[1981-09-18-Houston Wrestling] Dynamic Duo (Tully Blanchard & Gino Hernandez) vs Mil Mascaras & Manny Fernandez

[shoe]

We get 2 refs for this match. On paper this looks like a pretty hot match. Manny and Gino start. Gino eats a couple of arm drags. I love Boesch explaining how Gino is a master of using the ropes to escape. This all Manny early. Tag to Mil, and Gino tags in Tully. The pace gets more deliberate, but the Duo is still shining up the faces. Gino is avoiding Mil , finally they lock up. The heels trick Mil, and start getting heat, and Gino is celebrating like he's a member of the NE Patriots. Mil gets the hot tag to Manny. Manny is on fire. A double team sets up another heat segment. The heels work over Manny. A belly to belly sets up the hot tag. The Duo steal the match by pinning Mil. 3 1/2*

 

Mil Mascaras promo.

[PeteF3]

Holy shit, Mil doing a job on tape?? This IS historic!

[Matt D]

I absolutely loved the Mil/Manny vs Dynamic Duo match. I'm higher on it than Pete, certainly, even though I know he liked it. I think this is probably the best example yet at just how good Gino was in 1981. You take the basic premise of the match, that he had wronged Mil over time, that he was afraid of him despite all of his boasts, that he was going to try to hide behind Tully and capitalize on every advantage they could manage, despite the two refs, and then you take his natural skill, charisma and sheer dedication and you get a truly special performance. It was so good I wanted to timestamp every little thing he does in the match. That was sort of a ridiculous chore, but I do want to highlight a couple of things.

 

First, look at his headlock segment early on with Manny. It was perfect in its understanding of exactly how he should be bumping and stooging. He eats a dropkick in it, for instance, but understands that the way he should bump for it, in this moment early in the match, was to be stunned and surprised, bouncing back up and right into the headlock takeover again. It was a functional slap so early on.

 

Then look at the ending of that, when Manny makes the tag to Mil. First he struggles to get away, scared. Then when Manny just lets him go, at Mil's instruction, he looks over to him, exasperated, totally unsure why the heck he's getting out of the ring and just leaving him with Mil. Then he puts his hands over his ears to try to block out the excited crowd. Finally, he backsteps with his hands up just far enough to allow him to turn tail and run to Tully and the tag. Then on the apron, he puts his hands over his ears again. It was perfect to draw the crowd in, to portray a series of emotions that showed how invested Gino was, to get Mil over as a massive threat without even taking one bump for him yet.

 

This goes on and on. Tully works Mil to the corner. That means that Gino's excited to come in, to work his way around for the double team. Mil immediately turns it into a double noggin-knocker though, and Gino staggers back, holding his head. He eats the flying headbutt off the ropes immediately there after and sells by bouncing up and tagging Tully in one astoundingly cowardly movement. They show him rolling to the floor after that, looking relieved to be out of the ring. Next time he gets tagged in, Mil tags out to Manny (he'd already done a double headlock takeover/headscissors to the Duo as Gino ran in to feed the spot). Gino immediately points to Mil on the apron demanding he tags back in. When he does (and Manny knows how to milk that moment), Gino immediately runs for the hills as the crowd goes nuts. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

 

Gino finally does take over with a cheapshot knee (And Boesch is great in his moralizing), and the desperation in being in control against a star like Mil is just what you want. He hits a move and goes for a pin but the second Mil kicks out, Gino's dashing across the ring to make the tag. Then he dashes back to elbow him in the back of the head to hold him in place until Tully can get there. That level of urgency imparts weight and importance to everything that happens. Again, if Gino cares THAT much, the crowd is going to care too.

 

So a hot tag happens and Manny cleans house, hitting first a giant knee drop off the ropes and then the flying forearm. If this was a two out of three falls match, it'd be a pin, but instead it's both a near-fall and a transition, as Tully rushes in to break the pinfall. Manny immediately goes after Tully, who had retreated back to the apron and this lets Gino get a knee to the back in. After he tags out, he sells the damage by slumping over the turnbuckle on the apron. Tully does a lot of the actual working over of Manny (with a nice butterfly suplex and neckbreaker), with Gino feeding for the hope spots (including a giant sunset flip). His big contribution here is some cheapshots on the floor and then running away from Mil's attempt at a save to huge reaction from the crowd.

 

When Manny finally makes the hot tag after a sort of northern lights set up into a belly to belly which could easily work as a finisher today, Gino's reaction is (again) perfect. He recoils as if he was hit, spinning around and backing into the corner in fear, eating a flurry of headlocked fists as the crowd is constantly screaming. The heels cheat to win and celebrate, drawing heat even as Manny tries to run them off. All of this makes the impassioned Mil promo in Spanish all the better and all of this sets up the Mexican Death Match between the Duo and Mil/Dos Caras two weeks later. Just an amazing, chickenshit, heatseeking performance by Gino.

[shoe]

Holy shit, Mil doing a job on tape?? This IS historic!

He's actually done a few in the Houston footage, and sells a lot more.

[KB8]

I've been watching a bunch of Tully lately, mostly in singles during the peak Crockett run, so I wanted to check out some Tully/Gino Dynamic Duo stuff and see where he was at in '81. By the US title run he was a perfect little weasel who always managed to come across as dangerous and legit at the same time. He'd go after a guy like a swarm of angry bees and even if you wanted to smack him in the mouth there was no question he was as good as he said he was. He hadn't quite perfected that at this point, but you could see the makings of it. Interestingly he was sort of placed in the Arn role here as Gino worked this as a sniveling coward who wanted no part of Manny and even less of Mil. Gino's shtick was totally over the top and awesome and, other than one bit where he and Tully shared a reassuring embrace outside the ring, it was Gino who garnered most of the heat on his own. He'd come in to throw a cheapshot, then the babyface would spot him and so he'd just bolt out of the ring. He wanted a piece of Mil, then when Manny obliged and tagged him in Gino ran straight over and tagged in Tully. At one point Mil chased him all around the ring and ringside area as Gino scarpered for his life. Mil was really fun in this as well. He had a great double noggin-knocker spot, threw a bunch of cool flying forearms, had Tully locked in tight with his headscissors and those nifty spinning headstand takeovers, then he played face in peril for a bit and gave the heels more than I was expecting. Mil even doing the job at the end was a bit of a holy shit moment because I don't know if I've ever actually seen that before. When Tully and Gino were setting up the finish I thought for sure it was going to be reversed, but then they went all in on it and not only did Gino escape without receiving his comeuppance, he pinned Mil himself (well, with a little help first)! Post-match Mil cuts a scathing promo in Spanish - like an angrier, teary-eyed version of your Onita classic - and I'm assuming there was a blowoff to this that's buried somewhere in that Houston footage we'll probably never see. Pre-Crockett Tully is kind of a blind spot for me so I guess I should watch a bunch of Dynamic Duo tags now?