MLJ: Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther 12: El Hijo del Santo y Damian 666 vs Blue Panther y Super Parka

2003-5-18 - El Hijo del Santo y Damian 666 vs Blue Panther y Super Parka - WWA

Look, I expect to get a bad match when I'm doing other parts of my stuff: going through 2006 or the Casas vs Rush series or what not. It happens. It's okay. I move on to the next one. I try to learn something from it. Part of the point of doing something like Santo vs Panther is that I'm not supposed to get bad matches, and while some things, like the Mil match, weren't great, at least they were full of some great moments and exchanges, and they still give me something to learn.

This was the shits. Let's run through some things. This was from WWA. I have no idea what that meant in 2003. Wikipedia said that it didn't even resume operations until 2004. It was from a TV show, of which the very best part were the replays. Super Parka is the original Volador; his son is Volador, Jr.; his nephew is La Parka. He's got a La Parka suit with a Superman S in the middle and he came out in a kilt. He can't dance nearly as well as his nephew. We know who Damian is but he was vaguely shaped like late-ECW Mikey Whipwreck in this match and he sort of moved like old Pierroth. The ref was as rudo as can be while also being Jurassic. He looked like some old local uncle or something, but he's probably someone I'm supposed to know and this statement is showing intense ignorance. If so, feel free to lambaste me. This was to set up a Super Parka vs Santo apuestas match, I think, in as there is a Parka vs Santo match from around this time.

I'm not even sure where to begin here. The structure was almost non-existent. The tecnicos weren't tecnico enough. The rudos ate too much rudo-style offense. The work was sluggish and sloppy and downright embarrassing at times. The heat came from all the wrong places. For instance, Santo's mask got ripped off. Totally off, and bitten, and chewed on, and pulled, and it was such an affront because it was Santo's mask, but there was nothing behind it. It was all too haphazard and not built to in the least. It was paced all wrong and gone to too quickly and done without reverence. It felt like seeing someone tear apart some deep undercard luchador's mask. It installed the wrong kind of heat, at least in me, and the rudo ref just allowing it, like it was nothing, and then doing the usual rudo ref tricks to delay the comeback? All the wrong sort of heat. There were a couple of brief weapon cameos. There were some pointless allowed fouls (heel ref again). There was a bullshit non finish.

Generally only two things worked. The first was Blue Panther being a dick and taunting the crowd with Santo chants at a few points in the match. Super dick Blue Panther is hugely underrated. The second was the way they tied Santo's mask to the ropes at the end, which lead to them double teaming Damian until Halloween came in to break things up and presumably cause the DQ or the match to be thrown out or whatever. Even that only half worked because it made no sense. The idea that the mask being tied up prevents a wrestler from leaving the corner is sort of a good one, right? He'd lose his honor and his identity if he just took the mask off to get free, but Santo wasn't even trying to untie the damn thing even if his hands were free. Ultimately, it doesn't make sense. There was also a decent comeback spot where Santo moved out of the way of a charging Panther, having been held by Super Parka. Panther ended up leaping into Parka's arms like he was going to monkey flip him and Santo dropkicked him over the top from that position. It was a good idea but about three seconds too slow to be really effective.

I want to wash my hands on this but I think I need to mention a few particularly bad moments. Past a couple of Panther topes (including a late one to clear the ring for the finish which wasn't actually used that way), the big high spot was at the end of the segunda, where Panther had laboriously positioned Damian on the top rope so that he could propel a charging Parka up to the top after him. It didn't quite work. Panther did follow it up with a nice leglock though. What else? Well Damian had this tendency to always want to be in the ring, so it meant a lot of sort of uncomfortable early double teaming where Santo and Damian were beating up their opponents together. After the first caida, I actually thought that maybe, somehow, Parka and Panther were tecnicos. it was a short fall but a weird one. There was a Damian sunset flip on Parka attempt where Santo was supposed to come in for a faceplant on Parka, but it took too long to set up so Parka had to dance for far, far too long while stuck about to get pulled down. Just brutal stuff. It looked good in the well-produced replay though.

This was just a mess. I expected way more from guys this talented. Let's move on.