[1993-01-22-AAA-Sin Limite] Eddy Guerrero & El Hijo del Santo vs Jerry Estrada & Espanto Jr

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The matwork with Santo and Espanto in the opening minutes is really basic and looks terrific. Santo catches him in a headscissors in the middle of a criss-cross sequence, which looks amazing. After a few minutes of fairly polite wrestling, things get heated, so Eddy and Estrada come in. Their stuff is way more advanced and fast-paced, but they're still largely staying on the mat. Now the two of them are getting angry and all four of them seem a bit fired up. Estrada takes some amazing bumps and is at his best. The first fall is a nice heat match on its own, with Eddy and Santo picking up the win. Espanto botches Eddy and Santo's Steinersesque top rope bulldog by not falling off of Eddy's shoulders, but they recover well.

 

To begin the second fall, Espanto offers a handshake and Eddy is hesitant, so Espanto instead beats him up. Santo and Estrada are now paired off and look great again. In an awesome moment, Eddy and Espanto are about to lock up and Estrada sneaks in behind him and clips him, and both refs get distracted long enough for him to sneak in a kick to the balls too. Soon, all four are brawling and Espanto does an awesome Vader-like slingshot splash on Santo, but from the middle of the ropes instead of the corner. Estrada and Espanto take the second fall when Estrada locks in some type of octopus-style submission on Eddy.

 

The third fall begins with Espanto and Estrada riding the wave of momentum from the second fall. Santo gets attacked on the floor and is now being isolated. The rudos go crazy ripping on Santo's mask until Eddy finall has enough of watching this from the apron and jumps in and changes the direction of the match. Eddy does a vertical suplex on Santo on to Espanto in a fun spot and Santo backflips Eddy on to Estrada in another fun spot. Then the dive train starts, with Santo's top rope dive to the floor being the highlight. Eddy gets in a top rope superplex on Espanto, a big move at this point that wasn't really yet the norm anywhere. Santo follows with a senton and they pin both the rudos to take the fall and the match.

 

This is technically a very good match with some good high-flying and a nice layout, but it just doesn't get to the next level for me. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but it falls short of being a great match. It's weird that it feels in some ways like they were going through the motions, maybe because of the lack of aggression. Still, I'd recommend seeing this, but I expect to see much better stuff in 1993.

[benj]

Insane! bump through ropes by Estrada. I liked this match, a few sloppy spots but really fun moves and some neat stuff.

[Matt Franklin]

Estrada bumps like a lunatic in this really fun match. Lucha is one of my neglected areas of watching, so I am looking forward to seeing more throughout the set. Santo looked really good and Eddy did some sweet suplexes, but Jerry was the star of this match for me, with his aforementioned sick bumps and great rudo antics. He just carries himself like a star, and I look forward to seeing more of him in the future.

[Kevin Ridge]

That monkey flip bump Estrada took was crazy. He was able to turn his body properly through the ropes to not land on his head on the floor though. Santo completely wiffed on the top rope doomsday bulldog. Some blame for Guerrero also. They were brave enough to show a replay of it too. Estrada’s low blow was funny as wasn’t a hard kick but just flick type blow in an asshole type way. Probably enjoyed the first fall mat work the most in this.

[PeteF3]

Good but not to the next level is about right. This started great with Santo and Espanto tearing it up on the mat, and it ended very good. But it did meander a bit in the middle, and there were some bad spots like that Steiner bulldog and some mistimed pin saves. Santo & Eddy make for a very good team however, and I like the sort of Japanese layout they sometimes bring to their matches with high-impact moves leading to guys scrambling to make pin saves. Estrada took a number of loony bumps, as expected, and I loved his casual kick to the groin that turned the second fall the rudos' way. Santo provided a spectacular dive about 3/4 of the way across the ring, and held a lot of this together.

[WingedEagle]

Santo & Espanto trade holds early with a couple near falls and Santo is smooth as can be. Guerrero & Estrada tag in and go at a much faster pace. The pace remains brisk from then on, with heels avoiding any dives when out on the floor. Santo butchers a bulldog off of Eddy's shoulders, and faces win first fall shortly thereafter. Estrada with a cheap shot to Eddy's knee and the heels isolate him and kick him low for great heat before Estrada wins the second fall over Eddy via submission. Things get more heated in the 3rd as the heels rip apart Santo's mask while Eddy sells the low blow much of the way. Cool spot where Eddy suplexes Santo onto Espanto for a near fall. Hot closing stretch and finish with a double pin for Santo & Eddy. This was pretty good and built the intensity up from the opening bell through to the finish, with enough wrinkles along the way to keep things interesting.

 

***3/4

[soup23]

I feel lower than this than most as it was certainly a good match but a pretty blah one to me. Santo on the mat will almost always be good and his opening sequence here was just that, not next level to me. Ditto for Jerry bumping like a lunatic. This were actually relatively tame on the Jerry scale at times. Eddy still feels like he is learning his way a bit and there was some growing pains. Again, not critiquing the match but it felt like a basis level match which was fun to watch but nothing too memorable. (***)

[garretta]

This had some good matwork between Del Santo and Espanto in the first fall, and the third fall was heated with the mask ripping on Del Santo, which always gets the crowd going.

 

Eddy covered nicely for Del Santo's whiff on the top rope bulldog with the facebuster. I'm surprised that they showed a replay of such an obvious botch.

 

Eddy looked like a fool complaining about the mask ripping on Del Santo, which of course made sure that the heels kept doing it. Once is enough for that spot, Eddy; you don't need to do it two or three times and make yourself look bad.

 

The superplex is becoming a lot more common than it probably should be, especially internationally. I remember the days when it was an unquestioned finisher for Cowboy Bob Orton; now people kick out at two all the time after taking it.

 

There wasn't enough tag team work for my tastes here. the four individual combinations all worked well with each other, but when I pay for a tag team bout I expect to see teamwork.

[Makai Club #1]

A slowish pace may affect the spectacular spots but it allowed for the individual face offs to breath a bit. The first fall is Santo v Espanto Jr which is slow and careful with Santo eventually peaking the segment with his head scissors and then the Estrada and Eddie having the more quicker exchanges, eventually leading to a wiffed finish where Santo misses a bulldog off Eddie Guerrero's shoulders. The second fall swapped the pairings with the rudo team getting more in this time and doing more rudo tricks such as fouling Eddie Guerrero and cheap shotting him from behind. The rudos get a fall back, leading to a very heated third fall, filled with mask ripping, hot near falls and spectacular wrestling in general. Santo and Eddie mess up a double team move again down the stretch but that was one poor botch. Cool match. ***1/2