(Written by jom)
So, this is a first.
I'm honestly not sure what exactly inspired me to create this, but I have a few good guesses. I love doing match reviews, but I also hate doing match reviews. It's easy to fall into formula and lose any personality or truly interesting ideas in the sea of spot-by-spot recapping. That's not to say that writing about spots is inherently bad! My good friend Ciel does a great job of balancing match coverage with his own takes and analysis. However, I pretty much hate almost all of the writing I've done this way. I've tried my damndest to abandon that style and feel like I've recently reached a good balance of my own, but I still feel pangs of disappointment whenever I finish a review and think "man, is that really all I had to say?" As such, I've felt like I need to do something different for a while. Something more fun in concept.
These thoughts coincided with the public release of my new website, GL2JL. I've always loved Japanese luchadores as a concept and wanted a platform to share that love, and I've also always wanted to create an old school GeoCities style website, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. I've been in a lucha libre mindset since starting work on this project, and I've been watching more lucha in general, so I was planning to talk about more lucha-adjacent wrestling here (or to just break my weird unwritten rule entirely and talk about wrestling outside of Japan).
Finally, I only learned about this spot by chance. I was scrolling through Mr. Cacao's YouTube channel, looking for cool Michinoku handhelds to watch, and I stumbled across a YT Short on the channel titled "The Legendary 18-Man Consecutive Tope!!" I don't know why, but the moment I saw the title, I thought to myself "I should write about this." And thus, after three paragraphs of incessant rambling, here we are.
The match itself is a battle royal from the 02/04/1997 CMLL Japan show, featuring pretty much every wrestler who worked the show. You should watch it! It's a fun match even when you ignore the endless tope sequence. I'll be ranking every dive in the match, giving my thoughts on each dive as they come until one stands alone on the mountaintop.
18. Negro Casas
Casas is one of those guys on pretty much every person's shortlist as one of the best ever. I have friends that consider him the greatest wrestler of all time. Even with my limited exposure to his work, he's one of the most gritty and physically emotive wrestlers I've ever seen. He's in numerous all-timer matches, has been working at a high level for a scary number of decades, and just generally one of the coolest wrestlers of all time.
So what the fuck happened here?
This is maybe the lowest effort dive possible. In a way, it's almost impressive. He doesn't run off the ropes; he jogs towards them at a slightly brisk pace. He doesn't actually jump himself; he gets Kendo to do the heavy lifting. He's not even engaged enough to do some sort of cool dive to redeem himself! He just hits the most basic plancha with such low airtime that Ultraman has to rush forward to save him. Ultraman didn't need to take that bump. He sacrificed his own body to save shitty ass Negro Casas and his shitty ass plancha. Ultraman Jr. is a hero and Negro Casas is the world's biggest bitch.
17. Cadaver de Ultratumba
Another basic plancha. Cadaver de Ultratumba's name is significantly cooler than this plancha. "Corpse from Beyond the Grave." How sick is that? His cousin's named Guerrero de la Muerte ("Warrior of Death"). Do awesome names just run in the family? Anyways, he hit a plancha. It's fine, I guess. I appreciate a quality plancha! This is not a particularly quality plancha, but at least he tried. That puts him miles above Negro Casas. Plus, Kendo running away from taking the dive is incredibly funny. Oh, Ultraman. You didn't deserve this treatment.
16. Bestia Salvaje
Bestia Salvaje! Another cool wrestler right here. I remember seeing him do some awesome work in WAR. Sadly, his dive here isn't good. For a guy called "wild beast," he seems to be chock full of uncertainty. Hesitating on the run and fucking up the distance? C'mon Bestia, puff your chest out! Have some confidence in yourself! You were doing a great job in WAR back in 1993. Maybe 1997 was just a rough year for him. He did lose his hair in both 1995 and 1996; that would crush the conviction of any man. Hopefully he was on the up-swing after this show (note: Salvaje would continue to lose his hair on a near-yearly basis for the next six years).
