Board 8 > Board 8's Match of the Week - Just Good Matches This Time (MOTW)

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Welcome back to Board 8's Match of the Week where myself, Bidoof and Iceman nominate matches for each other and all of you to watch and comment on.

This week we are getting back on track with just a regular week with no theme, just good matches.

Next week we are going to be doing a special Match of the Year edition where we nominate Matches of the Year from previous years.

If you want to take a guest spot in that topic speak up!

WIthout further ado here is my match:

Black Tiger II (Eddie Guerrero) vs Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit) Super J Cup, First Round Match 4/16/1994
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6drjk

Inspired by Voices of Wrestling's Rich Kraetsch's discussion this tournament on an episode of his retro series regarding Best of the Super Juniors, I did myself a major solid and checked out the original Super J Cup from 1994. It was a legendary one night tournament show and if you've never seen it, do yourself a favor and make time to correct that. As our resident guy who focuses on American fan favorites this match caught my eye as a candidate for this topic.

It's super short at just 11 minutes and features icons Eddie and Benoit back in their early years and under weird pseudonyms and gimmicks. Hell Eddie is under a mask. Neither was yet anything resembling a star, though Benoit was already developing a reputation among the tape traders for the speed and intensity of his work and this tournament would earn him his first five star match. But I assume most people have seen Wild Pegasus vs Great Sasuke by this point, so I figured I would go for a deeper dive.

This match presents an excellently executed match that is built around the clash in styles between Black Tiger's aerial maneuvers and Wild Pegasus' penchant for the ground game and chain-grappling. The result is fast and furious and serves as showcase for Black Tiger's athleticism, including a glorious springboard rana that was truly innovative in 1994.


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Iceman's Match of the Week

Ayako Hamada & Ayumi Kurihara vs Madison Eagles and Sara Del Rey
SHIMMER Volume 43 - October 2nd, 2011
Match Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eClN6zJQ0gs

Fun fact: Roughly a decade before Stephanie McMahon invented women's wrestling, a little indie promotion sprung up in Chicago for the express purpose of putting a spotlight on something that very closely resembled it.

Sarcasm aside, SHIMMER is a pretty cool part of modern American wrestling history. A good portion of the most popular women wrestlers in the world today spent at least some time there at one point, including Becky Lynch and Bayley. We kinda take it as a given these days that there's just a lot of good women's wrestling out there, but in the early days of the promotion, it was a pretty big deal to have a company whose selling point was, "Hey, we've got a bunch of ladies who just have really good matches."

And this is one of those really good matches. Most of the names in this match are probably at least somewhat recognizable to the folks in our little community: Hamada from her TNA days, Del Rey for being a big-time coach in NXT now and arguably the single biggest reason that women's wrestling in WWE has become what it is, and Eagles from my occasional rants in the Discord about how great she is. Kurihara may be an unknown, though - she's actually married to one YOSHI-HASHI, and make no mistake about it, she's easily the better worker in that relationship. She plays her part very well in this bout, as do the others.

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about this match, but it's such an easy watch. A hot start leads into some very solid heel work from the challengers, and then once they hit the halfway point, they're off and running, with basically no downtime until the end. It's a shining example of why indie wrestling was so popular among the portion of the fanbase that it was during this period; in a time where WWE was still calling their women "Divas" and running their top programs with such luminaries as Eve Torres, Maryse, Melina, Jillian, and the Bella Twins (long before people started pretending they were Kobashi and Misawa reincarnated, even), Dave Prazak and Allison Danger just put four of the world's best female workers in the ring and told them to go kill it.

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Bidoof's Match of the Week Recommendation

El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas vs. El Dandy (Mask vs. Hair vs. Hair)
CMLL Super Viernes - December 6, 1996
Match Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga7GQP0R8U0

I've been wanting to share this match since the second week of this project but between themes and just wanting to differentiate things, it kept getting pushed back. This one's for you, Iceman.

