Mistico v Soberano Jr - The Old(ish) World Meets the New World

Mistico v Soberano Jr. (CMLL, 12/12/25)

It's a new world. It's not 1990 anymore and these big CMLL title matches don't start with eight minutes of matwork. You might get two if you're lucky, five if it's Hechicero, but by and large it seems to be a thing of the past. It's a world I need to adjust to when watching modern CMLL title matches. It'll never be the old world because the old world is dead. 

The old world is not Soberano Jr's world and he cares little for that world. 

Mistico is not of the old world. He debuted in 1998 and a 1998 lucha title match is a lot closer to my ideal than a 2026 one, but Mistico's FIRST peak was not 1998 and I don't really have any interest in revisiting those 2007 matches against Averno. I don't know who's primarily responsible for shaping the new world, if there's even anyone or any thing you can point to specifically. One thing is for certain though - Mistico is not only OF the new world, he IS the new world. He might be the biggest star in all of wrestling and Arena Mexico is his palace.   

Soberano Jr does not give a shit. 

He has no interest in a handshake, one thing at the start of a title match that was a given in any world. Instead he pulls his mask to the side and snot rockets Mistico. Mistico is borderline affronted but also maybe not terribly shocked. He raises his arms and looks to the crowd like "really?" while gesturing to his waist as if to signify that a title match should have a little more decorum. Even Jerry Estrada would check himself for the pre-match photographs. Fuerza could at least behave himself until he got shown up after five minutes. If it was an 8pm show, Chicana would've stopped drinking at 4. Soberano just walks around blowing snot rockets. 

If Mistico is someone who commands respect, and you could argue that if anyone in wrestling does right now it's him, then Soberano was determined to give him nothing of the sort. Maybe he wanted to prove that he's every bit the star, every bit the wrestler, Mistico is. It's Soberano Jr, why would we expect anything else? Anything Mistico can do, Soberano can. The early parity stand-off didn't feel perfunctory here, wasn't just there to pop the crowd. Soberano nods his head, maybe partly in acknowledgment, partly because he's confirmed what he already knew, that he's an equal. Mistico walks away from it, back turned, acknowledging nothing. It must've pissed Soberano off because he asked for a knucklelock after that, then drew attention to the height difference by raising his hand higher than could be reached. Mistico just stomped on his toes and that brought Soberano down to size. 

I've said this every time I've watched a Soberano Jr match but it bears repeating - he is a wonderful, natural shithead. When he survives the early Mistico dive and takes over with one of his own, he revels in it like only the most obnoxious among us could. Shadowboxing in front of the camera, holding Mistico in place so Euforia can put the boots in, motioning for the crowd to stay calm as they get more and more agitated, asking a woman front row for a kiss (and getting it), really top tier shithousery. He does some amazing stuff; the sort of stuff that might endear you to an audience under normal circumstances, but he always follows up by letting you know that YOU could not do the same. It's hard to cheer for someone like that, when they're making the explicit point that they, in their mind, operate on a higher plane than the rest of us. He has no interest in being relatable or redeemable and how could we relate to someone like that anyway? His self-assuredness DRIPS and then he'll throw someone into the barricade hard enough to nearly put them through the thing. When he tries to untie Mistico's mask he knows full well why it's met with outrage, but of course he'll feign otherwise and then does the Christiano Ronaldo "Siuuu!" celebration just to really knock it out the park. 

The big finishing run was my least favourite stretch of the match and for the most part will never really be for me, but as we've established I am from the old world and that world is no more. This was still good, though, and a big lucha finishing run with lots of back and forth will probably be more enjoyable to me than it will in any other setting in the year 2026. All of the dives were appropriately breathtaking and Soberano's Fosbury Flop moonsault is a thing of beauty. Even the most loathsome sorts will do something now and then where you can't help but begrudgingly tip your cap. Some of the transitions might've been a wee bit ropey, but Soberano first doing La Mistica and then reversing Mistico's into a sit-out tombstone actually had me biting that he was winning for a second there, which is kind of ridiculous. 

In the end, Soberano didn't quite have enough to dethrone the king. In future he might. That he even shook Mistico's hand as a show of respect was sort of astonishing. You'd imagine his time will come and I look forward to seeing what that looks like, but for now this is still Mistico's world and the rest of us merely live in it. 

Hechicero v Briscoe! We're watching the 2026 pro wrestling!

Hechicero v Mark Briscoe (AEW Collision, 1/10/26)

It's been a long while since I last watched a match involving a Briscoe. It must've been 2021 (going by the search function at Whiskey & Wrestling Towers), and even then what I watched was from 2004, a Low Ki v Mark Briscoe match on an ROH undercard, practically a lifetime ago. 22 years on and Mark is a little grayer around the temples, looking almost like the lovable rogue who I'd see in the pub every night when I'd go back to Scotland for the off-season. Both have maybe five teeth between them and definitely fell off a roof one time and both have mastered several of the martial arts, particularly the art of kung-fu. Mark is an enigma and even if Hechicero is a genius in the ring, early on he couldn't solve the Briscoe problem. Hechicero would try to wrangle him up, tie him in however many knots, but Briscoe would slip away or flip out of a snapmare, raise his arms in that redneck karate pose and Hechicero had no choice but to fall back, frustrated, maybe even FLUMMOXED! And who could blame him? He had his plan though, and sooner or later it would bear fruit. You wonder if Hechicero almost baited Mark in when he stopped him from hitting the Sabu dropkick, knew he'd still fly off the apron but in a way that carried a little less risk for Hechicero himself, and sure enough Hechicero caught him off the elbow drop and tried to snap his arm. There's a raw authenticity about Mark Briscoe that is kind of hard to explain but also maybe not if you actually look at the guy or listen to him talk for five seconds. Everything he does, I believe Mark Briscoe would do. Every reaction, I believe it to be a genuine one, or at least a genuine approximation of what his reaction would really be if someone was trying to twist his arm off. Mark Briscoe is in a fight and his right arm is useless? 100% I believe he would bite the other guy in the face or throw backhands with the left or boot them in the head. Absolutely I buy him going back to the well and jumping off that chair, even if he knows it might end even more badly than before. And there isn't a chance in hell he won't still go for the Jay Driller, even if that first attempt might fail when the arm gives out. Hechicero torturing a guy is always a good time but maybe you feel guilty about marveling at his ability to do so here because Mark Briscoe garners the most sympathy that a man who would throw a live chicken at you from the side of the road could possibly garner. When Hechicero hoists him up for the Jay Driller himself you wonder if he hasn't gone too far. When he decides against hitting the move the way Jay or now Mark would, instead turning it into another submission on that arm, you hope Mark escapes and makes him pay for it. If this were 1986 you would buy a ticket to the arena next Friday night. In 2026 you merely ask that these two get to wrestle each other four dozen times. 

Zandokan Jr v Judas el Traidor!

Zandokan Jr v Judas el Traidor (Lucha Memes, 7/19/25)

I've watched a solid handful of grubby lucha indy brawls recently and this was another mental bastard of a thing. The ring looks like it's covered with a plastic tarp and pretty soon you realise why because Judas el Traidor is bleeding profusely within - I shit you not - 15 seconds. This happened because Zandokan absolutely wellied him over the head with what looked like a busted old VCR and I have no idea how or why he had it in the first place. Zandokan was a proper ghoul prying open the wound, squeezing Judas' head like he was trying to juice a grapefruit, biting the cut, all the real sicko shit. It turned into a bit of a walk and brawl through the crowd affair for a spell, but they were both hammering each other with overhand chops and there was no "let me put my arm around you and gently usher you over here while you have to sell like you couldn't stop me" nonsense. If Zandokan wanted Judas close to a wall so he could throw him into it, he was having to drag him there kicking if not screaming. When Judas fights back he fucking whomps Zandokan over the head with a snare drum and gleefully tears at his mask, blood streaming down his own face from a cut bang in the middle of his hairless pate. Some of the chop exchanges were brutal but they didn't last long. It's hard to leave yourself open for shots like this and I like how they both threw a couple rockets before deciding there are better ways to inflict punishment. Still, none of the chops had anything on the headbutts. The kneeling double headbutt was truly revolting; about as CTE-inducingly stupid as any I can remember seeing. 

Lucha in the DIRT might be the purest of all lucha

Demus v Hijo de Fishman (Zona 23, 3/9/25)

What is pro wrestling if not two psychopaths trying to kill each other in a scrapyard? The uncultured sorts, the uncouth philistines, may argue that two psychopaths trying to kill each other in a scrapyard is NOT pro wrestling. Pro wrestling is a spectacle for the arenas and bright lights, not some savage freak show to be contested in the dirt. I don't wish to be dismissive, but I would dismiss those claims as nonsense; gibberish words from people who can safely be ignored. This was a bonkers brawl, as nasty and filthy as it gets, blood-soaked, piss-drenched. Hijo de Fishman must be the single most unpleasant bastard this side of Kurisu, a stocky unit bursting out of his shirt, head almost too big for his mask, a man unsatisfied with his lot in life and willing to take it out on everyone else. This barely goes a minute before he's jabbing Demus with a broken bottle and smashing a crate over his head. While he's doing the forehead-stabbing one woman cowers by the man next to her, clutching his arm, trying to give herself as wide a berth from the mauling going on not but one foot away, appalled that this, of all places, is where her companion chose to bring her on the one night in two weeks they've been able to get out the house. Another man, presumably not an associate of the aforementioned couple, with half his face tattooed, records Demus' forehead being carved up on his phone and hands Fishman a bottle to be used as a weapon. Many people hand many bottles. Fishman instead picks up a whole crate of beer, seems to pause for a second considering if throwing a whole crate of beer is in fact a good idea, then throws the whole crate of beer. I don't even know what it was but he finds a huge metal drum, struggles plainly to lift the thing, and drops it full on Demus' leg as Demus writhes and convulses like he's going into shock. The package piledriver on the hood of a rusted out car was frankly absurd and then Demus about shattered his tailbone getting backdropped off it. Fishman slams someone in the dirt for getting too close to him and the beauty is that it could've been a fan, the ref', the priest, who knows. He tries to pick up a beer cooler, obviously to be used as a projectile, and four separate people - the owners of the beer cooler? - immediately have to restrain him and I'm honestly shocked he never headbutted one or all of them. Demus is a man of the people and after making his comeback he's also handed a beer bottle, from which he drinks deeply before smashing it over Fishman's head and using the broken end to rip his mask and stab him in the head. This legitimately might be the only time I've ever seen someone put on a motorbike helmet and use it to hit a running headbutt on someone sitting slumped over in a chair. Both of them slam a detached car door over the other's head and when Demus kicks out Fishmn volleys the referee in the balls. The trading of wooden crate shots to the head must be the Mexican junkyard indy version of the clean and pristine forearm exchange and I know which one resonated with me the most. Both of the bumps into glass panes were insane, first with Demus taking a death valley driver as the glass shatters into a million pieces and front row spectators are left picking shards out of their skin for a week, then Fishman takes a backdrop through a second pane and lands on his neck and shoulders like only a man made of concrete and acrimony would. Demus also wrestled for several minutes with a handful of wooden spikes sticking out of his head. Pretty much a masterpiece. 

