Category Archives: Lucha

Texano vs. Ricky Santana
September 30, 1994
CMLL
Hair vs. Hair
*** 3/4

CMLL stretched its anniversary celebration out over two weeks in 1994. The first week saw Mocho Cota drop his hair to Negro Casas in a match that some people love and others don’t. I haven’t written a review for that match yet, but my opinion on the match probably falls somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. I thought it was fine but not a great Casas match, well below the Fiera hair match from the year before, and not appreciably better than this run-of-the-mill Casas hair match. The match also didn’t draw (reportedly 4,000 fans were in attendance at Arena Mexico). CMLL did a better job (in all facets) the following week as they drew 9,000 on September 30^th for a card headlined by a pair of hair matches – Scorpio Jr. vs. Silver King and Texano vs. Ricky Santana.

The latter was the main event of the show and in my opinion, the best of the three 61^st Anniversary hair bouts.

The Cota/Casas bout gets praised – it would seem – in part because it checked the boxes on what a lot of folks look for in a good pro wrestling bout (lucha or otherwise). Casas sold really well, Cota’s attack was focused, and the match told a straight forward and easily digestible story. I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that. My problem was that the match was it was particularly exciting. Total match time was 21:34. That’s a long match in general and really long for a single fall. Cota’s offense – while focused – wasn’t all that engaging and if not for Casas being so over, I am not sure they would have been able to keep the crowd. Straight-forward storytelling and limb work is great, but only if creates an interesting match.

What the shortcomings of Cota/Casas have to do with Texano/Santana is that the latter bout also opted for a straight forward approach. Although CMLL put up a “Primera Caida” graphic after the opening whistle, there is only one fall here. That was probably a smart decision as I can see how running a trio of 3-fall hair matches over an eight day period could be tricky. Unlike the Casas bout there is blood here (Texano’s) but not a ton of it. Texano and Santana don’t really brawl and there is far less biting in the entire 20-minutes than there is in the first five minutes of a Satanico hair match. One guy gets in the majority of the offense while the other refuses to go down without a fight. The heat is good, but nothing great. The presentation is rather straight forward.

The reason I prefer this straight forward match over Casas & Cota’s straight forward match is that Texano & Santana do a much better job in creating a match that stays interesting while working within a relatively mundane structure. There are two reasons for that: (1) the choice to have the rudo (Santana) fight from behind for the win and (2) Texano’s excellent offensive performance.

When I write that the match was “straight forward” in its presentation, that comes with the relatively significant caveat that the good guy took much of the match which obviously is not the norm. Texano is ahead most of the match and it is his rudo opponent that gets the occasional comeback before stifled. It is also Santana who staves off defeat time and time again even when it looks to be a formality. Such a brazen flipping of the norms could be an issue, but it wasn’t here. There is no denying that Santana is the bad guy. He begs off when he gets in his trouble (he does not valiantly stand up to Texano). The Puerto Rican takes shortcuts when afforded the opportunity, like when he posts Texano on the outside. Equally as important is that Texano is the clear-cut fan favorite. The crowd is behind him. Its Texano that bleeds, not Santana. Santana’s quick comebacks led to fired up comebacks from Texano (who hits a pair of topes in the match). The match is an excellent example of a tecnico controlled match that doesn’t make the rudo look sympathetic. The match was far more interesting to me simply because the tecnico remained in control than it would have been had Santana worked him over for twenty minutes.

Which leads into the second point – Texano was an offensive machine in this match. It is impossible to imagine that Santana could have brought the same level of high-level, varied offense to the match had he controlled the pace rather than Texano. I have been disappointed by very few Texano performances and this is another notch in his belt. They start the bout with almost a Riki Choshu-inspired start. They go right for the high impact stuff and Texano lands a few nice looking forearms to the face. Throughout the match he goes back to submission holds to try to put Santana away. While I am sure he repeats a couple of them, he has such a wide variety that it never feels repetitive. In addition to the two topes, Texano rolls out a top rope suplex, belly to belly suplexes, sentons, planchas, many pinning combinations and a bunch of other stuff. He’s an offensive machine here and really never slows down. The Casas/Cota match suffered in my eyes because the guy better suited to have a long stretch of offense (Casas) played defense the entire match while a guy ill-equipped to fill 20 minutes of offense (Cota) was tasked with doing just that. Texano and Santana got it right. They had to flip the script a bit to get there, but having Texano control the match was absolutely the right decision.

