[1995-02-06-AAA] Juventud Guerrera & Fuerza Guerrera vs Rey Misterio Sr & Rey Misterio Jr

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This was tons of fun. As much as I enjoyed watching it on tape, I probably would have enjoyed seeing it live even more, because half of the enjoyment of all of this is the way the crowd reacts. But let's walk through the match, because I think it's a really good one, and the family relationship dynamic opens up the possibility to do more things that you don't see all the time.

 

Rey and Juventud start out. Juventud is quickly schooled and gets out. Rey Sr. comes in and wants Fuerza to get in the ring, but Fuerza turns away from him and is not interested, pointing to Juventud, almost as if to say, Juventud is right there, wrestle him! Rey and Juventud go to the mat and it looks incredibly smooth and great. At the end of his exchange, Juventud lands on his tailbone, which makes for a great moment with Fuerza. Fuerza tries to console him by massaging his butt and gets heckled by fans, which seems to hurt his feelings. He then thinks he has the secret to helping Juventud recover -- spanking him! Juventud takes exception. They return to action and Juvi is about to put Rey in an Indian deathlock, but makes the fatal mistake of stopping to do a Rick Rude-like hip swivel. Rey Sr. takes advantage of the opportunity and punches him in the face.

 

The elders then tag in and put together a pretty nice, fast-paced sequence. If it feels at all like a call back to a previous era, it's only because Rey and Juventud were so advanced. Fuerza gets mad at how fast the match is and slaps Rey Sr. But he gets slapped back much harder. It knocks him off his feet, so he pleads to the referee to restore some order. He then tries to slow thing down by making hairpulling accusations. In an awesome moment, the fans are heckling Juventud from the apron, and concerned father Fuerza comes over to see what the problem is.

 

Then, the young/old pairings get mixed up and we get Juventud in with Rey Sr. Juventud poses and no one is impressed, which seems to genuinely hurt his feelings. Meanwhile Rey Sr. socks Fuerza who is standing innocently on the apron.

 

Now, it's time for Rey Jr. and Fuerza to go at it. Rey wants to fight and puts up his fists to box. It's a bad idea, as Fuerza slugs him and cuts off every highspot he tries with some great looking uppercuts. He gets overconfident and Rey ends up getting the best of him with a flying headscissors, then a rana from the apron to the floor. In a touching moment, Juventud immediately runs over to comfort Fuerza and just asks everyone to please be quiet. Sadly, no one obliges.

 

Juventud comes in to avenge his father, going after Rey Sr. quickly, then tagging in Fuerza when he is vulnerable. They get in some family bonding, as Fuerza throws some nice punches while Juventud sneaks in a dropkick. Eventually, Rey tags in and is doubleteamed by the father-son duo. Juventud lands a beautiful missile dropkick on Rey while he is in a doomsday device position, but he goes up top again and gets crotched on his second attempt. Rey Sr. and Rey Jr. give Juventud a double superplex. Fuerza tries to save him, but ends up accidentally elbowing Juventud, leaving both prone to be pinned and resulting in the technicos winning the first fall.

 

Now it's time for the second fall. Realizing he and Juventud are going down a bad path, Fuerza is immediately down on his knees asking for a truce from Rey Sr. He offers a handshake and then tries to hustle Rey Sr., but it doesn't work. This pisses Fuerza off and he punches him in the face. Juventud comes in and is all "What Dad said!" and lands a legdrop. Anytime either Rey tries to comeback, Fuerza's punches are the equalizer.

 

Now Rey and Juventud are back in. We get some fabulous high-flying. It was probably the best stuff of its kind anywhere in the world at the time, which shouldn't surprise anyone. The Guerreras doubleteam Rey Jr., and Fuerza does his great drop-the-guy-to-the-mat-while-sneaking-in-a-knee-to-the-balls spot. In another Hallmark moment, Juventud has Rey pinned after a top rope splash but he pulls him up because he wants to have a family moment and Fuerza is distracted. Finally, Juventud pins Rey Jr. with a fallaway slam into a bridge to take the second fall.

 

Feeling good, Juventud goes after Rey Jr. with a vengeance to start the final fall, running him into all four ringposts outside the ring while the elders duke it out inside the ring. Rey Sr. has Fuerza pinned, but Juventud makes a last minute save. By this time, Rey is to his feet and ends up paying back Juventud by throwing him into all four ringposts. Juventud is tripping over himself to get away from Rey, who is all about getting revenge and does a beautiful somersault plancha to the floor. He brings Juventud back in, they brawl for a minute, and they both kick each other in the balls simultaneously. Both elders immediately see this as an opportunity and run in to pin Rey and Juventud simultaneously and now they are both left to represent their teams. They have a great few minutes of wrestling with some close calls, culminating with Rey Sr. bringing it home for his team with a surfboard pinning combination.

 

An outstanding performance from all four, and a great match, both in terms of action and psychology. It's like the greatest single collection of Midnight Express/Rock & Roll Express sequences I have ever seen, with athleticism at a different level. If I was making a comp of my favorite matches, I think this would be on it. I think it falls slightly short of being an all-time classic, not because of any outward flaws, but more because the switch never completely flips to make this as aggressive as I like my wrestling. But everything else about it is near-flawless. Wonderful, entertaining, highly enjoyable wrestling.

[FLIK]

Wow, never knew this match existed. They have a rematch to this in March that I have seen that was really disapointing, good to know this pairing can aparently do much better

[Tim Evans]

I didn't like this as much as Loss. These guys have done better and I'm not a huge fan of Rey Misterio Sr.

[PeteF3]

Really, ridiculously fun This is probably Rey's career performance in a Yearbook match to this point--a fantastic combination of sympathetic selling, spectacular flying, and a pretty nasty fired-up babyface comeback. Fuerza is also great, doing some more athletic spots in addition to his shtick. And there are a ton of clever spots throughout this, including the double low-blow and double-pin finishes to end the match. The draw is a tad disappointing but it does make you want to see these two hook it up again. Probably the best match of the first month and change of '95. It was definitely a lot more fun than either of the AJPW draws.

[ohtani's jacket]

#353

 

On the plus side, this is the most "lucha" of the lucha matches that have been listed thus far. I think the ref is probably the best thing about this bout. He's exactly the sort of ref you'd expect to be reffing lucha. As for the rest of the bout, I witnessed a more disjointed and uninspired version of the bout that Loss described. I thought it lacked the genius of great lucha and didn't have a single beat I'd describe as a Fuerza Guerrera Moment. Rey vs. Juventud was okay, but they had better matches elsewhere. A draw was a fitting result in this as neither team took the bull by the horns and the whole thing felt like the warm up to the main event for ,me. The rematch is more direct but has even less narrative focus. Granted, it's kind of difficult for me to think of Juventud as Fuerza's son since Fuerza himself seems so ageless. And Fuerza vs. Misterio Sr. doesn't seem like a rivalry as such. That leaves Rey vs. Juvie as age group rivals, and a more important match-up than Fuerza/Misterio Sr, MO. The younger workers deliver here, but they had better singles matches than this and the veteran workers didn't steer the action hard enough, to be fair.

[Calvin]

There's enough action-packed moments and clever sequences to make this stand out in a vacuum as a good match, but the exploration of the family dynamics gives us something to more to chew on than just the mechanics. Rey Jr. looks like a star here.

***1/2