Virus is Just a Stubborn Kind of Fellow with a Head Like a Brick, and Just Because He Drinks the Eight, They Say that He's Hopeless

Virus v Dr Cerebro (Chilanga Mask, 8/16/15) - EPIC

The beautiful lucha libre. This is the sort of match where there isn't a lot for me to say because eventually, if I was to say everything I WANTED to say, it would turn into a full minute-by-minute play-by-play. In fact I'm not sure I could even manage that. I'm not much of a penman and nothing I can write would be as FULFILLING to you, the half-dozen gentle readers of Whiskey & Wrestling, as watching the thing with your own eyes would be. I could not explain half of this matwork on my best day, brothers and sisters. Virus is one of the all-time great mat wrestlers and maybe at some point over the last 15 years I forgot that Dr Cerebro probably is too. Lucha can be a fickle mistress sometimes though, so you look at a match that has this much potential on paper and there's a part of you that wonders if it won't end up being six minutes long and merely a backdrop for the cornermen to further a feud with a bent referee. Thankfully there was none of that and this was two masters doing what they're great at for about 16 minutes. I don't think a single strike was thrown until 12 minutes in. Maybe three strikes total were thrown the entire match and none of them were thrown in the midst of a chop battle. The ropes were run maybe two times? And one of those times led to someone getting hammered into the barricade with a tope, which is really the best outcome of a wrestler running the ropes. The first eight minutes was one long exchange where it started on the feet before moving to the ground and I don't think they broke contact once until they stood up. There's probably no other type of wrestling that lets me just sit back and lose myself in it the way this sort of lucha grappling does. I'm not sure there's a better example of it in the 2010s.

Complete & Accurate Virus

Into the Modern CMLL: Soberano Jr. v Atlantis Jr! Mano a Mano!

A couple weeks ago I subscribed to the CMLL youtube channel. I'd been watching a lot of Hechicero (clearly) and that turned me onto the 2025 Blue Panther match, from there I wanted to see more late-career resurgence Panther. That got me watching a couple Panther/Atlantis tags from last year, which got me checking out Atlantis' kid while forcing me to confront my own mortality, then before you knew it I was scouring the CMLL youtube for 2020s Valiente midcard lightning matches. I'll move onto something else in a couple weeks and probably keep paying the nine dollars a month for the next year until I remember to cancel but there are worse things I've wasted money on. I assume. 

Atlantis Jr. v Soberano Jr. (CMLL, 12/22/23)

This is the best of the stuff I've watched so far. It wasn't a blood and guts mano a mano but it had plenty of personality and you could tell these two aren't exactly fond of one another. Soberano has been an absolute hoot every time I've watched him - all of four, five times? - and this was my favourite of all his performances. He was at the bullshit right away, asking for a handshake he knew full well wouldn't be received, smirking when his hand is slapped away just as expected. Atlantis had no interest in the niceties and everybody in the arena knew Soberano didn't either. The collar and elbow tie-up to start had no daylight and both guys really tried to grind their forearms across the other's ears, then within about 90 seconds Soberano is on the floor and Atlantis rockets him kidneys-first into the barricade with a tope. So many of these CMLL singles matches seem to have an early tope and it's taking some time for me to get used to that, but if nothing else they basically all look amazing. Some of these young tecnicos are bonkers, btw. He goes and tries it again like a proper lunatic, but this time Soberano counters with a high kick as Atlantis is halfway through the ropes. Soberano was pretty much awesome the whole rest of the way, whether he was working aggressively from above or backpedaling and showing ass as Atlantis had steam coming out his ears. His riling up of the crowd was 1997 Shawn Michaels obnoxious and that is a stupendously high bar for acting like a prick. He really heaves Atlantis into the barricades and stops to ask a woman in the front row for a kiss, just to reinforce that you will never be him. The finish to the fall ruled, with Soberano hitting another kick through the ropes and following up with the springboard moonsault as Atlantis was dangling between the top and middle rope. Soberano waves and blows kisses to the adoring public as the ref' counts three and being a rudo might just be the most fun job in the world, unless people actually try and stab you and to be fair it looked like a decent number wanted to do that here. The segunda starts with Soberano trying to throw Atlantis through the barricades, motioning for the fans to remain calm with the same amount of smugness as Christiano Ronaldo and if you're channelling Shawn Michaels AND Christiano Ronaldo then you've practically reached Shithead Hall of Fame territory. Soberano lifts Atlantis' head off the mat during a pin attempt, once again asking the crowd for a little decorum and you would never tire of slapping the mask off the man. He has truly captured the spirit of pro wrestling if you ask me. When the crowd do not in fact respond with calm he tries to unlace Atlantis' mask, then throws some brutal forearms to the back of the head while Atlantis is face-first in the corner and I honestly thought the referee was going to strike him. Soberano has every physical gift you could want but deep down he's driven by cruelty, which really makes him doubly dangerous. Of course you know the grandstanding will come back to haunt him and it surely does when Atlantis levels the falls. The tercera was BIG, perhaps a little TOO BIG for my own tastes, but for a modern day mano a mano bout it's hard to conclude they never knocked it out the park all the same. We got the revenge mask-tearing - or mask-unlacing, rather - and Soberano was an unbelievable craven, running into the crowd, assuring Atlantis that they could settle things within the confines of the ring, ducking back out of it again, asking the crowd for some chill because matters are well in hand. Just breathe, he says. Why are we getting so uppity all of a sudden? Zbyszko would be proud at the stalling and milking of the count here, the begging off, the general shithousery. There's an amazing moment where he was on his knees on the ramp, hands behind his back pleading innocence, even turning his head to the side offering up Atlantis a free shot. He obviously thought Atlantis would be above taking it but he absolutely wasn't, and Soberano backs up affronted, embarrassed enough to finally resume the fight. The exhaustion selling down the stretch was good and I thought they mostly nailed the pacing between the big moments. There were also some cool story points like Soberano being able to use those high kicks to get him out of trouble. By the end his proverbial mask had slipped even if his literal one hadn't and he was flipping off fans for even looking at him. After the match he slunk in the corner while Atlantis gave him a piece of his mind, then as the latter turned to leave Soberano flipped him off too. Maybe he's top 5 in the world. 

Hechicero against the legends! (pt. 3)

Hechicero v Negro Casas (Monterrey, 4/24/16)

These Hechicero v legends matches have the annoying habit of starting off with five minutes of phenomenal matwork. It's annoying because you want it for 20 and you imagine - nay DREAM OF - a world in which we get it. People who think Negro Casas isn't an excellent mat worker are out to fucking lunch. They can stay there as well, as far as I'm concerned. Stay out in the rain and enjoy your wee sandwich, the rest of us will bask in the warmth from the fire of Negro Casas rolling through three times on a neck crank to maintain a leg grapevine. He was a matador in this and used every bit of his guile and experience to avoid the bull that is Hechicero. It's one of my favourite old man Casas performances, though old man Casas is a different animal from old man everyone else as his deal with the devil allows him to never really look like an old man. There was a moment in the primera where Hechicero came flying at him to grab a leg and Casas lithely sidestepped it, wound up with Hechicero's wrist in his hand, flipped him over and walked away with a shit-eating grin. A Hechicero determined to dislocate one of your appendages is not to be trifled with and eventually he grabs an ankle lock, rolling around like a crocodile with an antelope between its jaws. It was like something roid rage gum shield era Kurt Angle would've done. Casas caught him with an upkick and Hechicero clotheslined him like a man who'd already had enough. When Hechicero runs the ropes Casas follows him in to sneak behind him, but Hechicero is ahead of it and turns to catch him with the Conjuro; a wonderful fall of wrestling that established the strengths of both guys and had enough breathing room to let the gigantic personalities be as gigantic as you'd want them to be. 

The segunda starts with Casas yanking Hechicero over into a wrist lock and tying him up with a seated ab stretch, waving to the camera and smoothing out his hair just to show how in control of the situation he really is. Hechicero reverses it into a Backlund style deadlift slam that might've killed poor Casas, who immediately rolls out the ring because sometimes you need to know your limitations. When Hechicero gets annoyed enough to go out after him, you, if you've seen enough Negro Casas and are familiar enough with the man himself, soon realise this was the plan all along, because he scoots back in the ring and thumps Hechicero in the chest with a kick as he tries to follow. Even in his physical prime Casas was never a bruiser - he was a technician then and he had to be even more of one against Hechicero, who could be bruiser and technician in equal measure, all while being in HIS physical prime. Even in 2016 Casas could still boot you in the face though, and if he squinted hard enough he could convince himself Hechiero's mask was Santo silver, so it gave him a little extra juice behind those kicks. He uses them to pretty good effect, first with a high boot in the corner, then a double boot, then a missile dropkick, and they ultimately set him up to even the falls. 