The body of the match set up the finish rather well. Texano can’t find that put away move and Santana reverses a move into a cradle of his own for the pin. One of my favorite aspects of traditional lucha is the idea that a well-executed hold can finish a match at any time. Texano might have been in control 90% of the match, but his inability to executed a finishing hold gave Santana a chance. Even though Santana’s win was quick, it was still earned because he had to fight off Texano for so long to get to that point. Both guys walk away looking relatively strong. Texano had the stronger performance, but Santana still gets the reward of taking his hair.

Not a classic hair match by any means, but well worth watching. Texano’s offensive output is noteworthy and the I think the unique structure will appeal to those who are perhaps a bit apathetic towards the basic hair match structure.

Mr. Niebla vs. Dr. Wagner Jr.
September 3, 1997
CMLL
CMLL World Light Heavyweight
*** 1/2

The 17^th place finisher in the DVDVR 90’s Lucha poll was this CMLL Light Heavyweight title match from Arena Coliseo.

I cannot imagine anyone defending that ranking now. Too many other excellent matches have surfaced in the decade and a half since. Others have experienced a boost in popularity upon re-watch and with the benefit of hindsight. Dr. Wagner Jr. versus Mr. Niebla is not one of the twenty best matches from Mexico during the 1990’s; it might not be one of the top thirty or fifty in that category. It is, however, fairly obvious why this title match was highly thought of by at least some of the DVDVR poll voters.

The match’s appeal is in its variety. The starts of the first and third falls are wrestled on the mat. The mat work isn’t superlative but it’s the kind of fun and breezy stuff that one would expect to find in an average 90’s New Japan juniors match (Wagner Jr. toured with New Japan for the first time in his career fives months earlier for the Best of the Super Juniors tournament). Wagner’s entire offense – even off the mat – has a decidedly New Japan junior feel to it. There is some limb work (Niebla briefly has his leg worked on), strong near falls, and even a Jerry Lawler-esque mid-match mic spot from Wagner.

The best stuff in the match involves Niebla’s agility spots and dives. If anyone only knows of Niebla in his current state as the oft-suspended overweight comedic rudo, they are only getting half the story. Early career Niebla was a promising light heavyweight with an impressive amount of athleticism. He pulls off a sequence of flips and tumbles early in the second fall that look just as impressive in 2017 as they did in 1997. Wagner doesn’t seem interested in doing any dives but Niebla more than makes up for it with four of his own. The first three are all tope suicidas but each one brings its own twist. The first is a straight up, the second is done in the corner after Wagner momentarily evades, and the third sees Niebla fly over the top rope catching Ciclon Ramirez-like air in the the process. Niebla looked every bit the part of the high-flying tecnico successor to Atlantis and Lizmark (his trios partners at the time) in this match. Watching Niebla outperform Wanger here makes where Mr. Niebla’s current states– both personally and professionally – all that more upsetting. He truly is one of the many tragic figures in pro wrestling.

The match has a couple of rough moments but they move by them relatively quickly. The first fall is nothing while the second is a little better thanks to some cool spots from Niebla. The final fall stood out for its lack of formula. All of those different style elements mentioned above are found in the third fall and that variety partially made up for the lack of truly standout work (Niebla’s dives notwithstanding). If you don’t go into this expecting to really see the 17^th best lucha libre match of the 90’s, you’ll probably like what you see. The variety is enough to keep your attention and Niebals major spots in the match are truly impressive.

El Dandy vs. La Fiera
November 27, 1992
CMLL
Hair vs. Hair
*** 1/4 

One of those good – perhaps very good – matches that just wasn’t as good as I had hoped that it would be.

The culmination of El Dandy and La Fiera’s one singles feud is similar in quality to Bestia Salvaje vs. La Fiera from 1997, with the difference being that those two – even with a longer and better build as well as additional match time – did about all that they could be reasonably expected to do. El Dandy was one of the best wrestlers in the world during in 1992. He had one great hair match every year from 1988 through 1990 (Pirata Morgan, Emilio Charles and Satanico, respectively), good (although with diminishing returns) Satanico hair rematches in 1991 and 1992, and a just below “great” level hair match with Charles in 1993. For Fiera’s part, he wrestled a strong Monterrey chain match with Jerry Estrada and his pair of great 1993 hair matches (Sangre Chicana, Negro Casas) to show us that he could wrestle a great brawl during this timeframe. The fact that this feud and match felt so inconsequential and standard is disappointing because a proper feud with a major blow off between these two in 1992 could have (should have) been great.

