Angel Azteca

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Jetlag]

Maybe a lucha dark horse for me, this guy was definitely one of the most skilled technicos around. Always a highlight in tags and a quality guarantee when working title matches, including one of the definite lucha singles against Dandy and holding his own against Blue Panther. Doesn't seem like a huge career compared to other lucha guys, but there's plenty of quality stuff, neat exchanges in random tags to be found throughout the 90s.

[ohtani's jacket]

Should have been the next guy in the Lizmark/Solar/Atlantis mold, but wasn't. His '88-90 is a great run (maybe the best run of the guys CMLL tried to push as new stars), but he fell off a cliff after that.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

Watched about 20 Azteca matches, the majority of them trios (which is a shame because it's harder for me to get a good sense of a guy's ability in that setting, but you work with what you've got). A quite beautiful worker at his peak, very smooth, great on the mat, I love the armdrag he does where he springs off the ropes first, and he had a lovely missile dropkick. The Dandy title match is an all-time classic for sure, but the none-title match between the two is really good too. The Blue Panther stuff is a step down, but still really solid. General rule of thumb, I'd say, regarding his trios work, is that the earlier it is, the better he's likely to be in it, and also the more he's featured in the match, the better he will be. That sounds redundant, but what I mean is he didn't strike me as a worker who would do much to stand out in a bit part role. If the match is built around his exchanges though, he doesn't disappoint. I would recommend:

 

Angel Azteca/Xavier Cruz/Atlantis Vs El Satanico/El Dandy/Emilio Charles Jr- quality trios, with Azteca looking very much on the level of his contemporaries

 

Angel Azteca/Americo Rocca/Xavier Cruz Vs El Dandy/Chavo Guerrero/El Texano- a technico vs technico match, with things getting a bit spicy between Azteca and Dandy

 

Angel Azteca/Misterioso/Volodor Vs Blue Panther/Fishman/Mascara Ano 2000- Azteca working a more brawling style, trying to rip Panther's mask off

 

Angel Azteca/Konnan/El Hijo del Santo Vs El Satanico/La Parka/Psicosis- an example of post-peak Azteca (1994), where he still looks great and plays an important role in the match. You do have to suffer Konnan for this one though.

 

I also recommend Azteca/Misterioso and Rey Misterio Jr Vs Heavy Metal/Ice Killer and Espanto Jr, just to see young Rey coming out to A Little Respect by Erasure, and Ice Killer, the lucha Goon, coming out with a hockey stick and wrestling in a bedazzled hockey mask, like a gay Michael Myers.

 

I wish there were more singles matches available for Azteca, but as it is, he'll probably be fighting for a spot in the bottom quarter of my ballot.

[Gregor]

I don't know if Azteca had a Lizmark or Atlantis type of career in him. Those guys had spectacular jaw-dropping offense that set them apart from everyone else in the promotion - Lizmark with his powerbombs and plancha suicida, and Atlantis with his moonsaults and Atlantida. Azteca was every bit as solid as those guys were, and he had some cool moves like the rope flip armdrag, but when it came time to end the fall he often ended up just doing some kind of rana. He doesn't seem like the kind of wrestler who'd blow the crowd away.

 

Azteca doesn't strike me as a top 100 wrestler. He had a really nice drawn-out feud with El Dandy in 1990, and other than that you've got to work a bit to pick out his good matches. I agree that he didn't stand out much when he had a limited role in the match. The Blue Panther feud was pretty disappointing, and that was a spotlight feud (although that's probably on AAA for the most part). On the other hand, even late in his career he looked like he still had it. The mask vs. mask match with Arkangel de la Muerte is too short to be particularly good or bad, but Azteca himself looks like he's barely lost anything from earlier in his career. In the end he seems sort of like Mexico's Marty Jannetty to me (with the caveat that, as far as I'm aware, Azteca didn't cause any of his own problems).

[cad]

I bet if you made a Youtube playlist of Angel Azteca matches, something like half of it would be from the first six months of 1990. For him to rate as a truly great wrestler he'd have to have been operating on a level that few others have reached. His match with Dandy is still my pick for the best match I've ever seen, but even with that he's still just a borderline top five guy for 1990 CMLL. I don't even know if he stands out among similar briefly pushed tecnicos. Ciclon Ramirez had about the same quality of performances but with much lesser workers. He was probably better than Mogur. Him vs Mascara Magica is a tossup, and who ever talks about Mascara Magica?

The AAA run is the best bet for finding stuff that could sneak him into a top 100 list. That Blue Panther match no one talks about, a title match with the Destructores... By the time of his second CMLL return in 1998 he was having trouble keeping up physically. A very gifted technical wrestler who loved showing that side of his game in his prime, but not a maestro type with his holds and didn't try to become one even after he lost his mask.

Good Angel Azteca to watch:
AA vs Emilio Charles: maybe the best missile dropkick ever
AA, Dandy and Jalisco vs Bestia Salvaje, Espectro Jr. and Espectro de Ultratumba: Angel Azteca's brawling and technical work on display against Espectro Jr.
AA, Winners and Misterioso vs Katana, Volador and Solar: long Angel Azteca vs Solar duel to start
AA and Winners vs Tony Arce and Rocco Valente: title match from AAA with Angel Azteca looking excellent against Arce
AA, Super Elektra and Vaquero Romo vs Panterita del Ring, Shu el Guerrero, and Black Dragon: typical Promo Azteca mishmash but Angel Azteca on fire in the first fall