The tercera caida is Casas at his very best. It starts with Hechicero seeing red, leaning into his primal side and opening the floor for a strike battle. You maybe question the wisdom of Casas obliging, but he has his pride like any of us and throws caution to the wind. Casas sells his age and weary bones during a strike exchange better than anyone, pausing for a beat to gather himself when the damage registers, falling into the ropes nearly horizontally and using them to propel himself into a big shot, knocking Hechicero down and pumping his fist at the victory of it before stopping to grimace, bent over and grabbing his neck where Hechicero had just clubbed him full force. Casas would always use those kicks when things got sticky and he caught Hechicero with one in the corner, facing away like he had eyes in the back of his head, that was an honest to god 10/10.

There was one amazing sequence that pretty much encapsulated the story of the match. Casas whips Hechicero into the corner and the latter flips up and out onto the apron, arms aloft like it's to be celebrated, a man high on confidence. Casas fakes a big overhand chop and Hechicero reaches up to catch it, exposing the midsection for Casas to spin kick him in the lungs. Casas then reels off another six vicious kicks as Hechicero is buckled over on the apron, but when Casas follows him out he finds himself trading chops with someone we know he'll never out-chop. Casas obviously knows it too so he grabs Hechicero's leg, spins him around and runs him into the ring post, rallies the crowd, feeds off the energy, and crushes Hechicero with a senton off the apron. 

The rest of the match is about Casas trying to capitalise on any openings against a guy who's built like a house and can rip off a spinning muscle buster on a 56-year-old man like it's nothing. Casas sells Hechicero's blows like a sledgehammer, and for every one chop Hechicero lands Casas needs to land four kicks in return. Casas continually finds glimmers of hope by using Hechicero's momentum against him, that matador working the bull again, and then sometimes he'll just follow up by hitting a running dropkick to the face like he's channelling Murakami. There was one point where Hechicero flung him off the ropes with so much force it looked like Casas had zero choice in the matter, then hit a powerslam and pinned him with his hands clasped so tight he could literally roll around the mat in circles like Casas was a life-sized dummy. By the end Casas' only openings come from him literally moving out the way, then if he's lucky he can try and dropkick Hechicero's knees to pieces. The finish is sensational as he almost manages to do both of those things and it sets up La Casita, but Hechicero braces and refuses to budge, Casas hyperextends his knee, and Hechicero jumps him with a ridiculous rolling kneebar/ankle lock monstrosity. 

This was a spectacular Casas performance, a man fighting uphill against a stud, using every one of his smarts but none of the tricks he might've in his saltier days, a masterpiece of little touches and body language and general selling. A tremendous match to boot and another to file in the case of Negro Casas: Greatest to Ever do It.

Hechicero making a late run at the 2026 GWE ballot...

Hechicero v Bandido (CMLL, 10/9/25)

Man Hechicero might be the best wrestler in the world right now. I thought this was another terrific match, in some of the same ways their first match was terrific but also different enough that it stands on its own. This was also like 20 minutes shorter which, look, I tip my hat to you for having a 37-minute-long wrestling match in 2025 that held my attention the whole time but you don't need to do that on the regular if you don't feel like it. Don't do anything stupid on my account, mate. Anyhow it started with more nice matwork and I liked the fight over the surfboard, how they both tried to use ankle control using their own leg to maneuver the other's and turn them onto their front. It led to a stalemate trading holds, which in turn led to a stalemate from trading pin attempts, and that led to a third stalemate after some rope-running exchanges. Perhaps after one match there is nothing left for these two to learn about the other. You can learn a lot in 37 minutes, apparently. You could boil about eight eggs in 37 minutes, one at a time. Or maybe Bandido just underestimated Hechicero's ability to SOAR because the big fella's dive to take over was absolutely spectacular. This was far too graceful for such a bulky individual and he cleared the ropes like a man half his size might. That was also a cool role reversal from their first match when it was Bandido who took the early advantage with a tope. Hechicero is ultra aggressive working from above, smashing shut the ring barricade on Bandido's arm in one of the nastier versions of that I've seen in ages. The arm work for the next few minutes is really good and Bandido sells it all well in the moment, hanging it by his side like those hammerlocks around the ring ropes have pulled it out the socket. I liked him trying to hit the press slam before immediately realising it's a nonsense of an idea. Hechicero tries to legdrop Bandido across the barricade and his bump when Bandido moves is ludicrous. This was all hamstrings and then he splats the back of his head on the floor. Bandido hits a shooting star press off the apron, then follows up with a press slam with full arm extension and a 450 where he uses his arms to generate momentum and we're thinking oh okay that was a nice bit of selling for a minute there but I guess he's fine now. At that point I figured they were done with the arm stuff and that was that. Bandido sold it like it was completely useless and when that happens midway through a match I tend to be skeptical that they can be consistent with it the rest of the way. He went too big too soon. There's too much stuff to be run through and hit cleanly in today's world of excess - GLUTTONY, you might say - for me to think someone would wrestle half a match with only one arm. How are you supposed to hit those suplexes or do those springboards and such? So I made peace with it and they did a bit of stuff around Hechicero having a bad knee, which made sense because I could certainly buy him struggling to walk after that missed legdrop. It prevents him from capitalising on the Conjuro and he hurt himself almost as much as he hurt Bandido with the high knee in the corner. Then Hechicero went back to the arm by trying to snap every ligament in Bandido's shoulder, and fair play to our man Bandido because this time he does work the rest of the match with one arm. The medic comes out to check on him, they really play up the idea that he might not be able to continue, and there was not one second of the finishing run where you forgot that Bandido was operating with only one good arm. Hechicero was a dog going after a bone, hammerlocking the arm with his feet and falling back to yank it at a repulsive angle. Bandido hitting the one-armed GTS thing looked awesome and this genuinely might be the only time I've seen a reverse rana where the guy taking it only used one arm to stop himself landing on his own neck. He couldn't hit his elaborate German suplex finisher thing so in the end he had to improvise with a roll-up, and even then he used his legs and one good arm to keep it held. Would the arm injury have worked even better if they'd kept it a focal point the whole time? I mean probably, yeah. It was inconsistent, sure. Seeing someone go from being maimed one minute to moving about fine the next will always be jarring. Immersion-breaking and all that. When they stopped bothering with it to begin with I never would've expected them to go back to it. But for the last part of the match Bandido sold that arm about as well as I've seen in a long time. If I never knew any better - and really I don't, let's be frank - I'd have said he'd dislocated the thing for real. Bandido as the world's best 2020s Rick Martel is a cool and unexpected twist and I'm absolutely here for it. 

Mercedes v Willow! For the STRAP!!!!~!

Mercedes Mone v Willow Nightingale (AEW Dynamite, 12/31/25)

I think this is the first time I've seen Mercedes since she became Mercedes. It's definitely my first Willow Nightingale match. Mercedes had been doing some sort of J Crown gimmick with a ton of title belts that she won on indies and whatever but she only had about five with her here so perhaps she's been on a bit of a losing streak. I always preferred Sasha Banks working heel and this was a really good heel Mercedes Mone performance. She was super vicious when she needed to be, really aggressive in trying to bridge that substantial size difference, never afraid to just yank Willow to the deck by the hair whenever Willow tried to pick her up. She used some smart counters as well by taking out Willow's legs, something she did as soon as the bell rang with a basement dropkick. She would also chuck Willow into the LED boards around ringside and Willow got heaved into them with enough force early that two of them broke, which was certainly a cool visual. The first real transition also played into Mercedes taking Willow's legs away, sweeping those legs as Willow was on the apron sending her face-first into the ring steps. The follow-up running knees with Willow's head against the steps looked great and that was something else Mercedes went back to several times; the running knee variation. It served her well the whole match, until she went to it once too often and Willow finally caught her late on. In control Mercedes would really crank on a chinlock while driving her knee into Willow's back. She exposed Willow's throat and dragged a sharp fingernail across it, which was kind of goofy but also maybe sort of gnarly in the stupidest of ways? Perhaps? Mercedes' facial expressions as she got more and more frustrated made her actually look like a demented person rather than some ropey method actor. Nightingale was a fun UNIT and she came across as a properly likable babyface. Mercedes being a pitbull helped, but I thought Willow's sympathy-garnering was great, she bumped big (and crazy) and her selling was on point. She also used that size to crush Mercedes when she needed to. Obviously the latter has the speed so Willow would just scythe her down with a monster lariat or a flying shoulder tackle. The tackle nearly sent Mercedes through the fucking barricade. Mercedes was dogged in going for the Mone Maker so at one point Willow repeatedly backed her into the corner and Mercedes took three Bret Hart sternum bumps, if every Bret Hart sternum bump had Neidhart follow him in and squash him agains the buckles. Willow's running senton in the corner looked suitably brutal and exactly what you want from someone who outweighs their skinny opponent by like a hunner pounds cannonballing into their face. The big table spot at the end was rough as fuck and it looked like every one of Willow's vertebrae got separated on contact. I didn't know the result of this going in either, so by the end I was fully behind Nightingale winning the title and not just because my friend's daughter is called Willow so they must've done something right! At my old age you have to appreciate the IMMERSION and such. I should watch more AEW Mercedes. 

Magnum v Nikita - The Last Stand

Magnum TA v Nikita Koloff (2/3 Falls) (World Wide Wrestling, 9/20/86)

To me, this feud is right up there with anything Crockett put out during arguably their best year. Even if none of the Magnum/Nikita matches were on the level of Flair/Morton from the Bash or the Tully/Garvin match from Worldwide, everything was good and at least two of their matches were sensational. Their match 7 in the best of 7 series for the US title a month earlier is pretty much perfect pro wrestling and one of the best matches anywhere in the world for 1986. This is the end of the feud, or at least what was intended to be the end of the feud for now (they obviously never got the chance to go back to it due to Magnum's retirement), and honestly might be even better. 

