Pirata and Herodes, Pirata with his crazy bumps and Herodes with his fat man bumps. Can't wait to see more of Pirata later in the set. KVE was definitely a little awkward here but he didn't drag the match down too much. 

 

B- or ***1/2

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

This is more like what I was hoping for with this set. The rudos totally owned this match, with each of them doing stuff that made them stand out (which is great when you're not really familiar with the workers). Morgan had great bumping and stooging (I loved one bit where he gets his ass kicked, so somone else comes in to take over from him, and in the background you can just catch Morgan acting dazed and then taking a delayed bump from the offence), Coloso had that great Looney Toons-style wind up before charging at people, and Herodes was just a quality fat guy bumping around. I loved some of the slick move-countermove face-offs, usually involving Morgan, although they did look a little too rehearsed at times. Didn't give a fuck about any of the tecnicos really, and thought they came off as dicks all getting in their shots after the finish. I really enjoyed this anyway. Best match yet for me.

[Matt D]

This is a great example of a match that I'm going to have to watch again using my own methods since if there was a through-story save for Kevin being the odd man out, I didn't pick up on it at all. Even the viewing party seemed lost at times in the podcast. I think all I came out of this match with was that everything got really stiff and stilted in this pleasantly awkward way when Kevin got in there and Pirata Morgan was astoundingly smooth and willing to die for everyone's enjoyment. 

[Lee B.]

I'm with Yo-Yo on this.  I think it may be my favorite match so far.  I really didn't know or care much who these guys were (other than KVE) going in, but by the end I was excited to see more of them and really appreciated their individual talents.  I agree that the rudos were more fun than the Kevin and company.  Pirata was amazing with the bumps, and Herodes was a lot of fun as well.  If we're giving grades, then B+ based on what I have seen so far on disc 1.

[Curt McGirt]

I guess if the announcers are making a big deal of Kevin being barefoot it's because you don't want to be contacting that mat with your flesh, judging from the look of it. Herodes is a good choice to start off with Kev because he can work tight and bump big. He (Kev) works good with Coloso too (despite at least one obvious spot-call) so I call BS on "fish out of water" talk with this one. Everyone actually seems to match up well here and Pirata Morgan is especially not afraid to die for your pleasure. Plus his wide-(one)eyed selling face is the best. Segunda caida ends in a cluster but it works. The bit with the tecnicos both bullying the heel ref is funny, then the third fall is over in like 30 seconds and Kev has the nerve to step on Coloso's neck. Some tecnicos! Entertaining match and as already said, a good introduction to the trios format.  

[goc]

The first fall was a lot of fun with Herodes' stooging, Pirata Morgan's nutty bump over the top rope and Coloso running like he's in a cartoon being the highlights for me. Oh and the ref getting knocked down and getting mad at the fans for giving him shit about it.

Second fall didn't do much for me and the third fall felt short but the finish was pretty hot. Not going to rank real high