15. Black Warrior
It's an Asai moonsault. It's fine? I don't know, it's not particularly inspiring to me. The execution is fine but it just does very little for me personally. Maybe it's because Black Warrior very casually walked into position. I really don't know! I'd understand this being higher up for other people, but I can't be bothered to care about it.
14. Mascara Magica
Once again, this doesn't do much for me. I have this over Black Warrior's moonsault because Magica gets some good air and the camera angle for the dive is cool. I also appreciate Mascara Magica's purple gear and his motif being the letter M. He reminds me of Majin Buu, who, similar to Cadaver de Ultratumba's name, is significantly more interesting to me than the dive at hand.
13. Apolo Dantes
I told you I appreciate a good plancha! Dantes has a nice snap to his execution, really throwing his arms out as wide as he can for maximum coverage. I also like his very motivated walk to the ropes. This is a man on a mission and his mission is to throw himself at Bestia Salvaje like a bag of trash into a dumpster. It's still a basic plancha, though. This match has so much more to offer than that.
12. Pirata Morgan
Theoretically, this somersault plancha is about equal to Dantes' normal plancha. However, Morgan masterfully counters Dantes' purposeful strut with a full-on front roll to the ropes. It does absolutely nothing to improve the strength of his dive, but damn it looks cool. Not much else to point out besides Pirata Morgan's eyepatch being cool, but you already knew that.
11. El Rayo de Jalisco Jr.
This is actually the last dive of the entire tope train, and you can tell because Jalisco decides to really milk it for as much as it's worth. That's some Hulk Hogan level hotdogging right there. Jalisco follows it up with a pretty awesome dive so it all works out. I like to imagine he let out a "BELLY FLOOOOOP" victory scream as he did it.
10. Kendo
Kendo has been a notable part of two separate dives on the list so far. So how's his own dive? Pretty damn good! I love the technique to this one. Kendo seemingly has enough leaping ability to clear the rope unaided, but he still pushes himself off the top for extra velocity. Maybe it was a receipt to Casas for doing such a fucking bad dive. I'll stop dwelling on that now, I promise.
9. Ultraman Jr.
...So Ultraman has already proven himself as a hero for saving the life of the world's biggest pussy Negro Casas (last one I promise). Here he is also proving his own worth as a tope train participant! This is a really nice tope suicida! I always really fuck with a good tope suicida. It's a basic move, but, when done right, it can feel like a gamechanger in any match. Ultraman always had a great tope suicida, and this is just textbook for him. Maybe that's why it isn't higher, though. Considering the other tope suicidas I've seen him hit, this one doesn't really stand out. It does serve as a great mid-point for the list, since everything before this ranged from AWFUL to pretty sick, and everything after this starts from great and just keeps getting greater.
8. Rey Bucanero
I haven't watched a Bucanero match in maybe seven years? I remember watching a handful of Bucanero matches when I was first getting into NJPW because he was a Bullet Club associate. Writing that out now pisses me off, so I'm gonna watch some Rey Bucanero later and redeem myself.
Anyways, this rocks. I've spoken at length about how much I love Asian Cougar's suicide tope atomico, and while this one may not be as good as Cougar's, it's still a suicide tope atomico. God bless you, Rey Bucanero. Sorry for only watching the matches where you teamed with Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga.
7. SHINOBI
SHINOBI was the one tasked with igniting the burning flame of the tope train. That's a needlessly wordy way of saying he went first. And god bless him, he set a great precedent. SHINOBI's moonsault plancha is a thing to behold. He has a PCO-esque lack of grace, albeit he's way smaller than PCO and has slightly better execution, really smashing into Espectro Jr. with some nice velocity.
Speaking of, how tragic is Espectro?
Imagine sitting backstage as all the boys discuss this crazy idea for an 18-man tope sequence, only for someone to put their hand on your shoulder and say "not you, pal." You have to sit outside and watch as your peers get to blow the minds of a packed KBS Hall. Everyone in the match has just made history. Everyone except you. But I respect you, Espectro Jr. You are the first brick laid. You are the pyre SHINOBI set ablaze. You are the foundation of this masterpiece. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
6. Felino
I remember when I first saw Felino sevenish years ago, my first thought was "damn, Puma King's been around for a long time, huh?" I used to be kind of dumb. I still am, but c'mon, they have basically the exact same gear! Learning Felino is Puma King's dad explained a lot. They both wear the same gear and they both rule. This dive is so awesome, man. I love a good triangle dive and Felino always had a great one. I almost want to rate this one higher, but I've also seen Felino do this with a much smoother execution, and that's the biggest thing holding it back.
