MLJ: Casas vs Cota 2: The Hair Match

1994-09-23 @ Arena México
Negro Casas vs Mocho Cota [hair]

In one way or another, I've been talking about wrestling since 1998, since I was 16 or so. During that time, I bought a few of the early WWE DVD offerings (Flair, Eddy, etc). Before that, I bought a few comp tapes (MX, Rockers, Mr. Perfect, which shows where my head was at in 02-03), and maybe one or two ROH shows. I love hearing stories of people tape trading back in the 90s and the early 00s, but I was always a little detached from that side of things. In the last few years I've bought a couple of other comps (A Dangerous Alliance one for instance), and I participated in a couple of the DVDVRs 80s projects (way too few, just AWA and Lucha, which got me into this mess in the first place). I'm not exactly a big spender. In fact, one of my rules of watching wrestling now is that I don't let it get in the way of my family life, and that includes financially.

I needed this match though. It's the first time in my life I ever really sought out one specific match and dropped at least a little cash for it. I needed it for a few reasons. For starters, Negro Casas and Mocho Cota are two of my three favorite luchadores (with Satanico). To see them in a hair match was exciting. Also, the Fiera vs Negro Casas match that popped up was really good, and there was also the sense of this being lost. I'm sure some of you reading this will have seen this in years past, but no one I talked to regularly had. I get the impression that this era of CMLL is underlooked because people were more into AAA at the time. Amusingly, I did get it, and then within a week of getting it someone posted it online (as he had the same idea/needs as I had in seeing it and got it around the same time I did. It was a zeitgeist thing). I'm not linking it here, but it is on Dailymotion, and people should look for the link, if they can't find it on DM, in the midst of the Greatest Wrestler Ever discussions for Cota on prowrestlingonly.com which I think would be interesting to anyone who reads this site anyway.

The match itself was two great performances. It should help the legacy of both men. It hit so many of the things I really love about wrestling in general. Ultimately, though, I think it missed on the thing I care the most about in lucha apuestas matches.

Put simply, it was all Cota. The match, for one reason or another, was only one fall. It had three acts though. The first act had Cota attack Negro Casas at the start, slam his head into the outside post a number of times, and open him up. From there, he worked over the head, stomping, containing, controlling. This ended with Casas fighting back from the apron and leaping to the top rope, backflipping into the ring. He hurt his leg on the landing, and the second fall was Cota opportunistically attacking the leg, pulling off the shoe, twisting, stomping, standing on, using it as a way to open Casas off for other offense or to cut him off whenever he tried to mount any sort of comeback. Ultimately, though, Casas got a few shots in, which led to the last act, where Cota tried to put Casas away, more and more desperate as Casas started to get a few more hope spots and a few shots in. Ultimately, Cota missed a big dive and Casas was able to capitalize with a back suplex. The struggle there, with Cota banging hard on Casas' hands to break the waistlock only for Casas to keep on the attack with a few forearms to set him up was really good and showed the sort of struggle that the entire match had, even in being so one-side.

The performances were great. Cota, whose hair was massive, was an incredible jerk. He would put his hand up in victory throughout the match, would stomp or stand on Casas' leg at any point, would kick and stomp him and just be unrelenting. He was a twisted, opportunistic goblin, a malignant spirit, a scoundrel. In the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, he'd be the Ugly. His frustrated or desperate or downright cruel reactions to Casas trying to come back were great.

Casas put in one of the most sympathetic performances I've ever seen in lucha. He oscillated from desperate and defiant to pained to almost comatose with his body language and glazed eyes. He sold throughout the match and every shot he got in on Cota was earned. He had to climb a mountain for every moment of hope, but in climbing so hard and so high, he never had the strength to capitalize; Cota would take his leg right out again. Probably his biggest offensive move in the match, before the finish, was a desperate mule kick that he snuck in. Afterwards, he looked to the crowd and stuck out his tongue in valiant rebellion, a hint of the trickster god he'd morph into in his old age.

Those performances are why the match was ultimately unsatisfying to me. Cota was so nefarious and craven. Casas was so defiant and brave. They sold the meaning to everything in the match, from the legwork to Cota's Gory specials back into the turnbuckle, to his pokey punches in the corner, to Casas' doomed taptia towards the end. I wanted to see Casas unload on Cota. He toughed out the assault and scored a victory. Cota lost his hair and at least to me, was vanquished as someone on Casas' level. But I wanted to see Casas pound him. I wanted to see him get an immediate, violent revenge and it just wasn't there.

What was there instead, however, was very good, and you got the sense that the crowd was satisfied and that Casas was satisfied, even if we didn't get to see the actual hair cut. I just thought Cota deserved more violent comeuppance and I thought that Casas deserved the chance to give it to him. A match well worth watching though. I don't regret going out of my way for it.