CMLL June/July 1997

Scorpio/Wagner/Santo vs Fiera/Dragon/Casas, 6/6/97

Scorpio/Wagner/Santo vs Fiera/Dragon/Casas, 6/13/97

Santo/Emilio/Wagner vs Casas/Ultimo Dragon/Felino, 6/20 or 6/27/97

El Hijo del Santo vs. Felino for the WWA Welterweight Title, 7/4/97

A lot of people are familiar with the Santo heel turn & the mask vs. hair match from the 64th Anniversary show, but man was the TV leading into that match great. Here you've got a month's worth of trios building to the Santo/Felino title match; heated, brawling trios, all spun around the Casas Brothers vs. Santo feud and all of them fucking great. You couldn't ask for more.

All that heat & brawling leads to a straight up title match between Santo and Felino that's wrestled exactly like a lucha title match, with Negro and Bestia as seconds. The first caida is almost entirely mat work & it's some of the best I've seen from Santo. Around this time, lucha guys started to get a lot stiffer & work the mat like Japanese promotions... There were more lariats & powerbombs & moves that make it easy for people who don't like lucha to like this stuff. I was never happy with the way Santo and Casas work the mat in the Anniversary show match, since it's just not lucha. But there's no denying that this was a great match even in that style. The matwork and stiffness seems nastier. The match is fantastic. The ending beyond awesome, recalling all the great second moments in lucha libre history. Outrage and talk of mascara contra mascara. CMLL was shit-hot in 1997 and this was great booking.