Terry Funk vs. Carlos Colon, WWC Capitol Sports Promotions 13th Aniversario 1986 Round 3: San Juan (9/21/1986)

Another piece of Terry Funk themed commission work, this one being the third of three this week from friend of the blog @beenthrifty. You too can pay me to talk about all sorts of stuff, wrestling matches generally at the top of the pile. You can do this by going to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon, where the current going rate is $5 per match. If you have something more complex, which is to say that cannot be figured out simply by multiplying something by five, hit the DMs, and we can work it out. 

This was a No Disqualification Match and tournament final for the WWC Universal Heavyweight Title.

Enter invading heel Terry.

Specifically in this case, emphasis on a more literal definition of invading. Not just going to another territory to antagonize someone like in Memphis, or in a wildly new environment where the invasion aspect is more implicit like his WWF run, but literally acting as the invading force in another country. The match file on Youtube comes complete with a perfect Terry interview from earlier in the show, constantly saying this is a country of pig farmers and that there’s no way Colon is the world-class athlete people say he is, and a million other things I don’t want to spoil for you.

Just like anything else he’s ever done in any medium, Terry Funk puts everything possible into the role he’s occupying at this specific point, and leaps off of the screen as a result.

The match itself is fairly routine, undeniably very good, but it’s home to yet another ultra lively Terry Funk performance.

Funk improves on the WWF heel run, working in a lot of the same ways as an insane old cowboy who stooges and cheats his ass off as the guy there against the big hero, but he’s allowed to get a little meaner, more violent, and a lot crazier in a more threatening kind of way. Again, Funk is presented with a slightly difficult tightrope to walk, but gets across to the other side in as perfect a stride as anyone ever could. It’s a match where one of the first spots is an overzealous Funk tripping over his own entrance vest on the mat by the ropes in an all-time great piece of stooge work, but also one where he spends at least a quarter of the match bloodying up and choking the local hero (with an especially inspired sequence where he hides a hand in Colon’s hair to help hold him in a sleeper, constantly turning away from the referee, and when caught, choking Colon from the front briefly when the referee takes a look at what his hands are doing on the back of Carlos’ head). Not only is he just as great as both, but unlike so many other wrestlers before and since, there’s zero leap he has to make between the two.

It’s all just Terry Funk, you know?

Colon is also pretty good here. Based on reputation (Puerto Rico is a blind spot, sadly, you should use your money to direct my eyes toward it more often) and how good he is here at what he does, I assume there are probably far better showcases of what he has to offer than this. However, as a super over babyface who bleeds well, is naturally likeable, and has a real solid punch, he is exactly what he has to be in order for the match to work.

Primarily, this is routine stuff.

Funk repeatedly cheats and tries to sucker him in in one way or another — baiting him outside to bust him open, trying to set up a brass knuckles shot he can never hit, getting the referee away so Dory Funk Jr. can hit Carlos with one of his cowboy boots — but it never works, because it’s not supposed to. Colon is too strong and too naturally good, leading to following up the boot shot with a cradle out of a slam to win the title for the fifth time.

Pro wrestling ass pro wrestling, executed by at least one — and probably two — of the old masters.

It doesn’t feel like the absolute best that they can do together and while some of you dig through old Terry stuff through basic Youtube searches, I wouldn’t quite call it essential or must-see, but another enormously fun piece of classical pro wrestling bullshit.

 

Dump Matsumoto vs Yukari Omori, AJW (3/20/1986)

This was a commission review from an anonymous contributor. You too can be like them and pay me to write about anything you’d like. Most people tend to pay for reviews of wrestling matches, but I am happy to talk about real fights, movie fight scenes, movies in general, make a list, or whatever. You can head on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon to do that, just make sure I haven’t already written about it first. The going rate is $5/match, or with regards to other media, $5 for every started thirty minute chunk. If you have a more elaborate thing in mind, hit the DMs, and we can talk about that too. 

I’ve always admired Dump Matsumoto more than I’ve ever really loved her.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I’ve always liked the idea of Dump Matsumoto more than the actuality of her matches. It is a hell of an idea.