5. Mr. Niebla
God, I love this one.
I've never seen Mr. Niebla before, but he was awesome in this match. Besides this dive, he also hit an awesome missile dropkick and died on one of the grossest avalanche powerbombs I've ever seen. I'm definitely going to be looking more into Niebla's work going forward, so if anyone has Niebla recommendations, let me know.
The dive itself is a real beauty. The moonsault plancha has basically flawless execution, with a perfect balance between height and distance. Now, is the rope run before the moonsault kinda fucking stupid? Maybe. Maybe. But I look at it from a video game perspective: that rope run was just Mr. Niebla building up special attack damage. I can't fault a guy for trying to fill his meter before the big move.
4. Lizmark
I thought there was an error with the show's listing at first. This is 1997. This should be Lizmark Jr., right? I mean the guy was on WCW TV around this time having awesome matches with Glacier and Yuji Nagata. There's no way his dad could be pulling off stuff like this, right?
This is god damn Lizmark.
We've reached the stage where I will call everything perfect, because this is a truly perfect diving plancha. The arms and legs thrown back like he's a spider monkey jumping across a river. The force of the dive taking him nearly all the way across the ring. Hell, even the connection is perfect, with Morgan doing a classic catch-and-roll to receive the dive. I love this. I love Lizmark. I do wonder why his son turned into such a freak in Lucha Libre USA, but that's entirely besides the point. Lizmark can do no wrong.
3. Arkangel de la Muerte
Arkangel de la Muerte.
Really, that's all I need to write. If you know Arkangel, you probably aren't shocked to see him this high up. He's also one of my favorite luchadores ever, something I've mentioned on the blog before. I have heavy Arkangel bias.
I don't think that matters much here.
Arkangel's borderline hilarious running combined with Dantes' slight assist leads to the highest velocity dive of the entire sequence, and he slams into Felino like a runaway train. This is like the Undertaker Mania dive, except infinitely cooler and pulled off by a wrestler worlds better than that jabroni. I love you, Arkangel de la Muerte.
2. El Hijo del Santo
Honestly, I feel bad not putting this at the top spot.
The Santo bullet suicida might be the dive in all of lucha libre. It's one of the most important and recognizable topes of all time, and also comfortably sits as one of the best. The way Santo’s silver dome almost magnetizes to the chin of Espectro Jr. is awe-inspiring. It's like Santo always knows the perfect angle to fly directly into his opponent and crack a few teeth. Once again, for lack of a better term, everything about this dive is perfect. And yet, it's forced to sit in second place.
1. Super Astro
This. This is the peak of wrestling. This is the culmination of over 100 years of innovation. This is the final frontier. Everything after this has been done to diminished returns.
Take everything I've ever said about Arkangel and apply it to Super Astro. I love this dude with all of my heart. He has such an incredible build, like a png of a normal beefy wrestler put into Photoshop and shrunk vertically. A guy with this body should not be able to do the things Super Astro is able to do, and yet he goes each movement with such ease, like a man created by god to be a luchador.
Now, some of you may be thinking, "but jooooom, you can't include the tiger feint and the little kick in the dive! That's unfair!!" If you are one of these people, I have two things to say. Firstly, does it really matter? The suicide tope atomico is enough to secure the top spot.
Secondly, go fuck yourself. This is my list, and in my list, I include Super Astro bitching out Apolo Dantes. Make your own list if you don't like it. Super Astro wins. Super Astro always wins. Just... don't search for a photo of him unmasked. That's the one time Super Astro was truly fighting a losing battle.
If you like the list, let me know! This was almost entirely me just riffing and it was a ton of fun to make. Maybe I'll find another dive train to rank in the future. Until next time.
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