Magnum Terry Allen was an amazing pro wrestler. Every time I watch him I say it and then I write about him and say it again. I don't even know how many times I've said he looked like the future of the SPORT or whatever around this time and I'm certainly not the first or only person who has. Charisma, crowd connection, crowd CONTROL, selling, bumping, timing, brawling, bleeding, offence, whatever else. I've watched just about every Magnum TA match we have available from 1984 to the end of his run in '86; he had all of it and there was still room to get better. Some of his exhausted selling was absolutely tremendous here, particularly in the third fall. Actually both guys' selling in the third fall was great. It wasn't an especially long match for a 2/3 falls, but it made sense they'd both be spent given they'd taken the other's finisher and lost a fall each, something they'd never needed to continue wrestling after in any other scenario.  

Every move they did in this felt like it mattered, which can sound cliche but it really came across that way to me. It had a proper big fight feel and the crowd was rabid from the first second. Early on Magnum was steady and unfazed, refusing to engage as Nikita tried to goad him with little shoulder fakes. The first fall was largely Magnum in control, frustrating Nikita by allowing him to build momentum just to use it against him. There were headlocks where they jockeyed for position and Magnum would sidestep to send Nikita into the buckles, Nikita getting visibly annoyed while Magnum stayed laser-focused. Our boy David Crockett smartly points it out as well - Nikita is taller and heavier but Magnum can use that to his advantage. It looks like Nikita's taken over when he backs Magnum into the corner and picks up a piece of thrown trash, jabbing him in the eye with it. Any time a heel uses a piece of debris that's been thrown at them to their own advantage will sit well with me so obviously I loved that. But the advantage doesn't last as Magnum reverses a turnbuckle whip and hits the belly to belly. You don't need me to tell you how the crowd responded to that. Magnum's intensity and dedication to everything is pretty special. Even the way he reversed his Irish whip looked spectacular, how he got airborne and really threw his weight behind whipping a huge guy like Nikita into the turnbuckles. He puts across the struggle of his situation as well as anyone. 

When we come back after commercial to the second fall Magnum is working the leg, and honestly the guy just exudes control and confidence. He goes for the figure-four but Nikita kicks him off and Magnum ends up flying outside, and Magnum is great at getting flung outside a ring and hitting hard on the concrete. This whole nonsense write-up has been about Magnum TA but I really liked how Nikita continued selling the leg for a little while afterwards, even if it stopped being a story point in the match. Credit where it's due and all that. Nikita basically ramming Magnum's head into turnbuckles and barricades was the bulk of his offence for a spell and it was pretty great. There was an amazing cut off spot with the running chokeslam type thing he'd do sometimes and the sickle to close out the fall looked positively Hansenish, legitimately the best he's ever thrown. 

And then your third fall is basically a masterclass in building heat. There was a couple times where it looked like Magnum was ready for the big comeback and the crowd was ready for it, but the wrestlers clearly decided they weren't ready ENOUGH and held off on it, Magnum looking dead on his feet. Each time they did this it built more heat and the selling was honestly as good as I've seen in ages. They might've botched a backdrop at one point but even that worked just because it looked like Magnum almost stumbled into it purely on instinct, barely mustering enough to flip Nikita over. When the comeback happens I rewound it half a dozen times. It's maybe the best roaring lion Magnum TA comeback of them all - that covers a substantial amount of ground - and this crowd reaction was fucking awe-inspiring. He knew exactly how to make them respond like that as well and the place was going absolutely bonkers. It's the sort of thing that reminds you why you watch and obsess over this stupidity of a hobby. 

The finish was clever, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't really want Magnum to pull it out. It's rare that I'll go into a match like this, invested the way I was, not already knowing the result. Being able to lose yourself in the moment doesn't always happen for us nerds so I was deflated when it went down the way it did. Which is really the beauty of it, isn't it? Three weeks later Magnum would crash his car and his career would be done. In an alternate universe he took the bus or waited until the rain had stopped. In that universe he became WCW's Hogan and the world we inhabit would be a better place right now. You know, probably. 

Hechicero against the legends! (pt. 2)

Hechicero v Blue Panther (CMLL, 1/10/25)

Blue Panther is not a spring chicken. He was 64 years old when this match happened, which by lucha standards means he still probably has a good 12 years ahead of him but by regular mortal standards he's getting pretty well on in years. My old man is 66 and can barely lift one of his arms above his head and has a knee with no cartilage left and he did not spend the last four decades doing what Blue Panther has been doing. The mad bastard debuted in 1978! He is an old man however you slice it and after nearly 50 years of wrestling I can only imagine how his body must feel on a bad day. I train professional athletes for a living and if any of them can still do what Panther was doing in this match when they hit their 60s I will take immense amounts of pride in that and also loudly proclaim on all forms of social media that I had anything to do with it. Still though, 64 is 64 and Panther looks like a 64-year-old man. He's up against a bully probably twenty years his junior and comparatively speaking - or just generally speaking - he moves like a 64-year-old man. Hechicero is faster, stronger, fitter, so Panther turns himself into a lodestone and feeds off the crowd's energy. He's not shy about asking for it either. He knows he needs it and he wants everyone else to know it too, for how else will THEY know when to provide it most? Panther basically works this as a classic masked tecnico while Hechicero does what he does and bases for everything like only he can. 30 years ago Panther was trying to wrangle Atlantis, today he's channelling him. He hit five dives in this and crashed and burned badly on one - a botch for the philistines but a moment of POIGNANCY for the rest of us who nod solemnly at a man in his twilight trying to fling himself headfirst out a wrestling ring only to clip the top rope with his heel and almost concuss himself on the floor. Panther was never really a high-flyer in his pomp so can we be shocked that his hit rate in his 60s isn't 100%? We most certainly cannot. Every dive he connected on was tremendous, though. The way he fired up the crowd before each one, the way he had to almost convince himself it was a good idea to even try, the way he sold the toll of HITTING the dives never mind missing them, it was fantastic stuff. I think my favourite was the running hurricanrana off the apron, where he tucked his chin and covered his head with his arms for fear he might paralyze himself, then lay prone afterwards for a few seconds, completely motionless, maybe wondering if moving at all is a good idea. Unfortunately for him, Hechicero either gets up first or at the same time as Panther after every dive, so each risk can only chip away at Hechicero, never fully swing the tide. Eventually Hechicero takes Panther up the ramp and tries to smash his head open on the steps. When Panther manages to throw Hechicero into them and buy himself some time he knows he has to bring out the big gun. When the old maniac climbed the steps and looked to the crowd I thought there was no way he'd actually jump. Then he jumped and it was basically the perfect payoff, not only because it looked nuts but because it finally kept Hechicero down. Beyond Panther throwing himself around like a missile and Hechicero taking all of it in the sternum, these two are an amazing pairing. The matwork in the primera was brief but it was exceptional. Things like Panther grabbing a wrist while swinging Hechicero over with his leg to secure control is one of those veteran touches that tells you Panther is one of the very best to have rolled around a wrestling ring. Panther engaging in any sort of strike exchange is a fool's errand but he's too proud to take any shit. Hechicero obviously wants to go blow for blow and Panther will use that aggression against him, which they even worked into a strike exchange that set up Panther's dive off the apron. The tercera is long and the way they built through Panther's ongoing struggle was awesome. Just the way Panther throws himself onto Hechicero for a cover, his whole bodyweight on top of the shoulders, it communicated the task he was faced with and how desperate he was to see it through. The fact Hechicero had to rip Panther's mask off to gain that final advantage told you how far he'd been pushed. An outstanding match and a Panther performance for the ages. 

Hechicero against the legends! (pt. 1)

Hechicero v Virus (Lucha Memes, 5/15/16)

There was a slight edit in this around halfway, but based on how much of Virus' face paint had been worn off before the edit and how much after, I don't think we really miss anything. Which is good, because it would be annoying otherwise, because what we got was a wonderful 10 minutes. Hechicero is slimmer and NIPPIER in 2016 than he is today and the first five minutes was just a beautiful mat clinic between him and one of the true GOATs of lucha grappling. The camera was practically inside the ring so we were right there with the action, seeing how they manipulate joints and shift their body to create openings, maneuver the other guy into positions that might allow them to seize advantages two steps down the line. You can also hear everything and Hechicero was a growling shit-talking freak while Virus went about business like the seasoned pro he is. There was an amazing moment where Hechicero turned a crucifix pin into a Texas cloverleaf and fuck knows how he did it. They linked up in a knucklelock and ran through an extended sequence of rolls and tumbles and pins and attempted monkey flips and neither guy let go of the other's hand once. It was the very best sort of pro wrestling and I'll say that about half a dozen sorts of pro wrestling but I genuinely think this is my wrestling ideal. Nothing else mesmerises me the way lucha matwork does. I wish it lasted another 10 minutes but, much like the Hechicero of 2026, the Hechicero of 2016 had a chip on his shoulder and a propensity to turn a sporting contest into a fist fight. He pulled the straps down and opened himself up for an exchange of chops, so Virus obliged, took his shirt off and laid one on Hechicero's chest. Hechicero about caved the wee fella's chest in so Virus immediately threw that nonsense out the window and kicked him in the knee instead. There's a reason the most well-adjusted among us would call Virus one of the 30 greatest wrestlers to have ever lived. It also meant they got back to the grappling, not the same as the opening as this was more interspersed with movement, strikes and rope-running, but it was awesome all the same and I dug the escalation. Hechicero crushes Virus with a shoulder block and leans down to ask him if he's okay ("que pasa, hermano?"), then shouts "puta madre!" as Virus uses his WILES and nearly sends him flying over the ropes. Hechicero ends up draped over the top rope and Virus just cracks him with a flying leg lariat that slingshots him back into the ring. Hechicero's spinning hammerlock backbreaker is a great spot and in the end veteran smarts or caginess won't save you from getting swung around and dropped spine-first across someone's knee. I fucking loved this. 