Dump brought an incredible sense of chaos and violence to her wrestling that always greatly appealed to me. The best things about wrestling are violence and blood and real feeling and hate, all of which Dump brought better than maybe any female wrestler ever (the maybe is for Aja and Bull and Kandori and sometimes Ozaki, but still probably Dump) and better than all but a handful of male wrestlers. The famous scenes of young women in the crowd in tears while she cuts the hair of and beats up Chigusa Nagayo are some of the most talked-about scenes in wrestling history for a reason. The highlights of Dump’s career, parts of this match included, are among the greatest scenes, spectacles, and productions in the history of wrestling. Like this though, they are not often great matches.

I’m not saying everything has to be clean or perfectly executed.

You can find me on record praising enough gross and sloppy matches with less than ideal execution before and after this specific match. Something about these Dump matches never quite feels right for me outside of the big brawls and all of that. She herself is convincing and she never lacked for opponents who could match her, but the bits in between all of that are always far far far less intense and interesting. Add in the other 1980s AJW stylistic quirks that I don’t love — the heel formula in general with enough interference that even the most bullshit-positive fans in the world (feel like I’m at least close to that) begin to roll their eyes at some point, the spots where things basically reach a standstill for no clear reason and the match effectively re-sets in a kind of disorientating way — and I rarely find myself loving Dump Matsumoto matches themselves. One of the great And Then The Bell Rang wrestlers to ever live.

This is, I think, a perfect representation of that, and of Dump in general.

As with most Dump Matsumoto matches, I struggle with what to do with it as an actual wrestling match, but like most of the appropriately heralded Dump classics, it is also an undeniable chunk of violence, a hell of a spectacle, and some pristine pro wrestling ass pro wrestling. 

Everything that happens in this match, besides the actual wrestling sections of the match, whips an unbelievable and potentially illegal amount of ass.

When the match first begins, following bouts of shouting at each other on the microphone, Dump jumps Omori with the microphone and pounds her face with it until she bleeds. The other members of Bull’s Gokaku Domei faction get involved, Devil Masami at ringside stands up to them to try and protect Yukari and gets involved, Chigusa Nagayo and Dump get into their own separate pull apart in which Dump tries to cut off Chig’s hair again, and it lasts five or ten minutes, as they constantly shift between all of the different players. Things nearly calm down only for someone to explode out of the bunch and start some shit again, always in a different way and with a different result, ranging from Devil getting drawn into actual confrontation to poor Yukari getting some of her hair cut off to Chigusa getting on the mic herself to cut a promo that despite taking place in another language, I somehow not only understood completely but felt on a personal level. It is a truly exceptional piece of pro wrestling bullshit, probably the best angle and/or segment to happen in any promotion in wrestling in 1986.

The bell also rings, the match starts again after all of that, following Yukari demanding it after a rare DQ win is given to her, and aside from the famous scissors-in-the-arm bit that will turn up if you Google this match, it is simply good.

Dump and Yukari do not have a bad match by any means. It is incredibly uneven, and feels sometimes like they realized the match doesn’t actually have to do much for the overall package to succeed, and while that is a totally correct estimation, I still want more, you know? Especially when there’s also, kind of casually, a lot of good in the match itself. Things not always going perfectly creates a reasonably decent feeling of grit and fight, given that half the time it does feel intentional, and makes the successes of Omori that much more impressive. The use of the scissors is also great, even beyond the big stab in the bicep everyone always notes, as the struggle to get to Omori’s hair and the eventual removal of her signature rat tail leads perfectly into an ass beating comeback. This is always going to be talked about as the Dump Show, but Omori has a ton of fire and energy to her and makes for the most interesting part of the actual match. Aside from the big spot, where, you know, Dump stabs her in the arm with a pair of scissors and they stay in the arm. It is the major highlight and I think something people overlook the duller parts of the match for, but if you are going to have a spot like that, stabbing someone in the bicep and having the scissors stay in their arm after the fact is the way to do it.

