Thursday 18 August 2022

The Blood of El Brazo

Los Brazos v Pierroth Jr., Gran Markus Jr. & Ulises (CMLL, 2/4/90)

Based on the first fall I figured this was going to be a nice wee midcard Brazos match. It had some stooging and begging off from the rudos while the Brazos threatened to clean someone's clock without ever leaning all the way into it. At one point Porky walked around the apron, backed Markus Jr. up against the post, but instead of throwing a fist he just yanked off a handful of chest hair, which was a little absurd but also a lot amazing. Even through his mask you could see Markus Jr's "ouch, what the fuck?" expression. Then things go down a darker path. As soon as the second fall starts the rudos stab El Brazo in the face, or at least that's what it looks like because that boy is COVERED in blood. He's slumped in the corner convulsing and I don't even know what caused it but he's a mess after about six seconds. They triple team Porky with two of them holding him in place while Markus Jr. punts him in the guts. It's basically a rudo mauling the rest of the way and the tecnico comeback is short-lived, probably because one of them has been carted out for a blood transfusion already. I imagine this leads to something and I'm hoping that something is Super Porky crushing someone to death. 


El Dandy, El Faraon & Satanico v Herodes, Jaque Mate & Pirata Morgan (CMLL, 2/25/90)

This was a real Pirata Morgan shithousery tour, or at least the primera was. He humiliates himself early on after tumbling out the ring and he has a stick up his butt about it for the rest of the match. Dandy is trying to have an actual exchange with Jaque Mate and Morgan keeps interrupting, then keeps running scared, and the more he does it the more obvious it is that the tecnicos want to paste him. The payoff with Dandy skipping out the ring after running the ropes to nail him on the ramp (after Morgan ran all the way up there to get away from Faraon) was perfect. A little later Dandy wins one of their proper exchanges, hits a splash to put an exclamation on it, and we get the timeless Pirata Morgan skittering out the ring back bump. The rudo takeover wasn't quite as strong as you'd hope for from a transition standpoint but the work was good enough. Morgan was strangely quiet in the tercera as well so maybe he learned his lesson from earlier. There were a couple moments where Satanico snapped and kneed someone into the post and nobody ever conveyed a sense of "he's about to kick the shit out of someone here and that someone better run like fuck" better than Satanico. Dandy in 1990 was a thing of beauty in the ring. So graceful and quick, everything looking snug and silky at the same time - an incredible year where he was the best wrestler in the world. Finish is maybe a touch anticlimactic, but then Herodes lying helpless like a turtle kicked out its shell after his failed springboard is worth the price of admission. 


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