Lucha Worth Watching: El Hijo Del Santo & Juvy in London! Arena Neza Highflyers!

El Hijo Del Santo/Hijo del Fantasma vs. Juventud Guerrera/Laredo Kid LLL 5/11/19

ER: We've been getting a little more current Santo footage poking its head out, an occasional handheld, and now he's actually doing more of a US tour. Phil got to take his son to see Santo live, and I saw him work a singles match against Ultimo Dragon a week ago. This tag was from London and I dig how Santo is a guy who finds a dance partner he likes, takes them around the horn, lays low for a couple years, then does it all over again. He did it earlier this decade with Mystico de la Juarez, did the same with Angel Blanco Jr., and Laredo Kid appears to be the new Santo dance partner, and that's cool. And the match is really fun, though I was left wishing they mixed it up more. Outside of one brief attempted unmasking, Santo and Juvy steered clear of each other, and after awhile I assumed the big match ending blowout was going to be the two of them finally going at it. They never did, and that's a shame because Juvy looked game as hell throughout, and outside of a post WCW rush of luchadors back into Mexico there aren't a ton of times we've seen Santo across from Juvy. Juvy still has an argument for best strikes in lucha (and easily in the discussion against anyone), as he's a guy with good enough chops, punches, and elbows that he could survive as a wrestler even when he body eventually begins to fail. I absolutely love how Juvy throws a chop, it's one of my favorite wrestling motions. He works well with Fantasma, hits a nice rana off the apron and really stays fired up throughout (though I was amused by him bumping to the floor and then getting of dodge to not take a potential Fantasma tope). Santo looked like Santo, rolled a bit with Laredo on the mat, hit a few wild pendulum armdrags, hit a great baseball slide dropkick to the floor, and hit his rolling senton/dive past the turnbuckles. His knees buckled after the senton and I believe that's the only time I've seen that happen, it's crazy to me that he's still doing that spot around the horn. This whole thing was clean and professional, but needed a hotter tercera to get bumped up to list. Santo squaring off and brawling with Juvy would have gotten it there. Somebody book that.

Neza Kid/Dragon Bane vs. Aramis/Auzter AAA 6/1/19

ER: I love seeing flyers go nuts on a lucha undercard, and here are four guys pulling off some bonkers spots while hot Neza crowd goes nuts. I will seek out any Freelance/Neza Kid stuff, and thanks to him I also got to discover the joy that is Dragon Bane. I'm confident I've never watched him before, but he impressed me here and I'll be watching more. He and Neza are technically the rudos, though this isn't muddled up by cheating or fast counts or anything like that; this is much more about the four of them hitting weirdo headscissors and flying into the crowd on dives. Auzter was pretty raw and had a little uncertainty, didn't quite know how to get from a to b, but the b usually looked good when he got there. Neza and Dragon were much more the glue, and Bane especially did a pretty awesome job of reining in Auzter, going over for some of his less thought out ideas, taking big hard bumps and spilling to the floor far too quickly. I dig this guy. Neza brings his unmistakable aim and grace, and he and Bane work overtime as we get a zillion superkicks from Aramis and Auzter, but a bunch of them look good! But people want dives and they deliver dives! Boy do they. Neza hits a couple of doozies, a huge Asai moonsault off the top to the floor that bends Aramis over the barricade, and later hits his gorgeous springboard hilo, bending both Aramis and Auzter over that barricade. Auzter hits a wild springboard tornillo, Aramis hits a crushing bullet tope that threatens to literally collapse the barricade while at the same time Dragon Bane hits a crazy multi jump moonsault, and later Dragon hits a huge twisting press off the top, crashing into everyone before the video just fades to black (disappointingly leaving us with no visible finish). So yeah, the dives were spectacular, and if we got an actual ending this would have likely landed on list.