25 Matches that Defined 2016 #3 – Black Terry vs. Wotan – Chilanga Mask – 21/08/16
Black Terry vs. Wotan
Chilanga Mask
21st of August 2016
Coliseo Coacalco – Coacalco, Estado de México, Mexico
The Match: In the interest of full disclosure, I have not seen this full match. The reason being that there are only four/five minute clips floating around Youtube of this match. The full match is available if you contact Black Terry’s son, Black Terry Jr., who has taken to filming his father’s matches on fancam. Nonetheless, the footage that has surfaced online is possibly the most violent wrestling match ever committed to tape. Wikipedia definess grit as being “rough grainy matter” and by fuck does this live up to that billing. Stiff chops, full contact headbutts, chairs thrown at each other’s head with wild abandon.
There is blood, lots of blood, a metric shitton of blood. They end up brawling into the lap of a visibly fucking terrified child, who was lucky not to get some sort of horrific infection. Fighting in what looks like the waste management depot in Polmadie when they have the car boot sales on, these two just hammer the ever living fuck out of each other, going everywhere around the building. By the end of the match, both men are rolling about in ACTUAL FUCKING STONES surrounded by chairs and forty years worth of dirt when Black Terry grabs one of the stones and uses it as a weapon, for christ’s sake. The referee finally decides that, even in the wild west world of sleazy Lucha indie brawling, this shit has gone way too far and waves off the match. The bloodthirsty crowd chant for more, the two competitors wanted the match restarted. I am just glad no-one has been killed.
Why Does It Define 2016?: Not even a decade ago, following Lucha and Puro was an ordeal. Waiting weeks or months for DVDs from mainstream places like New Japan, CMLL and AAA in the mail. Many indy promotions existed purely in the form of text results, with no hope of footage ever seeing the light of day. Now, you can watch shows from Japan’s top 15/20 promotions streamed live or on demand mere hours after the event finishes via things such as the RealHero archives, NJPW World, Stardom World and numerous other streaming platforms.
Similarly, the tireless efforts of people like thecubsfan mean that you can watch all of CMLL and AAA’s output at the click of a button as well as the likes of IWRG, DTU and Liga Elite. Black Terry is now 65 years old and will probably still be in my top five workers for this year as he has had countless MOTY contenders against the likes of Hechicero, Barbaro Cavernario and Aero Boy that, until very recently, would never have garnered any attention purely because of the limited reach. As we go into 2017, the streaming service Powerbomb.tv has already signed up several Lucha indy promotions as well as notable fancammers Black Terry Jr and Caryxus to ensure that we don’t miss any future MOTY contenders from south of the border. We now live in an age where it is impossible to keep up with everything going on in wrestling.
My Thoughts: Despite my previous point about having everything at your fingertips, this match is an anomaly. As I mentioned, it is impossible to find a stream of this full match for free. Instead, we rely on these bloody snippets to try and get a flavour of the match. This is the wrestling equivalent of a found footage horror film. This does not feel like you are watching a normal wrestling show. This feels like you have stumbled into the vicinity of an actual fight and that you should not be there.
There is a certain pleasure in finding a match where you have to do a little digging to find the full details, like a detective putting together the pieces of a grisly puzzle. The full match review on Segunda Caida paints a picture of sheer darkness, with blood pouring everywhere as onlooking women scream and look away in horror. The descriptive imagery of the finish, where Terry incessantly smashes at Wotan’s face with a glass bottle, blocked by a referee, is chilling.
Lack of full version aside, the point I’m making is that this match is so good that you don’t need to see the full thing to know this is one of the best matches of the year. This match harkens back to the sensationalist wrestling magazines featuring still photos of wild, bloody brawls from foreign territories that you never got on local TV, where you let your imagination run wild and create your own fantasy as to what actually went on.
Even then, this match lives up to your wildest imaginations as it is the bloodiest, most violent, most gritty match of the year, the decade, maybe ever in my opinion. A lot of people have likened this to Necro Butcher’s infamous fights with Samoa Joe and Low Ki, but I’d argue, this is even more violent. While the CZW/BJW Barbed Wire/Lighttubes deathmatches may be hard to watch, this is a step above even those in terms of gruesome brutality. Without a shadow of a doubt, the realist, hardest hitting you will see all year. If you miss the blood in Lucha brawls ever since CMLL banned it, this is absolutely for you. Anyone who is not squeamish needs to watch this now. Make sure you’ve got some Dettol for afterwards though.