Basically, if you are going to do something gross and violent as your big thing, fucking commit to it and do one of the grossest things in wrestling history. No half measures, make it a win, all of that. The spot itself feels like Dump in a nutshell to me. It is not preceded by something great, it overshadows a sort of mid-level effort, but it is so cool and nasty and interesting that, aside from actual analysis of the match itself that somebody paid for, it does not matter to me at all.

The doesn’t quite support the weight or the feeling or the pure energy of everything before it, nor the brawl that inevitably breaks loose back on the outside to result in a no contest, and that’s that. The match ends as it began, on the verge of a complete descent into lawlessness and anarchy, with more of its weight clearly on the infinitely cooler and more dangerous side of that dividing line.

Not a great match, but an unbelievable segment and complete package. Less a great match and more so a great chunk of pro wrestling. What it lacks as a match it makes up for in being near perfect Wrestling TV.

Throw in an ad for a VHS box set of the highlights of a Phillies season, and this is one of the best ECW Hardcore TV episodes of the 1980s.

Franz Van Buyten vs Dave Taylor, Catch auf dem Heiliggeistfeld (10/5/1986)

It’s another commission from longtime supporter @beenthrifty on Twitter. You too have the ability to pay me to watch and write about wrestling matches or make weird lists or review other things over at www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The running rate is $5 per match, plus an extra $3 if you’re clearly doing something to make me hate-write, because that’s not really fun for anyone and it should cost you more to put me through that. If you have some other sort of weird idea that’s more than just you counting the number of matches you want, feel free to hit the DMs. 

This was a PIRATE FIGHT. As best I can tell, it’s a chain match, but also one in which you win by climbing up and removing your opponent’s flag.

It’s a fascinating sort of a thing.

Not just because of the stipulation or because of the over half an hour runtime in a match like this, but in a production sense, mostly. The editing is very very weird, as it’s full of these constant fade transitions, but only to something seconds later, as nothing really changes. There’s also a lot of close zoom ins on butts and groins and faces in anguish as they stretch and pummel each other, which combined with the chain element and both men having these big studded leather gauntlets on their wrists for the chain, gives this the sort of feeling like we’re seeing the single most violent apartment wrestling contest of all time.

At the same time, it does rule.

Firstly, in a character sense, this is a wonderful pairing.

Taylor is one of the most authentically evil feeling aristocrat characters of the last forty or fifty years, and hits on it in a different way than others, always seeming just a level below the truly elite. As anyone knows, it’s those people, still striving for something and left unsatisfied but also still carrying an air of superiority around, that are the real psychopaths in our world. I’m more afraid of middle class people than I am of the extraordinarily wealthy, and Dave Taylor plays the perfect version of whatever a middle American owner of several jet ski dealership would be, translated to England in the 1980s.

Franz isn’t quite as easy to describe, but he’s such a stellar babyface. There’s something sort of Pedro Pascal adjacent about his hair and mustache combination, but he also has the most important element, and it’s this sort of weathered and worn look about his face and his body. There’s something elemental about him, I guess. I can’t tell you why he works in a specific sort of gut way like Dave Taylor, but between this kind of initially understated and then wildly dramatic performance and the way the crowd absolutely lives and dies with every movement forwards or backwards that he makes, he’s tremendous.

While they unfortunately and kind of bafflingly don’t ever bleed as a result of all the grinding of the chain on faces and bodies here, it’s a really brutal sort of a thing.

This match is wholly unique among chain matches, being this almost shoot-style adjacent struggle on the ground the first half. It’s a match full of neat and nasty chain tricks, using the chain to bend body parts in ways they’re not supposed to bend. grinding the chain over the eyes and the mouth to get out of things, things like that. When they start trying to climb up, they create these insanely dramatic struggles over the climb. The chain + pole match thing seems ridiculous, but they mine SO MUCH drama out of it. These incredibly powerful visuals of Taylor or Fritz leaning back as hard as possible and yanking on the chain, while the other struggles to stay up on the ropes, it’s a wonderful wonderful thing.

