Sangre Chicana vs. Cibernetico
April 16, 1999
AAA
Campeon De Campeons
* 1/2
What we have here is a heavyweight title match that makes me long for those halcyon days of 1993 and 1994 when Konnan and Cien Caras were involved in AAA’s heavyweight championship feud.
To be fair, that is way too harsh on Sangre Chicana who wrestled about as good of a match as could be hoped for given the circumstances. This might be 1999 AAA but it is still a title match and you can rest easy knowing that Chicana was going do his damnedest to wrestle the match like one. Chicana works basic holds at the beginning – and feeds basic holds to Cibernetico – so there was some semblance of a slow burn. The nature of the holds and the feeling out process were more like what you might get in a Diamond Dallas Page match from around the same time rather than a classic lucha one. Still, I appreciate that we got a couple of minutes of straight up work before the shenanigans even if it was relatively basic. The forty-eight year old also busted out an excellent tope and generally worked hard whenever he was afforded the opportunity to do so. If nothing else, the match demonstrates that a post-prime Chicana still had some utility and was able to work some entertaining sequences under less than ideal circumstances.
Honestly, this match wasn’t even totally Cibernetico’s fault either. I mean, it was and it wasn’t. It was because Cibernetico just wasn’t good in the match. He might have only been twenty four years old but he was a seven year veteran at this point. There is no excuse for him to look as bad as he did here when doing anything other than holding onto basic holds. It isn’t his fault because he generally followed Chicana’s lead, worked hard, and was generally in the right places at the right time. It is not Cibernetico’s fault that he got pushed well beyond his talent because he was a bigger guy and someone WWE at least briefly showed an interest in so he was never a complete dud. He worked hard here even if the results weren’t anything special.
The blame for this one – as it often does with AAA – goes to the booking, presentation, and officiating.
Psicosis served as Cibernetico’s second and from what I can tell, didn’t wrestle on this card. Maybe there were political reasons for that but I am inclined to state it is merely an example of 1999 AAA using the same luchadores almost as poorly as 1999 WCW did. That’s quite the indictment but true in this case. In his WCW TV matches right before and right after this show, Psicosis had a seven minute Nitro match with Billy Kidman and a well-regarded twenty minute four corners match with Blitzkrieg, Juvi, and Kidman on Nitro where Psicosis won his first Cruiserweight championship. Meanwhile the best AAA could do with him is have him second Cibernetico. In this match, Psicosis role is to interfere liberally. It is a job he clearly takes seriously judging on the twenty or so times he sticks his nose into the match.
In general, well done interference doesn’t bother me even in a title match. This was far from well done and drew no heat at all. Psicosis got involved in plain sight of referee Pepe Casas so many times, sometimes to the point of hoping into the ring right in front of Casas. Charly Manson seconded Sangre Chicana and did the same. I know lucha referees often appear incompetent but this was too much. Not to pile on poor Pepe (who probably should have been retired by this point) but he was also out of position and late in counting a number of pin falls which certainly didn’t help.
Of course it would not be a post-1995 AAA match without a ton of run-ins for little good reason. Cibernetico had enough of Manson getting involved and gorilla pressed him into the crowd (which besides for Chicana’s tope might have been the most impressive move of the match). This drew out the other members of Los Vatos Locos to save Charly. They started brawling in the ring and were quickly joined by Cibernetico’s compadres in Los Vipers. A big brawl ensued, Cibernetico got his mask ripped at one point, and Casas arbitrarily awarded the match to Cibernetico. The whole thing was just a mess.
This entire match – like many matches post-AAA’s early golden period – is a microcosm for everything they did wrong. This match might have never been more than average but based on what we saw when Cibernetico and Chicana were left alone to their own devices, I am positive it would have gotten there had the booking not been an overbooked, confusing mess. If you want to see a near fifty year old Chicana carry a wrestler half his age before the match descends into madness then check it out. Otherwise, the match is same old self-destructive AAA nonsense.
