El Dandy vs. Bestia Salvaje, 9/4/92 (CMLL World Middleweight title)

I was sorry to read about the recent death of Bestia Salvaje. Sorry for his friends and family, sorry for the man himself.. A guy like him deserves to get old & tell a bunch of lucha stories. And I'm sure he had a bunch to tell, as he was a lucha libre "professionale" in every sense of the word.

In many ways, he was the last of his kind. A thick-set rudo, who could lay in the forearms and was plenty stiff when he needed to be. He was a brawler by trade, but was precise on his bigger spots (dropkick, senton, plancha), bumped well & knew his way around the mat. Tradesmen like Bestia are rare these days. A lot of guys these days try to win rudo fans. Bestia never forgot that the rudo is a foil for the technico.

Here, Bestia was a foil for his second Satanico, but it's still a good title match with a prime El Dandy. What really impressed me were the little touches. Dandy was one of the better lucha title match workers, in large part because of his selling, but Bestia throws in all these cool little counters, like fighting the surfboard on the mat, evading the enzugiri & blocking a sunset flip with a takedown. We often look for the flamboyant from lucha, but there's a place for the rock solid. Bestia was all that & more. In Japan, where he could be stiffer, and later on when he was Ric Flair-ish with the suits and gold watches. I swear watching him & Scorpio, Jr. beat down Santo is like watching the Horsemen turn on someone.