Eventually, Franz gets Taylor down by the ropes so it’s harder for him to yank back, and grabs Taylor’s dogshit flag to claim the win.

(I assume the video cuts off right before Franz whips it out and starts pissing on the British flag, which is what you’re supposed to do if you ever come across one out there in the wild.)

I appreciate what they did here more than I really love it, but it feels like the sort of thing everyone should see once.

***

Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton, NWA Great American Bash ‘86 Tour Day Four (7/5/1986)

It’s more from that Black Friday Sale. This one comes from Darren. You too can pay me to watch any wrestling matches that I haven’t already covered on this space, over at www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. That’s $5 per match, and if you want a full show or something weird, shoot me a DM and we can talk. 

This was a steel cage match for Flair’s NWA World Heavyweight Title.

It’s the end of a wonderful few month long feud, as Flair targeted the Rock and Roll Express to try and humiliate them since they were the most popular act in the territory, constantly insulting their manhood and claiming only little girls liked the Express while all the grown women loved Flair, only for both of them to stand up to him and for the crowd response to obviously disprove the champion’s boast. Flair wound up as the one sulking away in embarrassment, prompting a wonderful series against both, but targeting Morton in particular as the more popular and better wrestler. Famously, the Four Horsemen attacked Morton backstage and rubbed his face on the floor to break his nose and face.

More than any other Flair feud in the mid to late 1980s JCP heyday, it’s the best ever Ric Flair feud as a heel. Against Rhodes or Nikita or Luger or any people like that, Flair always wound up having a little bit of a point as they’d do something bad to him either first or in revenge, and you could buy the feud as an escalation of hostilities. Against Ricky Morton though, he’s a pure villain. Ricky Morton wasn’t a contender. The Rock and Roll Express just wanted to try and win back the World Tag Team Titles, but it’s a fight that Ric Flair went out of his way to pick. He’s not only a bully, but an extremely petty and jealous one, because it was barely ever about wrestling.

The match itself is incredible, and one of my personal favorites ever.

A gold standard for matches like this.

This match is the simplest thing in the world. You can set your clock to it. That’s not an insult either, because this is exactly what it should be and exactly how a match like this should unfurl itself. Clear role, a pure sort of violence, and two wrestlers who not only bounce off of each other perfectly as characters, but have a world of chemistry in the ring as well.

In a story sense, it’s perfect.

Ric Flair begins the match once again trying to intimidate Morton, first with his usual stalling and shit talking, and then feigning at the face. It never once works. Morton is once again ready for everything and his response to the plays at his damaged and bandaged face are to do the same thing to Ric Flair. As soon as Flair can though, he rips the protective mask off and maims Morton using the cage. Blood and guts, classic pro wrestling stuff. Morton gets his revenge and repays Flair in his own coin, before they’re both beat up and throwing fists wildly and trying to just escape. The specifics with the face injury and the revenge for it are unique, but in a larger sense, it’s classic title match in a cage stuff, and it’s done exceedingly well.

The performances themselves are off the charts as well.

Ric Flair is the definitive heel champion, and this match shows why it’s not just about the hair or chops or the obvious bumping/stooging performance. It’s about everything else, the way he reacts to everything and the way he carries himself at all times. Everyone else to follow in his footsteps feels phony to some degree or another, but this match is a textbook example of how at his best, Flair never does. He’s able to convey that he’s suddenly in over his head better than most, by being subtle about it, but without giving away the farm and going entirely into a pinball routine, so they preserve the underdog approach of Morton. He’s surprised more than he is in a real panic, someone who doesn’t want to have to give a 100% effort being forced into it, and being so so so so mad about it at all times. The gift of this existing in unedited form and with no commentary track is that you can hear Flair shouting “MOTHERFUCKER” after one of Ricky’s early big shots, or cursing at the audience or Morton whenever possible. It’s not a significant thing that the match needs to work, but it’s the sort of minor bit of realism that shows how pissed he is and in ways that feel realer than just making goofy faces all the time.

