Tag Archives: Career vs. Career

Cien Caras, seconded by Universo Dos Mil, defeated Konnan el Barbaro, seconded by La Mascarita Sagrada, two falls to one in a total elapsed time of 12:14. By the time the match started, it was almost 12:30, and the Metro (subway), which is how the huge majority of the fans got to the arena, stops running at 1 :30. So, they rushed through the match. Actually, the card started at 8:30 and they completed 7 matches in 4 hours, with only 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 29 seconds of timed action. So you can see the gaps between matches, the concert, the entrances, etc., were half the show. The match itself has already been reviewed to death but for official purposes, the first fall went 4:32 (Caras won via typical rudo roughness), the second went 2:55 (Kennan won via pinfall with a small package — una enredadera), and the third went 4:47 (Caras won via count out of the ring). My only other comment was, was it my imagination or did the Mexican lucha libre media cover Konnan’s loss with unbridled joy — “Adios, Kannan” was everywhere. I wonder how much of the media’s wishful thinking represented a shoot.

After the third match on the card, Jake Roberts was brought to ringside. Even though he had done a few heel promos on television, he was largely cheered at first as being an American superstar. Some people recognized him and others didn’t. He then did an interview talking about how he was the best wrestler around and put down the country of Mexico and Mexican wrestling and wrestlers in general. He then said he wanted to challenge the winner of the main event, who he hoped would be Cien Caras, and grabbed his crotch and gave the crowd the “up yours” which resulted in chants of “culero” (asshole) at him. Roberts watched the rest of the card from a fifth row seat and the TV cameras constantly showed him sneering at the quality of the wrestling and I heard raves about his facial expressions all night in getting himself over instantaneously.

Surprisingly, the crowd was split when the main event started. An estimated 40 to 50 percent of the crowd was cheering Caras vehemently. The kids, particularly the teenagers, and the women were cheering for Konnan. The older fans, particularly the men, were heavily pro-Caras. The older fans are more traditional in that they like the older wrestlers that they are familiar with rather than the new flashes in the pan, and are also more nationalistic. Caras is Mexican and Konnan isn’t, and Caras even though a heel has been around for about 19 years and is a fixture on top. They were heavily pro-Caras and there were a lot of Mexican flags waving for him. As you can figure with that kind of a crowd mix, it was Perro Aguayo, who is popular with every audience, that received the most thunderous cheers on the show. Konnan came out surprisingly with midget wrestler Mascarita Sagrada as his second, which made sense based on what the storyline was. In the third fall of the main event, after several near falls, Roberts came to ringside. He acted like he was trying to give Caras advice but Caras kept ignoring him. As Caras finally jumped out of the ring to confront Roberts, Konnan attacked Caras. Sagrada, who was in the vicinity, was then jumped by Roberts and punted around the ring. At this point heel Caras goes to save Sagrada (who wound up doing a stretcher job) and he and Roberts exchange blows until Roberts hits him with a black glove (remnants of the late referee Gran Davis) and gives him a DDT. Konnan and Roberts started brawling outside the ring with Konnan getting the advantage and while this was going on, Caras’ brother threw him into the ring and Konnan was counted out, losing the match. Roberts never actually entered the ring because promoter Antonio Pena didn’t want to test prospective problems because he didn’t have a work permit and had he interfered in the ring, the EMLL could have possibly caused him governmental headaches.

At this point a lot of the kids and women started crying, and promoter Antonio Pena cued a song called “Las Galodrinas” to be played over the speakers. The song is famous in the country as the saddest song there is and reminds people of funerals and other sad occasions and many people cry whenever they hear the song, so before you knew it, about 30,000 people were crying, making it one of the most emotional finales to a wrestling show ever. As Konnan left the ring for the “final” time (as if), he was hugging the kids who were crying. This all took place between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m. since the show lasted so long. After the show there was so much heat that there were an estimated 5,000 fans waiting outside the heel dressing room at 3 a.m. for Roberts, before they finally got the crowd to disperse and could get Roberts safely out of the building. Obviously, based on the finish, Konnan will be returning at some point, but it looks as though that won’t be for about two months. After the show at about 2 a.m., with several thousand fans near the face dressing room, they already began hinting of a letter writing campaign to bring back Konnan, so I guess that’s the direction they are going. The very tentative plan seems to be for Konnan vs. Cien Caras in a hair vs. hair match in the same building around September or October, and holding off the inevitable Konnan vs. Jake Roberts Mexico City match until Triple Mania II.