Babyface, Cien Caras y Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Lizmark, Rayo De Jalisco y La Fiera (September 1986)

[Phil Schneider]

Babyface, Cien Caras y Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Lizmark, Rayo De Jalisco y La Fiera (September 1986)

[tim.]

The match had two really awesome threads running through it: Fiera/Babyface and Jalisco/2000.  Babyface goes right to Fiera's arm as keeps at it the entire match; Fiera for his part sells it beautifully every second, even recoiling in pain when the ref tries to raise is hand after winning the first fall.  Jalisco and 2000 kill each other, mask ripping all around and Jalisco getting busted open with a beautiful apron posting before coming back and drawing blood the old fashioned way, biting.  Some awesome spurts of brawling and great punches.  Caras and Lizmark are no slouches in their own right, with Lizmark hitting a great dive toward the end.  One of the better trios on the set thus far I thought.

[Graham Crackers]

I thought this was a good trios match that  did a nice job of combining two separate feuds. We have more of La Fiera and Babyface feuding and we also get some Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs Los Hermanos Dinamita which is a classic feud. Throw in another cool brawling Lizmark performance and we've got quite the match. I liked that they changed up the matchups a bit and allowed everybody to have a chance to wrestler their rival and the rest of his team. Yet again, La Fiera's selling was great. I liked that he even cringed when the ref raised his arm after the first fall though Rayo coming over to chastise the ref and the ref just shrugging it off made me laugh. The rudos ran roughshod over the tecnicos for much of this match. There was one moment where Lizmark spills to the floor and just lies there while Rayo is stumbling around in the background, bleeding all over the place, and La Fiera is holding himself up on the apron barely able to use his arm. It was a pretty compelling mauling too with plenty of mask ripping and biting. All hope seemed to be lost when the tecnicos attempted to rally but it was too little too late. I loved the way the rudos soaked up the hatred from the crowd after the match.I think I may have drifted off somewhere in the middle though because I can't remember how the second fall ended.

[Curt McGirt]

Fiera's arm selling is really strong in this. Caras gets points from me for leaping over the top rope onto Rayo to assist in the Corona sideboard posting. Not only is Fiera selling when the ref tries to raise his arm great, Rayo immediately goes over and gives the ref shit for doing it! It's the little things that make a match great. Babyface and los Hermanos are such a good trios rudo team, they're just ruthless beating the crap out of Rayo and it looks like this one is gonna be another bucket of blood. Sure enough, we get some nasty closeups of him pouring the red red krovvy out of his ripped mask. Then Lizmark takes this crazy bump through the middle ropes and all the tecnicos are hurting. Fiera rallies and Baby blades right in the middle of the ring which usually I would hate, but I actually had to go back and rewatch to catch it -- good job dude. Rayo then comes in to get his revenge on ANO DOS MIL! and the crowd loses it. This is made even better by Rayo just falling into the turnbuckles after doing so like it took all his energy. Great finish with the rudos being down two but Babyface taps the captain to win the match, which is a new one for the set. People start throwing trash in the ring and Rayo wants a mask match. 

 

I forgot to mention, Babyface does the most hilarious sell of a punch from Fiera here, skidding on his back back and forth on the mat really fast. This might end up cracking top ten but if not, certainly top twenty. I'd watch these six go again in a minute.

[Matt D]

Babyface, Cien Caras y Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Lizmark, Rayo De Jalisco y La Fiera (September 1986)

 

On to Disc 6, the disc of endless trios. I forgot everything I've learned about lucha in the last month, I think, so trying to figure out who is who will be tough. Babyface has no mask! Ok, he's short, stumpy, and in blue tights. Fiera has the black tights. Caras has the white and black mask. That means Mascara has the blue one with the cool curvy lines. I know Lizmark by now! So Rayo is the other guy. Okay, we're in business. 

 

I think a lot of the rudo gangings are not because the faces WON'T stop them, but because they CAN'T. That's an important distinction in understanding trios matches. This was a good example as Lizmark tries and fails. By nature, once the ganging up starts, the rudos have weakened one of their opponents and already have an advantage on the numbers game. 

 

Anyway, here I really like the focus on Fiera's arm. There's a nice pacing and ebb and flow to this, with hope spots peppered in both from Fiera fighting back and his partners charging in with the cut off being the arm being attacked. He finally makes the tag and Rayo and Lizmark just punch the crap out of everyone, Babyface's awesome punch counter, and then Lizmark doing his thing. It all breaks down with the faces hitting their stuff, including Lizmark's awesome little hopping around the ring pin with 2000 that he uses to get out of the way of Fiera and Babyface, and that's the first fall. Fun stuff, punctuated by the MASSIVE selling of the arm when the ref tries to raise Fiera's hand. Lucha guys don't always sell body parts, but when they do, they sure do.

 

Babyface being chickenshit and refusing to get in the ring with Fiera (even hurt) is a fun start to the second fall and lets the rudos transition right back to Fiera's arm when he gets overzealous. This leads right into 2000 and Rayo and 2000 is just brutal in his biting and ripping at the mask. There's a real zing and visible hatred in what he's doing. I kind of like Lizmark's ineffectual complaining to the ref too. Rayo ends up posted and Lizmark comes in only to get swarmed and eat another awesome babyface punch. Rayo ends up back in, now a bloody mess and this is a quality rudo mauling. I especially like Caras punching him repeatedly over the top rope. We are in swarm mode here. Rayo makes it out and Fiera comes in only to end up caught from behind and punched repeatedly in the arm by Babyface, who is making like Babyface Anderson here. I agree with Tim with a period that this is really a two story match, but those two stories are brutal. After taking out Rayo and Fiera, they pound away on Lizmark in the middle of the ring until the ref calls it. By this point I kind of feel that you can judge how good the lucha match you're watching is by how much you're looking forward to the technicos comeback, and by the end of the second fall, I really am.