Part of the reason the match left me slightly disappointed was how one sided the match was. In keeping with tradition, Dandy was jumped by Fiera on his way to the ring before he had a chance to remove his ring jacket. Fiera controls the rest of the match and that’s no exaggeration. Dandy gets a couple of hope spots and quick comebacks to set up the 2^nd and 3^rd fall finishes. It is Fiera controlling the offense for all three falls with Dandy more or less getting in the bare minimum necessary in order to capture a pair of falls.

I get the reasoning for the lopsidedness. Dandy was a big deal in 1992 CMLL, particularly when the AAA schism left him as one of the better workers and more over tecnicos on the CMLL roster. Dandy beat Negro Casas for the vacant CMLL World Middleweight title in July in an all-time classic and took the hair of career long rival El Satanico in September. The highlights of La Fiera’s yea (aside from the feud with Dandy) were losing handily (as a sub for Bestia Salvaje) to Atlantis in a title match on the Arena Mexico Anniversary card, losing a brief early year feud to Black Magic (Norman Smiley), and rounding out upper card trios matches. There was a gulf between where Dandy and Fiera were on the CMLL totem pole. I would imagine the one-sided nature of the match was an attempt to convince the live crowd that Dandy might actually lose. Of course, all it really did was telegraph the finish because they went too far in that direction as to make it obvious what their intention was.

Even the memorable moments – Dandy countering a DDT into a pretty bridging suplex to win the first fall, Dandy’s tope, a pair of signature Fiera high back drop bumps out of the ring, the usual major bumps from both luchadores – are not necessarily things I would take as superlatives (at least on their own). Everything about the match was standard fare. Maybe that is exactly what they were going for. The decision to not attempt to wrestle an epic hair match when the circumstances call for more of a midlevel hair match is probably the right call. Even then, I think they could have done more here to make this match feel different/better than something like Salvaje/Fiera or Winners/Marabunta. For example, Fiera’s July 1993 hair match with Sangre Chicana – while not necessarily a throwaway given the value of Chicana’s hair – was a means to an end to get Fiera ready for Casas. For whatever reasons, they didn’t go all out in that one but built a very entertaining match around stalling and selling. That match had a hook. I am not sure what this match is.

I should note that as Ohtani’s Jacket points out in his review, the October 30^th trios that builds to the hair match is very good and heated. I don’t mean to give the impression that the hair match was slapped together – it was built to and as that match demonstrates, built to well at some points. That match works because it is built around Fiera picking at Dandy’s arm and Dandy (as always) being awesome at working from behind, selling, and making spirited comebacks. The blow off could have used those same or similar elements.

In isolation, this was still a good match. If a pair of modern mid-card CMLL wrestlers had the exact same match today I would be rather satisfied with it. Unfortunately, 1992 El Dandy and La Fiera are not you run-of-the-mill 2016 luchadores. Their one big singles match should have been more than merely a good/very good hair match. It is difficult to get past the fact that it was not much more because the talent and build was certainly there to make it so.

Sangre Azteca vs. Dragon Rojo Jr.
December 16, 2008
CMLL
Mexican National Welterweight
*** 3/4 

I am not sure how this match was viewed at the time. It appears on the list of recommended matches for Dragon Rojo Jr. at Cage Match. Matches don’t randomly end up there, so somebody somewhere at some time must have praised the match. The closest I could find to praise, however, was a single third place vote for the match in the 2008 Tapatia Awards. Otherwise – not much. So maybe I am out to lunch here, but I really enjoyed this match on first viewing and its up there with the better late 2000’s lucha I’ve watched.

