[1995-09-29-CMLL] El Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

It's Santo/Casas, one of the greatest rivalries in wrestling history, of course. I haven't heard too much about this match, so I'm not sure what to expect.

 

The first fall was mostly mat-based. Santo catching Casas in the headscissors and giving him trouble countering was lots of fun, and Casas is great at putting over nuance, in this case winning the first fall by submission but still looking the worst for it.

 

He immediately starts juicing to start the second fall, but turns the tide in a really fun moment where he trips Santo, mounts him and starts pulling on his mask. Now Santo's mask is torn half off his face and he has to finish the match that way. Negro knows he has him off his game. He comes back in the ring and Casas trips him again, again getting him down on the mat and repeatedly punching him in the face. A dropkick in the corner and it looks like we have a theme. Santo is grabbing his face and everything Casas is doing is focused on it -- elbows, left hooks, you name it. He ends up elbowing the ref when he tries to restore order, which is a pretty nasty-looking shot that gets slo-mo'd a few times. They end up replacing refs, as he gets carted out. Awesome! This buys Santo a little time and he starts mounting a comeback, including a great sunset flip/powerbomb combo from the apron to the floor. They sell this big time and are trying to create space to allow Santo time to recover, but Santo is sneaking in his own shots. Casas does an amazing job selling this, including one camera shot where they have his face covered in blood while his eyes seem to be rolling into the back of his head. When he's a little more alert, he sees Santo coming and still can't do much about it and there's the match. The match is stopped (Either that or Santo loses the second fall by DQ?? I don't know.)

 

This was going great until the finish, which came way too soon. I take it this was to build to another match, or was intended to be more of an angle. Too bad, because I was really into this and they were on track for a classic. Also, wrestlers love to work the face in 1995, and I love it!

[Tim Evans]

First fall was really good with the mat work and some vicious kicks by Santo to the face. Then the second turned into a brawl. Nasty sunset flip to the outside by Santo. Good match although kinda short.

[PeteF3]

Santo has jumped back to CMLL, which seems like a badly needed shot in the arm for that promotion. They waste no time with matching him against his old rival. Santo keeps Casas off balance with his tricky headscissor takedowns, and this is being wrestled clean until Casas levels Santo in the face with several punches and stomps. Santo pays him back, but Casas sneaks in a power bomb into a scorpion deathlock to take the first fall. Then it breaks down when Casas tears at Santo's mask. Both guys go nuts on each other and an errant Casas elbow knocks out the referee. A new ref comes in right as Santo executes a sunset flip power bomb to the floor...and the ref rules that that's a martinete and disqualifies Santo. Santo ain't having that and gets in some more licks on Casas afterward--Negro doesn't much look like a winner. Hard to compare this to the other matches in the rivalry, as this is clearly Step 1 of a story. It's a teaser to make you want to see more, not a great match in and of itself, and on that front it succeeded.

[Zenjo]

Mano a Mano. This was more storyline development than an attempt to have a strong bout. The action was bitty and niggley. Casas bled and Santo had his mask torn. The finish was very screwy and settled nothing. It did a sound job of reigniting a dormant rivalry. CMLL had a terrible year from a match output perspective in 95. Yet they laid the building blocks for a new golden era in 96-97. So I'll describe their 1995 as a fallow year.