MLJ: Dandy vs Satanico Interlude: Atlantis/El Dandy/Ultimo Dragon v. El Satanico/MS-1/Pirata Morgan

1992-09-11 @ Arena Mexico
Atlantis/El Dandy/Ultimo Dragon v. El Satanico/MS-1/Pirata Morgan

So, first world lucha journey problems: every time I start a project, this awesome guy posts more awesome matches on youtube. It's sort of like the Fiera vs Casas hair vs hair match. I was in the middle of stuff there and didn't feel like I could do it justice. Thankfully, OJ covered it at length. I'd like to tackle this one, however, even though it's going to disrupt the Virus spotlight so early in.

This was a week before the Dandy vs Satanico hair match in 92, which was part of CMLL's 59th anniversary show, but not the main event. The Main Event was Great Kabuki, La Fiera, and Pierroth, Jr. vs Rayo de Jalisco, Jr., Atlantis, and King Haku. Also, Aja Kong was on the card. I haven't covered much Dandy vs Satanico here, but I have seen a decent amount of the 90 feud, and it's awesome. The 92 hair match doesn't seem easily available, but it is out there at least, because I've seen it reviewed.

Thankfully, this match, which just popped up last week, was awesome. It was all about visceral and organic violence to build the hair match (and, in great WWE fashion, to make sure to put Satanico over strong because he was going to lose at the big show). I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into this but I knew that the pairing was really interesting. I'm not high on Ultimo Dragon though I think he can serve a role in a trios match, but he and Atlantis were really non factors here. It was the Satanico and Dandy show with MS-1 and Morgan playing a very specific role and doing it perfectly.

I thought I might write it up regardless, just because of the talent involved, and I started to note the difference for how each wrestler lifted the girl who came down with him up onto the ring (like how Dragon struggled but still tried to be a gentleman and the sheer mirth that Satanico did it with) but it would be ridiculous to waste time talking about that sort of thing with this match. Let's get right to it.

The rudos swarmed at the get go and they didn't look back. You see beat downs, and extended beat downs, and extended beat downs that start with an ambush today but you don't see them like this. Here, they isolated Dandy in the ring, with MS-1 and Morgan alternating between holding him in place for Satanico to hit and letting him pinball around the ring a bit off of strikes while preventing Atlantis and Dragon from getting into the ring. This wasn't a brawl around the ring and the ringside area. This wasn't tossing him into big kicks and big moves like you might see out of Los Ingobernables. This was a constraining of movement. Visually, this was striking as Dandy was mostly pinned on his knees or into the corner and the violence came to him. The fans' eyes were drawn to the strikes bee-lining onto him and the only relief from that was Satanico stopping to gloat at them.

The second stage of this, once Dandy is bloodied and beaten down, was for Morgan and MS-1 to exit the ring. He'd been bullied and held and weakened, so Satanico could really unload on him in a gloating, arrogant manner. Dandy, however, heroically, would start to fight back, once, twice, three times. Every time though, Morgan and MS-1 are there, lunging into the ring and cutting him off, usually after just one punch. It's very straightforward, very clear storytelling. It's some of the most direct and obvious storytelling I've seen since I've started this project and it was so, so very effective. The beating was so unfair and severe that anytime Dandy showed any hint of light the fans wanted to rally to it, but the cut offs were so sudden and absolute. He kept trying though, right to the point where Satanico kicked him out of the ring.

After that they made short work of Atlantis and Dragon, first with a killer rocket launcher:

and then a double crab/camel clutch combo:

And finally a big splash off the top by Ms-1 that I didn't capture. You've seen that before.

This rolled right into the segunda and more punishment of Dandy. Satanico had him on the rope, choking him and playing to the crowd and just look at them,
this anger:

and this pout!

Satanico just knew what he was doing like no rudo in history and Dandy lived his gimmick in a way that's hard to even wrap your head around in 2015. The violence just seemed so natural. Satanico could fill time with such honest, believable, ground-level carnage; this was a master-class in mauling. And the clear, direct story continued. Dandy would try to fight back. Dandy would get cut off by MS-1 and Morgan. Again. And Again. and Again. Each attempt was more valiant than the last, got just a little further than the last, but was cut off so definitively. It was only after Satanico tried to go for a second bulldog that Dandy shrugged him off. This time, his partners saw the opportunity because it was bigger, not just a gutsy punch but a shrugged off move that played to the entire arena. This time, they were able to act in time, charging in to stop Morgan and MS-1.

And thus the match turned. Up until now, the violence had been contained, constrained. Now it opened up. A deep match became wide as the three pairings pounded on each other around the ring and ringside area. The camera would focus on one pairing but you'd see another off in the corner of the screen. The tecnicos pressed their advantage as the crowd cheered, and bodies went flying into posts and the ring apron. Maybe it would have made more sense to focus more on Dandy and Satanico, but the match would go back to them.

For now, there were just glimpses of Dandy trying to get revenge, trying to open Satanico up, and finally driving him into the ring, alone. MS-1 was there on the apron, refusing to get in to help his partner. He wanted nothing of the tecnico's revenge. Satanico was just as alone as Dandy had been a few minutes earlier, even if it was for entirely different reasons. The other tecnicos drew back letting Dandy take the lead and he was hurt and damaged and Satanico was a desperate force, so it's even at first, with Satanico getting whatever shot he could in including some great headbutts. Bolstered by the crowd, Dandy would have nothing of it. He sold the damage of the match but was unrelenting. He ate blows but kept coming until they finally brawled out to the floor.

The match ultimately had to come back to them since it was setting up their hair battle the next week. They left the stage for now so that the other four wrestlers could make their own grand exits from the match to lead to the refocusing of the finish. Atlantis hit a quebadora on Morgan and then followed it up with this great stomp out of the ring. I can't even express how natural a bit of violence this was and how well it fit into the match. He was going to get a blow in, no matter what and it ended up as something so small but also one of the least choreographed looking bits of wrestling I've seen in ages:

Dragon couldn't match that but he could dive out onto MS-1 from the top, which lead to Atlantis pulling Morgan back in, sliding him out the other side of the ring and hitting an Asai moonsault. This was that grand exit I mentioned, and set the stage for Satanico and Dandy to cap off the match.

The next minute or two that followed felt big to me, like the finishing sequence of an apuesta match or a title match. There was just that atmosphere in the air. They didn't do anything huge, strikes, a few sequences, some submission attempts, but the near falls felt like they meant something, and so much of that was the level of intensity that they brought to it. It felt like the last act of a war and were there any justice in the world, Dandy would have won it. Instead, he went for a splash off the ropes and crashed low onto Satanico's knees. That was the beginning of the end for Satanico would lock on a version of the Atlantida and win the match. Despite the brave comeback, the rudos won in two falls. True vengeance would be deferred for the Anniversary show.

I loved this. It was so straightforward, just a primal lucha trios match. I wouldn't call it a brawl because past a minute or two of the tecnico comeback it wasn't even enough for that. There wasn't really a meaningful shine. In a lot of ways, it was 2/3rds of a match, but it was the 2/3rds I like the most. I know other people care way more about other aspects of lucha, but this is the stuff for me. I'm almost glad that I can't just watch the Anniversary match on youtube right now, because in this moment, it just couldn't live up to my expectations for it.