So, this can be a little difficult to follow at first if you don't speak Spanish and are unfamiliar with CMLL, so part of this write-up is going to be explaining what's going on here. Basically, the guys who lost the first two falls of this match would be the ones who wrestled each other to determine who would be the one to lose either their mask (Santo) or their luxurious locks (Negro, Dandy). Given that both men had their issues with him in 1996, Negro Casas and Dandy team up at the start to make sure no matter what that Santo has to put up his mask. It's pretty genius and plays perfectly into a longer story that eventually gets paid off on the next year's anniversary show. Then Dandy and Negro Casas wrestle each other where Negro Casas takes out Dandy's knee and makes him tap to a Sharpshooter, allowing him to escape El Hijo del Santo (but not without one more cheap shot) and cut a cocky promo on the way out.

From then on, you have a two out of three fall war. Part of why I was so interested in sharing this is because this is not the kind of match most think about when "lucha libre" is brought up. Crowd brawling, stiff strikes, and both men left absolutely bloody messes as the ref struggles to keep any semblance of order. This is what a grudge match should be. You'd assume that these men hated each other but I'm not aware of any real heat between the two. And the best part of it all is that you still have a potential face-off with Negro Casas to look forward to! As far as violent lucha brawls go, I believe this one of the best and I look forward to hearing what others think of it.

Wild Pegasus vs Black Tiger II
I always enjoy matches like this, where you get a glimpse of talent who would later become especially celebrated workers in a much more raw form. It's fun to pick out the aspects that remain across their careers even as they get more and more refined. That sort of thing is definitely on display here - Tiger's fluidity and smoothness and creativity are all very much on display - that springboard rana almost ends in disaster a couple of times, but that sort of thing is forgivable since, as Ed said, you didn't exactly see a whole lot of that in '94. And that all contrasts quite well with the violent straightforwardness of Pegasus's work. Every one of his suplexes or even just movements have a little extra snap to them, and it all just feels very deliberate and purposeful. I imagine I could pull up a Benoit/Guerrero match from a good decade later, across multiple countries and companies, and find that it looks quite a lot like this one, and that's pretty cool to think about.

I don't have a whole hell of a lot to say about the match itself beyond that, as the structure and so forth is pretty much what you'd expect from the ten-minute semifinals of a one-night tournament. Like everything else I see from outside of 2020 these days, it just makes me miss regular crowds. The finish was great and, even with awareness of the short runtime, caught me a little off guard in a good way. Always cool to see the flyer just getting caught eventually.

Guerrero just has hidden gems like this everywhere, doesn't he? Very good match, short and sweet, definitely will have to think about watching the rest of the tournament sometime.

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Santo vs Casas vs Dandy
First of all, thanks for the writeup, Bidoof. Definitely added to this match to understand some of those details you tossed out there.

I guess it's pretty well known at this point that I'm not much of a lucha fan and likely won't ever be, and while this match did feature some examples of a few of the reasons why (awkward spots here and there, points where there wasn't much flow from place to place), it also managed to avoid a whole lot of those pitfalls. Violent lucha, generally speaking, tends to grab me a little better than high-flying lucha, because there's usually such a stronger feeling of authenticity to everything. And that pattern definitely holds here. There's venom behind every strike thrown, which makes for a whole match full of great visuals, especially when mixed with all the blood that shows up later. Hard to believe Santo's even wearing the same gear at the end of the match as he was at the beginning for how different the color looks.

I know the meat of the match was always gonna be in the 2-out-of-3-falls section and all, but I would have liked to have seen the beginning sections go on a little bit longer. I was enjoying the interplay between the three where the Dandy/Casas alliance threatened to explode a couple of times before they got refocused on their plan, and it just would've been nice to see a little more Casas in general. I'm also just not a huge 2-out-of-3-falls fan in general. But again, I understand why those first parts had to be slightly rushed in favor of the latter.

Random additional thoughts: very good crowd, liked Santo's submission work a lot, the diving headbutt was brutal, really enjoyed the bits where Dandy was just tearing at the mask. Can't say I loved this match - my small issues with the structure and flow hold it back some, as does the fact that I just don't have enough investment in these guys to really get drawn all the way into such a personal, story-based bout - but for something that kinda had to fight against my typical taste as a wrestling fan, it was quite enjoyable. Certainly something I'd never have watched if not for this topic, which is exactly what makes the series so fun.

