Jerry Estrada, Pirata Morgan y Hombre Bala vs. Atlantis, Alfonso Dantes y Rayo De Jalisco Jr. (Feb 1987)

[Phil Schneider]

Jerry Estrada, Pirata Morgan y Hombre Bala vs. Atlantis, Alfonso Dantes y Rayo De Jalisco Jr. (Feb 1987)

[tim.]

Am I the only one who always kind of wants to see the commercials that cut off after a split second in some of these older lucha matches?

 

Rudo mugging starts us off and it's perfectly fine; the second fall though gets real good.  Technicos stage a comeback and the crowd is absolutely molten for it.  Back in the ring they run one of the better technico offensives you'll see, awesome stuff from all three completely with nice stooging.  Atlantis even gives a nice "fuck you" punch to one of los piratos while getting up from a pin.  Third fall is good too, Estrada hilariously sells like death for Atlantis just popping up in front of him off one of his rolling kip ups.  Don't know exactly how the rudos won here, they pin Atlantis then Jalisco (the captain) comes in and they team up on him but eventually jump dump him out of the ring.  There's a clip toward the end, maybe they pinned Dantes during.  Another mid-range trios, nothing wrong with that.

[Curt McGirt]

Damn, los Piratas look identical. I guess Jerry's the one with the fringe on his boots. We get some nice high-flying and triple teams from them (the triple kick is especially cool) for the first fall. Then the next one is nothing but elaborate tecnico spots and it's great; Atlantis is particularly flashy and busts out I believe the first moonsault of the set. Los Piratas are great bases for the tecnicos and throw in a mass amount of rudo miscommunication for tercera caida. Then they decide to top the triple kick with a triple dropkick off the ropes, I thought I was watching Kaientai-DX for a minute. I'm confused at the end too as afterwards they just knock Rayo out to ringside and get announced the winners. Still, this was another solid trios. 

[Graham Crackers]

I feel like this is better than a mid range trios. This is every bit as good as those Fiera vs Babyface trios matches from 1986. Los Bucaneros are an outrageously good rudo team. Similar to Los Infernales with Pirata Morgan (common thread) they are downright brutal when they are ganging up on one opponent. On top of that their complicated stooging and miscommunication spots were even more impressive than those we recently saw from Los Misioneros de La Muerte. Rayo was the star of the tecnico team to me. I love the stooging built around his fancy footwork as well as how he attempts it one last time towards the end but Los Bucaneros have learned from their mistakes and rip him apart. I'm pretty sure Rayo submitted to La Careta to end the match though the hold wasn't on for too long. The only misstep in this match for me was that I wish the tecnico comeback in the second fall was a bit more nuanced.

[Matt D]

Nothing makes  a rudo mauling quite like using a guys cape to choke him. I'm going to have problems with the rudos. At least the technicos make sense to me. It's so weird to me for wrestlers to willingly limit their vision. For some reason I picture Dantes having an awesome Count of Monte Cristo gimmick earlier in his life. I know he didn't but it still makes me happy. The triple kick is great and the double clothesline later is one of the better once I've ever seen. I feel like we've been seeing that knee drop off the top more recently too, so maybe it's something that was coming into vogue. I liked Rayo's heart in trying to fight all three guys but it was ultimately futile. That's the sort of gesture that can really get a crowd riled though and set them up for the eventual comeback. Who did that cool rolling somersault elbow drop into the ring? That was great. Rudos give one of the best maulings on the set and then just chuck Atlantis into space after the fall.

 

The tecnico comeback comes out of nowhere but it's spirited and over and intense. It leads to a reset which is a bit of a shame after the great mauling, but it really does let things breathe and give the fans a chance to revel with the good guys. If it's Morgan who is paired with Atlantis, he goes way above and beyond in keeping up and looking great. I feel like the shtick is almost more subtle here, smaller flourishes, but it's also lightning quick and more personality, closer more intimate little comedy spots that all comes at a machine gun pace so that you can't even process what just happened before they're into the next. It's impressive stuff and in and of itself it'd probably bug me a bit just because after taking a breath, now nothing breathes, but a> it's light enough that doing it this way gives the sum of it weight and b> it follows such a great mauling. I would sort of rather the technicos continue to brawl back like at the start of the caida but I get that this is their way of one-upping the rudos and also to embarrass them, which might mean more to them than actually punching them in the face. 

 

It's interesting how the miscommunication spots become broader in the third fall. It's amazing that they can pull all of this off boom boom boom but still make it feel natural and organic and not overly cooperative or staged. It's really an escalation from the second fall and in that regard it works, but I might have liked this stuff in the first and into the second fall, then the rudo mauling, then some sort of tecnico comeback. I was fine with it in fall two, but it sort of escalates into something less serious as they rush towards the end. I do like the sense that the rudos are able to tough their way through the comedy onslaught and come back with the numbers game. The triple kick is better than the one earlier on and Rayo, again, does a good job putting up a fight vs multiple guys before the triple clubber gets him. 

 

Did they win with that double armhold on Rayo with the third guy standing on his head? I'm going to go with that. If that's the finish I'm a little more okay with the layout. If they were building to the rudos getting their act back together then the finesse escalation sort of works better. I was expecting them to take back over and there to be more of a tecnico comeback.

 

This was really quite good though and stands out even on a set like this. It'll probably finish high on the disc for me.

[Lee B.]

I am with Graham Crackers in thinking this is a pretty superior trios match.  It should finish in my top 30 or 40 matches.  The rudo mauling throughout the first fall, especially before the match began, was impressive.  The knee-drops from the top turnbuckle were pretty brutal.  I loved how the rudos chucked Atlantis over the top rope after the first fall.  Dantes had some cool armdrags at the beginning of the second fall.  Jalisco's fancy footwork in the second fall was awesome.  Atlantis's moonsault-y pin for the second fall was great.  The heel miscommunication and 1-on-2 and 1-on-3 action in the third fall was so intricate and fast.  I can't imagine how they pulled that off.  Things switched gears rather abruptly as Atlantis gets a triple dropkick to the head that looked devastating.  I didn't quite see Jalisco submit, but whatever he was in, that was a good enough way to end the match.  I couldn't tell who was who on the rudo side, but it didn't matter.  This match was great.

[goc]

The matching trios outfits is something I like from an aesthetic stand point but it does take away my sure fire way of telling who Pirata Morgan is so I struggled at times telling apart the rudo team. I liked this one a lot although that clip in the 3rd fall hurt things a bit. Jalisco's dancing around and making the rudos look ridiculous in the 2nd fall was some of my favorite stooging on the set so far and then Atlantis taking them on 2 and 3 at a time after that was just as good. I liked how Los Bucaneros worked together at times, and when they weren't teaming up to stooge they had some really nice looking "swarm your opponent" team work. I liked the stuff they did to end the 3rd fall I just wish they hadn't clipped what seemed to be the transition from the rudos stooging to the rudos being dominant and winning the fall.

[soup23]

In the camp that this was a clear step up for the previous two matches and one of the better overall trio so far. I think the difference here was in the tecnicos as they complimented each other really well as Rayo could do his funny Rayo spots, Atlantis had some beautiful dives but also some great punches, and Dantes was the bruiser. Also, the Pirates were relentless in the first fall making the comeback that much sweeter. I thought they along with Los Infernales are the best Rudo grouping we have seen to date. Looking forward to Pirata as he has been pretty aces on everything weve seen so far and the best for him is yet to come. (****1/4)