Morton’s work isn’t QUITE as important here, but there’s a reason “playing Ricky Morton” is a thing people say. They say it about tag team matches, of course, but Ricky Morton does a stellar job of playing himself in this match as well. The bleeding, the selling, the evocation of sympathy while also kicking a ton of ass one the comeback, all of it.

There have been a hundred or a thousand great Ric Flair performances against faces, and where the difference between a great match and one of the best ever comes in is the performance on the other end of that. Flair’s assault on the face is gruesome and heinous and absurdly mean-spirited in the application of its violence, but it falls flat if Morton doesn’t bring as much pure babyface fire and righteous energy back to Flair on the other side. Garnering sympathy is one thing, but who wants to root for someone who can’t win a fight?

In the end, Flair is spent as Morton beats the shit out of him. He couldn’t bully him, he couldn’t outwrestle him, and he couldn’t get dirty enough and just plain beat Morton up to prove dominance. It’s a lost fight ideologically, and it’s then that Flair decides to just drop him on purpose groin first on the top rope before then cheating on the cover too, barely holding onto the title. The specific finish itself is a beautiful thing, a feud entirely about masculinity coming down to a nut shot. Flair couldn’t prove anything in the end, and takes both the cheapest and most thematically perfect win possible.

It’s all bullshit anyways, so Flair might as well do everything possible to keep the only thing that really matters.

Pro wrestling, baby.

An all-time classic, and the best match of a very very very good year, both for Jim Crockett Promotions and wrestling at large.

****1/4

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Espanto Jr., UWA (8/31/1986)

This was a mask vs. mask match.

Placing this match is a little hard as I’ve seen it listed as EMLL, Monterrey, and UWA in different places, but UWA feels the most correct.

As so often happens with matches like this and with the lucha formula in general, our rudo (obviously Espanto Jr.) gets started far quicker than his opponent. Santito doesn’t get totally gobbled up at least and tries a little comeback before losing the first fall, but he does it all the same. Espanto Jr. traps him in the La Reinera (which some friends may know as the move preceding the Black Tornado Slam) and Santito gives up the first fall. The match then gets violent, and Santito puts forward a really great and sympathetic performance. Once Espanto Jr. has him more thoroughly beaten down, he begins tearing the mask and yanks the right eye hole wide open.

Prior to the last month or so (or whenever I watched that Santito/Blue Panther match from Japan), I’d never actually seen an El Hijo Del Santo match. I’m going through it in my head because like that can’t actually be true. I might have seen one of the Negro Casas matches at some point and I feel like I watched at least the 1996 three way, but I have virtually no memory of it. I have no attachment to this man at all, and yet because of the shadow he’ll grow to cast and the shadow his father casts, and the shadow that mask casts just as a piece of iconography, that visual feels incredibly wrong. I didn’t think I was attached to the mask at all, and yet, it just hit me weird in a way I really would not have expected. I don’t think it’s entirely a Dead Dad Bit, but it’s partially a Dead Dad Bit. It’s upsetting and while I’m sure it happened to his dad at some point, it’s the first time I’VE seen it. It feels like the most disrespectful thing I’ve seen yet in lucha libre, and appropriately, Santito is set entirely the hell off, and it’s tremendous. Terms like “fired up” and “energetic” don’t really feel appropriate, it feels like a guy who has never been this mad before and he’s going nuts. I use the word desperate a lot in describing these lucha de apuestas matches, but it’s desperate on a different level than simply someone being embarrassed by getting shaved or beaten soundly in a gigantic match. It feels bigger than a wrestling match, for whatever reason, and it does so much for the entire production. Following a dive outside, he hits a back senton in the ring to even it up. 

The best part of the match is the transition from the second to third fall, as El Hijo Del Santo walks around and paces, and he’s already great enough a seller to convey adrenaline wearing off and the pain setting back in. He gets his revenge with mask tearing of his own, similarly by the eyehole, and adds in even more violence by throttling this shitbag against the post until he has blood dripping over the top of the very similar opening. 

