Lizmark vs. Ulises, NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship match (CMLL 4/13/90)

Solid albeit unspectacular title match between Lizmark and a then masked Tony Salazar. The opening matwork was built around a number of Lizmark takedowns, as he worked toward the submission he was looking for. Both workers played around with an armbar theme before promptly dropping it, no doubt displeasing those looking for some sort of continuity in their wrestling. Salazar brought back the armbar during the passage where he was overpowering Lizmark, and drove him shoulder first into the turnbuckle a couple of times from a hammerlock position, but targeting a body part isn't a common trope in lucha and it came across as a transition more than anything else. The match cut off after a tope left both men sprawled on the floor; a fitting end to a match I didn't desperately need to see the finish to.

Lizmark vs. Satanico, NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship match (CMLL 7/17/92)

In theory, these two should have been the Flair vs. Steamboat of Mexico, but they never seem to put it all together. This match is a case in point. Lizmark wrestles a beautiful opening caida. His takedowns are quick and aggressive and frustrate Satanico to no end, to the point where Satanico starts grabbing at Lizmark's face and then feigns that he's not really aggravated. Lizmark then uses his athleticism to keep his distance from Satanico and peppers him with dropkicks and headbutts and back breakers. When they do engage in more close quarters grappling, Satanico can't make much headway, and the only hint of an advantage is for him to overpower Lizmark through brawling. Lizmark prevails, however, and in the end it's quite a dominant fall from the challenger. It's by no means a bad fall of wrestling, but for such a long caida there was little in the way of counter wrestling from Satanico. You can chalk that up to excellent strategy from the challenger, but to make that narrative work you need a payoff and that's something which was sorely lacking from the second caida.

Lizmark dominated the early going as he should, which had me waiting for the genius Satanico transition that would tip the match on its head. But that transition was simply a missed headbutt into the corner. A couple of power moves later, and a submission, was all it took for Satanico to even up the bout even though Lizmark had enjoyed probably three quarters of the offence. Yes it's lucha, but I'm used to better than that from Satanico, who's one of the smartest wrestlers around when it comes to the big turning points in matches. The third caida began with some fairly intense submission work and the repeated motif of the back breaker, but their attempts to make it seem "even stevens" lacked conviction, and Lizmark continually seemed like the fresher, more dominant wrestler. Satanico's selling throughout the third fall was excellent, but why Lizmark was made to look like such an incredibly strong challenger is a mystery. He absolutely dominated this match on points. Worst of all was the booking of the finish. Perhaps they'd backed themselves into a corner where the finish was always going to be against the run of play, but a contentious and fluky counter pin from a surfboard was just about the worst way for Satanico to retain his title. Satanico is one of the all-time great wrestlers, and rudo or not, didn't need parlour tricks to beat his rivals. All told it was a bad showing from him, and even though the match itself wasn't bad, Lizmark got far too much of the offence, denying us an all-time classic.

Lizmark vs. Jerry Estrada, National Light Heavyweight Championship match (AAA 7/9/95)

They fucked around at the beginning getting rid of Tirantes, which rid us of his bullshit, then ended the match with a DQ when the seconds Rey Mysterio, Jr. and Psicosis began fighting with each other. Is it any wonder why I hate this promotion? In between there was some decent action, but it was very much Lizmark vs. Estrada by the numbers.

Lizmark vs. La Parka, National Light Heavyweight Championship match (AAA 7/18/94)

This took a long time to get going. The action wasn't bad, but it was the single longest feeling out period I've seen in lucha. In fact, it was kind of strange compared to the lucha I'm used to. Of course this being AAA, they couldn't help themselves and made the finish to each fall screwy, and there was some completely non-traditional mask ripping in the third fall that would have had Louis Spota, the long time president of the Comisión de Box y Lucha Libre, spinning in his grave. Parka actually bladed, which is even more sacrilegious. Despite all this, the action was very good, with Lizmark having to increasingly bust out his bigger offence to put Parka away. Come to think of it, it was quite Americanised in that respect. I was a little disappointed that we didn't see the explosive Parka matwork and striking game that the '93 match brought us, but for a match that circled around some pretty bullshit booking, this was more than passable.