MLJ: Atsushi Onita, Tarzan Goto & El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas, Horace Boulder & Tim Patterson

Atsushi Onita, Tarzan Goto & El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas, Horace Boulder & Tim Patterson
05/16/92 Los Angeles, CSLA Gym

What the hell guys? Why didn't any of you tell me that this existed? It was from some FMW USA tour or something but it was in a gym (Cal State?) with a hot crowd, lots of Japanese people there to see Onita, lots of people there to be Santo.

And this was a blast. It's exactly what you'd expect, really. The only shame is that for the most part, Santo and Casas work each other and Goto and Onita work Patterson and Boulder (one of which you barely even see in the match, really).

I mean, it's really exactly what you'd expect, like a greatest hits of this sort of thing. Goto was awesome bouncing off the ropes and headbutting people and clotheslining them left and right. Onita brawled around the crowd, had dueling chair wars and the world's most charismatic DDT. Santo and Casas worked some of their super fast, super smooth, 1992 exchanges. Santo hit his senton/tope into the corner, and this was a crowd that knew him well enough to expect it, so time seemed to absolutely freeze in the moment.

We get spattering of Casas shtick too. He wants nothing to do with Onita after stealing the second fall with La Casita. Earlier on when Goto threatened to come in after all of the outside the ring extracurricular, he actually used Santo as a human shield for a few seconds, which is, again, awesome. Patterson and Boulder were just there, neither helping nor harming the match, really, but playing their role so that Goto and Onita could play theirs. It was a whole lot of nothing but man is it ever glorious nothing. This must have been so great to be at live.