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NBIceman posted...

Iceman's Match of the Week

Ayako Hamada & Ayumi Kurihara vs Madison Eagles and Sara Del Rey
SHIMMER Volume 43 - October 2nd, 2011
Match Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eClN6zJQ0gs

Fun fact: Roughly a decade before Stephanie McMahon invented women's wrestling, a little indie promotion sprung up in Chicago for the express purpose of putting a spotlight on something that very closely resembled it.

Sarcasm aside, SHIMMER is a pretty cool part of modern American wrestling history. A good portion of the most popular women wrestlers in the world today spent at least some time there at one point, including Becky Lynch and Bayley. We kinda take it as a given these days that there's just a lot of good women's wrestling out there, but in the early days of the promotion, it was a pretty big deal to have a company whose selling point was, "Hey, we've got a bunch of ladies who just have really good matches."

And this is one of those really good matches. Most of the names in this match are probably at least somewhat recognizable to the folks in our little community: Hamada from her TNA days, Del Rey for being a big-time coach in NXT now and arguably the single biggest reason that women's wrestling in WWE has become what it is, and Eagles from my occasional rants in the Discord about how great she is. Kurihara may be an unknown, though - she's actually married to one YOSHI-HASHI, and make no mistake about it, she's easily the better worker in that relationship. She plays her part very well in this bout, as do the others.

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about this match, but it's such an easy watch. A hot start leads into some very solid heel work from the challengers, and then once they hit the halfway point, they're off and running, with basically no downtime until the end. It's a shining example of why indie wrestling was so popular among the portion of the fanbase that it was during this period; in a time where WWE was still calling their women "Divas" and running their top programs with such luminaries as Eve Torres, Maryse, Melina, Jillian, and the Bella Twins (long before people started pretending they were Kobashi and Misawa reincarnated, even), Dave Prazak and Allison Danger just put four of the world's best female workers in the ring and told them to go kill it.

So, I've got a confession to make - I'm not really a big fan of most women's wrestling. Ironically, it's for some of the same reasons Iceman has given for not being into lucha (awkward spots, bad match flow, questionable striking and so on). This match definitely had some of those things in it but I still really enjoyed the work of the women in this. It's a shame that Kurihara isn't active today because she would be a big star somewhere and, like most tag matches I've seen with her in them, I think she was my favorite worker in the match. Kind of like how it is with the men, there's a polish with women who endure the dojo system in Japan that women coming up through other systems tend to lack. For more information on what that is like, check out the somewhat infamous GAEA Girls documentary from years ago (it's on YouTube). Del Ray was also really impressive and WWE should be thankful to have gotten her as a trainer because their women's division would be so much worse without her training.

Honestly, my biggest problem with the match was Bryce Remsburg. God, he annoys me so much as a ref. He's not technically inept like a Todd Sinclair but he is incapable of blending into the background like how I believe a good ref should. He wants attention and he wants to be a part of the story of any match he's in, even when it's uncalled for like this one. All the stuff involving him keeping Hamada in the corner for the first half of the match was obnoxious, especially since it kept him from paying attention to things like the tags between Eagles and Del Ray that he misses (and never addresses) or the times Kurihara is in a submission hold or being pinned (I think Eagles had to call him over on a couple of these). Take all of that and his exaggerated gestures or wacky facial expressions while looking right at the camera, he's a constant distraction and I can't believe he's been around for so long without someone telling him to knock it off.

Remsburg gripes aside, the match was good but I think it falls short of great. It's right on the edge but all the minor issues couple with one major annoyance take it to about ***3/4 for me. Good recommendation and I'm happy that we're getting such a good mix of matches on these open-ended weeks.

Eddv posted...

Black Tiger II (Eddie Guerrero) vs Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit) Super J Cup, First Round Match 4/16/1994
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6drjk

Inspired by Voices of Wrestling's Rich Kraetsch's discussion this tournament on an episode of his retro series regarding Best of the Super Juniors, I did myself a major solid and checked out the original Super J Cup from 1994. It was a legendary one night tournament show and if you've never seen it, do yourself a favor and make time to correct that. As our resident guy who focuses on American fan favorites this match caught my eye as a candidate for this topic.

