1989 EMLL

Written By Robert Bihari

1989 EMLL!!!

First off, I must obviously thank ohtani’s jacket. Thanks to him, some great 80′s Lucha footage was NOT lost forever as he could have just thrown it into storage never to be seen again but instead he shipped it to me so I could convert it to DVD(hopefully). He is our saviour for the time being b/c so far these two tapes have been fucking UNREAL. Quickly…

Atlantis/Lizmark/Popitekus vs Emilio Charles Jr./Jerry Estrada/Pierroth Jr.: Motherfucking great! Jerry was awesome. All the rudos were awesome actually. It has been a common trend so far on the ’89 Lucha. Jerry took a bad spill to the floor and hurt his head in the second fall but took an even worse spill in the third fall when he went for a running somersault plancha on Popitekus who just decided to stand in one spot instead of moving forward and thus Jerry hit the ground HARD. Amazing match but still only the fifth best match I’ve seen so far on these tapes.

CICLON RAMIREZ/SUPER ASTRO/APOLO DANTES VS BLUE PANTHER/NEGRO CASAS/EMILIO CHARLES JR.: Do you honestly need me to tell you this was great? Because it really wasn’t. It was more than great. Someone come up with a word for it. Let’s put it this way… Negro Casas in the 80′s only made RARE appearences at Arena Mexico. So do you think he mailed it in? Ummm… NO. But fuck Negro, Super Astro and Blue Panther were the stars of this match. 10 billion trillion gazillion stars and geuss what? Only the SECOND BEST MATCH OF THE TAPES SO FAR!

Atlantis/Blue Demon Jr./Huracan Ramirez Jr. vs Emilio Charles Jr./Pirata Morgan/Pierroth Jr.: Really great match. Notice a trend? Atlantis was the fucking king at this point but everything has been about the rudos so far and the trend continued here. Bumps, bumps and more bumps. Then… some more bumps! Atlantis went all crazy in first fall with some sweet armdrags and in the third fall he blew the roof off the place with a HUUUUUUUUUGE TOPE SUICIDA *OVER* THE TOP ROPE! Oh man… it was a thing of beauty. 5 and a half billion stars. Only the fourth best match I’ve seen so far.

Atlantis/Angel Azteca/Blue Demon Jr. vs El Dandy/El Texano/Super Muneco: Two words – *EL DANDY*. Read my comments about Chessman in the Guerra De Titanes thread and that sums up El Dandy’s work here. He nailed EVERYTHING, sold like a champ and fucked up every tecnico. This was worked tecnico vs tecnico style and was far from the normal lucha style people expect. You could say some of the match was a little slow but everything they did made sense and the psychology(I hate that word but it applies here) was fantastic. The crowd began to pop for the simplest of things. The only time the match seemed to get a little weird was obviously when Muneco/Demon Jr. had to be in the ring together but thankfully El Dandy always came in next to save the day. EL DANDY IS A MACHINE! This match was fucking beautiful and I say that even though it had very little flying. Third best match I’ve seen so far but I can easily see others saying it was the best or second best. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say this will be in Phil’s top 5 when it comes time to do the 80′s Lucha deal.

And my favorite match so far…

Atlantis/Mascara Sagrada/Super Astro vs Pirata Morgan/El Verdugo/Hombre Bala: Match of the decade? Probably not. Most entertaining match of the decade? You’d have to be a fool not to say yes! This was UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNREAL! Only one fall(part of a four team trios tournament – I wonder who the other teams were?) and 12 minutes or so but it may have been the best 12 minutes of Lucha Libre I have ever seen in my life. To put this into context, let’s link it up to current Lucha – Super Astro(Mistico)/Mascara Sagrada(La Mascara)/Atlantis(Felino?) vs *THREE REY BUCANEROS*! Yes, *THREE REY BUCANEROS*!!! That is the best way I can explain it to people who didn’t follow old Lucha. The rudos got about 30 second of offense before the tecnicos made a spectacular comeback and from that point forward it was MOVE AFTER MOVE AFTER MOVE AFTER BUMP AFTER BUMP AFTER BUMP. The crowd was loving it b/c everything the rudos did was so fantastic. The little things might have been better than the big things but I only remember the big things such as dual sallida bumps by Pirata/Verdugo and then Bala goes nuts, runs into the ropes and gets kicked in the ass by Atlantis and proceeds to rocket through the ropes with a tope suicida on his own partners! Pirata was on a mission to die taking every bump possible including an armdrag where he not only slid all the way across the ring, but also under the ropes and right into a back bump on the floor! He took a huge sallida bump while the rudos were doing a confusion spot and the visual of him taking the bump while Verdugo runs out of the way and Bala jumps to catch his brother in mid-air will never leave my mind. I’ll go out on a limb to say the greatest spot in the history of rudo bumping. The bumping spree went on for a good 12 minutes straight until each tecnico hit a spectacular dive and they won by countout. Atlantis actually hit the best dive – his famous asai moonsault – onto Pirata. Best match I’ve seen so far on these tapes. Just an amazing spectacle from six of the best at the time. Once I get over how amazing all the bumps and dives were, I’ll probably put this third and the Panther/Astro trios match first with the previous trios match second. But for right now, this is #1 and a must-see. *THREE REY BUCANEROS*!!!