Los Infernales (El Satanico/MS-1/Masakre) vs. Rayo de Jalisco Jr./La Fiera/Tony Salazar, CMLL 1987

When I say "Classic Infernales," I really mean older footage of the Infernales in action, since Pirata Morgan had already left the group by this stage. Nevertheless, the Masakre version was a good team in its own right, and this was an awesome Southern style tag match.

The Infernales were fantastic as Southern heels -- backing into the ref when the technicos wanted to duke it out, attacking from behind when the technicos turned their backs. Each of the technicos took turns playing FIP, and there were long stretches of two-on-one brawling, but not once did I feel like I was watching a sluggish opening fall. A lot of modern brawling relies on video editing to prevent it from being static, but the Infernales had an endless array of shit they could do to to keep a match ticking over. La Fiera was the best of the technicos here, but he was carrying a leg injury into the match. This was back when Fiera used a lot of high kicks. Needless to say, the Infernales saw an opportunity. The Little Master was in his element here. Some of the holds he put Fiera in, and Fiera's selling, made this worth including on a Best of the 80s set.

After a fall and a half of rudo treatment, Rayo snapped into a babyface pose. There was a tremendous pop for Rayo, but unfortunately most of the workers were scattered at ringside. Rayo had to go to the floor to dish out his haymakers, which kind of killed things for the audience on the far side, but Satanico flung himself head first into the ring post for those of us at home.

Back in the ring, the technicos cut loose. The Infernales did the most awesome punch drunk selling off whips into the turnbuckle. The contest was on to see who could collapse in the most entertaining fashion, and MS-1 may have been the winner. His unicycle act was incredible. Exaggerated bumps were a big part of 80s lucha, but looked awful when technicos did them. Kurt Brown told a great story the other day about how Dusty Rhodes flipped out the first time he saw Pimpinela Escarlata live. I think Big Dust would've lost it over most lucha if he'd had the opportunity to see it more often. If you think Arn Anderson was good at comic stooge bumping, the Infernales made an art form out of it. Fiera's offence was hot on the heels of The Karate Kid, Part II and straight-to-video kickboxing movies, but fuck me, you HAVE TO SEE his KO of Masakre on the outside.

Really good match. Could've used a third fall, but it had a nice mano a mano finish between the captains MS-1 and Rayo de Jalisco Jr. I'd put it on the level of the trios leading into Satanico/Dandy, Dandy/Casas and Santo/Casas despite Rayo vs. MS-1 being a lesser feud.