Santo Baby, Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight

ER: One of the finest luchadors in history came back from retirement a couple years ago and began working matches again (many with his son, which is what likely made him start working again), but I hardly saw anybody writing about the matches. It felt like it was treated as a non-event, as opposed to an exciting event that we now have more footage of a legend who never deteriorated. I decided to run through several of the matches from his most recent active year on file and see what we seemingly collectively missed.


El Hijo Del Santo/Rey Mysterio Jr./Discovery vs. Dr. Cerebro/Super Crazy/Yakuza LLT 9/17/17

ER: This was plenty fun, but when a match has 2 of the 10 biggest lucha legends of all time in it, you hope for a bit more. The rudo control segments were a little underwhelming, and Yakuza kinda stinks and looks like he's mailing it in the whole match (or maybe that's just his operating speed; I assume if you're across the ring from Santo, Mysterio, and the top local lucha tecnico that you would be going your hardest). The early pairings are fun with the tecnicos all getting to show off their arsenal of armdrags and headscissors, but the rudo beatdown after gets a little tedious. We have two short and chubby refs in the ring, one indifferent and one a rudo. I know if I were in the crowd watching a match with Santo, Mysterio, Cerebro (in the states, so wearing his all time great mask), Crazy, I'd personally be interested in some spots where a referee is front and center. It's arguably the worst trope in any style of wrestling. But the home stretch is a solid burst of lightning, with Crazy taking a great bump to the floor off a Mysterio headscissors, Santo hitting his rolling senton off the top (and weirdly barely getting a reaction for a dive onto Cerebro that sends both of them to the guardrail), Yakuza takes a lazy bump to the floor but Discovery hits a nice flip dive onto him (which Yakuza doesn't really catch, moreso lets Discovery bounce off him onto the floor), and then the crowd of course explodes for the 619. Santo was super engaging throughout, really active from the apron, not going through any motions (I thought it was cool when his guys were on offense that Santo was always watching the loose members of the rudo side). But out of all the available 2017 Santo this one was the on paper champ, and didn't really live up to that billing.

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Silver King vs. Alberto el Patron MDA 10/1/17

ER: You might have guessed, but this would have been much better had it been a singles with either of those two opposite Santo, as this had too many moments of three guys in the ring where one guy is just in the way. The money match here is Santo/King, and it's not really that Patron is bad, more that the match would have worked far better as a singles and he's clearly the odd man out. Silver King works the match as a kind of upsetter, like LA Park or Rush, first guy to go looking for weapons, first guy to go for ball shots, just trying to cause chaos. He also lands stiff and takes big bumps, so I'm all for it. Santo works all of his majestic spots off these two, hitting a headscissor and flipping armdrag on King, vaulting off King to hit a dropkick on Patron, and late in the match hitting his rolling senton into tope past the ringpost. Is there a man with a crazier "signature spot" that he's executing into his 50s? Santo is great when a match turns into a brawl, as he has awesome shots and takes Lawleresque bumps into furniture and metal. He even moves a lot like Lawler as he bumps, so seeing Silver King throw him hard into a chair is gonna look great. King comes out with a couple full containers of empty beer bottles and bounces one off Santo, a mere foot away from a man holding his infant. King smacks Santo around with a bottle, then jabs the ref with it, and later blasts Patron with a serving tray.  Finish felt like a good brawl finish, with King bringing in a super heavy looking container of empties (and if it wasn't actually heavy, let's credit Silver King with his John Cena-like ability to make things appear heavier than they are) and looks like he's about to crush Santo's head with it, but Patron throws beer in his face to allow Santo to lock on la caballo. This was very clipped, although I don't think we missed anything, and probably just helped with flow. The performance of Santo and King certainly made me excited for the following tag.

El Hijo Del Santo/Garza Jr. vs. Silver King/Silver King Jr. Auditorio Municipal 11/17/17

ER: This starts out feeling like it's going to be really good, until the back half of this gets plunged into the murky waters of the worst lucha tropes. This started fine, with Santo squaring off against King Jr. and working through some Santo-y mat spots, and then King Sr. and Garza squared off with Garza doing a lot of mincy movements and teasing all the ladies by showing skin, a flash of an ab here and a flash of a left buttock there, all culminating in him missing a big avalanche to get hung up butt up on the top rope, allowing Silver King to expose full butt. The squeals mean it's working. Garza does fully seem all the way into Buddy Landel no kneepads work, but shtick works fine when used properly. There's a FANTASTIC spot where King Jr. gets a cheap shot in on Santo, and King Sr. cheapshots King Jr. to tell him to knock off the cheapshots. Brilliantly timed. Santo comes in and rips off a bunch of classics, big flying headbutt off the top, some victory rolls, big flipping armdrag, a couple nice alley oop headscissors, stuff that looked like good Santo. This didn't appear to be that big of a gymnasium crowd, but Santo is clearly still a guy who busts ass no matter the crowd. And then everything goes to absolute hell in the tercera. The referee turns on Santo for some stupid ass lucha reason and starts putting the boots to him with the Kings. Then Garza also turns on Santo but keeps avoiding taking bumps so he's just a guy who turned and then ran around the ring taunting all match. If I was Silver King Jr. and was paid less than Garza for this match, I'd be pissed. Garza worked this match the way a guy would work if he had found out just before the match that he wouldn't be paid. But then even though Garza turns on Santo, King Jr. still treats him as an enemy and keeps trying to attack him. Maybe King Jr. really *was* pissed about Buddy Garza goofing off the whole match. It was just really weird that Garza wasn't trying to harm the King Family, and was trying to lie down for pins, but King Jr. kept going after him like they were in a fight. None of this made any sense. Santo does still manage to hit his rolling senton and tope past the ringpost into King Jr., but we get nothing but fast count cheating, Santo eating a huge kick to the balls for the finish, and just a final 10 minutes that nobody could possibly be happy with. The one saving grace in the last 10 minutes was Santo still breaking out big spots when allowed, and him finally slapping both Garza and the ref. The fans responded to Santo finally snapping as a big deal, and the ref took a great floppy oversell off Santo's punch. But damn, guys, knock off the horseplop.

