[1993-08-28-AAA] Eddy Guerrero & Love Machine & Fuerza Guerrera vs El Hijo del Santo & Octagon & Blue Panther

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Having trouble watching this disc due to some problems with my laptop I think, but I remember this being awesome. Will come back later.

[Kevin Ridge]

Love Machine originally had me thinking about the Steiners on how they do big moves and then do not try to pin their opponents. But this is more like 2 Cold Scorpio who hits a big move goes for the pin but then keeps pulling his opponent up before the three count. Santo was flying around here. But in the end it is more dumb garbage from Love Machine who gets disqualified in the deciding fall again when using a Tombstone in full view of the referee. Might want to remove that move from your arsenal.

[PeteF3]

Eddy Guerrero has now turned heel in a career-altering event--Love Machine used the same "attack a guy while wearing the Santo mask and make him think Santo turned on him" trick that opened up the '90 Yearbook. Love Machine with his do-rag to hide his haircut and general mannerisms could pass for a third member of PG-13--he reminds me of every douchebag jock I knew in high school. Good look for him. I've had my fill of these post-produced announcers yukking it up all the way through the matches, by the way. It's more annoying than usual in this match because this is work that really depends on hearing the crowd response--you can tell they're loud, but it loses something with people talking over the noise in a studio after the fact. Lots and lots of effective playing to the crowd here before we get to business: Los Gringos Locos continuing to torture Blue Panther. Same story as before, with the heels continuing to pull him up during pin attempts. I loved Fuerza very casually stepping in front of the referee just as he was about to count three and blocking the ref's hand with his leg--that was smooth as hell. Same story leads to the same finish, as Barr murders Panther with a martinete and gets disqualified. Good, chaotic table-setter of a match--everyone looked pretty good here and Eddy looked spectacular. The heel turn definitely seems to be a positive turning point for his career.

[soup23]

This was another one that left me really cold. Maybe it was the wrong time but this just felt like a bunch of schtick that I took as guys being lazy instead of innovative. Again, you have some all timers in there and instead we get some generic action and Love Machine really clowning it up. Something about the AAA style here doesn't really resonate me despite the loaded roster. **1/2

[garretta]

Any match that takes almost ten minutes to get to the opening lockup is all but done before it starts in my book. Eddy and Art looked really good, but other than that this wasn't much at all to me, and the utter stupidity of the finish (and if I pck up on the stupidity of a lucha finish, you know​ it's dumb) killed what little was left. I have to say that Art's tombstone looked really good in spite of everything, though.

 

I'm feeling the matches on this card even less than I usually do when it comes to lucha. Maybe Jake being in the last bout we have from it will help a little.

[Makai Club #1]

Love Machine and Guerrero have their immigrant schtick down pat already, doing swimming gestures on the mat which angered the LA crowd (aka a lot of Mexican immigrants). There was so much heat for the rudos and the match was mostly built around adding fuel to the fire. The wrestling was really great at times. Santo and Eddy have tremendous chemistry and they had some great exchanges with Santo finding multiple ways to arm drag Eddy around the ring, which pisses Eddy off. The second fall meanders in little but the third fall picked up back where the first fall left off with Los Gringos Locos bullying Blue Panther and antagonizing the tenico side any time they could. Cool semi main event that brought LGL’s character work into the mix. ***1/2