[2001-12-23-Monterrey] El Hijo del Santo vs La Parka

[Microstatistics]

Nearly impossible to go wrong with a bloody lucha brawl. Many of them are formulaic, but it's a winning formula. This one is particularly famous because of the amount of blood and it's true, Santo's head leaves puddles of blood all around the place. Screwy finish but it's a really interesting twist. ****

[Cap]

Just watched this. I thought it was quite a fun match. You know when Park has the all white on against Santo we are going to get a lot of blood. The highlight is Park's control through the middle. The early start for Santo is solid, but the first pin comes a little too fast for my taste. The second fall felt a little more complete. Park had to work for it and they were all in on bloody brawl by this point. The final fall was good, but didn't quite hit the level of drama and urgency that separates a good lucha brawl from a great lucha brawl. I didn't mind that they worked some wrestling and grappling into the brawl a little, but it didn't add much and it really could have. I wasn't a huge fan of the finish. I could have done with out the screwiness, but it was likely fine or even good in the context of the match at the time.

I also gave it ****1/4.

 

 

What promotion is this?

[ohtani's jacket]

Jesus, this match. What a bloodbath. I'm surprised they put this much effort into a mano a mano. You'd think it was an apuestas match with the amount of blood they shed and how long they went. This has to be the best mano a mano we have on tape. I can't think of another one that's a full match like this. It's Monterrey so of course it has a screwy finish, and of course it involves the referees, but there was NO WAY that either of these guys were getting a decisive pinfall or submission. Parka vs. Santo? Are you kidding me? This is definitely on the shortlist for lucha MOTY, and it's pushed Santo to the forefront of the wrestler of the year race. 

[DMJ]

Insane match that I watched in my effort to try to get a more complete view of La Parka for the GWE (just based on WCW output alone, he's a top 100 guy for me but I'm trying to set a rule for myself that I can only have guys on my list who I've seen at least 10 matches of*), but as someone completely unfamiliar with the context, what was with the bizarre finish? Can someone maybe explain the ending? 


* As a very WWE/WCW-centric viewer whose also only really watched some-but-not-all ECW, TNA, and AEW outside of that, I'm 100% ignorant to international wrestling, but I'm going to try to at least try to watch more matches from the Japanese and Mexican wrestlers who made the 2016 list. I have a list of 105 matches to watch between now and when ballots are due and foresee that I'll add even more over the next 3-4 months.

[cad]

5 hours ago, DMJ said:

Can someone maybe explain the ending? 

There were two refs for some reason, one regular and one rudo. I think both wrestlers were tecnicos but Santo was kind of the de facto rudo for this match, so the rudo ref favored him. At the end the regular ref got bumped and Santo fouled Parka. The rudo ref ignored the foul and counted the pinfall, the regular ref recovered and stopped him from counting, the regular ref made a count just to get Santo off Parka, and the regular ref disqualified Santo either for the foul or for the innocuous collision that bumped him.

Even for people who watch this stuff regularly it was a convoluted finish. Par for the course for Monterrey (or for Parka).