MLJ: Satanico vs La Familia de Tijuana 1: Atlantis, Black Warrior, Felino, Mr. Niebla vs Damián 666, Halloween, Psicosis I, Satánico

2002-08-16 @ Arena México
Atlantis, Black Warrior, Felino, Mr. Niebla vs Damián 666, Halloween, Psicosis I, Satánico

Satanico is the best. He really is. If we had more available, I'd only watch Satanico matches and this would be My Satanico Journey. As it is, we'll be spending another week and a day with him. "decadas80s90s2000" on youtube posted four of the five matches of Satanico/Infernales vs La Familia de Tijuana from August-October, which started with Satanico teaming with them and ended with a hair match with Damian. It's not the world's best wrestling but it's heated, was a good showcase for Satanico working with Averno and Mephisto, and, in part because La Familia's rougher edges, made for some fun matches.

This was the first. It was an atomicos, which CMLL doesn't seem to want to run anymore. I haven't seen too many, but my impression of them is that they lean towards being more spot heavy than trios matches. Two extra bodies mean quicker switches and more chaos. La Familia here was Halloween, Damian 666, and Nicho/Psicosis. Halloween (who was Ciclope in WCW and lost his match to Antifaz del Norte in 99) would change his look in the midst of this series, going from the dreadlocks to looking more like Nicho. Damian was two years younger than Satanico, to give you a point of reference (around 40 and 42 respectively when these matches took place). No surprises on the tecnico side here, just four guys who would probably be good in this setting (and ultimately were).

So, two things to really mention with this match. The first is that it was absolutely action packed. There were bodies everywhere. Some of it was really good. Some of it was a bit more chaotic as you got the impression that the tecnicos weren't used to working with these specific rudos. There were some massively huge spots. I'm going to gif some below. Felino's top rope to the apron rana was downright amazing, and Nicho's arm drag bump over the top wasn't bad either. I wish that CMLL would do some more atomicos. They're set up to do so right now with all of their factions.

Big spots, yes. The other story of the match was Satanico not quite being on the page with his partners. Some of that was him just being out of position when they wanted to do a triple team, forcing him to scramble to get there. That's a little thing but considering how smoothly he worked with GdI and Averno/Mephisto, it was telling. Satanico was so, so good at directing rudo traffic and that wasn't at play here.

More importantly, after some more miscommunication led to him submitting to the Atlantida, La Familia decided to take their loss out on him, beating on him in the corner. He'd dodge a corner dive and fight back, with Averno and Mephisto to even the odds, but la Familia would introduce chairs and ultimately destroy the other rudo side. My impression is that this got them suspended (I assume because they were working all over as Mexico's Most Wanted at this time?). It'd also lead to a trios title match a month later, which is what we'll look at next.