Santo y Atlantis vs Rubio y Guerrera
For whatever reason, I still continue to watch American pro wrestling on TV and still find things to like or even some cases love about it. It's not perfect, but I think a large reason why I haven't gotten as sick of it as some of my fellow wrestling buddies is that I usually tend to try to watch a wide variety of wrestling just to keep it all balanced. This past year, I've gotten really deep into lucha libre and just immersed myself in the style. It's paced differently, they sell differently, they have a different psychology to their style, and they bump differently. It's understandable if some may have a bit of difficulty getting into it at first, but give it a shot. Here is a review of a classic I saw recently:
El Hijo Del Santo y Atlantis vs Lobo Rubio y Fuerza Guerrera: This happens to be El Hijo Del Santo's Arena Mexico debut, where he tagged with Atlantis vs Fuerza Guerrera and Lobo Rubio on November 25th, 1983. Santo was at this point just an year into his career, and Atlantis was about 5 months in his career and may be the guy who picked it up the quickest. So yeah, I don't think I've ever seen rookies as impressive as Santo and Atlantis looked here. If you dig lucha mat work and awesome technicos outsmarting the rudos with elaborate sequences you'll really love this match. At this point in the world, Tiger Mask was having his series with Dynamite Kid in New Japan Pro Wrestling that people called revolutionary, but honestly the work in this match was of a much higher caliber, much more impressive, cooler spots and it flowed better too! Santo was hitting these blind armdrags that I had never seen before, that both him and Fuerza had to time perfectly and of course they did, and they looked beautiful. Fuerza and Atlantis also did that spot (many years later, Rey and Juvi have done it in AAA, Casas-Dandy in EMLL, and Danielson-Quackenbuch in ROH in 2007) where they tie each others legs, then they roll over to do a headstand while their legs are interlocked and they proceed to slap each other. I won't spoil the way the 3rd fall ends, but the finish is perfect and totally satisfying. I'm not much for star ratings but I would rate this around the ****3/4 to ***** range.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sj8jvz - Here is the match in case anyone is interested.
El Hijo Del Santo y Atlantis vs Lobo Rubio y Fuerza Guerrera: This happens to be El Hijo Del Santo's Arena Mexico debut, where he tagged with Atlantis vs Fuerza Guerrera and Lobo Rubio on November 25th, 1983. Santo was at this point just an year into his career, and Atlantis was about 5 months in his career and may be the guy who picked it up the quickest. So yeah, I don't think I've ever seen rookies as impressive as Santo and Atlantis looked here. If you dig lucha mat work and awesome technicos outsmarting the rudos with elaborate sequences you'll really love this match. At this point in the world, Tiger Mask was having his series with Dynamite Kid in New Japan Pro Wrestling that people called revolutionary, but honestly the work in this match was of a much higher caliber, much more impressive, cooler spots and it flowed better too! Santo was hitting these blind armdrags that I had never seen before, that both him and Fuerza had to time perfectly and of course they did, and they looked beautiful. Fuerza and Atlantis also did that spot (many years later, Rey and Juvi have done it in AAA, Casas-Dandy in EMLL, and Danielson-Quackenbuch in ROH in 2007) where they tie each others legs, then they roll over to do a headstand while their legs are interlocked and they proceed to slap each other. I won't spoil the way the 3rd fall ends, but the finish is perfect and totally satisfying. I'm not much for star ratings but I would rate this around the ****3/4 to ***** range.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sj8jvz - Here is the match in case anyone is interested.