The nearfall run is wonderful. It’s as wonderful as the time it happened in and that the unfortunate video quality will allow, as it’s only here that tracking issues and some pauses crop up. What we have is some great nearfall work. Roll ups and big offense for the time, all of that. In some way, it feels like the match takes a step back here after the natural evolution to mask tearing and some blood, but it still all feels nasty and desperate. So while it holds the match back from becoming something really truly special to me, it never loses that belligerent kind of feeling. Santito dodges Espanto Jr. coming off the top and goes into the Camel Clutch. He cranks back real deep on the thing before Espanto Jr. taps away his mask. The timing on the submission is especially great, as he waits long enough before submitting to put himself over as actually tough and not just another coward rudo losing a part of himself, and also long enough that it does feel like as much of a struggle with himself over whether or not this is worth it to keep his mask on, before just not being able to keep answering in the affirmative. 

Not blowaway great, so much as a match with so many great little touches that elevate the formula up a little. It’s a great sign for the rest of this project that El Hijo Del Santo is already this good at matches like this.

***1/4

La Fiera vs. Babe Face, EMLL Super Viernes (8/15/1986)

This was a hair vs. hair match.

Wonderfully, Babe Face (aka Baby Face) is a long tenured rudo. He’s a classic sort of 1980s stout little shitheel, and his attempts to big dog this thing and start hot wind up pretty much immediately backfiring. Fiera fires back with a series of shoddily charming enzuiguris, a Missile Dropkick off the top, and a fist drop to go 1-0 within two minutes. The shoddy spin kicks and general attempts at some sort of kung fu (complete with commentary shouting “KUNG FU”) gets old fast, but thankfully, Babe Face is right up my goddamned alley. Babe opens it up with a ridiculously hard slap out of nowhere and begins owning Fiera with these really really hard fists to the head and liver, before getting revenge with a chickenwing Octopus for a quick second fall too, targeting Fiera’s taped up left shoulder.

Before long into the final fall, both men are bleeding and while this isn’t a big bloodbath or the sort of hyperintense and realistic brawl that I’ve loved so far in this project, the blood DOES help. The blood always helps. Babe has some sweet little pieces of arm work before it gets back into hard fighting, and even while Babe Face is trying to hold the advantage he somehow stumbled into, the blood adds so much to that. The arm work goes nowhere and has no consequence, but it’s good and there’s a believable reason for it to vanish. The entire match has very effectively portrayed Babe as a level below Fiera, and while he packs a real wallop behind his right hand, the rest of his body is comically lacking in comparison and he is kind of a coward. Wonderfully endearing character, but once he gets hit in the face again, he panics and goes back to regular fighting. Fiera is definitely the lesser of the two in comparison to the wonderfully engaging cheap shot artist, but he does have one really wonderful moment when he has the courage to miss a dive to this extent. 

However, Babe is still a true coward and fails to take advantage. Fiera comes back following a low blow, and Fiera counters a press slam into a victory roll, and he grabs the middle rope to sort of steal the win. Not undue after all of Babe Face’s cheating and general engagement in nonsense for the last fifteen minutes or so, but still not ideal. That’s pretty characteristic for this entire match. A whole lot to like, and one really wonderful rudo performance, but it’s all fairly rushed, and I would have liked a lot more of the sampler this served up.

***

Sangre Chicana vs. Perro Aguayo, EMLL Super Viernes (2/28/1986)

This was a hair vs. hair match.

Immediately, they begin throwing hands. I’ve watched a lot of lucha matches from 1984 and 1985 recently that didn’t grab me at any point, or that didn’t get there until the last fall, so I wound up not reviewing them. This immediately solved that problem, because absolutely nothing is better in professional wrestling than some hard god damned fighting. It’s all punching and scraping in the crowd, but Perro is just as good at throwing those big wide rights as Chicana ever was, aided on by the grimy feel of the singular shot from high up at an angle, and the natural grain of thirty four year old footage. 

