Mil Mascaras

[Dylan Waco]

Discuss Here.

[Matt D]

Better than Brody.

[Childs]

Mexican Inoki?

[Matt D]

There's a lot of Shawn Michaels in him. He knew how to get over, no matter the cost.

[Jaivl]

Worst nominee since Davey Richards?

[goc]

I'd take him over Shane McMahon.

[ohtani's jacket]

The three matches that were used to nominate him are excellent bouts so he at least has that going for him.

[Childs]

One thing I've never been entirely clear on is how Mascaras was viewed in Mexico.

[GOTNW]

Can someone please point me to a match that isn't like an hour long that demonstrates his supposed sucking? He's looked good in everything I've seen of him.

[Matt D]

 

Hansen gets so frustrated here. It's sort of amazing to see.

[goc]

Can someone please point me to a match that isn't like an hour long that demonstrates his supposed sucking? He's looked good in everything I've seen of him.

I wouldn't say he's looked good in EVERYTHING I've seen of him, but I've seen more good than bad. I feel like the people on message boards who hate on Mascaras the most have probably seen very little actual footage of him.

[jdw]

 

Hansen gets so frustrated here. It's sort of amazing to see.

 

Well, there's also Hansen taking the double flying head attack, and instantly cutting Dos off, beating him up a bit and taking out to Brody.

 

I love Stan. Thought he was at least trying in the infamous match with Steamer & Youngblood. But let's not claim he's the virgin mary in this match. He's well under the Brody Influence at times in it.

[Matt D]

I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

 

Can someone please point me to a match that isn't like an hour long that demonstrates his supposed sucking? He's looked good in everything I've seen of him.

I wouldn't say he's looked good in EVERYTHING I've seen of him, but I've seen more good than bad. I feel like the people on message boards who hate on Mascaras the most have probably seen very little actual footage of him.

I haven't yet decided if Mil "counts" as a Lucha guy or not but I think he has a chance of making my list,

 

Three things:

 

1. Better in the 70s rather than the 80s

 

2. One reason people, including me, hate him is because he never put anyone over and sometimes won't sell or take moves.

 

3. He might make my list because of his variety of memorable matches over the years.

[Loss]

Can someone please point me to a match that isn't like an hour long that demonstrates his supposed sucking? He's looked good in everything I've seen of him.

 

I always thought Mascaras sucking was just something that caught fire based on Mick Foley's book more than anything.

[funkdoc]

it's his general reputation as a prima donna among workers & promoters

 

Backlund goes in hard on him for not selling and such, which i'm sure is amusing to some here...

[JerryvonKramer]

One thing that has just occurred to me is that if you take Mil, Inoki, Backlund and Dory, all four guys had a habit of working from on top.

 

We are used to seeing a lot of great workers working from underneath, but each of these guys came from a different type of ethos whereby legit credentials and demonstration of wrestling ability -- that is strategy and the game of human chess -- was more important than "making your opponent look good". With all of these guys, instead of selling, as we think of it, you get struggle.

 

I've watched an awful lot of these guys over the past two or three years. I've learned to appreciate the things Backlund can do well and what he brings to the table. I also learned to love Dory, who believe it or not I legit believed was the most boring wrestler in the world circa 2012, there are probably posts with me saying so here, and audio on old shows of me burying Dory, I was not seeing his strengths and judging him unfairly. And Backlund and Dory are actually really pretty similar workers I've come to realise.

 

Mascaras is a similar story in some ways. I haven't watched sustained Mil, but he has cropped up again and again in different contexts and has been pretty effective in some matches.

 

Inoki still really bored me, but "getting" Backlund and Dory in some ways has helped me understand him a bit better too.

 

In all four cases, they were trying to get over the idea of a legitimate sporting contest and so "selling" as in bumping around and pin balling just doesn't seem all that realistic. People have actually asked me a few times "Parv, you like Dory and watch 70s stuff, how come you don't like shoot style? It's not a million miles away."

 

And my answer is really that there are enough pro-style elements even in the more technical, chess-type bouts, to keep me engaged.

 

----

 

Anyway, I guess the point of this post is that in some ways all four of these guys I'm talking about here are judged unfairly by standards set by the 1980s big bumping style pioneered by Race and Flair. Guys just didn't work like that in the early 70s. It was much more about the idea of out manoeuvring the opponent, working in and out of holds, etc. I mean, honestly, in terms of matwork all four of these guys blow someone like Bret Hart or even a Kawada or Misawa out of the water. Like not even same ballpark.

 

However, they don't tend to be judged like that, but instead for essentially not working in a more modern and exciting way. I say this as someone who rated the classic Dory vs. Inoki 69 match *** and who for stretches was bored to tears by it, and as someone as guilty as ANYONE for judging these guys by later norms.

 

But there aren't many people around to make this sort of argument, so I am just putting it out there.

 

Everyone who has read or listened to my stuff knows that my favourite wrestling is stuff from the 80s and early 90s whether NWA, territories, WWF or Japan, my bread and butter is that scene and those environments.

 

The 1970s was a different time in wrestling. Different style of work, different priorities to get over. If Vince's vision of pro wrestling was the Wrestlemania moment or if Bill Watts's was a standup American male jock overcoming an evil doer / foreigner / sissy boy, then Sam Muchnick's was the idea of wrestling as a legit sporting contest played out as much in the mind as in the ring, and it seems to me Baba and Inoki both had a similar philosophy at that time. This context is important because it strongly mediates how workers from that time should be judged.

