Ringo Mendoza, Atlantis y Ultraman vs. Satanico, Masakre y MS-1, (September 1986)

[Phil Schneider]

Ringo Mendoza, Atlantis y Ultraman vs. Satanico, Masakre y MS-1, (September 1986)

[tim.]

The first of like thirteen trios that are coming up.  Super fun match here.  Some cool opening mat stuff and good stuff in the second fall: a really great though brief MS1/Ultraman segment, a heated exchange between Satanico and Mendoza and some cool sort of fallaway powerbombs by MS1 on Atlantis at the end.  Third fall is great with a big punch exchange between Satanico and Mendoza with Mendoza getting the better of it and a cool segment where each of the technicos take their turn taking on all the rudos at once.  Post match, Pirata Morgan comes down to beat up Satanico.  Man do I wanna see that match.

[Graham Crackers]

Are we sure this was September 1986? Masakre is wearing his mask but according to luchawiki he lost his mask 8/29/1986.

 

This is a fun match though it'll probably be on the bottom half of my list. It's probably around the same level as that Los Misioneros match. Los Infernales are great as usual. I'm not familiar with the Masakre iteration of that group and I didn't get much of a sense of him watching this but he certainly wasn't bad. Ultraman appears to have added some martial arts to his gimmick. Damn it, I just want to see him throw punches and not all of these kicks. Atlantis has clearly grown a lot at this point. He looks really confident and all of that awkwardness appears to be gone. He looks like a classic tecnico now. His flashy stuff looked great, especially his springboard somersault senton. Where he really shined though was in that moment where he is cornered by all three Infernales and he just runs around dodging their advances and laying in some nice punches here and there. Ringo and Satanico trading punches is the best thing Ringo Mendoza has ever done.

 

Post match, Pirata Morgan comes down to beat up Satanico.  Man do I wanna see that match.

 

Oh man, me too. I also love the image of Cien Caras and Babyface coming out and trying to keep the other Infernales out of it.

[Curt McGirt]

Oh man this starts with a Dr. Morales interview segment with Satanico talking shit (complete with evil laughter) and Mendoza wearing a blue headband that has "RINGO" on it in sparkly silver. We get a kind of slow open, though Ringo puts Satanico in a toehold that has him doing a head stand. MS-1 shoos off Ringo in favor of Atlantis and it's so arrogant. Atlantis finally looks like he's getting ahold of himself in the ring. No shitty playing to the crowd, just high flying, hard and dirty matwork and punking the rudos. He even does the dick move of stomping on MS-1's hand while he's sitting on the mat! No love lost here, obviously. Rudo victory in segunda caida is great, with MS-1 throwing Atlantis onto his face from a powerbomb position (something I've never seen before), a Masakre powerslam and Satanico busting out the Scorpion Deathlock. Tercera caida, Ringo and Satanico just start pasting each other. Ultraman has a nice rally but eventually the rudos decide they're gonna take Atlantis' mask no matter what and triple-team him in true bully fashion. After they take the final fall Pirata Morgan hits the ring to beat the shit out of Satanico! Cien Caras and Baby Face try to keep the peace but Morgan isn't having it. By the time this is over we have the setup for both a trios and a hair match.

 

Los Infernales are so damn good. Lucha might have a rep for not being stiff but this is not a match that shows it. 

[Matt D]

I had a write-up started but had to run and lost it. I'm going to burn through this one again. I love the pre match interviews. Sataninco is super charismatic. Ringo's bedazzled headband is the best. MS-1 is sadly bald. 

 

Primera caida: The Ringo/Satanico mat stuff we get at the start feels kind of high end. It's not fancy but it's really solid. I'm used to these things starting with a lot of tecnico offense or rudo swarming so the fun matwork is actually refreshing. The trailer hitch type thing is cool; what does Satanico yell after that? I really, really like EME ESE UNO. His dickish handmotions dismissing Ringo in favor for Atlantis is great, and he's one of my favorite guys when it comes to versatility. What I like so much about this matwork is that he really lets his character shine through in the counters he uses. There's just this roughness to them; they lack finesse but they're gritty and effective. He'll just rough Atlantis over and then they'll just shit talk each other. The push into the dropkick is a fine finish to this segment. Masakre and Ultraman pick up the pace which is almost a shame on one level but also a nice escalation on another, one that leads back to Ringo and Satanico escalating their next exchange, which I particularly like. There's a nice bit of parallel here with Ringo hitting the headbutt then missing the second, then Satanico hitting the first knee and divebombing the second into the suddenly empty corner, followed shortly thereafter by a dive tease. The structured pairings here are fun, as we get a bit more escalation from Atlantis and MS-1 including another dive tease. The second Masakre and Ultraman exchange ends with Satanico cutting off even the tease, but Ringo comes in and catches him in an Abdominal Stretch which happens almost in procession with a few Atlantis aerial attacks on MS-1 and Ultraman taking Masakre taken out by an Ultraman kick for the first fall. This was an artful, well put together fall.