El Hijo Del Santo/Santo Jr./Hijo de Black Silver vs. La Mascara/Bandido/Black Silver Jr. LLA 11/19/17

ER: This was nice condensed fun in a neat outdoor soccer field venue. Mascara works as a decent rudo stooge throughout, Bandido is a rudo with excellent fringe on his tights so I am beholden by law to give him positive marks, and apparently the sons of Black Silver are having a row. Black Silver Jr. appears to be the better of the brothers (and sadly passed away in a car accident a few months after this match), and we get more of a look at Santo Jr. Santo Jr. is not that good, but he can blend into a trios well enough and hits a nice dive off the top to the floor late in the match. But you have to sit through sloppy headscissors to get there. He bumps well enough and it's kind of weird because sometimes he tries to almost mimic his father's movement. He can't pull off the execution, but he sometimes moves like him and it's kind of weird. Santo obviously looked like a star here, with a big rana and high knees and slick headscissors, brawling through the crowd with Mascara, and hitting his rolling senton/tope combo. Seriously, Hogan has severe hip pain from doing the legdrop too long, Santo's still out here diving onto soccer fields. Match was a nice crowd pleaser.

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Wrestlemania Weekend Cherry Picking: CRASH

Brian Cage vs. Sami Callihan vs. Willie Mack

ER: This was fine, felt like a Lucha Underground dark match, a quick 10 minute pleaser that these three could probably have in their sleep. I think heel Callihan carrying a bat around with him is pretty effective, as when he tries to hit Mack in the face with it you buy it, because we've all see him hit someone in the face full force with a baseball bat. You want to get over a prop, you use it on a sap. "Don't worry honey, these guys don't want to hurt anybody, they just want to leave the bank with all of the money. Oh my god they shot a guard." Cage is fun throughout, I especially like a couple ways he no sells Callihan, like eating a chop and not blinking (while holding Mack in a Samoan drop) and earlier just running through a lariat. I don't think I've ever seen someone attempt a lariat only to have the other guy just sprint through it. Cage throws really heavy corner clotheslines, and I liked a spot where Mack was still in the corner, Cage went to clothesline Callihan who ducked, and Cage still clotheslined Mack. Still this felt rushed and everyone was coasting. They have more tricks in their bag than the average guy, so they can work an amusing coasting match, and it will still have things like Callihan throwing a stiff forearm shiver to Cage, hitting a nice sitout powerbomb, and a big vertical suplex spot, but coasting is coasting.

Rey Fenix vs. Flamita

ER: This goes just 5 minutes, which was likely annoying to those in attendance, but played as a fun WorldWide sprint to me. Fenix is really good for something like this, as his spots are always nice (big flip dive to start and followed up with this killer late rotation swanton in the ring) and Flamita hits a big moonsault to the floor. Flamita always finds Fenix works tight with kicks, and throws in neat little things that add to a sprint-y spotfest, like a great spit take while getting folded up by a Flamita superkick, or reaching out to grab Flamita's boot to try and stop Flamita from going up top. Those kind of things are great as typically you just get guys lying there waiting to get hit. Flamita works tighter strikes than a lot of flippers (I loved him kicking Fenix in the face when Fenix grabbed his boot), hits a mean 450, all fun stuff. This would be legendary if it happened on WCW Saturday Night, here it just gets complaints for going to short. Oh well.

LA Park/Damian 666/Psicosis vs. Garza Jr./Bestia 666/Mecha Wolf 450

PAS: Fun if sloppy rudo vs. rudo brawl. Match opens up with Rebellion Amarillo getting the upper hand on the LWO, including Psicosis taking a powerbomb into the crowd and through some chairs.  Lots of amusing shtick by both teams Garza Jr. has inherited his uncles hateful face and he does a lot of amusing begging off. Lots of nasty belt shots with PARK's big belt and we get a great fat boy Park tope and an awesome looking Mecha Wolf low missile tope. There was some real issues when guys were trying to apply moves, the LWO guys are pretty old and probably should have stuck to brawling, still it would be hard not to enjoy this.

ER: This was a bunch of fun, with fat old rudos (except Psicosis who looks exactly the same, the other two are clearly XXLWO at this point) going up against three young rudos of varying quality (I like Garza Jr. as a 0.6 Hector Garza, Wolf has some impressive spots, and Bestia usually leaves me cold). The big star of the match is clearly Park's belt, as it gets removed early and amusingly gets used by every member of the LWO to break up pinfalls. Park used it in the best way possible, to belt Garza as he's tearing off his tearaway pants. Bestia gets whipped in the face, Psicosis breaks up a pin from the apron, truly some excellent belt usage throughout. Park is a total megastar. I bet plenty of people in the crowd haven't gone out of their way to watch him since WCW, and he showed them what they've been missing. He completely engulfs Bestia on a huge dive, still somehow bumps big for a guy that size, and works a great spot where he gets frustrated and slaps the ref in the face. Psicosis is still Psicosis somehow, OPENING the match by getting powerbombed over the railing into a bunch of chairs, still crazy after 25+ years in the game. He still moves quick and fits in totally fine with the younger guys. I can't believe the LWO was literally 20 years ago. I think my buddy still has the t-shirt (though he's a poseur because he wasn't there the night the LWO party vignettes aired. Eddie always wins!).

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