It's super short at just 11 minutes and features icons Eddie and Benoit back in their early years and under weird pseudonyms and gimmicks. Hell Eddie is under a mask. Neither was yet anything resembling a star, though Benoit was already developing a reputation among the tape traders for the speed and intensity of his work and this tournament would earn him his first five star match. But I assume most people have seen Wild Pegasus vs Great Sasuke by this point, so I figured I would go for a deeper dive.

This match presents an excellently executed match that is built around the clash in styles between Black Tiger's aerial maneuvers and Wild Pegasus' penchant for the ground game and chain-grappling. The result is fast and furious and serves as showcase for Black Tiger's athleticism, including a glorious springboard rana that was truly innovative in 1994.

I guess that settles the lingering Benoit question. Not like I'm rushing to recommend his body of work because I imagine it's still awkward to some fans, but he does have some things that are worth showing off. The man legitimately was one of the finest technical wrestlers the business has ever had and, even today, his matches hold up. There's so much people can learn from Benoit but I don't know how many workers these days are able to remove themselves from his actions to take something from his matches. It's a shame.

Also a slight correction on Eddie's star status. By 1994, he was a star in AAA tagging with Art Barr and in his big program with El Hijo del Santo. Insiders more or less figured out that Eddie was going to be a star the moment he got into the ring and it's this year that things are really about to take off with him as he has the tremendous tag match on When Worlds Collide later in the year. It takes a bit longer for Eddie to become the total package but, as a worker, he's there.

Ah, the 1994 Super J-Cup. This is one of my favorite tournaments in wrestling and the whole thing is worth going out of your way to watch. Don't be surprised if we have more matches from it recommended over the course of this project as there's a number of them worth showcasing. The moment I saw this match recommended, I knew I had to go in the direction I did for my recommendation because I knew there wasn't much else I could pull off my short list that was going to make the technical abilities of Benoit and Guerrero. These men, even in 2020, feel like they are on another level from everyone but the very top guys of the industry. The funny thing about this match, to me, is that it kind of becomes their template for all the matches they have with each other moving forward in their careers (like how the first Sting/Flair match was largely the formula used for their future matches). When they first appear on Nitro together, they basically work this same match and it was awesome there but with a somehow more vicious powerbomb from Benoit. I think perhaps the best thing I can say about this match is that even after giving you so much here, you still feel like there's more there for when they wrestle again. Excellent match even with the somewhat abrupt ending.

NBIceman posted...

Santo vs Casas vs Dandy
First of all, thanks for the writeup, Bidoof. Definitely added to this match to understand some of those details you tossed out there.

I guess it's pretty well known at this point that I'm not much of a lucha fan and likely won't ever be, and while this match did feature some examples of a few of the reasons why (awkward spots here and there, points where there wasn't much flow from place to place), it also managed to avoid a whole lot of those pitfalls. Violent lucha, generally speaking, tends to grab me a little better than high-flying lucha, because there's usually such a stronger feeling of authenticity to everything. And that pattern definitely holds here. There's venom behind every strike thrown, which makes for a whole match full of great visuals, especially when mixed with all the blood that shows up later. Hard to believe Santo's even wearing the same gear at the end of the match as he was at the beginning for how different the color looks.

I know the meat of the match was always gonna be in the 2-out-of-3-falls section and all, but I would have liked to have seen the beginning sections go on a little bit longer. I was enjoying the interplay between the three where the Dandy/Casas alliance threatened to explode a couple of times before they got refocused on their plan, and it just would've been nice to see a little more Casas in general. I'm also just not a huge 2-out-of-3-falls fan in general. But again, I understand why those first parts had to be slightly rushed in favor of the latter.

Random additional thoughts: very good crowd, liked Santo's submission work a lot, the diving headbutt was brutal, really enjoyed the bits where Dandy was just tearing at the mask. Can't say I loved this match - my small issues with the structure and flow hold it back some, as does the fact that I just don't have enough investment in these guys to really get drawn all the way into such a personal, story-based bout - but for something that kinda had to fight against my typical taste as a wrestling fan, it was quite enjoyable. Certainly something I'd never have watched if not for this topic, which is exactly what makes the series so fun.

