[2004-10-06-University of Essex, ENG] El Hijo Del Santo vs Blue Panther

[Death From Above]

http://youtu.be/c46JC32BUrY

 

I'm probably the last person qualified to talk about lucha as I've seen less lucha than probably any of the super serious wresting fans on this board, but this seems like the kind of thing worthy of discussion as a slight oddity due to location at the very, very least. I'm stunned by how few Youtube views this has because I found it on a whim running a search for, to me, two of the biggest names ever in lucha just curious to actually see a singles match between the two.

 

This was a match that was part of a university exhibit in England on Mexican wrestling. This seems to be an old event listing of it that is still available: https://www.essex.ac.uk/arenamexico/events.htm

 

I'm pretty sure this is the match that several years ago board member S.L.L. had a really long, detailed post about breaking down how much he enjoyed seeing these guys work a non-traditional wrestling audience.

 

Overall this is probably a great match for someone like me that hasn't been exposed to a lot of these guys or Mexican wrestling on the whole, because it does definitely feel like a big match being worked as an exhibition for an audience where they're trying to show them the whole range of stuff they can do. Crowd is really great for this and are 100% behind Santo. You have to love a crowd that gives Blue Panther heat basically any time he throws any kind of strike at all. With pre and post-match cut this is probably right around 30 minutes even. It's interesting that they work about 10 minutes on the mat, then things pick up into a big action sequence for a while, then they take it back to the mat, and then go into another big action sequence for the finish. It's definitely easy to stay into their wrestling sequences as both guys have ways of getting themselves into positions for crazy lucha holds without being totally over-contrived about it. The majority of the match is controlled by Santo which means a lot is put on Panther's selling and he overall does a great job of taking a lot of holds and moves here, while also getting in his good share of offense in a couple stretches.

 

There are a couple slightly unclean moments when things don't come off the way they'd like but again both guys are veterans and pros and really don't have any problem at all working around that without it disrupting the flow of the event at all.

 

To me, I feel like I got what I came for here. A really long, entertaining match where two legendary workers really show you the range of their skills. Kind of surprised that based on view count this is a fairly obscure match. It seems like exactly the sort of thing these folders are about finding and discussing, so what the hell, I thought I'd put a thread out there.

[Tim Cooke]

This was very exciting in 2004 when the DVD's came over to the US. We hadn't seen much Santo on TV, but especially in matches against Blue Panther or another quality mat worker. Haven't watched this in 10 years but will give it a spin this weekend.