Complete & Accurate Virus

Hechicero v Bandido! For the gold!

Hechicero v Bandido (ROH Death Before Dishonor, 8/29/25)

Well shit, I wasn't really sure what to expect from this but I thought it was a downright tremendous ol' time. I've been on a bit of a Hechicero kick lately, and while I'm generally hesitant to use cagematch as a reference for the top end stuff to watch, this jumped out as a pretty decent five and a half star affair and that one time I saw Bandido I quite liked him so to hell with it. I'll say this off the bat - this did not feel like a 37-minute match and of course I mean that in the best way possible. If I knew the thing went 37 minutes beforehand I honestly wouldn't have watched it. The youtube file was around 40 minutes, but I figured there'd be some preamble and whatever because it was an ROH World Title match on a PPV and whatever. But no, it went 37 bell to bell. I didn't actually realise it went that long until the end and there was never a point during it when I thought to check, and coming from an easily agitated man that's about as big a compliment as I can pay it. The early parts with the lucha-inspired matwork just landed on the money for me. I'd watched some mid-2010s Hechicero before going into this and I'm not sure if it's because the bulking up (shall we say) slowed him down between then and 2025, because Bandido isn't as used to working holds like this (I honestly could not say) so they slowed it down a touch, because they wanted to slow it down a little for their audience, or a combination of all three, but either way this was slower than some of the Mexico Hechicero I'd been watching. It wasn't as snappy or fluid and they never transitioned between holds as gracefully. There was maybe a sense that they were working through things they'd mapped out beforehand, if I'm being hyper-critical. Still, it was good stuff and I was engaged the whole time. Hechicero is super creative as always but I thought Bandido hung with him well. I'd only seen Bandido one other time, against Bryan Danielson on Dynamite from back in January 2023, and while I liked that match and his performance it wasn't enough for me to have a proper handle on him. He struck me as a true babyface here, one not afraid to emote and show real vulnerability and engage with the crowd, look to them for support and feed off it. The crowd respond to him as well and it felt like they were fully behind him. There was even a nice touch where Bandido paid Hechicero in kind for some earlier mask-ripping, but when the crowd didn't take all that kindly to it Bandido half turned and apologised for stooping to such a level. It was cool to see a babyface lean all the way into that, basically. The layout here was simple enough and there was really only two major transitions the whole match. The first came after the early matwork, where Bandido hit a big dive over the top and looked to be in control, only to run face-first into a flying knee that put the ball in Hechicero's court. When Hechicero starts to get too cocky and asks for Bandido to hit him, Bandido obliges and it actually leads to him taking over, which is a pretty nice bit of comeuppance. The finishing stretch was long, but it had some great build and the pacing really worked. They let the big moments sink in and they never rushed through things. Some of those big moments were huge too. The brainbuster on the guardrail was fucking wild and then Bandido ate shit on that spinning F5 thing off the apron. The big dives were BIG and even the strike exchanges had enough exhaustion behind them that they never felt rote. Even that exhaustion - whether it was selling or genuine - helped smooth over some of the more elaborate stuff towards the end being a bit sluggish in execution. When they both stood up on the top rope it looked like they might crash and burn but Bandido hitting a crazy backflip fallaway slam was a hell of a way to shut me up. That's something else Bandido was great at, putting across how much effort he had to exert to lift Hechicero for some moves or reverse certain holds. I don't think I've watched more than a dozen matches from 2025 but I'd be shocked if I watched a hundred and found five better than this. 

GWE 2026 Legwork: The Destroyer (#4)

The Destroyer v Giant Baba (JWA, 3/5/69)

Pretty sublime performance from the Destroyer. As far as heelin' it up goes you'll struggle to find many better examples of it from the era, or maybe any era. It was sort of masterful how he had people agitated just from his body language and complaining about every little thing. He didn't need to make physical contact with Baba or outright cheat for you to know that this was not a particularly pleasant man. Then when they did make contact he acted like the shithouse we all expected. He couldn't get anything to stick and Baba had his number early so that only made him more frustrated, which he demonstrated by bitching about mask-pulling that clearly never happened. When he manages to actually tie Baba in a hold for a second he gets right to cutting corners, bending Baba's fingers at disgusting angles, biting them behind the ref's back, choking Baba with the free hand when ref' checks him on the biting then kneeling with his shin across the throat during yet another conversation with the referee. Everything was a discourse, everything needed an argument and everything made him outwardly belligerent. It actually would've been MORE conducive to doing underhanded shit if he'd just shut up, but he could never help himself. It's simple enough stuff but he's so natural with all of it that you really want Baba to crack his jaw and really that's the whole point at the end of the day. And Destroyer is great at even delaying that payoff because he'll never be above just ducking out the ring to avoid one of Baba's big boots. The build and escalation was excellent, basically. Escalation in this sense was how they moved through holds and kept milking and teasing key things, getting closer and closer to landing them each time. For Baba it was that boot, while for Destroyer it was the figure-4, which he explicitly brought up before the match even started as his route to victory. He went for it several times and got jammed on each attempt, Baba rolling through on the early attempts and chopping him in the throat on the late ones, before it finally stuck at the very end, just as the time limit expired. They ran through a solid chunk of holds and rarely went back to any of them, always finding something new after their previous gambit ultimately proved unsuccessful. They almost worked the holds in blocks, got what they could out of them before moving onto something else, but it never felt like it was done in a haphazard way. Even Beyer's cheating had escalation as he finally got fed up enough to use a foreign object, first by jabbing it in Baba's eyes and hiding it in the trunks. Then when he'd reached the end of his rope he loaded up the mask and split Baba open with those headbutts. I loved Baba just trying to rip the thing off him towards the end because at a certain point what else are you supposed to do? Both guys really sold the toll of everything, the exhaustion of working 30, 40, 50 minutes and beyond at a stalemate, and by the end Destroyer was almost walking around with his eyes closed while Baba's face was covered in crusted up blood. The longer it went the more of a scene Destroyer's entourage on the floor caused as well. I don't know who any of them were, two in cowboy hats and waistcoats, another in a suit smoking a cigar and the suit jacket was on and off every other minute. The latter was up and down like a yoyo and after Baba picked up the first fall Destroyer had to tell his boy to calm it before he wound up getting disqualified. In the last 10 minutes they get properly involved and one of the cowboy fellas holds Baba's leg over the bottom rope so Destroyer can jump on it. That was another really cool moment of escalation because Baba had managed to avoid it all match. Honestly, I think the French Catch stuff has halfway ruined a lot of other matwork and grappling from this era (or really every era) and I can't help but compare things like this to that. The actual trading of holds and complexity of movements here will never really match that, but the beauty of this doesn't entirely lie in the holds themselves as opposed to the slow build and escalation and rampant cheating and the desire it INSTILLS in us to see someone get their ears boxed in. Or maybe that's all wrestling in a nutshell. I guess this was good. 

Demolition v Strike Force!

Demolition v Strike Force (WWF, 4/25/88)

Terrific little sprint. Strike Force are PEEVED after losing the tag titles at Wrestlemania and come out guns blazing from the start. Tito is always top tier when it comes to babyfaces who convey wanting to throttle you but Martel was dialing the intensity way up too, even going for the Boston Crab inside about 30 seconds. Every time the Demos try to halt their momentum Strike Force have an answer. Ax reels off a few big clubbing blows and grabs a containment headlock, but Martel scoots out the back, counters with three rapid fast arm-wringers and Ax takes an awesome flip bump on the third. You'd think Santana's life depended on them regaining the belts and Fuji was sweating bullets on the floor. They call him the devious one for a reason though and eventually his distraction pays off, allowing Ax to slide across the apron and catch Martel running the ropes with a knee to the back. Demolition really have some of the best clubbering. It wasn't always something I appreciated, but as I've grown old and enfeebled I appreciate the things that make me wince as if I were on the receiving end of it myself, and these clubbing forearms to the spine would surely leave me in a state unfit for purpose. Ax has especially great clubbering, and varied into the bargain - clubs to the neck, the shoulders, the mid back, the low back, everything credible and visceral and you also fully buy a headbutt from Ax stopping you dead in your tracks. The referee kind of sucks unfortunately, wandering out of position and clearly seeing Smash ram Martel's back into the ring apron, so in some ways you wonder if him missing the Santana hot tag and forcing him back out was actual incompetence. I 100% expected Gorilla to slaughter him on commentary but he never did so I guess maybe they were old drinking buddies or some such. When the proper hot tag comes the heat is right where you want it, though. Demolition end up getting flung into each other with a thud during the last hectic minute and Santana clobbers Smash with a gorgeous flying forearm, but Fuji is on hand again and jabs Tito in the throat with the cane as he's going for the Figure 4. Between this, the amazing Rockers match from December and a lost classic against the Bulldogs in July, Demolition had quite the year in 1988. 

Tully in God Mode

Tully Blanchard v Brian Adias (JCP Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, 2/16/85)

This started with Tully shaking Adias' hand, the sort of smile on his face that tells us he thinks he's got this one in the bag, only to get dropped on that face out of a collar-and-elbow tie-up 10 seconds later. Which really meant it couldn't have started much better. Tully was incensed that not only did fucking Brian Adias have the audacity to do that to the television champion ON television, but that the crowd actually took great pleasure in it. The early parts of this were all about Adias on the front foot trying to get at Tully while Tully would backpedal and duck out the ring for a reprieve, every instance of it denying the crowd that sweet moment where he gets put on his backside. He fully threw himself out the ring at one point and wanted Adias disqualified for it. The way he frantically tries to create distance is amazing, giving nothing for free, making Adias work to even close the space only for Tully to bolt anyway. When Adias reverses an Irish whip and hits a CORKER of a dropkick - one where he practically backflipped after making contact and landed on his feet - you just kind of sit back and take in the crowd response and reconcile that Tully Blanchard might just be the perfect heel. All of Adias' arm work in control was solid stuff but it's made again by Tully working from below, feeding everything and growing more and more desperate, making the crowd want to see him get his clock cleaned WHILE he's getting his clock cleaned. Tully was that rare and special sort of loathsome where you could beat him up and it would never fully satisfy the people that wanted to see him get beaten up. Magnum TA came within millimeters of gouging his eye out with a broken chair leg and after the dust had settled you can bet people would've been like "that was great and everything but you know what really would've made it? If Magnum had just blinded the little prick." Brian Adias gets to look like the coolest person in the building when Tully throws him out the ring and tries to kick him in the head only to get caught and have that leg wrapped around the post, Tully backing up knowing he'd severely miscalculated the situation. Still though, weasel he may be, Tully is the TV champion for a reason and in the end he'll always find a way, sometimes through questionable means, sometimes by just being really good at the wrestling. For 15 minutes you might get close, but close doesn't win you the belt. You could probably count on one hand the number of wrestlers who've ever been as good at working the TV wrestling match as Tully Blanchard. 

More from our favourite Dirty White Boys

Dirty White Boys v The Fantastics (Mid-South, 4/15/85)

This was the Fantastics working double duty on a day where they'd already had (or were about to have) another awesome match against Jake the Snake and the Barbarian. Perhaps some of the THIRSTIEST of the wimmenfolk in the crowd bought tickets to both shows just to see them. The White Boys looked partly amused and partly disgusted as Rogers and Fulton made their way around the whole front row hugging each woman, accepting a peck on the cheek from the boldest among them. The White Boys may not be heartthrobs but they are the manliest team of all and Len Denton demonstrates this by easily slamming Bobby Fulton and flexing his muscles. There are no shrieks of joy from the crowd's women, however; merely displeasure at best, revulsion at worst. I'm sure we've all been there. Eventually Fulton turns the tables, hip tosses Denton and pops both White Boys with a punch and the crowd reaction is one that us peasants will quite simply never experience for ourselves. Anthony decides to show us that the Dirty White Boys can wrestle with the best of them by taking Rogers over with a SWANK headlock into a hammerlock, but Rogers even MORE swankily scoots out the back door with a cool submission that ties up both of Anthony's arms. Fulton waltzes in and steps over Anthony to talk shit at Denton, the ref' sends him out again so of course he steps back over Anthony on his way, Denton is livid. This happens three times and the place is going nuts, because obviously would be. The White Boys take over thanks to their trailer park smarts, kneeing Rogers in the gut as he's hitting the ropes, then flattening him with a huge atomic drop. The heat segment is all on the lower back and they hit some real nice elbow drops to the kidneys before working the hearhug. It was top stuff and Rogers was a great face in peril as usual. The White Boys were always treated as a team in Mid-South that could just as easily knock your head off to win, one that didn't NEED to cheat even if they were underhanded by nature, and the finishing lariat behind the ref's back was a corker. 

The Dirty White Boys! and The Interns!

Dirty White Boys v The Interns (Memphis, 1/14/85)

Yeah Memphis was the fucking best. I'm wondering if this was even available when the DVDVR 80s set was being put together because it feels like something that would've been on there with a bullet. I think it was part of a one-night tag tournament, which would explain why they were basically running heel v heel. The White Boys were not exactly working babyface at the start, but by the end they'd morphed into the grimiest trailer park Rock n Roll Express you've ever seen and it was a thing of beauty. Even if the match doesn't start as an all-out brawl you can tell these are two teams who don't particularly care for each other. It's also not a ring full of people who you'd call well-behaved individuals. Rules are open to interpretation and all that. There was always an underlying sense that it could break down and about five minutes in that's what happens. It turns into a madness with Tony Anthony getting slammed on a table and dragged around ringside with a rope around his neck, which was quite frankly wild as fuck. One of the Interns holds Anthony as the other jumps off a table with a forearm, Len Denton grabs a belt and tries to wring an Intern's neck, tables are getting tossed and the Interns' manager is rolling around in a wheelchair wearing hospital scrubs. It was peak Memphis and I half expected the match to get thrown out Fabs/Moondogs style, which honestly wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world if they just kept trying to kill each other for a while afterwards, but it did make its way back into the ring and they worked a red hot peril segment on Anthony. It looked like he was done for when they rolled him in and Denton had to make an awesome last ditch save with a flying shoulder tackle. 1985 is a very different time from 2026 but it's hard to imagine a crowd today getting this thoroughly behind a heel team over the course of a match. Maybe there are simply no teams in 2026 like the Dirty White Boys from Bucksnort, Tennessee. Anthony's peril segment was tremendous and when Denton comes in off the hot tag the place erupts. The White Boys' double Russian leg sweep was killer and then there's this great miscue segment where everyone hits the ropes that ends with both Interns, Tony Anthony and the referee all getting laid out. Denton runs the ropes on three sides of the ring as the Interns chase him, both Interns smash into each other again, and as their manager throws a piece of his wheelchair into the ring Denton catches it and clonks one of them in the head. They just don't make them like this anymore. 

Well I Left Mid-South in My Brother's Old Chevrolet with a Map and a Half-Tank Dream

Butch Reed v Dick Slater (No DQ) (12/13/85)

This is my favourite of all the Reed v Slater matches, and honestly might be the best Dick Slater performance I've seen. They're coming off the heels of Slater trying to cash in Ric Flair's bounty on Reed and in their previous match Reed was in a neck brace, which of course Dirty Dick Slater painted a bullseye on. This time Reed is brace-free so that's great for him personally and pretty soon into the match he pops Slater with one of the best punches of his career so that's great for me personally, and really all of us as a collective. You'd sometimes forget they were working no DQ matches in Mid-South/Houston because rules were still mostly enforced the same way by referees, but you knew this was no mere sporting contest when Reed launched Slater over the ropes to the floor and then dropped him across the safety rail. In their last match Slater worked over Reed's neck when he managed to take control. It makes sense because Reed was in a beck brace and Slater is Dirty by nature. In the end it didn't matter because Reed won and took Slater's North American title. Maybe this time Slater knew a different strategy was in order so when he got his chance he tried to break Reed's arm. This was some awesome arm work, first in how he dragged Reed over to the corner and wrapped the arm around the ring post, then smashed it with the edge of a chair. All of Slater's armbars were rugged as fuck and I loved him kneeling across Reed's head while he applied it, grated his forearm bone across Reed's face, super nasty stuff. Reed paying him back with the post spot later was some great revenge but even that was eclipsed by the uppercut he landed on Slater's chin towards the end. A no DQ match ending in what pretty much was a DQ is sort of stupid, but I did love Slater knowing that Reed was a force not easily stopped and just elbow dropping the ref' in the neck. Part of it was frustration, part fear. Reed WILL keep coming so I guess if there's no referee to count Slater out then he can't actually lose the match. You'd think, anyway. He clearly hadn't considered the possibility of a disqualification in a no disqualification match. This was still top, though. 

Chris Adams & Terry Taylor v Iceman Parsons & Eddie Gilbert (3/20/87)

Long, awesome southern style tag. The first five minutes of this - which goes dead on 20 in total - were mostly comprised of Iceman Parsons reaching deep into his bag of shithead stupidity and it was very great. I guess he'd turned on Adams recently and Adams wanted revenge here. He got on the mic and called Parsons buckwheat, then started a buckwheat chant as Parsons got visibly livid. I don't really know what buckwheat is or why Adams chose that as an insult but I hope he wasn't doing a racism. When Parsons grabs the mic to respond the crowd immediately start up another buckwheat chant and Parsons of course milks this like crazy. When he finally gets to speak he calls Adams' mother a hobo and says he had his back when Adams was in the slammer. He makes a salient point but either way wants absolutely no part of Chris Adams and will outright run away from him during the early part of the match. Adams tries to swing on him a few times and Iceman will grab the post and hang waaaaay back out of reach. The heels do manage to take over on Adams briefly during a commercial break, but Boesch points out on commentary that it was Gilbert who did it and Parsons is riding the wave of his partner's success. When Adams rolls away from a Parsons elbow Iceman cuts bait and tags out instantly, another bullet dodged. So most of the babyface shine is Eddie Gilbert getting punched around the ring and this might be my all-time favourite string of Eddie Gilbert getting punched around a ring. He would get pinged with a jab, stumble into the wrong corner, get pinged with another, turn around and get pinged a third time, turn the other way and bump face-first into a turnbuckle. The babyfaces work an armbar on Gilbert and Iceman tries to come in and break it up, but when he does the ref' puts him straight back out and as this happens Adams and Taylor work the blind tag shtick. Parsons is apoplectic and the crowd eat it up and pro wrestling doesn't need to be all that complicated when you get down to brass tacks. On the third attempt Adams is a little too slow in switching with Taylor so it's him the ref' has to put out, so Parsons nails Taylor on the temple with a jumping hip attack and as far as transitions go that was pretty great. In a nice play on the norm Taylor tries to fire back with a headbutt on Iceman and pays dearly as Parsons struts and wiggles like the biggest most punchable idiot you've ever seen, albeit an idiot with a rock solid cranium. The heat segment pretty much ruled. Every cutoff built the heat and Taylor was just a really strong face in peril, and when Adams gets the hot tag the crowd knows he can finally get his hands on Parsons. Even the double count out finish was fine just for the wild bump that led to it. I had no memory of this match at all and it was badass. 

Mid-South Project

Hashimoto in '97 (with Scott Norton! Meng! The Barbarian!)

