RIP Gran Hamada

Gran Hamada & Rey Misterio Jr & Latin Lover vs Psicosis & Pentagon & Vegas, AAA 1/26/1996

The obvious main match up here is Rey vs. Psicosis. Instead, Gran Hamada walks over and spits in Piscosis face. They get in the ring, they slap each other, and proceed to deliver some awesomely intense, scrappy wrestling. Totally unexpected and great. The rest of the match settles into more typical trios action, but it still rules. Pentagon in 1996 is just as impressive as a sleazy rudo who stooges really well. With guys like Psicosis, Pentagon and Vegas on the rudo side it’s not hard for anyone to look good, so even someone like Latin Lover gets to have his moments in between comical amounts of gyrating. Of course Rey Jr. was setting the world on fire in 1996 and he’s pretty spectacular here. Still, the main selling point in this match is that opening exchange between Hamada and Psicosis.

Gran Hamada & Silver King & El Texano vs Negro Casas & Rambo & Dr. Wagner Jr. (UWA 2/23/1992)

Absolute crack cocaine firehouse of a trios match. The kind where it starts blazing hot and they just keep going and going and never slow down. That stadium must have been melting that night. They basically start throwing down right away with Rambo jumping in the ring beating on people, and it’s absolutely on. There’s something visceral about lucha brawling, and this feels like an epic fight from the get go, even with the physical comedy spots here and there. Hamada ends up bleeding, and he matches up with Negro Casas a lot and these two guys throwing fists at each other is just beautiful. Man alive is everybody here a great athlete, everyone here has so much velocity and snap in their stuff, makes all other wrestling look like a joke really. King and Texano are great, they are the technicos here but they have such a pissed off vibe to them that matches the general intensity of the match. Casas always looks like the greatest wrestler in any match he’s in, bumping so hard and fast, dominating almost every sequence he’s involved in, and it’s really fun to watch Rambo try to steal the show from this giant. The grand stand exchange between Hamada and Casas in the end was brief but felt epic, and then you have Rambo trying to top it by going out of his way to get snap armdragged on the floor. Crazy crazy match, one of those ‘touched by the wrestling’ gods performances that would be impossible to recreate.

 Gran Hamada & Ayako Hamada & Tiger Mask IV vs Gran Apache & Fabi Apache & Pentagon Black, Michinoku Pro 3/25/2001

This was shortly after the infamous Korakuen Hall match where Pentagon attacked Ayako and Gran Hamada bloodied him and ripped his mask in a trios match. Right at the bell Hamada goes after Pentagon again, punching him in the face and making him take an insane posting, so the Gran Hamada vs Pentagon Black feud is something hot in 2001. Watching this, the main thing I thought is that you nowhere see lucharesu at this level anymore. Sure, you had 6 absolute masters, but this felt on another level. Every exchange here was breathless, original, tight, so fast. The most outstanding thing here is the rudo work from the trios of the Apaches and Pentagon Black. So many great cutoffs, and they really put in the work stooging and basing. Gran Apache is an absolute truck in this, always there to punch people in the face. It builds really well to the eventual comeuppance. G.H., Ayako and Tiger Mask IV all get to look great. Quite a different look for Tiger Mask IV when he matches up with a bunch of luchadores too but he is very good in the technico role without much martial arts. And Pentagon Black is an excellent sleazy foil, really making Hamadas big frankensteiner look amazing. After the match Pentagon spits at Ayako and Papa is right at him again. Pro Wrestling can be great.

Gran Hamada vs Pentagon Black, Michinoku Pro 8/19/2001

This is the match the feud was building, and it pretty much delivers what you want. Pentagon busts some chairs in the old mans face, bloodying him, and Hamada comes back ripping his mask and with fired up headbutts and tornado DDTs. Pentagon Black is no Perro Aguayo but he looked pretty circling around a bloody Hamada and kicking him in the face. Since this is Japan they overdo the kickouts a bit with Hamada getting out of 2 spinning tombstones, but other than that this was pretty great. I also love how Hamada uses that cross armbar as a kill move.

 

Gran Hamada vs Jushin Liger, Michinoku Pro 4/9/2000

This is from the 2000 Super J-Cup. Since this is an opening rounds match and Liger always goes to the finals it easily could have been forgettable, but we get something fairly memorable here.  Hamada is aggressive, working Liger over on the ground with his cool little half-knee drops and attacking his arm. Hamada wins a fair number of matches with a straight armbar so him attacking the arm is a credible strategy. Liger mauling Hamada with open hands and doing some great arm selling reminded me how great he can be. They delve into bomb dropping, and both these guys can drop bombs with the best of them, even with Hamada being 50 years old here. Liger doesn't hold back at all and just goes for the kill. Some great hope spots for Hamada, and a great going out on his sword-style finish. Miss this kind of junior wrestling that has no jokes and no superkicks.

EVEN MORE Dandy vs. Casas

 El Dandy/Humberto Garza Jr./Silver King vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Negro Casas/Rambo (4/5/1996, Arena Coliseo)

Fun match at a brisk pace. They cycle through all the possible match ups, which means no extended Dandy/Casas section, but there is some, and somebody does get punched in the face. Everyone looks really good here, I especially liked Rambo who is kind of out of place looking with his schlubby appearance but stooges insanely well, even getting a guy as good as Silver King to look on another level. I liked young Humberto Jr as he was opposed a murderers row of great bases, and at one point Casas got bowled out of the ring just to take a bit out of someones candy apple.