 

I guess grouping Mascaras with them in this way is also making a statement of a sort: he should really be thought of with this sort of company and in this era, not the guy pulling in his stomach at MSG in 1982 or whatever.

[ohtani's jacket]

What you're saying may be true for some viewers, but for people who've watched a lot of 60s and 70s wrestling, I think they can make distinctions between workers, and I don't think it really means what filter they use. Whether they'e looking for someone timeless, or trying to see things through a 60s & 70s mindset, they're still separating the wheat from the chaff, and the direct comparisons are there in other 60s & 70s work and not their favourites from the 80s and beyond. I'd certainly judge Mascaras as a 70s worker, but in comparison to Sargeant and Robinson and Szakacs and everyone else I think is good from that era.

[JerryvonKramer]

Well I guess what I was saying in a round about way is that none of those four guys are "chaff" by the standards and norms of the time (note, Backlund was of course later, and a bit of a throwback even in 1978). Like it's a standard critique of Mascaras that he worked too strong and didn't sell enough, but is that really a fair criticism considering the above? Backlund and Inoki also worked strong and didn't sell a lot. Dory a wee bit more giving, but only a bit.

[Matt D]

The comparison to Mil, to me, is a guy like Brody. He knew what he was doing in there, but it was in his best interest, as a travelling attraction, a creature of mystery and mystique, to look strong no matter what. Sometimes, it made financial sense to him for him to give more in a match, and in those cases he did. So that makes him either one of the best, most successful, wrestlers of all time, or a pretty crummy one. Beats me. He's not coming close to my list.

[JerryvonKramer]

The comparison to Mil, to me, is a guy like Brody. He knew what he was doing in there, but it was in his best interest, as a travelling attraction, a creature of mystery and mystique, to look strong no matter what. Sometimes, it made financial sense to him for him to give more in a match, and in those cases he did. So that makes him either one of the best, most successful, wrestlers of all time, or a pretty crummy one. Beats me. He's not coming close to my list.

This seems strangely a bit received opinion from you Matt. I have to say I don't recognise much of this from a lot of the Mil matches I've seen.

 

Like, he will give, and even take a beating sometimes, but you know the match is going to end in a double count out and that he's absolutely not going to get pinned. And that at some point in the match, he'll get his shit in. But the Brody comparison feels off.

 

Mil not taking pins is also made a bigger deal of because it is in the wrestling lore. Like Abby never took pins, Sheik didn't, I mean honestly how many times were Terry Funk or Stan Hansen pinned in All Japan? Dory never took pinfalls either. In the context of AJ at the time, not so unusual.

 

I'm just saying that there's a bit mythmaking and confirmation bias from that mythmaking in here too. I've seen Mascaras sell an uppercut like it killed him. I'm not saying it's not true that he worked strong, but that the line is probably a bit overstated, especially in comparison with his contemporaries.

[Matt D]

 

The comparison to Mil, to me, is a guy like Brody. He knew what he was doing in there, but it was in his best interest, as a travelling attraction, a creature of mystery and mystique, to look strong no matter what. Sometimes, it made financial sense to him for him to give more in a match, and in those cases he did. So that makes him either one of the best, most successful, wrestlers of all time, or a pretty crummy one. Beats me. He's not coming close to my list.

This seems strangely a bit received opinion from you Matt. I have to say I don't recognise much of this from a lot of the Mil matches I've seen.

 

Like, he will give, and even take a beating sometimes, but you know the match is going to end in a double count out and that he's absolutely not going to get pinned. And that at some point in the match, he'll get his shit in. But the Brody comparison feels off.

 

Mil not taking pins is also made a bigger deal of because it is in the wrestling lore. Like Abby never took pins, Sheik didn't, I mean honestly how many times were Terry Funk or Stan Hansen pinned in All Japan? Dory never took pinfalls either. In the context of AJ at the time, not so unusual.

 

I'm just saying that there's a bit mythmaking and confirmation bias from that mythmaking in here too. I've seen Mascaras sell an uppercut like it killed him. I'm not saying it's not true that he worked strong, but that the line is probably a bit overstated, especially in comparison with his contemporaries.

 

I'll deep dive Mascaras a few months from now, maybe. I've seen it in a number of matches though. People getting heat on him is fleeting and made to feel like a fluke. I also look for it coming in (admittedly), but I sure remember finding it a lot over decades and in different locales. When I don't, I'm happily surprised. I feel pretty certain about this one.

[ohtani's jacket]

Mils was a talented worker whom the Destroyer said you had to really struggle with to get him to give you anything. I kind of like that aesthetic; I just wish we had more than three really good Mascaras singles bouts on tape. That may have been because of his attitude but I'm not wholly convinced. I have a feeling there were more than a few great Mascaras performances even if the ratio of great match-to-booking date was low.

[conker8]

How are his tag bouts with his brother ?

[Jingus]

I've seen comments from quite a few people who wrestled Brody where they talked about their experiences and were perfectly happy with the results. (Aside from Luger, obviously.) Of course there's dissenters, but Brody still has a lot of fans among his contemporary coworkers. Meanwhile, I think literally every single comment I've ever heard from anyone who ever worked with Mascaras was extremely critical and negative towards Mil. I've literally never seen anyone praising him in any manner, he seems universally despised by practically everyone.

 

And in terms of simple quality of match aesthetics, I'd rather watch literally every other wrestler mentioned in this thread than Mascaras. I've never understood the hype with that guy, he always bored me to death while rarely doing anything worth watching.