[1992-05-14-UWA] El Hijo del Santo vs Espanto Jr

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This was outstanding. I'm not sure what the source is for this footage, but it's shot from a corner of the ring and the lighting is pretty bad, but the VQ is really good and you can actually hear the crowd! Tremendous, well-paced match. It's pretty by-the-numbers in terms of how it builds and the nearfalls at the end. You aren't going to see much you won't see in other lucha matches. But it's really spirited and well-executed. Plus, Santo does a job! I'm not sure I've ever watched a match that Santo has lost, but Espanto beat him. It took me some time to get used to, but I've grown to really appreciate the slow counts in lucha, because the suspense over the nearfalls in the third fall was great.

[Graham Crackers]

This is probably my favorite Santo match although the mask match between these two from 86 is pretty close.

[Tim Evans]

I think this is from the Espanto Jr. custom set he was selling at local Lucha shows for money. Really good match and the two work great together.

[shoe]

The mat work is done well. Seeing Santo do the job was cool. That mat is pretty filthy, which adds to the charm. I thought it was an excellent match.

[jdw]

Watched this with Hoback today. We went batshit for it. Wonderful first fall with all that good mat wrestling, along with a good finish. Second fall transitioned into Espanto dominance, not quite as compelling, but they went through it quick. Third fall had a great run of near falls, good drama/doubt over who'd win it, just a load of action, a terrific finish with Santo jobbing, and a total class post match. Add on a crowd that loved Espanto winning.

 

Fantastic match.

 

John

[Kevin Ridge]

Big pop for Espanto winning the third fall. Quite the surprising ending to see with Santo losing. Santo had a series of really close two counts just before this so was cool to see Espanto survive and then get the win. Found the lighting to be difficult at first to adjust too but the camera work overall is decent.

[Zenjo]

Such a refreshing contrast to the clean and shiny HD wrestling of today. This was a low grade handheld cam, the ring was absolutely filthy, and it was held in front of a rowdy bunch of Mexicans who had probably downed a few tequilas that day.

 

This was probably the highlight of Espanto's career as he defeats a huge star. He seems like a career midcarder, someone who could work but lacked starpower. I would guess that this was held in front of his hometown fans with the support he was getting. I liked the technical opening fall. The action after that was good without being exceptional. I know Santo was putting him over but they really overdid the near falls and it was unrealistic. Nevertheless a memorable match and a feelgood moment.

[Zero]

I'm not the biggest Lucha guy, but DAMN! This match was awesome. First, It felt like I was watching some underground secret match. This might be my favorite lucha singles match I've seen (not many).

[WingedEagle]

Great atmosphere and footage here of what feels like a hidden backyard show that just happens to have a legend main eventing. They trade the first two falls with Espanto dominating en route to victory in the second. Which means Santo will be on the verge of losing at the end before overcoming a strong challenge. Except that doesn't happen. Santo hits a super plancha before Espanto gets a bunch of great near falls that you'd think are his moral victory but then he actually scores the upset. Bonus points for the ring looking like garbage.

 

***3/4

[PeteF3]

I think I developed a staph infection just watching this. Good God that ring was disgusting.

 

Well, I thought this was good. But just "good." Maybe even really good. Nowhere near the high-end lucha matches of the early '90s, overall or just involving Santo. The first fall had some excellent matwork but the second was just by the numbers, and I simply wasn't compelled by Espanto on offense. The third fall ramps the intensity up and if there's one thing Espanto did do that was really great, it was time his kickouts. Santo gets about 47 false finishes on him before Espanto pulls out a small package counter for the upset victory.

 

I think the match was better than I'm giving it credit for, but the rest of the thread is talking this up as a MOTYC and I'm just not seeing it.

[MikeCampbell]

There's nothing I can really add here, that wasn't already said by Loss, John, or anyone else. I enjoyed this a lot, especially the stuff on the mat. It's the first time I've seen Santo job.

[garretta]

It took a while to get past the poor lighting and the awful ring, but once I did this was quite nice. Espanto never took a backwards step, like you'd expect a relative no-name to do against a legend like Del Santo, and his win was both clean and surprisingly popular. I'm not saying that the fans turned against Del Santo; it was more that they grew over the course of the match to respect the plucky youngster who was obviously giving the performance of his life. This wasn't a match filled with memorable moves or spots, bur considering the result, it didn't have to be,

 

I'm surprised these guys decided to stay in such an obviously dirty ring; I've seen other matches in rings like this take place almost exclusively on the floor, only coming into the ring for the finishes of the falls. Maybe the fact that this was a title match kept it grounded.

 

"We Will Rock You" for entrance music and "Urgent" for exit music? Either Espanto was a huge fan of eighties music or these songs were dubbed in, legally or otherwise, by the company that produced this footage, either for TV or tape. I'm guessing the latter, particularly in the case of "Urgent", which sounds too clean to have been played in the arena.

 

What was the disturbance just after the beginning of the third fall? Did officials want to determine if the ring was still usable? That's about the only reason I can think of for the match to be stopped in such an odd place.

[ohtani's jacket]

Espanto wasn't really a no-namer. He was a tailor-made rival for Santo when he first donned the "El Hijo del Santo" gimmick in the early 80s as the original Espantos had feuded with his father in the 60s, and became one of Santo's first and longest career rivals. Santo took Espanto's mask in '86 and they continued to have a long feud involving numerous hair vs. mask matches and title bouts, During the years that Santo worked for UWA, Espanto was second only to Casas in terms of Santo rivals and even then it was pretty close. When UWA started to fold, Espanto jumped to AAA. He wrestled as himself for a few years then AAA owner Antonio Pena tried repacking him as "El Santo Negro" (an evil version of Santo) and then Pentagon (an evil version of Octagon.) He had a terrible in-ring injury working as Pentagon and actually died in the ring before being revived. The source of this footage is from a DVD he was selling at live shows to support himself.

[garretta]

I'd never heard of him before, Ohtani. This puts the match in a whole new light. Thanks for the info!

[Microstatistics]

Well, I thought this was good. But just "good." Maybe even really good. Nowhere near the high-end lucha matches of the early '90s, overall or just involving Santo. The first fall had some excellent matwork but the second was just by the numbers, and I simply wasn't compelled by Espanto on offense.

 

Agree with all of this. Great, great first fall but the second fall was pretty weak. I thought Espanto would go full out rudo in the second fall (after cheating slightly in the first and still losing) but he just won the fall in dull fashion. Plus Espanto as underdog in the 3rd fall didn't really work. Something like that worked perfectly in Satanico vs. Cochise because how they built the match and the stuff that came before the turn but here it felt rushed and a little forced. Good mainly because of the first fall but not on the level of their excellent 1986 and 1988 bouts. *** 1/4

[Makai Club #1]

This was an awesome match. And I'm watching this whilst falling asleep. Gonna rewatch this when I'm not knackered to give this a proper analysis because this was awesome and it deserves much more.

[dawho5]

That mat was all kinds of awful.  Do low end indy guys have to deal with that kind of deal?  The crowd was super rowdy and really helped the match.  Santo bouncing off the mat from the Espanto snapmares was a really cool touch.  I thought Espanto went a little rudo on Santo at the beginning of caida 3.  overall very good, not the best lucha I've seen but good.  Oh, and I didn't know Santo did jobs, even for hometown favorites.