Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca, 1/27/84

Mocho Cota always looked great whenever he showed up on tape as an ancient rudo brawler. This discovery was a chance to see him as a masterful rudo. In Kevin Cook's words, "Cota's Dickensian sinsterness is something to behold; what a crabbed, warped rassler" and indeed Cota has an awesome sneer and Cook a way with words.

The match starts out with some conventional, US-style matwork, which leads to all sorts of impossible to answer questions about the evolution of lucha matwork in a title match setting, & whether all pro-wrestling matwork originated from the same place, taking twists and turns as it spread out over the territories. Certainly, luchadores were schooled in the US style, since they moved around the territories more often during this era. And they showed similar habits to US pro-wrestling -- not all of them good, like dropping the matwork to run the ropes for the finish -- even if the finish was distinctly lucha. The second fall was where the match took off. One of the greatest second fall rudo comebacks I've seen in a lucha title match. So many times lucha has a quick second fall to even up the stakes, but Cota was masterful at working his way back into this fight, and his tope was completely unexpected. But what really sold me on Cota was his cheating to win. A wrestler of Cota's calibre needn't cheat to win -- Rocca was all flash, Cotta a grappler -- but he does, because he's rudo... How satisfying for a rudo to watch as a technico crumples to the mat in sheer frustration. A rudo is always looking to bring a technico to his knees, and what better way than to completely screw him?

This was a nice blend of the fair fight & the machiavellian, all wrapped up in a time capsule.