Blue Panther is not a spring chicken. He was 64 years old when this match happened, which by lucha standards means he still probably has a good 12 years ahead of him but by regular mortal standards he's getting pretty well on in years. My old man is 66 and can barely lift one of his arms above his head and has a knee with no cartilage left and he did not spend the last four decades doing what Blue Panther has been doing. The mad bastard debuted in 1978! He is an old man however you slice it and after nearly 50 years of wrestling I can only imagine how his body must feel on a bad day. I train professional athletes for a living and if any of them can still do what Panther was doing in this match when they hit their 60s I will take immense amounts of pride in that and also loudly proclaim on all forms of social media that I had anything to do with it. Still though, 64 is 64 and Panther looks like a 64-year-old man. He's up against a bully probably twenty years his junior and comparatively speaking - or just generally speaking - he moves like a 64-year-old man. Hechicero is faster, stronger, fitter, so Panther turns himself into a lodestone and feeds off the crowd's energy. He's not shy about asking for it either. He knows he needs it and he wants everyone else to know it too, for how else will THEY know when to provide it most? Panther basically works this as a classic masked tecnico while Hechicero does what he does and bases for everything like only he can. 30 years ago Panther was trying to wrangle Atlantis, today he's channelling him. He hit five dives in this and crashed and burned badly on one - a botch for the philistines but a moment of POIGNANCY for the rest of us who nod solemnly at a man in his twilight trying to fling himself headfirst out a wrestling ring only to clip the top rope with his heel and almost concuss himself on the floor. Panther was never really a high-flyer in his pomp so can we be shocked that his hit rate in his 60s isn't 100%? We most certainly cannot. Every dive he connected on was tremendous, though. The way he fired up the crowd before each one, the way he had to almost convince himself it was a good idea to even try, the way he sold the toll of HITTING the dives never mind missing them, it was fantastic stuff. I think my favourite was the running hurricanrana off the apron, where he tucked his chin and covered his head with his arms for fear he might paralyze himself, then lay prone afterwards for a few seconds, completely motionless, maybe wondering if moving at all is a good idea. Unfortunately for him, Hechicero either gets up first or at the same time as Panther after every dive, so each risk can only chip away at Hechicero, never fully swing the tide. Eventually Hechicero takes Panther up the ramp and tries to smash his head open on the steps. When Panther manages to throw Hechicero into them and buy himself some time he knows he has to bring out the big gun. When the old maniac climbed the steps and looked to the crowd I thought there was no way he'd actually jump. Then he jumped and it was basically the perfect payoff, not only because it looked nuts but because it finally kept Hechicero down. Beyond Panther throwing himself around like a missile and Hechicero taking all of it in the sternum, these two are an amazing pairing. The matwork in the primera was brief but it was exceptional. Things like Panther grabbing a wrist while swinging Hechicero over with his leg to secure control is one of those veteran touches that tells you Panther is one of the very best to have rolled around a wrestling ring. Panther engaging in any sort of strike exchange is a fool's errand but he's too proud to take any shit. Hechicero obviously wants to go blow for blow and Panther will use that aggression against him, which they even worked into a strike exchange that set up Panther's dive off the apron. The tercera is long and the way they built through Panther's ongoing struggle was awesome. Just the way Panther throws himself onto Hechicero for a cover, his whole bodyweight on top of the shoulders, it communicated the task he was faced with and how desperate he was to see it through. The fact Hechicero had to rip Panther's mask off to gain that final advantage told you how far he'd been pushed. An outstanding match and a Panther performance for the ages.
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