Forever Forward Fridays

India Azteca VS Reyna Gallegos - 1987?

CJD: This literally might have been the only other Molina/Azteca match easily available to me that didn't involve Surena. So my hand was forced. Luckily for me, it's also a good match! A step down from your match but still with some nice highlights and a strong babyface performance from Gallegos. Her, Azteca, and Surena were all totally new to me a few weeks ago, and I'm immediately a fan of all 3. Estela wrestles a very similar match here but she clearly loves throwing hands, chomping heads, and heeling it up all night long. And she's good at it! We're back on a Friday road where I can't predict where we're going next, but Play It Forward is about the journey, not the destination, right?

JJZ: Man, the thing I will take away from the last two weeks on Fridays is that these women's Lucha matches are stiff. All those ladies laid it in. And let's talk about this ref. He was flying from pillar to post I'll tell you what. Got a real kick out those hops. This shined in a few different ways with a few nice highspots. I was curious what to expect from both these matches. It's not often we get to watch matches that are completely new to us on all fronts. I was pleased with the psychology and story that they told. At the end of the day I will remember both these matches for a long time to come.

Forever Forward Fridays

Pantera Surena VS Estela Molina - Houston TX 8/22/1980

JJZ: First off, this is Lucha rules, so it's two out of three falls. This match was so much fun to watch. I literally know nothing about these women so everything they did was fresh to my eyes and I was seriously impressed. My journey to get here was an interesting one. A lot of scrolling and looking into La Pantera's (La Galactica) opponents to make sure I wasn't turning you towards a dead end street. My first thoughts when the match got going was, these women seemed seasoned. They knew what they were doing and what they wanted to do. Everything was tight and boy oh boy can these ladies throw a punch. Hope you enjoy this baby.

CJD: I've updated the blog from a lot of interesting places. Well you can add Charlotte Douglas International Airport to that list because I'm about to catch a red eye to see you and the gang for an old school, god honest WRESTLING NIGHT get together tomorrow night. But it's been years since I've been up for one and that's the story of how PIF got started, right? To keep our dialogue of matches going strong while I wasn't going to be able to get up for marathon late night deep dives into our collections on a monthly basis. Man the idea has evolved a lot in 4 years. I'm not saying we're the most educated, progressive, well researched fans ever now or anything, but we've explored so much territory that I'd never have guessed or ventured into otherwise. Joshi kind of makes sense to me as to my best understanding it was created and marketed to Japanese teenage girls, with crossover music and promotion. It became much more but as a jumping off point I can see that in the 80s. But can you imagine being a female wrestler in North America 1980 and fighting through so much bullshit for matches like this? I seriously can't. And then for them to get to a point to get this much time, and this good of a reaction. I just love it. It's the stuff that makes me stay a pro wrestling super fan despite the many, many warts it's had over the decades. These women felt so confident and calm under pressure despite all that. And this match was really, really good. A little slow at times but so much wrestling in 1980 was. And Molina's heel work was a little one note but the violence in those exchanges was so engaging it didn't really matter. God bless Paul Boesch, he was never a very good commentator, but he was less misogynistic than so many men calling women's matches for decades to come. If Pantera Surena was this good from 1980 to 1984 then I'm going to make a point to watch everything I can find moving forward, because damn was she good in these two matches. But now for some more Estela Molina and more head chomping!