[1996-03-22-CMLL] El Hijo del Santo & Atlantis & El Dandy & Lizmark vs Blue Panther & Felino & Dr Wagner Jr & Negro Casas (Elimination)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Fast paced without being forced, heated, and even pretty snug. At this point, my MOTY.

 

A pretty breathtaking pace, and El Dandy and Negro Casas have some really awesome stuff when they're in. They are great for small touches. For example, at point, they take it to the mat and Casas is on his back and sits up and Dandy immediately elbows him right in the face. Really, the match is full of legends, but Negro Casas and El Dandy are the biggest standouts for me.

 

Dandy and Santo both have some spectacular dives, and the match is laid out in a way where the guys involved in the finish are the most visible on every fall, which leads to significant pops for every finish.

[Tim Evans]

It's matches like this that makes me remember how great Negro Casas is. Just a lightning fast match with some great performances from Dandy, Santo and Casas. I also really liked Felino in the match.

[Zenjo]

From a show in honour of CMLL founder Salvador Lutteroth. Good way to motivate the workers~ The correct date is 3/22 BTW.

 

The highlight for me watching the Yearbook's is discovering Lucha classics. Unlike the US and Japanese stuff I often don't know what to expect going in. This established itself as the MOTY thus far in '96.

 

The talent on display was remarkable. My top 3 Luchadors ever at this point, and other amazing workers I'm growing increasingly fond of. I don't have firm opinions on all of them yet, but it's clear they got assigned to this match based on in ring prowess. The quality of the wrestling was right out of the top drawer. They were going flat out for 20m of non-stop action. Everything was so smooth without looking overly choreographed. Whilst the pacing was tight it never felt rushed as can often be the case with ciberneticos. The eliminations were well spaced out and the booking was strong with Wagner nearly coming back from 1vs3 down. Atlantis was the sole survivor. I'd say he was actually the weakest on the day, though certainly not bad. Felino and Santo progressed a singles feud. Dandy and Casas were the best performers of all.

 

There was no extended beatdown phase, no mask ripping, no screwy finish. Simply wonderful action from start to end and a joy to watch. Right up my street.

[PeteF3]

I'm going to stick with Samurai vs. Otani as my running MOTY, but this is an easy 2nd place. Non-stop action, terrific matwork, good flying, and even some brawling, too. Plus they ran through 7 eliminations in about 20 minutes with all of them making "sense" and not feeling like a Survivor Series rush-job. Santo taking a pin was kind of a surprise, but it was set up well with him eating a low blow from Felino ("ESTE ES UNA FELONIA!" screams Dr. Morales), who basically sacrifices himself to a DQ so that Wagner can finish the job.

[soup23]

So I had shared my thoughts with PeteF and Loss privately about how 1996 was sort of paling in comparison with me compared to 1993 and 1999 and I had felt underwhelmed with stuff so far. That changed with this match. Absolutely great pairings and performances from everyone. This was an all star lineup and they didn't disappoint in crafting a great match mixing in all of the best elements of lucha libre. I especially liked the Santo elimination that PeteF mentions above as being a clever way to eliminate an big gun in a elimination style affair. ****1/4

[Loss]

Looks like this match was actually on 3/22 according to WON results. I'm changing the date. We incorrectly had it as 3/15 on the original listing.

[Zenjo]

Looks like this match was actually on 3/22 according to WON results. I'm changing the date. We incorrectly had it as 3/15 on the original listing.

I told you that in 2013.

[tim]

Super fun all action match, elimination style. The first 'fall' is just non stop action, acrobatic rope running exchanges and a bunch of great dives. Casas is eliminated first and I really like his elimination; he had just taken a suplerplex from Santo and went to work some brief exchanges with I believe Lizmark and then El Dandy, he tried to keep up with them but they got the best of him at every turn as he was a little wobbly, leading to El Dandy putting him away. After that point the match moves more into trading big moves as the eliminations come pretty quickly. Felino gets himself DQed with a foule to Santo, but Wagner capitalizes on it immediately, eliminating Santo with a powerbomb. A couple more nice dives toward the end, and finally Atlantis wins it with a great looking small package counter to an apron suplex. This match flew by.