I expected this to be one of those touring Rey v Psicosis/Santo v Casas affairs. Play the greatest hits, run through the sequences we could run through in our sleep, give the crowd a wee window into what the real thing might look like. Sometimes, if you've already seen what the real thing looks like, seen Rey v Psicosis or Santo v Casas in their natural habitat, the greatest hits version can be a touch disappointing. This didn't feel like a greatest hits version, wasn't something they could run through in their sleep and nothing about it was disappointing. Rey v Psicosis in WAR is a fun exhibition but this was never worked like an exhibition. The struggle over everything was raw and visceral, and even if it wasn't as good overall as their Monterrey match the previous year (not much is, tbf) it might've at least been grittier. We saw that grittiness from how they fought over holds, the way Panther tried to lock in the sharpshooter while Santo grabbed hold of his foot and refused to be turned. Later, Panther was determined not to be hooked in the came clutch, so Santo repeatedly elbowed him in the head Bryan Danielson style. This was about as vicious as we've seen Santo outside of an apuesta setting and at a couple points he just started volleying Panther in the spine. The early matwork was tenacious, even RUGGED as Raekwon The Chef might suggest, and I'd kind of forgotten that Blue Panther was one of the best wrestlers in the world around this point. I mean Santo was too, but I'd never forgotten that. Watching Panther in this setting reinforced how good he was, though. The crowd weren't the loudest but that allowed us to hear Panther grunt and strain and shit-talk his way through the match. It was a super fun audial performance, which is a bit of an undervalued thing in wrestling. True to their setting we got some fun crowd brawling with people ducking for cover, their belongings and a thousand chairs being scattered. That's not a staple of the Santo v Panther, more of a cool wrinkle that the audience would be familiar with from the wrestling they more frequently attend, and it gave us a couple nice revenge spots with both guys getting a chair wellied over their head and/or neck. Santo was also rolling out all of his dives and the people responded accordingly, plus we got some awesome flying headbutts to add some more nastiness to the beauty. And that final headbutt was a corker, even if the setup was a bit ropey. This was great.
Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera & El Signo v Atlantis, Villano III & Villano IV (CMLL, 4/20/01)
It isn't always easy to work a three-fall 12-minute trios and not leave it feeling abbreviated to some degree. A little less than it could be, a few minutes short of something truly special, particularly with a line-up like that. And maybe this would've been better with 10 more minutes, but the 12 we got were awesome fun. Signo was a real hoot, throwing amazing old man potato shots, headbutting Villlano III in the sternum, doing proper nasty shit like kicking Atlantis right in the hamstring. He was a ferocious little goblin. Him and V3 wound up being the main pairing by virtue of the fact they punched each other to bits the most and that led one phenomenal punch flurry from Villano in the tercera. Panther was full of energy and that chemistry with Atlantis was briefly rekindled, first with a great exchange in the primera, then at the end of that fall when Panther went to hit a tope only to turn around and run straight into La Atlantida. Fear not though, for the tope that he did hit in the tercera was magnificent.
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