La Parka v Jerry Estrada (AAA, 2/17/95)
The purists may suggest that this has a bit too much horse shit for a title match. I don't think I've ever considered myself a purist of anything in any context but I do know what I like in my lucha title matches. It did have a pretty sizable chunk of horse shit, it must be said. But these are two of wrestling's great horse shit merchants so overall an extremely fun time was had by all, or at least by me which is really all I care about. I loved the primera and honestly, if it followed that track for the remainder then I might've found myself calling this one of the top AAA title matches of the 90s. I can watch Estrada and Parka rile a crowd up all day and before they'd even laid a finger on each other everyone was whipped into a nice frenzy. Estrada wanted the crowd's admiration and got none of it, kicking the ropes in frustration. So he slapped Parka hard enough to drop him and celebrated like it was victory unto itself. 20 years later Parka would've responded with as much violence as you could imagine and probably more to boot, but here he was composed and merely flipped Estrada the bird an inch from his face. Estrada lashed out again, kicking the turnbuckle rather than the ropes, hurting himself in the process. If they'd worked the next five minutes like that I'd have been happy enough, but instead they got to actually wrestling and that was pretty great too. Even if nothing was mind-blowingly fancy or intricate it was cool as a reminder that both guys can work holds. There was a nice sense of struggle; a few sequences where you figured you knew what was about to follow only for Estrada to not budge on something or Parka to drop to his back rather than give up an arm, little things that I thought were really cool. Most of the Parka I've watched recently is fun WCW midcard Parka or later career blood-soaked maniac Parka. I couldn't even tell you the last time I watched title match Parka. Estrada is a favourite of mine anyway and I always like title match Jerry Estrada. The Lizmark match was far closer to what you'd call a traditional title match, at least in that he behaved himself and chose to work the thing clean, and while he most certainly veered in another direction the longer this went he was more straight-laced in the opening fall. He'd only been wrestling a few years longer than Parka but it was El Puma who felt like the veteran here. The crowd undoubtedly got to him, but their scorn never truly shackled him and he got over it quickly enough. Even if he WANTED their approval it was obvious he didn't NEED it (and after a few minutes I think he stopped even wanting it). Parka played to them in a way where it was obvious he cared and maybe more than he should've, even for a top drawer showman. At one point he spent too long pissing about dancing and Estrada took his head off. The ending to the primera was spectacular, as it looked like Parka learned his lesson and realised maybe the key to the fans' heart was winning, choosing NOT to celebrate after sending Estrada to the floor and instead following up with a bullet tope. He flew into this thing a little higher than normal, almost horizontal above Estrada's head, and it about bent him backwards over the railing. Then they throw the curveball, with Parka trying to follow up in the corner and Estrada casually moving, Parka flying into the ring post. You could see Estrada drew him into it and it was one of those moments that showed his edge in experience. The segunda and tercera never really followed suit and there was a whole bunch of interference from the cornermen, particularly Estrada's, Misterioso. You'd think it was Parka who'd won the first fall the way Estrada and his second went to the cheating because they were choking Parka almost immediately. Volador over in Parka's corner was losing the plot and of course Tirantes was getting pulled all over the place. I was worried it might get a wee bit long in the tooth so I guess I am a title match purist after all because I wanted some more of the wrestling from the primera. They won me around with the finish to the fall, though. If Parka learned a lesson earlier about not playing as much to the crowd then here he went further and took a page out of whatever book Estrada was reading when he drew Parka in before. Parka knew Misterioso was going to grab his legs as he hit the ropes, so he jumped to avoid it, spun around to call Misterioso on it, and when Estrada tried to capitalise Parka knew it was coming. Estrada wound up cleaning out his second and from there Parka pressed home the advantage to tie it up. The tercera leaned even further into the shenanigans and by the end both men saw their surest route to victory as the one that convinced Tirantes they'd been kicked in the balls. Neither had of course, but Parka was very convincing and I'll say one thing, the crowd fucking loved it. That first caida is the sort of cool look at these two in a title match if you want to highlight their versatility. The rest of the match might be the sort of thing that those who think both men were too reliant on bullshit would point to as evidence. I'm personally of a mind that, generally speaking, their reliance on bullshit was perfectly fine, but I'd also be lying if I said I wished they didn't pare away some of it here. I really did like that opening fall.
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