Negro Casas

[WingedEagle]

I've seen a lot of Casas on yearbooks as well as staying on top of his work from the last 3-5 years online. How about some recs to fill in those gaps?

[Microstatistics]

Not to be redundant, but his consistency and longevity are insane. Watched his Maximo match from earlier this year and he is just as good as he was in the 1987 Santo match (if not better).

[Sean Liska]

The more I watch from the past 28 years, the more I'm convinced he should be #1. If we actually had more of his 80s stuff, going off of what we do have, it may not even be a debate.

 

I call Memphis the most relentlessly entertaining wrestling TV show of all-time. Negro is the most relentlessly entertaining wrestler of all-time. 98% of the stuff he does in the ring is worth watching because he's so damn fun in everything he does.

[Grimmas]

The more I watch from the past 28 years, the more I'm convinced he should be #1. If we actually had more of his 80s stuff, going off of what we do have, it may not even be a debate.

 

I call Memphis the most relentlessly entertaining wrestling TV show of all-time. Negro is the most relentlessly entertaining wrestler of all-time. 98% of the stuff he does in the ring is worth watching because he's so damn fun in everything he does.

I'm starting to feel that way as well. You can make a case for Negro Casas as top ten in the world for at least 25 years. Does anybody else have that kind of longevity?

 

I have never watched Negro Casas and thought nothing but good thoughts. The man is insanely charismatic, is a great rudo, a great technico, can brawl, can mat wrestle, can bring the emotion, has great offense and amazing selling. Even as a super old dude in 2015, he can still do great matches when given the chance in a long singles.

 

I think after my last week of watching it is down to a Casas-Hansen battle for number one.

[Microstatistics]

 

The more I watch from the past 28 years, the more I'm convinced he should be #1. If we actually had more of his 80s stuff, going off of what we do have, it may not even be a debate.

 

I call Memphis the most relentlessly entertaining wrestling TV show of all-time. Negro is the most relentlessly entertaining wrestler of all-time. 98% of the stuff he does in the ring is worth watching because he's so damn fun in everything he does.

I'm starting to feel that way as well. You can make a case for Negro Casas as top ten in the world for at least 25 years. Does anybody else have that kind of longevity?

 

I have never watched Negro Casas and thought nothing but good thoughts. The man is insanely charismatic, is a great rudo, a great technico, can brawl, can mat wrestle, can bring the emotion, has great offense and amazing selling. Even as a super old dude in 2015, he can still do great matches when given the chance in a long singles.

 

I think after my last week of watching it is down to a Casas-Hansen battle for number one.

 

Maybe Jun Akiyama but his case would be closer to 20 years compared to Casas's 25+ years.

[ohtani's jacket]

I think Casas at his best is one of the true geniuses of professional wrestling, but there are plenty of years where he wouldn't be in the top 10 whether it's because of footage issues or the way CMLL is booked. When he had a program like the Dandy and Dragon feuds in '92 or the Santo feud from late '95 to 1998 and the tag feud that followed with Bestia and Scorpio Jr. then he has enough to consider him on, but the dark years of '94-95, or years where there's limited footage such as 1991, it's not really possible. You're going on faith. Then pick a random year like 2003 or 2007. Maybe I'm taking things too literally, but I think there's probably only half a dozen years or so where he was definitively top 10 in the world. Maybe more than that, but probably only around a third of his career on tape. And based on the UWA we do have, it's not really as good as his 90s CMLL stuff. I'm sure he had great stuff prior to '92 that we'll never see, but I'm not sure he had whole chunks of it.

[Sean Liska]

I get what you're saying. CMLL hasn't put him in much high-profile stuff in 2015 and it's tough to say he's one of the best in the world this year. But god, just when he gets 4 minutes in a trio match with somebody decent, he's so much more entertaining than almost anyone wrestling. It's enough to know he's still a top-10 talent even if CMLL booking doesn't give him that platform. Give me 4 minutes of Negro making magic with Dragon Lee over some NJPW main event that drags for the first 20 minutes.

[Sean Liska]

Another great match from Negro yesterday at age 55. The guy isn't human. He's defying the rules of aging that apply to all other humans. It's him and Barbaro against the Misticos.

 

[JRGoldman]

In the Jimmy Redman Boot Camp thread, soup23 posted a cross section of Negro Casas matches. For reference:

 

Vs. Santo 1987

Vs. El Dandy 7/3/92

Vs. Ultimo Dragon 3/19/93

vs. Santo 9/1997

vs. Blue Panther 3/1/12

To which Matt D. replied "That's a Negro Casas that would make my top 30 but not my top 3" which I thought was interesting, and perhaps the inherent issue with Casas (who, I should say, is still my number one). Almost every other realistic number one contender has a "sizzle reel", so to speak, of 3 to five matches that stand out as truly transcendent, while Casas' strength is that he has maintained a level close to that for essentially 30 years at this point, but doesn't necessarily have a specific match that I would point to and say "This is his best performance. This is the Casas experience. Watch this to 'get' Casas". He has such unbelievable variety that it's hard to encapsulate him, I have found.

I could go on, but I think everyone can grasp the point I'm trying to make. I think the list that soup23 put down is a pretty representative one, but is there anything he is leaving out for people that might still be on the fence or uneducated about Negro Casas? Or is the best approach to simply say "Watch this match from 1987, now watch this match from 2014, now watch anything in between and marvel that the quality is essentially the same"?

Also, somewhat controversially, I would put the Mocho Cota match up as a top Casas performance, even if it is a bit awkward in spots.

[JerryvonKramer]

My issue is with a lot of these Lucha matches I end up giving ****+ to is that they don't stay with me, for whatever reason. I always find myself saying "what match is that again?" and having to double check to see if I've already seen and reviewed it (sometimes I find I have). One of the exceptions is that Cota bout.

 

However, knowing how my system works, I think Casas will do well on my list. He's been great in everything I've seen, even if I struggle to remember half of it. I am going to watch more soon. Casas should be my gateway guy to help me get into other Lucha guys, even if I've developed no great love for anyone else yet ... with the exception of Cota.

[Matt D]

In the Jimmy Redman Boot Camp thread, soup23 posted a cross section of Negro Casas matches. For reference:

 

Vs. Santo 1987

Vs. El Dandy 7/3/92

Vs. Ultimo Dragon 3/19/93

vs. Santo 9/1997

vs. Blue Panther 3/1/12

To which Matt D. replied "That's a Negro Casas that would make my top 30 but not my top 3" which I thought was interesting, and perhaps the inherent issue with Casas (who, I should say, is still my number one). Almost every other realistic number one contender has a "sizzle reel", so to speak, of 3 to five matches that stand out as truly transcendent, while Casas' strength is that he has maintained a level close to that for essentially 30 years at this point, but doesn't necessarily have a specific match that I would point to and say "This is his best performance. This is the Casas experience. Watch this to 'get' Casas". He has such unbelievable variety that it's hard to encapsulate him, I have found.

I could go on, but I think everyone can grasp the point I'm trying to make. I think the list that soup23 put down is a pretty representative one, but is there anything he is leaving out for people that might still be on the fence or uneducated about Negro Casas? Or is the best approach to simply say "Watch this match from 1987, now watch this match from 2014, now watch anything in between and marvel that the quality is essentially the same"?

Also, somewhat controversially, I would put the Mocho Cota match up as a top Casas performance, even if it is a bit awkward in spots.

To be fair, I should have taken the Panther match off that list before saying that, but I really stand behind it. There's a lot of Puck on that list and not a lot of Old Scratch.

 

I'm going to make a counter-list at some point soon.

[Loss]

My only issue with anyone ranking Casas number one (and really, it's not so much that I'm taking issue as it is that I'm hopeful to see this happen) is that yes, he's been exceptional in the same handful of matches that always get mentioned, but I think it's time for a week-to-week review of his work as far back as we can conceivably go. For every Casas match on tape that someone has said something nice about, there are probably five or six that haven't been mentioned at all. I can buy Casas as being above Ric Flair and Mitsuharu Misawa, and I don't even think it's that much of a tough sell. But I also think it's almost doing him a disservice to rank him that high without giving him the same exhaustive vetting. Someone put him through the ringer. I'm confident he'll survive it, but he needs far more scrutiny.

[Matt D]

Some of it's a footage issue, you know. But I think I've done around 50 Negro Casas matches on Segunda Caida (it's not entirely certain to me since blogspot's not exactly the world's best searchable thing):

 

(https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:segundacaida.blogspot.com+%22by+matt+d%22+%22negro+casas%22+)

 

And I was going in blind, just trying to find anything I could, really. I absolutely wasn't just going for the touted ones. That's not how I watch wrestling.

 

As a whole, SC has 140 entries tagged with Negro Casas, though I'm sure there's a bit of overlap over the years.

[Loss]

Fair enough. However, if we're going to say he's been great from Year A to Year B, can we list his best match on tape for every single year in between? Whether that can be achieved or not, it seems like it should be the goal.

[Matt D]

Fair enough. However, if we're going to say he's been great from Year A to Year B, can we list his best match on tape for every single year in between? Whether that can be achieved or not, it seems like it should be the goal.

 

I appreciate the idea of watching and documenting everything out there. Likewise, I appreciate the idea of watching and documenting him week to week.