Shinya Hashimoto & Manabu Nakanishi v Masa Chono & Scott Norton (New Japan, 2/8/97)

Manabu Nakanishi. Sometimes when you have more muscles than sense, loaded to the eyeballs with testosterone and MANLY RAGE, you might just be a little prone to doing some stupid shit you might've been better off not doing. Manabu Nakanishi, we call that. Manabu Nakanishi Manabu Nakanishi'd himself into a mudhole-stomping straight away here, jumping into the ring to get at Chono and Norton only to get swiftly walloped. Hashimoto displayed no such foolishness. He was only a couple years older than Nakanishi but he'd been doing this a good while longer, and he was also the Ace and not about to be trampled by people who willingly hang around with Buff Bagwell. The Hashimoto/Norton pairing is always top drawer and Norton looked like a giant barrel-chested juggernaut, hucking knife edge chops and smashing into Hashimoto with one of the best shoulder blocks I've ever seen. Clearly Hashimoto can hold his own against Norton, though. Clearly he can hold his own against Chono. We're just not sure he can hold it against both and at times he might need to, because we're VERY sure Nakanishi can hold his own against neither. At times you almost feel sorry for the guy because Chono was not above kicking him in the balls and Norton was just smashing him to bits. Norton threw a handful of chops that were honest to god as mean as I've ever seen. These things sounded like they cracked Nakanishi's sternum, not just from the THWACK but the THUNK. Eventually Hashimoto said enough is enough and came in to clean house like only he can, encouraging Nakanishi crawl to his own corner to make the tag. And then Bagwell got involved, tripping Hash as he hit the ropes for a home run shot. Norton trying to powerbomb Nakanishi through the mat was wild and that guy has to be one of the last wrestlers ever you'd try and fuck with. I want to re-watch every Norton/Hashimoto match immediately. 

Shinya Hashimoto & Kensuke Sasaki v Faces of Fear (New Japan, 3/8/97) 

You get an idea of how big Meng and Barbarian really are from this. Sasaki obviously isn't the tallest but he's a UNIT and the Faces of Fear make him look like a stocky child. Barbarian you always knew was huge. In the WWF Haku didn't look substantially bigger than anybody else and if nothing else appeared relatively small. Here he looked like a bouncer ejecting a couple big lads from the discotheque after they'd spent all day drinking cans at a wedding reception. When they tried their Meng backdrop into Barbarian powerbomb double team on Sasaki and it didn't quite come off I thought they'd maybe overshot on how easily they could throw throw around a THICK boy, but then Barbarian muscled him up like Sasaki weighted nothing and splattered him with ease. Meng has really nice chops and him and Hashimoto trading blows was great fun. Meng worked many a WAR show several years prior so these were steady waters for him. Hashimoto had also worked Scott Norton enough times to know he'd maybe need to lay it in to get a tune out of these WCW boys and as you can imagine he laid it in and a tune was gotten. The finishing DDT was of course a beautiful thing.

Flair v Murdoch!

Ric Flair v Dick Murdoch (JCP, 9/11/86)

Once upon a time this would've been my all-time dream match, my wrestling footage holy grail. With a bullet, too. We've all heard the story of how Flair and Murdoch worked a 60-minute draw in Tulsa and it was the best match Joel Watts had ever seen but then he went and left the film reel in his car and it melted in the Oklahoma sun. Who knows if that's even true, but in a world where there's really no footage of these two wrestling otherwise, you want to believe a 60-minute draw between them really was the best match never seen. If you're a fan of both it probably isn't hard to believe either. This wasn't the long arena match most of us might've wanted, but for an abbreviated TV version of the Nature Boy and Captain Redneck I thought it was pretty damn great. With every new Flair match (or match up) I most look forward to seeing how his opponent operates within the Flair Formula. I know I always say that but it's always true. Who will let Flair take the full reins, who'll push back a little and leave their mark on things, who'll rail against it entirely and just do whatever? This had enough moments I'd never seen in any other Flair match to think they were working as close to 50/50 as you'll get, even if it was still very much a Flair match. Murdoch working the leg didn't feel like your regular Flair opponent working the leg. It wasn't treated as a revenge spot, didn't stem from Flair working the leg and applying the figure-4 first, it was something Murdoch latched onto and he went with it. It never even led to him applying the figure-4 either, which surprised me in a good way. They also transitioned out of it when Murdoch tried to elbow drop the knee but Flair pulled his leg away and Murdoch ate shit on the landing. That prompted Flair to twist on the arm and punch him in the armpit for a few minutes, and Flair working a guy's arm is always nasty stuff. When they crept up to the line of doing something I expected, more often than not they'd take it in another direction. They never traded chops in the corner - Flair threw several but Murdoch would always shut him down with his own amazing punches. When Flair climbed the turnbuckles and Murdoch stopped him you're pretty sure he's about to slam him, but instead Murdoch goes ROGUE and hits an awesome running powerslam. Murdoch also threaded his own signature stuff in at cool moments, like the spot where he winds up for a big punch, the ref' grabs his arm to stop it, so Murdoch just pops his opponent with the free hand as he stares at the ref' with visible annoyance. In no world would I have expected Flair to take a brainbuster but wouldn't you believe it, Murdoch drops him with a brainbuster and it's nice when the world throws you curveballs sometimes. There are really no wrestlers I feel like I NEED to see go an hour with Flair at this stage. There are really no wrestlers I feel like I need to see go an hour, period. But If you told me tomorrow that it turns out Joel Watts had melted the wrong film reel and the one with Flair v Murdoch was found in a basemen in Oklahoma City, I would still be very excited to see how that would look. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #58

Mayumi Ozaki v Dynamite Kansai (Street Fight) (JWP, 3/17/95)

10 years ago I'd have avoided this like the plague. Going through the old 90s yearbooks, just about anything with these two was fast forward material, and joshi street fights were probably my least favourite match type. I've mentioned this before and to be fair it's probably time I move past it, but the Ozaki/Takako Inoue street fight on the '96 yearbook was so bad it basically turned me off wrestling for weeks. I'm not in a hurry to watch that particular match again but this one was significantly better and I thought both women were really good in it. I come around on Ozaki a little more with every match of hers I watch, probably because she is a nutjob and when she wraps a chain around her fist and punches people in the neck I get the sense she would legitimately like to kill that person. The chain-wrapped punches here were brutal and every single one of them made me wince. Actually everything they did with the chain was nasty as fuck. It's hard for me not to judge most stuff in wrestling involving a chain on the Piper/Valentine curve, but this scored well and if you're going to drag someone around the arena by a chain around their neck then this is the way to do it. Kansai turned it into a leash and stepped on Ozaki's head, then pulled the free length of chain like she was trying to crush Ozaki's throat like an empty Sprite can. They fight their way down an escalator and brawl outside the building for a minute, which could've come across as some Road Dogg/Hardcore Holly type tomfoolery but managed not to. Things take a turn for the disgusting when Ozaki whomps Kansai with a chair and the latter taps a full Puerto Rico gusher. I typically think of Kansai as a strike machine, but her blood-loss selling was great here and there were points where it looked like she could barely stand up straight. Of course she could stand up straight enough to wrap that chain around her foot and kick Ozaki in the mouth. Your mileage may vary on the finish, especially with it coming straight after a crazy piledriver through one of those thick bastard tables, but it felt like a last ditch bit of desperation to me and if you're outgunned in a gunfight then your best weapon is an inside cradle. My great grandmother always did say so. 

GWE 2026 Legwork: Meiko Satomura (#2)

Meiko Satomura v Io Shirai (Stardom, 12/23/15)

Tremendous fuckin wrestling match, one that basically solidified what I already knew about Meiko while also making me wonder if I don't need to do the full comprehensive of Io Shirai. She works part of this as a heel without fully being heel, not sniveling, not dastardly, doesn't really cheat or do anything underhanded, but she clearly had something to prove against the legend and she wasn't about to show deference. She doesn't shake Meiko's hand at the intros and ducks out the ring for an early breather, then goes head to head with Meiko, smiling with the hubris that a young challenger on the cusp of greatness might. She even slapped Meiko and of course she paid dearly for it. The opening five minutes were brilliant and they were all about Meiko establishing dominance. Outside of an early bit of tight grappling and one subsequent stand-off she mostly ragdolled Io. When Shirai got uppity Meiko literally kicked her out the ring and for every cannon Satomura threw Shirai matched it with her bump. Meiko wouldn't rise to any of Io's bait - she was the calm and assured champion and her portrayal of that was so good. She's seen all of this before, BEEN all of it before, and she'd never deviate, never get flustered, she'd stay on track with laser focus. Whenever she shut Io down it was with cool and vicious precision and it was spectacular to watch, like Misawa in his pomp. Shirai eventually makes her comeback and she does it with an awesome side-on tope that wipes out Meiko and whoever was unfortunate enough to be standing next to her. I loved that opening stretch but honestly, when Io grabbed Meiko by the head and waltzed her into the crowd I was worried it was for going off the rails in a hurry. If you're going to do the ropey crowd brawling though then at least make it look like you're dragging your opponent along and not going for a leisurely stroll, and in fairness Shirai had a tight enough grip on the headlock where it looked like Satomura didn't have a choice in the matter. It still nearly backfired on Shirai when Meiko kicked the crap out of her again and even went for the Death Valley Driver up in the bleachers. Io channeling her inner Puerto Rico and kicking Meiko down a flight of stairs was great, though. When she got up on the balcony I was like there's no way she'd actually jump off that would she and then she went and fucking moonsaulted off the thing. Both of them were really good at getting into position for things that might otherwise have a contrived setup. Things like Meiko getting her leg stuck between the ropes allowing Shirai to hit a dive off the turnbuckles, which in turn set up a Pele kick from the apron when Io climbed the buckles a second time. These were great looking spots but they actually felt like organic responses to what was going on around them. The longer it went the more the people rallied behind Io, and in turn she dropped the horse shit and went from cocky to determined. It was pretty endearing and not knowing the result I found a part of myself hoping she might pull it off as well. She kept bumping like crazy for all of Meiko's kicks so the beating she took certainly wouldn't have turned people against her. These were some truly Battlartsian shots too; roundhouse kicks to the head, the chest, the back, the hamstrings, the lot. Those strikes made it feel like Meiko could always halt Io's momentum quicker than the other way around. There was one exchange where Shirai actually won out with a kick of her own, but stumbled groggily into a return shot from Meiko as she lay on her back and just like that the tide was switched again. Satomura's offence had a real sense of escalation to it. She had the STF that she went to more than once, on the last occasion turning it onto her side that had Io twisted at about four ugly angles, then the choke late on where she used Shirai's own arm to apply the pressure that I fully bought as the finish. Io's bump off the missed moonsault was bonkers and when Meiko finally hit the DVD I'd have bet money on it being over. I didn't love how quickly Io reversed the third DVD attempt after eating the second one before that, especially because it led straight to the finish, but it's not a major complaint overall. Satomura was tremendous here, best in the world level, but she took a bit of a back seat character-wise to Shirai, who this was really all about. I don't know shit about shit when it comes to Stardom, but this was her second major title win in the promotion and without seeing the first one, it felt like she solidified herself as the true Ace. Other than a few spotty bits of transitional selling I thought she was excellent. One of the best matches of the decade.  

