El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas, 5/17/91, Tijuana (handheld)

Not a great match compared to the matches Santo had against Brazo de Oro and Espanto Jr, or the stuff Casas was doing with El Dandy a year later, but it had the usual awesome atmosphere, with local kids climbing all over the ring and plenty of activity in the audience.

One kid in particular leads a pretty rousing ovation at the end, while the other kids bang on the apron. Once again, the handheld gives you a feel for what a real lucha experience is like. A lot of people struggle with the logic behind lucha, but there's a flow to it & crowds understand this.

Ostensibly, lucha matwork doesn't mean much since holds don't build to submissions in a logical manner as perhaps they do in other styles, but holds and counters are important. There's an ebb and flow to them & you can see from the tape that the crowd knows that countering a counter is a key part of the mental game. Countering a counter won't lead to a submission (usually). but at the next break, that wrestler is one up in the mental stakes. And those small battles for one-upmanship usually shape the way a fall is decided. So, you can see the crowd pop for those moments. A guy in the front row is pretty into it. I love a crowd who "know the score", since they have a bit of a say in momentum, and while this wasn't a great match, I would've been happy to be there.