 

Finding the best match on tape year to year isn't really something I'm interested in, though, even for the sake of this exercise. That's not why I watch watch in the way that I do.

 

Someone else can certainly try to do that. I'll have Buddy Rose and Negro Casas in my top three. Watching just their best matches completely misses the point of both wrestlers.

[Loss]

Then I think it's on whoever thinks they are number one to explain it instead of just pointing to a handful of classic matches. I'd be interested in a huge post summarizing Negro Casas. That's my point, just like it was for Bockwinkel. It's unfair not to give everyone the same degree of scrutiny, especially someone with a legitimate number one case.

[Matt D]

I'd like to think that my essay on Buddy Rose in 1979 works, on some level, to fulfill that for him (from my perspective at least). Obviously it doesn't cover everything necessary and covers some extraneous elements but it hints at my feelings based on the footage.

 

I'll be happy to write something about Bockwinkel (who to me, fits into an entirely different and more traditional category than Casas and Rose) and Casas at some point soon. My criteria is very different than other people's though, so it may not be entirely satisfying when it comes to what you're looking for.

[ohtani's jacket]

A week-to-week review of Casas' work would take years to finish. The only person I can imagine who's seen that amount of Casas is Bihari. His career from 2009 or so has been covered in depth and his 90s stuff has been fairly well combed. I actually think it's his 2000-08 period that's a blind spot, or at least a blind spot for me.

 

I would strongly recommend anybody who enjoys a Casas match on Chad's list to go and watch the trios matches surrounding it. If you're not watching the lead in matches, you're only getting half the fun.

[Dylan Waco]

I'll write more on this later, but my opinion of Casas as an all timer was formed in large part because I was watching him work week-to-week in a lazily booked CMLL.

[Sean Liska]

My only issue with anyone ranking Casas number one (and really, it's not so much that I'm taking issue as it is that I'm hopeful to see this happen) is that yes, he's been exceptional in the same handful of matches that always get mentioned, but I think it's time for a week-to-week review of his work as far back as we can conceivably go. For every Casas match on tape that someone has said something nice about, there are probably five or six that haven't been mentioned at all. I can buy Casas as being above Ric Flair and Mitsuharu Misawa, and I don't even think it's that much of a tough sell. But I also think it's almost doing him a disservice to rank him that high without giving him the same exhaustive vetting. Someone put him through the ringer. I'm confident he'll survive it, but he needs far more scrutiny.

To me the greatness of Casss is in his weekly work, even more than his best matches. You can hop on YouTube and grab a random 6-man from the early 90s and find him making Haku look like the biggest ass kicker in the world. I want to quit my job in 3 weeks and take some time off so either I'll make this big post about Casas or thoroughly document the greatness of 80s Memphis TV.

[goodhelmet]

Both sound like can't miss enjoyment.

[JRGoldman]

I was thinking about this, and I don't have a really concise way to sum it up, but I think Casas is more interesting on paper than just about any wrestler I can think of. Like, if I came to this forum and someone talked about a fancam of Negro Casas vs. Sid Vicious, I would immediately want to watch it, and I would have no idea what to expect. Conversely, someone could talk about a fancam of Stan Hansen vs. Sid Vicious, and while I might be just as interested, I would have a pretty solid mental picture of what that match entails. That isn't to say that Hansen is a worse wrestler than Casas, or that the his match with Sid might automatically be worse. I just think it speaks to one of Casas' true strengths as a performer, which is his almost unheard of variety to go along with longevity that is quite literally unequaled. That might be in part why the supporters of Casas have a hard time summing him up like you would for a candidate like Hansen. As people like Matt D have said, Hansen is a tool, and once you have seen a subsection of Hansen's high end work in various places you can come to your own conclusions and not really feel as though you are missing much. You can watch a bunch of Casas recommendations and not even scratch the surface of who he was a performer.

[thebrainfollower]

Not being a lucha fan this was someone I wasn't really aware of and is now in my top 10.

 

 

I didn't watch any of his brief WWF run, thinking it not relevant to his case. Was that an error? Anything I should see?

[GOTNW]

I do find it interesting how he modelled himself after Choshu. His 90s outfit, the mullet, using his scorpion deathlock finish, even fixing his hair like Choshu does. Something I never really though about until I heard a commentator bring it up.

[Boss Rock]

The king of longevity along with Liger. I haven't seen a match of his since 2018, but that year started off with him having an awesome aspuestas match with the usually bad Sam Adonis and a fun workratey sprint with Aramis. Lucha isn't my favorite style but Casas is definitely my favorite and his greatness for at least 3 decades says a lot. Easy top 20 candidate who could easily make my top 10.