Atlantis/El Hijo del Santo/Tony Salazar vs. El Satanico/El Dandy/Espectro Jr., mid-80s

This was pretty cool. Not the three fall classic you're looking for; in fact the technicos ran away with it, but if you're into your technicos then this was irresistable.

Santo did the kind of things you've seen him do a million times before, but at three times the speed. Even though he's Santo, it was staggerly how cleanly he hit everything. Whenever a match pops up from his UWA period, it always seems so much fresher and I've no doubt that this was the peak of his athleticism. Not to be outdone, Atlantis and Dandy couldn't match him for pace but put together some ridiculously intricate exchanges. Atlantis was a special luchador in his youth and it's almost impossible to pin him as the same guy today.

The captains were Satanico and Tony Salazar, who, as you'd imagine, had heat with each other. It seems Satanico's had an issue with everyone at one point or another. Satanico wanted to throw away the contest and have a boxing match, and when the refs put a stop to that, the crowd took great delight in Salazar delivering the bulldog.

The finish was a popular one in the 80s, with the rudo avoiding one technico's dive and getting blindsided by another's. Considering the technicos were Santo and Atlantis, I won't lie, it was a bit of a mark-out moment. And when Santo hit his dive proper, a bit of a fuck yeah.

Friend of the blog, Robert Bihari, talks about all luchadores wanting to up the pace of things in their youth, and it's true -- Santo, Atlantis and Dandy were dramatically quicker than Caras, Wagner and Mendoza, but the kids today don't do shit this good. Even Freelance can't touch this stuff and he's the best thing going down. Something has gone awry with the modern luchador. Mind you, something's gone awry with all modern things. Perhaps I have entered my old age. I have arrived. I wonder if you can pinpoint the whole thing to Diablo Velazco's death. Robert's a great champion of the younger guys, but jeez they get shown up on even the most limited footage of the older days.