2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Santo vs. Bandido

81. El Hijo Del Santo vs. Bandido York Hall, London 6/24/17

ER: This was one confusing middle section away from easily landing on our 2017 list, and it needs to be said how cool it is that Santo is the guy using his lucha fame to work matches around Europe this past decade. "I'm a famous masked wrestler, I'm going to showcase that in famous museums and boxing gymnasiums" is a weird line to follow, but it's great. This plays like a Santito greatest hits, done as well as you remember them being played, but the best thing about Santo's greatest hits is that they never feel like he's just running through spots. He always puts something behind them, and their still shockingly beautiful. A lot of this is Bandido stooging for Santo, stooging for headscissor variations (I'll never not get excited for the crossed ankle headstand, never showing any light on his grip around Bandido's neck), fighting out of camel clutches, taking nice arm drags, and fighting back with lariats. Bandido eats a great boot in the corner, flying in with a dropkick and getting knocked out of the sky by a Santo foot, and Santo dropkicks him off the top to the floor before hitting a fantastic dive past the ringpost to the front row. This match could be from 2001 the way Santo is moving, and I'd have no idea. Bandido lands a couple corner dropkicks, and Santo (in tree of woe) sits up on the third and Bandido takes a great sliding bump crotch first around the ringpost. Santo hits an incredible crossbody from the top to the floor, landing high on Bandido's chest and making you come to terms with how disappointing the landings are on most flying offense to the floor. With Santo energized we go into the awesome Santo brawling segments, with him kicking Bandido's legs out, hitting high knees, and going for more clutches.

Things get confusing when Santo gets slammed into a turnbuckle while holding a choke and the match just stops for a couple minutes. Both guys are squaring off but nobody is touching each other, and I have no idea what was supposed to be happening. I didn't love the 2 count tradeoff section, felt too modern lucha and while Santo's sunset flip slams always look great I thought an earlier one was worked into the match in a more interesting way (with Santo being pulled out of a grounded headscissors into one) and I just get restless in lucha now when the guys start trading nearfalls for a few minutes. There's impressive stuff within, as both take nice vertical suplexes on a hard mat, we get rana pinfalls and a victory roll, and Santo's rolling sunset flip bomb is truly one of the great marvels of lucha; the way he rolls into and up and over his opponent's body is something that a 53 year old shouldn't be able to do, and Bandido is a great dance partner as he SUWA's himself into the thing. Finish run is fun with Bandido hitting a rolling senton and them committing big to a missed splash off the top, allowing Santo to finally sink the clutch. This match really wasn't missing much; you had that weird couple minutes of standing and squaring off, and the nearfall section could have been ordered a bit more logically, but if this match had somehow been the only match we got from return Santo it would have been proof positive that he hadn't lost any semblance of a step.

PAS: Honestly this could have been Santo in 2007, 1997 or 1987 and you really couldn't tell. He was taking bumps, throwing big shots, hit his awesome tope, and his classic plancha, both of which were beautiful looking and actually looked like they hurt. He looked 100% there, and if he can still deliver at this level, there is no reason he can't have one more big run in him. CMLL is setting up Atlantis vs. Villano IV and Santo looked way less washed then current Atlantis. No one wants to run a Santo match Wrestlemania weekend? NOVA Pro is flying in Session Moth Martina from fucking England, and there isn't one money mark willing to fly in one of the greatest ticket sellers of the 21st century? There were a couple of moments where Bandido looked off on offense, I don't know how much he has worked rudo in his career, and he seems to have lost the thread a bit. Still he is a really athletic guy, and sold most of Santo's stuff really well.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST