La Parka is Looking for a Shove in Some Direction

La Parka vs. El Hijo del Santo Tijuana 11/16/01 - GREAT

PAS: We may have found the elusive great lucha cage match. Big batches of entertaining violence, with Parka dominating early after blinding Santo with his cape and jumping him. We get some really nasty shots into the cage, and some dramatic, almost scaffold matchesque brawling on the top of the cage. Santo is best known for his graceful flying, but he is a guy who will throw some stiff stomps to the head and cool punches. The cage stops us from getting dives, although we do get a nice Santo in ring plancha. The insane highlight of the match is Parka taking a powerbomb off the ropes really sharply on his neck, if you told me that Parka died and was replaced by a different awesome dude, I might believe you. Finish run gets all Tijuana on us, which kept this from being an EPIC. We get run ins by some dudes I don't recognize (Los Destructores maybe?) and they attack Santo and Parka gets two wires which he sparks a couple of times and electrocutes Santo (they keep doing a comedy spot where Parka's lackies are holding Santo and get shocked too, it feels more Three Stooges then violent wrestling), Damien, Halloween and Rey Sr. run in, clean house and end up using the wires on Parka. Silly stuff which felt like Lucha Underground stupidity and the match was plenty violent without it.


ER: Lucha cage matches are always among the worst types of match, and this is pretty clearly, easily the best lucha cage match I've seen. Santo not only has some of the absolutely flawless flying and graceful spots in wrestling history, but he's also someone who makes everything look good, and someone who you could really look at every movement they make and find tiny things they do to make a match or moment into a bigger deal. Cage climbing is almost always a boring direction for cage matches to go, and these two pros create plenty of cool moments and big spills. Early on they're fighting while both standing on the top rope, and they're laying it in as hard as they would on solid ground. They top that by slugging each other while each are sitting on top of a very high cage, both experts at doing dramatic leans backward after strikes, to the oooohs and aaaahs of the crowd. We get good mask ripping, and Santo starts ripping big spots from the ropes, a beautiful rana, and another one where he fights with Parka for awhile before finally getting it; Santo hits a nice elbowdrop off the top, and later fights for a powerbomb out of the corner that Park opts to take on the back of his neck. He chose that! You could see how they were setting it up, and Park easily could have taken this bump safer, but that loon made it look as dangerous and painful as possible.

Both men took big spills back into the cage, with Santo taking a couple of big leaps landing on his feet, which makes my knees and ankles scream just watching. Both men know how to lay it in and I think Santo might genuinely have the best stomps in wrestling. I love the way he pushes into it, like he lines up his leg and then just pushes it through the back of Parka's head. Parka hits this massive avalanche where he set up a chair to vault off of, but ends up vaulting through the chair and just crushing Santo. The interference was a little silly, but I liked it. I did not recognize any of Parka's goons either, but they threw a good beating to Santo and I actually enjoyed the shock wires spot. I'm sure all of Parka's goons have had to make ends meet by taking on an assortment of general contractor gigs, so I appreciate them knowing that Santo would be acting as a conduit for that electricity, and to sell that accordingly. People in the Walking Dead somehow don't get blood splatter on them, so I appreciate guys in a non-taped cage match understanding collateral damage. Familia de Tijuana stuff from the early 2000s has held up remarkably well, and all three looked impressive getting into the cage and kicking ass. Look how quick Damien scales that cage! Halloween deservedly got the most hype during the initial run, but damn have I loved all the Rey Sr. from that era. The final spot of the match was super impressive, with FdT taking the mostly passed out body of Santo and lifting him up and over the cage, like lucha Weekend at Bernie's.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LA PARK