 

Lizmark has to rush to beat the count in and that means he ends up ambushed, including a Babyface punch so hard that he takes a crazy diving bump through the ropes. Fiera is selling so hard that he can barely stand due to his arm pain. He can kick though, and he comes back with three nice ones, followed by a huge punch with his good hand and than some well deserved biting. Babyface comes back a bit but ends up beaten up and down the ring with punches and kicks and an atomic elbow off the second rope. Fiera's pretty agile, and his kicks come from every direction. The biting only comes from one direction. Finally Babyface comes sailing out and we get Rayo and 2000, which gives us a moment of glorious revenge followed by everything breaking down and loads more revenge as the crowd erupts. It ends up Babyface vs Fiera again, the highlight of which was Babyface's crazy crawling reverse sell around the ring. Lizmark gets to do his dive on Caras, Rayo gets to unload on 2000 again. Rayo misses a reverse headbutt off the second rope and gets pinned. Babyface follows it up with an armlock on Fiera and that's the match.

 

I think ultimately the comebacks could have been paced better. Maybe they could have happened in tandem somehow, but I suppose this way, each guy got to visually best his opponent before the rudos took the win. Part of my problem is that it'd be more narratively satisfying if the good guys won, but that wasn't the finish here. What we did get was a very entertaining trios. Rayo's post match taunting with the Santino horn was great. Good stuff. 

[DouglasC]

This might be the first time I've seen someone sell the referee raising his arm like it was the most painful thing ever.

[Lee B.]

I thought the technicos were a bit ineffectual during the first fall while Fiera's arm was worked on, just walking into the ring and then backing off, or stumbling into an attack from the apron.  The first fall was fun, with Lizmark's hopping roll-up and Fiera dropping an elbow for the pin.  The stalling at the beginning of the second fall to deny the fans the match-ups they wanted was amusing, but the transition to the mask-ripping and biting with Mascara and Jalisco was pretty dramatic.  Those falls where the ref just ends it when a wrestler "can't continue" (or whatever) don't do a lot for me, which was the case with the second fall and poor Lizmark.  Lizmark's flip-bump through the ropes to the floor soon after that was cool.  Fiera's kick-based attack on Babyface's head is fun, and the arm-selling by Fiera is amazing throughout.  Jalisco's final comeback gets a super reaction from the crowd.  Babyface's elaborate skooching backwards on the mat due to Fiera's kick was great.  The ending is good and decisive.  I don't think this is quite a top-10 match for me, but it could be top 30. 

[goc]

This starts out with Babyface attacking La Fiera's injured shoulder and Babyface has hair so there is some tomfooley with the timeline here. La Fiera takes a beating but his partners finally bail him out and the tecnicos take over and start dominanting to get the win in the first fall. La Fiera selling the hell out of the ref trying to raise his arm after the first fall was great, as was Rayo De Jalisco's frustration with the ref afterwards.

Second fall starts with some fun stuff with Babyface avoiding getting in the ring with La Fiera and Cien Caras getting out of the ring when Rayo is in. Eventually Mascaro Ano 2000 attacks La Fiera from behind to get things started. 2000 continues to be an asshole by ripping Rayo's mask and then biting him.  Jalisico is bleeding and the visual of his hair coming out of the ripped mask is pretty cool. We get Babyface & La Fiera paired off again and Babyface goes right after the injured shoulder. 2000 is still beating on Jalisico outside and now Rayo looks to be pretty bloody. Not sure what actually ends the second fall but the rudos take out Atlantis to win it.

During the break Mascaro Ano 2000 continues his assault on the bloody and punch drunk Rayo de Jalisico Jr. The rudos maintain control to start the 3rd fall and send Atlantis out of the ring in a very painful looking fashion. La Fiera does a great job selling the shoulder injury as Babyface continues his assault on it. Fiera fires back with some of his kicks and then bloodies Babyface with some biting and punches. Fiera kicks Babyface's ass until he goes for a headbutt that he sells like he just headbutted a Samoan. Eventually we get Jalisico & Mascaro Ano 2000 in the ring and Rayo is out for revenge, ripping the mask of MA2K and biting him. The crowd is loving Rayo's revenge here. Babyface does some three stooges selling off a La Fiera kneedrop and then Atlantis hits a nice dive onto Cien Caras as things start breaking down a bit moving towards the finish. Wow Jalisico missed a tope and then MA2k quickly pins him and then Babyface forces la Fiera to submit with a hold on the injured shoulder and that's it. The finish felt kind of anticlimatic and rushed there.

[soup23]

Not the most structured match but one I can see getting high praise for the violence of it. Fiera's arm is ripped apart and he does a fantastic job selling it as people have mentioned with the hand raising. Rayo bleeds for our entertainment and him vs. Ano has become quite the feud since the singles match that was good but more gentlemanly. I don't remember the finishers here very much of the match overall but this was all about advancing feuds and succeeded in spades in that regard. (****)