El Dandy/Mr. Niebla/Silver King vs. Negro Casas/Black Warrior/Emilio Charles Jr. (9/6/1996, Arena Mexico)

CMLL was white hot in 1996. Blazing blazing hot. Every match up here has so much heat. Casas vs. Dandy is heated because these two are just pure fire in 1996, King vs. Charles Jr. is heated because people want to see King pop that fucker Charles in the mouth, and Niebla/Warrior starts out as good young guy workrate stuff before they also turn up the heat with Warrior trying to unmask Niebla, and then Casas and Dandy are in again and their match up somehow has even more heat. It’s like you have a 6 man tag with one pairing being Rock vs. Austin and the next Sting vs. Goldberg and then Flair vs. Steamboat. Except the wrestling was a hell of a lot better. First fall was very long and felt huge with Dandy and Casas squaring off, doing their scrappy wrestling and punching each other in the face, Warrior/Niebla bringing something fresh to the mix and King/Charles really working the crowd good. It felt like a monumental first fall with an extremely well done finish. The second half focusses less on Dandy/Casas which is less to my liking, though there are some snippets of them such as Casas hitting another sneaky low blow on Dandy. The focus is more on Charles Jr./King and the young guys, though CMLL was so good in 1996 that pretty much no one could do any wrong. Great stuff regardless that was another epic Dandy/Casas showdown away from being one of the best of the year. Apparently this was the last time they matched up on opposite sides on TV not counting the 3 way with Santito. Well, I guess that was a good way for the feud to go out.

El Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas vs El Dandy (Mask vs Hair vs Hair - CMLL – 12/6/96)

Well, it’s about the best conclusion to the Dandy/Casas 1996 saga we have. Santitos heel turn overshadows everything, though we get a faint memory of animosities between Dandy and Casas. Opening minutes were incredible as Casas and Dandy just let loose their hatred for Santito and kick the shit out of him. There is a brief face off between Dandy and Casas, but then Casas decides he wants to kick the shit out of Santito some more and fucking jumps at him, only to miss and get his ass kicked a bit. Santito is eliminated quickly leaving us with a few brief more technical exchanges between Dandy and Casas. Casas comes out on top and before leaving he decides to jump Santito from behind and rip his mask. That sets up the blood-drenched feverish war between Santito and Dandy which is the rest of this match. Just absolutely fabulous hatred from the get go. The last portion is truly a war with crazy amounts of blood, really violent stomps, huge dives, bitter fighting from both guys – Dandy struggling out of a La de a Caballo attempt while covered in blood is a truly epic visual. Insane atmosphere too with the crowd refusing to see Santo as the rudo after he just took a 2 on 1 asskicking, while Dandy struggles with the number Casas did on his leg. A truly monumental, classic spectacle from the beginning to the end.

FULL 6/21/1992

 Watch

 Sankigake Gantetsu vs. Super Tigrito

Gantetsu is a young, mulleted Dick Togo. Super Tigrito is probably not a luchador going by how he wrestles here, throwing kicks and working kimuras. Both guys seemed green but this went 5 minutes and they hit enough fun moves for this to get the full Japan indy opening match point. At one point Togo hit this really beautiful twisting senton where he ran up the turnbuckle. It was a fun match.

Kendo & Super Delfin & Robin Hood vs. El Engendro & Rocky Santana & Rambo

This had some unusual sloppiness to begin, but then Engendro took this huge bump to the outside and we're off to the races. Robin Hood and Kendo are so much fun, their stumpy legged athleticism is just the best, and the expert rudo team of  Engendro/Satana/Rambo making young Delfin look really good was great too. They certainly knew how to make these trios matches fun back then and not just a series of highspots. There was a lot of spice due to the rudos antics plus ref comedy and what not. Rambo hit a great looking flying clothesline at one point and you have to love that. Kendo also won the dive train with a huge body press over the top rope.

El Pantera vs. Ciclon Ramirez

I love how booking two luchadores in a singles match in Korakuen Hall is basically always a challenge to them to deliver lucha at the highest level of the artform. This had some fantastic scientific lucha matwork and tricked out armdrags to start. I think Pantera is a pretty underrated luchador and he looked really good. The second half felt a bit like they were wrestling in a vacuum - probably due to all the complicated shit they were doing - but they won the crowd back over with some huge dives which is what counts.

Shu el Guerrero & Scorpio Jr. vs. Bulldog KT & Coolie SZ

Bulldog and Coolie are Jado and Gedo. Gedo has a neon singlet, a mullet and a mustache here and he looks really pudgy. This also had the schizophrenic problem of having Jado and Gedo be the faces. They delivered some decent wrestling, though. I always love seeing Shu El Guerrero and he carries young Gedo no problem through some lucha matwork. Gedos fat boy ranas were actually great.  I don't think I've ever seen a match where Scorpio Jr. looked great but he looked fine here. Eventually Gedo turns heel on Jado for some reason and beats up Kendo. Jado eats a beatdown but actually wins the match with a rollup then gets his ass kicked by Gedo some more. It's unclear how this angle further played out since they actually won the tag titles here, but it seems Gedo won the vacant titles later that year teaming with fucking Pat Tanaka, which I'm gonna have to seek out just for the morbid curiosity of it.

Dos Caras & Gran Hamada vs. Villano IV & Villano V

This starts with the Villanos kicking a lot of ass and taking names. They were like the Miracle Violence Connection in this, except moving faster. One Villano hitting a suicide dive then chucking a chair in Hamadas face was awesome. There was also a great looking solebutt that caught Hamada in the chin. The eventual comeback from Caras and Hamada was fired up, but it looked a bit too easy. They tried to increase the intensity by doing some mask removal spots which lead to Dos Caras and Villano having to wear each others mask which is always fun, but I wanted blood or something. Actually Hamada ends up getting attacked by Gedo after the match and bleeding while garbage is thrown at the ring. It was a little weird that he would wait to do that until after the match.

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