Video link to the match over at Lucha Central : https://youtu.be/uD8r4FGiD6A



No Cagematch page for this match/event.

Who’s Who?

Los Brazos(Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata & El Brazo)

All of these men had singles careers, but since they are competing as a team here we will lump them together. A few days ago we talked about Satanico, MS-1 and Pirate Morgan forming Los Infernales in EMLL as a response to trios becoming popular in large part due to UWA group, Los Misioneros de la Muerte being such a hit in the early 1980′s. Well Los Infernales wasn’t the only group that formed to capitalize on the boom.

In fact there were 3 different brother factions that formed trios :

Villano brothers who all went by Villano I-V who would be big names in UWA(sons of co-founder and old school talent Ray Mendoza) as well as working with CMLL, because remember UWA/CMLL didn’t have an antagonistic relationship. Some of the Villano brothers would go down as GOAT Lucha Libre talents, particularly 3, while some of them didn’t really do much outside of playing a role in the brothers trios fare. They started as a group in UWA in the latter half of the 1970′s getting into wrestling like their father before them.

Los Hermanos Dinamita, who are a later addition to the brothers trio craze. Starting in the mid 1980′s with just Cien Caras and Mascara Ano 2000 before the addition of younger brother Universo 2000 in the late 80′s. They would start as a EMLL group before jumping ship to AAA in the 90′s when that promotion kicked off and started to get hot.



Los Brazos, who amongst these brothers teams was the most well traveled. Touring Japan with both NJPW and AJPW in the 1980′s. Being in high demand they were amongst the biggest draws in Mexico for a time and came up basically at the same time as Villano’s team. Also, like Villano’s they were actually more than a trios of brothers. Outside of the 3 in this match you also had : Super Brazo, Brazo de Platino and Brazo Cibernetico. However, unlike the Villano’s who were interchangeable to a degree. Like a trios match might be I, IV and V or II, III and V. Los Brazos as a trios was always the three brothers in this match. All 6 Brazo brothers, are sons of old school lucha talent Shadito Cruz.

Picture of Shadito Cruz flanked by sons and grandsons in the early 2000′s or late 1990′s.

I bring up the other trios of brothers who aren’t in this match because famously there was a confrontation in 1990 or 1988? Villano Brothers vs Los Brazos in an epic mask vs mask trios match. One that really changed the history of Lucha Libre. You can check it out here, I’m not doing it for the series, cause it’s not very good video quality. Brazos ended up losing their masks in one fell swoop vs Villanos’ who they feuded with over the course of the 1980′s in UWA.

This is a look at the Brazos at their peak when they were a wrecking ball in the Lucha Libre scene of Mexico. During their 2nd reign as UWA Trios Champions(which they wear coming into the ring for this match) and having held the Mexican National Trios Titles twice before this as well. They were a group not to reckon with unless you wanted to be wrecked on top of being one of the most well known luchador groups outside of Mexico as mentioned touring both AJPW and NJPW before this match in 1988.

Oh also to tell them apart(I haven’t done this for most matches cause it’s more obvious), let’s look at their 3 names in Spanish.

Brazo means arm.

So…. Brazo de Oro(Arm of gold in all gold/yellow), Brazo de Plata(Arm of silver in all silver/grey) and last El Brazo(The Arm, a mix of both). I’m like 75% certain of this, If I’m off base please feel free to correct me.

Rocky Star

Rocky Star is basically a poster child for the lost past of lucha libre. A guy who had at least a 20+ year career. Yet, here is his cagematch.net page career page. I wish I could say more about him, but I just don’t have the information to give him proper credit. I did find that he lost his mask in 1987 so a little bit before this to Cinta de Oro who was unmasking people left and right in the late 80′s before he himself lost his mask to Fishman who we have covered earlier this month. UWA which ran from 1975 to 1995 has lots of lost history and Rocky Star is proof of that. At least some of his career still exists on video like this.



Lizmark

Lizmark made his debut in 1976, would capture his first title the

Mexican National Welterweight Champion in 1979 and would carry many title before this becoming one of the biggest luchadors in the 80′s. Often teaming with Atlantis, though they wouldn’t get gold together until the mid 1990′s.

In the 80′s Lizmark was capturing many singles titles at this time he was either in his 1st or 2nd NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship reign. He would mostly work with CMLL, but for a short stint he jumped to AAA like many talents did from 1992 to 1995 before making his way back to CMLL and becoming tag champs with Atlantis who had never left CMLL. In 1999 Lizmark would suffer a heart attack and his career slowed considerably though his legacy lived on through his son Lizmark Jr. who he had worked with in the 90′s and would team with in the 2000′s despite showing down after his heart attack. Lizmark passed way in 2015, I highlighted him in last years Masked Men of May series.

Eddie Guerrero

I could probably assume that you know who Eddie Guerrero is, but lets act like you don’t. Eddie Guerrero got his start in EMLL, which is the same promotion his father Gory Guerrero had been a major star for in the middle of the century. Debuting in 1986 he would have been basically a rookie at this point in 1988. WWA World Trios Champion would be his first belt in 1989, which he captured with his brothers Chavo & Mando. In 1992 Eddie would do a tour of BOSJ III at the time called Top of the Super Juniors. This went so well he was invited back and worked heavily before working there full time in the mid and early mid 1990′s leaving CMLL behind while also being a hot ticket in AAA. Before working with ECW/WCW and then eventually WWE. Where he worked until he passed away in 2005 at the age of 38.

One of the most well known talents of Mexican descent. Eclipsing his brothers and standing shoulder to shoulder with his father Gory Guerrero who also was a household name in his time. Not to say his brother Mando/Hector/Chavo didn’t have good careers. As Chavo had a pretty great run too and feuded with Roddy Piper in California’s NWA Hollywood promotion before Eddie had even debut in 1986. They all had careers to be proud of even if Eddie had the most widely known and beloved career of the 4 brothers.

How is the match?



Very good, it’s not a mind blowing trios match. It has it’s spots though and was included more as a spotlight of Los Brazos who were very important in this era and are still very important in Lucha Libre having 3 mainstream lucha libre stars with their sons Maximo Sexy/La Mascara/Psycho Clown with the latter two main eventing Anniversary(Mascara) and Triplemania(Psycho Clown), with Psycho Clown winning the AAA’s biggest yearly main event twice over peer Pegasso and older legend Dr. Wagner Jr.

Anyways, enough about stuff that happened nearly 30 years after this match. Captains in this match are Rocky Star & El Brazo. It’s a little strange that Rocky Star seems like the tecnico they wanted to highlight here, but the most impressive guy is probably Lizmark. Eddie was a rookie here and works with Lizmark to get a fall in the contest, but is mostly there as a body. I think my favorite part of this match is probably the entrance with the Brazo’s just looking like 600 pounds of badass wearing the belts or the short stint of Lizmark going wild when he is given time to get his shit out.

Seeing Brazo de Plata(later known as Super Porky) hitting a superkick/thrust kick was pretty wild in the early on. Also, seeing El Brazo bleed like a pig is very much something that just screams classic lucha libre before CMLL banned blood and became more sanitized(this wasn’t in EMLL/CMLL, but at the time you would expect blood in that company as well). I wouldn’t take a bite out of someone’s bloody scalp, but Rocky Star does here. It’s a fun Brazo brawl, but this isn’t an all time classic like the last few days of matches. This will be the last match from the 1980′s and tomorrow we will be moving on to the 1990′s.