Espanto Jr. vs. El Hijo Del Santo (UWA World Welterweight Title Match), 5/14/92

This was such a beautiful Lucha Libre match & made a fool of me thinking Santo wasn't one of the great Lucha mat workers. If more of his UWA work was available, I think we'd get a bigger picture of how good Santo really was.

Again, the single camera at ringside gives this a raw documentary feel, only it's not a glimpse of Santo working Durango. Sure he looks every bit the superhero during the introductions, with the belt around his waist & a glorious red cape, & his matwork in the first fall comes across as the height of old-school lucha greatness, but it's really about the other guy. It's kinda hard to pick it, but Espanto Jr. was a 36 year-old wrestler with 21 years experience and this was his night. The great thing about his challenge is how it swings. He actually manages to shake off Santo's matwork in the first fall, sending him to the outside, but back in the ring he gets faked out and takes a high back bump (a spot Espanto liked to do.) It's over after that. So in the second fall, when he shakes Santo off again, this time he stays on him. There's no room for Santo to breath, with the Lucha equivalent of body blows. He gets kneed, elbowed hurled into the turnbuckle... All of which he sells like the K metal from Krypton, but he's OK with it. Espanto pushes his luck in the third fall, however. Santo collapses into the bottom turnbuckle & Espanto can't help himself. Man, you do not piss El Hijo del Santo off. He springs out of the corner & starts hitting the nastiest looking stuff. It's his usual stuff, but you rarely see it this nasty. From there on out it becomes a survival game for Espanto. He'd lost to Santo a bunch of times before; his hair, his mask. And again it looked like he'd blown his opportunities, but the bleaker it became, the more he took on this sort of underdog quality. Santo even kicked the bottom rope. Until finally they reached that level of Lucha where they're just going for it, and it wouldn't matter who won, the crowd would throw coins anyway. But this was Espanto's night. He throws himself back into the ring after Santo's plancha, he kicks out of everything & he finally catches him out.

Maybe not the most important title win in wrestling history, and it didn't last very many days, but a special night for a guy who spent a long time plying this trade (and very nearly died in the process.) If you're the least bit interested in Lucha Libre, the El Espanto Jr.: Un Guerrero Nunca Muere DVD is essential. Hell, if you like wrestling it's essential. Santo & Espanto had many other matches and this might not be their best, but it's a hometown boy done good and everyone likes that story.