What a phenomenal discovery. It's sort of staggering that this was just lying around on a film reel or VHS or whatever and then randomly showed up on YouTube. Like, who even has all this stuff? How did they come to be in possession of it? How did nobody else seem to know it ever happened? I'll geek for just about any new Eddie Guerrero footage regardless, but this was a truly exceptional wrestling match. It was basically twenty five minutes of grappling where everyone got to pair up and really stretch out. I know Los Gringos Locos gave Eddie the launchpad to the US and eventual stardom, but after watching this I selfishly wish he'd gone to CMLL for a few years instead. He was 20 years old here, had been wrestling for a year tops, and legitimately hung every step of the way with three of the ten best luchadors ever. I had no clue he could work the mat like this so early in his career and we certainly never saw anything like it in the AAA run. Being in with Casas and Panther wouldn't have hurt and I've no doubt they were feeding him here and there, but there was a lot of this that you couldn't fake. He was adding so many cool little touches to his holds and his takedowns were super slick. My favourite part of the match was an extended spell between him and Casas that was as rugged as anything you'll see in lucha. The struggle over Eddie's belly-to-belly suplex ruled, but then they went and topped it with the fight over a butterfly suplex, Casas' shoulders being bent at disgusting angles as he tries to fight out of the underhooks, Eddie refusing to let go and eventually just muscling him over. I think I'm about ready to settle on Casas being the GOAT. He was unbelievable in this. Everything was fought for, whether it was that exchange with Eddie or his refusal to let Santo hook in anything without scratching and clawing for it first. If Santo wanted that tapatia Casas was going to make the process of applying it a miserable one. Of course all those Casas/Santo exchanges were wonderful and it peaked at the end of the first caida with Santo springboarding off his back into a rana. Santo might be the most graceful wrestler ever and all of his armdrag variations looked absolutely gorgeous. It sucked that the cameraman missed his corner tope, but there's something ridiculously cool about him torpedoing through the ropes too quickly for anybody to react in time to capture it. An awesome match and an awesome find. A big batch of young phenom Eddie Guerrero working Juarez is now probably my ultimate wrestling nerd holy grail.
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