My Lucha Journey: El Hijo Del Santo One-Shot 1: El Hijo Del Santo vs Atlantis

Leyenda de Plata 2005:
2005-11-11 @ Arena Mexico
El Hijo Del Santo vs Atlantis

Alright, so I received one mighty request (well-appreciated) to look at some El Hijo Del Santo, and since someone was kind enough to ask, I'm going to do my best. I think the way to do this is to pepper some in now and again, though, as opposed to trying to do any great overview. He's just got too long and storied a career to do it justice that way, and I'm also a little wary of tracking back to the early 90s quite yet. I had seen him a bit in the DVDVR 80s set and once or twice in the Worlds Collide era stuff that everyone sees at some point or another, but not much else. In this moment, however, I'm right in the middle of first decade of the 2000s, and I'm going to look at a pair of matches with opponents I know fairly well.

This was the finals of the Leyenda de Plata 2005, after the two ciberneticos they had that year. For the sake of disclosure I watched the Santo vs Ultimo Guerrero match that followed a week or two later first and then decided it made sense to double back to this. It's definitely a temptation to make a whole thing out of this, but I'm going to roll into 2006 soon, and despite the "one-shot" naming, I'm just going to do these two matches for Santo, for now, thus killing two birds with one stone.

Santo was somewhere around 42 here and while that's not the prime of a career by any means, it's still young enough that a guy in the short of shape he was in could still really go. Atlantis was maybe a year older or so. This was just a one fall match but it did get a decent amount of time at least. It was interesting to see that aspect of it since the only single fall matches I've seen while doing this have been lightning matches. There's a nearfall or two early on that could have been a fall-taker if this was 2/3 falls (especially the high impact flip over sunset flip out of a 'rana position that Santo did that earns him the first fall in the Guerrero match later in the month that I'm going to look at next). There was also the sense of changing gears maybe ten minutes or so in when the near falls and big frenetic moves and broad selling began that almost felt more like a tercera caida in and of itself instead of just a long finishing stretch.

I'd have to go back to see if these two had faced each other in a setting like this before. My guess is that maybe a trios or two after Atlantis' turn, but in general, no. I think this was an opportunity for Atlantis to really cut loose with the rudo-ness, since he was facing a guy that he probably wouldn't get cheered against. He took his opportunity in full stride, with early mask ripping, mascot abuse (including a fun spot where Ultimo tossed him from the outside in to Atlantis, who then used him as a projectile to splash Santo), grabbing the ropes for leverage on near-falls then jawing with the ref (which led to a great nearfall as Santo rolled him up), and just controlling the early pace of the match with methodological offense. He even took a stalling escape onto the ramp late in the match! One of my favorite momentum shifts in lucha is when the tecnico, either through opportunity or revenge loses it and goes after the mask, only to pay for it on some karmic level by losing control of the match. This happened early on here and led to Atlantis turning the tide, immobilizing Santo and giving his mask a working over, one that would lead directly to the finish.

This was obviously a big match and they went all out. Santo was very good at making things matter and giving them weight, though I could have liked a little more breath between big moves here. I think this was in part was due to the one-fall nature not allowing for the natural breaks these matches often have. The highlight of the match for him from a highlight reel point of view was probably the headbutt off the top that drove Atlantis out followed by a very big dive. The purity of Santo's mask, especially dangling as it was, made a lot of his high impact offense like this look visually striking. They followed, maybe a bit too soon, with a few more big spots (the flying rana and a huge plancha from the top to the outside) by Santo. It was here, to break things up before the finishing segment that Atlantis utilized the ramp stalling. When he made it back in they immediately went to teases of the Caballo and then the Atlantida and took the thing home.

The finish was sort of BS, but it's way more conclusive than it could have been (and  definitely more so than the match that follows vs UG which I think a lot of people complained about at the time as being too AAA-y). This was only, maybe, half a year tops after the Atlantis turn and I'm not too sure how successful the turn itself was. With a finish like this, he had to have huge heat coming out of this match, though. After the finisher teases, UG (Atlantis' second) tripped Santo off the ropes. Mistico (Santo's second) got up on the apron, distracting the ref, which seems like a very Mistico thing to do in this era. Santo went to confront UG only to get his mask pulled off from the outside. He covered up, got rolled up by Atlantis, and then everything broke loose. Considering this was the final of a yearly event that was put on in the name of Santo's father, it was a hell of a heat-generating finish.

Ultimately, I thought this was very good. It was two real masters of their craft in a heated environment, with big stakes and a pretty molten finish, even if it wasn't a clean one. Atlantis got to really play the rudo and Santo shined in opposition. It was maybe hurt by the fact it was just one fall but that's a medium-sized maybe. Frankly, I consider myself quite lucky that someone wanted me to see El Hijo Del Santo matches instead of a sharp Volador, Jr focus or something, which is probably what I deserved. More to come soon.