I first watched this over 15 years ago now, at a time where I was very much learning to love Fuerza Guerrera, but had never seen him work a long title match with a heavy technical focus. It blew me away and became one of my favourite matches of the decade. Fast forward to today and Fuerza is one of my five favourite wrestlers of all time and shockingly enough this match holds up as being great. I've seen about as much Fuerza footage as I have from anybody to ever wrestle in Mexico, which is a whole lot of footage, and I don't know if there's a better example of Fuerza Guerrera, Technical Wizard. The crowd being sceptical initially is amusing, like the mere idea of Fuerza Guerrera reining in his bullshit for the purposes of a gentleman's contest is hilarious. He was almost CHAGRINED at that and you knew there would be several instances of him giving in to his true nature, but by and large he behaved himself. Some people just have that inherent, intrinsic need to cheat. A pathological liar will just do it no matter the situation. A natural shithouse will naturally shithouse and with Fuerza, even when he doesn't need to, at one point or another he will inevitably let that side of himself take the wheel. I don't think he can help it. There was never a moment where Pantera fouled him or even came close to it, but Fuerza sure tried to frame him for it more than once, rolling around frantically, pointing to his privates, the ref' disinterested at best and appalled at worst. Everybody in modern football - or soccer, if you will - rolls around like they've been shot or elbowed in the face or had their legs broken after any sort of moderate contact. Luis Suarez, who was unplayable at his best, would dive and roll around at least once a game when he obviously didn't need to. That's Fuerza Guerrera and like Suarez he would also definitely bite you in the shoulder. The primera caida was fantastic and full of the sort of lucha matwork you love as a cultured fan of the lucha libre yet scoff at if you're an uncultured philistine who is not a fan of the lucha libre. Fuerza didn't take kindly to being shown up and once or twice he was a bull in a china shop, Pantera using that recklessness to take the fall. Pantera was good enough overall, if a little slow getting properly into position for things as the match went on. That at least played into the story of the segunda with Fuerza showing why he's the champ, picking up steam as Pantera starts to lag. The tercera was an awesome deciding fall. It maybe went a touch too long but I couldn't say I was ever waiting for it to be over and if nothing else the length of it let them play up the exhaustion. Pantera would grab a preposterous hold and after a little while he'd be so spent that he could barely apply it properly, doing all he could just to keep Fuerza's arms or legs hooked, while Fuerza didn't have enough left to break free of even a half-applied submission. The finishing hold itself was a very fitting way to cap it off. Tremendous match and a real career highlight for Fuerza; the sort of thing you'd build a case for him being a top 5-10 Mexican wrestler ever off of. You wouldn't hear any argument from me.
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