 

Segunda Caida: On first watch, I thought Masakre looked a step behind everyone else but I haven't seen that as much here. MS-1 impresses the hell out of me with the speed and organic feel to his fast exchange with Ultraman. Likewise, the gamesmanship and sense of rivalry between Satanico and Ringo really shines through. Then the rudo doubleteaming begins. I think we miss the first bit of it since they like to show the crowd in this match for some reason. After they eliminate Atlantis from the ring, Masakre holds Ringo for a great MS-1 punch and it starts to break down. They keep Ultraman in the corner while Satanico puts Ringo into the knot. I love the visual of MS-1 popping out from behind the submission to nail Atlantis when he comes back in. Then MS-1 does the rocket launcher of doom on him not once but twice, with the second look looking especially insane. Masakre hits a nice little power slam variation and the rudos take the second fall. I would have liked a little more swarming/beatdown because I know they're still good at it, but there's time yet before the comeback.

 

Tercera Caida: The beatings continue so my morale improves. This includes a really nice double clothesline on Ringo and tossing Ultraman around the ring like he was a ragdoll. Ringo finally gets back in to break up a submission (and Ultraman is suddenly supercharged in fighting back). On the one hand I wish that it was a little more heated of a comeback moment. On the other hand it's followed by Ringo and Satanico beating the crap out of each other in one of the craziest punch sequences on the set so I completely forget about whatever the hell was bothering me. We then get a "guy from outside breaks up submissions" section, which is nice enough but a bit of a letdown after the punchfest. Things break down and the rudos take back over, going for Atlantis' mask while holding him down like a stuck pig. Ringo saves the mask at the last moment and we get a fun little Ultraman-kicks-everyone sequence followed by an Atlantis-vs-the-world one which ends, awesomely, with Satanico punching him in the face while he's trying to do his cutesy dodging bs and then a triple lawn dart off the top rope. Ringo and Ultraman come back in to fight off the rudos and this is getting a little long on the tooth here, so when they lock on the double submission on Ringo and take out Ultraman for the win, it's fairly welcome.

 

Post match, Pirata Morgan wrecks stuff backed up by his crew. I liked this a lot but I don't think it's going to stand to some of the other trios. Maybe because the spotlight was on Morgan's post-match run-in, I felt like the tecnicos final comeback wasn't quite as coherent as I wanted it to be. Ringo and Satanico sure beat the hell out of each other though.

[Lee B.]

The first fall, as is often the case on this set for me, was solid but not super-memorable.  I liked the dueling armdrags from Ringo and Satanico at the beginning of the second fall.  MS-1's face-first backdrops to Atlantis were horrifying.  In the third fall, I liked Ringo throwing MS-1 into the ring apron and then posting him.  The hit-and-run segment from the technicos was fun before the end of the match.  This ends up being solid mid-range, maybe a bit above, for me.

[goc]

This was ok. There were some nice sequences in the first fall and Ultraman looks pretty amazing. Second fall doesn't last long as the rudos eventually take over and have a quick dominant fall.

I liked the hit and run stuff to stop Atlantis from being unmasked but that doesn't last long and Atlantis is taking another beating and then once he's gone the Infernales quickly finish off Ultraman by pinfall & Ringo Mendoza with one of those awesome lucha double team submissions.

 

Afterwards Pirata Morgan runs out and attacks Satanico while Babyface & Cien Caras keep MS-1 & Masakre from coming to his aid. This is pretty cool and seems to obviously be building towards a hair vs hair match between Morgan & Satanico.

 

Not much to really separate this from the pack for me and will probably wind up around the top portion of my lower half.

[soup23]

I feel like people are sleeping on this one based on the comments. Satanico was great as always and MS-1 was impressive here too. The big surprises for me was Atlantis hitting everything cleanly (not always a guarentee), Ultraman being mixed in with these guys, and especially Ringo showing more fire here than I have seen from him on the set so far. I really liked him and Satanico going after each other and the punch MS-1 gives him in the final caida on a submission hold was glorious. The mask ripping and then chase spots of Atlantis were also really clever and memorable. Finish wasn't great but the post match with Pirata being pissed off and having a go at Satanico and MS-1 made up for it. (****)