It was a surprise to me to now see Sangre Chicana as decidedly not the crowd favorite, but he was just as great here as he ever was on the other side. Whereas his selling in those famous MS1 matches saw him play up the extent of his beating for sympathy and constantly trying to psych himself up to continue the fight, here he’s a stumbling mess, getting over the power and insanity of the attack from Aguayo. It’s my first time ever seeing Aguayo too, and he makes a tremendous impression. It’s almost all right hands and throwing stuff, but there’s such an energy and magnetism to the entire routine. He runs through Sangre Chicana when the match just s happens to find itself back inside, and wins the first fall with a real stiff and heavy looking back senton. 

The beating continues for the majority of the second fall, again spending most of the time outside to the point that any time they’re in the ring, it feels like an accident. Chicana is able to land a few of his big wide looping right hands when he swings wildly, but is too beat to shit to do more than send Perro reeling with them. Chicana still comes off as tough as hell for landing them and for surviving so long, it’s just that Perro so convincingly puts himself forward as the toughest and baddest wrestler alive in this match. He’ll walk into punches from Sangre Chicana less because of a mistake on his part, and more because he just isn’t afraid. Chicana is able to land more and more after dodging Perro running into the post, and he scores a submission with a bow-and-arrow style crab wristlock, very reminiscent of the hold he used to win falls in those MS1 matches two and three years before. 

The only real weakness in this match is that it isn’t those matches. The camera isn’t quite close enough to capture all of the bloodletting and gristle that this has to offer, and Perro Aguayo isn’t QUITE as great in his role here as Sangre Chicana was there, as in this isn’t one of the ten greatest babyface performances in the history of professional wrestling. There’s some repetition to be found too, some time that could be cut, but it’s also really REALLY easy to read that as part of what this match gets the most correct, which is the increasing desperation as things get more and more out of control, as both men completely degenerate into the toughest and worst versions of themselves. In addition to the big moves, Chicana is desperate enough to fight out of a hold with a headbutt to the groin. The big dives happen, and they’re constantly collapsing on and off of each other.

Following the big nasty fight outside, they wind up again back inside, and it’s some of the most desperate lucha des apuestas third fall fighting I’ve ever seen. Each man constantly collapses over after landing a shot blindly, they kick out and then just so happen to roll on top for their own cover. Each instance is believable enough that a spot like that that’s usually fairly routine and perfunctory (save a Jumbo/Misawa and all ensuing callbacks to it) is something that I genuinely bit on as a finish. They bother both with callbacks to the initial fall as the back senton fails, but also to Chicana/MS1, with both men trying for variations on that crab/wristlock style combination, only to never be able to hold onto it for long. Perro is able to explode a few times to stay alive, but never for long to cover following those moments or long enough to follow through with something bigger. His desperation keeps showing, AS IT ALLOWS CHICANA TO FINALLY SNATCH AN INSIDE CRADLE FOR THE WIN. 

I like to know as little as possible about these matches, and do research (show names, locations, pictures, move names if I’m lucky enough) after the match, so I had no idea that was coming. I’ve gotten used to a pattern of tecnico success stories to close these matches out, and while Chicana only ever seemed like a proper rudo during a moment when he broke a hold with a headbutt to Perro’s tube, it was a real shocker to see that. For as much as Perro won me over on first sight here, Chicana’s still someone who’s become someone I really love here, and it was a delight to see him get his ass kicked this severely and still come out on top. The comparisons the match itself drew to Chicana/MS1 wound up helping a lot after the fact. For me doing this project, it immediately put Perro over for being more of a badass than Chicana, and while the narrative purity of that match made it one of the greatest matches of the decade, I loved how well this did when going for the opposite. Aside from the low headbutt, it never felt like a tecnico vs. rudo fight, so much as a situation that got out of hand. Both men got meaner and more desperate. It wasn’t a coward paying for his initial hubris, it was a more grounded and realistic fight between two absolute killers. Sangre Chicana just happened to keep his head by the end, while Perro’s desperation and fatigue overcame him. It’s not a moral lesson, but it’s still a match that clearly has a point of view and something to say, in addition to being just violent and cool as hell. 

***1/2