Chavo and Hector in Houston! Eddie vs D'Lo! On Heat!

Chavo & Hector Guerrero v Master G & Brickhouse Brown (Houston Wrestling, 11/23/84) - FUN

This is JIP a couple minutes in so we miss what I guess would've been some babyface shine. Boesch on commentary mentions a cut under Hector's eye and when we join the match Master G is standing in the middle of the ring, fists cocked ready to fight. We go into the heat almost immediately and the Guerreros are easily one of the best teams of the era working a heat segment. I've said that before, I'm sure. I'll say it again, I'm sure of that too. They have so much cool and varied offence but it's all focused and this time it was to Master G's back. Hector with cool high knee drops to the lower back, a sort of jumping headbutt, his 180 degree splash, really the Hector Guerrero tour de force. When Brickhouse comes in he hits five awesome dropkicks that the Guerreros bump great off of and you sometimes forget how nice Brickhouse Brown's dropkick was. Hector's bump off a Master G punch was impeccable. Chavo coming in behind the ref's back and clonking Master G with a pistol holster is certainly a finish. A remarkable family. 

Eddie Guerrero v D'Lo Brown (Heat, 4/27/02) - GOOD

If I can speak freely, I did not know D'Lo Brown was still in the WWF at this stage of the game. Coachman is on commentary with Raven (what the fuck??) and they tell us D'Lo had been out for a year through injury, questioning perhaps his decision to go right at the Intercontinental champion so early after his return. But fair play to our man D'Lo because he looked great here, hitting a bunch of cool offence like a Buzz Sawyer style powerslam and a cool tilt-a-whirl sidewalk slam, had real nice snap on his legdrop, hit an awesome leg lariat, swung Eddie around with a neat rolling armdrag, lots of fun stuff. Eddie was working INTENSE like nobody else in the WWF at the time (Benoit was still injured) and had no daylight on anything, all of his strikes super snug and thrown with bad intentions. I love his back body drop bump, the height and the angle on it right before he whips himself over in midair, perfectly lucha libre. When he takes over he works D'Lo's midsection and hits a great hilo from the apron, then throws on an abdominal stretch and Raven does his best Gorilla Monsoon impression by talking about the pressure on the transverse abdominis. His tornado DDT as he runs up the turnbuckles looked sensational. Eddie's frog splash is a perfect thing and this is probably one of the better matches that happened on Heat. Which, I'll be honest, I never knew was still even a thing in 2002. I thought they dropped that in 2000, though maybe that's just because they stopped showing it on Channel 4. 

Complete & Accurate Guerrero Brothers

GWE 2026 Legwork: Shinjiro Ohtani

Last year I went back and watched a bunch of Jushin Liger, which was really the first time I've watched much Liger in about a decade. A handful of those matches were either singles, tags or multi-mans opposite Ohtani and it's pretty consistently an awesome pairing. It also made me realise I never voted for Ohtani in 2016 and that definitely feels like an oversight. So here I am, going through some of the post-New Japan Ohtani like I said I wanted to before the 2016 deadline. 

Shinjiro Ohtani v Yuki Ishikawa (Zero-1, 4/27/02)

There's an alternate universe where Ohtani jumped to Battlarts in the late 90s and this became a years-long feud. He certainly had the approach of this being not at all a monkey show so he'd have fit right in. He went for Ishikawa straight at the bell, threw a handful of brutal strikes, then gave him probably the nastiest facewash in the corner of his whole career. This wasn't one of those where he hits a glancing blow with the sole of his foot brushing across the opponent's face, this was a wild rush where he tried to cave Ishikawa's face in with his shin. The whole match was basically an eight-minute highly uncooperative fight, which of course is something they're both absolutely top drawer at. Ohtani drags Ishikawa to the floor and wallops him with a chair then rams his head into all four ring posts. Ishikawa fights back, bloody forehead and all, with some hideous shots - headbutts, slaps, forearms and one enziguri that looked and sounded like it took Ohtani's whole jaw off. My favourite Ohtani is probably pissed off Ohtani and Ishikawa is naturally the sort of maniac to absorb quite frankly stupid amounts of punishment, so as a dynamic it worked great. A gurgling, bloody-mouthed Ishikawa trying not to pass out in the rear naked chokse is straight out of his old mentor's playbook. Obviously this ruled. 

Shinjiro Ohtani v Kazunari Murakami (Zero-1, 7/16/07)

Pro wrestling really is the best of all the wrestlings. Maybe the best of all the THINGS. This is also just about the perfect representation of pro wrestling, the beauty of it, the vicariousness of giving your mortal enemies brain damage. Every time these two step in a ring together it's magic and this is their opus, their Born to Run, their Liquid Swords, their Blood on the Tracks, indeed blood all over the place if we're being literal. It is perhaps not something we - or simply I - should enjoy to the extent we - or I - do, as the aforementioned brain damage is a very genuine outcome that forced Murakami into a three-year retirement. Alas he's been back for ages now and by all accounts still terrorising people on a semi-regular basis so our guilt is softened somewhat. All's well that ends well, the poets tell us. After their matches in '01 you would never think these two maniacs could coexist, but based on the pre-match video package and a subsequent cagematch check it appears they'd actually been teaming for a while before this. So maybe you expect a good-natured contest along your Guerrero/Malenko lines, upholding of a Code of Honour and such. You would be dead wrong and know it immediately because Murakami charged Ohtani as soon as the latter got in the ring and it never let up from there. Ohtani was incredible through all of this but particularly while eating absolute hell during that early onslaught. He was only 35 here, somehow younger than I am right now, but Murakami made him look like an old man, such was the frankly unnecessary beating put upon him. Ohtani had been in more than his fair share of fights, spent a goodly number of years getting smashed in the face with the palm of Liger's hand, trading punches with the likes of Kanemoto and Ishikawa and Murakami himself, but he's a wrestler at the end of the day and a wrestler cannot comprehend the lawlessness of someone like Murakami. Ohtani doesn't truly belong in this sort of contest and Murakami overwhelmed him out the gate. His selling really was immaculate, getting blasted with kicks and punches, thrown over nine stacks of chairs, trying to get back to his feet and mount a comeback yet always staggering and stumbling into half a riposte at best, never quite enough to give Murakami real pause. Then he just rammed his head into Murakami's face and that'll do it at the end of the day. He gave every bit as good as he got from there and maybe I was wrong about him not being at home in this sort of pit fight. In all honesty he probably took the piss with it. The first chair shot was deplorable, landing on Murakami's head with the metal part of those Korakuen Hall folding chairs, opening a gruesome cut almost instantly. Normally the one delivering those shots would flip the chair around so the padded part connects with the recipient's head, folding with its natural hinge to create the cool visual of breaking across the head, the padded seat going flying. If I've ever had a folding chair broken over my head I've forgotten it now so maybe I'm not an authority on the matter, but you'd think that would be the safest way to break a folding chair over someone's head. Whether it was intentional or not I don't know, but Ohtani doing it the OTHER way was evidently not the safest way and the second shot was even more vile than the first, this one leaving the chair folded over Murakami's head by bending it in the way opposite to that in which it was designed. A decent amount of force would be required to do that so this was no mere love tap. You can tell Murakami's fucked straight away, but there were moments after it where I'm still inclined to credit him for some spectacular bits of selling. I've never seen someone roll with a punch and turn it into a backslide the way Murakami did here and it was probably the smoothest backslide ever recorded. The best moment of the match might be when Ohtani gives him the facewash in the corner, the sole of his boot soaking up the blood dripping down Murakami's face, and as Ohtani tries to pick him up Murakami just slumps to the floor as concussed as a person could be. I wondered if they weren't about to call an audible then but the next time Ohtani laid a hand on him Murakami spat in his face and burst into violent life, backing Ohtani into the corner with a flurry of punches before jumping fully on his head, Ohtani left glaring with open contempt as blood trickled from his nose. Even with only 70% of his motor functions Murakami is the greatest sneering enraged lunatic that's ever lived and the part where he and Ohtani rise to their feet locking eyes is perfect pro wrestling. The commentator says the word "zombie" twice and even with my less than stellar grasp of the Japanese language I know exactly who he was talking about. The finish is pretty fitting for a match of this sort as well. Nobody wins in something like this, there are only losers when it's said and done and both of them having to be dragged out of there like carcasses is how it was always destined to end. Phenomenal stuff and I'm glad Murakami can still blow his own nose.