Blood, Hair and Masks (as we return to the 80s Lucha)

La Fiera v Babe Face (Hair v Hair) (EMLL, 8/15/86)

I was quite shocked at how little this was doing for me early on considering how good the lead-ins had been. It's not that it was bad because it certainly wasn't, but for whatever reason it wasn't totally clicking. Babe Face is a little bruiser and has a face you wouldn't tire of smacking, and it was pretty clear Fiera wasn't about to tire of it any time soon either. Fiera's spin kicks were landing on point and there was one to the back of the head that looked brutal. A guy like Babe Face though, he'll find a way back into the fight one way or another. I think when he started gaining a foothold was when I found myself really getting into this. I'm not sure if Fiera had a bad shoulder coming in or he hurt it during the match, but Babe goes after it and from there it starts to get pretty great. Fiera is a man who will take a ludicrous bump for our pleasure and he landed face-first on several of them here. The first one was a result of Babe just picking him up wheelbarrow style and throwing him through the ropes, then he almost crashed and burned on a tope, and maybe the nastiest of all was when he ate nothing but mat on a top rope splash. You'd think torpedoing the floor would probably be worse, but then you've never seen La Fiera headbutt a canvas from turnbuckle height. I loved the finish as well. Babe Face knew exactly what he was doing with that headbutt and if he thinks anybody's buying that it was a gut shot he's a fool. Question Fiera's morality if you like, but put a man's hair on the block and a shot to the balls will tip even the best of us over the edge.


El Hijo del Santo v Espanto Jr. (Mask v Mask) (Plaza de Toros Monumental, 8/31/86)

How about this for a stone cold classic? It started out a little differently from your other big mask matches of the era. You wouldn't exactly call it title match build because they weren't doing matwork as such, but other than a brief flurry of Santo offence Espanto utterly dominated this for almost two straight falls and he largely did it through wrestling. He was a man on a mission in that first caida especially, throwing Santo around the ring with some of the most violent snapmares there have ever been. Santo was so overwhelmed that he tried on several occasions to take a powder. Twice he managed it and I loved how Espanto came right out after him to throw him back in. There was no bullshit about it, he wasn't messing around taking any chances on the floor, his family's mask was on the line and he would best Santo in the ring. The other times Santo tried to leave he never even made it past the ropes, dogged as Espanto was. Santo kneeling on the floor after the primera as kids in their replica masks come to lend encouragement is a beautiful little moment and something that pretty well encapsulates lucha libre. Not that those kids made any immediate difference. Espanto couldn't care less and picked up right where he left off. Santo being the master of the comeback had the people on strings, and when he finally started connecting with those kneelifts the roof came off. His tope was obviously a corker, but Espanto's Fuerza bump could've been disastrous the way he landed on his knees with his ankles all twisted. It was an insane bump. By the midpoint of the tercera both guys are staggering around bloody, masks torn, running on fumes. Santo dragging Espanto across the ring by the eye sockets of his shredded mask is one of the best visuals I've seen in ages and he truly looked like a man who was at the end of his tether. The tape clearly didn't survive in somebody's garage all those years without any damage because we get a cut or two towards the end - including one where we miss a huge Santo dive, which really is the worst time for a tape jump - but you soon make peace when Santo about folds Espanto in half with the meanest camel clutch you ever did see. This really feels like one of the twenty best matches in wrestling history.