Triple-posting because I have no concept of board etiquette. <_<

Don't worry too much about not getting enough Casas here. He's a name that will come up from me more as this series progresses. Especially at this time, Negro was on fire and was a tremendous worker. Heck, he stayed a tremendous worker for years. He's another one of those lucha guys who somehow didn't completely fall apart as they got older.

Even though it was a deeply personal feud between these men, part of why I went ahead with recommending it is because I felt like their work could tell you how personal their issues were. You don't bloody a man so badly that you change the color of his clothes over nothing. I also thought it was fun to show this off because of how great Dandy was in his segment with Santo. Dandy is one of those names that has some respect with long-time lucha fans but to wrestling fans, he's kind of a meme because of a Bret Hart promo. Watching this match and seeing how smooth his work is as well as the height he gets on a couple of those bumps to the floor, I can actually buy that Bret would totally have wanted to work with the guy. For someone who never gets mentioned as one of the great luchadors of this era, he more than holds up his end on this match.

El Hijo del Santo has his own odd problem where he is largely held as one of the best of his generation, but he doesn't get discussed much by anyone outside of the lucha fanbase. You're lucky if the average fan has even seen the tag match he had with Octagon against Art Barr and Eddie Guerrero from When Worlds Collide and that's easily his most well-known match to the US fans. I think it's a combination of no real body of work outside of Mexico (he did nearly come to WWF in 1996 but backed out when Vince wanted him to drop his mask) and that he's not in good standing with either of the major Mexican promotions right now. Anyways, I'm glad you liked his submission work here as I loved the struggle he had to put the camel clutch on Dandy. Actually, I love a lot of the struggles they had with the submission work here as it helped sell that this was a fight. El Hijo del Santo is a guy I want to show off more in coming weeks and I hope he gets some more fans out of this.

Ayako Hamada & Ayumi Kurihara vs Madison Eagles and Sara Del Rey

So as I said to Iceman in Discord there are EXACTLY four DVDs of Shimmer that I subscribed to and watched and they remain my only exposure to the promotion - this volume was literally one of those four somehow.

So I have actually seen this match before and I remember exactly like Iceman is saying that at the time I was incredibly impressed with Del Ray and thought Eagles, while a little awkward was a surefire future super star.

Well its 9 years later, Del Ray never got a major league contract and Eagles never got the bit less awkward she needed to get to go to the next level.

That said this was a great little match back then and now - blows me away that such an important promotion takes place in like - the sort of place my grandpa would take me so he could drink while he babysat me. My recent exposure to Giggolo Jimmy Del Ray has me thinking that Sara probably had much the same in her life.

Anyway this was solid as fuck and good spot of fun.

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El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas vs. El Dandy (Mask vs. Hair vs. Hair)
Who are you to doubt El Dandy? - Bret Hart

What. A. War. I love a good Apuestas match but I admit I am not remotely versed with mid 90s CMLL specifically because of just how hard it is to consume. The way this thing is shot really is more like...baseball than modern wrestling, which is a hallmark of CMLL even now.

The angle portion of the match was so tame and light that what followed was some completely unexpected violence. In comparison to Pagano at Triplemania the hair stipulation means quite a lot when you have locks like El Dandy does.

I admit Dandy tapping to the damn surfboard took me by surprise.

The blood all over Santos silver almost white mask looks fucking awesome and the two just beat the shit out of each other in a way distinct from all the Japanese variations on that theme thus far.

This match has a tope done right - why is the US so shit at Topes in comparison? El Dandy goes flying and rolls over the stadium seating and it looks fucking awesome.

Towards the end as Dandy is fading from the fight and just weakly fights off every near fall, just enough to not die is fucking great stuff. Dandy tears at the mask and goes for every last gasp of offense he can muster but you can tell just by the look of exhaustion on his face that Dandy knows this is hopeless. He's just doing everything he can to not lose right until the end when he can finally no longer resist the camel clutch.

Excellent stuff!


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