[1993-10-29-AAA-Sin Limite] El Hijo del Santo vs Heavy Metal

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I think one reason this time period is remembered fondly for AAA is that the wrestling style is more in tune with the rest of the world than is typical for lucha. There are sparks of All Japan and New Japan matches mixed in. I don't want to call it influence as much as continuity.

 

The matwork, as with all the Santo/Metal matches, is excellent. But this is weirdly laid out, in the sense that neither guy has really made much of a dent even halfway through the third fall, as they're still having standoffs. I also thought Barr throwing his drink on Metal by accident was weird because it was a major momentum shifter. It was a drink.

 

This is good, but I think their first match of the year was their best. The matwork is tremendous though, and this match mostly deserves the good rep it has.

[Zenjo]

I enjoyed their previous two encounters this year, so found this to be a big let down. Santo let Metal dictate most of the time and it wasn't pretty. This matchup needed Santito at the top of his game to carry his opponent, and he was nowhere close on this night.

[Kevin Ridge]

It was one of those lethal drug cocktails maybe that Barr threw in Metal's face. Heavy and Barr brawl after and Santo plays peace maker for some reason. And then Octagon just starts laying in shots to Barr as everyone was calmly talking. Wonder what was said to spark that outburst from Octagon.

[PeteF3]

I think this is the #2 match in the series, better than the 2nd match but not as good as the 1st. Still not an ideal, decisive finish as botched interference from American Love Machine (I like to think of the drink as being a cup of Everclear) leads to a Santo victory. This was the first match where Metal really came across as pulling his weight instead of this being a Santo carryjob, so it had that going for it. Metal turns technico after the match, and he and Octagon team up to take out Love Machine. Barr seems to a force driving every significant AAA angle and turn this year.

[garretta]

This one built really slowly but was a humdinger by the end, with each man trying to take out the other on the floor and several near-double countouts in the third fall. I'm not sure what precipitated Art's interference, but it certainly was a turning point in the match, and the brawl afterward (even with del Santo as a peacemaker instead of a participant) was the best part of the whole thing.

 

I've watched so much wrestling lately that I'm having a hard time remembering the other matches between these two that we saw this year, but Metal was a much more fluid worker here than I seem to remember him being earlier. I don't think del Santo was lacking so much as Metal had improved since the last time we saw these two wrestle.

 

Art has at least two hot feuds on his docket now: Metal and Octagon. I'll be interested to find out if any of his matches with either one of them made either the final part of this Yearbook or the first few months of the '94 one.

[soup23]

I agree with PeteF that this was the 2nd best match of the series so far. Some great matwork throughout and Metal hung in there with Santo well. I do see what Loss was saying about the match being kind of tough to gauge from a damage standpoint but it felt really competitive and athletic and more of a sense of respect which is nice to see in a long standing feud that these two had. I thought Love Machine was pretty rough on his interference and timing but it does seem to set up a lot of things in the future for AAA. ****