The first fall – which runs about nine minutes – has this really interesting step-by-step progression to it. Azteca and Rojo Jr. begin with basic, almost US style exploratory holds. They lock up, work hammerlocks, waist lock, and similar holds, and are either standing or kneeling the entire time. That period of the fall is as ordinary as it sounds but it is also not boring. They countered and switched up holds enough to keep my attention. I much prefer that sort of slow burn hold-intensive start (even if the holds are not anything special) to a WWE-like start where the guys sprint out of the block only to strap on chin locks at certain points for no reason. This portion of the match lasts for about two and a half minutes without either wrestle truly establishing control. That changes after the second or third restart. Rojo establishes control by grabbing ahold of his opponent’s arm and not letting go no matter what. I love “holding onto a body part” segments in matches, especially when the escape attempts are as interesting as they were here. Azteca tries several neat attempts at escaping Rojo’s grasp, but has no such luck. After about a minute, he frees himself with a monkey flip leading to another reset.

That monkey flip escape marks the midway point of the first fall, if not as much in actual time elapsed as in momentum. When they get going again, there is a greater sense of urgency. The pace quickens slightly but even more than that the holds become more dangerous (and possibly fall ending) and they start to roll out the pinning holds as well. Essentially, they work what I guess would be the “usual” lucha title match opening fall from that point on. I like that they built to that stuff rather than just jumping into it. It made their good-not-great submission wrestling mean more because it was a step forward from what came before. Abdominal stretches and octopus holds are personal favorites of mine and they did plenty of them here. With about a minute left in the fall, they start running the ropes a little more while still working stalemate stuff. Rojo never actually gains a sustained advantage, but instead catches his charging opponent with his signature rebound power bomb to take the fall. I liked this fall a ton but for the slow build and the quality of the offense.

Both the pace and type of offense take another step forward to start the second fall. The tentativeness is entirely out the window. Dragon Azteca shined during this fall when he was on offense. It is a short fall – only a couple of minutes – but Azteca makes each move count. He lands a beautiful spinning kick (Ultimo Dragon style) that hits as well as I remember seeing that move ever land. For the finish, he counters a top rope jump from Rojo with a drop kick. That’s a move that at best looks good 50% of the time. That counter led directly to the second fall pin so fortunately for Azteca, this was one of those times where the move was timed and executed really well.

There is not a whole lot to write about the third fall other than it was a super solid and polished fall that felt like an appropriate capper. It is about two and a half minutes into the final frame before we get the first dive of the match. It is worth waiting for as Rojo hits a beautiful spring board cross body block going from inside the ring to outside. Both wrestlers pull the other away as they attempt to get back into the ring, which becomes important later on at the finish. Azteca ultimately gets the better of it and rather than immediately re-enter the ring, he one-ups Rojo Jr. by doing a plancha from the top rope down to the arena floor. A lot of pinning holds for near falls late along with a few more major flying moves, including a fine tope by the challenger. They do one of those “slap each other from our knees while exhausted” bits shortly after the tope. I thought it worked here. It felt earned based on what came before it. I was also a fan of how they teased the finishes of the first two falls. First Dragon Rojo catches Azteca again with the rebound power bomb but Azteca struggles out before Rojo can slam him to the mat. Later on Azteca once again counters a top rope move by Rojo with a drop kick. The fans buzz for the move but Azteca is slower to cover this go-around which allows Rojo to kick out.

Not everyone will love the finish and maybe that is the reasons (or one of the reasons) why I found very little praise for it. Azteca lands a cannonball dive off of the ring apron for the fourth and final dive. They don’t stay down on the floor very long – not noticeably longer than before – but after briefly slapping back and forth while standing outside the ring, they suddenly notice that the referee is almost through the count out. By the time they slide back into the ring – at the exact same time – the referee has finished his count and rules the match a double count out. In theory this was an interesting and logical finish. They worked the match in an even manner, they got across the idea that they were near spent, and the moves used to end the first two falls had already failed in the third. All of that was a strong way of building to a double count out finish. The problem is they sort of seemed to combine two reasons (tiredness and being distracted by their battle on the floor) for getting counted out into one not entirely satisfying excuse for the finish. It was a finish that made sense given the body of the match, it just seemed a little rushed which meant they didn’t get the big “oh no!” count out reaction from the audience that they were probably looking for.

That is a small complaint for what I thought was a very strong title match.  I would be interested in reading other opinions on the match. My guess it the lack of opinions is that it is an overall solid match that is neither impressively progressive nor worked in a completely traditional manner. It is somewhere in the middle – which I personally enjoy as long as the execution is on point – and I could see how that might lead to general apathy.